Video Game Art Style (Visual and Music)

[chichi]

People have been so focused lately on the 1080p discussions that most of us forget one of the essential things that makes a video game an eye candy: ART STYLE (Visual and Sound).

I just have some discussion about the art style of video games.

Let's start with the Visual Art of games:
Disregarding the gameplay and story, which video games would you consider to be the cream of the crop? what's your favorite game universe and game character designs? which classic games aged well and which games didn't? Which art styles do you prefer, realistic, anime, cartoon, cel shaded,3d, 8bit/16bit-retro?

Music:
Video game music can turn a good video game to great, and great video games into epic. Having said that which video games have the best soundtracks? With localized games, do you like playing it in Japanese audio with English subs or do you prefer the dubbed versions. Do you have any favorite video game sound bites? What about the annoying sound bites (HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! FF-X)? and last but not the least music and rhythmn games, from DDR to Rock Band to Rocksmith to Hatsune Miku, which ones did you get addicted to which ones are meh...

To everyone who visited this post, thanks for reading and replying

 

[Chalryn]

I dunno about favorites, but off the top of my head, Atelier Ayesha comes to mind. Having already been familiar with the previous installments in the series, I noticed a significant change in the overall art style. The cel shading seemed much more polished than in previous titles, and the character designer changed from Mel Kishida to Hidari. What I found most noticeable in the graphical style of Ayesha, however, was an overall very earthy (green/brown) tone to the color palette, which... I don't think I see often, and it's a nice theme.

And on the note of cel shading, I think that worked in Borderlands' favor, personally. Originally, the game was going to look almost like a direct Fallout ripoff, but I'm glad they changed it (vastly) the way that they did, and the cel shading style gives the games a very comic-esque vibe, which fits the game's overall style.

If I think of anything else to add, I'll do so later, but for now, that's just what came to mind at the moment. (I'll probably touch upon the music topic more later.) I don't think I really have any favorite styles, as each game's setting calls for a different style and all... But I can't deny I'm partial to cel shading, just because I'm so into anime, and titles like the recent Atelier games have done a fantastic job of implementing the style. But as I said, each game demands a different graphical approach, so I wouldn't want all games to be done this way.

 

[chichi]

I dunno about favorites, but off the top of my head, Atelier Ayesha comes to mind. Having already been familiar with the previous installments in the series, I noticed a significant change in the overall art style. The cel shading seemed much more polished than in previous titles, and the character designer changed from Mel Kishida to Hidari. What I found most noticeable in the graphical style of Ayesha, however, was an overall very earthy (green/brown) tone to the color palette, which... I don't think I see often, and it's a nice theme.

And on the note of cel shading, I think that worked in Borderlands' favor, personally. Originally, the game was going to look almost like a direct Fallout ripoff, but I'm glad they changed it (vastly) the way that they did, and the cel shading style gives the games a very comic-esque vibe, which fits the game's overall style.

If I think of anything else to add, I'll do so later, but for now, that's just what came to mind at the moment. (I'll probably touch upon the music topic more later.) I don't think I really have any favorite styles, as each game's setting calls for a different style and all... But I can't deny I'm partial to cel shading, just because I'm so into anime, and titles like the recent Atelier games have done a fantastic job of implementing the style. But as I said, each game demands a different graphical approach, so I wouldn't want all games to be done this way.

i just can't imagine borderlands with a "fallout" design style. it would just feel downright weird and wrong to see borderlands characters delivering jokes and campy lines (especially CL4TP) while looking so serious and gritty.

another anime lover here, and personally the greatest anime styled video game (for me anyways) is Ni No Kuni. Maybe I'm just biased because it was made by Studio Ghibli, but damn that game really made me feel that i was in a Ghibli made movie.

 

[Chalryn]

another anime lover here, and personally the greatest anime styled video game (for me anyways) is Ni No Kuni. Maybe I'm just biased because it was made by Studio Ghibli, but damn that game really made me feel that i was in a Ghibli made movie.

No doubt. I only played the demo so far, but it definitely has a very well-done anime-to-game graphical style to it.

 

[chichi]

No doubt. I only played the demo so far, but it definitely has a very well-done anime-to-game graphical style to it.

not sure if it's still on sale right now but you should download the whole game when you get the chance.

 

[ahchurro11]

Throwing my 2 cents in this post.

For art style, it all depends on the game itself. I can't imagine Deadrising 2 with a cartoon artstly (like sonic) or see Mario with a realistic COD approach. I will say that I prefer cel-shaded and cartoon graphics because they looks more appealing to me and they just happen to age better in the long run (looks at PS1 Tomb Raider vs PS3 Tomb Raider)

The same applies for VG Music, but on a much smaller scale. I think that both atmospheric and catchy, memorable music can work for almost any genre, but again it all depends on the genre itself (although it would be hilarious to hear Benny Hill music during a COD match). I honestly prefer the latter of the two though as as it obviously says, it is catchy and memorable.

I can go on and on about rhythm games as a whole, but I'll sum it up and say that I've played all the mainstream ones except Dance Central and I've played many others such as patapon, Hatsune Miku, Rock Band Blitz, etc. One note: avoid Rock Revolution like the plague. As for Sound bytes, you can't go wrong with Mario and Sonic's respective 1-up jingles. Worst sound bytes would have to be the Sonic Rush boost sound effects and some of Project DIVA's button/ star note sound choices (Who in their insane mind would want to hear Miku or Len say yo EVERY TIME you hit a button!?).

I should stop here as I am rambling on though.

 

[stolenxnametag]

For recent games, I would say that Ni No Kuni, Dragon's Crown, and Gravity Rush have the best visual art styles, closely followed by Flower. Going back a few years, I think that the N64-era Legend of Zelda games and Resident Evil on PS1 are still effectively just as recognizable without being too unsightly to view. Also, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem still frightens the shit out of me.

For music, I wanted to say PixelJunk 4am, but that really depends on how well you play the game, too. I'll say that Q-Games are masterful at crafting their in-game music, but the older Nobuo Uematsu Final Fantasy soundtracks still hold up well these days. Castlevania games' music are still nice as well.