Are you
tired of Jim Sterling's skits?
Are you
sick of being told Capitalism is bad?
Are you
outright done with listening to a Brit convince you his tits are true and honest?
Do you think Jim is/was
capable of making good points but he's too much of a spiteful, bigoted, terminally-online Twitter weirdo to live up to that capacity?
If you said
yes to any of these, then don't worry.
Gloria From Pokemon Sword (and Shield) Presents:
THE JIMLESS JIMQUISITION
with your host: not Jim Sterling
Today's Redesigned Topic: Vidya Redesigns
So a new Monkey Island was announced and... eh. The game appears to play as it did, but man does the art style look limp. This isn't an updated art style, it's just a completely different style. The most common assumption behind this art shift is that it will "appeal to modern audiences". Personally, I take the more cynical approach of "it appeals to modern artists". Why get self-taught artists to learn someone else's art style when the whole game can just be made in "their" art "style"? And why waste the time and money looking for people who can or will recreate things in that old art style if people who low-ball themselves will do it cheaper and the name will sell the game, to begin with?
This is actually a long-standing point in modern vidya, and so I thought for this Glorious Jimless Jimquisition I'd look at some of the game redesigns that had gotten controversy. Since our homeboy Jimbo loves video games, he naturally never talked about most of these. Also, Monkey Island will be left off this since there's always a chance the game won't look like ass when it's released or that the art style feels more natural when playing the whole game compared to bits from a trailer.
Let's start off with a game older than 30% of people who seek to transition: The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Remember when this game's art style was wildly despised by the internet, compared to now when it's regarded as one of the more visually interesting games in the series? What's interesting looking back at it is how the game is more of a direct improvement on the art style from the N64 games than at first it might appear. In OoT and MM, the face was a sprite, and so major characters had a couple of faces. In Wind Waker, every part of the face is an animated sprite, meaning that eyes could move around during gameplay or cutscenes, blinking was more natural, and individual parts could be mixed and matched for unique expressions (Tetra's iconic "cocky wink" pose only works thanks to this).
This is also what makes Ganondorf look so weird at first: his face isn't a set of sprites but fully modeled and rigged in 3D. He has proper eyebrows and lips and a chin (dear lord does he have a chin). There's an uncanniness to this when everyone else besides the talking boat has a literal flat face. And even then, this Ganondorf has one of the most striking silhouettes in the series.
The actual body proportions were quite jarring back then when compared to the previous games. It's not that the N64 games were realistic in those designs, but the proportions would only be exaggerated for certain things (like the elf ears to make everyone a little more "fantasy" than standard humans. While NPC designs are generally more well regarded now, it's agreed that the enemies of Zelda benefitted more from this game than the humans did (Moblins and Chu Chus especially). Overall, Wind Waker was simply a victim of expectation that has been more accepted over the years.
Now for something more modern: Battletoads. The art style is also referred to as the "Cal-Arts" style. It's worth mentioning the "Cal-Arts Style" is not actually real, in the sense the name implies, and Battletoads is a good example. The titular toads actually have a solid, angular style to them. It looks more 1990s than 1980s, but most cartoons in the '80s looked the way they did to sell toys. Overall, I didn't mind the style of the main trio like everyone else seemed to.
The villain, on the other hand, is lame. I don't care that they dropped the sex appeal; I don't play games to get horny. They made her design so milk-toast, though. Just compare the designs for her box artwork to the new game. The old Dark Queen reveled in your pain and suffering. The new Dark Queen is the villain costume to girl-scout mom from Kids Next Door.
That's the actual problem I have with this reboot's art style: it doesn't feel like a cohesive style but instead just a series of simplified designs. The playable characters, enemies, and environments felt like they all had a different artist with their own vision (I never checked out the credits, so maybe it's just that). It really says something when things like Drawn Together or Code Lyoko; shows that when out of their way to mesh different animation styles, are less jarring.
Finally, there's Aloy from Horizon. The series itself didn't change its art style, but Aloy did get a redesign. It's already been talked about quite a bit here on the forums, but I have a newer approach. Her redesign is not a more realistic design. It's a cynical design. Contrary to what you've heard, the "realistic standards of beauty (towards women because these activists will masturbate over buff men at the drop of a hat)" are actually part of the sliding scale of idealism vs cynicism. In this case, the idealistic outlook of how beautiful a woman could look vs the cynical outlook of how unattractive "real" women are. This is especially true when animating a female character and you can control literally every single aspect of the design. Also, think about it: how many pessimistic, nihilistic, or cynical people defend their negative views by saying "I'm a realist" because it's less depressing than saying "I give up"?
Now, getting back to Aloy, she actually had a balanced design in the first horizon. She had elements of a traditional female design with some warrior elements, compared to her design in the sequel which sandpapers away a lot of her cuter design elements (namely her facial structure, which were her most feminine features in the original game) for seemingly no reason other than "we don't need people to like her now, the game will sell."
And you can't argue it's a matter of hating buff women, because the Tomb Raider Reboots did the same general thing. Lara got buffer and buffer across the three games, looking like a female athlete by the third game. But her general design and structure wasn't messed with, she just had more muscle definition in her arms and legs. Now true, Aloy also had more definition added in the sequel, but her face was originally the "balance" of her design, and I stand by giving her a square jawline looked straight up awkward like you can tell the motion-capture actress did not match the model; a lot of the Aloy's facial expression in Forbidden West were extra uncanny compared to the previous games.
In short: yes, there are times where fans end up hating a art change prematurely and end up looking stupid in the long run (Wind Waker), but there's also times that the art shifts end up going along with products that fail to leave a lasting impact and leave public consciousness the moment people stop talking about the art shift because it's the only thing notable about it (Battletoads; Horizon's Aloy).
