I can see that. But every time I think of FF9’s art style, I just hear Steiner clanking as he runs and it makes me chuckle. Thank you for reminding me.
I love the dark crystal. i fell in love with the original movie and years later was excited when Netflix greenlit the TV show, and later on went frustrated when it was cancelled.
When the direct showed gameplay i also interpreted as a sort of puppets or dolls interacting in real scenery.
If Nintendo plans to develop a Majora's Mask remake, I hope it is also gets made in this style
Seems like an “of course,” and with Nintendo being this faithful to the original, you can have no doubt they will use this exact style for Majora’s Mask.
Honestly both games have artstyles that look odd at first if you’re used to the originals and get way better if you look at them through the proper lens.
StarFox looked really uncanny, alien and animalistic… but the characters are supposed to be aliens who resemble animals. It fits and looks pretty good.
Ocarina of Time looks really overdetailed and the characters look more like dolls than people… but it’s based off of fairytale drawings, which are overdetailed, often to the point of looking uncanny; and marionettes, which are dolls.
There was a dude in the crash subreddit that wrote long complaints about Crash 4 every single day for years because he wanted his voice to be heard and hoped it'd somehow influence the future of the series, even if he knew it was irrelevant.
Ehhh idk. Like maybe if they change some stuff for final release but the star fox stuff still looks pretty stylized and the Zelda stuff feels like it doesn't know if it wants to be stylized or hyper realistic. I do like the new star fox look but when looking at the trailer for zelda my eyes go between "wow" and discomfort. That said people will likely get used to it but idk if it will reach "appreciated". Granted I don't even think it's a design issue as much a shader and lighting issue.
Karakuri puppets (which were the precursor to ningyogeki) were in part inspired by western artistic trends of the 18th century, which also eventually led into the inspiration behind the classical fantasy illustrations of the 1970s. Sort of a convergent evolution thing going on.
The concept art style probably couldn’t work and I wouldn’t want them to change the look of the new remake, I really like it. I just wish the new faces had the same proportions as the concept art and 3ds. again just preference. For example remake Ganon’s face just so much more natural and in line with the OG concept art
I think adult Link looks legitimately great. Sure the clothing is over-designed, but I'm glad to see him in this graphical style, and nothing about his main features feels off at all. The Young one is a bit jarring but I won't have to look at its face so much in game so it doesn't matter.
I don't mind baby Zelda, I don't really see the difference all that much. Sheik is a jarring change that I dislike. It doesn't feel right, and I can pick it apart for hours just to be told none of it matters which is true, but I still prefer old Sheik
Ganondorf is not as ugly, and that's bad. He's doesn't have the insane taper as the old artwork, his 5head is gone, his eyes don't pop as much, his nose doesn't protrude as much. I miss the old, ugly Dorf.
I do enjoy when they operate within inspiration of claymation, marionettes, and other real world art. I think it adds an untold layer of creativity.
I feel like they’re caught halfway between something interesting like that and just "realism"... if it was a full new game rather than a remake, I think they could lean into the aesthetic way way harder. as it is I just wish it was more like the original designs like how OoT3D did it
Every time I see the game it looks more and more natural. So I think most people will get used to it and there will be a very vocal minority that will always complain about it. That’s just the internet these days those, everything has to be hated
Yeah, to me personally the only character that still looks kinda weird is Darunia and I think that’s just because I was expecting a more rock-like texture to his skin.
I’ve gotten use to how everyone else looks by now, just like how I got used to how everyone in the new Star Fox game looks.
It being inspired by someone doesent devalue people's dislike or like towards the art style.
Some art style grows on people, some are dejected, and some are lovingly embraced.
This one's a bit more divisive to many, I too do feel a bit unreal enginey with the Kokiri forest and find Link a bit too glossy.
But I am willing to give the game a shot and see if that becomes distracting or of it grows on me, because underneath the skin, it's still the same great game with few improvements.(I hope)
Yeah the AI slop thing is annoying and part of a much wider issue. Every single time there's a piece of art online now, you'll find someone being like "looks like AI slop" just because they don't like it.
I'm personally not sold on the art direction either but I hate comments like that.
Confirmed? Takaya Imamura doesn't work for Nintendo anymore and retweeted to this in a conjectural manner.
Though it is interesting given Takizawa previously has said a while ago the more realistic you make characters, the more they tend to start looking a bit like plastic dolls, and now hearing the discourse on these designs.
I know a lot of people are excited, but personally I just think they overdid it. Looks like everything was ran through 10 ai "realism" filters and then slapped RTX on top.
I noticed a lot of people saying they want style not photo realism and like... photo realism is a style. Abstraction and accuracy aren't mutually exclusive. There's a sliding scale. Final Fantasy 7 Remake, despite having high fidelity textures and shaders still has some abstraction and stylization. As with OoT Remake, here. There's a whole continuum between the two, and you can pick and choose what traits you want you want from realism and what traits you want from abstraction. Like the proportions of the characters are more realistic than Wind Waker even in the original game. They aren't "sacrificing style" for detail. Detail is a style.
If it looks uncanny, just say that. You don't need vague ass false dichotomy.
Weird theory, might be nothing. But does anyone else see this? Link has Zelda’s face structure, Zelda has Ganondorf’s face structure, and Ganondorf’s has links face structure? Especially with links current nose resemblance Zelda’s n64 nose it seems very possible although I might be way off.
I already thought they looked like wooden dolls of sorts, but yeah this is basically 100% the inspiration.
I love the look petsonally.
There might even be more to this. Credit to Zeltik and his recent video, but he believes that the look is actually connected to the meta story telling of the remake (not sure how to call it)
Basically the entire remake is framed as a legend being retold in the distant future, which in game is depicted as the "Threafs of Time" tapestry on a wall.
So basically the entire story is sort of a puppet play and we play as the puppets to retell the story.
This honestly makes so much sense and is such a unique concept imo.
I honestly like the art of almost all the new character designs and look of the remake, but the faces of the Links and Zelda. OOT already had strong art direction, why change it? The Links faces look so odd, and it really bothers me when the OOT 3DS faces were already perfect.
Zelda’s face definitely bothers me less than the Links, plus we haven’t seen her adult face yet. I just wish they polish the 3ds faces and give it to the Links
Sorry, I mean the concept art. https://www.reddit.com/r/zelda/s/DSANtg3OKy I think the 3DS game was little closer to making the characters look like those in the concept art. Just my preference tbh.
That's a valid take and there's nothing wrong with preferring that, but Nintendo made that concept art and applied it to the new remake with some other modifications, stating specifically that they spent a LONG time deliberating where to go with the style. Zelda people made Zelda concept and turned it into Zelda game
Strong art direction? Have you seen the original? Like yes it was amazing then and I love old games so idm but Link’s nose is like one polygon have you seen his face
K, but why? Like, if the trailer had shown a bunch of blurry blobs on screen, but then it was revealed that the artist had been inspired by Jackson Pollock, would that mean the art direction suddenly couldn’t be criticized? Being inspired by something doesn’t mean said inspiration translates well to your work.
I feel like if they’re going to pull inspiration from puppetry to go way more into that aesthetic because it would pretty awesome.. but I understand there’s a line you could easily cross when doing a remake like this. So they have to strike a balance.. but I would love to see a Zelda game that has a 1:1 stop motion aesthetic in the style of Rankin/Bass or just go with a full practical effects look of Jim Henson. These days it’s so possible to create this look in 3D graphics software. Just look at Worthikids film Captain Yajima. He did this all on blender mostly by himself.
This stuff is so funny to me because I remember when people claimed the golden standard should be TP realism but brighter like OoT.. Meanwhile we get what seems to be a good midground in character design that fits exactly that and everyone hates it. Like I get that Young Link and Young Zelda look a bit weird, but look at all the other NPCs. They are really good imo and you can clearly see how TP characters were clearly inspired by the same sort of design. They legitimately look like "TP but brighter" when it comes to their face designs.
Really the only character I have a genuine complaint about is the Goron. He gives me uncanny valley vibes lol.
Like cool its inspired off of dolls? How about we focus on why everything is overtextured, overdetailed, and slow down on this realism aspect? This dolls thing is just explaining why all the faces look so uncanny now and i hate it
The faces on the other NPCs look fine to me. It’s really just Link and Zelda. The only other issues I see is that everything looks too shiny. As if it’s covered in plastic and that Links outfit is far too detailed compared to the other NPCs. If everything was consistent it would be fine. It’s just the fact that Link looks so out of place
That's fine, but couldn't they have been... consistent? Why do the NPCs look like they're from a different game with different art direction than Link, and the important named NPCs are from yet a third game? I love everything about the remake visuals _except_ the characters and a lot of that is just that there is no visual cohesion. It'd be a lot "comfier" if they all looked like they belonged to the same vision.
Link is still way too overly detailed and I feel they don't do a good job communicating that the characters are supposed to be puppets. They really should have leaned into it more by making the characters look like they're made from craft materials, sorta like a de-chibi'd Link's Awakening remake
And if you look, their clothing aren't quite as ornate and detailed. Compare Link's gauntlets to the puppet's and it's night and day. It's pretty obvious to me they're puppets, or at least dolls, too. You can see the grain of the paint and joints, and the hair is all modeled out of clay instead of strands. If this is what they were going for, I would say they didn't execute it well on the major characters.
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