Have you ever stopped playing a game because you could not stand the art direction? (Expedition 33...)

I did for Expedition 33. The game is good but I simply can't stand the art in the sense of how overloaded/tacky/kitschy everything is. In most instances there are a million things on screen. I like a clean approach to art and it literally makes me not want to play it anymore. It feels unnerving to me. This is not me hating on the game, just a matter of personal taste.
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I did for Expedition 33. The game is good but I simply can't stand the art in the sense of how overloaded/tacky/kitschy everything is. In most instances there are a million things on screen. I like a clean approach to art and it literally makes me not want to play it anymore. It feels unnerving to me. This is not me hating on the game, just a matter of personal taste.
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You have crappy taste but apart from that , art is what initially draws me to a game. The opposite is also true since there are games i never checked out for more than a few seconds since the art was ugly in my eyes.

Why play something for hours if it doesn't look good to you.
 
Would be Octopath Traveler for me.

At first I was blown away by the HD-2D style. But I got quickly tired of it and ended up not liking how it looks. Also the game has other problem for me but after some times, I couldn't stand the art. I stop playing it.

Now the HD-2D style is a bit a repulsive for me. I am interested in Triangle Strategy but when I see the artstyle it really dissuades me to buy it.
 
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Like what? Honestly the HUD is really clean. You have your turn roster and your party stats.

Do you often play any turn based stuff? Not hating just seeing how you feel it compared to Persona and Metaphor etc
 
Would be Octopath Traveler for me.

At first I was blown away by the HD-2D style. But I got quickly tired of it and ended up not liking how it looks. Also the game has other problem for me but after some times, I could stand the art. I stop playing it.

Now the HD-2D style is a bit a repulsive for me. I am interest in Triangle Strategy but when I see the artstyle it really dissuade me to buy it.
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What I don't get is people playing games in art styles they cannot stand.

Like... do you buy blindly or something? Do you not at least watch gameplay and screenshots?
 
I did for Expedition 33. The game is good but I simply can't stand the art in the sense of how overloaded/tacky/kitschy everything is. In most instances there are a million things on screen. I like a clean approach to art and it literally makes me not want to play it anymore. It feels unnerving to me. This is not me hating on the game, just a matter of personal taste.
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Stopped playing? I don't think so. Avoided playing to begin with? Sure.

You can almost always tell if this will be an issue from screenshots gameplay trailers beforehand.

As for Exp33's visuals, I didn't like that tilt-shift effect on the overworld, but overall I love how it looks.
 
I know I know.
It baffles me actually. Because I was so hype by how it looks. Should try another game with this style to see if my opinion change.
Anything announced as HD-2D now, immediately kills any interest from me and it actually bothers me xD
 
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Expedition 33 is indeed ugly and is why I ignored the game at release. I do plan to give it a try since the reception has been so positive though. I stopped playing Street Fighter x Tekken for many reasons but even when it had the big patch to fix the issues I couldn't bring myself to try it again because of how gross the visuals are. It's like the game is coated in neon vomit.
 
Would be Octopath Traveler for me.

At first I was blown away by the HD-2D style. But I got quickly tired of it and ended up not liking how it looks. Also the game has other problem for me but after some times, I could stand the art. I stop playing it.

Now the HD-2D style is a bit a repulsive for me. I am interest in Triangle Strategy but when I see the artstyle it really dissuade me to buy it.

HD-2D would be much better if they gave u options to change the bloom and depth of field. I hate seeing everything out of focus in the backgrounds and it gives me a headache.
 
HD-2D would be much better if they gave u options to change the bloom and depth of field. I hate seeing everything out of focus in the backgrounds and it gives me a headache.
Indeed the constant blur disturbed me (but didn't in Expepidition 33 world map somehow). And how the character stands out of the scenery is weird to me.
 
Indeed the constant blur disturbed me (but didn't in Expepidition 33 world map somehow). And how the character stands out of the scenery is weird to me.

They'll play a cutscene of your party member talking to another character and the background is completely blurred out and destroyed just so it can zoom in on your character essentially. They create these gorgeous environments and then essentially wipe vaseline all over them which destroys the art they created. And i also don't understand why they need to do so, when the background should be apart of the story and enhance the story by providing pleasant scenery to enjoy and look at.
 
Do you not see how the art is very very playful with a tendency of overload? I mean, look at Flying Waters. They literally put water into the air.

edit: Crazy that people get mad at this with how careful I worded the OP lol

You lost me here. I haven't played the game yet so correct me if i'm wrong but why is having water in the air for a place called 'The flying waters' a mistake? It's literally called flying waters man haha.


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I agree with OP. Having played Expedition 33 for a few hours (and I can totally see how this is a fantastic game), I found the visual presentation incredibly bloated and constantly wondered what was of importance, and what wasn't, in the scenery I was presented with.
 
While I think Expedition 33 looks good, at the same time I do feel that certain games will go a bit overboard with particle effects.

I can understand if the scene in this gif below feels overwhelming to look at, because of the amount of visual movement.

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It's something I wasn't the biggest fan of in Forspoken last gen, which felt like "Particle effects: The game"

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You lost me here. I haven't played the game yet so correct me if i'm wrong but why is having water in the air for a place called 'The flying waters' a mistake? It's literally called flying waters man haha.


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It is an example for noise and overreaching constant amounts of visual clutter. You don't actually swim so it is just an additional visual layer.
 
Yeah i have, i stopped playing Borderlands 1 and haven't played any since because it was too cartoony for me, i didn't like the art direction of the game. i think most of us have at some point.
 
Yeah, but very rarely. Mainly when the visual style is very busy and I don't really know where to look. That just becomes exhausting to me over long periods of time.

I can't really think of any great example, but I remember watching the trailer for Skate Story and that game is just something I wouldn't be able to get through.. Even though I think it's a super cool style:
 
I hate the Splatoon art, and more the UI, but I play it cause it's so good and it kinda grew on me. but in truth it's disgusting.
 
It is an example for noise and overreaching constant amounts of visual clutter. You don't actually swim so it is just an additional visual layer.

Ok i get what you're saying and that makes sense. It's just too much visual noise on screen for your liking and it feels like overload sometimes. Less is more.
 
Quite a few indies - interesting concepts sacrificed on the alter of low res graphics.

And plenty of Japanese anime inspired stuff. I just can't get behind game of thrones style stories and intrigue when it's pre-pubescent protagonists.

Luckily Japan is moving away from the ridiculous anime stuff. Indies - AI will probably help them.
 
I did for Expedition 33. The game is good but I simply can't stand the art in the sense of how overloaded/tacky/kitschy everything is. In most instances there are a million things on screen. I like a clean approach to art and it literally makes me not want to play it anymore. It feels unnerving to me. This is not me hating on the game, just a matter of personal taste.
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I feel u bro, us true pr0s are only ok with clean aproach, like here :P
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Exp 33 and its attractive femine females are not what we signed up for, last hope is in the cleanness of our future waifu stud blasian baldie :messenger_sunglasses:
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Absolutely. I sometimes don't even buy an otherwise fine looking game because of it. If the art direction is putting me off, I just don't play it. With regards to 33: Yes, I feel the same about it. Don't like what they were doing in that department, I only forced myself through the first half of it because everyone and their grandmother was talking about it and how it's the best game ever and so on. I think it's fairly average. And the art doesn't look good to me at all.
 
You're not alone, OP. I've watched a good number of glowing video reviews of Expedition 33 but despite all the praise the game has received I couldn't get over how ugly the game world looked. For me it's a garish assault on the senses. The game's visuals reminded me a bit of an old PS3 game called Folklore, that game had the same weird vibe.
 
Lots of times. Art direction is probably number 2 on my list of important facets of a video game, only behind gameplay.

For instance, I still haven't picked up Street Fighter 6 because of the dogshit art direction of the 3D models. Not that Street Fighter has ever really looked "great" since they went with 3D models, but how does it actually get so much worse as tech improves? Even Ryu, their iconic character, looks barely recognizable in the face (not just because of facial hair).

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Can't say I have, but Concord certainly was something else.
Though tbh, I quit playing Concord because queue-times were dramatic after the first week.

Other than that, I never played games if I didn't like the art-direction.

Edit:

I LIED!!

Enchanted Arms.

My god what a godawful ugly art direction. And especially that gay character, whatever his name was.

The only game ever where I literally went back to the store to trade it in within an hour after buying it.
 
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Lots of times. Art direction is probably number 2 on my list of important facets of a video game, only behind gameplay.

For instance, I still haven't picked up Street Fighter 6 because of the dogshit art direction of the 3D models. Not that Street Fighter has ever really looked "great" since they went with 3D models, but how does it actually get so much worse as tech improves? Even Ryu, their iconic character, looks barely recognizable in the face (not just because of facial hair).

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Lots of times. Art direction is probably number 2 on my list of important facets of a video game, only behind gameplay.

For instance, I still haven't picked up Street Fighter 6 because of the dogshit art direction of the 3D models. Not that Street Fighter has ever really looked "great" since they went with 3D models, but how does it actually get so much worse as tech improves? Even Ryu, their iconic character, looks barely recognizable in the face (not just because of facial hair).

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Terry has down syndrome. SF4 looked like absolute dogshit, and as unbelievable as it sounds, they managed to make it even uglier with V and VI.
 
I did for Expedition 33. The game is good but I simply can't stand the art in the sense of how overloaded/tacky/kitschy everything is. In most instances there are a million things on screen. I like a clean approach to art and it literally makes me not want to play it anymore. It feels unnerving to me. This is not me hating on the game, just a matter of personal taste.
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I feel the exact opposite about the art of that game
 
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Do you not see how the art is very very playful with a tendency of overload? I mean, look at Flying Waters. They literally put water into the air.

edit: Crazy that people get mad at this with how careful I worded the OP lol
Er, not really. I think I'm confused as to whether you mean style or layout tbh. The game is high fantasy though so fantastical elements are to be expected.

Im not mad lol. But to me, like a game with a horrible artstyle is something that is just ugly and is a visual choice. Like aside from monster and environments E33 is realistic generally.

Minecraft is ugly, vampire survivors is ugly, probably even WoW these days can be called ugly. I even thought skyrim was an ugly game, and the less said about SFIV the better.

I really like environments with a lot of movement as it makes the world feel alive. Fireflies, leaves, dust, magic strands etc. Right into my veins!!!!
 
Would be Octopath Traveler for me.

At first I was blown away by the HD-2D style. But I got quickly tired of it and ended up not liking how it looks. Also the game has other problem for me but after some times, I couldn't stand the art. I stop playing it.

Now the HD-2D style is a bit a repulsive for me. I am interested in Triangle Strategy but when I see the artstyle it really dissuades me to buy it.

I think Octopath is the only game I actually purchased that I stopped playing because I didn't like its graphics. They just took me out of the game and broke immersion constantly.

Take 2D sprites, add a load of modern engine effects with sliders, call it a unique masterpiece. The worst are the sharp lighting effects that bounce off all the characters like the plastic planks that they are. They seem like they are made of the same material as the walls. The 2D-HD is a concept maybe better executed in another game, I tried to like and failed here.
 
I tend to really dislike 2.5D games. The backgrounds always feel dull and cheap and don't do anything for my imagination like even an NES game with 60% black space does. I can't put my finger on it but it's an immediate turnoff and no-go.

Bloodstained is so fucking ugly to me for example, I played the demo for like 20 seconds and uninstalled it. Couldn't do that Prince Of Persia one, hated Metroid Dread's look and the Metroid 2 remake they did is hideous.
 
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