I like DA2's art style better than DA:O, but I do think that it could use improvement. (All of the following is in my oh so humble opinion of course.
Art is something that is pretty subjective after all.)
DA:O Art style:
I found DA:O's environments way too drab and brown. Even a place like the Brecillian forest was just so lack-luster to me. To me me an elven fantasy forest should be breath-takingly beautiful and the Brecillian forest just didn't cut it. The Deep Roads were another big letdown for me in DA:O...so much brown rock and no visual interest anywhere which such a long quest desperately needs. And oh my goodness the Fade! Here we have a dreamland where one can be anything they want, a place that is constantly changing and shifting like a dream. It should be alive with color and light! Instead it is the ugliest piece of brown blah I ever seen!
As for the people in DA:O...I think they did pretty well with the women of all races. You can make women that range from cute to really pretty in the DA:O CC. The actual female NPCs in the game though...well most aren't very pretty. I'm not saying that every woman in Thedas needs to be a stunner, but even most of the NPCs that are supposed to be pretty aren't. The female companions are an exception to this as I think Morrigan and Leliana are very pretty. Plus pretty women are fairly easy to make with the CC so I don't know why there aren't more around. Plus the make-up tends to be hideous.
The men on the other hand I find almost universally ugly. Even ones that are supposed to be great looking such as Alistair and Zevran I find merely bland. Teagan is the only male NPC that I can think of that is fairly attractive. And trying to make a male PC in the CC isn't much better. It was really hard for me to make a human man that was in any way attractive to me, so I just gave up on making them. Making a good-looking male elf in the CC was better so I stuck with those, but even then the male elves don't look beautiful enough for my tastes. The pictures that Prince linked to above (all modded of course) fits my image of a male elf much better than what we get with the game.
DA2 Art style:
It's better in most ways in my opinion, but it still needs a lot of work. I think the environments are better especially the caves and the Deep Roads (which I thought were stunning this time around). Of course the beauty of those caves gets somewhat lost when every one looks the same, but that is not an art style problem. In fact it was that the caves and Deep Roads looked so good that really made me resent the recycling. Imagine what other underground pretties they could have come up with. I especially liked the room with the blue sparkles on the ceiling. It made me gasp with delight the first time I saw it. Sadly the Fade looks no better to me in DA2. Again I think there is SO much missed potential here with a dreamworld. I want the Fade to make gasp with wonder, but it's just blah again.
I think the interior environments of DA2 were much better realized than the ones of DA:O. Especially the high class areas. I remember wandering around the Denerim palace in DA:O and thinking it didn't look much better than the Alienage. Both were brown and ugly. The Alienage should look brown and ugly, but the home of the Arl should look better. I know this is supposed to be a gritty medieval world, but give me some evidence that the nobility lives better than the underclass besides just the size of their digs. (By the way I thought the Dwarven palace got this right in DA:O. Now there was a place of majestic beauty that said this is where the rich and most powerful dwarves live.)
As for the people, I think that they look much better in DA2. Finally I could make a human man that I found gorgeous in the CC. I could make really pretty women as well. I wouldn't mind seeing more grit and dirt on the people again (they did all seem a little too clean), but please for the love of the gods let me keep being able to make attractive men in DA3!
As I've said earlier in this thread, I think the elves in DA2 have the potential to have an other-worldy elven beauty about them. It wasn't utilized very often in NPCs, but Merril and Fenris much better fit my idea of people that humans would find beautiful and attractive than the elves in DA:O. The dwarves on the other hand were the only people that I thought looked really off in DA2. I thought they were just prefect in DA:O and their appearance didn't translate well into the cleaner art style of DA2.
So in short I don't think that either game really utilized their art style as well as I would have liked. DA2 comes closer, but still needs work. I do think the whole world in DA2 looked too clean and flat, but on the other hand I thought the DA:O world was really drab and ugly. I'll be interested to see what they come up with in DA3.
Modifié par dream_operator23, 25 mars 2012 - 08:18 .
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