Wulfram wrote...
There's an important distinction between the art style and the quality of the art. Style is concept, quality is executuon.
That screenshot shows poor quality, but it doesn't really speak to the style.
Of course, it's hard to assess the style when the implementation is poor.
Yeah, that's true. Which is why I, for one, try and steer away from debating the merits of a screenshot. We've all played the game and seen the art style and quality with our own two eyes. Lets base our debate on
that instead.
Art Quality wise, the game is a mixed bag. Some armors, people and placeables are of really *good* quality, while others look so horrid and low res that it's pretty darn clear that the artists didn't even try.
As for the artstyle itself. Yeah, it was Bad. Really primitively horrible actually, and not just to the eyes... but also to the story itself. It was a sterile, cartoon type of artstyle that contradicted the game's supposedly desperate, dark plot themes. And that's to say nothing of the New Darkspawn look, which isn't worth talking about. Instead, Lets discuss the areas:
Darktown - didn't feel dark. it felt like a well lit parking garage.
Hightown - didn't feel much different from Lowtown, other than being a distinctly emptier place with wider streets..
The wounded coast - didn't seem all that wounded to me. In fact, it seemed completely lacking of a personality outright. I have no idea what mood the devs were trying to project with it.
The forest (or whatever it is that the dalish live on) - ditto. But that area has its own art problems. It felt like a baseball field with some hills.... or some artificial thing. If it wasn't for the fact that my mind instinctively associated it with the outdoors (because the game told us it was), I'd swear it wasn't.
The Cave; the dungeon and the warehouse - Terrible. Undetailed, completely void of atmosphere and mood. Not even a hint of a labor of love is present. Any small group of freshman art students could have created all three areas in less than 2 hours.
Deep Roads - a Schizophrenic assault on everything having to do with Artstyles. I counted 6 different themes in 30 minutes. it was alice in wonderland meets the Pink Floyd Laser show. My Theory is that David Silverman created the Deep roads "art" with his awesome button.
Side Note: A few weeks before this game came out, Mike Laidlaw was showcasing the game during a podcast, and he zoomed the camera in on the Front door of the Chantry, praising it as some awesome work of art, saying something to the effect of: "this is one of the coolest looking doors, isn't it". LOL No, man, it's an ugly door that I could have created with Microsoft Paint in 10 minutes. That you, the friggin lead designer, would hail it as good art is a pretty decent comentary on why DA2 was allowed to see the light of day in its unbelievably rushed, undetailed, uncreative and uninspired state. Low standards have ruled the day.
TL:DR: DA2's artstyle is a mess. It's wrong on two levels: aesthetic and story.
Modifié par Yrkoon, 29 juillet 2012 - 03:06 .
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