To quote... Well, myself...
Sylvanpyxie wrote:
The art style is horrific though, the environment has a comical feel, which isn't helped by characters wandering around with faces crafted roughly from Play-Dough.... Player Characters included.
The landscapes are poorly rendered, a number of them looking like painted card-board backgrounds from a school play or poorly funded B-Movie. The city is lacking in depth and detail, and that causes everything to feel fairly immature and unrealistic.
Disclaimer: Normally i would be able to overlook something so far removed from realism, i mean it's a computer game i'm not expecting full realistic bull, but the problem is this city is the only thing we see for the entirety of the game. It should have felt real, it should've felt alive, it should've been more than background, it should have been a living breathing thing, bustling with life.
As it stands the city of Kirkwall has little to no impact on players who are seeing it for the first time and eventually it fades in to nothing but background - A poorly made set for an overly dramatic play. The entire concept was that the city felt like home, but after an hour of playing you barely even registered the city at all.
The interiors are somewhat better, like Viscount's Keep and the Chantry, but the Hanged Man suffers the same issues at the exterior of the city - A lack of depth and realism that makes it feel like nothing but background, completely unimpressive and easily ignored. Not a living breathing tavern full of wenches and ale and dodgy gambling, as it should be. As a result it lacks a great deal of impact and just fades away, yet another location that offers no sense of wonder, or any emotional response at all.
The characters are the worst though... Really, the Play-Dough cheeks and jaw lines just creep me out, and irritate me at the same time. No one has any real structure to their face and it's just kind of a.... A blob.... Just a blob with a nose.
Urgh.
Not everything I would like to complain about is in this quote, but these are the majority of my complaints regarding the Dragon Age 2 art style. No Origins comparisons. No comparisons to any other games. Just Dragon Age 2 itself, and the flaws that I found with it.
Not all of it is down to art-style, sure. The city would've felt a great deal more alive if NPCs were interacting with each other and the world around them, which is not a failing of the art-style.
But the biggest hindrance to me personally? It *was* the art-style. The lack of depth, instead replaced by what I could only describe as a cartoon backing set, made my first sight of the city lack any form of impact. It permanently marred my ability to connect with the city, and as a result I felt entirely disconnected from the game and the unfolding story arc.
To me personally, the art-style was a failure and, while i'm not looking for straight up gritty realism or never ending expanses of beautifully rendered landscapes, I would prefer something that had at least some semblance of realism, instead of cartoon backing sets and character facial structures roughly crafted from play-dough.
This is, of course, entirely my opinion and anyone, everyone, is welcome to disagree with it as they wish.
Modifié par Sylvanpyxie, 14 septembre 2012 - 03:29 .
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