147 réponses à ce sujet

[Heimdall]

A bit of a complex issue for me.

DAO struggled with toeing that "too generic" line, but on the whole it managed to really set the tone for the setting.

DA2, I actually really liked Kirkwall's artstyle, but it was really easy to get tired of it because it was the ONLY art style.

If I had to choose a favorite, I would choose DAI because it managed to incorporate the distinctiveness DA2 brought to the table but with far more variety. Even so, it was a bit too bright, it would definitely have benefited from injecting a bit of DAO's grit.

I should qualify all this though: I've never been a fan of ANY of the armor and weapon design in this series.

[rapscallioness]

DAI for me.

[KaiserShep]

You actually prefer them in DA2 and DA:I? While I do like them in DA2 (except the genlock design) and DA:I, they just look so much more vile and twisted in Origins.

 

Couldn't find one for genlocks, but here:

 

Personally I greatly prefer the hurlock alpha from Inquisition.

 

[Robert Trevelyan]

The Darkspawn were definitely better in Origins that all other games. Hands down.

[Seraphim24]

Origins.

[SomberXIII]

DAI definitely has the best art style.

[Ballax]

Dragon Age Origins, to me is kind of like those classic novels they make you read in college/university. They're too complex and well thought out to call 'generic' someone obviously spent a lot of time on it and it is good, but it'll likely never captivate you because so many other books/games have done it a similar way and just as many have taken it one step farther to the point that the classic seems a bit....dull, for lack of a better word.

 

Dragon Age II's art direction was clearly thought up in a rush. I loved the qunari's design and i think the costumes for the elves and dwarves were a great leap forward, not so much the elves faces or the design of Kirkwall. Whilst DAO felt like GOT's attempt 'realistic' dark fantasy DAII felt more like Warhammer failure into grimdark instead.

 

DAI, was a splash of colour but contrary to what people often think it was not an unrealisitc one, not to me. We often picture the past as gritty and worn out but that's because we're looking at it after centuries or millennia of wear and tear. The pyramids of Giza were covered in limestone and capped with gold, apparently it was blinding in the day and still bright enough to read by at night if you were close enough. The Greek style statues that we love to imitate to this day were actually painted in incredibly garish colours.  Even in Europe one only has to look at the Vatican city, Venice or Versailles to see the level of grandeur people were capable of. And remember, these were people not gifted with magic or dwarven super-science or anything else that might allow them to produce some of the less grounded designs. 

 

That being said those giant fortress spikes were a load of bullshit.   

[Shadow Fox]

DAI has the best character,weapon,environment and Mage armor designs

 

DA2 has the best Warrior and Rogue armor designs.

[thruaglassdarkly]

sure just because its shiny doesn't mean its disney but the story and atmosphere support my Disney argument

So I can't agree with the Tarantino comparison, the movies while colorful are very different

 

Yeah, we're going to have to agree to disagree on that. An entire main story plot line revolves around the Wardens slitting each other's throats to summon an army of demons, which is not something even on the fringes of the darkest of Disney's work, unless we are counting subsidiaries like Miramax. Samson feeds lyrium to his soldiers, even though he knows its causing some of them to die a slow and painful death. Lelilana brutally murdering a Chantry sister does not happen in a Disney film. Clearly the environment didn't meet your expectations, which whatever; we all like what we like. But I'm afraid I'm just not getting the same aura from this experience as you.

[KaiserShep]

That being said those giant fortress spikes were a load of bullshit.   

 

Well, it matches its original builders.

[Funkier_Than_Thou]

Art style? I think I like all the art styles. DAO had a classic feel to it. DA II was okay... if you think of it as a book/story that Varric was telling (which it was) so a lot can be forgiven. DA:I is good. They all had their own charm. So I'll say what I like and don't like instead:

 

DA:O Stuff I Like:

- I love the armor and weapons in Origins.

- The atmosphere and the color of the environment fit the story.

- Blood spatter was done great. 

 

DA:O Stuff I Didn't Like:

- Didn't like the Gorilla hands proportions of the character models.

- Human Beards

- Custom Presets are limited 

- Hair presets were limited unless you mod the game.

- elves looked like small humans with pointy ears (Unless you mod the game with the elf update)

 

DAII Stuff I Like:

- Beards were a lot better than it was in DAO

- A lot more hair presets compared to Vanilla DAO

- Better body proportions compared to DAO

 

DAII Stuff I Don't Like:

- Blood Spatter was not as good as it was in DAO

- Didn't like the character head models 

- Color palette was a bit bland

- Didn't like the armor and weapon designs with the exception of the Champion Armor Sets

- Elves look ed weird.

 

DA:I Stuff I Like:

- Overall Design of sandboxes and atmosphere 

- Armor and weapons designs

- Character Race designs were done great

 

DA:I Stuff I Don't Like:

- Limited hair presets

- Beard sucks

- limited armor designs

- Blood Spatter is limited to being on the amor and weapons. (Maybe it's just me but I always liked that my characters had blood on their faces after a battle, specially after a boss fight)

[KaiserShep]

Persistent gore was always kind of weird. In Origins, I laughed when I killed those rats in the larder in the human noble Origin, and both Cousland and Ser Whatshisface were covered head to toe in blood. Like gee wiz, we really went to town on those rats! So I always just turned it off in all three games.

[SwobyJ]

OVERALL:

 

-DAO is the most bland, but its also the one I'm still the most comfortable with

-DA2 is the other way around - a very interesting art style but I'm rather uncomfortable with it

-DAI is a rather interesting art style (though it has taken a more generic bend again in ways), and finally more modern graphics to show it off, but I'm somehow not as comfortable with it as I was when I played DAO

 

WINNER: DAI, with DAO close, and DA2 only respected for trying some new things (it just didn't work out, at least for me).

 

 

DAO can be excused for its art weaknesses in a lot of ways, while DA2 just want TOO FAR with stuff, while weirdly feeling like a graphical downgrade. DAI is beautiful and I only wish there was better gameplay design for that beauty. But at least for DAI I've reached a comfortable level with a lot of matters; an example is how I was 'ehhh ok' about elven appearance in DAO, hated it in DA2, but rather enjoy most of it (save for them being a bit too thin and the Inquisitor not fitting the model the best) in DAI.

[SwobyJ]

Man, being one of this site's only big fans of 90s-era JRPGs always makes it really weird when people talk about how dated 2009 games look.

 

90s-era JRPGs were my top genre for my teenage years and some of my 20s (25 currently). Its only in the last few years that I've taken the jump and tried to embrace more modern and more Western games. In the 00s I relatively more bypassed the Western gaming, especially its shooter focus. Only Mass Effect brought me in for that.

 

But I have a weird reason for getting more modern: I don't actually care a LOT about current graphical/etc standards of these 2010s 360/One/PS3/PS4 eras. What I do want is to keep up on things enough that I'm not left behind after VR is introduced in a bigger way and refined to have better graphics/physics/etc than ever (2020s?). Basically, I don't want to be old and with my knowledge and experience outdated. I already see that a little more (than me) in my 28 year old boyfriend, who doesn't really keep up so much with modern gaming standards and is much more happy with 80s-90s games or at least their graphical-level in recent (like indie) games. It lets him enjoy Xenoblade while I don't think I could stand it at all.

 

So yeah, while I didn't care about this stuff in my teens, its now the case where anything before 2010-2012 (so for example ME1 and maybe ME2) is significantly dated looking and my growing perspective can't tolerate this sort of thing so much as before.

[Father_Jerusalem]

TIL: Having any color whatsoever = "Disneyfied".

[Jackums]

For me, DA:O had the richest atmosphere based on art style. It had the strongest "feel" to me, whereas DA:I is beautiful but lacks that immersive flavor. It's more pretty for the sake of pretty, without any real intent or direction. DA:O may have been stereotypically "dark fantasy" in its art style, but it at least felt like they knew what they were aiming for. The color pallet and style was obviously dark; you knew what they were trying to say about the DA world.

 

Though on a more technical front, DA:I wins hands-down. Better armor design, better weapon design, more varied environments, etc.

 

Ideally I'd like them to use DA:I's refined style as a basis, but infuse a little of the DA:O flavor into it. I enjoyed both art styles, but DA:O's was more memorable.

[AlexiaRevan]

Faces and clothes and decore ? DAI . (but having your quizzie run in the same crappy armor while everyone shine kinda screw that a bit) . 

 

Best looking elf ? DAO . Sorry but to me , I hate the anorexic look in DA2 and in DAI...ugh...lets not go there . 

 

Best atmosphere ? DA2 . DA2 was fun , and I loved Hawke and the friendship with everyone . And it had Blood Magic so that's a Plus . 

[The Baconer]

DA:O may have been stereotypically "dark fantasy" in its art style,

 

I'd say it was just plain "stereotypically fantasy", which is one of the reasons why I didn't really care for it. I mean, it only really crosses over from "conventional" to "dark" with Broodmothers and Abominations. Everything else is... extremely safe. Extremely D&D.

[BSpud]

Persistent gore was always kind of weird. In Origins, I laughed when I killed those rats in the larder in the human noble Origin, and both Cousland and Ser Whatshisface were covered head to toe in blood. Like gee wiz, we really went to town on those rats! So I always just turned it off in all three games.

 

On my DA replays, I have it off by default, but turn it on when I know I'm going to fight darkspawn. For whatever reason, it seems appropriate that fighitng those things leads to a lot of splatter and gore. Whereas with humanoids or anything else, it just seems silly (though I make an exception for the Qunari invasion in DA2's Act 2. It's satisfyingly dramatic to turn up in front of the Arishok covered in the blood of his soldiers. It also feels more grounded in reality as they're virtually unarmored).

[KotorEffect3]

While DAI is the most pleasing to the eye that is just due to the new hardware they are using, I feel the origins had the most diversified and creative look in the series.

[Torgette]

A bit of a complex issue for me.

DAO struggled with toeing that "too generic" line, but on the whole it managed to really set the tone for the setting.

DA2, I actually really liked Kirkwall's artstyle, but it was really easy to get tired of it because it was the ONLY art style.

If I had to choose a favorite, I would choose DAI because it managed to incorporate the distinctiveness DA2 brought to the table but with far more variety. Even so, it was a bit too bright, it would definitely have benefited from injecting a bit of DAO's grit.

I should qualify all this though: I've never been a fan of ANY of the armor and weapon design in this series.

 

I agree with style, DAO felt like it borrowed most of its art design and style from other properties - it felt like a retread visually (just really well made). DA2 was obviously a cheap production and in order to hide that they took a stab at making an original art design that was flashy and pointy. DAI in many ways is their most ambitious effort because it incorporates a lot of the styles of both games, some new ones thrown in and high production value, not to mention all the different locales/cultures and regions represented in said art. You can argue about how brown you want the mood but it's hard to argue which one is their best effort.

[earymir]

I think DA:O had the best atmosphere (which maybe was helped by art style here and there), but it wasn't the art style per se that was the best.  The "generic" style was just used masterfully to create a dark fantasy atmosphere.  

 

Probably DA:I has the best style?  But I think sometimes it loses the gritty atmopshere of DA:O.  It's just pretty, and when the designs in game are good, they're VERY good.  

 

DA2 I think is fun and over-the-top (animations, powers, speed, sometimes armor) with its overall style, including art.  The style doesn't take itself seriously, which I think helped balance out the sometimes-very-over-serious companions (FENRIS / ANDERS).  It's clearly the prototype for DA:I though - they seem to have kept more of the feel of DA2 than DAO .  

[Funkier_Than_Thou]

 

Wasn't a fan at all of DA2's anime/cartoony style and I also don't like DAI: Disney

 

 

The Disney description made me guffaw...

[Sylvius the Mad]

Origins. It had a more coherent overall style than DAI does.

[Joseph Warrick]

Inquisition, as a viewer (I'm no art critic) I can recognize Inquisition screenies more easily than Origins screenies. That's also true for DA2 but DA2 is uglier and less subtle.