30 Days of Video Games

[Marcello]

Day 23 - Favorite Song

Special Stage - Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Whenever I hear this song I fee like a kid again. I remember sitting in the living room, playing my favorite special stages, I remember hanging out with my brother trying to be as good as him in games but failing. The music is really catchy and I just really love it.

The Best Is Yet To Come - Metal Gear Solid

Beautiful song. What a great song to end the game. It's return in MGS4 was really well done.

Edited February 8, 2012 by MarcelloF

[The Kid]

Favorite Track in a Game:

If I had to pick a favorite track from a single game, it just simply couldn't be done. I Have many soundtracks that I'd consider a favorite of mine, and picking a single track simply can't be done. But if I had to pick one near the top of my list it would most definitely be Endless Possibility from Sonic Unleashed. That song is beyond catchy to point i've been caught humming it out in public once or twice.

Half-ass response courtesy of using my phone to write this.

Edited February 8, 2012 by The Kid

[Carbo]

Day 24 - Favorite Art Style or Visual Design from a Video Game

[Jeffhog]

Day 24 - Favorite Art Style or Visual Design from a Video Game

Edited February 8, 2012 by VizardJeffhog

[Indigo Rush]

So when The Wind Waker was announced and everyone was flipping their wads over Link looking like a cat-eyed cartoon character, I was having the time of my life imagining my adventures in the Great Sea. It's like I'm playing a painting.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Indigo Rush

[PSI Wind]

Wind Waker. My GOD is this game absolutely beautiful! The game is a litteral playable cartoon and just looks stunning. I mean, 9 years later and the game still looks amazing (Hell, it looks better than some games nowadays)! That's an outstanding feat for a game. It's also VERY nice looking on the Dolphin at 1080p and 60 FPS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvfU2ZkJPw0

A Runner-up would be Unleashed/Generations. It's literally a playable Pixar movie.

[Carbo]

Mirror's Edge blends the perfect atmosphere of blue, red and white colors into perhaps the cleanest, most dazzling environments a game has had to offer. It's all so clean, the bloom doesn't actually feel tacked on in a game for once, and it's incredibly simplistic but fantastic artistic design doesn't require an insane graphical prowess to shine. The contrast is incredibly powerful here and it really comes alive.

Literally every frame of the game play suits perfectly as any kind of wallpaper shot. If you google Mirror's Edge, half of all the results will be screenshots with massive res. By focusing on powerful contrasting colors and very few shades of gray and brown, the game presents perhaps the most visually gorgeous vistas and areas a game has ever created. If Wind Waker proved to me that graphics isn't necessarily what constitutes a good visual design, then Mirror's Edge proved to me that bending the contrasts and colors of real life can make even the most dull tropes and settings be incredibly interesting and fantastic, and you don't even need a powerful graphics engine for a game to look "realistic" in that kind of scenario.

Mirror's Edge is the perfect example of a game that is just able to make reality and realism so beautiful and interesting.

The music really adds onto the experience too.

[Your Vest Friend]

Sorry Sonic, you can fuck off for today, because Twinsanity really gets it's time to shine here;

Cartoony Central [Crash Twinsanity]

Some of you may recognise the art style I'm pimping. The concept art was drawn by Keith Webb, and is a really sight to behold. Where have you heard of him before?

He was also a concept artist on Super Monkey Ball Adventure! But Twinsanity arguably let him go even zanier than that, the results of which can be seen quite clearly;

Even though it's the concept art I adore the most, the game does try to stick with the spirit of Webb's designs in its own art style (even if a lot of the more batshit ideas were cut from the final product due to time constraints), leading to a game which genuinely feels like a cartoon that you can happen to roam about in.

[Kamicciolo]

Day #24 - Kami's Gorgeously Artistic "Get those cheap Photoshopped recolours outta here NinjaShark" Favourite Art Style/Visual Design in a Video Game

I already talked about this one in my "Favourite Game" post, but it's pretty fitting here too, so...

In a time where everything was all Modelled and Rendered, Good Feel went in a different direction with Wario Land: The Shake Dimension, instead using hand drawn sprites and backgrounds all done in a style very much like what you'd expect to see in an anime, and the game really benefited from it.

Thanks to being drawn by an actual animation company, all of Wario's animations are brilliant, being so fluid and full of their own unique touches (such as sliding around on ice, as pictured, or landing from swinging on poles and other stuff) that really helps bring his comical nature (and the game itself to a degree) to life. It's not only Wario though, the enemies and bosses have all designed with utmost care to fit Wario's typical goofy take on the world, and each of them is colourful and memorable in their own right.

The art style really works for the stages as well, since each and every stage is vividly designed and detailed with it's own unique environmental features. Nearly every stage is designed and drawn differently from the next (bar secret levels directly tied to the originals) and the amount of detail that has been dedicated to the environments is truly a marvellous sight to behold.

Honourable Mentions

Anything cartoony - I'll save myself some time. Mario, Sonic, Kirby, Rayman, Team Fortress 2 (it kinda counts) and the rest...love 'em. I don't know why, but I just find that a more cartoony style appeals to me more (most likely cause I'm just a big kid at heart :V

Paper Mario games - I know I already mentioned Mario above, but I feel special mention should be given to the Paper Mario series, which manages to implement it's art-style right into the game play. It's also a rather simplistic style, which still captures all the charm of the characters and setting

[Lady Soniko]

Day 24 - Best art direction in a video game.

GHOST TRICK - PHANTOM DETECTIVE

its Fun

its Pop

and its damn awesome

the art direction in Ghost Trick is fantastic, taking a much cartoonier approach than what the Phoenix Wright guys are known for, but it just fits with the game's premise so well. Yes its cartoony, does it make it a childish game? hell no, the whacky characters are Ghost Trick's charm and draws you into its deep and dark story.

its very cel shaded like, but kept simple, however it still screams detailed, well thought out and brilliant.

another contender for this would be...

Level 5's Professor Layton Series

Even though the company that makes the game and its stories are Japanese, you have to commend their efforts at recreating typical stereotypical English taste and flares, with the main Protagonist being nothing short of a "true gentleman"

looking into Level 5's work you can see classic London architecture with hints of steampunk and victorian details that make the Layton universe very similar to their real life destinations, but also unique to the series

Level 5 have a habit for creating the strange types of characters Japan are known for, but adding English and Western flares to them, the artwork for the characters and NPC's in game are also incredibly simple where as the backgrounds have several layers of detail.

also one of the big differences from the Phoenix/Ghost Trick series is the colour palette which is used, where as Capcom are bright and pop, level 5 create a pastel soft atmosphere with toned down colours which also reflects on the vintage look they go for in their games, everything looks like it was drawn with pencil and painted with a water colour palette making it true eye candy for anyone playing the games.

they both maybe handheld console titles, but they are fantastically portrayed for such small screens, the amount of work put into the assets for it is staggering.

[Marcello]

Day 24 - Favorite Art Style or Visual Design from a Video Game

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

I love it. It looks like a painting come alive. I just wish I could see how it would look on an HD console. The already beautiful style could look even better.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

Basically what people have already said. The game has aged incredibly well. And those explosions look awesome.

Kirby's Dreamland 3

I love how everything looks like it was colored with Colored Pencils. Just a really nice style.

Kirby's Epic Yarn

This is one of the graphically most charming games I have ever played. The style is pulled off fantastically and it lead to new gameplay options

Okami

I'm sure tons of people will pick this. I can only say what I've said about SS. I love how dedicated they were to it the style.

Edited February 8, 2012 by MarcelloF

[JezMM]

First, a few givens: Sonic Unleashed/Generations, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Zelda: Wind Waker, and Super Mario Galaxy 1/2.

So here's some appreciation for a lesser known title:

Lucidity

Rather fittingly for the storyline, this game looks like a picture book. The only flaw I could say is that it would have been SWEET if the backgrounds were animated. There is parallax scrolling at least, but it's all very motionless. On the flipside this does ADD to the storybook feel, and it does mean it isn't distracting from the gameplay that happens out front. Gorgeous looking game.

Big Honourable Mentions

Mischief Makers - Love the blend of 2D and 3D and the very unique character design. The pre-rendered sprites CAN be a little ugly when they use 3D-esque effects to have them come "out" of the screen.

Ghost Trick - Great character design and artwork, but DAMN, that animation! It's pretty obvious they made sprites out of 3D models, but who cares, either way it's crazy good. Each character has a distinct way of moving that really brings the whole world to life.

Prof. Layton Series

The art style is charming and warm, but damn I just cannot get over their character design skills. Every person looks different, even NPCs. EVERYONE. And yet they all fit into the universe together perfectly.

Edited February 8, 2012 by JezMM

[Emmett L. Brown]

Twenty-Fourth: Fav. Style

Ghost Trick: Pointy Cartoons

I must echo Samus Aran on this one. I love Ghost Trick's cartoony art direction of making everything as pointy as it possibly can be while still looking fluid, which is impressive and really cool. Every single character has as few curves as possible, and almost every line ends with a pointy angle. It gives the game its own unique character seperate from the developers' other cartoony universe of Ace Attorney.

Did I mention it just plain looks cool, because it totally does.

[Serperior]

You know, you guys are really making it hard for me to avoid mentioning this game.

It was a predictable choice, it was an easy answer to this question, but the art style really is one of the best things about this game, so I couldn't avoid mentioning it. The art style being themed after Japanese paintings makes for some really nice looking environments and moments within the game. There are a good number of places in the game where if the game was just a still, it could pretty easily pass as something that had been painted, well to me at least anyway. The ricepaper filter on the PS2 version also really helps add to this, as it gives all of the colours a very slight sepia tone to them, which really adds to making it similar to the style the game was based off of. I often just found myself stopping for several minutes at a time once I got a good view of the various environments just to take a look at them. The art style fits really well with other factors of the game as well, although that's probably the other elements being based around the art style. I've heard many people saying that the game would look much better with HD graphics, but I personally think that would be missing the point of the art style, it'd look too perfect to look like something that had been painted, but again, maybe that's just me.

Right, with the really obvious pick out of the way....

I really like Paper Mario's art style for how simplistic it is, and how much they take advantage of the 2D aspect of the characters. The characters still have a lot of charm to them, and the animations look really smooth and expressive despite what would probably be expected of a style like this, which helps a lot with the more comical moments in the game. The environments usually have a very nice design as well, a lot of the time the backgrounds, and even the level geometry itself are composed of really odd formations of shapes, which make them interesting to look at. The environments are usually really bright and colourful as well, and are never dull to look at. I also enjoy how well they seem to blend the style into the gameplay as well, particularly with the upcoming 3DS game (Going by the trailer anyway), which with additions like the attacks where scissors come and cut up the screen and the fan coming on and blowing all of the enemies around, to me looks like one of the few times where the 3D aspect looks like it's used really creatively.

Honourable mentions:

Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker: I really enjoyed the brighter, more cartoony take on Zelda's art style, and it's something I've missed in the series for a good while. It made me glad that they kind of brought it back in Skyward Sword.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Serperior

[Senator NinjaShark]

Day Numbero Christmas - Ninja's Artwork of Greatness "move aside with those cheap MS Paint scribbles, Kami", Favourite Artstyle in Video Games Ever!

The Art Style for Pokemon Red/Blue and Heart Gold/Soul Silver

Ken Sugimori has by far one of my Favourite Art style in Video games. His early Artwork for Red/Blue/Yellow I Like mainly because of the way the Artwork is colored, Reminds me alot of certain Manga Illustrations almost (no big Suprise since one of his inspirations was Dragonball Creator Akira Toryama)

now, Heart Gold/Soul Silver I mainly Love for the wonderfull Bright and Strong Colors used, everything Looks nice and is pleasent to Look at from the Grassy areas to the Ice Caves, I Love it. It's one reason why HG/SS are soem of my top favourite Pokemon games.

Okami

now I talked about how much I love various things in Okami, so why stop now?

Okami has a very Interesting and unique art style, as far as Video games go. The entire Look of it resembles a Old Feudal Japan-era Drawing, wich makes the World Look simply wonderful in my Opinion.

adding to that, the characters you encounter are all have their own Look and unique appearance, making every person you encounter one of a kind, wich is something I always Love in any medium.

Paper Mario: The Thousand year Door.

Paper Mario 1 already had a Great art style to me, but it was TTYD that made it even better, by making the Coloring much brioghter and giving the world a More "Paper" feel, wich I Love and wich gives the game a Unique expirience.

Honorable Mentions:

Legend of Zelda Wind Waker and Skyward Sword: The Cartoony style of both of these games makes them Stand out wonderfulyl and generally gives the World they are set in a More Comical and "alive" spin, while Generally Looking Great in my eyes.

Team Fortress 2: Like with the Zelda examples above, I Love the Cartoony style in it, and the world around it. Not to mention the Style clashes wonderfully with the rather Bloody action you'll encounter in it, wich is only a Plus to me.

The Mario & Luigi Series: this series, to me, features some of the Best Sprite Work in recent times, it's niceley Bright and Cartoony and Just overall fun to Look at. The same thing also goes for the Boxart/Manual artwork featured in it, wich depicts the characters in my Favourite style, right next to maybe the Mario Strikers style

Edited February 8, 2012 by Mr. NinjaShark

[Lucky]

Day #24 - Favourite Art Style or Visual Design from a Video Game

Unleashed and Generations are gorgeous, but I'd assume we all know that... so that's why I'm going to go with the next thing that came to mind:

MadWorld is an absolute visual masterpiece. The only colour you see is red (...lots and lots of red) and you'd think it would start to get dull after a while, but all it does is add to the incredible graphic novel style that makes the game stand out in the first place. Asides from some awesome character designs, there's just so much work been put into the levels... it could have been so easy for them to all blend together, but each area is different enough from the last that they manage to stand out even with the lack of colour. And then there's my favourite thing from the game... the finishing moves...

Yeah most of them are crazy OTT, but the execution of each and every one is just incredible to look at.

[Solkia]

Too easy, as well as too predictable.

OKAMI

I love how Okami visually represents old Japanese artwork using a form of cel-shaded graphics. Not only that, but I'd say it's overall the most pleasing game to look at.

Runner Up: METROID PRIME

While it may not be very impressive by todays standards to some people, let me take you back to 2002:

You're going from this:

"Hey, this looks pretty damn good."

to this:

"HOLY SHIT MY EYES ARE MELTING OUT OF MY FUCKING HEAD FROM ALL THIS AWESOMENESS!"

Yeah. That's what it was like for me.

[Sean]

Day 24: Favorite visual/art design

Something about Phantom Brave really grabbed me when I first played it. Its more serene atmosphere compared to other Nippon Ichi titles brought about many subtle moments where you had to really observe how these characters physically react to situations. Phantom Brave does things differently from Disgaea; rather than use visual novel-esque portraits in cutscenes, you have larger sprites with unique, expressive animations. Several of the game's areas are deeply rooted in nature, and the gorgeous, soaring soundtrack by Tenpei Sato really emphasizes that feel. Everything about this game just looks wonderful, and it's so good that it can make you rather melancholic while playing (not even taking into account the very depressing tone of the story).

I always feel calm whenever I go back and replay this. Just looking at it is a joy, and it's much more colorful and bright than any of Nippon Ichi's other PS2 titles. The greenery is lavish, and it is always a lot of fun moving around Marona's home island without doing anything to advance the plot. In fact, if there was a "favorite hub level" in this topic, Phantom Brave's hub would get my vote, no questions asked. (Then again, seeing as how I am gushing about it here, I might pick something else just to be different.) Lovely looking game, and I would give anything just to see Nippon Ichi try something new again.

[Vertekins]

Favourite Art Style or Visual Design from a Video Game

Kirby's Epic Yarn HANDS DOWN.

The colour! The imagination! The design!

I've never seen such an adorable, original and appealing art style in a videogame before or since. It's unadulterated eye candy and textures are used with such cleverness. Lacy drying sheets get used for lens flare when the sun appears in one of the Water Land stages, googly eyes used on dinosaurs and other living creatures, pipe cleaners used as platforms, zips used to conceal certain parts of scenery...it's just awesome how the very nature of the art style itself is utilized for game design.

It's just beautiful. Of particular note is the prettiness of the Ice Land stages, especially Frosty Wheel;

*Crappy quality screenshot doesn't do it justice*

Beautiful use of colour, making it look like a magical snowy wonderland.

It's cool how you can go behind the fabric composing the stage and Kirby's appears as a bulge as he moves through it, making a sound effect that sounds like brushed fabric.

[Bria]

Day 24 - Favorite Art Style or Visual Design from a Video Game

Edited February 8, 2012 by Briaaaah

[Covskin]

Quality art direction proves imaginative design looks far better than photo-realism every time.

A case in point would be the aforementioned Wind Waker. That game still looks gorgeous nearly 10 years on, because of its brilliant use of cel-shading.

My pick is on a similar vein, and its the popular choice: Okami. I hinted at this earlier when mentioning the Restoration scenes. Every movement is lovely to look at, and when you Bloom a Guardian Sapling, it truly feels likes a reward. Gone are the dark colours, and you are presented with a wonderful, vibrant world. Even the flowers that come underneath your feet as running come across as a wonderful touch.

For a DS game, I thought Okamiden did a damn good job at recreating the style.

Another game that I am yet to play but am planning to buy, is Rayman Origins. The 2D graphics look absolutely amazing.

[turbojet]

I am not above repeating things that have already been stated. Carbo beat me to it, but to be honest, I've been pimping Mirror's Edge so it wouldn't be a surprise.I'll just show you the visual style of Mirror's Edge.

Look at that image. Makes you want to slap yo momma.

The colors mesh so well in this game that it captures this beautiful yet sterile environment. It is dauntingly astonishing. It is amazingly terrifying. While the plot doesn't lend well to the totalitarian regime(It really is an authoritarian oligarchy but whatever), the city tells the story for the visually sensitive player. This world subverts the ideal gritty world that is horrifying because it is so ugly and makes something extremely beautiful that is horrifying because it makes the imagination wonder why it is that way.

Mirror's Edge 2 can't come soon enough.

[Jeffhog]

Day 24: Favourite visuals in vidya [

Anything the Hedgehog Engine touches - Sonic Unleashed [HD]/Generations [HD]

Just look at these visuals.

LOOK AT THESE VISUALS.

After the trainwreck that was Sonic '06, Sonic needed a major facelift in home consoles. Not just gameplay, but looks too.

Say what you will about Unleashed, but if there's one thing that we can all agree on, it's the looks.

SEGA stopped trying to change Sonic in order to fit him in other locales. They finally tried to have a world revolve around Sonic's design, an environment where Sonic actually belongs to.

With the Hedgehog Engine on the HD consoles... holy shit, these are downright gorgeous. This is exactly how Sonic games should look like. This is how it's gotta be! It's interactive CGI! It's eye-candy! It's scenery porn!

Runner-ups: Anything that comes straight out of Nintendo

Nintendo games and those of their second parties never fail here either. Super Mario Galaxy, the Legend of Zelda games, SSBB, Kirby's Epic Yarn... Gotta love 'em.

[Tori Himemiya]

Day 24 Favorite Art Style from a Video Game:

No contest for me.

Odin Sphere has my favorite art style yet. I mean look at this.

All of the art was hand drawn. These sprites and backgrounds are pretty amazing, these screens don't do the game any justice. But seeing this game in action with these sprites is pretty cool. I was really blown away by how much they put into making this art. Its crazy.

Runner Ups:

LoZ:WW: Fun, colorful, and cel shaded is fun but its just me loving Odin Sphere in the end.

No More Heroes: See LoZ:WW.

[Meow]

Favourite Art Style - The Megaman Zero series

Now whoever saw this coming deserves a pat on the back because I loooove this series' art style. It was such a different take on how Megaman characters could look, giving everything a very rounded yet still edgy sort of look, and the entire thing felt a lot more gritty than previous art styles. To me, the entire thing was just perfect (and solidifed Toru Nakayama as an artistic influence).

I also love this interpretation of Zero's design the best. It was very streamlined and he looked like he'd be able to move in and out of fast paced combat situations with ease. To me he just looked extremely cool. To be honest I am not fond of a lot of the Megaman X designs as the series progresses because they start getting incredibly busy (and then the art style itself just takes a massive nosedive after a while) and I prefer X1 Zero to all the other drawings of him in the X series.

The bosses were all rad too! Like I said before, the X designs after a while got really busy. The Zero designs however I feel are based around a lot more rounded and aesthetically pleasing shapes, yet they can still look really ferocious at the same time. The key for this series was to streamline the designs I think. Everything felt a little more grounded in 'reality' in my opinion because of this.

Oh and that also meant we got Leviathan out of it SO THAT COUNTS TOO (and Harpuia, he is ALSO REALLY COOL).

RUNNER UPS:

Phantasy Star Online

Megaman ZX/ZXA

Darksiders (I love Joe Mad's stuff)

Edited February 8, 2012 by DesertPunk