by Anonymous81 » Mon May 29, 2017 12:47 am
This doesn't look "anime" to me, personally. Honestly, it looks like Shenmue, brought into an contemporary engine and art direction.
I mean... it's not like Dou Niu, Chai, Ren, or really any major, non simple NPC character in the original Shenmue games, wasn't similarly highly stylized and "cartoonish" (I don't agree with that adjective personally, I would prefer "heightened" or "stylized.") Even major characters like Lan Di, especially in the face, were not exactly what I'd call "realistic." They were all very, very exaggerated. The mixture of lesser characters being "realistic" (though even that's debatable,) and the realism of the world, with those heightened, fantasy elements in more prominent characters is what made Shenmue Shenmue to me, in terms of art design.
This was inevitable, though. By using a new engine to bring to life their concept art, it was bound to be the case (as has been the case with literally every contemporary rebirth of an old beloved franchise from before modern graphical tech emerged that I've played - *Looks at the $#|+storm surrounding Dreamfall Chapters' Zoe model*) that many would be disappointed with the approach to the character models.
It's never going to look like Shenmue I & II. It's just not. And yes, granted, I know what people are going to say already: "But we didn't want it to look exactly like Shenmue, but just for it to have the same basic aesthetic direction as the originals, but using new technology." And yes, some of this is not down to the engine or how models are created, and more down to art direction - I get that.
But it's also true that as much as we love and are accustomed to the art direction in the first two games... it's a simple fact of reality that all art is a product of the time and place where it is made, and that hindsight is 20/20, and that looking back, most artists exposed to newer ideas, techniques, and technologies, would probably have done things differently if they did them today, vs 15 years ago. And the environment, time, and even the minds in which this new Shenmue are being created, are necessarily and inevitably different than they were back then.
Strict adherence to what was, may not be the goal here. For all sorts of reasons. But then... to ME... this actually looks like a character that would have fit in well in Shenmue 2 as a boss or some such so... I'll just have to agree to disagree with those who feel he doesn't look like he belongs in Shenmue. On the contrary, every single example people have posted here to demonstrate "realism" in the previous entries, looks "cartoony" (exaggerated and heightened,) to me. *Shrugs* Opinions. Whatchagonna do?
So, I'm fine with this personally, but to each their own. I'm not telling people they're wrong to dislike anything or to desire a different direction. I'm just saying I'm okay with it myself.
I love this design direction, precisely BECAUSE it demonstrates they've found a way to make characters that are similarly stylized to the first two games (rather than "realistic,") in my eyes, in the new engine. But I foresee there will be a large contingent that hates the final game's art direction, and that's their prerogative. No desire to debate it, as always. I don't do internet debates. :p
(If people think the uproar about this is bad, wait until they reveal the final Ryo model. I can already predict I'll probably be fine with it, and many people will be outright enraged.)
Such is life.
Last edited by
Anonymous81 on Mon May 29, 2017 1:05 am, edited 1 time in total.