Can't say I'm impressed by the artwork, the designs look kind of childish to me.
Watch Syd Valis gameplay. or Phantom Breaker Battlegrounds. now that's childish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l6om71Lhqw2'5D Is not really justified, as I see it. I think IGA should have been more confident about the founding, and take the pixel route from the start.
for an action/adventure/platformer, if it was 2D, it would cost a lot more and a lot of the concepts probably wouldn't get off the ground. Considering the major companies are now in 2.5D instead of 2D for their AAA budget projects,
shows that 2D is too risky to do right these days, especially if you wanna make a SOTN deep game.
SNKP themselves have seen how wasteful and costly 2D can be these days. look how lackluster KOFXII was
compared to its predecessors,
despite its high quality 2D pixel art, it's quality was lacking necessary quantity to
feel like a complete KOF game. KOFXIII project suffered from some cuts as well, some of their characters only appearing in cutscenes or trophy sprites.
if it was pure 2D, people would complain it looks too flat or too clean or too pixelated.
and the amount of work on 2d animations costs more than 2.5D animations, which means 2D game could
wind up having less animations than 2.5D games (look at Street Fighter 4 compared to SF2 and SF3, there is
a lot more detail and depth to SF4's animations and facial animations and effects. SF3 looks smooth, but it still looks grainy and cheap compared to SF4.
plus adding things like costumes to a 2D game?
that's more doable in 2.5D where you can reskin a model.
Whereas for 2D you would have to redraw EVERY SINGLE FRAME. )
At this point I'm backing this for sure, but I hope this designs grow on me somehow, or get some more mature approach at some point. OoE was the perfect blend of manga and a more realistic, westen style, both in character proportions and clothes design without all this "Sakura Cardcaptor" stuff all over it.
I dunno Sakura Cardcaptor is a stretch of a comparison. this art style definitely looks more mature and dark than say,
Borderlands which looks totally goofy and cartoony despite being full 3D. or Donkey Kong country.
I would say Bloodstained doesn't look any less realistic/manga than PoR or OoE. we only seen one background, and
aside from the bright floor and ceiling, everything else does look moody, maybe there more darker areas, but that
background has a "luxury" style to it in the gothic horror hierarchy. So this could have more variety of atmospheric
tones based on the location.
It definitely looks more dark and mature than Touhou.