1up Repost: Cel-shaded Games

On 03/04/2013 at 03:54 AM by Halochief90

I'm going to take advantage of the move to a new site and my blogger's block by being lazy and reposting my old blogs. I'm going to keep it to my favorites though, with all typos intact. Hopefully, this blog is old enough that many of you 1up alums either never saw it or at least don't remember it! This blog in particular is no less relavent today with Ni no Kuni finally making it over here!

It’s no secret game developers have had problems with next-generation consoles. It seems 80% of what comes out gets at least a few months delay, if not several years. Even when that happens, so many games are still released with bland 3D graphics that just were not given an artistic edge. Darksiders, Brother’s in Arms: Hell’s Highway, Dragon Age, or Alpha Protocol all are part of a sea of games that just don’t stand out visually.

Many developers found the solution to this in the last generation of consoles with cel-shaded graphics. Adding a cartoony visual style - complete with black outlining - gives some of the prettiest games today. Though cel-shading is by no means cheaper than the alternative, count me as surprised if there's a cel-shaded game that doesn’t look good. Recent games such as Borderlands and Team Fortress II changed their visual styles mid-development into this style. Not only do they both look great, but they were also critical and commercial successes.

Can you imagine if Okami ended up looking like the boring one on the left?

Some would like to believe that not every game can be sold with this style of graphics. And they are right. I wouldn’t want to see Solid Snake going all ‘toon on me (oh wait!). It wouldn't be hurt if cel-shading was used so it makes the visuals look unique, yet be barely noticeable. I always have to remind myself that Crackdown is cel-shaded.

I also believe more than anything that cel-shading keep games looking great for more than just a few years. Doom 3 looked good at first but its polygons aged much faster than cartoons. This is probably why the best looking cel-shaded game in my opinion is still Dragon Quest VIII... no wait I think Level-5 has just outdone themselves with Ni no Kuni.

Playing a Ghibli movie as a game was a wet dream – until recently that is!

Super Step Contributing Writer

03/04/2013 at 04:07 AM

Interesting you re-post this the day after I try uploading a million Wind Waker Link avatars (and succeed, finally, today) and I decide to make my GLaD entry about the game and how it introduced me to the graphical style.

Now I know what it's like to be the movie Dredd, in production before, then accused of ripping off Raid: Redemption.

Well, I've not been accused of it yet, I just want to say, excellent blog, and I agree with you about the look helping last gen's titles to stand out a great deal (and making them age far better than other realistically styled games in my opinion), and I swear I'm not copying your idea for a blog. lol

Halochief90

03/04/2013 at 04:23 AM

Haha, well I suppose you could call this payback though when you posted a blog for the best movies of 2012 soon after I finished writing my own!

Even if you were copying this blog, I'm sure the copyright is long expired on this one. Besides, writing a whole blog is still a lot less lazy than reposting one from three years ago! At least I didn't mention Wind Waker here.

03/04/2013 at 04:30 AM

True ... and I actually didn't realize I had done that, but come on, I talked about movies more than games on 1up, which is the reason I'm doing this GLaD thing to force myself on the topic of games to begin with, so you shoulda seen that one coming! haha

The important thing is, we agree on things like this. lol

03/04/2013 at 04:35 AM

Great minds think alike right? At least we do agree while giving two completely different perspectives.

SanAndreas

03/04/2013 at 04:28 AM

My first exposure to cel-shaded graphics came with Wind Waker. Like many others I was disappointed by the direction Nintendo chose for the Zelda franchise after the expectation of an ultra-realistic Zelda from Nintendo's E3 demo. When I saw it in action, though, it was incredible.

Dragon Quest VIII was one of the best-looking games of the PS2 generation. Had they chosen to go with a more traditional CG look for the game it would have looked like a lower-resolution version of Blue Dragon. And Okami looked absolutely amazing, and looks even better in HD on the PS3.

Besides Ni no Kuni, this generation also brought us Valkyria Chronicles, which sports its own Ghibli-esque look.

03/04/2013 at 04:42 AM

I think the first game I was exposed to with this art-style was Jet Set Radio Future. Yet another example of an old game that still looks great thanks to cel-shading.

I had the same initial response to Wind Waker. It wasn't until after I played Twilight Princess that realized just how much better Wind Waker was from a visual standpoint. The HD version is right now the biggest reason to buy a Wii U for me.

Blue Dragon certainly has a higher polygon count, but DQVIII clearly shows Toriyama's artstyle benifits far more from a truly cartoony visual style. Not that DQVIII looks great solely on Toriyama's designs either! I think even Valkyria Chronicles was released at the time I wrote this, so it definitely would have been another good example of the visual style.

Ranger1

03/04/2013 at 07:44 AM

DQ VIII, still one of the best looking games out there. And Ni No Kuni, soooo pretty!

03/04/2013 at 10:40 PM

Pretty games indeed. And with many of these games like Crackdown and Borderlands having mainstream success, it certainly doesn't look like it has a negative impact on sales and appeal.

TripOpt55

03/04/2013 at 04:17 PM

Okami has probably my favorite artstyle in gaming. Prince of Persia 2008 was really nice too I thought. These games do seem to age incredibly well.

03/04/2013 at 10:42 PM

I don't think the PS2 did Okami justice. I always felt the resolution couldn't get all those details to pop out. Still, it looked great anyway and now there's the HD version!

Jamie Alston Staff Writer

03/04/2013 at 09:41 PM

I love cel-shaded games. But I do agree that not every series (like Metal Gear) need the CS treatment. It would be a little too wierd, I think.

03/04/2013 at 10:45 PM

Luckily, Metal Gear Ac!d 2 is one of the rare examples of cel-shading being used at the wrong time (did they do that just because they wanted gimmicky 3D visuals?). Usually, game developers know the right time to use them. And then there's Fuse, which while maybe CS is not the way to go, any stylizing could have helped.

FAF101

03/06/2013 at 09:27 AM

I find Cel-Shaeded games to be gorgeous graphically. I prefer them to the high def really fancy fancy graphics. I still like the fancy graphics but cel-shaded pulls me in more and is very visually appealing.

03/07/2013 at 01:08 AM

It's almost more of a gamble to go the traditional route these days. Games need to stick out amongst this crowd of brown and greys.

PixlBit