Smash Bros 4's art style?

[DarkSouls]

Brawl was sorta inconsistent with which version of each character it used. The Zelda characters were obviously designed to resemble Twilight Princess and the Star Fox characters resembled a cross between Command and Assault, but Samus resembled her old Super Metroid incarnation instead of her Metroid Prime form, and Pit was switched to a completely new art style.

I'd really like to just see the visual designers choose the characters style that best suits the game; I always thought Link looked rather out-of-place in Brawl, and should have used a different style.

 

[VictoryIsMudkipz]

With 2-5 Years for Developement & a system that runs 1080p HD, The designs of everything better be spectacular, i wanna see that Final Fantasy Cutscene material lulz (not gonna happpen)

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Dude...Brawl looked good for what it was. The point of smash was to take these characters and integrate them within the same universe, it's stylizing. The shuttle influences from their games are merely translated to represent themselves as fighters. I can feel for the people that miss the silly comic relief style of smash, but face it, we as an audience have grown. Take Toy Story and Harry Potter for example. The movies gradually grown to appeal to their audiences from being cheerful to dark while still maintaining their original appeal. The same has happened to smash.

Melee was slightly more serious but still maintained a clever sense of humor, but it felt like more of an epic than a fantasy that was based on a chained series of coincidences. Brawl took Melee's philosophy and turned into an epic (which was more of a mistake in my opinion, but the effort towards giving the game a serious story arch was well appreciated, just didn't resonate with the smash players). This direction seemed to mark the evolution of smash, as if it's own universe that works parallel to ours, except the universe isn't expanding, it's coming closer together, which is why characters such as Snake and Sonic may be present. There is a tension between cooexistance and smash the resolution is fighting...in an albiet random unorganized and chaotic fashion.

Brawl has a very serious overtone, but still retained humorous elements, while not as toned as the previous, but the comic mischief was still there. Smash is evolving, and even if it's not the same as the previous ones the foundation of the game will still be the same. I'll be able to go one on one with a friend, play some serious matches, play ridiculous matches out of control games and laugh till I cry. Only smash can do that.

 

[Snakeyes]

Unifying or not, I found it to be very bland. I'd rather see a more flexible art style that allows the diversity of the characters to be highlighted while being unifying. MvC3's comic book artstyle is a good example of this. Heck, even Shinkiro's artwork for that game is an even greater example.
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I think Sm4sh's art style should be willing to go out of the comfort zone of the character's artstyles. Considering most are cartoony/anime anyway, they'd be rather flexible in design while still being recognizable. At least get rid of Fox's Mickey Mouse shoes.

Agreed. An artstyle similar to this UMvC 3 trailer would be great IMO.

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

 

[Big-Cat]

Agreed. An artstyle similar to this UMvC 3 trailer would be great IMO.

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

The full version is even better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSSILyBYtfs&feature=relmfu

I would love if Smash 4 had this kind of trailer. They managed to put in every single character into this one epic video. Everyone is fighting all at the same time and every character gets their share of limelight, although it wouldn't have hurt for Jill to get a closeup.

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

I haven't noticed a distinct art style since N64

Since then, it just seems they try to make them look the best they can on the system

 

[Pichu4SSB4]

Since then, it just seems they try to make them look the best they can on the system

Brawl wasn't even close to being the best looking game for the Wii, Super Mario Galaxy eats that cake. As for Melee, it was the best looking game for the GameCube for a short while. But that was until Resident Evil 4 came out for it which pretty much made the GameCube closer to Xbox. But Melee came out much earlier during it's lifespan anyway, so it deserves some credit.

As for the next Smash's art style, i just think they should go for an art style that will look best on 1080p. I actually don't want to see Brawl's bland graphics come back to this Smash though, it needs to be more colorful. Sort of like Melee/64, just better looking.

 

[Big-Cat]

Please, Melee was easily trumped in graphics by other games such as Rouge Squadron, Starfox Adventures, Wind Waker, Sunshine, Metroid Prime, etc.

 

[Tweezer Salad]

Smash bros may have cartoon characters, but the overall world they are in has a slightly realistic style to it. Such as Battlefield. And some characters have detailed designs such as Melee Fox, and even Mario's overalls in Brawl

Making the whole game cel shaded or something like that would be lazy, ugly and would ruin the whole thing for me.

 

[Big-Cat]

Making the whole game cel shaded or something like that would be lazy, ugly and would ruin the whole thing for me.

How is cel shading lazy? It requires just as much effort as other graphics styles, if not more so.

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

Dragon Quest 8 was the only cell shaded game I liked the style with.

I liked Wind Waker, but I wasn't so much into the cell shading in it

 

[Hypercat-Z]

My favourite style in series, so far, is the one of Melee. Fox looked more cool and Peach more sexy than their counterpart in Brawl, just to tell.
So I'm hoping the art style in the next SSB will be close to that one.

 

[Pichu4SSB4]

My favourite style in series, so far, is the one of Melee. Fox looked more cool and Peach more sexy than their counterpart in Brawl, just to tell.
So I'm hoping the art style in the next SSB will be close to that one.

Am i the only one who thinks Peach looked uglier in Melee? She looks like a lifeless doll in my opinion. I have to give props to her design in Brawl, but that's just me.

 

[Jimnymebob]

I just hope they go the whole Mario series style for Mario and give him the plain clothes, rather than the blue denim texture that it's had on SSBM and SSBB.
The whole realistic look that Brawl had, while graphically impressive, only really suited a half of the roster in my opinion. The likes of the Zelda, Fire Emblem, Samus, Ice Climbers, DK etc. looked good in that style, but the Pokemon, Yoshi, Star Fox, Ness and Lucas, etc. didn't look so good. Plus, if they go for Skyward Sword characters then they'd probably keep them more similar to how they look in game, as opposed to the Twilight Princess style.

Heck, the first thing I thought when I saw Brawl was it was using Twilight Princesses art style for everyone.

 

[Orngeblu]

They're probably going to go for realistic graphics are each character. I mean, Sakurai did this for Brawl, so I would assume he would again?

I'm not sure what exactly I would want... Maybe some characters could have different art styles, though, such as Toon Link being cell-shaded. In fact, this would go good with Skyward Sword Link.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

Sakurai said specifically that in every game he is efforting as much as he can to make the characters look good together and not too much off char at the same time. So I guess he HAS to make some compromises. Deal with it!

 

[Snakeyes]

The full version is even better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSSILyBYtfs&feature=relmfu

I would love if Smash 4 had this kind of trailer. They managed to put in every single character into this one epic video. Everyone is fighting all at the same time and every character gets their share of limelight, although it wouldn't have hurt for Jill to get a closeup.

Damn right. I wonder if the Wii U is powerful enough to render 4 characters with that level of detail.

 

[Big-Cat]

Four characters maybe. Assuming everything in that trailer was rendered all at once, there'd be no way the Wii U could do that. I just don't see it happening.

 

[warpd]

I think it would be neat if there was a fatigue look. Currently when a fighter is over a 100% damage their getup animations and attacks are slower. The more damage they receive the more tired they look. Mainly an aesthetic thing.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I think it would be neat if there was a fatigue look. Currently when a fighter is over a 100% damage their getup animations and attacks are slower. The more damage they receive the more tired they look. Mainly an aesthetic thing.

I did mention this at one point, but the main flaw with this aesthetic is that the Pokemon Trainer's Pokemon use the fatigue poses for elements that are not aesthetic.

 

[ItsSilverLPs]

I think they should keep the "realistic" approach Brawl took, specially because now Nintendo is going HD.

And this must happen, no matter which art style they use:

As a matter of fact, each character should be given an image gallery, consisting of concept artworks, 2D artworks (identical to the Kid Icarus: Uprising artworks), and 3D artworks (identical to Brawl's artworks).

 

[Robert of Normandy]

I've probably said this before, but I think it would be cool if the next game went with a more cartoony/cel-chaded look. We have enough "realistic" games out there, and I think going with a more colorful/cartoony style would be an interesting change of pace.

 

[Big-Cat]

I think they should keep the "realistic" approach Brawl took, specially because now Nintendo is going HD.

You have plenty of games that don't use realistic graphics that are in HD.

That logic makes no sense.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Following what KumaOso stated, New Super Mario Bros. U's quality is nothing like Brawl's, since it's still the basic quality that you get from most other Super Mario titles.

 

[Starphoenix]

I've probably said this before, but I think it would be cool if the next game went with a more cartoony/cel-chaded look. We have enough "realistic" games out there, and I think going with a more colorful/cartoony style would be an interesting change of pace.

They're probably going to need to. The art style in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was so drastic compared to Twilight Princess that the overall design of the roster in the next game probably will be shaded, to some extent. You cannot have two-thirds of the roster be realism and have most of the Legend of Zelda characters be in their Skyward Sword appearances. That creates too much dissonance with the design, so, I expect some level of compromise.

Doesn't mean there won't be detail in characters' designs, but I think everyone can look towards Nintendo Land to get an idea of how an HD cel-shaded Smash Bros might look.

 

[Robert of Normandy]

They're probably going to need to. The art style in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was so drastic compared to Twilight Princess that the overall design of the roster in the next game probably will be shaded, to some extent. You cannot have two-thirds of the roster be realism and have most of the Legend of Zelda characters be in their Skyward Sword appearances. That creates too much dissonance with the design, so, I expect some level of compromise.

Doesn't mean there won't be detail in characters' designs, but I think everyone can look towards Nintendo Land to get an idea of how an HD cel-shaded Smash Bros might look.

I don't think they really need to make the switch, but it would still be cool if they did.

 

[ItsSilverLPs]

You have plenty of games that don't use realistic graphics that are in HD.

That logic makes no sense.

True, but I said that regarding how awesome Brawl-like graphics would be in HD, and that's why I would like to see something similar.

 

[Big-Cat]

True, but I said that regarding how awesome Brawl-like graphics would be in HD, and that's why I would like to see something similar.

I'd rather not see Brawl graphics in HD. I found them so boring and safey, kind of like the Mario games as of late sans the Galaxy games.

However, I would be perfectly fine if Smash 4 were to do a style that's like a mix of Pixar and Final Fantasy's stuff. For the sake of reference, here's some art from Brave and another from Final Fantasy XIII.
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These would be two really good approaches to designing the characters for the next game. The only problem that comes into play are the characters that use cartoony textures in their entirety like Mario and Pokemon. The big difference between these and are our reference pictures is that things like hair do not behave entirely realistic. Hair is not broken down into mostly individual strands. Instead, they behave more like clumps. One thing to do, like in Brawl, would be to let certain characters have this kind of animation where applicable.

 

[~ Valkyrie ~]

I agree with Kuma. Though I still want to see 2D artwork similar to Uprising as to see how the artists intepretiate the Smashers in pics. I bet it'd look epic and wonderful at the same time. (-=v=-)

 

[Hypercat-Z]

Damn right. I wonder if the Wii U is powerful enough to render 4 characters with that level of detail.

I'm more interested in the amount of animations than I the level of detail we wouldn't be able to appreciate too much due to the size of the characters.
IMHO, if the characters have the same level of detail of the characters of Tatsunoko Versus Capcom, it's fair enough.

 

[Kink-Link5]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8DnaLXrjQYc#t=48s

 

[Big-Cat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8DnaLXrjQYc#t=48s

I would've liked to see Zero Suit Nina, but they might've thought that was too obvious.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

True, but I said that regarding how awesome Brawl-like graphics would be in HD, and that's why I would like to see something similar.

But If I have to see Fox in HD I would prefer the Melee one. He looked more badass there.

 

[Rhubarbo]

By this point, the Super Smash Bros. franchise has established its own identity within the Nintendo universe. On that matter, certain characters are more recognizable in their Smash incarnations opposed to their native ones. I'm sure as heck more familiar with Captain Falcon as a Smasher than as a racer. So, I think an interesting artistic theme for the next Smash Bros. would be to depict characters in a form that mirrors their Smash legacy. For example, Captain Falcon could be drawn out as a comic-book esque, super hero, reflecting his reputation as a manly man within the Smash games. Mario, whom functions as an ambassador for Nintendo in the Smash universe, could be dressed in a classy suit with his hair slicked back. Kirby, whom is often selected in Smash due to his infamous Kirbycide, could be designed to have psychotic animations, mimicking the mentality of the players that pick him. New characters could assume fittingly "alternate" personalities.

 

[MasterMushroom]

By this point, the Super Smash Bros. franchise has established its own identity within the Nintendo universe. On that matter, certain characters are more recognizable in their Smash incarnations opposed to their native ones. I'm sure as heck more familiar with Captain Falcon as a Smasher than as a racer. So, I think an interesting artistic theme for the next Smash Bros. would be to depict characters in a form that mirrors their Smash legacy. For example, Captain Falcon could be drawn out as a comic-book esque, super hero, reflecting his reputation as a manly man within the Smash games.

Interesting notion on Captain Falcon and the idea of a new artistic/revamped artistic design there. Although I'm don't agree/not sure with the mario and kirby example; I get the main point.

From my understanding; "SUPPOSEDLY," Masashi Kubo is the (art director) and Junichi Nakatsuru is the (sound director). Sadly, I haven't found that much material from Kubo

Even if Kubo isn't the director; its hard to determine who is. Mainly because of how various artists assume the position of art director within specific intervals of development stages in a SC game; heck even sometimes in charge over certain characters while others aren't

 

[Big-Cat]

From my understanding; "SUPPOSEDLY," Masashi Kubo is the (art director) and Junichi Nakatsuru is the (sound director). Sadly, I haven't found that much material from Kubo

An art director doesn't necessarily need to be the one that creates the official art. From Wikipedia:

Various artists may create or develop specific parts of an art piece or scene; but it is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the vision. In particular, the art director is in charge of the overall visual appearance and how it communicates visually, stimulates moods, contrasts features, and psychologically appeals to a target audience. The art director makes decisions about visual elements used, what artistic style to use, and when to use motion.

One of the most difficult problems that art directors face is to translate desired moods, messages, concepts, and underdeveloped ideas into imagery. During the brainstorming process, art directors, coworkers, and clients are engaged in imagining what the finished piece or scene might look like. At times, an art director is ultimately responsible for solidifying the vision of the collective imagination while resolving conflicting agenda and inconsistencies between the various individual inputs.

Also, aside from the Soul series, he was also the art director for Tekken 3,Tekken Tag Tournament 1, and Monster Rancher 4, but these games were well over a decade ago.

So honestly, who knows what the art style may be. I'm just kind of hoping for a hologram motif.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

I'm a bit reclutant to the thought os a psychotic Kirby. But I think a little crazy in a pinkie pieish manner (which is not really far from psychotic thought) would be purrfect for a character that cook his opponents as final smash.
But if by "art style" you mean even the animations, I think a big point of reference is...

 

[Big-Cat]

I'm not quite following your choice of words here. Are you talking about the fluidness of their attacks in the KFP movies? I'm not sure if that's easily transferable to a 2D fighter due to the fewer number of frames per attacks. Though, I'd love to see some inspiration of actual fighting styles for a good number of the characters. Like Fox with TKD (probably the most obvious one) or Lucario with Baguazhang, Taichiquan, or Xingyiquan.

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

Super Smash Bros.

...In Paper Mario-esque style

 

[Hypercat-Z]

I'm not quite following your choice of words here. Are you talking about the fluidness of their attacks in the KFP movies? I'm not sure if that's easily transferable to a 2D fighter due to the fewer number of frames per attacks.

Apart the fact we are not fully sure of what Wii U can and can't do, I was more focused on the style, funny yet kinda realistic despite their huge difference in anatomy and size (Mantis is really small and Viper has no limbs), exactly like the characters of Super Smash Bros.!