Hiku said:
I don't mind the mix of styles in the STM series so far, but that may be because of how I transitioned into it.
My first SMT game was SMT 3: Lucifer's Call/Nocturne. And in that one Kaneko did everything. The second SMT game I played was Persona 3. And here Soejima's art is what you'll look at for nearly 100% of the game when there's artwork on the screen. Not just because there are more characters and story than in a mainline SMT game, but also because unlike in mainline SMT, the demons are not part of the story really. They don't inhabit the world you live in, so you'll never encounter one like you can in mainline SMT games. They have no lines, except that small comment after you create them through fusion. You can fight them in battle in the "other world", but they'll be in 3D graphics. Not like in SMT IV where their sprites are their official artwork. There's no option to talk to them to persuade them to join you. And the ones who appear in the anime cutscenes are drawn in Soejima's style.
So the only time you look at Kaneko's work in P3 and P4 is in the menu. This separation of them from the story, having no personalities and lines (except after a fusion) make them seem much more impersonalized, and no different than the monsters in say Final Fantasy 10. There's clearly a big difference in art style between the characters and the monsters in Final Fantasy. But I don't feel like it clashes, since it's made clear that people and monsters are very different.
In SMT IV that's not really the case since the monsters are often treated as citizens, or equals you can converse with.
But when I played SMT IV, I wasn't bothered by that mix. Perhaps due to the separation of monsters and people in the Persona series, I've come to look at them like beings from another world, and that's why they look different, like monsters in many other rpg's. But I was just happy to see Kaneko's work again, while enjoying Doi's character design. It's whenever Nirasawa's abominations came into play that I got bothered.
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But don't the 3D demons in P3 use the same Kaneko-style models from SMT3? I know P4 does. That probably helped with the transition, too.
I don't mind the differences in art style in Persona, either, but I feel like a lot of that comes down to my lower opinion of that franchise, and because of how segregated its become from mainline SMT. I wouldn't want a Kaneko-styled Persona game. I would probably wrather the demons be done in a different artstyle from Kaneko's there too, just to further differentiate the franchises. The only reason I don't mind is because I know they can reuse those assets for a 3D SMT game later on, and hopefully that one would have that unified style again.
I definitely don't hate Doi's design. He's a great artist. I just specifically don't think his style fits my view of what SMT should look and feel like. There's a dryness to Kaneko's art. A sheen. A darkness. A bleekness. It's macabre. It's desaturated, and its frankly art in away that absolutely no mangaka or anime artist even comes close to. Like not even Miyazaki. (though he's more animation) I see this:
And how none of that was lost when turned into this:
And it's like, Atlus, WHY DID YOU STOP FOR THIS!?
