The Discussion Thread: The Greatest Games Event 2017 - FINISH YOUR LISTS

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Mnementh said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

This explanation makes sense to me.  I also think it had another thing in it's favor, which is an artistic principle I learned in book called, "understanding comics" by Scott McCloud.  McCloud says that people like a highly detailed world, but that characters are easier to relate to when they are less detailed.  An extreme example is the smiley face, which has almost no details but everyone relates to it.  So some of the best comics choose to draw their characters simply while having highly detailed backgrounds. 

Final Fantasy VII does this thing throughout most of the game.  They had a hard time transitioning to 3D, so they decided to hand draw most of the background environments.  These hand drawings look beautiful.  At the same time the 3D character models look incredibly basic.  The result is that it is very easy to get immersed into the game world while still being able to relate to Cloud and the other characters, because they look so simple. 

This with the detailed background and simple characters is new to me. I have to check next time I view animation movies. Might be true, Anime certainly simplifies characters. But I always thought that was to draw attention to the emotional expressions showed on the face and even exaggerated.

 

This is definitely not a technique I see used the majority of the time, but it seems to work fairly well when it is used (sometimes even accidentally).  An example I can think of off the top of my head is Spider-Man.  He is the most popular Marvel character, and he is extremely easy to relate to when he has his mask on.  He looks like a man, but his face is blank with the mask on, so anyone can empathize with him.  If you take the mask off, then you find that Peter Parker is harder to empathize with for some reason.