I tend to have a strong dislike for Western art that tries to imitate common anime/manga designs, as I feel it ends up looking as some sort of cheap, generic compromise or hybrid that lacks the charm of both traditional manga and cartoons. Most recently, I found Skullgirls character designs to be a rather hideous example of this... It's the kind of art that I would expect to find among amateur artists on DeviantArt... And it's a shame, because I do sympathise with the attempt to create a fully 2D fighter in this day and age. But of course, to each his own.

And yeah, as a big Street Fighter fan, I still have issues with how IV looks... I'm not a fan of how the characters are now more "buffed up" than ever, or many of the characters faces (specially Ryu's, my favorite character), or the new characters, or the more "realistic" color palette (I have a similar issue with MvC 3 as well...). The move to 3D is obviously a part of all this, as while I did have some of these issues with III, the wonderful 2D sprites were more than enough compensation there. Still, I wouldn't include IV as an example here, and I'm already used to it by now.

I also agree about Wind Waker's character designs, Escape from Monkey Island (I blame the move to 3D here...), DmC: Devil May Cry designs in general and Miis in general (even though they do fulfill its purpose quite well), but not nearly enough to include them among the worst either. And while I could mention some realistic Western games here for seeing them as bland and generic, I do have to wonder how much of that is on purpose... So I better not mention those.

Oh, I almost forgot... The CD-I Zelda games... And perhaps Bomberman: Act Zero...

I was really hoping they'd make them look like that all the time with cel-shading or something. Hell, even when you use the "inked" models in the game it still doesn't look that good because it's laid over the models they went with instead.

I'd have loved it if they made it look like the promo art from the ground up.

Final Fantasy VII... thankfully, Square fixed things up for VIII and IX. I would say FF IX has some of the best art direction *ever*.

All killzone games

I'd say Gears of War and Battlefield 3.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games and any racing simulator out there. I don't know how some of you hate the art style in borderlands, it fits the game so well

It can be done well, but because of how it works it can also easily reduce things to big, garish blocks of unshaded colour.

Do you have any basis in what you're saying? And what do you mean "This is very opinionated"?  Of course art direction is a very opinionated topic.

Yes.  It was for people to not take this thread to serious and not to get mad because they are only opinions.  People will be taking games they do not like rather than universally ugly games.  Its opinions, not right or wrong.  Still just wanted people lurking as well as people commenting to know not to take anything to serious or to heart.  I've seen plenty of threads like this end very badly hence my comment.  And now you know Akvod

We're not fucking 5 years old. None of the posts are what you've described, and it's not thanks to you. Stop trying to pretend that you're a mod or something.