love the game BUT WTF IS THIS DESIGN???

[gravicam]

The music and sounds are great, similiar to They are billions, they made the MOOD. but come on!! WHO DESIGNED THIS OVERALL LOOK OF THE GAME? I dont like it. I understand it's a style, but...for me..it looks like it's a draft.

[NakedJab]

Please don't listen to the people who complain here. This artstyle is amazing. I'm a big fan and this a huge step up from Moonlighter which I loved. This feels really original and cool.

[FRY THE BRAIN]

Yeah thats the first thing that turned me off on the game. It reminds me of Fortify for Rust. Just the building color alone seems like it was half baked in development and instead of refining the design and putting in more detail they just ran with the original draft. Art style looks incomplete and I dont like it. No definition. Just bland and without depth.

My original thought was this is just the building menu coloration to show what was going to be built. But then I realized it was the final product and I lost interest.

[suboptimal]

The music is not at all to my preference. Light, sorta-medieval twanging isn't my thing and makes me feel like I'm sitting in a city park at a Ren Faire, not some ancient desperate fight for my people's life.

Most of the sound effects are weak, flat and without any punch or depth to them.

The voice acting is just amateurish and badly directed. It's like having someone read a storybook to you as if you're 6-years-old. Which is fine if you actually are 6 but rapidly gets cloying and aggravating when you're not. Everything is breathy and overemphasised (sometimes randomly). Every single utterance is of THE MOST GREATEST IMPORT <slight soap opera gasping>. Completely falls flat at drawing me into this world in fact achieving the opposite. I would suggest going and listening to the old Myth The Fallen Lords/Soulblighter games for how quality voice work of this type can be done. Similar kind of weird, alternate, dark medieval universe but the actor is highly talented and knows how to tell his haunting tales without sounding like he's reading down to children from a storybook.

The low-poly, flat art style is good for its approach. It lacks tactile-ness, depth and texture, but that's just a drawback of this particular style. Which I would guess is an approach they chose maybe even for game engine and budget reasons with all the physics going on. But despite that I'm not a fan of the no-feet thing, which is sometimes done in this style. It always looks weird and unfinished to me. It's an abstracted body element that isn't cohesive with the rest of the style. Why not no hands and faces then if you're going to abstract defining human physical characteristics?

So overall, the look is fine for the approach (except for the incongruous no-feet thing). The sound design is fairly blah to me when not actually off-putting (the bad voice work and Ren Faire-esque music).

I would say out of everything I've criticised the combat sound effects are the thing they could probably rework with the least trouble. Most bang for their buck. I don't expect different music at this stage. And as off-putting as the voice work is, completely recasting and rerecording (with maybe a better voice director) voice work is expensive and time-consuming. But the actual combat sound effects are something that could be improved upon without being an overly difficult and disruptive task, perhaps. And they are a key component of the extended combat sequences and gameplay and are heard the most often over the other areas of shortcoming.

Like the gameplay though. The building is fun and thorough. I love that there is physics and collapsible structures, and the battlefield persistence of bodies not just disappearing as soon as they die.

[Prolbo]

Dude, don't be a drama queen. Yes, design is somewhat iffy, I'm personally didn't like that much all those inflatable Arabian-aestetics guys, but it isn't that bad. I'm more bothered with all pale, weathered colors. It's annoying.

[Powellinho.72]

hopefully the campaign is better than they are billions, that kinda fizzled out towards the end.

[Erothine]

Thats just the opinion of a few, a think the design give the game what we need to pay more atencion to the concept and the mechanics, and it may not have the most beautifull caracters but the complete image is beautifull.

[Jacosketching]

The design is striking and very unique. it's good.

[lily40k]

the style is awesome, don't know what you talk about

[Walent]

I totally disagree, if I'd make a game, it would totally be close to this style, where everything is simplified. The game has enough elements around, like trees, mist, marsh, different elevations, rocks, decor elements that all add to the atmosphere. I understand you don't like the style, but you just can't say this game looks like a draft.

[Capt.PegLeg]

Looks to me that you are the minority. So the weight of your complaint is weak and they won't change it for you.

[FIFA poetry]

Different people like different visuals, that's really all there is to it. This isn't superior or inferior to any other style, and pretending like it's better or worse just because you like or dislike it is silly. I like it, but LMAO to the guy who compares other games to a big mac and this to a Michelin star, that's just pretentious garbage to try to justify you thinking your opinion is a fact, it's not, it's still subjective.

[adrimm95]

Couldn´t disagree more. The art style complements so well the vibe they seem to be going for . The pseudo mythical, leaning towards catholic feel beneficts a lot from a non grounded aesthetics: pale colors, an absence of contrast and the consecuential blurred feel helps in making it feel like a mythos: like a different world or a dream. Honestly you may not like the "mood" it inspires, as you put it, but it´s mood it´s much more defined, braver and definitely more original than They are billions.

It´s weird to try and bully a developer into aesthetical mediocrity lol.

[dodgytactics]

ya idk what these folks are on about the artstyle is very unique in interesting imo

[007HanikGraf]

Art for arts sake. Game looks fine lol, gameplay is where the magic happens.

[Flavalicious]

I dislike the "total battle simulator" styling of the visuals but its not enough to chase me off from a great game. I remember feeling turned off about how Valheim looked when I first booted it up, within like 3-4 hours of gameplay I didn't even notice it anymore. So im inclined to feel this game could be the same way, visuals could grow on you over time.