Earlier this month, the producer of Daemon X Machina, Kenichiro Tsukuda, said there was nothing noticeably distinctive - in terms of visuals - about a lot of modern video game releases. He said a lot of games were starting to look more similar and hoped players of his own upcoming title would appreciate its unique aesthetics.
In an interview with the Japanese website 4Gamer - translated by Nintendo Everything, Tsukuda provided more information about his project’s visual direction, explaining how the team avoided taking a more photorealistic route and instead opted with a colourful anime and comic book art style:
When drawing mechas for games, one generally goes in a more photorealistic direction; we’ve become pretty familiar with a lot of mechas from things like anime and comics, I think. This time we wanted to challenge ourselves with something like that by expressing that kind of art style through the game, and it suited the game pretty well, in fact! It was pretty interesting, actually: with this style, the range of what we were able to express expanded considerably. For example, we tried shading using the color black: it didn’t look out of place at all in fact, rather, the game looked like an illustration out of a comic book! Thanks to that, no matter where the player is in-game, their Arsenal will still look cool.
During the same interview, Tsukuda also explained how players would be able to steal equipment and parts from enemies for their own mech, how each mech essentially has five weapons and also how multiplayer was currently being implemented.
Daemon X Machina is on-target for a 2019 release, tell us below if you’ve been keeping an eye on it since the initial E3 reveal.
[source nintendoeverything.com]
Comments 34
My man👍
It's encouraging for me that this game doesn't look out of place on Switch. People seem to appreciate Armored Core, and this looked good during E3. Can't wait!
As a mech fan, I'm pretty excited for this! I really hope it lives up to the hype! Gonna play some Xenoblade X for a bit to quench some of that thirst.
I welcome the difference. I understand the appeal of the hyper realistic but not everything needs to aim for that. It does seem that in the mad grind to produce the "best" graphics a lot of style is lost. I think part of the nostalgia we sometimes have for earlier eras of gaming comes from the sheer variety of art styles we had. Especially in the sprite based 16-bit era. Another benefit to having stylized graphics, as opposed to the hyper realism, is you often do not need the raw graphical power that you do for extreme realism.
I think the art design and graphic style is fantastic I'm hoping the gameplay and controls deliver. I've been keeping track of this since E3 hoping for the best .
Wise choice imo. The art style is one of the reasons why I'm excited for this one, gives off some 90s/early 2000s anime vibes.
I'm very intrigued by this game, it just looks so unique and out of place (but not necessarily in a bad way).
The only thing they need to do now to have me sold is for it to have a good story, that's how Xenoblade got me, hopefully Daemon can do the same.
I think he made a good.choice in terms of art style. Gives the game a very unique aesthetic. Really looking forward to how it turns out. I have no doubt it will turn out nicely.
@Zyph I was hoping for more mechs in Xenoblade 2 but there weren't many at all. Guess they felt like taking a step back from the first game and X.
The right choice has been made. To me, games that go for realistic graphics usually blend together and look boring. Doesn't mean the gameplay is boring but they don't stand out from a visual perspective, which is an important part of getting me interested in them.
The video wasn't edited very well, adding a thumping music track just left me feeling underwhelmed.
Still looks promising.
The fact they opened their E3 show with this means Nintendo see it as a big title and it's very rare that one of their big titles disappoints. They know the kind of gamer this title is aimed at so I've got every faith it will be as good as we hope it will be.
I like the art style, and it also serves a secondary purpose - flat/cell shaded polys are far, far cheaper to render than polys covered in expensive per pixel shaders. A real win on a very underpowered system.
Hope this game can survive its own hype just like Octopath did. Willing to buy this one though.
Love it!
Good, I don't like photo realistic art styles... 😊
The trouble with realistic is that our eyes and brains are tuned to 'realistic' so anything even slightly off is spotted immediately. Once you are creating your own aesthetic your have so much more freedom.
I really want this one to be good.
It better be great lol ... Anybody know what the song is played??? I really want it!
Good, the game looks rad and I'll be picking up a copy day1.
It looks promising, looking forward to it.
easily the coolest looking game on my radar, so much style that I rekon that even if the gameplay ends up lackin I may buy, afa afa bonny!
Keeping an eye on this one. I don't usually do mecha games, but this one really interests me.
I like the art direction. I just hope the gameplay, depth and content get as much attention.
This to me still looks like an action game more than a mecha game. More Titanfall, less MechWarrior, Starsiege, or Gundam. But it looks cool anyway.
The art style works very well as well! It stands out as very unique.
Oh God, that headline...the article is about why they chose the artstyle, but you made it sound like the fact that it has a colorful art was the news.
Add compatibility with the Steel Battalion controller released for the original Xbox, that would be awesome (if not cumbersome).
Yes, totally unique... If you disregard all the other games with stylised art styles, like Furi, Fe, Superhot, etc. Still, it looks pretty nice, just don't try selling it as and sort of revolution. The Switch simply can't do photorealism.
I'm much more interested in the gameplay. If that's poor, no amount of 'unique art style' will save it.
Cya
Raziel-chan
It’s a good choice. Games like this won’t age as poorly as photorealistic ones.
This game can have as much color as it wants, it still has ZERO character.
OK, that's cool and all, but THIS is the kind of art style I want to see in more 3D games in this day and age:
Yes, that's full 3D graphics there, but with a look that is nigh-on perfect to classic cell-painted animations from the likes of Disney's and Don Bluth's classic work.
I was viewing it inside my Oculus Rift the other day (via Steam VR environments), standing inside it in full 3D, at real life 1:1 scale with me actually being as small as a mouse, and I was blown away.
That's the kind of look I would love a lot more modern 3D videogames to use. That and the Japanese equivalent too, with games that basically look like perfectly realised 3D version of stuff like Akira, Ninja Scroll, Wicked City, etc. Because just imagine 3D games that actually looked and animated like this in realtime:
This approach also allows them to create awesome graphics without needing to worry about the Switch's graphical capabilities.
@impurekind Nailed it there friend. Art style will always trump realism. I feel the same way about the use of 3D engines. They're so much more versatile than something like the last of us or Detroit become human. Dragon Ball fighterz and Guilty gear xrd have shown what's possible using polygons. I'd love to play a fleshed out world in the vain of Akira.
@OGGamer Me too.
Photorealistic is lazy and boring, so props to the developers.
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