Do You Think They Changed Some Characters Too Much?

[Extrasolar]

6 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

That makes even less sense.  I don't doubt you, it's just...  How could they screw up the Whitewings' color coordination so badly?

When they didn't even bother keeping the hair color of one of the main characters of the game consistent from box art to sprite, I think you can answer that question for yourself.

[SuperIb]

13 hours ago, Lord of Gabriel Knight said:

I'm extremely disappointed in how some characters changed. Characters like Grey and Cliff look nothing like their original designs, where as Robin and Clive look just like the original art. What was the point? Cliff, Grey, and Boey honestly seem like they are completely different characters, they've been changed so much.

Their original designs? I'd hardly say they had one, considering they've all been redesigned multiple times.

At any rate, no, I don't think she changed them "too much." I think they all look great and were in need of these changes. This artist is doing an excellent job so far, everything she's done has been great. Can't wait to see more, honestly.

[Kaze]

9 minutes ago, SuperIb said:

Their original designs? I'd hardly say they had one, considering they've all been redesigned multiple times.

At any rate, no, I don't think she changed them "too much." I think they all look great and were in need of these changes. This artist is doing an excellent job so far, everything she's done has been great. Can't wait to see more, honestly.

Agreed. One can't really say they had an original design in the first place when Gaiden featured very inconsistent artwork for almost every character (if they were lucky to get artwork), so Hidari (and IS) have been doing a great job reinventing these characters. Yes, they might not be recognizable compared to their Gaiden appearances, but they also weren't very recognizable to begin with. At least now we have a solid idea of what they'll look like.

[MediocreLee]

I don't think the characters have been changed too much, considering so much of the older art aren't outstanding by any means.  If you showed me a picture of Gaiden Kamui or Gray, I wouldn't really be able to tell them apart or I would think one of them is Abel.  The redesigns are really nice and adds personality to the characters upon appearances.

[Emperor Hardin]

20 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

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I think I preferred Rudolf's original look and use of Lance. Of course, that is assuming the sword wielding man in the trailer's cutscene is him.

Spoiler

This is the new Rudolf seemingly, so he seems to have white hair, a chinstrap beard, and a sword. Original had brown hair, a handlebar mustache, and a Lance.

[Lord of Gabriel Knight]

6 hours ago, SuperIb said:

Their original designs? I'd hardly say they had one, considering they've all been redesigned multiple times.

At any rate, no, I don't think she changed them "too much." I think they all look great and were in need of these changes. This artist is doing an excellent job so far, everything she's done has been great. Can't wait to see more, honestly.

The designs that were used in game and the art depicting these appearances are obviously the original designs. The only person that doesn't follow this is Alm, but people have known he's had green hair for years, even before Awakening was even a concept. Also, because there's only like 2 conflicting designs for only a few characters, it is extremely easy to see which is the accepted design of a character.

The designs are not the same for certain characters. In anime, character individuality is determined at a glance by hairstyle and hair color, firstly. Grey has green-bluish hair, in game and in some art depicting him. Yet now, he has black hair, which makes him seem like a different character.

Also, the original designs are very similar, yet there are still small differences that could have been expanded on. For example, Leon had a rather wide build in his original art and even had squinted eyes like Oscar, yet these traits are not carried over to his updated design. Any artist should not have a hard time identifying these traits and expanding upon them.

Also, most of the characters had one consistent design anyway.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Lord of Gabriel Knight

[TheWill]

The people saying every character had multiple iterations of their design and there was no identifiable aspect of their original designs are definitely exaggerating or misinformed. Most of the redesigns actually retain significant character traits and incorporate them in a more modern thematic which goes against the whole argument of the original designs having no precedent design. Valbur, Mae, Silque, Tobin and Clive are almost identical to their original designs and changes such as Clair becoming blonde make a lot of sense with her brother and with the overabundance of short, dark blue-haired pegasus knights already running rampart. 

Some characters definitely changed too much. Those being Boey, Gray, Kliff and Leon. Some characters changed albeit such as Jenny losing her ponytail, however still retain similar clothing and aren't nearly as bad offenders as the ones mentioned prior. With that said, I still voted no because most characters do retain inspiration from their initial designs and the characters that changed and lost their 'iconic traits' such as Boey's wavy hair looked terrible in the first place. The original designs had nothing or very little to become attached to, so it's understandable most people voted no (including me).

[SuperIb]

7 hours ago, SlipperySlippy said:

Some characters definitely changed too much. Those being Boey, Gray, Kliff and Leon.

Exactly the characters that most people are talking about. (Boey is indeed the best and funniest example,heh)

8 hours ago, Lord of Gabriel Knight said:

Also, most of the characters had one consistent design anyway.

Sure, but they were generic as hell. It's for the best that they're getting spiced up. Do you honestly want Kliff, Green hair/blue armor Kliff (Gray), and Magenta hair/purple armor Kliff (Leon), or would you rather have more original, inspired characters? I much prefer the latter.

8 hours ago, Lord of Gabriel Knight said:

The designs that were used in game and the art depicting these appearances are obviously the original designs.

Heh, apparently not obvious enough lol.

I'm not trying to target your opinion or say "that's wrong" or whatever, but I don't really get why you dislike the updated appearances and prefer the more uninspired designs. I think it's good to stick to original game as much as it's possible, but a lot of stuff, art included, is dated.

[KliffIsTheOG]

32 minutes ago, SuperIb said:

Exactly the characters that most people are talking about. (Boey is indeed the best and funniest example,heh)

Sure, but they were generic as hell. It's for the best that they're getting spiced up. Do you honestly want Kliff, Green hair/blue armor Kliff (Gray), and Magenta hair/purple armor Kliff (Leon), or would you rather have more original, inspired characters? I much prefer the latter.

Heh, apparently not obvious enough lol.

I'm not trying to target your opinion or say "that's wrong" or whatever, but I don't really get why you dislike the updated appearances and prefer the more uninspired designs. I think it's good to stick to original game as much as it's possible, but a lot of stuff, art included, is dated.

I thought that leon was much more like Luka or Python than Kliff.

[Ertrick36]

16 hours ago, Extrasolar said:

When they didn't even bother keeping the hair color of one of the main characters of the game consistent from box art to sprite, I think you can answer that question for yourself.

Fair point...  It's funny how Alm's in-game sprite had blue hair, but now in this game he's gonna have green hair like he's depicted to have in most places outside of the game.

14 hours ago, Emperor Hardin said:

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This is the new Rudolf seemingly, so he seems to have white hair, a chinstrap beard, and a sword. Original had brown hair, a handlebar mustache, and a Lance.

Yeah, I miss the handlebar mustache.  Though I'm glad that at least one character (Mycen) kept his mustache.  He's low-key my favorite Jeigan-esque character just for that feature.

[Lord of Gabriel Knight]

I don't have any issue with the clothing or armor, the issue I have is with changing the identifying features of the characters, namely the hair style and color. There are subtle enough differences in the original art that this talented artist could have made them look very distinct while still keeping the characters true to their original design. Like she did with Alm and Celica. Even though their clothes changed, you know it's still them because their defining features are still the same. New Cliff looks so different from the old, they might as well be separate characters. Shadow Dragon's artist took the equally drab and boring designs from FE1 and made them unique and appealing while still keeping true to the individual aspects of the characters. And there's no reason this artist couldn't do the same. Hell, I did it myself!

      

They aren't the most unique designs, but Grey still looks like the sprite from Gaiden, while still looking distinct from both Robin and Cliff.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Lord of Gabriel Knight

[Kaze]

41 minutes ago, Lord of Gabriel Knight said:

I don't have any issue with the clothing or armor, the issue I have is with changing the identifying features of the characters, namely the hair style and color. There are subtle enough differences in the original art that this talented artist could have made them look very distinct while still keeping the characters true to their original design. Like she did with Alm and Celica. Even though their clothes changed, you know it's still them because their defining features are still the same. New Cliff looks so different from the old, they might as well be separate characters. Shadow Dragon's artist took the equally drab and boring designs from FE1 and made them unique and appealing while still keeping true to the individual aspects of the characters. And there's no reason this artist couldn't do the same. Hell, I did it myself!

      

They aren't the most unique designs, but Grey still looks like the sprite from Gaiden, while still looking distinct from both Robin and Cliff.

I think it's unfair to place all the "blame" for the character redesigns on Hidari. She doesn't make the final decision on what the characters ultimately look like. That role goes to the people  in charge of the game. She only draws what they tell her to draw.

[Tryhard]

9 hours ago, Lord of Gabriel Knight said:

The designs are not the same for certain characters. In anime, character individuality is determined at a glance by hairstyle and hair color, firstly. Grey has green-bluish hair, in game and in some art depicting him. Yet now, he has black hair, which makes him seem like a different character.

Why exactly do you regard Tobin as very consistent with his Gaiden art then, which has him with purple hair. He now has brown.

Yes, his hairstyle is similar but not exactly the same as it was in Gaiden either.

Edited March 24, 2017 by Tryhard

[Lord of Gabriel Knight]

I don't? I'm just focusing on Grey and Cliff because they have changed more than Robin.

[Tryhard]

On 23/03/2017 at 3:20 PM, Lord of Gabriel Knight said:

I'm extremely disappointed in how some characters changed. Characters like Grey and Cliff look nothing like their original designs, where as Robin and Clive look just like the original art. What was the point? Cliff, Grey, and Boey honestly seem like they are completely different characters, they've been changed so much.

What do you mean by this, then?

[Lord of Gabriel Knight]

Oops, my mistake in that. Robin looks similar, but his changes aren't as egregious as the others'. You can still tell he is Robin.

[Tamanoir]

Honnestly, Boey didn't changed that much. He actually changed even less than Tobin. (especially if you compare him with his red hair portrait that is closer to his ingame look)

Sure the hair and skin color are completely different, but the hairstyle is pretty similar (a little more spikey). He still have his Circlet and a similar costume (the cape).

They tok the origial and expanded on it, (and then recoloured it for some reasons).

[Kaze]

Another thing I'd like to add onto my response from earlier. Just because you're able to make slight changes while being able to keep the characters looking close to their original Gaiden designs, you don't have to work in tangent with other people involved in working on the game like Hidari does. She has to submit sketches and ideas to the game developers and others in charged and she has to get their approval before she can even finalize anything. Hidari's designs were almost certainly approved by those in charge of Echoes and its development.

[Lord of Gabriel Knight]

I don't care who made the decision to change them, the decision was made, which I don't agree with.

[Iridium]

I voted yes, but it's a somewhat muted yes. I actually like most of (though not all) of the redesigns, and it's hard to get too upset about many of them when the designs were seldom consistent in the first place. That said, many of these changes have no real basis in any pre-existing artwork and they kinda feel like new characters replacing old ones rather than mere re-designs.

[pinguyFrank]

I see those changes really necesary it help the characters look more fresh after 25 years forgotten in the shadows, still Gaiden was a very simplistic game an lot of characters not have what you could call "screentime"  so i cannot say that they redesigns are bad just because they go outside their original styles. so im pro the  change.

Edited March 25, 2017 by pinguyFrank

[Tamanoir]

So I voted no, because honnestly changes aren't as big as people makes them out (not going about the fact they hadn't any real apparence in the first place. That green hair stylist nightmare looks even less like Boey than his relooking).

The ones who changed the most (so far) are Genny (mostly for the haircut), Gray (A few details of the original remains (green, expression, haircut)), Kamui (same as Gray), and Kliff (probably the biggest redesign). Given that zero thought were given to the villagers to begin with, it's not really a problem.

My main issue would be that Clive doesn't looks as unique anymore, since his design stays quite tame.

 

[Pete-of-the-Forge]

Good question. I'm honestly torn on the subject matter. On one hand, there's the fact that Gaiden re-used portraits or just made minor adjustments, not to mention some just looked plain or awkward.Shadow Dragon faced a similar problem (with the benefit of having more detailed unique character art from Mystery of the Emblem), and it is my opinion that it didn't do a good job (not to poo-poo the art, as I actually like it, but Dolph and Macellan still pretty much look the same).  So some probably deserved a vast overhaul.

On the other, I'd rather they didn't change them too drastically, because it takes away the character's origin and what makes them "them". Instead of, for example, it being an updated design for Kliff, he looks like Hidari Original Character No. 3, if that makes sense.

Though I know Gaiden wasn't that great when it came to consistent designs to begin with. This is just sort of my general opinion on redesigns.

[mikethepokemaster]

On 3/23/2017 at 11:36 PM, SuperIb said:

Their original designs? I'd hardly say they had one, considering they've all been redesigned multiple times.

At any rate, no, I don't think she changed them "too much." I think they all look great and were in need of these changes. This artist is doing an excellent job so far, everything she's done has been great. Can't wait to see more, honestly.

You know Hidari male right. Is it because he draws for that Alcamist game people think he a woman.

[KliffIsTheOG]

Because I am the resident Kliff enthusiast, I feel inclined to reply. Looking closely at Kliff's OG sprite, we can see his defining traits as his derpy grin, thin eyes, and brownish ginger Iwata hair. His new design carries over the derpy expression and thin eyes, and deviates from the original in hair. However, if you took the original hairstyle and Kliff didn't brush his hair in the morning, his hair style would look similar to the redesign. The only thing I disagree with is hair color being changed, but I think they made it white because he is best as a mage (which have had white hair as of late)