What art style fits Fire Emblem the most?

[joevar]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Super Smash Bros. I:m only half joking.

thats not bad you know, i mean Roy design gets overhauled and become cooler there before cipher and heroes exist. to the point that Sakurai almost regret it. tho i wish the red gem on BB is not so tiny

Edited December 1, 2020 by joevar

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 11/28/2020 at 8:18 AM, 𝙵ᴇɴʀᴇɪʀ said:

whatever style each person likes the most. food for thought~

I mean, very truth.

But I like the GBA style and would like to see a hand drawn variant of it.

[Nightmage]

On 11/28/2020 at 7:18 AM, 𝙵ᴇɴʀᴇɪʀ said:

whatever style each person likes the most. food for thought~

Then it's a good thing this is a thread for gathering opinions rather than objective statements. Food for thought~

[Ottservia]

Personally I’m pretty biased towards Kozaki but generally though I think it depends on the game and what the general tone of that game is. Awakening and Genealogy for instance are wildly different in their tone, messages, and aesthetics. I don’t think the art direction for awakening would work at all for genealogy or thracia. For a more modern approach to these games, I would personally say Hidari or Senri would be the best picks as their artstyles would fit the tone of that game a lot better.

[Axie]

in terms of the characters actually looking like they fit in the world of the game, the best designs are the remakes (both archaneas and echoes) and fates. the remakes come closest to shedding all anime characterization and looking like medieval fantasy, and fates just downright feels like an anime in worldbuilding too, so the characters looking like that actually feel natural. the others all fall in a strange non-committal gray area, specially judgral (looking like 90s shonen anime is... still looking like anime lol).

in terms of my actual preferences, i am partial to magvel, where the GBA style was perfected, since it was the third game already. a shame it had fewer characters to show for it. if BinBla ever gets a remake, i hope they stay as close to this style as possible for the new artwork.

[Tuskoub]

On 11/24/2020 at 12:05 PM, kradeelav said:

imo, the series had different high points in art direction for different parts.

• Actual combat animation, the GBA games win handily.
• PoR's official art wins by a landslide - imo it's oozing personality with the inky and slightly watercolory lines.  I also love the outfits there the best.
• I have a special fondness for PoR's talking sprites but SoV's are pretty easy on the eyes.
• As much as I cringe to say it, Awakening's maps were pretty. Somehow they figured out stylization there.
• RD takes the cake for the UX/UI  (menus and stuff), with FEH right behind.
• TH's FMA's were amazing.

I completely agree that different aspects of the franchise's art wax and wane in quality but I would disagree on some of these

• GBA's battle animations are indeed the best combat animations by an extremely large margin, especially FE8's smooth new ones
• I think Hidari's official art for FE15 is the best, something about it just fitting the anime and medieval aspects of the series at the same time is great
• I think FE5 has the best talking sprites/portraits. They're just so striking in their outlining and coloring. They feel like more detailed, less saturated versions of the GBA ones
• FE16's maps are so amazing looking but idk if I'd say I would want to see the style again considering that their sheer detail and beauty seems to have limited how many they could make
• FE10's UX/UI does stand out now that you mention it, never thought about it before but looking back at each, I agree
• FE13/14's FMV style was so great. While I actually like the FE15/16 style, the 13/14 one outdoes it so hard that it makes me wonder why they changed. Were they too costly or something?

[joevar]

6 hours ago, Tuskoub said:

I think Hidari's official art for FE15 is the best, something about it just fitting the anime and medieval aspects of the series at the same time is great

YES. especially Alm side, or more specifically Python outfit. its something that actually practical and follows medieval style armor in one word: Layers
medieval armor for non full plate armor always worn by stacking multiple layer, from Python we can see plain cloth (cotton or linen maybe) then a chainmail in middle, and a gambeson on top of it with asymmetrical leather padding / protection usual for archer. it really fits a non-frontliner armor. the deliverance army plate armor also anime looking but very practical at the same time. altho Celica army leaning more towards fantasy

 

6 hours ago, Tuskoub said:

FE13/14's FMV style was so great.

other than cost, maybe change in focus / direction? FE13/14 FMV seems.. i dunno how to put it into words, maybe leaning more into abstract while 15/16 more straightforward in terms of portraying scenes ?

Edited December 5, 2020 by joevar

[null]

4 hours ago, joevar said:

YES. especially Alm side, or more specifically Python outfit. its something that actually practical and follows medieval style armor in one word: Layers
medieval armor for non full plate armor always worn by stacking multiple layer, from Python we can see plain cloth (cotton or linen maybe) then a chainmail in middle, and a gambeson on top of it with asymmetrical leather padding / protection usual for archer. it really fits a non-frontliner armor. the deliverance army plate armor also anime looking but very practical at the same time. altho Celica army leaning more towards fantasy

That's one aspect of FE's art style and character designs that I think Tellius especially (and Echoes) captured well. Largely practical but stylish armor/outift design that still embraced the fantasy aspects of FE (Titania being one of my favorite examples). Armor design doesn't have to make complete sense considering FE's place as a medieval/high fantasy series, but I'd say that both Echoes and Tellius struck a near-perfect balance between the two extremes.

[joevar]

20 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

That's one aspect of FE's art style and character designs that I think Tellius especially (and Echoes) captured well. Largely practical but stylish armor/outift design that still embraced the fantasy aspects of FE (Titania being one of my favorite examples). Armor design doesn't have to make complete sense considering FE's place as a medieval/high fantasy series, but I'd say that both Echoes and Tellius struck a near-perfect balance between the two extremes.

true, but if only many male plate armor in tellius dont have that gigantic shoulder pad, it would be perfect. its like im looking at Gundam 00 for male full plate armor in tellius (they dont hide any kind booster there, do they? )

[Mylady]

Tellius art is the best imo. It has the perfect balance of different type of people: old or young, ugly or good looking, different body types, skin colours and very distinctive designs.

 

I'm not fond of the 90's and 80's artstyle of the early games but it's a matter of taste after all. 

[Francis]

I think the art style wich fits more the fantasy medieval setting is the SoV one.
I remember how much I loved it when they first announced the game back in 2017.
It has this particoular charm and it gives a fairy-tale vibe, plus the backgrounds are so nice and the characters are really cool: I loved how they decided to use their artworks in the game menus and in the critical cut-in (while in Three Houses they decided to use those therrible 3D sprites...).

But, as for me, my favourite style is probably the Awakening one.
It is really simple if you compare it to Fates, but that simplicity is what I love about it! The backgrounds were low-quality, but the colours they used and the lights really make the perfect setting for the game. Also, I love the character design (with Robin being one of the best designed characters, in my opinion, and cool classes such as assassins, lords, tacticians, war monk and even cavaliers, wich design is usually crappy in other games).
Hovewer, as much as I love the Awakening style, I don't really want another game in that one. The fact IS use a different style for every game is honestly what makes FE appealing to me, and probably on the big screen the Awakening style would look like crap.

Three Houses is such a good game, but the artistic choices and the overall style is not really for me. Most of the classes have boring designs (seriously, what's up with magic classes?! They look like crap!), the maps are visually boring and the whole Garreg Mach, due to Koei Tecmo bad graphic, looks kinda strange, in particoular on the TV screen.

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

honestly, if it was for me, i'd love to see artists of the calibre of Akihiko Yoshida(worked on Nier Automata) or Kazuya Takahashi(worked on Final Fantasy 14) doing designs for a FE title, but that's probably not going to ever happen due to them mainly working with Square Enix.

and partially because deep down i believe that their artstyle is way too damn fine for this franchise.

[CervantesStache]

Frankly, i'm not sure what artstyle suits FE best objectively speaking (if there even is a way to objectively answer that kind of thing), but the FE11/FE12 style and Shadows of Valentia look always struck me as the most appealing and "Fire Emblemy". The two of them hit a nice middle ground, giving characters some good ol' anime style while still keeping designs grounded and character-fitting enough to not look out of place or silly.

[ZeManaphy]

I love the 3DS character designs and cinematics. I love the 3DS style of cutscenes, for example, the “ One’s Thoughts “ from Fates looks so visually stunning- close attention to the Dark Knights and Samurai and you can see the highlights and texture of their armor and swords. I love how the tension changes from the archers having an advantage to bring smacked by a Stoneborn. Or then how Azura slowly dances before showing off the siblings in the circles. Or the Sibling cutscenes. You can clearly tell the personality of Elise by the way she bounces and hugs you- She loves you with all your heart. Or how Sakura humbly bows and looks at the ground before thanking you- You can tell she is super shy. I love the attention that Hoshido and Nohr got for making them as different as possible. Hoshido is always portrayed as Sunny, with a huge emphasis on white and  red which is seen on the royal’s clothes. The Japanese aesthetic is very obvious- between the names of characters and classes, the locations of areas, the portraits, what kind of resources are available,  and the even the music has a more Japanese instruments to it. 
 

Same thing applies to Nohr. The darkness and clothing of black and blue is strongly emphasized with the Royals. Nohr being a harsh place to live in is influenced by the backgrounds of the Royals, Niles, Beruka, and Nyx, all of which had a abusive childhood or committed crimes, which is sharp contrast to the Hoshidans, in which none of the characters had that kind of upbringing, which goes back to Hoshido being a land of abundance. And once again, classes, names, and music are more European in origin, reflecting Nohr being influenced by the traditional European FE standards. 
 

As you can see, I love the art direction of Fates. While the 2D cutscenes of Echoes and Three Houses are well done, I still much prefer the 3D cinematics of Fates. 
 

I also really love Kozaki’s work. He’s capable of drawing so many characters in so many dynamic poses. Look at Leo, Hinata, Oboro, Azura, Olivia, Gaius, Nowi, and Odin to name a few.  Look how dynamic each character looks, and you can tell something immediately about them. He’s my favorite artist so far in the series and I hope he comes back in the future.

[Mikethemaster2018]

fe 13 and 14 artstyle is so pretty need kozuki for more fire emblem games.