What I like about Dragon's Crown Artwork

[Hagi]

What we need is 50 Shades of Video Games and have it be immensely popular

I think that'd really give some much needed perspective.

although I would certainly enjoy seeing that, the male identity is and what is considered attractive about them is far less about titulation than females.
On the most shalow level, female titulation is about looking fertile, big breasts, wide hips and being sexually receptive.
for males, it's mostly about dominance in one way or another, wether it be through superiority or control.
both can be harmful in their own way to either party.

creating a male character like that would be challenging, I could personally not tell you how to do it.

There's big differences in dominance though, just how there's big differences in looking sexy.

It can be done for one's own sake or purely and only for the audience.

Pick up any cheap trashy romance novel, you'll probably find a dominant guy who'll still lack any sort of agency, his every action purely and only for the titillation of the reader ( which, to clarify, I do not consider to be a bad thing in any shape or form. Rather a natural part of human sexual fantasies ).

Of course, translating that to a game would be very challenging and I wouldn't be exactly sure myself how to do it. But I do feel that if you got a bunch of people who both play a lot of games and write trashy romance novels together to make some sort of concept you'd get something with potential.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

Hmm.

coming at this from a strictly academic viewpoint, I think the big problem I have with a lot of the player character art work is that it is really over designed.

I get that the intention was to create an homage bordering on parody but they seem to have crossed that border by leaps and bounds and landed squarely in cartoonish over-exaggeration territory. The end result reminds me less of an homage to artists like Frazetta and more like the kind of jokes people make when they pick on Rob Liefeld.

[http://s529.photobucket.com/user/Diddy_Mao/media/Untitled-1.png.html]

While that kind of parody is all fine and good, it doesn't make for attractive character design.

 

[JazzJack2]

Yes it does. If I so choose, I can dislike a piece of art because it's distasteful.

Just because you choose to dislike a piece of art based on taste does not mean taste has any relevance to art, that is your own error.

Also, I didn't either claim that my opinion is somehow "higher" than anyone else's. OP was digging really deep for extra characterization, I thought he was being silly and told him so. That's all. Did I exert myself as a "better consumer" than him? Did I devalue his opinion in any way? Nope.

I don't remember claiming that you did claim that.

 

[mmmikey]

I think its a little naive of people to act like female characters, especially entirely imaginary ones, shouldn't be sexualized or have exaggerated features. They've been depicted that way for millennia. And the features have been changed as society's standards for beauty changes. In most western civilization it's about disproportionate measurements of the hips, waist, and breasts that the Sorceress is a prime example of. Other countries have their women force-fed to put on weight because a full figured woman is considered sexy.

I don't particularly like the design for the Sorceress, she looks like a cheap knockoff of Morrigan from the Darkstalkers series. And I'd like for more variety of bodytypes on both gender sides.

It is a game based on Fantasy archetypes so I'm not very surprised with what we're given in DC. You could swing this conversation to the Dwarf and talk about how it will give young impressional boys an impossible standard to attempt to get, abuse steroids, etc. Men just haven't been sexually objectified to the same degree as women but it's a debate you could still hold.

As to why Dragon's Crown gets the ire, I have to agree with others and say it's just the timing of the debate. You could probably pluck a stand in for the Sorceress from a game made any year in the past decade without having to look very far.

 

[lacktheknack]

Yes it does. If I so choose, I can dislike a piece of art because it's distasteful.

Just because you choose to dislike a piece of art based on taste does not mean taste has any relevance to art, that is your own error.

Uh... Did I claim that taste was relevant to art beyond a personal level? You just said it was straight up irrelevant, which is false.

Also, I didn't either claim that my opinion is somehow "higher" than anyone else's. OP was digging really deep for extra characterization, I thought he was being silly and told him so. That's all. Did I exert myself as a "better consumer" than him? Did I devalue his opinion in any way? Nope.

I don't remember claiming that you did claim that.

Then why the heck did you bother quoting me and tell me off for expressing my personal opinion?

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I find the character design interesting in that it is highly stylised, but the way it's been drawn and coloured (the technique perhaps? I'm not really up on the nomenclature) looks really gorgeous IMO, one of the nicest looking games I've ever seen. If I owned a PS3 I'd definitely buy a copy.

 

[BlindTom]

I think what lacktheknack is saying is that it's ok to have bad taste and you should stop quoting them to tell them about their bad taste.

 

[JazzJack2]

Uh... Did I claim that taste was relevant to art beyond a personal level? You just said it was straight up irrelevant, which is false.

Taste in the sense you meant (I.E this is distasteful because it is offensive or disgusting) it is entirely irrelevant to art.
Consider the statements
This scientific theory lacks morality
This philosophic idea is unprovable
This religion has no aesthetic value

The statement "this work of art is distasteful" shares the same error as the other statements, it applies criteria to something for which it has no place. And to suggest this can be negated by claiming it is purely on a personal level is nonsense, because your supposed personal interpretation of what can be applied to what (to suggest morality can be applied to science or taste to art etc) is not really a personal interpretation but rather a personal misunderstanding

Also, I didn't either claim that my opinion is somehow "higher" than anyone else's. OP was digging really deep for extra characterization, I thought he was being silly and told him so. That's all. Did I exert myself as a "better consumer" than him? Did I devalue his opinion in any way? Nope.

I don't remember claiming that you did claim that.

Then why the heck did you bother quoting me and tell me off for expressing my personal opinion?[/quote]

I did no such thing, I simply said the first impressions of someone regarding a work of art are of no intellectual value, and yet there are people who try to argue they have as much weight as what meaning the artist applies to his own work.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

The thing that most impressed me were the omnipresent references to specific works of art, mostly medieval European, but with some classic fantasy and pop art stuff thrown in. It really pisses me off that all the professional reviews spend so much time talking about a few elements of the art style (in a way that reveals they no as little about actual gender studies and feminist criticism as they do about art history) without even mentioning it.

I also liked that Kamitani went for a more comically exaggerated style than he's used in previous games. You might see some crazy supporting characters in Odin Sphere or Muramasa, but the protagonists and most of the main cast kept to much more typical proportions. It really raises a question for me as to whether the DC designs were intended to be viewed as 'attractive,' as most people seem to assume, and not 'comical.'

 

[lacktheknack]

Uh... Did I claim that taste was relevant to art beyond a personal level? You just said it was straight up irrelevant, which is false.

Taste in the sense you meant (I.E this is distasteful because it is offensive or disgusting) it is entirely irrelevant to art.
Consider the statements
This scientific theory lacks morality
This philosophic idea is unprovable
This religion has no aesthetic value

The statement "this work of art is distasteful" shares the same error as the other statements, it applies criteria to something for which it has no place. And to suggest this can be negated by claiming it is purely on a personal level is nonsense, because your supposed personal interpretation of what can be applied to what (to suggest morality can be applied to science or taste to art etc) is not really a personal interpretation but rather a personal misunderstanding

Bullcrap on toast.

I mentioned the "Piss Christ" earlier, which was a crucifix immersed in urine. It was offensive and disgusting.

The Hostel films revel in their offensiveness, disgusting content and shock value.

A Serbian Film is a satire that's utterly drowned by the most horrible, awful, and grotesque stuff you can imagine happening.

Moreover, those examples are DEFINED by how tasteless they are. When you ask Eli Roth why he made Hostel, he'll say "because I like shocking violence".

I have literally no idea how it ever occurred to you that "This art is tasteless" can be an invalid statement. It literally makes no sense to think that. How is "Shock Art" a thing if that's the case?

 

[lacktheknack]

I think what lacktheknack is saying is that it's ok to have bad taste and you should stop quoting them to tell them about their bad taste.

I can't tell if this is a well-meaning but incorrect assumption, or a very well-pulled backhanded insult.

Either way, heh. I chuckled.

 

[FrankatronX]

People comparing this game to Frank Frazzetta do realize that this game looks nothing like Frank Frazzetta right? It looks like Castlevania game with the cover art where the head looks like the last scene of Beetle Juice with the headshrinker.

For the record. Frank Frazzetta was an anatomist. This game is the opposite of that.

My god you're entirely right. lol. my bad.

 

[JazzJack2]

snip

And so why do you think shock art is considered so low? ('shock value' is often used as a derogatory term in itself) because it fails to find value as art and instead it attempts to be judged by society (art should never be at the heel of society) it is as worthless as a scientific theory that disregards science and would appeal to its value as philosophy or religion. Of course lots of art will use imagery that is considered distasteful, but the value of its art is not found in distaste it self but rather in a particular aesthetic (that may happen to be distasteful). For example a work by Francis bacon (like his study of Velazquez' pope) may be considered distasteful in its imagery but its value is not in the distaste or shock but rather the emotion that comes about from the imagery, the actual distaste ones suffers is of no importance when considering it as art.

 

[FrankatronX]

Okay

lacktheknack and JazzJack2 I admire how fervently you debate but I will ask you both to stay cool. I don't want this debate getting too heated.

I want to state that this is a good or ill thread and I welcome both sides of the debate.
I see that this has many people who both like and dislike the artstyle. I believe it is up to each of us to see if we want to look for meaning in this art and find context for it.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/07/19/check-out-dragons-crowns-stunning-new-hd-screenshots/

Here is a link to some screenshots. I ask you to take time and observe all these images (not just the rude ones) and ask yourself what you really think.

 

[Dragonbums]

I mean, to be fair, the only issue I have with Dragons' Crown art is the questionable anatomy.

Other then that? Man that art is to die for, and everything in game is beautiful and fluid.

 

[Lunar Templar]

nope, not studied them at all.

that said, I adore the style used, say what ever you want about the design choice but the game it self is fucking beautiful.

and I'm gonna say, it looks millions of times better then any game with 100X the budget for graphics.

 

[Abomination]

I mean, to be fair, the only issue I have with Dragons' Crown art is the questionable anatomy.

Other then that? Man that art is to die for, and everything in game is beautiful and fluid.

I really like the artstyle, it's unique and reminds me of the old Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel covers.

Yeah the proportions are way off and some of the anatomy doesn't make sense but it hasn't been worth even a fraction of the hubbabaloo that has been raised over it. Don't like the art style? Don't buy it.