The end of an art style

[Spirit]

Zelda likes to mix up the way it looks and a lot of the time the chosen art style can alienate would be players regardless if the game is actually any good.

Zelda also reuses art styles. The Wind Waker look now makes up almost half of the series visually while games like Skyward Sword with its watercolour mottling effect only have the one game.

But which art styles do you think wont be returning post BotW.

Will we see the Wind Waker style again? Will BotW's style see more than one game or be a one shot?

Which art style have we seen the last of if any?

 

[Djinn]

Ehh, it is hard to make a real call on that one. I never really liked the overly simplistic design of WW and later handheld games. But I thought the anime style of OoT was not quite right for the series either. Everything before was a bit too generic to say it even had a style at all. The WW giant head, no feet, and weird cat eyes look just throws me off. It's too minimalist in an era when that is not really necessary, and still not in a way that I like. So I am not exactly sorry to see it go.

 

[VikzeLink]

It doesn't really matter to me, I don't play Zelda-games for their graphics, I play them all no matter what they look like.
What I'm actually tired of are people (yes, I know there is a lot of you here ) that hates everything but the graphics of TP, which they praise to the skies, and wants all new Zelda-games to be more gritty and realistic. I'm not saying that that graphical style is wrong, but only wanting that style, hating on all the other ones and not even buying the other games because of it is just stupid.
Sure, we all have our preferences. My favorite style is still the OOT/MM style, but I'm still okay with everything that comes out. I just don't get all the hate for anything that isn't "realistic, gritty and "grown-up"". I would be okay with a Zelda-game like that, but hating everything that isn't that and saying "I won't buy this game" just because of it... That is just childish and immature.

Now if you excuse me, I have to put myself in defence mode for the inevitable, incomming backlash!

 

[AncientPoe]

Actually, it almost seems like every Zelda art style ends. They don't seem to really resurrect anything. Think about it, the aesthetics and character design of every generation has pretty much lived and died in that generation: Zelda and Zelda II have no visual successors, Link's Awakening looks a bit like them but the art style of its official character arts look fairly different from earlier games, Link to the Past has it's own style which only really returns because Link Between Worlds literally takes place in the same actual world, Hero of Time's aesthetic hasn't been reused (excluding ports/remakes), and even the visual style that arguably got the most mileage (toon link) is pretty much dead now, having only lasted through Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, and Minish Cap. The closest to a true reuse of actual aesthetic was seen in the Oracle games, which borrowed heavily from Link's Awakening for many of its visual themes (though influence from Hero of Time era art can be seen in much of the Oracle character illustrations and in-game cut scenes).

So I guess when it comes to the art style trends in Zelda....

 

[DARK MASTER]

I can say with near absolute certainty we'll never see Wand of Gamelon, Link the Faces of Evil, and Zelda's Adventure's art style return.

If we're only including canonical games: right now Wind Waker seems less likely, but considering Twilight Princess garnered such a negative response for it's (duh IMO) gorgeous art style that also seems less likely. I believe it's plausible Nintendo wasn't very satisfied with Skyward Sword's art direction, so they nudged things more Wind Waker, but one thing is pretty certain, we'll continuously see a return to classic styles, if Four Swords Adventure (standard)/Four Swords Adventure (Japanese), Four Swords Anniversary Edition, and A Link Between Worlds were any indication.

 

[Beauts]

I honestly hope we've seen the back of the toon style. I wasn't that fond of it anyway but it's been so overused now. I don't feel like the decision to use it beyond WW and maybe PH at a push was to do with wanting to make the game better as it was to ram the style of it down the fans throat.

However I honestly don't think we'll be seeing the TP dark palette again. I could easily see the similar but lighter and more flowing style of SS being used but I feel like despite TP being one of the most popular Zelda games, and it's art styles popularity, I don't think people would want to see TP done over and over again.

 

[Dio]

I also hope not to see the WW's style again. Have we seen the last of it? I dont know. You cant predict what will be done with matters relating to Zelda, even trying to divine it in the tealeaves is impossible.

We probably won't see SS's look again. It was kind of a one off to try and make a game that didn't look too **** on the Wii's hardware by using a painterly effect and mottling backgrounds.

It is possible we will see the OOT/TP look return in an updated form. It will probably have a vibrant colour palette rather than the subdued tones of TP, but a more detailed style will likely happen.

 

[WindFishTacos]

I don't think we'll see the true realistic TP art style again. It seems with SS and BOTW the direction they are heading would be similar to TP but more lighthearted as if some WW was mixed in.

 

[Chill Fruit]

Considering Nintendo is usually behind in the spec race with Sony and Microsoft, I don't think it'd be wise to try and do something more realistic, since it shows that discrepancy much more. I personally think that something more stylised is the way they'll go, not as cartoony as Wind Waker but not as realistic as TP, somewhere along the middle.

 

[raizelmik]

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I hope we don't see TP's art style again. So dark and unpleasant to look at (especially the original Gamecube/Wii release, it looks a lot nicer in HD).
That said, it's not like they ever really reuse art styles exactly, anyway. It's pretty much always at least a little bit different. The only exception in the 3D games was MM using the same engine from OoT.
Anyway, since Nintendo's not really a contender in the "let's see who can make this more realistic" contest - and Zelda isn't even about realism, it's a fantasy game - stylized art makes the most sense.

 

[Azure Sage]

I'm hoping that TP's ugly style never comes back. As others have said, it looks like a more colorful look is what Nintendo is going for with SS and BotW, and even spin off games like Hyrule Warriors, while not particularly cartoony, are still plenty colorful.

 

[Robert Jonas]

I reckon they'll avoid using TP's art style. It was nice to have a Zelda that looked like that but stylized will always look better and be able to last.

 

[Misty]

I tend to think they'll go back to Twilight Princess because as much as people complain, it stood out and I think they tend to want to stand out if this is the flagship to carry them past the doldrums of Skyward Sword into the future.

 

[DarkestLink]

I wish they would just pick an artstyle and stick with it...and preferable make it consistant. If they want to go cartoony, make the entire game a cartoon, sorta like how the entirity of Okami was designed like a painting. I can't stand seeing cartoony charaters in realistic enviroments, it just looks jarring. That's the main reason why I prefer the OoT/MM/TP style...it looks much more consistant. While I do think BOTW looks better than tWW in some ways, this particular issue is a bit worse. Parts of the game look like they came from TP, other parts look like tWW, and some parts look like a mixture (SS), and while these elements look fine on their own, when you put them together it feels like a Frakenstein Monster.

 

[A Link In Time]

I doubt we'll see another The Minish Cap art style again. Nintendo has moved past the style seen in the GBA games towards a more chibi style in the recent 2D games like A Link Between Worlds. It's a shame because TMC was a great looking game.