What games have the worst art styles?

I'd go with Knack on this one. Its art design looks straight up gross. Clearly the work of hacks.

I think what especially bothers me about Knack's art is that it looks like it's meant to appeal to children yet it's so sterile and devoid of any kind of joy or whimsy. Awful.

Additionally, the upcoming Metroid game for 3DS is hilariously horrendous looking both on a technical and aesthetic level.

Sunset Overdrive is not terrible looking but its a little on the ugly side. The looks of it is just way overdone. Looks garish but not in a good way.

What say you guys?

Watch Dogs was very bland and boring.

Limbo,flower, braid, half life 1, and a plethora of "retro inspired" games.

The uninspired grey-brown art style used by a lot of shooters.

Way to generalize, guys :/

I think some games do this well while others do it badly.

For instance, Resistance 1 looked horrid even at launch due to an abysmal art style while Killzone 2 still has sharp art design despite its lack of color.

Pc games.

Sony games

Gears of War and that's coming from a gearhead.

Halo 5, Gears of War 4, Japanese games, and indie games.

I think the environments look fine but yeah the character models in Gears are mad ugly.

Wind Waker, Journey, Shadow of the Colossus, Prince of Persia 08, Mirrors Edge, Okami, Mario Kart 8, Yoshis Island, Machinarium, Rayman, Team Fortress, etc..

lol

@04dcarraher:

Na not really. Most of the time it looks like Sony invests more in art direction than game design.

I just want a game world constructed out of Gears character models pieced together like manly legos. Is that too much to ask?

Totally agree with this. Naughty Dog at their best manages to combine great aesthetics and great game design but Sony's first party is full of games with excellent art but average game design. For example, Ratchet & Clank and Killzone.

Haha gamers are not yet worthy of such aesthetic brilliance.

Borderlands and Yoshi's New Island come to mind.

Something about Braid's art style gives me the heebie-jeebies.

The first FEAR games gets so much praise like it's undoubtedly the best in the series while the level design is incredibly bare bones from beginning to end. Tthe engine in the first game was better in some respects with the lighting, the way destructible environments worked, but at that's all it had going for it. It was incredibly lacking in its efficiency in design, level design wasn't as awesome as FEAR 2's, the paranormal bits weren't nearly as good as FEAR 2's, the story wasn't as good neither.

Bayonetta 2, I love the character, the game, the action, but dear gawd that default costume for Bayonetta is awful. Jeanne looks like a flat chested tranny. Thankfully playing as Rose is pretty awesome.

Braid is fantastic and better than your favorite game.

Anyway Metroid Other M is pretty gross art direction wise. Shit isn't even bad by Nintendo game standards (which are pretty high), but straight bad by Metroid standards (which are absurdly high standards). Shit was yuck.

Gears of War

Yeah, Metroid Other M doesn't look very good; everything looks flat and undetailed. Thinking of giving that game another chance but it completely rubbed me the wrong way and I quit pretty early.

Nothing against Braid as a game or even aesthetically but it looks super creepy in a very subtle way.

Needs more spikes and blood.

WoW and Darksiders. What an ugly piece of shit of a style.

Agreed on Darksiders. Shit looks amateurish and try hard.

@GreySeal9:

Looks like a flash game.

Compare this

(Most) animoo games.

Ah yes, that would be my legitimate answer.

It's the only art style that will turn me away from a game, even if said game has a chance of being good.

There's Pokemon as well, some of the worst designs I've ever seen for "monsters." Absolutely terrible.

@ultimateimp: I agree. Some of the designs are just terrible. Pokemon Black has the worst in the series imo.

Dragons Dogma and the first Dragon Age come to mind first. Never been a fan of killzones boring art style either. Also, most pixel art games look like fucking garbage

Art Style is kind of subjective; you can perceive it in many different ways. Of course, it's all opinion and I suppose everybody is entitled to one!

My vote? Most modern day shooters. Call of Duty, Gears of War, Killzone, Resistance. They're all so bland that they kind of just mix together.

I thought I had more to say on this but I'm kind of drawing a blank...

Based off what's installed on my computer right now I'd go wtih Watch Dogs. Haven't played it much but it does look a little on the boring side.

Zelda: Twilight Princess. Even if you look past the gameplay (which I found to be a disappointment and this comes from the original GC version), the art just does not hold up at all. It just can't tell what it wants to be between Western and Japanese influence.

Granted, one could make the same argument with Skyward Sword, but at least for me it actually works there. TP? No.

The Order

99/100 JRPG's

Braid.

90% of all JRPGs

I said 99/100, we should be friends.

The Ascension of Metatron, i know is very abstract and all, but i didn't find the art style appealing.

M'kay.

Realistic and bland looking environments but colorful and cartoonish characters with no nose. It's a fucking mess.

Resistance: Fall of Man was pretty... gray to say the least. Final Fantasy 15's character design clashes with the (shown) environments like no tomorrow, it's like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy meets Skyrim. Halo reminds me of Skittles.

@Gue1 said:

Realistic and bland looking environments but colorful and cartoonish characters with no nose. It's a fucking mess.

Doesn't look cartoonish to me, it looks like a doll, and that's not better.

Rage

All the character designs in that game are complete shit.

A lot of shooters went grey/brown last gen as some sort of way to make the games look realistic, but I never saw the point.

Games like Resistance FOM and Gears, while greatlooking in their day, just look awful now because of their dated artstyle and lack of color.

A recent game where the artstyle just totally didn't click with me was Yoshi's Island on 3ds, the crayon style of the SNES and DS games looked way better.

GTA IV looks like crap but at least mids can somewhat fix the artstyle.

IMO I think blood dragon has too much lens flare and neon lights going for it. Makes it distracting.

And I don't like artstyle for hotline miami to be honest.

WoW, Warcraft 3, League of Legends, any Treyarch Call Of Duty game.

Absolutely fucking busted.