>>43543820what I generally refer to when I talk about something being ‘overdesigned’, I’m referring to readability. If the overall art direction is exceptionally detailed spritework with multiple layers of foreground and background elements, tile variations to the nth degree - such a project CAN and HAS been fine. I think of the Seiken Densetsu games, specifically Secret of Mana (SD2). There are many reasons why Mana works, and this seems like it wont. The main consideration is that of the media by which Mana was developed for. It was MEANT to be viewed on your TV. So, where detailed backgrounds might blur together on a smaller screen, they’re able to ‘pop' on a CRT with the aspect ratio that it was designed for. But even in Mana, the art direction was such that detail and variations were presented in a way that didn’t interfere with the readability of the background. One intentional decision was to give characters bright color palettes of pink (in each of our heros) to contrast with the mostly green world around them. If you look at the image I commented on, that staircase has, what, I count six? different tiles. That is over-designed. when we create an environment, there’s an understanding that the player is going to pass through areas like these, paying no mind to the effort that was put into them, so its a waste to have artists add so much detail to locations quickly traversed, and focus on, say, the spritework for bosses. Or the backdrops to cutscenes. Not to mention that there is a general cohesiveness that you begin to develop by repeating tilesets throughout the game.
When I look at these screenshots, I don’t think that I’m looking at a game. It’s a piece of pixelart. A lot of effort was put into it, and it looks nice - albeit cluttered. But it wouldn’t work towards adding to the readability, or clarity, of the environment if placed in an actual game.
