by Kareen » Oct 15, 2014 4:33 am
For me, the biggest thing that bothers me is the script. Of the posts on Natsume's Facebook that show their progress on the script, most of their unique word choices sound really jarring and out of place in my opinion. I get that a lot of it is stylized for specific characters and personalities but they use such odd (and old) language in some places I feel like I'm reading a typeset forces script and not a conversation. A lot of SoSs dialog might be typeset for specific characters (like Elise's '
Oh ho ho ho ho!~' sort of classic Japanese mocking laughter) but at the very least it flows like a natural conversation. Or at least it does to me.
What? Who talks like that? I get that you're a Harvest Sprite, so you sort of get a pass, but holy geeze that's overly childish.
What're you? 85? Shucks? What? That is such a dated and stereotypical way of depicting people from the country. C'mon. Give me some creativity.
Aside from the script, the fact that graphics on the character models look so far from what the 3DS is capable of really grates against my eyes and is sort of a disappointment. Budget cuts and restrictions are understandable, and I know some people actually like the look, but we're far enough into the 3DSs lifespan to where people tend to expect more. Pixels and rough edges aren't really what I have an issue with. Proportions aren't even that huge of a deal (even though I do dislike it; the people look like mutated children to me). But the textures they use are incredibly... flat. The hair doesn't even have much of a texture, something SoS crams into much smaller portions on their polygons.
And for the character models to be the main portrait when talking to someone, instead of a 2D rendering? They should really look more like people with actual features instead of dye cut paper eyeballs, and lines for mouths and eyebrows that had just been glued onto a flat flesh colored bean. That would be fine if it was just the character model you're playing with during the game, but the portraiture? Please no. This is 2014. 2D games put more detail into their characters than this. Call me a privileged jerk, but I lived through the era of weird textures and doofy character models and I would prefer not to go backwards (I also started on the SNES like the old fart that I am; if I may date myself here).
To me, even the backgrounds look strange in some places. For some of the game, they're okay. They're a little bright to me and could do with more contrast in the colors, but they're fine. But for others, like the Harvest Goddess Spring, the lack of shadows and contrast really kills it for me. It looks very strange to have so much of the same gradient in one place without anything to differentiate the varying parts of the structure when they overlay one another. Then they smash an overly textured grass around it, which isn't really a problem, but then we have other places that look like this:
I can barely see the texture of the wood on the extreme closeup of the floor (versus the zoomed out view of the Spring where you would assume some of the detail is lost). It's muddled and pixelated. If I was looking at a difference between objects or character models that had different levels of detail, I could see an argument where that is normal. Moveable things and interaction-able objects tend to have their own texture style despite whatever the background is doing, but this distortion I find is from background to background. It's a really disjointed and hodgepodge style in my eyes. Even the grass on the background mountains in the Harvest Goddess Spring portrait looks strangely lacking in detail versus the rest of the space; like they dropped a green blob on the rocks and called it a day. Story of Seasons at least has a cohesive look to it.
Call me overly passionate, call me old, call me too detail oriented, but when I love a series as much as I love Harvest Moon it's almost physically painful for me to dislike the first impression as much as I do. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to get this game regardless of my complaints; I'm genuinely curious to see how Natsume does with their gameplay. I'm also going to get Story of Seasons. (Two farming life simulators in my life? Yes please). But I'm going into The Lost Valley with low expectations. I hope the gameplay is innovative enough to prove me wrong, but so far, I am very sad about where it's going.
For me, the biggest thing that bothers me is the script. Of the posts on Natsume's Facebook that show their progress on the script, most of their unique word choices sound really jarring and out of place in my opinion. I get that a lot of it is stylized for specific characters and personalities but they use such odd (and old) language in some places I feel like I'm reading a typeset forces script and not a conversation. A lot of SoSs dialog might be typeset for specific characters (like Elise's '[i]Oh ho ho ho ho!~[/i]' sort of classic Japanese mocking laughter) but at the very least it flows like a natural conversation. Or at least it does to me.
[center][img]http://33.media.tumblr.com/1f8c0df112c000aa07889632fa04b664/tumblr_ncq341h8HN1tod471o1_400.jpg[/img]
[size=50]What? Who talks like that? I get that you're a Harvest Sprite, so you sort of get a pass, but holy geeze that's overly childish.[/size]
[img]http://31.media.tumblr.com/fdefadd89f25d1da93acb5a30a4d5f43/tumblr_nd03qnhvgS1tod471o1_500.jpg[/img]
[size=50]What're you? 85? Shucks? What? That is [i]such[/i] a dated and stereotypical way of depicting people from the country. C'mon. Give me some creativity.[/size][/center]
Aside from the script, the fact that graphics on the character models look so far from what the 3DS is capable of really grates against my eyes and is sort of a disappointment. Budget cuts and restrictions are understandable, and I know some people actually like the look, but we're far enough into the 3DSs lifespan to where people tend to expect more. Pixels and rough edges aren't really what I have an issue with. Proportions aren't even that huge of a deal (even though I do dislike it; the people look like mutated children to me). But the textures they use are incredibly... flat. The hair doesn't even have much of a texture, something SoS crams into much smaller portions on their polygons.
And for the character models to be the main portrait when talking to someone, instead of a 2D rendering? They should really look more like people with actual features instead of dye cut paper eyeballs, and lines for mouths and eyebrows that had just been glued onto a flat flesh colored bean. That would be fine if it was just the character model you're playing with during the game, but the portraiture? Please no. This is 2014. 2D games put more detail into their characters than this. Call me a privileged jerk, but I lived through the era of weird textures and doofy character models and I would prefer not to go backwards (I also started on the SNES like the old fart that I am; if I may date myself here).
[center][img]http://33.media.tumblr.com/eff2b535b8e8e8440fb92402c39e33c8/tumblr_ndbdww9AuO1tod471o2_400.jpg[/img][/center]
To me, even the backgrounds look strange in some places. For some of the game, they're okay. They're a little bright to me and could do with more contrast in the colors, but they're fine. But for others, like the Harvest Goddess Spring, the lack of shadows and contrast really kills it for me. It looks very strange to have so much of the same gradient in one place without anything to differentiate the varying parts of the structure when they overlay one another. Then they smash an overly textured grass around it, which isn't really a problem, but then we have other places that look like this:
[center][img]http://38.media.tumblr.com/29e88a5625b5355f3ae143096f8e895c/tumblr_nch4lcUdkX1tod471o1_400.jpg[/img][/center]
I can barely see the texture of the wood on the extreme closeup of the floor (versus the zoomed out view of the Spring where you would assume some of the detail is lost). It's muddled and pixelated. If I was looking at a difference between objects or character models that had different levels of detail, I could see an argument where that is normal. Moveable things and interaction-able objects tend to have their own texture style despite whatever the background is doing, but this distortion I find is from background to background. It's a really disjointed and hodgepodge style in my eyes. Even the grass on the background mountains in the Harvest Goddess Spring portrait looks strangely lacking in detail versus the rest of the space; like they dropped a green blob on the rocks and called it a day. Story of Seasons at least has a cohesive look to it.
Call me overly passionate, call me old, call me too detail oriented, but when I love a series as much as I love Harvest Moon it's almost physically painful for me to dislike the first impression as much as I do. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to get this game regardless of my complaints; I'm genuinely curious to see how Natsume does with their gameplay. I'm also going to get Story of Seasons. (Two farming life simulators in my life? Yes please). But I'm going into The Lost Valley with low expectations. I hope the gameplay is innovative enough to prove me wrong, but so far, I am very sad about where it's going.