On one hand I can say with certainty yes. It feels to me personally at least that unique and creative expression has become buried deep into the grave as a result of trying to make everything look like real life nature. And a lot of games that try to be in between just come off as weird to me, personally speaking.

On the other hand, there are some developers that are trying to focus on art / graphics style over trying really hard to be realistic and mimic real life.

Games in the SNES, PSX and even PS2 era had character, creativity and style to them. Games like Final Fantasy VI, FF VII, SaGa frontier, Nights into Dreams, Chrono Cross, Astal,  Goemon 64 and Discworld just to name a few had an incredible artistic presence.

I personally notice It, maybe more than a lot of you, but maybe I'm not alone.

It's as though the unique style and artistic presence is lost as a result of pushing graphics realism. Sure some games and genres are slightly unaffected by this but to me RPG's will and always have been somewhat of a mystical genre and really allow for unique expression.

Your thoughts, ideas, comments and feelings are welcome.

Thank you for your time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

 In my opinion, AIon is a recent example with fantastic art-direction.. And the new Guild Wars 2 trailer is stunning. So I think quite the opposite.

Even though I love old Atari box art.

Yup, the uncanny valley does explain the ugly graphic look in some games. However stylized depictions in games like Aion would prove not all games are moving in that direction. Ofc some players dont like "asian" animation styles...

I've personally seen more style in games lately than before, if you look beyond just MMOs of course.  I'm personally a fan of creativity and art direction over realism, the latter just doesn't hook me and is often times very uninspiring and really lacks imagination.  However there are people out there that strive to play games that mimic realism and I respect that. 

For me it really depends on the game.  Some games are more suited for a realistic look.  Finding the right balance, for any game, is really the key.  I think the proper use of "style" to make up for technical weaknesses is key...  If that makes any sense.

While I like all types anime/mix or realistic my favourite is when a mix of anime with realistic graphics are done right.

For example aion characters are a mixture of anime and realistic graphics they don't look cartoonish but not realistic either and that is the perfect style for me imo.

Originally posted by bloodaxes

While I like all types anime/mix or realistic my favourite is when a mix of anime with realistic graphics are done right.

For example aion characters are a mixture of anime and realistic graphics they don't look cartoonish but not realistic either and that is the perfect style for me imo.

I personally consider Aion to fall under the realism category and something such as World of Warcraft or Dark age of Camelot to be the opposite.

I don't really see how Aion has strong anime elements, personally speaking. And to people who claim the game is totally asian anime graphics is even more outrageous to me.

I would consider more something like Ragnarok Online 2 to be a mix of anime and realistic graphics.

I personally like all types of graphics style, Asian and Western. I can appreciate anything that has a soul flavor to It.



 

Originally posted by NeverLand7

Originally posted by bloodaxes

While I like all types anime/mix or realistic my favourite is when a mix of anime with realistic graphics are done right.

For example aion characters are a mixture of anime and realistic graphics they don't look cartoonish but not realistic either and that is the perfect style for me imo.

 

I personally consider Aion to fall under the realism category and something such as World of Warcraft or Dark age of Camelot to be the opposite.

I don't really see how Aion has strong anime elements, personally speaking. And to people who claim the game is totally asian anime graphics is even more outrageous to me.

I would consider more something like Ragnarok Online 2 to be a mix of anime and realistic graphics.

I personally like all types of graphics style, Asian and Western. I can appreciate anything that has a soul flavor to It.

Aion's world is considered anime or call it cartoonish by many for example.

As for characters dunno maybe it's just impressions? for me it looks like a mixture of realistic and anime.

Originally posted by Caleveira

 Ofc some players dont like "asian" animation styles...

I am one of those people.

I think there is a lot of soul still in games.

Artistic style is alive and well in the mmo genre, but there is a realistic art style that's wanted by many western players. Don't get me wrong i think there is nothing wrong with the eastern art style, but i just don't prefer it.  There are many games that have that style are great games, but i will always look first to a western realism art style in a new game.

However realistic western art style is no more a cause nor effect of perceived wrongs in the mmo genre as eastern art styles.

Even in the Movie genre the push of realistic CG instead of creative hand made sets and costumes such as in the Dark Crystal, Hook, Labyrinth, Legend etc I really notice too.

I'm also talking about the gameplay and world setting ideas that we see in games these days too that are somewhat a result of graphics realism. That are bland and very much a mimic of real life.

I consider these picture below a soulful style and idea. I guess It is a somewhat subjective because the below could be considered realism but It could also be considered creative expressive fantasy ( Except for the Final Fantasy VI pic ) :

Originally posted by madeux

For me it really depends on the game.  Some games are more suited for a realistic look.  Finding the right balance, for any game, is really the key.  I think the proper use of "style" to make up for technical weaknesses is key...  If that makes any sense.

Such as games like Counter-Strike. I couldn't see Counter-Strike without a realistic graphics style.

 

Originally posted by NeverLand7

Even in the Movie genre the push of realistic CG instead of creative hand made sets and costumes such as in the Dark Crystal, Hook, Labyrinth, Legend etc I really notice too.

I'm also talking about the gameplay and world setting ideas that we see in games these days too that are somewhat a result of graphics realism. That are bland and very much a mimic of real life.

I consider these picture below a soulful style and idea. I guess It is a somewhat subjective because the below could be considered realism but It could also be considered creative expressive fantasy ( Except for the Final Fantasy VI pic ) :

I would consider the first two pictures to be western realistic style, and i would take close notice of the game play to see if it was any good.

Edit: Seems To has a W and is actually TWO...heh who knew To, Too, and Two are triplets.

It's not just games, all media has become focused on eye-candy at the expense of story.  It's easier to throw a ton of flashy CGI on screen that looks good in commercials than it is to come up with a compelling, interesting, entertaining story with characters you care about and a logical, well-designed plot.  Far too many people are willing to overlook serious flaws in gameplay because the game looks good.

I'd much rather play a fantastically designed game with cartoony 2D characters or even no graphics at all than play most of these realistic graphical monsters.

Honestly, I find realism ugly as hell. Age of Conan was suppoesd to be realistic (so was EQ 2) and I thought both games were ugly.

I honestly thought WoW looked better. But my favourite howerver are...

Champions Online, City of Heroes, Lineage 2, and Aion. Why? I prefer a more cartoony/anime style (not too cartoony to the point of WoW). If I wanted to play "irl" I'd go outside and do quests like MY JOB -_-

Yeah. My 2 cents.

In a nutshell to the question of the OP.  YES.

Originally posted by mmaize

In a nutshell to the question of the OP.  YES.

But oh what a wonderful time it was during the days of FFVI (FFIII)...those were good days indeed.

Sorry I can't get over my thoughts on this.  Let's take Kefka of FFIII or whatever you want to call it as an example.  Creatively speaking he was one of the best villains in any RPG to date and it showed through the pixelated graphics of the game using personality, his unique laugh, mannerisms, etc.  So despite the obvious lack in graphical representation his character shines through far more than many of the high resolution graphical character representations that have been seen in the more modern games.

Well, I've never been too big on graphics... I always say I'd rather have a smoothly-playing game, than a lots of insanely-good graphics that jerkily move one pixel per hour. Of course, with technology improving, now we can have both; but I've been "burnt" already by too slow, if awesome, graphics, so I'm cautious now.

I disagree. Half-Life 2 is my favourite game ever, and it was beautiful when it came out. For its time, it also had very "realistic" graphics.