It’s basically *the* 3D cel-shaded game of this generation in my eyes. Every gen since the 6th one (where cel-shading was at its peak) had at least one notable game with this kind of art direction. Like how Punch Out was that game for the 7th generation and Dragon Ball Fighterz was that game for the 8th generation. It’s like a living comic book here.
Now I haven’t played Alan Wake 2 so I can’t comment on that game’s quality, but I’m curious how it beat out Hi Fi Rush for best art direction at the 2023 game awards.
Posted by Asad_Farooqui
22 Comments
Not at all.
This game will look insane even in 50 years.
It’s a timeless style like Jet Set Radio
It’s still so sad seeing what happened to this game. This was actually the last time really that Xbox had a modest amount of goodwill.
I remember when it got shadow dropped in early 2023, and like I said there actually was some hope and optimism with the Xbox brand. And then it went back into the abyss right after when Redfall got sent out as a bad product that they knew was bad, Starfield not being the big hope Xbox and fans wanted, and Xbox shutting this studio down. It was such a whiplash that year, and it’s only been down since.
I think my biggest pet peeve with the whole Hifi rush situation is, these games are so important for goodwill and still matter even if they aren’t big heavy hitters. Look at Nintendo for example, they know games like Pikmin don’t sell as much as Mario and Pokemon obviously, but they are still important for building goodwill and strengthen your overall brand of being known for good games.
The way you don’t really see aliasing or any kind of pixels off is truly amazing to me. Great visual game
It looks good but not the best
Also game awards are useless marketing and not really to be taken seriously
Im still mad that xbox disbanded tango especially after shipping such a banger
Yes
Some categories tend to favor the Game of the Year or the runner-up when you look at past winners, like Game Direction, Narrative, and Art Direction.
As a result, these awards often go to the best overall game that also has strong Art Direction, rather than to the game with the “best” Art Direction.
It’s got great art. Best looking can be two things. Art and graphics or a combination of the two. For example Elden Ring has an amazing art direction, crap graphics.
Hifi Rush excels in what it set out to do in every way. I am glad Tango got saved. Alan Wake 2 is amazing too. Play it and find out. Other great art games on GP: Mio: Memories in Orbit, Anno Mutationem, Keeper, Hellblade 2, South of Midnight. That’s the recent ones. If you haven’t played ori 1 and 2, those are also musts.
It’s one of those things where art style helps preserve media across all aspects. Like looking back at 2000s and 90s anime versus today, the hand-drawn mixed with the art style looks better than 90% of modern anime.
Yes
I would have loved if they made a crackdown game which looked this good
I’ve found the more realistic something is made to look, games, film cgi and so forth, the worse it ages.
Yes you’re weird, it doesn’t look better than a lot of games
This game was an unexpected absolute blast to play! Loved the story, loved the mechanics, loved the music, loved the Twin Peaks reference… have gone back to replay several times. So sad what happened in the long run because this was a true gem!
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
Forget asking about the series x. I want more games to use this art style and direction in general. This is exactly what gamefreak should be doing with modern pokemon games. This is what I want from a new final fantasy game. I’m exhausted by games chasing a feeling of “realism” in their graphics.
Games with this art style will always age better than games that attempt to look like real life. There will always be a better lighting engine and more polygons in 5 years that makes the realistic games today look dated in comparison. But games like this that flex their effort to reaching a defined style that isn’t grounded in realism age all age like a fine wine.
The general rule of great looking video games is that good art direction is far more important than good graphics fidelity. You mentioned Alan Wake 2, that game also has an amazing art direction which makes the game gorgeous to look at.
Not *the* best looking in my opinion, but definitely *among* the best looking ones.
The transition between in-game parts and cutscenes was also very seamless. The beautiful art direction helped a lot, but the animation quality is also superb.
Besides the fidelity tho, I really liked the game. It’s a good one and a cool surprise from Xbox, since the game shadow dropped from nothing.
Ac shadows is hands down
Best looking is a matter of opinion. This game did use great art direction. To me the best looking series x game is senuas saga.
Love this game but Alan Wake 2 earned that award easily.