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Will you still play a game if you hate the art style/graphics/aesthetics?

I think no matter how fun people tell me a game is I’m just even gonna bother with it unless it has something I can stand to look at for more than 10 minutes.

Ex. People tell me how good Salt & Sanctuary is and I’ve tried but I just cannot get into it even if I do think theres something there gameplay wise that i would enjoy. On the other hand something like Blasphemous, just draws me in, despite having some wonky traversal and cheap insta-deaths.

Evil West is another recent game where I just find the aesthetic so unappealing it made me instantly nope out on it. Where as something like Callisto is just very captivating style wise.
 

skyfall

Member
If a game has too much bloom I wont play it. worst effect in video game history

zanaris_bloom_lighting.png
 
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Leviathicus

Neo Member
I don't care if the graphics are amazing, but I do care when the style is something I find ugly. I won't ever play As Dusk Falls for example. Something about it looks soooo off putting to me.
 

Punished Miku

Gold Member
Slay the Spire did nothing for me visually but I got pretty sucked in. Im trying to think of a game where I truly hate the art style that much. Hmmm.
Nidhogg 2 comes to mind and I still played it briefly, but it did hurt the experience.

I guess if the game is solid in all other aspects I'll play it. But I'd probably be much less likely to try it and find that out since you see the visuals first. Sounds like a game to get on discount if at all.
 

SSfox

Member
I guess nope? trying to remember last time i played and finished (or even buy to begin with) a game i don't like visually and i can't find one.
 
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Mostly no. I have tried with some games and turned around on them.
For example, I wasn't really into the way Arkane did their characters in Dishonored but it ended up growing on me. Helps that Dishonored 1,2 and Prey are amazing games.

Some critically acclaimed games like Hollow Knight, which in theory should be right up my alley. But I cannot get over the funco pop looking ass character. I did put about 4 hours into it but I really can't stand that look.
The super meaty looking characters from the Gear of War series, not into it. World of Warcraft character designs also a turn off for me. Telltale's games, Life is Strange, Borderlands, any of the Castlevanias done by Mercurysteam, Ni No Kuni, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Splatoon, Megaman X7/X8, Megaman Battle Network and some others.

I have at least tried with most of the games I listed though. I haven't tried all the Telltale games but Wolf Among Us was the closest I ever got to liking that style.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
honestly i agree, but it's exceedingly rare to think of games i genuinely hated the visuals of. Only thing that really comes to mind for me is GTAV and Fallout New Vegas, but the former can look good at times even if the models are genuine clayface
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Sure, it happens to me all the time, I don't care about technical end of graphics but art style can make me stop playing or not play at all, specially just realistic graphics put me off, or even won't make me care at all, games like RDR2, GTAV, Dark picture anthology (or whatever they're can't), Watch Dogs, Uncharted... Those games to me look like "maybe they're fun, I'll put them in the bottom of the list".

Hell, I stop playing The Witcher 1 in part because of how boring the game looks, graphics alone bore me to death.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
like i find it hard to find a game that looks objectively bad visually... even NES games tend to have great visuals more often than not
 

Bartski

Gold Member
yeah, that happens sometimes. I have a weird relationship with anime where I absolutely hate 99% of it but the remaining 1% is just the best shit ever. Hard to tell at first glance. I'd probably never play Nier Automata purely based on that notion, but I did and it was incredible. Signalis is also anime stylized and it's the best indie survival horror in years.
 

Fredrik

Member
Admittedly I’m extremely shallow, I almost never give a game I find ugly or otherwise annoying to look at a fair chance.

I will give Pentiment a try since it’s free on Gamepass and got high scores but the art style is extremely offputting imo, looks like a cheap mobile game, badly drawn and badly animated, says it all when someone try to hype up the text font animations.

I dislike too gory games as well, like the new Calisto Protocol. I was into gaming ultra violence when I was 10-16, it was fun, but at 46 I just see it as some pubertal nonsense for teenagers and it’s just annoying to see the same boring and often long death sequences over and over. Generally speaking I see extreme violence as a warning signal that the game simply plays badly if they try to pull me in with stuff like that.

The new Need For Speed game need to get like 95 on Metacritic for me to consder buying it. I just don’t like those weird anime effects, they look insanely out of place. I’ll try it if it pops up on Gamepass though.
 

zcaa0g

Banned
I couldn't stand BoTW. Bleached out character models, poor lighting, poor shadows, low res textures, low poly counts, and that doesn't even cover other poor aspects of the game.
 

Hoppa

Member
Slay the Spire did nothing for me visually but I got pretty sucked in. Im trying to think of a game where I truly hate the art style that much. Hmmm.
Nidhogg 2 comes to mind and I still played it briefly, but it did hurt the experience.

I guess if the game is solid in all other aspects I'll play it. But I'd probably be much less likely to try it and find that out since you see the visuals first. Sounds like a game to get on discount if at all.
I was going to instantly say no but Slay the Spire is a great example. It doesn’t look great but it’s one of my most played games!
 

Rest

All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
If I find it ugly I won't play it. It really depends.
 
I ignore them until some eventually pop on my radar due to various reasons - like fans incessantly praising design features that could potentially resonate with me.

Good examples are Undertale and Rimworld, which i completely ignored for a while because their aesthetics didn't appeal to me at all, and i eventually (years later) gave them a go after hearing some random info, over time, on them that seemed like they would hook me (with Undertale it was its insanely unique storytelling, with Rimworld it was its endless possibilities to mess around with). Suffice to say they're amazing, and absolutely a few of those video games worth playing before you die because of how unique and memorable they are.

But if i don't like the aesthetics and it doesn't have anything else going for it, then nope.
 

Laptop1991

Member
No probably not, if i hated it that much i couldn't stare at the screen for that amount of time, i wouldn't buy or try the game in the first place, i didn't like the look of Borderlands so basically i tried it and stopped playing it and never went back. that's the only 1 i can think of.
 

SlimeGooGoo

Party Gooper
Only old games.

Modern games have to look good, there's simply no excuse for that anymore*

*except Nintendo games
 
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Certinty

Member
I gave As Dusk Falls a go despite hating what I initially saw with the artstyle but ended up absolutely loving it in the end.
 
Part of the big reason why I do not like Skyrim or Oblivion is because of how Bethesda handles their portrayal of Medieval fantasy.

The asthetics of the elder scroll series is downright boring. Their depictions of mythological creatures look horrible.

I mean how is minotaur supposed to make me feel scared or intimidated? KEKW.

Qhnr6mM.png
 

Robb

Gold Member
I’m not sure if I’ve ever played a game where I ‘hate’ the artstyle. I’ve played and enjoyed lots of games with an artstyle I don’t particularly like though. Wii Sports for example.
 

killatopak

Member
It certainly will stop me from proactively playing it but a good word of mouth or review will make me take a second look.
 
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Tunned

Member
I've had this happen with Fallout 3, I tried getting in to it 3 times, and every time I had to turn it off because of the vomit inducing "art style".
 
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Art and Music; are two of the de facto reasons i think about, when I buy a game... So, if those don't line up I probably won't buy said game. As an Artist, I think it's fairly reasonable.
 
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Fredrik

Member
gameplay is king, so yes. if the gameplay is good I'm playing it.
I wish I was like that but the reality is that I will never find out if an ugly game has great gameplay because I’ve already turned around and walked away. I’m terrible I know. 😞

Retro games I can play though, but I like pixel art.

I’m trying to think of any modern game I’ve enjoyed with bad astetics. Not sure what that would be. Maybe No Man’s Sky? It can look great at times but also extremely rough too, but I certainly don’t hate the astetics so it’s a bad example.
 
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