I really don't like the insinuation that pixel art is 'lower tier art'. It might be regarded as retro and old, but there is an artistry to it. It's not just slapping dots onto a screen. This being said, there are, uh, several levels of pixel art? I grew up in the GBA-era so I'm going to be focusing on the level of detail they had on the GBA.
Also, hi! I'm one of the creators of
Cerulean, which was mentioned twice in the thread! I'm going to admit that I actually have a hard time calling it a proper pixel-art VN myself, since all I really did was work with a binary pencil and limited anti-aliasing. In hindsight, the resolution was far too high, but it was my first foray into actually producing pixel assets. I'm really happy to know people remember us though!
I am going to admit right now that I'm not a pixel artist. I am a digital painter. Even so, I only have the utmost respect for pixel art! (In fact, if you have a good few minutes, I recommend reading
this post about 'pixel tax' and how modern gamers feel like pixel art is worse than higher res stuff despite the difference in the level of artistry.)
I think people are forgetting that VNs are pretty much RPGs but stripped of the, uh, gameplay sections, but with more advanced branching and dialogue choices. (It's a bit more complex than that, but...) RPGs still have the traditional character portrait and textbox, at least a lot of the time!
And, well. We have tons of pixel RPGs from the past which are gorgeous.
First things first, I remember playing
this from Yuri Jam last year! Pixel art VNs exist, I'm sure.
Next up, are we going to forget Ace Attorney?! People!!! You can't deny that the game is like a visual novel. All the games other than the ones for the 3DS are pixel sprites, what with the limitations of the screen resolutions. I've attached some of my favourites.
- terry-normal(b).gif (129.78 KiB) Viewed 5810 times
- adrian-book(a).gif (68.98 KiB) Viewed 5810 times
- klavier-forwardhair(e).gif (65.89 KiB) Viewed 5810 times
More traditionally, we also have 999 for the DS.
Players complained when the series went 3D (for good reason) in the next installment, VLR. Reasoning? "Despite" being pixel, it still looked a lot better. (They actually went for 3D because pixel sprites was too much of a toll on their budget.) It depends on the execution, and while the 3D transition for the Ace Attorney series was quite nice, the Zero Escape series was not. (I'm willing to bet they spent a long time trying to get AA5 and AA6 to look the way it is today.) Even then, I have areas where I prefer the original 4 Ace Attorney games in terms of art.
Moving on, small portraits for other RPGs. My favourites are Megaman Battle Network and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance!
Here's some portraits from FFTA.
Aand some from Megaman Battle Network!
I find these very charming! They use a lot of dithering in the FFTA sprites to give the illusion of roundness and softness, while in MMBN they just flattened most of the forms. They both convey the information well, and they also lineup with each game's overall aesthetic; FFTA is a fantasical, softer and magical game, while MMBN is modern, bright and silly.
I was going to attach more examples, but I got a bit carried away! There are other games worth looking at as well - Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, Tokimeki Memorial 1... Conversely, pixel art is really respected by me because it was an artform made from limitations, but artists have made amazing things despite of the limitations. Lately, the insistence of using limited palettes, the fact that every pixel is hand placed, makes pixel art possibly the tightest artform used in games - a single pixel can make the image look wrong, so each one is important. The limited palettes give the overall image harmony. (Depends on who's the artist, of course.)
There is something else to consider when we have pixel art - something we didn't implement in Cerulean - which is the fact that pixel art is
small. In both image size and file size, I mean. And that means... animations! Ace Attorney of note has really, really great animations with the pixel sprites. HD visuals don't do that, except for Live2D, 3D models, and potentially really painstakingly drawn ones. Please tell me if you've seen the last kind in visual novels. I'm sure it is in part because of the memory limitations of game cartridges in the past, but I believe there is an element of ease in animation sprites compared to fully rendered visual novel sprites. (I'm not talking about simple cel-shading as in anime.)
Is it really a regression if, by lowering the resolution, we are allowed to have actual movement and actions by the character? I believe the amount of character that the Ace Attorney sprites gave just by the animations is vitally important to the charm of the AA games.
And look, I found a VLR screenshot to compare to the 999 game. Is the first image really better than the second image because it has more pixels?
And in case you couldn't tell, OP, I believe there is merit in a pixel art style VN! I don't do it because it's harder to accomplish myself. I've tried! But if you have a good pixel artist and you can make it aesthetically pleasing, why not! You might alienate an audience. But you'll do that with anything you go with, so if you think it's worth it, go for it. I'm definitely more on the side of being attracted to pixel art!