Art style: 2D -vs- 3D Graphics, CMI -vs- TMI Visuals
I think curse of MI art style is much better suited to monkey island than the 3D MI4 style adopted for tales of MI. I think that's the main drawback with tales.
The textures and backgrounds in the screenshots and trailer for TMI are bland and lack the level of visual detail neeeded for the player to become absorbed in the game-world.
MI3
http://www.worldofmi.com/images/categories/4/screen09.jpg
MI4
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/screenshots/gs/adventure/monkeyisland/mi4_1109_screen001.jpg
TMI
http://www.unigamesity.com/wp-content/uploads//2009/06/tales-of-monkey-island-guybrush.jpg
a Curse of MI art direction should perhaps be considered by the team, rather than relying on the Sam and Max engine, as this higher level of detail is easier to achieve with the watercoloured style, scrolling backgrounds used in CMI and easier to translate from concept to game
Agreed?
The textures and backgrounds in the screenshots and trailer for TMI are bland and lack the level of visual detail neeeded for the player to become absorbed in the game-world.
MI3
http://www.worldofmi.com/images/categories/4/screen09.jpg
MI4
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/screenshots/gs/adventure/monkeyisland/mi4_1109_screen001.jpg
TMI
http://www.unigamesity.com/wp-content/uploads//2009/06/tales-of-monkey-island-guybrush.jpg
a Curse of MI art direction should perhaps be considered by the team, rather than relying on the Sam and Max engine, as this higher level of detail is easier to achieve with the watercoloured style, scrolling backgrounds used in CMI and easier to translate from concept to game
Agreed?
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I was just replaying a big of CMI today and I'm hoping, no BEGGING Telltale (or whoever might continue this series) to return to the Curse 2D style! It was perfection, and if brought into HD would be fantastic.
Just accept it
But Tales of Monkey Island comes in second. Honestly, I was impressed with the graphics and I don't think they could have done a better job. 2D graphics cost ALOT more, and this is the only way for MI to progress.
Tales of Monkey Island, so far, is the second best Monkey Island out there. That opinion may change after finishing all the eps.
Ep1 was gorgeous, and I can't wait for the rest.
My opinion? Even though Tales was a 3D game, I very much felt it had a Curse feel to it.
But Telltale's able to do what they do because they're using an existing technology base, which is not just an engine, but a set of development tools. If they didn't do it this way, you just wouldn't get a new Monkey Island. Like the last 9 years.
There are things in TMI that simply could never have been done in a previous Monkey Island game strictly from a presentation standpoint. Consider the gag in the Voodoo Lady's hut where Guybrush puts his hands over his ears when the Voodoo Lady begins to say something that he doesn't want to hear, and he gets the tail end of her statement when he removes his ears. This gag could never have been done, or done nearly as effectively, in a previous Monkey Island game. There are tons of examples of this in just the first episode of TMI. This sort of thing isn't a "bells and whistles" feature, either - it's a fundamental part of the storytelling, and the methods of storytelling comes from the tools at your disposal.
With 2D illustrations for backgrounds, CMI's storytelling from a presentation standpoint was handled much differently (though obviously no worse) simply because of logistics. When your backgrounds are in 2D, most closeup shots are completely unfeasible (I'm pretty sure all of CMI's closeups were in the cutscenes, which are expensive, grueling, lengthy, heavily storyboarded productions with traditional animation), so you are limited to single, wide shots of an environment. TMI cannot possibly replicate the beauty or subtlety of a hand drawn illustration, but it gets to use cutaways, pans, and other camera movements for dramatic or comedic effect. The designers also have way more control over timing and "small moments," and a lot more quality, hand drawn character animation can be employed much quicker and easier than would be the case when animating a 2D sprite. Again, this is not some throwaway fluff feature - it's an integral part of the quality of Telltale's presentation. And it's not the kind of thing you can really get from static screenshots or even some glimpses from a trailer.
There's no question that CMI is completely timeless from an art perspective and that in many ways TMI can't hold a candle, but there's a flipside to that too. The bottom line is that both approaches have strengths and weaknesses. For CMI, the graphics ARE the artwork. In TMI, they're only a part of the visual presentation. It's silly to act as if the resolution of TMI's textures tell anymore than a tiny fraction of the story. CMI has TMI completely KO'ed with the artwork, but as far as which game is more cinematic, TMI would win that equally unfair fight.
(Also, it's highly unlikely that Telltale "chose" a 3D Monkey Island game over a 2D one. Given various facts about their situation, there was no choice, or at least not one that they could have made any more recent than five years ago.)
Is exactly how I pictured it should look.... which is more in lines of Tales. I personally wouldn't mind a touch of that cartoon phong shading either. From what I've played and from what many people are saying is that the Art Style feels inspired by curse in ToMi, only 3D... a good Toon shader over the game as it is would of made it feel more like Curse and less like Plastic. This is the only way I think it could of been done better.
I mean just look at my crude rudimentary sketch up comparison.
Now imagine it in color.... with a 2d effect. Would feel a lot like Curse IMO...
All it needs is shading like Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm.
http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/906/906349/naruto-ultimate-ninja-storm-20080828073135518_640w.jpg
I think Naruto and Curse look nearly Identical in terms of 2d ness. The only real difference at that point is the art direction.
CMI is probably my favourite game ever though so I may be being bias
I've actually work with 3D production. Going 2D allows more stylized background details, line weighting and certain nuances to the animation that are harder to get in 3D. I think the bigger reasoning here for the style choice was that Telltale was already experienced and set up to do it with this engine in 3D. In the end I don't know that it would cost more to go 2D, other than the cost to set up a different type of studio.
I would love to see Telltale or someone hire back the talent from CMI and go back to that style. It was a great surprise to me to see them bring back Monkey Island at all, but if there is another go around, I'm hoping they go back to the 2D glory.
There are one or two points where the lighting isn't quite what it could be, or the facial animation comes off a bit wierd but over all I think it's an excellent job, especially the backgrounds. The point is they did MI in 3D really well, with all the advantages that brings.
Its easy to say CMI backgrounds were better when u show a picture of a lush hand drawn forest against an infinite ocean... if you want to make an argument at least have some decent examples
I completely agree with Lena. CoMI Was a great game visually and artistically no doubt. But that was years ago. The art style and feel of ToMI is far superior to Curse in my opinion. Going with what Lena said again, it would not have been possible to have the Marquis De Singe as he was in this game. Personally he was the stand out character in episode one! (SPOILER!!!!!!)
Tell me i'm wrong.. when you were locked in that Frankenstein-esque table/chair thing, didnt you want to get out of there fast as possible? That feeling only comes from a great character yet a great villain which could only be made possible from a 3D stand point.
The bottom line, really, for me is that Telltale is doing with its 3d engine what lucasarts did with CMI and that is making the very most of their assets to make a game in a francise they obviously care very deeply about. There are very few developers in the industry that do what they do for the reasons they do it.
I think TMI is better than CMI also. do not know which one I prefer of EMI and TMI yet.
CMI looked amazing, no question. I have no idea how much more it would cost (making a 3D game costs money too) to go 2D.
I would love to hear if they considered the 2D route, or if they would the next time, because I would love that so much.
I absolutely 100% adore the new art. The character design and over all feel of the art is beautiful and you can tell was very lovingly rendered, and that makes me happy, but art is completely subjective.
I myself prefer a 2D medium, but that's probably only because I am an illustrator and all my attempts at 3d things have been thwarted by my lack of knowledge on the subject, so while the art is enviable, it is somewhat unattainable to wrap my head around. This makes me persnickety about the 3d thing, not because it is bad, but because i can see how I would have done it differently, but differently certainly does not equal better at all times. I think that certain puzzles really lended themselves to the 3d medium wonderfully, and while I may have a predilection for 2d, the art "STYLE" that telltale used for this game has been absolutely my favorite.
CMI was what it was, a beautiful and fun and endearing game, made, what, twelve years ago? with technology that was the best way to portray monkey island at the time, but honestly since then, has been largely unused for almost any game.
Plus with episodic gaming, hand drawn and animated sprites with individual actions, reactions,and patterns to their speech is a daunting project. With 3d character sprites that can be manipulated and changed without starting from scratch each time has to be a boon for the art team. I can see the whys and why nots that went into the art direction, and am overall really really pleased.
I guess my rambling longwinded not really pointed point was that its not really fair to compare two separate art forms and say which one is better for the game. Aesthetically I really liked CMI, but the reactions and animations (more over the methods of producing them) of the characters are very dated and not very viable for an episodic quick release game like TMI. So yeah. Keep up the good work Telltale.
You can't put EMI and TMI as one option! EMI did not look very good at all!
It's not a simple case of 2D vs 3D! And why not include MI1 or 2? Personally I prefer the style of 2 over all the others!
And I prefer Tales over Curse, but I'm not voting on the grounds that I would be forced to condone Escape
http://www.gbase.ch/PC/shots/Ghost%2BPirates%2Bof%2BVooju%2BIsland/5375.html
tales of mi is really great, the puzzels are good, the humor is great ... really good game, but the grafics are not very nice, i wouldnt say there bad but almost ... the controls are the worst thing i have ever seen!
I agree that I can see how enticing it would be from a production standpoint to use 3D models to build an episodic game - but if you look at the credits list for CMI, they're actually not larger than the current 3D teams. So I don't know how unfeasible it would be. Telltale might even benefit in other franchises by investing in 2D hand drawn production.
And lastly, the 2D art style (aside from the resolution CMI supported) seems more timeless than these 3D offerings. CMI still looks gorgeous today.
Yes, but those teams also had literally months and perhaps years to polish their work, not to mention a significantly larger budget from lucas arts.
But while I'd like to see the style return (either in a Monkey Island game or another game), I think Udvarnoky makes a lot of good points that a 3D style allows them to a lot of things that would be difficult or impossible to do in a 2D style, and I think Telltale made the right choice, even if we ignore budget issues.
But TMI looks great, not as colorfully vibrant perhaps, but it has an absolute awesome air to it. I couldn't really choose between it and CMI.
EMI can go to the trashcan though :P
Those backgrounds are not 3-D. And all the locations are staged, like in vampyre story, too. Which...btw...sucked.
What might be a possibility somewhere down the line, would be a cel-shaded style. Obviously not gonna happen now, the look is locked for this story arc but I could see a stylized thing sorta like Borderlands, Eternal Sonata, or Okami giving us most of the best of both worlds.
It's a necessity brought upon by the economy.
Borderlands is not cel shaded
Aside from that, a great game so far! I haven't finished the episode yet, but I already know TMI will be better than EMI...as long as it stays far away from 'Monkey Kombat.'
It's a variant on the style. They use a cel-shader routine to produce a light 'inked' border on the characters and objects but go for a more painterly type look for the interior.. dunno if that's achieved completely in the textures themselves, additional shaders, or some combination. Result looks rather like a penciled/inked then painted colors comic book.
cell shaded does NOT mean bordered, look at the Wind Waker, cell shaded however no border.
I can't in good faith vote for ToMI and MI4 here, so I'll just post the games
5>2>3>1>4
PS: About cellshading & borders
Borders don't need any kind of shading. You can simply put a slightly bigger copy of the model around it and color that black on the inside and transparent on the outside. Voilà.