Super Arts – Vanillaware

Back in the PS2 days when Vanillaware released their first two games; Odin Sphere and Grim Grimoire, a side-scrolling, RPG-informed action game and a story-based RTS game respectively, it was clear that they were a studio of artists. On the Wii they also released Muramasa: The Demon Blade on a largely out-of-favour console and, as such, didn’t quite get the attention it deserved (remedied with the soon to be released Vita version). These three games are some of the best looking games to date but all of them suffered a similar issue — while they looked fantastic the gameplay itself got a lot of flak for one reason or another. Despite this, they are totally serviceable gameplay-wise, but what really makes these experiences shine is their art style.

Due to the fact Vanillaware have chosen a 2D style for their games, they have one inherent problem: creating a sense of depth. In order to overcome the inherent restrictions of dropping the Z-axis they have been incredibly clever in bestowing an illusion of substance to the characters. The painterly style of building up layers of visible planes of colour makes characters and environments feel deep and solid. This also extends to clothes where the textures are rendered with soft changes between light and shade and with a looseness that conveys depth but never looks messy. It’s an incredibly difficult style to pull off but here it lends a trademark style that’s implicit but powerful.

As can be seen in many of these images the artist has also used exaggerated shapes to suggest solidarity. The pointed segments of the faerie’s braids (first image above) make it feel chunky which is contrasted by offsetting the weight of her hair with the tapering off of her thin legs, making her look cute and petite. The angled shape of Gammel’s hair (below) also suggests a 3-dimensionality and the hulking behemoth’s gargantuan torso (last image below) makes him look like a personified brick. Interestingly, he also has incredibly small legs compared to his body but I doubt this is to make him look cute, somehow.

Effective use of colour in modern games is so rare that, when games like Persona and Ni No Kuni come along, who maturely and artistically use colour to convey a unique identity to their game, it’s like a breath of fresh air. Maybe it’s because colour theory itself is infuriatingly difficult to pull off, or maybe it’s the overbearing yearning for realism. No matter what it is the result is the same and it is there aren’t a lot of games out there that use colour well. Vanillaware don’t just use it well, they use it better than any studio today.

Good use of colour does not mean lots of colour. A hell of a lot of games, especially the Flash aesthetic games like Plants Vs Zombies, Shank or Castle Crashers, adopt a very base and restricted application of colour. Often times too many passages of colour are belligerently uniform, and, along with the lack of lighting and next to no texture, makes for a visually obvious and uninteresting experience. On the other hand a lot of iOS style games and a handful of JRPGs tend toward the garish, where bright and lurid are mistaken for colourful. The end result is often a visually banal aesthetic, where art has taken a back seat to simple, quick styles.

It’s abundantly clear that Vanillaware along with Atlus, From Software, and many others, don’t believe in quick, fit-for-purpose uses of colour and due to the artistry, time and money involved in choosing a more complex and rich application of colour, I think these types of developers and their games need to be celebrated. The three most obvious and effective areas in all of Vanillaware’s games that make them stand out so much are; reflective light, shadows and colour palette.

The palette is the most impressive and the range and depth of colours is easiest to see when they render white hair. If you look closely you’ll see it isn’t just different hues of white; it’s warm cool and neutral hues of yellow, grey purple and so on (see Gammel Dore from Grim Grimoire below). Merging all of these subtle hues of off-white colours while still making it abundantly clear it’s white to the viewer is so difficult to do and when it’s done well it makes hair look lively, deep, textured as well as making it look as if it’s reflecting the light of the world around it.

The best thing about Vanillaware’s choice of design means the artists have free reign, they are completely un-tethered to real-world-logic and can create the most incredible worlds and enemies. This can be seen most dramatically in Odin Sphere where scale and proportions are perverted to such an extent that you are constantly in awe (see image below). They do this a lot in the upcoming game Dragon’s Crown which has shocked a few folk into belittling it, however, if they were asked to draw a character with stylised proportions they would soon realise how insanely difficult it is. The thing is, it isn’t just done for funsies, these characters (including the busty Sorcerer that dared provoke the sensibilities of men earlier in the year) are rendered thusly to tell a story about their personalities. As explained here every single design decision is considered to express the character’s personality but also how they fit in to the game world. Everything is considered.