What games have the best style/art direction?

I would say this award goes to non other than Persona 5. This video does a great job of explaining how Persona 5 just oozes with style, from the menus, to the animation, to the little details, and of course, to the amazing soundtrack. It's amazing that us Playstation gamers have been spoiled. Maybe one day the rest of the factions will get to try it. 😎

How about you, SW? What games have the best style/art direction?

Your taste.... your taste.

Ori and the blind Forest/Wisp

Jet Set Radio Future

Wind Waker (Gamecube version. The style was compromised with the HD release. :( )

Obduction

Halo excluding 4 and 5 (while 4 and 5 looked great, it was a bit generic)

Horizon Zero Dawn

Luigi's Mansion 1 and 3

Katamari

Mario Sunshine

Mario 3D World

Dishonored

Journey

Many more, but those came to mind.

While I really dislike the games themselves, I do like the art direction of Borderlands. The thick black outlines for characters coupled with the cel-shaded textures, not to mention a lot of the textures were literally hand-drawn and then uploaded into the game. I think it's a really great style overall. I just like cel-shaded I guess.

Arkane games don't get enough credit in the art direction department, especially Dishonored series. The games look like grease paintings in motion. I love the art direction, and the character and level design; I think it was by the same guy that did a lot of art for Half-Life 2.

Beauty in the eye of the behind and all that but some franchises that have games with style and art direction that I really enjoyed are:

- Super Mario

- The Legend of Zelda

- Gears of War

- Halo

- Final Fantasy

- Dragon Quest

- Blazblue

Honestly there’s a ton of games out there both past and present that have great style and art direction.

Some nice picks there... definitely agree with the highlighted.

Zelda, Breath of the Wild

Okami

Breath of the Wild

Bloodborne

Katamari

Riven

Tons more, but just listing some that jumped to mind

God of War 2018, Bloodborne and Bioshock.

Sea of Thieves

Ghost of Tsushima

@theam0g: Sea of Thieves is also a good choice.

Yakuza games hands down. Japan looks amazing with all the neon lights and crazy advertising everywhere.

My second choice is probably Silent Hill 2. The atmosphere for the time was insane. I still find SH2 scarier than every hide and seek horror game which is released today.

God of War (the entire franchise)

Shovel Knight

Bloodborne

Super Metroid

Wonderboy The Dragons Trap (sms and remastered version)

Streets of Rage 2

Zelda Wind Waker

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Shadow of the Colossus (any version)

There's many more, those are just a few that popped into my head.

@vfighter: Shadow of Colossus is another great choice.

Persona 5 wins hands down.

Ori is really good and is best played on the switch in hand held mode on the OLED model.

• Space Harrier
• Out Run 1 & 2
• Prince of Persia / Sands of Time / Two Thrones / 2008
• Final Fantasy 4-10 & 12-13
• Sonic 1-4 / CD / Adventure 1-2 / Colors / Generations / Mania
• Street Fighter 2-5 & Alpha 1-3
• Lunar 1 & 2
• Dragon Quest 5-6 / 8 / 11
• Secret of Mana & Legend of Mana
• Chrono Trigger & Cross
• SaGa Frontier 1 & 2
• Marvel vs. Capcom 1-3 & Tatsunoko vs. Capcom
• Jet Set Radio
• Zelda: Wind Waker / Skyward Sword / BOTW
• Okami
• Persona 3-5
• Guilty Gear Xrd
• Dragon Ball FighterZ
• Ghost of Tsushima

i find last guardian to be quite unique and refreshing.

Slice, Dice, and Rice. Indie one-hit kill fighting game that no one played. Absolutely fantastic art direction:

Dragon The Ballz Fighters

Halflife 2+

Team Fortress 2 - .

Last Blade 1/2 -

Splinter Cell 3 -

Vagrant Story -

Others.

@uninspiredcup: Damn that looks cool!

Viewtiful Joe 1 and its sequel comes to mind. Absolutely loved the comic artstyle of that game. Plays really damn good too.

I think Paper Mario 64 and the Gamecube sequel has quite stunning art direction too.

Cuphead

Sea of thieves

The acsent

Dishonered

I'll give one game for each gen of consoles i owned, that in my opinion give the best use of their artstyle in the game.

Yoshi's Island.

Parappa the Rapper.

Okami.

Valkyria Chronicles.

Persona 5.

@adsparky: Yoshi's Island, Parappa, Okami, damn good list.

@simple-facts: Cuphead is an excellent choice.

Came here with Sea of Thieves, in mind and happy to see I wasn't the only one. :P

Warioware deserves a shout. Unique and totally fits how wacky the series is.

Damn, lots of good mentions in this thread. I agree with almost all of them.

I'll add Muramasa: The Demon Blade.

Might be an unpopular opinion but I always enjoyed the art style of telltale games. Especially the walking dead final season.

@___gamemaster__: good call

Credit to sea of thieves in this regard, persona is also a strong contender, Ori is pretty impressive from the stylistic angle as well, there's definitely a ton I'm just skipping over but I'm going to go ahead and say Cyberpunk for all it's failings one things it nailed was the cyberpunk aesthetic.

Wind Waker.

Hollow Knight

In recent years I would have to go with Cuphead, because it stays true to its visual aesthetic to the very end without ever missing a beat. I think it is because of its sense of style that makes the game special.

Zelda WW, Cuphead, Children of Morta, Metal slug 3, Ni No Kuni

Mirror's Edge

Prey 2017 has nice artstyle.

@warmblur said:

Mirror's Edge

It has nice style but unfortunately game was so bad.

@warmblur: Yea, good one.

Okami

Pikmin 2 and 3. 3 especially (still the king of rendering fruit :P).

The metroid prime series. i can't put my finger on it exactly. it could be just that there are no human looking characters in it so they can get away with a bit more with just excellent environments and great enemy designs. but up the res, bit of AA and it's still a dam fine looking game today. it's still just a really nice game to look at imho. really strong art direction right there.

i would also agree with many of the games mentioned above so no point mentioning them again.

Edit: also wanted to give a shout out to paper beast and tearaway. they look really cool too (just had a quick scan of some games in my steam library).

You guys are right! Guacamelee is pretty great!

for recent games the ascent is impressive from a 12 man dev team.

Overall though sea of thieves takes the cake

I definitely agree on Persona 5.

Other games with great art style are Borderlands and Bioshock. I also like the art style of many classic arcade games, e.g. Bubble Bobble, Pole Position, Double Dragon and Street Fighter 2

Persona games

NEO: TWEWY

Dragonball

Dragon Quest

@uninspiredcup: Yeah, Last Blade backgrounds are some of the best art ever made in 16 bit:

KoF 99 is up there too:

Kinda tragic how SNK went bankrupt at their peak.

@judaspete: Yes. Their 3D transition lost this magic. But given budget and expectations, understandable.

Art of Rally has a very cool style.

To name a few that I liked the style/art and I'll throw in even music

• Fallout4
• Bloodborne
• Fallout 3
• Fallout NV
• Bioshock
• Skyrim
• Neo The World Ends With You
• Chrono Cross
• FF15
• RE8
• RE2 Remake
• Sacred 2
• Persona 5
• Persona 5 Strikers
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Necromunda Hired Gun
• Death Stranding
• Code Vein
• Scarlet Nexus
• Guilty Gear Strive
• FF14 ARR
• Streets of Rage 4
• Ghost of Tsushima
• Geow 1-3
• Mass Effect 1-3
• Apex Legends
• Titanfall 2