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Character Redesigns


Cortez

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I'm not too bothered by re-designs unless it's for games I truely care about.

I loved the change to Lara Croft when Legend came around but I simply loved Lara's original design in Angel of Darkness which I felt modern while maintaining the classic Lara design which change of clothes and looking fresh.

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Then Eidos switched developers from Core Design to Crystal Dynamics after AOD's flop which came the redesign of Lara Croft.

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At the time Tomb Raider was being switched to new developers, a new design was born which most Tomb Raider fans call her Barbie Lara but I feel that while there is a new design it keeps that classic feel on her face, the pointy nose, the beautiful full of life brown eyes while trying to be modern but lets fast forward to 2012 for Lara's next reboot and start of her adventures because I don't mind this design I love it but not as much as TR1 - AOD Lara.

Tomb-Raider-4.jpg

Enter 2012, A new era of Tomb Raider games begins with the latest reboot named "Tomb Raider" Lara has been redesigned for this game to making her younger (around 23 years old) and is embarking on her first adventure but when I look at her in this screenshot. it just doesn't feel like Lara when I look at her, sure she looks like Lara in artwork and is younger but in game it doesn't look like her at all to me but not all redesigns are not bad as the TR Legend example shows that Lara can look good after a re-design to look modern.

(I really had to do one on Lara didn't I XD)

As a Tomb Raider fan myself I've never really had a problem with the redesign that Crystal Dynamics gave Lara for their "LAU Trilogy", I thought she looked great, while she still wasn't exactly realistic looking it was a good modern update of the original Core Design Lara. Although I thought "AoD" Lara looked awesome too and was little disappointed to see her go so soon after Crystal took over..

But I just can't get behind this again redesigned Lara they have going for their again rebooted Tomb Raider. I get that Crystal is going for more realism this time around but to me she looks nothing like Lara Croft. I think she's kinda ugly in that screenshot you posted up there. Honestly if someone had showed me that pic and I didn't already know that it was from the new Tomb Raider, I would never have guessed that was Lara. She looks more asian than she does Lara. She doesn't even have her trademark dual pistols! I know this is another reboot of the entire series, but goddamn she better have her pistols by the end of the game.

Edited by Travis Touchdown
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Actually, I found myself going "WHAT THE HELL WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU?!" At the re-design of the Pac-Man characters. But now that I look at them, it looks a lot more lively and inviting to me. It reminds me of the Classic-Modern Sonic change. Where there are minor tweaks, but you can still identify the character very easily, and both designs have perks without many negatives (Well, for me.)

I just wonder if anyone would dare and try to take Pac-Man to the next level, give him a big platformer game on Next Gen console-...

Then again, if it didn't work for Sonic...

They should make Pac-Man World 4, but call it just "Pac-Man".

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Tomb-Raider-4.jpg

She looks like an Ellen Page that got smacked in the face with a shovel.

Edited by pooshoes
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210px-Eggmen.png

Some characters look fantastic no matter what design they have.

You know, I still think that Classic Eggman somehow manages to resemble a cheeseburger. I think it's the yellow cape.

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You know, I still think that Classic Eggman somehow manages to resemble a cheeseburger. I think it's the yellow cape.

I think it's more that he as a whole looks like an animated plastic toy.

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I agree, but how is that related to him looking like a cheeseburger? D:

Asks the guy who works at McDonalds.

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I will admit, Classic Eggman did come off as a little weird looking. I wish they had made his sunglasses reflective rather than "painted on" reflective.

Oh, another thing that's work mentioning is when characters get redesigned because of new technology allowing them to portray the character "as they originally imagined".

I wouldn't be surprised if the reason Joanna Dark originally had short brown hair and then suddenly had shoulder length neon red hair in her past self form for the sequel is because they were able to do it justice on the 360 and not on the N64.

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That still does not excuse the travesty that is Modern Banjo. mellow.png

Oh by all means no. That redesign was clearly designed to go hand in hand with the gameplay. The whole game had this blocky "put together" style that very much complimented the gameplay. (This was exactly what I meant in my first post in the topic, and on an objective basis is a wonderful example of good game design).

Of course the fact that it all compliments each other nicely doesn't change the fact that Nuts and Bolts was totally lame. But that's just an opinion of course. For what it WAS, it was put together and designed in terms of style and substance very VERY well. I just hated the "what it was" part.

Edited by JezMM
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EDIT: For some reason I'm not able to post an image.

I was trying to compare the original CG render of Joahnna Dark to the 360 design and show how different she looks. She did have red hair originally, I think that's the only thing Rare got right. She's 23 in the N64 design and 20 in the 360 design.

Edited by lounge-mas
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(there's a new spidey game based on the movie coming out so this is vidya related shut up.)

I'm really digging deadpool's new costume for the reboot

amazingspideyewofficial4.jpg

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The colors seem so more vibrant and stand out more (gayer and fabulous!.) Not really feeling the shoes though, but they're growing on me.The thing they're doing with the lens, being reflective seems neat as well.* I actually seem to like it more than Raimi's costume. .

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*

BAWWWWWWWWW YELLOW EYES.

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Seriously? No one mentioned the travesty that was Skylanders Spyro yet? I expected it to get a mention on the first page.

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Seriously? No one mentioned the travesty that was Skylanders Spyro yet? I expected it to get a mention on the first page.

Yeah, it's astounding that it took until the opening post of the topic for someone to bring that up.

...I haven't been paying very close attention to the new Spider-Man, but from what I've seen the new suit seems like an improvement. The Raimi suit was just a little too plasticky for my taste; I could never quite shake the feeling that he'd just walked off the set of Power Rangers. That kind of glossy look works well with some superheroes, but I think a costume with a little more texture and a little less shine (but still plenty of colour) was a better choice for someone comparatively low-key like Spider-Man.

Edited by Octarine
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EDIT: For some reason I'm not able to post an image.

I was trying to compare the original CG render of Joahnna Dark to the 360 design and show how different she looks. She did have red hair originally, I think that's the only thing Rare got right. She's 23 in the N64 design and 20 in the 360 design.

joannadark.png

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...maybe I'm the only one who noticed, but in almost EVERY relaunch of the series Konami gave Frogger a pointless redesign. :/

ps1frogger.jpg

^ I think this is an exception, it's actually in a way the FIRST design of Frogger if you don't count what he looked like on the boxart of the arcade games. The rest down below count though.

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DAMNIT JUST STICK WITH ONE DESIGN ALREADY >:/

Edited by Zinos
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Something that jumps out at me at that spiderman example is that Spiderman's shoes need to be thin so that his feet can grip the walls. Kinda funny that.

About Pac-Man, his original inspiration for his design was a pizza missing a slice, Namco really needs to realize what sort of character they're actually working with:

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The "DmC" Dante reminds me of when they made that bizarre "The Thing" stand alone show where The Thing was the transformation of this skinny white kid. He used a ring with the unfortunate title of "Thing Ring".

And no discussion of character redesigns is complete without a mention of Bomberman Act Zero. So here it is.

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...maybe I'm the only one who noticed, but in almost EVERY relaunch of the series Konami gave Frogger a pointless redesign. :/

...But they're all just based on a game about an ordinary frog with no personality. Is it really a big deal that every time they come up with a completely different game then they design a completely different frog to fit in with it? I bet the "character" doesn't even have any consistent characteristics other than being a frog that jumps.

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joannadark.png

It's funny though, because even the original renders (the Joanna on the far right above for those who aren't familiar enough with Perfect Dark to be following this conversation closely) do not match the in-game model at all.

joannapd.jpg

The redesign for the HD version wasn't bad, I think it kept in line with her original character to keep the brown hair, but since they did make it the same STYLE as her render, I wish wish WISH that they had given her the spy outfit from the original renders.

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The in-game one is so dumb looking and unstreamlined. The renders were just so much more... what's the word... well, hotter cooler looking.

Though younger Perfect Dark Zero Jo is my preferred design of the two (how she actually looks in the final artwork and game at least, those pre-release renders were just a little derpy looking). It's a shame she belongs to the more mediocre game of the franchise. (I loved the way they drew her in the special edition bonus comic too, really actually was a bit of an inspiration on me when I read it and is one of several influences on how I draw in recent years).

Edited by JezMM
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...But they're all just based on a game about an ordinary frog with no personality. Is it really a big deal that every time they come up with a completely different game then they design a completely different frog to fit in with it? I bet the "character" doesn't even have any consistent characteristics other than being a frog that jumps.

Actually, I'm pretty sure in the post-Hasbro Frogger games, they started making him into an actual character. Look at Frogger on the Frogger: The Great Quest and Frogger: Helment Chaos covers, he looks more like an anthro frog than the other designs of him in the other games, and he's actually wearing clothes in those two.

Edited by Zinos
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Actually, I'm pretty sure in the post-Hasbro Frogger games, they started making him into an actual character. Look at Frogger on the Frogger: The Great Quest and Frogger: Helment Chaos covers, he looks more like an anthro frog than the other designs of him in the other games, and he's actually wearing clothes in those two.

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I think Jo looks sexier in the N64 renders. She has a womanly beauty. I will admit that on the box art of the 360 Perfect Dark Zero she actually looked really gorgeous. But the in game model and renders just looked too cartoony and different. And it's only supposed to be a 3 year gap. As well as all of the characters in the game looking weird with bad animations. Still the 360 design isn't actually bad at all, just different. Unless someone doesn't know about the N64 renders I can't imagine it would bother anyone.

The HD Perfect Dark rerelease stayed a little truer to the original render with the head shape, but it still looked really weird and unattractive. Even the new 2010 CG renders for the rerelease look weird.

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Something about that new Spider-Man suit just..doesn't work for me. I'm not sure what it is, maybe I'm just not used to the new look yet or something and I know that I'm pretty much going to have to go ahead and accept it anyways which is fine, because I don't hate it or anything, but..I just look at it and something feels off. Maybe it's the way the blue and the red kind of blend around each other rather than being separated, it could be the shoes, or probably just the fact that it doesn't have those silver web like looking designs that the older one has.

Maybe I'm just too picky.

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