Making a good Impression

For anyone living under the proverbial rock of the gaming world, The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, the latest title in the 25 year old Legend of Zelda franchise, was just released. So, of course, we're going to talk about it.


Tauted by many across the internet as the Wii's swan song, it probably isn't too much of a stretch to say that this is the system's most hyped and expected game of its entire life cycle. However, because it is on the Wii, there has been no shortage of the usual Wii related complaints leveled at this game; everything from how motion controls "suck" and "I don't want to play a game that'll make me exercise when I come tired from work and just want to relax" to "I can't play this game because the graphics are so bad it turns me off". Considering I haven't had a chance to play the game yet, I don't feel I can accurately talk about the motion controls, so instead I want to tackle the whole graphics issue that many people seem to be using as an excuse to discredit the game.

How can anyone not find this appealing?

Before we discuss Skyward sword in particular its important that we address the term graphics. With the exception of Realism, few words have been as misused as graphics. A quick look at Wikipedia, Webster's dictionary, and the Oxford dictionary reveals that graphics really just refers to any kind of visual representation, whether they're carved in stones or processed by some type of computer. The term graphics is completely neutral, which means that the never ending debate over graphics boils down to two opposing parties using the term graphics as a place holder for something else: Art Style (how things are designed to look) and Display Quality (how many pixels a visual is being displayed with plus pixel refresh rate).

So which one is at play here?

Now I won't pretend to know what goes on in other people's heads, I'm not omniscient, but I will venture a guess that, in a regular discussion about a videogame's visuals, most people use graphics to refer to a game's Art Style or Artistic Direction. I make this conclusion based on how many discussions about this boil down to how realistic looking a game is or isn't. What most people don't seem to realize is that the visuals in games like Battlefield and Call of Duty have a very distinct, and somewhat stylized, Art Style that is meant to evoke reality without actually being an accurate portrayal of reality. The same applies for Skyward Sword's visuals; they follow a specific art style, specifically in this case, the game's developers have told us they took inspiration from Impressionism.

This is what Impressionism looks like

Impressionism is a particularly interesting choice by the developers because the defining characteristics of this particular art style allow Eiji Aonuma (Skyward Sword's producer) and his team to get the best out of the Wii's display capability while also making the visuals appealing for a longer span of time (think the Wind Waker, its been 8 years already). It also gives them a free pass on the Wii's Standard Definition problem since one of Impressionism's characteristics is that it is not meant to look amazing under detailed scrutiny. Impressionism is about capturing a moment as a whole, not the particulars of each moment.

Can't really fault someone for doing what
they set out to do right.

Skyward Sword's art style is amazing because it accurately conveys the ideas of Impressionism in its presentation. Does that mean everyone has to love this game's look? Of course not, that would be preposterous. It would be like suggesting Skyward Sword's graphics suck because they're not being displayed in High Definition to better allow us to see the detail's of Links boots.

Beautiful

One last thing before I end today's post. The RokuManga team has just officially launched its website: www.rokumanga.com. We're still working out a few kinks and making modifications, but you can read the first ten complete pages (dialogue written by yours truly) and check out some artwork by members of the team. We're expecting to have most, if not all of the prologues pages up by tomorrow Tuesday November 22nd so be on the lookout for that. Feel free to leave comments down in the comments section, and I'll see you guys next week.