Which games art style is your favorite?

[bottlegnomes]

In terms of the art itself, lines and colors and whatnot, I'll definitely have to agree that Echoes is just gorgeous.

In terms of character designs, the simplicity of Elibe's armor has always been appealing to me. It's got some flair, but for the most part looks like things people could actually make and wear, even if not always situationally appropriate.

I like Echoes's character designs as well, but they're a little more in the fantasy realm in some cases, and definitely more involved overall.

Another one I'm a big fan of is RD, but same there: They're a little more fantasy, but I still quite like them and they do seem to make the most sense in terms of story. Nailah and Volug being scantily dressed makes sense; they're from a desert. Same for Begnion, rather ornate overall, and Daein, generally thick and cover a lot because cold. There are some exceptions, Sothe ಠ_ಠ, but even some of the less definite ones, like Edward still seem reasonable. Plus I'm not sure there's ever been a more badass design in all of FE than Tibarn.

Those are definitely my top 3, and in overall order probably Echoes, RD, Elibe. Thracia and Jugdral are nice as well, but just never grabbed me as much.

Archanea has some designs I love and some that are eh, but overall probably 4th if we're talking most recent OA. I don't like how they did some characters faces for SD though, like Camus and Marth.

Awakening and Fates have very pretty art, but it's just a little too out there in many cases for me to really love as a whole.

Magvel, the character designs are fine, but I hate the OA style. Don't know exactly what it is, but one thing is that everyone looks jaundiced due to the palate.

Note: I'm assuming most recent or multiple of recent styles for all, so no FE1-3 style or designs.

[DragonFlames]

Echoes, followed by Tellius. If you want a reason... uuh... I guess it's because they're the most "realistic" while still retaining an interesting uniqueness?
I am terrible at describing that sort of stuff, so you'll have to take my word for it.

[Cute Chao]

Thracia for me. I love the art style the most, and I think it's what gave me a bit of an obsession with the game. I do like other game styles, but they often seem overly bright and colourful in comparison to me.

[LFM]

Was very difficult to make a choice. Every game has its charms. Especially Genealogy, Thracia, PoR, RD and Echoes. Voted for RD. Has a slight edge over the others.

[Sock]

This style from the old TCG is my favorite. It just screams "Fire Emblem" to me, even with it's awkwardly long legs and faces that look the same and occasional derpy anatomy.

After that, Echoes and Radiant Dawn.

[Nanima]

The Tellius Saga is a favourite of mine, mostly because of the details on the characters and the armour design being really good for the most part (if that counts for the art style).

And I also really do like Fates artstyle despite the bad press. Sure, the armour designs can be awful (not that this is the fault of the lead artist), but I really did like the palette and how distinct and recognizable almost every character looks.

[Kahvi]

Echoes is my favourite but RD is a close second. Hidari's art style is distinctive and pretty pleasing to look at. It also has a sort of a nostalgic feeling to it, even though I don't know why exactly that is, maybe it's the textures. Character design-wise I also love how even the characters that have the same base class have different clothing (even if that doesn't carry over when they're promoted, but that's understandable). Radiant Dawn on the other hand has all around cool character designs, like Tibarn and Nailah.

[Dismissed]

The GBA games win this one. I personally like the character designs and the cartoony, creative battle animations. I don't care if everything is limited to 16 (15 if you exclude the transparent color) colors, it all looks amazing and it still holds up to this day. In fact, I dare say that it's better than the 3DS era animations.

[Reality]

Overall : GBA probbably FE7>slightly ahead of FE8 and FE6

UI : Awakening

Portraits : Shadow Dragon > slightly ahead of New Mystery (feel a little zoomed out despite same art style)

Map sprites: Awakening

Battle animations: FE8 

 

For me Awakening has one of the most important artstyles in the series personally, because I never had faith in 3-D graphics on the original DS because they always looked cheap and PSX-N64 level to me. Seeing the opening cutscene and battle animations in Awakening is what made me believe in handheld 3D's ability to be decent (outside of artstyle trumping hardware)

That said I don't really like Awakening's portaits, or map sprites that much.

I do think my overally favroite would be one of the GBA games due to getting second best in so many categories.

They have above average portraits, the map sprites and such are what I will always immediately think of when I think of Fire Emblem, and the batttle animations are fun. 

[Ae†her]

I find that each game's art has a unique quality of it's own.

FE1-3/Genealogy/Thracia - Character designs were simple, elegant, and looked clean.

Shadow Dragon - Just look at Camoo's portrait.

PoR/ Radiant Dawn - Kita Senri's style is unique, and still one of my favorites to this day. It's another reason I enjoy having a +5 Karel and a +6 Ryoma in Heroes.

Awakening/Fates - I liked the anime style, and how straight-forward the art is. In Awakening I especially liked the class designs. Some of the design changes in Fates were cool too, like the Hero.

Echoes - Most detailed art, and the class designs, and textures are amazing.

Edited April 19, 2018 by Ae†her