Opinions on Character Designs in RT

ThunderEgg · Feb 06, 2019 3:43 PM

Which designs do you love?

Which ones do you hate?

I for one like most of the new dragon designs, but don't like what they did with Handel and Greta or the baby dragons in YOTD.

Stormy · Feb 07, 2019 8:28 PM

I thought almost all of them were really good. Bianca, Hunter, and Elora especially. I didn't like Sheila's hair at first, but I grew to like it.

The creativity on the Spyro 1 dragons was excellent. I wish they had had time to do the same for the baby dragons, but it's understandable they couldn't when there were 150 of them and the game was already rushed.

MrXLink · Feb 08, 2019 2:40 AM

I'm absolutely in love with the Spyro 1 Dragon designs, by far the most enjoyable change made in the entire series, though I kinda miss the unique characteristics that defined them in the original game (nose horns for Dream Weavers, head "sideburns" for Artisans, etc). That's fine though. The best single-character design in every single aspect though I have to give to Gulp. They made him look more threatening, more menacing, more dinosaur-like and less derpy/henchmanny like it was in the original RR, and on top of that they made the boss fight actually tough and challenging. Also love what they did to Ripto; made him look more evil yet kept him as big a wuss as before, and the boss fight (which is my favourite in the entire trilogy) was good too.

Now that I think of it Gulp may have to share his first place with Moneybags. I absolutely love his design and his voice acting, he's definitely my favourite character in the last 2 games. Bentley's voice acting is on point. Jacques looks absolutely fantastic, they turned all fauns and satyrs Scottish, which is absolutely amazing, and last in my noteworthy mentions it needs to be said that Agent 9 is a total lunatic and I love what they did to him and his personality. IS THAT A RHYNOC?!?!

I have to agree with Stormy that all designs were great, though there's also a few I found rather lacking (excuse the nitpicking):
- The YotD Dragon babies could at least have some more variety in their animations and looks. I'm not saying 150 unique models, but I'm certain OG YotD had more variety in there than RT, which frankly is a sad display.
- Mr. Bones, oh what have they done to you? To me, he looks like some kind of out-of-place Skylanders figurine, which I feel is a result of the developers trying to emphasise on Mr. Bones being a meme before memes were even a thing. I'm not a fan of what they did to him in every way; looks, animation, and not to forget, those darn air horns. Stop it. This is 2018.
- I have some minor issues with Bianca as explained over here. I still think her looks and character designs are great though.
- Tikis in Molten Crater, to me looked more like weird goblins than living statues with weird voices. They've just turned Aussie, which is okay but it just changes them into something completely different.
- Spike looks way too "cute" and bunny-like to me. I feel like for Buzz this is an okay thing to do since his fight has always been of humorous nature but Spike's supposed to be a more antagonising boss, which I feel isn't the case in RT.
- Completely ignoring how easy the fight was, Bluto in Seashell Shore was disappointing to me as well. There was just something about this super cartoon-y Rhynoc that's bigger than his own submarine that just didn't get conveyed in RT. Size, looks, and the overall fun factor of this boss was just... meh to me.
- Sound design on a lot of enemies has been rather disappointing to me as well. Mainly death noises, actually. I was expecting gnorcs to go "BWEGH", druids to go "ow." and most of the very memorable Fool death noises in Dream Weavers didn't return at all. Still I have to congratulate this. That's just priceless.

That's really nitpicking it though, but I wanted to give a more complete evaluation of what I think about the designs. Overall I think they did a very good job, despite YotD's rushed feeling.

ThunderEgg · Feb 08, 2019 6:45 PM

(haha, this is also just a ton of nitpicking)

I agree with the points about Mr. Bones and Bianca. The air horns and dancing (I think it's "flossing"? I just know it's a meme dance or something) instantly date the poor skeleton, while our bunny friend (although having a cool design) has a character arc that feels flatter than Parappa.

Sheila's hair and stuff also took me a while to get used to, but I ran into something pointing out that her concept art for the OG games had her with hair. That sort of made it a more acceptable change for me, seeing as it was a big shift, but at least had some reasoning behind it. (You have to look close, but the hair is there.) latest?cb=20181104041605

I think my favorite character design change has to be the dragons in Spyro 1. I personally came into RT feeling that they didn't need redesigns, and while I still feel that way, the amount of creativity they put into their new looks is astounding. The major thing that I think was missed with them was the unifying features shared by each dragon family. Sort of like you mentioned with the spikes on the Dreamweavers and such... And it makes Spyro stand out because he's one of the only dragons without clothes and certainly the only one who isn't bipedal.

Sparx looks different, but is really cute. I feel like I'll be able to draw his RT design a bit more easily than his OG design. Although at certain angles, his expression can be kind of creepy, I think it adds to his charm.

I do have some complaints about Hunter and Elora. I dunno... Elora's pointy chin makes her look a bit freaky to me, but I don't feel very strongly about it. I've never really been super attached to her, though, so I'm not surprised about that. I like how Hunter looks, but his character arc and voice acting aren't my favorite here. I feel like they upped the amount of jerk-ness in his character. Plus, some of his line changes jumble how he comes across. In the OG games, he seemed to be more kidding around with Spyro, but in RT, I feel like he comes across much more selfish and less intentionally cheesy. He never seemed like an intentionally selfish character to me, so his characterization in RT really bothers me. Unlike Elora, I'm really attached to him, though, so I'm obviously more reluctant to see changes to him.

Stormy · Feb 10, 2019 11:54 PM

Sheila had... horns? Huh.

Totally agree about Mr. Bones; that was pretty cringy. The old dance and song would have been just fine.

ThunderEgg · Feb 11, 2019 2:38 AM

Yeah.

I don't like it, but I can see why TFB would change Mr. Bones' dance. Some sort of attempt to appeal to younger kids, I guess. Which is fair.

Black Mage · Nov 24, 2019 8:03 AM

casts NCRO on thread

Somebody remind me to create a nitpicking thread for the ReActivision (with a forum game format where each person posts a single point, maybe the next person talks about the previous point too?)

I like: the dragons in Spyro 1, Bianca without Robe, Moneybags...okay, maybe Sheila. (it does change her a lot from someone who'd lead an easygoing life to someone who prefers adventure, but I think it looks cooler)
Neutral: Sergeant Bird and Agent Nine.
I dislike: everything else!

But the credit of the worst of the worst goes to the baby dragons. The original YotD was more creative than the ReActivision in this department by miles. How could they miss the entire selling point of a dragon called "Ba'ah"? It's just a generic baby dragon now...

Conversely, the credit of the best of the best does go to the adult dragons (huh, almost the exact opposite as above). There's less dragons just leaving off with "Thank you for releasing me!" and more dragons that look all sorts of wacky, giving us a better glimpse of the culture, economy and science of the Dragon World.

Last edited by Black Mage (Nov 24, 2019 8:05 AM)

Ebenezer Scrooge · Nov 29, 2019 4:42 AM

It took me a while to actually like the new character designs, especially Elora. I don't know, for some reason at first, I preferred the original designs, but after playing for a couple hours I started to like them. I'm still not a big fan of Sheila's hair, but that doesn't take away any enjoyment for the games. I wonder if one day, in the future, they will remake other Spyro games, like A Hero's Tail, or maybe even the Legend of Spyro series.

Black Mage · Nov 29, 2019 6:07 PM

Elora looked like a trainwreck in the remake, just like the remakes themselves. Even her reactions to Hunter's failings and her most famous "I'm a faun you dork!" felt off compared to the originals, maybe cause she doesn't seem that much bothered by Hunter or Spyro.

I see that's not the only post outside of the spam subforum. Most excellent, I was getting tired of spam spam spam spam spam sp

36IStillLikeSpyro36 · Nov 29, 2019 9:39 PM

Black Mage wrote:

Elora looked like a trainwreck in the remake, just like the remakes themselves. Even her reactions to Hunter's failings and her most famous "I'm a faun you dork!" felt off compared to the originals, maybe cause she doesn't seem that much bothered by Hunter or Spyro.
I see that's not the only post outside of the spam subforum. Most excellent, I was getting tired of spam spam spam spam spam sp

i think a lot of the problem with the voice acting is simply, we've had years and years and years of listening to the same voice clips. i don't think there's anything... "wrong" with the voice clips from Reignited that i've heard so far (no, i still haven't played it, but i want to) they're just delivered in a different way than we're used to.

Stormy · Nov 29, 2019 10:45 PM

I agree with that.

There was only one line I really had a “problem” with: Bianca’s delivery at the beginning of Evening Lake totally changed the meaning of the first line.

Look, dragon... Spyro. This is serious now.

By calling him by his actual name, she’s showing a newfound respect in this line. She’s not used to thinking of him as an ally, and the pause and correction indicates it takes some effort to make this adjustment.

Look, dragon. Spyro, this is serious now.

Removing the pause takes out the emphasis this line had on Bianca’s character development entirely.

Sounds like a nitpick when I type it out like that, but it kinda bugged me that they missed the point. Not a huge deal though, and I had no problem with any of the other voice acting apart from being used to how the old lines sounded.

Black Mage · Nov 29, 2019 10:50 PM

The first thing I noticed when Bianca appeared was "why the hell are her robe's sleeves longer than her hands now." Typically this trope is used to show a character is clumsy or quirky or something, basically not the kind of person Bianca is. Yet here we are! Bianca is a prime example of what happens if you change a character's delivery without changing anything they say and the cautionary tale behind it. Not that it'll become apparent unless you put both Biancas side by side and see how much more threatening and confident the Original was.

Ahem, you know what makes the whole "we're so used to the old voice acting" thing a lot more prevalent? The Professor. He sounded just the same as his original self, which gives that contrast to everyone else. You know what else sounded so drastically different? Hunter. Feels like he's all about the "cool" and the voice reflects that, rather than just "Goofy the Cheetah."

At this point, I might as well list how I feel about every character individually, because why not. Who's up for that?

Last edited by Black Mage (Nov 29, 2019 10:52 PM)

Redd · Mar 22, 2020 11:23 PM

Black Mage wrote:

The first thing I noticed when Bianca appeared was "why the hell are her robe's sleeves longer than her hands now." Typically this trope is used to show a character is clumsy or quirky or something, basically not the kind of person Bianca is.

Then how do you explain that cutscene in which she was beaten up and swallowed by a monster she had just created? Or that scene in which Hunter says that she transformed a dragon egg by accident?

Last edited by Redd (Mar 23, 2020 2:17 AM)

#1 Feb 06, 2019 3:43 PM

Opinions on Character Designs in RT

#2 Feb 07, 2019 8:28 PM

Re: Opinions on Character Designs in RT

#3 Feb 08, 2019 2:40 AM

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#4 Feb 08, 2019 6:45 PM

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#5 Feb 10, 2019 11:54 PM

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#6 Feb 11, 2019 2:38 AM

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#7 Nov 24, 2019 8:03 AM

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#8 Nov 29, 2019 4:42 AM

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#10 Nov 29, 2019 9:39 PM

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