Let's Talk About the Genshin/Wuthering Waves Design Discourse

I'm not sure how to start this video so I'll just get to the meat of it it's recently come to my attention that there has been some discourse between the fandom of the very well-known RPG genin impact and the players of a as of rating very recently released game called weering waves which I'll talk more about later on specifically regarding the character designs for both games on one side you have people saying genin's character designs were better than withering waves and on the other side you had people saying the exact opposite so as someone who enjoys character design it had be thinking which side has the better argument here well to be honest I can't really answer that character designs as with art are largely subjective one person might think it's great while another person might not think it's great but I think we still need to discuss this anyway now I want to mention that even though I am and have been in the genin fandom for quite some time I've been playing since version 1.1 so 3 and a half years now and this would by default skew my perspective just a bit I still want to look at this discussion from as neutral a standpoint as possible I've analyzed the character designs for both games sorting out their strengths as well as their weaknesses in one convenient table that I set up while I was writing the script for this video no not that table son of a the character designs for both games have their pros and their cons excelling in some aspects of character design while falling behind in others I'll also be looking at the designs of each game individually before doing a bit of a side-by-side comparison if you will if you're new here and you want to see me tackle this apparently highly contentious topic and also want to see more art rated videos and shenanigans from me then make sure to like And subscribe and stick around to see just what I have to say on the matter also we have spaghetti but that's besides the point but with all of that said here we go let's start by taking a closer look at what even is going on here withering waves one of the topics of this video is a very recently released roleplaying game and by recently I mean about 3 weeks ago as of writing the script developed and published by Kudo games which is also responsible for punishing Gray Raven for mobile devices and the PC because wering waves features an open world and multiple playable characters like its predecessor gench and impact which was released by hoyo verse in 2020 the former has been compared to the latter along with a few other titles but where withing wave stands out is a unique combat system established with the intention of setting it apart from its predecessor but that's not why we're here combat system and everything else aside just about immediately upon withering waves's launch people took to social media to compare the game's playable character designs to those of genin multiple Twitter users immediately started dunking on either genin's character designs or wering waves's character designs with some bringing in other games to back up their arguments one user for example claimed that withering waves had dull color palets nearly identical designs and same face syndrome among a few other things on the other hand you had several users say genin's character designs were too bright and overs saturated for instance and it wasn't just on Twitter there are several YouTube videos comparing the designs for the two games along with discussions on places like Reddit now I haven't played withing waves yet but to just write it off as having mid character designs without giving them a chance would just be adding fuel to the fire let's be for real here wait am I still doing this without even realizing it uh I don't know honestly but anyway enough of my rambling let's get into the character design analysis but Itself by first taking a look at genin's character designs or more specifically their playable character designs one thing that immediately stands out with genin's character designs is that all of them are quite detailed very heavily detailed even probably more than they need to be regardless of where you look there are smaller details of some kind that you would probably miss at a first glance I know I have with more than a few of the characters for example let's take a look at the character I'm drawing on screen right now the one and only Bina genin impact bina's outfit has multiple blue gemlik accessories shaped like water droplets not too surprising given that her element is water along with little tassels that hang from the end of the bow on her sash you may also notice a series of shimmering scale-like pieces on the back of her coat and an emblem that can be found at the top of her top hat a detail that can be easily overlooked if you don't think to look there and that's not even getting into all of the other details however with all the minute details and added accessories and whatnot the designs can come off as overly detailed which for anyone looking to draw them results in a lot if not all of them being very hard to draw it doesn't really show in the time lapse but I was fighting for my life with this drawing because of how many details there were this can also result in a case of overcrowding or the design feeling cluttered but even then all of the added details are put together in a way where the elaborate outfits somehow work every component of a character's design when added up gives each of them a distinct shape language that makes them almost instantly recognizable and would allow them to pass the silhouette test with flying colors going back to finina for a moment two elements of her design that make her stand out and give her a recognizable silhouette at least in comparison to the rest of genin's cast are the top hat tilted to the left side of her head and the large fabric ornament she has on the back of her coat another character that I want to talk about is yao yao who has two giant bells on the top of her head along with a bow like breed she wears she also carries a basket on her back that's a little easier to identify if you don't look at her straight on another character Kaa has an absurdly large fur collar on his right shoulder and he has a cape on his left side to balance that out other character Silhouettes can be recognized by way of any scarves or capes they may have along with the shape of their clothes or hair though to be honest the same could be said of any good character design it's not just shape language and Silhouettes that genin's designs excel at each character has a color scheme that reflects the element that they use with several outliers of course not including the protagonist but the color schemes are usually diverse enough to make each character stand out from the next character in their element group take for example huta whose element is pyro or fire she has a predominantly black and red color scheme which makes her color palette very different from another pyro user Yia whose color scheme is very heavy on reds and oranges I also want to point out the differences in color palettes between two Hydro or water characters Neu and kokomi neu's outfit boasts a pill blue color scheme in comparison to kooki who has an array of Darker and more vibrant Blues in her design differences in hair color aside I also want to expand on character motifs and themes for a moment every playable character has some sort of theme or Motif tied to their design though some are more subtle than others Yin Jin's design was heavily influenced by traditional Chinese Opera clothing although I don't remember if there was a specific Regional genre of Chinese Opera involved in her design and you can especially see this with a hat that she wears Kazu has designed boros primarily from the Japanese maple also known by its binomial name Aker palatum which is also the name of his constellation multiple Maple Leaves can be seen on his outfit and his color scheme is reminiscent of certain cultivars of the Japanese maple a far more subtle example of this is Amber even though her constellation is a rabbit and her Elemental skill involves throwing an exploding mannequin with rabit ears the only readily obvious part of her outfit that alludes to this Motif is the large bow she wears on her head which resembles rabbit ears and I would be remiss if I didn't mention my homunculus chalk on albo at least once while he is an alchemist a lot of his imagery revolves around Stars several of which can be seen on his outfit I mean bro even has one at the base of his neck which is a direct result of being created via Alchemy there's also a fairly decent lean towards floral motifs but this isn't readily obvious unless you start spamming his alchemical flower-shaped elevator all over the map every 5 Seconds which not going to lie is a great way to pass the time one more thing that I want to cover are the small details that tell you which region a certain character is from even if a character's design isn't exactly faithful to its Regional influences 100% of the time there are still hints that borrow from the locations that a character's region is based on some broader examples that come to mind are the flamboyant and elegant style of dress that you'll see with fontaine's cast with some designs resembling 18th century Western fashion along with Ena Zuma's influences from Tokugawa era Japan at least that's what one source says more character specific examples include the buttons on Yen's colorin hat which bear heavy resemblance to Chinese cash coins used from the 4th Century BCE to the 20th century CE Lea's Hood At least according to the Games Wiki Bears some resemblance to the dupata a long shik scarf traditionally worn by women in the Indian subcontinent but also worn in many Regional Styles across South Asia now for all the things that genin's character designs excel in there is one thing when it comes to distinction that it falls behind on just about every character has a similar face shape a fact that becomes especially worse when you put two characters with the same model side by side In fairness however I would imagine a good part of that fault Falls with the limited number of playable character models used for the game but either way as a result genin's character designs suffer heavily from same face syndrome there are characters who have different eye shapes sure and that does take some of the same faceness off just a bit but it doesn't change the fact that there's 's no difference in face shap between one character who uses let's say a tall female model and another and for all the good character designs that genin has produced over the years I will admit that there have also been some designs that haven't quite hit the mark a more recent example being Emily an upcoming character who was announced a few weeks ago her design isn't trash by any means but all I'm saying is it could be a lot better and that's not taking into account all of the rumors that have been circulating in recent months regarding upcoming characters and designs for already playable characters in regards to Regional and cultural accuracy but that's a whole other discussion that I'm not sure I'm well equipped enough to cover since I have no ties to any of the cultures in question okay that's everything I want to talk about with the genin designs let's see how they compare with weing waves compared to genin's largely colorful and vibrant character designs the character designs of weing waves are a lot more monochromatic with black or white being the dominant color of a character's outfit to the game credit the monochrome designs are well tailor to and reflect the game's post-apocalyptic setting and it works very well for some of the characters where genin tends to fall behind on giving its characters different face shapes withering waves excels in this area a fair bit more than its predecessor does some of the more obvious examples include Verina and Yuen Wu but when you look at the rest of the cast you may notice that dungeon has a noticeably rounder and softer face than let's say sanwa just as genin gives each character a color scheme that sets the apart from others especially those who use the same element weering waves excels with this in several aspects at least in the color palette attribute SL element Department let's take a look at the two characters with a Havoc attribute or the ability to annihilate matter dungeon's black red and white color scheme paired with the blue gem she wears sets her apart from the game's other Havoc user talcha who has a white and pink forward color palette the electro attribute the ability to displace charges has three characters associated with it and all of them stand out from each other just going on color palettes alone whether that's yin's black and red color scheme or karo's black white and gray color scheme wait hold up C Karo calaro Karo help me if we're looking at the whole of the spaghetti Bowl however this is where the universal monochromatic palette Works to the game's detriment there's nothing wrong with having limited color palettes in fact it's something that I use for my own designs and honestly it's much better than having like eight different Hues vying for dominance and it works very well for characters like sanwa personally I think the all black getup really suits her with her having a more reserved personality the thing is though multiple characters have very similar color schemes to the point where it can be difficult to distinguish one from the other the most obvious comparison I can think of is Jen shin and baa who both have heavy usage of black and white in their designs and who also have some shade of teal in the mix as well yangyang and Yan Wu also have the same black blue white color palet go going on to the point where I legit thought they were part of the same group when they apparently aren't there are several ways where similar color schemes between different characters can work like messing around with the shades of blue so that this way one character is more distinct than the other but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't confused by the similar color palettes between characters speaking of Simplicity you can see from the get-go that the designs in withering waves are simpler than those of genins even though Simplicity can be a good thing and not just as a matter of convenience I can still see how the character designs and withing waves may come off as dull to some it's also worth noting that several design elements are repeated for more than one character whether that's the chest belt thingies that several characters have or the flowing fabric garments on the lower halves of certain characters outfits this also brings me back to the topic of shape language the aforementioned fabric garments and their resulting shapes can be seen on both Karo and GN resulting in them having a similar shape language in the lower halves of their designs and this especially isn't helped by the fact that they both have long hair and the fact that they both wear more form fitting garments on the upper halves of their bodies also I want to mention that Karo and Alto look like brothers because of their similar color schemes and hairstyles even though they probably aren't again I haven't played the game yet don't bully me please going back to the topic of character designs conveying information about the character themsel certain character designs and withering waves are better at conveying character information than others at least at a first glance characters like finina and lingyang are great example of this in line with her being a Bist you can see a number of floral and plant rated motifs in bina's design like the flower pin on her dress and the really long vine on her back lingy Yang's design revolves heavily around the lion dance a traditional form of dance in Chinese culture and other Asian countries thought to bring good luck and Fortune another more subtle example of this is enor who has rounder hair tips met to resemble sheep's wool which along with a two plushy She carries goes well with her sheet Motif now even though they have their shortcomings and genin's designed do as well I don't dislike the character designs in withing waves in fact there are a lot of little things with each character's design that I enjoy like the feathers in y y Young's hair and the way dungeon's eyes and the stone she wears contrast with her mostly red hair and outfit I also like the way that a lot of the character designs reflect the character's personality in some way like how touch's design reflects her more laid-back personality but wait it would be unfair to compare a newly launched game to one that's been out for almost 4 years wouldn't it so let's take things one step further by leveling the playing field just a bit in order to do this I'm going to compare the playable characters that are currently in Waring waves as of right now with the characters that were available in genjin Impact upon its launch in 2020 I will be including CLE as she was also released in version 1.0 even though she was not released immediately upon the game's launch while both games have a decent amount of design diversity when looking just at its initial roster I'm going to have to give genin the advantage on this front once again since the Proficiency in shape language and Silhouettes can still be seen even with a drastically limited cast in comparison to the who knows how many characters we have now I lost count at 65 the initial roster also still has the distinct color pellets that separate each character not just from their fellow element users but also from the rest of the cast one thing that both genin and withering waves have equal ground on in this context and come to think of it in general as well depending on which character you're looking at are the the obviousness of character themes some characters like CLE show their motifs more outwardly in C's case fourleaf clovers can be seen all over her outfit from the sides of her boots to the front of her hat even her name is a direct CT of clay the German word for Clover other characters namely venty are a little more subtle with their themes his Associated element is wind something that you may miss if not for the feathers hanging from his belt also attached to his hat is a flower called the Cecilia which can only be found in one region on genin's map in lore the cicilia grows only where there is Harsh wind and is said to be intangible like the heart of an Unbound Soul which is an interesting nod to vent's free spirited personality the range of designs with genin's initial roster is fairly Limited in comparison to what would come later but in all fairness it was a new game at the time it's for that reason that I am going to give weing waves the benefit of the doubt and a couple more years to see what else they come up with in regards to playable character designs in fact a couple of upcoming characters already show promise namely chly like even if I don't end up playing withering waves I may just draw her anyway at some point [Music] because she's so pretty so who knows maybe with time we'll see even better character designs for withering waves than the ones we're seeing right now but having taken everything into account which game has the better character designs well they both have their strengths and weaknesses for sure but I did say I wanted to be as unbiased as possible and honestly this really comes down to a matter of subjectivity at its core so I'll let you be the judge but nevertheless that is going to do it for this video If you like this video and again you want to see more art rated videos and shenanigans from me make sure to like share and subscribe I usually post about drawing or what have you but sometimes I dabble in other art rated things as 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Channel: A Cup of Chamomile

Views: 59,200

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Id: qP9ry92DRxo

Length: 18min 15sec (1095 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2024