A Painted Game: What Today’s Hardware Could Really Give Us Graphically Besides Realism

Forget cel-shaded Link (although I adore him), and forget hyper-realistic Wii U Link. What if a Zelda game looked like the above illustration from Katsuya Terada?

I’ve always felt that making a game look and feel like an illustration or a painting is a more difficult feat than realism. We know what real water looks like, and reflections, and what not, but a real challenge would be creating an idea of how a painting would behave.

Okami has dipped into this and if you’re looking at cinema then look no further than the very cool scenes from What Dreams May Come featuring Robin Williams in a heaven that has been painted with oil based paints.



It’s an aesthetically beautiful movie and it’s pretty well written too from what I remember. Now I know that there are a couple of games today doing this type of direction such as El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron.



But, I’ve played El Shaddai and it’s not very accessible and it’s weirdness is a bit contrived. That’s why I think a Zelda game which mostly straight-forward with the art style features in one of Terada’s illustrations would be so gorgeous. All of the colors would be so powerful and convey so much emotion.

I get giddy thinkin’ about how rad a Zelda game like would look. Absolutely giddy I tell ‘ya.

- Kyle