WHAT were they THINKING

Like the faces and reactions? I don't understand why people say this.

I didn't think so. More maps. It seems they've added bow and arrow but I'm not sure how that will be balanced.

can't wait to use this game for my youtube reaction face playthrough xD

Their friend had a terrible idea for an art style. They didn't call him on it because they didn't want to hurt his feelings

I don't like it. Not because it's a massive change, but because the stuff all over the screen and the more complex looking sprites will make it harder to discern everything that's happening. That seems silly but in the middle of the game where people are fucking backflipping around and constantly switching their sword position, having a goofy looking abomination with a strange body and constantly changing expression really REALLY distracts.

Also, it looks ugly as fuck. It's not the same humor used in the first game, either.

Who honestly cares? This is a dumb meme-game that streamers play for 2 days and then drop it.

The problem is that with the simple graphics of the first game, you could end up imagining the Nidhogg guy as just about anything. But now with enhanced graphics, we can all know the truth that the Nidhogg guy was really just a naked pudgy Homer Simpson puppet the whole time..

It's a fucking abomination of Sid and Homer.
How did they fuck this up so badly.

Remember happy wheels? That was probably unintentional, but the wacky faces and gore gives those YouTubers a ton of ammo for a series. The game does all the work, and all they have to do is scream, and slap themselvess making wacky faces on the body of the characters.

I saw a screenshot earlier today and thought it wasn't that bad and thought it could've looked cute (didn't have much time to process the image because I had to go to work), but holy shit in motion it looks like garbage, so much shit on screen and just horrendous looking designs and animation.
Oh well, the first one exists and if only it had steam workshop and a level editor it would be perfect.

yeah, not only are some of the sounds completely unnecessary but the details are too high frequency. there's too much info on screen and you won't be able to tell at all what's happening. the first game was at least more "pure" so you could keep track of events most of the time.

i hope the devs don't pull a shitfit over "muh artistic vision"

Reminds me of Nickleodian

>There will never be a sequel that improves the original, aesthetics and all
Even the animations are terrible. This had a fantastic grace and silliness at the same time.

>ugh how dare they add charm to the art style, before it was simple with its 3rd grade draw stick figure. You see the game represented life and death the simplicity of a fight 2 of high class gentleman. It wasn't wacky before you see the giant flying worm that eats you represents uh.........capitalism....and you know....

DOH

I kinda like the silly style, the only problem I see with it is that horrible animation. Part of the allure of the first game was the fluid, realistic animation paired with the simple graphics. This could look cool if they decided to use anything but the cheapest animation style out there.

There is nothing memorable about those characters. They're gross.

what's strange to me is that the artist is capable of some decent pixel art but that's the look he went for

At first I thought they were actually using stop motion which sounds really cool when I think about it, but I agree that the animation is more of the problem here.

That's a loaded hook.

Oh fuck, so you were a muppet all along but couldn't see it due to shitty graphics?

The more you know.

it's like they crossed a worm from worms with a human and made this homer simpson chimera

nah, it was this

Is it a German thing? In order to have an ultra violent game the creator has to give it cartoon style premise rather than realism because it may cause Germany to rise up again?

first one was fun for like 10 minutes, why does it need a sequel? especially when it looks like this

i actually got excited when i heard there was a nidhogg 2, then i saw the trailer

you retards ever think that making the same damn game again exactly the way it is might have been boring to make for the devs? it looks fine, the art style and designs are different and bizarre, which are aspects of of the original.

If we keep having threads every few hours about this shit game, more people will buy it regardless of how much you shit on it. Viral 101, try not posting threads about everything you hate for a chance.

I figure if people complain enough the devs might actually do something about it. I see your point though publicity is still publicity.

I get some real light Doug TenNapel vibes from it. Glad the visuals match the fucking brutal gameplay now, if they just upscaled the original visuals it would've been beyond boring.

This is fucking unapologetically crude and in your face I love it

Skillfully done post.

Wow I can't believe Nidhogg has actual graphics now, fuck them.

I'd rather have programmer art than a Don't Hug Me I'm Scared reject.

naked homer the game

If anything I figured you fucks would be whining about the shitty rotating joint animation. Look at the backgrounds, look at the actual Nidhogg in clips and screenshots, art itself is just fine. God forbid the characters aren't plain.

>God forbid the characters aren't plain.
You seem to like evading the actual arguments put forth in this and the previous thread for some reason. Not to mention, the joint animation has been brought up already.

Keep up, kid.

Your strawman isnt convincing anyone. It's not about having a deeper meaning or serious artstyle you fucking stillborn faggot. The artstyle now clutters up the animation and gameplay while also taking away the refined atari retro feel the original game went for that made it unique and pop. They could have added more mechanics with subtler changes to the overall artstyle but instead now it looks like one of the thousands of other shitty pixel art indie games on steam.

Sorry I haven't been foaming frothy tears about it all day like you have apparently, this is the first thread I saw about it.

>refined atari retro feel

stop

nigga it aint atari it was just lazy

Better watch out, lest you click on another Nidhogg thread and start to spontaneously foam frothy tears, like I did.

Theyre gonna keep arguing semantics and never face the fact that they found this shit artstyle change acceptable. Just look at the likes/dislikes ratio on this video already, it's already approved to be shitty by consensus.

It wasn't lazy. The animation looked semi-realistic and had a charm to it. This looks incredibly lazy now, like a shitty flash game.

>It wasn't lazy.

keep telling yourself that

it looks like any other pixel indie shitfest

pcgamer.com/nidhogg-2-is-on-the-way-with-axes-arrows-and-a-grotesque-new-art-direction/
Literally one of the first lines of the article is about the atari style of the first game

Never played the first game but it looks so dumb I like.

Into the trash it goes.

Gamers love Dorito dust men though.

So wait you're seriously saying that the sequel isnt a pixel indie shitfest? Name a good number of indie games that look like nidhogg 1 to prove that. Then go on steam and see the literal fucking ocean of pseudo 16-bit games that all look shallow and shit just like this nidhogg 2 artstyle.

Bit.trip's visuals can not be compared to this. Commander Video wasn't an abstract sprite for a Strong Mad looking African man and he didn't become one in the sequel. He was a fucking rectangle with limbs.

I like it.

>Just look at the likes/dislikes ratio on this video already, it's already approved to be shitty by reddit.
ftfy

It's been three threads and now Cred Forums is going full circle in order to be contrarian and start defending the shitty art style. Every day more hope for this board leaves me.

JUST

Don't fall for the bait Kermit

I don't know anyone who saw Nidhogg's art style and thought the little stick people were supposed to represent deformed muppets. The game's about fucking fencing; you'd think there would be SOME dignity and subtlety. Not wacky naked cartoon bullshit.

jesus they look like Bert

Not him but I would love to hear the arguments about how it looks objectively worse. Not even being sarcastic.

It's been done.

The joint animation/rotating pixels, the overly goofy designs made for youtuber bait and cheap laughs, and the greater amount of complexity/clutter which in turn hinders the gameplay. (though I don't feel too strongly about that last point, it is one that's been brought up)

Hitboxes aren't as clear

In a game where you're using swords skillfully, do you want your character to looks like a goof troop or do you want some cool looking stoic knightly motherfucker?
Imagine if Dark Souls had play-doh characters, would it have been a hit? (and put aside whether or not you think Dark Souls has good combat)

...

How can you fuck up by this much

>The joint animation/rotating pixels
Modular animation makes it easier to animate a greater number of assets without having to animate several context-sensitive animations. It's not ideal, it doesn't look the best, but I don't think it takes away from the visuals whatsoever.

>overly goofy designs made for youtuber bait and cheap laughs
This is just the artist's style, but on top of that your statement is completely based on speculation. They had contacted several artists for the job, and they said in an interview that "Toby's style resonated" with them or something to that effect. Also relevant is the fact that the original game looks like it does because of the programmer's lack of artistic prowess. He's said that an artist was picked up so that he could focus 100% on refining the gameplay this time around without having to give the art any of his personal attention

>the greater amount of complexity/clutter which in turn hinders the gameplay
This is a completely legitimate concern, but I personally have faith in Messhoff to not fuck it up. They have good games under their belt, and the original Nidhogg serves as a fantastic blueprint to build upon.

imagine if N++ made the ninja a fucking Simpson

>How did we go from this

I just have no idea where the artist he got had the idea that these two jousters from the first game were fat Homer Simpsons'.

What

Cheese puffs?

Characters look like ass

Environments look fine

More weapons could be good if they're balanced properly

Way too much going on holy shit how is someone supposed to be able to effectively play through this

>it doesn't look the best
>But I don't think it takes away from the visuals
Nigga what

>p-pc gamer said it, that means it's true ;_;

You need to be 18 to post here

cryengine

I googled nidhogg and this was one of the first articles. I can use any other shitty website but they all agree that it's an atari art style. But nice try at deflecting the point. Look I get it, you thought the art looked ok and generally you were proven wrong. So now you have to pick apart every comment you disagree with for ad hominems to feel like you won in some little way. But the thing is that ive played the semantics internet game far too much to entertain any more of your sludgefucker bullshit.

What bothers me the most is that Toby's art 'resonated' because it was 'grotesque'.

Intentionally Grotesque is still fucking Grotesque; If I wanted my games to look like shit I'd just rub some in my fucking eyes.

I like it

>10 minutes
A single game between me and my friend usually takes around 20 minutes, and by the end we're exhausted.

Sounds like you need to find some better people to play against.

Wow, that's pretty bad

Speaking of N++, why didn't they just take cues from that game's minimalist style instead

I miss the bandana from N+ though.

>we want the youtuber let's player audience

the characters look wacky, perfect for reactions and funny clickbait thumbnails!

I do too, user ;_;
But I'd still prefer it over the style in the OP

>what could they possibly add

From the trailer at a single glance; new weapons like axes, throwing knives and bow/arrow.

There are a lot of reasons to hate this trailer but the idea that they can add nothing upon original Nidhog is factually wrong.

Look a lot more polished than the first game. Love the naked Sesame Street characters, too.

I dunno, I kinda like it. It's memorable if nothing else, and it's kinda funny seeing ugly naked mongoloids killing each other. It's like they're barely-functional retards bred for the sole purpose of killing each other for nobles' entertainment or something. I find it more conducive to the constant death and rebirth for the characters to be disposable, undignified creatures. My only issue is that it contrasts with the grace and precision of fencing, which I guess one could find humor in itself, but it feels like an out-of-place callback to its predecessor that had a very different tone.

I can understand why people are put off by it though. Nidhogg was very minimalist which left a lot up to the imagination and harkened back to the days where the best idea you got of what a game was actually SUPPOSED to look like was box and cabinet art (which usually looked like painted covers of a pulp fantasy novel, naturally what a lot of people probably imagined Nidhogg as). Nidhogg 2 feels like it tries to reminisce on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis days where you started to get a lot of goofy would-be mascot characters, like purposefully evokes memories of the 95% that weren't particularly good and never saw the light of day again.

This is a prime example why you shouldn't let your girlfriend work at your company.

You know, I'm surprised we don't see more of don patch in literally Cred Forums threads. He's kind of an anime daffy.

Needs a zoot suit I guess.

It looks stupid because the original game had NO comedy whatsoever. It was a kind of gory, kind of somber-ish sword dueling game when you fought to be eaten by a elder monster.

In no point you play Nidhogg and think "Hmmm, the game is fun, but if it had dumb looking character, chuckling and weird animations, it would be better"

Also, they should rethink that tactic of making your character purposefully look like characters that DIDN'T sell well.

Grotesque is not even in the top 15 adjectives I would think to describe the "art" as

What the actual fuck.

...

Reminds me of this thing.

nidhogg 2’s design is exactly what a dev in the late 80s/early 90s would do to characterize an old atari game, it’s fuckin perfect and i cant wait

Maybe you're right, but that didn't stop every daft piece of shit on the Dev team from hiring an artist because they liked how "Gross" the "art" was.

>the original game had NO comedy whatsoever
yes it did. it had a ton of extra game modifiers and you get killed by a silly looking worm whenever you win

I agree but the characters look goofy in the wrong way. They should be yellow and orange clones of Gaston, not Homer Simpson.

...

shit, maybe this is what they were actually going for

'CAUSE IM HOMER SIMP-

He still looked way different from how he appeared in the original viral videos.

...

>Attack
>Itern
>Run

...

There's usually a developer who rejects bad faces, but this time the other devs gave him blowjobs in exchange for approving these faces.

JUST

really forced and really unfunny

Sorry for explaining the thing you asked about?

Wait... what the fuck is wrong with this? Looks fine to me.

Is this some advermemeing shit where shills pretend to hate it, and get everyone riled up knowing they'll still buy it anyway? I mean what better way to advertise your game, you fags can't stop making threads about it.

If you've ever seen the first game, you'd know the developer is CLEARLY taking the "lol so wacky" route to shamelessly appease Lets Player's so they'll make vids shilling it.
That's what's wrong with it.

>better graphics
>worse art

>looks fine to me

Are you sure that you're not the shill?

Fuck that just give me poocuzzi with online multiplayer God dammit!

youtube.com/watch?v=TaOocHXMhlU
Original aesthetic was so much better

Looks better than the first game

still a shit game

It's not bad, just got more attention than it deserves

samefag

Looks fucking awesome.

Its not that bad, its kind of a cute stylisation

The funny moments of the first game came through (You) finding them funny, not by the game forcing humor onto you. It's unnatural and dumb.

t. guy who doesn't have friends.

I can already see these retarded faces slapped on youtube thumbnails

It's an odd choice given the sleek lines of the first game. I don't like it much at all.

>Game about fast and wacky action has an artstyle inspired by cartoons featuring fast and wacky action

Things are a bit too wacky is the problem.

Worms (second generation ones at least) strikes the best balance between how wacky its gameplay is and how wacky its aesthetic is.

Pick ONE not all THREE:
>pixel art
>flash game puppetry
>goofy

It's absolutely ridiculous that the game is pixelated AND puppetry. Usually you choose one of those styles to get away from the other! Now you've just pissed on everyone.
Although the goofiness is probably still #1 for what people dislike most about it.

I hope I get this shit for free for being one of the 2 people in the world who bought the original at full price.

Im hoping they see all th backlash the new designs are getting and do something, this is make of break for me, this is fucking bad looking and clashes fucking terribly with the backgrounds, which look really nice.

How could they fuck up the artstyle so bad. First game looked was cool because while the artstyle was very simplistic the animations were pretty good, it reminded me of a cruder Karateka.

youtube.com/watch?v=Uy5Jfdxt2Rk

This shit looks like a shovelware SNES game.

...

I don't even want to see what the dragon looks like

kill yourself newfag

you obviously never played the first game

It looks very good, actually.

Dragon looks good actually. It looks appropriately silly/gross, as it did in the 1st game.

But everything else looks very... dumb.

I enjoyed Nidhogg, I'm not planning on getting this but I'd really like to hear the thought process behind this change.

It actually looks jarring, it feels like there is too much animation and effects going on here.

Looks like a clusterfuck.

Where can I see the new dragon for myself?

It's very readable even in this low-resolution webm.

Everyone's shitting on it in the comments so hopefully they take the hint.

Watch the webm in this thread

Was already posted.
It's to late to change.

not as smooth or minimal looking as the first, but I think this will have it's place in my library.

Personally I'm wondering what the fuck they were thinking.
I just really hope they fix the netcode.

Looks way cooler than the first one.
video related
youtube.com/watch?v=l_yWiGDC-68

Bittrip runner 2 was shit.

youtube.com/watch?v=l_yWiGDC-68

AHHHHHHHHHHH

>watch video
>immediately check to see if today is April 1st

Oh great, now you reminded me of all those old youtube poops and that stupid laser collection shit I used to watch when I was in middle school.

the artist is from Tumblr if that helps explain it

Every artist has a Tumblr so it doesn't mean much anymore.

Is this a tim schafer game?

It honestly looks like shit.

What the fuck happened? I thought Flywrench was really good visually and gameplay wise.

What baffles me is that his art is actually decent on that tumblr, though.
I have no fucking clue what happened with Nidhogg 2.

8->16 bit

it's a bit odd but i think i see what they're doing

When was the last time an art style was so reviled, bright Diablo 3?

Believe me, after seeing that trailer I am crying.

ladies and gentlemen welcome to NIDHOGG

it is a 1v1v1v1 competitive fighting game

as you can see here THROWING the KNIFE at STAR

doin' his best super mario brothers 3 impression

i'm dying

This is all they think. We're just haters, not dissapointed fans with valid criticism.
Just haters, they're going to dismiss everything we say.

I'm so tired of this unapologetic/overconfident attitude toward everything people seem to constantly have.

the characters just don't look appealing, even as someone who doesn't typically get hung up on strange art styles, this is just stupid looking, they could have gone so many different ways and they chose to be retarded

The character designs clash really hard with the backgrounds, they look like theyre from different games. Hope they actually acknowledge feedback, the designs just do not look good.
Look at Earthworm jim and look at this. Comedy should not be an excuse for ugly ass designs.

>Most innovative artstyle since Undertale
>People hate it because "it's not le CoD TwT"

I like it.

Please
>gain height
>lifts weight
>shower
>see some sunlight
>get laid
before posting again

>only shills hate it
>mass dislikes and comments mostly about art style being shit

I think you've lost your sense of perception.

Not him but the pixel art and environment look good, it's just the dumb ass shit homer simpson copycat

user why did you think it was worth your time to post this

>undertale
>innovative artstyle
giving you the (you) you so desperately need to survive

Undertale was many things, but "artistically innovative" is not one of them. It was doing its damnedest to look like Earthbound.

who is drawing the art? its not messhof i presume?

Not that user, the battle scenes looked real Apple 2-ish, which is pretty uncommon as far as retro styles go.
I found it very charming.

Change the character models and it's golden, there's only so much you could do with a Niddhogg 2 in the same artstyle. Without people shouting "ugh it should just be free dlc"

>Messhof never links Scrap Collector again after I ask him on Twitter for it

good fuck em

>the overwhelming majority of posters on Cred Forums never liked Nidhogg
>always called it a meme, saying the retro graphics were a gimmick
>apparently Cred Forums now "liked" Nidhogg, and doesn't like the new art style that's not like the old art style, or isn't an art style they particularly enjoy

I'm sure the game will be fine. Especially if it's exactly the same game as Nidhogg. I don't particularly like the art style, but I could deal with a cartoony Nidhogg if I could dress my fencer up.
But all of you who hated Nidhogg back when it came out are being contrarian again. Cut that shit out.

>hmm, people that liked nidhogg aren't discussing this because I say so, it must be the people who don't care about it adding to discussion!
Stop posting.

How do you go from this

To this?

we want the youtube and twitch crowd

Bit trip 2 was worse than 1 because it was too generous with checkpoints.

Wow, gamers are the worst.

if you can't make the distinction between the two then you're a literal retard.

You know, it wouldn't even be all that bad if you erased the face, bellybutton, and nipples.

You're just being contrarian, i wouldn't worry about it.

I'm sad that they dragged Mux Mool into this, his music is pretty fucking awesome.

youtu.be/TpfSh8ywOGo

>too generous with checkpoints
user, the checkpoints are an obstacle. You get bonus points for jumping over them.

Then it'd be

>WHY IS HE SO LUMPY!!!!!! THEY NEED TO BE IN PERFECT PHYSICAL CONDITION JUST LIKE THE ORIGINAL GUYS!!!!

I mean, yeah, it'd be better if they looked closer to the originals, but it wouldn't be nearly as disgusting as it is now.
I'd still prefer the originals, but erasing the ugly shit like the faces and nipples would be a decent medium, I feel.

Why are you acting like that isn't a valid criticism?

because this game used to be like a cool battler. it had an EXTREMELY lonely feel to it.
now it's like, WACKY! They died! lol its wacky when they die, they're Disgusto morphs! Crazy! In-sane!
so all the cool cold lonely duel feeling is completely gone and now it's just "Disgusto barf morphs fight or some stupid shit!".

The worst part is that the guy who they got to make the art for NH2 is a pretty competent artist. He could have easily made a nice recreation of the original in a more detailed style.
Instead, they went with this

They should be very civilized and formal to contrast with the brutal violence (i.e. Stomping on your enemies).
Making it very Goofy just gives it the wrong feeling.

Because it isn't. This is the only direction I'd want them to go after the first one, because otherwise it'd be:

>the original's aesthetics (again)
or
>the original but with upscaled redrawn HD visuals
or
>something more serious, which isn't inherently bad but is boring compared to what we got

I'm so fucking glad they went balls to the walls with this one. I can't believe there are people who want pic related.

now I know you're being sarcastic.
what's funny anyways is they could've made them weird fucking creature bullshit but the problem is they're not elegant.
they're fat fucks which is retarded. I get it, they're trying to point out of the Absurdity! of the situation. Really, that's just handholding a dumbfucks unrefined sense of humor though, a hamfisted fucking attempt to pound in the frivolity of the situation. They should've played it straight up like last time. I want a existential dread world that jokes about itself by being so over the top serious about the absolutely absurd world it creates.

Holy fuck. I thought you guys were joking.

>a character must look silly to act silly and do silly things
Take you designs there, seeing them doing the things they do in the game WOULD be funny.
>refined looking men curb stomping eachother and whipping their weapons across the room whilest wailing like mad men
Nope, what we got was
>fat goofy looking character acts like a fat goofy character
So fucking weak.

And now we've got Bit Trip Runner 3 coming.....WITH THE SAME SHITTY DESIGN

Looks fucking terrible

Nobody wanted this.

>this was probably how the team wanted the first game to look like but they didn't have the resources and the time
>now that they can make everything over detailed it end up being shit
I feel sad for them

DUDE E-CELEBS LMAO!!!!

Of course Cred Forums's e-celeb loving ass defends this artstyle.

>LOL CANT WAIT FOR GAME GRUMPS TO PLAY IT AND MAKE GOOFY SOUNDS

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Bit.Trip Runner 2's design aside from some of the unlockable characters.
That being said when the fuck did they announce 3?

The style wouldn't be so bad if they toned down on the goofy eyes and faces and didn't have it animate like it was in flash
That animation style really just makes the whole thing uglier. While The first game it was simple and smooth

programmers art at its best

i don't.
they know exactly what they're doing, and i don't feel a drop of pity for them. they turned a good game with a nice, simple artstyle, into Bert & Ernie's slap & tickle fight.
just to bait idiots that think that silly characters, cluttered screens and inane screaming is the most entertaining thing known to man.

Does anyone else get the vibe that they've designed this game to cater to youtubers?

Like, a streamer/youtuber bait type of game?

That's what people are saying. And I agree

Instead of picking the moronic compromise route and changed the characters themselves to fit the new artstyle, it would have been better.

...

The first one was already made for youtubers.

So awful.

>It's a "That game you really liked gets a terrible sequel" episode

Just a few days ago on their facebook.

Homer, were you up all night creating art assets for indie games?