Pixel Art Style Analysis
Pixel Art and its games
Three Video games that pop into my mind when I think of pixel art are Undertale, Terraria and Celeste. All of them are different genres, Undertale being an RPG, Terraria being Action Adventure, and Celeste being a platformer, all completely different but all utilising the pixel art style to its fullest
Despite all using the same art style, they are all completely different in their own ways, such as Celeste, being a lot more expressive and vibrant with its background and lighting, consisting of smooth but simplistic animations.
Undertale has a lot more of a simplistic art-style, however keeping the fluid animations in certain sections of the game, along with the minimalistic colour pallet, most of the game being in black and white apart from some exceptions.
Terraria has a lot more of a detailed art style, focusing more on the vast and sheer number of things in game, using the art style to show texture in its biomes, along with its mobs and creatures as well. The style leans towards a 2d RPG, however clearly pushing the layering and variety on the environments a lot more.
Some of the benefits of pixel art games would consist of things such as performance efficiency, granting the possibilities of even low-end computers being able to run the game, and also taking less storage, whereas letting people with more powerful computers possibly mod the game to its fullest, while still not taking that much storage in the process. Less a benefit and more of a selling point, but pixel art games just stick to a fancy 8-bit like charm, that really hits a nostalgia factor in a lot of people’s hearts, which is why they’re so popular with young and old generations. One final factor being the constraints on pixel art and its making of the game, which drive more creativity into sprites, leading to increasingly more expressive and different designs.
However, not everything with pixel art is as wonderful as listed above as your depth of field is completely limited with the art-style which may affect some complexion you want with a sprite or overall immersion in the gameplay. Along with this comes Animation Limitations, as animating pixel art can be a lot more time consuming compared to newer game animation techniques, having to draw a new sprite for the frame of each animation, while also not being able to make complex motions with it. Overall, it’s hard to properly make details stick out a lot more compared to art styles such as the ones used in other 2d games, being hard to add specifics to a sprite.
Overall, I believe that pixel art cannot be improved as a whole as an art-style, it just depends on how much time you’re willing to put into the project, and how diverse your team is.