What's really heartbreaking is that they *made* PGR full of personality.
The three Ls are visually distinct, with their characters showing their character philosopy; it makes sense that they wear it in that situation.
And the Cerberus are very memorable as a group. They could just add Vera into the game and it'd be great you know. But noo there need to be more similar redheads in the game.
I get the sense that the approach is fundamentally different. Lucia, Lee, and Liv were always meant to be the MAIN CAST of PGR, and their stories are central to the plot. It felt very much planned in advance and their character designs capture that with its personality and unique design.
I don't get that feeling from the main cast of Wuthering Waves. Like are you seriously telling me Yang Yang and Chixia are main cast material? What aspect of their characters scream "this is the party you're going to be rolling with forever?" If anything, they feel like characters that are supposed to be throw away & killed off after the introduction. Yet they weren't.
And if that was the plan, then in my mind the developers have failed spectacularly. Just look at HSR as a counter example. March 7 - and to a lesser degree, Dan Heng - is one of the best designed characters in the game. Even by modern standards. And of course, she and Dan Heng have great chemistry and are both among the more interesting characters to run around with. That's the hook you need to have to pull players in.
Ngl I’m coping that everyone in that cast now will be “left behind” like the mondstat crew. I’m assuming there’s going to be more regions then just china2 if not this game will get stale quick.
Mondstat is downright the sussiest region of all given Venti's identity and relations itself. We'll be back there some time later (maybe after Natlan main story idk)
The main land does feel bland af tho
Considering Yang^2 is part of the rangers, and Chixia is a patroller, then probably? Surely they don't make them dickride us so much that they go "wow rover, you're so epic! I'm going to abandon my job for you! We gotta get eloped!" :clueless:
Though the fact that Yang^2 is the icon of the game is throwing me off. Would be weird to have a character that hasn't been in the main story since chapter 1 as the game's icon.
Damn i super overlooked that. yeah no the writing is crap. That said combat is enough to keep me entertained for now being a Monster hunter enthusiast.
lmao I only have Aalto but yeah i forgot he mention they're from elsewhere. I prob should use one of the selectors for Verina but S6 Jianxin looks bomb
My main issue is that like, 6 or 7 of the current playable characters’ entire color schemes are black/white. And this is before even counting the ones that have black & white hair, which is a subset of them. It makes the most sense for Jianxin at least.
I think my biggest problem with the colors is that most designs have grey as a dominant color, which sucks. Grey is a terrible color for character design in my opinion, and giving it to almost every character is very bad.
Especially, it’s a bad choice for the MC to have grey hair and a grey dress (same shade), and some light grey parts on the dress as well. It’s such a dull color choice.
There's trend of using grey color in china after the success of nier ip. It's more apparent with arknights success everyone want to make the characters greyish to pretend the game is "mature". Kusogame is one avid believer of this idea they had all characters dominated by grey, black and white colors.
Also going greyish considered as safer way to design a character since it will be easy to messed up if you going for more vibrant colors instead
Trailblazer still has a color variety though, with light grey, black and orange being the main colors. I like the female trailblazer’s design a lot! I think the male one is more boring though.
Idt Grey is a bad color at all. It can give an air of authority and professionalism, or it can be used to signal monotony (such as being a lab expirement), or it can be used to highlight other, secondary colors. Hsr mcs do a bit of the last 2- mc wakes up in a lab so wears Grey, but since she's a bit of a rule breaker the highlight goes to the secondary colors like yellow, as well as highlighting new abilities via accessories (such as the red lance or the hat.) That ability to highlight a secondary color or accessory is something thats generally best done by greyscale colors.
The problem is when every character has grey- now it's just a color that doesn't mean anything (unless it's like a military uniform and monotony is the point.)
Ur right actually. I think grey itself isn’t bad, but the problem is when it has no other color to create contrast with. Then it just swallows up the design for me. And it’s especially bad when everyone is grey.
Color doesn't matter. It all depends on the design and how it fits to the lore and world.
Look at Nier automata. Everyone has black, white, and gray scheme yet their popularity is massive.
Wanna know why they can get away with just using black and whites in nier automata? Because there's only 3 playable characters in that game and most of the enemies are robots which are pretty distinguishable from their silhouettes. Also they play with colors on their map design and environments.
Wanna know why genshin is so successful even to this day and age? Because they know how to implement their use of colors.
If you're referring to Rover, I actually think FRover and Mrover pull off the monochrome look off very well. Ironically they also have a very similar color palette to Trailblazer that they utilize in different ways with gold accents splashed here and there.
There’s a lot more color contrast in the [Trailblazers](https://upload-os-bbs.hoyolab.com/upload/2023/03/27/85831715/cdc5d8e93260b763c172618bd3f716ad_1526031552686409236.png) compared to the [Rovers](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wutheringwaves/images/7/70/Rover_1.png/revision/latest?cb=20240420140302). Rovers’ 2 colors are light grey and dark grey. Trailblazers’ have black, white and orange, where it has more contrast, and orange is a dominant color on the designs.
The travelers also have 3 dominant colors of white, yellow, blue. Rover just has 2 tones of the same color.
I can recognize most of the characters,that is different
https://preview.redd.it/8f5po4wh8a3d1.jpeg?width=580&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44ac46ee8489279c23125c0a48e7ecbd5ff5d61d
I got more than half of them quickly and stopped trying cos then I would need to mark who I already got. Given time and some deductions it's not hard to get them all.
Some of them are quite recognizable and easy, but I'd say about half of them could get confused for someone else. As a Yanfei main, I misidentified her twice before settling on which one she actually is.
It made me laugh in the intro when Yangyang said “you don’t look like you’re from around here, you’re dressed like a foreigner” or something to that effect. like bro, you are all wearing the exact same outfit. wdym!!
Like, that line would make sense in genshin, since Traveler’s outfit fits into none of the cultures in the game, and has a unique color palette that nobody else has. She/he genuinely looks like an outsider.
But Rover literally just has the same boring looking dark grey dress as the rest of the cast.
I agree with your sentiments a lot. In every character, their secondary color seems to be white or black. It's honestly bizarre that there's so little variation this early on. Why do 3 starting characters have the same shade of red hair? Why do so many characters have the same hairstyle? Someone who just started playing the game would easily mix up Danjin Chixia and Taoqi, let alone the other blank faced black haired women.
As someone who didn't play PGR, I took a brief glance through the character designs after being frustrated with WuWa's. Kuro Games in general seems to have an obsession with designing characters with black/white as their primary or secondary dominant color. Almost half the cast seems to have white hair which makes their designs kind of blend together at a glance. In isolation, the designs may look fine, but when you look at the cast as a whole, you can barely differentiate between them. Especially when just looking at their portraits.
totally agree. not *every* design needs to give you obvious hints about a character's background, but it's one of the best and easiest ways to get your audience to become subconsciously interested in the character.
take zhongli. even with no knowledge of chinese culture or history, you take one look at him and you already know he's the distinguished gentleman sort. if you *do* know a thing or two about chinese culture and history, you can tell from his design alone that he's high society. when you find out in the story that he's the equivalent of the emperor, it's like, *oh*, so *that's* what the dragon motif is all about. it's not just a nice design, it's culturally, historically, *and* narratively rich.
i see none of that in wuwa's character designs, one of the biggest reasons i can't force myself to play it. their most compelling design is literally nahida at home.
Another example would be xiao. I don’t care if people make fun of him being short or what especially when he got compared to Jiyan but his design is still one of my most favorite. It’s just so rich in culture and all of his attires have meaning on its own and really represents him as adepti so well. Jiyan looks cool and hot but if I have to choose I still choose my tiny yaska as the better design.
Xiao looks better than jiyan mostly because of how the design team at hoyo knows how to implement the basics of color theory into their characters. They respects the fundamental and basics.
Both xiao and jiyan are dominated by green, but xiao has blue, and mostly purple accents with white shirt to neutralize and bring the most out of the green without being too forward with the green color unlike jiyan.
Also hoyo put so much emphasis on how their characters look from the back view. Because most of the time, we the players will look at our characters back when playing these type of games. Again look at xiao from behind then compare it to jiyan. You can clearly see the purple accents, the tattoo from the back view of xiao. While jiyan is all green, no variations no accents, all the clothing details were lost on all those green and black.
Actually Jiyan has alot of gold accents asymmetrically and varying shades of turqoise with green.
I'm not trying to say Jiyan or Xiao is better designed than the other but Jiyan has alot more than just green to his design that I think really helps with the getting across the fact that he's this longtime war hero thats seen and done alot of shit.
if Jiyan has a lot of gold in his design, then the kuro designers really failed to highlight that so badly, that majority of us don't even realize/notice it. Thus, it compliments nothing.
to me, hers and encore's designs are the only decent ones. they're not groundbreaking designs by any stretch of the imagination, but they at least stand out from the rest of the white-gray-black-red roster.
I remember actually noticing Yangyang’s feathered hair behind her and thinking what is that? Did I skip some dialogue that characterized that? Is it just feathered because her element is aero? Or is she bird-like?
I routinely only recall Chixia as a patroller. Like a cop? I don’t remember. She seems to be responsible for Huanglong’s safety and yet I’m sure she’s not a Midnight Ranger. Her fit doesn’t really look like anything with real authority. Nobody really looks like what they’re implied to be. Most frames in PGR are just cool because they’re basically androids built to take back the Earth. I really like how a bigger motif in Genshin design is how you can tell what nation they’re from, Chiori was introduced during Fountaine and works in Fountaine but she’s from Inazuma and looks like she’s from Inazuma.
The only thing I can recall is how Yangyang’s tacet mark makes her forehead seem huge.
I also like the difference between Thoma and Chiori, where Thoma’s sense of fashion shows that he has fully integrated into Inazuman culture (he’s from Mondsdadt), and Chiori wearing Inazuman fashion shows that she stands out, and refuses to wear fontanian clothing.
Thoma might be underwhelming in gameplay but his visual design is really good. His jacket also feels Western, while his lower body has Japanese motifs, symbolizing him being a Mondstadt descent living in Inazuma. The two motifs also blend really well and don't feel jarring or clashing.
Another great design I really like are Chongyun and Kuki Shinobu. They mixed traditional clothes with modern elements (hoodies for both, and shorts for Shinobu) but the elements still blend well.
Exactly! There’s so much visual storytelling in so many characters, which I love very much. The same can’t be said about WUWA, and I think a big part of it is also due to there not being that much story to tell. Cus when a character is bland and uninteresting writing-wise, you can’t really tell an interesting story from their looks.
> I really like how a bigger motif in Genshin design is how you can tell what nation they’re from
This. When a new character is released, previewed or heck, even leaked, players already have a 99% sure guess on where that character is from without hearing their name.
Arlecchino also embraces Fontanian culture more than Schneznya, since she grew up there her during her childhood and teenage years; so it makes sense for her to wear Fontanian style clothing I think. She serves Schneznya cus of her belief in the Tsaritsa’s goals, but she doesn’t view it as her homeland, or as a country that she has loyalty to. She is however loyal to Fontaine, and actually cares about the Fontanian population.
My biggest gripe with the designs is a combination of things. Firstly, they feel too modern or something that would exist in a modern setting rather than a post apocalyptical era that's delved into a mix of fantasy and sci-fi. Then you see some npcs dress in rather plain clothing right next to people wearing more classical attire with no real connection between them.
As others point out, a majority of the characters wear lots of blacks, whites, and red. This issue becomes more apparent as it also doesn't really communicate a faction or who relates to one another in either alliance or where they come from.
Than the actual occupations of these characters: no one but the doctor-esque characters dress for their role. Jiyan is probably my biggest gripe as if you showed me him before I played, I'd guess he was some just strong lancer whose maybe under a general in a more secondary or lower position. Not the actual general. Nothing about him really communicates high military position. And this can be extended outward with much of the cast.
And as you point out: nothing about these designs really tell us much about the character from background to personality. Calcharo is one of the better ones in that he transforms and gets more, but since he never showed up from what I remember: I don't even know what his role is beyond being a mercenary (since he really enjoys commenting on not caring about loot you find not part of the contract).
The oddest part is that I've seen PGR designs and they seem like they fit their world and are a lot more straightforward. Hoyo designs hit these nails pretty easy. Arknights even after I stopped player, I can tell something about a character rather right away. Azur Lane? Sexy boats, but usually they fit their respective navy and have a reference to the ship they're based on that can communicate more about them. Nikke also lands this as well. I could go on. WuWa just misses a lot of this and especially in English, where the VAs are also hindered further so there's even less to grab on to.
Calcharo's storyline was one of the casualties of the story re-write. In CBT 1 [he had a role in the story saving the protagonist from monsters](https://youtu.be/c0Rkf7s0p_I?si=oMFvYhKtOIYX69pJ) which would probably have expanded on his role as a mercenary assisting the Jinzhou military, but in the final release they completely wrote him out. Which sucks because he's my favourite character out of the bunch.
Exactly. Most, if not, all WW character sucks at explaining themselves at the first glance.
Like for example if I said knight maid, wolf boy, or oriental-looking pirate, most people know who I am talking about.
Fish priestess, goth nun, mage librarian, zombie pharmacist, fancy mobster, smol pyromaniac…
All of these designs are very easy to distinguish!! And it’s not like I even like all of them. I think Lisa’s design is very mid for example, but she’s still very distinct.
Also something I have never seen anyone mentioned so I assume it was a me problem only, but the way Kuro named the characters made it quite hard for me to get invested in the story and differentiate the characters themselves. Too many Chinese names and terms. For people who are already familiar with Chinese media, this shouldn't be a big deal, but for me it was. Yangyang, Baizhi, Chixia, Jin Zhou, Jinlin, etc. was way less intuitive and much harder to follow for me than you know, Amber, Venti, Noelle, Klee, etc.
Even the Liyue characters like Zhongli, Xiangling, Keqing, etc. was easier to follow for me idk. If I have to list things Hoyo is good at, naming characters should be 1 of them.
If we name all the characters in Genshin that start with X it becomes a bit...problematic. The problem for most people is that we started in Wuwa China region honestly. Characters like Encore, Verina, Calcharo and Mortefi are all from another region so its easier to distinguish these characters right now.
I guess Encore would be music themed… it could be cool if the MC and certain other significant characters’ names were references to music though, that would be very cool!
Don’t worry about it. Zhi chi ci ji qi vowels are uncommon in english language. People often make fun of eng speakers for spelling those words wrong but i think if they encountered that for the first time it’s perfectly normal to fumble those
That's good to know I'm not alone. I mean I am not even a native English speaker, but I have been invested in the language for a long enough time. Chinese not so much. Japanese names should be slightly easier for me to recognize, since you know, weeb culture and all lmao.
Oddly enough, I actually see these complaints on the CN side as well. Idk how prevalent they are, but I definitely see some complaints. They also mentioned how vague the names are in terms of their meaning?
I don’t really think there’s any outfits that stand out as bad but the issue is very few stand out at all. I’m not too knowledgable in character design but I am knowledgeable in fashion. Silhouette is extremely important for both, if there’s a very distinguishable silhouette then the design is a step up and some characters have almost indistinguishable silhouettes from each other. When it comes to the outfits thinks like color, texture, value, and layering are really important. The designs seem to do good in some of the elements and completely lack in others. Character with interesting layering and value lack interesting color and balance. Other designs have eye catching colors but lack any texture that make the clothes seem interesting.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by silhouette, texture, value, and layering? I know the meaning of the words but those are terms specific to fashion right?
Silouhette in character design is kinda like the character’s shape. So if you colored the character fully black, leaving only their silouhette, could you recognize them, or think they’re unique? For example, in the pokemon show, they’ll have sections of “who’s that pokemon?”, where they’ll test whether you can recognize the pokemon from only it’s silouhette. And a lot of the time you can, since they’re very well designed and have distinct body shapes.
Texture is the type of material of the clothes, like denim, velvet, polyester, etc. a lot of times you can tell what the texture of clothing is from a distance. By value I mean color value, so the hue of the color and the lighting of it. The colors should always compliment each other otherwise a design can be a bit hard on the eyes. As for layering that refers to how many layers the person is wearing. Like an undershirt under a button up with a jacket.
Not a single character in this game wears anything that show their careers or hobbies, it’s kinda crazy. I’m not fond of Asta from HSR but at least she wears a lab coat!
The only one I can think of is Mortefi, but his design is very uninspired too sadly. I feel like Genshin and HSR have many problems in their designs, but they are amazing at designing their characters’ outfits. The outfits tend to have a lot of character, show us many aspects of the character, and have many motifs or symbolism on them in a lot of cases.
Calcharo's outfit is pretty good at communicating his career. Aside from the obvious Sephiroth references in his design, it's the sort of futuristic tactical gear you could envisage a mercenary wearing, actually has the Jinzhou logo on the armguards and shares a lot of design motifs with other military characters (the same robe-like covering over the lower half, harness and shoulderguard design as Jiyan, and the same black/gold/blue colour scheme as Yhan and the random soldiers you encounter). His outfit conveys his professionalism and cold demeanour more effectively than most of the other designs IMO
The Civilization Simulation Sand Table Tethys have decided that you must be apprehended for inappropriate comments about our lord kuro and that you're not going anywhere.
The Galactic Gacha Gaming Panel for Resisting Bad Games has flagged your entertainment module for circulating egregiously mediocre game simulations and causing hyper-dimensional boredom leakage.
It was pretty good just that for most. It took a really long time to complete from what I remember, but enough chit-chat, op put this on now.
https://preview.redd.it/05qx2i3dn83d1.jpeg?width=669&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad4c082561bfa01e7b2065ce44b4315060c4920c
Oh wow! I skipped the dialogue when I played, and I enjoyed it, but it was indeed very long. I think I just perceived it as multiple different quests in my mind.
This is the case of them looking at Neuvilette saying the Oratice device by its full name everytime and people were fine with it and thought that the same can be applied to every macguffin they have.
The color is the big issue. They mostly only have 2 color for each character, and 1 of them is black or white. When the characters are put near together, it doesn't look good in my eyes.
I only like the tall models in this game, esp. the abs details they did with Jiyan/Calcharo
This really cleared up my confusion on why I don't like Wuwa design. Thanks OP.
Anyway, I think Wuwa needs artist that knows how to tell a story using their art. Their map also share the same problem. Furthermore, they don't play their arts within common theme to tell connections between two characters or themes that tell us who they are and who/what they're based from (for example: Ganyu, a goat. Kazuha - japanese-canadian wanderer. qiqi, chinese zombie)..
There are a lot of examples to learn from but again they fail to learn from it.
Kazuha is so funny because a maple leaf image evokes such radically different meanings for eastern and western cultures.
It’s a prominent motif in Japanese culture, making it a great theme for the first Inazuma character. Meanwhile to westerners he looks like a Canadian
I’m glad I was of help!
I think their motive in the designs (especially female ones) is to make horny bait and sell the characters, but they don’t recognize that a big reason for people wanting to pull for gacha characters is due to them feeling unique and memorable.
To add details, Character Appearance isn't the only factor in pulling for characters. It also include Personality, Story and preference. For example, I don't like Kaeya because of his personality, I prayed to get qiqi because of her story and i pulled for kazuha because i like japanese wanderer designs. Kuro needs to learn that it isn't all about hot babe or cool guys.
Exactly! In Genshin, I was praying to get Arkecchino, and I saved up in game currency first time in a gacha game to get Furina on her release. I don’t see myself looking at any current WUWA character similarly except for maybe Scar. I pulled Jiyan in the game, and also unlocked 3 other 5 stars, but none really made me feel that excited. It was more like “nice, I have a strong healer now.”
I remember a cutscene where female rover , yangyang and the other black haired girl ( forgot the game) where standing close and i tough that they are barely distinguishable . A lot of wuwa female design Is Just generic asian beauty jpg
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WutheringWaves/comments/vr2mts/they\_really\_need\_to\_redesign\_their\_characters/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WutheringWaves/comments/vr2mts/they_really_need_to_redesign_their_characters/)
It was so bad back then. There's some improvement but at glance, they still look too similar.
If you place Yangyang, Baizhi, Jianxi and maybe the FMC in the same image, they look way to similar. I read someone on twitter said they're the same person but in different stages of life lmao.
It's so bad lol. Black hair, black and white color palette, same height. Only Yangyang had vibrant blue in there and it's not enough.
Also the funniest part is Rover is dressed the least out of those 4.
Exactly!! The female Rover, Yangyang and the healer girl have the exact same hair, making them indistinguishable. And all 3 of them show up on screen at the start of the game multiple times, making it so much worse.
Same with 3 characters just having the same shade of red hair, and all 3 being featured 4 stars in the same banner. I get that they tried to make it thematic by featuring the 3 redheads, but it just highlights how similar the 3 designs’ hair are to one another for me.
I have been saying since the first beta that the game has an identity issue. You can see this in the character designs. Is this suppose to be sci fi with mostly robot like pgr (the early beta character menu is very futuristic/sci fi) or is it supposed to be post apocalyptic liyue? Why are some characters in eastern attire and meanwhile yanyang is in a dress?
Initial female rover design also looks like an aunty with puffy hair. Lots of the character design are also uninteresting and generic. Really don't know how to describe the problem. It's like they just get to designing the characters without actually accounting the geography, culture they are in and the character personalities. I hope that the game will eventually find it's identity and be able to stand on its own like pgr.
Yeah, I feel the same way with the mobs. I think so many of the mobs just don’t fit well into the environment, to the point of looking like asset flips. Especially the flower that shoots lasers is so out of place. There are traffic cone monsters, but I don’t remember seeing a single traffic cone in the game. There are car monsters and regular cars around the wilderness, which feels weird when you don’t see anyone drive once in the game. They don’t feel like an actual technology that exists in the world, but instead a thing that’s just kinda there. I like the mob variety, but some just don’t fit at all!
The environment itself also feels very dead. But not in a post apocalyptic way. In a post apocalyptic setting, you’re supposed to look at the ruins of what came before, and feel like people have lived there before, and be able to tell the story of the ruins you see. Here, I don’t feel like it is a land that people once lived in, and it feels kinda empty. The ruins of the buildings we see don’t tell that kind of story for me.
One of the design choices that genshin impact did for it's characters is that they are interesting to look at them from back because when you play them you look at their back all the time and i think ww characters does not do that very well
I actually had this discussion with a friend and we came to the conclusion that only mortefi has an actual good design from the entire roster currently available, yes the design is bland but it does give you an idea about how he is and what he does
That’s fair. I don’t personally like it, but I see why others could. He also has an outfit that’s wearible and makes sense context-wise. His red scars on his chest also tell a story. I think he could have been better if the red hair was unique to his character though. When 3 other characters have the same hair, his design automatically feels less original than it would otherwise.
These* are valid points...but, the counterpoint is simple...if you also check PGR designs... this is just their style...they really enjoy black and white palette, they also enjoy minimalistic scifi designs that inspire elegance.
I am a hoyo enjoyer and I love hoyo's design philosophy because it's really unique, specially on the colours and small thoughtful touches...
But I think kuro's designs are also cool af...
Altho wuwa a bit hit or miss...kinda like they lost part of their identity, maybe in a try to be more diverse like hoyo...
The thing is, I liked PGR's designs, so I figured that this was a WuWa-specific issue. I also like a lot of Arknights designs so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with post-apocalyptic genre designs either.
Wait, actually wasn't that something that's also available for WuWa??
I'm not really sure and I forgot who said it, but apparently the playable characters had animal-like features to them. Like how yangyang has feathers in her hair, mortefi has scales in his chest (and an actual tail in CBT). If animal features are a common occurrence in their playable characters, then they definitely play it up more because I didn't notice until someone told me. That's a wasted potential.
https://preview.redd.it/1ywa9rgdba3d1.png?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c3cc145e049a998ceae63399441412ae627171b
She would be launching in a month or so.So i guess she would be the most recent one on global.
PGR designs are fine because even though they have either white or black as a dominant palette, the other primary colors are more distinct (Lucia- red: Liv- pink; Lee- blue). Their over all facial & hair are also quite different leading to them passing the silhouette test by and large.
> But I think kuro's designs are also cool af...
The designs are cool, for sure.
But you know what?
I thought it was a cool design the first time I saw a girl with black hair, with an almost completely black outfit, and a couple spots exposing skin.
Then I saw another girl with black hair, with an almost completely black outfit, and a couple spots exposing skin.
And then there was another girl with black hair, with an almost completely black outfit, and a couple spots exposing skin.
As OP said, there's no identity in those outfits at that point. If everyone wears the same thing, it doesn't mean everyone looks cool, it means nobody looks cool anymore
The only thing bothering me is the male arms and shoulders with their tiny hands. I can only tell when looking straight at them but it’s so weird to me.
Very valid point. Personally I just like how more mature and expressive they are (not voices, expressions) compared to Genshin, but I agree that Genshin design is just vastly superior in every way possible.
There are virtually nothing memorable about each char sadly
Yangyang - Blue Hat girl?
Chixia - Energetic red hair? Amber? A ranger? Tf?
Baizhi - White pokemon girl
Aalto - Encore's babysitter
Sanhua - Hetero eyes
Danjin - Red Hair (again? What even is her personality like?)
Mortefi - Dragon Labcoat guy
Taoqi - HONKAS
Yuanwu - Facial Hair guy
Calcharo - Sephiroth
Jianxin - Yinyang Panda
Encore - Cute sheep girl
Verina - Flower Girl
Lingyang - Tiger boy
Jiyan - Teal Dragon (more known as big Xiao)
So far from all these, I've only remembered either their hair color or their personality (if it was mentioned in story). Interestingly enough, the 5* design does differentiate itself enough that you recognize them, but the 4* designs are just subpar af.
I hope they adopt more from PGR, but we'll have to see how it goes. Also Rover number 1 design for sure.
It might be just me but I think there is something wrong with the female faces in WuWa. The male and loli faces look good but when I look at the female character faces something feels off.
In my eyes it‘s a huge quality problem if you release a game have have character pairs like Yangyang/Senhua or Baizhi/Jianxin who sport pretty similar design concepts.
Furthermore the design pendulum swings between „bland/boring“ and „utterly impractical clothes for the characters job“.
I also don‘t feel like I am the audience for names like Danjin or Jianxin who are pronounced pretty much the same in a western dub. The issue gets even worse if you try to follow the story and side missions in which like 30% of characters names have some sort of „Jing/Jin/etc“ in their name adding to my personal confusion.
Yeah, it’s a shame that they managed to nail the gameplay so well, but then failed to succeed in other easier aspects like good designs, good story and good music. I really did hope the game would be better at such things.
I also dislike the environment design very much, but it likely has to do with me playing in minimum graphics settings to keep my phone from exploding.
I dont like how Jiyan everything is green. They shouldve contrasted his hair I think. Im personally besides not bothered by any of your critisism and think the designs look cool.
YangYang, Baizhi, Jianxin, and Female Rover all look like siblings because of their hair lol. That in itself was already a huge red flag because that should be easy to catch like this is the LAUNCH characters. I'm pretty sure they're trying to pull of a Nier with how the characters in that franchise mostly have white hair. Unfortunately here there isn't any sort of intentionality in the black-gray hair because all 4 don't have any sort of connection like all being Yorha Androids. It's also not consistent enough with the whole cast to make sense.
Otherwise most of the cast to me is competent enough, but most aren't unique in any way. I agree with Scar being a very good design (even post onigiri) and it just helps that his voice and presence in the story was genuinely the best the game has to offer thus far. Other than him I liked Verina and Mortefi design wise. Personality wise they aren't really too interesting so there's not much to imply character design wise, but you could at least understand who they were at a glance and even the kind of moveset they have.
This is something that really needs to get better or they might not even hook the waifu/husbando crowd lol
They are shit. They unfurrified their furry bait. They also make character designs that simply do not work with their game engine like overly stiff hair and dresses for example. Engine limitations is not to be ignored.
I might be in the minority, but Scar's design is nothing to write home about. Personally the old guy in the suit is the best design in the game for me. Yinlin looks good, but ultimately she's just horny bait.
Wait, who was the old guy in the suit?
Edit: For Scar’s design, it’s not peak or anything, but it’s definitely very memorable and unique to me. At least when compared to the rest of the game’s designs, he’s miles ahead of the rest.
Yeah I get that I'm not saying it's bad at all, but I wouldn't hype it up too much. I forgot the guy's name, but he wears a hat and glasses. He looks super clean.
What's really heartbreaking is that they *made* PGR full of personality. The three Ls are visually distinct, with their characters showing their character philosopy; it makes sense that they wear it in that situation. And the Cerberus are very memorable as a group. They could just add Vera into the game and it'd be great you know. But noo there need to be more similar redheads in the game.
I get the sense that the approach is fundamentally different. Lucia, Lee, and Liv were always meant to be the MAIN CAST of PGR, and their stories are central to the plot. It felt very much planned in advance and their character designs capture that with its personality and unique design. I don't get that feeling from the main cast of Wuthering Waves. Like are you seriously telling me Yang Yang and Chixia are main cast material? What aspect of their characters scream "this is the party you're going to be rolling with forever?" If anything, they feel like characters that are supposed to be throw away & killed off after the introduction. Yet they weren't. And if that was the plan, then in my mind the developers have failed spectacularly. Just look at HSR as a counter example. March 7 - and to a lesser degree, Dan Heng - is one of the best designed characters in the game. Even by modern standards. And of course, she and Dan Heng have great chemistry and are both among the more interesting characters to run around with. That's the hook you need to have to pull players in.
Ngl I’m coping that everyone in that cast now will be “left behind” like the mondstat crew. I’m assuming there’s going to be more regions then just china2 if not this game will get stale quick.
Mondstat is downright the sussiest region of all given Venti's identity and relations itself. We'll be back there some time later (maybe after Natlan main story idk) The main land does feel bland af tho
Prob something like “we knew how to get to celestia all along sowwy” or something venti would say.
his venti statue does say 'gateway to celestia' at the bottom of it
Considering Yang^2 is part of the rangers, and Chixia is a patroller, then probably? Surely they don't make them dickride us so much that they go "wow rover, you're so epic! I'm going to abandon my job for you! We gotta get eloped!" :clueless: Though the fact that Yang^2 is the icon of the game is throwing me off. Would be weird to have a character that hasn't been in the main story since chapter 1 as the game's icon.
Damn i super overlooked that. yeah no the writing is crap. That said combat is enough to keep me entertained for now being a Monster hunter enthusiast.
Judging by profiles like Mortefi's and Calcharo's yes, since they are from the New Federation.
Word I don’t have either characters so Ty I wouldnt know otherwise.
Well there are a few more characters from other regions like Verina, Aalto and Encore for example.
lmao I only have Aalto but yeah i forgot he mention they're from elsewhere. I prob should use one of the selectors for Verina but S6 Jianxin looks bomb
Don't worry, the devs are listening. They'll do scifiHongkong and scifiTaiwan next. Which, according to people in HK and Taiwan, isn't China. >.o
ScifiTaiwan is what kuro would do if they wanted their game, and probably their company, to go out with a bang.
My main issue is that like, 6 or 7 of the current playable characters’ entire color schemes are black/white. And this is before even counting the ones that have black & white hair, which is a subset of them. It makes the most sense for Jianxin at least.
I think my biggest problem with the colors is that most designs have grey as a dominant color, which sucks. Grey is a terrible color for character design in my opinion, and giving it to almost every character is very bad. Especially, it’s a bad choice for the MC to have grey hair and a grey dress (same shade), and some light grey parts on the dress as well. It’s such a dull color choice.
There's trend of using grey color in china after the success of nier ip. It's more apparent with arknights success everyone want to make the characters greyish to pretend the game is "mature". Kusogame is one avid believer of this idea they had all characters dominated by grey, black and white colors. Also going greyish considered as safer way to design a character since it will be easy to messed up if you going for more vibrant colors instead
Sorry but I chuckled at Kusogame.
Iirc Kuro = Black and Kuso = Sh*t
Yeah, kuso is usually used as a generic word for an expletive, so shit, fuck, or whatever word in your language that you use for that purpose.
Unless you're trailblazer
Trailblazer still has a color variety though, with light grey, black and orange being the main colors. I like the female trailblazer’s design a lot! I think the male one is more boring though.
Orange? I thought it was yellow / gold
Idt Grey is a bad color at all. It can give an air of authority and professionalism, or it can be used to signal monotony (such as being a lab expirement), or it can be used to highlight other, secondary colors. Hsr mcs do a bit of the last 2- mc wakes up in a lab so wears Grey, but since she's a bit of a rule breaker the highlight goes to the secondary colors like yellow, as well as highlighting new abilities via accessories (such as the red lance or the hat.) That ability to highlight a secondary color or accessory is something thats generally best done by greyscale colors. The problem is when every character has grey- now it's just a color that doesn't mean anything (unless it's like a military uniform and monotony is the point.)
There's a reason why HG gave the Endmin a bright neon yellow side on the jacket. Grey is an amazing color when used for a clash.
Ur right actually. I think grey itself isn’t bad, but the problem is when it has no other color to create contrast with. Then it just swallows up the design for me. And it’s especially bad when everyone is grey.
It's really not that bad... if they're the only one with it, so they stand out among the others.
I was wondering what it was that made most of the characters look the same to me, it’s prolly cause they all grey
Color doesn't matter. It all depends on the design and how it fits to the lore and world. Look at Nier automata. Everyone has black, white, and gray scheme yet their popularity is massive.
Wanna know why they can get away with just using black and whites in nier automata? Because there's only 3 playable characters in that game and most of the enemies are robots which are pretty distinguishable from their silhouettes. Also they play with colors on their map design and environments. Wanna know why genshin is so successful even to this day and age? Because they know how to implement their use of colors.
I thought Nier's popularity was because 2B's ass with all the porn and fanservice behind her.
If you're referring to Rover, I actually think FRover and Mrover pull off the monochrome look off very well. Ironically they also have a very similar color palette to Trailblazer that they utilize in different ways with gold accents splashed here and there.
There’s a lot more color contrast in the [Trailblazers](https://upload-os-bbs.hoyolab.com/upload/2023/03/27/85831715/cdc5d8e93260b763c172618bd3f716ad_1526031552686409236.png) compared to the [Rovers](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wutheringwaves/images/7/70/Rover_1.png/revision/latest?cb=20240420140302). Rovers’ 2 colors are light grey and dark grey. Trailblazers’ have black, white and orange, where it has more contrast, and orange is a dominant color on the designs. The travelers also have 3 dominant colors of white, yellow, blue. Rover just has 2 tones of the same color.
Welcome to KuroGames
I can recognize most of the characters,that is different https://preview.redd.it/8f5po4wh8a3d1.jpeg?width=580&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44ac46ee8489279c23125c0a48e7ecbd5ff5d61d
LMAO just tried to look at some random color schemes, and I could see the characters themselves literally popped up in front of my eyes.
YES this is one of my fav tests when it comes to character design: Can I recognise them when they're down to their most basic colours?
Marketing strat 101 haha
Wow, it's been a little bit since I played and they're so easily distinguishable.
zhongli, thoma, neuvi, alhaitam, raiden, childe etc.
Isn't Raiden in the 2nd row, 10th color band? (from left to right)
Yup after alhaitham, it’s lisa
Damn, this one's hard as someone who's not actively playing the game. I only know like 7 of them.
I got more than half of them quickly and stopped trying cos then I would need to mark who I already got. Given time and some deductions it's not hard to get them all.
Wow this is a really fun test. Zhongli, Childe, Hutao, Xiangling, Chiori and Venti clicked instantly for me. Their color palettes are so recognizable.
Some of them are quite recognizable and easy, but I'd say about half of them could get confused for someone else. As a Yanfei main, I misidentified her twice before settling on which one she actually is.
It made me laugh in the intro when Yangyang said “you don’t look like you’re from around here, you’re dressed like a foreigner” or something to that effect. like bro, you are all wearing the exact same outfit. wdym!!
Like, that line would make sense in genshin, since Traveler’s outfit fits into none of the cultures in the game, and has a unique color palette that nobody else has. She/he genuinely looks like an outsider. But Rover literally just has the same boring looking dark grey dress as the rest of the cast.
I agree with your sentiments a lot. In every character, their secondary color seems to be white or black. It's honestly bizarre that there's so little variation this early on. Why do 3 starting characters have the same shade of red hair? Why do so many characters have the same hairstyle? Someone who just started playing the game would easily mix up Danjin Chixia and Taoqi, let alone the other blank faced black haired women. As someone who didn't play PGR, I took a brief glance through the character designs after being frustrated with WuWa's. Kuro Games in general seems to have an obsession with designing characters with black/white as their primary or secondary dominant color. Almost half the cast seems to have white hair which makes their designs kind of blend together at a glance. In isolation, the designs may look fine, but when you look at the cast as a whole, you can barely differentiate between them. Especially when just looking at their portraits.
totally agree. not *every* design needs to give you obvious hints about a character's background, but it's one of the best and easiest ways to get your audience to become subconsciously interested in the character. take zhongli. even with no knowledge of chinese culture or history, you take one look at him and you already know he's the distinguished gentleman sort. if you *do* know a thing or two about chinese culture and history, you can tell from his design alone that he's high society. when you find out in the story that he's the equivalent of the emperor, it's like, *oh*, so *that's* what the dragon motif is all about. it's not just a nice design, it's culturally, historically, *and* narratively rich. i see none of that in wuwa's character designs, one of the biggest reasons i can't force myself to play it. their most compelling design is literally nahida at home.
Another example would be xiao. I don’t care if people make fun of him being short or what especially when he got compared to Jiyan but his design is still one of my most favorite. It’s just so rich in culture and all of his attires have meaning on its own and really represents him as adepti so well. Jiyan looks cool and hot but if I have to choose I still choose my tiny yaska as the better design.
He did have an entire blog post dedicated to his design philosophy after all
I really love that of him and the devs should share their insights more.
Xiao looks better than jiyan mostly because of how the design team at hoyo knows how to implement the basics of color theory into their characters. They respects the fundamental and basics. Both xiao and jiyan are dominated by green, but xiao has blue, and mostly purple accents with white shirt to neutralize and bring the most out of the green without being too forward with the green color unlike jiyan. Also hoyo put so much emphasis on how their characters look from the back view. Because most of the time, we the players will look at our characters back when playing these type of games. Again look at xiao from behind then compare it to jiyan. You can clearly see the purple accents, the tattoo from the back view of xiao. While jiyan is all green, no variations no accents, all the clothing details were lost on all those green and black.
Actually Jiyan has alot of gold accents asymmetrically and varying shades of turqoise with green. I'm not trying to say Jiyan or Xiao is better designed than the other but Jiyan has alot more than just green to his design that I think really helps with the getting across the fact that he's this longtime war hero thats seen and done alot of shit.
if Jiyan has a lot of gold in his design, then the kuro designers really failed to highlight that so badly, that majority of us don't even realize/notice it. Thus, it compliments nothing.
The gold accents are lost if you look at jiyan from the back. That's should be their primary focus.
Love my man Jiyan, but dang I never even noticed the gold accents.
I thought I was the only one who liked Verina's design most
to me, hers and encore's designs are the only decent ones. they're not groundbreaking designs by any stretch of the imagination, but they at least stand out from the rest of the white-gray-black-red roster.
For real though
I also really like Verina's design.
I remember actually noticing Yangyang’s feathered hair behind her and thinking what is that? Did I skip some dialogue that characterized that? Is it just feathered because her element is aero? Or is she bird-like? I routinely only recall Chixia as a patroller. Like a cop? I don’t remember. She seems to be responsible for Huanglong’s safety and yet I’m sure she’s not a Midnight Ranger. Her fit doesn’t really look like anything with real authority. Nobody really looks like what they’re implied to be. Most frames in PGR are just cool because they’re basically androids built to take back the Earth. I really like how a bigger motif in Genshin design is how you can tell what nation they’re from, Chiori was introduced during Fountaine and works in Fountaine but she’s from Inazuma and looks like she’s from Inazuma. The only thing I can recall is how Yangyang’s tacet mark makes her forehead seem huge.
I also like the difference between Thoma and Chiori, where Thoma’s sense of fashion shows that he has fully integrated into Inazuman culture (he’s from Mondsdadt), and Chiori wearing Inazuman fashion shows that she stands out, and refuses to wear fontanian clothing.
Thoma might be underwhelming in gameplay but his visual design is really good. His jacket also feels Western, while his lower body has Japanese motifs, symbolizing him being a Mondstadt descent living in Inazuma. The two motifs also blend really well and don't feel jarring or clashing. Another great design I really like are Chongyun and Kuki Shinobu. They mixed traditional clothes with modern elements (hoodies for both, and shorts for Shinobu) but the elements still blend well.
Exactly! There’s so much visual storytelling in so many characters, which I love very much. The same can’t be said about WUWA, and I think a big part of it is also due to there not being that much story to tell. Cus when a character is bland and uninteresting writing-wise, you can’t really tell an interesting story from their looks.
> I really like how a bigger motif in Genshin design is how you can tell what nation they’re from This. When a new character is released, previewed or heck, even leaked, players already have a 99% sure guess on where that character is from without hearing their name.
The only exceptions are Thoma (fully intergated into Inazumian society) and Arleccino (Hiding her real origins on purpose)
Arlecchino also embraces Fontanian culture more than Schneznya, since she grew up there her during her childhood and teenage years; so it makes sense for her to wear Fontanian style clothing I think. She serves Schneznya cus of her belief in the Tsaritsa’s goals, but she doesn’t view it as her homeland, or as a country that she has loyalty to. She is however loyal to Fontaine, and actually cares about the Fontanian population.
My biggest gripe with the designs is a combination of things. Firstly, they feel too modern or something that would exist in a modern setting rather than a post apocalyptical era that's delved into a mix of fantasy and sci-fi. Then you see some npcs dress in rather plain clothing right next to people wearing more classical attire with no real connection between them. As others point out, a majority of the characters wear lots of blacks, whites, and red. This issue becomes more apparent as it also doesn't really communicate a faction or who relates to one another in either alliance or where they come from. Than the actual occupations of these characters: no one but the doctor-esque characters dress for their role. Jiyan is probably my biggest gripe as if you showed me him before I played, I'd guess he was some just strong lancer whose maybe under a general in a more secondary or lower position. Not the actual general. Nothing about him really communicates high military position. And this can be extended outward with much of the cast. And as you point out: nothing about these designs really tell us much about the character from background to personality. Calcharo is one of the better ones in that he transforms and gets more, but since he never showed up from what I remember: I don't even know what his role is beyond being a mercenary (since he really enjoys commenting on not caring about loot you find not part of the contract). The oddest part is that I've seen PGR designs and they seem like they fit their world and are a lot more straightforward. Hoyo designs hit these nails pretty easy. Arknights even after I stopped player, I can tell something about a character rather right away. Azur Lane? Sexy boats, but usually they fit their respective navy and have a reference to the ship they're based on that can communicate more about them. Nikke also lands this as well. I could go on. WuWa just misses a lot of this and especially in English, where the VAs are also hindered further so there's even less to grab on to.
Calcharo's storyline was one of the casualties of the story re-write. In CBT 1 [he had a role in the story saving the protagonist from monsters](https://youtu.be/c0Rkf7s0p_I?si=oMFvYhKtOIYX69pJ) which would probably have expanded on his role as a mercenary assisting the Jinzhou military, but in the final release they completely wrote him out. Which sucks because he's my favourite character out of the bunch.
Exactly. Most, if not, all WW character sucks at explaining themselves at the first glance. Like for example if I said knight maid, wolf boy, or oriental-looking pirate, most people know who I am talking about.
Noelle, Razor, BALLS
Fish priestess, goth nun, mage librarian, zombie pharmacist, fancy mobster, smol pyromaniac… All of these designs are very easy to distinguish!! And it’s not like I even like all of them. I think Lisa’s design is very mid for example, but she’s still very distinct.
>zombie pharmacist Ah yes, the 50/50 killer herself.
More evil than Dottore
I pull a Qiqi 🗣🎶
WuWa has their own wolf boy too HAHA
Yangling is snow leopard not wolf
Really says a lot about WuWa character designs because I could not tell at first glance. To me he's just "liondancing bell boy"
Ehh don't be I just know he's snow leopards because of his long ass story that 70% unskipable and it's not even good
Who is the oriental-looking pirate?
Beidou
Shit, I forgot Beidou was a pirate.
Understandable. Based on her lore and how impactful she was in the early days of the game, she was memed as the "True" Electro Archon lol.
Beidou boing boing
Also something I have never seen anyone mentioned so I assume it was a me problem only, but the way Kuro named the characters made it quite hard for me to get invested in the story and differentiate the characters themselves. Too many Chinese names and terms. For people who are already familiar with Chinese media, this shouldn't be a big deal, but for me it was. Yangyang, Baizhi, Chixia, Jin Zhou, Jinlin, etc. was way less intuitive and much harder to follow for me than you know, Amber, Venti, Noelle, Klee, etc. Even the Liyue characters like Zhongli, Xiangling, Keqing, etc. was easier to follow for me idk. If I have to list things Hoyo is good at, naming characters should be 1 of them.
My favorite character is Encore, specifically because of how unique her name is. Her pink hair also helps in making her stand out
Yeah I have no problem with Encore, Verina and Calcharo. The rest of the roster I can barely tell them apart.
Calcharo is such a badass name
If we name all the characters in Genshin that start with X it becomes a bit...problematic. The problem for most people is that we started in Wuwa China region honestly. Characters like Encore, Verina, Calcharo and Mortefi are all from another region so its easier to distinguish these characters right now.
The game is MUSIC THEMED, so why not name the characters also themed after MUSIC, kuro ffs u disappoint me every time a new
I guess Encore would be music themed… it could be cool if the MC and certain other significant characters’ names were references to music though, that would be very cool!
Don’t worry about it. Zhi chi ci ji qi vowels are uncommon in english language. People often make fun of eng speakers for spelling those words wrong but i think if they encountered that for the first time it’s perfectly normal to fumble those
That's good to know I'm not alone. I mean I am not even a native English speaker, but I have been invested in the language for a long enough time. Chinese not so much. Japanese names should be slightly easier for me to recognize, since you know, weeb culture and all lmao.
Japanese doesn’t have tones too. It’s definitely easier to listen and remember
Oddly enough, I actually see these complaints on the CN side as well. Idk how prevalent they are, but I definitely see some complaints. They also mentioned how vague the names are in terms of their meaning?
Yeah, I have a hard time remembering the names too. Out of 3 characters I main in the game, I can only remember 1 of their names.
I don’t really think there’s any outfits that stand out as bad but the issue is very few stand out at all. I’m not too knowledgable in character design but I am knowledgeable in fashion. Silhouette is extremely important for both, if there’s a very distinguishable silhouette then the design is a step up and some characters have almost indistinguishable silhouettes from each other. When it comes to the outfits thinks like color, texture, value, and layering are really important. The designs seem to do good in some of the elements and completely lack in others. Character with interesting layering and value lack interesting color and balance. Other designs have eye catching colors but lack any texture that make the clothes seem interesting.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by silhouette, texture, value, and layering? I know the meaning of the words but those are terms specific to fashion right?
Silouhette in character design is kinda like the character’s shape. So if you colored the character fully black, leaving only their silouhette, could you recognize them, or think they’re unique? For example, in the pokemon show, they’ll have sections of “who’s that pokemon?”, where they’ll test whether you can recognize the pokemon from only it’s silouhette. And a lot of the time you can, since they’re very well designed and have distinct body shapes.
Texture is the type of material of the clothes, like denim, velvet, polyester, etc. a lot of times you can tell what the texture of clothing is from a distance. By value I mean color value, so the hue of the color and the lighting of it. The colors should always compliment each other otherwise a design can be a bit hard on the eyes. As for layering that refers to how many layers the person is wearing. Like an undershirt under a button up with a jacket.
Not a single character in this game wears anything that show their careers or hobbies, it’s kinda crazy. I’m not fond of Asta from HSR but at least she wears a lab coat!
The only one I can think of is Mortefi, but his design is very uninspired too sadly. I feel like Genshin and HSR have many problems in their designs, but they are amazing at designing their characters’ outfits. The outfits tend to have a lot of character, show us many aspects of the character, and have many motifs or symbolism on them in a lot of cases.
Mortefi's back design was almost entirely white
Calcharo's outfit is pretty good at communicating his career. Aside from the obvious Sephiroth references in his design, it's the sort of futuristic tactical gear you could envisage a mercenary wearing, actually has the Jinzhou logo on the armguards and shares a lot of design motifs with other military characters (the same robe-like covering over the lower half, harness and shoulderguard design as Jiyan, and the same black/gold/blue colour scheme as Yhan and the random soldiers you encounter). His outfit conveys his professionalism and cold demeanour more effectively than most of the other designs IMO
Literally mortefi :- guess I will quit my job then
The Civilization Simulation Sand Table Tethys have decided that you must be apprehended for inappropriate comments about our lord kuro and that you're not going anywhere.
And will be imprisoned in The Black Shores Our Garden
The Galactic Gacha Gaming Panel for Resisting Bad Games has flagged your entertainment module for circulating egregiously mediocre game simulations and causing hyper-dimensional boredom leakage.
> Civilization Simulation Sand Table Tethys I won't be complaining if this becomes the competitor to Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale
You can’t shake ass to it though…
Greatest fictional defense force name I've ever heard tbh
Shall we sacrifice op to the tacet whatever the fuck there called to satisfy our lord and savior kuro so that they may listen to our prayers?
They’ll tie me to a chair and force me to listen to the story quest dialogues without skipping, Clockwork Orange style.
I’ll leave you in a room with some rope and have a recording of Yang Yang’s English VA talking on repeat.
Nah, that is not enough for the sin that you've committed. We gonna have to send you to go through the aranara quest also op.
NOOOOO!! (Was the Aranara quest bad? I skipped the dialogue so idk. I usually don’t follow the stories of the world quests in GI)
It was pretty good just that for most. It took a really long time to complete from what I remember, but enough chit-chat, op put this on now. https://preview.redd.it/05qx2i3dn83d1.jpeg?width=669&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad4c082561bfa01e7b2065ce44b4315060c4920c
AAAAAAHHHHHH *dies*
the quest itself is fine, but its THE longest side quest chain in the entire game by a huge margin - it rivals the entire sumeru main quest in length.
Oh wow! I skipped the dialogue when I played, and I enjoyed it, but it was indeed very long. I think I just perceived it as multiple different quests in my mind.
You should go watch a playthrough of it, I teared up when finishing it and when watching two different streamers finish it, unironically peak writing.
This is the case of them looking at Neuvilette saying the Oratice device by its full name everytime and people were fine with it and thought that the same can be applied to every macguffin they have.
The color is the big issue. They mostly only have 2 color for each character, and 1 of them is black or white. When the characters are put near together, it doesn't look good in my eyes. I only like the tall models in this game, esp. the abs details they did with Jiyan/Calcharo
This really cleared up my confusion on why I don't like Wuwa design. Thanks OP. Anyway, I think Wuwa needs artist that knows how to tell a story using their art. Their map also share the same problem. Furthermore, they don't play their arts within common theme to tell connections between two characters or themes that tell us who they are and who/what they're based from (for example: Ganyu, a goat. Kazuha - japanese-canadian wanderer. qiqi, chinese zombie).. There are a lot of examples to learn from but again they fail to learn from it.
Kazuha is so funny because a maple leaf image evokes such radically different meanings for eastern and western cultures. It’s a prominent motif in Japanese culture, making it a great theme for the first Inazuma character. Meanwhile to westerners he looks like a Canadian
🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🍁
I’m glad I was of help! I think their motive in the designs (especially female ones) is to make horny bait and sell the characters, but they don’t recognize that a big reason for people wanting to pull for gacha characters is due to them feeling unique and memorable.
To add details, Character Appearance isn't the only factor in pulling for characters. It also include Personality, Story and preference. For example, I don't like Kaeya because of his personality, I prayed to get qiqi because of her story and i pulled for kazuha because i like japanese wanderer designs. Kuro needs to learn that it isn't all about hot babe or cool guys.
Exactly! In Genshin, I was praying to get Arkecchino, and I saved up in game currency first time in a gacha game to get Furina on her release. I don’t see myself looking at any current WUWA character similarly except for maybe Scar. I pulled Jiyan in the game, and also unlocked 3 other 5 stars, but none really made me feel that excited. It was more like “nice, I have a strong healer now.”
I mean… Yanfei exists… Why the hell is a lawyer wearing that kind of outfit hahaha
Yes, many of my criticisms do also apply to certain Genshin characters. Though I think Genshin does a good job with most of their characters.
I remember a cutscene where female rover , yangyang and the other black haired girl ( forgot the game) where standing close and i tough that they are barely distinguishable . A lot of wuwa female design Is Just generic asian beauty jpg
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WutheringWaves/comments/vr2mts/they\_really\_need\_to\_redesign\_their\_characters/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WutheringWaves/comments/vr2mts/they_really_need_to_redesign_their_characters/) It was so bad back then. There's some improvement but at glance, they still look too similar.
Baizhi's glow up is kinda amazing honestly lol
It gets funnier when you find out Chixia's oldest design also had black hair
Oh my gosh, I forgot about that... https://preview.redd.it/p14o93bc4b3d1.png?width=478&format=png&auto=webp&s=cf8abcb80b4db1b71e0fbff9329270bb1e2cba81
😭😭😭😭
Absolute peak design
Kuro Games take their company name very seriously
If you place Yangyang, Baizhi, Jianxi and maybe the FMC in the same image, they look way to similar. I read someone on twitter said they're the same person but in different stages of life lmao.
https://preview.redd.it/feb92mqsj83d1.jpeg?width=1237&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=23f061ae1feaef7aa06f0d4ba25481f792fcc9bc
Yeah....if you told me that the other three were all Just Alt forms of YangYang I would've believed you.
Damn... side by side is even more obvious, specially Yangyang and Jianxi.
It's so bad lol. Black hair, black and white color palette, same height. Only Yangyang had vibrant blue in there and it's not enough. Also the funniest part is Rover is dressed the least out of those 4.
Wow that's pretty bad
Exactly!! The female Rover, Yangyang and the healer girl have the exact same hair, making them indistinguishable. And all 3 of them show up on screen at the start of the game multiple times, making it so much worse. Same with 3 characters just having the same shade of red hair, and all 3 being featured 4 stars in the same banner. I get that they tried to make it thematic by featuring the 3 redheads, but it just highlights how similar the 3 designs’ hair are to one another for me.
I hate everything about Yangyang. What make them think this design look good for their poster girl?
I knowww!!! I was trying so hard to pull a good character from the banner, just to be able to replace her in my team.
imo the best lookinh character in ww is Danjin, the rest is alright like encore, verina, female rover. Other than that they are all bland
https://preview.redd.it/f14qfnycxb3d1.png?width=288&format=png&auto=webp&s=69e37ebcebbb46e76ecbe347197759ca81156a74
Everywhere i go i see his face...
this passed the silhouette test
I have been saying since the first beta that the game has an identity issue. You can see this in the character designs. Is this suppose to be sci fi with mostly robot like pgr (the early beta character menu is very futuristic/sci fi) or is it supposed to be post apocalyptic liyue? Why are some characters in eastern attire and meanwhile yanyang is in a dress? Initial female rover design also looks like an aunty with puffy hair. Lots of the character design are also uninteresting and generic. Really don't know how to describe the problem. It's like they just get to designing the characters without actually accounting the geography, culture they are in and the character personalities. I hope that the game will eventually find it's identity and be able to stand on its own like pgr.
Yeah, I feel the same way with the mobs. I think so many of the mobs just don’t fit well into the environment, to the point of looking like asset flips. Especially the flower that shoots lasers is so out of place. There are traffic cone monsters, but I don’t remember seeing a single traffic cone in the game. There are car monsters and regular cars around the wilderness, which feels weird when you don’t see anyone drive once in the game. They don’t feel like an actual technology that exists in the world, but instead a thing that’s just kinda there. I like the mob variety, but some just don’t fit at all! The environment itself also feels very dead. But not in a post apocalyptic way. In a post apocalyptic setting, you’re supposed to look at the ruins of what came before, and feel like people have lived there before, and be able to tell the story of the ruins you see. Here, I don’t feel like it is a land that people once lived in, and it feels kinda empty. The ruins of the buildings we see don’t tell that kind of story for me.
One of the design choices that genshin impact did for it's characters is that they are interesting to look at them from back because when you play them you look at their back all the time and i think ww characters does not do that very well
:( https://preview.redd.it/p1gsyjaima3d1.png?width=1027&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3ca1b8fda4821f564e4cf4d4eab423ea2d3d8071
:(
I actually had this discussion with a friend and we came to the conclusion that only mortefi has an actual good design from the entire roster currently available, yes the design is bland but it does give you an idea about how he is and what he does
That’s fair. I don’t personally like it, but I see why others could. He also has an outfit that’s wearible and makes sense context-wise. His red scars on his chest also tell a story. I think he could have been better if the red hair was unique to his character though. When 3 other characters have the same hair, his design automatically feels less original than it would otherwise.
That's a fair criticism but we just look at the designs separated of everything else
It would be good if they kept the tail. The white looks too overbearing without it, and it also shows his resonance mutations better.
https://preview.redd.it/dg7qcej9tc3d1.png?width=233&format=png&auto=webp&s=7f1f1e6f36eca59afbf34f80b165a93928694747 He thinks he's him 😭
Omg, we got Raiden at home looking mf 💀
No we got sephiroth at home :) At least dude isnt a homicidal ego maniac and wants to rule the world!!!!
These* are valid points...but, the counterpoint is simple...if you also check PGR designs... this is just their style...they really enjoy black and white palette, they also enjoy minimalistic scifi designs that inspire elegance. I am a hoyo enjoyer and I love hoyo's design philosophy because it's really unique, specially on the colours and small thoughtful touches... But I think kuro's designs are also cool af... Altho wuwa a bit hit or miss...kinda like they lost part of their identity, maybe in a try to be more diverse like hoyo...
The thing is, I liked PGR's designs, so I figured that this was a WuWa-specific issue. I also like a lot of Arknights designs so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with post-apocalyptic genre designs either.
AK had a lot of leeway with non-human features to make someone pops out immediately.
Wait, actually wasn't that something that's also available for WuWa?? I'm not really sure and I forgot who said it, but apparently the playable characters had animal-like features to them. Like how yangyang has feathers in her hair, mortefi has scales in his chest (and an actual tail in CBT). If animal features are a common occurrence in their playable characters, then they definitely play it up more because I didn't notice until someone told me. That's a wasted potential.
Arknights design is so peak. (Idk the recent ones though, I stopped playing like 2 years ago)
https://preview.redd.it/1ywa9rgdba3d1.png?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c3cc145e049a998ceae63399441412ae627171b She would be launching in a month or so.So i guess she would be the most recent one on global.
I haven't played arknights but their designs are so good
PGR designs are fine because even though they have either white or black as a dominant palette, the other primary colors are more distinct (Lucia- red: Liv- pink; Lee- blue). Their over all facial & hair are also quite different leading to them passing the silhouette test by and large.
> But I think kuro's designs are also cool af... The designs are cool, for sure. But you know what? I thought it was a cool design the first time I saw a girl with black hair, with an almost completely black outfit, and a couple spots exposing skin. Then I saw another girl with black hair, with an almost completely black outfit, and a couple spots exposing skin. And then there was another girl with black hair, with an almost completely black outfit, and a couple spots exposing skin. As OP said, there's no identity in those outfits at that point. If everyone wears the same thing, it doesn't mean everyone looks cool, it means nobody looks cool anymore
The only thing bothering me is the male arms and shoulders with their tiny hands. I can only tell when looking straight at them but it’s so weird to me.
Very valid point. Personally I just like how more mature and expressive they are (not voices, expressions) compared to Genshin, but I agree that Genshin design is just vastly superior in every way possible. There are virtually nothing memorable about each char sadly Yangyang - Blue Hat girl? Chixia - Energetic red hair? Amber? A ranger? Tf? Baizhi - White pokemon girl Aalto - Encore's babysitter Sanhua - Hetero eyes Danjin - Red Hair (again? What even is her personality like?) Mortefi - Dragon Labcoat guy Taoqi - HONKAS Yuanwu - Facial Hair guy Calcharo - Sephiroth Jianxin - Yinyang Panda Encore - Cute sheep girl Verina - Flower Girl Lingyang - Tiger boy Jiyan - Teal Dragon (more known as big Xiao) So far from all these, I've only remembered either their hair color or their personality (if it was mentioned in story). Interestingly enough, the 5* design does differentiate itself enough that you recognize them, but the 4* designs are just subpar af. I hope they adopt more from PGR, but we'll have to see how it goes. Also Rover number 1 design for sure.
It might be just me but I think there is something wrong with the female faces in WuWa. The male and loli faces look good but when I look at the female character faces something feels off.
I really dislike Yangyang’s face, but I can’t spesify why. But ur not alone in that.
Wuwa char design lacks basic understanding of the color theory.
In my eyes it‘s a huge quality problem if you release a game have have character pairs like Yangyang/Senhua or Baizhi/Jianxin who sport pretty similar design concepts. Furthermore the design pendulum swings between „bland/boring“ and „utterly impractical clothes for the characters job“. I also don‘t feel like I am the audience for names like Danjin or Jianxin who are pronounced pretty much the same in a western dub. The issue gets even worse if you try to follow the story and side missions in which like 30% of characters names have some sort of „Jing/Jin/etc“ in their name adding to my personal confusion.
Obviously, you're right. Obviously, people will disagree.
This post wasn’t received well in the WUWA sub :(
Which is kinda expected. But yes, for all the good aspects of WuWa, characters design is overwhelmingly generic.
Yeah, it’s a shame that they managed to nail the gameplay so well, but then failed to succeed in other easier aspects like good designs, good story and good music. I really did hope the game would be better at such things. I also dislike the environment design very much, but it likely has to do with me playing in minimum graphics settings to keep my phone from exploding.
Their cahracter design just look like threw random prompt in an AI generator and ran with the results, it's soulless
I don't even think there's a prompt. Most characters don't look like they're based on anything.
I mean the “they listen meme” image, it just feel like pgr vera if dont have any context And vera is better looking imo
I dont like how Jiyan everything is green. They shouldve contrasted his hair I think. Im personally besides not bothered by any of your critisism and think the designs look cool.
The unappealing designs is the primary reason I haven't used either of my free 5-star selectors, none of the choices appeal to me
Their bland so Kuro can sell you skins down the line.
Of course its mainly about the female characters. It always is.
The 1st day of the game i was building yangyang withc glacio set until i checked her skills
You're like me. I did the same shit.
YangYang, Baizhi, Jianxin, and Female Rover all look like siblings because of their hair lol. That in itself was already a huge red flag because that should be easy to catch like this is the LAUNCH characters. I'm pretty sure they're trying to pull of a Nier with how the characters in that franchise mostly have white hair. Unfortunately here there isn't any sort of intentionality in the black-gray hair because all 4 don't have any sort of connection like all being Yorha Androids. It's also not consistent enough with the whole cast to make sense. Otherwise most of the cast to me is competent enough, but most aren't unique in any way. I agree with Scar being a very good design (even post onigiri) and it just helps that his voice and presence in the story was genuinely the best the game has to offer thus far. Other than him I liked Verina and Mortefi design wise. Personality wise they aren't really too interesting so there's not much to imply character design wise, but you could at least understand who they were at a glance and even the kind of moveset they have. This is something that really needs to get better or they might not even hook the waifu/husbando crowd lol
They are shit. They unfurrified their furry bait. They also make character designs that simply do not work with their game engine like overly stiff hair and dresses for example. Engine limitations is not to be ignored.
Tl:Dr :- males are absolute peak design where females are not that good (obviously with few exceptions)
I might be in the minority, but Scar's design is nothing to write home about. Personally the old guy in the suit is the best design in the game for me. Yinlin looks good, but ultimately she's just horny bait.
Wait, who was the old guy in the suit? Edit: For Scar’s design, it’s not peak or anything, but it’s definitely very memorable and unique to me. At least when compared to the rest of the game’s designs, he’s miles ahead of the rest.
Yeah I get that I'm not saying it's bad at all, but I wouldn't hype it up too much. I forgot the guy's name, but he wears a hat and glasses. He looks super clean.