Starward

A friend who is also really into anime and games with NPR visuals recommended Starward to me. I trust his opinion very much so I was keen to check it out. Have played some if it now. Wow! Well, gameplay-wise it's not my jam, but the 3D characters! Really nice! This is some truly worldclass 3D anime character modelling. The silhouettes of the characters are really distinct and makes them easy to distinguish from a distance. The organic parts fits perfectly in with all the hard surface meshes. The Shadow Maps are putting light in right areas and makes for very appealing anime faces. What impressed me the most was how tastefully the artists at Shengtian Games implemented MatCap to show off metallic reflections without breaking the anime aesthetic! That was a real note-to-self-moment and something I will explore for future projects. Then there is the rigs! Holy heck. Separated upper and lower body movements, very complex and intricate mechanical designs, many limbs and armor parts, weapons. On top of all that, many characters has additional skins. That's one helluva production to pull off. I have nothing but respect and admiration for the work and talent that has gone into this! I was giddy to see Black★Rock Shooter as a playable character in the game. She is such a cool character!! As for the game itself it really isn't my type of genre so I dont have much to say there. I did several online matches and was as expected destroyed in an instant. Most of my time in game was just checking out the 3D characters and I really enjoyed doing so.