tfishell: Is the art style by far the important thing to you in games? I think that's the most common type of complaint I've seen you make about games.
I wouldn't say the most important, but art as a whole was a big part of my upbringing and If a game's art style actually annoys me as much as it does in this one, it certainly doesn't make me want to get immersed in the world I'm being presented. First impressions matter, and If I'm not blown away by the gameplay mechanics, any objectionable art direction is going to stand out like a sore thumb to me.
It really depends on the game though, aesthetics are more important in some games than others (usually my visual complaints here are aimed at games that I think look like lazy, hackneyed, low-effort jobs or those simply ignorant of the style they are going for, like the glut of pixel vomit games pretending to be "retro" or "8-bit" without any actual understanding of those eras) but this game here annoys me more than most as Lizardcube have clearly demonstrated they have the talent to do an authentic remake in Wonderboy. But here? It looks like they didn't care. All three classic SOR's all have such a great, consistent, gritty style and atmosphere, and all of that is completely gone in this new game.
More than that, I actually think the hit detection and movement in this looks floaty and indistinct as well, it simply looks like a game that's inferior to the old Sega ones. Or the SOR fan remake, a game that immediately shows a love of the franchise that the studio Sega palmed this off to simply does not share.
