this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2026
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cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/28095114

Vapor World: Over The Mind is a Soulslike Metroidvania with an evocative, painterly art style reminiscent of Lies of P and the narrative platformers of Playdead. According to Korean studio Alive Inc, the game had 100,000 wishlists just before its early access launch on August 19, mostly on the strength of a demo available since January 2025.

But what should have been a triumphant early access launch went pear shaped very quickly. At launch, few talked about the quite distinctive worldbuilding or the parry-heavy combat. Instead, all focus was trained entirely on something absent from the popular demo: very obvious AI use.

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[–] EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 39 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'd rather see the "bad" things than Ai.

Honestly if the rest of the game is good, I would rather have some napkin sketches, or a computer based paint software.

[–] Zexks@lemmy.world 0 points 6 hours ago

No you wouldnt. 4 decades of whining and bitching by gamers have proved that. There is no winning with this lot.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm 100% with you. Bad art with genuine effort put into it has a charm of its own. I understand the team's mistake, but it's still a mistake.

[–] HuudaHarkiten@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I wonder, what would be examples of games with badly done art that is overlooked because the game itself is good.

And I think stuff like Minecraft doesn't count, because with that style, the uglyness is a choice, not a result of not being able to make things look a certain way.

[–] VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago

Five Nights at Freddy's is popular if nothing else, but the art in the early games isn't bad on purpose.

[–] Verat@sh.itjust.works 2 points 19 hours ago

Most obvious example I can think of is Cruelty Squad, the art style is intentionally eye-searing there though.

[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

"Sentinels of the Multiverse" is a fairly popular board game (within those circles) and it looks pretty rough. Pokemon S/V got rightfully dunked on for looking like shit but it still made a bunch of money. "The Case of the Golden Idol" is highly regarded. Runescape.

[–] ltxrtquq@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I think pokemon was so heavily criticized partly because it's developed by a veteran studio that really should be able to do better. And the way it looked bad wasn't so much the art style, but how it was loaded into the game.

You had a lot of pop-ins, things not being animated in the distance, and every npc using the exact same animation at the exact same time, as well as some truly uninspired textures out in the wild.

Gamefreak is clearly capable of better when you look at Beast of Reincarnation or Little Town Hero, they just don't seem to care about pokemon anymore.

[–] Soggy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Effort, talent, technology, taste, there's lots of reasons for something to look bad.