Which art style is better in 2D games?

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Which art style is better in 2D games?

:black_circle:Hand drawn (like Hollow Knight and Hollow Knight: Silskong)

:black_large_square:Pixel art (Like Celeste and Deltarune)
Or
:blush:Both

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Both.

  • Hand-drawn art takes a lot longer to create, so if you don’t have the time/budget, it might not turn out as nice as pixel art.
  • Presentation: Pixel art can look cartoonish and/or unprofessional unless it’s done very well.
  • You can usually create more atmosphere with hand-drawn art because there is more room for details and VFX. It depends on the game though, The atmosphere in Papers Please greatly benefits from the pixel art in my opinion.
  • Gameplay: For a precision platformer like Celeste, pixel art works well because it makes it perfectly clear where you can/can’t step. Something like Hollow Knight doesn’t need that because it’s not focussed on platforming but on atmosphere and exploration.
  • You might have to do one of the two for technical reasons. For example, the physics simulation in Noita could not have been done with hand-drawn art.
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There’s also a third option, pre-rendered graphics (aka Donkey Kong Country).

Advantages of this type of art are that if you can 3d model then you can create some really nice looking artwork.

Animations will look fluid and life like.

Disadvantages are that not everyone likes the look , it can be a bit uncanny valley.

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Pre-rendered graphics are also really useful if you need objects to be visible from a lot of angles; the 2D Stronghold games are examples of this. Every non-UI sprite in the game is a pre-rendered 3D model which made it easy for the developers to create a separate sprite for every single possible rotation.

With shaders, you can make pre-rendered graphics look a lot like hand-drawn ones in case you prefer that look.

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