Dear Reader:
Blade Strangers blog update: The Art of Fighting
Beautiful. Vibrant. Fluid. Gorgeous. Those are just a few of the words that could describe the visuals of Blade Strangers, the one-on-one crossover fighting game headed to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Steam on August 28. But the game’s colorful, smoothly animated aesthetic wouldn’t have been possible without the talent and experience of the developers at Studio Saizensen, who combine artistic knowhow with technological wizardry.
In the case of Blade Strangers, a key part of the visual process was creating a unified look for all of the fighters, so that simple characters from 8-bit-style games like Cave Story+ and Shovel Knight would look natural alongside warriors from titles such as Code of Princess EX that feature a higher level of graphical detail. This task fell to Studio Saizensen illustrator Minat, who adjusted characters’ appearances and proportions so they all meshed within the same game.