Mixing portraits from different RPG Maker DLCs into one

Hey everyone so I just bought the DS pack off of steam and for those who downloaded it you'll notice that the graphics

especially the character portraits are pretty different graphic wise compared to VX Samurai, and VX Ace. My project that I have has

characters from all three of these so my question is what are your views on mixing these different graphic styles into one game? Pro or con? Hate or appreciate? I'd love to hear your input it helps a lot. Thank you :)

-JAD

    Most people will hate it, when graphical styles clash it just brings a game down in a way that few other oversights can. The portraits might not even be the worst of it, honestly(though they are bad, I'm looking at the one eyed man from the samurai pack talking to one of the little girls from the ds pack now and the result is just terrible). Try creating an interior map that has tiles from both the ds and rtp with sprites from both the ds and rtp in the same place and I guarantee you that you will not like the result you get. My advice would be to realize that less is sometimes more, and that you don't need to have every available resource in your game both because clashing graphics turn people off but also because large downloads have a similar effect, especially for noncommercial games. When need be you can always learn to edit tiles and such using paint.net or something when what you need absolutely doesn't exist in a style that works with your other resources, such a task is less daunting than it looks.

Different graphic styles will not work in most cases, because that often destroys immersion.


The only way different graphics might be used without problems is if you make a game change consistent with the different grafics - like in a game about time travel, have the future grafics in color and when the player travels back to the 1950's, everything is in greyscale.


Or if change graphics while the player is in an alien dimension or so - but changing grafics without such game change, when everything is supposed to be on the same situation, usually gets bad reactions.

Well there was one game I worked on that did it. The way we had it set up was that the heroes were from different time periods. We used the old school, DS, DS+, modern, and Futuristic packs to create a time line that had the sprites all in one party. It was fun and silly but we nevered finished it. If you can find a way to make it work then give it a try. Just don't go thinking everyone will love it.

I see all of your points. How does this sound? My game for example, mainly focuses in the city. 95% of the portraits are from the VX Ace character generator. The other 5% are from the DS Pack (the nurses and chefs). Even if 95% of the game is one set graphic and the other 5% is different, does that still make a big difference?

Thank you btw for all your replies.  

Mmm if your using the face generator for everyone but a few, then yeah it can be a little jarring. But may be able to cushion the impact by having the characters acknowledge that they look different or saying that they are from a different country/dimension.