The wonderful art of Cel Shading in video games

When we play any video game the first thing we see immediately is its graphic style, and depending on this will call our attention, there are gamers who like only photorealistic games, others 2D, and some who are a little more open with respect to visual taste, however, among so many rendering modes there is one that particularly seems to me very special, it is the Cel Shading.

Before the existence of Cel Shading in video games, we could only find 2D games, easy to identify thanks to their graphic design, but when the development of 3D games entered the scene, multiple companies began to make different renderings in order to impact the players, and this is how this technique began to be observed in several titles.

The interesting thing about Cel Shading is its way of showing 3D graphics that look hand-drawn, simulating a cartoon or a Japanese anime, which is why many games of franchises such as Dragon Ball or Naruto use it, since in this way such drawings look realistic (technically) and are very similar to cartoons, however, these were not the first games to use Cel Shading.

Team17 was the pioneer developer in using Cel Shading in a video game, but in a very peculiar way, only applying it for video sequences, that is, not in the gameplay, this game was Worn 2, released on PC in 1997. This title lacked this characteristic rendering in real time, however, it takes the merit for being the first to use it in the world of video games.

After more than 3 years passed to see the true potential of Cel Shading in a video game, the console that had the honor of having this title was the Dreamcast, which in 2000 received the game Jet Set Radio developed by Smilebit and distributed by SEGA. This title had one of the best reviews for using this graphic section, besides having an excellent gameplay, making it one of the best titles in the catalog of this console.

Then other developers used this type of rendering, causing more users to call attention to it, one of them was XIII, released in 2003, other better known as The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker or Tales of Symphonia also used it, with this we can see that from the year 2000 began to come out lots of Cel Shading games, it was practically like a fashion at that time that, progressively, was fading.

However, a development team called Clover Studio would create the game that I personally consider the most visually appealing Cel Shading game, originally released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006 and distributed by CAPCOM, Okami. This peculiar game proved that this type of rendering can be used in a spectacular way, giving ideas to many future Indie game developers.

Currently, Cel Shading is not seen much in triple A games, rather the Indie world is the one that is using it the most, something that can be noticed in games like The Witness, which has a really amazing graphic section in its landscapes, and as well as this title there are others that have revolutionized this type of graphics.

What games have you played that have used Cel Shading? Tell me your experience and opinion of those games in the comments section.