Thank you for your calm response, and I admit to having been wrong about the AI usage on the Sarada sprite. I do have a huge hate boner for AI since I am friends with many professional artists, draw as a hobby myself, and generally dislike technological advancements in art.
While I was completely wrong about the Sarada sprite being done with AI, I still made a pretty important point in my review, which was "loss of trust in the artist". A simple "sprite is in development" or even just a goofy-looking sketch makes me feel better about the work than a crappy AI-generated image because there is always this lingering thought, that if they are capable of using AI once to make their work easier, what if they do so again?
When you compare the Sarada sprite to older sprites from the game, she looks way more detailed (the overall shading and light reflected in her hair) compared to the more simplistic designs, that were present on Sakura or Ino for example. By the proof you sent me, I can tell this is because of either the improvement of the artist's skill or it was drawn by somebody completely else. Now imagine looking at this new sprite right after seeing the AI scene with a grandpa. Despite what
Hikashoo claims, I am fairly interested in art and like to pay attention to details in it, seeing the complete art style shift right after an obvious AI scene it would be a miracle not to assume the AI has paid the role in the making of the sprite as well.
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I don't want to look down on anybody or say that game dev is "bad" if they use AI, that is not right, but you cannot blame anybody for suspecting the AI use in your other art if you did so once already. Despite my highly critical review of the game, I did enjoy many of the earlier routes. I do not want to come off as somebody "trying to speak for everyone", this is highly subjective, there are many people who do not mind AI, great for them. But I would still much more appreciate lazily made or crappy art over something soulless made by AI. Thank you for your effort regardless.