Thoughts on side-image character portraits

[Risky.Klick.Kurisu]

Do you guys like or dislike it when games include side-image character portraits with the dialogue box?

Does the medium affect their usage? For example, I mostly see them in 2D / Japanese VNs. I've only seen a few Daz-based games use them, and admittedly they didn't seem to work as well aesthetically. But that could also be because the devs didn't find the right balance; maybe they were too large, wrong facial perspective, bland emotion, etc.

The main reason I'm asking is because I'm creating a game using Daz and was thinking of using illustrated / filtered or stylized portraits to accompany the dialogue of each character, so I was curious what people thought about this.

 

[GamesMtP]

I dislike them. They rarely seem to match, expression, clothes, makeup and so on, to what's going on in the scene. They're mostly just distracting. As always with these things there's no right or wrong, just opinions and taste.

 

[Abacus_Games]

I like them if they are done well, not too big and reflect the clothing in the scene.

You can also let the player chose if they want to see them or not by adding a setting in preferences and then add a condition to the say screen. I do that in my game and it works well.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I dislike them. They rarely seem to match, expression, clothes, makeup and so on, to what's going on in the scene. They're mostly just distracting. As always with these things there's no right or wrong, just opinions and taste.

And in top of that, there's generally the ugly blank side image for the MC.
We already have the name of the character in top of the dialog box, showing us his/her profile picture add nothing if the expression do not match the dialog tone.

 

[GNVE]

Generally dislike them. Often the characters emote over the top and change every other sentence. So extremely happy > extremely agnry > etremly sad in the span of four sentences.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

Outside (good) hand drawing - I have never seen something sensible.
Oh yeah and the Doom guy o/

 

[mickydoo]

Poor devs can't win......

 

[Abacus_Games]

In games where there is a large cast and you have scenes with multiple actors talking and you haven't really "bonded" with them yet I find it much easier to follow the conversation if there are side images - the name is not just enough for me to quickly understand whos talking. Although they still need to be done well for me to enjoy them.

 

[Hagatagar]

It's one of those "Yes I like it, if it's done right" situations.
They can help in case of many (side-)characters and if you can't be bothered to remember all the (super generic) names.
Moreover, if emotions are illustrated, they can help to better interpret the text.

But...
Pretty often the portraits seem to be rendered differently (skewed colors and flat lights).
As already mentioned by GNVE, if different emotions are portrayed, they're tend to be exaggerated and too jumpy, because most games doesn't have any scale in the representation of emotions.
And then sometimes the portraits are without clothes (probably to avoid wearing the wrong clothes as in the render), which seems weird in regular conversations (sometimes it feels like they're remotely connected to the game, while sitting in a Matrix-like pod).

 

[Cartman-Brah]

I think that's what a visual novel is. The other one is like a slide show.