Definitely not speaking on animation which was top notch.
It’s the art direction. I think 100 Acre Wood, while being cute, misses the mark for the look of Winnie the Pooh. It’s clear they were trying for that sketchbook look but everything is too clean and crisp. It looks good but it’s too perfect. They would have done better if they had embraced a fully cel-shaded art direction.
Same with Hercules. Hades is the only character that they got right within this world. The titans are great because they aren’t human designs so they can look however they want. Herc, Meg, Phil, Zeus, the other gods that appear briefly, and Pegasus are too 3D for their own. The world is too detailed, too perfect, and the character models are rubbery/play-do-y but also have a lot of detail like in the hair.
Every other world looks fantastic. PotC is stunning. The worlds based on 3D animated films are stunning. It’s just the worlds based on traditionally animated films that do not feel right due to their drastically different looks from their source material. They aimed for a look but still wanted to utilize the UE4 engine to the fullest and it creates a contrasting art direction.
Like I said, the past games hit the look for traditionally animated films better because of their engine limitations. They didn’t have to worry about ambient and global lighting, shadows, and realistic rock and wood and grass textures.
Gotcha and to each their own. I don't blame you for preferring the original graphics that were used from the first game up until
Dream Drop Distance for the Disney worlds based on the traditionally animated films over the Unreal Engine 4 graphics
@Oracle Spockanort.
You do bring up valid points regarding the UE4 designs for the traditionally animated characters in their homeworlds (e.g. the Hercules characters, the Winnie the Pooh characters) and those from outside their homeworlds (e.g. Maleficent, Pete, Merlin Jiminy Cricket) on how they looked to rubbery and that the art direction plus lighting can be a distraction. On top of that your right about the cel-shading cause Hades from the KH3 2017 Orchestra trailer looked much better than how he looked in the final version.
For the worlds based on the 3D films along with the Pixar characters and CG Disney characters under Unreal Engine 4 graphics, I'd say the ones that were fantastic were The Toy Story, Frozen, Big Hero 6 and the Monster's Inc. worlds.
The Tangled world is in the grey area, while I wouldn't say it's terrible I do find that the lighting and art direction in some portions of the world to be somewhat distracting such as the color of Rapunzel's dress, when she was interrogating Flynn Rider on the tower or the dark green color of Pascal. Even they couldn't get the eyes of Flynn Rider or Mother Gothel right with the latter character looking too perfect, which is unfortunate cause Rapunzel, Pascal and Maximus were the only ones that looked close to how they looked in the original film compared to the Frozen and Big Hero 6 characters, but that's just a nitpick and my own opinion cause Tangled is 8-10 years old when compared to the graphics and visuals of Frozen and Big Hero 6 3-4 years later. Of course Frozen did had issues such as the textures of the character's hair and moments of Olaf having a default Fish-face expression in some areas.
I'd say both the original graphics engine from KH1 to DDD and the Unreal Engine 4 have their own ups and downs if you ask me.
The positive of the original graphics as you said it yourself hit the look for the 2D movies in terms of art direction, lighting and limitations, the downside of the original graphics is that besides having some Disney characters having the default fish-face expressions (e.g. Scar, Mr. Smee, Jumbaa, Jaq, The Gargoyles from Hunchback, Sebastian, Phil, Timon, etc.) and not being well animated some of the visuals worlds (except Halloween Town) in the first game look the same minus the art style of the characters from those worlds. Kingdom Hearts II brought it up a notch and distinguished the visuals for which worlds are which from the 2D films, which ones are the Live-action ones (Port Royal, Space Paranoids) and Halloween Town (which was Stop-Motion)
For Unreal Engine 4, even if you might not like the visuals for Olympus and 100 Acre Wood as the lighting and the art direction for those respective worlds can be distracting, along with the characters minus Hades and the Titans looking too rubbery, I'd think the positive for them in the engine is that the characters now have more details (on their hair and clothing) and they look much more animated. On top of that, it made each of the Disney worlds (particularly The Caribbean and the CG films) more distinct from one another.
As to what extent the graphics of the Unreal Engine 5 will be like for the Disney worlds for a Future KH game, who knows? I think the one possibility is that with the UE5 they can make art direction for the Traditionally animated Disney films that become worlds to be more cel-shaded and its art direction matches the visuals of the original film but in 3D compared to the UE4. The live-action Disney films (Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, etc.) that become worlds will look so extremely realistic that it's hard to distinguish which is the film and which one is the game, and finally, for the Pixar and 3D Disney films that will become worlds (e.g.
Zootopia, Moana, Frozen 2, Raya and the Last Dragon) I'd say they will look so much more detailed and looking accurate to their movie versions in terms of their hair/fur, eyes, clothing you name it, cause while UE4 did a good job on making the CG characters look accurate to the CG films some of them especially Sulley have issues with the hair where they look to fluffy or stiff and I don't blame them cause they are rendered in real time compared to how Pixar or Disney Animation does their graphics. But I'm optimistic that the Unreal Engine 5 will provide the CG characters with more details in the hair.