>>716462967 (OP)
Creativity and memorable creations come from one of three things : limitations, fonction or genius.
Limitations : Uematsu and Kondo creating the best songs of their career because they were limited in the number of notes / instruments they could use so they had to focus on the melody. Works the same for charadesign. You don't have lots of colors available? You just use strong ones bsed on your objectives. You have rocks and water environement seen from above? You create Link that is an all green character so he's better seen , or Mario that is all red seen in front of a blue sky.
Fonction : back then they didn't create "a cool character to make a game with". They had a game idea and made the character from that. You want a character that can go fast, roll into a ball and attack from this form? Make a hedghehog. You have ennemies that you want to make sure everyone understand you got to jump on them? Shape them like a bumper and you got the goombas. Want to create a way to go down in the ground while being different from a hole? Make a pipe. What goes into a pipe? A plumber. Make a character that orbits ennemis and crashes on them like a meteorite? You make Ristar. etc.
Genius : sometimes it just works. Samus is cool and memorable while not really obeying these rules.
The problem with indie games is that they try to replicate those artstyle because "sonic looks cool" . They want to create a character and a world and make a game based on it, instead of having a gameplay idea and creating the character based on that. But even then simplicity is the key. That's part of why Gen1 pokemons are more memorable to lots of people. "It's just a yellow mouse" yeah that's the point. the moment yuou try to "add some stuff because it doesnt look cool enough" you already lost.
