The Best Cel Shaded Video Games

Summary

• Cel Shading art style keeps games visually appealing for years
• Killer7, Umurangi Generation, & The Wolf Among Us showcase unique Cel Shading beauty
• Video games like Okami & Ni No Kuni capture the essence of art in a beautiful gaming experience

Video games are an art form like any other, and some games are just downright beautiful. Changing so drastically throughout history, video games have adopted new art styles and graphical capabilities to make them stand out from the rest.

One of the most unique and versatile art styles is Cel Shading. This style of shading attempts to emulate the feel of a graphic novel or cartoon, using flatter colors and dark lines to depict 3D models as being flatter. What sets this art style apart is its ability to make games age incredibly well, and some older titles still look great today. Which of these graphical beauties take the spotlight?

Updated 26th December, 2024 by Hilton Webster: Graphics cards have only gotten bigger and better, but sometimes you just can’t beat a classic style. Cel Shading has aged like wine due to its unique visuals and diversity, so we’ve updated this list with a few more stellar entires to really give your eyes a visual feast.

13

KiIler7

Back in the mid-2000’s, especially around the period of Clover Studio, Capcom created a bunch of inventive, unique games. The kind of game you’d rarely take a chance on now since many of these games didn’t sell very well. Killer7 was one of htose games, headed by Suda51, who would go on to make No More Heroes. Killer7 has a lot of that same surrealism.

This one is a first-person shooter though. With seven killers, if you will. Or only one, really, and lots of different personalities. It’s something akin to a rail-shooter, and swaps to third-person for certain segments as well. But there is just no escaping how engrossing the cel shaded artstyle is.

12

Umurangi Generation

Umurangi Generation is set in Aoteroa at the end of the world. That doesn’t stop militaries and governments looking out for themselves though, and that leaves just you, your friends, and a camera to pay your bills. And even at the end of the world, Umurangi Generation wants you to see the beauty of the mundane, how the surreal can become normal.

Presented in a cel shaded artstyle, the game has you traveling through levels trying to get photo bounties, trying to rack up the most (menial) amount of money possible. But you have so much freedom, from changing your lens to adjusting your saturation just right. That simple art becomes a playground for you to leave your own digital footprint on it.

11

The Wolf Among Us

While Telltale Games met an untimely end, with the episodic games the developers made not quite financially viable, they were still some stellar games visually. And even though The Walking Dead is the game that started if off for them in terms of popularity, The Wolf Among Us is easily the most visually appealing.

Drenched in neon, those sharp, deep colours compliment the cel shaded art wonderfully. Even though the game isn’t exactly teeming in replayability, each scene feels amazing to just witness by merit of how gorgeous the art makes even the most simple of areas, from a smoky living room to a dimly-lit backstreet.

10

Gravity Rush

As a smaller PS Vita title, Gravity Rush does exceptionally well in creating an interesting world to discover with exploration being the main focus. Playing as Kat, with your cosmic cat, you’re able to shift the gravity around you to fly through the air, walk on walls, or pick up objects and innocent bystanders.

Combat is a bit limited as it takes a back seat to exploration, but it still makes for a fresh and fun experience. At their best, the characters do well to make the world feel immersive, even more so in the equally as great Gravity Rush 2.

9

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm

Converting the style of an anime into a video game has proven to be more difficult than it seems, with anime adaptations usually being hit or miss. But, when it comes to the titan franchise that is Naruto, the Ultimate Ninja Storm games capture the beautiful choreography and stylized world into a game that can stand on its own to tell Naruto’s enormous story with finesse.

These games look absolutely breathtaking, with each installment looking better than the last. Combat is fast-paced with a surprising amount of depth, and story cutscenes look even better than the show at times. All the characters you know and love are stuffed into these massive games, and it’s an absolute treat for new and old fans alike.

8

No More Heroes

Have you ever wanted to win a lightsaber from an internet auction and leave your simple, otaku lifestyle to become a world-famous assassin? You might be skeptical, but No More Heroes takes no shame in its purposefully dumb story and makes an extremely fun experience.

As one of the more…unique games released on the Wii, No More Heroes takes a break from your typical Mario and Zelda to give you something you won’t experience anywhere else. In this open-world action-RPG, you’ll travel around on your scooter, beam-katana in hand, free to do as you please. If you’re sick and tired of conventional video game experiences, you’ve come to the right place.

7

Jet Set Radio

Trying its hardest not to promote vandalism and gang violence, Jet Set Radio takes some extremely weird concepts and turns them into a highly stylized, totally unique, and radical time through the streets of Shibuya-Cho.

While battling the police, a mysterious organization, and other gangs with similar graffiti-related hobbies, you’ll zip around the city on rollerblades with your spray-paint at the ready while listening to some sick tunes. Jet Set Radio added onto the Dreamcast’s already creative and impressive lineup of games, and it would later get the HD releases it deserved.

6

Borderlands

In a time where first-person shooters were more than prevalent within the gaming industry and were arguably the most popular genre at the time, Borderlands made a name for itself with its expertly done cel-shading, a humorous and nonsensical plot, and by changing up the typical FPS gameplay formula enough to make it its own.

And the Borderlands series sure doesn’t seem like it will ever end, huh? While the humour has run dry quite a long time ago, maybe we’ll get something beyond the typical skits. Eventually.

5

Dragon Ball FighterZ

Dragon Ball is one of the biggest anime franchises of all time, but this isn’t just another anime adaptation video game. Leaving behind the 3D fighting game approach seen in a lot of other Dragon Ball games, Dragon Ball FighterZ adopts traditional 2D fighting mechanics from series like Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom, and Guilty Gear and dumps everything we know and love about Dragon Ball into it.

Graphically, the game’s use of 3D models depicted as 2D sprites makes an extremely dynamic and awe-inspiring gameplay style, and it truly feels like you plugged in a game controller to your DVD player.

4

Ni No Kuni

Taking huge inspiration from the famous movie studio, Studio Ghibli, the Ni No Kuni series strives to capture the feel of Hayao Miyazaki’s award-winning visuals into a full gaming experience. Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch and Revenant Kingdom both aim to make the experience feel as close to Studio Ghibli standards as possible, and it comes extremely close.

If you’re not playing for the stunning graphics alone, the gameplay within both titles offers something for everyone, with monster-catching, real-time RPG combat, action-RPG sword battles, and strategy elements to offer variety and charm to these beautiful games.

Ni no Kuni also has Joe Hisashi as composer, who very closely works with Studio Ghibli on many of its films.

3

Persona 5

The Persona series is one of only a few cases where a spin-off series ultimately became way more popular than its predecessor could ever have hoped to be. With Persona 5’s release, the whole world was taken by storm with its picaresque, flashy art style and strategic and engaging gameplay.

This 100-hour journey somehow manages to always feel rewarding and exciting, with a fantastic story and one of the best casts of characters in modern gaming. If you’ve got the time and dedication for a massive game like Persona 5, you won’t be disappointed.

2

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Initially criticized for its straying-away of a more realistic art style to take on a cartoon-like look, The Wind Waker would eventually become one of the most praised games in the Zelda series. Even with an HD remake in tow, the original Wind Waker still holds up to this day.

With a fantastic story that bleeds Zelda, characters you’ll come to love for years, and a true sense of adventure while sailing the Great Sea, The Wind Waker feels like your own personal journey on your TV screen, and at the end of your adventure filled with pirates, monsters, ocean, and charm, you’ll want to jump in all over again.

1

Okami

Okami cannot be described as anything less than beautiful. There’s no other game quite like it, and you’ll never forget it. Taking on a traditional Japanese style of art, Okami puts the player in the role of Amaterasu, and you traverse the stunning land, where you’ll just want to sit still and take it all in.

For its gameplay, it adopts many tropes from Zelda, which is definitely a great series to borrow from as Okami’s gameplay remains on par with it. While the art style will never be lost to time, HD re-releases have cleaned up the muddier graphics in releases like the Wii version to let it shine its true colors as a work of art.