Root Film Character Designer On Switching Things Up For The Latest Mystery Game

Looking at the character designs of Kadokawa Games’ recently revealed mystery visual novel Root Film, you might not imagine that this is the work of Tarou Mino, the character designer of Root Letter and many other distinctive games like Love Plus. In the latest issue of Dengeki PlayStation, they talked about just how they were asked to shift their artstyle for the upcoming game. [Thanks, Ryokutya2089!]

For reference, this is an example of their work from the last game:

According to Tarou Mino, they were asked by the director to change up their style for the game to match with the game’s movie theming, so they designed the characters with a more cel-shaded look, reducing the amount of shadows seen on the characters. The character designs are meant to appeal to a wider audience.

Root Film will come to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in North America and Europe, though a release window has not yet been announced. It will come to both systems in Japan in Spring 2020.