If you’ve been wondering who to thank for the gorgeous characters and stunning vistas of Game Of The Year winner God of War, look no further than the game’s art director Raf Grassetti.
His incredible talents played a huge part in the massive appeal of last year’s beautiful PlayStation 4 exclusive. Now, he’s turned his attention to Nintendo’s roster of beloved heroes and villains, creating some truly inventive and intricate interpretations of the characters from the Super Smash Bros Ultimate lineup.
While Grassetti has yet to create versions of every character from the latest Smash (because there are over 70 characters and that would be insane), you can scroll below to take a look at who he has tackled.
No one really likes Diddy Kong, but I’m a sucker for realistic monkeys all dressed up in people clothes.
Ridley, one of the main villains of the excellent Metroid series, has rarely looked as creepy as he looks here.
If Detective Pikachu has proved anything, it’s that ultra realistic Pikachu is far cuter than I ever expected it to be.
King K Rool is an absolute beast in Smash Bros Ultimate. His appearance here is much more indicative of just how much of a threat the usually cartoonish Donkey Kong villain is.
Remember the creepy realistic Mega Man from the covers of the original NES games? This is that, but done right.
I’ll be honest, I never really pictured Mewtwo as kind of fluffy… but I dig it.
I feel like Sega should have hired Grassetti to design the live-action Sonic. He’s still kind of creepy, but not as strangely muscular. That’s something.
If this version of Bowser ever kidnapped a princess, I have a feeling that princess would stay kidnapped.
So this looks a lot like the Fox we all know and love, if the Fox we all know and love was an absolute gym fiend.
I personally remain firmly of the opinion that The Legend of Zelda is better when Nintendo embrace a cartoony aesthetic for the series, but this Link is pretty cool.
This is one cool looking version of Samus. In fact, can Nintendo just go ahead and hire Grassetti to work on Metroid Prime 4 please?
Those are all the Smash Bros designs for now, though I believe Grassetti plans to do at least a few more before he calls the project a day. Until then, why not check out the rest of his Instagram? It’s packed with some really impressive work.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.