FF:CC: Right. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is an amazing game. Shut up. It shows that you can use the Japanese manga-esque art correctly. Combined with a dash of pop-up book style and fairy tale brush strokes, it makes for one of the best looking games, ever. To say that this art has just inspired me would be a vast understatement.
Reservoir Dogs: The story of the most stylish messed up diamond heist. More of a character study to see how people cope under pressure and if their characters remain true, it's direction and writing (for me) made the world of Cinema interesting and artistic - a force to be reckoned with.
Calvin and Hobbes: There's not much I can say about C&H that hasn't already been shouted from the hilltops. When I was a child it was the simple yet great cartoon art that kept me reading, along with the few jokes I understood. But growing up, I kept on re-reading and finding something new with every re-read - growing to appreciate the characters. Two people who reflect on each other perfectly, in every way.
Sonic 2: Now here's a 16-bit game where the both the concept art and in-game graphics match and compliment each other constantly throughout. The art is perfect, being produced and released in the early 1990s obviously had a huge impact on the decisions they made. While arcade machines were struggling to stay alive - their art was surviving through home consoles, all the vibrant colours and animal-critters intact.
The Killing Joke: A short but amazingly sweet comic about Batman's constant struggle with the Joker. Written by Alan Moore and accompanied with artwork by Brian Bolland - it's a match made in heaven. The writing is stellar with it's unreliable narrator (The Joker) and the art has moments of realism when batman is involved but when the Joker is the main focus of the panel everything is thrown in to 5th gear to reflect on his on psyche (as seen in the picture)
Megaman: I'm a huge fan of 8-bit graphics and music, all thanks to this series. The chiptunes and art direction go hand in hand, always upbeat and never letting down. Megaman himself is such a simple yet effective design, Keiji Inafune created an iconic character for generations to come. With the return of him in the form of Megaman 9 and 10, it showed that you don't need high end visual capabilities to give amazing art in this modern era.
Star Wars (Battle of Hoth): Watching the re-release of this as a child in the cinema was, without a doubt, the best cinema experience. Ever. The vastness of the battle just showed what was possible with a bit of elbow grease and a lot of imagination. It began my interest in science fiction and film making.
Studio Ghibli: Hailed as the "Japanese Disney", studio Ghibli is, in my opinion, several shades better than it's apparent American counter-part. Although they use the same character templates (created by Myazaki) for a lot of films they make, that doesn't mean that the art direction is similar. Far from it. Each film breathes new life in a new world - with animation so fluent and vibrant it hurts.
FLCL: Although an animé, a medium filled with otaku sensibilities, Fooli Kooli has style. And boy, what a style it has. It showed me that an already established medium can be re-invented with the right (art) direction. Not to mention it has a soundtrack to match.
Watchmen: This is the comic book that made comics worth reading. End of. Ignorantly, I never thought of comics a true artistic medium - but Watchmen blew my preconceived thoughts out of the water. A depressing take on the "super-hero" genré, and one that people don't forget.
Zelda (OoT): This game is the master of the pallet. In it's art direction, it uses colour to it's advantage and plays with the primitive meanings of said colours. It gives you an added intensive to defeat the evil, as it's screwing up your beautiful green forests with it's black and dark browns. As a child, I just took this in on auto-pilot and it made for a near perfect experience.
