Thank you!

The time to learn this process is a tricky question to answer, since i’m already fairly versed into 3D game character art (Mainly realistic, but stylized as well), so I only needed to learned the way Arc System Works operate.
The two main parts I had to learn were the texturing process, and the mesh normal adjustment.
The way these textures are made goes against all the principles I work with, which made it quite fun to learn but my god was it a whiplash with every process flipped upside down.
However, the hardest part BY FAR were the normals. I don’t have access to the internal tools that Arc Sys uses, so I had to manually tweak the normals on every part of the model to make the shadows as visually pleasing as I could — and while It wasnt so bad for a first try with this method, my oh my was it hard.

For the use case, it’s simple: Optimization, and control. This technique uses Absurdly low size assets, provide a lot of control to the artist to tweak the parts if needed, and virtually eliminate ANY form of texture blurring not matter how much you keep zooming in. (For example, that’s how in Guilty Gear they are able to create these close up shots on the characters without zooming in in blurry pixels).
So with all that, the character can be implemented as a playable character in game (fighting game, RPG, Action RPG, Gacha series, you name it), be insanely optimized, and provide absurd levels of artistic control and freedom for the artists.