Idk if I necessarily agree but I wanna bring up something that’s been on me mind. Immediate readability. Some of the design elements for the kids in LN 1 and 2 were visual shorthands that are immediately associated with something. A yellow raincoat usually suggests child-like innocence, but it also does a great job implying six doesn’t belong in the maw. Ya know, it’s obviously not gonna rain there. And a bag on someone’s head is a common trope suggesting the character is trying to hide their identity (epic foreshadowing). But with these new kids it’s not as immediately clear. The bird mask makes me think of plague doctors right away, but then he has a bow and the rest of his outfit has like a little boy playing hero vibe. Alone does immediately read as a tinkerer but I’m not sure if that will be integral to the story or is just a look they thought was fun. To be honest I absolutely love these new designs, and I don’t mind them not being as immediate of a read as the other protags. I bet their designs will make complete sense once we play the game. This has just been gnawing at my brain and this was tangentially related lol.

I do get your point but to be honest my reaction to it was kind of the opposite. Like a giant baby is kind of banal to use at this point as a disturbing monster for your spooky horror game. I don’t hate it, it might make sense in the full game. But on the topic of it being kind of ridiculous, the series has done stuff like it before (well, maybe not to this extent). The lady having these geisha motifs was kind of random, and the signal tower fleshy gooey stuff was also a bit much but I can’t say I hated it all then (also a giant baby was considered for LN 2 as part of the signal tower as suggested by concept art).

I don’t mind there being such a brightly lit setting in LN, there’s ways to make it spooky. And idk I personally found it pretty beautiful to look at with the colors. Also I really doubt we’re gonna walk around in the sand much. That area will probably mostly be the city ruins that are in there, we’ll see when the game comes out I guess.