For Blood Money, some of the pictures of people looked like they were edited in a way from real photos. But as for the former depictions… I’d say it was just the level of talent of the artist they had. If they had somebody that does the covers of romance or fantasy books their character designs might look a lot more realistic. So I wouldn’t say they were “going” for whatever art-style - that’s just the way it turned out.
Or, I suppose you could say that they didn’t hire someone that was more artistically adept and were content with… (sorry) whoever.
It comes down to what you put into cartoony. I’m not saying that the earlier games looks like Looney Tunes. They are heavily stylished with enlarged features to emphasise certain body parts. It’s not naturalistic or realistic in terms of visuals.
I wonder who is trying to picture though…
