Any room for 2d games in a 3d world?

[ToulaPich]

As hard as it is to believe the 2d world is slowly and steadily being pushed aside.

It looks like only Capcom's Street Fighter series along with the megaman x series are the only pure 2d games... come to think of it, it looks like even the Street Fighter series isn't all pure 2d. SNK is another company that pioneers this dying breed.

I guess the gaming world isn't too interested in 2d games anymore. Even classic 2d games are getting facelifts, like Missile Command, Pac-man and Tetris.

Looks like developers are aiming for more than just 3d games but a real game... realistic everything...

Is that a good thing, I mean aren't games suppose to make you forget about your reality?

[tokim021]

Marketing... I guess people of the "new generation" never really got to love the 2d franchise... (me included) I guess, 3d proves a more.... um.... sucessful? Personally, I like 3d games then 2d, since 3d makes it possible to actually move 360 degrees around you... when iplay megaman, i feel like im in a hallway... only way to go is back and forth... like cds against tapes, records etc...

[Hadoken]

there's cel shading ya know!:laugh:
but 2D pretty much is a thing in the past now. people want more realistic games, so thats what the developers are making. but i think cel shading is around now to fuel that need for seeing something 2D.
and no, i dont think games are here to make us forget about our reality. they're here to entertain us and give us a fun time. even if a game is as realistic as possible, its still not real. it can look and sound real, but its always not, and people can sense that.
Some games are made to seem realistic, and some just arent.
if someone wants to go back and play 2D classic games, then they probably will. but i dont think anymore are being made.

[ToulaPich]

Too much realism can violate moral sense and order. If the game is so real and everytime you blast the pasting out of some poor sap and it looks like reality... how will that affect you? I think developers have a moral obligation to keep games fun and not too realistic.

Everything in the gaming world is much more fun than the real world. Apart from flight sims, most games aren't suppose to be too realistic... fighting, rpgs and that sort.

2d games aren't bad, games like Metal Slug look great and play even better, regardless of the fact that it's 2d.

If Microsoft's official hype machine has taught us anything, it's that gameplay outweighs graphics by a considerable amount.

[Hadoken]

your stating realism by the way things look. there's more to it than that. there can be more realism in terms of gameplay too.
i agree that violent games that have the characters killing people shouldnt be as real as can be. its violence, and when you play a violent game thats very realistic, it gives off a bit of influence.
but i dont find anything wrong with other genre's of games such as fighting, rpg's, racing, etc. to be realistic.
take FFX for example, the characters are meant to seem realistic. saying that they arent supposed to just seems wrong. if it didnt seem realistic, it just wouldnt be the same. it goes as well for games like GT3, if it wasnt realistic, there'd really be no point.
I'm not trying to badmouth 2D games or anything. sure, they're great. classics too. and i'll put one in everynow and then to play it. but saying that they look and play better? how can you even compare the games back then like that. they're almost completely different from the ones nowadays. i'd rather play a PS2 racing game instead of a SNES or even NES racing game. which do you think would look or play better? the PS2 one? or one of the others? it can be the same for many other games.
but dont get me wrong or anything, there are plenty of good games that are 2D that i think are great. for example, chrono trigger. a classic. i'd rather play it instead of handful of new aged rpg's.
and yes, gameplay does outweigh graphics. but graphics still do count. dont they?

[Spank-A-Thon]

It depends in what way you talk about 2 or 3D. For example, R-Type Delta (a remake of the original R-Type) has 3D graphics - but the gameworld is very much 2D...

Cell-shading pretty much takes the opposite approach - it's takes a 3D gameworld and makes it look 2D..

When 2D is mentioned, I immediately tend to think of sprites/bitmaps, but this is not necessarily true. Is the original Tekken a 3D beat-em-up? Not really when you compare it to Soul Calibur. Tekken only allowed you to fight on 1 plane - it was a 2D gameworld, rendered using polygons (3D) whereas SC allows you to move in all directions...

I don't think 2D gameworlds will ever die, there are some genres (shoot-em-ups being the most obvious) that work best as 2D games. However, traditional 2D sprites/bitmaps are definitely on the way out - but with cell-shading, is that really a great loss?

- S

[ToulaPich]

This whole thread goes around in a circle. I'm back to the undeniable fact that gameplay is more important than graphics. So what if a games has kick-ass graphics... if the game just sucks than why bother going on?

It's how 2d games were programmed that made them so fun. Because of the poor graphics quality of prior consoles, developers had to compensate for them by gameplay. When I was young everyone had a Nintendo and games that looked like horse dung now, were great looking then.

Cel-shading... I'm not sure, the only game I was unfortunate enough to play that had cel-shaded graphics was Fur Fighters...

Why am I even complaining? I should embrace evolution not whine about it. Well, I guess there is aways Street Fighter and good ol' Megaman.

[kupoartist]

As far as a relationship between Graphics and Gameplay are concerned, it is important to have good graphics: But when relating good graphics to 2D and 3D, we have to accept that Good Graphics are possible in both 2D and 3D: The later SNES games, say Chrono Trigger for Example, or even newer 2D games like Golden Sun, look far nicer than Final Fantasy VII, or even Final Fantasy VIII: I'd possibly go as far as saying that Golden Sun looks as nice as Final Fantasy X: Its all a matter of which styles you prefer...

[Frozen]

I don't care if the game is realistic or not, or if the graphics are 2D or 3D. By the way, why does people have that stupid misconception that 2D= bad graphics? Fighting games are always very enjoyable being 2D . The thing is that I don't think 2D is very well exploited. I mean, 2D is based on sprites, as 3D is based on polygons. What if they make something like "super sprites" ? I mean, with the capacity of next gen consoles, they could make badass games in 2D, just focusing on making greeat sprites. As, for example, Breath of Fire 4 in PS. That game rocked. It had some sort of fusion between 2D and 3D. I think that they could do somethign far better in PS 2.

Now, let me post a better idea. What if they made a game in which the sprites look like real anime characters? I mean, like, watching one of those intro videos for the DBZ games. That is 2D. and looks great.


As for a game like MGS..... that would suck if it was 2D. I guess it also depends on the kind of game, but definitley what counts is if the graphics are actually good, not if it's 2D or 3D.

Well, I've been talking all about graphics. Of course, a game sucks equally bad if it does not have a good gameplay.