Support NeoGAF

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[kevm3]

shareholders.

developing top notch 2d sprites as opposed to that weird vector art where appendages are just rotated to simulate movement is incredibly expensive.

with the power of hardware now I just wish companies would use cel shading. They could get the cost savings of 3d with an actuall decent 2d look. Imagine a sidescroller with models on par with a guilty gear game

 

[Three]

Seasoned sprite artists are not at all common anymore. Sprite work is significantly more time intensive than 3D, therefore more expensive and not practical for most studios making a large game.

IIt's that simple.

I don't think many 2D games actually use frame by frame spritework anymore anyway. They use mesh deformation and skeletal animation. I don't think 2.5D is about cost saving at all.

 

[01011001]

2.5D can be great and it has benefits over 2D. you can easily have multiple gameplay layers for example so this can also tie into gameplay for some games.

 

[01011001]

I don't think many 2D games actually use frame by frame spritework anymore anyway. They use mesh deformation and skeletal animation. I don't think 2.5D is about cost saving at all.

which is even worse than mediocre 3d graphics tbh. there is 1 thing I can not stand and it is 2D sprites that use rotating body parts instead of fully animated frames... that shit looks so bad it's ridiculous

 

[JimboJones]

Love me some Viewtiful Joe

 

[Velius]

Sometimes it sucks, no doubt. But it can be done properly.

 

[Celcius]

street fighter 4 and 5 are 2.5d, along with guilty gear xrd and strive, Megaman 11, Sonic 4, etc…

When done well I don't mind it (I know it's easier for devs to implement and scale resolutions really well. Sometimes it just comes across as low effort. Depends on the game and devs.

 

[bender]

Love me some Viewtiful Joe

Please port these, Capgods.

 

[Kagero]

Does it really save that much time over sprite work?

Huge time saver! Sprite work involves drawing the same asset frame by frame. The samples you provided are actually full 3D. Just very low poly count and made to emulate 2D game design. 2.5 D is more like 2D drawings set in a 3D plain. This is animated through keyframes like a flash animation. It's rigged and animated like a puppet.

 

[Dream-Knife]

2.5D always looks bad to me except for DKC, KI, MK, etc style.

 

[e0n]

Of course it looks bad when you cherry-pick games 2 generations ago.

 

[Fare thee well]

Eh, I'm indifferent.

 

[BossLackey]

I don't think many 2D games actually use frame by frame spritework anymore anyway. They use mesh deformation and skeletal animation. I don't think 2.5D is about cost saving at all.

Mesh
2D

Pick one

 

[Holammer]

2.5D can be great and it has benefits over 2D. you can easily have multiple gameplay layers for example so this can also tie into gameplay for some games.

Ori is not full 2.5D, there are certain 3D elements to give depth, but most of what you see on screen are multiple flat layers moving at different speeds to create a sense of parallax. It's a very traditional approach, but on steroids. Similar to what they did with Hollow Knight.
When I saw the first game I immediately realized how they achieved the effect and got all misty eyed, not because of the cheap tear jerker intro. It was everything I dreamed of back in the 32bit era, where we instead got primitive origami polygon graphics.

 

[Three]

Mesh
2D

Pick one

There are meshes in 2D games believe it or not. You create a 2D mesh over an image. You can then manipulate that mesh with skeletal animations, weights for vertices etc.

 

[Danjin44]

I also much more attracted to 2D art work than 2D.5 in side scroller type games.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Why does the industry have this obsession with 2.5D?

Who asked for it? The art direction in 2.5D games almost always looks like complete trash, whereas a purely 2D game can look unbelievable these days.

Why is this such a big trend in the industry? Do some people actually really like it?

Edit: Examples

So why do you use games from nearly 15-20 years ago to prove a point that games today look bad in 2.5D? Also incredibly cherry picked ones as well.

Guilty Gear -Strive- is 2.5D. As is most of Oddworld's games, The Missing, Mega Man 11, Inside, YOshi's Wooly World/Crafted World, Any 3D Kirby game, Assassin's Creed Chronicles, Klonoa, "New" Super Mario Bros, Puppeteer, Ducktales Remastered, Disney Castle of Illusion, TOMBA! Strider, etc.

 

[Danjin44]

So why do you use games from nearly 15-20 years ago to prove a point that games today look bad in 2.5D? Also incredibly cherry picked ones as well.

Guilty Gear -Strive- is 2.5D. As is most of Oddworld's games, The Missing, Mega Man 11, Inside, YOshi's Wooly World/Crafted World, Any 3D Kirby game, Assassin's Creed Chronicles, Klonoa, "New" Super Mario Bros, Puppeteer, Ducktales Remastered, Disney Castle of Illusion, TOMBA! Strider, etc.

Also to be fair with 2D the artstyle needs to be really GOOD, if not it might end up looking much worse than 2D.5 visuals.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Little Chicken]

Depends who the developer is, I guess. Ori:

 

[Dr. Claus]

Yeah, the only dev that has managed to make those rotating body parts look good is Vanillaware

Quoting the nicest person on this forum

Still waiting on a muramasa port for PS4/PS5 and a remaster of Grim Grimoire.

They make the most beautiful 2D games on the market. The only ones who have come close were the Ori games and even then, they are miles away.

 

[Little Chicken]

Thanks man. Yeah in those cases I would prefer traditional sprite work, but it's much more expensive to produce than 3D things.

It's one of the reasons I was disappointed with Bloodstained.

Bloodstained is an incredibly ugly game. Everything looks like a geocities gif.

 

[ToxicPhantom]

Pretty sure there's a market for it just like everything else that's out there.

 

[SpongebobSquaredance]

come on OP, you literally choose the worst examples imaginable:

So why do you use games from nearly 15-20 years ago to prove a point that games today look bad in 2.5D? Also incredibly cherry picked ones as well.

Guilty Gear -Strive- is 2.5D. As is most of Oddworld's games, The Missing, Mega Man 11, Inside, YOshi's Wooly World/Crafted World, Any 3D Kirby game, Assassin's Creed Chronicles, Klonoa, "New" Super Mario Bros, Puppeteer, Ducktales Remastered, Disney Castle of Illusion, TOMBA! Strider, etc.

not only that, but I believe all of them were on the DS and PSP.

 

[01011001]

Yeah, the only dev that has managed to make those rotating body parts look good is Vanillaware

Quoting the nicest person on this forum

even in their games it is hard on the edge. It would look way better if they were fully animated. but they at least try to make it mostly look like they are

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Danjin44]

Quoting the nicest person on this forum

You dont want go there, some secrets are better off undiscovered.

I'm "The nicest person on this forum" Thats all you need to know.

You dont need to dig deeper than that.

Spoiler: This is for your own good.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[TGO]

You mean like Valkyrie Profile 2?

 

[existensmaximum]

Yeah, even the best looking examples of 2.5D look bad to me. There's nothing like hand-drawn sprite work and true 2D games for me when it comes to platformers.. I really think that 2D games from the 8/16-bit era look significantly more appealing than modern 2.5D games. Just my preference.

I always get so disappointed when I hear about a new cool platformer that turns out to be using polygons in a 2.5D playfield. Just.. very unappealing. Especially the animation rubs me the wrong way, maybe that's why I can't enjoy Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze?

 

[plip.plop]

 

[Kamina]

I miss sprites too

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

But i do agree that there isn't a single good looking 2.5D shmup.

Einhander was pretty nice.

More generally, I always called it "2.5D" when there was a 3D game with 2D graphics. It was like 3D without going 3D, hence 2.5D, 2D with an extra dimension.
What you're describing is side-scrolling 3D, really.

 

[Companion Cube]

Now, Square Enix and their HD-2D style? I could absolutely get used to this.

 

[nkarafo]

More generally, I always called it "2.5D" when there was a 3D game with 2D graphics. It was like 3D without going 3D, hence 2.5D, 2D with an extra dimension.
What you're describing is side-scrolling 3D, really.

And what you're describing is a 3D game with flat objects

In reality there is no such thing as "2.5D". We just use it to describe 3D games that have some sort of restriction.

The original DOOM is a great example of this. A lot of people say it's not really 3D and it's just 2D or 2.5D, because the map is 2D and the engine doesn't allow rooms above other rooms. But the game logic/physics are true 3D since the game calculates all 3 axes. I believe restrictions like this in old 3D engines existed so the machines at the time could render them as fast as possible. But that doesn't take away the "3D-ness" of 3D games.

 

[stranno]

2.5D: Post a Final Fantasy IV screenshot.

 

[STARSBarry]

I mean...



The issue is 100% the developers making 2.5d bad, that's it. The issue is alot of developers use 2.5d as a way to save on budget, this results in often poor quality work (I'm looking at you Capcom in particular for this).

For something more side by side within even the same genre

Super robot wars has been using 2.5D for its backgrounds for some time now and it works well, even with the 2D robots.



Taking it a little further games like SD Gundam Crossrays now use fully 3D models instead of the 2D animations of Super Robot Wars.



While still essentially both being 2.5D turn based tactical RPG's, and they look great when in motion.

So the only thing stopping 2.5D looking good is the fact a majority of the developers are not taking advantage of the format and using it with saving cost as the primary goal when selecting it. 2.5D allows for good use of perspective change, you will notice that any good 2.5d game will use this to its advantage and the bad ones... well they never do.

 

[VN1X]

I also much more attracted to 2D art work than 2D.5 in side scroller type games.

Which game is this? Lamp Chronicle?

EDIT: Ah I see Dragon's Crown is in there as well so multiple titles. Where are the 1st and 3rd gif from?

 

[kuncol02]

The original DOOM is a great example of this. A lot of people say it's not really 3D and it's just 2D or 2.5D, because the map is 2D and the engine doesn't allow rooms above other rooms. But the game logic/physics are true 3D since the game calculates all 3 axes. I believe restrictions like this in old 3D engines existed so the machines at the time could render them as fast as possible. But that doesn't take away the "3D-ness" of 3D games.

No. Whole Doom logic is in 2d plane. That's why you can't have rooms one on another in it. It could be rendered top down Alien Breed style and almost nothing in gameplay would change (obviously that change how much player see).
2,5D is basically every technique that is supposed to emulate 3D space in 2D game (paralax, sprite scalling, isometric graphics, etc.) Some people use that term for 3d games which logic is constrained to 2D space, but that would make almost all strategy games 2,5D.

 

[jigglet]

I agree. Sometimes it works, but most of the times plain 2D just looks better. Maybe 2.5D is just easier to produce?

2.5D is cheaper. Animation is expensive.

But I agree, 2D >>>>>>>>>>>> 2.5D

 

[Banjo64]

What's Ori?

 

[Fess]

Can't agree.

Metroid Dread is 2.5D, it's absolutely awesome and looks nice and have smooth animations and is just pure joy to play.

 

[M1chl]

Worst fucking gameplay ever.

 

[nkarafo]

It could be rendered top down Alien Breed style and almost nothing in gameplay would change (obviously that change how much player see).

Not really, no.

In DOOM, despite the lack of a jump button, the player can jump. An explosion or the zap from an Archvile can make him jump. This can help the player reach areas that are too high, in the same way the player can "jump" when you drop yourself from a higher platform to a lower one. Flying enemies like lost souls or Cacodemons can also fly low or high and they can reach windows at certain heights which allows them to enter rooms.

In DOOM, you can place any floor at any different height and it will work. The restrictions mean that you can't place flying platforms that you can go under but only pillars. But the difference in height is still important. In a 2D top down game like Alien Breed, there is no way to see which object is higher and which is lower, you have to make the 2D art in such way to somewhat depict it (like not giving a shit about correct perspective and cherrypicking some parts making them isometric) and in many 2D games this isn't always obvious (like in Zelda games). A 2D top down game would also not be able to render windows at different heights or depict objects like enemies and projectiles (that can move in different heights and above your character) moving through them.

Wolfenstein 3D might be able to be played as a top down shooter and not lose anything but certainly not DOOM.

 

[lostinblue]

I agree. Sometimes it works, but most of the times plain 2D just looks better. Maybe 2.5D is just easier to produce?

2.5D is easier to do because 2D animation cannot be automated the same way.

Donkey Kong Country is a good example, they were able to have better animations back then, by rendering models in 3D then converting to 2D.

Paralax and the like are also "easier to do" nowadays in a 3D backplane as they are technically not render passes/layers.


It has the potential to look awesome, blend some 3D camera and pull out stuff like zoom in and out for great field of view effect that would otherwise look bad or be impossible. But sometimes more often than not it's also lazy and if artistic direction doesn't match perfectly it will look bad/out of place.

No these are 2d games with backgrounds that are made to look more 3d. Not a huge fan of this, but it's more the other way around that bothers me.

Actually, both games (shantae and duck tales) clearly have 3D elements going on in some scenes. Poligonal at that, noticeable by how the viewpoint changes with the position of the camera.

They just haven't replaced the characters with 3D ones.

I don't like it all that much to be honest, and I would say it counts as a form of 2.5D even if the core is somewhat 2D/has spritework going on.

I don't think many 2D games actually use frame by frame spritework anymore anyway. They use mesh deformation and skeletal animation. I don't think 2.5D is about cost saving at all.

They don't do it in realtime though. They either use Toon Boom, Photoshop or After Effects to that effect. So you have to convert animations into images then make them run on the target hardware.

That's a very specific work pipeline these days. Vanillaware for instance has their own proprietary one (and pretty sure they use After Effects extensively), and even then they already use some 3D.

 

[Ezquimacore]

Donkey Kong tropical freeze is one of the best platformers ever.

 

[lostinblue]

Donkey Kong tropical freeze is one of the best platformers ever.

Tidal Terror is NOT a Tropical Freeze level AFAIK.

Pretty sure that video is from the 3DS version too.

 

[Morrie’s wig shop]

You know back in the 90s the term 2.5D was reserved for games like Pandemonium or Klonoa. These games are just 3D assets on a 2D plain.

 

[JCK75]

I asked for it.. when it's done well it's friggen incredible..
Some examples of it done badly don't change that fact.