/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5240124]

Why do all video games work better in 2D?

Zelda? Works better in 2D.
Mario? Works better in 2D.
Sonic? Works better in 2D.
Castlevania? Works better in 2D.
Metroid? Works better in 2D.
Contra? Works better in 2D.
Final Fantasy? Works better in 2D.

That's not to say that there are no good 3D games, because there definitely are, but even the good ones don't hold up as well as their 2D counterparts.

[Anonymous No.5240131]

For a long time this was true, I mean we had decades of 2D gaming to get the medium perfected, 3D was very much style over substance for a long time and the big problem was the style in its infancy was utter shit, 2.5D worked so much better BUT 3D has came a long way you only need to look at /v/ to see that, all things become retro in time... retro only grows there will be really good retro 3D games 1 day

[Anonymous No.5240437]

>>5240124
I have to stop you with Final Fantasy, Whether or not they're 3D is completely irrelevant to those games,

[Anonymous No.5240447]

first person shooters and first person games in general work best in 3d op

[Anonymous No.5240448]

>>5240131
I don't know about that, a lot of modern 3D games are still aimless wandering through huge empty areas.

[Anonymous No.5240450]

>>5240448
that's just because of the open world meme. those games are generally mediocre.

[Anonymous No.5240456]

>>5240124
>Zelda? Works better in 2D.

The 3D games (N64 games specifically) have more intricate and involving content and more variety in their locations. None of the 2D games are as good as the best 3D games.

[Anonymous No.5240457]

most of the games you list are platformers. all i'm getting is that platformers are best as sidescrolling 2d games, which isn't a controversial opinion.

[Anonymous No.5240523]

>>5240124
3D is an order of magnitude more difficult/time-consuming to develop.
When making a 2D game you can afford to prototype and iterate until the core gameplay is entirely solid before moving on to content. You could do this with nothing but coloured squares, but it's honestly not even a big deal to throw away the ENTIRE game and start over multiple times at this stage.

With 3D games it's such a pain in the ass just to get it to a playable state that you'd better believe you're gonna try and preserve as much work as you can as you go. And yeah, you can greybox your level design, but the look & feel matters a lot more even at basic early prototype stages. It can potentially take days if not weeks of code & asset dev just to get to the point where you can start seriously prototyping. With 2D games that overhead ranges from hours to minutes.
Today we have frameworks/engines/libraries/asset packs/references that make all that a lot easier, but 2D gaming still has a multi-decade head start in terms of the refinement of conventions, and it's still massively easier to drown your 2D babies.

That said, you listed a bunch of franchises that all originated as 2D games. Of course they epitomise themselves in 2D.

[Anonymous No.5241341]

3D Zelda is better

[Anonymous No.5241367]

>>5240124
Sonic, Castlevania, and Contra yes. As for the others, RPGs are impossible to fuck up just by adding a physical dimension since they generally might as well just be text games. Beyond that, the implication here is just that Nintendo were the only ones that knew how to create a functional camera.

[Anonymous No.5241368]

>>5240124
>racing
>flight simulation
>sports
>first/third person shooters
all objectively better in 3D

2D can be good (not always even) only in specific genres
>platformers
>fighting games
>puzzle games

also 2D/3D graphics do not imply 2D/3D gameplay

[Anonymous No.5241491]

Its more of a cost/time issue.

After some game dev dabbling and collaboration i would argue 3D has 3-5x the investment to get anywhere.

For 2D, sprites/2d skeletons are simpler. A lot of tools developed for flash stuff in the mid 2000s is intended for novices without a deep background.
You also have things like tile/object maps being documented across media and user guides, simplifying the process.
Generally there is no camera, only zoom level if you ignore retro pixel formats. You could go fancy and do projected 3D like Diablo II did, but its not common.

For 3D its a mess because a lot of PS1/N64 and early PC games set quite a few horrible standards.
3D sprites is not common, despite being the sharpest and easiest method: Allowing to use most 2D techniques will still having you use 3D world and enviroment. And it eliminates a lot of the problems with the animation pipelines. But it do introduce a new problem: You might need the knowledge on how to code a plugin, to automate the generation of sprites from 3D renders or artwork. Going by games like Reccettear of Chantelise or Might and Magic it looks wonderful.
But i would argue map generation/permament assets/massive UV wrapping and objects is the biggest obstacle. You can't just make a 2D tile editor and just make stuff by cobbling together flipped sprites, you need to make all the stuff in the 3D editor: Which takes a lot of time.

But Camera is the biggest obstacle. FPS is currently a genre where one of the achivements is ignoring the camera challange. Meanwhile third person games and Sky God Hansimulators need to work out proper camera that works properly against the enviroment.
Even current games do not have a univerally working camera, that correctly interfaces control vs bungie around enviromental objects or making them transparent.

[Anonymous No.5241496]

>>5241491
>You might need the knowledge on how to code a plugin, to automate the generation of sprites from 3D renders or artwork

We did that solely with MAXScript on MM6/7/8 and HOMM3/4, it's easy-peasy.

[Anonymous No.5241501]

1)2d requires simpler inputs & game logic
2)3d requires more complex inputs & game logic
3)Therefore 2d is easier to create a fluid experience and easier to play because of much simpler demand on the player.
4) 3d games that use simpler inputs and game logic (og doom for example) break this rule.
5) its really less about 2d vs 3d and more about the complexity of inputs and game logic.
6) I like simple stuff.

[Anonymous No.5241534]

>>5240437
This totally. It depends on taste but also l genre. Rpgs in general don't get a ton of benefit from being 3D. Platformers often seem worse. But driving games are almost unquestionably better in 3D and it would be near impossible to make a good flight sim in 2D.

[Anonymous No.5241631]

>>5241496
Thats the point:
You didn't, you had a already existing and well documented format with archive tools and examples. Possibly with somebody writing a script example, and sharing it.
The entire reason why 3D vs 2D is a thing is because most people can't code(ergo do deeper things in any of the tool their use), are limited by the tools defaults(i.e the framepacer in Unity, and most default shaders), and ergo can't do things like setup 3D sprites because they don't know its possible and are lacking examples.

Its also why 3D perspective for top down sprite games is rare, or using shaders on 2D sprites to generate more effects.
Or a whole bunch of other effects.

[Anonymous No.5241651]

>>5240124
Zelda is worse in 2D, the gameplay is complete shit

[Anonymous No.5241654]

>>5241651
False. The first four Zelda games are the best.

[Anonymous No.5241658]

>>5240124
>Why do games originally designed for 2D work best in 2D
Hmmm idk my dude.
Games work best in whatever plane they were originally made for. Character action games like Bayonetta and DMC work best in 3D, so do first person shooters and driving games. Even if you get masterpieces like the 3D Marios and Metroid Prime, you're still adapting a 2D template onto a 3D game design rather than starting from scratch

[Anonymous No.5241864]

Gaming became much more interesting when the PS1 rolled around

[Anonymous No.5242016]

>>5241534
>impossible to make a good 2d flight sim
Ever heard of Choplifter?
How about Desert Strike?
Moon Lander?

[Anonymous No.5242021]

>>5241864
The splintered pre DOS PC marked got simulator games far earlier.
But things like powerful 3D accelerators and storage made it possible for less ambitious team to make simulator software: Speading the goal of gaming to new fields and grounds

[Anonymous No.5242023]

>>5242016
the strike series where isometric/2.5D no?

[Anonymous No.5242026]

LHX ATTACK CHOPPER

it had shit reviews but i loved this as a kid on megadrive

[Anonymous No.5242540]

>>5240124
>Why do all underage shitpost?

[Anonymous No.5243526]

>>5241341
what this guy said

[Anonymous No.5243534]

>>5240124
Because all console games are shit, thus putting them in 2D makes them one less dimension of shit than a 3D game.

[Anonymous No.5243551]

>>5242023
All the movement is in a 2d plane. The isometric view give the illusion of 3d, but in reality you only move on a flat plane. And 2.5d usually means polygonal graphics in a 2d playfield; which the Genesis era Strike games did not have (all sprites.)

[Anonymous No.5243681]

>>5243534
>Because all console games are shit
So you've played all of them?

[Anonymous No.5244309]

>>5243551
>And 2.5d usually means whatever bullshit I just made up
lel

[Anonymous No.5244320]

>>5240124
>Wrong
>Wrong
>Agreed
>Agreed
>Agreed
>Agreed
>Wrong

[Anonymous No.5244358]

>>5243681
All of them, no exceptions.

[Anonymous No.5244374]

for me, it's isometric

[Anonymous No.5244376]

>>5240124
2D flight combat simulators are trash though.

[Anonymous No.5244868]

>>5244309
2.5d is a meme honestly. Its either 2d or 3d.

[Anonymous No.5244905]

>>5241651
Agree, the dungeons and atmosphere is great but the movement is crap. 3d zelda seems far more natural to me. If 2d zelda has more movement/turning possibilities I would like it a lot more.

[Anonymous No.5244912]

>>5240124
yeah but grand theft auto

[Anonymous No.5244914]

>>5244868
You might not understand what 2.5d means if you think it is some made up stuff.

[Anonymous No.5244921]

>>5244358
t.PCuck

[Anonymous No.5245013]

>>5242016
Are you trying to say those are flight sims? Lol

[Anonymous No.5245107]

>>5244868
Maybe but that doesn't make it bad. I remember when Zaxxon came out it was mind blowing.

>>5244914
You might not understand what meme means

[Anonymous No.5245426]

>>5240124
They might work better in 2d, but, then again, they might play better in 3d.

[Anonymous No.5245429]

>>5240124
Duke Nukem
Wolfenstein
Every racing game ever

[Anonymous No.5245472]

>>5240523
I really like how nobody has responded to this post. The first FPS was invented at Xerox and called Maze, and it took 30 years to get anywhere with this new capability computers had. Games like Counter Strike and Thief are like the Concorde, the peak of a philosophy and technology, and it's just been a decline into showy but worse performance and greater expense

merry christmas assholes

[Anonymous No.5245489]

is this bait, op?

even i, a retard, know the answer to this one.

2D games are simpler so of course they "work better". 3D games are harder to design well.

with 2D you only have vertical and horizontal movement, so everything - level design, physics, killing enemies - is much simpler. just maneuver mario's sprite over the flat 2D plane so that he lands on the koopa's head. not much room for error.

with 3D you uh, open up a whole new dimension. now there's a whole new 360 degrees of range of motion. landing on the koopa's head is now trickier. camera placement becomes trickier to implement. the simple, elegant mechanics of 2D games need to be adjusted to the 3Dscape. so you get ingenious new mechanics like zelda oot's "z-targeting". or you know, auto-aim in fps games. developers need to create ways of making these 3D games playable, and even then they still tend to be messier than 2D games.

[Anonymous No.5245615]

>>5245472
Can't speak for anyone but myself but I usually don't respond to ignorant shitposters.

[Anonymous No.5245848]

Everything you listed is better in 3D, hipster retard.

[Anonymous No.5245889]

>>5245472
This is a stupid bait thread. We're all just making fun of OP. Of course 3D is more work but who cares?

[Anonymous No.5245975]

>>5240456
With maybe the sole exception of Zelda The Windwaker, all 3D Zeldas are uttershit, especially the N64 ones which are boring as fuck

[Anonymous No.5246284]

>>5245472
>Games like Counter Strike and Thief are like the Concorde, the peak of a philosophy and technology
Theif is peak tech. I find it weird that the first game with Stealth AND a modern movement system turned out to be a Nintendo game: Breath of the Wild. Where ability to freely traverse the terrain makes it possibly to use rudimentary stealth to do really amazing things. In "stealth games" they are generally worse than Theif in all aspects because levels and mechanics do not meld together, creating a cobblework that isn't unified enough or developed enough to be amazing.

Counter Strike isn't peak, since the genre is actually diverse.
Its more about the fact that the genre didn't evolve until we got games like Titanfall or Splatoon, so CS looks extremely advanced.
CS is about "hit first", where things like squad cooperation allows simulation of non real firefight mechanics. But since it lacks leaning, siloutettes, and a lot of tech its basically "peak 3D shooter" until VR gets more popular.

[Anonymous No.5246505]

More like thief is peak boredom

[Anonymous No.5246567]

>>5245848
Contra? Sonic?

[Anonymous No.5248273]

>>5242016
>/vr still.doesn't know what a flight sim is

[Anonymous No.5248319]

>>5245975
>With maybe the sole exception of Zelda The Windwaker, all 3D Zeldas are uttershit

This doesn't even deserve a comment.

[Anonymous No.5250182]

>>5240456
Zelda works way better in 2D, mate.

[Anonymous No.5250590]

>>5250182
If Zelda64 and Majoras Mask showed us anything?
Its that Zelda scales with hardware limitations and dev team size. And that whoever directed the ship between Zelda and Ocerina of Time did a far better job than the later

[Anonymous No.5250602]

>>5248319
Not him but WW is the only game in that series I liked enough to play all the way through. It was probably just aesthetics though, the game itself wasn't wonderful.

[Anonymous No.5250609]

I agree with metroid and maybe mario, but zelda works great in 3d.

[Anonymous No.5250618]

>>5240124
>adventure game
>platformer
>platformer
>platformer
>exploration platformer
>action platformer
>jrpg
>guys these are ALL the kinds of games there are!
>why are they ALL better in 2D?!?

This place is unbelievable sometimes.

[Anonymous No.5252368]

>>5240124
Gran Turismo.

[Anonymous No.5253049]

>>5244320
Based

[Anonymous No.5253113]

>>5240124
>Zelda? Works better in 2D.
Nope. N64 Zelda is much better than ALttP or NES Zelda. And post-/vr/ Zeldae are much better than classic Zelda.

>Mario? Works better in 2D.
Nope. Mario 64 is much better than SMW and Galaxy and NSMB shit all over it.

>Sonic? Works better in 2D.
This I agree with only because everything other than 1, 2, 3 and Knuckles suck shit. But there still is the potential for a proper 3D Sonic game to be MUCH better.

>Castlevania? Works better in 2D.
True, but only because SoTN and GBA/DS titles are good, classic Castlevania is dog shit in comparison to Lament of Innocence and Curse of Darkness.

>Metroid? Works better in 2D.
Prime trilogy is WAAAY better.

>Contra? Works better in 2D.
That's because of the style, so yes.

>Final Fantasy? Works better in 2D.
FUCK HELL NO. VII, VIII and IX are much better than IV, V and VI. I, II and III are only good in their new versions, like the PSP and DS ports.

[Anonymous No.5253115]

2D is easier to program. Did you seriously need to open a thread to heat this?

[Anonymous No.5253227]

>>5253113
>classic Castlevania is dog shit in comparison to Lament of Innocence
>I, II and III are only good in their new versions, like the PSP and DS ports

Dank bait bro

[Anonymous No.5253250]

>>5253113
>Castlevania? Works better in 2D.
Not retro but I actually enjoyed Castlevania: Lord of Shadow.

[Anonymous No.5253251]

>>5253227
FF I old spell system is shit, II is unplayable thanks to its retarded stat system (only the PSP port of FFII FINALLY fixed that shit).

III is just bad overall, but the DS version makes it more tolerable and much better.

[Anonymous No.5253261]

>>5253251
The ports of FF1 are so piss easy the game may as well play itself and FF2 only sucks if you're an idiot who doesn't plan how you play. Nice try though.

The Castlevania is how I knew it was bait though. 2/10 for getting a reply.

[Anonymous No.5253267]

>>5253261
>he sed sumthin be like i dont think it be
>is trollings me

[Anonymous No.5253278]

>>5253267
Ahh and now the typical nu/vr response comes out, complete with meme drawing. Sure I'll take you on your word, you genuinely think the FF remakes are decent and the 3D Castlevanias weren't garbage. Enjoy your quality opinions and games, good chap.

[Anonymous No.5253279]

>>5253278
You too, friend.

[Anonymous No.5253357]

>>5240124
These games were created in 2D, they owe their entire existence and popularity to 2D, they were made as visionary masterpieces with 2D interaction in mind. The switch to 3D was meant to capitalize on the 3D hysteria that was sweeping the industry and, so, was more about them taking an already existing IP and, somehow, fitting it into 3D as opposed to naturally creating an IP from inspired vision with 3D in mind, this drastically changed the gameplay experience of what were already legendary 2D IPs, there is no reason to think they should be better or worse than any other random 3D game, what made them great was never conceptually 3D in the first place, so of course these games are better in 2D.

The other way is also true, games like Resident Evil and Tomb Raider were originally conceptualized with 3D in mind, the entire basis of the gameplay experience was conceptualized to exist on a 3D plane, therefore if you were try to remake them in 2D it would lose some of the experience and not be as good.

>>5240437
>I have to stop you with Final Fantasy, Whether or not they're 3D is completely irrelevant to those games,
Agree, JRPGs are one of the few genres that lost nothing in the transition to 3D because the gameplay experience is exactly the same, from character movement to the way you interact with the world to the perspective of the player to how battles are initiated and fought. It's exactly the same sort of gameplay experience simply with different visuals than 2D. When FFX came around they intentionally changed this experience to something that didn't resemble FF at all, but the move to 3D for the three PS titles did not alter how the game is played at all. The changes in X were not caused by a switch to 3D, but, instead, by some top down decision making from the company for the sake of changing it.

[Anonymous No.5253365]

>>5240131
>BUT 3D has came a long way
>you only need to look at /v/ to see that
So you're telling me 3D still is a garbage fire

[Anonymous No.5254158]

>>5240124
It depends on programming and level design.

IF they can make a sidescroller that has good level design, then they can add an extra dimension with good level design.

With games like Sonic Generations or any of the new ones, the proportions of the character and the moves are off. The design of the levels is mixed. With 2d there less for the game designers to fuck up. Combine that with the fact that 80s and 90s game programmers were far more talented than today's hacks, and you have stupid opinions being formed.

[Anonymous No.5254162]

>>5240124
Wild Arms is one of my favorite JRPGs for just this reason. 2D world art, and 3D battle art. Devs can push a lot more detail in a small room with only half a dozen characters on screen. You see in FF7 the battles look quite nice, but everything else is a hot mess. The use of 3D should be undertaken with reservation.

[Anonymous No.5255140]

The majority of turn-based RPGs are superior when they're in the simple, 2D format with quick attack cutscenes. They may not be visually aesthetic, but it beats sitting through a 10 second to sometimes 1 minute, automated move just for it to say "Miss". Simplistic, Dragon Quest-style "attacks" are the greatest form of battles. A lot of the grind of newer, usually 3D JRPGs comes from waiting for needlessly long battle sequences to end.

[Anonymous No.5255168]

>>5240124
>Final Fantasy? Works better in 2D.
it's shit in both 2D and 3D

[Anonymous No.5255173]

>>5255140
That feel when as I played through FFVIII as a kid I had no idea about junctioning. I must have sat through countless hours of GF summonings.

[Anonymous No.5255276]

2D Spyro will never be good

[Anonymous No.5255278]

FACT
We never saw any of the old franchises that would have worked better in 3D make the jump because they were cancelled before the technology advanced

[Anonymous No.5255329]

games simulate spatial manipulation and interaction between mechanics and systems, usually they're designed with the expectation that the player will attempt to overcome the challenges set out for them by using the mechanics in order to interact with the systems so they can achieve a formal or informal win state in specific situations within the game or in the whole sum of the game

2d has more simple mechanics and systems, and because the immersive quality has less opportunity to shine, developers focus their efforts on what I outlined above, which is where the classical fun lies, but this is also true of 3d

for example, the original DOOM is not very immersive because the technology isn't sophisticated, but the fact that enemy sprites only have a few iterations which correspond to particular states means your eye can pick out what enemies are actually doing much more quickly due to the unambigious nature of what you're seeing—when you shoot an enemy in DOOM it's clear that you hit it and it's stunned, but when you shoot an enemy in Red Dead Redemption 2 there's so much animation going on that it's difficult to tell when the enemy has fully recovered from being a ragdoll, when it's going to shoot back, when it's actually shooting you, etc.

[Anonymous No.5256073]

>>5255276
Spyro is one of the few franchises that uses 3D depth for actual gameplay mechanics.
Once you go 2D, you will end up with a few terrible problems:
1. Fixed camera zoom means you can't see shit, despite being able to glide across 5x the screen size
2. You can see shit without the fixed zoom, but the difference are if you can go high and low

If you want to be brief: The problem with 3D is that you want to add depth
To add depth,you also need enough context and content for that depth to be used.
Spyro like Mario64 uses the extra dimensional depth to increase fluidity, control and movement. Dark Souls uses the depth to increase the quality of the map, turning it into a gigantic multi layered spiral Ouroboros

[Anonymous No.5256075]

>>5240437
Are you sure?

[Anonymous No.5256080]

>>5241341
>Auto aim

[Anonymous No.5256325]

>>5240124
Not all of them, Duke Nukem started as a 2D game and it got really better in its 3D version.

[Anonymous No.5256596]

>>5240456
The 3D games might as well be movies with how easy and mind-numbingly boring they are

[Anonymous No.5256627]

>>5256596
This is too autistic for bait.

[Anonymous No.5256854]

>>5256627
>This is too autistic for bait.
This is autistic enough for bait