I want my Sprites back

[TheArsenal]

Anybody else tired of 3D? Not in shooters or racers, but in things that dont need them. Like in sidescrollers. Did anybody else just want a sprite Mario? Because 3D in things that dont need 3D just end up making it ugly. How about a super detailed RPG for the computer that only utilizes sprites (But really good looking ones) In exchange for a super detailed and realistic world? I played Sonic Rush...And although it was a ton of fun the 3D looked butt ugle especialy after Sonic Advance.

Just a thought you know?

[Morph Bark]

I want my MegaMan series back with all of its delicious sprites and re-hashed plotlines. (Or heck, new ones are fine and dandy too.)

[nooblade]

I'd prefer just having text back instead of voice acting and cinematics. 3D is useful for some situations (RTSes, some tactics, exploring, building), those other two are only useful when you want to make a game that plays like a movie. I bet my complaint drives prices up more anyway.

But yeah, I like sprite games too.

[MoelVermillion]

Yeah I prefer 2D as well but honestly I can see why companies moved away from it, after all its a lot of effort to create nice 2D graphics compared to nice 3D graphics. When creating a 3D model you basically have to get the base model and rig it up for animation, from there its a matter of computer animating the rigged model and its good to go. When animating 2D you have to redraw the sprite on every single frame, this is a very time consuming process and its not easy to go back and edit your work if you make a mistake. Now obviously I'm not saying 3D is an easy task, it takes a great deal of skill to create a nice looking 3D model and a lot of skill and understanding of motion to animate it well, but at the end of the day at least you don't have to remake that model for every single frame. The skill pool of people who can work well in 2D has also steadily decreased over time while the skill pool of people who can work well in 3D has rapidly grown over the last two decades. For these reasons its usually easier and cheaper to use 3D models in your game rather than sprites.

There are still some developers that adamantly stick to 2D grahpics even today going as far to create games with HD Sprites. One example of this mentality would be the director of "BlazBlue" who had this to say:


I think 2D art is special in that hand-drawn images have something that is very hard to achieve with 3D – it has heart.

He shares his opinion on 2D a little more in depth in this article (http://www.nowgamer.com/features/915/blazblue-continuum-shift-toshimichi-mori-speaks).

Because most the games I play are 2D fighters I'm still exposed to a lot of sprites on my end which is comforting. I do still encounter games that could have used 2D in place of 3D but didn't it's usually disappointing but I can understand why.

[SparkMandriller]

3d is allowed if it looks as good as R-Type Final does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PihQdMYbJYs


Seriously don't try and tell me that doesn't look awesome.

[TheSummoner]

I want my MegaMan series back with all of its delicious sprites and re-hashed plotlines. (Or heck, new ones are fine and dandy too.)

But... We already got that... Hell, we got it twice and I'd be surprised if a they don't make a Megaman 11 before the end of 2012 (and eventually, around Megaman 14 Capcom will grow lazy and we'll get tired of it and the series will go on another long hiatus).

I'd like a new Fire Emblem with the GBA graphics... If its a Fire Emblem for the Wii, I'm fine with pretty 3d graphics, but on a handheld, I prefer my sprites over the abomination Shadow Dragon was (and the graphics were ugly too! Zing!)

I'm fine with 3D Mario graphics, though it certainly worked better for NSMBWii than NSMB (though graphics were really one of the lesser concerns...)


I'd prefer just having text back instead of voice acting and cinematics. 3D is useful for some situations (RTSes, some tactics, exploring, building), those other two are only useful when you want to make a game that plays like a movie. I bet my complaint drives prices up more anyway.

But yeah, I like sprite games too.

The problem with voice acting in video games is not that it can't be done well... Hell, when they do pull it off, I think it really adds to the game... The problem is that it is usually one of the last priorities... More often than not, the voice actors don't even see the script until the day they're suppose to record their lines. You simply can't do that if you expect a half-decent result.

Give the VA the script in advance, explain what is going through the character's head when the lines are being said and maybe give brief notes on the plot so far. Provided the VA has half a brain, you're probably going to get some good voice acting.

[BlackSheep]

I'd prefer just having text back instead of voice acting and cinematics.

What really gets me is when they use text but resort to "faux speech" along with it. This isn't a common practice, but when it crops up, it's like nails on a chalkboard to me.

[Shpadoinkle]

I agree that a lot of games use models where sprites would serve just as well, possibly better (and would probably be less time consuming to create and make look good.) Street Figther 4 comes to mind- there's no reason for it to use models over sprites, and I think a lot of the effects (projectiles, for instance) would look better as sprites.

In the end, though, it comes down to marketing and what the public will buy. A game that looks like it has old, dated graphics (i.e. sprites) isn't going to be drawing in a lot of new players.

[Domochevsky]

Sprites aren't by any means done with though. In fact, they are as alive as ever, just not with the big titles. In the Indie and small consoles scene they are quite well.

(I'm more annoying with games from back in the days before 3D actually got good: Might & Magic 4/5 looked great, while 6 and 7 are... ok, at best. Not up to snuff with their predecessors.)

[Tengu_temp]

A lot of games for portable systems use sprites instead of 3d graphics. And I don't just mean indie ones, but also big titles with huge budgets.

[Giovedi]

Ah, sprites. I miss 'em. Nowadays they seem confined to handheld titles and indie games. Shame for that!

[Tengu_temp]

Sprites seem to be alive and well as far as tactical RPGs are concerned, too. Look at Disgaea or Super Robot Wars.

[Airk]

While I am a huge fan of 2D, and still lament the rise of 3D to a certain extent, I'd argue that Street Fighter 4 (Well, SUPER SF4 in particular) is a bad example for this cause. Leaving aside the art design decisions (Massive biceps, giant hobbit feet, etc), which are, when you get down to it, just how they decided to make the characters LOOK, rather than anything to do with 2D/3D, I find very little to complain about here. Could the 'special effects' (fire, etc) look better? I guess, but it's not really a big deal. And if the game had been done in 2D, you'd lose all the fun things they did with the camera angles and zooms during Ultras, and winposes and whatnot. It's just not plausible to do an effect like, say, Ibuki's Ultra 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv7o4qdltKE#t=1m26s) with 2D sprites, unless you want to basically draw an entire mini-movie for EVERY character you attack with it. (BlazBlue does some clever stuff with their Astral Heat attacks, but you'll notice that whenever they do a camera angle shift, the character being hit isn't on screen.) I really think, actually, that they got a LOT better with the Ultra stuff for SSF4 - checking out the Ultras for characters like Ibuki, Dudley, and Guy vs the ones for say, Ryu, Ken and Honda shows how they got more clever with it over time.

But yeah, overall, I favor sprites. But the funny thing is, I don't think that's due to any particular merit of the medium. Much as games like Blazblue, Odin Sphere, the like are gorgeous, I don't think there's anything inherently more ARTISTIC about sprites than 3d models... it's just that people have been working on a 2D canvas for millenia, and on 2D sprites for decades, and have had a chance explore what the medium is capable of, while 3D modelers far too often seem to be stuck striving for an unappealing realism. It's not that 3D CAN'T be artistic and awesome - games like Jet Grind Radio (http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20090910/jet-grind-radio.jpg), Okami (http://media.photobucket.com/image/okami%20screenshot/nikuluffy/okami.jpg), and this (http://www.siliconera.com/postgallery/?p_gal=121322|39) show this to me. Does that mean I will ever stop loving gorgeous 2D art? Absolutely not, but 3D -can- attain parity, if it would just try for a little more of THIS (http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/877/877054/prince-of-persia-20080527114815313.jpg) (Say what you like about PoP2008, it had a distinct visual style) and a whole lot LESS of THIS. (http://files.g4tv.com/ImageDb3/249644_S/Call-of-Duty-Black-Ops-Multiplayer-Reveal-Hands-On.jpg)

[Knaight]

Sprites are a tool to use, and while they could see use a bit more often I certainly don't want an end to 3D games. Besides, they are used in some very good indie games, not the least of which is Battle For Wesnoth.

[dgnslyr]

Sprites are definitely a treat to look at when done well. Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy Tactics used sprites really well. In any case, I'd rather see good-quality spritework than the low-quality 3D I might come across on a platform like the DS. Of course, I don't have anything against a well-done 3D game, like home console quality.

Seriously, though, Tactics. In an age where space wasn't exactly plentiful, Tactics has sprites that show up for one scene, like the nameless knight pulling the lever, or Dycedarg sipping his wineglass, and all those other subtleties. It definitely adds another level of enjoyment.

[ninja_penguin]

If you adore sprite games, all of you should go out and play Odin Sphere, and Muramasa: Demon Blade.

So, so pretty. Odin Sphere also has impressive plot with less impressive combat, whereas Muramasa is delightfully amazing hack and slash, but what looks to be a horned in plot, or something that got lost in translation/budget cuts.

[Airk]

I heard that the localization on Muramasa was...uhm... of the hack and slash variety. :P Like, lines of Japanese translated to single words of English sort of thing.

Haven't actually played it though. It's on the Wii. (Damn, but I wanted that rumor of an HD version to be true. =/ )

But yeah, I really loved Odin Sphere, but some people get hung up on the gameplay because they try to play it like button mashing brawler, and it's...not. At all.

[TheArsenal]

In addition....I kinda miss Sidescrollers as a standard. Now days its FPS that are the generic, cut of the pie games....but I just like playing old sidescrollers, even absolute **** ones instead. Each one could have a completly different play style by simply changing the jumping techniques. FPS in my opinion, just cant differentiate between each other well without adding another element to them. This is only MY opinion.

But Sprites just look better in alot of games. I just miss so many games. MegaMan Battle network (The DS versions SUCKED!), Non-linear mario brothers.

I guess with Nintendo no longer being king of the hill, it cannot just divert 90% of its resources to a single game like it did before. Sure their still GREAT but its no longer amazing in my point of view (SSBB was an exception).

I like 3D sometimes...But it just doesnt look as good most of the time.....Sigh....This was just my ramblings...

[Airk]

Ramblings indeed.

Anyway, I hope you've played Hard Corps: Uprising if you're going to lamenting sidescrollers like that.

[Deth Muncher]

On the subject of sprites, I've actually been rather disappointed with the re-releasing of the old Final Fantasy games in botched 3D that they used on the DS. Seriously, we already had Final Fantasy VII, thanks, we don't need any more blocky polygon Final Fantasy games.

[Friv]

If you adore sprite games, all of you should go out and play Odin Sphere, and Muramasa: Demon Blade.

So, so pretty. Odin Sphere also has impressive plot with less impressive combat, whereas Muramasa is delightfully amazing hack and slash, but what looks to be a horned in plot, or something that got lost in translation/budget cuts.

Goddamn Odin Sphere. That game drove me completely insane due to lag. My Playstation just about had a stroke trying to parse all of the graphics on some of the boss fights.

Really, really pretty though. And the plot was very solid. And it was tons of fun except for those few bosses. But oh, man, those bosses...

[ninja_penguin]

I heard that the localization on Muramasa was...uhm... of the hack and slash variety. :P Like, lines of Japanese translated to single words of English sort of thing.

That could very easily be the case. I felt like I'd missed a lot of things, and I didn't even know that Momohime was possessed until the first boss fight, when a bunch of guys basically show up and go 'you are possessed, we will exorcise you! And now we are blue, and HUGE!'


Goddamn Odin Sphere. That game drove me completely insane due to lag. My Playstation just about had a stroke trying to parse all of the graphics on some of the boss fights.

Really, really pretty though. And the plot was very solid. And it was tons of fun except for those few bosses. But oh, man, those bosses...

Did you have problems elsewhere? The only time slowdown was obvious and super annoying was against Odette, for me. Mostly because of her size and her spamming of minions.

[Friv]

Did you have problems elsewhere? The only time slowdown was obvious and super annoying was against Odette, for me. Mostly because of her size and her spamming of minions.

Odette was the worst of the lot, but I had trouble whenever that stupid armor-spitting dragon came at me, and had particular trouble when he was teamed up with that goddamn mage that was controlling him in the sewers.

I also got a bit of lag whenever I started trying to spam Mercedes' special abilities, IIRC.

[king.com]

I've said it once and i'll say it again, the Infinity Engine is the best looking i've ever seen.

[Gorgondantess]

Aye, I'm lamenting the fact that the latest handheld Metroid is 3D and not sprite based. I want another Metroid: Fusion!:smallfrown:

[Qwertystop]

I want my MegaMan series back with all of its delicious sprites and re-hashed plotlines. (Or heck, new ones are fine and dandy too.)

If by Megaman you mean Battle Network, AGREED. I'm hopin they'll bring a GBA Virtual Console to the 3DS so I can get some of them again. Only ones I haven't played are 1, 4, and 6, only one I haven't beaten of the others is 2. I heard 4 sucked, and that there's a lot of differences between 1 and the rest, so 6 is my choice.

[factotum]

3d is allowed if it looks as good as R-Type Final does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PihQdMYbJYs


Seriously don't try and tell me that doesn't look awesome.

It looks pretty, certainly, but there were parts where it looked like they said, "Hey, we've got 3D now, let's go to town!". I'm thinking in particular of the bit where your fighter is flying *sideways* alongside the giant enemy vessel--that just made it really obvious it's just a 2D game with some 3D graphics thrown in (what Yahtzee called 2.5D when he did a review of them some time back).

I pretty much agree with the OP on those--I just don't see the point; it seems to be using 3D for 3D's sake.

[SparkMandriller]

Looking pretty is the point. If using polys instead sprites makes things look better, then why wouldn't you do it? It doesn't detract from anything. No real point wishing for sprites to come back if all they're going to do is make games look worse.

[Ogremindes]

My feeling is that it's not about 2D or 3D, it's all about art direction. A game that aims to look realistic is gonna look dated in a few years, whereas a game with a great art style has a timelessness to it.
The reason, I think, that modern 2D seems to always look good is that you basically don't even consider 2D without artistic reasoning behind it (well, on platforms where 3D is the norm, at least).

[Avilan the Grey]

I don't see the need to go back to 2D for 2D's sake. Nor text instead of voice.
The medium evolves for a reason; compare the crisp really good quality TV images from the last days of B&W to the first days of color. The color picture is horrible in comparison, but it led up to HDTV and 3DTV.
Nowadays most 3D games looks better than their 2D equivalents. The only exception I can think of up front are the Sam and Max games.

[factotum]

Looking pretty is the point. If using polys instead sprites makes things look better, then why wouldn't you do it?

Fair point, but these gosh-darned game developers do have this annoying tendency to think "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" when you give them something like 3D to play with, and at least 75% of the time the answer to that thought is, "No. No, it really would not.". :smallwink:

[Airk]

It looks pretty, certainly, but there were parts where it looked like they said, "Hey, we've got 3D now, let's go to town!". I'm thinking in particular of the bit where your fighter is flying *sideways* alongside the giant enemy vessel--that just made it really obvious it's just a 2D game with some 3D graphics thrown in (what Yahtzee called 2.5D when he did a review of them some time back).

I'm in with SparkMandriller - who cares? If going 3D on their 2D sidescroller makes it cooler looking then... go with the 3D! If it lets you build some totally awesome camera thing and you're not sacrificing anything (and lets face it - there's only so much you can do to make a sprite of a space ship look different and interesting.) then go to town!


I pretty much agree with the OP on those--I just don't see the point; it seems to be using 3D for 3D's sake.

At this point, this argument is basically invalid - back when 3D was brand new, there was a lot of this but these days, most titles that use "3D for 3D's sake" are actually using "3D for the budget's sake." And there are, as has been stated, plenty of things you can do with 3D that are essentially cost prohibitive in 2D.

Can you give some examples of developers actually doing a "wouldn't it be cool if...?" with 3D when it WASN'T? Because truthfully, the only case I can think where I've seen that is games where the logic wasn't "Wouldn't it be cool if it was in 3D because then we could..." but rather "Wouldn't it be cool if it was in 3D<stop>"; When you take something that is 2D and make it 3D because you have an idea about how cool it would be to whip the camera around, or be able to zoom in on something, or well, pretty much ANY 3D technical shenanigans, then it generally DOES add something. (Whether it adds enough to mitigate the loss as you go from your carefully crafted 2D art assets to the new 3D your recently hired 3D modeler cooked up may vary) It's when someone (Often NOT one of the developers) says "Well, games are in 3D these days, so we'd better do that." that they inevitably suffer.