Rayforce is better looking than any 2.5D shooter made since

[MathU]

And so is maybe 90% of the rest of the hand-drawn catalog from history. R-Type III looks better than R-Type Final; Gradius Rebirth looks better than Gradius V; Dodonpachi looks better than Dodonpachi Saidaioujou; Darius Gaiden looks better than G Darius; Dimahoo looks better than Brave Blade; and on and on and on. I think if there were any game genre that would have put up the biggest fight against the menace of switching to pointless 3D models in 2D games during the late '90s, it would have to have been scrolling shooters. Surely enthusiasts of this fairly hardcore genre could have seen that these games look better and play better when they're hand-drawn? Were they so easily caught up in the hype of 3D graphics that swept the whole video game industry at that time? Did they feel like the genre was going to get "left behind" if it didn't switch to 3D like everyone else?

Well the genre did get left behind. That ship has sailed and it's in a niche now that may always remain just a niche. Is there anything left to gain by pandering to this crowd that sees 2D graphics as antiquated or "retro"?

This thread salutes those proud few who have made hand-drawn scrolling shooters in this age when so many take the easy way out and just do everything as a 3D model. Hellsinker, Hydorah, Vacant Ark, Jamestown, MECHA Ritz, and more. Somewhat unexpectedly, it seems these games can only be found in the PC independent/doujin/freeware scenes.

What can 2D enthusiasts do to revive this lost art style that is most suited for our genre?

[Shepardus]

I agree with you that hand-drawn sprites tend to look and feel better than 3D and pre-rendered sprites, but the switch to 3D (especially CAVE and its pre-rendered sprites) isn't just about trying not to get "left behind" - it was also likely significantly cheaper for CAVE to do pre-rendered 3D (plus I've heard that CAVE's best pixel artists left the company, though I don't have a source for that). This cost and time factor also explains why most of today's examples are found in independent/doujin games, where the developers can afford to take extra time to work on their sprites. For what it's worth, 3D also makes it easier to scale to high-resolution screens (not that that mattered for CAVE and all their 240x320 games, though even then you can see that with their HD console ports). Astebreed supports not just full HD, but all the way up to 8K.

[GSK]

I like 2D art as much as the next guy but a lot of the games you listed aren't especially pretty.

Honestly, the biggest turn-off for casual players nowadays isn't 2D vs. 3D, it's playing verts on a widescreen tv/monitor ("look at all that wasted space!").

[mamboFoxtrot]

This thread salutes those proud few who have made hand-drawn scrolling shooters in this age when so many take the easy way out and just do everything as a 3D model. Hellsinker, Hydorah, Vacant Ark, Jamestown, MECHA Ritz, and more. Somewhat unexpectedly, it seems these games can only be found in the PC independent/doujin/freeware scenes.

Doesn't Hellsinker have 3D backgrounds, though? Either way, I'm pretty sure those games you just mentioned are in 2D because it was easier for them than 3D. Especially in the case of Hellsinker and Mecha Ritz, who's 2D graphics are pretty crude. It should be fully expected that indie games are mostly in 2D (and thus hardly a "proud few").


Honestly, I think it's only in very recent years that 3D graphics in general can look as sharp as 2D graphics did. Until now, the lighting engines lacked the necessary contrast and shine, the textures were too low-res (hell, screen resolution in general was too low), and polygons counts weren't high enough. And even then, with what we got now, you still pretty much need top-of-line 3D graphics to stack up.

But now that we can, I'd honestly love to see more polygonal shooters (which obviously isn't happening because STGs and budgets are like water and oil, but a man can dream). As crude as the 3D graphics in games such as G Darius and Einhander were, I loved their sense of cinematography (something Sine Mora desperately lacked), and I don't regret them being in 3D whatsoever. Also, do you really think those games being in 3D made them play worse? I mean, sometimes it can be just the tiniest bit confusing at what exact position terrain would damage you, but other than that I've never had a problem playing these games.
Well, OK, there's also Under Defeat's weirdo ground-to-air bullets, but even Rayforce has those to an extent.

[EmperorIng]

Did they feel like the genre was going to get "left behind" if it didn't switch to 3D like everyone else?

I think many companies at this time were excited about the way the new dimension could change the way the game was presented, resulting in very dynamic scenes - many of which were just impossible on older hardware. E.G.: Einhander zooming back and forth from various angles, or Taito's love of sweeping camera angles around objects and entities. I also wonder if the third dimension doesn't mechanically enhance certain games, like Zero Gunner 2.

It is a "gimmick" in the purest sense, but far advanced from the early junk like Viewpoint or Zaxxon.

[MathU]

Yes I'm aware of the economies of scale (or lack of them) involved with drawing for high resolutions. The work hours needed to tighten up every little pixel at today's resolutions is one part of the reason 2D is still dying. It's why developers like SNK used rotoscoped 3D models for the longest time and why Capcom and Arc System Works eventually gave up completely and switched to 3D.

But does it have to be that way? Does one need to draw their game at some obscene resolution just because it's the option? Take a game like Metal Slug for instance. It is drawn at a paltry resolution by today's standards of merely 320x224 pixels. Not only that, but most of it does not even animate for every unique frame of its 59 fps display rate. It effectively animates at about 30 frames per second. But does Metal Slug look bad? On the contrary, I would challenge anyone to find a modern-resolution, 2.5D game that looks nearly as good as Metal Slug does when Metal Slug is merely 1:1 upscaled to a comparable resolution with nearest-neighbor.

2D developers should set reasonable resolution limitations for the amount of time and money they can put into drawing their games and plan on upscaling them for the final product. It still will end up looking better and playing better than 2D games with the fanciest of 3D graphics.

I mean, sometimes it can be just the tiniest bit confusing at what exact position terrain would damage you, but other than that I've never had a problem playing these games.

If you want another good example, the asteroids in Darius Burst are a real nuisance to avoid getting hit by. Because they're 3D it's so difficult to discern where the collision zones between them and your ship are and where exactly the "gameplay plane" of the game resides.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Yeah, that's a fair point as well. But, then again, even 2D games can have incredibly ambiguous hitboxes.
The somewhat strange control of Raystorm and Under Defeat, given it's tilted perspective, and some of the more extreme angles used in Eschatos could be brought up as well, though such things aren't really mandatory in a 2.5D game.

But does it have to be that way? Does one need to draw their game at some obscene resolution just because it's the option?

Unfortunately, it seems to be the case. Indie games can look as shit as they like and still get a free pass from the public, but games from respected studios get put under the microscope, where people will sometimes complain about visible pixels and the like. It's really a damn shame, since honestly I've yet to see anyone pull off high-res 2D graphics while maintaining a level of animation and visual coherency that can rival the likes of Metal Slug and Yoshi's Island. Vanillaware games certainly look great in screenshots, but the animation leaves a lot to be desired. Granted, trying to animate that would be an animation challenge on par with Disney's Fantasia. Games like Skullgirls and Cuphead have much better animation, but this is largely because they have a much flatter coloring style.

I've always wondered, though, why 2D is easier for indies (even when they decide to actually put effort into it), but apparently more difficult for bigger studios. Is it just the creation of the sprites (admittedly, they would be held to much higher standards), or is it also more to do with how many 3D artists they have vs. how many 2D artists, or if it's something like maybe they have a lot of tools/engines/etc set up for making 3D convenient, but don't have so much framework set up for 2D?

[Squire Grooktook]

Games like Skullgirls... flatter coloring style.

??

This looks pretty colorful for me.

Spoiler

Honestly Lab Zero is perfection and you should all be donating to Indivisible right now.

[mamboFoxtrot]

I'll admit that I don't own the game and haven't had a chance to really scrutinize the animation. However, just looking at that screencap, I'd still say that the coloring/shading (for the foreground characters) looks to be on the flatter, more cartoony side of things compared to Vanillaware or what many pixel art games like Metal Slug go for.

[Squire Grooktook]

I'll admit that I don't own the game and haven't had a chance to really scrutinize the animation. However, just looking at that screencap, I'd still say that the coloring/shading (for the foreground characters) looks to be on the flatter, more cartoony side of things compared to Vanillaware or what many pixel art games like Metal Slug go for.

Oh okay, I thought you meant flat as in "colorless". I mean yeah it's a cartoony style, the character designs have a cartoony style. Cartoony is kind of it's thing.

You should buy it though! Only modern fighting game I actually like besides KOF13.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The problem with DOJ, Ketsui etc. graphics isn't looking pre-rendered; it's looking CHEAP. See the not-so-cheap-looking Pulstar.
Nor is polygons the problem with Einhänder, Radiant Silvergun or Silpheed for Mega CD. Simply put - it takes time and effort to make good-looking graphics. You get what you pay for.
Now, I don't think much of Souky's hardware designs and stylistically it's ugly, but the time and effort went there (so the pre-rendered is re-touched when needed and the game doesn't look cheap... on Saturn & RGB CRT at least).

By the way, who thought R-Type Dimensions did the originals any disservice? I read it run at the original framerate which didn't look too smooth on TVs, but wasn't that the worst of it?

[Kollision]

Gradius Rebirth looks better than Gradius V; Dodonpachi looks better than Dodonpachi Saidaioujou

ahn....
no

[pegboy]

Gradius Rebirth looks better than Gradius V; Dodonpachi looks better than Dodonpachi Saidaioujou

ahn....
no

Gradius V > Rebirth.
DoDonpachi > SDOJ (Cannot stand the art direction of most of Cave's later games to be honest).

I'll openly admit to being a huge Gradius fanboy but IMO Gradius V has the highest production values of pretty much any shmup ever made. It's absolutely gorgeous and the OST is amazing.

[jandrogo]

It obviously depends about the resolution.
In 320x240 games, the sprites look better pixel drawn than 3d modeled, the representation is more pure, sharp, smaller.. and don't take all the redundant pixels/colors and garbage that prerendered graphics has.
In such a small place to represent the images, loosing pixels is a waste. Furthermore, eye is very capable and sensitive to see that added pixels

When resolution is increased in the same space, it's more difficult to our eye to see that pixels, and graphics and images are nicer.. Raiden IV, Under Defeat, Shikigami no Shiro III are beautiful in 640x480

That being said, I find the best size for a monitor to play low resolution games at close distance is 17"-21"

[Xyga]

The prerendered Cave shit - any prerendered shit - looks perfectly okay on a low res crt, and only there.

Nothing's more obnoxious than digitized backgrounds and sprites when it comes to upscaling and smoothing for displaying on high-res/lcd.
It's better to just slap fat black scanlines over those.

Oh and some unrelated but on-topic sexyness, just because;
The game is hard, it makes the player hard too.

[copy-paster]

R-Type III looks better than R-Type Final

Fun fact that you not mention R-Type Delta, it's the best in the series!

Anyway for me, G-Darius looks slightly better than Gaiden mainly on the boss battles, very intriguing and heart-pumping.

[Squire Grooktook]

G-Darius is more colorful in general too. Even though the sprite-work in Gaiden is better then the jaggy polygons, the sense of imagination is much stronger in G's world then in Gaiden's IMO. Definitely prefer G aesthetically despite the technical limitations.