I don't care about Shadow of the Beast title, but its remake's screenshots I'm seeing remind me how unexpectedly nice-looking "2.5D" can be.
So, rather than listing other titles that caught me by surprise this way, I'd like to read your examples of such graphics done well. Borderliners (like OutRun 2, but it's quite famous) accepted.
Okay, one more example from me, remarkable as it's not only a looker (at least on a decent CRT), but I believe it was quite a challenge to program (as in a surprise for its coders at that) - Lost in Shadow (a.k.a. A Shadow's Tale etc.).
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God of Blades isn't that fantastic a game by itself (an endless runner with a dash of one finger death punch) but the art style is amazing, aiming to recreate classic pulp fantasy paperback covers:
If that's the kind of thing you're looking for.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.
An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.
Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
Shadow of the Beast itself mimics vintage illustrations too. So does God of War, by the way, and it can't be a coincidence the camera strictly follows pre-set path there as well.
Just looking nice is good enough for me, though. The thing is, since the dawn of "2.5D", high chances are even technically humble graphics will end up decent-looking. ChainDive, The Red Star - I struggle to think of a single 2.5D game I would consider graphically bad (even R-Type Delta looks disappoint rather than offend me).
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By 2.5D do you mean 2D gameplay rendered using 3D graphics, or 2D gameplay with a limited third dimension (like different planes you can move between)? Trine 1 and 2 and Limbo are great examples of the former.
Limbo:
Trine:
(These are from Trine 2)
NTSC-J:You know STGs are in trouble when you have threads on how to introduce them to a wider audience and get more people playing followed by threads on how to get its hardcore fan base to play them, too. 1CCs | Twitch | YouTube
Never mind gameplay - above all, it's about real-time graphics using 3D model where it's all tailored to one and only path the camera follows, like a film set (hence the OutRun 2 and God of War examples). Well of course the examples are ubiquitous, but I'm particularly interested in "looking surprisingly good for a small-time/quiet release/canned/old game" this way.
Is Limbo all that 3D, or just 2D vector graphics like Another World (although I think it would originally use sprites rendered with vectors), or Rayman Origins?
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Obiwanshinobi wrote:Is Limbo all that 3D, or just 2D vector graphics like Another World (although I think it would originally use sprites rendered with vectors), or Rayman Origins?
I remember reading somewhere that Limbo's rendered in 3D with a bunch of effects to give it that signature look, but I could be wrong about that and I can't find where I read that.
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I think Bionic Commando Rearmed fits here. Spoiler
Spoiler
Only played Trine 2 briefly, but thought it was like playing a living painting.
You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it.
Klonoa 1 & 2 by Namco are my favorite examples of this. 2 in particular handles it well iirc. There's a gameplay aspect to the 3D with shooting at the background or foreground.
Not really 2.5D but Black Knight Sword by Grasshopper Manufacture & Digital Reality has an interesting graphical style with a lot of layering (this was their other collaboration along with Sine Mora)
I feel like you should've specified "platformers" in the title. 2.5D as a label can apply to more than one genre of game.
BryanM wrote:You're trapped in a haunted house. There's a ghost. It wants to eat your friends and have sex with your cat. When forced to decide between the lives of your friends and the chastity of your kitty, you choose the cat.
I did mention it is NOT exclusively about platformers, or indeed any particular genre (see the OutRun 2 and God of War notions).
And I agree some of Klonoa 2 locles are among the most memorable examples of such graphics. Can be said about temple on the lake in Valkyrie Profile 2 as well (I don't think all of VP2 looked great, but that place did it for me).
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Yoshi's Woolly World really nailed its aesthetic. A lot of imaginative environments using the "arts and crafts" theme. I especially loved the water effect, which was just to have some blue lines to indicate the level, and then have all the "craft paper" and whatever else the level is made of below it be a blue color. I'd swear you could actually make some parts of these levels in real life.
Guilty Gear Xrd is probably the best attempt I've seen so far of using cel-shading to imitate 2D animation.
And Sine Mora, despite it's many questionable aspects, did look really damn good. Great mechanical designs, and the backgrounds have so much detail. Some of them are really nicely colored, too. Too bad we'll probably never see another polygonal shooter with a budget again. But then, AsteBreed also looked pretty good despite being made by what, four people? I suppose it's only a matter of time before the indie/doujin scene starts doing more 2.5D shooters.
That's about all I can think of right now. There's probably quite a lot more 2.5D games that actually look nice now, given how much better 3D graphics are now about having a good amount of contrast in their lighting.
I didn't like the latest Strider (or Mighty No. 9, really) screenshots, but maybe it looks better in motion. 2 didn't left a striking impression either (more R-Type Delta than Klonoa or Einhänder).
Out of such reboots, other than Contra: Shattered Soldier, I did like the looks of Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project on PC in its time, even if the latter wasn't a great game (I don't mind the more "computer platform game" style with large levels and many dead end "secrets"; it's just that it has been done better elsewhere, with fewer glitches to boot). Didn't play BlowOut, but it looked visually neat on screenshots to me.
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Specineff wrote:Does the (Despicable, IMHO) Strider remake count?
It has its faults (enemy/background variety) and isn't as good as Strider 2, but was still a solid addition.
What didn't you like?
You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it.
The remake of Strider didn't really keep my interest. I'd rather have had a Strider 2 HD version, or an all-new Unreal 4 powered Strider 3 with 2.5D graphics ala Street Fighter V. Capcom could even contract Arc System Works to do an HD remaster.
I'm glad the PS version can be played on Vita.
Shadow Complex - I don't think I played any other game during the summer of 2009.
The best part is - Spoiler
You blow some shit up and the cafeteria floods, you then get the scuba equipment and swim through it. Eerie and quiet, complete with the bodies of soldiers who drowned.
You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do! You'll get used to it.
