[flamebait] Someone's top 5 best looking 2D game list

[Vexorg]

http://www.gamedaily.com/Specials/Top-F ... mes/?page1

Suffice it to say that people seem to be disagreeing with this list.

[Benjamin]

http://www.gamedaily.com/Specials/Top-F ... mes/?page1

Suffice it to say that people seem to be disagreeing with this list.

I don't see why. Surely the opinion of an Internet site carries more weight than ordinary people.

That's a horrible list, but as with any stupid game column, it's a subjective opinion and not exactly "right" or "wrong." After all, someone somewhere has to agree else it wouldn't be there. I think you have to question some of those choices and wonder how deep the sampling pool was exactly.

[Tomtom]

Don't know about LocoRoco or Lumines as I haven't played them, but other than that I don't think it's too bad, if we're sticking to the western market. Yoshi's Island, Metal Slug and Guilty Gear are all beautiful IMO.

[stuffmonger]

I agree with the metal slug and guilty gear... yoshi island... maybe, magical drop 3 holds the bar on puzzles, I think. They seriously need a shooter in there, though. The choices for 2d games is so vast, that I don't think they could really narrow it down to 5... You can't really put a puzzle game in the same category as a fighter, or a shooter, or a platform game... they're all different, and have great looking (and terrible looking) games in each genre.

[benj]

magical drop 3 holds the bar on puzzles, I think.

You need to play some more puzzle games.

Can't say much to the list, as I haven't played LocoRoco and Lumines, but screenshots of these games don't look too hot. Lumines looks like Tetris with wallpapers, and LocoRoco like a flash game. And putting Yoshi on the third spot reeks of "blinded by nostalgia" to me.

[Vexorg]

I think the inclusion of LocoRoco and Lumines (both PSP games) as well as Guilty Gear and Metal Slug (both of which have been released in various forms on current gen systems) seems to indicate that the author probably has had little exposure to 8 and 16 bit era stuff.

[RoninBuddha]

with 2D games, i take high regard to animation, especially on Fighters...

saying that Guilty Gear has some of the best 2D visuals is certainly adequate, on still photos that is, the writer apparently has problems with his eyes,
come in-game, it has notebook-flip-flop quality animations, whch are for the most part, underlooked just because it's "hi-res" bull shit, terrible, it's all pure flashy effects and huge paperdoll cut-outs imo... and he said "GG Franchise" but, he didnt even consider the 1st guilty gear, which was tad ugly, haha, im jsut nitpicking here, i dont hate guilty gear, i love playing it, but i just hate how everybody ranks it up for it's visuals, which isnt THAT great imo... just watch some flashy TV action anime, same "high res", same "Effects", same poor animations...

that is why i also agree with his choice of Metal Slug, those games are defintly low res, with outdated engines and more so, lesser color palette, but imo it's about the consistency and how "everything as a whole looks" i think. MSlug has godly aniamtions and stellar details which reek of refinement, and as an overall package (Mslug 3 most esp.), it just fits, nothing's missing, nor nothing's to gaudy, etc...

but for jizzsakes, he didnt even know what metal slug was until someone mentioned it to him, i think he's just riding the "1337" bandwagon...

take loco roco as well, i think it's great because it has a unique style, sure it's just plain flat vectors, but imo, it's how everything is presented which matters, and not about great colors, or how revolutonary those sprites/animations are... although, loco roco doesnt really go up to my list as well...

what im saying is, we have differnt opinons haha.

PS - speaking of Mizuguchi's works, as much as i love Lumines (never left my PSP ever for almost a year now), i think it's just tad basic visually, meteos was a bit more creative imo. still, both games still has that look of a like homebrew title

[CMoon]

with 2D games, i take high regard to animation, especially on Fighters...

saying that Guilty Gear has some of the best 2D visuals is certainly adequate, on still photos that is, the writer apparently has problems with his eyes,
come in-game, it has notebook-flip-flop quality animations, whch are for the most part, underlooked just because it's "hi-res" bull shit, terrible, it's all pure flashy effects and huge paperdoll cut-outs imo... and he said "GG Franchise" but, he didnt even consider the 1st guilty gear, which was tad ugly, haha, im jsut nitpicking here, i dont hate guilty gear, i love playing it, but i just hate how everybody ranks it up for it's visuals, which isnt THAT great imo... just watch some flashy TV action anime, same "high res", same "Effects", same poor animations...

*sighs* Yup, this one's a dead horse I kept beating a long time ago. Too many fans don't care about actual animation I guess. Really amazing when people were screaming 'why can't SF3 look like GGX?!' People must be blind.

[Andi]

Flashback would be high on my list.

But I'm pretty nostalgic...so...

[Benjamin]

*sighs* Yup, this one's a dead horse I kept beating a long time ago. Too many fans don't care about actual animation I guess. Really amazing when people were screaming 'why can't SF3 look like GGX?!' People must be blind.

I completely agree (and I think the character designs are ugly as well). Then again, is animation the holy grail of 2-D games? Are people choosing on "technical merit" as opposed to just overall style and design? Guily Gear is "newer" graphically in that it does feature high-res sprites, so I suppose that's why it'd rank higher than SFIII and others, since it appears to be something "not possible on 16-bit."

[RoninBuddha]

since it appears to be something "not possible on 16-bit."

ya, but, come on, better moving frames were possible on 16-bit :p

video games, are "video", meaning, they should presentable most especially animation/movement, not just looking good on photos or stills....

regardless of "technical achivement"


again, im not saying GG games are poor 2D and stuff, but i feel that it lacks refinement, a reason why it shouldnt be considered as the pinnacle of 2D, yet.

[Fenrir]

It doesn't look like this guy played many 2D games.

[Ganelon]

Plus, the animations are downright stellar.

Wow, I tried to respect this guy's opinions but after this statement, I can safely say that he has no idea what he's talking about (even though I don't know much about graphics myself). Guilty Gear has stellar animation? Yeah, I guess if by animation, you mean special effects. As RoninBuddha mentioned, some moves only have like 2 different sprite poses, which is just sad. Compare it to 3rd Strike, which may have 5 different frames for a move and much, much more on the whole, and it's easy to see that this comment is just plain silly and wrong. In fact, Guilty Gear has always been known for mediocre animation despite its high-res visuals and clean sprites.

[TVG]

GG is a mixed bag, some moves have like 2 frames, others are SF3 quality.
it looks much better on a whole than 3S too. you dont judge 2D games by animation alone, but by artistic value, backgrounds etc.
while, in that regard, it was a leap forward compared to 3.1 or 3.2, sf3.3 is still not that great looking (save for the animation)
now imagine GGX with sf3 animation...*collapses*
yoshi island deserves it's place, as does metal slug.
as for lumines....
never seen locoroco.

[TVG]

not to mention making SF3 quality animation is just not worth it, even capcom never did it again, and the only game that came close was garou, and we all know what snk does now. (ill admit SOME sprites are well animated in recent kof games, and just a few select moves, like kim's idle stance etc)

[RoninBuddha]

not to mention making SF3 quality animation is just not worth it, even capcom never did it again,

well, considering that SF3 is still played competitively today, i guess, it should me considered a success... not a commercial one though. but reputation... but that's best left for the gameplay aspect.

and SNKP's stuff sometimes are GREAT (note: NGBC people), but i guess you're right, mixing in rehashes just makes things look unrefined..


PS - on that list, i guess the person never played any of the modern shmups, namely Cave games...

equally good animation (ESP. Ra. De./Galuda Character sprites moves so fluid, it's amazing imo), and great consistent graphic style, not to mention Bullet Hell's which look like Flowers at Full bloom...

but maybe it's just us here who appreciates those stuff...

[Vexorg]

As far as shooters go, if I had to pick one for most impressive 2D graphics I think I'd go with Raiden Fighters. The graphics aren't the most elaborate stuff out there, but the constant 60FPS framerate and sheer amounts of exploding stuff on screen at once are still impressive, and are even more so when compared to other 1996 releases. And they were doing this on an "obsolete" 386 processor too... RF has occupied my arcade cab for some time and looks to staty there for a while.

[Marc]

magical drop 3 holds the bar on puzzles, I think.

You need to play some more puzzle games.

Can't say much to the list, as I haven't played LocoRoco and Lumines, but screenshots of these games don't look too hot. Lumines looks like Tetris with wallpapers, and LocoRoco like a flash game. And putting Yoshi on the third spot reeks of "blinded by nostalgia" to me.

Nostalgia? Yoshi's Island was cohesive, imaginitive, and utterly beautiful. 2D Doesn't get much better IMO.

[D]

Guilty Gear is the best looking 2D game.
It was not an award for best animated game,
Metal Slug is not so bad.
I'm glad to not even know no 4 and 5 and 3 Yoshi? maybe for the kids wutever. Guilty Gear rocks, 2d Hi-Res rocks if done well, which GG proves. It is an underrated fighter, but it does sell well, perhaps lots of people don't wanna admit it, because they are Capcom and/or SNK fan panzies.
LET'S ROCK

[RoninBuddha]

Guilty Gear is the best looking 2D game.
It was not an award for best animated game,

Videogames are MOVING, you dont rate how a game LOOKS just by Pausing it and staring at the STILL screens, you should observe it visually while playing, while it moves,

just like cartoons, or animated features, videogames are forms of visual stimuli which incorporates "movement"

"animation" matters

[D]

Guilty Gear is the best looking 2D game.
It was not an award for best animated game,

Videogames are MOVING, you dont rate how a game LOOKS just by Pausing it and staring at the STILL screens, you should observe it visually while playing, while it moves,

just like cartoons, or animated features, videogames are forms of visual stimuli which incorporates "movement"

"animation" matters

Good point. Yet I still think the animation in Guilty Gear is reasonable. Even if there aren't as many frames as in third strike, Guilty Gear is by far choppy. on the contrary. It moves very fluently and if the lack of animation is hidden by the fact that game moves fast or whatever then it is a job well done, because I hate choppy animation and it never came to me that it is choppy or whatever even now I don't see anything choppy or wrong with it, maybe if you record it and play it slow mo, maybe then you will see very few different frames. If you are bothered by it then you deservely can bash GG. But, for me and I think for most of us we are not bothered/don't even notice it at all. It is about fighting and about kicking somebodies ass. I'm slicing you while you are still in the fireball throwing animation.
Somebody should make a voting thread if they experience Guilty Gear as having choppy animation, I don't.
Third strike is probably the game with the most frames per character in it whatever so it is really lame to compare it to Third Strike all the time.
Somebody should count all the frames of all fighitng games and make a big list with average animations per character, that would be cool. I think GG will be somewhere in the middle.
Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen/played an arcade release fighting game with choppy animation. Maybe NEO GEO Galaxy Fight? a bit choppy/unanimated.
I will defend GG.
I prefer animation over resolution. But I don't prefer Third Strike's visuals over GG. OK some kicks have maybe only like one frame, but they are really fast moves and used for combos, if they put an extra frame there you wouldn't even notice it because it would be there for like 1/60 of a second.
I know GG is not as sophisticated as Third Strike, but please admit that Sammy took a pretty good shot even if they released it in low res. It isn't just the high res after all I guess if GG was low res. it probably would've gotton more respect amongst most fighting game gamers.

Let's rock

[RoninBuddha]

^i understand you point though, i agree, GG series, DOES LOOK GOOD, but you know, im just nitpiking that it has ONE MAJOR FLAW, and that would be the lack of fluid movement...

and for the record, i NEVER mentioned 3rdStrike, i dont know why you guys keep on bringing them up..

[Andi]

Whoa. Entirely off subject: D's new avatar blows my fucking mind.

Awesome.

[Blade]

They mentioned Guilty Gear, so I have no reason to complain.

[Dale]

My list
1.Pink Sweets
2.Rochet Knight Adventures
3.Axelay
4.Gunstar Super Heroes
5.Street Fighter 3rdStrike

Just my personal opinion on 2-D beauty.

[BulletMagnet]

Don't know about LocoRoco or Lumines as I haven't played them, but other than that I don't think it's too bad, if we're sticking to the western market. Yoshi's Island, Metal Slug and Guilty Gear are all beautiful IMO.

I'm pretty much in the same boat as far as opinion goes, though whenever I hear "awesome 2D graphics" mentioned, I'm always amazed at how Astal for the Saturn always seems to be left out. Maybe I'm just weird, but I always thought the presentation of that game was second to none (well, the animation was mediocre, but everything else was great imo).

[jp]

Princess Crown? Astal? Super Tempo? Astra Superstars?


I love it when people who aren't really into a specific genre try to write an article about it. Or rank things from it. Yeeah!

My email to them:
"Do me a favor:
Next time you guys want to write an article on 2D gaming... try to play more than whats recently out/coming out and/or currently popular. I don't know... maybe do some research... see what most 2D enthusiasts consider the pinnacles of 2D gaming, and then go from there. "

Thanks.
jp"

[Kiken]

Princess Crown? Astal? Super Tempo? Astra Superstars?

Astal still has one of the most insane colour palettes I've ever seen in a game (outside of NiGHTS and possibly N2O).

[jp]

Actually, now that I think about it Mark of the Wolves and Street Fighter 3 would be near the top of that list as well.

[jp]

Here is the reply I got:
"

Hello JP! Much thanks for your email! Not that it really makes much sense, but thank you. Please rest assured knowing that we just didn't start playing videogames last week. We've gone through plenty of 2D games, and it wasn't our intention to select what's popular. In fact, if 2D games on new hardware look better than 2D games developed for 15 year old hardware...well that's just the way it is. We don't need to consult enthusiasts on the matter, mostly because we are enthusiasts. However, we're very curious to know what you're top five best looking 2D games are. Again, thank you for your feedback.

Chris Buffa, Editor in Chief
GameDaily"

I haven't replied yet, debating on whether I want to waste the time or not (then again, I am at work, bored...). I'm thinking if I do reply it'll be:
1. Street Fighter III (Arcade/DC/PS2)
2. Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves (Arcade/Neo-Geo AES/Dreamcast/PS2)
3. Princess Crown (Saturn)
4. Astra Superstars (Arcade/Saturn)
5. Astal (Saturn)

I'm sure they'd scoff at that though... T3H H1-R3Z isn't there. *shrugs*

Might replace Astal with one of the Metal Slugs though... hard call there...