A question on 2D gaming

PWN_JuiCe_SuCKa

I just got done getting through Odin Sphere which I loved but it got me wondering, how come it seems 2D graphics havent progressed as much as 3D? Odin Sphere was beautiful but I still had to deal with major lag issues and it just doesnt seem THAT giant of a step from what came before it. So onto my question

1) Is There ever the chance of playing a 2D game that looks as good as that old Dragon Quest(I think that is what it was called) arcade game in the forseeable future?

Djiem

PWN_JuiCe_SuCKa wrote: »

I just got done getting through Odin Sphere which I loved but it got me wondering, how come it seems 2D graphics havent progressed as much as 3D? Odin Sphere was beautiful but I still had to deal with major lag issues and it just doesnt seem THAT giant of a step from what came before it. So onto my question

1) Is There ever the chance of playing a 2D game that looks as good as that old Dragon Quest(I think that is what it was called) arcade game in the forseeable future?

Aren't a crapload of huge sprites harder to manage for a CPU than a bunch of polygons with some texture applied to it?

Or maybe the PS2 is just weak when it comes to pure 2D?
I'd doubt it since the MMX games were playing fine.

Maybe it's just the huge-ass sprites from Odin Sphere.
OR, maybe it was badly programmed.

Burtletoy

Try some Metal Slug games, great looking 2D sprite games that move without any lag that I've noticed. I love this style more than any of those more refined HD 2D games anyways.

Also the game was called Dragons Lair.

Page-

Metal Slug did have lag, at least in the arcade and on PS2, but I always thought that added to the game.

Check out Guilty Gear. I heard it used the same engine as Odin Sphere and it's by far the best looking 2D fighter around, if you can get past the retarded art style. SF3 also looks nice, and IIRC has the most frames of animation of any 2d fighter. The Tales of Rebirth remake or whatever, which was only released in Japan, is an awesome looking game, as well. In fact, from what I've seen, 2d games are still going fine over there.

I'm a complete 2D whore. I think sprites have infinitely more charm than blocky 3d polygons, stay much truer to the artist's original vision (how often do you play JRPGS that have great 2d character portraits that look nothing at all like their 3d incarnations? Always), and age way more gracefully.

Djiem

I agree that 2D is awesome, but I don't like the lag, be it 2D or 3D. If the framerate decreases (or increases) it just bothers me. I don't care if it's 30 frames instead of 60 (though I'd prefer 60 by far), as long as it's stable and never changes, ever.

A solid 60 fps 2D game would be an orgasm.

Dartboy

Sprites are more difficult to render than polygons, since they're a bunch of data for each pixel, as opposed to 3 bits of data for each polygon. True, models are textured, but a model texture is basically equivalent to one frame of animation for a sprite that only needs to be loaded once, while a sprite is many pictures the same size that need to be drawn very quickly. This is compounded by the fact that the new, HD consoles have higher possible resolutions, which in turn require higher rez, larger filesize sprite images to work.

There's just different processing requirements involved, which is why even these new, powerful machines can have problems if lots of sprites are trying to do stuff at once.

Zxerol

There's also the issues of the difficulty in creating a large number of high-resolution sprites with many frames of animation. That's a lot of pixel art to create. Time and money.

Veevee

I like the way Nintendo is handling its 2D, making it 3d with everything to look like 2d. Or in the case of NSMB, 3d that happens to play like its 2d. I really think this is where most/all of 2d games are going to go. They're going to get away from straight sprites and just make everything a flat 3d model. The great thing about this idea though is that if I'm wrong, I'll be even happier. I love me some good sprite work.

cfgauss

Modern graphics hardware is optimized for matrix math like you get in 3D graphics, not the kind of data you get in high-res 2D stuff. That makes it slower. And some newer stuff uses cel-shading, which has to render stuff in 3D, then applies a filter to make it 2D, which is kind of intensive.

OfficeBuddy

Dartboy wrote: »

Sprites are more difficult to render than polygons, since they're a bunch of data for each pixel, as opposed to 3 bits of data for each polygon.

Thanks for playing, but, er, no.

If that where even halfway true, then we would have had 3D stuff years and years and years ago.
Before, in fact, 2D stuff.

Computers are good at copying stuff fast, and not so good at doing complex maths.
Doing complex maths with 3 (3d) vectors was slower than copying a, say, 9x9 sprite
graphic from one area of system memory to an area of video memory.

RainbowDespair

On an aside, try googling Heroine Anthem (a Taiwan produced PC RPG) if you want to see some mighty fine 2D game visuals.

Aroduc

The Savior games by Giga are also pretty hot, though they've been using the same engine and sprites for going on 3 years now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Vwev70QzI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcq_r8xn8Yc