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[Celcius]

Capcom vs SNK and Marvel vs Capcom were 2 amazing games and both had 2d characters with 2d backgrounds, which was normal for games of that time period. For the sequels, Capcom vs SNK 2 and Marvel vs Capcom 2, Capcom decided to keep the characters 2D but to make the backgrounds 3D for a whole new experience. Other games over the years have done this too, such as Blazblue.

Now that 20 or so years has gone by, do you think it was the right move to switch the backgrounds to 3D? Do you think having 3D backgrounds has helped the games look better in retrospect? I’m just curious to know everyone’s thoughts.

 

[Knightime_X]

I love the look of 3d backgrounds in 2d games.
Guilty Gear XRD is the evolution of this.

 

[German Hops]

Are we limiting this to only fighting games, or ?

 

[Keihart]

It always looked kinda akward to me.
Blazblue sprites look surprinsingly pixelated now, probably thanks to how sharp the background looks in comparison, this isn't the case on old games where everything runs at the same resolution, even if it is low resolution.

 

[GermanZepp]

Outside of UMK3 Marvel vs Capcom 2 is my favorite. The characters looks/desing are fantastic

 

[CamHostage]

It always looked kinda akward to me.
Blazblue sprites look surprinsingly pixelated now, probably thanks to how sharp the background looks in comparison, this isn't the case on old games where everything runs at the same resolution, even if it is low resolution.

I haven't seen an upscaled/up-processed game, so it might be that a 360-era game running on a current platform with changes to how the 3D backgrounds render might be a problem...

However, I tended to feel that the mix of 2D and 3D helped make a divide between what you play and the frills you're enjoying in the background. (Backgrounds in fighting games are generally interchangeable and don't affect the gameplay anyway, so as long as they don't distract your timing and visibility, I kind of don't care if they're 3D or 2D or flat grid/black-and-white... although there are some beautiful backgrounds in fighting games.)

 

[Keihart]

I haven't seen an upscaled/up-processed game, so it might be that a 360-era game running on a current platform with changes to how the 3D backgrounds render might be a problem...

However, I tended to feel that the mix of 2D and 3D helped make a divide between what you play and the frills you're enjoying in the background. (Backgrounds in fighting games are generally interchangeable and don't affect the gameplay anyway, so as long as they don't distract your timing and visibility, I kind of don't care if they're 3D or 2D or flat grid/black-and-white... although there are some beautiful backgrounds in fighting games.)

Anyway most of this has been solved by Arcsystemworks now with their 2D looking 3D characters.
Skullgirls used some vector stuff i think, that game keeps looking good even now at higher resolutions.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[cireza]

They still look good. Problem is that people are playing these games on HD TVs.

Put them on a CRT and it will be glorious. KOF99 Evolution is superb on Dreamcast in 240p RGB SCART.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

look ok, but 2d-on-2d is my preference.

 

[Cattlyst]

I always thought 3D backgrounds in 2D fighters looked pretty good. Especially back when said titles such as SNK 2 were contemporary. It was all new, was a bit of a novelty to see such visual techniques

 

[TGO]

Nope, 2D will always look good decades from now.
3D will always age

To be fair we're at the point when 3D Can replicate this in higher details.
I don't think those will age as much.

 

[nush]

3D will always age

The early vector wireframe and flat shaded poly games from the arcade have an artistic look to them now and have aged gracefully. Later textured poly games, not so much.

 

[Naked Lunch]

Always hated it.
Looks dumb now - and looked dumb back then.
This is the moment when game devs got lazy. Its been over 20 years and the best backgrounds are still the 2d ones from Street Fighter 3 Double Impact, Last Blade, and the 2D Samurai Shodowns.

 

[Archaic101]

Yeah, I'm not a fan. While the 3d backgrounds looked decent on a CRT, they really don't juxtapose well with the 2D sprites when displayed at a higher resolution (like the PS3/360 port of MvC2).

 

[AREYOUOKAY?]

A thread perfect for this game


also something from the Sega Saturn

 

[March Climber]

Nope, 2D will always look good decades from now.
3D will always age

I think we've passed the point where your phrase can change to 'good art will always look good' instead of just 2D in general. 3D tech has evolved to help us achieve art styles we thought weren't possible until recently.

From the toy-like Link's Awakening and Lego games:

to Yoshi's Crafted World, Tearaway, and LBP imitating paper and cloth:

To doing anime and cartoons almost as good as you remember them to be:

I think we've reached a comfortable point with 3D and 3D mixing with 2D seamlessly.

 

[Laieon]

I think we've passed the point where your phrase can change to 'good art will always look good' instead of just 2D in general. 3D tech has evolved to help us achieve art styles we thought weren't possible until recently.

From the toy-like Link's Awakening and Lego games:

to Yoshi's Crafted World, Tearaway, and LBP imitating paper and cloth:

To doing anime and cartoons almost as good as you remember them to be:

I think we've reached a comfortable point with 3D and 3D mixing with 2D seamlessly.

Yep, and there's plenty of people out there (like me) who prefer GC WW over WWHD (I'd still be more than happy with a switch port of HD though, it's my favorite game) due to the bloom being a mixed bag in the ladder.

I don't think aging art styles has much to do with 2D vs 3D as much as it does realism vs stylized.

To this day, one of the most memorable places I've been to in a video game is Lavitz' house in Legend of Dragoon, and a large part of that is because of how cozy the art direction is. The character models haven't aged well at all though, and I really wish I could see what this scene in particular would look like with a modern remake.

 

[March Climber]

Yep, and there's plenty of people out there (like me) who prefer GC WW over WWHD (I'd still be more than happy with a switch port of HD though, it's my favorite game) due to the bloom being a mixed bag in the ladder.

I don't think aging art styles has much to do with 2D vs 3D as much as it does realism vs stylized.

To this day, one of the most memorable places I've been to in a video game is Lavitz' house in Legend of Dragoon, and a large part of that is because of how cozy the art direction is. The character models haven't aged well at all though, and I really wish I could see what this scene in particular would look like with a modern remake.

I do agree with your larger point but to be fair to SlimeGooGoo , I think screenshots like yours were what they were thinking of when saying '3D will always age'. The PS1, PS2, and early-PS3 gens were not kind to even the most artistic of 3D games. It's the reason I decided against using Jet Set Radio Future, Baiten Kaitos, or Auto Modelista as examples above. They've just barely aged out of their styles.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[March Climber]

SlimeGooGoo I think if a dev team wanted to, they could match those screenshots you've just posted with 3D assets and you'd have a hard time telling the two apart. I still remember a ton of people being amazed at Guilty Gear XRD's first trailer because they were not expecting the camera to actually spin around the characters.

Also, let's remember Xbox 360/PS3 Bastion used 3D assets but looked like this:

Again I think not only is it entirely possible, but also I think we've clearly passed that point a while ago. The only thing actually holding dev teams back at this point from not making 3D games that look like your screenshots is simply if they want to do it or not and if it will sell.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[March Climber]

Bastion is 2D, the only thing 3D are the characters

To be technical, the environments have a mix of 2D and 3D as well.



They created the art for most of the environment blocks, boxes, and objects that would need to move around, and then converted them to 3D, but worked on them further to make them appear 2D. It seems to have worked because you(and others) believe the environment is fully 2D.

I think otherwise, it's currently just not possible. To this day I have not seem a single 3D game that matches the same aesthetic, because like I said, they are different beasts.

Stylized cel shaded 3D has a unique look, and pure 2D has another.
Trying to make 3D look 2D is a lost battle, will always look uncanny and misses the point.

Unfortunately, there's no way for me to convince you since, well, you're you, and it's subjective from your point of view. The best I can do is provide good examples of games that are proof of concept and examples of other people truly thinking and feeling a 3D game or object was 2D when they saw it.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[radewagon]

From an aesthetic perspective, I prefer the look of 2D characters with 2D backgrounds, but from a gameplay perspective, I prefer the contrast that comes from having the different rendering styles. The fact that the 2D characters never really blend well with the 3D background visuals makes it easier for me to track what's going on. Especially in a frantic game like MvC2, being able to so easily differentiate the characters from the backgrounds is supremely useful.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

While Sega enjoyed significant success with games developed for it’s System 16 hardware platform, Shinobi and Golden Axe were far from the most sophisticated games on the block.

That honour is reserved for games comprising Sega’s high-end, Super Scaler series of arcade titles, games which made extensive use of 2D sprites to create 3D-like effects and environments.

Originally conceived and developed by programmer and producer Yu Suzuki, these games proved to be so advanced that no home console of the day had the power to recreate the experience of these custom boards.

Why use sprites in such fashion? Well, true 3D rendering required significant processing power to achieve even the most basic of wire-frame constructs, especially given the tools and software available in the mid 80s. The super scaler technology is, in some respects, an ingenious solution – cheat even – to the problem of creating convincing 3D in a world that wasn’t quite ready for it.

This video covers the best arcade games in the use of Sega's super scaler technology. A game curation showcasing the capabilities of each iteration of Sega's innovative pseudo-3D technology

In this video you will find:

• A game curation with featuring the best looking Sega Super Scaler Games
• Information related to each game such as release date, developer company, game genre and system it was released on.
• Official game box arts with a 3D presentation.
• Educative and/or critical comments on the importance of the video game and why you should play it

0:00 Intro
0:15 Hang-On
0:40 Space Harrier
1:05 OutRun
1:30 Enduro Racer
1:55 After Burner
2:20 After Burner II
2:45 Super Hang-On
3:10 Thunder Blade
3:36 Galaxy Force II
4:01 Power Drift
4:26 Turbo Outrun
4:51 Super Monaco GP
5:16 Line of Fire
5:41 A.B.Cop: Air Bike
6:06 G-LOC Air Battle
6:31 Rad Mobile
6:56 Title Fight
7:21 Air Rescue
7:46 Arabian Fight
8:11 OutRunners
8:36 Dark Edge
9:00 GP Rider
9:25 Dragon Ball Z V.R.V.S
9:50 Outro

 

[U n i o n 0015]

Necro-bumping this thread because I went down the rabbit hole of playing Samurai Shodown 6, which used this art style, and remembered why I disliked it. You feel like you're looking at a persistently out-of-focus image because the backgrounds are sharp but the characters are pixelated. This becomes exacerbated if you run the games beyond their original resolution on emulators.

I've found the best compromise seems to be running them at original resolution and throwing an excellent CRT filter on top, like MegaBezel. Then the 2D and 3D elements blend together well.