Having recently reviewed Raiden III, and thinking of other games such as R-Type Final (which I tried out, and didn't like, so I haven't played much) and Castle Shikagami and Gunbird, and others I don't have yet...
These are all classic 2D shooter games, but they have 3D rendered backgrounds.
In some aspects, this is cool. It provides a nice link between the 2D gameplay we like, and the modern 3D graphics the ignorant massess require (pardon the sarcasm
). Instead of just 2, 3, or 4 layers of parallax scrolling, you get true perspective scrolling. You can get better interaction with the scenery, such as damage and collisions.
But there's a couple of aspects I don't like. The first is that the gameplay usually is disconnected from the background. The ships you fly in shooters don't fly with physics. They move up, down, left, and right in arcade-style direct correspondence with button presses. But now that the backgrounds are 3D rendered, the backgrounds tend to follow regular physics engines. Sometimes during the game, the ships course alters, and it veers left, or right, takes off at high speed. The ship physics of course remain the same, left, right, up, down, but the backgrounds start rotating and whizzing by underneath you, and it suddenly becomes obvious that there's a complete disconnect between the ship/enemies and the background.
With fully 2D games, the backgrounds are kept connected with the ships better. Not because they tried harder, but just because they kept things simpler. The graphics just scroll with the ship, and parallax to show speed and distance. Simpler, in this case, ends up looking better.
The other aspect I don't like is the color schemes. I don't know how much of this is to blame on modern 24-bit color systems (versus 256-color systems), and how much is to blame on 3D graphics and it's use of unrealistic shading techniques and more realistic textures. But on the 3D games, the backgrounds have more normal colors. Grays and browns and washed out shades. And all the shading means things are always fading into shadows (or fog, kami forbid). And the ships have more realistic colors and textures, which are more earthy and industrial tones. And everything is smoothed together, so there's no edges, and no contrast.
Now with 2D games on low-color systems, the ships were bright colors and had high contrast in both color and shape to the background, and enemy ships had bright, contrasting colors. And it was easy to see what on the screen was a ship and a bright, blocky bullet, versus the background.
Besides the bright colors and contrasting textures being more visually appealing, the game was also easier to "understand what's going on" (I won't say actually easier to play. In fact, the older games tend to be harder to play, but you didn't lose because you couldn't tell the difference between the bullet and the background, or you lost visual on your ship, but because the game just kicked your @$$).
Interestingly enough, the first gen of transition games from 2D to 3D I actually liked, since they used plain polygons, rather than textures. And the low-color palete polygons on lower-resolution systems still had the bright colors and edge contrast needed to see everything right. Games like Silpheed and Starblade. Surprisingly, the texture-mapped version of Starblade is actually not as fun as the polygon version.
These are all classic 2D shooter games, but they have 3D rendered backgrounds.
In some aspects, this is cool. It provides a nice link between the 2D gameplay we like, and the modern 3D graphics the ignorant massess require (pardon the sarcasm
). Instead of just 2, 3, or 4 layers of parallax scrolling, you get true perspective scrolling. You can get better interaction with the scenery, such as damage and collisions.But there's a couple of aspects I don't like. The first is that the gameplay usually is disconnected from the background. The ships you fly in shooters don't fly with physics. They move up, down, left, and right in arcade-style direct correspondence with button presses. But now that the backgrounds are 3D rendered, the backgrounds tend to follow regular physics engines. Sometimes during the game, the ships course alters, and it veers left, or right, takes off at high speed. The ship physics of course remain the same, left, right, up, down, but the backgrounds start rotating and whizzing by underneath you, and it suddenly becomes obvious that there's a complete disconnect between the ship/enemies and the background.
With fully 2D games, the backgrounds are kept connected with the ships better. Not because they tried harder, but just because they kept things simpler. The graphics just scroll with the ship, and parallax to show speed and distance. Simpler, in this case, ends up looking better.
The other aspect I don't like is the color schemes. I don't know how much of this is to blame on modern 24-bit color systems (versus 256-color systems), and how much is to blame on 3D graphics and it's use of unrealistic shading techniques and more realistic textures. But on the 3D games, the backgrounds have more normal colors. Grays and browns and washed out shades. And all the shading means things are always fading into shadows (or fog, kami forbid). And the ships have more realistic colors and textures, which are more earthy and industrial tones. And everything is smoothed together, so there's no edges, and no contrast.
Now with 2D games on low-color systems, the ships were bright colors and had high contrast in both color and shape to the background, and enemy ships had bright, contrasting colors. And it was easy to see what on the screen was a ship and a bright, blocky bullet, versus the background.
Besides the bright colors and contrasting textures being more visually appealing, the game was also easier to "understand what's going on" (I won't say actually easier to play. In fact, the older games tend to be harder to play, but you didn't lose because you couldn't tell the difference between the bullet and the background, or you lost visual on your ship, but because the game just kicked your @$$).
Interestingly enough, the first gen of transition games from 2D to 3D I actually liked, since they used plain polygons, rather than textures. And the low-color palete polygons on lower-resolution systems still had the bright colors and edge contrast needed to see everything right. Games like Silpheed and Starblade. Surprisingly, the texture-mapped version of Starblade is actually not as fun as the polygon version.
