"2D Vs. 3D Graphics" Conflict

[jireh the provider]

If you guys replied to my Thread "The PokeMMO Conflict", here is our next discussion.

Now with the completion of the Unova Saga, many fans are speculating that the Main Series should already move on to the 3DS with all of its 3D form and glory like its fellow spin offs Like Pokedex 3D Pro, Pokemon Rumble Blast, and the Recent release of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Magnagate and the Infinite Labyrinth.

But did you know that Junichi Masuda has a reason why the Main Series has stayed in 2D Graphics in the early generations (Gen 4 and 5 started to have some 3D elements molded, which makes these gens an ambiguous exception). So what are the conflicts with having pokemon 2D Sprites against Pokemon 3D sprites?

Here's a confirmed reason explained by Masuda himself.

"There are definitely good aspects to both 3D and 2D. For example if you look at the Pokémon on the package you can really see how cool it looks as a 2D illustration and in the games, for the Pokémon characters, one of the reasons we use sprites, at least currently, is because we like to have more of a comical, kind of look like an animation, this kind of visual style is what we want to do for the Pokémon games. If we were able to take that style we have now and have it translate into 3D with no problems; that is definitely something we would be into. However, it’s not just about the visual appearance either. The feeling and the control of the character is also very important to us. There is definitely a certain feeling you have when you control these 2D characters. It may be different if we switched over to 3D."

Truth is, I found one interesting quote for this topic.

I think the problem is that a lot of current fans (especially those of us that grew up with the games) have nostalgic feelings associated with the more retro feel of sprites, but in order to keep the interest of future fans (and to keep up to date with current generation hardware) there'll come a point where they have to abandon the old school feel. What happens when the successor to the 3DS comes out? It's just not feasible for them to keep using antiquated technology in the face of hardware like the 3DS or beyond.

I can say that I have 3 kinds of Visual Gamers that I can classify, and how they can relate to any video game that they play.

a. Imaginative Visionary - these are the players who can relate with 2D sprites and who have imaginative minds that can fill the rest of the details. Thus, they are the kind of visual gamer who can easily visualize a 2D characters sprite as a 3D character in their minds. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Pokemon Main Series, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Series (excluding the Magnagate and the Infinite Labyrinth) supports this.

b. Creative Visionary / Support Visionary - these are the visual players in favor in full mass 3D Graphics. There are 2 hypothetical reasons. These kinds of visuals desire their games to be as close to "reality life" as possible to actually feel and see the entire creativity right before their eyes, and the other reason would be that certain players struggle to have "mental visual imagination" (seeing the full 3D look of a 2D are inside the gamer's mind) in their Gameplay experiences. Pokemon Coliseum and XD Gale of Darkness, battle Revolution, Pokedex 3D Pro, and Pokepark Series Supports this.

c. Amalgamation Visionary - this gamer is a hybrid of the previous 2 forms. They can imagine 2D sprites as 3D models in their minds, just not in level with the "Imaginative Visionary's" level of imagination. This is where 3D joins with 2D, yet this kind of Visionary only needs little 3D reinforcement parts for the characters in order for this kind of visionary to fully visualize the character in their minds. The Best Examples would be the 4th and 5th Generation of the Pokemon Main Series, Pokemon Rumble Blast, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and the Infinite Labyrinth.

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Now here are the debatable questions:

a. What kind of Visionary Gamer (refer above) would be the most dominant here in Pokemon? Players during your childhood? Players today? For any human age you want to describe?

b. What are the Pros and Cons of 2D and 3D? Their development stages of construction? Other factors?

c. How deep is the connection of both 2D and 3D respectively to the gamers? In other series (optional)?

d. Does amalgamating 2D and 3D sprites and Graphics bring out the harmony of almost every kind of visual gamer?

e. What kind of visualization and creativity do you personally favor? Favored by the video gaming communities?

[pikachu725]

I think that if they do anything else in 5th gen, It'll stay on the DS, BUT if it goes into 6th gen, that'll be on the 3DS. With that being said, I would like to see something maybe like a Super Mario 64 Overworld style for the traveling, and battles that look like the Stadium games, though, not that played out and slow. I think that with the people who would be playing on in the later games, they'd sort of expect it. It's like the Gameboy Color. A lot of games were still made for the gameboy, but sooner or later they made the switch, the same can be said with the 3DS. Sooner or later, all games will be made for the 3DS. Some Pros are that the graphics can be amazing, and may be able to create amazing vision effects like in Stadium (and dare I say Battle Revolution). Howeer it may cause a bit of space issues...

But that's just my thoughts.

[SS_Ａｐｐｅｎｄ]

many fans are speculating that the Main Series should already move on to the 3DS with all of its 3D form and glory like its fellow spin offs Like Pokedex 3D Pro, Pokemon Rumble Blast, and the Recent release of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Magnagate and the Infinite Labyrinth.

It's no longer speculation. 6th Gen is confirmed to be on the 3DS.

e. What kind of visualization and creativity do you personally favor?

I prefer 2D, to let my imagination do the work and fill in the gaps. Plus it's more nostalgic too.

[Will-powered Spriter]

I'd like to see the overworld become full 3D, with a controllable camera and everything. I think Castelia City works really well, and I think its time to throw off the shackles of all houses facing the same direction. The current grid system would have to go, but I don't think that's too much of a loss.

As for the battle, I'm not sure. I used to want a Paper Mario-esque style, so instead of 3D models, it would just use very large sprites. I think this would work very well with the style of 5th gen, the animations being made from rotational segments as opposed to frames, and zooming in and out would no longer look so sucky.
The only problem with this is the 3DS. With 3D turned on, it would become instantly obvious that the sprites are completely flat. As such, 3d models may be the best way to go. As long as they can prevent the slow pacing of battles that plagues the console games.

Edit:
This is what I meant by large sprites:
http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/o...6GenCynda2.gif
Like that but obviously better quality.

[dirkac]

It's no longer speculation. 6th Gen is confirmed to be on the 3DS.

Where did you get thsi from?


I think that they'll most likely create a 3DS with capabilities for 3DS games to connect to DS games first, as otherwise there'll be another generation gap. eg. II to III.

I do think though that it's highly likely, and that the spinoffs might be a sign of that.

But it's also possible that the amount of spinoffs on the 3DS means that they are to be on 3DS, with the main stream (except for cases such as Colleseum and XD) games to stay on the main handhelds, unless the 3DS would sell much better than the DS and it's games.

[SS_Ａｐｐｅｎｄ]

Where did you get thsi from?

Generation VI will be on the 3DS, guaranteed.

Straight from the horse's mouth.

[PokeTimmy]

Straight from the horse's mouth.

Serebii is a horse?

Suddenly it all makes sense...

[Hidden Power]

For me, a game with a completely 3D environment isn't always a better game, especially for turn-based strategy, side scrolling platform/fighting games, and even RPG games with turn-based battle system. For example, I consider Final Fantasy VI to be superior to X simply because of the more in-depth storyline. I find the side-scrolling battle system of One Piece Gigant Battle 2 to be more enjoyable than the linear motion battle system in Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology. The last RPG I enjoyed was Radiant Historia, which didn't utilize 3D graphics and turned out to be an awesome game as well.

I've watched some videos of PBR on Youtube, and to be honest it's kind of silly to see the camera showing one Pokemon rushing forward, and then showing the enemy Pokemon flinching due to the attack, for certain moves that are just difficult to animate on certain Pokemon. Not to mention how slow the battle is paced. A 3D overworld with free movement rather than the grid-based one we have now would be interesting. Having Pokemon as 3D polygons instead of pixels would be interesting. But I won't love the game any more or less even if it stick to 2D graphics. The only flaw right now is that the sprites are heavily pixelated, especially when blown up on Youtube videos.

[AphoticVoid]

If the sprites are similar to the ones on Pokédex 3D, That would be super awesome. I would hate to see the same graphics used on the current Pokémon games, with all the sprites heavely pixelated.

[Arlo]

Not just as a contrarian, but as an adamant position - I don't care. I want the next game, and each game, to have a solid, balanced dex with engaging pokemon with useful and/or appropriate movesets and an engaging story played out in an interesting location. Graphics are secondary at best.

I make this point, and adamantly, because game devs have limited budgets and limited time, and every thing that is added to a game is added at the cost of something else. If they can develop and implement a non-cheesy 3D environment with quality gameplay and an imaginative and satisfying dex, then that's fine. If one or the other is going to be sacrificed, I'd MUCH prefer that it was the graphics. And I make this point because, far too often, devs listen to the fans who cry for fancy graphics and give them to them, but they do it at the cost of gameplay. I've seen that happen to too many franchises I love, and I really, REALLY don't want to see that happen to Pokemon.

[randomspot555]

While it is by no means "confirmed" to be on the 3DS (IE no games are announced, BW2s international release was recent, and we don't know the future Gen 5 plans as far as Game Freak goes just yet), retailers are selling DSi/DSiXLs at discount prices and are probably trying to clear out their stock and not in any huge rush to order more after the holiday season is over. It isn't confirmed, but it isn't a huge leap in logic to make.

But just because Pokemon is moving to the 3DS doesn't mean it'll be doing anything too cutting edge. One of the criticisms from the gaming "jouranlism" sites of Pokemon is that it usually doesn't push console limitations to the limits. And I'm fine with that. I don't play Pokemon for the bleeding edge graphics, I play it for the adventure of going on a journey with 6 of my favorite regional Pokemon of that region.

EDIT : Arlo says it perfectly. Worry about the game play first. If they want to mess around with new features after the game play is solid, that's cool. If we have a sucky 3ds side feature but with solid game play, then that just means the next batch of Gen 6 games will have a better 3ds feature.

[Ulicies]

In order to minimize sacrificing gameplay for graphics, perhaps they could just port the Pokedex Pro models over into their next game.

As for the Poke models, the sprites are nostalgic, but they're so pixelated now that they're starting to wear on me.

But as for the over-world/towns/locations, I've absolutely hated the "3D" look ever since 4th Gen. The buildings look like cardboard cut-outs due to the visual style of the graphics, and all of the locations have looked extremely ugly to me simply due to the pixellated "3D" models of 4th-5th Gen. I am BEGGING Game Freak to change the visual style of the over-world. Please move on to full 3D, at least for the roaming part!

[gamer_legend]

The 3D feature of a DS is completely optional so I think it's pretty redundant to complain about it's quality. That said it also seems highly unnecessary that it is mandatory for some games after they made absolutely no effort to incoorperate into the DSi whatsoever.

[Ulicies]

The 3D feature of a DS is completely optional so I think it's pretty redundant to complain about it's quality. That said it also seems highly unnecessary that it is mandatory for some games after they made absolutely no effort to incoorperate into the DSi whatsoever.

I'm not talking about the 3D effect in DS games. I'm talking about the horrible over-world design incorporated through "DS Pixellated Graphics" which ruined multiple other game series transitioning into the DS, like Yu-Gi-Oh.

The 3D models of the cover Pokemon in the starting screen for BW is a good example of bad visual style due to the "DS Graphics" style.

The bridges may be huge in BW, but their pixellated visual style is extremely ugly and bland, and this applies to the locations and building of 4th Gen DPP/HGSS as well.

Honestly, I would rather keep stationary sprites over awkward, robotic movements from 3D models. My imagination can make them more lifelike than the horrible movements seen in BW's "3D" models. I have yet to see all of the Pokdex 3D Pro models' movements, but I don't have much confidence in their fluidity.

[gamer_legend]

Oh I see. Well in that case. I do like the 3D features they're very sharp and animated and that does make the game alot more fun to play but it really does put a strain on the eyes. The trouble is when you're used to it everything that came before really seems underwhelming.

[AphoticVoid]

In order to minimize sacrificing gameplay for graphics, perhaps they could just port the Pokedex Pro models over into their next game.

As for the Poke models, the sprites are nostalgic, but they're so pixelated now that they're starting to wear on me.

But as for the over-world/towns/locations, I've absolutely hated the "3D" look ever since 4th Gen. The buildings look like cardboard cut-outs due to the visual style of the graphics, and all of the locations have looked extremely ugly to me simply due to the pixellated "3D" models of 4th-5th Gen. I am BEGGING Game Freak to change the visual style of the over-world. Please move on to full 3D, at least for the roaming part!

Yes.
I am one of those gamers who appreciate graphics and their quality, but it's true that I also want an engaging and fun experience that I always have had playing Pokémon.

[Blood Red Absol]

I like the idea of the games being in 3D.
I always pictured it keeping the 2D looking effects but layering it to become 3D (some pixels appear closer then other pixels)
Some may argue that it is very "uncreative" but I like the idea because it still keeps that sense of nostalgia.

[Thunderstrike18]

I also like the idea of Pokemon games being in 3D.
Instead of having the 2D inviriment the 3D aspect makes me feel like it make the game more real. It would be cool for me to see the Pokemon in 3D in a journey. It would make it feel to me more alive.

[Nutter t.KK]

I'm going to let this one stay open, As long as we don't stray too far in to actual game content.

Ok, Here goes.. Currently 3D component of 3DS games are optional, some games actually "disable" the 3d functions, as seen by the 3d light being off. The only ones that I know are Pokedex 3d (Partially), Pokédex 3d Pro (Partially) and Pokémon Dream Radar. It optional, but many games are least trying to use it.

We've seen PS2 games on the 3DS, and the type of Graphics we seen from almost all the games is about PSP/PS2/GCN to Wii Quality. The (Metal Gear Solid 3DS is a "port" of Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsidence. ) I personally think the 3DS can "replicate" Pokémon Colosseam with not much trouble.

Now Disgaea 3 and Disgaea 4 being on the PS3, you expect them to use 3d models for everything, but they do not. Instead they used Sprites for characters and Made the world in 3d.. Actually, if you notice that I've linked a trailer for the PSVita version of Disgaea 3 as it shows off the "weaknesses." And do you expect me not show off the Crazyness of the game. I don't have a PS3 or a Vita. Boom! Dood! The game play is actually quite decent, and it's reason 3 and 4 for wanting a PS3. I've bought Disgaea 1 & 2 twice already.

Disgaea being Strategy RPG with a cast of Hundreds, with significant Proportion of "monster" classes, and the ability for many characters to learn most skills. In Disgaea 1 & 2, I know everyone could learn every magic spell in game, and every "human" character could learn every weapon moves. And after that there are "team attack" moves where most characters have access to some crazy moves. (Disgaea 4 video shows the start of one at 1:28) While certain 3d Animation Techniques can work here, it doesn't help with monsters or Certain characters "Physical" limitations. Anyway, While the 3d Pokémon games may already do use this animation technique, but there is very few "similar" characters that can share poses. Plus there are issues with any new move that was not previously available certain Pokémon on the 3DS games, such as event Pokémon, and the "shards" Move Tutor.

I should get Lucario to dance..

One Final thing. The Game Cube disk could only about 1.5 GB, and the 3ds already have games that break the 4 Gigabyte limit: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/04/2...ion-of-storage

[Zachmac]

I love a good 3D game, and I would definitely consider it if they made another battle revolution type game, but honestly, I'd prefer to the main game series to stay 2D.

I think they actually do an amazing job with these 2D graphics. I can't get over how awesome some pokemon sprites look, but I'm still iffy about some 3D ones.

But in the end, I don't care all that much. It's pokemon, and I'll play it anyway, 3D or not.