Your thoughts on franchises gone 3D?

[Segataritensoftii]

To a retro gamer, the third dimension is like a beast. It chews up franchises and regurgitates them, often leaving them without their charm or fun factor. Because of this, most classic gamers instinctively fear 3D and try to keep away from it.

 

So I wanted to ask you, when did you see your favorite franchises go 3D? Did it cause you to stop believing in said franchise? Or, barring Mario 64, did it make it the best game ever? What was the worst 3D game you've ever played?(barring Bubsy 3D) How would you make the 3D versions better? I'd really like to know.

 

Update: Just found a really interesting article on 3D games. It offers some nice design tips and talks about what went wrong when games started moving into 3D. I kinda wish the article was written in 1995 instead of 2003. If that happened, there might have been a lot less crappy "me too" 3D evolutions of franchises out there.

Edited May 13, 2007 by Segataritensoftii

[Scumdogg]

First of all, congratulations on an interesting topic.

 

When i think of 3D ruining things, i immediately focus in on Castlevania. I don't care what anyone says, there has never and will never be a good 3D Castlevania game. The best you're going to get is a decent Devil May Cry clone with a whip, but it doesn't feel like a Castlevania game. Thank god the portables are keeping this franchise alive, but i can't help but think how beautiful a straight 2D console release could be at this point.

 

Every Sonic game i've ever played in 3D has felt pretty lackluster, as poorly designed 3D environments reduce you to plodding Sonic around cautiously for the majority of the game. Again, something that would look and play amazing if it returned to 2D on a console.

 

The Metroid series has gotten pretty mediocre in the move to 3D...i still buy and play the games, and they're not terrible...but they're bland and a bit boring when looked at from the perspective of an FPS. Metroid Prime 1 and 2 were okay games, they're small fish in the big pond of the FPS world, instead of being at the top of the heap in 2D.

 

Probably the biggest problem inherent in 3D, as far as i'm concerned, was that it took so damn long to make most games look even the slightest bit attractive. The N64/PS1/Saturn era will always and forever be the one i care about the least, because the terrible and primitive attempts at 3D literally hurt my eyes if i attempt to play for too long. The best games of this era are the ones that remained 2D, it's unfortunate that they're so few and far between.

 

On the flipside, even though i think the N64 installments are pretty ugly, i will say that Zelda is one franchise that seems to have benefited greatly from the move to 3D. A Link to the Past is still my favorite, but Wind Waker is a close second, and the N64 installments still stand as two of the most playable games on the N64 today.

[vdub_bobby]

I think Zelda and Ninja Gaiden made brilliant transitions to 3D, Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong made OK transitions (I've never really understood the love for SMB64, but maybe its cuz I came late to the party).

 

I'm not real familiar with others...

[Avid Fan]

Duke Nukem all the way

But that wasnt real 3D

 

We all know GTA was the best to make it to 3D

[Segataritensoftii]

First of all, congratulations on an interesting topic.

 

When i think of 3D ruining things, i immediately focus in on Castlevania. I don't care what anyone says, there has never and will never be a good 3D Castlevania game. The best you're going to get is a decent Devil May Cry clone with a whip, but it doesn't feel like a Castlevania game. Thank god the portables are keeping this franchise alive, but i can't help but think how beautiful a straight 2D console release could be at this point.

 

Every Sonic game i've ever played in 3D has felt pretty lackluster, as poorly designed 3D environments reduce you to plodding Sonic around cautiously for the majority of the game. Again, something that would look and play amazing if it returned to 2D on a console.

 

The Metroid series has gotten pretty mediocre in the move to 3D...i still buy and play the games, and they're not terrible...but they're bland and a bit boring when looked at from the perspective of an FPS. Metroid Prime 1 and 2 were okay games, they're small fish in the big pond of the FPS world, instead of being at the top of the heap in 2D.

 

Probably the biggest problem inherent in 3D, as far as i'm concerned, was that it took so damn long to make most games look even the slightest bit attractive. The N64/PS1/Saturn era will always and forever be the one i care about the least, because the terrible and primitive attempts at 3D literally hurt my eyes if i attempt to play for too long. The best games of this era are the ones that remained 2D, it's unfortunate that they're so few and far between.

 

On the flipside, even though i think the N64 installments are pretty ugly, i will say that Zelda is one franchise that seems to have benefited greatly from the move to 3D. A Link to the Past is still my favorite, but Wind Waker is a close second, and the N64 installments still stand as two of the most playable games on the N64 today.

I personally like 3D games and find it amusing to see how various franchises handled the transition, but I'm okay if you don't like it. I think the worst thing about 3D platformers is that the models that could have worked well were either outright ignored(Jumping Flash games) or never made it out the door(Sonic Xtreme). Am I the only one who finds Mega Man Legends incredibly awkward? I look at the Jumping Flash games and think about how well a 3D Mega Man game would've worked around a similar formula. And I think I'm starting to become disheartened over Lemmings 3D. Level 2 is unusually difficult. If only there was a downwards facing camera so I could get a better look at my green-haired friends! If only the levels were easier! If only the game was isometric instead of in troublesome polygons! Sigh...

Every Sonic game i've ever played in 3D has felt pretty lackluster, as poorly designed 3D environments reduce you to plodding Sonic around cautiously for the majority of the game. Again, something that would look and play amazing if it returned to 2D on a console.

Sonic Robo Blast 2 handles Sonic in 3D quite well, although admittedly it's a bit harder to control than the 2D Sonics.

On the flipside, even though i think the N64 installments are pretty ugly, i will say that Zelda is one franchise that seems to have benefited greatly from the move to 3D. A Link to the Past is still my favorite, but Wind Waker is a close second, and the N64 installments still stand as two of the most playable games on the N64 today.

I think the game that handled the move to 3D the best was Pong. 3D Paddle Bash on the Mac changes it from something hopelessly dull into one of the most fun games ever.

[JB]

The Metroid series has gotten pretty mediocre in the move to 3D...i still buy and play the games, and they're not terrible...but they're bland and a bit boring when looked at from the perspective of an FPS. Metroid Prime 1 and 2 were okay games, they're small fish in the big pond of the FPS world, instead of being at the top of the heap in 2D.

But Prime wasn't an FPS.

It was a first-person action-adventure game.

 

That's sorta like saying Metroid 1 sucked as a Contra clone.

 

 

Personally, I think Prime 1 edged out Super Metroid for best Metroid ever, and it's on my list of best games ever.

 

 

 

I remember back when it was in development, and they'd just revealed it'd be first-person.

I was hoping for the best, but like everyone else I was pretty sure Prime was going to be a complete dog and that Metroid Fusion would be the one true Metroid sequel.

Kind of funny, in retrospect.

 

 

Probably the biggest problem inherent in 3D, as far as i'm concerned, was that it took so damn long to make most games look even the slightest bit attractive. The N64/PS1/Saturn era will always and forever be the one i care about the least, because the terrible and primitive attempts at 3D literally hurt my eyes if i attempt to play for too long. The best games of this era are the ones that remained 2D, it's unfortunate that they're so few and far between.

Seconded. There's some good work in there, but largely it's an example of making hardware do stuff it wasn't really capable of.

 

Not that I've put my PS games out to pasture, but they did NOT age well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personally, I've not played a whole lot of 3D incarnations of 2D franchises(at least, not ones I'd played while they were 2D also). At least, not in any genre where it affects gameplay(RType Final and Gradius V are both still scrolling shooters, and the effect is largely irrelevant to RPGs).

 

But Ninja Gaiden and Metroid pulled it off damn well(Heck, Tecmo's selling Ninja Gaiden 3D for the third time now). Castlevania failed to pull it off at all.

 

FZero I approached backwards. I played the Gamecube game, then grabbed the SNES one for a bit. Suffice it to say I'm not sure where the appeal of the SNES one lies.

...

Reminds me, I need to grab one of the newer Mario Kart games. I love the SNES one.

[jboypacman]

Am going with Scummdog on this one.Making Castlevania into a 3D game is the biggest mistake Konami ever did.Am sorry but these games were ment to be 2D games in my humble opinion.

 

3-D mario games dont really cut it either for me but they are a step above the 3-D Castlevania games and other 2-D classics such as Frogger being done in 3-D are just bad,but again this is just my opinion.Am sure there are thoses out there that enjoy these conversions.To each there own i guess the old saying goes.

[bust3dstr8]

I just noticed this in one of my recent purchases. Raiden III is just an empty shell, when compared to the 2D Raiden II. The 2D game had great interactive backgrounds and Raiden III is full of tons of poly blaaaaaaaaaahness

[AtariJr]

First of all, congratulations on an interesting topic.

 

Thank you for saying that :rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

 

Seriously, that was great and so needed to be said.

 

 

 

As far as the topic goes, I don't have many series that started out 2d that went 3d... most started and ended on one or the other.

 

The few I can think of though include Outrun, Fatal Fury, and Blaster Master. All those 2d --> 3d games sucked pretty bad.

[Scumdogg]

I'll second Ninja Gaiden as being an amazing translation to 3D. That said...a new 2D Ninja Gaiden would be sweet.

 

Seriously though, this brings up something i think about all the time...with the comparatively low effort and development time required to make a decent 2D platformer, why the hell aren't more developers looking in this direction? The amount of people interested in buying them can't be *that* small, especially if they were priced a few bucks lower than the higher dev. cost 3D games.

Think about the beautiful animation and level design companies like Virgin were cranking out on the SNES and Genesis. Now extrapolate that out to the 360, where there would really be no limit to the fluidity or detail. Think about how that could look applied to Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man....I can't be the only one wishing games had continued to evolve in that direction.

[JB]

The few I can think of though include Outrun, Fatal Fury, and Blaster Master. All those 2d --> 3d games sucked pretty bad.

Blaster Master: Blasting Again's issues extended well beyond the move from sprites to polys.

 

Actually, the Blaster Master formula lends itself well to 3D... it just wasn't given a chance.

[shadow460]

Gex was better in 2D. I can't get into the N64 versions at all.

Command & Conquer was perhaps also better in 2D, although the N64 version isn't totally awful. On the PC side, Emperor: Battle for Dune was an amazing leap into 3D for the RTS genre.

Daytona USA completed a great transition from 2 to 3D for racing games. If they all stayed looking like Virtua Racing, we wouldn't have some of the better racers today. No SCUD Race, no Episode I arcade, no Hydro Thunder, etc.

[AtticGamer]

Mario made a good transition to 3D it even matched Super Mario World in Super Mario 64, while Sonic went downhill.

Street Fighter never really worked for me in 3D just I always stuck with II and Alpha series.

[Video]

For the most part, games that started out 2D and went 3D sucked. One of the rare exceptions was Duke Nukem, which was just an average side scroller befor they made it FPS. Also, on eof the few things out there that made great transitions to 3D was raceing games. Very little was added to fighters or sports games going 3D, other than extra camera controlls to mess with., and honestly, most of my favorite games, while not necessairly horrible, weren't as good as 3D games. Sonic comes to mind, it's a lot bigger than the side scrollers, but it's slow as hell, and annoying to controll. Mario 64, was like a step backwards. Yes, 3D, but they took out most of the cool stuff that was in the previous games. And apparenlty I'm the only person on the plannet that absolutely could not stnad the crappy Zelda games on the 64.

 

IMO, Nintendo really waiste da good chance on the GBC and GBA to make a great truely unique Mario game o there, but instead all we got was rereleases of older games.

[cyberfluxor]

As a young teenager I really liked Bubsy for the Genesis. Playing Bubsy 2, well it was different but I could handle it. Bubsy 3D... Oh what the hell.

[Segataritensoftii]

Well guys, it seems the move to 3D was just the beginning. It's going to get a lot

 

Or maybe not. I don't think there will be nearly as much of a drive to go 4D as there was for 3D. Besides, we don't actually live there.

[Pixelboy]

IHMO, the fondamental reason why 2D games rarely make good transitions to 3D is related to play mechanics. Gamers who grew up during the 2D era (Atari 2600 to SNES/Genesis) developed a preference (some could even say "fondness") for games that they could get into quickly, without the need to read a 24+ page manual just to understand the controls and in-game features. In a 2D platform game, you walk/run, you press a button to jump, another button to shoot, and you learn the rest as you play. In an old-school RPG, you move characters around a world map, engage in random battles and experience the game's feature through an easy-to-use menu system. In a shoot'em-up, you manoeuver your little ship in a 2D plane and shoot everything that moves. Almost all of the 2D classics take seconds to learn and get into, and that's where their enduring appeal lies.

 

And then there's 3D, which introduced us to the joy of having 10 different buttons on our controllers, with each new 3D game using these 10 buttons in a different way. Under these conditions, learning the controls and getting into a game is a far more time-consuming affair, and when the actual game is not that good to begin with, is it so surprising that many people look back to the "old days" with nostalgia?

 

I could never get into Resident Evil because of the unintuitive tank-like controls, and it took me over a week to get comfortable with Metroid Prime's control scheme (and I cursed the controls abundantly during that cringe-inducing first week). Mega Man Legends was fun, but you have to master circle-straffing in order to give yourself a real chance in battle situations, and it takes a lot of practice for circle-straffing to become second-nature.

 

With 3D, you get a wonderful sense of immersion (especially when playing on a big screen) which 2D can't really replicate, but 2D offers far easier play mechanics, so in the end, those who prefer 3D over 2D are those who spent years playing with 10-button controllers and don't have a problem with complex control schemes. And most of the 3D classics that appeal even to 2D gamers (like SMB 64) usually have intuitive and comfortable controls, so this tends to prove my point that it's really all in the play mechanics. 3D games that are "proposed evolutions" of 2D franchises may offer better graphics, but if the immersion factor is ruined by complex play mechanics, players often end up preferring the original 2D incarnations.

[joeybastard]

There are no 3D installments of a franchise that I like better than the 2D installment. SM64 is the most successful one for me. I know folks will mention GTA but I never found those games to be terribly fun in 2 or 3D.

[+davidcalgary29]

There are no 3D installments of a franchise that I like better than the 2D installment. SM64 is the most successful one for me. I know folks will mention GTA but I never found those games to be terribly fun in 2 or 3D.

 

I'll give you another good example: Missile Command. While excellent fun on many platforms in 2D, it was made even more awesome on the Jag in Missile Command 3D.

 

In fact, I think that Atari was on the right track with 3D development right at the end of the Jag's life, and we might have seen some great stuff if the platform had survived just a bit longer. I've always wanted to play Dactyl Joust, which would have been a superb 3D enhancement, and I think that Centipede 2000 would have been excellent. A pity we're never going to find out.

[maibock]

Pretty much all the sports titles began sucking upon reaching 3D status..

[Cybergoth]

I heard Metal Gear and Prince of Persia have enjoyable 3D versions.

[Pengwin]

Prince of Persia 3D was terrible. It lost all the charm of the first two 2D games and was really horrible to control.

 

(Needless to say - but I'm going to say it anyway - I'm referring to the game that preceded Sands of Time)

[galaxy warrior]

i think 2d should be a standard format by which isnt reguarded as updatable outside of the 2d realm. theres a certain kind of fun and instant playiblity that comes with 2d. its great yet simple yet challenging but not insulting which is what is happening with alot of games today they scare off new gamers. that was never the case back in the day.

[AtariJr]

its why i support games that are 2d but are modern, like alien hominid for example. im happy that some developers realize you dont need to have 3d in order to make a fun game.

[edweird13]

Has anyone said the EA NHL series. I loved the 92-94 versions of hockey on the Master System thats why I bought one. I cant play any 3D sports game now.