Should the Pokémon series return to 2D games?
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@RememberMidis I don't personally like the term "demake", since it implies that 2D is inherently a step down rather than a different design choice today, but I know it has a fair amount of popular usage and for most people it communicates the concept well, so I accept that may just have to be the term we use.
I really like that concept though. I would love to see the modern games' world's, characters and Pokémon reimagined and represented through sprites and 2D graphics. Given that until the current generation the games had a fixed camera anyway (excluding SwSh's wild area, which could easily be adapted), not much would actually have to change about the map designs.
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@GeneralScout Were Gamefreak to put in the effort to animate the 3D models and attack animations more dynamically and expressively, it could look very good. No technique is necessarily inherently superior or inferior. It depends how you use it.
But they have to do that in addition to modeling and animating the 3D human characters, designing and populating the 3D world and make sure it all works and collides properly.
For sprites, having the Pokémon jumping up and down and shooting pixel beams at each other works. It is an abstraction representing how that attack might look in the "real world", but because the 2D games do not have to depict and actual, 3D environment, it works.
It is the same reason cities in the 2D games can be represented by less than a dozen buildings. It is not a literal portrayal of a city in the Pokémon world.
In 3D however the games appear much closer to an approximation of the real world. When a 3D model stands there, then hops up and down without moving it's legs, and fires a beam out of its shoulder, it is going to take you out of the experience and look very lazy. It is an action that maps much more closely onto our understanding of how such a creature might move and attack in the real world.
Since Gamefreak do not want to spend the resources presenting 3D movement more accurately and would rather use their old 2D animation techniques on 3D models, why not just go the whole hog and use 2D for the whole endeavour?
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with what they did to typhlosions flames makes me want to destroy the idea of Pokémon games being 3d
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and 3d models just feel dull
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I used to believe that maybe 3D models aren't that bad. They still have some soul. But one day playing BW2, I encountered a Heatmor and thought it looked super cool and lively, and the fire on its body looks really bright and awesome.
And then I wondered what the 3D sprite was like...
This is the 2D version
I tend to ignore most things like this but this is what made me realise what a downgrade 3D models are. They barely move, they don't pose, they simply stand there blankly, doing one of their two or three animations once in a while. This thing looked so fiery, so strong in 2D, but in 3D, it's just… standing. Obviously it would not sell very much, people see 3D or open world and immediately assume that means better (as proven by SV), but I hope they stop making open world games at least, so they can take time to flesh out the locations and we don't get another Zapapico or nearly empty routes ever again. The games gen 1-8 felt like a real world, realer than an open world with realistic textures even though it looked so stylised and you can't go everywhere, because you could interact with it. There were people, there were things everywhere, the towns had places of interest other than gyms, the areas and their themes were beautiful, the world just felt real. It's hard to explain why I like Pokémon, but the closest I can get is saying how the world felt. It's a big reason of why despite hundreds of hours of playtime, SV are not really my favourites. I hope they at least go back to that.
(Sorry if I made some mistakes writing this or it looks weird. I hate rereading my comments and I am horrible at communication.)
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Also, BW/BW2 were definitely the best looking Pokémon games. The colours, the character sprites and designs, the locations, the gorgeous music backing it all up. Everything. Everytime I go to N's castle, I'm always in awe of how it looks, it's enhanced by some of the best music in the series that fits it perfectly, and the story just makes it even cooler. I'm a huge fan of the 3DS games but I admit that nothing in any of the other games, past, present, and future, can ever come close to that place.
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Oh, hey. I am surprised to see this thread resurface after almost a year.
But yes. A lot was lost when the games changed from sprites to 3D models.
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