@@TheRadioSquare Even if the Devs have enough money for the Sprites they still wouldn't not want to do it cause it's very stressful drawing 500 frames per character plus the 3D stages.
2d-HD games do have a market for players like me and (probably) you. In 3d animation, they do have to manage the number of polygons that move. If they don’t it’ll be hard to both create such games and be able to run it on an affordable hardware. Compared to that sprites with every follicle moving in every frame. The rest of the complications may also be eventually minimised using AI asset generators eventually. I’m going to put my contribution to revival of 2D games. 😊
There is an IGS fighting game at my arcade. It has really detailed animations with lots of frames. I know the board itself is more powerful than an MVS.
@@StarDragonJP You also want to check out XMen COTA. They really went in on making the sprites, from the next game onward, Marvel Super Heroes, they reduced the amount of frames to a standard they kept throughout MVC etc. I never even knew until a few years ago but COTA has ground dizzy/stun frames. I will also say that the Street Fighter 2 series has not just amazing sprite work but also art design in general. That game was truly ahead of times and lightning in a bottle. It still looks good even today which is one of the reasons it's still played and enjoyed by lots of people, all ages, all skill levels.
As a sprite animator, it's kind of a lost skill. I've been making them for over 20 years. Everything moved to HD sprites, and polygons. Now pixel sprite making is just a novelty.The animation part goes fairly fast, but cleaning up the sprites to be presentable takes a lot of time. Most of the time your just zoomed in looking at dots.
I've been messing around with ones based on the Final Fantasy & Romancing SaGa mobile games and it is crazy how some of these people are able to portray some of the characters in those games within the sprite limitations.
@@konstantdrachenfels5446 Regardless of the artistic nerd opinions, KOF 13 is still among the best fg sprites of all time, easily among top 5 of all time.
Have you seen Diesel Legacy:The Brazen Age? We did 100% hand drawn HD sprites and figured out how to do it economically by hiring the right talent and having the right internal pipeline and training/tools. It's possible to do it (as we've proven). It's just a matter of "you gotta want it bad enough and work hard for it". Essentially you have to believe in it as the ONLY choice for the game, because it's the right choice for a particular game.
Just because 3d graphics are more popular doesn't mean 2d is "dead". We still have 2d games releasing. Million Arthur, BBTag, Melty Blood Type Lumina, and Undernight Inbirth 2 being some notable ones over the past 6 years. Are there more games with 3d graphics? Yeah, but that goes for the video game industry in general and not just fighting games.
It's not just quantity... It's the fact that 2d games have very little attention. How does those games compare to new fgs 3d graphics in commercial and cultural performance. Also it's not possible to bring up the argument of those franchises (Melty, UNI, etc) being small... because lately we have been getting many retro releases of classics with rollback netcode from Capcom, SNK and Arcsys, yet none of those games had exciting commercial performance. KOF 13 ("the best looking SNK game and one of the best looking 2d games of all time") is available with rollback netcode, and still there are more people playing KOF 15 (with mediocre graphics for its release time and console technology). What can we say about that?
@@KT-rq9id Yeah, all companies that have legacy franchises and that have potential of sequels in the long term have switched to 3d. And the only 2d games left are from small franchises with little perspective of going big, so it's understandable that they stick to recycling sprites. And in the cases of truly updated sprites like Melty, the company simply has no hope of updating them further in the near future. Meanwhile all sequels from the bigger companies change the graphics, which helps getting people's attention and looking like more worthy products (that also becomes a gradually stronger concern as the game prices rise with the generations). That also means that the 2d fg industry in the recent era has to depends greatly on the good will of their small community... because paying for sequels with recycled sprites is really not good. But it happens that only this modern era, when the norm is 3d, can perfectly expose the problematic nature of selling recycled sequels, that was the norm in the 90s and early of the 00s. How can that model not be totally pulverized by modern releases of classic franchises that provide costume changes, moveset changes, cinematic moves, story cutscenes, etc? Note: I'm 35 and my first fgs were SF2, MK2 and FF2, and I love the 90s but I'd rather keep my critical thinking intact and not defend everything about the "golden era of fgs".
2D is replaced with 2.5D it does give the illusion that your playing a pure 2D fighter which is the right direction to go If you ask me, as it's less time consuming and cost a bit less
@enrique7934 DNF and GBVS begs to differ, the only problem is more needs to try that 2.5D with anime which is a problem moreso about the "investors" rather than the devs
I have zero interest in modern 3d fighting games honestly, Im 100% content with playing games from the 90s and 00s for fighting games. They run on just about anything and are simpler games in a good way. No shortcuts or special powers, just who has the better strategy and inputs wins.
@@nonamepasserbya6658 I don’t agree here at all Sidestep, sidewalking, backdash and kbd are all mechanics that make it 3d. The way the game is played always ensures you’re playing in 3D with those movement mechanics since that’s mainly what tekken is about. Movement. Since you’re trying to avoid mids and lows Virtua fighter and doa also have very fluid 3d movement The 8 way movement in soul calibur you can swiftly move side to side and backwards to avoid slashes So no Naruto games aren’t the only games with a 3d playing field. The Hell is that take lol
@@Mafon2 It had actual polygons but you're not quite right about shenanigans. They still were limited to 2D tiles that were later interpreted in 3D. The game had diagonal slopes but the actial levels has to adhere to a grid. So, every wall had to be at least 1 tile wide and could only go in one of the four directions. Which, in a way, makes it less 3D than Doom. Both also shared the limitation of vertically overlapping spaces. And then obviously you had the rest of the game emulating 3D with rotating sprites rather than actual 3D models.
Well 3d models may look good for their time but after a while they become eyesore. But 2d has a timeless look. I mean look at original virtua fighter, when it was released everyone was amazed but now it looks very bad. I mean the body parts look like boxes. But if u look at Street Fighter Alpha or Kino of Fighters 94 they still look really nice & never feels outdated.
@@RicochetForceAlso it's easy to update 3d graphics very well and keep satisfying the public, besides providing audiovisual entertainment in a level that is impossible for 2d fgs. Like SF4-6 have cinematic supers, and totally different cinematic animations too. Meanwhile 2d fgs have to depend too much on repetitive movesets and recycling... Like notably Ken's original super which was just two Srk in sequence, and that idea had to be used until the end of 2d fgs. That is infinitely below what Capcom can do with Ken's cinematic supers since SF4. And that was only one example of entertainment superiority of 3d. Like, how can a 2d franchise hope to attract an outsider with its story mode and keep him more interested than in the story mode of SF6, MK1, etc? That's another point where modern games will look more worthy the player's money, to the average player outside the community bubble who has no biases.
We can use custom shaders in the Unity game engine to make a 3D model look like a 2D sprite or an anime character. It takes a bit of time but doable.🤫😏
I whish street fighter went the same art direction as what arc system works did with guilty gear. Imagine what could have been done if they continued the look of street fighter 3
I disagree 1000% with you on this, the main reason 2D fighters are not around is definitely true is TIME, and game developers want their money as fast as possible, but Arc Sys show you that was false all along.....2 cases they have now prove that.....GUILTY GEAR STRIVE....and....................DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ both games not only are critically acclaimed, but made a TON OF MONEY.....the main reason 2D fighters are not around anymore is as any trend, is no popular anymore, but if for what ever reason, like SPIDERVERSE prove in the big screen, someone decide to take a leap and make a 2D fighting game the proper AAA marketing and made a hell of a good game that audiences connect, you could ended looking a new era of 2D fighters, of course as is not a popular thing anymore that is difficult to see but again Arc sys despite doing also 3D games they dare to go the hard way to exactly as you say....make their games looks DIFFERENT than the rest (sounds familiar?), and in a sea of realistic 3d games we are LIVING RIGHT NOW.....a game that looks almost 2D to perfection that is been presented as a AAA tittle, could STAND OUT even more.
Good point, fighterz is honestly the biggest fighting game in years. I don’t follow modern fighting games at all, but even that one got my whole friend group playing even people that don’t like dbz.
4 місяці тому+1
It's 3d bending into 2D. It's easier to make a 3D model, bend it to 2D and then go ham on animations.
@@RicochetForce It has visual disadvantages in that it can never adequately mimic hand drawn animation. There is a warmth that can ONLY be achieved by human frame interpolations and decision making on a frame by frame basis. It's a different medium entirely. Have you seen Diesel Legacy:The Brazen Age?
@@GForce_ART Oh lord, here comes the "warmth", "heart" and "soul" that somehow only this artistic medium has... not the other (which is also created by passionate people).
@@GForce_ART i used to think the same until i saw Guilty Gear Xrd for the first time, now i know that it is possible to get the best of both worlds but you need talented and skilled devs willing to do the hard work (and the resources that requires ofc)
@@RicochetForce I didn't say 3D is bad. I said that 2D has a unique essence that is impossible to 100% reproduce in 3D. It's not the same thing (and when 3D tries to mimic 2D, it's never exactly the same because of how frames are interpolated mechanically). Doesn't mean 3D is bad or lesser". Take like Aladin or something.... that is the peak of traditional animation. That feeling/ vibe is simply not possible in 3D because of the human factor of interpolating by hand and evaluating each frame independently. I've worked in games for many many years, on both types of products. It's just different. Even skillsets and the type of people on the teams are different (which yields a different product, in the end).
I couldn't care less about the aesthetic or art direction, I care if the game is FUN! Just because a game looks pretty doesn't automatically mean it's good. Gameplay and controls matter!
XD its funny because there is a discord of fgc dev that still making 2d fighter and i am also including as a pixel artist who creating a 2d fighter with good experience in the game.
To be fair, with 3D you can sell or mod outfits really easier. 2D is great and i love it, but we got in a era 2.5D or 3D fighting games look really great
Yeah, that advantage of 3d was already made clear since the 90s, when the early VF and TK already had a 2nd costume. And they were able to release a sequel with brand new graphics and even having a different 2nd costume if the devs wanted. Meanwhile 2d fgs only survived by recycling sprites for the sequel, and 2nd costumes were unthinkable with very few exceptions (in SFA3 it's possible to use Chun Li's default SFA costume or her SF2 costume, just because that sprite was made for X-Men vs SF years ago). Then technology and the own game making skills grew in a way that the 00s games offered multiple extra costumes for everyone... And that was a stronger hit on the stagnating 2d fg industry. And when companies realized they could get away selling those extra costumes, that became a decisive strike on the 2d fg industry. Capcom must look at what their earned with SF5 costumes and I doubt they miss sprites. And NRS with MK costume dlc too.
Probably an unpopular opinion, I didn't like KOF 13's sprites. The characters not looks good in my opinion. KOF XI is where they peaked. Skullgirls really looks good and I really like Under night series. Guilty Gears is probably has best method.
Agree, I hate how SNK keep making Yuri look younger and younger. Big head, stick thin arms. Terrible. But some of them like the Ikari warriors looked crazy!
At Least 2D Fighters Like Street Fighter, Darkstalker, Red Earth, Saturday Night Slam Masters were easier on the Eyes than most of half of the games Today so I'll give them that credit I guarantee
3D is more cost effective in the long run, but it varies between games. You couldn’t do something like “costumes” using 2D sprites without creating an entirely new spritesheet. This is why you see more color separation or some may know as “smart palette” which separates layers on the sprites themselves to allow more customization
As someone that still creates 2D games (shoot I still animate on paper), I wouldn't say 2D is dead. The market has shrunk, which means it's more competitive and people have to be on their game much more, but it's still there. But I could be skewed as well having died of dysentery all those years ago when that was a new thing, so I grew up with 2D games. 2D still has more to offer though, I think people are still just used to the more pixelated graphics when we can actually use the higher quality graphics as well. Shaders, particles all of those available now as well.
It’s hard to justify a premium price tag for a 2d game to the average consumer and games are about making money for companies now. We might find the 2D style timeless but most people will see it as dated. To most people if you put Tekken 8 and KOF13 next to each other purely from visuals and charged $70 for both most people won’t see KOF as worth it at all. Good luck convincing a publisher and shareholders to allow devs to make a lower cost lower priced game especially if you’re one of the big companies.
Remember, you punk kids. If it weren't for 2d pixel art, you wouldn't have your fancy dancy 3d art thats equally beautiful and travesty at the same time.
I remember CVG (UK games mag) stating this years ago as in PS2 era. SF2 still looks good. ~some games like Dragonball Fighterz that used a very distinct anime style will age better than other 3D fighters but 2D sprite based will always have that edge.
Didn't expect to learn much in the way of new insight or info (I'm a lifelong fighting game fanatic and an animator so I'm pretty up on this stuff haha), but I still stuck around to the end because I generally like your videos and think they're well done. Keep up the good work! For me personally I miss 2D triple A games so much, and I long for a return to those days even knowing it's totally futile. If we got a new hi res traditional 2D Darkstalkers game I could die a happy man haha. Just makes way too much more sense to develop in 3D from a monetary standpoint though. And as impressed as I am with Arcsys cel shading's uncanny resemblance to 2D sprite work, it still just doesn't feel the same. I know 3D has the added bonus of things like extra accessories and costumes, but I honestly don't really care much at all about costumes and cosmetic customizations. Unpopular opinion I'm sure, and no doubt helped along by my so being used to going without it and identifying characters by one look in 2D fighters haha.
Outside of indies, there's only one company that keeps the fight going.....French-Bread. We're totally gonna forget about Team Arcana, I take it? No....they're not indie.
2D sprite is beautiful but have a lot of limitations! you can't do zoom in 3D supers, characters intros, cinematic story, etc...! for that I think 3D is the future! and it looks a little bit rough in the past years compared to 2D sprite but with new games such as SF6 & FF:CotW we are getting there graphics wise & animation wise! And don't forget Arc System games it's the best parts from both worlds!
The "you can't do zoom in supers" is an asset, not a limitation. No more needlessly long cinematic supers that a player will see repeated 4 billion times. Actually, throw supers away altogether
@@meganinten0078 if the game looks and play good in 3d and it's less expensive for the the devs then what is the problem!? in this case we will get more games with more characters and content!
I disagree with the point that Arcys cannot sell outfits with their style, since they clearly could do that with Granblue. I dunno if it's simply that they could see profit in it or did their animation tools change, but every character can at least get different weapon skins. You can also give them small items to put on like glasses and such.
I believe Arcsys devs just don't want to do that. In some cases of small games it's not worthy... but there was a perfect opportunity to sell costumes in DBFZ, that has the big franchise name in their favor. The fact costumes were never made is a strong sign that the company really doesn't want to do that.
Nowadays I feel like more companies are going a hybrid direction, where characters and backgrounds are 3D but effects and UI are more often 2D and that's where classic 2D artists can work in
Can you imagine a Mortal Kombat game where the graphics is like the first game in the 90s but the combos and mechanics are like MK9? How would that look and how much would it cost????🤔
If they use digitize actors like the old games then it would cost a lot of money just to motion caps everyone. The older games got away with it cause they used palette swap to make more characters such as all the male, female, and cyborg ninjas. If they try that same trick again nowadays it would probably feel outdated plus reusing palette swap for different character would be ridicule at.
It's not harder. The talent pool is smaller. It's also NOT more expensive. if you do it correctly and efficiently. Have you seen Diesel Legacy:The Brazen Age?
@@GForce_ART It is harder. Animating a move in 3D is fairly simple and the effort is largely independent of the quality of the model. In 2D, it means drawing 30+ frames of high quality 2D art.
@@BaddeJimme They have challenges in different places. Making each technique look good is hard, in any case. I've worked in games for 14 years and I'm an art director who's overseen both in production. Just because something is "3D" doesn't mean it just works or looks good. The animation principles ave to still be strong and the technical stuff has to allow for it to be expressive. It's less steps int he chain to get the animators intent to the final result in 2D (when there is skill). A lot can be lost in the 3D pipeline, as it's not as direct.
That's what happen to Street Fighter EX, it's just a spinoff to the actual Street Fighter 2D series. It wasn't until Street Fighter IV that SF evolve to 3D and even so it's still play in 2D.
@@VOAN My only guess is that Street Fighter IV went canonically 3D because Capcom thought they wouldn't stand a chance against Soulcalibur IV, Virtua Fighter 5, 鉄拳TEKKEN 6, and MKvsDC which were all released on the PS3. Also the Guilty Gear-looking sequel KOF XII was a mid-game, so that discouraged Capcom even more.
The title doesn't make any sense when there are plenty of 2D fighting games. Should have named it don't make 2D SPIRITES anymore. Sprites take such a long time to make, beautiful but time consuming. That's why they're all 3D. KOFXIII was the most beautiful looking fighting game ever with their extreme detail on the spirtes, but it took around 9 months to make 1 character. That's why KOFXIV took such a huge hit in their budget making these PS2 looking models, thankfully they bounced back and now KOF looks really good.
Hmm, I do have some conflicting feelings on this video. I agree with the explanation but not so much the overall conclusion. On one hand, yeah, sprite-based 2D fighters are no where near as popular as they used to be. With how expensive and time-consuming (supposedly) sprites are to make in comparison to 3D models, much less the declining talent pool for them, it's really not surprising. Not to mention you can't as easily do things like DLC outfits, meaning less money to earn. But on the other, hmm, there are still a bunch still getting made, non-indie at that. Discounting French Bread since the video already mentioned them, there are still active fighting game developers like FK Digital and Examu/Team Arcana. Ones like Saizensen, Rocket Panda Games, and Twilight Frontier kind of toe the line since they don't focus exclusively on fighting games but they exist. Heck, if we can count them, there are many older ones that are still getting updates and content. Love them or hate them, exA-Arcadia just announced like a half-dozen of them during Evo-Japan. But I guess that's the problem. None of them are as popular as the big names so the FGC just ignores them.
All companies that have legacy franchises and that have potential of sequels in the long term have switched to 3d. And the only 2d games left are from small franchises with little perspective of going big, so it's understandable that they stick to recycling sprites. And in the cases of truly updated sprites like Melty, the company simply has no hope of updating them further in the near future. Meanwhile all sequels from the bigger companies change the graphics, which helps getting people's attention and looking like more worthy products (that also becomes a gradually stronger concern as the game prices rise with the generations).
That also means that the 2d fg industry in the recent era has to depends greatly on the good will of their small community... because paying for sequels with recycled sprites is really not good. But it happens that only this modern era, when the norm is 3d, can perfectly expose the problematic nature of selling recycled sequels, which was the norm in the 90s and early of the 00s. Like, Skullgirls is still updated with new chars, but look what the game was able to do in 10 years compared to what SF, KOF, GG and MK were able to do in the same time span? Multiple games where there are always a new story, new designs, moveset changes, new cinematic supers, new extra costumes (in SF and MK), etc. And if KOF stayed recycling sprites it would be functioning in a similar stagnating way of Skullgirls.
Let me give you a positive critic: it would be nice to get straight to the point, instead of starting like explaining the entire history of fighting games until now. God bless
Wrong wrong and wrong. Development of 2d artwork is a lot cheaper and in many respects faster than 3D. A skilled 2d artist can have a wonderful background painted in a day or two after a concept has been approved, and fully animated in a week. 2d characters have many ways to be set up, animated and finished, way faster than in the past and compared to 3D models. Gameplay tweaking is also much faster and easier in 2d than 3D, no contest. And 2d aesthetics and style are much easier to shift in any direction and look opposed to 3D that needs extra work on top of initial construction to achieve. There are two reasons fighting games are in 3D. One is habit. The transition to higher resolution, higher frame rate 3D games was smoother over that of 2d games because the tools that would eventually make 2d art faster and cheaper came years later. By that time the pipeline was pretty much in place, so it’s scary for a company investing money to deviate. The second is fighting game specific and that’s that these types of games don’t sell. They are way past their expiration date. No one really cares when a new SF or MK game comes out save a few people. It’s a small genre with little profit, and you have to have a longer development cycle to make some money, thus costumes, new characters and the like. And while this could be done in 2d as well, 3D for these cheap moneymakers is just less hassle. The guy in the video has most of it wrong.
"No one really cares when a new SF or MK game comes out save a few people." This is a joke, yes? Mortal Kombat is usually one of the highest selling games of its year.
Or hear me out, you don't actually have to use all ten million pixels on screen and can just upscale them. Plus if a niche indie developer like French Bread can do it then a big company like Capcom could easily do it, the reason ugly 3D models are used nowadays is because normies hate sprites.
There was a time when I like 2D fighters. Now, I have grown out of it and find them gay. Seriously, are people going to tell me that in 30 years or so no one has figured out how to create ultra realistic fighting games that can simulate real street fight physics. It's kind of annoying to compare Street Fighter that was on a PS or N64 to a PS5 and the only changes are character design and better online functions. I want a game where you wear on your body movement sensors on your limbs. Find a suitable place and start shadow punching and boxing, do side kicks, jabs, crosses, hammer fists, tornado kicks and so on. And all your movements appear on a screen. Helping you defeat your opponent now, not by mashing stupid buttons but by having a massive workout.
Dude, just get into boxing... that's like asking a chess player to join the military for a bona fide warfare experience. Fighting game players want to play turbo chess, not actually fight for real.
I'd like this fighting game tbh, but with an advanced ai. With what Ai can do now, I wonder why there isn't any game that develops a advanced one who can learn your moves and techniques, adapt etc.
Are there any modern fighting games that you’d love to see done in 2D?
Under Night in Birth 2 counts as a 2D fighting game, Melty Blood also
I'm a freak who wants to see a 2D Tekken game with 90s SNK or Capcom quality sprites. Though obviously a 2D SF would be cool as well.
i would kill for a new 2D darkstalkers or streets
@@TheRadioSquare
Even if the Devs have enough money for the Sprites they still wouldn't not want to do it cause it's very stressful drawing 500 frames per character plus the 3D stages.
All of them for the most part, they would look so much better
Should have named this the death of sprites in fighting games
Absolutely
"3D is the future!"
Me: Then I will just play retro 2D games.
2D games will never die while there are people who still play them.
2d-HD games do have a market for players like me and (probably) you.
In 3d animation, they do have to manage the number of polygons that move. If they don’t it’ll be hard to both create such games and be able to run it on an affordable hardware.
Compared to that sprites with every follicle moving in every frame. The rest of the complications may also be eventually minimised using AI asset generators eventually.
I’m going to put my contribution to revival of 2D games. 😊
Have you seen Diesel Legacy: The Brazen Age?
You should’ve said 2D sprites
Gotta have that clickbait a bit.
It is sad that many people do not appreciate good 2-D sprite work. I am glad you explained how hard and expensive it is to make modern sprites.
Art of Fighting 3 definitely is underappreciated for its awesome sprites.
There is an IGS fighting game at my arcade. It has really detailed animations with lots of frames. I know the board itself is more powerful than an MVS.
@@StarDragonJP You also want to check out XMen COTA. They really went in on making the sprites, from the next game onward, Marvel Super Heroes, they reduced the amount of frames to a standard they kept throughout MVC etc.
I never even knew until a few years ago but COTA has ground dizzy/stun frames.
I will also say that the Street Fighter 2 series has not just amazing sprite work but also art design in general. That game was truly ahead of times and lightning in a bottle. It still looks good even today which is one of the reasons it's still played and enjoyed by lots of people, all ages, all skill levels.
As a sprite animator, it's kind of a lost skill. I've been making them for over 20 years. Everything moved to HD sprites, and polygons. Now pixel sprite making is just a novelty.The animation part goes fairly fast, but cleaning up the sprites to be presentable takes a lot of time. Most of the time your just zoomed in looking at dots.
what kind of style sprites do you do?
I to dabble in spritting still, mainly work with sprites in the style of FF6, Pokemon DS and Megaman X 1-6.
@@ZenKrio ah dang. do you do any street fighter style sprites?
I've been messing around with ones based on the Final Fantasy & Romancing SaGa mobile games and it is crazy how some of these people are able to portray some of the characters in those games within the sprite limitations.
@@KT-rq9id nah lol
This video reminded me how much of a work of art kof 13 is
What?! They commited the greatest sin against pixel art - forced bilinear filtering. 13 looks like shit compared to 12.
@@konstantdrachenfels5446 Regardless of the artistic nerd opinions, KOF 13 is still among the best fg sprites of all time, easily among top 5 of all time.
@@carlosaugusto9821 No, because 13 reuses sprites from 12.
2d more expensive, time consuming, and don't scale.
Even Idol Shodown ?
@@sobornes239 To be fair, a common first impression people have with IS's sprites is that the sprite work looks a little rough.
3D is literally worse in terms of development, LMAO.
Have you seen Diesel Legacy:The Brazen Age? We did 100% hand drawn HD sprites and figured out how to do it economically by hiring the right talent and having the right internal pipeline and training/tools. It's possible to do it (as we've proven). It's just a matter of "you gotta want it bad enough and work hard for it". Essentially you have to believe in it as the ONLY choice for the game, because it's the right choice for a particular game.
This. Recreating all the art is mandatory with scaling unless you want pixelation, or cheat and use cel shading.
Just because 3d graphics are more popular doesn't mean 2d is "dead". We still have 2d games releasing. Million Arthur, BBTag, Melty Blood Type Lumina, and Undernight Inbirth 2 being some notable ones over the past 6 years. Are there more games with 3d graphics? Yeah, but that goes for the video game industry in general and not just fighting games.
it's dead. the mainline 2D titles that hold the candle and literally pioneered 2D fighters such as SF and KOF are no longer doing it.
It's not just quantity... It's the fact that 2d games have very little attention. How does those games compare to new fgs 3d graphics in commercial and cultural performance. Also it's not possible to bring up the argument of those franchises (Melty, UNI, etc) being small... because lately we have been getting many retro releases of classics with rollback netcode from Capcom, SNK and Arcsys, yet none of those games had exciting commercial performance.
KOF 13 ("the best looking SNK game and one of the best looking 2d games of all time") is available with rollback netcode, and still there are more people playing KOF 15 (with mediocre graphics for its release time and console technology). What can we say about that?
@@KT-rq9id Yeah, all companies that have legacy franchises and that have potential of sequels in the long term have switched to 3d. And the only 2d games left are from small franchises with little perspective of going big, so it's understandable that they stick to recycling sprites. And in the cases of truly updated sprites like Melty, the company simply has no hope of updating them further in the near future.
Meanwhile all sequels from the bigger companies change the graphics, which helps getting people's attention and looking like more worthy products (that also becomes a gradually stronger concern as the game prices rise with the generations).
That also means that the 2d fg industry in the recent era has to depends greatly on the good will of their small community... because paying for sequels with recycled sprites is really not good. But it happens that only this modern era, when the norm is 3d, can perfectly expose the problematic nature of selling recycled sequels, that was the norm in the 90s and early of the 00s. How can that model not be totally pulverized by modern releases of classic franchises that provide costume changes, moveset changes, cinematic moves, story cutscenes, etc?
Note: I'm 35 and my first fgs were SF2, MK2 and FF2, and I love the 90s but I'd rather keep my critical thinking intact and not defend everything about the "golden era of fgs".
2D is replaced with 2.5D
it does give the illusion that your playing a pure 2D fighter which is the right direction to go If you ask me, as it's less time consuming and cost a bit less
Like MvC2? Yeah
@@alyasVictorio Guilty Gear xrd and Strive
I’m good with fatal fury. Just dlc is a pain with pricing.
@enrique7934 DNF and GBVS begs to differ, the only problem is more needs to try that 2.5D with anime which is a problem moreso about the "investors" rather than the devs
I'm glad I grew up during the golden years of 2d fighters, great era in gaming
King of Fighters 13 is the most beautiful 2 D Game EVER SNK just Remastered it for PS 4. For Like 42 Dollars New. Buy it Now.
I have zero interest in modern 3d fighting games honestly, Im 100% content with playing games from the 90s and 00s for fighting games. They run on just about anything and are simpler games in a good way. No shortcuts or special powers, just who has the better strategy and inputs wins.
I think this is kinda clickbait
2.5d isn’t a new genre of fg’s. It’s just a change of art style
They’re still 2d fighters at their core
The only true 3D are like those old Naruto arena games, hell even Tekken doesn't really goes beyond 2.5D much aside from the Korean dash/side step
@@nonamepasserbya6658 I don’t agree here at all
Sidestep, sidewalking, backdash and kbd are all mechanics that make it 3d. The way the game is played always ensures you’re playing in 3D with those movement mechanics since that’s mainly what tekken is about. Movement. Since you’re trying to avoid mids and lows
Virtua fighter and doa also have very fluid 3d movement
The 8 way movement in soul calibur you can swiftly move side to side and backwards to avoid slashes
So no Naruto games aren’t the only games with a 3d playing field. The Hell is that take lol
0:46 - "fake 3D", shows one of the 1st true 3D games...
Ultima is not true 3D
@@TheRadioSquare Ultima Underworld is. It has a true 3D environment with no ray casting shenanigans.
@@Mafon2 It had actual polygons but you're not quite right about shenanigans. They still were limited to 2D tiles that were later interpreted in 3D. The game had diagonal slopes but the actial levels has to adhere to a grid. So, every wall had to be at least 1 tile wide and could only go in one of the four directions. Which, in a way, makes it less 3D than Doom. Both also shared the limitation of vertically overlapping spaces.
And then obviously you had the rest of the game emulating 3D with rotating sprites rather than actual 3D models.
Well 3d models may look good for their time but after a while they become eyesore. But 2d has a timeless look. I mean look at original virtua fighter, when it was released everyone was amazed but now it looks very bad. I mean the body parts look like boxes. But if u look at Street Fighter Alpha or Kino of Fighters 94 they still look really nice & never feels outdated.
@@RicochetForceAlso it's easy to update 3d graphics very well and keep satisfying the public, besides providing audiovisual entertainment in a level that is impossible for 2d fgs.
Like SF4-6 have cinematic supers, and totally different cinematic animations too. Meanwhile 2d fgs have to depend too much on repetitive movesets and recycling... Like notably Ken's original super which was just two Srk in sequence, and that idea had to be used until the end of 2d fgs. That is infinitely below what Capcom can do with Ken's cinematic supers since SF4.
And that was only one example of entertainment superiority of 3d. Like, how can a 2d franchise hope to attract an outsider with its story mode and keep him more interested than in the story mode of SF6, MK1, etc? That's another point where modern games will look more worthy the player's money, to the average player outside the community bubble who has no biases.
2d fighters are fine, compared to 3d fighters.. tekken 8 is literally the only new 3d fighter on the market. (edit : except for DIE BY THE BLADE)
The current head of Sonic actually talked a year ago about how 2D art isn't really seen as just as good as 3D/worth the price to the general public.
We can use custom shaders in the Unity game engine to make a 3D model look like a 2D sprite or an anime character. It takes a bit of time but doable.🤫😏
I whish street fighter went the same art direction as what arc system works did with guilty gear. Imagine what could have been done if they continued the look of street fighter 3
I disagree 1000% with you on this, the main reason 2D fighters are not around is definitely true is TIME, and game developers want their money as fast as possible, but Arc Sys show you that was false all along.....2 cases they have now prove that.....GUILTY GEAR STRIVE....and....................DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ both games not only are critically acclaimed, but made a TON OF MONEY.....the main reason 2D fighters are not around anymore is as any trend, is no popular anymore, but if for what ever reason, like SPIDERVERSE prove in the big screen, someone decide to take a leap and make a 2D fighting game the proper AAA marketing and made a hell of a good game that audiences connect, you could ended looking a new era of 2D fighters, of course as is not a popular thing anymore that is difficult to see but again Arc sys despite doing also 3D games they dare to go the hard way to exactly as you say....make their games looks DIFFERENT than the rest (sounds familiar?), and in a sea of realistic 3d games we are LIVING RIGHT NOW.....a game that looks almost 2D to perfection that is been presented as a AAA tittle, could STAND OUT even more.
Good point, fighterz is honestly the biggest fighting game in years. I don’t follow modern fighting games at all, but even that one got my whole friend group playing even people that don’t like dbz.
It's 3d bending into 2D. It's easier to make a 3D model, bend it to 2D and then go ham on animations.
ASW has a small team which is doing 3 games
3d has to many advantages...
@@RicochetForce It has visual disadvantages in that it can never adequately mimic hand drawn animation. There is a warmth that can ONLY be achieved by human frame interpolations and decision making on a frame by frame basis. It's a different medium entirely. Have you seen Diesel Legacy:The Brazen Age?
@@GForce_ART Oh lord, here comes the "warmth", "heart" and "soul" that somehow only this artistic medium has... not the other (which is also created by passionate people).
@@GForce_ART i used to think the same until i saw Guilty Gear Xrd for the first time, now i know that it is possible to get the best of both worlds but you need talented and skilled devs willing to do the hard work (and the resources that requires ofc)
@@RicochetForce I didn't say 3D is bad. I said that 2D has a unique essence that is impossible to 100% reproduce in 3D. It's not the same thing (and when 3D tries to mimic 2D, it's never exactly the same because of how frames are interpolated mechanically). Doesn't mean 3D is bad or lesser". Take like Aladin or something.... that is the peak of traditional animation. That feeling/ vibe is simply not possible in 3D because of the human factor of interpolating by hand and evaluating each frame independently. I've worked in games for many many years, on both types of products. It's just different. Even skillsets and the type of people on the teams are different (which yields a different product, in the end).
L take tbh
When talking about video games there’s no such thing as outdated video games are timeless.
I couldn't care less about the aesthetic or art direction, I care if the game is FUN! Just because a game looks pretty doesn't automatically mean it's good. Gameplay and controls matter!
2D fighting game controls and move sets are long figured out. What makes them fresh and unique are the graphics .
XD its funny because there is a discord of fgc dev that still making 2d fighter and i am also including as a pixel artist who creating a 2d fighter with good experience in the game.
To be fair, with 3D you can sell or mod outfits really easier.
2D is great and i love it, but we got in a era 2.5D or 3D fighting games look really great
Yeah, that advantage of 3d was already made clear since the 90s, when the early VF and TK already had a 2nd costume. And they were able to release a sequel with brand new graphics and even having a different 2nd costume if the devs wanted. Meanwhile 2d fgs only survived by recycling sprites for the sequel, and 2nd costumes were unthinkable with very few exceptions (in SFA3 it's possible to use Chun Li's default SFA costume or her SF2 costume, just because that sprite was made for X-Men vs SF years ago).
Then technology and the own game making skills grew in a way that the 00s games offered multiple extra costumes for everyone... And that was a stronger hit on the stagnating 2d fg industry.
And when companies realized they could get away selling those extra costumes, that became a decisive strike on the 2d fg industry. Capcom must look at what their earned with SF5 costumes and I doubt they miss sprites. And NRS with MK costume dlc too.
2d is simply not sustainable compared with 3d animation.
Snk tried with KOF13
Probably an unpopular opinion, I didn't like KOF 13's sprites. The characters not looks good in my opinion. KOF XI is where they peaked. Skullgirls really looks good and I really like Under night series. Guilty Gears is probably has best method.
Agree, I hate how SNK keep making Yuri look younger and younger. Big head, stick thin arms. Terrible.
But some of them like the Ikari warriors looked crazy!
I love the background music you used that is my favorite silent hill track and its cool to see it in a video that i also enjoyed a ton!
i am looking for the one at the end what's the name?
@@twistletowntreasures448 end of a small sanctuary
This was a great video. Nice breakdown. Now I know for sure there will never be another Marvel vs Capcom 2d
I miss BlazBlue
Seeing how Guilty Gear has turned out, maybe it's for the best Blazblue has ended.
At Least 2D Fighters Like Street Fighter, Darkstalker, Red Earth, Saturday Night Slam Masters were easier on the Eyes than most of half of the games Today so I'll give them that credit I guarantee
Kof 13 was beautiful. I don’t like the look of the more modern ones at all and kof xi is my favourite
I wish sf would go back to 2d
3D is more cost effective in the long run, but it varies between games. You couldn’t do something like “costumes” using 2D sprites without creating an entirely new spritesheet. This is why you see more color separation or some may know as “smart palette” which separates layers on the sprites themselves to allow more customization
As someone that still creates 2D games (shoot I still animate on paper), I wouldn't say 2D is dead. The market has shrunk, which means it's more competitive and people have to be on their game much more, but it's still there. But I could be skewed as well having died of dysentery all those years ago when that was a new thing, so I grew up with 2D games. 2D still has more to offer though, I think people are still just used to the more pixelated graphics when we can actually use the higher quality graphics as well. Shaders, particles all of those available now as well.
It’s hard to justify a premium price tag for a 2d game to the average consumer and games are about making money for companies now. We might find the 2D style timeless but most people will see it as dated. To most people if you put Tekken 8 and KOF13 next to each other purely from visuals and charged $70 for both most people won’t see KOF as worth it at all. Good luck convincing a publisher and shareholders to allow devs to make a lower cost lower priced game especially if you’re one of the big companies.
Also can imagine making giant hd sprites with incredible frames per second of animation has to be hard af. difficulty level insanity : P
You definitely frame 1 counter DI'd me with this title, well played
Remember, you punk kids. If it weren't for 2d pixel art, you wouldn't have your fancy dancy 3d art thats equally beautiful and travesty at the same time.
2D is boring, you fight on a 1D plane, and it is extremely claustrophobic and linear.
Feedback: Can you add the game's name aswell beside just crediting where you've took it from?
Man, KOF 13 was beautiful....
Cell-shading the the solution for this problem, yet there are only handful of games that actually utilized it
You can see this with Dreamworks and Disney with their feature length films.
And in 15-20 years the 2-d games would have aged better
Agree.
I remember CVG (UK games mag) stating this years ago as in PS2 era. SF2 still looks good.
~some games like Dragonball Fighterz that used a very distinct anime style will age better than other 3D fighters but 2D sprite based will always have that edge.
bulshit
Didn't expect to learn much in the way of new insight or info (I'm a lifelong fighting game fanatic and an animator so I'm pretty up on this stuff haha), but I still stuck around to the end because I generally like your videos and think they're well done. Keep up the good work!
For me personally I miss 2D triple A games so much, and I long for a return to those days even knowing it's totally futile. If we got a new hi res traditional 2D Darkstalkers game I could die a happy man haha. Just makes way too much more sense to develop in 3D from a monetary standpoint though. And as impressed as I am with Arcsys cel shading's uncanny resemblance to 2D sprite work, it still just doesn't feel the same. I know 3D has the added bonus of things like extra accessories and costumes, but I honestly don't really care much at all about costumes and cosmetic customizations. Unpopular opinion I'm sure, and no doubt helped along by my so being used to going without it and identifying characters by one look in 2D fighters haha.
Use the proper terms pologonyl and sprite not 2d and 3d
Outside of indies, there's only one company that keeps the fight going.....French-Bread.
We're totally gonna forget about Team Arcana, I take it? No....they're not indie.
Have you seen Diesel Legacy:The Brazen Age?
i dont agree why cant we have 3d side scrollers then
1:51 what game is this?
2D art is too difficult to make and modern devs are lazy and incompetent. There, answered it for you.
Have you seen Diesel Legacy: The Brazen Age?
2D sprite is beautiful but have a lot of limitations! you can't do zoom in 3D supers, characters intros, cinematic story, etc...! for that I think 3D is the future! and it looks a little bit rough in the past years compared to 2D sprite but with new games such as SF6 & FF:CotW we are getting there graphics wise & animation wise!
And don't forget Arc System games it's the best parts from both worlds!
The "you can't do zoom in supers" is an asset, not a limitation. No more needlessly long cinematic supers that a player will see repeated 4 billion times.
Actually, throw supers away altogether
@@elfascisto6549 I agree with you
"3D is the future!"
Then I am going to play retro games.
There are many 2D hidden gems to play.
@elfascisto6549 👍👍👍
@@meganinten0078 if the game looks and play good in 3d and it's less expensive for the the devs then what is the problem!? in this case we will get more games with more characters and content!
Don't you think 2d is more than 3d?
I disagree with the point that Arcys cannot sell outfits with their style, since they clearly could do that with Granblue. I dunno if it's simply that they could see profit in it or did their animation tools change, but every character can at least get different weapon skins. You can also give them small items to put on like glasses and such.
I believe Arcsys devs just don't want to do that. In some cases of small games it's not worthy... but there was a perfect opportunity to sell costumes in DBFZ, that has the big franchise name in their favor. The fact costumes were never made is a strong sign that the company really doesn't want to do that.
Nowadays I feel like more companies are going a hybrid direction, where characters and backgrounds are 3D but effects and UI are more often 2D and that's where classic 2D artists can work in
2D Fighting games are art
Gi joe wrath of cobra?
Can only pray SF7 will have 2D graphics.
This is why i support every and everything French Bread. They're games are beautiful
Can you imagine a Mortal Kombat game where the graphics is like the first game in the 90s but the combos and mechanics are like MK9? How would that look and how much would it cost????🤔
If they use digitize actors like the old games then it would cost a lot of money just to motion caps everyone. The older games got away with it cause they used palette swap to make more characters such as all the male, female, and cyborg ninjas. If they try that same trick again nowadays it would probably feel outdated plus reusing palette swap for different character would be ridicule at.
How much would it cost to remake Street Fighter 2 today?
2D is way harder and less appealing in modern day.
It's not harder. The talent pool is smaller. It's also NOT more expensive. if you do it correctly and efficiently. Have you seen Diesel Legacy:The Brazen Age?
@@GForce_ART It is harder. Animating a move in 3D is fairly simple and the effort is largely independent of the quality of the model. In 2D, it means drawing 30+ frames of high quality 2D art.
@@BaddeJimme They have challenges in different places. Making each technique look good is hard, in any case. I've worked in games for 14 years and I'm an art director who's overseen both in production. Just because something is "3D" doesn't mean it just works or looks good. The animation principles ave to still be strong and the technical stuff has to allow for it to be expressive. It's less steps int he chain to get the animators intent to the final result in 2D (when there is skill). A lot can be lost in the 3D pipeline, as it's not as direct.
o-oh...
Sad, we have to rely on Mugen to make 2D sprite fighting games for us. That takes years for the developers to do, if not decades.
3D fighting games are better off for spin-off titles in the 2D world.
That's what happen to Street Fighter EX, it's just a spinoff to the actual Street Fighter 2D series. It wasn't until Street Fighter IV that SF evolve to 3D and even so it's still play in 2D.
@@VOAN
My only guess is that Street Fighter IV went canonically 3D because Capcom thought they wouldn't stand a chance against Soulcalibur IV, Virtua Fighter 5, 鉄拳TEKKEN 6, and MKvsDC which were all released on the PS3.
Also the Guilty Gear-looking sequel KOF XII was a mid-game, so that discouraged Capcom even more.
Sprite art is too expensive to make
6:26 is that the first draft of Kum Junryoku????
The title doesn't make any sense when there are plenty of 2D fighting games. Should have named it don't make 2D SPIRITES anymore. Sprites take such a long time to make, beautiful but time consuming. That's why they're all 3D. KOFXIII was the most beautiful looking fighting game ever with their extreme detail on the spirtes, but it took around 9 months to make 1 character. That's why KOFXIV took such a huge hit in their budget making these PS2 looking models, thankfully they bounced back and now KOF looks really good.
if 2D characters would be easier to develop that wouldn't be a problem
It's not harder than 3D. It takes a different skillset, and that skillset is more rare. Have you seen Diesel Legacy:The Brazen Age? We did it here.
What game is this : 0:19 ?
Hmm, I do have some conflicting feelings on this video. I agree with the explanation but not so much the overall conclusion.
On one hand, yeah, sprite-based 2D fighters are no where near as popular as they used to be. With how expensive and time-consuming (supposedly) sprites are to make in comparison to 3D models, much less the declining talent pool for them, it's really not surprising. Not to mention you can't as easily do things like DLC outfits, meaning less money to earn.
But on the other, hmm, there are still a bunch still getting made, non-indie at that. Discounting French Bread since the video already mentioned them, there are still active fighting game developers like FK Digital and Examu/Team Arcana. Ones like Saizensen, Rocket Panda Games, and Twilight Frontier kind of toe the line since they don't focus exclusively on fighting games but they exist. Heck, if we can count them, there are many older ones that are still getting updates and content. Love them or hate them, exA-Arcadia just announced like a half-dozen of them during Evo-Japan.
But I guess that's the problem. None of them are as popular as the big names so the FGC just ignores them.
All companies that have legacy franchises and that have potential of sequels in the long term have switched to 3d. And the only 2d games left are from small franchises with little perspective of going big, so it's understandable that they stick to recycling sprites. And in the cases of truly updated sprites like Melty, the company simply has no hope of updating them further in the near future.
Meanwhile all sequels from the bigger companies change the graphics, which helps getting people's attention and looking like more worthy products (that also becomes a gradually stronger concern as the game prices rise with the generations).
That also means that the 2d fg industry in the recent era has to depends greatly on the good will of their small community... because paying for sequels with recycled sprites is really not good. But it happens that only this modern era, when the norm is 3d, can perfectly expose the problematic nature of selling recycled sequels, which was the norm in the 90s and early of the 00s.
Like, Skullgirls is still updated with new chars, but look what the game was able to do in 10 years compared to what SF, KOF, GG and MK were able to do in the same time span? Multiple games where there are always a new story, new designs, moveset changes, new cinematic supers, new extra costumes (in SF and MK), etc. And if KOF stayed recycling sprites it would be functioning in a similar stagnating way of Skullgirls.
Let me give you a positive critic: it would be nice to get straight to the point, instead of starting like explaining the entire history of fighting games until now. God bless
fighting game is 60 pfs. there are lots drawings in 2d fighting games in 60 fps. And it is expensive to tweak the frames per move in 2d. Period.
3D is a bad look for SF. Not just that its 3D but also the steroid theme is just UGLY.
“STEROID THEME” 😂😂😂
because expensive
Because it doesn't sell bro. Doesn't need an 8 min video lol but okay
Nothing tops Street Fighter 3rd Strike and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, to this day.
KOF 12-13 easy much better than both. And older Marvel games like MSH look better than MVC2 sprites.
Same reason movie companies don't put out 2D Animated Feature Films in Movie Theaters that are not Anime, they look too outdated for newer audiences
Wrong wrong and wrong. Development of 2d artwork is a lot cheaper and in many respects faster than 3D. A skilled 2d artist can have a wonderful background painted in a day or two after a concept has been approved, and fully animated in a week. 2d characters have many ways to be set up, animated and finished, way faster than in the past and compared to 3D models.
Gameplay tweaking is also much faster and easier in 2d than 3D, no contest. And 2d aesthetics and style are much easier to shift in any direction and look opposed to 3D that needs extra work on top of initial construction to achieve.
There are two reasons fighting games are in 3D. One is habit. The transition to higher resolution, higher frame rate 3D games was smoother over that of 2d games because the tools that would eventually make 2d art faster and cheaper came years later. By that time the pipeline was pretty much in place, so it’s scary for a company investing money to deviate.
The second is fighting game specific and that’s that these types of games don’t sell. They are way past their expiration date. No one really cares when a new SF or MK game comes out save a few people. It’s a small genre with little profit, and you have to have a longer development cycle to make some money, thus costumes, new characters and the like. And while this could be done in 2d as well, 3D for these cheap moneymakers is just less hassle.
The guy in the video has most of it wrong.
"No one really cares when a new SF or MK game comes out save a few people."
This is a joke, yes? Mortal Kombat is usually one of the highest selling games of its year.
I for one don’t like 2D art style(not the gameplay just the style)
Or hear me out, you don't actually have to use all ten million pixels on screen and can just upscale them.
Plus if a niche indie developer like French Bread can do it then a big company like Capcom could easily do it, the reason ugly 3D models are used nowadays is because normies hate sprites.
There was a time when I like 2D fighters. Now, I have grown out of it and find them gay. Seriously, are people going to tell me that in 30 years or so no one has figured out how to create ultra realistic fighting games that can simulate real street fight physics. It's kind of annoying to compare Street Fighter that was on a PS or N64 to a PS5 and the only changes are character design and better online functions. I want a game where you wear on your body movement sensors on your limbs. Find a suitable place and start shadow punching and boxing, do side kicks, jabs, crosses, hammer fists, tornado kicks and so on. And all your movements appear on a screen. Helping you defeat your opponent now, not by mashing stupid buttons but by having a massive workout.
Dude, just get into boxing... that's like asking a chess player to join the military for a bona fide warfare experience. Fighting game players want to play turbo chess, not actually fight for real.
I'd like this fighting game tbh, but with an advanced ai. With what Ai can do now, I wonder why there isn't any game that develops a advanced one who can learn your moves and techniques, adapt etc.
most normal youtube comment