TBT - Sprites: Yay Or Nay?

If you happen to listen to our podcast, you might have heard that Dodds has been playing Final Fantasy 7 recently, and by god it got me thinking about playing Final Fantasy 8. So that is exactly what I did. You would think a PS3 could do a better job at up-scaling, but alas it cannot, forcing me to subject my eyes to the horrible graphical prowess of a PS1 game.  And this is why I will always be a firm believer in stating that, for the PS1, sprites were the way to go. I have always loved 2D sprites; the art that goes into them is just phenomenal.

Now the PS1 and the N64 did well to thrust gaming into the three-dimensional world, but I for one felt it might have been a little too premature. The power just wasn't there and while gamers might not have known better at the time, it's hard for some games of the era to stand the test of time. Now of course I'm solely speaking graphically, since for the most part many of the games from this era are well crafted gems in terms of design and gameplay.

So many Super Nintendo games look breathtaking, and that's mainly due to the fact that well-done 2D art is amazing to look at. Bring that to the PS1 with the upgrade in power and the 2D sprites were just that much better. A good example of this is Secret of Mana and Legend of Mana. I can't even begin to imagine how Legend of Mana would have been like if it had been in 3D.

Fast-forward a little bit to the PS2 and we start seeing some solid 3D titles...Maybe not at the beginning, but surely by the end of the cycle some of the graphics getting pumped out were amazing. But again, although heavily outnumbered this time around the developers using 2D sprites shined through.

One of the most unique developers to have emerged from this era was Vanillaware. Embracing the second dimension they were able to bring us a product like Odin Sphere—featuring vibrant colours and crisp sprites, the game's just gorgeous eye-candy. Moving forward, Vanillaware continued developing 2D games. Dragon's Crown, the most recent of which, was released on the PS3 and Vita about a year ago and the HD sprites look even better!

This begs the question: What will happen to 2D games on the PS4 and Xbox One? I have no doubt that indie developers will continue to use the second dimension, but what about bigger studios? I'm sure you know one of my favourite fighting games is Guilty Gear. This series to date has stuck with the 2D art...at least until now. Developers Arc System Works are releasing Guilty Gear Xrd later this year on PS3/PS4 and will be dropping their hand drawn 2D art for 3D models...but to be honest, it's so well done you can hardly tell the difference until the camera moves. Have a look:

I love my 2D sprites and I hope that developers will continue to use them, but when you can have 3D cel-shaded graphics with that level of quality...well I just don't know what to think anymore. What say you?