Fighting games were still very much in their prime during this era. Tons of 2D fighting games from the likes of Capcom, SNK, and others came out in arcades and on the Playstation, Saturn, Neo-Geo, and Neo CD. There was even a port of Alpha 2 to the SNES of all platforms, yet the N64 got nothing. Never made any sense to me.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
So...did the Nintendo 64 just not do 2D well or did devs not want 2D games on it?
- Thread starter bman94
- Start date
Fighting games were still very much in their prime during this era. Tons of 2D fighting games from the likes of Capcom, SNK, and others came out in arcades and on the Playstation, Saturn, Neo-Geo, and Neo CD. There was even a port of Alpha 2 to the SNES of all platforms, yet the N64 got nothing. Never made any sense to me.
TheMoon
Member
ss_lemonade
Member
I remember reading something about the n64 not being a true 64bit machine, unlike the jaguar
KojiKnight
Member
PS1 sony is not the same as PS2 sony... PS2 sony killed Working Designs and a few other studios for focusing on 2D games.
I dunno if Ofre Battle counts entirely. The maps at least were 3D, the mountains and strongholds and stuff. But yeah most of it was sprites.
NeonZ
Member
The Nintendo 64 performed very badly in Japan, which is the place where most fighting games were produced, and there'd be memory issues too. Mortal Kombat Trilogy had to cut several characters for its Nintendo 64 version.
DonMigs85
Member
This is yet another deja vu thread
http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1203824
http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1203824
TheMoon
Member
nightopian
Member
I loved Mischief Makers. Quite fun.
Team Andromeda
Member
Sorry SONY America didn't like 2D games . Working Designs and SNK both said getting SONY America to approve a 2D game was a pain and like pulling teeth
Fourth Storm
Member
After the DF video about Castlevania: SotN, I'd be intrigued to learn how 2D images were produced by the N64 hardware. Were there set limit on sprites and parallax layers like the 16-bit consoles or were they treated more similarly to 3D objects or textures?
Team Andromeda
Member
That's nothing to with 2D capabilities and all to do with memory issues .
ienjoyrawfish
Member
What's even more ironic is that Sony were strongly considering making the Playstation a 2D powerhouse before seeing the games that Sega were making in the arcades and changing their minds.
Had some of the best looking fighter ports before we had arcade perfect or near arcade perfect before the DC/PS2 generation where we did better. Some of capcom games were just insane on that thing especially if you had that ram add on.
I always forget the name of 2D sprites that always face the camera at different camera angles, but N64 had so many of them
MrCunningham
Member
Nintendo just wasn't that interested in pushing 2D on the console. 3D was the primary focus since it was the new hotness at the time, and they also didn't want to overlap with the SNES, which was still being sold by the time that Nintendo launched the N64.
When the N64 launched in 1996, nobody was really interested in producing 2D games for the North America and Western markets. Even Sega of America wasn't interested in hyping 2D on the Saturn.
When the N64 launched in 1996, nobody was really interested in producing 2D games for the North America and Western markets. Even Sega of America wasn't interested in hyping 2D on the Saturn.
Pop-O-Matic
Banned
Decals
Wow, that's pretty crazy. "This doesn't belong on this system, leave it on the old shit".
There were multiple reasons...
- 3D was in - 2D was out
- 2D sprites consumed more ROM space than 3D models/animations - cartridges were expensive and any increase in ROM size would reduce profit margins for everyone
- 2D consumed more RAM than 3D
- If you were to use 2D, it would typically look low-res due to RAM/ROM limitations
- 3D was in - 2D was out
- 2D sprites consumed more ROM space than 3D models/animations - cartridges were expensive and any increase in ROM size would reduce profit margins for everyone
- 2D consumed more RAM than 3D
- If you were to use 2D, it would typically look low-res due to RAM/ROM limitations
Crimson_Echidna
Banned
3D was the hotness. Heck, even Street Fighter 3, though popular in the fighting scene, got overshadowed by the other fighting games at the time that jumped to 3D.
Sprites really are a specific thing. What you're describing, and what most post-SNES use of sprites are, is actually just a texture that looks like a sprite on flat model with transparency. So they're still models, just with sprite-like textures.
They absolutely did. A perfect example was Megaman 8. Sony was pissed it was 2D so they said they would only allow it on their console unless they got a special advantage over the Saturn version.
The Playstation version had a special boss list in the manual or something.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
I thought the deal was that Capcom threatened to not bring the next RE to Playstation if they didn't let them publish the stuff they wanted.
Because the PS1 definitely didn't have an advantage over the Saturn version -- even if there was a special manual that had a boss list, the Saturn version had extra bosses in the actual game.
Yeah the anti-2D stigma back then was nuts. I remember a preview for Street Fighter III in Gamepro or something slamming the game for still being 2D and not looking like Virtua Fighter and Mortal Kombat 4. I was like "huh???"
It was in a documentary. I'll try to find it. It's been years since I saw it.
In defense of the 2D hate at that time, the SNES & Genesis did 2D real well, not perfectly, but at the time I felt like those systems were the peak of 2D.
The next gen couldn't add THAT much to 2D IMO at the time. Had there been a significant resolution bump, that would have impressed me at the time. I thought the Monkey Island game that came out with high res movies & sprites looked great...
The next gen couldn't add THAT much to 2D IMO at the time. Had there been a significant resolution bump, that would have impressed me at the time. I thought the Monkey Island game that came out with high res movies & sprites looked great...
MrCunningham
Member
When comparing the CD based systems of that era, the Neo-Geo had the most system RAM built into the system, I think collectively it had about 7MB's worth of RAM total while the Saturn and PS1 had about 2MB's collectively. It was all put to use to be able to run the AES at any variable degree of accuracy. Even then the massive amount of memory in the Neo-Geo CD still wasn't quite enough at times to replicate the AES carts. This is also the reason why the Neo-Geo CD had ridiculously long loading times on the non-Z units. &MB of memory to fill + a single speed CD ROM = a lot of waiting time.
The Neo-Geo CD was a 16bit CR ROM based system. Even the 32bit Sega Saturn couldn't accurately replicate the AES/MVS systems because of its overall lack of system memory. This is where the 1 and 4MB RAM carts really came into play. In Japan, Sega really had a niche going with the Saturn being a 2D arcade machine and they capitalized that with the RAM cartridges.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
You said it yourself OP. 3D was the modern hotness, while 2D was old and unexciting.
petran79
Banned
Sega had VF, Sony had Tekken. Nintendo needed an exclusive 3d fighter. They made the best possible choice: Mace the Dark Age.
I preferred it to MK4 in the arcades
Nostremitus
Member
Probably already answered, but Stuntrace FX. And yes, we all thought it was the new hotness back then. Because honestly, we'd never seen anything like it before. Sure, you can name games that were better, but none the random kid would have had the chance to play, much less own.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
Mace the Dark Age... man. As a stupid kid, that game looked so fucking awesome. It really did make way more sense to release something like that in 1997 than X-Men Vs. Street Fighter. Which kinda kills me.
daTRUballin
Member
I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Sony with the PS1.
You should look up Bernie Stolar.
We do know Sony of America rejected 2D games. Orioto is as far as I know the only source for this story.
What? It's a great pad for 2D... SNES pad with handles, which made the pad far more comfortable. Obviously haven't been used that much, unfortunately.
Your screenshots makes me want to play Wonder Project J2 (bought it MIB for something like 2$ in Japan, but I've still to try it)
MrCunningham
Member
Yeah, it wasn't a secret that Sony of America was rejecting 2D games at launch with some exceptions. They did let games like Street Fighter Alpha and Mortal Kombat 3 pass by, but that was because of the name recognition that these series had. They did let Rayman slip by, because it did show off the hardware really well. But they were still very strict in what got through to North America... at least up to a point they did. Sony of America was even favoring FVM games over 2D platformers because an FVM game could be passed off as kind of next gen.
There is the old story that Capcom threatened to put Resident Evil 2 up on the Sega Saturn if Sony didn't let them release Mega Man 8 for the console.
But there was a really strange backlash against 2D games in American magazine publications back then (outside of quirkier magazines like GameFan), I still remember when a game would just get scored lower because it happened to look 2D or play like a 2D platformer.
Take this IGN review for Crash Bandicoot from 1996: http://ca.ign.com/articles/1996/11/22/crash-bandicoot
This wasn't just an isolated case from IGN, many reviewers docked points for Crash because it did play like a 2D platformer and wasn't "revolutionary" like Tomb Raider or Mario 64. It was a very common mentality back then.
The 2D Rayman 2 game was planned for PS1 and Saturn.
Ancel on the original 2D Rayman 2:
https://youtu.be/l6AgSHT8Ve0?t=5m32s
A Black Falcon
Member
The N64 has a fair number of 2d games, if you look for them. Most N64 puzzle games are 2d, as are games like the Rampage games, NBA Hangtime, MK Trilogy, Yoshi's Story (my choice for best 2d graphics on the system), and of course Rakuga Kids, Ogre Battle 64, and Wonder Project J2 as have been shown in this thread. It's a small minority of games on the system, but there are some 2d N64 games. As for why...
This is a good list of the reasons, yes. Basically the N64 didn't have many 2d games outside of the puzzle game genre (and everyone forgets it, but most N64 puzzle games are entirely 2d!) because carts are expensive, so developers focused on the kinds of games the market most wanted -- 3d games. I don't know why some people in this thread are claiming that Nintendo had anti-2d policies, it is absolutely untrue while Sony very much did on the PS1 and PS2, but gamers in general were biased against 2d on consoles at that time, and developers did not want to release many 2d games for a system with relatively high production costs.
As for Rayman 2, the move to 3d was a good thing. It ended up being really amazing!
This is a good list of the reasons, yes. Basically the N64 didn't have many 2d games outside of the puzzle game genre (and everyone forgets it, but most N64 puzzle games are entirely 2d!) because carts are expensive, so developers focused on the kinds of games the market most wanted -- 3d games. I don't know why some people in this thread are claiming that Nintendo had anti-2d policies, it is absolutely untrue while Sony very much did on the PS1 and PS2, but gamers in general were biased against 2d on consoles at that time, and developers did not want to release many 2d games for a system with relatively high production costs.
Just like the Playstation, the N64 basically uses flat polygons for sprites. The Saturn is the only one of the three with real sprite abilities.
Yeah, that wasn't even going to be an N64 game, just PS1 and Saturn originally... and Nintendo both published 2d games here and let publishers release whatever 2d games they liked; publishers just didn't want to release many. So I don't really believe this unless it's proven. Nintendo didn't do that. They only blocked games for censorship reasons, not 2d or 3d.
As for Rayman 2, the move to 3d was a good thing. It ended up being really amazing!
3D was all the rage with Sony America and they wanted to capitalize on that. It's pretty much the reason why Vib Ribbon never made it to the States (Layden had to fight for it to get it released after the response from E3 '14) and the scrapped 2D cutscenes for Crash Bandicoot that Universal Studios created that never made it in.
People lost their minds during this time. I remember loving sprite work, but people saw 2D as cheap, low budget, and old. Some even had the audacity to say it took no skill to do sprite work.
I used to be so heated about it back then. I remember Street Fighter III: New Generation releasing in 1997 and my friends shit on it because it was a 2D sprite based fighting game.
Such a dark time for video games if you loved sprite work and or 2D gameplay.
I used to be so heated about it back then. I remember Street Fighter III: New Generation releasing in 1997 and my friends shit on it because it was a 2D sprite based fighting game.
Such a dark time for video games if you loved sprite work and or 2D gameplay.
DonMigs85
Member
Yeah, and it's the 3D games from that era which aged terribly
3D is what the customer wanted. If the console can handle 3D games, there's nothing stopping it from handling 2D.
OpinionatedCyborg
Member
How was it not, exactly?
Take a look at the third position. Basically a SNES controller layout but for the face buttons on the right.
if only it had the SNES dpad... or the gameboy dpad... or the NES dpad... the dpad was a fucking abomination. Did it get better with use? Mine were rarely used and whenever I did use them they rock hard and imprecise.
Similar threads
- Poll