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Koko Ricky

What non-FPS games were also 2.5D?

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2.5D engines can use 3D models in them (for example, the player's ship in Star Wars: Dark Forces), while true 3D engines can still use sprites, like in the modern RetroBlazer project, which runs on the DarkPlaces engine. The main difference as I understand it is that the level architecture is made of 3D models in true 3D engines, whereas in 2.5D ones the illusion of perspective is accomplished in a different manner.

BTW, is the Ultima Underworld engine 2.5D or true 3D?

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Could PaRappa The Rapper count? I mean, It's paper-thin characters In a 3D world, I guess It would count as an 2.5D In a way.



Another one might be Donkey Kong Country, but It's sprites are 3D.

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...Terminal Velocity?

DMGUYDZ64 said:

Sonic 3D Blast , umm ..

Sonic 3D Blast...so its not 3D huh? Damn, ive been fooled.

What about Sonic Robo Blast 2? Its also 2.5D.

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Voros said:

...Terminal Velocity?


I haven't played that in forever, but I seem to remember it being 3D. At least as 3D as Descent was.

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BombChel said:

I haven't played that in forever, but I seem to remember it being 3D. At least as 3D as Descent was.

in the wiki, its written that it was made with the Doom engine...

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Voros said:

in the wiki, its written that it was made with the Doom engine...

I'm pretty sure it is true 3d, though it does use the occasional sprite (like for trees).

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Voros said:

...Terminal Velocity?

Sonic 3D Blast...so its not 3D huh? Damn, ive been fooled.

What about Sonic Robo Blast 2? Its also 2.5D.


Sonic 3D Blast uses sprites for it's maps instead and allows player to basically move up,down,left and right and jump or get pushed to Z Axis to make it feel like a 3D game .

And for SRB2, As long as Doom engine is a 2.5D engine, it is .

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I just realized something interesting: The engine used by RoTT is actually "more 3D" than Doom engine, thanks to vertical collision detection. Solid actors collide with each other on all 3 axis. Jumping over floating platforms or enemy heads is possible, and there are also solid "midtextures" that can form a corridor above and below them. Doom has non-orthogonal walls and variable floor/ceiling heights, which is cool, but not as essential to "3D-ness" as 3D collision detection is, IMO.

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DMGUYDZ64 said:

Sonic 3D Blast uses sprites for it's maps instead and allows player to basically move up,down,left and right and jump or get pushed to Z Axis to make it feel like a 3D game .

And for SRB2, As long as Doom engine is a 2.5D engine, it is .

I KNEW IT!
Never doubt the guts!

Ok, i doubted Terminal Velocity...

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JRPG examples: Some of the Ys games, and also Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.

Also, I haven't used this account in literal years. Howdy!

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Some of the early 3D games used so many sprites that they felt 2.5D. I'd have to look some up from the PS1 era.

Hmm, now that I think about it, the late 80s arcade SHMUP "After Burner" placed sprites in a 3D space, but with no actual polygons present.

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GoatLord said:

Some of the early 3D games used so many sprites that they felt 2.5D. I'd have to look some up from the PS1 era.

Hmm, now that I think about it, the late 80s arcade SHMUP "After Burner" placed sprites in a 3D space, but with no actual polygons present.

Sega loved doing this; the hardware behind it was referred to as "Super-Scaler" and powered everything from Galaxy Force to Space Harrier, and of course OutRun. Pretty impressive for a hardware standard that was developed in 1985.

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DMGUYDZ64 said:

The Saturn version used real 3D Special stages though .

...80% correct, my guts say.

really? Saturn can handle 3D objects?

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Voros said:

...80% correct, my guts say.

really? Saturn can handle 3D objects?

The thing about the Sega Saturn is that, while it does have dedicated 3D hardware (the VDP1 chip), it was largely added as an afterthought to the rest of the console. So full-3D games, while not uncommon, were actually quite difficult to make.

But on the topic of the Saturn and 2.5D games, I'd also like to mention the Bug! games, Clockwork Knight (3D backgrounds with sprites and single-plane 2D gameplay), Dark Savior (semi-overhead-perspective RPG with platforming elements), and the two Dragon Force games (3D battlefield with huge sprite-based armies).

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GoatLord said:

Some of the early 3D games used so many sprites that they felt 2.5D. I'd have to look some up from the PS1 era.

For the PC, Daggerfall and Battlespire are two examples. Some props and items are full 3D models though.

GoatLord said:

Hmm, now that I think about it, the late 80s arcade SHMUP "After Burner" placed sprites in a 3D space, but with no actual polygons present.

IIRC Rage of Mages has full 3D terrain while using sprites for everything and essentially being a top-down game like Warcraft.

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Jaxxoon R said:

TOMBA!/TOMBI!, I guess.

That's 3D in the way the worlds are made up (they can rotate when going through certain doors) but many of the graphics are made up of sprites...another of the "reverse" examples I guess...

Brill game though C:

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DMGUYDZ64 said:

Saturn was very weak, it was the reason why "Sonic X-Treme" was canceled .

Sonic X-treme was cancelled because important members of both the Saturn and PC teams fell extremely ill and as a result were not able to meet the deadline. But what really sealed its fate was the disorganization of STI, general lack of direction throughout the project's existence, and the growing rift between Sega of Japan and Sega of America.

Honestly, in terms of what they can do at the end of the day the Saturn and PSX were rather neck-and-neck. The PSX's main advantage being that it had hardware decoders for FMVs and specialized co-processors for vector math and memory management, which probably went a good ways towards making the thing easier to program for. But by no means was the Saturn a weak system in comparison.

I mean, the thing handles Quake without much fuss:



Though weirdly enough the Saturn's sound chip has a ton of built-in support for FM synthesis and LFO... all that synth hardware that only a few games used for brief periods of very specific songs... now that's just odd.

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Honestly both Duke and Quake on the Saturn were disappointments just because they were trying too hard to fit them into something that blatantly couldn't handle them. You can tell there was effort but it just wasn't possible without dramatically watering it down.

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I think many SRPGs qualify as 2.5D seeing as how Doom qualifies as 2.5D with the elevation factor.

I'd recommend trying Knight of Lodis and Let us Cling Together from Tactics Ogre. And the Final Fantasy Tactics games (my personal favorites being Advance for the GBA and Advance 2 for the DS)

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