Game Series That Are Best 2D (or 3D)

[Koh]

As the title states, what games series do you think generally plays better in certain dimensions?  For the sake of discussion, 2.5 D is fine, but counts as 2D, because while the game uses 3D assets, it plays like a 2D game.

Well for starters, the Zelda series.  Not that any of the 3D games are BAD or anything, but I feel the most creative puzzles and items came from the 2D games, and worked well within that medium since there's no stipulations to adhere to as there are when working in 3D space.  For example, A Link to the Past's/Oracle of Ages' Cane of Somaria, Oracle of Ages' Switch Hook, Oracle of Seasons'/Four Swords' Magnetic Gloves, Minish Cap's Cane of Pacci.  These concepts would be totally broken in 3D space, since they'd completely affect the area design in a way that prevents  the entire layout of the puzzle from being seen at once, due to having to compensate for verticality and camera angles.

Sonic series.  The running at the speed of sound and platforming just feels cleaner in a 2D environment.  With 3D space, you got camera angle interference and constant changing.  For example, doing any kind of loop in a 3D game takes a lot longer than it would in a 2D game, because the camera wants to show how cool it is.

Final Fantasy series.  Seeing the nice pixel work and such, in 2D, when it came to the monsters and party, seeing their expressionism and such.  With the 3D games, more often than not, the camera is positioned in a way that you can't see any of that (pulled far back, or at an angle where you can't even see their faces).

[miyabi95_]

After playing Sonic Colors for DS and Lost World for 3DS back to back, uh, yeah. 2D Sonic is my jam. Lost World has its Super Mario Galaxy-ish charm, but with that charm comes the many frustrations of 3D platforming and quicktime events. If Sega continued to make 2D handhelds that counter the 3D console games, that's all fine and dandy with me. 2D Sonic games are stressful enough - I got angry just playing the first zone of Lost World. Jeez.

Granted, Sega likes to try new things pretty often, I'll give em that.

[Terminal Devastation]

Final Fantasy series.  Seeing the nice pixel work and such, in 2D, when it came to the monsters and party, seeing their expressionism and such.  With the 3D games, more often than not, the camera is positioned in a way that you can't see any of that (pulled far back, or at an angle where you can't even see their faces).

I'm going to have to disagree in this case. Final fantasy series is rare case where there are at least glimpses of what a 2D version of the 3D games could have been, and outright examples of 3D versions of the 2D. Due to this, I can pretty safely say, it varies from game to game, and even just specific sections of a single game would excel or fail if they lost/added another dimension.
Take FF7. There's no reason they couldn't have just made the entire game in FF6's style. But the ability to just zoom the camera in and out easily had it benefits against tiny and GIGANTIC enemies, the tiny ones could have detail, and the big ones could actually be big and show their full bodies, without being a multiple part final boss, and all without having smaller stuff stay indecipherable the entire time as the camera could zoom and pan to focus on what ever is doing something at the time. As far as expressionism and such, I found it's more a matter of differences of method. The 2D FF's showed expression mostly through facials, and single distinct frames, while the 3D (at least the earlier ones) preferred expression through animation and posing.

[miyabi95_]

Before I forget, Street Fighter games and King of Fighters games are best played in 2D for me. While I appreciate the creative efforts to depict the characters in a 3D setting, I still can't get behind the visuals. I dunno if they're worse or they're just too different from the original. Street Fighter character designs have more of a comic book/shounen manga feel, so it would make sense for the games to be in 2D because they capture the cartoonish but still a little realistic style. I feel it's a lot more difficult to convert that style to 3D without completely taking away the visual novelty of the 2D games.

King of Fighters evolved from semi-realistic to more anime-inspired character designs up until they decided to go with the Tekken/DoA-inspired 3D style for their latest game. Personally, I think they should have stuck with the 2D style that XII and XIII had for a little while longer, because I think fans were still adjusting to that 2D style and weren't quite expecting the quick switch to 3D.

However, I would love to see a BlazBlue title in the style of Guilty Gear Xrd. That is by far the most impressive take on 3D fighting games that I have seen (in a graphical sense, not gameplay-wise. Xrd is obviously a 2D fighter)! Xrd takes the cel-shaded Wind Waker style and adds anime-inspired lines and effects that is just so polished. I always thought the original Guilty Gear sprites were a bit messy, like they were made for a non-profit indie fighting game rather than a full-budget and licensed console game (not that it's necessarily a bad thing tho, making graphics for a game is not easy, we all know this), so I like the turn they took with Xrd.

[puggsoy]

Well for starters, the Zelda series.  Not that any of the 3D games are BAD or anything, but I feel the most creative puzzles and items came from the 2D games, and worked well within that medium since there's no stipulations to adhere to as there are when working in 3D space.  For example, A Link to the Past's/Oracle of Ages' Cane of Somaria, Oracle of Ages' Switch Hook, Oracle of Seasons'/Four Swords' Magnetic Gloves, Minish Cap's Cane of Pacci.  These concepts would be totally broken in 3D space, since they'd completely affect the area design in a way that prevents  the entire layout of the puzzle from being seen at once, due to having to compensate for verticality and camera angles.

Gonna go ahead and agree with this right here. I really preferred the top-down LoZ games and although that includes Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, the 2D ones were probably the best of the batch. Keeping in mind that I have a huge bias (barely having played any of the 3D games) I do think that the series shined in 2D.
I think it's a bit of a shame that Nintendo is moving towards 3D stuff so heavily since, while it's not necessarily a bad thing, I personally would like to see more 2D LoZ games (or just 2D games in general).

I also feel like sidescrollers in general work better in 2D. There are some really nice 3D ones (Trine), but unless there is some sort of mechanic or gimmick in the game that actually uses the third dimension, it can often hinder the experience rather than enhance it. As with everything, it depends on the game, but I feel like 2D movement is just better presented and experienced in a 2D world. The controls also feel more crisp in my opinion, although that might just be with 2D vs 3D in general.

[Lemonray]

Castlevania is a series that has never had a truly top-tier 3D game despite some of the 2D titles being amazing such as Rondo of Blood. I'm okay with this though- the Souls games are almost what top-tier 3D Castlevania games would be like.

[TomGuycott]

I feel like Curse of Darkness was the best 3D Castlevania. It felt like a Symphony of the Night style game properly transferred to 3D with some new concepts spliced in.

I wasn't a big fan of the story ("Hey, look at these Devil Forgemasters who have ALWAYS been integral to Castlevania and won't disappear after this game!"), but to be fair, most CV story delivery is mediocre at best, or hilarious depending on voice acting.

To be honest, I even like Curse of Darkness better than lots of the 2D games in the series.

[Koh]

I can also vouch for Curse of Darkness, it's very good. It's a shame it didn't get much attention.

[miyabi95_]

just making sure, don't wanna stray off topic but castlevania 64 is collectively disliked, correct?

[BullockDS]

Pretty much universally outside of speedrunning communities.

[K0n9]

As the title states, what games series do you think generally plays better in certain dimensions?  For the sake of discussion, 2.5 D is fine, but counts as 2D, because while the game uses 3D assets, it plays like a 2D game.

Well for starters, the Zelda series.  Not that any of the 3D games are BAD or anything, but I feel the most creative puzzles and items came from the 2D games, and worked well within that medium since there's no stipulations to adhere to as there are when working in 3D space.  For example, A Link to the Past's/Oracle of Ages' Cane of Somaria, Oracle of Ages' Switch Hook, Oracle of Seasons'/Four Swords' Magnetic Gloves, Minish Cap's Cane of Pacci.  These concepts would be totally broken in 3D space, since they'd completely affect the area design in a way that prevents  the entire layout of the puzzle from being seen at once, due to having to compensate for verticality and camera angles.

I'll put my vote on this too. The Oracle games are my favorite Zelda games. I kinda wish they made that third game they were planning. The puzzles were really great, like freezing the lava in the Sword and Shield maze.

[SKELTON S. SKELETON]

It's weird to me that Castlevania is so hard to attempt through 3D. Like: People for a while during the PS2/PS1 era were waiting in awe like with the right kind of approach and the right uh, auteur (i guess?) attached that the game could have a successful outing as an actual 3D game.

Maybe the reason is the things we ascribe to Castlevania aren't really 'castlevania' at all. I don't consider Lords of Shadows to be a very good game and it's basically castlevania in name only, but, when you examine the 2D titles closely you see a lot of things that aren't really hard to pull off that all. I mean - most of them would later come to fruition exactly translated in terms of mood and atmosphere into Dark Souls.

The reason I think though, is there's an inexorable goofiness and charm in the 2D castlevanias that hasn't been present in the incredibly self-serious and self important 3D games, whether we're talking the weird arthurian romance subplot of Lament of Innocence or Curse of Darkness taking place after one of the most important games in the series mechnical canon but drawing almost nothing from that entry stylistically or in terms of storytelling!

But if you look at even Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, it's a game where the developers (and u can tell this) were given tons of leeway to just dick around and put whatever they wanted in the game. From Alucard being able to sit down to the entirety of the inverted castle being a thing.The 3D games dont' really have any of that real sense of goof or charm, and have instead fallen back on what is expected of a Gothic Action Game.

It even comes through in the soundtrack. One of the best things I ever saw written about how much of a failure as a game Lords of Shadow is is in regards to music. Where classic Castlevania drew from jazz, soprano, opera, sonata, rock & roll and even the blues, giving the games their own inherent style and character, Lords of Shadow fell back on generic hollywood orchestra and gave us what was expected from that kind of game, and honestly: what's expected is usually what is cliche or trite.