2D or not 2D? 2D. Definitely 2D.

During E3 2021, Nintendo announced the first fully new 2D Metroid game since Metroid Fusion, which was released 19 years ago. The new game was called Metroid Dread, and it looked awesome, even to me, a casual fan of the series (at the time anyway, I've sinced played and enjoyed every 2D Metroid game). Big fans of the series were ecstatic, as it seemed like this was the chance the series needed to fully move into the ranks of Nintendo's other flagships such as Mario and Zelda, both of which have sold far better and enjoyed much more widespread success.

But there was another reaction. A pessimistic reaction. Not aimed at the series or game itself really - but at the number of dimensions we'd have to explore this mysterious new world. Some people seemed genuinely upset - angry even - that this new game would be sold at the same price as other 3D games, games like Mario Odyssey, or Breath of the Wild. Their point seemed to be that 2D games simply aren't worth the same, or as good, or impressive, as 3D games.

This stuck with me. From the outset, I disagreed. Many of my favourite games are 2D. That's not to say they're THE best games of all time, or the most impressive or whatever - simply that I believe they're entirely worth the cost of playing them, and in many cases I'd choose to play them over a 3D game.

Now, it's entirely possible that it was a vocal minority being cynical, but even so - that gut reaction of theirs is interesting, and worth looking into. I can certainly see why someone who isn't into games design, or even who is just a more casual fan of games, would look at a 2D game and think on a surface level that it doesn't look as impressive as a fully 3D open world experience of a game. But is there any truth to that impression?

As I mentioned earlier, my immediate response was 'well of course not, are you kidding me?' but the more I thought about it, I couldn't fully explain myself in a convincing enough manner. This is what inspired my main idea for my MA project. The earliest video games had to be 2D, and as hardware improved, they made the inevitable jump to 3D as we think of it today. But what about the opposite? Can an established 3D franchise successfully create a 2D entry, while still capturing the essence of the 3D games, or is 3D simply more appropriate for certain franchises? I'm not expecting there to be a straightforward answer - what I really want to find out is why certain things don't translate well. But I don't want to only find out what is lost when going from 3D to 2D - I want to see what can be gained.

So in some form or another, I want to take established 3D franchises or even standalone games, and conceptualise a 2D version, attempting to hold on to what the originals were going for. I want to look at what must be changed, why that is, and what that means for the player. I want to choose games where the 3D-ness, so to speak, is an important factor - and with that in mind, I intend to look into the games I choose to establish what makes them special, what is key to the experience, to see if a 2D game can get anywhere close. 

I also want to find various cases of where this has been tried before (I have one in mind - Chibi Robo! Zip Lash) to find out how and why they succeeded, or failed. It'll also be interesting to try and find some articles about when franchises were making the jump to 3D, for example, I want to see if people were sceptical about Super Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time, and if so, I want to see why. 2D games seem to be the bread and butter of the indie scene, but can be neglected by triple A developers - another thing to look into. If the future of 2D is uncertain, will indie devs come to the rescue? Have they already? I suppose we'll have to see.

I'm unsure as of yet what form this project will take, but currently I'm envisioning design documents with some analysis, mockups, and screenshots of prototypes. I think it'll be most appropriate to design multiple elements of the game such as mechanics, UI, and scenarios (smaller chunks of levels), but as I mentioned, I'm still unsure - I'll have to have a word with my tutors on that one.

For now I'm going to settle on a first franchise/game to look at, and attempt to hone in on the most important factors of its design, to start coming up with ideas on how best to translate them into 2D.

See you in the next one!

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