What is the most graphically impressive, technically accomplished, and astounding 2D sprite-based game?

[Border]

Don't consider the subjective factors here like art style or character design.....what 2D game(s) really pushes the envelope in terms of what can be accomplished with sprites and animation? For the sake of narrowing things down, let's exclude FMV-based titles. Dragon's Lair will probably always look great, but I'm more concerned with titles that have something more akin to realtime graphics. Consider stuff like the fluidity of animation, size and detail of the sprites, the number of active characters onscreen, etc.

For a long time the king of this category was Street Fighter 3, since it had huge detailed sprites and tons of animation frames. After that, people leaned more towards the later Guilty Gear titles that offered 2D assets at HD quality. Recently Cuphead has become a contender as well, since it pretty much looks and acts like a playable cartoon.

 

[Bjones]

That one king of fighters comes to mind. It nailed hd sprites. High res sprites are a hard thing to do right l. Most end up looking like a cheap flash game.

 

[Skel1ingt0n]

I'll never not say 3rd Strike is the best looking sprite-based 2D game ever. It's gorgeous and the animation is unrivaled. I suck at fighting games, rarely play them, and am not some massive SF fan... but I will always adore how this game looks and runs.

But I'll throw in some Metal Slug, too.

...

also, does Odin Sphere count? Game was jawdropping on the Vita's OLED:

***

DONPACHI came out in... like '95? This game is 25 years old:

Also, a game that I feel doesn't always get the credit it deserves for its graphics; Pokemon Black & White 2... just a shame about that system's screen resolution:

 

[JaseMath]

I don't feel Metal Slug gets enough credit here.

 

[Colargogol]

I think the Lizardcube games, both The Dragon's Trap and Streets of Rage 4 are gorgeous.

 

[luoapp]

Aren't most of recent 2D games actually polygon modeled, therefore not "sprite" based? OP, you may want to clarify a bit here.

 

[martincrimson87]

I love Rapid Reload, not sure if it's the most advanced. But it looks great and plays really smooth taking into account there's a lot going on at all times. I believe the concensus is that SF3 or KOF13 are the greatest sprite based games.



Cotton Boomerang is one of my favourites too. Keep em coming! I think this thread is gonna deliver.

 

[giallo]

Street Fighter 3rd Strike has some killer animations on the fighters - maybe the best character sprite animations I've seen, but I'm not sure if SF3S it's the best of the best overall.

Blasphemous has some unbelievably good sprite work.

 

[Vulcano's Assistant]

This is probably controversial (because the game is already super impressive as it is), but I would say something that holds back Cuphead is that it mimics an era in which animation was still on a rudimentary state. It gives you a lot of freedom to ignore natural motion, which some old games have, even with more pixelated art (what's that PS1 game where a kid dies in quite gruesome ways?). If someone was to make a game like Cuphead mimicking animation even from just a decade later in the 1940s it would blow it out of the water.

 

[Greent4]

Kof 13 was gorgeous

 

[Rumenapp]

 

[Jaded Alyx]

That one king of fighters comes to mind. It nailed hd sprites. High res sprites are a hard thing to do right l. Most end up looking like a cheap flash game.

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XIII

 

[Lant_War]

Sonic Mania is up there for sure. Can't find GIF with enough FPS to show the full smooth animation but just so you get an idea:

 

[Skel1ingt0n]

Sonic Mania is up there for sure. Can't find GIF with enough FPS to show the full smooth animation but just so you get an idea:

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Oh man, how could I possibly forget Sonic Mania?!?!?!?!? Yes, you're absolutely right! It's by far one of the most impressively animated sprite games, ever.

 

[Jakenbakin]

This is probably controversial (because the game is already super impressive as it is), but I would say something that holds back Cuphead is that it mimics an era in which animation was still on a rudimentary state. It gives you a lot of freedom to ignore natural motion, which some old games have, even with more pixelated art (what's that PS1 game where a kid dies in quite gruesome ways?). If someone was to make a game like Cuphead mimicking animation even from just a decade later in the 1940s it would blow it out of the water.

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I love that Heart of Darkness is just casually known as the game where a kid dies a bunch. Because it sure was my experience of playing it too lol.

 

[babyzelda]

This is probably controversial (because the game is already super impressive as it is), but I would say something that holds back Cuphead is that it mimics an era in which animation was still on a rudimentary state. It gives you a lot of freedom to ignore natural motion, which some old games have, even with more pixelated art (what's that PS1 game where a kid dies in quite gruesome ways?). If someone was to make a game like Cuphead mimicking animation even from just a decade later in the 1940s it would blow it out of the water.

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Huh. All my favorite animation is from the 30s. Fleischer Studios' output in the 40s especially had a dramatic drop in expressiveness, and while Disney's Sleeping Beauty is a tour de force, the manic energy of a shmup seems made for the bouncy, elastic motion of the jazz age. A Tex Avery game might make sense for something else entirely, but in terms of matching aesthetics with action, Cuphead did real good, imo.

 

[Animus Vox]

Still impresses me to this day:

Ghost Trick

 

[miserable]

You can't really call Metal Slug "technically accomplished", not with 30fps animations.

 

[Jencks]

Legend of Mana

 

[Crayon]

That one king of fighters comes to mind. It nailed hd sprites. High res sprites are a hard thing to do right l. Most end up looking like a cheap flash game.

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First post.

 

[ghibli99]

Metal Slug is the first thing that came to mind since IIRC the philosophy behind the animation was to create something so good, so fluid, and so expressive that it could show that 2D could still be just as impressive, if not more so, than the focus and 'hotness' of 3D at the time. It's still mindblowing to look at today.

 

[spineduke]

Still impresses me to this day:

Ghost Trick

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thats a 3d model thats been animated and rasterized

i'd argue for games like this and KOFXIII where the base model is just rotoscoped from 3D is arguably less impressive than doing it from scratch.

 

[TeenageFBI]

You can't really call Metal Slug "technically accomplished", not with 30fps animations.

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How many games have you seen with fully animated sprites that change frames 60 times per second? I can't think of any.

Yes, it would be great if the Metal Slug games ran at 60 FPS but we're talking about sprite animation which is a different thing.

edit: I reread the OP and I guess I kind of agree with you. Those sprites look great and the animation is first rate but I've always been disappointed by the low framerate.

 

[Ckoerner]

does Odin Sphere count?

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Yes! All of Vanillaware's games are stunning. Including Muramasa: The Demon Blade and Dragon's Crown.


Dust: An Elysian Tail Is another that comes to mind as a 2d game with impressive sprite work.

 

[Border]

thats a 3d model thats been animated and rasterized

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One major problem with this question is whether or not to make a distinction between traditional hand-drawn animation and rotoscoped animation that relies upon "tracing over" figures that have been captured via conventional cameras. I ruled out FMV titles in the OP, but certainly considered also excluding rotoscoped animation as well. While rotoscoping is kind of a cheat, a developer still has to fit all those detailed and fluid frames of animation into system/console memory, so I think it's fair to include it if we are considering only technical accomplishment.

Not to mention that if you exclude rotoscoping, that means you also have to exclude pre-rendered stuff like Killer Instinct and Donkey Kong Country.

 

[DanteMenethil]

Click to shrink...

SNK did black magic with the neogeo. They got close to sf3 / cps3 tier quality with a machine a fraction of the power and memory

 

[Poimandres]

Cuphead is the best for me. Striking art style, beautiful animation.

 

[spineduke]

One major problem with this question is whether or not to make a distinction between traditional hand-drawn animation and rotoscoped animation that relies upon "tracing over" figures that have been captured via conventional cameras. I ruled out FMV titles in the OP, but certainly considered also excluding rotoscoped animation as well. While rotoscoping is kind of a cheat, a developer still has to fit all those detailed and fluid frames of animation into system/console memory, so I think it's fair to include it if we are considering only technical accomplishment.

Not to mention that if you exclude rotoscoping, that means you also have to exclude pre-rendered stuff like Killer Instinct and Donkey Kong Country.

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While rotoscoped animation can look nice and is in no way detrimental to the experience, it requires a different set of skills from the artist to create it. Personally, I can see the tells of rotoscoped work almost immediately, and its a bit of a turn off. Manually animating things by hand gives you a lot of room for creative expression, where a lot of rotoscoped work is clinical in their approach.

 

[TrashHeap64]

Metal Slug came out in 96 and still looks phenomenal. The amount of things happening on screen at once is crazy for it's time

 

[neptunez]

KOF XIII was amazing, that all hand drawn?

 

[spineduke]

KOF XIII was amazing, that all hand drawn?

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animation work is all rotoscoped, but character details are hand drawn

 

[RestEerie]

SNK did black magic with the neogeo. They got close to sf3 / cps3 tier quality with a machine a fraction of the power and memory

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fraction in terms of CPU power? Absolutely! Memory though? The entire idea of the AES/MVS is....if you need to display more sprites, put more memory in the cart.

From the original Neogeo 100MEGASHOCK! to MAX330 MEGA PRO GEAR SPECS to GIGA POWER PRO GEAR SPECS.....it's literally ramming more memory into the cartridge.

That's the reason why later Neo Geo look so good in terms of animation and sprite quality. Because it has more memory to store those frames of animations.

Remember, 2D games..unlike 3D games, do not need alot of CPU to do triangle calculations. What it needs to RAM, lotsa RAM to store and load all the individual frames of animations cell per scenes.

That's the reason why the Saturn 4MB Cart did wonders for 2D games (that supported it) but barely did anything for 3D games (i mean a 3D games can technically use it to store 3D texture information to display higher quality textures but the saturn dual cpu setup is still to weird to improve performance but i digress).

 

[Kandinsky]

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Wow, we have a winner I think, absolutely gorgeous.

 

[Greenzxy]

People are saying guilty gear as a contender for best animation? Not when it doesn't beat skull girls.

I think the greatest animation example in terms of following all principles of staging, bouncing ball, timing, ease in/out interpolation, transition from poses to pose, arc overlap is Third strike. That game is the A++ masterclass.
To this day, I'm not sure why no 2D game has beaten it, when it's not an impossible feat.

 

[spineduke]

People are saying guilty gear as a contender for best animation? Not when it doesn't beat skull girls.

I think the greatest animation example in terms of following all principles of staging, bouncing ball, timing, ease in/out interpolation, transition from poses to pose, arc overlap is Third strike. That game is the A++ masterclass.
To this day, I'm not sure why no 2D game has beaten it, when it's not an impossible feat.

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Yeah surprised noone mentioned Skullgirls yet, I dont think any other 2d fighter comes close in terms of animation quality + sprite size?

 

[Greenzxy]

Yeah surprised noone mentioned Skullgirls yet, I dont think any other 2d fighter comes close in terms of animation quality + sprite size?

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Yep, I would rate it very close behind third strike. Only reason skull girls doesn't quite beat it out is that use a bit of short cut work. Since it has a very cartoony animation style it can get away from the general suspension of belief when it comes to some of it's dynamic posing choices.

 

[PassiveObserver]

I really like the animations and the comparatively down-to-earth moveset for Psikyo's Daraku Tenshi.

 

[TheSentry42]

I can't find a gif but what about Owl Boy?

 

[TheThirstyPrisoner]

2D sprite porn thread? Sign me up.

I always end up going on 2D gaming binges after threads like these.

 

[Metalmucil]

King of Fighters 13? King of Fighters 13.

 

[Jon God]

Surprised no one mentioned Cuphead, it shows how high the ceiling is on sprite based games.

 

[Deleted member 23046]

An oldie (Day of the Tentacle) and an indie.

 

[DanteMenethil]

The Breath of Fire IV camera system sucks

I just want to keep playing this attractive game without rotating the dumb camera every 15 steps to see between the buildings of towns. Annoying!! Though I've managed to keep playing despite this annoyance which is saying a lot since I've dropped games for more petty reasons like text scrolling...

www.resetera.com

 

[Morrigan]

I'm fond of the sprites and animations in Slain

Blasphemous too

Surprised no one mentioned Cuphead

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It's in the OP and mentioned multiple times... Is this a joke/meme or something

 

[Deleted member 42484]

This is a beautiful thread and makes me wish more sprite-based games are made by big and talented teams with budgets.

My dream is for a bit series like Castlevania, Metroid or Megaman to return to sprites but with some of the incredible animation and attention to detail displayed here.

 

[Skyfireblaze]

This is a beautiful thread and makes me wish more sprite-based games are made by big and talented teams with budgets.

My dream is for a bit series like Castlevania, Metroid or Megaman to return to sprites but with some of the incredible animation and attention to detail displayed here.

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I'm having the same dream but I doubt it will happen :(

 

[kubev]

I realize that it doesn't push nearly as many sprites at once compared to other games mentioned in this thread, but Castlevania: Symphony of the Night still impresses me from a graphical perspective to this day. Aside from having really fluid animation, SotN just has so many small details that you really didn't expect from a 2D sprite-based game at that point in time. Frankly, I still don't think many 2D sprite-based games have SotN's attention to detail, and I still notice new details from time to time, despite having played through the game well over a hundred times.

 

[killuglypop]

Anything Irem touched, Metal Slug, Neo Turf Masters, Pulstar, In the Hunt...all an absolute masterclass in 2D sprite work. I'd also argue for Real Bout Fatal Fury Special and KOF98 from SNK

 

[KDR_11k]

Dead Cells looks very good if you look closely at what it actually does. E.g. dynamic lighting on various surfaces.

Aren't most of recent 2D games actually polygon modeled, therefore not "sprite" based? OP, you may want to clarify a bit here.

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I don't think that distinction is one we want to get into. What's an actual sprite and what's not will be beyond what most people can analyze. For example IBM PCs don't know the concept of sprites at all, they can blit (bit block transfer) graphics onto the screen but that's direct drawing, not sprites. A lot of large enemies in NES games are not sprites but background tiles because they'd be too large for the NES's sprite capabilities. The Saturn's 3D graphics are technically made up of distorted sprites used as triangles. Knowing what's an actual sprite and what uses a different rendering technique requires some in-depth knowledge of the system and the specific game.

 

[Vitet]

Hollow Knight