Polygon Ceiling: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

Simply put: when a 2D original's transition to a 3D turns out to be difficult, usually because a [[Video Game 3D Leap]] often requires more skill and talent than some developers have.

 

There are two aspects of dimensionality when it comes to games. A game can be rendered in 2D or 3D, and the gameplay can be 2D or 3D. All 4 combinations have been seen.

Switching from one of these combinations to another, especially going from 2D/2D to 3D/3D is fraught with peril. Particularly in the early days of 3D rendering, art styles that were painstakingly developed in 2D could be lost in the transition to 3D rendering due to lack of hardware capable of bringing it to life in 3D. And of course, there are some art styles that simply don't work in 3 dimensions at all.

 

On the other hand, when this trope was common, not being in 3D could also invoke [[It's the Same, Now It Sucks]] among fans, so some game producers didn't have a real choice but to try.

 

 

{{examples}}

== [[Action Game]] ==

* ''[[Bomberman]]'' hit the Polygon Ceiling a bit harshly with the ''[[Nintendo 64|64]]'' series. They later tried again when the Gamecube rolled around and broke through the ceiling just fine with ''Bomberman Generation'' and ''Bomberman Jetters'', having made the smart move of giving only the single-player mode 3D gameplay while keeping the multiplayer the same as with the 2D games. It's a pity, though... they could have paved the way for a ''lot'' of [[Incredibly Lame Pun|remarks]] about why he's called Bomberman.

* [[Adventure Game]]s, generally speaking, have not dealt with the transition to the 3D era well.

* After an extremely successful run with ''[[Gabriel Knight]]'', the series went through two separate clashes with this trope. The first sequel had full-motion-video ''gameplay'' in a 2D environment, while ''[[Gabriel Knight]] 3'' went into 3D. While both sequels had strong storylines, they were very difficult to play.

 

== [[Fighting Game]] ==

** ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' is particularly guilty of this, with the gameplay and fatality systems being rebuilt with almost every new game.

** ''[[Mortal Kombat 4]]'' was a weird case. Even when it was fully 3-D, the gameplay was not greatly altered from the previous games (with only one limited way to move on the Z-Axis), making it very faithful to the original 2-D games.

** ''[[One Must Fall]] Battlegrounds'' attempted to do jump to 3D but failed due to many functionality problems. It was one of the most promising games ever made, but the bugs, lack of pilot/robot progress, inability to go through the arenas fast and awkward controls made for a big disappointment.

** ''[[The King of Fighters]]'' got around this with a "2.5D" subseries a la ''SFIV'' (in fact, predating it), the ''Maximum Impact'' line. For those who still aren't comfortable with the idea, it is explicitly an [[Alternate Continuity]]; the main games still use sprites. In a strange inversion, ''KOF XII'', which is sprite-based, proceeded to bomb. One of the reasons is how they scaled back on everything - half of the roster had been cut, and the main gameplay mode was nothing more than a glorified time trial.

** Nintendo's platform-fighting game series ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' was 2.5-D (3D models moving on a 2D plane) from the start.

 

== [[Platform Game]] ==

* Pariodied in one minigame in ''[[Looney Tunes]] Duck Amuck'', where [[Daffy Duck]] wants to be in a really advanced game "with graphics up the wazoo", and becomes a very blocky collection of polygons.

 

* ''[[Dawn of Mana]]'' already deviated from formula by turning a successful 2-D action-RPG into an 3-D action-platformer with minimal [[RPG Elements]]. It went on to have [[Camera Screw|one of the worst camera systems]] for a PS2 platformer, and mission-objective arrows that pointed directly at solid walls. It also [[Restart At Level One|stripped you of all your upgrades at the end of a level]], making what few [[RPG Elements]] it had entirely pointless.

* The first eight ''[[Might and Magic]]'' games used sprites for NPC's, monsters, trees, etc (in a 3D world in 6 thru 8) and were quite good. ''M&M 9'' was fully rendered. It was also full of bugs, had ridiculous looking characters with flat faces, trees with a few 'blades' of leaves, and a UI with a fraction of the functions of its predecessors.

== [[Shoot'Em Up]] ==

* The nearly-forgotten ''[[Gradius|Solar Assault Gradius]]''. It's a perfectly fine game, but it's arcade-only and hard to play using emulators. All subsequent entries in the ''[[Gradius]]'' series went back to 2-D.

 

== [[Sports Game]] ==

* ''[[Backyard Sports]]'' in 3D has downright ''blocky'' models.

* After a licensing dispute, ''Acclaim'' grabbed the ''[[NBA Jam]]'' name from [[Midway Games]] and made ''NBA Jam Extreme''. ''Extreme'' suffered from long load times, blocky character models, and painful overuse of the word "extreme." It added two changes to the formula established by the original ''Jam'': First of all, players no longer caught fire, but became "Smokin'", which could be achieved either by scoring three straight baskets without the opponent scoring or blocking three straight baskets. If the player did both, he became "Unstoppable." The second change was the addition of an "Extreme" button, which was even stronger than Turbo, but drained the Turbo meter twice as fast. Neither did much to change the gameplay. Now, ''Extreme'' is barely remembered, if at all.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Videogame Culture]]