PlayStation - 2D vs 3D

[NayusDante]

While Sony seemed determined to kill sprite-based gaming, quite a lot of 2D gems made it onto that 3D-capable CD-based console. However, it can't be argued that PSX pioneered hardware-3D in consoles. Looking back, what do you think of that business plan? Were the 3D games really better, or did the CD format allow for more impressive 2D games?

[Gavica]

for better 2D games = Saturn

for better 3D games = playstation

nuff said

[wingzrow]

I agree with Gavica, looking at my collection, most of the games I own for the system are 3d.

[c0ldb33r]

for better 2D games = Saturn

for better 3D games = playstation

nuff said
true, but there are some weird exceptions. In the hunt and Castlevania SOTN come to mind.

[dreamcaster]

I am a big fan of Rapid Reload on the PlayStation, which is probably the only 2D exclusive I have played on the system.

Oh, I also used to have Philosoma - but that kinda sucked, and wasn't entirely 2D if I recall correctly.

[kupomogli]

PSX has better 2d than Saturn. Look at Symphony of the Night. The Saturn port was pretty bad.

Anyways. With a console that mainly had 3d games, can't really say it had more 2d games that were good than 3d.

Aside from RPG which doesn't really matter if it's 2d or 3d, 2d has a slight edge. However. I don't think most 3d games played any worse than 2d games. If you go with the action/adventure genre or fighting genre, there are a lot of crappy 3d games because they weren't used to creating games. As for 2d, it's as good as it can be aside from graphics on the PSX, but it's only a minor update from what SNES could do. I mean what more can you really do with 2d?

For games. We'll start with Dragon Valor. Not by Capcomm but this is the game which Devil May Cry has its gameplay based from. Every attack from DMC seems pulled straight from this game. It's not as smooth as DMC is, but it works. It's like Illusion of Gaia, meets DMC, meets Phantasy Star 3.

Brave Fencer Musashi, Threads of Fate, Tail Concerto, Mega Man Legends, Mega Man Legends 2. These games are some of the best 3d games on the PSX, BFM being the most fluid.

Then you got your 2d titles such as Tales, Symphony of the Night, Castlevania Chronicles, Mega Man 8, Mega Man X4, and X6.

[j_factor]

Are you counting 2.5D games as 2D or 3D?

[Baloo]

PSX has better 2d than Saturn. Look at Symphony of the Night. The Saturn port was pretty bad.

Are you insane? That was like, the only exception for PSX having a better 2D game than the Saturn did. and that was because the programmers were shitty. Have you forgotten:

Street Fighter Alphas 1, 2, and 3
Mortal Kombat II
X-Men Vs. Street Fighter
Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter
Rayman
X-Men Children of the Atom (This was so bad on PSX it's unplayable)

And there's a bunch of other titles as well that are much better on Saturn.

[todesengel]

Outside of a handful of 2D games I feel the Playstation did better 3D games. I'm with the group that feels that the Saturn is the 32-bit system to go to for 2D games.

[dreamcaster]

PSX has better 2d than Saturn. Look at Symphony of the Night. The Saturn port was pretty bad.

Wrong.

[Ed Oscuro]

I would personally rather there were more quality 2D games in larger formats up to the present. I think, however, that if you are going to put a lot of money into developing a good game, it will probably be best received in the press and with marketing if it gets a 3D treatment. Only recently, with some simple attempts at low-res NES and SMS style games, have big developers like Capcom and Sega tried to bring back 2D, but only as experiments. It's a shame but I think there are better ways to advance the cause of 2D other than pitting it against 3D.

Looking back, what do you think of that business plan? Were the 3D games really better, or did the CD format allow for more impressive 2D games?
Another fine example of a flamebait title not matched by meek contents. Still, that's a pretty astounding textbook example of a logical fallacy in action there. What on earth does the media format have to do about 2D versus 3D? What does 2D versus 3D have to do with marketing practice?

It's too damned easy, and lazy, to second-guess Sony from the distance of many years - especially without needing to worry about the pressure of profits or market positioning. 3D games sell because they allow a more realistic perspective and control. The ads are more eye-catching. 3D games are still popular, and they still make a lot of money (shocked gasps from the audience!).

Yes, it's true that CD ROMs are able to hold more data for better 2D games; that's not in dispute, but it's also unrelated to the question of whether 2D games should be forced off the medium in favor of 3D (or vice versa). Sony's decision was flawed taken from the sole perspective of consumer choice - from the standpoint of being a gamer and wanting the best games. Obviously, both 2D and 3D games can coexist in the market, but at the time (in North America mainly, I might add; there's a good number of 2D games in Japan, including single game arcade ports) they felt otherwise. Any console that was not seen as "serious" about 3D would be laughed out of next-gen announcements, and destroyed in the press. People like younger versions of not just NayusDante, but also perhaps even me, would hear that the PlayStation was going soft on developers and not pushing 3D hard enough, and so on.

That ship has sailed; there's no more battle to fight here.

As an answer...PlayStation 3D games have the edge simply because there were more of them. This does not mean that it was good (from a gaming perspective) that 2D was forced out in some markets. I can rattle off the names of a few really high-quality 2D games; doesn't change anything because there weren't enough of them to justify losing the great 3D games.

Are you insane? That was like, the only exception for PSX having a better 2D game than the Saturn did. and that was because the programmers were shitty.
The more reasonable explanation (which jives with a text document on the Saturn disc's root, as I've heard) is that they didn't have enough time to do it right.

[Astrocade]

3D games on the PS are pretty rough to look at nowadays for the most part. The 2D games have held up much better.

[Ed Oscuro]

3D games on the PS are pretty rough to look at nowadays for the most part.
So you would rather we had no 3D games at all until they are able to "hold up" by modern standards? I suppose low-rez arcade games are pretty damn ugly too, I guess it'd be better they weren't made (like the OP suggested) until they can be done "right."

Damn...it must be hard going through life not being able to buy any gadget because a newer and better one is just around the corner.

:monkey:

And for the record, a lot of PSX 3D games are just fine. The simplistic, trippy texturing gives PSX games a classic look, and a lot of the games still "stand up" despite that.

[dreamcaster]

Good games will be good games. Bad games will be bad games. Presentation, perspective, delivery format and brand are irrelevant.

This is true for all time.

[Ryaan1234]

And for the record, a lot of PSX 3D games are just fine. The simplistic, trippy texturing gives PSX games a classic look, and a lot of the games still "stand up" despite that.
http://autofish.net/shrines/lsd/lsd_091.jpg

[kupomogli]

Are you insane? That was like, the only exception for PSX having a better 2D game than the Saturn did. and that was because the programmers were shitty. Have you forgotten

No. I just haven't played them. Castlevania was the only game I've played on both systems.


Good games will be good games. Bad games will be bad games. Presentation, perspective, delivery format and brand are irrelevant

I agree with this. Like someone else said. Games don't get worse with age. They were never good to begin with.

[dreamcaster]

http://autofish.net/shrines/lsd/lsd_091.jpg

Holy shit. What game is that? I want to play it!

[j_factor]

Wasn't it also a lot cheaper to make a 3D game at that time? It would certainly seem that aesthetic standards were higher for 2D games -- sprites and 2D backgrounds would have to be meticulously crafted, whereas 3D models and environments could just be kind of thrown together. Not to mention having to draw individual frames of animation.

[dreamcaster]

Wasn't it also a lot cheaper to make a 3D game at that time? It would certainly seem that aesthetic standards were higher for 2D games -- sprites and 2D backgrounds would have to be meticulously crafted, whereas 3D models and environments could just be kind of thrown together. Not to mention having to draw individual frames of animation.

I think the work involved would have been different but not less. Especially in that era where each of the main player consoles (SAT, PSX, N64) weren't exactly a walk-in the park when it came to 3D games - especially the Saturn and N64.

I think there was a perceived financial risk when it came to producing 2D games in that era, so developers naturally stayed away from doing it.

That said, both Yoshi's Story and Mischief Makers sold pretty well on the N64.

[Ryaan1234]

Holy shit. What game is that? I want to play it!
It's LSD: Dream Emulator for the PSX. It's a Japanese game.


Here's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUzxbmduww8) what it looks like in action, if you're interested.

[dreamcaster]

Hrm, somehow finding out it was meant to be trippy makes it less appealing.

I prefer games that are inadvertently insane.

[Oldskool]

That game is just.. wow.

[NayusDante]

3D games on the PS are pretty rough to look at nowadays for the most part. The 2D games have held up much better.

I wanted to wait a bit before I gave my opinion, but this is pretty much it.

Even back then, I couldn't stand the low-res wavy textures. It wasn't until I got into collecting that I actually gave the 3D PSX games a shot.

[retroman]

a good game is a good game...2d or 3d it dont matter....but i think the edge would go to 3d on the psx...because it opened the door for more types of games..

[retro junkie]

When I look back and think of the PSX, I don't think of 3D. What comes to mind is RPGs. It was the RPG king of the consoles, of its generation. And even though it pioneered 3D, or at least blazed the trail, it was the Nintendo 64 that set the standards and redefined the genre.
I have in my collection of games, for the PSX, mostly RPGs, plus the vertical and horizotal shooters, racers, the Crash games, the fighters, plus some of the platform or adventure games.
I do think that the PSX was better at 3D than 2D, even though the RPGs were mostly 2D. Even the FF VII with its prerendered graphics was 2D, not true 3D. The system became the home of some classics, as well as some great arcade to home translations. Some of the things that come to mind is Ridge Racer and Tekken. Also classics like Klonoa, Brave Fencer Musashi, and Castlevania SOTN, I have never played the Saturn version, are worthy of anyone's collection. The Saturn was the 2D king at that time, its hardware was made for it, even though it was capable of some fantastic Sega 3D arcade to home translations, its strength was in 2D.
I think the PSX led the way in the 3D gaming craze. I personally cringed at the time because of the love that I have for 2D. I always felt that there was room for both.
I really think that the PSX will always be remembered as the doorway to 3D gaming on home consoles. 2D was a little harder for it to do, being that it was made for the 3D stuff, but it did manage to do it.

In the end, it is the games that define the system. For me it is the RPGs on the PSX.

[kedawa]

The CD format actually hurt the system's ability to handle 2D games. Just look at how rough NeoGeo and CPS ports ended up. Even the Saturn, which had double the amount of RAM and a 4X CD drive, needed a memory expansion to handle many 2D arcade ports. The Playstation's limited RAM and the slow access speed of its CD drive were less of an issue with realtime polygonal graphics.

I think if more developers had focused on doing 2D that was more computationally intensive(lots of special effects, segmented animation, etc.) instead of data intensive(big sprites and lots of animation), then the Playstation would have been home to some really groundbreaking stuff. Of course as we all know, most of the pioneering work done on the system was in three dimensions, and understandably so.

[thom_m]

I don't know the PSX library that much to say for sure, but I guess there were good games in both 2D and 3D. Skullmonkeys is one of my favorite games for the system, and it's 2D; in fact, it's was proof of what programmers could have done in 2D, with the then-new hardware, if it 3D wasn't the dominating trend.

[j_factor]

The CD format actually hurt the system's ability to handle 2D games. Just look at how rough NeoGeo and CPS ports ended up. Even the Saturn, which had double the amount of RAM and a 4X CD drive, needed a memory expansion to handle many 2D arcade ports. The Playstation's limited RAM and the slow access speed of its CD drive were less of an issue with realtime polygonal graphics.

Saturn only has 50% more RAM and a 2x CD drive. RAM is usually only a big issue for fighting games (as far as 2D games go). The PSX port of Metal Slug X turned out okay. Saturn does have additional advantages for 2D games beyond just the RAM. However, people tend to exaggerate. The fact is, both systems were capable machines at both 2D and 3D games. Playstation has a pretty significant number of great (and great-looking) 2D games, which is more than you can say for N64. :)

[Astrocade]

So you would rather we had no 3D games at all until they are able to "hold up" by modern standards? I suppose low-rez arcade games are pretty damn ugly too, I guess it'd be better they weren't made (like the OP suggested) until they can be done "right."


Honestly, I could have done without the PS altogether. Most of all the 3D games look just as bad to me now as they did in 1996. In fact, with very few exceptions, I would go so far as to say that there wasn't a console worth purchasing new between the SNES and the Dreamcast.

I love retro gaming, warts and all. But crap is crap. Games like the original Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, and Goldeneye 64 are unplayable to me now just as they were 15 years ago. I was in the minority then, and I guess I still am. But then again, I'm the guy that has never played a Halo or Madden game ever and have no plans to.

[dreamcaster]

If you find GoldenEye unplayable you're just not trying hard enough. :P

[j_factor]

Goldeneye is vastly overrated, but certainly playable. Same goes for the other two. Not necessarily the best examples for their time, but they work.

[kupomogli]

Overrated or not, Goldeneye is still a great game and one of the best fps games. It's one of the only FPS games that has a one player mode that doesn't suck as well.


Honestly, I could have done without the PS altogether. Most of all the 3D games look just as bad to me now as they did in 1996. In fact, with very few exceptions, I would go so far as to say that there wasn't a console worth purchasing new between the SNES and the Dreamcast.

I love retro gaming, warts and all. But crap is crap. Games like the original Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, and Goldeneye 64 are unplayable to me now just as they were 15 years ago. I was in the minority then, and I guess I still am. But then again, I'm the guy that has never played a Halo or Madden game ever and have no plans to.

Graphics don't make the game you know. Just because it's ugly looking 3d in its beginning stages doesn't mean that it's a bad game. Resident Evil was mostly 2d btw. It was prerendered 3d. Just like most of Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, Star Ocean 2, Final Fantasy 7, etc.

When it comes to platformers and action games, the SNES beats out the PSX. But if you take all the games released to the US, ports aside, I honestly think the PSX beats out the SNES as to how many good games were released to the system.

[Astrocade]

Graphics don't make the game you know. Just because it's ugly looking 3d in its beginning stages doesn't mean that it's a bad game.


I'm not really talking graphics here, I'm talking about control. Complete loss of perspective in GoldenEye and akward as shit handling in the RE games. That's what killed early 3D gaming for me.

[Rob2600]

Playstation has a pretty significant number of great (and great-looking) 2D games, which is more than you can say for N64. :)

Show me a 2D PlayStation game that looks more beautiful and impressive than Wonder Project J2 on the N64. :)


I couldn't stand the low-res wavy [PSX] textures.


even though it pioneered 3D, or at least blazed the trail, it was the Nintendo 64 that set the standards and redefined the genre.

Visually, some N64 games like Donkey Kong 64, Rayman 2, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and several others still hold up today.

[Gameguy]

Show me a 2D PlayStation game that looks more beautiful and impressive than Wonder Project J2 on the N64. :)
That's one of the few games that makes me interested in the system, and of course it wasn't released anywhere in English. :-/

For the most part I can't get into the N64 or Playstation. There are a few games I'm interested in for the Playstation, but they're pretty much all 2D games(the Castlevania games, Skull Monkeys, etc).

[kupomogli]

Show me a 2D PlayStation game that looks more beautiful and impressive than Wonder Project J2 on the N64. :)

Is that supposed to be a joke. There's atleast a few. Wonder Project J2 has jaggies which I would assume is due to compression. Even without the jaggies, the graphics aren't really that impressive looking.

But if I must, and easily?

Legend of Mana.

There's your game that looks more beautiful and impressive than Wonder Project J2.

[Nintega Grafx-16]

The 2D games on PS1 aged much better than the 3D ones. Look at FFVII for example then look at Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Cased closed.

[MarioMania]

I must admit Castlevania SOTN look's great on the PS..that's it,

Somereason Konami botched the Saturn Port to make the PS version look good

[j_factor]

Show me a 2D PlayStation game that looks more beautiful and impressive than Wonder Project J2 on the N64. :)

One import-only title is hardly "a significant number". Also, that game isn't that great IMO -- in graphics or gameplay.

[Rob2600]

Show me a 2D PlayStation game that looks more beautiful and impressive than Wonder Project J2 on the N64. :)

Is that supposed to be a joke. There's atleast a few. Wonder Project J2 has jaggies which I would assume is due to compression. Even without the jaggies, the graphics aren't really that impressive looking.

But if I must, and easily?

Legend of Mana. There's your game that looks more beautiful and impressive than Wonder Project J2.

Legend of Mana has beautiful static, flat backgrounds. Wonder Project J2 has hundreds of frames of beautiful animation.

[kupomogli]

Legend of Mana has beautiful static, flat backgrounds. Wonder Project J2 has hundreds of frames of beautiful animation.

Here Rob2600, watch this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4iEPwRlcKM

Not only does Legend of Mana have areas that have animated backgrounds it's got multiple sprites on screen at once which are animated differently with each separate action, all attacking sometimes at the same time. Also some huge bosses which take up around a fifth and sometimes more of the screen in these same backgrounds.

So yeah. Plenty is going on in Legend of Mana. The game looks much better by far. No contest. Also. Because of the disc format as well, you won't find jaggies on anything in Legend of Mana because it doesn't need to be compressed.

[kedawa]

Jaggies are not a compression artifact.

[chrisbid]

early 3d wasnt ugly, overuse of textures in early 3d was extremely ugly. flat shaded games like star fox, and the early virtua series have a clean look that has aged very well. a lot of n64 games kept the use of textures down, and the results were fairly good.

and as much as we complain about sony killing 2d gaming, nintendo was even worse with the n64. why did it take 20 years to make a true console 2D sequel to super mario world?

[Rob2600]

Not only does Legend of Mana have areas that have animated backgrounds it's got multiple sprites on screen at once which are animated differently with each separate action, all attacking sometimes at the same time.

There's a difference between a couple of one-inch sprites with a few frames of animation and a cartoon-quality character that takes up half the screen.


It tickles me that you people still talk to kupomogli like he were a rational human being. Kupomogli is an object, incapable of adaptation and reason.

I keep forgetting that!

[j_factor]

There's a difference between a couple of one-inch sprites with a few frames of animation and a cartoon-quality character that takes up half the screen.

Seriously? You're measuring sprite size now? Since when does larger characters equal better graphics? By that logic, Children of the Atom reigns supreme.

I'm looking at Wonder Project J2 and still not seeing what's so special about it. It's well-drawn, but that's about it.

[kupomogli]

There's a difference between a couple of one-inch sprites with a few frames of animation and a cartoon-quality character that takes up half the screen.

Because the overrated game you listed isn't the best? I think it has a lot more faults than having "a little bit of extra animation."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxmiSUjWOIg

Since you've possibly played the game you shouldn't have to watch that, but seeing as I haven't, I did. All the animations are similar to those in Legend of Mana. They are short animations that repeat themselves.

Check out the small waterfall at the very beginning. It's so beautiful that it doesn't even have a single frame of animation. Gato Grottoes on Legend of Mana has an animated waterfall in one background.

In one part of the opening on Wonder Project J2, the part while she's on the boat decides to zoom forward onto where she's going to land. Where are your beautiful frames of animation there? Instead of using multiple frames of animation to keep the same quality or using a higher quality image to zoom in on, it shows how low quality the image is when zooming forward just looks like crap.

You list an excuse once it's pointed out you're wrong, but then you're pointed out that you're wrong again and the game does have animation and you list yet another excuse. Just admit it. Wonder Project J2 looks like crap even compared to games that have very little animation but have high quality backdrops.

[Aussie2B]

Because the overrated game you listed isn't the best? I think it has a lot more faults than having "a little bit of extra animation."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxmiSUjWOIg

Since you've possibly played the game you shouldn't have to watch that, but seeing as I haven't, I did. All the animations are similar to those in Legend of Mana. They are short animations that repeat themselves.

Check out the small waterfall at the very beginning. It's so beautiful that it doesn't even have a single frame of animation. Gato Grottoes on Legend of Mana has an animated waterfall in one background.

In one part of the opening on Wonder Project J2, the part while she's on the boat decides to zoom forward onto where she's going to land. Where are your beautiful frames of animation there? Instead of using multiple frames of animation to keep the same quality or using a higher quality image to zoom in on, it shows how low quality the image is when zooming forward just looks like crap.

You list an excuse once it's pointed out you're wrong, but then you're pointed out that you're wrong again and the game does have animation and you list yet another excuse. Just admit it. Wonder Project J2 looks like crap even compared to games that have very little animation but have high quality backdrops.

Hahahaha, "overrated"? Seriously? That comment alone should negate everything that follows since it clearly proves that you have no idea what you're talking about, which is even further proven by you admitting that you've never played the game and are judging it based 10 minutes of intro. It doesn't even get to the gameplay, for crying out loud, so there's no way to even see what Rob is referencing. It takes playing through the game to appreciate its animation because Josette has a massive assortment of unique animations, and you'll keep seeing more and more new ones as you go.

I don't know if I'd say WPJ2 is more impressive looking as a whole than any other 2D PlayStation game, but I will say that just about any PlayStation sprite wishes it had as many frames of animation as Josette. The game does use a lot of static backgrounds and doesn't have a huge amount of locations and sprites, but given the N64's weaknesses in regards to 2D, the game truly goes above and beyond and puts stuff like Yoshi's Story to absolute shame. I'd say it's an extremely attractive game and great in all other regards (so bah I say, j_factor, bah :P ). I've never played more than 60 minutes of Legend of Mana, so I'm not going to be foolish enough as to compare it based on my limited experience or a video. But, yeah, Legend of Mana, as lukewarm as its reception was, is WAY more popular than Wonder Project J2, and calling WPJ2 "overrated" is a joke. It's the very definition of a hidden gem, and it's only barely getting a minuscule amount attention now that there's a fan patch.

Anyway, to go to the overall discussion, while some more 2D games on PlayStation would've been nice (or one's that at least lived up to the hardware, which is a problem that's only getting exponentially worse since the few console-based 2D games these days are still barely past PlayStation quality), I wouldn't say that either 2D or 3D was better on PlayStation. Overall, I feel PlayStation struck the best balance. The N64 pushed 3D hard, the Saturn continued with a lot of 2D, but the PlayStation seemed to be designed with both in mind. Overall, Sony also seemed quite welcoming to all types of games. I wish that was the case now, as they seemed to get stricter with the PS2 and PS3. Granted, there was some talk of them giving some companies some difficulties, but even that I can't complain about too much since if Sony didn't make Capcom develop a 3D Mega Man in order to get all the 2D ones published, we wouldn't have gotten Mega Man Legends.

[ryborg]

awesome. this thread's back.


Hahahaha, "overrated"? Seriously? That comment alone should negate everything that follows since it clearly proves that you have no idea what you're talking about, which is even further proven by you admitting that you've never played the game and are judging it based 10 minutes of intro.



It tickles me that you people still talk to kupomogli like he were a rational human being. Kupomogli is an object, incapable of adaptation and reason.

[kupomogli]

Hahahaha, "overrated"? Seriously? That comment alone should negate everything that follows since it clearly proves that you have no idea what you're talking about.

I already know what kind of game it is. This is atleast the third time I've heard people talking about it being a great game yet it's never about anything but how impressive the graphics are for an N64 game, hence, overrated.

If I want to play a game that's in a similar style to this one there are quite a few out there and they all have the pretty much the same gameplay as the next with a different story. King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, Snatcher, Beavis and Butthead Virtual Stupidity, etc.

Beavis and Butthead Virtual Stupidity was released on the PSX but only in Japan. I've played the game on the PC as it was only released on PC in the US. Both Beavis and Butthead have a ton of different animations in each portion of the game. Does it make the game an absolutely amazing must have title? No. Is it a good game. Yes. Why's it a good game? It's got a good story based on Beavis and Butthead.

[Aussie2B]

I already know what kind of game it is. This is atleast the third time I've heard people talking about it being a great game yet it's never about anything but how impressive the graphics are for an N64 game, hence, overrated.

If I want to play a game that's in a similar style to this one there are quite a few out there and they all have the pretty much the same gameplay as the next with a different story. King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, Snatcher, Beavis and Butthead Virtual Stupidity, etc.

Beavis and Butthead Virtual Stupidity was released on the PSX but only in Japan. I've played the game on the PC as it was only released on PC in the US. Both Beavis and Butthead have a ton of different animations in each portion of the game. Does it make the game an absolutely amazing must have title? No. Is it a good game. Yes. Why's it a good game? It's got a good story based on Beavis and Butthead.

Do you even know what "overrated" means? If you've only seen it brought up a few times, how does that possibly equate to overrated? And if you've never heard it praised for its graphics, then how is it overrated in that regard? Or are you referring to Rob's stance on it? In which case you shouldn't be referring to the game itself as being overrated because that takes more than 1 person praising it.

That said, you still haven't got a clue what you're talking about. I can tell you for one that in all the years I've been on this board, I doubt I've come across more than 10 people who have stated that they've played through the game. I'd venture to guess that 50% or more of the time that the game has been mentioned, it's been by me since I'm a big fan, and I try to introduce it to others. And I ALWAYS point out how nice the graphics are. In fact, almost everyone I come across who has played the game comments on the nice 2D graphics.

And how the heck do you know what it plays like and what's a fair comparison without playing it yourself? While it is an adventure game and has a point-and-click interface, it certainly doesn't have the same gameplay as those other games. It's just as much about interaction and simulation as adventure and plot. In fact, it's more appropriate to call it a raising/bring-up simulation than an adventure game, but that genre is pretty unfamiliar to Americans.