What Made Those Old, 2D Platformers So Great?

TheManagement writes "Many current developers of web games seem to have a fondness for 2D platformers. However, their desire to capture what made Sonic and Mario games so great is rarely achieved. In an attempt to breach that gap, Significant Bits takes a look at three common design principles that made those classic titles so enjoyable. 'To start off, the interface needs to be quick and responsive. Input should have an immediate effect on the character in order to foster a sense of full control. Granularity and different control techniques, i.e., pressing, tapping and holding, are also important as they provide a level of precision to the movement. ... Now, as far as the environments themselves, it's not a coincidence that they're often filled with all sorts of slides, bridges, trampolines, ladders, etc. In a way, they're simply playgrounds for the player, both literally and figuratively. They're catered to the moveset, and they enhance the flow of the game.'"

Comments

No limits

[Darkness404]

One of the things that make 2-D platformers stand out today is that you don't feel limited. When you played Super Mario World you don't think about the limitations of the SNES, there are no load times, rarely any lag, etc. Most 2-D platformers were abstract, you didn't think "Oh, Mario's mustache isn't moving realistically", you concentrated on the game. When you got to the SNES/Genesis era, it seemed like any limitation was banished forever for 2-D games, you got bright multi-colored visuals, music that was quite catchy, you had no load times (unlike CD based consoles), and with expansion chips such as the Super-FX the games really got more impressive as the system went on. When games started moving into 3-D and realistic 3-D, things started to get more realistic. They moved out of the abstract. You noticed that Mario was really blocky, round visuals were rendered as squarish, etc. They felt limited. While in a 2-D game you had total freedom within the course till the end, early 3-D games had to constrain you. Even though you could see hills as far as the eye could see, whenever you ran after them you were hit by an invisible wall. The hardware also felt limited, with the rise of CD/DVD based games you introduced loading times, this took you away from being totally immersed for 5 seconds and somewhat ruined the effect you were in another world.

Today things are starting to get better, 3-D seems less limiting then before, yet with the rise of HD TVs, faster CPUs, etc. I doubt that we can really get seemingly unlimited 3-D games until close to the next revolution, be it true 3-D, VR, or something different. The rise of flash memory, faster drives and HDs in game consoles have cut down on load times too. But still 3-D doesn't seem as limitless as 2-D platforming was.