panzeroceania wrote:
Cell shaded makes sense for zelda, not so much for sonic. I don't really like the new sonic model myself because he animates awkwardly. But I'm assuming everything in the game is in 3D for two simple reasons.
1. it's easier than hand drawing, and if you would do prerendered, why would you? if you can render it on the hardware, it also removes that step of creating sprites.
2. Sonic games always tried to look 3D with their prerendered sprites. Now they can.
Well it could be 2D for a few reasons, you can have complex looking environments that work on even 5 year old PC hardware at full speed, and it will always look the same. The downside to this is supporting a wide range of resolutions, Wii would be 640x480? XBOX/PS3 1280x720 . Though it can be made easier using certain techniques (sprite/bg scaling, which is pretty much unlimited on 3D hardware).
Unless they are going to be using the 3D camera for useful effects that is the direction I would have taken it as it increases your market to the "flash gamers" demographic machine. Seeing as the only video released shows Sonic in a traditional 2D viewpoint they are obviously trying to appeal to the retro memories inside people, why would they do that if people wanted to see Sonic in a FPS?
I don't think Sonic as a 2D concept has been tapped out and making it that way keeps the game in the format everyone remembers it and makes it easier to control. What better way for Sega to have a rebirth than by making one of the best platform games ever created using its famous brand? Just my 2 cents.
