Isometric games

Saigyouji

Not the games themselves, no. The (very few) games that I've played that have an isometric viewpoint are good on their own merits. However, the problem is that said games feel like they would be better with a more standard viewpoint, because of one simple thing: Perspective problems. This thread was inspired by Scurge: Hive, where, due to the isometric viewpoint, you'll frequently find yourself screwing up a jump, and landing in a pit of enemies/water/infection-stuff. In a game that requires fast movement to avoid dying, this is a bit of a problem. Same goes for Landstalker. Moving over a spiked pit when everything is diagonal is no easy task.

Chagen

I only like isometric games when they are built with rigid tiles. Like Disgaea.

Beorc

Super Mario RPG was isometric, right? Because that "3D Maze" in there really sucked.

GuyInWhite

Yeah, the maze in the Sunken Ship was really the only bad part of Super Mario RPG.

ClockworkUniverse

Isometric looks good for some things, but if the gameplay's such that it'll get in the way, it shouldn't be used.

glennmagusharvey

Well, every perspective has its good and bad points.  For isometric projection, just like for everything else, game designers should be aware of the flaws and minimize things that use them.

Curiously, there's one area in Scurge: Hive where they actually make a lot of it basically 2D platforming.

glennmagusharvey

One cool thing about isometric perspective, though, is if you can rotate it.  Of the few games I've played with it, the only one that has this feature is Final Fantasy Tactics, but I thought it was massively cool.

DYRE

That's because Final Fantasy Tactics was 3D though.  Well... the maps were anyway.  More traditionally, isometric graphics are 2D, which is somewhat less suitable for rotating, though I guess it'd still be possible.

ClockworkUniverse

^It's definitely doable in 2D. I swear I've seen a 2D isometric game that allowed rotating, but I can't remember what...

glennmagusharvey

Well, you can also pre-draw and pre-define all the objects from all four directions and allow people to switch between perspectives (not smoothly though).

DYRE

Well of course there's no way you'd have a smooth transition between directions.

And... yeah, if it's not tile-based you'd pretty much just have to draw everything from all four directions which would probably not be so fun...

If it is tile-based, though, I imagine you'd want to create the maps as if they were 3D and tile-based.  And the engine, presumably,  would handle drawing it with 2D tiles depending on the direction you're viewing it from.