[quote name='whiptcracker']This statement is nuts. Viewtiful Joe, Castle Crashers, The Dishwasher, Shank 1/2, etc are great 2D action games. That and right now we are living in a 2D rebirth and golden age among various 2D genres. Fez, Rayman Origins, Limbo, Splosion Man, Spelunky, Mark of the Ninja, Super Meat Boy, Cave Story, Boy and His Blob, Donkey Kong Returns, and so on.[/QUOTE]
If you want my honest opinion of these great games, here's my opinion of them all.
WARNING, you will NOT agree with anything I will post, so no use getting ruffled up about it. As all of these are how I
really feel about these games.
Viewtiful Joe had a lame gimmick with the time speed up (never could get that to work right) and slowdown, it was repetitve, trite and shallow. I've had VJ2 for years) bought both when I got my GC, but after the scarring exp. of playing 1, I've never played it for more than 15 mins. that's how much I hated the exp.
Castle Crashers, ugly boring flash game, I hated Alien Hominid and this one didn't sell me on the Behemoth as a decent developer either
The Dishwasher had promise, but the graphics were muddy, the story confusing, and again repetitive button mashing with nothing new added to the mix, I understand it was one guy and Xbox fans needed something to get behind in the early days, but seriously....
Shank 1/2, etc are great 2D action games, Shank is ok, I own both, but have yet to play 2 as it was more of the same, if they would have went more over the top instead of playing up tropes of 25 years ago, learn boss move, rinse repeat until dead, I would have enjoyed it more, especially the end boss of 1, you HAD to use the dodge move to kill him, lame. End of story.
That and right now we are living in a 2D rebirth and golden age among various 2D genres. Fez, Rayman Origins, Limbo, Splosion Man, Spelunky, Mark of the Ninja, Super Meat Boy, Cave Story, Boy and His Blob, Donkey Kong Returns,
And you're smoking what...Fez is the only thing on that list that did something new and exciting, I can't and won't give you anything that Twisted Pixel does, I've tried out every one of their games and each one left me scratching my head in wonder as to why people spoke so highly of them (Dishwasher syndrome again, needing to find anything in the early days of XBLA to be better than PS3) gimmick laden garbage is all they know how to do, and not 2D as you infer all 3D on a 2D plane.
Bionic Commando rearmed did that right, but even still it wasn't as good as the original.
Limbo did a nice ambient 2D exploration game, but it wasn't the greatest.
Spelunky.....uhhh no thanks, I'll play La Mulana instead (game was a rip off of it anyway)
I did mention gimmicks right....speaking of Super Meat Boy = time trials, how is that fun, its a puzzle game, pretending to be a 2D platformer...snooze-o-rama.
Cave Story see La Mulana, it's not current, nor part of this 2D revolution that you are talking about, you were just late to the party with finding it and I quote "is a freeware platform-adventure video game
released in 2004 for the PC"
Boy and his Blob, I think I remember playing that...oh right in the year 1989. As much as I try to love Way Forward's games the only one they've done to impress me is Shantae, and that was only released on handhelds, otherwise they're capable, but boring games.
DKR is 2D....news to me, see (Bionic Commando and any of Twisted Pixels games) Rayman and a few others are the only ones that are 2D and then hand painted (not sprite based) 2D titles. All of these flash based "2D" titles, I personally don't see the charm in, even though I own most of them.
Personally I love 2D beat em ups, Double Dragon, and WayForward, but I dislike the art and animation of Neon from every video I've seen of it and plan on skipping the title. No online co-op at release seems really shortsighted as well. Writing it off because of the art style might be shallow, but frankly I already have a backlog of games, and there are others with art styles that I do not find grating to play.
I love them too, but as I've already mentioned 2D beat'em ups died in the late 90's when it came to new innovation and added to the genre. Rare as an example of a company that was pushing 2D beat'em ups in new directions, problem was their Battletoads games had very loose play controls and were hard as hell (not to mention super cheap, btw)
The only companies to master and push the 2D beat'em up were Sega (which ended after Streets of Rage 2), Konami (they mastered it with their licensed 2D beat'em ups, but lost it when they all played the same), Capcom (the Punisher Arcade game is one of the pinnacles of 2D beat'em up excellence, along with Aliens vs. Predator and Warriors of Fate to name a few), and lastly Treasure, I've already mentioned Guardian Heroes, and to a lesser degree Gunstar Heroes with its melee combat in a 2D shooter, but they've shown they don't have it anymore either with the games from the last decade when it comes to 2D beat'em up mastery (GH Adv anyone)
I'm not personally railing against you, but seriously a 2D golden age is NOT upon us, and while a few bright spots might make it through now and again (Fez), I have yet to see anything worthwhile and commercially viable that is embraced (was shocked you didn't mention the "2D Mario" NSMB games....which are actually 3D)
There was nothing nuts about my statement, I've played virtually anything and everything of note that says its retro and with the few I mentioned, there is nothing that comes close to the old school games. If wayforward wanted to do Neon justice they would have blatantly ripped off NES DD's version of one on one combat (the versus mode or whatever it was called), that was how to do it right.
And the art style reminds me of the old 2D games that tried to do motion capture, but just couldn't get it right (Primal Rage, Clay Fighters, etc)
My statement still stands, if you disagree, fine, that doesn't mean what I said has no merit because you think it to be so. Anyway, I've got nothing more to add to your comments. Moving on to East X's comments now.
s like you see here, and honestly I don't have that kind of time to address things like this anymore in the kind of detail I would like too. 
