We were recently tipped off to a series of awesome videos from artist Dott, who remakes a bunch of classic JRPGs, including a 2.5d recreation of first gen Pokemon. [Thanks Kotaku]
This 2.5D style was perfected in Octopath Traveler and Octopath Traveler II, two absolute visual masterpieces.
I love this aesthetic so much that I created a list of the best 2.5D role playing games.
Clearly I’m not the only one hungry for more content in this visual style, because Dott has a whole Youtube channel full of re-interpretations of retro RPGs.
The most exciting of their videos were the recent Pokemon 2.5d re-interpretations in Unreal Engine 5. Just look how beautiful this is:
2.5D Remakes
Dott has been working on quite a lot of 2.5D remakes of classic JRPG titles. Some of the games on their Youtube channel include Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Terranigma, and Chrono Trigger.
This artist clearly has good tastes in video games!
Dott calls this style HD2D, which is also a good way of describing what actually is happening in this kind of 2.5D work.
You’re taking that classic SNES style 2D pixel art style and creatively mixing it with modern 3D technology. It all becomes quite unique.
We love all of the works featured on their channel, but you know we will always be partial to first generation Pokemon content.
The starting scenes of Pokemon Red/Green/Blue/Yellow shown in Unreal Engine 5 in an HD2D style is pretty intriguing.
It would be a dream to see something like this on a future best Pokemon ROM hacks list.
Obviously, we would love to see a full remake. And we know how insanely time consuming that would be.
But we’ve seen equally daunting tasks done in the past.
What could be even better is if Game Freak actually tried a future Pokemon title in this visual style.
Or the next Legend of Zelda? Aw dang… now my mind is running.
Okay, let’s wrap this up.
Re-imaginings are always so fascinating and inspiring. It gets you excited to think about the what ifs.
Which is exactly why we love to share this kind of content. And we hope you love it as much as we do!
Anthony has been a video game lover ever since he can remember. He became a fulltime nomad in 2018, living throughout most of Asia. He focused his passion in retro gaming and began creating a game for the Game Boy Color while living in Nara, Japan during the 2020 pandemic. He is now in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he spends most of his time gaming, going on long walks and meeting as many stray dogs as possible.
