History Main / SpritePolygonMix

* ''VideoGame/SimCity4'': The game's buildings use simple 3D models whose textures are DigitizedSprites made with more complex ones. At first, it just looks like the buildings are simply pre-rendered sprites, but [[https://i.redd.it/qbpzjmce2hsc1.png modding the camera]] reveals what's really going on.

** ''VideoGame/YsTheOathInFelghana'', and the PC and PSP versions of ''Videogame/YsVITheArkOfNapishtim'' have 3D background and monsters while the characters are chibi sprites (though they are also rendered in 3D but gives). The [=PS2=] version of the latter has 3D characters.

** Well, not completely impossible. ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' has a pseudo-3D engine, but is capable of having rooms above rooms, or even rooms that are distinct, yet occupy the same "space" as each other.
** ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' has this kind of [[AlienGeometries alien geometry]] as well, only in several levels the developers went all out and uses it on purpose to create 720 degree circles and similar stunts.
** ''VideoGame/DarkForces'' was based on the ''Doom'' MediaNotes/GameEngine and it incorporated many of these effects as well, including spiral staircases, moving platforms, rooms above rooms, the ability to aim above and below as well as jump and crouch.
** The later released game ''VideoGame/{{Outlaws}}'', was based on a modified ''Dark Forces'' engine and went further with multi-storied buildings, catwalks above rooms, and the ability to swim.
*** Note that these are tricks. The engine never really has rooms above other rooms; things like invisible teleporters and unseen horizontal space changes are used to give the rooms-above-rooms illusion.
*** An interesting variation: the Platform/Nintendo64 version of ''Duke Nukem 3D'' features some things, such as explosion effects, being rendered in polygons while the enemies and weapons are all still sprites. These new polygon effects are not present in the original PC version of the game.

** Most DS games can get away with this easily, due to the console's small screen and low resolution.

* Most Creator/NipponIchi {{Tactical RPG}}s from ''VideoGame/LaPucelle'' onwards (''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' and all sequels until ''[[VideoGame/Disgaea6DefianceOfDestiny Disgaea 6]]'', ''VideoGame/MakaiKingdom'', ''VideoGame/PhantomBrave'', ''VideoGame/SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'', ''VideoGame/ZettaiHeroProject'' and so on) use sprite characters on 3-D maps.
** As does PlatformGame spinoff ''VideoGame/PrinnyCanIReallyBeTheHero''

** What's especially odd about this is that the pickups that use sprites when seen in the overworld are rendered in full 3D in the inventory.

* ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' uses this when Raz uses his Clairvoyance power on a friendly character; whenever Raz appears in the other character's view, whatever he or she sees Raz as appears as a 2D sprite in place of Raz's 3D model.
** Also, Figments are 2D objects, which can make them hard to see if they're at an angle.

** ''VideoGame/YsTheOathInFelghana'', and the PC and PSP versions of ''Videogame/YsVITheArkOfNapishtim''. The [=PS2=] version of the latter has 3D characters.

* Aversion: As noted above, nearly all polygonal games leave the sky up to good old bitmaps. The great wisdom of this practice is illustrated by games like ''VideoGame/QuakeI'' and ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', which have an incredibly ugly sky made of one or more layers of giant polygons.
** Skies used in modern games are, in fact, polygonal spheres or cubes without lighting, textured with images of the sky and other background elements.
** ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' also has very ugly polygon flames when compared to the natural-looking (except from above) flames of ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}''. Note that ''Unreal'''s flames aren't sprites but rather two flat polygons at 90 degrees of each other with flame textures on them.
* ''VideoGame/SomaBringer'', with some minor cel shading thrown in.

* ''VideoGame/ChronoCross''

** Averted when people started making their own backgrounds by combining 3D objects together.

* A rather bizarre example in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', which has a stack of cannonballs scenery object that is made up of rendered polygonal cannonballs displayed as sprites.
** Many weapons in the game have little embellishments on their hilts (small pieces of cloth, a ball tied to a string, so on) that are sprites of the "same angle no matter where you look" variety.

** In Half-Life, those aren't sprites, but rather extremely (1 unit) thin boxes with a plant texture on the 2 big sides and an invisible texture for the thin ones.

** All VideoGame/TrailsSeries games up to ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsToAzure'' use this style, with a few exceptions here and there.

* ''Shinrei Jusatsushi Taroumaru'': Many backgrounds and a few bosses have polygonal features, but otherwise player and enemy character graphics are entirely sprite-based.

* In the old 3D Maze screensaver for Windows, the maze and multifaceted things that turn the viewer upside down are in 3D, while the Start button, the random hovering UsefulNotes/OpenGL text, the happy face at the finish, and the roaming mice are flat sprites that look the same from every angle. This results in mice always facing right, which can cause them to seem to walk backwards or sideways despite the optional maze overlay showing otherwise.

* ''Golly! Ghost'', a redemption UsefulNotes/ArcadeGame by Namco, has an unusual variation: sprites generated by typical 2D hardware projected onto the image of an electromechanically-controlled diorama.

** ''VideoGame/DarkForces'' was based on the ''Doom'' UsefulNotes/GameEngine and it incorporated many of these effects as well, including spiral staircases, moving platforms, rooms above rooms, the ability to aim above and below as well as jump and crouch.

** Mr. Platform/GameAndWatch is a subversion. He appears to be a 2D sprite, but he is in fact a fully 3D model with no thickness and several animation sprites (which the game engine calculates his flat player model from in real time), giving a flat 2D look, which is emphasized by the fact that the camera does not angle during normal gameplay. On the Flat Zone and Pac-Land stages, all 3D player models are somehow flattened into 2D "sprites" in the same manner.

It was possible to make everything out of polygons (save for things like the HUD), but only with certain types of games, and they still had to make some sacrifices (like an extremely limited color depth in the textures). This trope is about games that relied on a combination of sprites and polygon models to get the most details in one scene. (Combining sprites and polygons was made practical by the technical fact that most video game systems since the UsefulNotes/PlayStation use the same video processing chip to render both, and usually make no distinction between 2D sprites and flat polygonal objects that are always positioned to face forward.)

Systems from the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast onward (with the exception of the UsefulNotes/{{DS}}, which is more or less equivalent to the 5th generation) have largely dropped this, due to the huge polygon counts allowing full 3-D models of even the smallest objects, and have the texture resolution to show the detail of those objects. Some extremely complex effects such as smoke, explosions and fire are normally still rendered as two-dimensional objects; this is hardly surprising, as even big-budget CGI movies tend to use practical effects rather than attempt to simulate these. This trope does continue in spirit in even the latest games, with 2D effects being used in place of more complex geometry; bump and normal mapping both operate by using a 2D image to add detail to a 3D object without using additional polygons.

*** An interesting variation: the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 version of ''Duke Nukem 3D'' features some things, such as explosion effects, being rendered in polygons while the enemies and weapons are all still sprites. These new polygon effects are not present in the original PC version of the game.

** The UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/NintendoDS remakes of ''[[VideoGame/DragonQuestIV IV]]'', ''[[VideoGame/DragonQuestV V]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/DragonQuestVI VI]]'' feature 2D characters and 3D environments which can be rotated 360 degrees.

** Mr. UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch is a subversion. He appears to be a 2D sprite, but he is in fact a fully 3D model with no thickness and several animation sprites (which the game engine calculates his flat player model from in real time), giving a flat 2D look, which is emphasized by the fact that the camera does not angle during normal gameplay. On the Flat Zone and Pac-Land stages, all 3D player models are somehow flattened into 2D "sprites" in the same manner.

* ''VideoGame/Rayman2TheGreatEscape'' has pickups made from sprites. In the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 port (titled ''Rayman Revolution''), however, the pickups are now full polygon models.

* The ''VideoGame/BitTrip'' games. The scenery and objects are 3D voxel models, yet most of the characters are UsefulNotes/Atari2600-like sprites.

* The original ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts1'' is probably the only UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 game to resort to this, and even then only because it was initially developed with the original UsefulNotes/PlayStation in mind.

* The UsefulNotes/SegaCD remake of ''VideoGame/{{Silpheed}}'' uses a rather odd method; while it appears to have a polygon foreground and background, the background is actually a pre-rendered streaming video, essentially having the whole game take place on top of a rolling CutScene. Some games such as ''Microcosm'' belong in the section below for using sprites on top of the rolling pre-rendered FMV instead.

* The UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn game ''VideoGame/ShiningWisdom'' was originally going to be released on the [[UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis Sega Mega Drive]] but was hurriedly ported to increase the number of titles on the system. The result is that the 2D backgrounds are the type of thing you would expect to see on the Mega Drive while the characters are 3D sprites that would later appear in ''VideoGame/ShiningForceIII''.

* The ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games on UsefulNotes/NintendoDS mostly use 2D sprites with a few 3D models for enemies. Of note is the BigBad and FinalBoss, {{Dracula}}, in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia''; rather than a true OneWingedAngel form he goes polygonal and starts ''walking around'' to kick your ass instead of just teleporting around the place.

* ''Stahlfeder'', a VerticalScrollingShooter for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation, mixes sprite and polygon graphics, whose artists are separately credited. The polygonal elements in the backgrounds are very subtle, but most of the bosses are blatantly full 3D models.

* ''VideoGame/SonicMania'' mostly uses sprites for its backgrounds and characters, but the giant rings and Special Stages are rendered with low-polygon 3D models, similar to the ones used in ''VideoGame/SonicR''. This is part of the game's {{Retraux}} design, as it was intended to be a 2D Sonic game if it was made for the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn.

* Most of the graphics in the [=UbiArt=] Framework-based ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight'' are 2D, with the exception of some 3D models like Aurora, Norah, and a few others. This extends to the earlier [=UbiArt=]-based ''VideoGame/RaymanLegends'' and possibly ''[[VideoGame/RaymanOrigins Origins]]''.

* The 3D game ''VideoGame/{{Bug}}!'' and its sequel ''Bug Too!'' have 3D platforms and terrain, while the characters and Mooks are 3D rendered sprites.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'' through ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'', ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0'', and parts of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilOutbreak''. The way the backgrounds in the early Resident Evil games work is that every room is a simple rectangle or box and textures are used to simulate a believable looking room, including doors (though the few doors that opened that were not a part of a loading screen were rendered as 3D objects). The effect is very noticeable if a monster is killed very close to a wall and their body appears to clip or float through the wall.

* ''{{VideoGame/Solatorobo}}'': Every single NPC is a 2D sprite, while the hero and enemies are in 3D. Gets downright uncanny when all the hero's allies are gathered in one place.

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/AgarestSenki https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ROAW0_4232.jpg]]]]

** The VideoGameRemake of ''VideoGame/LiveALive''.

* The original ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' is probably the only UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 game to resort to this, and even then only because it was initially developed with the original UsefulNotes/PlayStation in mind.
** At least until ''VideoGame/RaidouKuzunohaVsTheSoullessArmy'' came along.