History Main / TwoAndAHalfD

Straddling the line between "style" and "genre," 2½D is an uncommon but generally recognized term. While there is some ambiguity among gamers as to what, exactly, constitutes "2½D," it is most commonly used to refer to one thing: Two-dimensional, side-scrolling {{Platformer}}s with some three-dimensional elements.

In a "traditional" platformer, players can only move in four directions: up, down, left, and right. That's two dimensions (height and length). 2½D games mess with this formula by adding a third dimension, but not dedicatedly. Players can still only control their character in four directions (generally), but there are some options as to where the extra half a dimension comes from:
* The player can only move in two dimensions, but the ''path'' doesn't have to. The "plane" that the 2D character follows curves through three-dimensional space, and the PlayerCharacter follows along that. This is by far the most common, and the trait that is most likely to get a game labeled "2½D".

* Layers: There are things visible in both the background and foreground, and it is possible to switch between paths to reach the goal. This gives the level a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin layered]] feeling, like a delicious, platforming pastry.

In older material the term 2.5D is sometimes used in reference to 3D games that use 2D surfaces, with various graphical tricks used to make it seem 3D (e.g. ''{{Doom}}''). This specific usage died with the Game Boy Advance, the last well-known platform to use this technology, but it overlaps with the sense of only moving in two dimensions. The term can also be used for IsometricProjection or SpritePolygonMix.

Let's not dwell on the confusing terms that are sure to arise for 2½D games on the {{Nintendo 3DS}}....

* ''Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a Half Century!'', a Nintendo 64 game, was a 3D platformer with 2½D sections.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Klonoa}}'' series, which uses all of the tricks listed above and more. Klonoa can even be controlled in three dimensions, even if he's limited to only two.

* ''[[VideoGame/YoshisStory Yoshi's Story]]'' on the N64 is another fine example of a 2D platformer with 3D levels, Yoshis, and such.

* ''DragonSaga'' has an interesting take on this. The game is in full 3D and some sections of the game allow 3D movement. However, most ''combat'' areas only allow the player character to face and aim attacks to the left or right with movement towards or away from the screen causing them to slide sideways. Needless to say the few sections of the game that allow 3D combat take some getting used to and reveal that the hit boxes for attacks are always much longer on one axis than on others.

* Classic NeoGeo fighter ''FatalFury'' (and its descendants) allow a player to jump from the foreground to the background, and to launch attacks back and forth. The jumps were replaced by slides and the system was progressively refined over the course of the series until being completely dropped in ''[[DistantFinale Mark of the Wolves]]''.
** As does ''SavageReign'', allowing an upper and lower plane. Especially notable is that in some stages, the "upper plane" consists of hanging off something. [[RuleOfCool While fighting.]]

* Classic NeoGeo fighter ''FatalFury'' (and its descendants) allow a player to jump from the foreground to the background, and to launch attacks back and forth. The jumps were replaced by slides and the system was progressively refined over the course of the series until being completely dropped in ''[[DistantFinale Mark of the Wolves]]''.
** As does ''SavageReign'', allowing an upper and lower plane. Especially notable is that in some stages, the "upper plane" consists of hanging off something. [[RuleOfCool While fighting.]]
* ''VirtualBoy VideoGame/WarioLand'' has foreground and background areas given a 3-D effect with the system's dual projections. There's trampoline blocks in specific places Wario can use to jump between the two layers, and all of the bosses use foreground/background movement as part of their attacks. The first boss demonstrates this perfectly when flinging his ball-and-chain at Wario from the background- the spiked ball appears to come hurtling towards YOU, the player, stopping just short of crashing through the fourth wall.
* ''Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie'': In the game for the SNES, you could press the shoulder buttons to flip to the "back" or the "front" to avoid obstacles, such as in the very first level to avoid cars. The enemies could do this as well.
* Shadow Complex, an Xbox LIVE Downloadable arcade is a 3D setting with a 2D Movement area.
* {{Diggles}} has a fully fledged 3D-engine, but you can only dig and build in a vertical plane reaching down into the earth.
* ''DonkeyKongCountryReturns'', as pictured above.

* ''{{Shantae}}: Risky's Revenge'' features a "layered" approach, where you can hop between the foreground, regular-ground, and background in certain areas.

* ''Goemon's Great Adventure'' is done in full 3D, but the character can only move along one plane. The paths curve and branch off, but outside of towns, left and right are your only choices.
* ViewtifulJoe and its sequel are both like this.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Fighting Games]]
* Modern fighting games like ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'' feature 2D combat with 3D engines, allowing different cinematic views during certain moves or scenes. (Such as Ultra Moves in the former, and Fatalities in the latter.)
[[/folder]]

* The Super NES ''ScoobyDoo'' game had doorways that Shaggy and Scooby could enter by walking toward or away from the player.
* ''[[VideoGame/YoshisStory Yoshi's Story]]'' on the N64 is another fine example of a 2D platformer with 3D levels, Yoshis, and such.
* The 2D segments in ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' are really this. The only thing keeping them from being 3D is the complete inability to move to the side under ''your own'' power (which you have in the 3D segments) -- you can easily be, and often are, moved in the third direction by bumpers, spiral paths, and paths with loop-de-loops.
** ''VideoGame/SonicColors'' also does this, but with greater focus on the 2D platforming aspect.
** ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'' plays with this trope to varying extents with its two playable characters: Modern Sonic's use is similar to VideoGame/SonicUnleashed and VideoGame/SonicColors with its 3D/2.5D shifts at certain points of a given level; Classic Sonic's use, on the other hand, is all 2.5D. The 3DS version, meanwhile, is entirely 2.5D except for parts of the final boss battle.
** The ''VideoGame/{{Sonic Rush|Series}}'' series plays in 2D (except for bosses, in which the paths curve and twist, thus being 2.5D), but Sonic and Blaze are cel-shaded 3D models. This allows segments where Sonic and Blaze are "closer to or further away" from the screen during certain level specific gimmicks.
** The underrated ''SonicRivals'' series for the PSP has 3D graphics, and linear paths that twist and curve.
** ''SonicCD'' had Metallic Madness zone, where you could go behind certain walls to progress and get powerups, before going back infront again to continue the level proper.
* The videogame based on ''[[{{Disney/Hercules}} Disney's Hercules]]'' used all these techniques. It had layers in traditional levels, a few levels in which the player is constantly running forward and can only move left or right to avoid stuff, and two boss battles that consisted of a cylinder shaped level, with the player running around on he edges.
* MischiefMakers was the second type - the player character could only move in a 2-D plane, but objects, enemies, and moving platforms would move in and out of the background and foreground, interacting with you only when they passed through your 2-D 'plane'. The game also featured two [[BackgroundBoss Background Bosses]] which would shoot stuff at you, and you could throw things back at them.
* ''MegaManX 7'' danced between 2D and 3D without much warning. ''X8'' might be a better example, as it stayed in 2D but had some occasional 3D-esque moments.
* ''Super Mario Bros 3'' did this with a secret warp near the beginning of the game. Crouching on a certain block would make you fall behind the block, which allowed Mario to walk behind bushes, and even the end-of-level "curtains".
* ''Super Castlevania IV'' allowed Simon to use gates in the first level to go in front of, or behind, a fence. Doing so would allow him to traverse obstacles in front of or behind said fence. There were other similar parts through the game as well, including enemies that appeared from the fore- or background.
* The ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' fighting games for the NintendoDS allow you to 'line jump' between two planes to avoid attacks and play keep-away.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'', despite being nicknamed the "3D Generation" of the main series, is 2.5D; the player walks around in a two-dimensional grid based world, but structures around the player change perspective as (s)he moves around. The one exception to this dynamic is the Distortion World in ''Pokémon Platinum''.
** ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'', on the other hand, are the first main series games to feature full 3D, more or less.
*** Not exactly right. Only one location has "true 3D feeling", and that is not saying much. The biggest difference between the 3D featured in Generation V and the one in Generation IV is that the camera plays around in the former, while being completely fixed in the latter. It can also be even argued that Generation IV is itself the first true 3D generation, as there are a few hacks for those games that allows you to play with the camera angles, proving that they have fully 3D worlds.

* There's an example of the "3D game with a 2D interlude" variety in the 2D platforming stages of [[VideoGame/KingdomHeartsCoded KingdomHeartsReCoded]].
* The DS ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games have managed to blend this trope with the traditional Zelda ThreeQuartersView. You can only interact with things on your plane, while going up or down allows you into others, while everything is rendered in 3D. When you are on your boat/train, you gain the ability to fire at things with your canon in full 3D, but you literally use a 2D map to plot your course.
* ''DragonSaga'' has an interesting take on this. The game is in full 3D and some sections of the game allow 3D movement. However, most ''combat'' areas only allow the player character to face and aim attacks to the left or right with movement towards or away from the screen causing them to slide sideways. Needless to say the few sections of the game that allow 3D combat take some getting used to and reveal that the hit boxes for attacks are always much longer on one axis than on others.

* ''Videogame/{{Pandemonium}}'' was a 2D platformer in a 3D environment. Stuff like spiral stairs, or two paths at different heights splitting into different directions, was common.
* Modern fighting games like ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'' feature 2D combat with 3D engines, allowing different cinematic views during certain moves or scenes. (Such as Ultra Moves in the former, and Fatalities in the latter.)

* ''VideoGame/Kirby64TheCrystalShards,'' mostly with the 3D curving path elements.

* Some of the two-dimensional segments of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' are like this.
** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'', there are levels which go from 3D to 2D just by walking past a certain point. It's the entire gimmick of the Rightside Down Galaxy, but the Flash Black Galaxy and Honeybloom Galaxy have elements (former starts 3D, becomes 2D and turns back to 3D) while the latter has 3D for a secret star area. Bowser's Gravity Gauntlet is this taken to the extreme.
* The [[VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros New Super]] [[VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii Mario Bros.]] games are a bit like this: 2D side scroller, but 3D characters.
* ''Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a Half Century!'', a Nintendo 64 game, was a 3D platformer with 2½D sections.
* ''LittleBigPlanet'' uses the "layers" type.
* Some gaming media outlets classify the ''VideoGame/PaperMario'' series as this, depending on whose reviews you read. While Mario can move in three dimensions, the areas he moves through tend to be narrow and reminescent of traditional sidescrolling levels—and ''PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' gets a lot of milage out of the "Layers" variant. ''SuperPaperMario'' only complicates things by being a 2D platformer you can ''flip'' to 3D in some instances.

In older material the term 2.5D is sometimes used in reference to 3D games that use 2D surfaces, with various graphical tricks used to make it seem 3D (e.g. ''{{Doom}}''). This specific usage died with the Game Boy Advance, the last well-known platform to use this technology, but it overlaps with the sense of only moving in two dimensions.

See also BackgroundBoss, which may or may not utilize 2½D characteristics and SpritePolygonMix.

* The DS {{Zelda}} games have managed to blend this trope with the traditional Zelda ThreeQuartersView. You can only interact with things on your plane, while going up or down allows you into others, while everything is rendered in 3D. When you are on your boat/train, you gain the ability to fire at things with your canon in full 3D, but you literally use a 2D map to plot your course.

* Modern fighting games like ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'' are 2D combat but with 3D arenas which can shift the perspective.

* The 2D segments in ''SonicUnleashed'' are really this. The only thing keeping them from being 3D is the complete inability to move to the side under ''your own'' power (which you have in the 3D segments) -- you can easily be, and often are, moved in the third direction by bumpers, spiral paths, and paths with loop-de-loops.
** ''SonicColors'' also does this, but with greater focus on the 2D platforming aspect.
** ''SonicGenerations'' plays with this trope to varying extents with its two playable characters: Modern Sonic's use is similar to SonicUnleashed and SonicColors with its 3D/2.5D shifts at certain points of a given level; Classic Sonic's use, on the other hand, is all 2.5D. The 3DS version, meanwhile, is entirely 2.5D except for parts of the final boss battle.

** ''SonicCD'' had Metallic Madness zone, where you could go behind these weird wall things to progress and get powerups, before going back infront again to continue the level proper.

** ''SonicGenerations'' plays with this trope to varying extents with its two playable characters: Modern Sonic's use is similar to SonicUnleashed and SonicColors with its 3D/2.5D shifts at certain points of a given level; Classic Sonic's use, on the other hand, is all 2.5D.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DLand'' for Nintendo3DS seems to mostly be taking this approach, utilizing SideView, ThreeQuartersView, IsometricProjection, and TopDownView in various levels.

* ''{{Trine}}''

* The ''{{Klonoa}}'' series, which uses all of the tricks listed above and more. Klonoa can even be controlled in three dimensions, even if he's limited to only two.

* There's an example of the "3D game with a 2D interlude" variety in the 2D platforming stages of KingdomHeartsReCoded.

** The ''SonicRush'' series plays in 2D (except for bosses, in which the paths curve and twist, thus being 2.5D), but Sonic and Blaze are cel-shaded 3D models. This allows segments where Sonic and Blaze are "closer to or further away" from the screen during certain level specific gimmicks.

* ''PokemonDiamondAndPearl'', despite being nicknamed the "3D Generation" of the main series, is 2.5D; the player walks around in a two-dimensional grid based world, but structures around the player change perspective as (s)he moves around. The one exception to this dynamic is the Distortion World in ''Pokémon Platinum''.
** ''PokemonBlackAndWhite'', on the other hand, are the first main series games to feature full 3D, more or less.

* ''Kirby64TheCrystalShards,'' mostly with the 3D curving path elements.

** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'', there are levels which go from 3D to 2D just by walking past a certain point. It's the entire gimmick of the Rightside Down Galaxy, but the Flash Back Galaxy and Honeybloom Galaxy have elements (former starts 3D, becomes 2D and turns back to 3D) while the latter has 3D for a secret star area. Bowser's Gravity Gauntlet is this taken to the extreme.

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