Five years ago, something interesting happened in western game development: 2D returned. Back in 1995, 3D was the future. The only future. Sega was widely derided for concentrating the architecture of its Saturn games console on 2D friendly features like hardware sprite generation, while PlayStation was built entirely around polygonal performance – it triumphed accordingly.

But then we saw the rise of casual gaming, of mobile and social games, and of digital distribution. Xbox Live Arcade, PSN and Wiiware meant that smaller development teams could produce leftfield titles and sell them at a cheaper rate straight to 'core' gamers. And many looked backwards for inspiration – titles like Mutant Storm and Geometry Wars eulogised the era of the classic 2D shooter, while Castle Crashers leered longingly at Golden Axe, and Shadow Complex at Metroid. 2D made more sense to emerging studios like Twisted Pixel, The Behemoth and Metanet Software – there was no need to spend months developing a complex 3D engine, and 'retro' visuals could be much more stylised, more avant garde, which suited the indie mindset. 2D was back.



Deathsmiles: more scrolling madness from Cave.

But the thing is, it never went away. Not where these genres started. Not in Japan. Here, studios like Treasure, Cave, Arc Systems, Vanillaware and SNK have spent the past two decades belting out what we'd term 'hardcore' 2D titles – shooters, fighters and RPGs – to a passionate fanbase. These companies have expertly twisted and turned to face the machinations of an evolving industry. When SNK went bust in 2001, founder Eikichi Kawasaki set up a new company, Playmore, and bought back all the rights to his back-catalogue, as well as taking on staff from cult 2D developer, Aicom (see here). After shoot-'em-up giant Toaplan collapsed in 1994, several splinter studios – including Takumi and Cave – formed to continue the legacy. Somehow, despite everything, 2D survived.

And now, gratifyingly, the architects of modern two-dimensional game design are thriving. Street Fighter IV has revived interest in the 2D fighter, and the likes of Cave and Treasure are bringing their classic shooters to XBLA and PSN (despite some initial resistance).

Today, I'm sitting in the library of Bath's sumptuous Royal Crescent Hotel with Toshimichi Mori and Daisuke Ishiwatari from Arc System Works, the developer of classic fighting game series Guilty Gear and the more recent BlazBlue titles. They're in Europe to attend a series of fighting game tournaments as well as to meet the local games press. Blazblue, written and directed by Mori, has been a critical smash, with the latest instalment, Continuum Shift, pulling a Metacritic average of 85. Set on a distant Earth in which magic and science have been combined by a dictatorial government, the game features an inspired combat system based around dramatic special attacks and a uniquely complex defence mechanic.

"The main goal was to create a brand new fighting title that introduced systems and gameplay elements that people had never experienced before," says Mori who counts sci-fi movies Bladerunner, Gattaca and Brazil as well as the manga series, Trigun, among his key influences. "With this in place, I wanted to then create a 'universe' on top of it. We focused on creating very strange, very unusual characters with special attributes. These very 'different' characters meant inventing new gameplay mechanics by necessity – the 'Drives' are special abilities that can alter the direction of the wind, magnetise opponents, absorb health and so forth. With these kinds of mechanics in place, it was inevitable that BlazBlue ended up being such a unique and interesting experience."

No surrender

This uncompromising approach to design typifies the 2D rebirth and aligns studios like Cave and Arc to the emerging indie studios in the west. Although Mori and Ishiwatari jokingly refer to their company's founder Minoru Kidooka as 'the god of Arc' it seems there is more creative freedom here than at the more hierarchical mainstream giants like Capcom and Konami. Mori initiates the narrative and gameplay concepts for BlazBlue (he also devised the game's hugely complex plot and wrote the brilliantly sarcastic text for the tutorial mode), but he then hands over his design documents to programmers and designers who add their own ideas.

It sounds like a creative free-for-all, but a structure gradually emerges. "Members of the BlazBlue team are very opinionated about all aspects, from character design to the specifics of gameplay mechanics and fighting style," he explains. "Everyone has their tastes and believe in being forthright in making their opinions known – but that also means being very stubborn! So adjusting to each opinion is never easy. After these final brainstorms have been completed and people have voiced their opinion, a director has to step in and make the final decisions and everyone has to obey. It's the only way it works!"

At Cave, a smaller workforce means that individual designers are given plenty of autonomy. "In most cases, we will hand new titles over to one planner to build the game system, " says co-founder Tsuneki Ikeda. "Since most planners also double as programmers, that person will build the game's main system from the ground up." Ikeda himself also has a second role as a coder – he has worked on most Cave titles, including Deathsmiles, Dodonpachi and Guwange.

The complexity of 2D

There is a popular misconception that 2D games are somehow easier to produce or at least less taxing on modern hardware. This is not the case. When some players moaned that last year's BlazBlue sequel, Continuum Shift, only added four new characters to the roster, they seemed unaware of the intense development detail that goes into each new addition. "Every character goes through a long process of specification and design," says Mori. "Initial sketches, colouring, how the character moves, animates and behaves, and then finally fine tuning and adjustment. Each one takes roughly five months and over 1000 individual drawings to perfect, so you can begin to appreciate the volume of work involved in the 2D style of fighting games." That's also a lot of data to include in a game file, which explains why you won't be seeing any BlazBlue titles on XBLA or PSN without significant alternations – they're too big.

Interestingly, 3D graphics are involved in the BlazBlue process, but only in the development phase. When the initial concept sketches for new characters are produced, the company's artists all have different drawing styles and produce designs of wildly different dimensions. Consequently, 3D rendering software is used to unify the various designs, ensuring they all work to the same scale, and that the physical movements imagined by the art team can actually work in the virtual space. Then it's back to hand drawing all the animations.

This process, instigated by Mori, has apparently sped up the development cycle considerably. Earlier today, when the Arc duo were visiting Future Publishing, one journalist asked Ishiwatari about the longest time he'd ever spent at the office without going home. "18 months," was he rather astonishing reply, referring to his work on the last Guilty Gear title. When he tells me this story, Mori quietly adds, "There is a public bath around the corner from the office. That helped." Now, most of the staff keep regular hours – apart from Mori. "The Arc building has two floors," he explains. "The ground floor is the office, and the top floor is a big storage room with a large couch. That is now called Mori's bedroom."

For Mori, this obsessive attention to design and narrative detail is vital – it's about creating rounded characters that exude life. "We take great care to flesh out every character's story," he says. "We consider their likes, their dislikes, their history and we make efforts to work these details into the final designs. This is very important. Animation is loved globally and I really believe that a traditional 2D drawing style contributes to the game because of the warmth and organic feel of the art. I want to develop games which pursue that feel."

Indeed, animation is a key influence on the Blazblue aesthetic; the game's artists regularly employ techniques derived from anime. For example, when a character performs a double jump, the size of their head is subtly and momentarily reduced to give a greater impression of height; and both fists and feet are enlarged when contact is made with an opponent's body to emphasis impact.

When I ask Mori and Ikeda about how their respective genres have lasted into the modern age, they both answer in the same way: community. Both Cave and Arc have a hardcore of fans, who play their games obsessively, both at home and in the sorts of flashy game centres (think Taito HEY and Sega GiGo) that we don't have in the UK anymore. 2D shooters and fighting games are like indie bands – they rely on passionate knowledgeable audience to keep going.

Hardcore meets mainstream

But there are great opportunities for expansion. We're now seeing a vast userbase of mature Western gamers clamouring for interesting and unusual titles. As a result, there's a growing number of publishers specialising in bringing 'cult' Japanese titles to European and American audiences. Set up in 2004, Rising Star is a key example. The Luton-based company has brought over the likes of Harvest Moon, Deadly Premonition, Half-Minute Hero and DeathSmiles, all to critical acclaim and decent sales. "There's a big fan base for Japanese games in Europe, especially for JRPGs," says marketing manager, Yen Hau. "There are a lot of people who appreciate their authenticity, their quirkiness. We've worked with Cave, SNK, Grasshopper Manufacture… DeathSmiles was Cave's first retail release in Europe and it's done really well. That deal came though us asking our community what games they'd like to see over here. We have an open dialogue with our gamers and there was a real enthusiasm for this game. So we approached Cave at the Tokyo Game Show, that was how it started."

The aim now for studios like Cave and Arc is to create games that can meet new audiences halfway. Over the last year we've seen fascinating hybrids like Marvelous Entertainment's Half-Minute Hero and Atlus' 3D Dot Game Heroes, which have added a tongue-in-cheek, self-referential sheen to the JRPG genre, thereby generating appeal among non-converts. This philosophy needs to extend to the fighting game and shooter genres.

And in some ways it already is. BlazBlue was devised very much as an entertainment experience first and a fighting game second. As Mori explains: "for BlazBlue I personally wanted to develop a fighting game with a much stronger entertainment value, a fighting game that could be enjoyed by all skill levels or gamer types, or simply for the characters, the music or the story. One of my biggest intentions was to make a game that was really fun to watch – that was where it really started." Mori is extremely serious and possessive about the BlazBlue story. He tells me that when a publishing house approached him with the idea of publishing a BlazBlue novel, they put forward five possible authors – Mori rejected three straightaway because he'd already had creative bust-ups with them, the other two he dismissed because they were trying to impose their vision on the Blazblue universe.

But there is a novel now, and there are even tentative hopes of an anime movie. I've also played the 3DS conversion of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, which looks gorgeous, the paper-like 2D characters appearing almost ethereal against the deep background visuals. It is also highly likely we'll see a return of the Guilty Gear series this year, although Mori would not confirm it, and faintly admonished me for asking. He did, however, give a hint of a post-Blazblue future: "I personally want to continue developing 2D fighting games, to push what can be done in this space, but I'm also very interested in action games such as Bayonetta and Devil May Cry – and also in third person shooting games like Gears of War." Hmm, we saw Platinum Games make an impressive, idiosyncratic impact in this area with Vanquish – could Arc be next?

Meanwhile, Cave is creating new gameplay systems to unlock its codified genre to newcomers. "With Deathsmiles, from the beginning, we had the goal of involving new players who were not necessarily shooting fans already," says Ikeda. "The game includes a system that allows players to shoot both left and right, but there will still be enemies appearing from behind. To give balance to that, we put a little pop-up into the game which lets you know when an enemy is about to appear behind you. We also introduced a life point system, which doesn't penalise the player as heavily when their character runs into an enemy."

2D future

There are plenty more 2D titles on the way in 2011. Treasure is releasing Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury as well as a hotly anticipated conversion of its legendary shooter, Radiant Silvergun, while Arc System Works is overseeing the home console ports of Arcana Heart 3, a beautiful arcade fighting game from Examu featuring an all-female roster. And of course, Square Enix is still active in 2D via its many re-releases – Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection is due on PSP later this year.

While Mori is protective of the arcade and its importance in the Arc process, it seems that Cave is open to the new opportunities afforded by digital distribution. It has a version of Guwange on XBLA and Espgaluda II has been converted to iOS. Ikeda sees a future in which his studio must adapt to the 'softer' tastes of a worldwide audience. "Currently we are concentrating on porting older titles originally developed for the arcade to home systems and smart phones. However, what you will see in the future are releases on platforms other than arcade hardware, and game designs based on those platforms. The direction of shooting games at the moment is influenced by a demand for games that don't 'play hardball' but have gameplay that can be engaged in a more accessible manner, so you may see shooters heading that way.

"Still," he adds slyly, "'playing hardball' has its own appeal..."

2D now!

Five 'hardcore' Japanese titles for the interested newcomer

DeathSmiles

(Cave, Xbox 360)

Visually stunning side-scroller, with interesting gothic design, immersive game system and bags of scoring depth. You can pick up the UK deluxe edition on Amazon for less than twenty quid. Alternatively, you can also download Cave's startlingly frenzied Guwange from XBLA.

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift

(Arc System Works, PS3, Xbox 360)

Incredibly stylish fighter with gorgeous hand-drawn sprites and some amazing fighting styles. If you've never played a 2D fighting game before it comes with a highly entertaining tutorial that explains all the basics and is fun to play through. Again, you can find this online for £20 and it's worth every penny.

Bangai-O Spirits

(Treasure, Nintendo DS)

An astonishing small-screen sequel to Treasure's Dreamcast classic, Bangai-O. You control a robot through 160 exhausting side-scrolling levels, and there's a map editor so you can create your own missions. This is £6.99 on Amazon! £6.99!

Muramasa: The Demon Blade

(Vanillaware, Wii)

Based on a old Japanese folk tale, this is a simply gorgeous side-scrolling hack-'em-up with hand-drawn 2D characters and lush pseudo-3D environments. From the makers of cult classic PS2 RPG, Odin Sphere.

Half-Minute Hero

(Marvelous Entertainment, PSP)

Absolutely inspired retro-style RPG shooter, in which each level and boss encounter must be completed in 30 seconds. Lovely visuals and bundles of chaotic charm. The sequel, Half-Minute Hero Second, is yet to be confirmed for UK release.

This article was amended on 8 March, 2011. The original refered to Eikichi Kawasaki's company as PlayAsia, it is Playmore. The Arc System Works series is Guilty Gear, not Guilty Gears. This has been corrected.