Thoughts on Using 3D Characters in a 2D environment

Hi devs!

I'm working on a 2D game project and I'm trying to decide whether to use traditional hand-drawn 2D characters or to place 3D character models in a 2D environment. In the latter case everything would (I think) still be rendered with a single orthographic camera. The game is a platformer, with a side-view camera. It'll be ported to several platforms including mobile, so efficiency might be a concern.

If y'all have any thoughts or opinions, I'd love to hear them! Here's what I understand the pros and cons to be:

Pros (of using 3D characters):
- easier to implement partial body animations
- easier to blend between animations
- easier to tweak animations and change the characters' look during development
- faster development (maybe? please correct me if that's not true)
- more memory efficient
Cons:
- harder to blend style of characters and background
- less graphically efficient (with 3D lighting and such)

 

Pro's: Faster development, nope. The benefit to 2D is when you do the second character you do not have to start from scratch. You just have to change the initial broken apart sprite, and keep the same bone structure. 3D you can do the same, but all your characters basically become color swaps, as their shapes are the same.

 

Thanks TigerDawn! That's helpful.