How do you get better 2D graphics anyway?

I've seen a trend in reviews for 2D DS games. The reviewers almost always say that the 2D graphics a bad because it's something the that GBA could handle. This makes me wonder: How do you go about improving 2D graphics. Honestly, when you consider that 2D is basically a bunch of drawings, it's hard to see how one system would be able to do better 2D than another system.

What are your thoughts on this?

You can improve 2D graphics in many ways :

- better cpu to draw more sprites (multiple background layers, more special effects)
- more video memory means more space available for more animations, backgrounds, big images, less tiling, more detailed world... the DS has about 500k of video memory. Having 1 mb means we would double the amount of stuff we could draw in 2D games.
- having a better resolution gives you more detailed/bigger 2D images

Edit: Just look at old systems like NES or the first Game Boy to see how better machines translate to better 2D. As a dev, if you have a better system, you should be able to improve the graphical quality of your games. The DS is more powerful than the GBA, there is no reason we should have GBA quality games (even in 2D) on it.

well if you look at a game like Odin Spear wich is 2d and it is simply beutiful and could not be done on the GBA. There is also games like New Super Mario Bros. which are 2.5D. To tell you the truth I prefer GBA graphics to even 3D so it doesn't really bother me.DokiXAdvance

There's actually a boss in Odin Sphere that is so detailed that the game suffers from slowdown. That's right! Slowdown from a 2D game.

it's hard to see how one system would be able to do better 2D than another system.APic

the ds can't improve 2d sprites that much from gba ones. cos the resolution is almost the exactly the same. all that can be done now is just to add more frames of animation and stuff like that.