Disclaimer : I know that sprites are not exclusive to 8 bit or 16 bit graphics. Also if you want to skip the wall of text, just go down to the questions part.

It used to be the case that every time I looked at 2D sprites in a modern game, I would scratch my head and ask "Ugh .... why?" Why do they have to be 2D sprites? Why can't they be 2D drawings or 3D graphics? Do these developers rely on 8-16 bit nostalgia that much to sell their game? Why couldn't they try a little harder? It's funny, because I knew I was being somewhat ignorant and thick-headed(more on this in a later thread), but I never saught to fix the issue. I had my biases and was fine with them. I didn't like that games, which usually happened to be from indie-developers, used such an outdated form for no other purpose than to make the game "look different" or to get a nostalgic feeling or to save money. I never went back to old games thinking "wow, these games suck because they use 2D sprites" though, and in fact there were a few older games that I thought looked good with their sprites. I loved how Doom looked because of it's outdated sprites! But I was so wrapped up in the idea that sprites don't add any value other than nostalgia, and that older games looked nice despite them rather than because of them. In other words, if the devs did a good enough job using 3D graphics, the game would look just as good as sprite oriented games. Everytime I saw an older game transition into 3D poorly, I always thought it was because of a failure on the part of the developer. Bad art design, awkward animations, lackluster lighting, etc.

Now, my opinion is closer to changing. I've been absolutely obssessed with Sonic Mania recently. I played just a few hours of the Genesis games, and a few hours of Black Knight, but this being my first REAL Sonic experience ... i'm just tangled up in it so much! And not once while playing the game did I think "Wow ... this would be even nicer looking if it was in 3D!!" Yet it's a new release. On old games I never though about what improvements could be made nowadays, but being that this is a newer game, it surprised me how much I loved it's older style. My opinion is starting to change more and more, and while I  still have my doubts, i'm starting to believe that there's unique potential and interesting things left to be explored through sprites, and that maybe they aren't as easily replacable as I originally thought. 

So here's my questions : 

Should Sprites Be Used By Developers?

Are Sprites Replacable? Could Any 2D Game That Uses Sprites, Be Replaced With 3D Graphics With Aesthetics That Match The Quality Of Sprites While Having A More Modern Appeal?

How Does Sprite Work As It's Own Aesthetic Choice? Well Or Badly?

Obviously, state what benefits or disadvantages you think their are if their are any!!!

Examples : 

(This is one where I definitely prefer the original)

So what do you guys think?

Sorry if something is technically wrong or I didn't explain well enough!

(If i'm using the technical term wrong, I at least hope you can understand what I was going for!)

I think Dead Cells uses 3D models to generate their sprites (though I could be wrong), but imagine using a IK system for player feet and hands in a 2D sprite based game.

I think that procedural animation is the future, that and deep AI systems.
Rain World has a really good looking procedural animation system.

We are currently in a period where 3D graphics still sucks, the current gen games are being developed for weak PCs (and Doom (2016) was designed to run at 60 FPS on them).
Due to a lack in computational power, a very limited pool of RAM and the raw number of artist hours required to create high quality art assets...
Games have a hard time looking quite as nice as the games where they could only have a few hundred highly polished assets, rendered 'most pixel perfectly.

When we get faster consoles and game engines that can leverage machine learning to hep polish and generate high quality assets for less cost than the current pipelines.
3D games will finally catch up to high quality 2D games.

I'd argue that with woolly world the transition worked rather beautifully. DKTP also looks stunning, but since those sprites where generated from 3D models even in the snes days I guess the trasition wasn't as hard as with games like mario and Zelda that had pixel art based sprites.

I feel like a good substitute for 3D models when modernizing pixel sprites is going with handdrawn 2D sprites. It tends to preserve the charm of the original while also offering a satisfying upgrade. The recent Wonder Boy remake is a good example of that.

Handdrawn sprites in a 2.5D environment can also work beautifully and provide a unique looking charm to the characters while also having incredible looking environments.

Supergiant Games uses 3D characters models and worlds but their handdrawn cel shading for the environments and the way hey construct their character models and animation is very reminicent of sprite based games. Also they make some of the most beautiful games in the industry.

Ultimately using sprites is a tool to achieve a certain aesthetic or feel for the game and if a gamemaker thinks their game needs it they should use it.

It's the other way around, just like it was last gen. Multiplat games have to be able to run smoothly on an XBO, which is about as strong as the upcoming Raven Ridge APUs in the graphics department (and those are MUCH more powerful than the XBO in the CPU department). Hence why the base specifications for the games isn't moving much for several years now. The recommended configurations on the other hand are often on par with PS4 Pro or XOX in terms of graphics.

Doom 2016 was the first game running entirely on Vulcan (OpenGL's successor). Vulcan widened a lot of bottlenecks in the OGL API (especially the numer of draw calls) which make the game run much faster without needing stronger hardware. The result was that the game runs smoothly even with low-end PCs. But that's not the reason why they used Vulcan, Id Software was always using OGL so when Vulcan came around of course they where using that one instead of DirectX.

Thanks for the response! I'm curious, what is DKTP? Is that Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze? 

And yeah, I was just using Wooly World as an example, not saying it was better over sprites. 

Also yeah, I like the idea of drawings!

Yes, thats it! Sorry I was too lazy to type it out. :P

That's fine, the P just threw me off for a loop

Are they irreplaceable? For myself yes. I mainly play retro games, and to me there is nothing more beautiful than a pixel, I started with an Atari 2600 and when 8bits/16bits came I was amazed. This is very personal and probably for a nostalgia factor, I also live in the 70's-80's span for music and movies.
But I must admit those sonic and doom comparison pictures above are revealing of things I might be missing.

For the new folks, yeah just give them 3D graphs, they will not regret, it is the new thing and they have the right to be amazed with new tech. They will get nostalgia later in their lives, and when techs like volumetric 3D or headsets become mainstream, they will probably regret their HD ready monitors.

No they don't need to be retro pixel-art sprites, but games need to stop taking the easy way out and using 3d models instead of 2d art.

Rayman Origins and Legends show the effort that should be put into the graphics of 2d games. 2.5d is a mistake in almost all instances and is just done because it's quicker/cheaper.