We're using Blender to pre-render 3D assets into 2D ones for our upcoming top-down survival horror arpg. (Link in bio for the curious.) It's worked well for us overall. That said, it definitely adds a lot of complexity, and if you're ultimately making a 2D game it adds a whole new, complex tool to learn and integrate. Case in point the incredible efforts described in this article to create the cube map or depth buffer!<p>I will say, we solved the draw order problem a different, easier way by adopting a fixed ortho perspective and rendering objects as spritesheets/tiles. We can then author levels using conventional 2D methods. Objects now sort by their pivot's Y value, more or less, so walking behind things isn't an issue.<p>Seeing the Cave Story screenshot has me thinking, there might be an especially good opportunity for pre-rendered side-scrollers... Just entirely eliminate whole classes of problems, plus you easily bring back some of that animation-inspired back/mid/foreground goodness.