Torque2D background deformation, or sprites in Torque3D?

A friend and I are interested in using one of the Torque engines to develop a game. For aesthetic/flavor reasons, we want the majority of the graphics assets to be 2D.

Characters, enemies, some scenery, inventory, etc., would be in a fantasy-art/animation-like 2D style.

However, the backgrounds are an issue. We'd like them to appear 3D, to some degree. Ideally, we'd like to use the 2D engine, and deform the background/tileset dynamically, to simulate perspective (like Mode 7, without the complicated rotation): Closer to the camera, tiles would be bigger, while further from the camera, they'd be smaller, with proper deformation, so that the upper portion of a tile was narrower than the lower. Sprites on top of the tiles wouldn't be deformed, but would be bigger or smaller. Is this possible in Torque2D, and if so, would it be simple, or a complicted mess?

Otherwise, how complicated would it be to use Torque3D to pull off something like the modern Pokémon games, where the world is 3D, but the characters are 2D sprites? We'd likely be using a fixed camera.

Have either of these been done with any of the Torque engines?

Examples of the kind of thing we're going for (though not necessarily the same style, and at a much higher PC/iPhone resolution):

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/2207/mode7screenlk0.png
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/2176/perspectivesample.jpg
http://vagary.tv/wp-contentnew/2011/03/pokemon-black-and-white1.jpg