Would love a discussion on how wrong I am or how right I am? I'm not a huge gamer, but still enjoy these older titles and systems.
I don't think you can say you are right or you are wrong. Gaming is pretty personal since it almost boils down exclusively to your preference, and the feelings that are associated with playing these titles of old.
More rambling, and random thoughts. Read at your own expense.
Although, since it has become more mainstream I think there has been a real change in the way games have been directed to the people. As always, making games is a business, first and foremost. People don't invest that amount of time or money just because they can (unless they are some kind of video game philanthropist). That being said, I would argue that back when it was still a past-time that had something of a larger stigma attached to it (it still sort of does for those that are obsessively addicted to gaming ie: people that don't leave their homes for years, or let their kids die while playing MMOs), games were made for gamers...or they were just terribly made for any number of reasons.
At the risk of sounding like a hipster (I promise, I'm not) or whatever the games that I used to play as a kid simply would not fly today. They just wouldn't make money. Games that come to mind for NES:
Bionic Commando the original
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
Back to the Future I. Another good example of this is
Ultima V for PC. Right off the get go, one of the main party members (oh Shamino, I need to keep you alive!!) is crippled by a magical arrow and dies so fast in combat...then when you try to heal him by resting...those same Shadowlords come into your camp and one shot you....I never did beat this game for obvious reasons as a kid. O
But i think that some of the blame can be assigned to technological limitations, and that further hindered game play. The fact is, a lot of these older console games just didn't have enough content. If we had paid $59.99 (in late 80's/early 90's dollars!!) today for
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and never got past the swimming level, can you imagine the amount of rage there would be if internet forums had existed back in the day?
I suppose the flip side of the coin is the number of good, rock solid games that are still playable today. From the NES days,
Super Mario, Zelda and many others are still playable because they have that timeless quality about them. Yes, the graphics are dated, but they were done in a fashion that didn't try to mimic real life visuals as technology allowed in the 80's/90's. Fast forward to the PlayStation/N64 era where devs were trying to use the latest technology then known to reproduce life like graphics. Those haven't aged well. At all. (
Final Fantasy VII maybe the exception for many) but even that has it's own style.
Typically the games from that generation that aren't too hard on the eyes are ones like
Final Fantasy Tactics. Some developers got it right, but more often that not, most didn't. Trying to go back and play some of those old 32bit/64bit games is about as pleasant as a stick in the Golden Eye. From my perspective, I don't want to play the 3D remake of
Final Fantasy IV because I think it looks horrendous. Why mess with a timeless classic? (that being said, playing
Final Fantasy IV now...it just doesn't seem as good or dramatic as it did in 1993). Conversely, a remake done right (in my opinon,
Tomb Raider Anniversary) just adds an entirely new level of experience to an already fun game, but one that I would not replay due to the era in which it was made.
But coming back to my point about old games being for gamers, now I think you will run into games trying to appeal to too broad an audience, and one that is for no one in particular. Gamers, especially if they have been gaming for a long time come to expect a certain standard. Whether it is self imposed, or one that is an industry standard is another question, but the question remains why is there such a marked increase in indie development?
If you look at a lot of the games that have been kickstarted, an overwhelming amount of them are the old style type of games that can be developed without distributor interference. People clearly yearn for old game mechanics, or games that just aren't deemed profitable by the industry. These are niche gamers, or core gamers, but the fact is this niche/core never went away. The rest of the gaming world just grew around them and insulated them until they no longer had much of a say or their dollars didn't matter as much. The new
Bioshock includes a 1999 mode which harkens back to its System Shock roots for a deeper RPG experience in an attempt to appeal to core gamers.
I think many a long time gamer will agree with me, that the new "Normal" mode on games is about as difficult as "Easy" was for us way back when. I can't count the number of times I've played through on a Normal setting, and wished I'd played on Hard mode instead. I don't know if that's because I'm more skilled as a gamer now, or if it's because coming from the older generation of gamers that's what I expect. A challenge.
I'll use
Mega Man 2 as an example (not going to use
Mega Man 9/10 because those games are just masochistic, and artificially difficult and I doubt I could have beat those games as a kid even with hours of practice.). Yes I know the
Mega Man series became increasingly easier after 2...but for this example, just stick with me.
When you make it to Wiley's Fortress(spoilers!) there's this one sequence where you fall through a labyrinth of insta-death spikes. If you go in blind, you don't know what's coming next unless you owned or borrowed the Nintendo Power issue that covered it, or maybe had a friend who told you what to do. Then laughed as he trolled you and made you die.
I have a very hard time believing anyone would make it through on their first attempt without dying unless they were extremely lucky. You'd make it to that point, and if you ran out of lives you'd have to claw your way back to that part of the stage.
The point I'm trying to make is that it required you to develop a certain skill set of memorization and reflexes. Quick time events try to make up for that these days, but even that has its detractors. Whether you agree with me or not, sequences like that were a challenge.
Mega Man had one difficulty setting, and it forced you to learn and adapt to it.
That's a challenge in game play that I think, is a little harder to find these days. I experienced some of it in the new
Tomb Raider but not much else recently. But again, changing audiences right?
Anyways enough for now, I don't want to sound like an old man (I don't think I am...).
