/vr/ - Retro Games

Abstraction.

>>1718914
Good gameplay

>>1718914
Fun and easy to understand gameplay (= no need for fucklong tutorials).

>>1718914
Simple and concise, but still quality.

There's something distinctly lacking in today's retro inspired indy titles that is missing from the AAA games of old.

That isn't to say I don't appreciate modern day games. In fact a lot of my favorite games came out last gen.

CREATIVITY

>>1718914
There's no handholding.

Music that sounded fucking awesome in spite of technological limitations.

>>1718914

A sense of humor.

The ability to convey complex and abstract concepts by means of simplicity in graphics, sound, and game design.

Pic related

Variety. There were so many of these small studios that weren't afraid to take risks and try all sorts of weird ideas. As a result, many innovations were made, technological barriers were overcome and we ended up with games like Wolfenstein 3-D and Alone in the Dark for example, which became modern classics and trend setters of their time. There was something for everybody, unlike today. Games like Bullfrog's Dungeon Keeper, Origin's Bioforge and Delphine's Another World weren't for everybody and wouldn't get made today, for sure. But they nevertheless had their own niche, and there were groups of people who appreciated them for what they were. That there actually were studios willing to cater for our tastes, that is what was so awesome about the 1980's - 1990's video game industry. Today the big studios only authorize the so called "sure things", guaranteed money makers from firmly established genres, and that stifles creativity and has decreased the amount of new, original IP's on the market.

>>1718914
A sense that the developers put in things that they found amusing or challenging, stuff that made them personally excited about the game being as awesome as they could make it even it was silly, weird or not perfectly polished.

I would have to say the abscense of micro transactions.

Back in the day, when you paid for a game, you got the full, complete game, and in the case of PC games like Age of Empires and Die by the Sword. They released expansion packs sure, but they were practically whole new games, adding in an entirely new set of campaigns, weapons, civilizations, maps ect.

But with the micro transactions you see today, you don't pay for an entire expansions, you pay for a single piece of armor, a single boss, or dlc level. And while that may be cheaper than an expansion pack as a whole, it adds up, ans once you've bought everything in the game, you have just payed up to twice the amount the that you would have payed it it all came in a pack.

Now imagine Final Fantasy VII, and all of it's side quests, like discovering the truth behind Lucetria, Yuffi's back story ect. Imagine having to pay 5,99 a piece in order to play them in the form of dlc. Imagine having to pay for weapons like the Apocalypse, thus rendering the Ancient Forest useless, or having the ability to purchase gold chocobo's along side breeding them, or even worse, having to pay actual money for the greens to feed them.

And micro transactions are a godsend for EA. Look what microtransactions did to Dungeon Keeper. They can be the nail in the coffin for some video game series. Because thanks to micro transactions, what could have been a great, time consuming dungeon defender, possibly even a new PC game at that, because a hopeless money guzzling free to play mobile game.

Micro transactions ruined modern gaming.

>>1719010
>Variety.

I don't even have to read the rest of your post to know that you don't pay attention to anything besides AAA.

>>1719106
Even if indie games still have variety it doesn't mean they don't suck.

These are all good posts itt. For me it would have to be being able to just jump into a game almost instantly. No bullshit startup times, no logging in, no wrestling with finicky internet connections, none of that. Just put the game in and start playing. The Wii U is the only modern platform I can think of where you can still do this.

>>1718985
/thread

The joy of getting lost. My first foray into retro games was the NES Metroid, and I love wandering around aimlessly blasting Metroids and looking for the next way to advance. I've gotten more fun out of just mindlessly meandering through Metroid's interiors than I expected.

I wish more games would just throw you into a world and tell you to wing it.

To me it feels like since the budgets were smaller, the concept and vision was less interfered with, or notoriously tailored to a wider demographic.

On a personal level, my tastes have always been peculiar. If anything, there was more peculiar stuff happening then than there is now. Because as we all know, peculiar doesn't sell gangbusters, and no one's gonna put millions on the line if it won't appeal to a wide demographic.

Which isn't to say I still can't find the occasional hidden gem. Pic thankfully related.

>>1718968
>>1718985
These two mostly. The older games didn't overdo it (mostly because they couldn't) and presented ideas that were interesting. I don't know many games nowadays that do this. Even indie games seem obsessed with emulating an experience rather than doing something creative.

Gotta be honest, it's COLOR.
These games had absolutely no hope of reproducing real life, unlike today, so in response many of them went out of their way to be colorful and cartoony. I absolutely appreciate the way modern technology has revolutionized the way games look, but when I play a video game, I'm just not interested in realism. It's not my cup of tea.
That's not to say there aren't modern games that have unique art styles, because I know there are. And I like them too.
But retro games mark a time when everything, by necessity, looked unrealistic. Combined with the experimentation in game design necessary for so many games as they developed as a medium, I just find them so much more fascinating, fun, and unique than many modern games.

>>1718985
>>1718985
>>1718985
>>1718985
>>1718985
No other responses are necessary.

>>1718914
Challenge. Very few modern games actually present themselves as a series of challenges to be overcome; these days it's more like they're a series of choreographed victories to make the player feel good about themselves for little to no effort.

Also, design purity. There's too much bloated shit out there right now. Games need less padding and more focus. I'd take 5 hours of amazing gameplay over 300 hours of boring errand running any day.

>>1719390

That pretty much sums up my biggest complaint with Conker Live and Reload. They made everything look better and yet lost a lot of the cartoony style of Conker's Bad Fur Day in the process.

so many good posts itt

>>1719442
>choreographed victories

This is such a perfect term to describe modern games

>>1718914

>one thing

Good level design

Variety in genres and or subgenres

Creativity (as in companies taking a chance on an "O muh gyawddd!!!" NEW IDEA)

Art design that isn't generic

Multiple playable characters and modes

Unlockable content

Games being finished BEFORE they're shipped.

No micro-transactions

Not everything has the EXACT same camera system and controls

Games having something like pre-rendered environments and tank controls not getting flack for being "unplayable" by morons who refuse to take 12 seconds to acclimate to a new game or style

No fucking mandatory tutorial levels

Better balance of gameplay and story

Relatable characters

FAR fewer entitled bitches crying because they don't like something different (OK, not exactly a game's fault, but still)

Devs working out the gameplay and layouts first and not wasting 90% of the budget on graphics and every character having a VA

Puzzles

Several genres that are now totally dead.

Games not immediately flopping because they're not an FPS or WRPG

There's more, but you did say "name one thing" so I'd like to keep the list on the small-er side...

Nothing because you could find anything in modern games too if you actually look for it. Just generalizing everything won't help for old and new games. There is no magical element that suddenly vanishes after 1999. If i claim no new game is creative because of CoD or Mario, then i might as well claim no old game is creative because of blatant copies of Atari 2600 games or Capcom making more and more Megaman games.

>>1719497
No, but there was in fact a distinct point in time where suddenly everything was either a Gears of war or Halo ripoff. Including RPGs, Fighting and Racing games...

Face it, things like multiple modes of play are now reserved for online MP. And when that dies, games lose half their potential content or replayability.

Look at NFS as a series. In NFS3, you pick a mode, a car, car options, a course, course options, bot racers and options, then race. There's only 8 cars and 8 courses, but the varying options allow for hundreds of ways to play. Every single course.

In Hot Persuit (3) you enter a campaign mode and can only use certain cars on certain courses and then only in certain types of races. Any variety at all is reserved for online, witch lasted a month or two, then was totally dead. So the game lost almost all reply value at that point.

I can still play NFS3 and do whatever the fuck I want.

Now tell me that that didn't "just happen". Because even NFS Carbon had an arcade mode that had options nearly on par with HP3, AND it had totally customizable cars too.

Is there some reason that new games can't manage things that the PS1 and PS2 could handle easily?

Basically, once the 360 came out, things went to hell and cookie cutter games reigned. The PS3 soon followed suit and even Nintendo is following suit now.

There's no denying this, no matter how hard you try.

>>1718914
Gosh I dunno.
>Less words more play
Is what I'd have to sum it up as. If an intro drags on too long I get the feeling the creators wanted to make a movie and tell a story instead of make a game.
And, power to them for wanting to do that, but can they do it in an appropriate medium?

>>1719497
>Nothing because you could find anything in modern games too if you actually look for it. Just generalizing everything won't help for old and new games.
If you understand that we're speaking generally here, why even bother to say this? Obviously there's still some quality titles if you do some digging. I think the problem for a lot of us is it seems like you have to do a lot more digging now than in the past. There are reasons for this, and they are worth discussing, whether or not you think it will change anything.

>There is no magical element that suddenly vanishes after 1999
Don't know where anyone else stands, but for me things only really start going south a couple years into 7th gen.

>>1718932
>>1718968
>>1718985
>>1718994
>>1719005
These.

heart and soul

>>1719091
Hi Clint.

Games today hold your hand way too much. There's way to much telling you what to do instead of letting you explore and experiment so you can figure it out yourself. What's the point?

More than anything else I miss local multiplayer. Get the gang together and play splitscreen shooters, racers, co-op, whatever. Those were some of the best times.

I'm going to think outside the game and say manuals.
I really had a lot of things to say that I could choose just one but the thing that tied everything together with retro games was the manual and to some extension player guides.
When I got a game I could open it up read the manual and get a complete idea on how it played, tips, tricks, artwork, character personalities and general backstory of everything before even playing the game. Now I get a slip of paper with the same artwork I've seen everywhere and 'for instructions and legal bullshit please refer to the digital manual' and it feels so lifeless and dull.

Challenge, good level design and lack of hand holding.

Playing through Perfect Dark (on Perfect Dark difficulty setting) with mouse control currently and having to figure out what my objectives are, how to complete them and how to navigate around the level is so goddamn fun and refreshing compared to the mindless "walk forward, hide behind convoluted chest high wall, play wack a mole with guns, win because your health regen and theres doesn't, press X for cinematic sequence, wash, rinse repeat"

I've had more fun in the level DataDyne Research: Investigation alone than I've had in every modern FPS combined in like the last decade. The genre has gone completely backward, it's really depressing.

>>1719497
Have you ever of tiny dev teams you ignorant faggot?

>There is no magical element that suddenly vanishes after 1999

Absolutely no one is claiming this outright.

Effort

>>1719743

This sums up my feelings of modern big name FPS pretty well.

I'll also add that having in game purchases guarantees that I won't spend a penny on any of your games.

Level design.

Casualisation. Even if that's not a real word it sums up modern games for me.

>go here
>press x now
>pay to vanquish your enemies!

>>1719789
Or the worst:

>pay or else you can't progress

Christ it goes against everything that made games good.

>>1718914
Minimalistic but still detailed art style. A lot of later Mega Man games did this really good.

>>1719803
>Mega Man 6
>Minimalistic
That shit nearly broke the NES.

>>1719789
all games have now different from past games in terms of being 'casual' is pop up instructions and that because no one reads the fucking instructions

>>1718914

Risk and reward. Anybody who's ever merked Smash TV will know this. You are killed easily, and are nearly always surrounded by shit about to turn you into a victim, but if you don't keep grabbing as many power ups as possible, you're fucked. No question. People who play shmups can probably agree too, say like, Psyvaria, and the buzz mechanic that makes your ship stronger through weaving inbetween bullets.

>>1719803
>Minimalistic but still detailed art style.

u wot

MM games got a shitload more detailed and were anything but minimalistic. The last /vr/ MM game (8) had a ridiculous amount of detail.

>>1719840

You can't be serious. The only difference is pop up instructions?

>indicator because enemy saw me whoops god forbid i get shot, oh wait my health will regenerate anyway XD

>>1719113
Who said anything about indie games?

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. There exists a market between indie and AAA games. Also, indie games aren't inherently bad.

But keep on with your blanket statements of games you haven't even played.

Simplicity. Retro games (especially arcade games) often take simple ideas to logical extremes.

That and the fact that technical limitations often bred great innovation.

Not treating you like the ultimate babby (which is why a subpar game like Souls suddenly becomes the harbinger of the Second Coming).

>>1719885

discussing with my friend how modern games aren't usually challenging

>well just use hard difficulty are you stupid

Getting surprised

Retro games have always been able to freak me out or surprise me in general.

>>1719856
last I checked some retro FPS had enemy indicators and not all new games have health regeneration

While a lot of today's "cinematic" games have entertained me, the game that most affected my mood and emotions based on atmosphere is Clocktower. The game is so creepy, so subtle, I still don't understand how it did it. And I played that game recently, like last year...

>>1719918

Okay so you're being dense on purpose, got it.

Actual effort and passion. The older games are usually the quintessential form of their genre, whereas newer games tend to be more watered down and lose some of the focus of what's really important. On the other hand, some games have only gotten better. If I had had Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Fire Emblem Awakening when I was 5, I'd shit my pants.

So I'd say that games are getting better but at the same time losing something important. By the same token, the old games did a lot of things right but at the same time needed improvement. I think the most disappointing thing about the video game industry today is that a lot of that potential improvement fell through the cracks, especially with companies like Nintendo. Pic related.

>>1719927
Great reply, you sure showed me that I was incorrect.

>>1719924

Talking about the SNES one btw.

Back in the day, dying meant something

>>1718914
focus on gameplay mechanics.

>>1718914
In regards to JRPGs, I strongly feel that its gameplay and story. Go back and play Mario RPG and notice how unique every little thing is in that game.

>>1719993
This and an understanding of simplicity. I love being able to pick up a snes-era and earlier and even some ps1 games and immediately knowing how to play. A jumps, B shoots. If it's an RPG, start will bring up a menu.

But not just that sort of simplicity, but also taking one mechanic and exploring it to it's fullest extent. A good, but overplayed, example is the cane in Ducktales or the wall jump in Ninja Gaiden. You're doing the same actions over and over, but you're applying it to different situations. It makes a game feel more... compete, I think.

Some games run with the idea of lots of mechanics and it works out fine, but when a game sacrifices depth for variety, or has a turret section "just because", it becomes a weaker experience for it.

>>1719939
>all games have now different from past games in terms of being 'casual' is pop up instructions

This is wrong no matter how you approach proving so. To say that this is the only change in video games between the past and today is just mind numbingly stupid, even as a hyperbolic statement. You've got brain damage.

>>1720009
>or has a turret section "just because"

oh boy...

>>1718914

Nothing. I like good retro games because they're good games. I like good modern games too. This whole "retro vs modern" thing is stupid.