/vr/ - Retro Games

What are today's standards?

It's fair because you can compare Atari 2600 games to NES and the 2600 games mostly suck and don't hold up

There are tons of bad NES games like Ikari Warriors, but there are also games you can't get anymore like Contra or Mario Bros or Zelda 1

It's unfair, most games today are barely games. Would give retro games too much advantage.
It's fairer to compare retro to retro standards.

>>4902000
Yes although it depends on why you're judging.

There are games that were fun and innovative at the time, but have rough edges that players of the time tolerated that can really interfere with the experience when played today. The original Metroid and Final Fantasy games are both examples of this (>>4902006 has other examples). But other games, such as SMB3, are so well-designed in terms of art and gameplay that they're nearly as fun to play today as they were when they were novel.

In fact many modern games have gone back and mined the 80s and 90s for gameplay ideas and often include throwback art styles in homage. Examples: Mega Man 9 and Shovel Knight.

>>4902000
Story and plot development doesn't require technology and is thus free to make fun of or praise regardless of the era in which it was released. As for graphics/sound/hardware stuff and gameplay caused by more sophisticated engines and hardware I don't see why you would compare them.

>>4902036
Fuck off with this "le wrong generation" nonsense. I agree that a lot of games today are garbage, but you're ignoring all of the good games that come out today, and you're ignoring all of the garbage from back then.
>le games today are Xbox shooter games with quick time events and objective markers
>really more like movies than games!
The 80s and 90s had trash like Ghost Busters on the NES, Shaq-Fu, M.U.S.C.L.E., Bible Adventures, Little Red Hood, and other barely playable trash. Don't even get me started on the 2600's library of garbage. We only talk about the good ones like The Legend Of Zelda and Super Mario Bros 3 because they were fucking GOOD.
>games back then were amazing!
>so bright and colorful and challenging too!
We have games like that today too. We have all kinds of indie games. PlayStation and Nintendo are killing it right in terms of bright, creative, original games. Breath Of The Wild was good, Super Mario 3D World, Splatoon, The Witness, Rime, Hyper Light Drifter, etc.

I prefer retro games too, but I'm glad that I live in a time when I can choose to play modern or retro games if I want to. This is the gaming equivalent of saying that all music today sucks because the top 40 songs suck. They always did. That's not to say that there isn't anything good coming out.

>>4902064
>This is the gaming equivalent of saying that all music today sucks because the top 40 songs suck. They always did

Literally not true

There's a compilation of number 1 songs and you can see music progressively worse around the late 90's

>>4902064
>>4902078
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAsmNoOQbko

Video in question

>>4902000
yeah it's completely okay to do that, cause there's a lot of things companies need to learn from looking at old games

>>4902000
yea sure, why not?

>>4902085
Macarena (1996) is the turning point IMO

>>4902000
First of all define today's standards. Then define ye standard of olde. Then realize that you can judge anything in any manner you want. At this point, true wisdom is just around the corner. You're just a single step away from realizing that your opinions will always be shit, you'll always be a "le wrong generation" kiddo, and we're always going to laugh at you.

>>4902147
what a stupid post, how can you spew so much retarded shit in a single post?

>>4902152
Just stating the facts, kiddo.

>>4902000
Absolutely. There are games that stand the test of time and prove that great gameplay is timeless.

There's a reason you don't see a lot of people shittalking Mega Man 2, for example, even on this desolate shithole.

>>4902156
your opinion is shit

>>4902160
Ok, kiddo.

>>4902162
I'm glad you agree about your opinion, and I'm glad you hold yourself to the same standard as you do OP. Hypocrisy is never a good thing.

>>4902169
Ok, kiddo.

Yes, because classics never die

>>4902085
But practically all of this is trash regardless of era

>>4902181
No, no. You don't get it. See, the kids have some elaborate mental gymnastics, that I'm sure they'll be along to explain shortly, detailing why music they don't like is "objectively" bad and music they do like is "objectively" good. I'll leave it to them to explain. Feel free to laugh as you read it.

>>4902184
No, no. You don't get it. You have some elaborate mental gymnastics, that I'm sure you'll be along to explain shortly, detailing why argumentation you don't like is "objectively" invalid and things you agree with are "objectively" valid. I'll leave it to you to explain. I will feel free to laugh as I read it.

>>4902000
Yes, but "X game is bad by today standarts" is just a fancy way to write "X game is bad".

>>4902000
Wtf even are "today's standards"? If you mean graphics, of course not, since they were working under hardware limitations. If you mean gameplay... Well pretty much everyone agrees that games aren't made as well as they used to be, so today's standards aren't relevant.
The criteria for what makes a good game doesn't hardly change over time. Is it fully-functional and minimally-buggy? Does it feel fun & rewarding to play? Is the visual style well-made and pleasing? etc. Time has no bearing on these qualities.
I suppose standards were lower in the very early years since simply being able to interact with the computer was exciting. So although it's not especially fun, we couldn't fairly call Pong bad. But beyond that. no.

>>4902078
> pop music
> guaranteed derail.
Every fucking time. Music is incredibly subjective, everyone has an opinion. Most people saying "top 40 have always been trash" have no better taste than people saying "they used to be good" or "they've always been good." Certainly, no one ever has an argument beyond: look at this, obviously it's <good/bad/whatever>


>>4902085
One thing this shows is that top 40 has always been subject to memes. Sometimes you get good songs, sometimes you get stuff that isn't necessarily bad, but clearly just popular for some odd reason or another, like "We are the World" from 1985 or "Ballad of the Green Berets" from 1966. I'm not even saying those are bad, but clearly their popularity is not due primarily to musical merit. And as far as my personal tastes go, I doubt there would be much of a "old vs new" pattern as far as what songs I liked. I like some of the old songs, I like some of the new songs.

Certainly, songs became more heavily produced over time. If a raw "band with vocals" is your musical ideal then obviously you'll be less impressed with modern trends. But personally, I like "Blurred Lines"(2013) and "Uptown Funk"(2015) more than "Love Will Keep Us Together"(1975) and "Sugar Shack"(1963). You can call it cherry picking but I'm pretty sure if I went through the entire list giving a "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" there wouldn't be a particularly consistent pattern.

>>4902319
didn't we have this same exact discussion in the "what did Chad play back in the day" thread a while ago?

>>4902284
True but usually the comment is made to acknowledge that the game was either innovative or fashionable for its time. The original NES Metroid has a lot of issues by modern standards, and while people might have occasionally mentioned those issues at the time, it wasn't enough to discourage people from playing the game for its good and innovative qualities. Meanwhile, "Modern Standards" for that style of game are defined more by Super Metroid and Castlevania:SOTN, and when you see recommendations it'll look more like pic related.

>>4902323
I didn't participate in that one but yeah.

>>4902346
Are there too many /v/tards in this thread for me to say how indie games are lazy ways for third rate developers to take peoples money?

>>4902357
Some certainly are. But that's also how innovation happens in an environment like this. For every N low-effort cash grabs you might find something clever and novel that would have never seen the light of day 20 years ago.

>>4902362
Like what? Indie games are limited by budget to be 2D platformer games with a twist that have to compete against teams of the best developers in the world making similar games decades previously or use shitty 3D engines

>>4902000
Playing SMB3 recently and it occurred to me just how fucking short the stages are.

>>4902380
Minecraft.

And what's wrong with 2D platformers? Not everyone is content to replay classic Castlevania and Mega Man over and over and really enjoy games like Super Meat Boy and Shovel Knight.

>>4902362
indie games are a mixed bag, for every cave story there's a hundred fezes

>>4902000
Not by graphics and technical limitations, but gameplay is gameplay. Good games stand the test of time in terms of gameplay, because even if they are outdated in terms of mechanics used they should still be fun.

That said there are a lot of old fun games out there that look like shit if you're used to today standards and that clearly have issues due to the limitations of the time. If you can look past those issues then you can still have a lot of fun with them, but if you are one of those people who can't then you're going to have a bad time.

>>4902393
>Minecraft.
Shitty 3D engine and a glorified virtual lego set with little actual gameplay.

>what's wrong with 2D platformers?
Nothing, Indie developers have to compete against teams of the best developers in the world making similar games decades previously when they were the highest budget video games. When you have 1CC'ed a respectable amount of /vr/ platformers it is questionable what an indie platformer can offer you.

>>4902000
At any era it's hard to make a game like SMB3. This game brings new items, enemies, new rule of play all throughout the game. Now game designers have less power and can't decide to shove new rules in the middle of the games. Because the budget are too high and it would cost too much money.

>>4902407
>Shitty 3D engine and a glorified virtual lego set with little actual gameplay.
No AAA developer would have taken a risk publishing a game like that. It took a creative and clever indie developer using a "shitty 3D engine" to make a novel, addictive game that millions bought and enjoyed. And now AAA games like Fortnite use building mechanics that Minecraft introduced but this time not in a "shitty 3D engine" with "little actual gameplay."

Maybe people who "1cc a respectable amount of /vr/ platformers" tend to not understand or value creativity except as something they can personally consume in the context of an explicit challenge. If that particular niche doesn't have any good indie developers, maybe this mentality has something to do with it.

>Indie developers have to compete against teams of the best developers in the world making similar games decades previously when they were the highest budget video games
Yeah and they have many tools and resources that those high-budget games of the past did not, as well as all those existing games (and the internet) to learn from. How much of those budgets were spent on developing game engines? How much was spent on development for specialized gaming hardware necessary to get these side-scrolling games to perform?

>>4902000
Today's quality standards are lower so judging old games by them produces favourable results.

>>4902000
No, because they are fundamentally different. It's like comparing grunge to mumblerap.

>>4902064
I agree with most of those except for BotW, it was soulless tripe that doesn't even deserve to be called a Zelda game

>>4902085

you can hear the birth of la creatura