/vr/ - Retro Games

>>9634201
There are way less greats now

There is no hidden classic in modern games, except the ones that use gimmicks stolen from real CLASSIC games, like hollow knight, skullgirls, risk of rain 1, etc.

Alright, post me some "modern classics" then.
>inb4 undertale, celeste, 5 nights at freddy

>>9634201
No, not at all. When I say retro games (retro meaning shit made up until the late 90s, not the retarded new rules) are far better than modern games I mean in general. Old big games are better than modern big games, the bottom of tbe barrel from back then was better than the bottom of the barrel now, the B tier stuff was also better and so on. The whole
>you're comparing modern shit to the best of the classic era
thing is just a falacy.

>>9634228
>Old big games are better than modern big games
That's basically what I wanted to say. Look at the 'normie popular games' from the 80s and 90s, hell, even the early 2000s and compare them to what we have now. 2/3 of the big games now are barely even video games

>>9634201
It's called having a bias. I'm almost 50 now and honestly can't think of a single year that didn't have a few great games come out and a bunch of less great and mediocre stuff came out. But some have a bias towards one era or another for whatever reason. I actually think gaming is better now than it ever has been, bit I am an outlier here. Most come to this board because they prefer older games.

>>9634210
>hidden classic
Does not compute!

>>9634201
Because why would you go and dig out the unremarkable mediocre games and the turds unless you have any kind of history with them, you're following a certain series which evidently hit some sort of snag, or you're the kind of person who actually goes out of their way to find bad games on purpose?
You're looking at decades of gaming, where you can easily just look back at history and see what people said was quite decent, really interesting, or among the best, thus the average guy looking back would check out that.

>>9634204
Arguably true, because we've hit some sort of dreadful overcommercialized slump, where most big players will refuse to do little besides those games which don't guarantee massive profits according to carefully market researched formulas, and which then are so expensive to produce that any real straying is against the interest of profit.

However, he's right in that there's some bias, because people forget that there were oceans of cheap and interchangeable garbage in the old days as well, on top of big time cynical cash grabs. People remember the NES fondly, and there's a lot of great games there, but there's also a lot of incredibly bland and some hideously atrocious ones as well, that fabled Seal Of Quality didn't do more for the customer beyond ensuring that the cartridge didn't start an electrical fire.
Shitting on LJN is a meme, but fact is they regularly hired the lowest bidder and then gave them deadlines tight as a noose, so even the good devs they used struggled to get it all right even when they tried (and some really did, bless their hearts).

Playstation, Game Boy, Commodore 64, PC, you can find lots of rock solid classics there too, but man, man oh man, even during the retro era there was more shovelware for PC alone than there are bikes in Niel DeGrasse Tyson's garage. The indie market on Steam is like a multiverse of low quality bloat.

>>9634210
Outside of outright plagiarizing art, design, or story, how do you really 'steal' from a classic? Great works inspire, hence why you'll see their influences in other works, be they themselves good or bad works.
If I say, decide that I want to make my own game, but I use the first Diablo as one of my primary frames of reference, is that stealing? Was it stealing when old Blizzard North were greatly inspired in their making of Diablo by older games like Rogue, Moria, Nethack, The Legend Of Zelda, Telengard, and Doom?
You can absolutely say that there are modern games which claim inspiration from classics, but which do a dogshit job at it, but that doesn't make that stealing.

>>9634231
Speaking as someone who's only 30, I wouldn't say that I have an inherent bias against new games, if something new, or relatively new, seems like it would be a good time for me, I'll check it out. It's just that for the past 5 or 6 years, the amount of new games which seem like they are exciting and interesting to me have become very, very few. I love old first person shooters, but the whole "boomer shooter" indie revival (had to stop to dryheave there), they all seem dull as fuck, they take superficial inspiration from classics but the gameplay and level design always seems like the most bland shit.

It's nice that emulation is easy and mostly accurate, but the last 'new' game which really caught my interest was me finding Organ Trail on PSN in like, 2019, a 'zombie parody' of Oregon Trail with deeper gameplay.
I have no history or nostalgia for Oregon Trail, Organ Trail wasn't exactly perfect, but it feels kind of telling that I look at GTA5 or Far Cry 6 and feel like I don't want to bother, that I would much rather play RDR again then give RDR2 any of my time at all (or 'worse', a cheap-ish 2013 'novelty' game like Organ Trail). It's hard to put to exact words, but those games don't draw me in at all.

That said, what kind of old games do you keep coming back to, old man?

>>9634210
Outside of outright plagiarizing art, design, or story, how do you really 'steal' from a classic? Great works inspire, hence why you'll see their influences in other works, be they themselves good or bad works.
If I say, decide that I want to make my own game, but I use the first Diablo as one of my primary frames of reference, is that stealing? Was it stealing when old Blizzard North were greatly inspired in their making of Diablo by older games like Rogue, Moria, Nethack, The Legend Of Zelda, Telengard, and Doom?
You can absolutely say that there are modern games which claim inspiration from classics, but which do a dogshit job at it, but that doesn't make that stealing.

>>9634246
Speaking as someone who's only 30, I wouldn't say that I have an inherent bias against new games, if something new, or relatively new, seems like it would be a good time for me, I'll check it out. It's just that for the past 5 or 6 years, the amount of new games which seem like they are exciting and interesting to me have become very, very few. I love old first person shooters, but the whole "boomer shooter" indie revival (had to stop to dryheave there), they all seem dull as fuck, they take superficial inspiration from classics but the gameplay and level design always seems like the most bland shit.

It's nice that emulation is easy and mostly accurate, but the last 'new' game which really caught my interest was me finding Organ Trail on PSN in like, 2019, a 'zombie parody' of Oregon Trail with deeper gameplay.
I have no history or nostalgia for Oregon Trail, Organ Trail wasn't exactly perfect, but it feels kind of telling that I look at GTA5 or Far Cry 6 and feel like I don't want to bother, that I would much rather play RDR again then give RDR2 any of my time at all (or 'worse', a cheap-ish 2013 'novelty' game like Organ Trail). It's hard to put to exact words, but those games don't draw me in at all.

That said, what kind of old games do you keep coming back to, old man?

>>9634305
>Because why would you go and dig out the unremarkable mediocre games and the turds unless you have any kind of history with them,

I can't tell you why, but people especially around here seem to want to do that a lot.

>>9634395
There's some subjectivity and contention to that at times, some either refuse to entertain parts of, or even an entire genre, while there's some who just never grew out of the childhood console warrior mindset, hating some things out of some sort of petty principle.

Some though I guess are just interested in seeing what else is around, there's games which aren't maybe the best ever, but which aren't bad either, even kind of decent, and maybe the qualities of some of them appeal to some people in just the right way and they have a good time, even if the game isn't actually anything special.
Then there's the nostalgia part, maybe they seek out a game which really isn't that good, but it's one they had as a kid and they want to revisit it.

>>9634393
>Speaking as someone who's only 30, I wouldn't say that I have an inherent bias against new games,

I didn't necessarily mean you had a bias against new games, rather a bias in the types of games you like which tend to be more common at a given era. Also there's nothing at all wrong with that.

For example though even though I grew up playing many of them, I never really cared for platformers. So while understandably there are many here who mourn the death of traditional platformers like Mario and Sonic, I barely played them anyways so don't miss them. On the other hand, roguelikes which are a genre I love are all trying to appeal to a broader audience now and so almost every one has some kind of Mystery Dungeon progression elements mixed in which to me ruins the formula of a good roguelike.

But even still, of the old ones there are plenty I haven't played fully and others like Ivan that I doubt I'll ever beat. So if others are enjoying games in a similar vein and having fun more power to them, to me they are like Diablo in that sense. Not something for me, but that's fine.

Mostly the retro games I talk about here are old genesis stuff like Ecco or old KoF because I'm old and don't have time to learn new fighters anymore and general reminiscing about stuff I used to play.

>>9634201
If modern games were so good, you would be playing them, not talking to people about why old games were or not better.
I love old games and have 0 interest in any game released after the PS2 was released. I don't even look up what is being released recently because I have no interest at all. The old games are so much better I don't need to think what is being released this year.

If we take something like Space Invaders as the starting point then real video games didn't even survive for 30 years. They are a very short-lived thing compared to films for example

>>9634210
>>9634218
>hollow knight, skullgirls, risk of rain 1, etc.
>undertale, celeste, 5 nights at freddy
Games made by 1 guy instead of a corporate studio.
Some old series have okay new entries but by and large the companies that made classic games fired their good talent or they fucked off somewhere else

>>9634463
Konami had the best number for teams:
3 programmers
2 graphic artist
1 doing music
See, 0 writers. They would just get together and discuss how the game was going to be.

Videogames have become the largest entertainment medium, and with that comes design changes that focus on mass appeal. Easier games, more handholding, taking less risks, etc. The biggest of all is the focus on monetization. Games are no longer made to be fun, they are made to keep people playing them as long as possible. Games that do have a defined ending are often more of a movie than a game.

To me, there are really no modern classics because a ton of games are all the same level of safe mediocrity. A vast majority of games are also made in one of the same two engines, giving them all a similar feel.

There are still plenty of modern games that are good, but they lack that unique or defining core that makes them memorable.

>>9634515
>The biggest of all is the focus on monetization. Games are no longer made to be fun, they are made to keep people playing them as long as possible.

I don't see a big difference between this and many old arcade games that were designed from the ground up just to eat quarters.

>>9634562
Most arcade games were fun.

>>9634567
Sure, but fun is subjective to the people playing. There are a ton of modern games I'd rather play than dragons lair or even space invaders for that matter. Doesn't mean someone who loves dragons lair or space invaders is wrong. But games have always been primarily about making profit.

>>9634201
What hidden classics are there in modern gaming? Gaming on the whole has gone full retard and it's almost impossible to develop anything for. The reason why there are so many "Hidden classics" was because it was actually possible for a smaller developer to make a game and while it might not be any real direct competition it could still muscle out a sustainable niche. Even big name developers could release a wider variety of games and have them support each other.

The problem is now developers sink so much time and money into ONE single game that it becomes impossible for it to actually succeed unless it makes all the money in the universe so they've become far more risk adverse to a point where all games feel the exact same. Look at Square in the late 90s where they suddenly started making all kinds of crap just because they good. Now it takes them over a decade to put out one installment in their flagship series.

>>9634562
Because Capcom or whomever don't get the quarters. The quarters are for the arcade owner who is letting you take turns at the machines he paid for. When he paid for the arcade machine they were by all accounts complete. Capcom wasn't keeping you there by purposely releasing micro transactions and other season pass bullshit

>>9634562
Arcade games were often trying to kill the player so they'd sink quarters in. Modern games have it so you spend money to save time. Due to the advent of the internet there have been discoveries in how to make addictive systems to keep the player around, and various events so people are glued so they don't "miss out" on anything.

You're asking the wrong crowd. That observation belongs in early AVGN times when "hey, actually most of these old games really sucked ass." At this point you're talking with people who have been playing and discussing the same shit for so long that you'll actually find people defending Gothic 3 with a straight face.

>>9634709
There are still odd little titles out there, but I think the media focus is all on the huge franchise games. A little bit ago I got Thief Simulator for like 3 bucks or something and it's far from a perfect game, but that was part of the charm was the strange open world jank but that lead to good fun. There are a lot of weird little games lihe that, but you have to go looking for them. Terrariais another just neat game that got a boatload of content. And others are actually big franchises still going well, like Civilization 6 which is my favorite in the series so far.

>>9634740
This is true, but if you don't have an addictive personality there's something to be said for games that are free unless you want them to be. My mother in law is on level 4000 or something ridiculousof Candy Crush because she's been playing a bit most nights for years and never spent a dime. To me that's less insipid than Dragon's Lair looking all super cool and tempting then eating your money in 30 seconds. I don't think gaming has ever been perfect, but I think it's at least as good these days as it's ever been.