/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5548340]

Why do you like retro games, /vr/? Is it the charm/soul, harsh but fair difficulty old games tend to have or the shorter length?

[Anonymous No.5548372]

For me it is
>Have shitty computer.
>Realize there are more good games over the course of decades than released in the last 10 years.
>I like pixel art
>Some genres died completly 20 years ago, you need to play retro games to enjoy them again.

[Anonymous No.5548373]

>>5548340
I like tons of games but some of them happen to be old. New games are cool too.

[Anonymous No.5548378]

Its a combination of the charm of playing something that is older than myself yet still very impressive compared to newer games and the fact that i can play most of them for free.

[Anonymous No.5548379]

>>5548372
Same, old computer.

[Anonymous No.5548485]

>>5548340
Soul

[Anonymous No.5548497]

>No / less load times, unless maybe you're playing on a Saturn or PS1
>Not so much hand holding in games
>Short-but-sweet approach to game length
>'Open-world' actually meant open-world, and wasn't simply a buzzword used by marketing teams
>Games didn't feel like overblown tech demos that existed solely to demonstrate graphics capabilities
>We didn't usually have to sit through 20+ hours of FMVs and in-game cutscenes to the detriment of actual gameplay
>Not so much hardware failure

That last one is probably the most decisive factor for me. As newer platforms incorporate increasingly small, complex and fragile components, they become more likely to experience inexplicable hardware failures somewhere down the line. Meanwhile all my third-, fourth- and fifth-generation consoles still work just fine. At worst, you might have to re-cap something or replace a console's optical unit, but spare parts for retro consoles are easy to obtain and install.


Now, I think it's only fair to go over some of the things I *don't* like about retro games, or certainly some of the things that modern games do better.

>Retarded censorship or 'content' policies that forced the entire gaming industry to maintain a 'family-friendly' image (and unfortunately, Nintendo still does this shit)
>Lack of checkpoints, or having to repeat entire sections of stages
>Lack of battery backup or password feature in games that could really use it (e.g. Blaster Master)
>Non-transferable save files, since memory cards weren't invented until around the fifth generation
>Shitty in-house translations of Japanese games

[Anonymous No.5548582]

Some games are enjoyable for their charm, others for their gameplay. Some games have both and its not just retro

[Anonymous No.5548703]

>>5548340
Many are just pick up and play, no tutorials or cutscenes. The older I get the more I agree with Carmack that plot isn't needed.

[Anonymous No.5548734]

Sprites, shmups, bmups, platformers

[Anonymous No.5548735]

They were just overall made with better care than they are nowadays.

[Anonymous No.5548860]

Let's see...
-The hard work and effort put into tight controls and good visuals despite hardware limitations
-The huge libraries of at least semi decent games as opposed to just a fuckton of shovelware
-AAA games that deserve the popularity they have because they are genuinely good, rather than being just rushed flavor of the month shit praised by journalists
-Excellent music
-Not focused on being cinematic, putting the player in control is the main feature
-A lot of experimentation and variety, sometimes new genres are just born to see if they stick, rather than the current "let's grab 2 genres and mix them up"
-Quick and simple pick up and play kind of shit, none of that accepting EULAs or seeing 7 logos before the title screen after going through a menu
-You had to play with your friends at your house
-Software and hardware was properly tested and designed not to fail, games are 100% or 99.9% finished by the time of release and among quality development teams there's no room for bullshit bugs
-Gamepads also designed to last, I still have my SNES controller which works better than any modern console controller I have, registers inputs more often than the fucking xbox one controller I have, and was cheaper at release

Should I go on?

It's just too much. The reason why my old man doesn't buy any new consoles is because they are not intuitive and don't have games like these anymore. He doesn't want another stupid assassin's creed, or apex legends or call of duty, or some overcomplicated simulator. He wants Virtua Tennis. He wants Toy Commander. Desert Strike. Space Harrier. Fucking Dig Dug. None of this stupid shit.

[Anonymous No.5548869]

>>5548340
I'm 19 and have no money, there's hundreds of classics I can play for free while a modern console and a game or two cost half a thousand to buy. Modern games don't seem to be worth the investment. Obviously there's so great stuff being but released but it's harder to justify putting the money down for exclusives today.

[Anonymous No.5548878]

Do I need a reason to like good games?

[Anonymous No.5549052]

>>5548340
Shorter length isn't really a defining feature of old games, there are plenty of counter-examples.

[Anonymous No.5549059]

>>5549052
most nes and especially game boy games can be beaten in an afternoon, and even 4th or 5th gen games are shorter in average than most modern games in my experience.

[Anonymous No.5549286]

>>5549052
Most non-rpgs are generally fairly short though. Though most games being longer is one of the things I like about modern gaming. Over all though I couldn't pick whether I like classic or modern games more. I probably play about equal amounts of both.

[Anonymous No.5549379]

I was gonna type up a long reply about how gaming died in the 2010's for me, but in the middle of writing it I realized I dont enjoy any games anymore, I just browse threads about them

[Anonymous No.5549392]

>>5549379
This is /vr/ in a nutshell.

[Anonymous No.5549417]

>>5548340
For me it's the simplicity.

Nowadays, whenever you want to purchase or play a modern game (even mobile shovelware) you're asked to make an account with username and password, give your personal info, connect to the internet, agree to their terms and conditions, and even give them your fucking credit card information.

Long past the days when you just pressed the power button and play the damn game.

[Anonymous No.5549426]

I don't really call them "retro games", unless it's stuff from actually before my time maybe, like Pong.
I grew up playing 8-bit and 16-bit, to me, they're the norm.
I do enjoy the general lack of added bullshit and how they're more "turn console on, press start, and start playing right away" compared to more modern games though.
I remember when I finally got my first PC in the mid 90s, I found loading times really jarring. One would think modern games and consoles would be faster, but nope. Install this, wait for this update, etc.

[Anonymous No.5549430]

>>5549417
I play mostly portable new stuff and don't find that to be the case. I like that I just close my 3ds when I'm done and then open it up and am already in the game ready to go kill a monster or whatever.

[Anonymous No.5549447]

>>5548340
>Why do you like retro games, /vr/?

Because they are games first and foremost. Not this super duper ultra max graphic wanking, not this cinematic experience Oscar award-winning bullshit, not this expansive storytelling that wants to pretend it's the biggest shit since The Odyssey, not this orchestral music with latin chorus and ambient music that's so generic you forget about it as soon as you leave the area; just pure, unadultered gameplay with some of them having simple and/or nice stories that serve to drive the plot and keep you hooked to your controller, along nice and catchy tunes made to fit the level you're playing or the boss you're fighting against.

The industry has been polluted with so many movie director wannabes, money hungry suits and pretentious holier-than-thou developers, both in the AAA and the indie scene, that it feels way too special when an actual videogame is released nowadays. Simply said, developers forgot that games should be, first and foremost, fun. Worst of all, this is a very recent change, even the last decade was filled to the brim with so many gems, this last generation of consoles has been incredibly toxic for the industry overall.

[Anonymous No.5549470]

>>5548340
less normies talk about them. that's always a good thing. normies are on /v/ and /v/ is degenerate.

[Anonymous No.5549502]

>>5549426
>Install this, wait for this update, etc.

Installing games in a console should be a fucking crime. They're selling you Blu-ray discs with at least 50GB of capacity yet nowadays they only contain a couple hundred MB key to download the whole thing into your HDD, and most of them are already exceeding the 100GB of data because apparently every single AAA dev is so goddamn incompetent they're incapable of properly compressing the data. If Nintendo can fit a full beast of a game like BoTW in a single small cart, then there's no excuse.

[Anonymous No.5549505]

>>5548860
>rather than being just rushed flavor of the month shit praised by journalists
But that was always an issue. I never bothered to pay attention to reviews because it was clear they had their hands in the developers' pockets.

At least with the advent of the Internet I can actually research games for myself rather than having to depend solely on a limited selection of gaming media outlets to tell me what I should think.

[Anonymous No.5549618]

>>5549502
So much this.

I just shelled out $50 to upgrade the HDD in my PS4 to a 2TB one because I hated the fact that 500 GB could only fit about 5 games when you factor in save states and other apps.

[Anonymous No.5549626]

>>5549447
Couldn't have said it better myself. I suppose this is what gearheads refer to when talking about manual and automatic transmission. Automatic (modern gaming) is convenient and does the work for you while you put minimal input to get to the destination. Manual, like retro vidya, brings you closer to the experience of having fun shifting through the backroads.

[Anonymous No.5549631]

>>5548340
Kind of what everyone else has been saying...

> Emphasis on gameplay means that I can jump into a game for 30 minutes and make meaningful progress instead of watching poorly acted and wonky animated cutscenes.
> Because of technical limitations, the games embrace looking like cartoons instead of trying to be realistic, which actually adds to the atmosphere of playing a game.
> Significantly simpler control schemes often creates a better experience.
> Games are generally more challenging to play and master without being frustrating.

My dad would play NES and even some SNES games, but once games transitioned to 3D he lost interest trying to learn complex controls.

Don't get me wrong, I still also own and play a PS4, but the above are what keeps me going back to retro games I've beaten dozens of times. I've never gotten the itch to plug in my PS3.

[Anonymous No.5549637]

>>5549470
>normies
Shut up, normalfag.

[Anonymous No.5549702]

I just recently got into retro games. A lot of classics were released before I was able to play them. My first console was the playstation 2. I eventually tried Morrowind, which isn't that retro, but old enough, and initially clunky enough to cause me some discomfort. But once I got past that, it instantly became one of the best games I've ever played. This piqued my interest in other classics, often much older games. Turns out the games people have been saying were really good, were in fact, really good. I also feel like it helps me appreciate modern games better, just like reading the classics in literature helps you appreciate modern literature better.

In fact, I've started to think the reason that games journalism is so bad nowadays, is that we don't require them to be "well-read" in the same way we'd require literature reviewers to be, in order to be credible.

[Anonymous No.5549725]

>I like pixel art a lot more than 3DCG
>no cinematic bullshit and other similar bloat
>the above forced the devs to actually focus on the actual gameplay and the fundamental content of the story.

[Anonymous No.5549874]

>>5548340
I agree with most of what's been said in this thread, so rather than beat a dead horse, I want to add something to this topic.

One of the reasons I love old games and hate new ones that I haven't seen mentioned here is general deaign styles.

Newer games are built around "campaigns" and career modes. Go through, complete the required tasks and repeat. Very rarely will a game have single player modes other than campaign and almost never have multiple paths or hidden secrets. And most of the time, rhey tell you exactly what to do, how to donit and where to go next.
And they're designed to take potentially dozens of hours to complete and are meant to be played for hours on end. All of them. Even racing and fighting games.
And worst of all, modern games are built around the idea that the player should be able to "100%" the game on a single playthrough. Meaning no replay value at all.

Older games had RPGs like all that, but that's it. And those still had a lot of replay value, usually.
Most genres were built to be played for shorter periods, offered alternate modes of play where that worked well (especially in early 3D games) and they were all about replays.
Best of all, was that different games imployed replay value differently. Like how Twisted Metal has 12 different characters that require vastly different strats. Or how Sonic 2 had multiple paths through every level. Or Mario 3's seemingly endless secrets and hidden areas.
Oh, and retro games just let you gonat it. No hand holding and no waypoints. Just figure it out. Because they knew that even kids were dmart enough to "just run right until you find something"

There's just no comparison. And that's my 2 cents.

[Anonymous No.5552197]

>>5549702
based & patricianpilled

[Anonymous No.5552262]

there's a lot of good games i missed. im also a zoomer

[Anonymous No.5552268]

>>5549447
>The industry has been polluted with so many movie director wannabes
What makes you say that???

[Anonymous No.5552597]

>>5548340
I just like good games. There are a lot of newer games I like too, but it's a lot easier to find a definite masterpiece in older generations now decades of gamers have had time to pick through them and find the best of the best. That, and nostalgia.

[Anonymous No.5552604]

>>5549702
is anything in your blog retro gaming related? would you mind please killing yourself?

[Anonymous No.5553527]

>>5548340
Because there was a time when games were an art form and not a corporate boardroom cash grab. Today games are all about flash and no substance. There's very little depth and the experience is either hilariously short or brain dead. So much shit these days feels recycled. Another bloody zombie game, another bloody military fps, sports game vol. recent year, another hack and slash badass game, another open world adventure game. It's all become so bland and sometimes its hard to discern between different titles of the same genre. Old games had to be unique to be recognized, they didn't have movie quality graphics so other things like the game play, the sound/music, the sprite/polygonal work and art style, the story and replay value were things that a game was judged on. Now it's all empty. I see giant commercial and advertising campaigns for new games coming out soon that are playing them up to be the greatest thing ever complete with breathless quotes of approval from 'big name' gaming sites and editorials, then it comes out, it's shit or boring, and i never hear about it again.

It's just sad. I hate the soul vs souless meme, but when it comes to this topic, the modern gaming industry for the most part really does feel soulless.

[Anonymous No.5555142]

>>5548340
I like them because they are fun, enjoyable, and as interesting to me now as they were when I remembered first playing them. I mostly play them because, it is what I already have and I cannot afford the new coolest stuff. I think games can have their own charm in both modern and retro. The difficulty/challenge is a non-factor as well since different games have different aims to their play mechanics. Play time is also a non-factor as that too is irrelevant to the release time and also game dependent. I still play games I already beaten.

[Anonymous No.5555156]

I like the graphics, music, and pick up and play quality.

[Anonymous No.5555159]

>>5548372
I also have the shitty computer reason

[Anonymous No.5556709]

>>5548340
No DLC, less "story", no handholding.

[Anonymous No.5556785]

>>5548340
I like discovering how the medium evolved over the years

[Anonymous No.5557191]

>>5548340
because their better.
/thread

[Anonymous No.5559514]

>>5549631
>but once games transitioned to 3D he lost interest trying to learn complex controls.
For what it's worth I had a similar experience, once games went 3D I stuck mostly to RPGs (if anything). Dark Souls was an exception, though, which makes me think it's more about the game design than the 3D specifically.

[Anonymous No.5559539]

>>5557191
>their