/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.8438679]

>Console game only has 6 levels, can be finished in a single sitting, and you can see all the content it has to offer in the first playthrough
What were developers thinking when they made new console IPs based on arcade design choices past the early 90's? Did they realy expect enough replayability (with barebones music, mechanics, story and overall content) from 1 hour of total playtime to be worth fucking $50?

[Anonymous No.8438728]

This is why games used to be a lot harder.
This is also why RPGs tended to be really popular.

[Anonymous No.8438765]

>>8438728
I personally never really liked RPGs, but when you compare something like a console shmup that ends in 40 minutes to something like Resident Evil 1 or Duke Nukem 3D which could keep you playing for at least 4 hours, you gotta wonder which one is actually worth the money. Arcade games in arcades are great but that shit doesn't fly when you're making one for a console that can have 8Mb to 700Mb worth of data.

[Anonymous No.8438786]

>>8438679
Because consoomers will buy anything. The cash cow that is the braindead consoomer will always be limitless in supply, ripe for the taking by the laziest and greediest of people, this doesn't just apply to games either.

This is how we end up with the modern gaming industry chock full of carnivorous AAA companies like EA which constantly and consistently profits bigly off of selling the same game every year along with a gazillion microtransactions.

[Anonymous No.8438807]

This is a zoomer mentality.
What you don't understand is that we don't play games to "see the content" and then once that's done move on to consume the next product. We played to have fun, learn the game, get good at it, and beating the game is a rewarded after all that. Once that's done, replay the game over and over and have even more fun because now we're good at the game.

As far as many action genres go, sidecrollers, SHMUPs, etc 30-60 mins is the perfect length. No padding, no bullshit, just non stop tight twitch based action all the way through

I've seen this pop up more and more often, youngsters checking a game on youtube and being like LOL THE GAME IS 30 MINS LONG. In most cases (and that even includes savestate/tas users) the guys who made these videos spent hours getting good at the game and having fun along the way and that's not just "part" of the game, that's the entire point of game. Out of all the people complaining about game length this way, I don't believe any would ever be able to beat the game in the length that they say it is.
And then going full on cope mode complaining about "artificial difficulty" and "how were you supposed to know?"

[Anonymous No.8438836]

>>8438807
>What you don't understand is that we don't play games to "see the content" and then once that's done move on to consume the next product
A game with more content keeps you from moving on to other games, thus stopping the consumer mentality. You'll remember it better, like it more, the more it has to offer. Arcade games were designed to be fast, simple and difficult to make up for the relatively small amount of content and that's fine, but you'd be flipping your shit if something like Deux Ex or Gran Turismo were only 30 minutes long after getting them at launch.

[Anonymous No.8438838]

>>8438679
Let me guess, you need more?

[Anonymous No.8438840]

>>8438807
Why is Jewtube full of retards?

Well it's not exactly surprising considering they're the ones (outside of bots) that click on the most braindead, vapid clickbait videos with the same gaping retard with his warped soulless soi expression.

[Anonymous No.8438846]

>>8438836
A game with richer gameplay and higher difficulty or good scoring mechanism keeps you from moving on.

[Anonymous No.8438853]

>>8438836
Doubt. Games with more content still produce consoomers. Look at any modern zoomer/millenial "AAA" title like Skyrim, BOTW, GTA5, etc. Or any modern MMO like WoW or FFXIV. Or any mobile pay-to-win lootbox. Or the billion Asscreed, FIFA, CoD shit. Or the Gigazoomer game known as Fortnite. The list goes on...

[Anonymous No.8438884]

>>8438846
>richer gameplay
Naturally, as with all good games.
>scoring
Irrelevant for consoles since the end of atari. It's all about clearing levels the fun of shooting enemies, not numbers.
>>8438853
Don't really care about what modern marketing is forcing the masses to consume. Also not retro.

[Anonymous No.8438896]

>>8438679
I don't see this as an issue really, of course it's a matter of preference and all, but I recall my experiences as a kid clearly, of course now it's easy to look up longplays on YouTube and see that a run of pretty much everything I liked playing back then usually lasts less than an hour, but when I was a kid it wasn't like that at all, it didn't feel like that, especially due to not having saves or passwords most of the time, and getting sent back to the beggining if there were no unlimited continues, I'd spend weeks trying to beat something, and sometimes wouldn't even be able to do it.

You might say that everything I played in my childhood was short, but either I never managed to complete something, or it took me a long time to do so, of course it wasn't due to having a lot of different and new content, since it was indeed only a little content repeated for many hours while trying to complete it, but it was rewarding in its own way. Replaying earlier levels to the point where you become a master at them, and then eventually doing the same to the more difficult levels later on, it's a sense of progression and growth that's worth the time and effort for sure.

One more reason I like this sort of design is that when you do in fact become a master at whatever you're playing, it's such a comfortable feeling to be able to boot something up and beat it in less than an hour due to playing well and understanding how to do things right, when before you weren't even able to beat it at all, when I have some time to play I can boot something up and go from beggining to end in a single sitting, instead of having to play only a little at a time with anything modern, where having many hours of content is important for success in reviews and sales.

[Anonymous No.8438913]

>>8438840
>tfw you just reminded me of that channel who has millions of subs and views and is also the worst "creator" I've ever seen

I can't remember the name, but I've genuinely never seen anyone so fucking brain dead in my life. For some reason zoomers hang onto him like he's the second coming.
Example

>Buys two 360s
>Both listed as parts only
>"Yeah so I'm going to check these to see if they work"
>First one works
>Second one doesn't
>Shows listing of the second one
>Clearly states that it's being sold as not working, parts only, because the seller doesn't have time to check if it's working or not
>"See this is the kind of seller you need to watch out for because they're the type that will try to scam you"
>Then makes the implication he's been "scammed" because it doesn't work
>Cries like a fucking pussy because he can "smell cigarette smoke inside of it" and had to "air it out for days in the garage :("
>Has the audacity to get a refund from the seller who "scammed" him and keeps the console
>Someone makes a comment about how he's a retard and just blatantly scammed the "scammer"
>Plays the victim
>Zoomers pile in defending him with their 30 IQs

Seriously I hate youube and "content creators". I hate them almost as much as I hate zoomers.

[Anonymous No.8438914]

>>8438679
Zoomer-like typing detected.

[Anonymous No.8438958]

This thread has helped put in to words why I prefer shorter, more quality and compact experiences to 60-100+ hours games padded out the ass. Particularly >>8438896 and >>8438807 .

[Anonymous No.8439182]

>>8438679
>Did they realy expect enough replayability (with barebones music, mechanics, story and overall content) from 1 hour of total playtime to be worth fucking $50?
zoom zoom
Short answer, yes. If an arcade-style game is fun and well-made enough then you can get far more out of it than a game with saving that lasts 6-10 hours that you play once. Progress through arcade games is measured in your skill level: how far you can get with a minimum of continues.
Remember that JRPGs to this day fill up playtime with random battles.
If you’re the type to credit-feed through an arcade game and call it finished after one playthrough then fuck off anyway.

[Anonymous No.8439202]

>>8438807
Anon you synthesized what most retrofags (true retrofags, not zoomer twitter trannies) think about old vidya. Great post.

[Anonymous No.8439223]

>>8438765
If you enjoy your time with it enough, it is worth the money.

[Anonymous No.8439235]

>>8438807
This

and I hope OP is bait

[Anonymous No.8439236]

>>8438913
Yeah, modern Jewtube is a dumpster fire. Everytime I see the same clickbait "content creator" thumbnail with the disgusting forced gaping mouth rigged into the algorithm on my screen I wonder how it got millions of views. Sometimes it goes to a hundred million views like that one gigafaggot I see everywhere, that's roughly 1/3 of the U.S. population. Is 1/3 of the U.S. population all retarded zoomers? The future's looking pretty grim.

[Anonymous No.8439260]

>>8438679
You're assuming people actually bought those games, instead of just renting them.
Renting was the actual #1 way of playing games through the 90s. If you really liked a game, or it was a longer game, you'd buy it so you could play it whenever you wanted, but no one I knew ever actually owned more than 10-12 games.
The arcade style games were great for rentals because you could play and complete them over the weekend and they almost all had co-op so they were always good choices if you had a friend over. As far as actually buying them barely anyone did.

[Anonymous No.8439272]

>>8439260
That's the thing though, renting didn't give anyone who's not the local video store owner any revenue. Unlike what all the mad shmupfags in this thread think, plenty of console STGs never even left Japan due to not having enough content to make themselves distinct, and a lot of them were derivatives of R-Type and Gradius to begin with, not to mention the trouble of importing and region locks. For example, didn't Konami make their NTSC-U ports harder than the JP originals just to spite western rental business?

[Anonymous No.8439284]

Let me guess OP, you came here after the sixth gen was allowed?

[Anonymous No.8439292]

>>8438836
>A game with more content keeps you from moving on to other games, thus stopping the consumer mentality

In reality achievement data shows us most people never even play past the beginning of modern games.

[Anonymous No.8439303]

>>8439292
Achievements are completely worthless trinkets for normalfags but that's actually quite interesting.

[Anonymous No.8439305]

>>8439272
Renting games is illegal in Japan and it took like 30 years for most nips to realize all their games that weren't doki bing bong panty sniffer #7 were actually more popular in America so they probably didn't care.

[Anonymous No.8439306]

>>8438807
I probably get more lifetime pleasure out of short games than long ones. While going through some 80 hour epic, finding secrets and doing sidequests, can be fun, I rarely feel like playing them again once I finish the first time. Something like a Mega Man game, which I can plow through in an evening, is quick fun, and if it is one I'm good at it, pulling off tight maneuvers and home-made challenges like buster-only makes you feel like a badass when you pull it off.

[Anonymous No.8439315]

>>8439305
Kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.8439330]

>>8439315
cry more weeb

[Anonymous No.8440205]

>>8438679
Because padding the game with boring empty hallways, boring stats mechanics and boring meaningless dialogue is so much better. What does it matter if you can finish it in 1 hour, if it is fun and really replayable.

[Anonymous No.8440316]

>>8438765
You have to learn to appreciate arcade games. The mechanical composition of arcade games is what most of the resources and time are poured into making for great gameplay that you master with high scores.

[Anonymous No.8440823]

>>8439330
>on 4 chan
>not weeb
???

[Anonymous No.8440948]

>>8438765
Arcade games are about their gameplay, not length or story. They take skill, unlike jarpigs which can be beaten by women and children.

[Anonymous No.8440951]

>>8440823
I came here because the habbo hotel raids were funny not because I like anime

[Anonymous No.8440960]

>>8440951

[Anonymous No.8441029]

>>8438765
I bet you can't beat a new SHMUP on your first sitting. And if you can, changes are that you already really like them and have fun.

[Anonymous No.8441279]

>>8438807
There's a great video on this about that whole concept of 'Gameplay Density' that arcade games like shmups have:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ew5hEMSzEw

[Anonymous No.8441292]

>>8438679
I think a lot of people credit feed shmups to see the last stage/boss and then they move on to something else, but as has already been pointed out in this thread, that's not the point of those kind of games, it's all about replaying until you get better at the game and can manage to beat it either on 1 credit, or go even further, getting into the scoring side of things etc. I also don't think a long yet easy shmup would be all that enjoyable. The short length yet high difficulty of shmups and other arcade style games is a big part of what makes the genre, it just wouldn't work that well if you made a shmup with easy difficulty and 15 stages, that would get boring to play 100 times faster.

[Anonymous No.8441469]

totally I like doing the same 30 minute loops for 5 hours a day cause I'm a retard arcade and/or shmup player

[Anonymous No.8441496]

>>8440316
No children care about this though. Scoring is for autists.

[Anonymous No.8441509]

>>8441469
Why are you on /vr/?

[Anonymous No.8441514]

>>8441496
High scores are for boomers, aside from dominating a top score screen while on vacation just to mog the other kids, I've never met anyone who cared about who was on top cause most places wipe the boards at night anyway.

[Anonymous No.8441517]

>>8441292
I consider myself a casual and I usually force myself to not completely suck at them, I limit myself 1-2 credits and not advance until I can reach the last stage with limitations... and by that point, most of the ones I played become unbearable and dumb, by which point I engage in credit feed, beat it and never look back on them, with some exceptions. They always have that one part that just makes me not want to deal with the game.

Fuck the Iron Maiden Umbrellas in Parodius.

[Anonymous No.8441532]

>>8441496
Scoring aside, there are games that take the arcade approach of being quite short and yet difficult, that don't let you save inbetween stages. Kirby's Dreamland on the Gameboy, (while not being much of a challenge, admittedly) is like this. It's fun to keep replaying the same thing as a kid, I would say. When you do eventually beat the game, it feels satisfying. I still feel this way about games now. Like another anon said, it's a generational thing, the new approach to gaming is focused more on consumption of content. Single player games try to be cinematic experiences now, and I would say this is a step backwards. There are exceptions of course, such as the Soulsborne games, that take more of a retro 'mastery' based approach, although I guess those games are a bit longer and they do let you save, but yeah gameplay wise they are more like older games.

[Anonymous No.8441548]

>>8440960
christ this sends me back

[Anonymous No.8441550]

>>8441517
Yeah well, they do tend to make stage 4 and 5 a pretty sharp difficulty spike in a lot of shmups. I do think some arcade games take this a bit too far and it would be nice if the difficulty had a smoother progression. I won't defend everything about shmups, I think the genre sort of died out because they kept catering to the top level of players and deliberately kept making games harder, sometimes it just goes a bit too far. I wouldn't go as far as to call it 'artificial difficulty' though. It kind of seems to be a quirk of Japanese game design to have like one or two sections in games that are just a bit ridiculous, I remember the Armored Core series having some moments like that.

[Anonymous No.8441561]

>>8441514
I think a big part of what makes scoring attractive is just the satisfaction of beating your own scores. It's a way of measuring one's progress, essentially. But yeah late millenials and zoomers are generally not into scoring, that seems to be true for sure.

[Anonymous No.8441562]

>>8441532
this boring speech again

[Anonymous No.8441572]

>>8441562
Maybe someone else said some of the same things before, not my fault lol. Just trying to explain the reasoning behind the appeal of 'arcade-like' gameplay. If you disagree that's fine, but I would say it's kind of an odd thing to complain about on a board for retro games. Many retro games are either arcade games or designed to be arcade-like, just how it is.

[Anonymous No.8441573]

>>8441532
I think more games should have hard modes with limited continues or no saves, but people hate this shit nowadays. Even stuff like modern monster hunter nowadays lets you correct all your mistakes before a mission and change equipment mid-thing. People just hate the idea of not beating a game in one sitting. Audiences have shifted.

>>8441550
It's definitely a thing, those spikes or annoying "progress wall" sections. Sometimes it IS artificial difficulty. You know the ascending ninja drop at the very end of Ninja Spirit? I'm so fucking grateful that shit can be 90% cheesed. To be fair, that's more bullshit than most of the examples you might have been thinking of.

I wish I had more patience for this stuff, or that I had gotten into this kinda game when grandpa reflexes weren't kicking in.

[Anonymous No.8441574]

>>8441562
>I just want to wander through a game from beginning to end unimpeded
If you use save states to get through a game on your first sitting and then you think it’s too short, you’ve broken the game and you aren’t playing it as it was designed. You’ve toured its content, but you’ve missed the game.

[Anonymous No.8441579]

>>8441562
>this boring speech again
it's another variation on genre or console wars, vapid generalizations courtesy of cherry picking autists wearing nostalgia goggles

[Anonymous No.8441583]

>>8441469
Not very different from playing a Soulsborne. Not every game experience has to be completely frictionless.

[Anonymous No.8441590]

>>8441579
Or vapid generalizations from people who just want to consoooooom content.

[Anonymous No.8441594]

>>8441573
Yeah you're right, audiences have shifted, that's very true. Also yeah, maybe it's artificial difficulty in a few cases. I haven't played Ninja Spirit, looks cool though. I think generally though it just seems to be part of how they made games back then, maybe people even wanted those progress wall sections for whatever reason. There definitely is some truth to the idea that arcade games were designed to eat coins though. I used to play shmups a lot more 10 - 15 years ago, and my skills have declined since then, so I feel you on that grandpa reflexes thing lol.

[Anonymous No.8441605]

>>8441562
lol yeah

[Anonymous No.8441615]

>>8441605
Well, I'm all ears for an in-depth explanation as to why the modern mainstream approach to game design is supposedly better.

[Anonymous No.8441620]

>>8441594
I know people are easy to condemn old games as coin eaters, but in defending it, others are way too naive in thinking it was 100% intended for hardcore audiences, and a billion little kids weren't going to spend all their allowance on GnG.

Give Ninja Spirit a try anon, it's cool. Something funny and fitting to the topic at hand: the TG16/PC Engine port had a "Console mode" that gave you a lifebar, whereas the "Arcade" difficulty had 1 hit deaths and if I'm remembering correctly, limited continues too. Still, I remember some enemies could kill you in 1 hit in the Easy mode, mostly melee attacks but still.

[Anonymous No.8441638]

>>8441620
I'll check out Ninja Spirit for sure, thanks for the recommendation. The PC Engine/TG16 is a great console.

Also yeah, I remember some indie developer was defending the use of lifebars in shmups (commonly seen as one of the main negative aspects of 'euroshmups'), saying that dying in one hit is discouraging to new players, and that being able to take a hit or two and then recover your health might make for a more fun experience for a lot of people. I think there might be some truth to that, although I think dying in one hit is still best, because it's like this instant audio visual feedback thing that really gives you an incentive to try your best to survive.

[Anonymous No.8441719]

>>8438679
Nothing wrong with this except the price. I wish more modern games were based on the arcade paradigm. You can't do that and make a game piss easy though and it's ridiculous to charge more than $30. The idea that all games must be $60-$90 dollars play $30-$80 dollars of DLC is pure bullshit.

[Anonymous No.8441736]

>>8439292
I'm skeptical of achievement or playing data like this because all it tells you is that people are buying more games than they actually play. One anon might buy twelve games and only fully complete one. One busy anon might have three hundred or more games they bought over the years but only ever plays a few minutes or a couple hours of each. It doesn't change the fact that people aren't playing past the beginning, but it also doesn't really explain why.

[Anonymous No.8441740]

>>8441562
Truth burns the ears of the ignorant.

[Anonymous No.8441748]

the deadest topic

[Anonymous No.8441778]

>>8441719
>Nothing wrong with this except the price.

The thing is the west is terrible at keeping track of game prices and release. Japan was pretty good at this because it was pretty much mandatory to have release dates and suggested retail prices on ads

Most magazines didn't have prices and when they did, they only had them half the times (Nintendo Power). That only leaves catalogues and anyone who was there at the time knows that on catalogues for ordering, prices were a lot more expensive than in stores.

Someone here claimed Duke Nukem 3D and a SHMUP were both 50$, I won't believe that until I see it.
One important thing that is often forgotten is that prices depended on platform and release date. NES games past 1991 were usually budget games (there are exceptions of course) in comparison with 16-bit consoles, and Game Boy game were cheaper than whatever else.

[Anonymous No.8441997]

>>8441550
>Yeah well, they do tend to make stage 4 and 5 a pretty sharp difficulty spike in a lot of shmups
That's because most arcade shmups are designed with easy and impressive first levels, then the game design falls apart right after as to keep you credit feeding after every cheap gotcha death.

[Anonymous No.8442000]

>>8441997
>cheap gotcha death
stop playing bad shooters

[Anonymous No.8442005]

>>8441719
Finally a post that addresses the actual question in the OP. Everyone else is defensive and dancing around the issue.

[Anonymous No.8442240]

>>8438807
>non stop tight twitch based action
All zoomer buzzwords

[Anonymous No.8442263]

>>8442240
>everything I don’t like is zoomer or boomer

[Anonymous No.8443752]

>>8442005
A lot of games are overpriced, yes. I agree that this is a bad thing. If you make it about money though, then it becomes a different question, is it really more worth the money to pay for a 20 - 30 hour long game which could be a cross between a cinematic experience and walking simulator, possibly full of text, with some actual gameplay here and there, which once played, you will never pick up again (regardless of how much fun it may have been to play once), or is it more worth your money to buy a 30 minute long game that you might keep on playing endlessly, theoretically for the rest of your life?

At least when it comes to re-released ports of old arcade games, they tend to be quite cheap on consoles or PC. Some shmup releases are a bit too expensive maybe, but again if you're willing to pay the 'full price' for a AAA gaming experience that you'll only play once, is the pricing of that really better?

[Anonymous No.8443769]

>>8442263
>Post tells OP he has zoomer mentality
>Anon responds pointing out the zoomer buzzwords in his post to show his hypocrisy and how retarded this posting is
>>everything I don’t like is zoomer or boomer
Man the intelligence of this place really took a dump once that rule changed huh?

[Anonymous No.8443773]

>>8438807
>It's bad.... and that's a good thing!
Nice

[Anonymous No.8443776]

>>8439306
Opposite. The only games I really remember anything from are long epics like Deus Ex or Zelda where it feels like you went on a journey. Or if I marathon an entire series can have the same effect.

[Anonymous No.8443807]

>>8443769
>everything I don’t like is le ebin rule change

[Anonymous No.8443825]

>>8443752
>is it really more worth the money to pay for a 20 - 30 hour long game which could be a cross between a cinematic experience and walking simulator, possibly full of text, with some actual gameplay here and there
I should have elaborated more on the OP when I made it: In my opinion, 4 hours is the perfect balance for a full-priced game. No more than that, no extra chaff from the modern industry, just straightforward gameplay that you can beat at around 4 hours at a leisurly pace; but it's also 4 hours of continuously new levels, enemies, music, etc. Everyone jumped to extremes because I didn't mention that when I said 1 hour is far too little for a full priced game.

[Anonymous No.8443906]

>>8443825
That sounds quite reasonable, yeah. Newer games tend to have a lot of extra padding/filler. I think the short arcade style games that people like to replay a lot tend to have really good stage design, music etc, at that point I'm not sure how necessary it would be for it to be more than 1 hour in length, but I guess we're thinking of different games. If I played a game that was only 1 hour or less and the mechanics, content and music sucked, I wouldn't like it either. I guess the point I was making is, I think it's ok for a game to be short as long as it is very well made and one keeps wanting to come back to it.

[Anonymous No.8444061]

>>8443906
Depends on the genre as well, things like rpgs need to be longer obviously, but action based games were the ones being discussed, so yeah.

[Anonymous No.8444114]

>>8441279
Even though I don't play shmups this is something I've thought about a lot. I tried playing one of the new open world lord of the rings games recently and I played for 40 minutes and felt like nothing happened, I didn't even really understand what type of game it was supposed to be. There is a difference between gameplay and like... "doing stupid tasks."

[Anonymous No.8444159]

>>8438679
For me one of my favorite types of ganes is probably the 4-10 hour experience that you can revisit somewhat regularly. Stuff like half-life, Max Payne or RE4

[Anonymous No.8444239]

>>8444114
Yeah I mean, if you think about it, it's a similar idea as arcade games being deliberately over-difficult to try and extract more money from the player back in the day, by getting people to credit feed so they can practice the later stages in a shmup or beat em up etc. But it's arguably worse because like in the example you used, with some of these modern open-world games you just end up with a situation where half the time you are basically doing nothing. At least with the arcade approach, it's consistent gameplay that's being experienced, along with the satisfaction you get when you do 'beat the game' (1CC or something similar). I guess there is maybe an element of opposite extremes being part of the problem.

[Anonymous No.8444583]

>>8444239
I mean, maybe there is some sort of middle ground that could be reached, but I think if one did try to make games like shmups significantly easier and longer, it would just dilute the experience. Some are definitely too difficult though. I love shmups, but I'm not sure I'd say they were objectively the best genre like that Mark MSX guy (don't know if he says that in the vid, but it's in the title). I just think he does a very good job explaining the appeal of having a more 'condensed' style of game design.

[Anonymous No.8444654]

I can't fathom the NPC mindset where value of your game is the length, rather than the fun you have playing it. One sitting a great length for a game because you can easily finish it every time you replay it.

[Anonymous No.8444668]

>>8444654
>Hey this game is getting pretty fun now
>Oh it's over

[Anonymous No.8444685]

>>8444668
Yeah, time to bump up the difficulty and go again.
And to clarify, I play and enjoy longer games. But even there, I think 20-30 hours is a better RPG length than 50-70.

[Anonymous No.8444705]

>>8444668

>short game that is excellent > 100+ hours game that is boring.

[Anonymous No.8444713]

>>8438679
It's funny as well when you consider stuff like multiplayer FPS, how many hours do people sink into that, and yet, that is also not much different from replaying the same game in single player. One playthrough can differ from the next quite considerably, depending on your choices and how you play.

[Anonymous No.8444723]

>>8444713
Just to clarify, by same game I don't mean the FPS, I mean any game.