Limitation is the secret of interest in retro games

[o.pwuaioc]

I use the two Zelda games someone mentioned as an example of the merits of old versus new. Link to the Past and Skyward Sword. Link to the Past didn't have some stupid character named Fi constantly yakking at you and telling you stupid things that you know already. It didn't have gimmicky controls. It didn't have stupid, pointless, spirit world levels where you just wander around collecting pointless items as a way to just make the game longer. It didn't have a boring opening where you walk around a village talking to people and doing fetch quests as part of a drawn out tutorial. In Link to the Past, you start the game, you head to a castle, and you start kicking ass. That game knows how to just get to the point and keep your interest. It seems like there's just so much nonsense in modern games that games of old didn't have

This is why I don't play 3D Zelda. The 16 bit generation really was the pinnacle of video games, and your example is but one of many.

[Jontendo]

Playing the really retro systems (NES back) seems something like the video game equivalent of wilderness survival.

Environments are often difficult to distinguish from each other. Navigation is bare minimum and the locals are often merciless. Fortunately, at least once you've finished scratching down that loooong password, you'll probably have started a nice little campfire.

Sometimes it's nice not to be saddled with a million different objectives. Accomplish what you can with minimal tools. "Run!", "Jump!" and "Avoid the thing!" narrow our focus and put us in a zenic trance for a few glorious moments. Then, without fail, reality returns to air-lift us back to civilization.

Stupid reality...

[Gamerforlife]

I use the two Zelda games someone mentioned as an example of the merits of old versus new. Link to the Past and Skyward Sword. Link to the Past didn't have some stupid character named Fi constantly yakking at you and telling you stupid things that you know already. It didn't have gimmicky controls. It didn't have stupid, pointless, spirit world levels where you just wander around collecting pointless items as a way to just make the game longer. It didn't have a boring opening where you walk around a village talking to people and doing fetch quests as part of a drawn out tutorial. In Link to the Past, you start the game, you head to a castle, and you start kicking ass. That game knows how to just get to the point and keep your interest. It seems like there's just so much nonsense in modern games that games of old didn't have

This is why I don't play 3D Zelda. The 16 bit generation really was the pinnacle of video games, and your example is but one of many.

Yeah, what's really sad is that so many guys try to recapture that on digital download services like Xbox Live Arcade or DSiWare. Most of these people just don't get it though. A lot of these "retro" titles just don't have the magic that the 16-bit classics had or even the 8-bit ones. They feel like poor imitations

[RCBH928]

I think Limitation forced simplicity .
Do you think if the first console was a PS3 , we would have games like Zelda link to the past and Mario ? I think we would have a lot more complex games with unwanted content stuff into it like many current generation consoles
The only we reason we had those games because its the best the console could do, so they stretched it out as much as they can.

Sound is a good way to demonstrate this. Now sound can play all kinds of music , but we hardly can remember any theme music of any game. Yet we remember many of the SNES generation music and maybe earlier with their Midi like sounds. I still remember Tetris theme from 1992(last i played probably) on the gameboy for example compared to Bioshock and Oblivion which I played like last year.

Limited sound forced you to come up with great tunes .

[AppleQueso]

Sound is a good way to demonstrate this. Now sound can play all kinds of music , but we hardly can remember any theme music of any game. Yet we remember many of the SNES generation music and maybe earlier with their Midi like sounds. I still remember Tetris theme from 1992(last i played probably) on the gameboy for example compared to Bioshock and Oblivion which I played like last year.

Limited sound forced you to come up with great tunes .

This is like saying you can't make memorable music with a symphony.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I think Limitation forced simplicity .
Do you think if the first console was a PS3 , we would have games like Zelda link to the past and Mario ? I think we would have a lot more complex games with unwanted content stuff into it like many current generation consoles
The only we reason we had those games because its the best the console could do, so they stretched it out as much as they can.

Sound is a good way to demonstrate this. Now sound can play all kinds of music , but we hardly can remember any theme music of any game. Yet we remember many of the SNES generation music and maybe earlier with their Midi like sounds. I still remember Tetris theme from 1992(last i played probably) on the gameboy for example compared to Bioshock and Oblivion which I played like last year.

Limited sound forced you to come up with great tunes .

Bullshit. Have you seen X-Com? Tell me that game's simple. Same with Syndicate. Hell Pirates! came out in the 80s.

Hardware limitations have some effect on simplicity yes, but it's not THAT much.

There are plenty of new memorable tunes. The opening theme to Oblivion. Halo's music. All of the Team Fortress 2 themes.

One of my favorite soundtracks of all time came from this generation. Frozen Synapse has amazing music.




Don't get me wrong. I like a lot of classic game music too, and perhaps it's because I don't have tons of nostalgia for the old tunes, but, I find a lot of the music today to be just as if not more memorable. If you really think that BETTER sound quality somehow makes developers want to be lazy, you're completely wrong. If anything, it just gives them more freedom to create what they wanted too in the first place.

[sabrage]

Bullshit. Have you seen X-Com? Tell me that game's simple. Same with Syndicate. Hell Pirates! came out in the 80s.

Why does everyone remember Syndicate as a deep, tactical masterpiece? It's a great action game with some original ideas, but the best solution to every problem is "Brainwash everyone. Proceed without caution." To put it on the same level as X-Com or System Shock 2 or dozens of early 90's CRPGs is just ridiculous.

[Zing]

Sound is a good way to demonstrate this. Now sound can play all kinds of music , but we hardly can remember any theme music of any game. Yet we remember many of the SNES generation music and maybe earlier with their Midi like sounds. I still remember Tetris theme from 1992(last i played probably) on the gameboy for example compared to Bioshock and Oblivion which I played like last year.

Limited sound forced you to come up with great tunes .

This is like saying you can't make memorable music with a symphony.

I'm not sure how one could reach that conclusion based on the quoted text. I feel that simple and repetitive melodies of cartridge-based games are clearly more memorable than the movie-type scores you hear in modern games. However, it is not clear if this is due to the nature of the music itself, or the play-once-and-move-on feel of modern games.

[o.pwuaioc]

This is like saying you can't make memorable music with a symphony.

I'm not sure how one could reach that conclusion based on the quoted text. I feel that simple and repetitive melodies of cartridge-based games are clearly more memorable than the movie-type scores you hear in modern games. However, it is not clear if this is due to the nature of the music itself, or the play-once-and-move-on feel of modern games.

Probably a combination of both. I think even Uematsu's stuff reached its pinnacle with the 16-bith Final Fantasy games. A lot of people like his later stuff, but I can't say that any post-FFVI song can hold grab me like Terra's Song did on first listening! FFIV, FFV, and FFVI just had so many great and memorable tunes, but now music plays a distant fifth fiddle to graphics.

[noiseredux]

Question:

A) Retro games are better than current gen games.
B) Current gen games are better than retro games.

(Spoiler: it's a trick question).