New Games that replicate Retro style and nostalgia. Overdone or Underdone?

[marvelvscapcom2]

It seems like a lot lately games and companies have been really trying to cash in on the retro surge in the market and the 80s and 90s babies hearts with classic style or rerelease versions of our old skool loved memories. 

Popular success examples would be -  Cup Head, Sonic Mania, Street Fighter, Rare Replay, Mega Man legacy collection, NBA Playground

Some on the fence examples would be - Yooka Laylee, Lovers In a dangerous spacetime, Limbo ect... 

It seems like companies want to replicate the feel of retro games with the side scrolling, shoot em up, arcade element but remake it with new love and interpetations which is always epic but sometimes they fail or just cheese out for the sake of getting our retro hearts in a knot for preorder slips.  Yooka Laylee being a prime example.   A lot of indie games fall victim of this too.    Like "It's like a contra style game" than you play it and it's just a C list mediocre shoot em up side scroller with no flavor that tries to be contra.   Some times it works epically but sometimes they don't give it enough thought.   Retro games graphically don't demand much but the ombiance, music, and gameplay and level design of old games are hard to replicate without having the passion of it down.   

All and all do you think retro styling in modern games and attempts at old genres or consoles are over done or do you think we should see more remakes or restylings of old ideas?

I personally would love a new zombies ate my neighbors sequel.  Something arcadey with zombies and cities in 16 bit style.  It'd be awesome if done right with lots of gore and spooky stuff.

[shadowzero]

Good question(s).  As I'm reading your post I'm reminded of how last week I took my son to Game stop to check out some 3DS games and I saw the Atari flashback and the Genesis version too.  I found it odd because its the mom & pop retro stores that I love to roam and expect those type of past icons to appear next to the modern games.  I think as a whole its a good thing (did I just go Martha Stewart?).  As we all know 3rd parties have been making unofficial handheld versions of our past favs for years now but its only with the Nintendo Classic that the mainstream got caught up in it.  These official retail facing systems are also an easy gateway for those that didn't keep their NES from when they were kids, or live in place without stand alone retro stores and are restricted solely to ebay.  So I like that it puts it in the faces of the masses.  So I have most of the games on both the NES Classic and SNES Classic and would prefer to place on the classic systems vs the remakes.  However, if I see one in the store Ill pick one up because I think they are neat.

I feel the resurgence of "pixel" art games is greatly owed to Minecraft.  The classic games that we know and love proved time and time again that great graphics doesn't mean great game play and Minecraft reminded the 20XXmillion people on this planet of that fact.   Take a look at the all the smartphone re-releases of SquareEnix games a few years ago, just further evidence that some old games are classic because they are still fun to play.

[burningdoom]

I think on this particular message board you're going to find a lot of fondness for retro-style games. A lot of people here collect the classics already. So new games with a similar style but a new experience are going to be welcomed.

Personally I love stuff like Shovel Knight, Cave Story, Shanta, and DuckTales Remastered. These kind of throwbacks or remasters are fantastic. So I'm going to enjoy it while the fad lasts.

[Warmsignal]

Considering I only buy games with physical editions, underdone. Not many of them exist in my world.

[98dgreen]

Overdone

[bikingjahuty]

I feel like most efforts of new games to feel like old games often fail more than they succeed. One game that comes to mind is Strafe, which tried really hard to look like it was made in 1996. I only played it a few hours, but I was definitely never forgot I was playing a modern game despite the older graphics style. This has happened with other retro style games as well, and to be honest I am struggling to think of one modern, retro-style game that made me forget it was modern.

[kamikazekeeg]

Depends on what we want to specifically look at.  Re-releases like Rare Replay, Mega Man Legacy Collections, and others like that are a non-issue.  There's nothing to complain about with them, they are usually just easier, more convenient, ways to experience old games for fans and young folk as long as they are done right.

Throwback games on the other hand can be a mixed bag, but I generally think there are a lot of good games that have come out.  Yooka-Laylee, A Hat in Time, Shovel Knight, Undertale, Cuphead, Sonic Mania, and plenty of others.  Of course it can be said it is slightly overdone, but a lot of it is simply because people want these kind of games.  While there are far more people going to be playing the next Horizon: Zero Dawn or Star Wars Battlefront 2, there's a dedicated audience of people that want these nostalgic reminders of a different era of gaming that may not be as prevalent anymore. 

[stealthrush]

Would love to see indie devs move on and explore the early 3-D polygon era.

[kamikazekeeg]

Would love to see indie devs move on and explore the early 3-D polygon era.

Never really saw the point of trying to replicate the early 3D polygonal stuff.  A couple games have tried to do it and never looked good to me.  It's weird, contrasting, nostalgia.  My favorite games of all time are from the PS1/N64 era, but I don't want new games that look like that.  On the other hand, I'm totally cool with really good sprite art games, because you can do some great stuff with pixel art, like with Shovel Knight.  I want the gameplay style and feel that was more common of the time, the 3D platformer collectathons, but with nicer visuals, like with A Hat in Time.

[indenton]

Would love to see indie devs move on and explore the early 3-D polygon era.

So what does that make Yooka-Laylee?

[stealthrush]

Would love to see indie devs move on and explore the early 3-D polygon era.

Never really saw the point of trying to replicate the early 3D polygonal stuff.  A couple games have tried to do it and never looked good to me.  It's weird, contrasting, nostalgia.  My favorite games of all time are from the PS1/N64 era, but I don't want new games that look like that.  On the other hand, I'm totally cool with really good sprite art games, because you can do some great stuff with pixel art, like with Shovel Knight.  I want the gameplay style and feel that was more common of the time, the 3D platformer collectathons, but with nicer visuals, like with A Hat in Time.

I see where you're coming from, many developers during that era were trying to create realistic graphics at the time which looking back today are visually terrible. I was suggesting pushing the limits of that era, hardware today can support more enemies on screen, how about amplifying a old formula with the processing power today. For example a bullet hell version of G-Darius or a remake of Unholy War perhaps with more players and animations.

Would love to see indie devs move on and explore the early 3-D polygon era.

So what does that make Yooka-Laylee?

Never knew this game existed, thats a good example.

[sworddude]

Would love to see indie devs move on and explore the early 3-D polygon era.

Never really saw the point of trying to replicate the early 3D polygonal stuff.  A couple games have tried to do it and never looked good to me.  It's weird, contrasting, nostalgia.  My favorite games of all time are from the PS1/N64 era, but I don't want new games that look like that.  On the other hand, I'm totally cool with really good sprite art games, because you can do some great stuff with pixel art, like with Shovel Knight.  I want the gameplay style and feel that was more common of the time, the 3D platformer collectathons, but with nicer visuals, like with A Hat in Time.

With shoot em ups it could be nice to replicate

If you look especially at some ps1 shoot em ups.

The early polygon grapics look really cool in some.

Examples like

G darius, Xevious 3D or even einhander just to name a few

Definitely might be interestging to see new games (shoot em ups) with these polygon grapics,

[gibgirl]

I would actually dispute the idea that Cuphead counts in this category. True, the visuals are very much from the past, but they're from early animation and not from early games. I'm fairly certain that there's never been a game that's so captured the look and feel of such early animation, and that doing so is in some ways a technical feat, one that I hope inspires more games to venture into new visual styles.

Of course, I also suspect one of the reason that we've seen a proliferation of retro styled games, especially among indie developers, is because it's not as difficult to do decent 8-bit visuals as compared to higher resolution art - or maybe a lower cost to do all the art. I admit to kind of talking out of my ass here, not being an artist, so I could be wrong.

[burningdoom]

Would love to see indie devs move on and explore the early 3-D polygon era.

Never really saw the point of trying to replicate the early 3D polygonal stuff.  A couple games have tried to do it and never looked good to me.  It's weird, contrasting, nostalgia.  My favorite games of all time are from the PS1/N64 era, but I don't want new games that look like that.  On the other hand, I'm totally cool with really good sprite art games, because you can do some great stuff with pixel art, like with Shovel Knight.  I want the gameplay style and feel that was more common of the time, the 3D platformer collectathons, but with nicer visuals, like with A Hat in Time.

With shoot em ups it could be nice to replicate

If you look especially at some ps1 shoot em ups.

The early polygon grapics look really cool in some.

Examples like

G darius, Xevious 3D or even einhander just to name a few

Definitely might be interestging to see new games (shoot em ups) with these polygon grapics,

I know a lot of kiddies hate the graphics of the NES, but it makes me smile when I pop in an old NES cartridges and see those old 8-bit environments.

I get that same feeling if I'm playing an old FPS and see those old grainy walls or pointy cave walls.

The nostalgia is there for those of the right age, just the same as 2D games, I think.

[turf]

I think it's a good look
It's cheaper and easier to do. It also never goes out of style.  Shovel Knight is a great looking game.  3D games get dated pretty quickly.