What would you say is the appeal of retro games?

General and Gaming > Classic Video Games

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kashell:
I'm always hopping around from console to console - modern and/or retro.

After, say, 90+ hours in Xenoblade 2 I immediately head towards a simple something-something from years past.

ffxik:
That answer will change depending on who answers the question.

For myself it's nostalgia. Capturing a moment in time from my past, or buying games to play I never had the chance to. Even the act of walking by the display area can bring about those nostalgic feelings, of when I would spend hours in the rental shop browsing the shelves while my parents were at the laundromat next door.

For others it's curiosity, for some a soon to be discarded fad.

scraph4ppy:

--- Quote from: cirno on June 17, 2018, 04:54:18 pm ---Eh, I always thought the idea that Retro games were made with more passion was kind of nonsense. Games were littered with cheap mechanics for no other reason to stretch the runtime, and when if you decided to seek almost anything outside of the mainstream companies, you'd be met with an unplayable mess. There were plenty of good games, but seeking them out was like a minefield because respecting the player and their tolerance for frustration wasn't a thing.

The only reason there wasn't EA/Ubisoft type companies back then was because they couldn't, not because they wouldn't.

--- End quote ---

Not only is all of the stuff you listed in the first paragraph true, the things in your second sadly were not. The NES era was littered with assembly line studios making terribly bland clone games. Its just that most of them were recognized as being of low quality and never left Japan. All it takes is a single episode of Chrontendo to tell someone that. If anything, things were worse back then, due to the aforementioned cheap mechanics.

And yet I love retro gaming and games anyway. Partly its due to nostalgia, partly due to the historic nature of these games (remember, if we are going off film as a comparison, we are only now entering the equivalent of the 1920s) and partly because the truly great ones still hold up today.

burningdoom:
Somewhat nostalgia. But not fully, for me at least. Because I still find old games that are new to me and enjoy them.

When I started it was mostly due to budget. Retro gaming was cheap. That's kind of flip-flopped at this point, though.

Really, it's just because I'm a gamer. And I play games regardless of how new or old it may be.

dashv:
Starting on the Atari 2600, games didn’t have cut scenes and story. That stuff was in the cover art and manuals (which I would read over and over). The story and progression was largely left to your imagination. Which, in my mind, made these games more epic than they really were.

Then NES came along. The first few games were very Atari like, just with way better graphics. Much of the story and detail still in the manuals.

But I remember playing Ninja Gaiden for NES and being blown the hell away by the cutscenes.

Gaming was still mostly new. The possibility, promise, and surprise seemed endless.

Sega Genesis later figured out how to change existing games (Lock-on) and blew my mind again.

At school during lunch, on the school bus, etc. we’d talk about “wouldn’t it be cool if this and that”. Then boom Nintendo or Sega would figure out how to do it. Full motion video in a Genesis game... No way!!! Digitized voices in NBA Jam! Get that stuff outta here!!!

Mario can fly now!? Holy shit!

We can plug the new game into the old game and use this Knuckles guy to get to hidden level!?

There’s a cheat code that gives me 30 lives!? There’s a blood kode for Mortal Kombat!?

Game Genie!? Holy shit, I can finally beat that damn boss and finish that game! I’m bored. Let’s plug in random codes and see what happens!

There were as many rumors about Easter eggs and codes as their were actual Easter eggs and code.

There was a sense of discovery, secrets, awe, and wonder.

Cheat codes are barely even a thing anymore. The internet and the age of “pics or it didn’t happen” and the cutting room floor have (for better and worse) eliminated the rumor mill.

We know now there is no way to resurrect Aeris. There is no Ermac in Mortal Kombat 1. No more mysteries. All quickly solved with a let’s play on YouTube. No Game Genies that work across our entire library of games. (Save game editors aren’t the same thing).

That’s not to say the magic is completely gone. It’s just harder to capture.

Games like Detroit: Become Human, Shadow of the Colossus, Nier Automata, Shantae, Super Mario Maker, and others are damn good at bringing some of that awe, wonder, and discovery magic but in a completely different way.

For me it takes a lot to beat the feeling that I’ve “been there. Done that.” And it was way cooler in my head.

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