[Classic] Old games are great, don't forget

You haven't lived until you've seen the final boss in Pac-Man! Make sure you've located the secret diamond teeth in the underground lair before taking him on.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Sorry to say, I don't have the interest or attention span or time for 40+ hour games anymore, so my older games see lots of action...In some cases, ones I've replayed for years without getting tired of. I just want to plunk in a quarter or press start (preferably 5 seconds or less after hitting power) and just fucking PLAY! No storyline, no overblown characters I'll end up not caring about anyway, no tutorials explaining the retarded control schemes...Just give me stuff to shoot and collect and a Dpad/A/B buttons to do it with. It's amazing how much good time I had/have with...uh, Sqoon* than I'd have with 99% of what's out on PS3/360 and probably Wii. And I've said before...I think one of the reasons Guitar Hero is so big right now is people just pick up, play a couple songs, and go do something else.

Even "old" RPG's are sort of like this...A LOT of stuff happens in 10 hours in an older RPG, whereas 10 hours you're still learning the nuances of the people who introduce you to the cousins of the main characters you'll deal with in more recent RPG's.

Funniest part is...My NES games probably look better now than I ever thought they did in the past. 8-bit cityscapes are <3. Think the only generation whose graphics bother me are the 32/64 bit era and that was because 3D games looked like ass on all of them (the 2D stuff was sweet).

*A small, NES shooter from Irem that features aliens from Neptune melting the polar ice caps and you control a pink ship to shoot shit and save people underwater. People get eaten by sharks if you don't get them in time, while saving them powers you up. You also die if you don't refuel at least once every sixty seconds. Greatest storyline ever. Also has, like, 2 music tracks through the whole game that get stuck in your head...You go to turn the sound off and then realize how much you miss it, and put it back on.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by xiaowei

Looking back at old games is an interesting thing to do. Sometimes, I believe that people are strongly blinded by their nostalgia and the mentality of "back in the mah day." I think the reason that older people find old games better is that new games haven't changed much. And when the experience is fresh and new, it really sticks in the brain. There's nothing I haven't seen in the last five years that I hadn't seen before. It's harder to remember a game when there's nothing new or memorable. However, when you talk to younger gamers, they note that old games are exactly like new games. So, why would they want to deal with the crufty old sprites* when they get polygons? The core gameplay is still the same.

Newer games aren't all like old ones. You never see side scrolling beat em ups anymore and fighting games play nothing like they did in 2D.

I know nostalgia is part of it, but that's not the whole thing. Our media as a whole has been becoming rather stale, not just video games. Look at TV for instance, rather then having good shows like we used to have, it's overflowing with crap like reality shows. We just occassionaly get a show that's a gem these days. Heck, I still love cartoons and most of what they expect kids to watch is complete crap, I know I wouldn't have watched alot of it when I was a kid.

Originally Posted by GoldfishX

Funniest part is...My NES games probably look better now than I ever thought they did in the past. 8-bit cityscapes are <3. Think the only generation whose graphics bother me are the 32/64 bit era and that was because 3D games looked like ass on all of them (the 2D stuff was sweet).

Yeah... old 3D graphics have not aged well. As great as the game is, Final Fantasy 7 is kind of painful to look at nowadays.

Man, thinking of old games. I miss my Commodore 64, I used to spend hours playing Jump Man, Bruce Lee, and Shogun. I also miss playing the old Dungeons and Dragons golden box games on PC.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Denicalis

I liked a few games of that type, but I wouldn't put them on my favourite of all time list. However, I'm not sure if I take your meaning on that question. Have there been older games I've picked up and had them make me take a second look at a genre? Not really. Though Bioshock made me take a look at that genre anew. I'd hated it up until I played that. And then Gears of War and Bioshock made me find something fun about it. But an older game that made me rethink an entire genre? No, not really.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was wondering. I appreciate your time, anyway, heh.

I was speaking idiomatically.

The thing is, while game graphics keep getting more detailed and complex (I won't say better), the gameplay has hardly evolved to meet up. The EA guy who said we're still not playing next-gen games (and got a lot of flak for it) was exactly right. It's not necessarily a bad thing per se, lord knows we need "gamey" games like Super Mario Galaxy, but it is counterproductive to constantly destroy the atmospheres and settings in stunningly designed or realized worlds with desperately drab gameplay design and choices, like the timed flag collecting in Assassin's Creed (a notably schizophrenic experience) or the surreally limited environmental interaction of games like Bioshock or even Half-Life 2 (though Valve's effort is well on the way of touching that elusive next-gen).

If so many publishers and designers are so keen on abolishing old school values and visuals, why insist keeping so many admittedly outdated features and design choices? I would much rather have "gamey" visuals (sprites, healthbars, etc) than the bloom-filled cutscenes followed by the same drab lock-and-key puzzles, only now with an exciting lightning ability instead of a keycard.

At least old games can get away with such silliness much easier. You don't mind the silly inconsistencies and odd choices if the game is presented in a way to make it feel more plausible, even if Noah Antwiler is quick to point them out anyway (much to my amusement).

Not that I mind new games, no. I don't remember when was the last time I'd had as much fun and intrigue with games as I did with Portal, FFXII or say, Penumbra Overture. But it doesn't mean I shouldn't love and adore Super Mario World, Secret of Mana, FFVII, Metal Gear Solid or Radiant Silvergun, much less the likes of Contra 4.

I have a colleague who'd never played Silent Hill 1 before and couldn't play my copy because he felt the graphics were so bad (I can imagine they look even worse on an HDTV, throught his PS3). His loss

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So what would a next generation game be to you then, Q? ((QUESTIONS, AGAIN)) I think a lot of those "old conventions" we reference can't go away so easily, because they're fundamental to video games. But I'm curious, again.

FELIPE NO

I suppose that unless you came from the Pong or Atari 2600 era (which actually I did, haha), it is pretty hard to go 'backwards'. I still remember a friend of mine having this super old computer where your party was represented by the letter P. I could enjoy it because I took it for what it was, which was a pretty darn cool RPG at the time. Yet, I could forsee people in even say the NES area looking at that and squirming a good bit.


I have found for myself that I just can't get into 3-Dish games. When Mario 64 came out I thought it looked nice but lost interest in it quickly. It had NOTHING To do with the game-it was a classic. However, I grew up in the 2-D era so save for a few exceptions (mainly pro wrestling games) I like to play my Atari/NES/SNES/PS1 games. It's only a wonder why of all the systems I have played, I like my GBA/NDS the most and looking at the PSP as a potential purchase in the near future.

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Something else that I think is hurting modern games is the overemphasis on cutscenes. In the FF12 thread, Denicalis mentioned something about the game's poor pacing, and it occurred to me that it's become a problem in a lot of modern games, even the ones that shouldn't be focusing heavily on story bits. In going out of their way to cram in pretty FMV scenes, fully voice acted dialogue, and whatnot, they break up the actual game portion.

Let's go way back and look at Ninja Gaiden, the game that invented the concept. How long does it spend on the cutscenes? Maybe a couple minutes tops? Then you're right back to flipping out and chopping people's heads off. Zelda 3 had terse bits of dialogue even at critical plot points, and then shut up so you could navigate the dungeon. Final Fantasy 4 doesn't feel the need to linger excessively on any one plot point, since it's not trying to sell you on visual flash. You can blip through the dialogue boxes as fast or as slow as you care to.

Compare to a lot of modern games where they seem to think they need to stretch everything out to a tedious degree. It's even infected Zelda - look at how often you sit down and do nothing while the game hits you with story stuff. The really good games integrate the story seamlessly with gameplay, ala Half Life. The not so good games segregate the two elements, and even favor the story over the game itself.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Monkey King

Something else that I think is hurting modern games is the overemphasis on cutscenes. In the FF12 thread, Denicalis mentioned something about the game's poor pacing, and it occurred to me that it's become a problem in a lot of modern games, even the ones that shouldn't be focusing heavily on story bits. In going out of their way to cram in pretty FMV scenes, fully voice acted dialogue, and whatnot, they break up the actual game portion.

Let's go way back and look at Ninja Gaiden, the game that invented the concept. How long does it spend on the cutscenes? Maybe a couple minutes tops? Then you're right back to flipping out and chopping people's heads off. Zelda 3 had terse bits of dialogue even at critical plot points, and then shut up so you could navigate the dungeon. Final Fantasy 4 doesn't feel the need to linger excessively on any one plot point, since it's not trying to sell you on visual flash. You can blip through the dialogue boxes as fast or as slow as you care to.

Compare to a lot of modern games where they seem to think they need to stretch everything out to a tedious degree. It's even infected Zelda - look at how often you sit down and do nothing while the game hits you with story stuff. The really good games integrate the story seamlessly with gameplay, ala Half Life. The not so good games segregate the two elements, and even favor the story over the game itself.

I agree somewhat, even though I don't so much have a problem with cutscenes per se. I kept playing games like FF7 and Vagrant Story just to get to the next story bit.

Many people feel they are detrimental to the game experience since they remove control from the player and thus take away from the very playing of the game. I don't mind them, they are a story device as much as anything else, and can be used both well or badly. I think it's most hurting when cutscenes genuinely are at odds with the rest of the game. Seeing your character do all those backflips and flamboyant shooting and flying in something like Dirge of Cerberus, only for him to be depressingly stiff and cumbersome to move around in the actual gameplay was a particular eyeopener. Then again, I found the completely over the top cutscenes in MGS: Twin Snakes a large part of the game's charm (though I still like MGS1 better).

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Elixir

Wow, you really have 280 PS2 games? I'd love to see some pictures of that.

Sorry, my camera's broken... / I don't have a digital camera...

Heh, just kidding, don't you hate it when people say that?

I ran out of room in the main shelf so I had to start replacing rows of my DVD collection with games. I have more shelves of those. Some of the games are blocked by my PS3 games/Blu-Ray on the second shelf (left) and bigger game boxes (like Growlanser and such) on the bottom shelf.

Here's a link to my game collection in a more readable form (although they are all alphabetized on the shelf with A/# at the bottom left).
User Pages

And don't think I'm showing off, about 85% of my games I bought used at a much lower price than retail, so I haven't spent THAT much money (couple thousand, maybe). I do peel off what stickers I can to make them close to mint condition.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

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The thing is, while game graphics keep getting more detailed and complex (I won't say better), the gameplay has hardly evolved to meet up.

It hasn't? Out of nostalgia and boredom here at work, I recently played Doom and Quake online. Both of them were complete shit, had horrible balancing and speed issues, no voice chat for teams to collaborate on a strategy, and a severe lack of game types. There's also the fact that you actually can't aim in Doom.

This is after coming down from long stretches of Call of Duty 4 multiplayer where me and my clan can discuss strategy before, after, and during the game, use multiple player types on multiple different maps that often require varying degrees of strategy to keep the upper hand.

And we really shouldn't forget at how well integrated online matchmaking is in some games. Or that hardware has the ability to factor in things like realistic physics, lighting, and the damn coriolis effect.

I'm not exactly sure what your idea of "evolved gameplay" constitutes, but to this long time gamer, I much prefer today's offerings over games a decade old.

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Sorry to say, I don't have the interest or attention span or time for 40+ hour games anymore, so my older games see lots of action...In some cases, ones I've replayed for years without getting tired of. I just want to plunk in a quarter or press start (preferably 5 seconds or less after hitting power) and just fucking PLAY! No storyline, no overblown characters I'll end up not caring about anyway, no tutorials explaining the retarded control schemes...Just give me stuff to shoot and collect and a Dpad/A/B buttons to do it with. It's amazing how much good time I had/have with...uh, Sqoon* than I'd have with 99% of what's out on PS3/360 and probably Wii. And I've said before...I think one of the reasons Guitar Hero is so big right now is people just pick up, play a couple songs, and go do something else.

Is it possible that you're just not playing the right games? I think one of the Wii's biggest selling points (and criticisms) is the availability of the dozens of "pick up and play" styled games. It's not a very accurate estimate to say that new consoles lack an arcadey experience when the most popular console has an overabundance of quick shot titles and the competition have platforms for small, short, pick up and play games. All three systems cater to that gametype in some what, especially the Wii since you can download all of those old games anyway.

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Funniest part is...My NES games probably look better now than I ever thought they did in the past. 8-bit cityscapes are <3. Think the only generation whose graphics bother me are the 32/64 bit era and that was because 3D games looked like ass on all of them (the 2D stuff was sweet).

This I heartedly agree with. Lots of developers got 3D right, but most 3D games on the 32 bit systems were down right ugly.

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Newer games aren't all like old ones. You never see side scrolling beat em ups anymore and fighting games play nothing like they did in 2D.

Thankfully we still have side scrolling beat'em ups and 2D fighters still in development.

I'd like to take this moment, though, to present the argument that:

A> Most side scrolling Beat Em Ups were complete toss.

B> Fighting games are a genre that will polarize fans anyway. Personally, I'd take Virtua Fighter over any of them.

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The thing is, while game graphics keep getting more detailed and complex (I won't say better)

Why wouldn't you say "better"? Doom looked better than Wolfenstein, Link to the Past looked better than Legend of Zelda, Duke Nukem looked better than Doom, Minish Cap looks better than Link to the Past, and Mario Galaxy looks a hell of a lot better than Mario 64.

Unless you're confusing "art direction" with advancements in graphics, but that's more of a fallacy than a talking point.

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Not that I mind new games, no. I don't remember when was the last time I'd had as much fun and intrigue with games as I did with Portal, FFXII or say, Penumbra Overture..

It would be pretty dumb to say that someone couldn't enjoy both new games and old. If you can't remember the last time that you enjoyed a game as much as Portal, then why the nostalgia? You said gameplay hasn't caught up with graphics, but then you bring up Portal, a game that would have largely been impossible on previous systems.

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So what would a next generation game be to you then, Q? ((QUESTIONS, AGAIN)) I think a lot of those "old conventions" we reference can't go away so easily, because they're fundamental to video games. But I'm curious, again.

Pretty much, yeah. A shooter is always going to feel like a shooter, a fighter is always gonna feel like a fighter, and an FPS is always gonna feel like an FPS. Of course, you'll have developers that do something interesting within each game type (Senko no Ronde, Smash Brothers, Portal respectively).

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PSP as a potential purchase in the near future.

Do you think this is a good idea? The main selling point of the PSP is "a portable Playstation". If you aren't a big fan of 3D graphics, I can't think of too much to like on the PSP, outside of puzzle games.

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Something else that I think is hurting modern games is the overemphasis on cutscenes.

Definitely a big agree here. Can't play most JRPGs because of. I also hate infinite superfluous dialog. Advance Wars DS is a great game, but I couldn't play it because no one would ever shut up.

I think my final point overall is that a game is a game. People can use the same complaints about old games versus new and apply it to anything. Chess Go/Igo has the same gameplay as any tactical game on the NES or SNES, so a fan of a board game could easily dismiss videogames as self indulgent messes. Hell, most DnD fans I know do.

These discussions always remind me of my music studies. People said Jazz was dead. Then Free Jazz came along. People said that Jazz was dead. Then Miles Davis entered his electronic era. It's all circumstantial and largely irrelevant. There's never going to be any great leaps in gameplay because it's all still firmly rooted with it's origins, but to contrast, saying that gameplay hasn't evolved isn't correct because there's plenty of things to point at to say that it has.

EDIT

Also, I think some are forgetting the Wii and the DS. Two pieces of hardware specifically developed to ignore trends in graphical capability in favor of different styles of gameplay and interactivity.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by JazzFlight

Sorry, my camera's broken... / I don't have a digital camera...

Heh, just kidding, don't you hate it when people say that?

I ran out of room in the main shelf so I had to start replacing rows of my DVD collection with games. I have more shelves of those. Some of the games are blocked by my PS3 games/Blu-Ray on the second shelf (left) and bigger game boxes (like Growlanser and such) on the bottom shelf.

Here's a link to my game collection in a more readable form (although they are all alphabetized on the shelf with A/# at the bottom left).
User Pages

And don't think I'm showing off, about 85% of my games I bought used at a much lower price than retail, so I haven't spent THAT much money (couple thousand, maybe). I do peel off what stickers I can to make them close to mint condition.

Nice collection you got there. Just wondering, have you beat them all?

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by JazzFlight

Sorry, my camera's broken... / I don't have a digital camera...

Heh, just kidding, don't you hate it when people say that?

I ran out of room in the main shelf so I had to start replacing rows of my DVD collection with games. I have more shelves of those. Some of the games are blocked by my PS3 games/Blu-Ray on the second shelf (left) and bigger game boxes (like Growlanser and such) on the bottom shelf.

Holy shit, PS3 games! I always thought they were a myth until now.

In any case, nice collection, despite the fact that you're never going to end up completing all of them. But, how much did SMT: Nocturne and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence LE cost you? Nocturne sells for $80-100 on eBay, and the MGS3 LE sells for $120-60 too.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

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Nice collection you got there. Just wondering, have you beat them all?

Hope not. He's got some real junk in there.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Django!

Hope not. He's got some real junk in there.

Heh, what can I say, sometimes I like a solid 6.0 rated game (usually a repetitive dungeon-crawler or obscure Agetec game).

I do have most of the good series though (NIS titles, Atlus games, Ratchet, Jak, Final Fantasy, Suikoden, MGS, Silent Hill, etc...), so I do try to avoid obvious "worst of the worst."

I leave that for Infernal Monkey and his collection of Phoenix Games titles (which leads to hilarious YouTube videos, so even garbage games have their purpose).

Originally Posted by Elixir

But, how much did SMT: Nocturne and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence LE cost you? Nocturne sells for $80-100 on eBay, and the MGS3 LE sells for $120-60 too.

Oh, I was fortunate enough to have pre-ordered those in advance and just got lucky that they ended up rare. I even have the pre-order bonus DVD that came with the MGS3 LE. I'm such a stickler for those things. I'll probably be kicking myself for not picking up certain Atlus games soon, though. Plus, I'm trying to track down some first party Gamecube games and they're gaining in price now that Gamestop is essentially tossing GC out the door.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

The things we value as players are vastly different. I see that people such as yourself value experiences crafted by scripted games with gripping stories. I grew up playing RPGs and Fighting games, and eventually I came to appreciate more of the raw game aspects. Whether the competition was going to be worth engaging, balance vs. variety, and level design.

I've always been curious myself as to why people like what they like. As fate would have it, my first big RPG was Secret of Mana, which is a game that puts gameplay above story. Anyways, I've always been more of a gameplay-oriented kind of guy as well. Maybe it's because I've always been a logical, strategically-minded kind of person. I love Chess and in my youth I ran into what might be considered key titles in the development of my tastes, like Sim City 2000, Lode Runner: TLR, Magic Carpet, Ogre Battle, and Syndicate Wars. I don't know if it's because of that experience that I have a greater tolerance for games that aren't totally focused on cinematic storytelling, but there you go. I think that the journey IS the story. How you interact with a game world yields its own reward. So I don't need a Xenosaga-like approach at all, and if anything, I sometimes get impatient with games that guide me on a linear path and inundate me with force-fed dialog and/or cutscenes.

Of course, Metal Gear Solid was amazing when it came out, and I loved it as much as anyone else. It was something fresh for me the first time and later on it just seems like none of the sequels have been able to achieve the same consistent intrigue and gameplay variety. So there are a few titles which perhaps might be considered to be exceptions to the rule among my favorites, but for the most part I think that my preference for engaging gameplay shows through. I could give a damn about how 'deep' a story is if the gameplay is not up to par.

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

I remember picking up Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter in a time where I harbored a great deal of resentment toward RPGs. The one thing I remember clearly was that the story and gameplay were so intertwined that you couldn't do one thing without being reminded of either element. You can't waste your time grinding traditionally, the D-Gauge is there to remind you that you have manage your time. I didn't think there was anything RPGs could do differently and the game made me want to start playing them again.

BoFV was my favorite PS2 RPG to be sure. I played it because it was recommended by a guy I knew who had greater experience with RPGs past and present than most. It is definitely one of those games that makes a 'safe' game like Final Fantasy X seem uninspired. At this point I find it hard to enjoy even a polished game like Suikoden V. I need to have something unique and engaging within the gameplay and world. Something that makes the game standout from its predacessors if it's part of a series or something that makes it standout out from other RPGs period. The game can't just have a good stand-alone story. The gameplay has to be there.

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

Have you had any moments upon picking up older games that you hadn't played in the past?

I felt very impressed by Castlevania III, which I didn't play until maybe 2005 or 2006. The challenge level was high, but not unfair, which gave it an addictive quality. The music was great, the branching levels were great, and being able to swing between one character and another was great too. It's just too bad that the game gets overshadowed by the popularity of SOTN the same as the other Castlevania games do.

Some games just exude a certain quality regardless of when you play them. The good ones amount to something special when you add everything up regardless of how shiny they may or may not be on the surface.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Django!

Is it possible that you're just not playing the right games? I think one of the Wii's biggest selling points (and criticisms) is the availability of the dozens of "pick up and play" styled games. It's not a very accurate estimate to say that new consoles lack an arcadey experience when the most popular console has an overabundance of quick shot titles and the competition have platforms for small, short, pick up and play games. All three systems cater to that gametype in some what, especially the Wii since you can download all of those old games anyway.

(you quoted a bunch of people, but this was one of my snippets )

I'm definitely playing the right games...now. I find it much easier to concentrate on newer games knowing my roots and what I'm comfortable with and what I expect. Giving up trying to "catch-up" on everything I wasn't playing for one reason or another (ESPECIALLY RPG's...An RPG has to absolutely knock me into next week for me to give it a chance now and I don't see that happening anytime soon) was like a breath of fresh air. I keep quoting Guitar Hero because it's basically an arcade game that delivers quick, cheap thrills and a storyline that does the NES era proud (read: nothing that gets in the way, except put on a good show, have a good time, look good and don't fail!) I'm not saying modern systems don't provide the "pick-up-and-play" experience (Live Arcade is very tempting, retro collections rock and I'm a huge Burnout fan and Ace Combat/Dynasty Warriors are some of the best story/action fusions I've seen), I'm just saying the NES/SNES stuff I have is very good and compares favorably to stuff that is technically way more advanced. I just prefer to get away from the whole "games as art" mentality (you know, where you feel obligated to see what the game has to offer, even during totally dead periods) and just see how long I can stay alive and how many points I can get (another YOINK! for GH...I forgot how much fun playing for points was) I used Sqoon as an example of a very average game that is still good for 5 minutes of fun here and there...If a modern game can't compare to those 5 minutes of Sqoon, I'm probably not going to sink more time into it than needed.

I still have all my old systems and carts, so the VC doesn't really interest me. However, I stand behind it because it keeps some of the true classics from fading out entirely.

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Nothing says "old" like getting your ass handed to you repeatedly by those goddamn falcons in any NES Ninja Gaiden title. I'd like some more of that again, though I doubt I'll ever see it.

Also, a Startropics title for the DS wouldn't hurt either.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

What sucks these days is developers want great graphics so much that they sacrifice performance. I'm not talking about those people that can't run the games because their computers are below the recommended requirements. I'm talking about games for both PC and consoles that just run at terrible framerates and have crazy texture pop-in just so they can show off the graphics through stills. That's a load of crap. If you show awesome graphics, it better look like that the whole game. Taking 5 seconds to load Gears of War textures really kills the experience for me.

But anyway, old games are definitely the best. I don't have any of my older consoles any more so I usually just play them on emulators. There are times when I just feel like playing old school games and I can't imagine how many times I've loaded up roms in place of current games.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

They actually do that to avoid long loading times (texture pop-in, i mean) but yeah, I sort of wish they'd just use lower resolution textures then to achieve the same results.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Megavolt

I've always been curious myself as to why people like what they like. As fate would have it, my first big RPG was Secret of Mana, which is a game that puts gameplay above story. Anyways, I've always been more of a gameplay-oriented kind of guy as well. Maybe it's because I've always been a logical, strategically-minded kind of person. I love Chess and in my youth I ran into what might be considered key titles in the development of my tastes, like Sim City 2000, Lode Runner: TLR, Magic Carpet, Ogre Battle, and Syndicate Wars. I don't know if it's because of that experience that I have a greater tolerance for games that aren't totally focused on cinematic storytelling, but there you go. I think that the journey IS the story. How you interact with a game world yields its own reward. So I don't need a Xenosaga-like approach at all, and if anything, I sometimes get impatient with games that guide me on a linear path and inundate me with force-fed dialog and/or cutscenes.

I always like a balance, integrating gameplay and story so that one doesn't over power the other is usually ideal. I mean, it's a no-duh there. There are things about RPGs that just aren't that transparent to me, especially when I started trying to find out how one "breaks a game." When a piece of equipment removes all the challenge from a game, when is it acceptable to grind for hours on end, when completionism heavy players are being exploited.

For example, Dragon Quarter spoiled me on Side Quests. Specifically because forward progression in the main game was required to progress the ant colony side quest. It was very apparent that was needed. Progressing in the main game of FFXII usually reveals more hunts, but a lot of times you have to grind your ass off to be ready, and sometimes I just don't find that enjoyable. Don't even get me started on characters and parties.

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Of course, Metal Gear Solid was amazing when it came out, and I loved it as much as anyone else. It was something fresh for me the first time and later on it just seems like none of the sequels have been able to achieve the same consistent intrigue and gameplay variety. So there are a few titles which perhaps might be considered to be exceptions to the rule among my favorites, but for the most part I think that my preference for engaging gameplay shows through. I could give a damn about how 'deep' a story is if the gameplay is not up to par.

Sometimes I think a lot of developers hit paydirt on the first installment of a game, and the things they end up adding end up robbing the game of what the first installment had going for it. I know I enjoy Halo 1 a lot more because it's just a very simple game, and that pretty much allowed for what was good in the game to be unimpeded by things such as overly long cutscenes or frustrating scripting/enemy placement. In regard to Metal Gear Solid, I really think the story ended up getting in the way. But, the series is by no means horrible, but it certainly feels a bit packed at the seams these days.

I found it interesting to contrast the Bioshock making of DVD and the Halo 3 making of DVD. Halo 3 just ended up looking so very uninspired, because you can see the ideas and goals that each team had were very different. A bit off point, but I noticed I was ignored by Qwarky (I wonder why). Again, I ask, what is a next-generation game? That term is a gigantic misnomer. It's a pretentious and, quite frankly, completely ridiculous term.

What's a next generation RPG to you? What's a next generation RPG to me? Who decides these universal terms? What if I wanted to make next generation Pac-Man? Or next generation Pong? Perhaps there's something I don't get, but since no effort was made, consider yourself called out.

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BoFV was my favorite PS2 RPG to be sure. I played it because it was recommended by a guy I knew who had greater experience with RPGs past and present than most. It is definitely one of those games that makes a 'safe' game like Final Fantasy X seem uninspired. At this point I find it hard to enjoy even a polished game like Suikoden V. I need to have something unique and engaging within the gameplay and world. Something that makes the game standout from its predacessors if it's part of a series or something that makes it standout out from other RPGs period. The game can't just have a good stand-alone story. The gameplay has to be there.

Now that you point it out, that really was Breath of Fire V's strongest quality. It had balls. I could watch the intro to that game over and over, because I've come to love everything about the game. The music, the characters, the gameplay.

And it's all because of the gameplay elements. You're absolutely right about that. Frankly, I see complaints about story, but I just have to say, what if you run into a game that is fine and has a shitty story. The story that's awful, while unfortunate, can be ignored, a game that is just horrible is generally just going to end up as a frustrating waste of money.

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I felt very impressed by Castlevania III, which I didn't play until maybe 2005 or 2006. The challenge level was high, but not unfair, which gave it an addictive quality. The music was great, the branching levels were great, and being able to swing between one character and another was great too. It's just too bad that the game gets overshadowed by the popularity of SOTN the same as the other Castlevania games do.

Symphony of the Night just really sucker punched that series, didn't it? Homogenizing every game that followed it, I really don't understand how people can buy the same game over and over. If it ain't broke, don't fix it... but we can only play the same game over and over so many times.

I wonder when Castlevania's "Dragon Quarter"-esque title will emerge, personally.

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Some games just exude a certain quality regardless of when you play them. The good ones amount to something special when you add everything up regardless of how shiny they may or may not be on the surface.

Damn straight.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

Symphony of the Night just really sucker punched that series, didn't it? Homogenizing every game that followed it, I really don't understand how people can buy the same game over and over. If it ain't broke, don't fix it... but we can only play the same game over and over so many times.

Same here...I enjoyed Symphony for what it was and absolutely loved COTM, but at no point were either close to replacing the challenge and structure (and fun, honestly) of the older CV games and none of the newer games can hold my attention for more than an hour, despite how Igarashi thinks he's giving us "value". I felt the same way about Simon's Quest, but at least that had platform death going for it and lives (did it have levels? I forget...Never noticed them)...Might be a cool challenge to try doing it without continuing. ;p

Dunno...I think "RPG elements" are really blown up as adding depth, but I don't really see how adding levels really helps a platformer. Other than needing to find places to load up on EXP (and equipment) and powerleveling to the point the game is a cakewalk. Think it kind of nerfs the whole "problem-solving" aspect of games like CV3, which kind of forces you to get better. Imagine if you could level up as you play Guitar Hero and build high enough to absorb Jordan on Expert with hitting barely any notes (but still clearing). That...would be really lame to clear Expert Jordan with, like, 3000 points.

I respect the ability stuff like in Super Metroid and these Metrovanias, but I GREATLY prefer the left-to-right-and-I-dare-you-to-make-it-through-alive stuff.

FELIPE NO

You can't entirely blame Konami here for that. Old School platformers are a dying breed all around. Gamers these days just find them irritating. It's a genre that is going the way of the dodo, along with those old click adventure games like the longest journey.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Forsety

You can't entirely blame Konami here for that. Old School platformers are a dying breed all around. Gamers these days just find them irritating. It's a genre that is going the way of the dodo, along with those old click adventure games like the longest journey.

I disagree. See: New Super Mario Brothers. Not perfect (like Mario 3), but it sold quite a few people on the DS.

And yeah, I do blame Konami entirely for...well, not ruining a series, but totally altering what a lot of players liked about it. I mean, "real" Castlevania effectively died when SOTN hit and I just treat the later games as sort of a new series altogether. Koji Igarashi simply didn't like the old CV games and wanted to change them. I chalk that up to more of an ego thing than really "evolving" anything...Of course, he states that he's giving gamers "value", but I couldn't stay awake up to the first boss in Aria or Harmony (and I have to hold my insides in even seeing pictures of Lament or Curse of Darkness) and I still play CV1/3/4 on a regular basis and still am amazed by how well-designed they are (especially 3). So, uh, yeah...

Dude makes a hell of a dating simulator, but I can seriously leave his take on Castlevania.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

A lot of people weren't that fond of NSMB and it's still a bit of a rarity. But eh, you are entitled to your opinion. It's not like I ever disagreed with the sentimentality that old school platformers are fun, but we're in the minority of people who want them when you consider the community as a whole. That's just not really arguable.

There's nowhere I can't reach.