Why retro gaming is overrated.

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Of course games that are good does not suddenly become bad because they become older but when we look at gaming we can still see significant improvements allowing new titles to become far better than pretty much all older titles.

While the frustration with the "AAA" gaming segment is understandable there are a lot of other games to choose from and often those titles are far better than the typical game launched on the nintendo 64 or super NES.

 

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Framerate & graphics
While it is popular to downplay the importance of having a game look good in reality having the game be visually appealing is still very important.

It is of course possible to make a game visually appealing even on old hardware but even then you run into the issue of bad framerates. Most retro games play at a locked 60fps with no ability to go above that and many games are even worse in that respect due to the weak hardware.

With modern technology you can easily achieve framerates well above 120 frames per second which is far better than what you get with pretty much any console title (a few support 120fps on PS5/XSX (which isn't retro gaming to begin with but that's about it).

It is worth noting that you can still force games to run at a higher framerate such as 120hz but then the entire game including audio will be sped up which is very far from ideal and doesn't work on the original hardware.

 

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Great games can be remade with better graphics, control and framerate
The great gameplay provided by some retro games could be achieved simply by remaking the game with a lot better graphics, better control and support for higher framerate. That is a far better option than putting up with the limitations of 20+ year old technology.

Of course there are still plenty of old titles that still haven't gotten a remake but that is something we can work towards fixing. There are also unfortunately examples of poorly done remakes (dark souls, metroid prime, etc).

It's getting increasingly common for games to be "decompiled" allowing fans to release superior modern versions of them.

 

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Retro games and difficulty
While newer mainstream single player games tend to be overly easy retro games are not exactly particularly hard either, at least not for the most part.

SNES games
Super mario world: easy
super mario world 2: youshis island: medium (to 100%)
The Addams Family: medium
donkey kong country trilogy: medium
zelda a link to the past: medium
umihara kawase: medium
starfox: medium
super mario kart: hard (to win gold at 150cc special cup)
Lions king: hard (at least if played on the highest difficulty).
addams family pugsley's scavenger hunt: hard

All those games however pales in comparison to the hardest super mario world rom hacks beaten by human(s).

But while there are plenty of impressive rom hacks out there (not just in terms of difficulty) the general issue here is the way in which they are hard. As the difficulty is increased it becomes more and more about memorizing how to press buttons which is not exactly true mastery of a game.

I also wouldn't count rom hacks as retro games to begin with since these are newly created games based on older titles where stuff has been added that cannot be find in the original game at all, sure it can run on the old hardware but that is just a testament to how much better people are at making games now (at least in the case of some people making games).

 

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Why i don't like 2D games
With 2D games you are overly constricted and that also limit what type of gameplay that can be achieved.

I want to actually be there in a real world rather than in a 2D prison. I want to be able to move the camera around and ideally be able to play as a nice female character, i want her to wear a nice dress of course.

But if you for whatever reason like 2D games there are thousands of compelling options available mostly as indie games.

 

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A critical look at donkey kong country
The game is actually a great 2D platformer if you emulate it at a much higher framerate (like 165hz), playing at the original framerate is way too easy though in addition to the constant lag.

The game did a good job at its time to immerse the player into the the world and journey and there the first game is actually the best. This is a great example of a studio delivering despite very limited graphical capabilities.

The soundtrack itself is great but unfortunately the snes kinda ruins that. I ended up downloaded a much better version from RED/GGn instead.

 

[Admin]

donkey kong country looks lame. maybe you remember it fondly cause you played it as a kid.

I replayed it as an adult (i don't remember i i played at 120hz of 165hz).

The background environments definitely looks good even today but the 3d character models used (pre-rendered) are not particularly great.

I am waiting for Alabaster Dawn.

I have largely lost interest in 2D games by now. Makes it annoying how people keep recommending those 2D titles.

you seem to care more about stats than actual games.

???

 

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A critical look at starfox
Seems like the original snes version is by far the hardest (at least if you take the hardest route). But unfortunately due to hardware limitations of the snes and the superFX chip used the framerate is pretty awful.

Better performance has been achieved via emulation but nothing particularly great so far.

The game has a system where you can power up the blaster twice and while this is fine for most of the game it does end up making some bossess to easy due to the upgraded twin blasters doing too much damage.

The game also lacks a proper progression system, instead you have a finite number of lives where dying means having to start all over to start trying again, that can get tedious if you are not good at the game. I was still able to beat all 3 routers but i don't really feel like playing it again.

 

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Pre-rendered cutscenes
One common issue with a lot of retro game is them utilizing pre-rendered cutscenes instead of the superior real-time cutscenes.

Sure utilizing pre-rendered cutscenes can make the cutscenes look a bit better by themselves but then they will not graphically match the rest of the game. You also run into the issue of not having flexibity, the cutscenes will be stuck at whatever resolution and framerate they were rendered at (which is almost certainly not something good) and no customization will carry over.

Interestingly code-vein has an animated intro scene but that is still not pre-rendered and it looks pretty similar to what you later see in the game, that however is not really a cutscene since it playes after you start the game (rather than during gameplay) and it's also not pre-rendered, it's animated.

Pre-rendered scenes also made the game uneccessarily bit sometimes resulting in people having to use multiple CDs (in the case of playstation) which really was a total waste and now makes the experience worse if you were to try to eminate that now.

There could still be cases where pre-rendering a scenes is worthwhile but i really cannot think of much given how powerful modern hardware is. Pre-rendered scenes are especially problematic on PC due to lack of standard for display resolution or framerate (while 4K60 is becoming the standard for consoles which isn't good to begin with).

 

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A critical look at Yoshi's Island
This is a game i did enjoy playing as a child (got 100%) and later i played it at a higher framerate as an adult (i think it was 120hz) but even at higher framerate and speed the game was still too easy and often became tedious.

This is a general theme with nintendo game, they are aimed at children and people who are bad at games which can be fun when you are a child learning it for the first time but then if you try to keep playing it it will become less fun over time.

That being said the game is definitely impressive on a technical level (runs at 60fps on the snes and has interesting effects). It also has some interesting speedrunning strategies even if the game isn't particularly popular for that.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1182584211

Some of the special stages were really good thanks to the higher difficulty.

I kinda want to play that level again (165hz) but i don't know if i have a working save-file for that game anymore.

 

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Most retro games didn't even push the hardware that much
You might wrongly assume that the paltry hardware pushed developers to make their games run very efficiently but that was very rarely actually the case.

This is illustrated by how much more impressive the (currently incomplete) celeste port is for the NES (which is a modern game) compared to pretty much any other title released for that system.

 

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Bad audio
Historically consoles have neglected audio quality and that does end up kinda ruining the music in older titles.

Seems like PS3 did support lossless audio for games while 360 and wii didn't.

Interestingly you can actually make some good stuff with the commadore64 sound chip: