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Post by jjmcjj on Aug 8, 2014 14:46:37 GMT -5
I've heard good things about Ogre Battle 64, but I've never played it. I do love Paper Mario, but that's far from a traditional JRPG. Shit, can't believe I forgot about Paper Mario! Well that's good enough I suppose. I'm guessing Ogre Battle 64 is being counted as a "strategy RPG" in the same vein of Final Fantasy Tactics, etc.? |
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Post by jjmcjj on Aug 8, 2014 15:50:30 GMT -5
I can sort of understand this mentality. I found an old medical book at Goodwill several years ago, and it made me think similar thoughts. There were handwritten notes on several of the pages, and it just made me wonder about who owned this thing back when it was brand new (and the concept of hysteria was a medically-acceptable thing). I forget which game it was, but one of the Final Fantasies had a line that's stuck with me for quite some time. "To be forgotten is a fate worse than death." Depressing enough to think about in regards to actual human lives, with all of their failures and accomplishments. So too, is it depressing when considered in the context of old video games. How many people have actually played Castle of Dragon on the NES? Total shit game from start to finish, and yet a bunch of people put a lot of work into making that shitty game for people to play. There are probably dozens of triumphs and tragedies associated with its development that no one will ever know about or even contemplate, mostly because the game really isn't worth considering in the first place. So, yeah. You aren't alone in that regard. I've never even heard of Castle of Dragon (which I guess just illustrates the point) but yeah there's just a ton of gaming software out there that's just been forgotten to time. I know when I've downloaded those massive MAME packs and go down the list, in addition to the arcade games that I want to play there is an odd fascination with just those really simple, old digital poker or some other kinds of cards games from the early 80s or whatever, though I never play them for long (mainly because most of the ones I see were non-functional, heh). Arcade games are especially interesting since you can't really distribute them the same way you can a home computer or console game. Their distribution is limited by their very nature, so the more obscure the title, generally the more I like to ponder the kind of places these games ended up. Even somewhat more well-known arcade titles end up in places that I wouldn't think to go to to play an arcade title. Like, a laundromat I went to once had a machine with one of the Rolling Thunder games on it. An OK way to pass some of the time waiting for your laundry to be finished but because I suck at the majority of arcade titles in general that time was short-lived, haha. Your mentioning of games that nobody knows about or cares to know about raises a question: how many truly "lost" games are there out there? There may be tons of forgotten games but they still exist, is some form or another, it's just a matter of going out of your way to find and play them. I mean, games that once existed and people could play but for one reason or another they all were lost or destroyed somehow with nobody able to play these anymore. Some people would file some finished game prototypes whose code was lost as one of these kinds of games, but I'm thinking more along the lines of, say... the thousands and thousands of years of written works that are but dust, whether through the Library of Alexandria or negligence from everyone around it. If we're talking cinema, it it said that 70% of all movies in Hollywood made in the silent era is considered completely lost. And that's not considering the movies made outside of Hollywood! Or the movies that only exist currently in partial form (like Erich von Stroheim's Greed, an originally over 7-hour film, had the majority of its footage butchered by the studios, and only over time has enough footage been retrieved to restore half of the originally intended length of the picture). And there's other countries outside the US also with an interesting cinematic catalog which is slowly dying out because of poor preservation methods and so on. And I don't need to mention paintings, sculptures, works of music and so on which no longer exist either. There's one game I can think of, Kinder. It was a Japanese RPG Maker title, later remade as Re:Kinder which keeps core elements of the original game but is radically different in other respects. Different kinds of monsters, alterations to the story, a weirdly over-the-top sense of humor that clashes in an oddly unsettling way with the highly disturbing elements of the story. The creator feeling this was the definitive version took down links of the original game. Sometime in 2011 the creator committed suicide. Very sad really, and makes playing the game all the sadder considering the themes it dwells upon and the manner in which it handles it. Meanwhile, nobody thus far has been able to track down a link for the original Kinder, and the only real remnants of its existence I ever found was a Japanese Let's Play of the game over at the Japanese video streaming site Nico Video done back in like 2009 I think. This all brings to mind a Woody Allen movie (let's not get into his current controversies please), I think it was Stardust Memories, where his usual neurotic character is fretting about the eventual death of the universe, bringing down with it everything from the works of Shakespeare and Mozart. I think transience, or "to be forgotten," is the inevitable conclusion of all things. Some will be lucky and outlast others for years to come. Better technology to preserve things, improving with every year, will help more things stay alive longer than ever before. No more nitrate film stocks to worry about or your e-book being lost in some second Library of Alexandria type of incident (unless that e-book was heavily attached to the library's DRM, then I guess it might be fucked). But yes, the earth, and the universe in general, will one day go kaput. That's why, when you create something, you do it because you want to make it. If other people end up playing it and liking it, that's just a bonus. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2014 0:51:15 GMT -5
Maybe the Patriots were actually onto something with Arsenal Gear. When I stop and think about how Keeping Up with the Kardashians is going to be memorialized forever, I can't help but come sort of close to crying. At least in spirit.
Not everything needs to, or should be passed on to later generations.
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Post by Allie on Aug 10, 2014 1:50:22 GMT -5
Maybe the Patriots were actually onto something with Arsenal Gear. When I stop and think about how Keeping Up with the Kardashians is going to be memorialized forever, I can't help but come sort of close to crying. At least in spirit. Not everything needs to, or should be passed on to later generations. I agree with this. So many old classics would be ruined by being given today's bells and whistles. |
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Post by fullspectrumwarrior on Aug 10, 2014 5:24:03 GMT -5
I think it's old enough to be considered classic or somewhat classic but the original Tenchu on PlayStation 1 is a type of game that none of the games afterwards captured. Mostly because it was technically the first 3d stealth game ever. It released before Metal Gear Solid and before Thief but the music in the game is so memorable that even listening to it today you wonder how have they not recaptured that since the same guy that does that music is still in the industry today.
So many franchises that were pretty much dead have been brought back and they just don't have the same feel. A lot of them such as Wolfenstein which may not be considered truly classic was brought back and it was ok but as with all other modern games they focus so much on making the games cinematic and feel like interactive movies that you just don't have the same control you used to have.
Having said that there used to be so many series I wanted brought back, even series that started and died off during the 6th generation when soon thereafter the middle market was killed early in the seventh generation. But seeing what the industry has done to other franchises that they brought back such as Thief I would rather leave the rest of those old games alone because if they do bring them back they will not recapture what they originally did. They will just make them really short, really scripted, really linear and cinematic and then on top of that a slap in the face with tacked on multiplayer, DLC and locking content on the disk such as costumes & making you pay for them.
It doesn't help that most of the talent from the 80s, 90s early 2000s has pretty much left the industry, whether it was on their own or whether they were pushed out after being bought out by companies like EA and then put under after one rushed failed release.
So you have the people left in the industry that could bring some old classics back, the modern developers which are younger and arguably either less talented or just not as skilled since they were brought up after game design started being simpler with cutscene after cutscene. Leaving these developers to bring back series has yet to pay off other than a couple of gems here and there but for the most part they would ruin anything they touch.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2014 5:32:48 GMT -5
I think you're being overly pessimistic about the situation. One the main faults humanity has is saying to the world, "Things aren't how they were when I was young. Therefore, everything now is awful." I sympathize with you for feeling that something you used to love is no longer what it used to be, but that doesn't mean there isn't still something out there for you to enjoy.
Nostalgia can be like a warm blanket, but it can also be a noose.
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Post by kaoru on Aug 10, 2014 11:50:42 GMT -5
I'm with Jason on this one. It's hard to say all of gaming is doomed, just because it caters to ones own like anymore. We are all getting older, gaming still is mostly for kids and teens though. On top of it becoming less and less easy to love what a medium has to offer with age and growen knowledge instead of being easily impressed and everything being new and shiny.
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Post by wyrdwad on Aug 10, 2014 13:37:44 GMT -5
Yeah, what's happening with games is the same thing that's happening with anime: there's just FAR MORE OF IT than there used to be, and stuff we don't care about is what gets the spotlight... but stuff we DO care about, that's as good as anything from our childhood, is still being made and released pretty regularly; we just have to dig for it a little more than we did back then, because we're not the market the industry specifically caters to anymore.
Personally, I think 2014 has been an absolutely fantastic year for gaming so far, with some of the best games I've played in a long time coming out this year alone. Just off the top of my head, we've got Shovel Knight, Freedom Planet, Strider 2014, Song Composer 575, Project Diva f 2nd, Child of Light, Valiant Hearts: The Great War, Firefly Diary... and in terms of games I haven't played or seen (or haven't been released) yet (but which I'm very interested in), we've got South Park: The Stick of Truth, Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, and Crypt of the NecroDancer.
That's not bad at all for a year's time, and has resulted in me playing more games this year than I usually do... and enjoying myself a lot more doing it.
-Tom
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Post by GamerL on Aug 10, 2014 15:40:38 GMT -5
I haven't played GTA5 yet, so maybe they struck a better balance, but I feel like the Grand Theft Auto series lost something when it ditched the "violent crime themed cartoon" feel of every entry pre-4, with 4 they tried to make it more like a serious gangster epic, like The Sopranos or whatever, but not only is that less fun, the immersion is also ruined when your "sympathetic" anti-hero Niko proceeds to run dozens of people over before shooting down a police helicopter with an RPG
all I know is I played the shit out of 3, Vice City and San Andreas back in the day but I only played through 4 once
from what I know of 5 they addressed this issue by having multiple protagonists, one of which is the "Tony Soprano" type character, another of which is crazy and therefore it actually makes sense in-story as to why he would go on rampages, that's pretty clever and I'm glad Rockstar is finally bringing it to the PC, I can't wait to play it
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Post by Feynman on Aug 10, 2014 15:47:19 GMT -5
Yeah, what's happening with games is the same thing that's happening with anime: there's just FAR MORE OF IT than there used to be, and stuff we don't care about is what gets the spotlight... but stuff we DO care about, that's as good as anything from our childhood, is still being made and released pretty regularly; we just have to dig for it a little more than we did back then, because we're not the market the industry specifically caters to anymore. Personally, I think 2014 has been an absolutely fantastic year for gaming so far, with some of the best games I've played in a long time coming out this year alone. This is more or less how I feel about things. There are still a shitload of games that carry the spirit and gameplay styles of the classics, but you have to look outside of the AAA blockbuster space. Not only that, but there are plenty of modern games that are really quite good. It's fine to prefer old stlyes of game design, but it's important not to place the classics on such an impossibly high pedestal that you become incapable of enjoying anything new. |
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Post by fullspectrumwarrior on Aug 10, 2014 17:27:41 GMT -5
I remember when triple AAA meant games of the highest quality & caliber. Now it just seems to mean the most marketing and hype. Games that used to be more middle market titles have been pushed up the AAA status to get them to sell but in place of the high quality gameplay AAA used to be known for it's pretty much just linear scripted cinematic stuff.
So having said that I do not play what the industry considers AAA games anymore and I probably never will again because they seem to always be the most shallow insulting games to someone like myself that's been playing games for over 30 years.
I just stick with arcade & Indie titles and once in a blue moon when the dead middle market rises up and releases something I might try that also.
I really truly honestly despise what AAA gaming has become just over the last generation & refuse to support it anymore.
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Post by wyrdwad on Aug 10, 2014 17:53:20 GMT -5
That's pretty harsh... but I can't say I entirely disagree. I don't "refuse to support" AAA gaming, per se, but I haven't for a long time because nothing in the AAA market has actually appealed to me. And I suspect that'll continue to be true... but if a AAA game comes along that looks good, I'll totally pick it up. FF15 is the only AAA game I can think of that *might* be able to get a sale from me. But that's based on one single trailer... and my faith in Square to produce a good Final Fantasy game at this point is, shall we say, not very high, so I will be skeptical of that game till the last. I will be watching reviews and gameplay videos VERY CLOSELY as its release draws near.  -Tom |
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Post by fullspectrumwarrior on Aug 10, 2014 18:16:37 GMT -5
I just dislike any game that becomes mainstream after having been non mainstream. Mainly because once the mainstream consumer gets their hands on a series such as Call of Duty or Mass Effect or the Elder Scrolls they turn into what they are today which is just a big low quality rushed money pit where the industries trying to shove them down my throat and the mainstream gamers are saying best game ever best game ever.
Once that happens to a series that's my cue to move on.
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Post by wyrdwad on Aug 10, 2014 18:44:23 GMT -5
As long as you're not moving on simply BECAUSE it got popular, but rather because you don't like the direction the series itself has gone. Don't be a hipster. But do be picky about your content. -Tom |
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Post by fullspectrumwarrior on Aug 10, 2014 18:46:47 GMT -5
Yeah it's about the direction they take usually.
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