RetroAchievements
Aug 31, 2022 1:31:50 GMT -5
Post by AfroRyan on Aug 31, 2022 1:31:50 GMT -5
Hello everyone. I'm still alive, still playing games, and recently (within the last 3 years, but kind of got into it big within the last 3 months) discovered a very cool community/project called RetroAchievements. It's very ambitious, with the goal basically being to add achievements to old games through RetroArch (and a few other emulators). They do this by having you link your RetroAchievements account within the RetroArch settings tab (obviously, this varies if you're using other emulators, but as a frontend RetroArch emulates practically everything, and after the initial learning curve, is extremely user friendly and convenient.
Sidebar on RetroArch: If you're like I was a few years ago, the initial thought of switching to RetroArch from your favorite established emulators may seem pointless, but I assure you, you'll likely fall in love with it as a one-stop shop for emulation. The frontend operates on the concept of emulator "cores" (many directly based on emulators like Dolphin, PPSSPP, PicoDrrive, and many many more). These cores can be browsed, downloaded, updated (!!), and configured right in-app; you don't have to get on your internet browser to put things in random folders (except for bios, which is a simply matter of dropping them all in the system folder).
Back to RetroAchievements: after you link your account, it's ready to go. Load up a favorite rom, and assuming it has a set designed, you can start earning achievements for you favorite retro games. The really neat thing is that the site also supports hacks, so there's lots of translation, gameplay, and full-conversion hacks to play around with and in some cases casually discover simply by browsing the website.
Another modern feature they added that I really like is Leaderboards. Many games support Leaderboards, and many games have multiple Leaderboards (like Sonic Jam on Sega Saturn, which has a speedrun leaderboard per act [pretty awesome]). A personal favorite genre of mine, video pinball, has many games with leaderboards, some that don't even have achievement sets yet, so at least you can still compete against the community, or even yourself since many of those older video pinball games had no save feature for high scores.
My only real gripe with the overall situation is that despite the really cool integration, the site itself is completely separated from the in-emulator experience. Sure, you can see the achievement pop up (if you enable it, that is), and sure, you can see timers, score trackers, and other things in real-time as well (again, if you want to; nothing is forced on-screen). But, if you simply wanted to load a game, then press a button to see what the achievements were in it, that doesn't exist yet, and may never exist. It isn't the end of the world to have to have a smartphone nearby to look it up in the browser, but if there was one big thing that could be added in overall presentation, it'd be that.
Anyway, I think it's a really cool community, and it can not only revitalize a passion for retro games, but can help you learn more about them too. I've played Zelda OoT at least a dozen times, and had no idea that there's a dying guard with unique dialogue that only shows up in Hyrule Town's alleyway after Ganondorf has chased away Zelda and Impa (and you get the titular Ocarina of Time). The guard gives a little lore about Zelda escaping and then has a unique animation that plays, and he dies. You'll likely not see it, because if you just run straight to the Temple of Time and grab the Master Sword, something I imagine 99.9% of players do, the guard despawns and there's no trace he was ever there. The crew that developed that achievement set had an achievement for talking to this guard, and that's the only reason I learned it existed.
I'll close on that last thought; I don't particularly care for things like achievement score, and I don't even necessarily care much about earning and subsequently showing off tough achievements (though it can be satisfying). What I do care about is being encouraged to discover new things about games, or playing in novel ways you may never otherwise try. Those kinds of achievements really help enhance a game's fun-factor and replayability. Sure, the game may not encourage you to, for example, beat a Mario level and avoid all coins in a coin-heavy level, but when an achievement for doing that is there, you give it a shot, and boom, you've discovered a new way to have fun with an older game.
If that sounds interesting to you, then I highly encourage anyone here to check the site out. In my experience, everyone is quite nice and helpful there, and even if you don't play much, they'll be happy to help with pretty much any emulation-related problem you may have, and you may learn more about some of your old favorites just by looking at the sets.
They're about ready to launch PS2 achievements (October 1st, apparently). That'll be exciting. Oh, and just so you know, there's a total of roughly 5200 games with achievements supported, and over 15,000 registered games without achievements but are there for community members to spend "set request" tickets on to help the devs prioritize games to make sets for (though, that doesn't mean a game with zero requests won't get a set; the devs have their own obscure favorites that get worked on and released all the time).
Sidebar on RetroArch: If you're like I was a few years ago, the initial thought of switching to RetroArch from your favorite established emulators may seem pointless, but I assure you, you'll likely fall in love with it as a one-stop shop for emulation. The frontend operates on the concept of emulator "cores" (many directly based on emulators like Dolphin, PPSSPP, PicoDrrive, and many many more). These cores can be browsed, downloaded, updated (!!), and configured right in-app; you don't have to get on your internet browser to put things in random folders (except for bios, which is a simply matter of dropping them all in the system folder).
Back to RetroAchievements: after you link your account, it's ready to go. Load up a favorite rom, and assuming it has a set designed, you can start earning achievements for you favorite retro games. The really neat thing is that the site also supports hacks, so there's lots of translation, gameplay, and full-conversion hacks to play around with and in some cases casually discover simply by browsing the website.
Another modern feature they added that I really like is Leaderboards. Many games support Leaderboards, and many games have multiple Leaderboards (like Sonic Jam on Sega Saturn, which has a speedrun leaderboard per act [pretty awesome]). A personal favorite genre of mine, video pinball, has many games with leaderboards, some that don't even have achievement sets yet, so at least you can still compete against the community, or even yourself since many of those older video pinball games had no save feature for high scores.
My only real gripe with the overall situation is that despite the really cool integration, the site itself is completely separated from the in-emulator experience. Sure, you can see the achievement pop up (if you enable it, that is), and sure, you can see timers, score trackers, and other things in real-time as well (again, if you want to; nothing is forced on-screen). But, if you simply wanted to load a game, then press a button to see what the achievements were in it, that doesn't exist yet, and may never exist. It isn't the end of the world to have to have a smartphone nearby to look it up in the browser, but if there was one big thing that could be added in overall presentation, it'd be that.
Anyway, I think it's a really cool community, and it can not only revitalize a passion for retro games, but can help you learn more about them too. I've played Zelda OoT at least a dozen times, and had no idea that there's a dying guard with unique dialogue that only shows up in Hyrule Town's alleyway after Ganondorf has chased away Zelda and Impa (and you get the titular Ocarina of Time). The guard gives a little lore about Zelda escaping and then has a unique animation that plays, and he dies. You'll likely not see it, because if you just run straight to the Temple of Time and grab the Master Sword, something I imagine 99.9% of players do, the guard despawns and there's no trace he was ever there. The crew that developed that achievement set had an achievement for talking to this guard, and that's the only reason I learned it existed.
I'll close on that last thought; I don't particularly care for things like achievement score, and I don't even necessarily care much about earning and subsequently showing off tough achievements (though it can be satisfying). What I do care about is being encouraged to discover new things about games, or playing in novel ways you may never otherwise try. Those kinds of achievements really help enhance a game's fun-factor and replayability. Sure, the game may not encourage you to, for example, beat a Mario level and avoid all coins in a coin-heavy level, but when an achievement for doing that is there, you give it a shot, and boom, you've discovered a new way to have fun with an older game.
If that sounds interesting to you, then I highly encourage anyone here to check the site out. In my experience, everyone is quite nice and helpful there, and even if you don't play much, they'll be happy to help with pretty much any emulation-related problem you may have, and you may learn more about some of your old favorites just by looking at the sets.
They're about ready to launch PS2 achievements (October 1st, apparently). That'll be exciting. Oh, and just so you know, there's a total of roughly 5200 games with achievements supported, and over 15,000 registered games without achievements but are there for community members to spend "set request" tickets on to help the devs prioritize games to make sets for (though, that doesn't mean a game with zero requests won't get a set; the devs have their own obscure favorites that get worked on and released all the time).
