I always loved retro-style games, long before I learned that they’re considered retro. I’m not sure what makes them so fun but they completely dominate my gaming nowadays.
Naturally, I became curious about the games that had inspired my favorite titles. I tried many of them, and eventually came to a conclusion: most of the time, retro games are nothing but a historical curiosity.
Ultima 4 has fairly unique concept but falls flat with its roleplaying feeling forced, its bland gameplay and its setting with no originality whatsoever.
Compare this to Moonring. Gameplay rivals many modern roguelikes (the classic definition, so Brogue, not Isaac), great setting that sucks you in immediately, and so so many mysteries.
Ambermoon pretends to be an open world RPG but is actually a linear RPG-lite with combat feeling more like a puzzle (and a wrong solution punishes you by 15 mins of you and your opponents missing each other every turn).
That’s not to say that retro games aren’t important - the modern indies are standing on the shoulders of giants. Yet I can’t say that retro games worth the trouble of getting into them, compared to the polished modern indie titles.
Many games don’t age well in part because of hardware constraints (CPU, RAM and storage), in part because there weren’t that many games to serve as examples of good and bad practices to follow or avoid. Then there are games like the Silver Box collection of Dungeons and Dragons, which were bad even when they were new.
It’s still interesting to note that you can find many “(almost) never copied since” ideas in some old games, which still make them useful for inspiration for game devs and even entertainment for anyone who sits down to play. Hell, Ultima 7, despite being janky as fuck, is still a gold standard in world interactivity. While there are a variety of pokemon clones (TemTem, Cassette Beasts, Coromon), I’m unaware of any game that’s similar to Digimon World (evolving tamagotchi battlers that die out/reset after some time)
Then there are the timeless classics, like Age of Empires 2 or Final Fantasy Tactics, which are yet to be surpassed; or Mega Man X and Super Mario World, which, despite being comparatively simple to stuff that came after it, still hold up incredibly well.
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Many games don’t age well in part because of hardware constraints (CPU, RAM and storage), in part because there weren’t that many games to serve as examples of good and bad practices to follow or avoid. Then there are games like the Silver Box collection of Dungeons and Dragons, which were bad even when they were new.
It’s still interesting to note that you can find many “(almost) never copied since” ideas in some old games, which still make them useful for inspiration for game devs and even entertainment for anyone who sits down to play. Hell, Ultima 7, despite being janky as fuck, is still a gold standard in world interactivity. While there are a variety of pokemon clones (TemTem, Cassette Beasts, Coromon), I’m unaware of any game that’s similar to Digimon World (evolving tamagotchi battlers that die out/reset after some time)
Then there are the timeless classics, like Age of Empires 2 or Final Fantasy Tactics, which are yet to be surpassed; or Mega Man X and Super Mario World, which, despite being comparatively simple to stuff that came after it, still hold up incredibly well.