DJGameFreakTheIguana
Active member
This is gonna be kinda hard for me to put all into words or make a starting topic on, I'll mostly be spinning my wheel here but I thought it was an interesting subject to look back on video games after I talked to someone about this.
The guy was looking for new games to play, so they decided to find videos on youtube that shows EVERY GAME on certain consoles, and I'm pretty sure he watched videos of every game on most 90s consoles and stopped on the PS2/Xbox era of games, and he had an interesting point to make. There were so many games on the older consoles, yet at the end of the day, the title fight came down to Sonic and Mario. Not even just a lack of better games, but so many that either were good or too hard, not interesting at all, but cool games that missed the mark due to something like difficulty or something else. What we talked about to, there's so many people that talk about wanting games to go back to the old days, but it's like, not only were so many not even that good, but many that were still got ignored and left in the dust, but even better, most people can only real name the same few popular games. For Sega games it's our usual linup, Sonic, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe. SNES, Super Mario, Street Fighter, Donkey Kong. Many other games weren't even experienced.
I even found myself wondering after I saw a video about the top 50 games on the genesis, and of course Sonic won, Sonic 2 specifically I think, but iirc, I don't even think they specified which Sonic game got #1, but what got me was, both Alien Soldier and Gunstar Heroes made it on that same list. And as a huge Sonic fan who grew up on the genesis and like the games most people would hate, talking about the Adventure games/era and dark ages, I was wondering what made Sonic better then Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier? AS probably because it wasn't released in the U.S. when it first came out but we've gotten access to it in collections now, but Gunstar Heroes? Great action, 2player co-op, difficulty a non issue due to unlimited continues, and a great finally. I've come to appreciate Alien Soldier and Gunstar Heroes a lot in the past decade, to the point I think they were the best Genesis games, maybe even the best 2D games ever made with Alien Soldier really being the best of the 2, seeing as I find more things to like in those games then my all time favorite series I grew up on. It's something I'd like to know what you guys think.
Once I skimmed through some of these videos myself, I've come to feel that, while certain games could've been better, they excel in certain areas other games, for some reason, just wouldn't, and of course this is just my own thought process. To simplify this, I'll break this down to 3 genres
Platforming games - Examples for this would be Sonic and Ristar. I'd say Mario but I'm not a big enough Nintendo guy to act like I'm a big Mario fan, plus I mostly liked 3rd party games on their hardware, but that's besides the point. Sonic and Ristar, I feel games like these were the best at giving us cool characters and worlds to go through, maybe jsut saiyng they are charismatic all around, but once you get past that, it feels like there isn't much else. Platforming games feel a bit mundane now, to the point where if they go to the lengths of the Sonic Adventures, Sly Coopers, and Jak and Daxters, they feel boring, as the games are mostly about just jumping from one place to another, and after going 3D, many became collect-a-thons, and no much else. I had come to learn in other chats and debates that platforming games were originally action games, but missing the "action" part, and this was mainly due to Mario's popularity, and once Sonic got big, they started emulating Sonic's character, but still playing like Mario, many of these games being harder and more frustrating then Sonic and Mario, though if not boring as they're mainly about just jumping around to get to the next era There's more I could put down maybe but this part has been long enough, and I'd be typing all day, it's already almost been an hour
Run and Gun games - Contra is the first thing that would come to mind, mainly due to it's legacy, until, ironically, I think about Alien Soldier and Gunstar Heroes, but I'll hold off on those and bring up Metal Slug for some similarities to Contra. Those similarities is that these games FAR EXCEL in action. Great bosses and overall content, and a lot of destruction, but then both Contra and Metal Slug fall short due to difficulty. I played Contra Hard Corpse when I was younger, but I forgot the name and had to ask about it on a MUGEN forum, Mugen Infantry in fact, after asking what genesis game had a warewolf with a gun for an arm, lol, but man, I can't played Hard Corpse for nothing, lol, unless I play that hack where they added more HP, or the Invasion mod where the made the game even harder and you have to play the whole game in one go, meaning you have to beat every boss in a game where you have branching paths, but gave you even more hit points and more powerful weapons. Metal Slug I feel was better in the arcades because you only had to use quarters to keep going, but that would only get most people so far. It does feel like for a lot of games, when you put a gun, they make the games harder, but they tend to be the cooler games when it came to content. This bring me back to Gunstars and Alien Soldier, that got rid of the difficulty, and are even made by Treasure, the people who use to work for Konami, who made Contra. Gunstars and AS still brought the best aspects of Contra and Metal Slug, but with lowered difficulty while still giving you the option to make the game harder if you wanted. Also I wanted to bring up Adventures of Batman and Robin. I've come to love the contents of this game. Art direction, music, designs, the action, but damn is this game hard. As a kid, I don't think I ever got past the first fight with Harley Quinn. As an adult, I got stopped halfway through Stage 3 before I had to start using cheats. I do think overall, run and gun games were best enjoyed in arcades tho, which is something is I need to get to later.
Role Playing Games - Didn't even talk about these, and it's hard to pinpoint a specific one because I feel most of them, at least at some point in the 90s, not so much the same, but similar to each other, but I've beaten Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy Tactics, FF10-2, XenoSaga 1-3, and Phantasy Star 4 so I'll use them. They don't have the action, at least not in gameplay since it's turn based, and I would say platforming games have the better characters, not narratively of course I'm talking about design wise, but they make up for it by usually being the most creative games overall. Most other games I feel don't hold a candle to them creatively, especially those that do it right or go above and beyond. The only bad thing I could say about them, and it's not bad as some major complaint or anything, is that they are too long, making you have to dedicate a great deal of time to play and finish this games, maybe could've made due with being a bit more shorter. Guardian Heroes was a decent example of this. I know it was a beat'em up, or hack n slash, but shorter RPGs with branching paths and multiple endings seem like they would've been cool.
Also I kinda left out Action RPGs, which I feel I can best represent with the Tales series, as I've beaten 5 of them, along with 2 Star Ocean games to, which I think making them real time action and making them more engaging was a good move. There are the Mana games(Secrets/Sword of Mana) but I've never been able to actually finish any of them, 5 of them I think, but I like Legend of Mana for the PS1 the most, and the one I put the most effort to come back to and play. There was also Teranigma for the SNES which I did finish, and honestly I think that was the best RPG of it's time
After having all these thoughts and looking at all these games, that's when I started thinking, gaming kinda got put in a box, or a few of them, that restricted many games, even some of the best ones, due to their genre or the industry leaders, see Sonic and Mario again, but then I wonder, if game companies shad been more creative with games, thought outside the box more, then what would have came out of that?
What if platforming games took more cues from run and gun games, made them more action oriented.
What if Run and gun games had taken a more cues from RPGs, or better yet ARPGs.
What if RPGs instead of turn based, played more like Castlevania? Or the action RPGs have the kind of characters we saw in platforming games
One thing I'll add before I close this, I think the PS2/Xbox era was a glimpse into more games starting to, maybe, streamline, into what more people would play. I think we ended up getting more action rpgs, Run n gun games started getting more fair, as much as I complained about Contra being hard, I've beaten Neon Contra so many times now, and platforming games either phased out or became run n gun games with platforming, like Ratchet and Clank and Jak2. The next era with the PS3 and 360, Gears of War figure kinda pushed what 3rd party games would be, and then perfected with Vanquish and Warframe. We also had more sandbox games in the PS2 era after Grand Theft Auto 3, only to get even better next generation with the likes of Crackdown and Prototype, but now I really do got to go, got things to do, but it's something that's been in my head for a while, I do got some things I wanted to get more into, but most of all, I want to know what the you guys here think, the gamers who are constantly watching classic and modern gaming collide. Or making them collide. Last thing I'll do is post this video that started this topic in the first place.
X)
The guy was looking for new games to play, so they decided to find videos on youtube that shows EVERY GAME on certain consoles, and I'm pretty sure he watched videos of every game on most 90s consoles and stopped on the PS2/Xbox era of games, and he had an interesting point to make. There were so many games on the older consoles, yet at the end of the day, the title fight came down to Sonic and Mario. Not even just a lack of better games, but so many that either were good or too hard, not interesting at all, but cool games that missed the mark due to something like difficulty or something else. What we talked about to, there's so many people that talk about wanting games to go back to the old days, but it's like, not only were so many not even that good, but many that were still got ignored and left in the dust, but even better, most people can only real name the same few popular games. For Sega games it's our usual linup, Sonic, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe. SNES, Super Mario, Street Fighter, Donkey Kong. Many other games weren't even experienced.
I even found myself wondering after I saw a video about the top 50 games on the genesis, and of course Sonic won, Sonic 2 specifically I think, but iirc, I don't even think they specified which Sonic game got #1, but what got me was, both Alien Soldier and Gunstar Heroes made it on that same list. And as a huge Sonic fan who grew up on the genesis and like the games most people would hate, talking about the Adventure games/era and dark ages, I was wondering what made Sonic better then Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier? AS probably because it wasn't released in the U.S. when it first came out but we've gotten access to it in collections now, but Gunstar Heroes? Great action, 2player co-op, difficulty a non issue due to unlimited continues, and a great finally. I've come to appreciate Alien Soldier and Gunstar Heroes a lot in the past decade, to the point I think they were the best Genesis games, maybe even the best 2D games ever made with Alien Soldier really being the best of the 2, seeing as I find more things to like in those games then my all time favorite series I grew up on. It's something I'd like to know what you guys think.
Once I skimmed through some of these videos myself, I've come to feel that, while certain games could've been better, they excel in certain areas other games, for some reason, just wouldn't, and of course this is just my own thought process. To simplify this, I'll break this down to 3 genres
Platforming games - Examples for this would be Sonic and Ristar. I'd say Mario but I'm not a big enough Nintendo guy to act like I'm a big Mario fan, plus I mostly liked 3rd party games on their hardware, but that's besides the point. Sonic and Ristar, I feel games like these were the best at giving us cool characters and worlds to go through, maybe jsut saiyng they are charismatic all around, but once you get past that, it feels like there isn't much else. Platforming games feel a bit mundane now, to the point where if they go to the lengths of the Sonic Adventures, Sly Coopers, and Jak and Daxters, they feel boring, as the games are mostly about just jumping from one place to another, and after going 3D, many became collect-a-thons, and no much else. I had come to learn in other chats and debates that platforming games were originally action games, but missing the "action" part, and this was mainly due to Mario's popularity, and once Sonic got big, they started emulating Sonic's character, but still playing like Mario, many of these games being harder and more frustrating then Sonic and Mario, though if not boring as they're mainly about just jumping around to get to the next era There's more I could put down maybe but this part has been long enough, and I'd be typing all day, it's already almost been an hour
Run and Gun games - Contra is the first thing that would come to mind, mainly due to it's legacy, until, ironically, I think about Alien Soldier and Gunstar Heroes, but I'll hold off on those and bring up Metal Slug for some similarities to Contra. Those similarities is that these games FAR EXCEL in action. Great bosses and overall content, and a lot of destruction, but then both Contra and Metal Slug fall short due to difficulty. I played Contra Hard Corpse when I was younger, but I forgot the name and had to ask about it on a MUGEN forum, Mugen Infantry in fact, after asking what genesis game had a warewolf with a gun for an arm, lol, but man, I can't played Hard Corpse for nothing, lol, unless I play that hack where they added more HP, or the Invasion mod where the made the game even harder and you have to play the whole game in one go, meaning you have to beat every boss in a game where you have branching paths, but gave you even more hit points and more powerful weapons. Metal Slug I feel was better in the arcades because you only had to use quarters to keep going, but that would only get most people so far. It does feel like for a lot of games, when you put a gun, they make the games harder, but they tend to be the cooler games when it came to content. This bring me back to Gunstars and Alien Soldier, that got rid of the difficulty, and are even made by Treasure, the people who use to work for Konami, who made Contra. Gunstars and AS still brought the best aspects of Contra and Metal Slug, but with lowered difficulty while still giving you the option to make the game harder if you wanted. Also I wanted to bring up Adventures of Batman and Robin. I've come to love the contents of this game. Art direction, music, designs, the action, but damn is this game hard. As a kid, I don't think I ever got past the first fight with Harley Quinn. As an adult, I got stopped halfway through Stage 3 before I had to start using cheats. I do think overall, run and gun games were best enjoyed in arcades tho, which is something is I need to get to later.
Role Playing Games - Didn't even talk about these, and it's hard to pinpoint a specific one because I feel most of them, at least at some point in the 90s, not so much the same, but similar to each other, but I've beaten Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy Tactics, FF10-2, XenoSaga 1-3, and Phantasy Star 4 so I'll use them. They don't have the action, at least not in gameplay since it's turn based, and I would say platforming games have the better characters, not narratively of course I'm talking about design wise, but they make up for it by usually being the most creative games overall. Most other games I feel don't hold a candle to them creatively, especially those that do it right or go above and beyond. The only bad thing I could say about them, and it's not bad as some major complaint or anything, is that they are too long, making you have to dedicate a great deal of time to play and finish this games, maybe could've made due with being a bit more shorter. Guardian Heroes was a decent example of this. I know it was a beat'em up, or hack n slash, but shorter RPGs with branching paths and multiple endings seem like they would've been cool.
Also I kinda left out Action RPGs, which I feel I can best represent with the Tales series, as I've beaten 5 of them, along with 2 Star Ocean games to, which I think making them real time action and making them more engaging was a good move. There are the Mana games(Secrets/Sword of Mana) but I've never been able to actually finish any of them, 5 of them I think, but I like Legend of Mana for the PS1 the most, and the one I put the most effort to come back to and play. There was also Teranigma for the SNES which I did finish, and honestly I think that was the best RPG of it's time
After having all these thoughts and looking at all these games, that's when I started thinking, gaming kinda got put in a box, or a few of them, that restricted many games, even some of the best ones, due to their genre or the industry leaders, see Sonic and Mario again, but then I wonder, if game companies shad been more creative with games, thought outside the box more, then what would have came out of that?
What if platforming games took more cues from run and gun games, made them more action oriented.
What if Run and gun games had taken a more cues from RPGs, or better yet ARPGs.
What if RPGs instead of turn based, played more like Castlevania? Or the action RPGs have the kind of characters we saw in platforming games
One thing I'll add before I close this, I think the PS2/Xbox era was a glimpse into more games starting to, maybe, streamline, into what more people would play. I think we ended up getting more action rpgs, Run n gun games started getting more fair, as much as I complained about Contra being hard, I've beaten Neon Contra so many times now, and platforming games either phased out or became run n gun games with platforming, like Ratchet and Clank and Jak2. The next era with the PS3 and 360, Gears of War figure kinda pushed what 3rd party games would be, and then perfected with Vanquish and Warframe. We also had more sandbox games in the PS2 era after Grand Theft Auto 3, only to get even better next generation with the likes of Crackdown and Prototype, but now I really do got to go, got things to do, but it's something that's been in my head for a while, I do got some things I wanted to get more into, but most of all, I want to know what the you guys here think, the gamers who are constantly watching classic and modern gaming collide. Or making them collide. Last thing I'll do is post this video that started this topic in the first place.
X)
, and most 3D platformers when gaming went 3D were more cartoony, kid friendly, or comedic. There was Ristar but he only looked more serious in game, and same for Kirby but only with the boxart.