Topic: Modern gaming

[Pfil]

I wanted to share what I feel with the rest of the dungeon.
It's something that's been lurking on my mind for a few years almost every time I play a new game.
Prepare to read a lot of complains, by the way
And sorry for making a post so, so long.
I know that being 23 years old don't give me a lot of right to complain about things that existed when I wasn't even playing VG's, but CV has shaped me as a gamer and defined my tastes in life.
Anyway, this is not about Castlevania. It's about VG's in general.
I don't want this thread to become MS vs. old CV, because that's not what I'm talking about.
These things exist since way before MS entered CV.

From about end of the 90's, it seems like things started to change.
The basic concept of a knight battling demons with his sword, a soldier shotting at helicopters or a robot battling another robots wasn't enough. Companies, and apparently people for reasons I don't understand, now wanted some irreverent animals in their games.
We had Bubsy, Sonic started to talk and became irritating, we had Crash Bandicoot, Banjo Kazooie, Conker...
And it's become a constant.
Banjo Kazooie for example... a game I didn't even dislike, because the gameplay is perfect, and the basic concept of the game is very original. I found it fun, but I could never buy that thing of a bear playing a banjo and an irreverent bird, and that kind of humor.
I'd prefer if they'd made a knight, an eagle, and they could still retain the "sister kidnapped by a witch" element, let the same levels, same design, but please, don't put animals wearing sunglasses and irreverent humor.
Even the music, though not a masterpiece, was very well written.
To me, it was like a huge wasted opportunity to make a perfect game.
And if they wanted to make a game about talking animals, what happened to that other basic concept? Tiny Toon Adventures, Duck Tales, Darkwing Duck... funny games with animals, good gameplay, excellent music, but never irreverent or edgy. Why making every character look like Crash Bandicoot when Buster Bunny was so right?
Things changed... a lot.

Companies then went to the other extreme. As technology let them do it, graphics became more realistic... though realistic doesn't mean more beautiful.
And that gave us another kind of game: the super serious and mature.
Today I find myself trapped in a nice scenario I'd like to be jumping around, just doing some semi-automatic gameplay, to then be subjected to another one of many, many cutscenes for a way, way long story, that tries to be so serious, mature and adult...
How I miss the old days... Simple story, gameplay being important, platforming like it should be, beautiful simple graphics, everything fun, everything nice to look at, good music, a lot of content left to our imaginations...

Today it seems to be a kind of retro fever around, but it's still not what I lawn for.
Every time I play a new 2D game I find it like a wasted opportunity again.
It's like... "Hey, let's make a game about a soldier in a war!", "OK, but let's make the soldier be a raccoon who swears a lot and put a lot of humor!"... or "Hey, let's make a homage to that old game we liked as kids", "OK, but let the music be composed by an amateur so it doesn't recapture that old magic and insert some odd humour around"... or "Hey, let's make a 2D platformer", "OK, but it must be something edgy, like a peace of meat jumping and trying to rescue a meat princess", or "Hey, let's make a new game for that saga that was successful in the 90's!", "OK, but let it have 2,5D graphics so the gameplay that used to be excellent now becomes a mess".

Remember that times when it was so simple, that you saw the title screen, press start and the game began, with a warrior waging an axe to gargoyles and dragons, or some war in a jungle while you jumped platforms, or anything you like to remember? And of course, always with that beautiful music in the background.

Which brings me to another issue. Today everything is orchestrated and generic if it's in 3D, or amateurish and generic if it's in 2D.
We don't listen very often tunes like the ones from the Soul Calibur saga in orchestrated soundtracks, or La Mulana soundtrack in 2D games.
The vast majority is generic and boring.
I know not everyone can hire Jake Kaufman, but at least try.
I mean, a lot of YouTube composers could recapture in a better way the magic of 8/16-bits tunes! If you are making a game, at least put some effort and listen to old soundtracks, and if you can't create something good, at least let yourself be "inspired" by those (I mean: copy-paste chord progressions and insert some melody).

Of course, there are today good examples of good looking games with good music and fun gameplay. La Mulana, Cave Story, the Touhou and RosenkreuzStillette games, the new Megaman games (that will no longer be released). But almost everything is boring, and still, today's good examples are not good as they used to be. Just look at NES and SNES catalogues and compare...

And there's another option lately. Studios that want to be original, when it seems everything is to make something cartoonish, irreverent and edgy, or adult and super serious and mature "games" that are more like an interactive movie, or washed up wannabes, now studios that want to go another route they opt to become "so artsy", and they make games that I also find so boring. Everything so mysterious, moody and dark, and psychological, like a thriller, but everything with a pretentious (but shallow) art design, so everyone can agree on "how high art this new game is" and "how it makes you think" and so on. Like all that artsy short games coming out so often lately. If I want to think I will read a book.
I think that if they want to make something artistic, they better go the route of Eternal Sonata. Yeah, apart from the art part of that game, it's pretty much like many other good JRPG's, but that's the point. Ni No Kuni is a good example of a game that wants to be traditional and high art at the same time.
Why should they always try to be more original and more extreme, and to bring something new to the world?

We should have more Megaman 9, Contra: Rebirth or Cave Story and less of the other games that come out in groups of hundreds.

We should have more Ni No Kuni and less generic RPG's with "cool" teenager stereotypes.

We should have more Okami or Twilight Princess and less hack'n slash clones, more platforming and less of everything else. More beautiful soundtracks and less generic music.

Sorry again for the long post.

[Abnormal Freak]

What games recently have potty-mouthed animals? I'm genuinely curious because I personally haven't seen any but maybe they exist. Actually, I haven't seen much of anything come out of the "cartoony creature" camp. That was something mostly seen during the 16-bit and PSX/N64 eras. It's actually something I miss: the cartoony animal platformer genre.

Conker is the only cutesy character I know to have really pushed the envelope but that game is over ten years old. There was some "bad teddy bear" game or something that looked dumb and I never followed up with it.

As for Banjo-Kazooie, to me it IS a perfect game. The cast and slightly off-color humor helped to set it apart from other platformers of the day. Granted, Rare did kind of take the silliness to excess at times, something that Tim Stamper didn't do during the apex of his directing career (DKC series and DKR). And I miss the Stamper bros' touch, I really, really do.

I'm with ya on the distaste for super serious games. I like some from time to time, but what I don't care for is trying to bring "realism" into games, getting rid of the fantastic. Thief: The Dark Project is one of my top-ten favorite games and very serious and cinematic, but it had great elements of fantasy to it. And despite being very story-driven, it didn't subject you to game-interrupting cutscenes; you'd overhear characters speaking while hiding in the shadows and would get other details through reading scrolls you find. Cutscenes were mostly reserved for between missions, and they were done in a wholly unique digital painting style that really pulls the player in.

As for the criticism of Super Meat Boy, judging by Indie Game: The Movie, I don't think the character creator made him to be edgy. He explained that SMB is a frail being of meat who's exposed to the ugliness of the world, and his girlfriend is made of or wrapped in bandages and so he needs her comforting, healing touch to complement him. I think it's a cool concept--and yeah, it opens the door for SMB to be ripped to shreds by sawblades. :p But Super Mario World had gigantic sawblades too, just here you see a more violent presentation of what happens when you touch one.

Just some thoughts. I's at work and on a phone. Difficult to reply to points on a small screen. WILL RETURN.

[Pfil]

It was just a general thought of the recent decade.
It's been a long time since the last game that reminded me of Tiny Toon, for example.

Recent 3D Mario games (Galaxy 1 and 2) were wonderful on their own right, and they didn't need to be edgy or irreverent, neither they were overly childish so young adults couldn't enjoy them. I'm 23 and I liked them, people older than me liked them, and people younger than me liked them.

But see what I've been playing lately, naming just a few games I remember now.

The Path, tries to be psychological and artsy implementing something new.
Braid, also psychological, 2D but so mature, should have been more fun if just plain platforming.
Maldita Castilla, very good gameplay, but music left much to desire.
Super Meat Boy, just what I said. I can't like it.
A walk in the dark, also artsy wannabe and psychological and moody.
Lone Survivor, another good example of the same.
Grotesque Tactics, tries to insert irreverent humour, thus ruining what could have had nice aesthetic.

Plus, all the hack'n slash clones with generic soundtracks, levels and gameplay.

And of course, the other option, the "oh so serious and mature" games. Like many 3D games with "deep storylines".

Not to mention I didn't like any of these games' soundtracks.

I've had some redeeming games in the middle of all this (Cave Story, La Mulana, Touhou, Sonic 4, Megaman 9 and 10, Contra: Rebirth, some RPG's... though most of them feel also generic), but it's become less and less often that I can play and actually enjoy a game, its gameplay, its look and its music. It's like I always have to choose: this gameplay isn't bad, this game doesn't look bad, this particular tune is not that bad, or this is pretty fun to play, but never two or three of that together, and of course never all of that.
And I can't remember the last time I really liked a new IP. I've had some "meh, it's not that bad". But really like it? I don't know when was the last time...

Konami's Maze of Galious - World 1

Just look at that. So simple...
So nice... the look, the music...
So fun the gameplay...
How I miss this... and to think when I was playing this, industry was already changing, because I played it when it was already old.

[Lilfut]

The thing I miss most from my gaming childhood (raised on the PSX and N64) is the collectathon platformer. Yes DK64 was a clusterfuck, but Spyro got it so right!

[Pfil]

What bothers me the most is that elements are given for us to have excellent games like we did back in the day, but that companies just refuse to make them, in order to opt for one of few modern pre established routes they can take.
I wish we had more Megaman 9, Sonic 4 or Contra Rebirth.

[VladCT]

I personally wouldn't mind a combination of classic and modern, provided it was done decently. I mean, I liked Hard Corps: Uprising.

[Pfil]

I liked Hard Corps: Uprising too.
But games like that are so few...