“The original NES hardware literally only had around 55 colors that were pre-programmed in and no other color was allowed,” Wozniak explained. “We broke this rule by adding 5 colors to help with a few things the NES palette lacked—namely, darker and desaturated colors. But we justified that decision by treating it as compensation for the fact that everyone is playing these games on much brighter, higher fidelity screens than the CRTs of the past.”
This is a great example of how some retro-style projects get it and some don’t. The successful projects are the one that have the feel of the games you used to play in the context of today’s gaming, not the ones that do a historically accurate, 1:1 conversion. There’s an art to it.
This is a whistful nostalgia cherry-picking perspective.
The NES had a metric buttload of games that sucked and were obvious lousy branding tie-ins. Mostly crappy side-scrollers with bad controls and questionable relation to the source material. Back to the Future 2+3, Blues Brothers, the 7up Spot, Yo Noid, and IIRC, California Raisins games are a few I can think of off hand.
There was a lot of clear repurposing of game architecture constantly on the NES - Even Mario 2 was a clone and repackage of another game.
I wanted to comment on this earlier but I thought people would think I’m crazy if I started talking about Blues Brothers out of nowhere.
I think the original point stands regardless. It was just that much easier to create something new back in the day because everything was unexplored. People were happy to play a video game at all, with that game being good at all being kinda secondary. Most of them were pretty hard and you didn’t know if it was fair or not yet. I had a blast playing Blues Brothers (on cousins Amiga I think), mostly because you got to play as guys from Blues Brothers and those guys were so cool, dude. Yeah, it sucks now but that’s fine. It did something new for people then.
The problem is we wanted this to go on forever and by now it’s very much figured out as a business which was driving it so far. Most interesting things now happen outside of what big publishers do so at a smaller scale and harder to find too. Valve/Steam is keeping half of that industry alive (or keeping it at their mercy) with their content exploration capabilities but you have to swim through a lot of junk just like before, just not overwhelming amounts.
I don’t disagree with the sentiment overall, and of course branding tie-ins were all about the names and not about the game. There’s no reason to build a game from the ground up in terms of gameplay when you’re leveraging IP. MegaMan is the perfect example of this. Six(!) NES games, even one IIRC after MegaMan X for the SNES was released, that were all little more than slight upgrades to the same gameplay of the original. The game was the brand, so you do just enough to give it some variation, and you’re good.
The counterfactual for this is arcade games ported to NES, which were often much more tied to their IP. TMNT 2 is a port of an arcade game released a few weeks after the TMNT 1 NES game, and look at which of those have the same look and feel of the show. The Simpsons games - same thing. Arcade titles needed to be instantly recognizable as a way to throw money at IP. NES titles did not because once you bought the game, you’ve committed to the IP tie in. Disney did a better job with matching NES gameay and IP, but thats because of their own standards.
Personally, I wouldn’t call too much of that innovation or creativity, as it’s cosmetic. Some, absolutely, bit not much. Very few companies went in for unlicensed cart manufacturing because of the capital needed. Wisdom Tree, the first company to work out how to get unlicenced carts to work, only made 13 games intended for a niche religious market, and their only SNES title was a reskin of Wolfenstein 3D. Sports games like RBI Baseball saw some of the best success because the requirements of NES licensing meant an approved UI bottleneck, which is where going from sports to NES had such a wide array of options possible.
I dunno about “everything” being a new idea. There definitely were some, but there were a lot of clones of other games and genres being beaten to death just like now.
Mario-style platformer? Side-scrolling beat-em-up? Couldn’t count them all.
That’s the problem with many modern AAA games. They lack innovation. Since they only look to maximize profits, they stick to reliable formulas that are known to be profitable.
This is the reason why I only play indies nowadays. How many AAA studios have new ideas? Sure, we see, every now and then, a new game that really feels new, but they are rare. Meanwhile, the indie sphere cooks new things constantly. Sure, not all are pretty or good or polished, but at least they try new things!
I hate that people use “AAA” for this argument, because nobody knows what the hell “AAA” means anymore. It’s the “woke” of complaining about games.
For what it’s worth, you’re not wrong that there is a subset of studios, big and small, that tend to think the recipe for recouping their risky investment on a creative product is doing something that is already successful in the exact way it’s already successful. Which is consistently a problem, because the successful thing already exists and people are already playing it, so there isn’t much incentive to go play the same thing again elsewhere, especially if twenty different identical games just sprouted up like weeds.
But that’s not a “AAA” thing. For sure it’s near-universal in the GaaS sphere where everybody is trying to tap into the same blob of users, but there are plenty of interesting, unique ideas in very large games and plenty of derivative small games. How many iterations of Meat Boys and Hollow Knights and “2D Dark Souls” have you played in the last decade? Because I’m pretty sure I can’t count them with my fingers anymore.
For the record, an AAA game is a game with a big budget from a big studio. I think everyone can agree that an Assassin’s Creed is an AAA game while shovel knight isn’t.
Sure, but definitions aren’t good when they cover the obvious use case, they’re useful if they aren’t messy or meaningless around the edges.
You may have a set definition for where those edges are, but I’ve also seen people argue that Baldur’s Gate III isn’t a “AAA” game even though it’s a game with a nine digit budget from a studio staffed by many hundreds of people using a license from a major corporation.
For many people online, “AAA” means “A big game I don’t like” and their read on “AAA studios” is restricted to whichever of Ubisoft, Activision or EA is popular to dunk on that week, ignoring all the studios making big games that don’t fit the couple of game concepts they associate with the term.
Well, you are assuming a lot of things I haven’t said there.
First of all, I said that in the AAA world, original games are rare. They exist, but they are rare. And there’s a reason: an AAA game is made by a company that has a stakeholders board deciding what has to be done and what not (which is the reason why people say BG3 is not an AAA game but an indie). Since those boards want their money and only that, they don’t care about innovation or anything else.
This doesn’t mean that AAA companies don’t make original games, it only means that they rarely experiment and tend to focus on already succesful formulas.
Second, I never said that AAA games are just “big games I don’t like”. As I said, sometimes they do good games. But seriously, how many times have you seen an AAA company take a serious risk in what they do?
Also, I don’t think it’s just the usual three. I think GTA is doing the same. What are they gonna do with 6? Just GTA V but bigger. That’s exactly what I mean when I say that they don’t innovate.
I’m not assuming anything you said or meant, I’m talking about the term in general, regardless of how you speficially are using it.
Even if you were super rigorous about it, the term is now meaningless because it’s routinely misused (again, the “woke” of complaining about games).
But I don’t think you’re being super rigorous about it, either. I guarantee that Larian has a board, despite being a private company. They have six different studios at this point, someone is managing that investment. Also that Hasbro and WotC had at least some say about the content, even if they were smart enough to sit back and let Larian cook.
Larian is privately owned, which does mean their obligations to their investors are different than to public shareholders. But that’s not how you (or anybody else) is defining AAA.
So in terms of examples of AAA companies taking risks the struggle becomes that I don’t know what you mean by AAA and I don’t know what you mean by “taking a risk”.
Do I think Activision took a risk by shipping Call of Duty without a campaign? Sure. Do I think it’s a particularly interesting or creative risk? Probably not.
Do I think Larian took a risk putting their AAA franchise sequel on Early Access for two years and barely talking to people about it for that long? Absolutely, holy crap. Do I think they took a ton of risks with the game proper? No, it’s pretty much a Divinity sequel with a D&D license and a big budget.
Do I think Naughty Dog took risks with The Last of Us 2? Narratively, for sure. That game is the Metal Gear Solid 2 of that franchise. Gameplay-wise less so.
Do I think Sony took a risk making a AAA Astro Bot? Meh, we could debate that, but it’s certainly a AAA-ass game that succeeded, I think that’s undeniable.
Do I think Capcom takes risks with its AAA games? Well, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is an alien artifact and Kunitsu-Gami is even weirder than that. I don’t think Okami is as much of a risk, or Monster Hunter.
Do I think Ubisoft takes risks? Well, they shipped not one but two 2D Prince of Persia games, including a roguelike from some of the Dead Cells people. You know it was a risk because they both failed. Were they AAA? I don’t know. They’re Ubisoft games, though.
So see, I don’t know what you mean by “AAA studios don’t innovate” or “don’t take risks”. I don’t know what you mean by “innovate” and I don’t know what you mean by “AAA”. Not all of that is your fault, other people ruined those terms for you, but by using them as if they made sense you make it so I can’t give you the benefit of the doubt or assume I know what you mean.
“Woke”.
Shovel Knight brought with it a ton of new ideas in terms of gameplay, but a lot was borrowed as well.
To be fair, it was like that in the actual NES era too.
Unless you’re an actual enthusiast, there are TONS of NES games that you’ve never heard of, that inspired the gameplay of other games.
Then there’s the games that were japan only, never got an outside release. But then a later game that DOES get an outside release uses elements from those games. From out perspective, that 2nd game invented that formula. You find out years later it wasn’t.
That’s how all art is.
Yes well, even though I was raised by artists and have given over a large portion of my life’s energy to creative pursuits, nobody actually told me that art is the study of choice (and everything started clicking into place) until about a year ago and I’ve been riding that high ever since.
One of the great things about art, no matter the medium, is you can always learn something new.
Keep riding that high, that’s really cool.
Gonna get lynched for admitting to this here, but I’ve stayed away from Shovel Knight because of how premium they take themselves to be. I have gotten Hollow Knight and plenty of other Castlevanias on discount, though, even though I’m not a fan of the genre. I think this statement coming from them is a bit ironic consider how they treat their product, although they aren’t the only one.
Game bad because no sales is a weird take. Not really sure why you’re ascribing a “holier than thou” attitude to Yacht Club Games because I don’t really see it but different perspectives I guess. I’d argue comparing anything to Hollow Knight will make it come up short. That game is a masterpiece and it still only costs $15. You should try Shovel Knight. It’s not really a Metroidvania so the comparisons to Hollow Knight and Castlevania isn’t wholly accurate. If you don’t like it you could refund it. Disagreements aside, Silk Song looks like it’s going to be fire when it finally releases, but it’s been so long I’m not going to keep the hype up anymore Happy gaming, homie
I’m SO confused by what you’re saying. And I think what is happening, is you’re saying something so outragous that my brain REFUSES to process the information. Leaving me bewildered by recent developments.
Let me get this straight…you think that the studio behind shovel knight doesn’t deserve to state their opinion on how to mske good retro games??? And this is based on the fact that they don’t discount their games, and they take the genre too seriously…just to make sure I understand you. That’s what you’re going with?
I mean, we can wait for them to clarify, but the way I read it is that… it’s bad that they don’t sell their game for cheaper?
I profoundly disagree there, too. There’s this notion that pixel art games are inherently low-end, cheap stuff and that’s just not true. Plus games are too cheap these days anyway. I bought Shovel Knight full price (several times, actually), and while it’s not my favorite 2D platformer it always felt like good value. I mean, the soundtrack alone is worth the price of admission, and all the expansions are fun and worth playing. Even if they weren’t, the franchise now includes more interesting games I am glad their success was able to fund.
I agree with the sentiment. People think that non 3d graphics should be cheap because they don’t understand the amount of work that can go behind them.
Take chained echoes or sea of stars, two modern pixel jrpgs with “premium” prices. If someone thinks those games shouldn’t cost their full price, they are out of their minds.
Same with shovel knight. I bought the treasure trove and the amount of fun it has give to me puts so many 80€ games to shame.
Shovel Knight is flipping huge. I mean, sure, Treasure Trove includes what? Five full games in there, given their DLC structure. But even if it didn’t, I don’t think people realize how big these “retro games” are.
Shovel Knight is probably three, four times larger than Duck Tales, both in terms of assets and playtime. If anything, a pet peeve of mine with modern retro games is they all feel this compulsion to give you a five hour playthrough at least and that’s often too much for the older mechanics they’re leaning on.
Castlevania will last you an hour on a blind run and that’s perfectly fine, even if you get to that bar by having more content instead of being obtuse and difficult the way an older game would due to memory and budget constraints.
