Tales from the Vault: Will it Play?
I haven’t been blogging as much as I should. Why? School! School saps out all the time one has for video games, even when one is caught up. That being said, I’m digging back into the history of the Vault with a few more observances about it.
Remember this? Remember screaming at your TV?
The biggest thing the hubby and I get from people who aren’t gamers is why we don’t sell it off. Surely it’s worth a lot of money, right? Well, yes, it is. It’s worth quite a bit of money, but only if people want to buy it. Despite what our esteemed president says, we’re still in a recession, and people aren’t working and therefore don’t have the kind of disposable income to really dedicate the classic gaming. At most, people tend to have only a couple of older systems other than stuff that’s been in storage for years. The modern gamer is going to look at a mint condition ColecoVision and scoff at it. So that being said, no one would want to buy it even if we did want to get rid of it.
This leads to another observance, something that rather irks me about gaming today. Too many people are all about “ZOMG GRAPHICS BWAR” and not enough about how well the game plays. Here’s an example: TRON Evolution. It’s pretty. It’s also pretty crappy. The same with the Avatar game for PS3 (which I actually did like despite the crap controls). Final Fantasy XIII was gorgeous, but tell me, where was the gaming experience? You press a button, maybe pick one attack. Wee. Compare it to Final Fantasy VI and tell me which one had more in-depth gaming.
The fact remains is that the games coming out today that have the best game-play are the ones that are either built in a retro style or were started with the game mechanics as the primary factor. Super Meat Boy isn’t a lot to look at visually, but wow if it isn’t really fun (and frustratingly hard). Portal 2 is forthcoming, and while it definitely looks gorgeous, the developers have been very solid in their approach to how the mechanics 
work. Yay, it’s pretty, but is it fun? Sure looks that way. Thankfully, there seems to be enough of an approach by developers to the interactivity and immersion involved in how the game plays that we’re seeing more fun and less crap… in general.
Final Fantasy II iOS
Let’s take a look at the new surge in retro gaming. I mentioned Super Meat Boy earlier. Many iOS games can be considered retro-style games: low on the graphical end, but high on the mechanics. Look at Angry Birds. It’s very simplistic in its graphics and play, but the challenge factor has certainly addicted a number of the population of mobile gamers. Even my husband’s aunt, who is by no means a gamer, loves it! She’s the one I heard about it from. Many updated versions of older games are on the smart phones as well. I’m playing Final Fantasy II, a NES/Famicon title (though this is the updated 32-bit graphic version) and Vay, a Sega CD game. Let’s not also forget about the numerous sprite-based games still on the Nintendo DS and PSP, all games that are a little under what these systems can handle, but no less fun.
Yep, I've got one.
Now we rewind to head back to my original point. Given the turn the market is making towards retro games and bringing back classics and the like, why won’t people just go back and buy the original games and systems? In some cases, their TVs can’t handle things that are really old. For example, my Odyssey 2 system won’t run on a modern TV without a special adapter. I also thinkthere’s a stigma surrounding old systems and old games. They’re just that: old. But aren’t these the same games being re-released? Well, yes, but now they’re updated an “new”. It’s all in the mentality of the modern gamer.
As someone who regularly hooks up the old systems, I can tell you that I quite likely will never get rid of my SNES or Turbo-Duo. I love playing Super Metroid and Dracula-X and Crazy Taxi. I can’t go a year without having my Christmas NiGHTs on the Sega Saturn every holiday season, even if I don’t celebrate Christmas anymore. Sometimes, I need my Kid Icarus (which I still hum along with the music when I play). Yeah, there’s emulators, but can those emulators give you the feeling you had as a kid when you held that controller in your hand, sat on the floor, and played video games until your eyes hurt? Probably not. Don’t forget the roots of your games, kiddos. Go back and show that NES some love and make sure your new games can stand the same test of time the old ones do, too.
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