| oniyide said: You guys could keep your overpriced nostalgic games with new coats of paint and that adds nothing new to the genre. I'll play my cheap budgetware games on the WiiWare & PSN, at least they are trying to do different things |
If you're talking about games like Braid, that's more 'being puzzlish and artsy' than adding something new. Not to discredit those games, they have their place, but I'm getting tired of people lifting them up above the big ones.
What you're doing is basically comparing Runescape to World of Warcraft.
2D platformers probably have the most basic gameplay there is, and that is exactly their appeal. When I was a kid, and thought of 'game' I thought of 2D platformers before anything else, becasue they are among the purest form of game there is. This is why games like Limbo and Braid fail to get the followings of giants like Mario and DK, they move away from game purity.(and the ones doing well on dowloadable services, like Super Meat boy, are mostly pure games)
When playing 2D platformers the fun comes from the levels, from surviving what they throw at you, and how you interatct with them, and finnally emerging victorious from your struggles, not from solving elaborate puzzles, watching a clever cutscene in the end and then having the privilege of reading incomphrehensible confusing texts that even the creator can't give an explanation to, like Braid. (Although I do admit that puzzles have their appeal, and this is why I keep saying that Braid is a puzzle game first, and platformer distant second)
Of course, if you like the kind of games that are 'doing something different', then that's fine, everyone has his own taste, but everytime I see you post about this subject, you seem so convinced that that approach is the healthy and appropriate approach to platformers, when in reality, people would flee the genre if most games were like that.
What makes a good platformer is a good challenge, solid, finely tuned gameplay mechanics, and good design of the challenges in the levels, not gimmicks like time control or explosion attacks. It may look basic, but it's actually very hard to do judging from the neverending list of bad platformers made in the past.
And what games do these things the best? Why it's the 'overpriced nostalgic games with new coats of paint and that adds nothing new to the genre' type of game of course! These games, by the way are no more 'new coats of paint nostalgia games' than Halo 3 is, which is one of the most fun shooters I have ever played in my life.
What you see as new and fresh platformers, most people view as niche and quirky. You simply have a taste for more niche games. Nothing wrong with it, but stop claiming their superiority over the genre staples, please.
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