I always felt the original Legend of Zelda was very overrated. It was good when it released, but after newer Zelda games (Zelda 2 was better, and Zelda 3 was even better) were released, we already had an improved game. The original Zelda has terrible balancing and very poor pacing - and LOTS of crap that forces the player to waste time.

It's not that NES titles are all bad, but the older ones were generally tolerated because better ones didn't exist yet.

Super Mario Bros 3, Dragon Warrior 4, Castlevania 3, RCR, RC-Pro Am 2, Kirby's Adventure etc... Are all WAY better games than the earlier NES titles.

I have enjoyed reading this thread and loved the games of old.

I think there are people out there listening to our demands for old school fun - Fez is imo a spectacular example of how a modern classic can be made while managing to retain some of the magic and soul of the 8 bit era.

For the record, I see no reason why Nintendo couldn't release some retro stuff. I just doubt they will 'cos they're stubborn and have a habit of not doing things I wish they'd do.

In balance, sometimes you play a game you loved as a kid and think "how did I EVER have the patience for this?" - while losing lives repeatedly.

Something us retroheads often forget - A big part of what made the NES era so great was the fact that those old, simple, limited graphics forced you to use a certain amount of imagination while playing, and guess what, you had a child's imagination back then... so of course games seemed better - in many ways they were.

I liken the difference between NES era and modern games to the comparison of reading vs tv. You know the former is superior as an art form, but takes imagination while the latter spoon feeds you images which do not need extra creativity from you. What you are being spoon fed in today's games is unlikely to be the efforts of a creative group of eccentric programmers and more likely to be a polished turd recently excreted from the combined anus of a marketing focus group.

Food for thought.

we should all go back to riding horses and buggies instead of cars.

The few that remember these old days are no longer the largest market.

I for one dont want to go back. You cant. It wont be the same. Video games were still new and so was its audience.

I wouldn't consider old games to new games are as reading is to TV; largely because it makes no logical sense - Each Zelda, up until Ocarina of TIme, has more reading in it than the last Zelda. So by the logic, Ocarina of Time has more in common with a book than the Legend of Zelda, and is therefore considered a superior art form; but at the same time, it also has a better visual appeal, and it also takes objects previously represented in 2D, and allows interaction in 3D.

With the original Zelda game, it is not that the game really has a steadily increasing difficulty, you can get through most of the game relatively easily; it is just once in a while, starting in the 3rd dungeon, they throw a room in that is just so ridiculously difficult, that the game ceases to be any fun - each time you die, you have to adventure back to the fairy grotto to refill your hearts, because you'll need that beam sword to even have a chance. After that one room, the rest of the dungeon, and the entirety of the next dungeon is trivially easy in comparison... until you get to another similarly ridiculous area. Zelda 2 has a similar portion in Death Mountain close to the beginning of the game, but it is NOT NEARLY as difficult as any of those parts in Zelda 1.

Link to the Past and Ocarina of TIme do not have these balancing problems; even Super Mario 3 didn't have these, while it did have some ridiculously difficult levels, you don't even see the first one of these until late in Level 6 (in the Sky where that ball and chain thing chases you - and then from there on out, it is a matter of figuring out how to get past the obstacles, and employing the skill to do so.

I don't want to take away how the original Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda were very ground breaking games at the time - but so was Pong. I will however say that Super Mario Brothers 3 is Nintendo's earliest example of what I would consider a fantastic game. I think that Super Mario 1 and Legend of Zelda are loved and remembered for being ground breaking, and that is about the only reason. Of all of Nintendo's NES games, it is Super Mario Brothers 3 that is most remembered for being an excellent game.

You have misunderstood my point. By the reading analogy, I meant that old games require more imagination due to their graphical limitations. I wasn't talking about which games feature more text.

Because most of us were children back then, it can make some retro games seem better than they actually were.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm still a retro-head. As another poster has said, games publishers were trying anything and everything back then. Today, with notable exceptions, game concepts can seem a bit formulaic in comparison. Even Japanese games are looking a lot more Westernised these days.

As an unrelated aside, I remember in the NES era, gamers and reviewers would constantly coplain that there were too many platform games. Today, there are (arguably) too many FPS games but as far as I know, very few are complaining about it.

Frankly I found Nintendo did return to it's roots with Wii. It was documented many times how Wii pulled much inspiration from NES. First off Wii emulated a lot of NES peripherals - light gun, power pad (or whatever it was called), power glove, etc.

Wii reintroduced the idea of simple, fun gameplay with games like Wii Sports and all Wii titles, Brain Age Academy and others. Most recently Rythym Heaven.

Wii had VC and WW.


Plus Wii literally went retro with Punch Out, 2D Mario, 2D Kirby (twice), 2D Metroid, 2D Donkey Kong Country. Heck you can throw in the 2D extensive story-mode in SSBB in there too. Wii Sports Resort had shades of Pilot Wings & Wave Race.

And compared to PS3/360, Wii games, and all Nintendo games are the most loyal to the gameplay that made NES classics great. Everyone else is more concerned with making playable movies these days where cinematics thrump sheer gameplay - Not Nintendo.

Really want more do you want? 8-bit games like Mega-man 9? Wii had quite a few of those on WW too.

There were plenty of awesome games throughout every gen, but the way things are going seems to be in a bad direction. less companies making money only trying to put out the same types of games in already popular genres cuase they are so scared to lose money. Focus on multiplayer and the dying out of awesome single player experiences.

Some retro games were awesome but others were a total waste of my allowance I had saved up for months to buy. The NES gen was when I would constantly be let down by games. I remember buying a Godzilla game, Top Gun other just terrible games. Take off the nostalgia glasses

Your post seems kind of abrasive, it was really just to stimulate talk...

Like winston000smith said, games nowadays can seem a little formulaic, and even revivals such as NSMB and DKCR aren't exempt from that. What I was trying to describe in OP was the idea that, since tech was not as advanced back then, there was this need to express the most with little.

Apart from that, the different time in history and civilisation gave a different expression (imho), which can even be seen in games. What that gave us were more whimsical songs, more open exploration. There was also this sense of challenge and fear of the final or mini-boss. The smokey colors of Mario in SMB, the artwork in Metroid I and LoZ led to some of the most loved protagonists in gaming, all from the same era.

I understand that the Wii imitated the NES from a merchandising point of view, but I was asking it in light of new creations (IPs), revivals, and new installments of older franchises, from a game-making PoV.

Making a game 2D does not address the questions I posed in OP. In OP, I made it clear what I was asking, about the themes, the colors, the music. Yes, I do want more 8-bit games like MM9, I enjoy them. But I was mostly talking about Nintendo's 1st party offerings, be they 2D or 3D.

@dj2one. I wasn't talking about the crappy games, and I understand there are good games in every generation. I was specifically talking about what Nintendo mostly and 3rd parties gave us during the NES days, and what were the qualities of those games that I wish could be seen again. I'm not saying yesterday is all that's good and today is all bad, but I'm talking about a value that existed yesterday that in my eyes is extinct and I wish would return, to a certain degree. At least, for franchises like Zelda, Castlevanie 3D or Ninja Gaiden for example.

I don't have my 14" mono sound crt tv anymore so I wouldn't mind some kind of modernization.
Games like Space invaders infinity gene, Pixeljunk sidescroller, 3D dot game heroes etc do plenty for my retro appetite. And games like Rayman Origins prove retro game play works perfectly well in HD without the limitations and annoyances of old. (especially the lives system, Nintendo please stop using it)

Nostalgia is a powerful thing, but only works if you have played and loved the originals. Never having played the series, Mega man 9 did nothing for me.

I didn't read the whole thread, but my take is that games fulfil me just as much now as they did then. The difference is that they do it in completely different ways. Mario Galaxy, for instance, is a brilliant game that I absolutely adore, but it fulfils my gaming desires in a different way than Mario 3. So, while I'd certainly like to see retro gaming sensibilities come back, I wouldn't necessarily want it to be at the expense of everything the industry has learned over the years.