Comments on: Nostalgia and Crash Bandicoot

By: duckofindeed

duckofindeed — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 02:45:07 +0000

I’ve never played any of the Crash games, but they sound quite interesting indeed (especially since they were made by Naughty Dog). Games did have a different feel back then, but I’m not sure what it is. Many games just feel lazy nowadays. They feel emptier. One reason could be how short they are, even when the cost keeps going up (I just read your Duration and Value post). Or series try to be too different from their past games, like how the gameplay of Final Fantasy has changed since Final Fantasy XII came out, and we stopped having control of our characters in battles. Fresh and new is good, but getting rid of concepts that worked in the past is not a good idea.

LikeLike

By: veryverygaming

veryverygaming — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 09:18:27 +0000

Consistency, indeed. Good Q about Sonic 4, I haven’t tried it either so I’m not sure. As a throwback you’d hope they went the whole hog, so to speak…

LikeLiked by 1 person

By: Hatm0nster

Hatm0nster — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 01:50:16 +0000

t…Come to think of it, I don’t think I ever questioned Mario 64 either. Like you said it didn’t need exposition to explain what was going on, that was just the way that world worked. Mario accepted it, the Toads accepted it, Bowser accepted it, so I accepted it too. The rules were clearly established and were consistent; that’s all that’s really necessary in any game come to think of it.

On the topic of Sonic, has that been consistent with every newer Sonic game? I wonder if they tried explaining everything in Sonic 4 (never played it)

LikeLike

By: veryverygaming

veryverygaming — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 15:49:20 +0000

Great piece. I like that idea about nostalgia – that it blinds us to the positives as much as it does the faults of old games. I also think it’s easy to be suspicious of nostalgia: “well, I thought it was good at the time but I probably wouldn’t like it anymor-holy crap this is amazing!”. I’ve had that happen several times lately :D

I also completely agree that an unhinged premise and lack of exposition is a trademark feature of many older games which you don’t come across too often these days. It’s my long-standing complaint about the incessant exposition in Sonic Team’s recent games. As if anyone honestly cares about Sonic’s motives, why he has to go here, or there – just no! I just want to go to the level and do the running and jumping, not get bogged down in discussing the whys and wheres with the characters.

I had a rant about this in Sonic Team games a while ago on my blog: https://veryverygaming.wordpress.com/2014/07/19/nights-journey-of-dreams-wii/

And speaking of old games with odd premises, I don’t think I even once questioned why it is Mario in Super Mario 64 has to enter a painting to reach the game levels. Why does Peach have all those paintings that do that? *shrugs*

Kids have it in them to just accept things. As a child (and a lot of times as an adult too) the real world seems utterly nonsensical, so I think it’s easy for kids to go along with fantasy scenarios and not have to explain them. (Where did the Pokemon come from, anyway…?)

LikeLiked by 1 person