@LastoftheDinosaurs There are filters for emulators called "Shaders" which can make games look close to a CRT look and feel. I use RetroArch to emulate games, which has first class support for such Shaders for use with any supported emulator core. If you want, have a look at what is possible with an article I wrote a while back, which has sliders to see a before and after effect: https://thingsiplay.game.blog/2022/03/08/crt-shader-showcase-for-retroarch/
Here a screenshot without and with my favorite Shader called "Royale" and a variant of the Shader that simulates even more characteristics, "Royale NTSC SVideo" :
It's impressive how much of a difference those CRT shaders make, and it explains why I often remember games looking better than they do when I try to replay them now.
This is the key, yeah. It's not that you can't find new games that are good and fun, but it takes a while before there are enough reviews to know if Game X is a smartly designed game or absolute trash.
Meanwhile multiple people have spent the last several decades analyzing literally every game released for NES/SNES/Genesis/etc. and most games are available on multiple platforms for super cheap.
It turns out that, just like fancy graphics, not constantly trying to empty your customers pockets actually represents some kind of economic value. The ironic thing is so many of these old games were literally designed to steal your quarters.
I’ve never liked the argument that graphics aren’t important in a visual medium. I also find there is a strange overlap of folks that excuse Nintendo’s visuals as “prioritizing the gameplay and art” while also decrying anyone playing sub-1440p @144fps and ultra settings as basically wasting their time.
So no, I don’t think it’s appropriate to equate prioritizing visuals to predatory gambling-like practices that attempt to make the audience into an army of addicts.
Sorry it wasn’t clear. I’m saying that the monetization stuff is so bad, that young people who would otherwise be put off by the retro graphics in a lot of these games, are willing to look past them.
That makes sense! Sorry for jumping on you there. Lately just gotten a little tired of how much people say graphics don’t matter when it’s a cornerstone of a video game. I like big, bad visuals. The opening to final fantasy 8 for instance still takes my breath away as much as it did when it came out because I can remember how revolutionary the visuals were.
I totally get you’re not saying that now, just musing lol
Well, only the arcade versions of games were designed to steal your quarters. The home console versions were much better about not harassing your wallet.
For instance, Gauntlet Legends on its arcade cabinet hardware drained your health at a consistent time based rate. Add more quarters to gain more health. All home console versions abolished this health drain mechanic.
That’s mostly true, except for games made specifically harder so that you’d have to rent them multiple times (eg: ActRaiser 2 NTSC-U/C / SNES is much harder than its NTSC-J / SFC counterpart).
There was definitely the occasional tom-foolery with publishers and designers here and there but it was also generally never at the expense of game play.
Probably some games did after the home rental market got started, but a lot of older games were difficult specifically to extend the experience. Cartridge storage was small, so if it was too easy you’d get through all 10 levels in less than a day and then feel like you hadn’t got very much for your money.
Well I guess I am just wondering how more rentals from a video store would benefit the developers financially? I mean I’m sure I could research but surely game studios didn’t get any kind of percentage from the rental places based on how many times a title was rented right?
They didn’t want you to rent it multiple times. They wanted you to rent it once, be unable to beat it, but be intrigued enough that you purchased the game from a store. If you could play and beat a game in a single rental, there was little incentive to buy it (so the developers thought, and I imagine had some data to back it up).
The game companies also wanted gamers to call their hotline if they get stuck, where they would charge by the minute to give tips (and they weren’t known for their brief calls).
But is making a game harder to discourage rental and encourge purchasing stealing your quarters? Id argue no. You still get value if you renting the game, and the idea of rentals is really that if you like it then you pay to own it.
A few things I have observed over the years you might want to check. Take a flashlight or something and look at the actual contacts in the port and see if they are bent. Sometimes the old cheap 4 in one carts have poorly made PCBs what arent beveled correctly or are too thick and squish the pins and they no longer make good contact. It looks like an official one in the pic but unless you have had this since new who knows what someone threw in here. see here for some more info on that
Also these backup carts do just sometimes go bad though I don’t know if I have ever seen an official one go bad but buying a new one to test may help with that as they aren’t that expensive. They also usually have lots of built in features like an action replay and acting as an extended ram cart. Just make sure to try and check that the pcb is made correctly with that link above
I remember playing Doom for the first time and I remember thinking that graphics would never get any better than that. Like the arm even moves when he walks!
I remember getting deep into that game, trying to make my own levels with megs of RAM and having things crash. Changing all the sprites on some of the mobs, recording my own sounds and replacing various noises in the game. I learned how to strafe using 100& keyboard (couldn’t look up or down in that game), and dominating the evil. Good time to be a teenager. I still think some of the secret rooms in that game were some of the best.
I had those moments multiple times. I remember thinking the same about International Karate on the Amiga. Then my mind was blown with Street Fighter II, Max Payne was one for sure as mentioned elsewhere and let’s not forget Carmageddon, which got a little bit too realistic. Graphics technology developed so fast, you can’t compare it to today’s upgrades. As I’m older now 10 year old games still feel “new” to me.
Agreed. I used to be blown away by a game from a technical standpoint 2-3 times per console generation and at a similar clip on the PC side. Now we are getting GTA V and Skyrim re-released for the 10th time. Neither of those games were groundbreaking at the time (IMO) as they both were good but predictable progressions from their previous entries.
Playing DKC and seeing the detailed sprites, Mario 64 (and several others) ushering in 3D, the FMVs in FF VII, and the enemy AI in FEAR, these things felt like monumental leaps forward. Nowadays, the closest thing I can think of is something like Elden Ring or TotK which to me is just taking an existing good game (Dark Souls/BotW) and slapping a mechanic onto it (Open world/crafting). They are both excellent games, but neither compare to the leap forward of FF VII or Mario 64.
Maybe I’m just jaded by adulthood and have my rose tinted glasses on.
Well, 8k is in allmost all home-usecases useless, 4k a better choice. Except maybe for video walls. Eye resolution is limited by angular resolution (visual acuity).
@lobut I thought Donkey Kong Country on the SNES was photorealistic and rivaled movies like Terminator 2, which used the same technology behind the scenes. I thought every game would look the same as Donkey Kong Country in future.
grew up with c64, spectrum+3, master system, genesis, nes, snes. So when I bought a ps1 with my paper round money and started up the intro to Soul Blade, that would become Soul Calibur, the graphics jump shook me to my core and brought tears to my eyes. I was like "THIS is the peak of graphics. Nothing can beat this.
I remember Altered Beast having amazing graphics, but it was just memory goggles. I was very disappointed when I got around to firing it up in an emulator.
Not sure, aye. Cartridge slot is on the other side and it’s connected to the TV via RCA with stereo audio. hmm, I can’t think of another console that meets those prerequisites though.
It started with a good idea. Games were selling for the SNES and Genesis with 3D chips built in (and were really expensive). Like Virtua Racer (SVP chip) and Star Fox (FX chip). So why not sell the 3D chip add on separately instead of paying $100 a cartridge.
They botched the release (no 3 games at launch) and full 3D consoles were too close. The Saturn was released in the US 6 months after the 32X.
Would have been interesting if they had released it sooner or if they had released Virtua Racer or Virtua Fighter with the 32X instead of the standalone releases.
I wanted that service so bad as a kid. I terrorized my local cable company by calling every single day for months (sometimes more than once) thinking “if enough people called asking for it, they’d get it”. RIP receptionist lady.
Chrono Trigger is so far ahead of its time, it’s insane. Enemies visible on the field map, battles taking place directly on the field map, character positioning mattering immensely, multi-character attacks, incredible music that holds up today, a compelling story with something like 15 total endings (granted, it’s not like they’re ENTIRELY different from one another, there are a few major branches with a few variations each)… Most of these things would all but vanish from games for twenty-plus years. I remember when Final Fantasy 12 came out, it was lauded for having the enemies shown on the map and battles taking place on the map as well.
@PrinceHabib72 Chrono Trigger also had New Game+, which basically created the term for RPGs. I played another JRPG long before Chrono Trigger, where enemies was visible on the playfield in dungeons: the infamous Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (fantastic soundtrack BTW).
Symphony of the Night is one of the games that took the most advantage from CRTs. In them it creates an illusion of additional details. Without them it looks grainy and the gradients don't come together right.
@onichama Good game artists of that time period knew the limitation of their current technology and created the graphics with it in mind. In some games more apparent than on others. The linked image (often cited) is a good example of a game artist being aware.
The one on the left is an emulated version, and the one on the right is a photo of a CRT with a composite signal (the yellow cable that was pair with white and red audio) most common back in the 90’s. The image illustrates how the graphic designers for this game knew they were going to be displayed on a CRT that would fuzz the image and so they deliberately made Dracula’s eyes that color of red with that placement because they knew it’d get mixed to give it a more ethereal effect to look like he’s got glowing red eyes. The ruffles in his shirt are also a great example of how the CRT enhanced the look.
Tetris never really goes out of style tbf. There’s something too fundamental about it. Pong was the first truly timeless game imo, one of the very few of the arcade generation. People could still play a basic version of that and enjoy it 100 years from now, it’ll have some appeal. Tetris is the best example in that camp. It’s a masterpiece. It requires no nostalgia to appreciate, no real background or anything. Just a really simple, dopamine-escalating puzzle that is accessible to pretty much all. SMB3, Chrono Trigger or Ocarina of Time can’t say that, they all require you to be the sort of person that enjoys that sort of thing. Tetris really doesn’t, you could give it to someone that hates video games. Just mute the volume maybe.
It’ll outlive us all, in similar iterations to its current form. Most powerful thing to ever come out of Russia, hands down. Putting a man in orbit? Whatever. Fields full of tanks and a huge nuclear arsenal? Meh, fat lot of good its doing them. Atilla the Hun? Okay, could make a case there. Tetris, though… The west has never truly matched it. I think Candy Crush is the closest we’ve gotten.
Not really you. The difficulty was naturally higher, for a wide array of reasons, most of which get ignored. Inputs were poorer, the management of difficulty curves was basically lolrandom, people didn’t know how to really tutorialize yet, etc etc.
Tetris doesn’t really suffer from any of these. Either they got lucky or designed it very smartly. Prob both. It’s a masterpiece. Most retro games aren’t, even our favorites.
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