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Post by toei on Mar 10, 2018 16:49:08 GMT -5
There are two main things preventing a game like Shinobi 3 being made by today's indies:
1. They're still stuck on the damn '80s 2. SEGA and the Genesis have not had the continued presence of Nintendo's older games in modern times, so that they haven't been adopted by faux-retro types.
There's a bunch of 2D ninja-themed games on Steam - one of them even has "Shinobi" in the title - but they tend to mix stealth gameplay with vaguely Ninja Gaiden-inspired side-scrolling. Also, they like tiny sprites in huge levels, for some reason (my buddies who make indie games do too, and I cannot understand why).
Actually, I'd add a 3rd one - lack of imagination / creativity.
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Post by Sarge on Mar 10, 2018 18:09:38 GMT -5
I agree. Many games are very much a product of their time. The ninja craze, the overall aesthetics of late-'80s and early '90s... truly that was a different time.
I do suspect we're going to see something of a shift from the '80s soon, but I don't hate the '80s. A lot of stuff from the '90s just isn't looked back on with much nostalgia, I guess. I know I look at some of the fads and question folks' tastes... but then again, the '80s have some of that baggage, too.
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Post by Xeogred on Mar 10, 2018 18:17:05 GMT -5
I still replay it often. It is quite possibly the most nostalgic game of all time for me, takes me right back to being in Tennessee living on a military base playing that game and other Genesis titles at my buddies Doug and Kenny's place. I didn't even own the game until many years later, but played it all the time over there and it left an everlasting mark. Top 5 Genesis game for me easily and quite possibly my favorite OST on the system.
The only other Shinobi game I've beaten is the PS2 one, which is awesome with a killer classic SEGA soundtrack too. The others are a bit hard to get into... with how flexible and perfect Joe controls with the ability to run and double jump in Shinobi III, it's weird going back to the others that are super stiff and slow in comparison. They seem cool... but Shinobi III spoiled me greatly. I don't know if I've played Shadow Dancer though, I'll check that one out.
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Post by Sarge on Mar 10, 2018 18:24:31 GMT -5
Shadow Dancer feels more like the first game in a lot of ways. I like it more than Revenge, personally.
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Post by Ex on Mar 10, 2018 20:25:16 GMT -5
I think these ideas could all work as modern games, but they're not fashionable anymore, so no one’s interested in making them. That's a good point. It does seem like indie-platformer developers tend to ape the same few themes over and over. They're still stuck on the damn '80s One reason has to be that 8-bit styled graphics are easier/cheaper to produce than 16-bit styled graphics are. they like tiny sprites in huge levels I've noticed this also with many modern indie platformers. I assume one reason is that developers produce small graphics (like 32x32 sized tiles), without thinking ahead of time how many of those tiles it takes to fill up a 1920 x 1080 screen. lack of imagination / creativity Apparently it's easier to learn a RAD suite than it is to come up with fresh ideas. One of the reasons I'd rather play legit-retro platformers, rather than faux-retro ones, is the legit-retro ones tend to have more unique ideas. They were writing the rules, not recycling them.
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Post by toei on Mar 10, 2018 21:24:36 GMT -5
I do think that 8-bit style being much easier is a big part of it - after all, you need artists with actual skills to replicate a 16-bit look, but you can get away with pretty basic stuff if it 8-bit. And it's not that I hate the 80s, exactly, but it seems like we've been caught in that nostalgia wave for over a decade. When I started lurking on gaming forums in the late '90s / early '00s, they were full of slightly older people waxing nostalgic about the NES already. I think it's way past due for the 90s to take over! It'll probably take my generation pushing the previous one out the way (in a sense) for that to happen.
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Post by Ex on Mar 11, 2018 1:13:57 GMT -5
I think it's way past due for the 90s to take over! It'll probably take my generation pushing the previous one out the way (in a sense) for that to happen. It'd be interesting to see a younger generation vying for '90s throwback styled games. There seems to be a missing link in that regard. There've been a few '90s styled indie releases ( Freedom Planet for example), but by and large they are quite rare.
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Post by Ex on Mar 11, 2018 16:06:02 GMT -5
20. Time Gal | Arcade | 1985 | 7/10Time Gal is a Japan-only arcade game developed and published by Taito in 1985. (The actual arcade version was never brought to the west, but a watered down port to SEGA CD was.) Time Gal falls under the genre of "interactive movie" or "FMV game", meaning the player watches a series of video clips while responding to on-screen cues. In this game's case, the video clips consist of anime-styled animation. These types of FMV games were popular in arcades of the early 1980s, as their (not realtime generated) graphics were incredible looking for the era. The gameplay consists of simply responding correctly to on-screen cues to control the flow of the cutscenes. Progress is achieved by correct cue response across an overall storyline, while responding incorrectly causes the player to fail. Cues are indicated to the player by highlights of background artwork, such as the floor glowing yellow briefly (meaning press down). Reactive cues are simple as such, pressing right or up to dodge, or pushing the fire button to shoot a gun, that sort of thing. However the window of time to push the correct button to match the corresponding reaction cue is very brief. There's plenty of challenge inherent to this setup as a result, but replayability is low as a byproduct of the highly linear design. Time Gal's simple plot concerns Reika (the eponymous Time Gal) chasing after a thief named Luda. Both characters are from the far future. Luda has stolen a time traveling device and plans to use it for evil. Reika uses her own time traveling device to chase after Luda through various periods of history / future. The time periods range from as far back as 70,000,000 BC all the way to 4001 AD. Reika must stop Luda by any means necessary, but Reika can only do so if she's able to keep up with Luda's eon jumping. Luda does his best to lose Reika by choosing dangerous time periods to jump through. Each time period has a scenario presenting a series of threats that must be avoided or confronted. Reika may be dodging dinosaurs one minute, fighting pirates another, and combating robots soon after that. The time jumping theme does a lot to add variety to the aesthetics of the gameplay. Especially considering each time Reika fails, there's some sort of humorously depicted death scene to lessen the blow. So being killed by an ice mammoth, laser beam, or alien creature all turns out humorously. Speaking of aesthetics, the arcade version of Time Gal continues to look quite nice even today. The prerecorded anime was created by Toei Animation, and still looks wonderful. Time Gal's animation represents top quality anime production of that time period. Time Gal uses LaserDisc technology to stream the pre-recorded animation, via raster graphics on a CRT monitor, complete with amplified monaural sound. Audio gets the job done, although for the arcade version the dub is solely Japanese. Still it's evident the voice actors put plenty of emotion into their recording work. Time Gal's ports had various levels of aesthetic success. Time Gal was first ported exclusively in Japan by Nippon Victor onto the Video High Density format; and could be played on Microsoft's MSX via a Sony LaserDisc player. This port more or less maintained visual parity with the arcade original. However the most popular port of Time Gal was its MEGA/SEGA CD port. Wolf Team handled this port. Due to the limitation of the SEGA CD's hardware, the quality of the ported animation's output was compromised. (Also a few censored death scenes in the US SEGA CD version.) The SEGA CD version also features new opening and ending audio themes. Time Gal was ported to the PlayStation in 1996 as well, via a compilation with Ninja Hayate, another LaserDisc arcade game developed by Taito. This PlayStation release lacks the Sega CD version's additional content, but features a noticeably better adaption of the original arcade animation. To speak of the gameplay, there's not too much to say. The player is basically playing Simon Says with a bunch of video clips. The arcade's dipswitch settings allow for some variation to the design though. The player can choose to play the time periods in random order, or chronologically sequential. The player can choose to have HUD assisted cues in addition to the animated background ones. Regardless, the base game design remains the same. One aspect that hasn't been mentioned yet though, is that some time periods end with a timed multiple choice question (called a "Time Stop"). The player really has no idea which choice is correct initially, and failure means replaying the time period over again. This aspect of the game design is simply ludicrous, and is surely put there to cost the player more credits. On easier difficulty settings, the arcade version does offer checkpoints, thankfully. Even playing with unlimited quarters can be difficult, even if the dipswitch settings allow limited continues. That's because checkpoints aren't that often when utilized. In short, Time Gal's arcade version can be brutally difficult, or merely fairly difficult, depending on its dipswitch settings. It's never a total cakewalk either way. Time Gal's arcade version has aged fairly well. Its animation still looks great, and the base "quick time event" gameplay is still used in many modern games' cutscenes. It's unfortunate that playing Time Gal to its arcade standards isn't easy to officially do for western gamers. In this reviewer's opinion, the localized SEGA CD version is compromised to the point of detriment. ( Arcade example , SEGA CD equivalent.) However, a PC emulator called " Daphne" exists, which lets the player enjoy the original arcade version in an uncompromised state. (This reviewer used that method to do so, as seeing the animation unsullied was important to me.) Of course if only seeing the animation matters to the reader, watching an arcade playthrough on Youtube should be easy enough. Considering the simple game design, the "video game" portion of Time Gal is minimal anyway. But for someone who enjoys wonderful 1980s styled anime, Time Gal is a decent albeit brief bit of fun.
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Post by toei on Mar 11, 2018 16:26:02 GMT -5
Eh, I was curious about both Time Gal and Ninja Hayate, but seeing that I already hate QTEs, I can't see myself not getting frustrated playing either.
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Post by anayo on Mar 11, 2018 16:58:28 GMT -5
I never really warmed up to FMV games, either of the live action or "Dragon's Lair clone" variety. My golden exception is Road Avenger. The first person view from the driver's seat driving made my heart jump into my throat, like when you go straight into a hotel filled with screaming people, or you're blazing down a cliffside with no guardrails and evil goons trying to kill you in cars of their own. When my brother stepped in and saw me playing he remarked, "This game looks stressful."
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