Remember the days when the work needed to make a video game was emmence?  Development teams were somewhat small, programming had to be done in ASM, and of course the consoles themselves were limited.  And yet people these days still love playing those games!  (I myself love the original Metroid.)

With huge development teams and C++, I personally would love to see games made in similar style to the old games, but longer.  Sure, we can vamp up the graphics, but so much time spent on game gimmicks, extra animations and special moves could be spent on extending the gameplay time of the basics.  Any comments on what it would be like if, for example, a year-long period was used to make Metroid with modern colors and looks but NES engine, graphics and gameplay to allow enough time to make a 600-hour long game?

I agree fully, I prefer the first Castlevania for the NES over any of the new ones

Remember the days when the work needed to make a video game was emmence?  Development teams were somewhat small, programming had to be done in ASM, and of course the consoles themselves were limited.  And yet people these days still love playing those games!  (I myself love the original Metroid.)

With huge development teams and C++, I personally would love to see games made in similar style to the old games, but longer.  Sure, we can vamp up the graphics, but so much time spent on game gimmicks, extra animations and special moves could be spent on extending the gameplay time of the basics.  Any comments on what it would be like if, for example, a year-long period was used to make Metroid with modern colors and looks but NES engine, graphics and gameplay to allow enough time to make a 600-hour long game?

I agree with this wholeheartedly.
Two of my favorite games are Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger. True they came after some of the games you're talking about, but they had incredible stories and didn't use a boatload of graphical gimmicks.

It pains me when people try to compare later games (*cough*Final Fantasy 7*cough*) to these masterpieces as if they were superior because they had better graphics, or the villain had a cool sword, etc.

I can't stress this enough. There are people who say Starcraft Brood War sucks because of the graphics looking crappier compared to SC2. It's insane how people judge a game on its graphics these days. I'm a fan of FFVII but I prefer FFVI story and content.

*edit* forgot to mention Square-Enix's sequel to Final Fantasy IV, though I haven't finished it.

I have been wondering about this for a while now, I wondered what was all that talk about FFIV: The After Years, then decided to google, to discover it was a sequel by Square Enix. It appears to be available on the Wii Shop so I'm probably gonna buy it, since I was a fan of FFIV.

I also loved what they did with Megaman 9. The only thing I hated was that the game was way too hard, though.

I also loved what they did with Megaman 9. The only thing I hated was that the game was way too hard, though.

The old games were hard, so of course they had to make that game hard as well. I liked the difficulty, it was much more entertaining than other new games that are easy.

Megaman 10 is fun. Plus, I think it has an easy mode, which is nice for those who aren't as used to the grueling difficulty.
And, there's DLC to let you play as Bass!

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on December 30, 2010, 03:50:44 am

I also loved what they did with Megaman 9. The only thing I hated was that the game was way too hard, though.

The old games were hard, so of course they had to make that game hard as well. I liked the difficulty, it was much more entertaining than other new games that are easy.

Yeah but it seemed harder than older stuff. I got Mega Man 3 for the NES and it seemed much easier than 9. In Mega Man 9, I can't even get past the first hole. I agree that older games were much harder, though. However today I'm glad now they offer different difficulty levels too. For RPGs, back then you spent hours grinding for levels and it got boring, then it got kinda better. However eventually it seemed like you just had to beat every enemy on your way in a dungeon without beating the same enemy twice and you were still high level enough to beat the boss. Result: those who grinded ended up over-leveled and the game was too easy afterward. I also dislike how every game now show the enemy HP. It got a bit too easy at that point. When I worked on Illusiat 13, people even suggested me that feature. X.x

Gameplay might be more important, but I'll admit to being a sucker for great graphics. I like it best when the two things meet, as in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. You have a relatively small map to explore, but there's so much to do that you end up fighting through the same places twice and you don't mind in the least.