Sorry for the absence lately, life has been crazy because of the holidays. I got Dragon Age as an early Christmas gift, so expect a post about that sometime soonish. In the meantime, this post has been laying unfinished for a while, so I went ahead and completed it for your viewing pleasure. Hope you enjoy it!
I am the proud owner of a SNES emulator on my computer. This emulator, in various permutations, has existed on both my current and last computer (I use Macs, so I've only had to buy two computers in the past seven years). I revel in its use, although when I have a new console game to play I don't pay much attention to it. Still, it's always there for me to fall back on, and I enjoy it thoroughly when I do.
I've always been a big fan of the SNES because it was one of the first gaming systems that made certain things possible. It seems silly to think about now, when we have such visually delightful games as Dragon Age and Mass Effect to stare at, but graphics in games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy III were cutting age back in the day, and I think that they (unlike some games *coughcoughFFVIIcoughcough*) stand the test of time in this regard. The first Zelda game might've been an amazing breakthrough in terms of how adventure games were played, but you can't argue that the graphics still look cool. Chrono Trigger, on the other hand, with beautiful backgrounds and sprites that have real expressions (albeit a bit distorted, but you can certainly tell how they're feeling at any given time), is still visually enjoyable to play, almost 15 years after it was released. And let's not even go into how awesome FF III is and was. Personally, I think every FF since then has fallen short in one way or another, some more than others.
But the game I'm enjoying right now is a bit different from those games. Don't get me wrong, I play those games regularly as well (I even bought the PS2 port of Chrono Trigger last year, although it isn't the best port, the game still rocks), but right now I'm in the mood for a simpler kind of game, a game without swords or monsters.
Yes, this is the part where I confess that I love the original Harvest Moon for SNES. Before there were sheep, or the ability to turn eggs into mayo, or mine for ore, or upgrade your weapons multiple times, or any number of other cools things in the newer Harvest Moon games, there was just one man, his dog, and his farm. You could only carry two tools at once (no fancy backpacks for us) and only one item, and you couldn't do anything while carrying that item. Your horse required no upkeep at all, no petting or riding to make it happy. You had the choice of raising chickens and cows (on the same feed, no special feed for the chickens) and raising crops only in Spring and Summer (and one has to wonder if any of the developers for the game knew anything about farming, since most harvesting happens in Fall) and you had the choice of five lovely ladies to marry, although they all look identical post-wedding except for hair color.
Don't get me wrong, I love the newer Harvest Moon games as well. I had HM 64, as well as HM for PS, and I've dabbled in HM for GBA as well. Sheep and mining and fishing when you want to and all the interesting people in town make for a greatly expanded story, and I will admit that there are times in the original HM game (which only lasts two and a half years, giving you very little time to finish all the objectives without serious gaming chops) that I wish for all these other things.
At the same time, though, there's an attraction to working with less. Some games these days are so involved, have so many different choices, that you can count yourself as "winning" even if you get half the continent slaughtered and end up sacrificing a virgin to the gods (well, some may enjoy that, but it isn't winning in my book). There are so many side quests one can do, so many strange things to explore, that it's almost over-stimulating, and sometimes frustratingly so. Also, considering the ability to change the difficulty level of a game, and/or all the options to victory, it can sometimes be a little too easy to win. Back when Harvest Moon came out, there was one path to play. You could choose a different wife, and choose if you wanted to raise cows or chickens, both, or neither, you could choose to go to festivals or not, and that was it. Sometimes, it's more rewarding to play a game where you know there are only one or two options, because you make the most of it. Certain games these days, which would require more than 100 hours to really fully explore, can get kind of exhausting. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good replay as much as anyone, but sometimes I want to replay a game because it's familiar. Chrono Trigger had multiple endings one could try with the New Game + option, and unlocking all those endings are certainly fun, but I'm just as likely to just play it through the regular way, and beat Lavos at the end by going through the Black Omen, as to restart and beat him at the beginning, or in the middle.
Old school games can appear silly to those who didn't play them when they came out. I certainly don't know many ten year olds these days who can appreciate FF III or Harvest Moon. There's certainly a nostalgia factor at work here, but again, these aren't bad games that fall apart under scrutiny. Aside from factors of sexism and racism, these games are well-constructed and still enjoyable, more than a decade after they were released. They could be entirely updated to have modern graphics, cutscenes, and tons of new modes of play and side quests, but I would still go back to my original ROMs to play, because these are games that are enjoyable no matter when you play them.
Don't knock the old school, is what I guess I'm saying. You can have your snazzed up games, with amazing graphics and fifty different endings, and I'll probably enjoy them too. But if it weren't for my old school games, most of yours couldn't exist. No harm in enjoying an oldie, if it's worth it.
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This reminds me of a classic turn-based game. This is a sequitur, I promise.
ReplyDeleteX-COM: UFO Defense is one of the things that made me a gamer. It was a strategy game with a broad scope. You were in charge of a secret, international organization tasked with covertly stopping an alien infiltration/invasion of Earth.
Thing is, it was up to you to decide how to do that. You built bases, decided what facilities you wanted, hired and trained personnel, researched and built new technology. You had to detect UFOs, send aircraft to shoot them down, and then send your soldiers in to kill any surviving aliens and recover technology for your scientists to reverse engineer. You commanded your troops from a top-down, turn based perspective.
The game didn't hold your hand. There was no in-game tutorial, and you were in charge of X-COM, there was nobody to tell you how to do your job. Everything was up to you. The result is incredibly open-ended, and has amazing replay value, because while the basic experience doesn't change, two different games can play out radically differently in terms of exactly what happens.
These days games tend to be highly scripted, with dramatic plot twists, voice acting, and a lot of artistry devoted to the experience. X-COM shows that while those things can be wonderful (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Modern Warfare), you can make a gripping, compelling game without them.
As a side note, and because I'm posting this here, X-COM is also notable for being a bit more egalitarian than a lot of "team of elite soldiers" themed games (typically games like that feature a "cast" of mostly American and European white dudes). All your troops looked alike in the field, probably due to graphical reasons, but on the inventory screen you had a portrait of the soldier you were selecting, and there was a pretty respectable mix of skin tones present, as well as names from a variety of different cultures; it was a small thing, but it did match the premise that X-COM is an international force composed of the very best from around the world. Your soldiers were also generally an even mix of men and women, and I never detected a pattern stat-wise regarding gender. Stats like strength, bravery, accuracy, reactions, etc, were randomly determined for each soldier, and women were just as likely to have a high strength (and so make good heavy weapon troopers) as men, for example.