Three Cases in How Good Games Age Poorly

Adam Nelon writes, "The concept of age comes up an awful lot when it comes to media. When people comment on the idea of age, they usually mean how well that piece of media holds up when one revisits it, or how meaningful it is in a modern perspective. While for most other forms of media, it’s a tricky business to determine the relative endurance of a work to the rigors of time, video games provide a simultaneously easier and more difficult means of judging age. Be it mechanics, aesthetic, presentation, storyline, or even just the sound fidelity, the interactive nature of a game adds a whole new dimension to one’s introspection of it. However, due to the multifaceted nature of games, it also means that games don’t age the same ways that other media do."

[stanr]

The problem with games is that many of them don't age that well. Games from the NES era have aged fine because the graphics is what defined that era of gaming while games from the 3D era are the ones that suffer from age unless they have a memorable story that keeps them relevant.

[AdamThePony]

Hey, Stan. This is Adam. I totally agree with your statement on NES games aging better than early 3D games. I've found that the best way to keep a game decently preserved is not to aim for realism, but to aim for a good style. "Realistic" games tend to age especially poorly because they're directly tied to graphics technology.

[WeAreLegion]

Hey, Adam. This is Jake. I think some realistic games have aged well, but they have to have the gameplay to back it up. Gran Turismo is still incredibly fun to me.

Edit: Hey, Jacques. This is Jake. I agree.

[Spotie]

Hey Jake. This is Jacques. I honestly don't think it should matter if it "aged" well or not from any standpoint beyond enjoyment. As long as I still enjoy the game, it doesn't matter how outdated the graphics or mechanics, it's aged well enough for me.

[Pintheshadows]

Hi Stan, Adam, Jake, and Jaques. This is Paul.

I would say a lot of it comes down to the artstyle chosen at the time. Something like COD4 has aged badly for example due to its attempt to convey realism. Okami on the other hand has aged beautifully due to its artistic choices.

[kingjosh1876]

Hey, Jacques. This is Josh. A great example of less realistic games ageing well in visuals would be The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. It still looks good whereas Twilight Princess (the newer game) tried to be realistic looking and now looks more outdated.

[AdamThePony]

Twilight Princess doesn't look terrible on revisting, but Wind Waker held up better.

[Skate-AK]

Hey, Josh, This is Kale. I agree, Wind Waker has great aesthetics and the art style still holds up very well.

[3-4-5]

* Games that go Art Style > Realism will always age better.

Look at Wind Waker GC...still looks good.

Dragon Quest 8....still looks good, because it went for Art Style > Realism.

stuff like that

[TheFirstClassic]

Even going back to something like paper mario on n64 is easy on the eyes compared to realistic games like goldeneye. Gameplaywise too actually.

(Still love goldeneye tho)

[Pintheshadows]

Okami is the one I always think of. Ni No Kuni will age beautifully as well. As will something like Borderlands.

[stalepie]

I don't know. I remember Tekken CGs looking ugly at the time. Some others by Namco, like Ridge Racer 4 and Klonoa, looked good at the time and still look pretty good today (particularly Klonoa). I'm stretching things a little: i think those games came later..

But I never feel graphics or sounds really age. It doesn't make sense to me. People grow up though and what they liked when they were 10 isn't the same as what they like now. With experience they see things differently.

Also with some things you need to take into account the difference between viewing something on a CRT with composite or RF cables and viewing it through HDMI on LCDs. The angles in early polygon games weren't as obvious, the jaggedness neither, and with sprite graphics the colors blended more. There were even techniques back then, like dithering, which blended pixels a little to create a smoothing effect.

[Castlevania]

Symphony of the Night's dialogue definitely isn't for everyone, but I feel that it added significantly to the overall experience of the game. That "what is a man" line is definitely highly memorable. Then again, I think I'm a bit biased here.

[8BitSoul]

Personally I love the early days of ugly *ss polygon graphics. There's just something about the early ps1 days that appeals to me. After seeing 8-bit and 16-bit graphics make a comeback, I would love to see someone attempt to make a game based on the 32-bit polygon look.

On the other hand, a lot of the games from the early 3D era hasn't aged very well, mostly due to poor controls, cumbersome inventory and item management systems, very few checkpoints (if any at all), and looooooong loading times. I think it would be hard for people who didn't experience it when it was new to really appreciate what the games were like when they first came out.

I remember babysitting my cousins kids a few years ago. After dinner I asked if they wanted to play some games, knowing that they both were avid gamers. I showed them my collection which was in my bedroom at the time, and spans several generations with hundreds of titles to choose from. The oldest who was 14 only wanted to play Call of Duty Black Ops, which he already owned and played on a daily basis. Seriously, like every single day! He didn't even look at any of the older games, but just went straight fot the 360 section and looked for CoD. The younger sibling who was 11 was actually more curious and looked through the PS1 shelf and picked out a few titles she thought looked interesting. While the older brother sat in the livingroom screaming at the TV in anger, his sister and I had a blast playing Spyro the Dragon and Parappa the Rapper on an old sh*tty CRT TV. Guess who had more fun? :P

It always brings a smile to my face when I see younger generations take an interest in the games from the 5th generation. I know my love for the era is purely based on nostalgia, but a lot of games are still enjoyable for younger audiences even today.

[ZaWarudo]

Jet Set Radio did not age well at all.

[AdamThePony]

In terms of polycount, no. In terms of style, it still looks pretty slick.

[8BitSoul]

It has a few flaws, sure, and if you compare it to todays standard it's feels a little outdated. But in terms of visual style and presentation it's one the most unique games ever made, only matched by JSRF! You just don't see games like that being made anymore. I still think it's really fun and playable compared to a lot of the other games that came out on the Dreamcast.

[DiscoKid]

My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning.

[Kalebninja]

Well Kingdom Hearts aged fantastically. I could still go back and play it without it feeling outdated.

[Taero]

Interestingly I tried doing that to prepare for KH3 and I just couldn't play it again, being in a 'box' level was just so apparent and immersion breaking. I remember playing it for days with a friend in college and being transfixed until the end credits, now I couldn't get past halloween town and muster enthusiasm.

[Forum_Pirate]

Dated is jfrequently just slang that means "I don't like this as much as I would earlier and it feels old" and doesn't actually say anything about the game.

Many older RPGs have aged fine, just because they're completely foreign to you doesn't mean they don't hold up once you learn them. Basically all anime (and by extension, many JRPGs and visual novels) are completely foreign to basically everybody at first because it's embedded in a completely foreign culture, that type of thing doesn't necessarily have anything to do with age.

When asking yourself if something is actually dated and inferior today, ask these questions:

What is the dev trying to do? What feel are they going for?

What "modern" thing could have accomplished the same things better?

If you can't definitively demonstrate how the alternative is superior, it's simply a matter of preference. We don't see people calling HP bars dated now do we?

FF6 looks ok, but you could get away with calling it dated. Why? Because it's same systems and most of it's graphical elements have been done better since then, on and off the SNES. You'd likely struggle to point that same finger at a game like Chrono Trigger, it's art styles (ie both pixel art and Toriyamas) are the height of their craft even today during a resurgence of pixel art in indies, and the same is true of basically everything else about it.

I know I used the RPG equivalent of Hamlet to make my point and perhaps that's unfair, but I could say most of the same stuff about Jet Set Radio Future (asside from being slightly blocky) and Sonic 2.

[Donnywho]

I'm glad it doesn't bother me the way it seems to bother most people. I've played through a lot of N64 and Ps1 games in the past year and enjoyed all of it. I grew up on NES, SNES, and PS1 though. I can see it being pretty hard to play old games for younger people who weren't alive to watch all the visual changes take place.