(Negative) Lasting Through The Gaming Nuclear Winter

[Princess Rescuer]

KawaseFan.net is usually a happy place. If you are not interested in being depressed and sad, this is not the thread for you.

As everyone knows by now, there were two gaming crashes in both 1977 and 1983. Both were the result of lost goodwill from a deluge of low-quality games. I feel that this is what is happening in the 2020s- except the current companies are much bigger than before and have plenty of money to make mistakes (especially Microsoft). So instead of an outright crash, we are going to have quite a while of declining quality and huge money mistakes to wait through. Since plenty of companies have reserves and little urgency to right the ship, you will have to resort to retro gaming. Which type of retro gaming? I'll guide you.

If you are collecting a console for the first time, I would recommend the Japanese variant of it. If this were 15 years ago, I wouldn't be thinking about Japanese at all. But times have changed. English games are more expensive and in worse condition. The older retro gamers have bought and kept them before you grew old enough to be conscious of them. Japanese games, on the other hand, not only have more choice, but the demand stays low due to how many more people know the English language compared to Japanese. And they are in great condition which will make them last and age well. Plus recording Japanese games for the internet will not get you as many views most of the time. Although they are in Japanese, you can read guides on the internet or just learn Japanese and do lots of training and trial and error in the games if that's not an option. It's more effort, but it is worth it. Be brave.

The types of games I would recommend the most are JRPGs. These are not the best games (or maybe they are?) they are not my favorite, but they last. As someone who has already mastered numerous other types of genres, and has barely dipped into JRPGs, I await my coming obsession with them throughout the decade. Even challenging action games (including the Umihara Kawase series) don't have that same lastability. And when you add replay value into the mix, it gets even better. JRPGs will be the "army food" in your bunker.

Another genre I recommend is sports games. Huh? Yes, sports games! While JRPGs can be expensive (unless you import dirt cheap NTSC-J ones) sports games are cheap across the board and lastable. They are based on sports that have lasted decades/centuries and have produced their own long-lasting leagues and tournaments in real life. They essentially don't have any real "end point" so they will be excellent for lastability. But what about multiplayer? Personally, I prefer the challenge of AI opponents for personal reasons. And even without multiplayer, you will still find a lot in many sports games. They are the furthest thing from one-and-done visual novels.

Another type of game I recommend is shovelware. Does not have the lastability (unless you use your imagination) but does have the prices. There are many shovelware games to discover, they fatten up your collection, and they can be kind of fun. There's also a metagame as to which type of shovelware games to discover.

Going away from consoles, there are also handhelds. Handheld games are cheap and the better handheld games have reproductions. Handhelds, outside of Japan, have never been taken seriously and have some overlooked gems of their own. Discovering handheld games is part of the experience, they can be pretty unique! Even if you stay inside to play them, they're still good. Just be sure to have a rechargeable backlit version of every system. Handhelds and handheld games are cheap and will be new to discover for most people.

Another thing is unpopular consoles. If you were a selective fanboy back then, now's your chance to experience the other consoles. Also now's your chance to play the Famicom Disk System, the Turbografx-CD, the Sega Mega CD, and the Amiga CD32. You will eventually go for the more obscure consoles/handhelds if you have a cutoff time for when games stopped appealing to you. If you only play Nintendo, and you find games after the GameCube to be unappealing, you will probably go for popular competitors like the Master System and Mega Drive, then you will probably want to try out the Turbografx-16, then buy increasingly obscure ones until you're going for really obscure consoles like the PC-FX and 32X eventually. Why do this? Part of lastability is discovery. Childhood games or popular games are the WORST CHOICES for the Gaming Nuclear Winter because they have been figured out already. The more undocumented, the better.

Lastly, we have PC Gaming (if you are rich). The PC is more convenient than ever now, and it has services like Good Old Games (if you're retro) and other such services. You also have a more global library with the most available languages and countries of origin, not to mention all the beta prototypes and free early access demos you can download. Will require lots of money for all the games as well as a good internet connection and lots of storage space for all the games. Old platforms such as Spectrum, MS-DOS, and Amiga and numerous others will emulate easily on new computers whereas consoles have more of a problem with ports of previous games. The good thing is, you will only need one good PC and you won't need to upgrade often. It's region free, doesn't require different hardware for different games (unlike consoles, which you will need different regions of different consoles per generation) and they are rapidly decreasing in cost (and that's if you don't research putting one together yourself with cheap parts). The PC isn't everyone's favorite though and it can be less instant and comfortable. It is new to most gamers so there is the first-time element of discovery.

[Alc]

The grind on SNES-era JRPGs is no fucking joke. If you're going to master a JRPG, I hope you like grinding.

Also take issue with your recommendations of sports games and shovelware. If you buy a console with a bunch of games you will be guaranteed a load of that shit. I don't know why you'd recommend it - shovelware is mediocre games by definition. Why would you want games that play badly and look like shit?

Get an Everdrive, play the best games on the system, and experiment from there, would be my advice. But I think if people have made it to this site it's safe to assume they're au fait with retro console, to be honest.

[Canvas]

I agree with Alc. If you want to go original hardware, unless you are intent on being a collector, flashcarts are the best. However I am going to be 'that guy' and namedrop emulation. Something like RetroArch is easy enough to figure out and supports a ton of games and systems. To me the value of a game is directly supporting it's development and not necessarily to get something tangible. I will never pay scalper prices, because I don't want to support their 'development', but if an enthusiast offers me a good deal and I intended to play it I would snag it

This said I think a lot of great games still come out, several not even indie. Half Life Alyx is insane and getting a lot of mod support. Death Stranding has an interesting focus on movement, though the start of the game must be intentionally annoying with drawn out story videos because they are so long and frequent that I cannot even call them cutscenes anymore. Doom Eternal satisfies the autism of completing a situation as 'clean' as possible, with a BUNCH of fun movement options. I actually just bought Metroid Dread yesterday and haven't opened it yet so would have to update on that, but to tie back into emulation, to my understanding if you bought the game, you can emulate your rip of the game, legally.
Fuck I even preordered the System Shock remake because the recent demo sold me so well, which I normally don't do, but I just have not been very financially responsible in general

I don't think there will be a crash because development is so accessible now that there will always be more names like Hollow Knight, Deep Rock Galactic, Risk of Rain 2, Sakuna of Rice and Ruin, and so on. If anything I am oversaturated in good games

[Alc]

If you want to go original hardware, unless you are intent on being a collector, flashcarts are the best.

Yep. Sadly the prices on (legit) retro games are just getting higher and higher. Princess Rescuer is right, it's generally wise to get a Japanese console as the cart prices tend to be much more manageable and the games are all 60Hz, no PAL slowdown. The language barrier can be a problem, of course, particularly with JRPGs.

I don't think there will be a crash because development is so accessible now that there will always be more names like Hollow Knight, Deep Rock Galactic, Risk of Rain 2, Sakuna of Rice and Ruin, and so on. If anything I am oversaturated in good games

Agreed! For as long as I've been discussing games online there have been doom and gloom threads, predicting another market crash and so on. I really don't think there's any significant cause for alarm - gaming is more diverse and multifaceted than ever before, and consequently I can't imagine we'll see another '83-style "bottom dropping out of the whole market" situation, because there just isn't one single market in that way. That crash was the result of a very particular confluence of factors, tied to the fate of one particular company (Atari), and if we ever see anything like it again I suspect it'll be a part of a serious global economic downturn and we'll all have bigger concerns on our plate.

I think a lot of great games still come out, several not even indie.

As far as I'm concerned, retro prices aside there has never been a better time to be alive and gaming than right now. As you mention, emulation has reached a really solid place, and devices like the MiSTer are fast closing the gap between real hardware and emulation. Modern AAA games aren't to everyone's taste but that's the beauty of the market right now - if you like 2D platformers (for instance) you have a vast array to choose from, with more seeing release every day. Nothing's stopping you from carrying on enjoying the SNES back catalogue if that's your jam.

Death Stranding has an interesting focus on movement, though the start of the game must be intentionally annoying with drawn out story videos because they are so long and frequent that I cannot even call them cutscenes anymore.

I got a reasonable amount of play out of Death Stranding. It has the usual caveats that come with a Kojima game - ridiculous narrative, inscrutable design choices, general auteur nonsense - but I got more out of it than I ever did out of any of the Metal Gear Solid games. Looks nice, too.

I actually just bought Metroid Dread yesterday and haven't opened it yet so would have to update on that, but to tie back into emulation, to my understanding if you bought the game, you can emulate your rip of the game, legally.

Depends. If you're in America, you'd be guilty of circumventing a copy protection mechanism, which was explicitly banned by the DMCA (with some caveats for libraries and educational institutions, as I recall). Who gives a toss, though - you paid for the game so play it however you like. I can confirm that it looks significantly nicer running under emulation than it does on the original hardware, which unfortunately is really starting to show its age. I do wish Nintendo would get on with the New Switch Pro+ or whatever they wind up calling it. Even just a new model with a modest clock boost would be great, thanks to the Switch hacking scene we do now know that it's possible to significantly overclock the Switch and not have it burst into flames, and most games work just fine, with improved framerates and so on.

I liked Dread, anyway. Something of a return to form. It doesn't outstay its welcome and it doesn't attempt anything beyond its remit. There's something to be said for that.

[Princess Rescuer]

For me, it's less about the general consensus of "quality" and more about ownable, finished games for cheap that won't rely on things like Cloud Saves, at least a few of which will be good and up your alley.

I've found that it's not even classic games, or even hidden gems, that are preferable to the prices and rigors of modern gaming- even games with bad reputations and few defenders are preferable. For me, at least. I'm also FANTASTIC at coming up with new challenges and techniques to REALLY stretch a game out. I don't even NEED "long JRPGS". Though there are quite a few good ones that don't get enough attention and should be more than enough.

One HUGE problem, especially closing out with Nintendo, is the increasing reliance on "online" and subscriptions. The newly announced game in what is in my opinion the PREMEIRE Nintendo franchise, Wii Sports, will focus more on the online. In fact, the online option on the main menu is the biggest. It's a subtle change, but a bigger emphasis on the online mode hints at the desire for more subscriptions and less ownership. It's the perfect planned obsolescence where they can pull the plug on it as soon as the next console's been out for a while and enough people have bought it, like what they're doing for the Wii U's eShop (which I LOVED). The Switch VC is invariably the worse service and it's unlikely many of my favorites will make it back. It may not even have Turbografx-16. And then there's the fact that Nintendo's online is slow, laggy, and full of disconnects, and they expect you to pay for Cloud Saves which are more volatile and less ownable. Why bother?

When they announced that Mothers 1 and 2 were coming to VC, I ordered a Mother 1 cartridge. I own it and I will do the same for the other two on reproduction carts. I have it for when I'm interested.