Sunday, December 6, 2009

Retro Gaming Kick

Do you ever go through a phase where you decide to go back and play every single old game that you own? It seems like I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. When the SNES was the new kid on the block, I'd still go back occasionally and hook up the old NES for some Zelda and Duck Hunt action. After toying with the N64 for a while, I'd hook up the SNES for a change up, and so on and so forth. I've been on my most recent retro gaming kick for about 6 months now; I'm not very in tune with the current generation of games. Seeing that I'm too old to go to Mommy and Daddy every time I want a new game, obviously the low prices of PSX and PS2 games appealed to me, but at the same time it really is just fun to go back for a while.

It seems like the RPG is a bit of a timeless genre. With each new generation prettier pictures and new gimmicks are added, but in many cases the core gameplay is essentially the same as it was ten years ago. Powerful story elements are just as poignant as they were when text dialogue was the norm and the idea of voice acting didn't cross anyone's mind. I've pretty much discovered the entire Final Fantasy series and played through most of it, all since June earlier this year. I go back and play through Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross each at least once a year. The journey through an RPG seems to age much better than your typical FPS or adventure game.

A more recent development in my retro kick has been bringing back the GameBoy. My roommate and I, two young adults, have been preparing all week for a massive showdown in Pokémon. (Yes, I remember how to do the accent mark on the e after all these years) Sure, it was considered a fad back when we were 11 years old, but it turns out the game itself is fun even more than 10 years after it was released. True, friends laugh when they walk in and see us playing it, but who cares? It took up a fairly large part of my 5th grade year, investing more than 200 hours into my Blue version and likely a similar amount in my Red and Yellow versions. Who knew it would take up a fairly large part of my Junior year in college as well? (Very different meaning on the term "fairly large" though)

I've been enjoying going back through all my old games much more than any new game I've picked up in the past two years. I just wish Sony could read this and understand why I would actually value some backwards compatibility in a PS3...

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