Firstly, IGN reports that WayForward (a developer who has done more to keep me invested in gaming than almost any other lately) is bringing rebooting "Double Dragon;" and since it's WayForward there's no need to fear the dreaded "Gritty Reboot" virus taking hold: Instead, "Double Dragon: Neon" is going all-in on capturing not only the 2D Brawler gameplay but also the tacky 80s excess that so memorably colored the original; complete with "blaring buttrock" soundtrack. I'm IN.
But it's not just the 80s feeling the retro love - the 90s were themselves a Second Coming for Disney, and that extended into gaming: Licensed platformers based on Disney brands developed by Capcom and Sega are among the most fondly remembered games of that era; and today Kotaku reveals that the 3DS installment of the continuing "EPIC MICKEY" franchise is being built as a throwback to those vaunted titles - specifically, it's a return to the "Mickey's Castle of Illusion" series with a "Drawn to Life"-style mechanic added to the mix. DO WANT.
The Good Days don't die unless we let them die.
32 comments:
Add to this the Wasteland 2 and Leisure Suit Larry HAD Kickstarter, as well as new Baldur's Gate remake, and old school is back... Super excited about the coming years...
Now can we PLEASE get a Planescape: Torment sequel? Or remake even? Anything...
Glad to hear about the double dragon reboot, but "Gritty reboot virus"? Really Bob? This might be true of Hollywood, but the last time I heard "gritty reboot" used for a videogame was circa 2005. Rayman Origins, Sonic Generations, the new Bionic Commando games, heck, the list is pretty much endless when it comes to faithful reboots.
Bob, do you do ANY research before you open your mouth? At all?
I was waiting for you to follow up on the Epic Mickey 3DS follow-up to Castle of Illusion! I STILL have memories of playing that game as a kid!
Still waiting for a reboot of a space flight/combat sim games...
I would love a sequel or a reboot of Tachyon: The Fringe. That game was pretty damn good.
good times
While I've kind of lost my love for double-dragon-ey beat-em-ups over the years, I love that this and other "golden age" genres thought lost under the turgid seas of brown'n'gritty manshoots are getting their dues what with XBLA, steam and the indie scene in general.
Still though, straight up reboots of these classics are obviously nice in the "tightening and prettying up the defining experience of the original to make it more enjoyable to re-experience in the modern context" sense, but I can't help but feel they're a kind of artistic stagnation.
Sure, playing a solid reboot/remake of a game you loved will be fun and perhaps invoke some of the same lovely emotional reactions the original did when you played it the first time, but I don't think it could ever fully reproduce that experience, because that kind've thing by its nature can only created from scratch.
Personally, I think it'd be better for gamers and the medium both if guys like WayForward used their love for and inspiration from the original to create new, original and innovative games in the genre that are great and meaningful in their own right. Maybe great enough that guys ten years from now remember and briefly consider rebooting THEM before wisely paving new ground themselves, continuing he cycle of growth.
Ultimately I think it comes down to the best possible use of talent and resources. I loved the heck out've Ocarina of Time 3D, but the experience didn't (and never could) hold a candle to the emotional and intellectual roller-coaster that the original was to my 11-year-old self.
The thing is, tons of talent, love and money went into that remake, but what you've gotta ask yerself is whether you'd rather all that went into what it did, or that it went into something that was to Zelda what Okami was to Zelda: because it totally could have, and it is perhaps the best kind of suckiness that all we got was OoT for what will never again be the first time.
Bob....I have an important question for you.
Lets say you could kill the Retake Mass Effect movement right now. But you have to shut down all these old franchises.
Forever.
You can't do it, can you?
That's the level of love you are fighting against when you attack people who demand the ending be fixed.
Please understand that Mass Effect does represent the future of gaming to some, and we are watching it die...right before our eyes.
That Mickey screenshot doesn't look half bad at all, but are you seriously backing that butt fugly DD screenshot? It couldn't look more ass if that was the goal!
@ Xaos
Wow, you COMPLETELY ignored what this post was about in favor of continuously bitching about Mass Effect 3's ending. Not only that, but you apparently read or heard NOTHING Bob said on the matter, because if you did, you'd realize he DOES realize Mass Effect has a huge effect (or a MASSive EFFECT, lol) on the industry... which is WHY he DOESN'T want the ending changed, because it will set the example for all other games to follow, namely, that no one will EVER be able to pursue their own creative vision, instead being forced to give what the vast majority demands, which as Bob said, maybe be what they want, but they're losing what they might NEED!
It all comes back to that lack of discipline the industry and community have. Yeah, it's a completely different medium from movies and books, but it's got to have SOME standards!
@Smashmatt
Except that games like Wasteland 2 and the recently announced Shadowrun 2 are being funded by Kickstarter, outside of AAA publishers like EA.
Whatever Bioware decides to do will only effect (if at all) other major publishers that care more about profit than creativity, which they have been doing for years now. Why else did Double Fine Prod decide to ask fans to help them fund their own game. I doubt anyone working on COD 5 and Madden 2013 are working on their creative vision, and it kind of upset me that Bob decided to side with 'debauched corporate artists' merely because they hid behind the artistic integrity defense.
"he DOES realize Mass Effect has a huge effect (or a MASSive EFFECT, lol) on the industry... which is WHY he DOESN'T want the ending changed, because it will set the example for all other games to follow"
Because basically what Bob is saying is that even if Bioware is some evil troll that makes us live like crap we shouldn't get rid of him because we would be even worse off. I'm sorry but life under a troll is still bad no matter how you slice it.
@Kyoraki
"but "Gritty reboot virus"? Really Bob?"
Rush N Attack Ex-Patriot
Syndicate
Castlevania Lords of Shadow
Bomberman Act Zero
Golden Axe: Beast Rider
"Bob, do you do ANY research before you open your mouth? At all?"
...do you?
Anyway on something a bit more pertinent. I never was huge into Double Dragon for some reason, but those 2D Disney games were always a lot of fun, sounds like something awesome for my 3DS though I still gotta get Kid Icarus.
I'm actually really glad about this. Oh not because the "golden age" isn't kindly dying like an evolutionary blind alley should, but because the GOOD parts of it have at least managed to kinda' make a comeback.
I find it gratifying they're finaly bringing back beat 'em ups, since besides fighting games they were just about the ONLY genre during the "golden age" that actually HAD story lines--in fact they had story arcs, character arcs, multi-game ones even. Don't believe me, look up "Final Fight" on wikipedia, the story arc of the main characters covers three main games and about half a dozen or more unrelated games as well, all IN CANON no less.
It's painfully easy to update such games--regardless of how our inner child likes to remember them they were pretty "grim and gritty" (i.e, "possessed of a realistic story and verisimilitude") even back then. I mean, even compared to some modern games, Double Dragon was fucking dark if you look past the shitty graphics and inability to tell stories outside of the opening and ending cinematics, flaws those old games were shackled with that somehow brawlers and fighters managed to work around by judicious use of instruction manuals.
But with a fairly good graphics engine like Shank or Hard Corps: Uprising this could be pretty awesome. Here's hoping they keep the...plot twist, shall we say, about your brother.
And, sure, Epic Mickey why the fuck not. Maybe this 3DS one will be the GOOD once since the last game made me want to punch Walt Disney in the kidneys. I hear that Epic Mickey 2 will be a musical so...yeah Disney musical in a game, as long as it allows some much-needed self-awareness to creep in and doesn't try to play up this stuff unironically it should be fun.
Take note however these games are aimed squarely at people 25 or older. Because everyone UNDER the age of 25 struggles to give a single fuck about Mickey's Castle of Illusion or Double Dragon. So if anyone has some misguided belief that suddenly the scales will fall away from younger gamers eyes and they'll burn all their copies of Modern Warfare 3 so they can bask in the glory of Nintendo, then let me alleviate you of any delusions you're laboring under:
In Skyrim you become a god-king who fights an army of Godzillas using nuclear-yield screams. And not "you play", you BECOME, crafting his every nuance so that you almost physically transform into the man whose voice can level a town and whose to-do list includes "Fight and kill God... every God! Also, buy milk."
If you actually think that Mickey Mouse and the Bad Dudes can usurp that you're so catastrophically wrong I can't even properly explain how fucking wrong you are. So no, the golden age is dead. This is just a faithful recreation of some of the few, non-sucky parts of it like a museum exhibit of dinosaurs that has all the cool ones and none of those stupid looking ones with mouths shaped like vacuum cleaners because no one gives a fuck about the Vacuumosaurus they want to see t-rexes and raptors and pterodactyls.
Big fan of 2D scrolling beat em ups, so I hope Double Dragon is good.
I'm not sure where you are getting the gritty reboot thing from. If you said FPS reboot, that might make sense. But if anything, reboots atm are less gritty than their originals.
@Smashmatt202:
I heard him just fine. And I'll even go to say that if it spirals out of control and actually does threaten future game ideas, in the event it does boil down to that, it IS selfish to knowingly sacrifice an innumerable number of potential artistic achievements just to save one franchise we are attached to.
Additionally, although I don't know anyone who is seriously suggesting this, but I do have to say anyone who actually wants to dictate a specific ending to Bioware is almost certainly doomed to failure.
(Now see...I don't actually know if at this point I've covered what was eating at Bob and the rest of the gaming press just with that last paragraph. I am not a Mind Reader and Bob didn't disclose the full range of his position yet. Its not that I'm not listening, its that I'm trying to make hits in the dark. As I'll get into later, I'm trying to understand. I don't want to be the "enemy" here.)
To reinterate, I heard. I do not agree. About the stakes and their likelihood. I also don't see how "Mass Effect had to redo one measley cutscene that simply didn't work because they rushed it out the door" is supposed to translate into the next "Journey" not getting made.
Although I must admit there IS one little thing that must've escaped my notice. The idea that something is "art" because it drove people to decry that it didn't work as an ending.
Is ANYTHING upsetting "art," no matter what the complaint is? Can a writer ever actually make a mistake? Can Mass Effect count as an "artistic vision" if it doesn't have a central Auteur or visionary you can point to?
Please, please, PLEASE don't get mad. I really am trying to be fair. But I can't listen if you won't talk. You have to help me understand you, and if you are interested in truth at all, you also have to try and understand me and the other way to look at this issue.
Can we please, just for once, not be the internet?
Besides: Citizen Kane was made by Orson Welles, Star Wars was made by George Lucas, Cave Story's Auteur could ONLY be Pixel since he did EVERYTHING...
I am not "bitching more about Mass Effect." I just am really curious what Bob's answer is. Or yours for that matter.
How important are franchises to you, Mr. Overthinker? Why should you ask the fans of Mass Effect to let what they love be irredeemably ruined for the health of the medium if you aren't willing to make the same sacrifice?
Isn't it just as selfish to ask that Mass Effect be sacrificed for the health of the medium as for the the medium be sacrificed for the health of Mass Effect? There is another side to this argument.
So I ask again.
Bob: Would you sacrifice gaming's past to avoid what you think will be the consequences of fans leaving Bioware?
(also, I really dislike blogger's maximum character limit.)
@Anon7:41:
Except, certain segments of the market demand that every game have AAA-budget graphics to be worth their time, and there is no way a Kickstarter fund could ever raise that much.
@Jannie:
Is your brain even capable of processing the notion that other people might have tastes in entertainment that differ from your own?
I'd ask you the same thing Sylocat. Are you capable of accepting that people can have different opinions from you and not necessarily be adversarial to your worldview? Cause I'd imagine not.
I find it ironic I always get crap for attempting to live in the 21st century instead of cherrypick the past. Especially considering the fact that I'm one of the few people who actively supported great, if anachronistic, games like Rayman Origins.
And anyway why should I have to justify what I feel to you? Even if you were some authority on gaming, and you're not, it's not like I hate those old games--I still say those old brawlers and fighters were some of the best games of their era, and most of them still totally hold up. I never said those games were shit, I just take issue with the fact that retrogamers never (until now, anyway) attempt to bring THOSE back instead of obsessing over crappy Sonic-ripoffs from the mid-90s that were patently low-class even at the time and held up about as well as Disco. If retrogamers cared more about bringing back GOOD shit like Double Dragon--the shit that actually, you know, had a plot and characters and a story arc, however crude--I wouldn't find the whole community of them so irrational.
As it is though, even though I love SOME old games like Link to the Past or Super Metroid or just about any shump ever made. But because I'm not OCD about mascot games and shitty platformers trying to rip off the VASTLY superior Sonic series (which also, by the way, still totally measures up to modern games, the first four anyway) then suddenly I'm the enemy or whatever? Please.
But of course what do I know I can't bring myself to give to shits about Mario, so even though I'm excited about Epic Mickey I'm clearly just a, what, CODTard is that the word? I'd love to hear how you twist what I said, despite the fact I'm totally for these games existing, into me somehow not liking them ENOUGH because I'm not somehow slavishly dedicated to retrogaming or whatever because I'm willing to accept that, no, some 16 year old is not going to put down Gears of War or Skyrim so he can play a game whose sole selling point is nostalgia for a time he was never alive to see.
@Jannie:
"I find it gratifying they're finaly bringing back beat 'em ups, since besides fighting games they were just about the ONLY genre during the "golden age" that actually HAD story lines"
Yep I remember the complet lack of story lines in RPG (West and East) and adventure games!
...Wait no. No they did have that, in spades! What universe did you spend the 80's and 90's in?
@Xaos
Okay, I understand, thanks for explaining yourself.
Still, it seems kind of lame that we're talking about Mass Effect 3 on a blog post that isn't at ALL Mass Effect related.
I said "just about", the other would be RPGs and those old "adventure" (on static screens, pointing at stuff) games.
Brawlers, Fighters, RPGs. Those games had plots and character arcs and such obviously. Adventure games...well they had plots, though shackled by terrible gameplay and graphical limitations, but that's not a relevant counterpoint so yeah them to.
Seriously, don't be semantic man, you know I wasn't specifying that only those games had plots back then it was a perfectly open-ended statement implying other avenues as well. I didn't specify every single title I liked between 1980-1997 because I wasn't expecting to have to defend every syllable in the paragraph.
But you know what, full disclosure:
I don't hold that what people like to call the "good old days" or less commonly, the "golden age" were anything of the sort. Most if not all the games released were terrible back then because gaming was still in its infancy and evolving as a medium. Some games attempted to try more, forgive the buzz word, "risky" plots and yes that including beat 'em ups and fighting games but obviously Wasteland and the original Fallout series count here too. But for the most part that whole era was smothered by a glut of shitty Sonic-ripoffs. That being said there were genres and characters who stood out. Ironically Sonic, despite being the face that launched a thousand terrible go-nowhere mascots, is one of them. RPGs were and even today still are doing the most outlandish, most "risky" things in the industry and games like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Final Fight etc were some of the earliest ones outside of RPGs to actually attempt multi-game character arcs or stories, even if they were extremely crude by today's standards.
And yeah, adventure games too, even if they were kind of a dead end and vanished from the scene pretty fast.
So for that reason I'm happy to see that some of the better platformers and brawlers are starting to enjoy a revival. Sprite based fighters are too, so there is that. And as BlazBlue showed now we can do much more with the stories...even if the story there was stereotypical Japanese melodrama, but hey can't win 'em all. So if the "golden age" does make a comeback--it won't, logically speaking, but let's be hypothetical--if it does then at least it may be in the form of the better half of it instead of retreads of shitty mascot games trying and failing to catch the Sonic lightning twice.
So that's what I meant, exactly, in my exact words and thoughts, in no uncertain terms.
I'm LOVING those Epic Mickey screenshots. They keep the look of the old Disney sidescrollers but with more colour and variety than the 16-bit games could ever manage.
"As a final declaration of oldschool love, every character that Mickey saves in Power of Illusion will take up residence in the fortress that Mickey uses as his home base, a confirmed nod to the esteemed Suikoden RPG series"
Seriously? Did this guy just open my head and make a game out of what he found inside?
As for Double Dragon, well, who doesn't love scrolling beat-em-ups? Great stuff!
Xaos: There are FIVE comment threads about Mass Effect on this blog, and a couple on the other one. Why the hell are you going on about it here?
Wow, Jannie, you're being a real dick about this. Why in the world do you feel the need to be so abrasive about someone liking old game?
I'm not being abrasive, the VERY FIRST thing I said was "I like this, let's do MORE of this" how is that "abrasive"?
Look, I do hope they do well, I really do. I'm actually looking forward to playing Double Dragon again and I think the musical aspect of the new Epic Mickey games might be fun. It's good to see that some of the better parts of that era get a remake finally.
"Personally, I think it'd be better for gamers and the medium both if guys like WayForward used their love for and inspiration from the original to create new, original and innovative games in the genre that are great and meaningful in their own right. Maybe great enough that guys ten years from now remember and briefly consider rebooting THEM before wisely paving new ground themselves, continuing he cycle of growth."
See Sashimi, the problem with that is that WayForward already did that.
It was called Shantae, and its sequel Shantae: Risky's Revenge.
Barely anybody bought them.
It turns out that gamers are eager for nostalgia, but only for the series they grew up with as kids. When presented with NEW material in the same vein, they collectively shrug unless it got advertised out the ass on XBLA.
@Popcorn Dave:
Because this is a Blog and not a Forum. Nobody every reads anything on the earlier entries.
If you never reply to this comment, you will prove my point, because there is only ONE new topic above this one. This reply might be a little late, but not that late.
Besides, what I had to say was, if only by a tagent, relevant to the topic at hand. I can try to be the adult as hard as I can, but if everyone balks at any sentence that has "Mass" and "Effect" in it, then I hardly see the point.
Jannie? Um hi, I have never posted on Bob's work before, but your comments have given me a reason too. So yeah, can you please stop acting so high and mighty, pretending to know how certain styles of games have “evolved” and how others haven’t?
You continue to get extremely angry when Bob says things like how un-creative
The FPS market is, or how its main appeal is to drug dealers, gang bangers, or general scum-bags of life. (By the by I don’t really agree with him either.) Yet you feel like your best retort is to say how platformers, JRPGs, or any other style of games you don’t particularly like are a ‘dying breed of games that are circling the drain and are on the way out…man!’. Basicly doing the exact thing you are doing to Bob that you don’t like, disvaluing everything about those styles of games. The hypocrisy of it all... I mean every time I see Bob post about how he is looking forward to a title of the retro variety, here you come to spout your general blather about how “Bleh bleh mascot platformers suck bleh bleh games from the 80s and 90s were horrible blllleeeehhhhh!!’ And all because he said something about CoD that you didn’t like. Don’t you find that just a tad bit of a double standard?
Just to put this out here, I don’t think ANY style of game “doesn’t have the right to exist!! “ I am not a fan of most FPS really, the Tolkin style RPGs, don’t really do it for me and over all I don’t like the grainy style of most of the popular franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, or what have you. They just aren’t my cup of tea. I like Mario, Metroid, Mega Man, Zelda, Street Fighter and…yes I like my games to be bright, colorful, and have ridiculous premises. Its what draws me towards gaming.
Then here you come, any time the subject of a style of game is brought up you don’t like, you have to spout off about how those kinds of games can’t keep up with the times, or how true modern games have evolved beyond anything that ‘those other crappy retro games have’. Like Skyrim!! Even though Skyrim’s core gameplay can be traced all the way back to Wizardry, an RPG that is an even older game than Dragon Warrior. You bring up how FPS can keep up with the times! Even though Wolfenstine and Doom are about as old as fighting games or how they are older styles of games than 3D platformers. My point is that ANY kind of game can keep up with the times and have room to grow. The only requirement of making a game marketable, is making a good game. Why did Street Fighter IV single handedly revive 2D fighting games? Because it was good. Why did Mega Man 9 do so well? Because it was good. Why didn’t Mega Man 10 do as well as its previous title? Because it wasn’t nearly as good.
I don’tthink any of us want to see one of our favorite parts of gaming fade away. I mean…would you? I back up Bob up a little more, even though I don’t agree with everything he has to say, because it feels like the kinds of games him and I like both are fading away before our eyes. All because self-righteous people like you have to label the games we love as “obsolete”, and that simply isn’t true. I can’t and won’t stand for it any more. So please, before you want to harp on Bob for getting excited about a Mappy Land reboot, please think about this comment and how hypocritical you sound. I don’t say that CoD doesn’t have a right to exist, please don’t say that about my games, kay? Thanks.
@Anon
You're missing Jannie's point entirely. She's basically annoyed by the constant romantizing of the Golden Age that Bob does in a lot of his vids. Though, my opinion is similar to Bob's, his point of view seems short-sighted and Jannie has all the right to point that out.
Also, Jannie used Skyrim as an example of creative modern games and bought a copy of Rayman: Origins. Besides, she wasn't bashing old games in this thread. All she was saying is that she's glad to see the better games of the Golden Age get rebooted but, is stilled annoyed by Bob's condescending view of modern gaming.
Let's be honest, Jannie has a point. Most kids between 10-20 years old today could care less about Double Dragon, Kid Chameleon, and most other retro games simply because they're too young to see them the same way we do. Kids still play Mario, Sonic, and such but, the Rayman: Origins sales suggest that these kind of classic games aren't THAT appealing to the current market so making more of them and killing of CoD and Halo just doesn't make sense.
Also,
"Why did Street Fighter IV single handedly revive 2D fighting games? Because it was good."
No, it's because it's SF. SF is very recognized brand with a huge fanbase. Not only that but, the game is made to play similarly to SF2, the most popular entry in the franchise. SF4 could of been complete garbage and still sell like hotcakes. It's "good" for the reason Modern Warfare is "good". Honestly, I prefer SF Alpha.
"Why did Mega Man 9 do so well? Because it was good."
No, it's because it was retro. It was meant to appeal to people like me, you, and Bob. Retro gamers begging to relive the 80s and 90s ate it up. How many 12-year olds bought MM9? I'm curious.
"Why didn’t Mega Man 10 do as well as its previous title? Because it wasn’t nearly as good."
No, it's because it was just MM9 again and the people who already bought MM9 weren't gonna buy the same game again. This has a lot to do with why MM became less relevent as opposed to Mario and Sonic who still appeal to children. That and Capcom has lost it. Seriously, no more Kenji Inafune!?!?
Sounds to me like you're overreacting because somehow, some random internet comments that were never aimed your way offended you.
PadMasher,
Actually my friend, I think you missed the point of my comment. I wanted to point out how Jannie has constantly been extremely hypocritical in her comments. Accusing Bob of saying he disvalues an entire group of games and gamers by saying that it’s a black hole of creativity and blah blah, but then turns around the next moment and basicly does the EXACT SAME THING. Saying how those styles of games are obsolete and how no one will miss them. And no, her buying a copy of Rayman Origins doesn’t completely obsolve her from what she said, and I have a right to call her out on her BS.
I suppose its time to start quoting each other seeing how you opened that can of worms…soo…
“Let's be honest, Jannie has a point. Most kids between 10-20 years old today could care less about Double Dragon, Kid Chameleon, and most other retro games simply because they're too young to see them the same way we do. Kids still play Mario, Sonic, and such but, the Rayman: Origins sales suggest that these kind of classic games aren't THAT appealing to the current market so making more of them and killing of CoD and Halo just doesn't make sense.”
Yes you are right; kids that are between those ages probably won’t care about Double Dragon. You wanna know why? Because it’s been made extremely hard for them to get, with no advertising, and shoved all the way back in the depths of Xbox Live Arcade. You bring up Mario and Sonic still doing well…can you think of any reason why that could be? Could it be that they are plastered all over TV, Magazines, the web, and they are made the center pieces at E3 for Nintendo and Sega? Bottom line; they do well because they are actually given a chance. With a lot of these reboots they seem to have the same mentality as you and Jannie. “Oh this will only appeal to the 25 to 30 croud. Put it up for download. Make a commercial? Run adds in a magazine? Pfft, no one of the younger demographic will buy this. What do you want me to do? Take a risk?” And yes, before you start in with the argument of “Why should they have to take a risk?” Because its not a horribley huge risk, seeing how it seems to be working out for Mario and Sonic. If you actually LET people know about your product, they will buy it. Funny how that works out huh?
And now for the “points” you made on my examples of Mega Man 9 and Street Fighter IV… I love how people are just ready to jump so quickly to the argument of “That game did well because its blah blah franchise/its retro . It would have sold well even if it was bad.” You would have been right if I were talking about Bomberman Act Zero. In the case of Street Fighter IV, yes its popular and nostalgia freaks would have eaten it up no matter what. What it wouldn’t have done is cause the 2D fighting game market to explode all at once, seeming to have a mini CoD effect. With Capcom making 2 updates to the game of SF4, Marval VS Capcom 3, Street Fighter X Tekken, and with other companies piggy backing on its success making other 2D fighting games of old suddenly return from the vault. Are you seriously going to tell me if Street Fighter IV was garbage… it would have done all that? Same thing with Mega Man 9. That game and New Super Mario Bros. Wii created the retro throw back craze on their own. Now for Mega Man 10, as a huge Mega Man fan I can honestly say that game wasn’t nearly as well made as Mega Man 9. It felt like short cuts were made and there wasn’t nearly as much love put into the game. Other people felt this too and just didn’tt care. Guaranteed if Mega Man 10 was more well recived we would not have seen the end of Mega Man Legends 3 and more than likely we would have seen a 16 bit throw back to Mega Man X9.
Finally, no “some random comments on the internet” didn’t get me riled up. I have seen this go on with Jannie for months now and I wanted to call her out on her crap. And yes, I have every right to. If every comment about anti retro blather got my panties in a knot, I would have started an all out war on this thread of comments a long time ago. So yeah I guess that’s it.
@Anon
You're starting to sound like Jannie as far as tone is concerned.
Look, I don't really agree with Jannie's dismissive view of the Golden Age but, she still has a point. A lot of that crap was forgotten because it was bad. She isn't calling out the good franchises we still care about either. That's why she mentions the Sonic clones as an example that Bob is romantizing the creativity of that era when in reality, games were just as deriative then as they are now.
See, you and Jannie seem to have the same opinions without even knowing it. She's calling out Bob for devaluing modern games and you're turning that into her devaluing retro games. It's kinda funny how ironic this is.
If you actually read (and I mean REALLY read) Jannie's post, you'd notice what her problem was and how you two sound the same. Bob constantly goes on about how bad CoD is and Jannie gets generally offended by the idea that those games don't deserve to exist. She uses Bubsy and whole bunch of other crap games as examples to counter Bob's stance on the FPS genre and then you get offended. Your response? Use good retro games as an example to counter Jannie's claim that they're "obsolete".
The two of you are using the SAME ARGUEMENT!
As for the qoute responses (which you apparently seem to have a problem with)...
Buddy, I know it's hard but, it's 2012 now. DD not having enough marketing isn't the issue. Ever wonder why niche titles don't get a lot of ad space? Because ads cost money and they aren't going to pump money into something that isn't likely to sell.
This is why we have market research. Ever wonder why all these "reboots" model the story and characters (especially in movies)? It's so the product has more modern appeal. Face it, a game like DD isn't worth putting tons of marketing into when people 25-30 are the ones most likely to buy it anyway.
To plaster DD ads everywhere, hoping that people will give a damn, and praying that it somehow competes with something like Asura's Wrath is just stupid. You'd have to "reboot" (see the atrocious new Spidey movie) DD for it to appeal to people who've never heard of it and at that point, it isn't really DD anymore.
As for Mario and Sonic, they've always been pretty successful franchises with large fanbases to fall back. DD isn't like that. To market a DD like that as a big-budget title is a huge risk and as a XBLA title, that kind of marketing is a waste of time. Anything with Mario and Sonic in it isn't a risk. IT WILL SELL!
cont.
cont.
As for the Capcom games, my point still stands. Correct me if I'm wrong but BM:AZ sold like shit if I recall. Doesn't matter really because BM:AZ was a gritty "reboot" that rehashed the classic Bomberman gameplay with a hideous modern (modern meaning:SHIT!) redesign that made Act Zero NOTHING like the Bomberman we know and love. People like us weren't the ones buying that garbage.
SF4 on the other hand, sold itself on the premise of returning to its roots (roots meaning:SF2). SF already has a HUGE fanbase. It was gonna sell regardless. Other companies took notice. So what did they do? Bring back a bunch of old franchises that people liked like MK9, KOF13, and...wait most of these games are Capcom games aren't they?
You see, this is Capcom milking themselves as usual. Well, BlazBlue was a new IP. How well did that sell again? Not to well if I recall but, at least people have heard of it unlike Battle Fantasia. This "mini CoD effect" is just a bunch a sequels appealing to already big fanbases. Wake me up when Red Earth 2 happens.
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