Retro features you don’t hate or you think are overhated

[Ikagura]

Lives
Limited continues
Cryptic puzzles/navigation/secrets
Some water levels
Ice physics
Knockback

Discuss.

I am fine with limited lives and continues only if the game itself isn't too long and not stingy on bonus lives if you get a good score or find secrets.

Cryptic puzzles can be annoying when they ask you to do the less logical thing (and is obviously to sell guides).

Water levels, like desert or fire, is about good game design.

Knockback is the most annoying if the game has a ton of bottomless pits.

 

[Yousef]

I am fine with limited lives and continues only if the game itself isn't too long and not stingy on bonus lives if you get a good score or find secrets.

Cryptic puzzles can be annoying when they ask you to do the less logical thing (and is obviously to sell guides).

Water levels, like desert or fire, is about good game design.

Knockback is the most annoying if the game has a ton of bottomless pits.

Cool
Thanks for sharing
Yeah a lot of this checks out
What do you mean “desert”? Like sand physics?

 

[Ikagura]

Cool
Thanks for sharing
Yeah a lot of this checks out
What do you mean “desert”? Like sand physics?

I mean gimmick-orientated levels.

I still get that good water and ice physics are rare to see (even in more modern games).

I get that people praised retro challenging games but let's not forget that for one Megaman there were plenty of janky and unbalanced platformers.

 

[Yousef]

I mean gimmick-orientated levels.

I still get that good water and ice physics are rare to see (even in more modern games).

I get that people praised retro challenging games but let's not forget that for one Megaman there were plenty of janky and unbalanced platformers.

Oh yeah that’s true

 

[TheREALBLUEdragon]

I might be alone on this one.

Character relative controls, more commonly called “tank controls”. They work just fine for games with fixed camera perspectives. People are just huge babies about it.

Most people have become so used to camera relative movement in games that anything else has been deemed inferior just because people are lazy and don’t want to learn anything different.

Different control methods take time to learn and get used to. Were you good at using analog sticks immediately? No you were not. It most likely took a long time to get completely used to them and slowly build up the muscle memory that you take for granted today.

So when people try a game with tank controls for the first time, their built in muscle memory is useless and they suck at moving around in the game, just like they did when they first started playing games.

I get it, it’s an unpleasant feeling to know that you’re suddenly bad at something when normally you have no problem at all. So naturally most people will declare “I’m not bad! It’s these weird controls that are bad!” and just like that, their ego satisfied, a bad stereotype has been upheld.

 

[Yousef]

I might be alone on this one.

Character relative controls, more commonly called “tank controls”. They work just fine for games with fixed camera perspectives. People are just huge babies about it.

Most people have become so used to camera relative movement in games that anything else has been deemed inferior just because people are lazy and don’t want to learn anything different.

Different control methods take time to learn and get used to. Were you good at using analog sticks immediately? No you were not. It most likely took a long time to get completely used to them and slowly build up the muscle memory that you take for granted today.

So when people try a game with tank controls for the first time, their built in muscle memory is useless and they suck at moving around in the game, just like they did when they first started playing games.

I get it, it’s an unpleasant feeling to know that you’re suddenly bad at something when normally you have no problem at all. So naturally most people will declare “I’m not bad! It’s these weird controls that are bad!” and just like that, their ego satisfied, a bad stereotype has been upheld.

I love character relative stuff. Really immersive.

 

[zonque]

I'm a big lives fan.
Sometimes games having an extra lose state can make them more engaging.
Or maybe i just like lives because nothing is better than the joy of a 1up.

 

[Mopeybloke]

It isn't quite retro, but first person platforming got a lot of flak from some people. They all spoke as if it was an inherent problem so I never heard an explanation for why. Still, as far as 3D platforming goes, first person is easier cause you can always see where you're going no matter camera position. The games that tended to do it are also Quake and its descendants like Half-life, which have great controls.

Random encounters. Those are preferable to endless spawning enemies I see in some RPGs, and you need only limit their occurrence to lessen the annoyance. I think the sheer volume of fights in old RPGs were actually the reason why people came to dislike its gameplay mechanics. If we'd had to fight fewer fights, people wouldn't have come to hate turn combat, or random encounters.

 

[Dyne]

Getting Game Over.

You hardly ever see this anymore because every game lets you save. But I still love to run through old games like Contra or Ninja Gaiden without save states and see how far I can get that day. If the game is fairly short but difficult, its a fun challenge even when you're good at the game. I'm mostly thinking NES games here. A couple SNES games too.

 

[Ain_Gamer]

Tank controls,I lot of people like to dunk on them for being comberson, but I think it works very well if you design the game around it, I think people who disliked it try to play game with Tank controls with analogue stick when in reality you should play them with a keybord or D-pad.

Another feature is save points, I like when games are design with areas where you are actually supposed to save.

 

[Leon]

I should use GoG more. Steam deck doesn’t support it natively but I believe there’s a workaround.

So as a update to this as i'm on linux currently, running gog games through lutris is arguably easier on linux and thus so far i'm 4 days on linux with no need to get on windows anymore, if i'm being honest i've yet to find a single game that gave me a hard time to play on linux, thus the steam deck should have no problems with it.

 

[Ikagura]

Getting Game Over.

You hardly ever see this anymore because every game lets you save. But I still love to run through old games like Contra or Ninja Gaiden without save states and see how far I can get that day. If the game is fairly short but difficult, its a fun challenge even when you're good at the game. I'm mostly thinking NES games here. A couple SNES games too.

I don't mind it as long as the game itself isn't too long.

The SNES era introduced more save files for games.

It wouldn't be great to have a back to square one feature for a game that is over an hour long.

Also I'd argue that Roguelites and Metroidvanias have game overs (of course, not a "go back to the beginning" kind but still there).

 

[Sandteufel]

I don't hate key hunting (like in Doom). If anything, I think it's overhated because developers don't want to make a map big enough to explore when they can get away with creating a beautifully-looking series of gauntlets with zero backtracking.

While it is true that sometimes the keys are in bullshit places I actually love the constant backtracking and maze-like levels in classic FPS games and especially classic DOOM. Makes the map feel more like an actual, you know, map, instead of a guided tour through Mars bases and Hell. Makes beating a level feel really satisfying. I personally always take my time and never get within 2 minutes of the par time on every level save for the first.