I'm about a decade younger than you guys, but I still relate to most of what you described about gaming in the past. One thing that resonated with me in particular was that feeling of a more personal experience with games in the past. The hobby was still very niche, and you might only have a handful of friends who shared your interests. There was no online component, no crazy hype machine, just you buying a game, sitting down, and having an adventure. You had to work harder to have that experience. It was like hunting for treasure.
I'm so thankful that arcades are still prevalent in Japan. I make an arcade run at least once a week to play some Street Fighter, Tekken or a couple of shooters if they have them. I'm so out of the loop when it comes to modern gaming, I don't have a single current gen console. Most of my gaming these days is still 16 and 32-bit. I definitely miss the good old of days of gaming magazines, renting games on weekends, sharing code sheets at school and loaning games back and forth. Good times.
The cool thing about modern games is you have old school games now like Shovel Knight and other indie games with retro look. So while I enjoy retro stuff I also like playing new games discovering new games is always fun. It's also one of the reason why I like import games, to discover old new stuff :)
I've got a nice arcade near my apartment, but there are a lot all over the city that I like to go to when I'm away from home. Pretty much any neighborhood I've been to in Japan has at least a Taito Station or Namco arcade.
It definitely feels good to be out somewhere at night after work or whatever and pop into the local arcade. I spent a lot of time in Aladdin's Castle as a kid.
Stefan Homberger It's the best. I feel like these guys understand the way I think more than many of my own friends. Love these discussions and reflections.
Best thing about the old days of gaming was showing up to your arcade after school, seeing a crowd around a new machine and then having your mind blown because you didn't know Mortal Kombat 2 was coming out. It's like if today you showed up to your local Walmart and they suddenly had Grand Theft Auto 6 available to buy.
No microtransactions, no lootboxes. Expansions that most of the time felt like a complitely new game instead of DLC. Couch gaming. You had to unlock everything through multiple playthroughs and the list just goes on. These are just some of the gaming memories i miss from the old days.
Gamerfan2000 No auto save, I hate it. No tutorials. The first time I remember tutorials really f'n up a game was Ocarina of Time, it seemed like you were being taught how to play the game all the way through. Would have been way better to read a manual then be thrown into the world. Imho
I also miss the phisical copies. Digital releases suck, unless the company really doesn't have the resources to release it otherwise. But having the game in a cool box with beautiful artwork is awesome. It'll always be the best way to have games for me.
people who talk about digital media just don't get physical. it's not just games either. it's games, movies, music, whatever. you get the actual cart, or disc, or cassette, or whatever format it's on. you get a nice case or box, manuals, maybe a map or poster, you get to see concept art sometimes. special or limited editions are nice as well for those who really want something awesome. it's really cool getting stuff like that and not just a copy of a file.
I still buy physical copies of everything, especially music. I guess that’s why I have a closet full of CD’s and video games. I don’t fully trust this whole digital movement yet. When shit goes down and people start losing tens of thousands of dollars worth of media, I want my physical copies to rely on.
@@derek-64 I feel like it's nonsensical to buy a +$100 collectors edition to a game you may not even know that you will even like and everyone has the physical space to store their games either and alot of times nowadays physical is more expensive than digital ( especially when it goes on sale. ) I pretty much only buy games with an anime artstyle ( and Yakuza ) as a physical copy anymore. Also music is way more beneficial as digital than physical .
@@Apptend0 i prefer having the actual product and not just a copy of a file attached to an account stored on a hard drive. plus, i didn't say i was getting the collector's edition. there's standard editions and i actually want the standard edition. collector's editions are nice for those who like them and i have a couple myself but i mainly prefer standard. still, i just want the actual product itself be it disc or cart and if they include extras like a manual or whatever that's nice too. also, maybe i will like the game. i think it looks good and i want to play it. it's like when people bought games back in the day based soley on box art. they saw it on the shelf and gave it a chance.
@Apptend0 Collector’s editions are probably one of the best investments you can make in this hobby, especially for Nintendo games. Since when is digital less expensive? I’ll buy used physical copies in mint condition and usually pay less than half of what digital costs. Just bought a copy of Chernobylite for PS5 for $24 and the digital is currently $50. You can’t even resell digital, so that right there makes zero sense to me.
I really miss manuals. Back when they weren't just Manuals for customer support numbers and warnings, but mini art books with background lore, developer commentary, tips, tricks, hints, ads for more games you might want, etc. I never really needed to read a manual for the manual part, but I absolutely loved reading them over to see all of the extra content packed in around the manual content. XSEED is one of the only publishers I know still offers manuals (and BIG ones) in recent years. Every Story of Seasons or Rune Factory game comes with a really nice manual. It just feels so wrong for me to open a new 3DS game case and see only a single sheet with generic Nintendo support info and health and safety warnings. Even more wrong when I open a new Nintendo Switch case and there's literally *nothing* there. I own 9 or 10 physical copies of Switch games and all of them have clips for Manuals cut into the plastic and yet none of them have even a health and safety sheet, let alone a manual.
This is gonna sound controversial but the thing I miss most about gaming is how unpopular it used to be. You can lump anime into that too. Hell, I miss when people thought of Japan as an impossible place to reach. Everything felt special to me back then and now everything is oversaturated.
I remember trying to ask an adult for help and realizing they were useless at games. Screaming and trying to make characters jump better by yanking the controller.
game magazines were the best thing, highly sought after for any information, screenshots, etc. sometimes you'd pay $5 or something for a magazine just so you could stare at the 2 or 3 screenshots for secret of mana 2 or whatever for hours at a time, day after day lol
EGM was the real deal back in the 16bit and into the 32bit era. I still have a couple of issues with over 300 pages, for a monthly publication that seems insane. But god, I loved every page back then and still pull them out occasionally now. A quarter of a century later they're like holy relics from before the dark times, before the mainstream got its claws into our little corner of the world.
With games being downloaded digitally nowadays, my friends & I share each others accounts so we can play each others games. I do miss the good ol days before the internet where you went to a video rental store and picked a game out based on the cover and not knowing anything about it.
Im 41 now and I'm still so passionate about video games. The stories you've told on this video is/was totally me. I miss the old days. I love our current times too though. You guys are my kind of guys.
This whole video is why our generation, Gen X, those born in the 1970s are the luckiest ones. We were born into the earliest wave of games and got to watch it grow and evolve as we grew up, and by the time were gone from this world, we will have truly seen and experienced everything
Yeah. And those games were $40 back then. That’s why I always laugh at these people now who complain about a game being bad and costing $60. That $40 would be like $100 now. For math Grand Prix or something!
Yeah..and if you accidentally brought a bad game back in the day...it was really bad, sometimes even to the point of almost unplayable, these days even bad games are not so bad.
Growing up video game magazines were just as big a part of the gaming experience as the actual game itself for me. I remember spending hours pouring over the articles talking about Metroid Prime, Killer 7 etc. I completely agree that a big part of the excitement for me around games as a kid was the personal lore and theories my friends and I would discuss when we were playing through certain games (Morrowind was a big one, as was gen 3 Pokémon). Dragon Quest 11 was the first game in years that I did not watch/ read a single video/article for outside of its initial announcement and I have I say I was so thrilled to legitimately be surprised by the twists and turns I experienced playing that game (finishing up post game now). The one thing I would say is a massive positive when it comes to the modern gaming scene is the TH-cam community as it allows to watch videos of people around the world gushing about games I love, or making lore videos for games I want to know about and just don’t have the time for in adulthood. Thanks to you and Rob I just finished downloading Mega Man 11 and am excited to play it in the coming days. I sincerely want to thank you for putting so much work into this channel. It makes me feel like a kid again talking to a good friend about a video game we really really love
I’ll just say this.. you should bring Rob more often, I LOVE THE ENERGY, you guys sound so passionate about it there wasn’t a moment where any of you stopped talking. Awesome video! Takes me back to the old days
I relate so much with you guys, im only 36 but i lived all this too and think the same, i was so lucky to had lived in the 80s and 90s the golden gaming years and arcades...i have nowadays consoles and pc gaming and all of that but its not the same.
Putting the graphics aside the best things that we have now are wireless game pads and bigger, more clear TVs. I don’t get how I could play NES on 19” old TV sitting 1 meter from the screen. My eyes hurt even when I just think about it.
Who else used to collect used bottles and cans to turn in at the local convenience store, then pump those quarters back into their arcade game? I lived in developing suburbs where house builders left these behind, and they funded by gaming obsession.
Now gaming is one of the biggest things in the world, but I'm an older gamer like you two and I remember back in the day you told nobody. I remember dating girls in school in the early 90s and there was no way I would tell her I played games, coz she would dump my ass lol... The thing I love about games now is the fact that I can play multiplayer and fighting games with friends in other countries online, and also the sheer amount of new and cool genres that have come with it. I just don't like the day one patch, the micro-transactions, etc etc... Oh, yes the jacket over the hand playing Street Fighter 2, how I remember :P
Haha man the funny thing is girls are still like that. Only thing is now, at 42 years old, I’m proud to tell them I love playing video games and if they don’t like it... take a hike! I’ll waste my time if I want to and nobody’s telling me different!
Holy shit! I just discovered you guys and it's so refreshing to see dudes so humble, sincerely excited and enthusiastic about video games. Where I live it's a rarity but I share the same enthusiasm, have been playing video games since I was 5 (remember when my cousin got the PlayStation, he was like a god to me). Great content and you made me happy!
These two riff off of each other so much, it's the only channel on TH-cam I know of that has this kind of old school friendship with genuinely endearing, heartfelt stories. I find it so interesting because it's like a time capsule for me! I'm 26 and was only a kid when these guys were teenagers. I would have loved to have experienced the late 80's/90's like these guys have
I remember as a kid going to Blockbuster and renting a video game with a manual and reading it on the ride home. That’s the only way(besides video game mags ) that I could learn about the games. Even in my early teens , we didn’t have net. And I was super left out in junior high in the ps1/2 era and not being able to “look” things up. But you know, I like that. I almost miss that. At 32 , I totally feels a lot of these memories. I work with students at work, and it makes me feel hella old lol. Instead of saying “oh I heard this rumour” they say “I seen it in a playthrough” which is no way as special
That was a HUGE part of the experience for me. My mom would take me to rent or buy a new game while she was running errands and as soon as I got that game and got into the car, I'd crack it open and take out the manual and read it while waiting to go home.
I was born in '78, I feel so lucky to have grown up as a kid in the 80s and early 90s. The games, cartoons, awesome films like Ghostbusters, wouldn't trade it for anything.
Arcade gaming was the best for me. I´m from Guatemala, and as you guys I miss those days. The arcades where my second home. Great times. Really enjoy your show BTW
Going over to that friend’s house who had a Genesis before you, it was like getting another flavor of your favorite food. It was this thing you liked but the consoles had so many different limitations and features back in the day, so it was like learning a different language.
I personally miss the video game magazines. I remember getting my first look at The Nintendo Gamecube on Nintendo Power. I also remember learning about The Xbox on The Official Xbox Magazine which showed the console and controller and what it looked like inside which I was really interested in seeing being I may been a Nintendo fanboy but I had a great love for technology and learning about new things was my favorite thing. I remember seeing the inside of The Nintendo Gamecube on Nintendo Power and I was amazed to see what it looked like inside lol. I remember getting my first Playstation 2. I used to get circuit breaker yearly and on the first time I originally got a iPod Touch but I returned it after seeing a Playstation 2 at my local Gamestop and I decided to get it lol. At first I felt that I was a traitor to Nintendo but when I saw on the letter section of Nintendo Power that someone had the same thing as I did and on the reply they said don't worry you didn't betray us at Nintendo. We expect you to buy other consoles because there might be some games that are on those consoles that won't make it to Nintendo's consoles. So enjoy your new Playstation 2 you didn't betray us leave the competition to us in the game industry. I felt better after reading that and I became a loyal fan of the Playstation Brand.
Man, I remember when Shadow Warriors (Ninja Gaiden) came out on the NES. Was totally psyched to be playing the arcade game on the NES... wow, what a shock that was. Thankfully, while different, it was bloody awesome... odd, but awesome :)
The most amazing conversation ever. Watched every second and enjoyed it, agreed with everything you said. I'm 29, so little behind you guys in the times but I remember a lot of what you were talking about. SNES, Genesis, PS1, N64, Gamecube, PS2, Xbox were my childhood.
Hell yea bringin out the Ikaruga soundtrack❤️🔥I love the og vg memories, the passion was so raw it makes you appreciate the ease of access to games nowadays
Man I just knew about your channel, and thank God it's one of the best things that happened to me in the last 3 months. About trading games me and my friends still do it, but most of the time I'm the one who's giving the games, just to let them try it and we can have conversations about them.
Things have changed so much over time when it comes to gaming. I really do miss the excitement of coming home and opening up the box to check out the manual and look at the box art some more, it was all part of the experience. Great video, thanks guys.
Never really traded games with my friends, though instead we would borrow each other's games, other times we would just stay over and try different game's. Really miss those day's.
There are a lot of people talking about how gaming used to be so niche. And it was to a degree. Just as an illustration of how far things have come and how different they are now, the entire revenue of the gaming industry in 2022 was nearly 8x the revenue of the movie industry. That is utterly insane to me
Game releases were spread out more and I miss that. I remember treasuring a game because it would be the game I’d be playing for the next few months without distraction of other games coming out during that time. It was such a social experience too because all of your friends were likely playing the same game and like you said, without internet, you relied on your friends for help, and you shared all your discoveries. Good times! Great video! Never have I shouted out and talked to my iPad while watching a TH-cam video. 😋
I remember the old days of gaming just like you guys were discussing in the video, that was something special man when you went to the arcade and the console wasn't nearly good enough hardware wise to bring the experience home. I'm glad I was part of both the retro days and now the modern times (I've got a Switch)
Man, I grew up in the late 90s and early 2000s and I can relate to so much of what you guys talked about. Me and my friends still trade games and we're in our 20s, and I loved getting video game magazines and only having an article or a single e3 trailer to go off of for upcoming games because we didn't have reliable internet to look things up back then. I miss the simpler days.
Best thing I've found to increase my "excitement" is get go into games as dark as possible. Not watching trailers, not reading articles unless you need to, not watching live streams unless it's the very beginning and you're on the fence. Much of my joy returns when I find "oh cool it has x feature" or "oh man wasn't expecting that!" etc.
Dude, some of those manuals were pretty intricate. Like I remember starfox and secret of mana having claymation puppet characters in different poses on each page. Pretty badass.
this was one of the best vids i have ever seen!! i totally miss the late 80s through the mid 90s era of gaming. I am 38 years old and grew up with the NES then the SNES. i miss gaming magazines which explains by obsession over retro magazines...gamefan, gamepro, EGM....thats where i could fantasize about games because there was no internet...just our imaginations
Im 28 but most what you guys said applied to me. I grew up with the nintendo 64 though i never owned the snes or genesis. I remember if you got stuck on a level or boss you played it for hours until you figured it out or asking friends at school if they figured it out. It was the best. I remember you could rent entire consoles and games too.
my favorite TV show from the mid 80s to end 90s that i have nostalgic feelings for a time i never knew is back. with our leader host John, and lovable co-host Rob.
it's over :( time to go and watch some Patlabor cuz i didn't saw it yet. Ova 1 - Ep 5. episode 4 was so quiet, but the build up was so great. hope that the rest will be great.
When I was in elementary school, everyone in the class was crazy about Dragon Quest III and exchanging information because as you said, there was no internet. One day a girl in the class asked me about how to proceed a certain point in DQ III since she knew I like video games. I never knew she plays video games and maybe that was her first game that she ever played. I told her how to do then she said "I don't really understand. Come to my house and show it to me!" I said "No, I can"t do that!" Because I'd never been to girl's house at the time and I thought it would be so embarrassing haha. What a shy and innocent boy I was. I wonder what she"s doing now...
The worst thing about today is the load times of new games. Nothing kills hype more than when you put a new game in and it takes forever to install. Especially if you live somewhere with a bad connection. Kills the hype so bad.
load times are nothing compared to what it was like for me growing up in the 80s with my zx spectrum having to wait up to 10mins for the game to load from a tape, then just to have a tape loading error and have to start all over again
Hey Johnny. Love your videos. Please make a video about the NEW Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom game that is coming out. It is a fantastic sequel to the Wonder Boy in Monster World games.
I did lol when you talked about swapping games with yer friends. I remember having a carry a bag full of snes games, walking round my village, seeing if anyone would swap for afew nights. Great times.
Great topic ! The places where i used to play arcades are still around, bowling alleys, amusement parks, pizza joints, the arcade rooms are still there, but not the cool games, mostly redemption, it's a bummer.
I loved that episode :D It's awesome to hear about the past since I was only born in the 90s but because of my older brother I grew up with a lot of retro games, movies and music and its cool to kinda get a journey to the past with your videos :D
This was a good conversation. Games are always getting better and at the same time the gaming market is over saturated. This creates insane competition for developers which results in rushed games sometimes and then patches. My solution is play only what looks great to you and enjoy the support the game will continue to get.
I will say that the one thing I like about today's gaming is that anyone could make a game and self publish it if they really want to. It was a lot harder to do back in the day unless you were just giving it out for free. I do miss holding the actual game in my hand and simply putting it in to play...and the manuals. Nice video as always! Glad to see you and Rob still going. So many other older gaming channels seem to have lost the passion.
I even miss the manuals from Sega Master System games. They weren't black and white... they were blue and white! I think Megadrive/Genesis were the same? I was always jealous of my friends who had an NES, but I loved it when the Super Nintendo came out. Full colour manuals! Old PC games were the BEST. The manuals, depending on the game, could be almost like a novel in size! You'd get this massive box, and a giant manual! As well as some other things sometimes, like Johnny said, cloth maps and the like.
I grew up in a different time and a very different environment (90s and aughties, rural Nevada), most of my arcade experiences were with restaurants and hotels. The stand-alone arcade wasn't really a thing then and there. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer restaurants and hotels have games, even pizza places are ditching them. Sure, Chuck E Cheese's and Peter Piper aren't going anywhere, but I'm talking about places I'm actually still allowed in. I live in Arizona now, and the Round Table in this town recently got rid of its cabinets (not that I can blame them, they were half broken and probably not making them much money). Pizza Hut hasn't had any games for a long time, and the Domino's and Little Caesar's locations here are take-out only. The hotels I mentioned before were mostly in big hotel/casinos, and while they might still have them in Reno's and Lake Tahoe's casinos, obviously there's nothing like that here. There is a stand-alone arcade here, but it's nothing to write home about. At least 60% of the machines don't work. I know I can get a better experience in terms of graphics at home, and I play plenty of modern games, but it's not the same. Most of the games I play are single player anyway, but it's an apples to oranges thing. The arcade was a social experience. Buffalo Billy's in Yerington had "Turtles In Time", and there was nothing quite like grabbing a few friends and doing co-op on that.
Dude - totally remember that 90s GameFan mag where it mentioned the Castlevania SoTN water effects and the tear shedding! I GORGED that article for weeks back in the day before it came out - my hype was insane real for over a year because of it, and all of the ads for the import games that I saw (Seiken Densetsu 3, Final Fantasy V, etc. that weren't released over here)! Miss the old hype rumor mill days - gaming mags were totally my jam for external info as well - totally awesome you referenced that article line - took me back to it!
I'm so happy I got to grow up back then, I was 7 or 8 when my family got an Atari 2600, I was in heaven playing that. I loved those early arcades, I spent many hours in all of them. Even the early Chuck-E-Cheese's back in the day had some badass arcades and they kept them dark and dreary which was great for seeing the screen better. Tron is my all time favorite arcade game. Between the Atari and NES days I got into those early computer games, played the hell out of Zork, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and all the King's Quest games which are my favorite computer games. I've always felt they don't get the love they deserve. But it really was once the NES came out that just cemented me to video games forever. I had a blast during the NES & SNES days, so much fun. I always looked forward to Christmas and Birthday's for the games I'd get and I too would love reading through the manuals. Final Fantasy II (IV) is still my all time favorite game and I play through it once a year. I'll get bored sometimes with modern games but never tire of my old school retro shit. Blaster Master was a fun ass game but I could never beat it, I tried and tried but couldn't do it. I really need to go back and try it again all these years later. My high school years were spent playing sports year round but every night I'd game and I made it so my senior year I had a religious class first period so I didn't have to go until 2nd period so I could sleep in from staying up late playing. LOLOLOL I sure miss those days.
Not sure how it goes down these days but I traded my games with friends up to about 2010. I remember the glory days of the 90's though this video brought back so many memories. Thank you Johnny and Rob man for bringing me down memory lane. I miss the little mom and pop shop I used to go to with my grandparents. The building is still there but the business is long forgotten.
i bought in 1994 megman X thinking it was the original series as number 10 and when i start playing it wow this X game its a spinoff and totally different because i didnt know X was a new series
Back then (I'm 39) it was more about the journey than the destination. Magazines , imagination, rumors and public talk was all we had. Going to a friend's house and see they had several games u didn't was always a surreal time. Co op couch play allnighters. I remember walking 3 miles after an ice storm to get link to the past lol. I'll never forget playing super Mario world for the first time. So many memories.
I sooo identify myself with you guys so much, I just turned 40 and grew up playing and enjoying the Nintendo era when I was a little kid, so much nostalgia going on, there's a thing that still itches in my case, I love the Wizards & Warriors series for the NES and in the 3rd game's ending there's a "To be continued" ending leading to a 4th game so keep up with the story which it turns out that it never came out, if I had million dollars I would gather the original team that made the W&W series and hire them back to make the 4th game, I'm dead serious lol, love your show Johnny and also, so glad to see Robman coming back to your show, well anyways guys, until next time! x3
Great episode! I still remember the worst loss I ever took in the "box art lottery": a copy of "Deadly Towers" (NES) that I picked out as my birthday gift at 10 years old. Ugh.
Completely relate to there being something special about not seeing a game in motion till you play it, it was like magic, trying to guess what it would look like from screenshots!
great video, really relatable. its funny that i used to get so excited for the stuff in magazines but now when i get them in the mail they go straight into the trash without me even opening them lol
...and YES! That feeling you had of playing a certain game that you assumed no one else knew about, was a magical thing. For me that was Shenmue. Here in Portugal i never met anyone who even heard about it, and since i was 8-9, i though to be the only kid in the World who got to experience this amazingly different thing. That fact (among many others that don't even relate directly to the game) contributed to it becoming my favorite of all time. All the innocence enhanced the Nostalgia.
Great video! I miss the anticipation of new game’s coming out pre-Internet. I was also a big Nintendo Power fan. I miss looking at the Sunday newspaper to find the circlular advertising the new releases.
I'm about a decade younger than you guys, but I still relate to most of what you described about gaming in the past. One thing that resonated with me in particular was that feeling of a more personal experience with games in the past. The hobby was still very niche, and you might only have a handful of friends who shared your interests. There was no online component, no crazy hype machine, just you buying a game, sitting down, and having an adventure. You had to work harder to have that experience. It was like hunting for treasure.
But, also, it's so hard to find that experience TODAY. The experience of discovery.
I'm so thankful that arcades are still prevalent in Japan. I make an arcade run at least once a week to play some Street Fighter, Tekken or a couple of shooters if they have them.
I'm so out of the loop when it comes to modern gaming, I don't have a single current gen console. Most of my gaming these days is still 16 and 32-bit. I definitely miss the good old of days of gaming magazines, renting games on weekends, sharing code sheets at school and loaning games back and forth. Good times.
my hometown is decent for old school arcade stuff though not japanese titles as much makes me wanna move to california or japan
I envy you , my friend. There haven’t been an arcade in my proximity since 1993. I miss those days.
The cool thing about modern games is you have old school games now like Shovel Knight and other indie games with retro look.
So while I enjoy retro stuff I also like playing new games discovering new games is always fun.
It's also one of the reason why I like import games, to discover old new stuff :)
I've got a nice arcade near my apartment, but there are a lot all over the city that I like to go to when I'm away from home. Pretty much any neighborhood I've been to in Japan has at least a Taito Station or Namco arcade.
It definitely feels good to be out somewhere at night after work or whatever and pop into the local arcade. I spent a lot of time in Aladdin's Castle as a kid.
Yay! These Johnny and Rob memories videos are always my favorite.
Stefan Homberger It's the best. I feel like these guys understand the way I think more than many of my own friends. Love these discussions and reflections.
Couldn´t have said it better myself :) True feels!
The best!
Always come back here!
Best thing about the old days of gaming was showing up to your arcade after school, seeing a crowd around a new machine and then having your mind blown because you didn't know Mortal Kombat 2 was coming out. It's like if today you showed up to your local Walmart and they suddenly had Grand Theft Auto 6 available to buy.
I’m a PS1, Dreamcast, N64 era guy and I miss how gaming was in the late 90s and early 2000s!
No microtransactions, no lootboxes. Expansions that most of the time felt like a complitely new game instead of DLC. Couch gaming. You had to unlock everything through multiple playthroughs and the list just goes on. These are just some of the gaming memories i miss from the old days.
Gamerfan2000 No auto save, I hate it. No tutorials. The first time I remember tutorials really f'n up a game was Ocarina of Time, it seemed like you were being taught how to play the game all the way through. Would have been way better to read a manual then be thrown into the world. Imho
I also miss the phisical copies. Digital releases suck, unless the company really doesn't have the resources to release it otherwise. But having the game in a cool box with beautiful artwork is awesome. It'll always be the best way to have games for me.
people who talk about digital media just don't get physical. it's not just games either. it's games, movies, music, whatever. you get the actual cart, or disc, or cassette, or whatever format it's on. you get a nice case or box, manuals, maybe a map or poster, you get to see concept art sometimes. special or limited editions are nice as well for those who really want something awesome. it's really cool getting stuff like that and not just a copy of a file.
I still buy physical copies of everything, especially music. I guess that’s why I have a closet full of CD’s and video games. I don’t fully trust this whole digital movement yet. When shit goes down and people start losing tens of thousands of dollars worth of media, I want my physical copies to rely on.
@@derek-64 I feel like it's nonsensical to buy a +$100 collectors edition to a game you may not even know that you will even like and everyone has the physical space to store their games either and alot of times nowadays physical is more expensive than digital ( especially when it goes on sale. ) I pretty much only buy games with an anime artstyle ( and Yakuza ) as a physical copy anymore. Also music is way more beneficial as digital than physical .
@@Apptend0 i prefer having the actual product and not just a copy of a file attached to an account stored on a hard drive. plus, i didn't say i was getting the collector's edition. there's standard editions and i actually want the standard edition. collector's editions are nice for those who like them and i have a couple myself but i mainly prefer standard. still, i just want the actual product itself be it disc or cart and if they include extras like a manual or whatever that's nice too. also, maybe i will like the game. i think it looks good and i want to play it. it's like when people bought games back in the day based soley on box art. they saw it on the shelf and gave it a chance.
@Apptend0
Collector’s editions are probably one of the best investments you can make in this hobby, especially for Nintendo games. Since when is digital less expensive? I’ll buy used physical copies in mint condition and usually pay less than half of what digital costs. Just bought a copy of Chernobylite for PS5 for $24 and the digital is currently $50. You can’t even resell digital, so that right there makes zero sense to me.
I really miss manuals. Back when they weren't just Manuals for customer support numbers and warnings, but mini art books with background lore, developer commentary, tips, tricks, hints, ads for more games you might want, etc.
I never really needed to read a manual for the manual part, but I absolutely loved reading them over to see all of the extra content packed in around the manual content.
XSEED is one of the only publishers I know still offers manuals (and BIG ones) in recent years. Every Story of Seasons or Rune Factory game comes with a really nice manual.
It just feels so wrong for me to open a new 3DS game case and see only a single sheet with generic Nintendo support info and health and safety warnings. Even more wrong when I open a new Nintendo Switch case and there's literally *nothing* there. I own 9 or 10 physical copies of Switch games and all of them have clips for Manuals cut into the plastic and yet none of them have even a health and safety sheet, let alone a manual.
Exactly what higher flower said. Nicalis is a wonderful company.
Same, I have a few with manuals but you're right it would awesome if they all came with manuals
This is gonna sound controversial but the thing I miss most about gaming is how unpopular it used to be. You can lump anime into that too. Hell, I miss when people thought of Japan as an impossible place to reach. Everything felt special to me back then and now everything is oversaturated.
"You try to find a family member...they were usually f**king usless!"...best quote ever!
I remember trying to ask an adult for help and realizing they were useless at games. Screaming and trying to make characters jump better by yanking the controller.
game magazines were the best thing, highly sought after for any information, screenshots, etc. sometimes you'd pay $5 or something for a magazine just so you could stare at the 2 or 3 screenshots for secret of mana 2 or whatever for hours at a time, day after day lol
yeah I miss good gaming magazines used to read them during recess under a tree
Yup! I looked forward to my gamepros every month. If only I had kept them.
Simpler times. Damn I miss those days.
I remember those days, fucking Gamefan!
EGM was the real deal back in the 16bit and into the 32bit era. I still have a couple of issues with over 300 pages, for a monthly publication that seems insane. But god, I loved every page back then and still pull them out occasionally now. A quarter of a century later they're like holy relics from before the dark times, before the mainstream got its claws into our little corner of the world.
With games being downloaded digitally nowadays, my friends & I share each others accounts so we can play each others games. I do miss the good ol days before the internet where you went to a video rental store and picked a game out based on the cover and not knowing anything about it.
Im 41 now and I'm still so passionate about video games. The stories you've told on this video is/was totally me. I miss the old days. I love our current times too though. You guys are my kind of guys.
Allways cool when Rob is on a episode ,)
Loved the video guys. Thanks you for sharing theese Awesome memories.
This whole video is why our generation, Gen X, those born in the 1970s are the luckiest ones. We were born into the earliest wave of games and got to watch it grow and evolve as we grew up, and by the time were gone from this world, we will have truly seen and experienced everything
We also got to witness the birth of the microcomputer, the introduction to the bbs and then the internet. We were very lucky...
Atari boxes fooled me so many time back in the 80s, I was always expecting something similar to the cover LOL
Yeah. And those games were $40 back then. That’s why I always laugh at these people now who complain about a game being bad and costing $60. That $40 would be like $100 now. For math Grand Prix or something!
Yeah..and if you accidentally brought a bad game back in the day...it was really bad, sometimes even to the point of almost unplayable, these days even bad games are not so bad.
Growing up video game magazines were just as big a part of the gaming experience as the actual game itself for me. I remember spending hours pouring over the articles talking about Metroid Prime, Killer 7 etc. I completely agree that a big part of the excitement for me around games as a kid was the personal lore and theories my friends and I would discuss when we were playing through certain games (Morrowind was a big one, as was gen 3 Pokémon). Dragon Quest 11 was the first game in years that I did not watch/ read a single video/article for outside of its initial announcement and I have I say I was so thrilled to legitimately be surprised by the twists and turns I experienced playing that game (finishing up post game now). The one thing I would say is a massive positive when it comes to the modern gaming scene is the TH-cam community as it allows to watch videos of people around the world gushing about games I love, or making lore videos for games I want to know about and just don’t have the time for in adulthood. Thanks to you and Rob I just finished downloading Mega Man 11 and am excited to play it in the coming days. I sincerely want to thank you for putting so much work into this channel. It makes me feel like a kid again talking to a good friend about a video game we really really love
I’ll just say this.. you should bring Rob more often, I LOVE THE ENERGY, you guys sound so passionate about it there wasn’t a moment where any of you stopped talking.
Awesome video! Takes me back to the old days
I relate so much with you guys, im only 36 but i lived all this too and think the same, i was so lucky to had lived in the 80s and 90s the golden gaming years and arcades...i have nowadays consoles and pc gaming and all of that but its not the same.
One of my favorite talks of y'all's in a while. So much nostalgia and yes-you-understand-my-life moments. Don't ever stop, Johnny!
Putting the graphics aside the best things that we have now are wireless game pads and bigger, more clear TVs. I don’t get how I could play NES on 19” old TV sitting 1 meter from the screen. My eyes hurt even when I just think about it.
Who else used to collect used bottles and cans to turn in at the local convenience store, then pump those quarters back into their arcade game? I lived in developing suburbs where house builders left these behind, and they funded by gaming obsession.
Not proud of it, but I used to throw a few crushed cans with gravel in them in each bag just to add a little weight. I needs my games.
I use to make slugsto play games and buy sodas ,damn I was poor back then 😂
There was a rumor in my neighborhood that in a link to the past you could get a black master sword if you fell at the right spot while fighting Ganon.
Now gaming is one of the biggest things in the world, but I'm an older gamer like you two and I remember back in the day you told nobody. I remember dating girls in school in the early 90s and there was no way I would tell her I played games, coz she would dump my ass lol... The thing I love about games now is the fact that I can play multiplayer and fighting games with friends in other countries online, and also the sheer amount of new and cool genres that have come with it. I just don't like the day one patch, the micro-transactions, etc etc...
Oh, yes the jacket over the hand playing Street Fighter 2, how I remember :P
Haha man the funny thing is girls are still like that. Only thing is now, at 42 years old, I’m proud to tell them I love playing video games and if they don’t like it... take a hike! I’ll waste my time if I want to and nobody’s telling me different!
Holy shit! I just discovered you guys and it's so refreshing to see dudes so humble, sincerely excited and enthusiastic about video games. Where I live it's a rarity but I share the same enthusiasm, have been playing video games since I was 5 (remember when my cousin got the PlayStation, he was like a god to me). Great content and you made me happy!
These two riff off of each other so much, it's the only channel on TH-cam I know of that has this kind of old school friendship with genuinely endearing, heartfelt stories.
I find it so interesting because it's like a time capsule for me! I'm 26 and was only a kid when these guys were teenagers. I would have loved to have experienced the late 80's/90's like these guys have
You guys hit on everything. The manuals, the box art, plug and play. I miss it.
I remember as a kid going to Blockbuster and renting a video game with a manual and reading it on the ride home. That’s the only way(besides video game mags ) that I could learn about the games.
Even in my early teens , we didn’t have net. And I was super left out in junior high in the ps1/2 era and not being able to “look” things up. But you know, I like that. I almost miss that. At 32 , I totally feels a lot of these memories. I work with students at work, and it makes me feel hella old lol. Instead of saying “oh I heard this rumour” they say “I seen it in a playthrough” which is no way as special
That was a HUGE part of the experience for me. My mom would take me to rent or buy a new game while she was running errands and as soon as I got that game and got into the car, I'd crack it open and take out the manual and read it while waiting to go home.
I remember marching in snow storms with friends for gaming, good times
I was born in '78, I feel so lucky to have grown up as a kid in the 80s and early 90s. The games, cartoons, awesome films like Ghostbusters, wouldn't trade it for anything.
Arcade gaming was the best for me. I´m from Guatemala, and as you guys I miss those days. The arcades where my second home. Great times. Really enjoy your show BTW
Going over to that friend’s house who had a Genesis before you, it was like getting another flavor of your favorite food. It was this thing you liked but the consoles had so many different limitations and features back in the day, so it was like learning a different language.
I personally miss the video game magazines. I remember getting my first look at The Nintendo Gamecube on Nintendo Power. I also remember learning about The Xbox on The Official Xbox Magazine which showed the console and controller and what it looked like inside which I was really interested in seeing being I may been a Nintendo fanboy but I had a great love for technology and learning about new things was my favorite thing. I remember seeing the inside of The Nintendo Gamecube on Nintendo Power and I was amazed to see what it looked like inside lol. I remember getting my first Playstation 2. I used to get circuit breaker yearly and on the first time I originally got a iPod Touch but I returned it after seeing a Playstation 2 at my local Gamestop and I decided to get it lol. At first I felt that I was a traitor to Nintendo but when I saw on the letter section of Nintendo Power that someone had the same thing as I did and on the reply they said don't worry you didn't betray us at Nintendo. We expect you to buy other consoles because there might be some games that are on those consoles that won't make it to Nintendo's consoles. So enjoy your new Playstation 2 you didn't betray us leave the competition to us in the game industry. I felt better after reading that and I became a loyal fan of the Playstation Brand.
This really brought me back.
Man I'm so thankful for watching this vids it just gives me that excitement when I talk to my friends about the games
Fantastic vid agree with most of your points, I miss finding those hidden gems that you hadnt heard about
U guys are a fantastic duo. Reminiscing over nostalgia and experiences together is the best. Continue doing so!
Man, I remember when Shadow Warriors (Ninja Gaiden) came out on the NES. Was totally psyched to be playing the arcade game on the NES... wow, what a shock that was. Thankfully, while different, it was bloody awesome... odd, but awesome :)
I love how excited and animated they are getting simply for the pure love of gaming.
You the man! I really enjoy your channel. Some of the videos really take me back, like this one. Keep up the good work!
The most amazing conversation ever. Watched every second and enjoyed it, agreed with everything you said. I'm 29, so little behind you guys in the times but I remember a lot of what you were talking about. SNES, Genesis, PS1, N64, Gamecube, PS2, Xbox were my childhood.
Another amazing video. The way you talk about reliving your past capitalizes on everything nostalgia. Love every single one of these videos!
Hell yea bringin out the Ikaruga soundtrack❤️🔥I love the og vg memories, the passion was so raw it makes you appreciate the ease of access to games nowadays
Great to see Rob back, and what a nostalgic trip this episode was.
Man I just knew about your channel, and thank God it's one of the best things that happened to me in the last 3 months.
About trading games me and my friends still do it, but most of the time I'm the one who's giving the games, just to let them try it and we can have conversations about them.
Things have changed so much over time when it comes to gaming. I really do miss the excitement of coming home and opening up the box to check out the manual and look at the box art some more, it was all part of the experience. Great video, thanks guys.
the passion for games you guys have is great :-).
These are the best episodes Robman and Johnny just talking about anything love it.
Never really traded games with my friends, though instead we would borrow each other's games, other times we would just stay over and try different game's. Really miss those day's.
I traded games ONCE with a friend and that bugger moved away with them. Never again!
There are a lot of people talking about how gaming used to be so niche. And it was to a degree. Just as an illustration of how far things have come and how different they are now, the entire revenue of the gaming industry in 2022 was nearly 8x the revenue of the movie industry. That is utterly insane to me
Man this video is all over the place lol
Love the channel
Game releases were spread out more and I miss that. I remember treasuring a game because it would be the game I’d be playing for the next few months without distraction of other games coming out during that time. It was such a social experience too because all of your friends were likely playing the same game and like you said, without internet, you relied on your friends for help, and you shared all your discoveries.
Good times! Great video! Never have I shouted out and talked to my iPad while watching a TH-cam video. 😋
I love this video. Takes me back to my childhood. This channel makes me feel like I'm not old !
I remember the old days of gaming just like you guys were discussing in the video, that was something special man when you went to the arcade and the console wasn't nearly good enough hardware wise to bring the experience home. I'm glad I was part of both the retro days and now the modern times (I've got a Switch)
Then the Dreamcast released and the arcade truly came home :D
i love this channel, it makes me happy too!
I bought zone of the Enders just to play the Metal Gear 2 demo. I played that demo over and over. I miss those days.
Man, I grew up in the late 90s and early 2000s and I can relate to so much of what you guys talked about. Me and my friends still trade games and we're in our 20s, and I loved getting video game magazines and only having an article or a single e3 trailer to go off of for upcoming games because we didn't have reliable internet to look things up back then. I miss the simpler days.
You guys made me cry I had that Cloud T shirt and now I have no idea where it is!!! That sparked sooo many memories!!!
Best thing I've found to increase my "excitement" is get go into games as dark as possible. Not watching trailers, not reading articles unless you need to, not watching live streams unless it's the very beginning and you're on the fence. Much of my joy returns when I find "oh cool it has x feature" or "oh man wasn't expecting that!" etc.
Omg, these two talking... the nostalgia. I feel like crying. Bring me back those days!!!!
Oh gosh that moment you cut to some Grandia gameplay..... so agree with all this..... fun times!
I was born in 2000 so I unfortunately can't relate to half of this stuff, but man does it ever sound fun. I would've loved to be a kid in the 80s/90s
Dude, some of those manuals were pretty intricate. Like I remember starfox and secret of mana having claymation puppet characters in different poses on each page. Pretty badass.
Love coming back and watching even the older videos🥲
this was one of the best vids i have ever seen!! i totally miss the late 80s through the mid 90s era of gaming. I am 38 years old and grew up with the NES then the SNES. i miss gaming magazines which explains by obsession over retro magazines...gamefan, gamepro, EGM....thats where i could fantasize about games because there was no internet...just our imaginations
Always nice to see Rob on the channel. Great video, great discussion.
You and Rob always have the best videos together
Im 28 but most what you guys said applied to me. I grew up with the nintendo 64 though i never owned the snes or genesis. I remember if you got stuck on a level or boss you played it for hours until you figured it out or asking friends at school if they figured it out. It was the best. I remember you could rent entire consoles and games too.
Man, hearing u guys reliving your memories is just awesome. Though i was born on 1983, my gaming experience is also more or less the same.
my favorite TV show from the mid 80s to end 90s that i have nostalgic feelings for a time i never knew is back.
with our leader host John, and lovable co-host Rob.
it's over :(
time to go and watch some Patlabor cuz i didn't saw it yet.
Ova 1 - Ep 5. episode 4 was so quiet, but the build up was so great. hope that the rest will be great.
i miss arcades that had tokens the little cards while convenient just aren't the same as a pocket full of coins
When you guys are together it reminds me of my friend and I just magic pick right up where you last left off, this was great thanks.
When I was in elementary school, everyone in the class was crazy about Dragon Quest III and exchanging information because as you said, there was no internet. One day a girl in the class asked me about how to proceed a certain point in DQ III since she knew I like video games. I never knew she plays video games and maybe that was her first game that she ever played. I told her how to do then she said "I don't really understand. Come to my house and show it to me!" I said "No, I can"t do that!" Because I'd never been to girl's house at the time and I thought it would be so embarrassing haha. What a shy and innocent boy I was. I wonder what she"s doing now...
The worst thing about today is the load times of new games. Nothing kills hype more than when you put a new game in and it takes forever to install. Especially if you live somewhere with a bad connection. Kills the hype so bad.
load times are nothing compared to what it was like for me growing up in the 80s with my zx spectrum having to wait up to 10mins for the game to load from a tape, then just to have a tape loading error and have to start all over again
SamusEny lol that’s funny to think about.
Try playing ps1 games then try talking to us about bad loading times lol
Loves yalls genuine energy!!! You guys took me back. Love all the passion in this video!!!!!!!!!
Hey Johnny. Love your videos. Please make a video about the NEW Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom game that is coming out. It is a fantastic sequel to the Wonder Boy in Monster World games.
I did lol when you talked about swapping games with yer friends. I remember having a carry a bag full of snes games, walking round my village, seeing if anyone would swap for afew nights. Great times.
Great topic ! The places where i used to play arcades are still around, bowling alleys, amusement parks, pizza joints, the arcade rooms are still there, but not the cool games, mostly redemption, it's a bummer.
I loved that episode :D It's awesome to hear about the past since I was only born in the 90s but because of my older brother I grew up with a lot of retro games, movies and music and its cool to kinda get a journey to the past with your videos :D
This was a good conversation. Games are always getting better and at the same time the gaming market is over saturated. This creates insane competition for developers which results in rushed games sometimes and then patches. My solution is play only what looks great to you and enjoy the support the game will continue to get.
I will say that the one thing I like about today's gaming is that anyone could make a game and self publish it if they really want to. It was a lot harder to do back in the day unless you were just giving it out for free. I do miss holding the actual game in my hand and simply putting it in to play...and the manuals. Nice video as always! Glad to see you and Rob still going. So many other older gaming channels seem to have lost the passion.
I remember trading my copy of Age of Empires 2 for Power Stone on the Dreamcast to my school friend
I even miss the manuals from Sega Master System games. They weren't black and white... they were blue and white! I think Megadrive/Genesis were the same? I was always jealous of my friends who had an NES, but I loved it when the Super Nintendo came out. Full colour manuals!
Old PC games were the BEST. The manuals, depending on the game, could be almost like a novel in size! You'd get this massive box, and a giant manual! As well as some other things sometimes, like Johnny said, cloth maps and the like.
Yeah, it has to be fun and that's it! Good to see Rob again. Best channel of all, The HappyConsoleGamer show!
when yall had to cut because Rob got too hyped, I laughed so hard!
I grew up in a different time and a very different environment (90s and aughties, rural Nevada), most of my arcade experiences were with restaurants and hotels. The stand-alone arcade wasn't really a thing then and there. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer restaurants and hotels have games, even pizza places are ditching them. Sure, Chuck E Cheese's and Peter Piper aren't going anywhere, but I'm talking about places I'm actually still allowed in. I live in Arizona now, and the Round Table in this town recently got rid of its cabinets (not that I can blame them, they were half broken and probably not making them much money). Pizza Hut hasn't had any games for a long time, and the Domino's and Little Caesar's locations here are take-out only. The hotels I mentioned before were mostly in big hotel/casinos, and while they might still have them in Reno's and Lake Tahoe's casinos, obviously there's nothing like that here. There is a stand-alone arcade here, but it's nothing to write home about. At least 60% of the machines don't work. I know I can get a better experience in terms of graphics at home, and I play plenty of modern games, but it's not the same. Most of the games I play are single player anyway, but it's an apples to oranges thing. The arcade was a social experience. Buffalo Billy's in Yerington had "Turtles In Time", and there was nothing quite like grabbing a few friends and doing co-op on that.
".....before the CRASH." and the plane crashes..nice match-up, it def brought out a chuckle! :P
Dude - totally remember that 90s GameFan mag where it mentioned the Castlevania SoTN water effects and the tear shedding! I GORGED that article for weeks back in the day before it came out - my hype was insane real for over a year because of it, and all of the ads for the import games that I saw (Seiken Densetsu 3, Final Fantasy V, etc. that weren't released over here)! Miss the old hype rumor mill days - gaming mags were totally my jam for external info as well - totally awesome you referenced that article line - took me back to it!
I'm so happy I got to grow up back then, I was 7 or 8 when my family got an Atari 2600, I was in heaven playing that. I loved those early arcades, I spent many hours in all of them. Even the early Chuck-E-Cheese's back in the day had some badass arcades and they kept them dark and dreary which was great for seeing the screen better. Tron is my all time favorite arcade game. Between the Atari and NES days I got into those early computer games, played the hell out of Zork, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and all the King's Quest games which are my favorite computer games. I've always felt they don't get the love they deserve. But it really was once the NES came out that just cemented me to video games forever. I had a blast during the NES & SNES days, so much fun. I always looked forward to Christmas and Birthday's for the games I'd get and I too would love reading through the manuals. Final Fantasy II (IV) is still my all time favorite game and I play through it once a year. I'll get bored sometimes with modern games but never tire of my old school retro shit. Blaster Master was a fun ass game but I could never beat it, I tried and tried but couldn't do it. I really need to go back and try it again all these years later. My high school years were spent playing sports year round but every night I'd game and I made it so my senior year I had a religious class first period so I didn't have to go until 2nd period so I could sleep in from staying up late playing. LOLOLOL I sure miss those days.
Not sure how it goes down these days but I traded my games with friends up to about 2010. I remember the glory days of the 90's though this video brought back so many memories. Thank you Johnny and Rob man for bringing me down memory lane. I miss the little mom and pop shop I used to go to with my grandparents. The building is still there but the business is long forgotten.
ah, damn I didn't even realize I really needed a Johnny&Robman video right now. keep it up guys!
i bought in 1994 megman X thinking it was the original series as number 10 and when i start playing it wow this X game its a spinoff and totally different because i didnt know X was a new series
Back then (I'm 39) it was more about the journey than the destination. Magazines , imagination, rumors and public talk was all we had. Going to a friend's house and see they had several games u didn't was always a surreal time. Co op couch play allnighters.
I remember walking 3 miles after an ice storm to get link to the past lol. I'll never forget playing super Mario world for the first time. So many memories.
I sooo identify myself with you guys so much, I just turned 40 and grew up playing and enjoying the Nintendo era when I was a little kid, so much nostalgia going on, there's a thing that still itches in my case, I love the Wizards & Warriors series for the NES and in the 3rd game's ending there's a "To be continued" ending leading to a 4th game so keep up with the story which it turns out that it never came out, if I had million dollars I would gather the original team that made the W&W series and hire them back to make the 4th game, I'm dead serious lol, love your show Johnny and also, so glad to see Robman coming back to your show, well anyways guys, until next time! x3
Great episode! I still remember the worst loss I ever took in the "box art lottery": a copy of "Deadly Towers" (NES) that I picked out as my birthday gift at 10 years old. Ugh.
Completely relate to there being something special about not seeing a game in motion till you play it, it was like magic, trying to guess what it would look like from screenshots!
great video, really relatable. its funny that i used to get so excited for the stuff in magazines but now when i get them in the mail they go straight into the trash without me even opening them lol
I hear that ikaruga music in the background....very nice
...and YES! That feeling you had of playing a certain game that you assumed no one else knew about, was a magical thing. For me that was Shenmue.
Here in Portugal i never met anyone who even heard about it, and since i was 8-9, i though to be the only kid in the World who got to experience this amazingly different thing. That fact (among many others that don't even relate directly to the game) contributed to it becoming my favorite of all time. All the innocence enhanced the Nostalgia.
Great video! I miss the anticipation of new game’s coming out pre-Internet. I was also a big Nintendo Power fan. I miss looking at the Sunday newspaper to find the circlular advertising the new releases.