Why Classic Video Games are GONE, The Death Of Arcade Game Design
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 มิ.ย. 2024
- Why Classic Video Games are GONE, Death Of Arcade Game Design. Every channel should have a manifesto and this is mine. Today I discuss what I think are the most pressing and important issues with video game design and why "classic" games, as we describe them, are gone. And when I say "classic" I don't just mean 16-bit graphics and chiptunes, I mean that classic design philosophy that many games that we love, including PS2 era games, were created with. This philosophy was born and bred in the arcades, which was the perfect venue to encourage challenging, innovative, and dense video game design. However, with the loss of the arcade and the dominance of the home console market, we have seen game design shift in obvious and subtle ways to HEAVILY favor passive choose-your-own-adventure game design. In fact, the modern game design philosophy is so prevalent that most critics and online pundits truly believe that arcade design philosophy is objectively out of date, like ancient cave painting. I COULD NO DISAGREE MORE.
There is a lot of talk about art in gaming today, how The Last of Us or whatever is artistic because its story rips off The Road by Cormac Mcarthy and mixes it with zombie movies. But in my view, art is about the artist making choices. Art is about expression of the artist, NOT the reader. So with the arcade design philosophy, we see a much more bold and assertive (and my opinion) artistic style of game design where the way the mechanics are crafted and balanced sends a message to the player just as clearly as words on a page. In modern game design, however, modern games want to be everything and nothing at the same time. They want to be a "sandbox" for the players to fiddle around in. Sandboxes can be fun, but they are not compelling. Modern game design is all about off loading the burden of the artist onto the player and handing the player a few toys to play with. In other words, modern game design is particularly crafted towards children. In terms of game design for adults however, who can understand mechanical structure and can even work towards subverting structure, we are getting further and further away from that compelling style of video game design to cater towards literal children, or adults with the maturity of children.
The 5 main concepts I discuss in this vid are: 1. Difficulty Curve, 2. Gameplay Density, 3. Arcades Financially Allowed for Innovative Mechanical Design, 4. The Loss of Scoring System, 5. The loss of timers to FORCE the player to act.
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00:00 If You Use the Term "Quarter Muncher," You should be SHOT... in the leg.
01:26 Reason 1: The GOLDEN Arcade Difficulty Curve is Gone, Now Everything is EASY
04:03 Today's Market LITERALLY Caters to Unskilled PLayers
06:28 Reason 2: Gameplay Density is GONE, S T R E T C H E D Out Content.
09:50 Reason 3: The Arcade ALLOWED Innovation for Game Mechanics
12:50 Reason 4: We've LOST GOOD Scoring Systems (Speedrunning is Not Better or a Replacement)
15:00 Imagine if Devil May Cry 3 Had a Good Scoring System ...
18:00 Yes, Resi 4 Mercs is LIT, and this is why.
18:40 Reason 5: Timers Need to Come Back, Modern Action Games Have No Teeth
22:12 Games need to FORCE the Player to Engage, NO MORE play at your own pace garbage.
#arcade, #gamedesign, #residentevil4remake - เกม
gaming became less about stealing your quarters and a couple of hours out of your afternoon and more about becoming an entire replacement life
yes this is exactly what the larger devs want. And these days they aren't even shy about it. Look at modern blizzard *shudder*
I still can't get used to the question "What game do you play?". What do you mean what game do I play? I can only play one game?
And it seems a lot of people are like that. Dedicated to a single game.
I play whatever I can get my hands on. And I still play that 1984 arcade game I used to play as a kid and it's still as fun for 20 minutes like it was back then.
Yeah if arcade games are quarter munchers then modern games are time munchers.
Games, specially mobile ones, have become casinos essentially. Think about it. The millions of children going around with access in their pockets/hands to thousands upon thousands of casinos. Or maybe it’s the other way around… thousands of casinos - with their huge teams of psychologists and statistics specialists - with free unconstrained access to millions of children..
And it’s so weird to me that official/governmental institutions don’t give a damn about the impact of this on children and the future.
I hate how so many modern games are just a sequence of tasks, either thinly veiled as "now-do-this now-do-that objectives", or explicitly down to the Whatever Simulator type games. I already have a job, I don't need more "tasks" in my life. I just want to have a bit of fun with video games every now and then.
Mark’s so hardcore he’s conducting an orchestra simultaneously while filming this video.
That made me smile. :) Honestly, I took conducting in college as a Music Theory/Composition major and I wish it were as easy as that.
Ha i had the fandoo stick in my hand when I was setting up the camera, and I thought it was kinda funny to wave it around while recording like some old cranky teacher.
He's doing it to increase the video's density!
Dude, this just made me realize something huge:
In the past like 10 years I play new games hoarding cash/items/etc throughout the game anticipating it to pay off dividends in the later sections, but like 90% of the time I just beat the game with a bazillion OP unused items in my inv. I totally thought it was completely a *me* problem, but well...
Because most games have a bad way to manage consumables. You either hoard them because they are too precious or you either never have a need for them.
Games should force you to use consumables.
What is the point of antidotes when you can just user your healer chick sidekick lovequest to do that for you?
What's the point of that debuff bomb, when your snarky passive-aggressive edgelord emo deuteragonist has them in his arsenal of spells?
Enemy susceptible to fire? Time to take out that Firebrand, that you had just killed seventy innocent pixies and gave their corpses to that random lone gay dwarf living at some random mountain edge, so that he can forge it for you? No, just let your great uncle uses his magical tome and summon a firestorm along with a fire elemental.
This does still apply to Silent Hill 4; save those bullets for the end. I know what you mean, though. Now I just use things more liberally, unless it's survival horror.
Because the games are designed for the worst of players (normies).
Now you made me realize what my problem was with persona 5 and especially royal, it just gives you a whole bunch of tools that let you not play the game. For example there's an ability that lets you essentially skip every under leveled non-rare fights inside the dungeon while still giving you all the rewards, and there's a special shop that gives you exp/money/items multiplier for finding special collectables randomly scattered throughout the dungeon, which is why the only really hard part of the game is the first chapter.
And if that wasn't enough the game let's you download a free dlc that gives you extra healing items from the start of the game, and if it wasn't stupid enough the newer ports of the game have this dlc preinstalled so if you wanted to check out the cool costumes that were paid in the ps4 version you essentially remove all difficulty from the only difficult part of the game.
You have to consider that not all players will do this, and many will skip all the extra content running from main quest to main quest, so they can't design with those items in mind or some players won't have a chance
I don't even play modern games. I only come here so I don't have to break the habit.
Ha yes the arcade player support group, I dig it!
I think there is still good indie games that replicate the retro game formula if you consider those modern games.
@@SourClout I'm happy to try them but if I don't get my arse kicked within the first 2 minutes of gameplay I'm not interested😂.
@MrDirkles I feel it! I'm trying to find a nice hard game with mechanics I love like blasphemous
@@SourClout Blasphemous is fantastic, but it isn't very challenging, especially with the dash attack. Games like NetHack are extremely challenging, even as much as requiring spoilers to progress, and are very sandbox-like, allowing you a variety of ways to approach situations. Fight, flee, zap, dig, chug, engrave etc. etc. - those are the mack daddies of challenge.
Arcade gaming is more fun and more convienent. Less bloat and more game play.
yeah especially as an adult when you don't have 8 hours of free time a day
Absolutely!! I also think it s more engaging and artistic. Bold confident design, that's what I like :-)
fun playing arcade:
90s to 2010s
I like games that I can immerse myself in, but I also like arcades, it doesn't have to be one or the other...
I actually learned so much from this video and the comment section as an indie developer. I can lean into stuff like classic arcade styles that AAA studios can’t do.
Great video man. It's unfortunate that so many gamers have essentially been conditioned into thinking a game having roadblocks, stress or even a moment of frustration or confusion is an error on the developer's part. But at the same time many developers have also started to think this way, including indie developers. I also agree with your points on timers. Even generally easy to deal with "timers" like the heat system in Lost Planet get backlash. The timers in Dead Rising, Majora's Mask or even Crazy Taxi can be stressful, but that's the point. That's a factor of the game that you're meant to deal with as apart of the experience. I would love it if I could get more new games that forced me to play by its rules rather than feeling like every game is trying be accommodating at all times.
Exactly hiro! The timers are only stressful in the sense that gamers are just outright refusing to see what they accomplish in design and how useful they are. I think if we had a wider conversation about why timers are so strong for a lot (not all, but a lot) of game design, I think people would be more open minded and embrace them more. Man Ninja gaiden 2 with a timer would be awesome.
I used to think I hated timer mechanics, but then I thought back and realized some of my favorite games enforced strict timers. As it turns out, I was just taking it for granted. Nowawadays I think that they really should make a comeback.
Absolutely elbow! I was the same way until I noticed how the timer really prevented a lot of stale janky tactics like picking things off one by one ha
I think I still hate timers outside of a post-game, but Majoras Mask is one of my favourite games and the timer really enhanced it
Even the RC plane missions in GTA San Andreas?
Ah yes...Dead Rising
I think a lot of people take arcade game design for granted when in reality it's a pretty specific style of design that was made possible by a collection of inter-dependent factors that are probably never going to happen again. It's more akin to local music scenes that give birth to influential movements that spread across the world rather than something that designers gravitate to naturally.
If anything, games like Diablo, Cow Clicker (and its spinoffs) along with the rise of gacha and successful attempts at gamification (Duolingo, soc media) show that design trends in the opposite direction if left to its own devices - it trends towards progression systems, gambling-like systems, fostering a sense of ownership via sunk cost & other types of manipulative brain hacks. Fundamentally all games are just brain hacks, but with the arcades you had some natural limits of the designers' excesses - saving was uncommon so there was no clean way to create long term progression & ownership, the games earned money through difficulty so optimizing around flow state wasn't viable, and because the games were always competitive gambling had to be more explicit or else it harmed scoring.
You can see that once these things loosened even arcade games started adding progression & ownership elements via stuff like the Initial D driver's license system, though ofc they still have to hold back due to a variety of factors. It's why arcade design has to be consciously & aggressively promoted because it *will* get lost over time. The only big exception to this are competitive multiplayer games, you can see that they keep elements like timers, remove exploits & make sure to eliminate cheese when designing levels. Because unlike singleplayer games, degenerate strats don't just affect the player who is playing, they affect everyone else's enjoyment too - so the practical necessity drives design.
That's such a good observation bog. I never considered the regional aspect of how deeply connected arcade game design must be to a specific place and time in Japan, but it makes a lot of sense. So if you think about it, arcade games are like the anime of video games ha. Where they had the same boom time period and are currently in this terrible spiral downward. That would be a fun video to make, comparing anime and arcade games super directly like that ha. Also I think the clearest example of a successful progression system in arcades is actually Virtua Fighter 5's card system. I was watching a VF5 tournament on arcades and they were using the cards that they had held for about a decade at this point, and its INSANE how many matches these players had. So fighting game progression system of rank seems to have definitely worked in that case.
@@TheElectricUndergroundOne amazing anime (imo) that recently came out was Pluto. Granted, it is a big budget Astro Boy anime made by the legendary Naoki Urasawa who made Monster.
For a brief moment the planets aligned and shaped something beautiful.
I think there's still a place for more casual games, but we've been losing more and more of these important fundamentals due to this apparent dismissal of arcade games or anything that came before the modern day in general. Something gamers/developers need to remember is that we've been playing games thousands of years before video games were even invented. I often see people treat video games as this magical new thing completely separate from games and that the devs of old didn't quite understand this new invention and we've only understood it more as time passes. When in reality, a lot of these concepts are just as old, if not older, than the concept of language itself.
@@diydylana3151
Itagaki was on fire here :
"I just want to say that people who really want to know about videogames should avail themselves to master a traditional game like Chess or Backgammon, find one and master it. In particular Backgammon is a good choice. The way it's played is a good example of having simplicity and a lot of depth. I've never seen anything in the videogame domain that had better playability than that.
The only reason that videogames have become the more popular medium is because it's interactive visual and audio and it's easier to do by yourself. But people who really want to know the essence of gaming, in all its forms, should definitely master a traditional game. There are plenty of games within the realm of gaming that are deeper than videogames. So it's kind of pointless to debate playability in videogames without first learning the basics in that regard. "
I do agree there is a place for casual gaming as well. It's just that what's basically happened is that game devs looks at the casual gaming market, see how lucrative it is, and then want a piece of the action by cutting away at their more hardcore aspects of game design. We really see this with stuff like difficulty curves and gameplay density. But the trend does not go in reverse, there is no casual game with a huge audience that suddenly decides, you know what, it's time to get hardcore ha.
Someone’s going to make chess but with side quests.
You basically say progress is bad even if there were more proper arcade experiences in the future. Why should players and developers limit their visions just because you like trashy arcade games the most???
Great topic. This whole video explains pretty succinctly why I started playing shmups a few years ago; I was tired of how painfully easy games had become. And I'm not even great myself, I would consider myself a low-mid level skilled player. But mainstream games normal modes offer 0 challenge. Rarely even their hard modes, and if they do, it's usually jank after thoughts. Then I redsicovered arcade games and have a hard time playing anything else. People look at my like I'm crazy like I'M the one wasting time because it doesn't have some GRAND (actually very shallow) rehashed epic sprinkled over 100 hours.
Yes exactly! And not only are mainstream games getting easier and easier, but they don't even care that much to do a proper hard mode anymore. They just sort of turn up a few values which makes barely any difference and call it a day. Where a proper hard mode has a lot more going on in it than just taking some extra damage.
Hi there, I make indie games. I've watched this 3 times now. I almost came to this conclusion over the past few months, by going down this rabbit hole. Asking myself why everything I played has felt devoid of meaning. But you really hit the nail on the head here. You reached the logical conclusion before I could figure it out myself, which was like a lightbulb going off in my head in a way. I'll be sharing this video everywhere I can, and I really hope this catches on.
Which games are you making?
@@edoardopalmer2379 Pong
Good video as usual Mark. I feel the current softness of video games is partially because of the reasons you stated (companies making concessions to design in order to drive value to a wider audience), but I think another element is that video games have never recovered from Roger Ebert claiming they are not art. An entire generation of game development started chasing after the respect that film gets, leading to the drive towards AAA "Hollywood" games. The cinematic movie games that cater to as wide an audience as possible, culminating in The Last of Us. I love TLoU as much as anyone, but matching planks to holes and walking into ambushes clearly marked by the chest-high walls that serve as cover marked a regression in design. Part of From Software's current lead in the games industry is finding a nice middle ground of constantly engaging the player in an uphill climb through both reflexes and knowledge, while simultaneously giving the player pretty vistas and play archaeologist. The current trend of roguelike indies as the nu-arcade experience show that people WANT to pushed (or are gambling addicts without realizing it). Modern games putting parry into everything may be clumsy, but hopefully it's early growing pains of a new wave of games backed by game theory.
To say VG are not an art form is ignorance. And I talk from a quite an academic perspective, may God forgive my prideful comment
As much as I want to call Videogames "Art" I think it isn't just that simple.
I talked about this with my teacher a lot and the thing we agreed on is that the Videogames are both Art and Craftsmanship.
Some cater to Craftsmanship more and there is nothing bad about that.
oh yes that's a great topic. Are video games art has absolutely impacted the entire industry and critical landscape around game design. Where game devs are so desperate to try to prove themselves as artistic by putting in all these bloated film elements at the expense of the gameplay. This is where we get the whole forced walking section cut scene thing ugh. The thing about boomers (and i should make this a dedicated video) and most philosophy of art type is that they simply incorrectly view the question of are games art in the first place. You'll notice everyone who talks about are games are discusses it from the premise that playing games is art. Playing a game is NOT art. That's actually really obvious. Is watching a movie or reading a book art? No. The art part of the medium (and this is so obvious) is Creating the game. The developer is the artist, not the player. The answer is so obvious its insane no one has pointed this out lol.
When I was a kid in the 80s & 90s (I'm 40), gaming had a more socially competitive & sports-like atmosphere. Gamers were rough looking outcasts, gangsters, punks & goth types. It was a legit subculture. Most of us played games to "Conquer them". Which means 1cc since we were still playing in arcades. Modern gaming isn't about the game, it revolves around internet celeb online communities. I noticed that over half of modern communities don't even play the game, they just watch Lets Plays or twitch of popular nerds and they'll talk more about the damn king/queen nerd! Over the damn game!
Modern gaming has been transformed into a Corporatized Nerd-chic which didn't exist when I was a kid. When I was a kid, damn near everything felt like a rebellion against the status quo from vidya gaems, comics & even attitude era wrestling. Modern culture, everybody conforms with the consensus, which includes how games are made. Which is why everything follows such a monoculture template of inoffensiveness for maximum corporate market value.
I’m 37 and I feel and hear what your saying.
It’s not our industry anymore it’s there’s ,
Well they can have it !
It’s not for people like us anymore ,
It’s fake and to big , cold and corporate.
Take me back to the 90s pls because modern gaming SuCKS!
Reminds me what Chris Crawford says about the industry as a Dragon, a dragon that I think its consuming itself and as a dragon cant born again like a Phoenix
yes exactly. The whole idea for modern game design now is to turn the games into a social experience, so that people can access them and use them in a mass media way. I think that style of game design has its place, but that place is not every game ever ha. It is a shame that games are not more seriously evaluated these days on the merits of fundamental design.
I like the nerd chic description, so true
@@TheElectricUndergroundWorse, they're social gambling experiences now.
Great stuff. I've never heard anyone bring this up but I completely agree with you. I recently built a cabinet and I find myself going to it much more than my PS5. My PSA to my fellow arcade enthusiasts is this: To make arcade games fun at home is very simple. DO NOT give yourself infinite credits. When I'm done with work I give myself "50 cents" and play dodonpachi. It's insanely engaging that way. I'm sweating, yelling, laughing.. the whole gamut of emotions ha. That simply doesn't happen with modern games. Not even close.
Exactly this. Back in the day when you were spending your pocket money to play these games a quick game over was traumatic. I remember playing dragons lair at 30p a go in 1983 ( I only got £2 pocket money ) and I was shaking with nerves before I even started the game 😂
@@MrDirkles haha. yeah man. Limited cash was a huge part of the fun strangely enough. Once I stopped hitting that credit button 50 times before starting a game, the arcade feeling came rushing back and it's special all over again.
Amen
oh yes great point! The continue systems of arcade games were meant to be really meaningful because the game is literally taking your money ha. But if you have access to a rom or port, that meaning gets stripped away. So you should try to yes, impose that sort of challenge on yourself. Or a good port or home console version *final vendetta* should limit credits to replicate that pressure. I remember the day I decided ok I'm going to beat metal slug in one credit was my journey into getting into arcade games and shmups :-)
Your bit about density is spot on. Games have such tremendous downtime and you might think its your attention span but honestly, like...the downtime is REALLY boring after a while. Long forced tutorials... like get me the hell outa there. I want to open a game and be enthralled for 60 minutes or so, not like... slowly reading text and opening menus.
SF6 world tour mode is an example of an absolute abomination. It could have just been a beat'em up mode. Would've costed them less and been more fun.
Remember Tekken force Beat Em' Up mode for Tekken 3 and 4...Good times.
It's always better to frustrate your player than to bore them.
The reason games suck now is because people value the length of a game over quality. Lengthy game= good even if it’s mediocre and padded out. Short = bad even if it’s the most tightly crafted game.
There's also the obsession with realism, not just in the graphical sense but also in the game design sense. I've noticed some game reviewers will criticize a game if it has elements that don't coincide with reality, even if it still makes sense from a game design perspective. I think it's safe to say that the game design perspective is more important than the realism perspective.
Facts
@@TheCyclicGamerAgreed
Yeah, everyone makes fun of you if you'd rather play a 1 hour game for thousands of hours over a boring ass chore-list designed Ubisoft or rpg game for thousands of hours. I know I'm not wrong, I've played Streets of Rage 2, RE4 og, Contra Hard Corps, etc. for thousands of hours and I'm still not bored! I tried playing that Metro Last Light & 2033 game but I got bored and just went back to Doom.
I do like some long games if the combat systems are well designed like Divinity Original Sin 2 (They recently made Baldur's Gate 3) but they're like the only Rpg dev who truly understands how to make a turn based ruleset that's both hard, but fair through strategy & tactics rather than level grinding.
@@TheCyclicGamer Yup, a lot of Doom fans hate on Doom Eternal because Eternal is not realistic and way too cartoony. I'm here thinking, the other Doom games were realistic? WHAT? In Doom 2, your pet bunny gets murdered by demons but the modern fanbase acts as if Doom were a grimdark serious horror. The same thing happens with the Resident Evil franchise. The RE games after RE1 were originally John Woo inspired and you see this influence as early as RE2 but modern RE fans try to force the series to be a dark gritty realistic game, instead of a funny John Woo action game with zombies.
Another thing about modern game design that, I swear I feel like I'm the only person on the planet who noticed because I haven't seen anyone talk about it, is that games nowadays are designed almost entirely around social media.
Think about it, why do games cater to games journalists so much these days? Because then they would give it high scores, then said high scores would go straight into Metacritic, which then not only the publishers would use that on social media to show how great their game is, but also whoever played said game will celebrate this "achievement" on social media and will use it to deflect any criticisms on the game, therefore only "positivity".
And here is where the snowball effect starts going, why do you think games nowadays spend so much money on marketing, more often than not more money on marketing than on the actual game?
Because by making their games sound bigger and better than what they actually are, and by stretching information on the new game for as long as possible, each and every time they showcase something new, you bet that's gonna be trending on Twitter, and when it trends multiple times before the thing comes out, you have made your game "the next big thing".
There is a ton, and I mean a TON of other examples I could use, but to not make this comment a 64 paragraphs rant on why I hate social media, let's just say arcade game design goes against EVERYTHING that social media revolves around.
Journalists hate that style of design, it won't get good review scores, these kinds of games aren't stream-worthy because they're so short and streamers usually play a game once and move on, the mainstream revolves around "muh story" and arcade games usually don't have much of a story. Do I need to go on?
Ive had the same thought, most recently for mario wonder. u can hardly find any critical comments about it due to the hype train and the youtuber nintendo fanboys almost financially have to act like everything thats shat outs a masterpiece. Im real tired of these hive mind echochambers and distance myself as much as I can.
@@BASEDSAKRI I say give it a week or two, after that time period, one of two things will happen:
1- people will start to look at the game from an actual prespective, and many criticisms on the game will start popping up.
Or:
2-the game will no longer have any kind of discussion to speak of, people will completely forget about it and move on to the next hype train for the next "masterpiece" that no one will remember.
The sad part is that regardless of what will happen, it will be far too late for it to matter, which is something I should've mentioned in the original comment, devs and publishers usually don't listen to what I'm gonna call the "post hype-train clarity" crowd, nor do they listen to level headed people who have honest criticisms for the games because they're a minority.
Pure facts
Modern gamers are barely even gamer in a sense they care more about story and fake paid reviews than anything else like gamplay
And the awful greedy monetization that casual eat up n a daily is the worst since it prove to dev that they have no standards
Great talk! It’s difficult for me to relate to because the majority of time I play a game once and move on. But it’s great to hear about perspectives like this and dig into the reasons on systems that incentivize people to enjoy themselves!
Yeah, I liked the video but he leans a little too much in "this makes games worse" instead of it just being a different feeling that some of us appreciate... Slime Rancher is a game I enjoy, but by his metrics it should be terrible.
I released a $3 racing arcade game for the Xbox and on my TH-cam trailer someone commented "imagine boasting about 3 tracks" which showed to me that there are a ton of gamers that expect games to hold a higher price with "more" content.
I put more in quotes because those three tracks are incredibly dense in terms of design. Could have separated each of those tracks into three different tracks but instead I decided to have an easy, medium, and hard difficulty within those tracks with the track getting harder as it progressed.
Though I did bend to the pressure and made the game easier in its first patch because too many people were having trouble with it. The people that stuck with it and progressed loved the difficulty. So it was a bit of a tough choice because you had some people that absolutely loved it but a whole lot of people that found it too hard. So I patched it.
I think arcade game approaches can actually reduce the price of games because you're getting rid of a ton of extra features when you focus on the core gameplay mechanic. I don't have any upgrades or tuning or even manual transmission in my game. It lets me focus on polishing the controls to perfection and spend more time on track design which is core to making a fun racer. And I was able to release it for $3 (I actually gave it away for free, when COVID first hit, for people stuck at home).
One thing I always hated when the gaming-sphere was when the design shifted from players adapting to the game to the game adapting to the players. I understand why, from a purely business perspective the former worked back in the day (and the tech to constantly change a game wasn't there either), and now catering to the most amount of people is the more profitable method (well actually whaling is, but assuming the game doesn't go that route). I'm just tired of seeing games I like changed in the name of "accessibility"
Also one thing in regards to score, I think a score + time limit would be interesting. Score alone is boring since you can max it out via endurance, time alone is just annoying in most context, but a "How many points can you score in X minutes" are usually rather fun.
funnily enough I started caring about scoring because of sonic project 06 lol
especially with the shadow campaign where it's alot more fun to play for score due to its more "combat" focus of the original game, now expanded in project 06
You nailed everything. Sonic Superstars is genuinely an old school arcade-style platformer: it has an in-game timer, a proper scoring system; level design more reminiscent of the Mega Drive titles with little to no automation; and is not afraid of being difficult - Superstars will not hold your hand. And is not bloated: what you see is what you get.
And what happened? It got destroyed by critics over Mario Wonder, a platformer that abandoned its arcade roots over modern game design. I've seen a lot of articles about how removing the in-game timer and scoring system in Mario Wonder was the best thing Nintendo has even done. For me it just removed all the depth of the game. Now it is just a matter of reaching the end of the level, but not how I reach the end.
They removed the timer in Mario Wonder? wtf
That's just ridiculous
Where is the challenge?
@@SpaceDuppy
The level design? Getting all the collectable? It’s not like timers were ever a challenge in past mario games. They give you a shit ton of time regardless
Personally don’t have an issue with wonder removing the timer. Its levels are more about exploring and finding secrets and other collectibles.
Sonic superstars’ issue is the jank + the horrid bosses. The bosses are slow and take forever. They aren’t even a challenge. They are just a long ass waiting game.
Totally agree the gameplay density thing. Im so sick of playing games that has 10min cutscene, 10min walking talking before the actual gameplay.
the "quarter muncher" strategy is exactly the same as the "rental" where the first two levels are polished and forgiving, designed to suck you in, but not let you get too far. then the curve ramps up through the roof. it's by design, and either love it or hate it, but it is a product of its era.
ideally though, the rental-era gave us a way to eventually skip those first two levels, with passwords that we'd get after completing the level. ^_^
at least until you can endure the punishing curve and pwn the game like a bawwwws
oh yes the wall of difficulty in arcade game design ha. That's a great point. My thought on this has been I prefer arcade games that start harder and more challenging, rather than having this baby easy level 1 like dodonpachi. As much as I love DDP, I think DOJ has a much better design in this regard because it basically removes level 1 and starts on level 2.
@@TheElectricUnderground The harder early levels feel really bad when you're a new player thrown into the deep end, but I agree that you appreciate them more the more you play them. Because on replays, you aren't sleepwalking for 5-10 minutes and waiting for the real game to start.
Rental was replaced by its ugly cousin subscription, but rental actually encourages a fair difficulty curve more than arcade because you want people to be satisfied with their weekly rentals so they come back and try newer games next week (and someone else rents the game you had) or you just love it so much you buy the copy. Arcades are tempted to have pay to win models with difficulty ramps that get you playing but push you out from going too far. Subscriptions are designed to be easy but take forever to do anything.
Having time limits and timers in games is such an unfairly hated mechanic in games nowadays. I definitely agree that limiting how much a player can do creates more interesting choices and pressure that in the end makes a much more compelling experience at times, rather than just moseying around collecting all the resources and doing all the sidequests. As much as people hate that a game like Persona 3/4/5 is tied to a school calendar, the fact that it is creates unique stories and experiences for each player to make it more personal rather than everyone just doing everything at a leisurely pace.
I think the hate for timers was partially caused by euro and american console/computer games that implemented them (and other arcade mechanics) poorly.
Man, just the few first seconds of diving into one of your glorious rants with the Senko No Ronde OST in the background is such a fantastic vibe!
I've been watching TH-cam videos breaking down video game design since 2008. This is the first video in a decade where I was surprised by your insights and genuinely felt that you were and to articulate thoughts I've been having for years.
Appreciate the insights!
Arcade design is not dead, it is just called Mini Games nowadays!
It was sad when Masahiro Sakurai made a video saying to get into the action straight away and there were so many comments disagreeing with him. Modern gamers and developers suck
which video is this
I share a similar sentiment. I don't mind a game having an intro, even if it's lengthy, as long as I can skip it and get straight into the game. Death Stranding is a great example, it has a lengthy intro that sets up it's characters, the world, and what it's about, but you can skip it all and get straight into the gameplay and making your first delivery, and bear in mind this game is from Hideo Kojima, the guy known for lengthy cutscenes.
Final Fantasy XVI on the other hand is the exact opposite, it has the intro with Phoenix vs Ifrit, but it's such a mind-numbing intro because even though you are playing it, there's no stakes going on, it very may have been just a cutscene and it would've had the same effect, which is a philosophy of mine; If you can do it in a cutscene and still achieve the same effect, then do it in a cutscene. Even worse in XVI's case when you have go through it twice, and the first time is followed up by Clive walking about a mountainous area with three other guys looking for Shiva's dominant; No combat, no gameplay, nothing, just a forced walking section, and God do I hate those. Stranger of Paradise is what XVI should've been more like.
@radio “just let them play” game planning
I think one of the biggest differences with arcade gaming is the ability for a player to try a new game for very little upfront cost versus nowadays having to buy a full game for $70 or whatever. I could see arcade-style games possibly making a comeback under a subscription model; there would just need to be enough consumer demand for it.
You already hooked me from the beginning with the Border Down music. Love the points you made here, and I'm glad I'm not alone feeling like this about modern games.
having grown up in the 80s, i definitely recall with great nostalgia those old dark pizza parlors with the animatronic thingies and the dark hallways filled with arcade cabinets. i cant put my finger on it, but there really was a classic arcade aesthetic, that even home consoles couldn't replicate. something about the tinny music and the ultra colorful sprites that was specific to those cpu boards. the only way i can even reexperience that is through a MAME emulator, which i am thankful for.
This is really descriptive of how I approached the game design in my own game. Constantly forcing the player to engage, making scoring high the most mechanically rewarding way to play the game, and making sure that the player is constantly challenged.
Exactly! I love to hear that my friend. Yes, no more of this have the player walk around empty halls for immersion or whatever. Keep the pressure going. :-)
The modern game format I stick with is Battle Royale because it's always challenging in that you can get clapped at any moment, by any one, from anywhere. It's based on the primal rush of "the hunt" involving surveilling, tracking and making the kill, all against others trying to do the same. Decision making and stress management are crucial, allowing you to stay executionally proficient when under attack, and you can't get sloppy, or risk the entire match for a simple misjudgment - this keeps the experience fun while not requiring dozens of hours to enjoy a match here and there.
I feel this video so much. Great job youve become one of my favorite creators talking about game design and i just discovered you like a week ago
so glad i randomly came across this video. these are very insightful explanations. the limitations of a format often drive innovation (cart versus disc), games can now operate like a retail space; in a maze-like faction under the assumption that time spent increases money spent.
I feel like the biggest issues with arcade gaming comes from the media and its unfortunate slide into a more promotional approach for frankly mediocre titles. I laughed when i saw when article noting that starfield gets good after 14 hours! They have a major part to play in influencing peoples desire to play, and this usually includes treating arcade style efforts as 'lacking value'. Scoring systems always add value in my opinion.
I remember installing the Neogeo and CPS2 emulator on my PSP. I ran through most of their libraries in less time than it would take to play a modern game. Mostly, not a single second of gameplay was bloated. The best thing about arcades, especially with the advent of emulators, is that they dont waste your time.
Did you use infinite credits/save states? Most of those types of games, in order to complete them with limited lives/credit, I'd need to practice them for far longer than it would take me to complete a modern AAA title.
@@thewhyzer oh yeah ofc
Great vid!! i hope you do a video showacasing or giving recommendations of games that follow the classic arcade design.
I loved the video. I love the topic. And I love the discussion it originated in the comment section. As someone who grew up playing Arcades and 8 bit console games and an amateur game designer (Game Maker) finding this topics it’s like finding an old mate you can relate to. Thanks for that
The main reason arcade philosophy doesn't work anymore is the size of the gamecenter. Back then, when you were going to your local arcade for like 2 hours or so, you had access to a limited amount of games. Arcade games needed to be engaging with their running demo, instantly fun, and hugely replayable. That was the key to being successful. You would just come back to the cabinets you liked the most.
But now, the gamecenter is enormous. It's like you go to your local arcade for 2 hours but now there are hundreds of cabinets. So you just put one coin into each machine and by the end of your two hours, you still haven't experienced a tenth of the place. When I advice to someone "replay it in this higher difficulty", "aim for S rank", "try the trial mode" or whatever, the answer I'm most confronted with is "I've litterally hundred of new games in my wishlist/backlog I've yet to experience, why would I keep playing that game? I've seen every levels already".
In the 90's, you were attracted to the gameplay and challenge and difficulty modes because you would play that game dozens of time. Now when people buy an "arcade-style" game, it's usually for 5 bucks or so thanks to sales, they're looking for a stress-relief disposable adventure between 2 slices of that 60 hours long AAA experience. And that's shaping the market. Basically, everyone is becoming a profesional journalist, with a ton of games to evacuate more than engage with.
So instead of having dense short hard highly replayable games where the goal is more to improve your score than necessarily reach the end, we have more and more stories to discover, worlds to explore, basically new things to see. We switched from being mainly actors to mainly spectators. Even bosses are designed as new visual experiences first, so we cut a lot of interactivity with them because it's paramount to let them show everyone of their patterns.
Oh that's such a good point! yes because in the past the arcade was like a movie theater, where it had its older hits in a section (pacman and all that) then it had the other 70 percent of the arcade decicated to the new machines coming out. And then the smaller arcades would have the sort of olderish games that they would pickup secondhand, like the cheap movie theaters. It was a really cool system actually. But yes now arcades are like video rental stores where there aren't new games coming in for the most part, so it's mostly dedicated to older machines that you've played all huddled together. So rather than dedicating to the same machine for yours, you sort of float through and sample everything.
I'd argue more that it's an issue of convenience. people have gaming on their phone. arcades require you to drive and possibly wait for the machine you want.
arcades probably thrived more in the 80's/90's because:
1) arcades had better hardware.
the games in the arcade looked waaay better than home versions of games until the gamecube/PS2 era, where consoles were pretty much on paar with arcade games graphically. before then, and especially before PSX/N64, arcades looked waaaay better than what was possible on consoles.
arcades were where one went for both the best spectacle and good gameplay, so it attracted both major demographics of gamers today.
today, modern consoles are very capable when it comes to spectacle, but these spectacle games are super expensive to produce. to recoup the cost, they make the games easy and handholding to accommodate the lowest common denominators. so gameplay is sacrificed for greater accessibility and thus greater revenue and hopefully some profit.
2) arcades were cheaper
in the 90s, games were $40+ new ($40 in today's money is more like $80), and the good games were often $70+. that's like 70-280 rounds on arcade.
this is also why people played the same games 100x back in the day. games were expensive and short. once you mastered them, you had to spend another $70+ for a great experience, or just keep replaying them.
especially if you were a kid, unless your parents were loaded, you weren't getting very many games nor consoles.
with the advent of digital gaming, indies have entered the competitive market with games ranging from $5-$30 (like $2-$17 in 90's money). mobile popularized the free2play model too, and even quality freemium games on mobile cost like $2-10 typically.
there are also plenty of mobile games that mimic the arcade styles and have design philosophies to encourage you to spend money, just like the arcades.
cheaper games, as well as gamers of the 90's growing up and having huge disposable incomes is why people all have massive backlogs/wishlists. games are also longer with more to do in them, so a lot take a lot more time to complete than most games from the 90's
3) gaming was more niche
gaming was considered dorky and grounds for being bullied. even today, gaming is considered for kids, but it wasn't even accepted for kids back in the day. so, casual gamers were pushed away from the hobby because of the social stigma, and only hardcore gamers remained for the most part.
arcades (as well as LAN centers) were places where the ostracized gamers could gather and socialize (internet was barely a thing in the 90s, and even less of one in the 80s).
today, everyone can call themselves gamers. people who play candy crush on mobile, dudebro gamers playing gears of halo dutyfield, people playing farming sims. all gamers now, and all socially accepted as such except men aren't allowed to play video games because it's "childish".
because everyone is playing, and most are just casual gamers, AAA caters to the larger market, which is mostly casual gamers, and some of the dumbest people to have walked the earth. thus games have to hand hold and be feel good interactive movies in order to appeal to the most people.
indie games fill in the void left by AAA for hardcore games (as well as low budget casual shovelware). but hardcore appeals to only to a niche few, and arcades would have to compete with consoles, PC and mobile, which offer a much better value these days. it's too expensive to match the spectacle of modern AAA movie games unless the arcade cost like $10 to play per round, and when AAA movie games are like $10 to own within a year, it's really a hard sell.
I like and heavily agree with this comment. I’ve been playing octopath traveler 2, megaman starforce 3 and Azure striker gunvolt 3 and I’m really enjoying how they these games just feel like old school games that I used to enjoy. I’m also replaying the megaman zero collection and the games seem “harder” than I remember.but than I realized that it’s not harder I’ve just been playing too many easy af games.
Gotta agree about the in-game timer. Sometimes people will say that a game like Pikmin is so easy that the timer doesn't matter, but even in that case I think it is great. Instead of pressuring you with failure it acts as a sort of scoring mechanic in itself. You can say, "I got all the parts in 10 days", then try to improve that score by optimizing your runs. In Pikmin 3 it felt rewarding to see 70+ juices lined up by the end of the game and was a big driver in my playthrough.
I was going to start Pandora's Tower soon since I heard it has a similar timer mechanic that affects what ending you get. I think it can also end your entire playthrough too, if you aren't careful.
YES a fellow believer in timers! I shall slowly wage a war to bring them back ha. Yes i love the timer in pikmin 1, how even though it isn't necessarily that strict, you still feel it is genuinely meaningful to beat the game in the shortest amount of days as possible, and the game was designed for that. It's one of the last sort of arcade feeling games made by nintendo I think. To this day I think it's pretty underrated.
I agree that having a timer creates an incentive that matters even if it isn't very strict, especially since you can't know how strict it will be until the end. I think Pikmin 4 would have benefited from having a mechanic like having to spend a small amount of Raw Material every day to maintain the camp to at least create some reason to minimize the day count (however, to be fair to that game, I think Trial of the Sage Leaf has the most meaningful time pressure there has ever been in the series campaigns so far, and I also found Olimar's story significantly stricter than P1 overall).
That said, I kind of disagree with Mark on this overall. While P2's overworld feels a bit aimless and degenerate (the lack of a timer is an issue here, along with generally recycling environments in less interesting ways), 2's main focus is the dungeons. Although those aren't timed, they have a different kind of resource pressure in that you usually can't farm new Pikmin inside the dungeon, and some of them are quite long and difficult to reach and defeat the boss in good enough condition to fully clear. This dungeon entry restriction limits how degenerate being able to freely farm Pikmin on the overworld is, and IMO makes P2 overall a more meaningfully challenging game than P1.
@@TheElectricUndergrounddead rising is all i can think of and some youtuber in spanish I follow use to complain about how timer destroyed the game but he is so wrong about it, timer pushes you to stop relaxing your lazy ass and do something to get out of that situation
I have been lurking this channel for some months since I started getting into danmakus and other arcade games. I have some disagreements with some of the points made in some of the other videos in here but this video knocked it out of the park and perfectly explains many shortcomings in modern games and puts into words some of the things I have already been thinking.
Amazing work, Mark. Game designers could learn so much from games that already exist, if they appreciated them.
Great video. These are all points that I've thought about myself, including the gameplay-density concept, even visualising it like the density of points in a space you showed, quantifying the number of identifiable meaningful experiences a person touches upon within a timeframe. A couple of thoughts I have:
While timers can make a game flow as intended by the designer, I don't think timers are always necessary to add that extra layer of purpose and drive that makes the other elements gel together. I think it's possible to design gameplay in a way that it doesn't need the push of a timer. But that involves a lot more complexity to the design of the gameplay, which is a bigger challenge for developers. For simpler gameplay, it's possible to compensate for an imperfectly fleshed-out (not meaning bad or inferior to games without a timer) design by creating a timer that pushes the player forward at a pace that keeps them hitting experiences at the desired pace, playing a certain way, and prevents them from falling into gameplay-design dead spots.
I don't really agree that an experimental game that pushes boundaries today probably won't make much money. There are still occasionally games that are very innovative, and having good innovation will make a game sell more because it's something fresh for people to experience. I think games push boundaries less these days in significant part because game devs are, themselves, used to playing the same things over and over, and as a result have been dumbed-down by all the dumbed-down games they've played, and are influenced by the dumbed-down mindsets of other game developers and gamers around them. And many of them grew-up playing diluted game experiences, and so a low ratio of quality to quantity is what's normal to them, and that shapes their own design sensibilities. While some other appreciable design sensibilities have been developed in modern gaming, modern designers haven't retained all of the detailed and nuanced creative sensibilities that had become very sharpened and somewhat ubiquitous by the mid-90s.
I believe there's one more very-major factor in why games have diminished in their density of experiences and quality creative concepts, which again comes down to the dulling of the minds of developers and gamers, through a practice that I think emerged with 6th-generation gaming consoles, and with gaming becoming mainstream (and which helped it to become mainstream). That topic is one that deserves a longer explanation of its own, so, I'm going to leave it here for now. But I've been meaning to make a writeup on it for many years, and I think your video has given me the push to start doing it. Thanks.
I wish this was common sense among the gaming community. Despite being a very good opinion and a very coherent game design, not only the players but also the developers don't even know what an arcade/retro game is due to the generation difference, having already grown up in a post-PS2 era and already at the door of the era of DLCs and IAPs. They think that just because they use pixel art their game is instantly retro.
It's even funny to think that while people endorse the soulsbourne formula, which is the only genre nowadays that fits the description of "a game that pushes its limits the entire game without seeming unfair", they despise the arcade formula, which is literally the concept of souls on steroids, simply because the "game is old".
It is important to note, however, that this is also the result of the rise of eSports. Of course, single-player games remain very popular, but it is undeniable that nowadays climb for ranking in competitive games is usually what keeps players interested, as the desire to surpass another player is usually greater than the desire to surpass a machine.
Great takes and insights in your videos, as always. Outside of the first few Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games I have rarely seen console games where scoring was the main focus and where the system was intricate, intuitive and well implemented enough to reflect it. Shmups, rhythm games and other indie and doujin games notwithstanding,
Yes man I really miss that era of licensed games where a lot of them were terrible, but every so often we d get a gem of arcade style action with them like pro skater
I think DMC and godhand are close
Really good video. The point about the timer really blew my mind because I couldn't pin down what felt missing from modern 3D action games. And others come to think of it. The pressure on players is so often determined solely by the strength of enemies and their AIs. But that's just one of many tools designers have at their disposal.
It seems common sense that the withering of the arcade environment and its supplanting by unlimited private gaming hardware "freed" game developers. There is some truth to it, but it's more correct to say that one set of constraints and incentives was traded for another, and this video makes it clear. Hopefully designers conscious of this can still make use of the lessons learned in the arcade era, even if the realities of current business models aren't changing any time soon.
This video should be a requirement for game journalists. You have brilliantly put into a concise video what I have been warning people about and trying to explain to my friends and peers for years regarding the departure from arcades and its impact on the core design of games. Take the way newer games are patched constantly and new content is added, often game breaking, in order to incentivize purchasing it is just one example of many - also the way difficulty is approached (or lack of real challenge) in newer games, etc. Bravo. Excellent essay. I will be sharing this with as many people as I can. I hope you can have an influence on future game devs to keep games actually challenging and, damnit, GOOD!
Also, another great example that I think you missed, and one of the best for timers in console games, is Shinobi on PS2. They brilliantly fused the story with gameplay mechanics - Akujikji, your sword, eats your soul unless you kill enemies, forcing you to clear each area as quickly and stylishly as possible to avoid damage.
Really good analysis, I especially found the observation that developers don't take as many chances on experimentation due to the different business models of arcade vs. home consoles interesting, but honestly most older people playing games are probably just too tired from or invested in their real lives to want to go through the trouble of developing skill in a video game that is brutally difficult in their free time. I mean that's SO many people in general... I'm older and not in that camp, I still like intense, challenging gameplay, but not many people my age would probably feel the same way... And if not that, then probably that younger people, who maybe should have more free time and energy to spare, are just increasingly these days being coddled into total laziness, that they don't even want to bother really developing skill in much of anything, so why would they bother either, when they can just watch their favorite streamer do it instead, or they can get stoned and play the newest AAA movie game that holds their hand the entire time? All this new technology is honestly spoiling the crap out of people, to the point where I think we are even seeing the negative effects of it in people's gaming tendencies...
yeah I think you are right about the older players not wanting to push themselves anymore. i see that completely because a lot of AAA games these days are not actually aimed at teenagers and so forth, I think they are aimed at guys in their 30s-50s. You see that in a lot of ways actually, down to how now AAA games are much more reserved and safe. Whereas back in the 90s and 2000s games were aimed at teens and young adults, so they were all about the edge and taking risks (Ninja gaiden, dead or alive, bless them).
@@TheElectricUnderground Yeah, and I think it's also worth saying that with the younger players who actually do want hardcore action, the trend is towards 3D multiplayer shooters/battle royales that are more open-ended in how things might play out, instead of the 2D single player, heavily linear, trial and error experience of the shmup and so forth. Lots of young people seem to dislike the repeat gameplay that goes into mastering a very difficult 20 minute shmup, but they'll play Fortnite or Warzone hardcore for many, many hours no problem. It's interesting how it's changed.
I think the vid discussed the real reason for this trend in that you only have to sell the game one time, so why bother with an incredible difficulty curve when you can just mash a 3d environment together and spend your budget on cutscenes with safe gameply
Hey, you should showcase games that follow that old arcade design philosophy.
Interesting idea. Maybe he could like, start a TH-cam channel devoted to the topic
what channel have you been watching buddy
@@RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS77 Yeah, and he could call it the lightning metro
absolutely!! Definitely one of the goals of the channel for sure! I think Wanted: Dead actually does, one of the reasons why I really enjoyed that game. It's not perfect, but it has the right idea.
you make a lot of sense. subbed. I hope to see some other topics you have covered.
Excellent video mark.
Longer games will always be easier than short ones, and its kinda sad that games with mechanics and difficulty condensed in short gameplay sessions are almost impossible to sell these days.
yes and I think the fact that most gamers have been brought up in this, games are easy, environment also makes it harder for short tough games to get a footing. It's like hitting a bunch of people who only eat sweet sugar with 100 proof whiskey or something ha.
13:47
I love karl jobst, love speedrunning… but this is definitely a downright chilly take I see a lot.
“Truly the archaic dark age of arcade score attack was dreary where you had to do whatever the game wanted to get a high-number-is-ideal score like in bowling”
“Thankfully we live in the halcyon golden age where we have the freedom to…. do whatever the game wants to shave time and get a low-number-is-ideal score like in golf”
Corporate needs you to find the differences in player instrumentality in these things… oh wait, they’re the same bang-on, nuanceless, precise, exact, 1:1, thing.
>buh guh glitch hunting!
Exist in score attack
>buh wuh wacky unintended gameplay!
Exists in score attack…
>wuh tuh, tas community!
Exists in score attack
>wuh suh streaming!
…exists in score attack? Speed running is score attack where the score is the time number instead of the point number and less number is judged better. That is quite exactly the one minor difference with every single aspect of one existing in the other and the level of self challenge and instrumental gameplay being exactly the same. Very few things in life are this clear cut, nuanceless with no room for variety of conclusion but this is. The only subjectives here are which you might prefer doing or watching. 😂
Yes I think it's some kind of hold over attitude among speedrunners where they truly think that scoreplay is garbage because the only scoreplay they are familiar with is really old 80s stuff like Donkey Kong ha. Where almost all of the innovative scoreplay design has taken place in the shmup genre. A genre speedrunners don't like and never look into ha.
I agree with a lot of of your points. Except: Very popular games like MK2 ruined the perception of arcade difficulty because of input reading and blatant cheating.
Oh MK ha, yeah MK (as my as I like 3) is not the best example of solid game design in like any sense ha. Not only was it unfair but it was also broken AF ha. Though I do have a soft spot for mk3 ultimate as like the American kuso.
Great video and so many unspoken about points.
Love and blessings!
Amazing job putting all the pieces together like this.
"Pac Man REALLY gets good after the 20th quarter!" - If Bethesda existed in 1982
I kinda dislike this whole industry- and culture-wide idea that arcade-style experiences are "inferior" to what AAA studios put out in this day and age.
Like this whole idea that first- and third-person shooters are "objectively" superior to rail shooters because they provide freedom of movement, ignoring that the player limitations of rail shooters allow for narrative dynamics and flow that one can't really get if they can just freely walk around wherever they want.
Agreed, Panzer Dragoon is a good example of using the rail-shooter genre to enchance the narrative.
Great video Mark! A fantastic discussion point and your thoughts are interesting as always. I've mentioned it before, but you should really play Volgarr the Viking. A masterpiece in Arcade-like game design, although, doesn't get the same level of hype as other games that came out around the same time.
Dude, I was *just* thinking about how I saw a video of someone saying "many mechanics of Dark Souls have been implemented into modern games, like RE4 remake." and thought, these mechanics have been in fighting games and brawlers since the cabinet age. 3rd Strike had parries, Garou had Just Defend, Last Blade 2 had parries, Samurai Shodown has evasive hops and dodges, King of Fighters has dodge rolls and the list goes on and on. There's nothing like the arcade experience, the games were so well-crafted and exciting. Amazing sound, pixel art, non-stop action and just the simple charm of patternization and hi-score chasing; they're still among my favorites. I was born in '90 when home consoles were becoming the "arcade experience at home" but I still remember being absolutely HYPED to go to the arcade, ANY arcade! You walk in and get dunked in a wall of noise and flashing lights, cabs lined up side-to-side - unmatchable experience. Big cheers!
That vid might've been by you?! Anyway, cheers!
I feel like knowing that you're supposed to 1CC arcade style games instead of just credit feed is important. It wasn't until I was a grown ass man that I'd even heard of the concept. Kinda wish there was a giant sing outside of all arcades that was like ""HELLO PAYPIGS, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO 1CC THESE. THAT IS HOW YOU BEAT AN ARCADE GAME." (playing for score is always cool, tho, and I like it when arcade owner make a point to write down top scores)
I like that youtuber can now spread the message, but it'd be cool if arcade owners and devs made a point to educate consumers as to why they should like arcade games.
It does open up a whole new world. Arcade games can be an experience as well to be fair with how over the top they can be.
@@magicjohnson3121 fr, you literally can't top that kind of pure gameplay
Yes this is a critique I've had of arcade ports. Even though it makes sense to have the ports support freeplay, I think that is not actually capturing how the games are intended to be played since in the arcade you feel the pain of actually spending money. Arcade ports are getting more savvy about this and indie shmups are getting smarter about this, but yes it's very important to communicate to the player that the games are meant to be played in one credit.
@@TheElectricUnderground Might just ask my wife to kick me in the nuts when I lose to simulate the pain of losing precious quarters
The most based arcade games would freeze/reset your score if you got a Game Over. So that only the first credit counted towards your posted score.
So what you are essentially saying is that games needs more personality rather than just a product to satisfy a customer. (It's heavily simplified but I think it's the best way to say it)
Excellent analysis as usual, Mark. Most of this is stuff I've heard you say before or thought of it myself, but the loss of the timer is something I hadn't noticed.
The funny thing is, timers can make even casual games good. I played Atelier Rorona a little a few months back and actually found myself REALLY engaged with it. Some of the players would bemoan the presence of a timer, but to me, it made me actually plan out what I want to do. Well, it's not a true timer in that it acts more like stamina points (you spend in-game days to travel to places or to craft items), but it still achieves a similar outcome.
Do I want to spend my resources to finish side quests or do I want to focus on finishing the main quest? If I want to take on the side quest, will I make it back to town in time to submit it? (There's a penalty for failing or dropping a side quest.) Which area would be most optimal for me to get the resources I need? Should I spend time to heal up my party? Should I buy some resources or should I go out to collect them? How long should I spend collecting items and how long should I spend crafting items?
If not for this "timer", a lot of these choices wouldn't exist. You can just take on side quests endlessly because you'll EVENTUALLY be able to fulfill it. You can heal up after every battle for maximum safety. You can avoid spending money because you can keep going out to dungeons and collect the resources for free. You don't have to think about whether you have enough time to craft what you need for the main quest.
And honestly, it's less about a timer and more about restrictions that compel players to make these meaningful choices. You may have mentioned speedruns as the successor of score play, but challenge runs can also be pretty big. Timers just have the added benefit of giving that feeling of a rush, because you can't just take days off to plan out your approach for a single battle, you have to make a good decision and make it NOW. But at the very least, other types of restrictions can make players strategise similar to how we would strategise for a 1cc or score play.
Hey, a Dev here.
You know, I gotta say you've encouraged me to add a timer to a game I never thought I would. And thankfully, I got the perfect premise for it too.
Lets see how well it goes. Thanks for this video, you've given me quite a lot to chew on.
it's not just action games that have changed. i was always an RPG fan as a kid, but i cant play the new ones. i cant really articulate why
Tetris The Grandmaster is such a beautiful example of how the arcade environment shapes a game. Sega Tetris was super popular, but way too easy.
Mihara turned the basic concept into the fantastic game that is TGM1, and soon polished it into the absolute masterpiece of game design that are TGM2+ and TGM3. Tight, focused, relentless, with the most amount of gameplay density you can achieve within a game.
I mean, Gameboy and NES Tetris are fine. But while I enjoy these versions of Tetris, TGM turned what used to be fun distractions into one of my favorite games of all time. Without the arcade focus, I don't think they would have turned these games so hardcore and uncompromising! In Tetris DS, you can just keep rotating the pieces, stalling the game until you thought about your next move. In TGM, the pieces lock faster and faster not matter what - forcing you to keep improving. It seems like such a small detail at first, but it changes the entire game.
Oh yes TGM is legendary! It's so mechanically dense I m not even sure it s a puzzle game honestly. I think of it more as an abstracted action game ha. I should make a vid about it at some point
your channel is unique to me.
keep up the good work!
I think we can also coin the term "content density" for cases where game lasts 100 hours but video game movie lasts only 10 or so
You make alot of good videos I first came to your channel when I watched your Re4 remake abandons all integrity. I love how you talk about the importance of good mechanics in games. I hope your platform grows fast. Also what do you think about souls games? If you played any that is.
Search for a commenter called 1854 in this video (not whole words)
Thank you very much my dude!!! I hope this is sort of a fun little sequel vid to my resi4remake review in a way ha. I overall like the souls games for certain aspects of their design like the difficulty and the more fundimental style combat and enemy design. I'm not a fan of the rpg elements though. Overall I would say that I like the souls games, and they are certainly interesting to talk about, but I don't love them ha. My favorite souls game by far, which isn't actually a souls game, is Nioh by team ninja. That is so close to being an action game ha, so close.
@TheElectricUnderground I've yet to play Nioh actually, I'll give it a shot. I've heard a decent amount of ppl say Nioh is actually their favorite souls like game.
I agree so much on the second point. I feel like a lot of modern games waste my time. But I have always disliked when media is stretched out. I prefer short stories to novels for similar reasons.
absolutely merth!! Concise and compact media is a fav of mine as well. In games and in film/writing.
Quality vs quantity in game design. While arcades forced developers to go after the former, modern games, free of those restraints, are leaning more and more into the latter, cheered on by consumers.
Something that's been on my mind for a while now is how I think the "rise of rogue-likes" is because people are missing these sorts of arcade design elements from modern AAA games. Arcade games and rogue-likes/lites share a lot in common: high difficulty, a focus on tossing you into the action ASAP, forcing the player to master the game (the arcade 1cc is similar to clearing a roguelike playthrough), gameplay density, etc. The key difference is that rogue-likes are palatable to modern tastes by recontextualizing "you died, now you have to play the game from scratch" as "you died, now you need to play a game that is 95% similar and you're 1% stronger." And while that change loses some of the magic of arcade design, it does a TON to help modern gamers mentally accept the game design.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the genre someday dude. I think you'd bring such a great perspective. Most YTers covering those games come from a modern AAA mindset
what was the music in this video? Great video btw, reminds me of why I still miss the arcades to this day.
18:40 Sega solved the timer issue with a compromise that worked for both groups back on the Genesis with Sonic. Have a timer that counts how long you take and rewards you for going quickly (thus raising the skill ceiling) while ditching a timer that ends your play (thus lowering the skill floor). It was a perfect example of inclusive gameplay where both skilled and unskilled players were catered to. That is the ideal - not Pikmin 1.
Bro, it technically does end your play when the timer runs out. Take too long to complete an act, and you get a game over. Still, the timer is quite long, longer than the average player would likely need to beat a stage.
It technically DOES end when the timer runs out, but at 10 minutes, you're not likely to ever see the TIME OVER screen unless you're uber-obsessively hunting for every single secret or got lost in Sandopolis 2 in S3K.
Now in some ROM hacks that throw very long stages at you, the same 10-minute time limit can be pretty mean.
I might not care for punishing arcade difficulty, but I do care for short, dense games that I can pick up and finish in 2-3 hours. To me, games that hit that note are incredibly rare and immensely replayable. When I finished Sonic Mania I already have the urge to play it again because it's short and to the point. Same with Freedom Planet.
This sort of replay value is largely lost and games like that are often criticized for being "too short". All that matters is "time to complete" and playtime only counts so long as you are working on an arbitrary checklist of things to do, be it progression, collectibles or achievements. Why would anyone play a game _for fun_?
The crusade against 'short' games is a sad thing. I've always felt that if you need a 'reward' to play a game, you're probably not really enjoying it and should maybe be doing something else.
The ironic thing, of course, is that many of those 'short' games end up being a lot more replayable, while many of the longer games weren't all that engaging even the first time through.
I played Sonic Mania endlessly when it came out. The only problem is that I got so used to it that it's now become boring...honestly the same issue I have with the other classic sonic games (although I still love them). Tanuki Justice, Donut Dodo, Cash Cow DX and Final Vendetta (granted that last one I'd consider super difficult at times) are also all great examples of how you can still do a short game incredibly well. Heck, one loop of Dodo or Cash Cow takes all of 10 minutes when you know what you're doing and I still go back to them.
Great video. Super Mario Bros. Wonder recently got rid of the timer. I like that there is no pressure to rush through. But I wish the game kept scores. It feels so weird without them.
Was pretty much agreeing with everything you said up until you brought up Pikmin 2. Pikmin 2 does not have a day limit, but individual days still have timers, and you are are incentivized to clear the game as quickly as possible because of new enemies that respawn and obstacles being rebuilt after several days pass. Additional pressure is placed on you in dungeons, where you can't grow any new Pikmin. The caves are procedurally generated, but the enemies, obstacles, and treasures remain consistent. Having two captains you can switch between opens up a lot more interesting routing options, much moreso than in the first game in my opinion.
The problem with Pikmin 2, in my opinion, is that it tries to have it both ways. It has large overworlds to explore, and dungeons, when the whole game probably should've just been the dungeons. The overworlds just end up wasting your time and feel like giant level select menus.
If you try playing Pikmin 2 at a faster pace, it's definitely the hardest and most interesting Pikmin game to play. The enemy and boss designs are way more interesting than anything in 1. The problem is that it doesn't give you a reason to do so in the campaign, you have to want to do it for your own enjoyment. The Challenge Mode, where you go through short caves with a limited number of pre-selected pikmin, and a timer, I think is the best showcase of Pikmin 2's gameplay.
Pikmin 2 is not quite as elegantly designed as Pikmin 1, but the dungeon crawling aspect I think is something most people overlook. Either they complain it's too casual because you have infinite time (nothing is stopping you from standing around and doing nothing in Mario 64 or RE4 either), or they complain it's too unfair because of the randomization, which if you know what you're doing you can work around easily. I was excited for the concept to be expanded in Pikmin 4, but instead the caves in that game are mostly puzzle-focused instead of combat-focused like in 2.
If you want to experience the pinnacle of Pikmin 2 gameplay, I highly recommend checking out the Colossal Caverns mod, which throws every enemy and treasure into a single giant randomized gauntlet.
I completely agree with this. I think 4 has the opposite problem where the caves feel like huge wastes of times because they're more puzzle-focused. I think the criticism about the timer's absence in 2's caves is a lot more applicable to the caves in 4. The issue is that because there's no timer you don't have to worry about trying to find the most efficient way to complete the puzzle, it won't change anything and you're not incentived to do so. This isn't the case In 2 because the challenge isn't to be as efficient as possible, it's about surviving through the cave without all your pikmin dying because they're combat-focused. This challenge is completely non-existent in 4 and makes their inclusion feel pointless.
Oh i've played pikmin 2 and it's not a terrible game or anything, I beat that entire sucker myself. But it's the classic Nintendo design of NEVER increasing the difficulty or challenge of a series, but instead just redoing the game with a new twist. So instead of continuing what I think was the real secret sauce of Pikmin 1, that 30 day time limit, they just dropped it in favor of these little dungeons. But take a step back from that: why do the dungeons matter? Why does your performance matter? If you mess up a dungeon 100 times, what's the worst that happens? all you have to do is just take a day (you have infinite) and farm yourself some more pikmin. Whereas in pikmin 1, if you start making crazy bold moves and start losing pikmin, you REALLY feel that mistake because you cannot undo it. Even if you spend a day farming pikmin, you've lost that day and that is irreversible. So pikmin 1's design is bold and interesting. Pikmin 2 is safe and standard. it's a fun game, but in my book a huge step down from the original. And pikmin 3 I think they just ran out of ideas ha. Because the golden rule of nintendo is NEVER make a game harder, don't you dare ha. Always just shake it up and make it more palatable for the average player.
Thanks for the awesome comment though!
@@TheElectricUnderground It's true that on the surface, your performance does not matter. I think Pikmin 2 is at it's fullest when you have the intrinsic motivation to be good at it. I think it's a philosophic question of who should really be responsible for making sure the player knows the mechanics of a game: the game itself or the player? Pikmin 1 forces players to learn because of its punishing time limit, but Pikmin 2 asks more of the player if you decide to be efficient.
Maybe it's because I've played 1 so many times by now, but I still think that 2 is much more challenging and punishing. But you have to be the kind of player that doesn't reset their save in dungeons, doesn't feel like farming, and doesn't like taking their time. To me, Pikmin 2 is more fun when you don't do all these things, so saying that the game is easier just because you can do them is meaningless to me. Pikmin 2 is designed to be learned and played efficiently, even if you personally decide not to do that. Breaking the established conventions of Pikmin by turning it into a roguelike-ish dungeon crawler was anything but a safe decision, and the game remains polarizing inside and out of the Pikmin fanbase.
Are Mario 64 or Sunshine less mechanically rich games because you can sit around and wait as long as you want, unlike Super Mario Bros. 1/2/3/World which have a time limit? I don't think so. Even if you don't speedrun the game, you have many more movement options, and both game's physics allow for more interesting techniques that the 2D games don't really have. You can sit forever, but is that honestly the game's intended design? To be left idle, or to farm for 1UPs so you never get a game over? I don't think so.
Apologies for the lengthy reply, but I do find the discussion of player responsibility fascinating, as it relates to a lot of fundamental aspects of game design.
@@TheElectricUnderground Have you played Metroid Dread? For a Nintendo game it provides a pretty beefy challenge--I certainly enjoyed it.
Loved this video, and allow me to give my take on the subject.
I don't think it's just the classic Arcade game that developers have abandoned in modern AAA games, I also think it's the fear to punish the player for playing poorly. To me, games, not just video games, all forms of gaming, are a challenge and/or competition of risk vs reward. A lot of modern video games focus too much on the rewards for that dopamine effect without providing a sense a risk to overcome which would make earning that reward feel all the more satisfying once you earn it.
For example, I played A Hat In Time, a 3D Mario-style platformer, for the first time earlier this year, I liked the game despite my issues with it like the poorly done horror level everyone went crazy about. What is interesting about A Hat In Time however is that even though you have checkpoints in the game, what you don't have are extra lives. You can die infinitely in A Hat In Time and still respawn at a checkpoint with nothing lost but small amounts of time and progress. This does not fly in games like Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine, both of which A Hat In Time are clearly inspired by. I've tried talking about this in A Hat In Time's subreddit and got lambasted for it because to them, extra lives are an "outdated" mechanic and would've made the game more frustrating, even though A Hat In Time is arguably easier than it's main source of inspiration.
To me, there's no such thing as an outdated mechanic or an outdated game design, not even something like extra lives. Extra lives incentivized you to play smart and carefully because you got punished for not doing so by losing a life, and losing all your lives meant that you had to restart the whole level all over again, which you didn't want. That's what made the Mario games fun; The challenge of navigating the levels and platforms, the risk of falling/dying and losing a life, and the reward of collecting a star/getting to the flag. A Hat In Time has the challenge, it has the reward, but it doesn't have the risk.
EDIT: After playing Snatcher's challenges, I'm actually glad AHIT doesn't have extra lives LMAO.
yeah, I don't think a mechanic is really outdated, but it needs to find it's place in the game design.
In some games Extra Lives feel like something that exists just for legacy, but in other games is key to it's intented design and difficulty curve.
What an awesome comment! Yes I agree that what modern game design is all about is trying to constantly give the players all carrot and no stick. Basically how do we find a system that only rewards the players and never punishes them? And the result is this very stretched out slow drip feed style. Vs arcade design which hands you the entire carrot, lets you start to eat, and then smacks it out of your mouth ha.
@@TheElectricUnderground To further expand on what I said. Survival Horror games are another genre I've spoken multiple times about and why they stopped being scary is because they aren't any detrimental/irreversible consequences to dying in modern Survival Horror games.
RE1 was a scary game not necessarily because of the enemies, but because dying meant you lose hours of progress, especially since saving was a limited resource then. Survival Horror games need to make dying the scariest thing the game first and foremost, because if there is reason to fear dying, then there is no reason to fear the things that can kill you.
Minecraft is a fantastic example of this, the average MC player fears dying when playing on survival or hardcore mode because of the potential to lose valuable items and resources, if not their entire run. Compared that to modern AAA survival horror games when dying usually means returning to a nearby checkpoint to try again.
@@troykv96 If you play Ace Combat games, the first one on PS1, Air Combat, had a clever implementation of the extra life system; It was dependent on how many jets you bought and had in your storage. If you crashed a jet in a mission in Air Combat, you lost that plane and couldn't restart that mission with it, the only way to do so was to rebuy it, and you couldn't buy the same jet twice. If you crashed all your jets, it was game over. The Ace Combat games that came after abandoned this system, now you can crash your jets an infinite number of times.
@@TheCyclicGamer I can't help but find the idea of someone just constantly crashing their jets over and over again instead of actually playing the game quite funny.
But yeah, I see your point, it used to be inmersive.
I think this might be my favorite video on youtube mark, this is fantastic
Thank you so much void! I love the way this vid turned out as well. it's like a summary and mission statement of what the channel has been discussing for the past few years ha.
Great video. Speaking of SpikeOut, apparently the upcoming Yakuza Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth will include a port of that game, which I'm excited for because I've never gotten the chance to play it. It looks awesome.
This is a great think piece.
I mostly was drawn to the topics of scores and time limits, Many of these help me to connect some dots on why I default to things in the games I make.
Time limits: I tried that once in a Mario style game and now understand other reasons it can be used....I don't do it as often but it crosses my mind.
Scores: Glad others are saying it, I found scores gave me a reason to do videos or share more, The old Miiverse was a perfect contender where I played more games I can sceenshot even if I had Wii games or digital wii U/3DS games without Miiverse and I would use highscores to justify that.
Even to this day I make sure my games have a highscore system or a final results to enteise others to complete for scores.
At first I was thinking this would default too "Just play indies" but this was a good brain scratcher
I think that there have always been toxic monetisation practices in video game development; the modern equivalent to actually-unfair "quarter munching" gameplay is probably free-to-play mobile games that offer extra tries or faster cooldowns for a fee. On consoles, back in the day, arbitrary difficulty spikes or arcane change-ups in the game mechanics to facilitate the rental market weren't uncommon - and I still believe that there's a place for easier, more approachable games. I can absolutely feel the loss of timers, good scoring systems, and gameplay density though; one of my most played games of all time is NiGHTS into dreams... which by all accounts is pretty easy, but the compelling score ranking system and tight, fun gameplay loop ensure its replayability, and ranking the player based on score *and* completion time offers a good balance between speedrun-type strats and score-attack gameplay. To me, good example of this is Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes, which encourage routing through the levels in a way that achieves the highest score in the shortest completion time rather than just score or time alone. I'm kind of a SEGA-head, but I think that a drop in gameplay density and loss of a timer hurts Bomb Rush Cyberfunk pretty severely in comparison to the original Jet Set Radio; tightly-designed arcade action in an enclosed space offers a more engaging experience than sparse, repetitive open worlds populated by repetitive, boring gameplay objectives. If I lose at JSR, it's because I suck at the core gameplay loop - whereas I've never even died once in BRC, but I didn't finish it because I got bored with the grindy repetition of bland open-world traversal and item hunting. I think there's room on the market for easier games; I'm a big fan of Here Comes Niko, which is a 3D platformer collectathon in which you can't die, but it tightly paces its objectives in enclosed stages rather than diluting them across a massive open world. The traversal is made interesting with movement tech, too, so I guess the conversation there might also include the skill ceiling in the core movement (spam-dashing in Sonic Adventure 1), and stage objective density in discrete levels as opposed to open worlds. Great video, not sure I'm entirely with you on difficulty but your depth of original thought and knowledge on this stuff stands out as always.
it would seem there is an overlap between mobile games and arcade games, but I actually don't think they are equivalent. The reason why is that the arcade was much more like the movie theater, where the premier of gameplay, graphics, and video games was happening. it was the proving ground from which console games borrowed and copied. In the mobile market however, this is not the case. The mobile market is the dirty corner of gaming where people who have no interest in more premier gaming or literally are stuck on a bus or something, have to go for a quick distraction. There is an overlap in that both of them need to be more compressed in time, but I think arcade credits and microtransactions are worlds apart.
I feel like NiGHTS was maybe the last time a pivotal AAA console game bet the farm on score attack gameplay. Really unfortunate that it didn't work out commercially.
Simple explanation: games nowadays focus too much on graphics/realism but lack good game play or fun!
This is a great analysis, and I really like the idea of gameplay density! If there was such a thing as a game design dictionary, this should definitely be in there!
I’m really looking forward to your DDP M2 STG review in December. Feels like I’ve been waiting all year for that. :) Are there any plans to cover either the Telenet (out now) or the first volume of the IREM bundle (late November) before then? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Absolutely great topic. People are so dismissive of arcade games, I've seen many people claim that arcade genres or arcade game design are bad or outdated.
But honestly I gotta defend Shovel Knight a bit lol, I think it's such a success story because it's not mind-numbingly easy or lame
Ha I hold no ill-will against shovel knight, I think it's a cute game and everything. But it is such a perfect example of the standard everyone is aiming at. Where it's got a lot of the trappings of classic games, but without the bite. One indie game that I really liked that is sort of an alternative to shovel knight was cyber shadow. That game is pretty crazy and has much more of a classic difficulty curve. It made a bit of a splash when it came out, but no one talks about it anymore sadly.
I'd be one of those people, but that really depends on the arcade game. arcade game isn't a genre, it's a platform. just as wii games are generally designed around motion controls, arcade games are designed around eating quarters.
a lot of arcade design is bad and outdated, but not all. Arcades still have a lot to offer that you can't typically get at the home experience, like racing games where you're in an actually moving seat of sorts, or rhythm games with interesting control mechanisms. for example, Dance Dance revolution. while it used to be available in both arcades and console, arcades were superior, as the metal pads and double metal pads allowed for a superior experience.
but, arcade design philosophy is just the progenitor of modern mobile gaming. just like the free2play model on mobile, you could do well in many arcade games with minimal money and sufficient skill, or you could just pay to win, particularly when it comes to beat'em ups. "fairness" of an arcade game could be adjusted by the operators a lot of the time to try to find that sweet spot where people will spend the most money, just like mobile games playing off human psychology to get you to spend the most. both design philosophies revolve around maximizing how much money people will spend while playing.
and if you look at the top grossing arcade games of all time, they tend to be fighting games, which has carried on very well outside of arcades. others are games like pac-man, defender and space invaders. these types of games are alive and well on mobile, and evolving there.
@@TheElectricUndergroundcyber shadow was awesome but was quite forgiving with its checkpoints and easy bosses. And it was way too short and relied on dumb achievements to lengthen the playtime. I absolutely loved it though and it had an arcade feel with the platforming and bullet hell aspects, with very satisfying to master movement tech.
@@khaosklub
My god, you are exactly the kind of person I was talking about.
I think it's unfair to compare rpgs with arcade games because rpgs were always like that. Fallout 1-2, planescape, baldurs gate 1-2, ultima 7, final fantasy 7. All these games are pretty old and can't be discribed as modern, but they take atleast 20 hours to beat. Good video overall. One of my all time favourite game is dead rising 1 and it's an arcade game by its nature.
Baldur's Gate 1 is absolutely a gameplay-forward experience. I understand if Mark doesn't enjoy that time of game, but the vast majority of game time is spent engaging with its systems. Dialogue scrolls as fast as you press the button.
All of those games are pretty old now, but in the overall historical timeline, they mostly came out around the time arcades were starting to hit the rocks commercially. Japan had more of a span during which arcades and console RPGs were simultaneously commercially significant forms, but then again things like NES Dragon Quest 2-4 are legitimately challenging games (even if you grind to the level cap in DQ2).
BG1 kind was trying to be gameplay first I guess, but it doesn't really do it very well (realtime with pause is a really bad way to try to represent D&D combat and leads to massive focus on kiting over tactical unit placement; the game is also filled with a lot of simple and repetitive encounters, seemingly to pad out time). Even though it probably wasn't intended at development time for the story to be such a large focus, I would say that is the main reason it would be worth playing now - so that you could go into the more story-driven BG2 with a fuller context. If somebody wanted to play a game like that for the gameplay, I would say something like Temple of Elemental Evil or Knights of the Chalice would be much better options.
@@globalistgamer6418 You forgot to mention Dark Sun: Shattered Land. A really great early example of gameplay-focused D&D flavored turn-based combat.
Top video. What other Arcade designs factors have we lost?
I think thats its funny that as a guy as young as I am I can recognize the flaws that have become standards in the design of modern gaming, and recgonizing that a good chunk of retro games, especially a huge portion of arcade games, have the key at least to some kind of degree. Ive found that I prefer retro games or indie titles that have that aspect of game design in quality retro and arcade titles, instead of FPS/generic RPG open world loot box extravaganza.
I love JRPGs and Western RPGs but I do not like just how many modern games take those leveling systems to artificially increase playtime in their games that do not need them. Take out the interesting character building and roleplaying, and all you have is a waste of time.
Speaking of timers and scoring, I love the original Dead Rising. I recently completed my first “Perfect Run” i.e. best ending and all survivors saved/psychopaths defeated. This series is another example of how future games in the series, while still fun, are missing that secret sauce of mastering the gameplay. Once the timer and scoring are gone, what else is there to make it stand out from other zombie games?
I grew up with arcade titles since they always managed to scratch my itch for wanting something that was short sweet and full of action. I still play games like The Punisher, NBA Jam and Dodonpachi years later. I find myself enjoying these games even more as I get older.
I recently got back into arcade games and what you talk about in this video is on point accurate. Thank you for this video my dude 🙌
Fascinating video, Mark. It’s interesting because there’re so many good games out there that have nailed their gameplay but you go ‘why would I do that, the game’s not making me’. Despite all its shortcomings, Gungrave has a really good scoring system; it means something to get an S-rank!
Funny how speedrunning is now considered ‘stylish’ or ‘skillful’ play when often times you’re not engaging with and seeing the full potential of your toolkit.
Hope you haven’t fallen out of love with NG2 though! Game still slaps till this day! Those first two NG games apparently had a scoring style of play with runs, when they first came out, based around maximising Karma and it makes you completely reinterpret how you fight in that game; could be worth checking out…? I know JTB, THE NG guy, has a lot of content on it
I don't know, at the rate the AAA industry is going, calling something a "quarter eater" might be a compliment compared to the "paycheck eaters" that most popular titles are today.
That aside, I think it might be more of games just being able to be made bigger. More room means more filler, more filler means less fine tuned game-play.
How we communicate also matters since in the past, most people learned about an arcade being good usually from a friend who liked said game. Now we can see a mass audience of people we don't know review a single game and we normally accept if a game is "good or bad" based on those mass reviews.
Then again, the market makes the decision on how a game is made, and if people want easier games, easier games are gonna be made... look at all the Harvest Moon clones on the indie market...
Speaking of which, even in the case of Harvest Moon style games you can see the same trends that Mark talks about. In the older games from the 90s and early 2000s, if you wanted to accomplish one of the primary objectives and marry someone you were effectively running on a timer, since if you were too slow then your rival would beat you to it. As a result, you couldn't just take it at a really slow pace, decisions became more urgent and meaningful, and routing mattered. The more recent games and the clones dropped this and became a lot less interesting since major objectives became impossible to fail.
ha no kidding lol! yeah i bought ff16 brand new for my review and it was soooooo expensive I was shocked. And all in all is that game really more valuable than games of the past that cost $50, (blessed ninja gaiden 2 for example), absolutely not. Man I should do a vid on game prices because it's such an interesting topic, but I strongly strongly disagree that they should be 70 bucks or more. I think they should be going down in price honestly.
@@TheElectricUnderground You would think so, but you know if they did they would just pump it up again with micro-transactions.
Video games are an *experience*, first and foremost. If everything has to adhere to arcade design, we wouldn't have Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley or Thief: The Dark Project.
Besides, wasn't there a point about encouraging creativity in the Xenotilt dev interview? How compatible is arcade design with that?
Quite looking forward to this. I didn’t get it as a patreon notification but I expect this to address the fatigue I have with modern games. Now for the sake of attempting to remove as much bias on my part as possible I will cite uncharted as an example of a modern franchise I’ve always enjoyed. But even then I can’t count modern series I enjoy on more than one hand hahahaha.
Game density is the main reason i play retro games (arcade, Genesis, snes and PC engine). I love everything about those games starting from the graphics to the non stop action. I enjoy modern games mostly for the technical showcase but tbh i get bored very quickly with side missions, collectibles, upgrades and many hours spent just going from point A to B on the map.
It's because while Arcade games were made for kids and young adults to have fun with, modern games are made for dads of broken families. These dads have neither the free time or patience to play challenging games. All they have is the money to keep buying every new game that gets heavily marketed in their face.
Playing shmups like Cotton, Aleste, Thunder Force, and Gunbird, action games like Devil May Cry, or even rhythm games (Bemani and the the Project DIVA games comes to mind) feels like such a breath of fresh air with everything wrong with modern gaming. I like something that I can just pick up and play without having to worry about investing a massive amount of time into something that might not respect it.
Would suggest to check out fan translations or the game library of more niche systems (like the Sega Saturn or PC Engine), so cool seeing older games that never really made it state-side. Especially if you don’t deal with culture shock.
Oh yes playing shmups and experiencing their rich gameplay makes playing bloated modern games really hard to tolerate ha
Rhythm games are definitely one of those genres with a strong focus on gameplay. It's pretty hard to make a cinematic movie out of tapping buttons at the right time lol. Unfortunately, that genre is also overly monetized by dlc drip-feeding songs.
I rarely every comment on videos and especially ones about video games but this video explained perfectly why I felt like modern games are boring and have always gravitated toward shmups and games with timers like majoras mask. Please do more video style essays like this!
15:00 I think you really nailed the importance of scoreboards to competitive single-player. I can’t tell you how many games I played longer because of online leaderboards that I would have put down in a fraction of the time without them - even some less than excellent games really benefited from them.
I think there’s definitely room for both speed runs and high score runs. One of the reasons I gravitate towards watching high score runs is because they tend to include more of the game content (like a TLB in some cases), while speed runs often incentivize large sections of the game, making the experience of watching them feel a little less complete to me. That said, there are of course some techniques in speed runs that are fun or impressive to see for the first time or that expose an alternate structure to the game, so I get the appeal - I just gravitate more towards the “give me the whole game” playthroughs. :)