Did games used to be better?
>>727560676Yes. A lot.Same thing with the internet.The damage iPhone, social media and games-as-service mentality have done to the world cannot be exaggerated.
It’s been a give and take. Tech advancements have allowed games to be larger, more visually impressive, and when devs care to, more complex However, as the market has grown the business side has caused things like more catchall games (“open world survival crafting with zombies”) and microtransactions Overall I’d say games have improved but the games as a service trend needs to fucking die
>>727560676The ones without 40 hours of dialogue/cutscene filler, yes. There are still some modern games doing that. But AAA games tend to go for the cinematic junk.
>>727561804>Tech advancements have allowed games to be larger, more visually impressive, and when devs care to, more complexThis ceased to happen already 10+ years ago.The late 2000s was already the era of streamlined casual slop. Devs realizing that they could do way less, and still make shittons of money. Entire genres have perished after the PS2 era.
>>727561326That's the thing about games, it's amazing how every single year there would be a whole bunch of good games. You could even have a favorite developer and they could put out a consistent product every year or every other year, not some one-hit wonder
>>727560676yes but most of them aged badly for people not used to that era of gaminginnovative control schemes, ui and mechanics because everything wasn't already solidified into the "way it is supposed to be done" where every damn game has the same ui, the same control scheme and color associations to mechanics (like yellow for climb, red barrel explodes, blue is mana, green or yellow stamina, red always health unless it is damage)
i really loved dark cloud back when it came outi had just gotten a ps2 and played it on a demo disc. it felt so advanced and graphics were so damn good since i only had a nes + shitty pc with really early gen graphics card from 95 or 96 and was used to ps1 games friends had. it looked really next genthen, a few years later, it showed its age and looked bad when compared to later ps2 releases but for a while it was a proof how far gaming had developed in half a decade
>>727560676Been playing Dark Cloud recently, it's alright if pretty repetitive and grindy
>>727565302>bwoop bwoop bwoop>damaged weapon sound>thirst sound>low health sound
>>727560676yes>they were made for people who play video games instead of appealing to casual droves of retards who don't like them>they weren't movies>development wasn't outsourced or offshored to india>high skill floor meant working with custom hardware full of quirks meant only skilled people could develop games and lowlife scum couldn't even write a working tic-tac-toe>hollyjew types stayed far awaythat's not to say they were free of issues (e.g. save with low HP and no medkits, you're basically fucked; loss of powerups on death means you'll likely lose the rest of your lives in no time flat; some games could become unwinnable if you sold some key item or built your party wrong; some games were made obtuse to sell game guides or make people call overpriced tip lines; etc.)
People's ability to enjoy games has decreased, but the quality of games has decreased far more.
>>727560676I have never in my entire life seen dark cloud gameplay.
>>727561804>more visually impressiveMaybe looking more realistic. But uglier in general. It's like they are allergic to anything looking beautiful. They can't even design good looking characters anymore. Did they fire all the good character designers or something? Same weird quality change when anime went from cel to digital
No as evident of posting dark cloud
dark cloud scratches a very specific itch.
>>727565517it is VERY 2000 japanese 3d action rpgwhack, move away, whack, move away, get touched by enemy, oh no
>>727565517its a mix of randomishly generated dungeons called "floors" you have to go through, combat is like proto type dark souls.the other half is village building
>>727565273This, the biggest difference was that we could see games getting better in real time.Not just graphix but scope and features too.And then it stopped and started going backward.Now the best games are "what if we made this old game but worse and without any content"
dark cloud has nice water
>>727565867graphics has never been a big thing for me. it is the art style and design. for "impressive" games it either ages like milk or wine. jump to 3d was initially kind of shit but it was a big change. gpus becoming a thing for pc gaming was a big change. inventing good control schemes or gameplay mechanics was great. then it is just became a gradual improvement upon stuff copied from other games and everything became more uniform and samey
0 question about it.
I kind of miss playing games on a crt but i dunno how safe it is to buy one online since i live in the middle of nowhere and it might get damaged on the way here
>>727566007nice fishing too (but fuck fishing in the desert for that sword)later every 3d action rpg had to have a fishing minigame for some reason
>>727560676>>727561326Yes. The perfect blend of humand and technology peaked somewhere in the 1990s-2000s.
>>727560676While I wont be an anon who says that we arent getting good games anymore, a key thing with that era back then is that there were no higher ups who knew how this shit worked, so they left it up to the devs to figure out what kind of game would make the most money.Now all games coming from those same studios back in the day all have consultants and test audiences and charts and industry """""vets""""" who think and insist they know what they are doing when the reality is they fucking dont and are just as clueless as the oldguard were back in the day, but they will insist on their bullshit.Like a key example is fucking Bungie. Making one of the most prominent franchises by just pulling something out of their ass. Jump into modern day and its full of jackasses who insist that they figured out how to make a perfect game and as a result all they can put out is fucking slop. Likeall that consulting they did on that big multiplayer push that Sony was doing didnt amount to shit
>>727566260pre-google jewtube was kinoearly niconico on the other hand was shit
>>727566260i miss when you could more easily find cool obscure music on youtube. i dont envy kids these days at all
>>727566090I mean like going from Sonic 3D Blast or Nights to Sonic Adventure 1, that was just mind blowing. Felt like everything was possible now.
>>727560676Game culture was better then.But game design and variety is better now.
>>727566770there was such a big jump from the first "we must go 3d since it is the new thing but don't really know how!" phase to games that were made just a few years later
>>727567101>game design and variety is better noware we living on the same planet what fucking variety? the ui in games in the past was much better.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc3D-5ZyQpI&t=767s
>>727560676yeah, not this one though
>>727567101>But game design and variety is better now.Definitely not in AAA games. Games are far more homogenized now. There was a LOT more variety back then. Because there wasn't access to all the same engines and assets. They had to create them from scratch (with a few exceptions).
>>727567389what the fuck is that creature chittering at me
>>727567573>>727567389Indie games exist. If you're only consuming AAA then it's your problem.
>>727567646it has great examples of good past ui if you can turn off your autism for a moment and get past her wierd european accent
>>727567712i have yet to find a good indie game that comes close to animal crossing. same with harvest moon or rune factory. people always reccomend stardew valley but i always found it kind of ugly.
Yes
>>727560676It feels like a different world entirely, how in God's name did we get to this state
>>727568097no
Games in the old days had to rely more on gameplay and stylized designs. Because realism and cinematics were too expensive or not even possible at all with the technology. These days developers have bloated budgets and technology that allows for realism/cinematics. So they rely on them too much. Sometimes to the point that the entire game is just those things. This is why the best modern games tend to be medium/low budget ones that focus on gameplay and/or original designs.
Devs were able to make lots of shit. Some of it was bad but a lot was good and they could quickly iterate on stuff. A game like Spider-man 2 (2023) took them like five years to make Back in the day, they would just spit out those "basically the same game but better graphics and new story" sequels. Now the next Spider-man won't be out until the PS6 and it will be the same bullshit as the last one. It also helped that the medium wasn't as mature so you had unique playstyles still on the PS2. Devs hadn't "solved" twin stick yet so there was development space for shit like God Hand. Overall, it was better because if you liked a certain type of game, you could get your fill in the same gen. You like GTA, there's 5 of them on the PS2. You like R&C, there's a whole bunch on the PS2. Now you like R&C, you might not see another one until 2028
You aren't asking this question in good faith because you already believe that games were better in the past. Your interest isn't receiving replies that help inform you about the past, you simply want to be validated. You've already made up your mind. That's the problem with people like you. You can have rose-tinted goggles and say "old good, new bad" all you like. There's no harm at all in expressing those opinions, and in fact you've got a substantial amount of ammo to position it as some sort of universal truth. The issue I'm referring to is your consistent bad faith framing of this idea, that in order to have a discussion about any game that has exceeded some (arbitrary) shelf life, you essentially have to massage it with the implicit notion that a game's tenure precludes quality. This right here is the malfunction of anyone claiming "soul" is anything but another generic buzzword, it's this deliberate and malicious pigeonholing that has to look backwards in a revisionist manner. Your role here isn't to be that of a humble anon opening up discussion about Dark Cloud or PlayStation Magazine, because if it were you would have eschewed the template OP in favor of something that engages a more specialized discourse. I've seen lots of copy-pasted threads on /v/ for things like waifus, porn, articles and so on, but these are among the worst because I sense some terminal insecurity whenever they get made, and inevitably receive near identical replies. These threads are literally white noise at this point, everyone who has come across them has made up their mind and it might as well be the same exact anons in here because this board's active userbase would rather recycle conversations than do anything else with their free time.
>>727569394its not bad faith if its right lol. games have been awful since like 2005. threads like give me more faith that not everyone has awful taste and can see the degrade in quality over the years. it also allows younger people to see that they shouldnt settle for garbage. i dunno why your framing it as some sort of weird insecurity thing lol its not that deep
>>727560676
>>727567712>shit PSX wannabe aesthetics>Metroidvanialike>crafting>roguelike>survival>zombie>Early access (has been in this state for 15 years+)>Developed by a troon who has a meltie or fucks off to Japan the second goals are hitHonestly H-games are better than a lot of indies lately
>>727560676ye
>>727567572Dark clouds pretty fun, the start is just rough as fuck because of the thirst and durability meters being so low. Great music too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bdfqYVmNmM
>>727567757>caring about the opinions of womenlollmaogo be a retarded simp somewhere else
>>727571407i cant tell if you are being serious or not lol.
>>727564241You can still like developers like that, but we've left the era of new games every year, which is probably the worst thing about current gave dev, at least for me. I'd rather have 10 ps2 graphics games than 1 of the same quality of gameplay but with HD graphics.
>>727571986NTA but if you need a youtuber to convey your point you just aren't very smart.
>>727572534i mean all the examples of good ui are already in the video. if you dont like the voice feel free to mute it i guess. im not going to do the work for you and flood the thread with a billion different images of what i consider to be good ui so i linked a video that has what i consider good examples. alos idk what it is with everyone on this site needing their replies to so smarmy and insulting. its bizarre.
>>727572758I would honest to god prefer if you posted some UIs
>>727572892are you the anon who said i was a moron
Bump
