In literature, some people have tried to compile a list of various genre "canons", such as professor Harold Bloom's "Western Canon", which is a huge list of nearly every significant contribution to the Western literary world.I was wondering if anything similar existed for retro videogames. Is there a retro canon? Or, if someone wanted to go through and play every significant retro game (even the niche but important ones), what would be the best way to know what to pursue?
>>11493246There is but it's not nintendo centric.
>>11493246https://vsrecommendedgames.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_PageThis site is kind-of faggish however.They're missing some good games like El Viento and recommend shit like the punisher genesis port
>>11493246Super MetroidQuakeStart there.
I've thought about this before and have even started compiling a list once or twice but never really went anywhere with it, I don't even know where those lists are now.There have been tons of disparate "100 Most Essential Games" lists by different journos and "recommendation charts" and wikis posted by random enthusiasts online. Some games just come up in random discourse more than others. Sales records are available for various systems, some requiring more digging than others.If you want to play all the Big Deal Games you kind of just go off of those and form a loose approximation of which games were historically influential, especially popular, or received significant critical attention.I don't know of a list that I would personally say covers everything. I've thought about trying something like that myself, listing each game and some brief information and explaining why it merits inclusion in such a list, but it's a pretty big undertaking to do it right and an even bigger undertaking to actually have familiarity with all those games. The cutoff for what is and isn't significant enough for inclusion would also incredibly arbitrary.Finally even such a list would be a "Western Canon" of its own since that's the perspective I'd be going off of. Sure, plenty of Japanese games would be included by virtue of being big here, maybe even some Japanese exclusives due to indirect impact. But there are games that are huge as fuck in say, Korea, that are basically unheard of here - Dungeon & Fighter for example. Crossfire is another example, literally one of the most played videogames worldwide but plenty of Westerners have never heard of it. All the Japanese games we talk about give the impression of a single international gaming lineage, but the truth is every country has its own history of which games are and are not part of "The Canon".
>>11493379There was a good article about how the memories of American male players are pretty much the only voices writing video game history.https://felipepepe.medium.com/the-gentrification-of-video-game-history-dfe11f1e08aeSome nice criticism on why Bomba Patch is not considered a game, but Counter-Strike is.
>>11493452Thanks, this is right up my alley. It’s always been interesting to learn about the blindspots in vidya history.Consolidation of the internet is also a part of this I think, when all the ESLs are on primarily English speaking websites they get assimilated to an extent. Discord actually mitigates this a little due to being the modern equivalent of separate forums, there are some modding groups I’m part of and like half the people in them usually speak in Spanish. That article you linked recontextualizes that a bit.
>>11493285rent free
>>11493651>Consolidation of the internet is also a part of this I thinkVery true. In any case, I think that the rest of the world needs to do more research in order to avoid regurgitating American talking points creating a past that never really existed, which is the main reason I started preserving things related to my country.
>>11493748Early gaming was overwhelming American and Japanese You have no point, just America hatred due to being poor and brown.
>>11493753Yeah, it was only that, and nothing else.
>>11493748>which is the main reason I started preserving things related to my country.Mind sharing or giving examples? I'd be interested in finding out about what games I've never heard of are considered classics in another country, and why.
>>11493793I have not preserved it, but Mu Online is an example I can mention of a very popular game in local cybercafés that however was not very known in the US.
>>11493793>>11493801For the record, I only played it for a bit, so I don't remember much of it, so I cannot elaborate further on that. I played WarCraft III (which of course was popular pretty much everywhere) on cybercafés with my siblings and I also liked to copy games from the PCs. I discovered Re-Volt thanks to some cyber having it, and I wanted to play it on my own PC, so I copied... the shortcut. A very common mistake among my generation.
What’s the story behind SNK being so huge in Mexico and Sega being huge in Brazil?
There’s lots of documentation on console and pc games, but I feel like arcade gaming is somewhat underdocumented. Things like flash and phone games are even worse, but with how many arcade games are easy to emulate I’m surprised how litter literature there is about them.Trying to establish a canon could be interesting. It would certainly give me more games to check out.
>>11493246Leave canon to literature.
>>11493246https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/games/systemsStart with Ninendo and SEGA platforms (+ maybe TurboGrafx and PS1), then gradually try the rest. Guaranteed few people here actually do this, otherwise they would realize just how many great games there are on even the "bad" platforms
>>11494286>not starting with the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement DevicePathetic
>>11493246The problem with any of these is that they will always be different based on the tastes of the compiler. Harold Bloom's list is his list, it just so happens he's the only one that made one. If you take 10 old farts who have been around since the dawn of electronic games and were heavily interested in them, isolated them and gave the task to compile a canon of every significant contribution to gaming you would find yourself with 10 wildly different lists. I could right now make a case for Rogue being one of the most influential games ever made. You might get another from someone who completely ignores it but makes the same case for 3-Demon or Jumpman. That's just the tip of the iceberg because you quickly get into the miasma of who was influenced by what versus what they came up with on their own or tangentially.
>>1149375370s were American, 80s were Japanese but 90s were already a free for all. Lara Croft, GTA, Rayman, Lemmings, XCOM, Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country, Commandos, Alone in the Dark, Carmageddon, Driver, WipEout, NFS, the list of non-US and non-JP games in the 90s is endless
>>11496187>you quickly get into the miasma of who was influenced by what versus what they came up with on their own or tangentiallyI think we can agree that the "important" games have to be at least popular. So something unknown that was ripped off by a popular influential game isn't "important" even though the popular influential game wouldn't exist without it. And sometimes you just don't really know who ripped off who first
>>11494286Or you can watch one of those videoshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aAsqUkTKLsAnd pick out what you like based on how it looks, that's a bit more intuitive.
>>11496209I actually don't necessarily agree with that. Rogue to stay with that example was never something I would call popular, it was highly influential with certain people who then made things like Nethack and Diablo which were popular and super popular respectively. But Rogue itself, I have hardly ever even met anyone who played it seriously but there's little doubt how massively influential it was. It has a whole genre named after it.
>>11493285Are you mentally ill?
>>11493246Im working on one thats specific to one genre but its like a 5 year plan. Ill let you know when im done.
>>11493246/v/ Canon basically boils down to Mario being a
>>11493452Why do ESLs think they matter? Nobody cares that Brazilians played the Master System into the 00s, the USA was for a very long time the single largest video game market in the world. The US and Japan made up over 80% of the gaming market. The US, Japan, and the rest of the anglosphere made up 95%. The 'video game canon' is factually defined by the US and Japan, and maybe the UK if I'm being generous. That's just the reality of living in an era where the US is the global hegemon.
>>11494185>SNKNo clue. >SEGAImport restrictions meant anything not produced in Brazil was prohibitively expensive. Some Brazilian toy company was able to convince SEGA to license the rights to the Master System, so it could be made locally, which allowed it to skirt import restrictions. Since it cost less than half what a Nintendo did, everyone bought the SMS.
>>11496187Bloom tried to be objective and measure the things that had the most direct and lasting impact on western society. Very few would try and argue against the cultural influence that books like the Bible or Homer's novels had on the West. Any attempt at making a gaming equivalent would have to be equally as objective. It can't be a list of "good games", it needs to specifically be "influential games". You end up with stuff like Pong, Space Invaders, Pac Man, Mario 1, Zelda 1, and so on.
>>11493307>el viento>good
>>11496209>I think we can agree that the "important" games have to be at least popularthe type of mindset that leads retards to believe kojima invented video games?fuck.no
>>11496632If it wasn't popular it can't be important>but it influenced something popularWith that argument you accept the metric of popularity as the one that counts in terms of historic value. An important game isn't necessarily the one that invents a mechanic, it's the one that pushes that mechanic into the mainstream.>>11496364>Rogue itself, I have hardly ever even met anyone who played it seriouslyThat's probably because you're not 70 years old. This was 45 years ago anon, and it was pretty popular by the standards of the time
>>11493246The real "/vr/ canon/" is that Sega sucks, Nintendo sucks, sony sucks, the Saturn is the wonderful what if machine, Atari sucks, treasure sucks, Capcom, sucks, emulation sucks, mister sucks, crt tvs are a waste of time, shaders suck, dooms cool and oot is overrated.
>>11496585>>11496753Many of the works Bloom listed for the last 200 years or so weren't necessarily the best selling books of their time, many of them were just critically acclaimed and an ongoing part of the "academic conversation".Popularity was not the only metric. Popularity among educated critical analysis circles, sure, but not just among the base population. The Bible and Homer's works are less than 1% of the overall list, the average person wont have heard of plenty of the works or authors listed. But literature professors will be familiar with the names.
>>11493285>snoyboy can't help but bring up tendies for the 100th time
>>11496585But what I'm saying is that even with that same goal in mind, different people would come up with different lists they think are correct.
>>11493246this image is cannibalism
>>11496574>Why do ESLs think they matter? Because I say so. I don't need any reason other than that.
>>11493246The problem with video game historicity is that since no real jounalist has cared about any aspect of it besides the business side, we've been left with it being "curated" by a bunch of fat nerds with very predefined tastes and an extreme bias towards historical revisionism who would rather make a 3 hours retrospective about Tales of Phantasia then ever explain how NFL Gameday was one of the most important games ever released.
>>11493246Probably something like>Super Mario Bros>Super Metroid>Doom>Galaga>some early multi-player beat em up like Double Dragon 2>Street Fighter 2>Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest>Wizardry or Ultima>Rogue>Zork>King's Quest>Adventure or Legend of ZeldaAll while not necessarily the best in their genre were more complex than what came before them and a major influence on things that came afterwards.
>>11494185Neo geo mvs was the cheapest arcade machine and it was cartridge based so the operator could just change games on a whim
I tried to be subjective, but I know some of my taste bled through. I'm sure anyone who tried this chart would make their own discoveries and taste though.
>>11498263>I tried to be subjective, but I know some of my taste bled through. I'm sure anyone who tried this chart would make their own discoveries and taste though.theres so many genre of games that arent represented anon,i dont particularly care for most of the games on your chart.
>>11498268t. Storyfag that would include 10 volumes of the same gay JRPG
>>11498272>t. Storyfag that would include 10 volumes of the same gay JRPGno just someone who play games of all genre.
>>11498280>millennial canon
>>11493246Is there a /vr/ canon?No./thread.
>>11494185Back in the late 1980s/very early 1990s, Sega partnered with a local Brazilian toy electronics company called "TecToy". Why? Sega didn't really want to bother with personally setting up a Sega branch in Brazil. So they gave Tectoy an exclusive premium license to market and sell all official Sega products in Brazil. Tectoy sells Sega products. Sega gets a cut of all sales. Win-winApparently, the Master System and Genesis sold really, really, really well in Brazil. The Brazilians loved those consoles. And it spawned into a nationwide love for all Sega consoles (but especially Master System and Genesis). So while the big Console Wars were raging across the world, Brazil turned into this sealed off "fortress" for Sega.- Even while Sega was fighting the console wars against Nintendo, the Brazilians were buying Sega Master System and Sega Genesis.- Even while Sega of Japan moved on and fought Nintendo64 and Sony Playstation, the Brazilians were STILL buying Sega Master System and Sega Genesis. - Even when Sega of Japan was fighting the Sony Playstation 2, the Brazilians were STILL buying Sega Master System and Sega Genesis.-Even when Sega was defeated and left the console market, the Brazilians were STILL buying Sega Master System and Sega Genesis.- Even when Sega shut down their factories, the Brazilians were still buying Sega Master System and Sega Genesis.- Even when Sega had no more consoles to give Brazil, the Brazilians were still buying Sega Master System and Sega Genesis.Even Sega was like, "Damn Brazil. You STILL want Master System and Mega Drive? We lost the console wars, but You really love our products. You bring us great honor."Brazil demanded MORE imported Master Systems and Sega Genesis consoles. But Sega of Japan said they had no more. So Tectoy Brazil opened up their own factory (with Sega's blessing), and started manufacturing their own Master System and Sega Genesis consoles. They released multiple console revisions.
You'd have to be very thorough with your genres. JRPG and CRPGs are an easy example (and even then sometimes applied as umbrella genres), Western and Japanese grand strategy split as well with that distinct Nobunaga's Ambition style being the dominant one in Japan which in turn did affect other strategy genres over there. ADV games aren't as different per region outside of the UI and subject matter, but differentiating between text, 2D and 3D is acceptable even though there is a direct line of influence through all of them. Arcades are something you'd need to look at too and this will require a split check for the US and Japan.A lot of work for a thorough list that people will still complain about, but you aren't starting from 0 nor is playing a requisite (though it really does help to check, some information is insanely wrong).Maybe presented in a less verbose way as the Data Driven Gamer does. Instead of every ancestor and successor, just the originators and a limited amount of seminal titles.>>11496753There's a problem with that way of thinking. A lot of early developers in Japan were influenced by 1 man (Takanari Suzuki) making decent arcade conversion type-ins for a gen 2 computer, the rest of his career is rather unassuming. Koichi Nakamura credits this man's conversion of Galaxian specifically for getting him to buy a PC-8001 and getting into game development, it's not that much of a stretch to say Dragon Quest exists because Suzuki couldn't be bothered to go to the Arcade later and aslo wanted to make some money. Of course, this is more of an example for the important person canon rather than a single important game (and ports don't count anyway), but it's just an example of how something unassuming to consumers had a great deal of influence on the creators, of which many would develop on Famicom. Popularity among creators is at the very least of equal importance.
>>11498280This is your own personal taste chart anon, Ive seen you post it in chart threads, it also lacks classics.
>>11498381>it also lacks classics.and this >>11498263doesnt ?
>>11498476Classic era. 80s to early 90s. Instead your chart basically a parrot of a IGN top 20.
>>11498497OP asked for /vr/ canon,the western canon of books isnt only the greeks dumbass.
>>11493801I loved Mu online but only learned about it from my Brazilian friend. Something really caught my eye about the shaders Mu used and how shiny they were.
>>11496187It’s not influential just because it did it first. People actually have to look to you for inspiration. If Rogue was so good, people would have copied it more. That’s why games like Diablo or Doom are so influential, whole genres of doom and Diablo clones followed them. We’d see Rogue clones and the like if it were truly so influential .
>>11498316wtf I love Brazil now
>>11493452If it's only American males why are there so many British game retrospectives>>11496585>Homer's novelsA...anon...
>>11493285You may now cope, seethe and dilate.
>>11498875>only 754 million total sales since 1899PCs have already sold 5.5 million in the past 9 days and all of Nintendo's games are playable on PC first. PC superpower 2025.
>>11499005That number would be higher but in 1899 most people didn't have anywhere to plug in their consoles so they didn't sell well back then.
>>11498316It's hilarious that Japan rejected Sega consoles. They always favored Nintendo and Sony. If Sega was a father, then Brazil is the "adopted son" Sega wishes he had.
>>11493246I just asked my mid-millennial aunt a few days ago and she told me (order forgotten)>Ocarina Of Time>Sonic Adventure>Crystal ChroniclesIf you've spent any amount of time on /vr/ you'd easily know what's considered the canon here by what gets threadsHere's an unordered list sans the above mentioned>Majora's Mask>Diablo II>Doom>Final Fantasy VII & VI>Mario 64>Sonic 3 & Knuckles>Donkey Kong Country 2
>>11493362Super Metroidone of the QuakesSymphony Of The Night
>>11499609>you'd easily know what's considered the canon here by what gets threadslist needs more casslevania then
>>11493307>El Vientowho?never heard of itnobody discusses that here
>>11493651the only influence I've seen from spic male voices is convincing people to consider their KOF games, '98 and 2002 in particular
>>11498316that sounds unreal
>Thread about a Western /vr/ canon>Random Latinx barging in to ruin everythingDon Quixote is a DEI pick, so any game you guys rep will be one too.
>>11498280Metal Gear Solid II and III have both had passionate acclaimObviously OOT and MM are also acclaimed Zelda titles in the modern dayFinal Fantasy VI especially but also VMetroid Prime may be put up thereMario 64 obviouslyResident Evil 2 and 4Ultima VII I think gets lots of praiseAnd Fallout 2 I don't know where it stands now in most recent debates
>>11499616iirc people here have discussed>Castlevania I (I think)>III/IV ? I forget which>Symphony Of The Night>Rondo Of Blood sortadon't see discussion center around any othersI don't play the series this is just what I've seen when I pop in to try to grok what's being talked about
>>11498263Sonic CD is still a black sheep but its reputation has already shifted significantly positively from what it had been for a long timestill not in the same conversation as the other 3 yetAlpha 2 has a lot of devotees
>>11497679>Dragon Questvery few people here actually play Dragon QuestXenogears discussion used to occur but has since dried up>influencethat's not how games are judged on here
>>11499629>that sounds unrealBrazil was making their own custom Brazilian Sega Master Systems and Brazilian Sega Genesis units well in the 2010s. Their most recent Sega Genesis release was 2023.
>>11498706>We’d see Rogue clones and the like if it were truly so influentialheh yeah...
>>11499635its not meant to be a complete list anon,just a list that include more different genre of game compare to the other anon.
>>11499710love this cover art
>>11499609These are just what's still popular. It may work as a>my favorite gameslist, but it's nothing near a retro canon, which would include more obscure but influential games.
It's harder to compile a list like this for video games than it is for literature.Once a reader has developed the ability to properly understand and appreciate literature in one genre, that ability can be generally reapplied to works in other genres. For instance, I would expect that a person who could appreciate Shakespeare's sonnets to also be able to appreciate a Lovecraft short story, even though the two are in totally different genres.Video games are much more varied in structure and style than literature, and the skills needed to appreciate one genre of games are often completely untranslatable to other genres. 1CCing Metal Slug or Darius Gaiden will do nothing to prepare you for tackling a massive multi-hundred hour RPG like Super Robot Taisen OGs, and vice versa. Each genre challenges players in a unique way and requires different skills to appreciate.Generally speaking, when one chooses to read the Western Canon, they start with the earliest works and progress towards the newer ones, which build upon those earlier works as a foundation. With video games though, it's often the opposite. Players start with newer, easier, entry-level games to prepare them for playing older, less forgiving ones.Older titles are defined more by their absence of quality-of-life features than new titles are defined by their presence. An old RPG that expects you to draw your own map on grid paper is defined by the lack of an auto-map, while a new RPG that has one has it as an afterthought.Thus to truly appreciate old games I think you have to be familiar with new games to understand the contrast.If a person wanted to play every historically influential game, I think it would be best for them to take the newer titles they enjoy, and look backwards to the games they were built upon and experience them, progressively playing older and older titles. Then repeat this process for every genre.
>>11498748>If it's only American males why are there so many British game retrospectivesHe addresses that:>There are many examples of this — one of the most common is how Europe’s home computer scene in the 80s is often erased and replaced by the events of The Video Game Crash of 1983, an event mostly restricted to North America. The Amstrad CPC, C64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, demoscene, etc… all get replaced by the all-mighty NES.It's not rare to see younger Yuros knowing about the NES, but not about the microcomputers that were actually popular in the region.
>>11499803That's why you use a tree diagram. You can move both forward and backwards if you want and expand or contract genres as you go along.Still you'd need a pretty deep knowledge to do it properly. Red herrings are a problem too, Chrono Trigger used to be one. Great game, but not much outside of that.>>11499918Just a case of popular discourse. Micro users started in BBS and then moved to generally specific forums. NES users generally aren't enthusiasts so they end up in the more generic gaming forums or websites that converse in English. Atari is definitely important to gaming, but is now also discussed way less than earlier on the internet, mainly because those people moved on from internet discussion entirely or moved to forums like AtariAge (which also serves as a more suitable place to discuss that generation specifically).Micros are gone, replaced by the IBM PC, so their exposure to those brands is minimal. Nintendo is still around. They'll check out what they'll know, but it's not like they'll go so far to check Nintendo's early arcade ventures or dedicated systems either. We're getting to the point that the NES is considered unplayable old crap, but they'll still know OF the NES as the brand it belongs to still exists and doesn't ignore that part of its history.
