I've been playing a bunch of 90s mascot platformers lately and the average quality is actually appalling. Did any other genre trend fare better?
It's not a mascot if it doesn't represent a brand or a product.Sonic = MascotMario = MascotCrash = not a mascotZool = not a fucking mascot by a long shot
>>11557123Zool is the mascot for Gremlin.
jrpgs throughout the 90salso gory fighters while not actually great games for the most part, at the time i enjoyed the hell out of all of them
As much as I hate to admit it, FPSYou still have more people talking about old FPSs in an unironic sense, unlike sonic knock offs and MK knock offs
>>11557114The multimedia CD-ROM craze created a lot of unique software, like The Neverhood, Mission Sunlight, Chop Suey, and many of the titles featured in the CD-ROM Journal blog.
>kart games>strategy games>party games>beat 'em ups>shoot 'em ups>puzzle games>gun gamesjesus you guys complain about everything. there are only a few stand outs in any genre the rest are derivative or lesser wanna bes
>>11557123
>>11557205I was saddened by how console Jarpigs got all the glory while PC Warpigs stayed niche.
>>11557114FPS games obviously. CRPG games got amazingly good before the market was taken over by console kitties.
>>11557205I would agree with JRPGs but I think the western experience is a bit different because we only really got the best ones. There were TONS of mediocre ones in Japan.
>>11557114adventure games produced a lot of objectively high quality hand-drawn art that few other genres could replicate
Zool on the Master System is still the worst game I've ever played. Shit graphics, bad level design, slippery controls, bland music, there's not even anything bad enough to point and laugh at.
>>11557515I think the speedrun is fun and entertaining
>>11557394Well yeah, they were on pc and were geared towards dnd nerds
>>11557114FMV games are usually interesting, even if for ironic, it's so bad it's good, purposes. Same goes for Survival Horror to a large degree.The era of the 2d shoot'em up produced a lot of good games if you're a fan of that genre.
>>11557414Yeah companies wouldn't bother spending a ton of money localizing and distributing copies of shitty jarpigs. Localization and cartridge production were very expensive. So they usually stayed in Japan, or even home computers. Just look at PC-88's library, it's filled with literally unplayable absolute slop.
>>11557531>FMV games are usually interesting, even if for ironic, it's so bad it's good, purposes.If you don't find bad movies boring, sure.>Same goes for Survival Horror to a large degree.Just like bad FMV games, if you find them entertaining rather than boring, sure. But I find bad survival horror games really boring.>The era of the 2d shoot'em up produced a lot of good games if you're a fan of that genre.They all looked and played the same, until Epic came up with Tyrian 2000. I find Raid on Bungeling Bay clones more varied and fun than shmup clones.
>>11557540>They all looked and played the sameThey have nuance.
>>11557123>Sonic = MascotWas literally created to compete against the North American launch of the SNES and Super Mario World. Was advertised like crazy by Sega to the point where Sonic becomes Sega's Mario.>>11557123>Crash = not a mascotCrash was only a mascot during the PS1 era. You could say that Crash was 'on loan' from Universal Interactive. Sony used the same tactic as Sega did with Sonic. The first Crash game was designed to compete with Mario 64, and was released weeks earlier. "The guy in the Crash suit" was basically the OG Kevin Butler of the north American Sony advertising campaign. Naughty Dog lost Crash due to Universal Interactive being bought out by Vivendi
>>11557414There are a few Japanese only jrpgs that are great (FF 3 and 5 are the best in the series, and persona 2 was pretty good) but you are broadly correct.
>>11557123>Crash = not a mascotHe absolutely represented the playstation in the 90s, along with Lara Croft.
>>11557694>Lara CroftTomb Raider came out on Saturn first and every game was also on PC
>>11557704The guys at Core design admitted that Sony paid Eidos for console exclusivity rights. It was absolutely brutal how Sony used its money to cuck Sega out of the console market.
>>11557710>The guys at Core design admitted that Sony paid Eidos for console exclusivity rights. It was absolutely brutal how Sony used its money to cuck Sega out of the console market.The Home PC market twas never accounted for when it came to console exclusivity. But Spny did pay for the exclusive right for every numbered Tomb Raider game after the first one. So Tomb Raider 2 and 3 were PSX console exclusive for the longest time. The PC versions were also ported to the Mac, Tomb Raider II and Tomb Raider III were ported to iOS and Android back in the day. But the original Tomb Raider games didn't appear on other non-Sony consoles until the HD 1-3 remasters. Those are based on the Mac/ PC versions. The Playstation 1-3 versions were ported to the Evercade not long ago. The original Crash series were exclusive to the PS1, including CTR and Crash Bash. Sony's marketing really put Crash up from as their mascot for the PSX console. But in the long run, Crash did not become the mascot for SCE as a whole. As all of Universal Interactive IP's were taken over by Vivindi. Later became owned by Acitvision-Blizzard, and now Microsoft.
>>11557414Gamers in the west got a lot of the dreck filtered out for them, but they also had to deal with terrible "This guy are sick" translations.Overall, I think the average player in Japan had it better, if not by much.
>>11557114>Did any other genre trend fare better?First Person Shooters
>>11557123Even if that specifically is the case with Zool as already pointed out, the "tentative mascot candidate" WAS the business model; popularity first, household name later.Kids were more likely to play a videogame BECAUSE it was a videogame, than to watch a cartoon or buy a toy because of their intrinsic appeal as cartoons or toys. So games were the ideal testing ground for broad, marketable characters that could be (if proved to be popular) licensed out of the ass
>>11557205>>11557440Kind of a trick answers because you could inject quality production value in either genre and the game would become popular regardless of how objectively mediocre the "gameplay" was. Pretty pictures and animation and cool music go a long way for jrpgs or point-and-click games, but not as much for a platformer, with a couple exceptions.
>>11558542>>11557558>>11557248Admitting you used a word incorrectly because of a trend is so hard to admit you'd rather stretch the definition of the word
>>11558571Understanding how language works is not particularly hard though, and yet you managed to fail at it the long way around.
>>11557114Survival horror easily
>>11557537> Just look at PC-88's library, it's filled with literally unplayable absolute slop.No, it's NES that is filled with literally unplayable jrpg slop. Well, not filled, but each of them is absolutely unplayable garbage. PC98 games are far above NES jrpg shit.
>>11558592We accept your defeat.
>>11557114Early FPS gamesWolf3D, Doom, Hexen, Heretic, Dook, Blood, Shadow Warrior.
>>11557875GENERALLY I'll take Japanese slop over western developed slop so I'd agree Japanese games were better off for the most part.
>>11558592>No, it's NES that is filled with literally unplayable jrpg slop. Well, not filled, but each of them is absolutely unplayable garbage.Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest originated on the NES and became mega franchises for a reason, anon.
>>11558715FPS games were fucking dogshit before Half Life came out
>>11558585As a survival horror fan, I want to say that there are few 5th and 6th gen survival horror games are that really good. Even the Silent Hill series I find very flawed, and most things range from bad to average at best, when you look at things like Deep Fear, Countdown Vampires, Chaos Break, that X-Files PS2 game, Evil Dead, even the later Clock Tower/Haunting Ground I find to be very average. It's a genre with a lot of average stuff and usually when people talk of the great ones they over-stretch the definition to include things that really aren't survival horror.IMO the best thing we got from the genre are action games inspired by survival horror but not actually survival horror, like Onimusha or Parasite Eve 2. I like weighty action games, to me they're the 3D equivalent of Castlevania.
>>11558780
>>11558825Every game after Half Life copied it for a reason. Boomer shooters suck.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and the loads of extreme sports games after it on the PS2 and PS3
>>11558592Dude, spend any time on youtube looking up PC98 RPG playthroughs and you'll find that every single one of them has a list of caveats for "this is bugged/unfair/tedious so do X instead." The quality control on PC rpgs was non-existent and casual play was basically an impossibility due to thoroughly inadequate playtesting. You may think NES rpgs are dumbed down slop, but that's what happens when you remove the 9 paths to inevitable failure and just give the player the 1 that actually works, as opposed to forcing them to waste a month finding out for themselves.
I'm gonna go with GTA 3. Mercenaries: PoD, Hulk Ultimate Destruction, Scarface, Simpsons Hit & Run, The Getaway and so on.
>>11558571>Admitting you used a word incorrectly because of a trend is so hard to admit you'd rather stretch the definition of the wordI would classify Crash as the PSX mascot. It's weird that Sony didn't try to buy the Crash IP from Universal Interactive. Or push for a Playstation exclusive deal. The first Crash Bandicoot game came out September 9th 1996, one year after the NA launch of the PS1 (9/9/95), the early ads gave Crash a mascot like advertising campaign. Even if Naughty dog were done with Crash by 3, they could have made some exterior studio to develop new crash games. The first ten minutes of these Crash Bandicoot ads are from the PS1 era.https://youtu.be/bLdQczq3NMM
One of the original attempts at a Playstation mascot was Polygon man. Which was apaprently rejected by Ken Kutaragi because the character lacked gourad shading. He wanted Sofia from Battle Arena Toshinden to be the mascot.
1996 was a weird time for jester game characters.
>>11558831