In Defense Of Retro Games Returning

We’ve seen a handful of classic games made new again this year. In the past, and often still, a remake or late-breaking sequel significantly revises the graphics (eg: Kid Icarus) or even the gameplay (eg: XCOM). But in the past few days we’ve seen new games that have an uncanny similarity to the look and feel of the original.

Sonic 4, Donkey Kong Country Returns and GoldenEye 007 all have a striking resemblance to the older games on which they are based. Ten-plus years later after DK Country, Returns gives a first impression of having been made years ago and not so recently. Is this a massive fail? Or are developers and publishers banking that a successful game doesn’t need to reflect the 3D, high-res possibilities of today’s technology?

At events such as E3 where announcements are often about new technology and fancy graphics, it’s easy to dismiss something like Sonic 4 that looks like it was lost in the bargain bin in the mid-90s. But it’s the hands on experience that changes that.

The appeal of these games is their playability. Can you pick it up and play it for anywhere between 15 minutes and three hours? Is it easy to figure out what’s going on in the story? Can I operate my character without having to spend two hours in gameplay tutorials?

Sure, there is a nostalgia factor to these games and that does ensure a certain market share right off the bat, but I’d argue that the success of these games goes far beyond nostalgia. In a chat with the developer of the new Donkey Kong, he said he met with many people over the week that had never played the original Donkey Kong Country before but who were genuinely enjoying Returns.

But I don’t think it’s as easy as re-releasing good old games and expecting them to do well. I like the original Donkey Kong Country, but I’m not sure I’ll enjoy playing it that much if I were to go back to the Super Nintendo. I can guarantee you that replaying GoldenEye on the N64 would be a disaster. The problem with just playing the old game is that the way we play games has changed. It’s not so much a matter of graphics as a matter of our expectations on how we play the game: the physics, the ability to jump, orientation of buttons, game design for simplicity. All our expectations as gamers have changed over the past 10 or so years as games have evolved.

So, why am I defending the retro game? It’s just that I don’t want to see a good game dismissed just because “it looks old”. It looks like it does not because of cheapness or development simplicity, but because that is a development choice. The real value from the game comes from how much fun it is to play. It was good to see so many examples of games that are coming out that focus on play. Hopefully we don’t ignore them.