Comment on Hypothesis: Modern retro-inspired indies are much more enjoyable than the retro games themselves
Xraygoggles@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I think this a pretty accurate take. One place I’ll add that retro games shine is fast forward, but that’s not the games themselves as much as the platform. To me, that’s their killer feature. When it comes to animations, I’m definitely not a patient gamer. And modern design seems to get this wrong constantly.
catfeeder@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 days ago
This is why I absolutely loved classic Doom: finally a shooter with no cutscenes, dialogues or stupid animations that blocks my sight. Neither Doom 3 nor modern Doom are capable of achieving this power!
Xraygoggles@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Can you imagine if you had all the time back you spent watching attack animations in RPGs over the years? There is definitely an immersion argument to be made, and this is why I just want the option to be available. I tend to be very mechanics focused and I play mostly puzzle games so I’m just here to ‘figure it out’. For visuals and storytelling I’m reaching for different media first, that’s personal preference not a knock on VG.
I just want to illustrate that I kind of still have ‘down time’ where I’m just staring at a screen that isn’t changing, but the difference is that I’m playing the game in my head and thinking through things not being trapped for 2 seconds to watch somebody swing a sword. Especially if I’ve seen it a million times already and fully finished appreciating how cool it looks.
Your argument is really strong when it comes to action games though, but I guess we could also think about how it creates a build up and release of tension if applied mindfully. But that’s usually not the case, it’s just ‘the formula says we need a cut scene here’.
Maybe the convergence of ideas here is to stand up brighter lines between playing and watching?