First Impression: Coromon (Switch) ~ Modern Nostalgia In The Making

Official websiteWiki

When you read my blog, it’s no real secret that I enjoy all types of games. But when a game promises to bring back the nostalgic feelings of old school 2D Pokémon adventures with a modern twist… You get my attention right away. It didn’t take me long to buy Coromon when I noticed it in the Nintendo eShop not too long ago. Today I want to talk about this game. Did this game take me back to my childhood nostalgia of grand 2D adventures or is this a game we should all pass upon? Or is it somewhere in between? Let’s find out in this article, while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.

A journey through the world

When I was attending elementary school here in Belgium, we got the first three Pokémon generations. The 4th generation was right when I went from elementary to secondary school (For the Americans, it’s I mean high school). I can tell a lot of childhood stories about Pokémon. So, when I read the description of Coromon and read the official website and got the impression that this game was like the first Pokémon generations, I was intrigued. Now, Coromon has various different mechanics that make this game stand out from Pokémon. But I’ll talk more about that later in this article. First, let me talk about the story of this game.

In this game, you play as a new battle research in the world of Velua. It doesn’t take long before you get tasked to gather all the Titan Essences spread across the whole region. There are 6 in total, and you’ll to travel over the entire region to find and secure them. Why secure them? Well, there is an evil force going after them as well.

I could be very critical and say that the story doesn’t have a lot to it. But where the story lacks meat around its bones, it makes up for it with a lot of charm. There is no voice acting in this game, but there are emojis that can be displayed above the characters in their head. These are used quite sparingly as well, and they add so much charm to the game. You also don’t play a silent character!

The way the entire story is set up makes the game just quite charming and adorable. It doesn’t really go in depth or make you sit on the edge of your seat, but wraps a warm blanket around you on that cool winter morning when you woke up to watch that new episode of your favorite cartoon. It’s charming, familiar, and relaxing. You know what’s going to happen in the story and can see it from a mile away. But the execution and childlike innocent charm to it just makes it all work amazingly well.

Here, have some Zelda too

So, if you think that this game is only a Pokémon “clone” or Pokémon style game… You’d be very wrong. Sure, at it’s core this game is a creature collecting and raising game that hits a lot of the same beats that the first 3-4 Pokémon generations did. But, something that took me by surprise is that there is also a bit of The Legend of Zelda thrown in.

Yes, you read that correctly. This game combines old school Legend of Zelda & oldschool Pokémon to create something extremely unique in my opinion. First, let me talk about how this game compares to Pokémon.

As you can clearly see from the screenshot in this section of the article, the battle system is turned based. If you are familiar with the battle system of Pokémon, you’ll feel right at home with this one. The unique change in this game is that your Coromon don’t work with powerpoints but with SP for their attacks. Now, what does this mean? Well, each attack costs a certain amount of SP to execute. So, you’ll have to manage your SP quite well.

But, what if you run out of SP? Well, then you can use up a turn to recharge 50% of your max SP. And not only you have to do that, your opponents also have to do that. So, sometimes you’ll have to get lucky or hope that your opponent needs to charge their SP, so you basically have a free shot.

There are also healing items that can heal both HP & SP which makes things more interesting. Since, do you want to heal your health and magic or only one of the two… The strategies you will need to use in this game blow a breath of fresh air in the battle system that I’m really interested to see expanded upon.

Something that this game does better than Pokémon in my opinion is how the XP Share actually works. In modern Pokémon titles, after each encounter all of your Pokémon receive XP. This is something that breaks the game a bit in my opinion. It makes the game a bit too easy. In Coromon, they found an amazing solution. There are these gems you can equip your Coromon with that basically act like an XP Share. If you want all of them to also gain XP, well you’ll have to give all your Coromon a gem. There are different levels of gems as well, giving different amounts of XP. But oh wait, this means that your Coromon can’t carry berries or stat boosting items that can help in battles. So, do you choose to play it safe or risk it for XP?

Now, there is a mechanic made the strategy layers even more interesting. Just like in Pokémon, your Coroman have stats. Apart from gaining XP points after each battle or capture, your Coromon also gain potential. When that potential reaches a certain max, you’ll get three points you can use to increase in one or more stat. You can build your Coromon to your liking. It’s a highly simplied version of EV training in Pokémon but now built in to the core of the gameplay instead of being more reserved for the meta.

Something else quite unique to Coromon is how the four move limit is handled. Just like in Pokémon, each Coromon can have four moves to their disposal. When your Coromon wants to learn a new move after those 4, you’ll have to forget a move. Now, in Coromon this works quite differently. When a new move can be learned, you go into the move menu of that Coromon and set the 4 moves you want. This eliminates the need for a move deleter and a move relearner guy in the world. Since, you can choose the 4 moves you want at any moment outside a battle. So, when you catch a wild Coromon, and they don’t have good enough moves, you can look at their list and adjust it to your playstyle.

The side quest system is a lot easier. When you find a trade, it’s logged in your quest log. In there you can also see the status of your main quest, so you can get right into the game when you haven’t played for a while or when you get stuck.

You also get rewards for reaching certain milestones. These rewards give you points and after a certain amount of points, you level up. Each level has its own useful reward, and you can get to level 50. Currently, I’m going after the 5th Titan, and I’m level 37 out of 50.

The options menu is also a blast! This game actually implemented the difficulty system in a way that Pokémon fans are wishing for in modern Pokémon games. Also, you can change some default behavior of the game after catching a Coromon for example.

I’m certain that I can keep talking about this for quite some time. But all in all, this game is quite unique and charming. My bar was set quite high when I wanted to get into this game, but it’s blown out the water for me especially since it also has some oldschool Zelda mechanics mixed in.

So, the locations of the Titans basically replace your gyms in this game. But, each of those locations could as well be a full-blown Zelda dungeon. Some puzzles aren’t puzzles you expect in a creature collecting game. Sometimes you also need a unique item or gadget to open or get through the dungeon.

You also get a sort of “Shiekah Slate” armband that has several functions that can interact with the world. This armband can help you with quite a lot of things. Like making it easier to find the very plentiful hidden items (and store coupons) in the world to destroying rocks that block your path or even push fallen down trees.

Not only that, each Titan area is unique and has its own mini-story to tell. So yeah, I personally can’t explain it better than Coromon is a mixture of oldschool 2D Zelda and Pokémon with their own unique twist and modern inventions.

It’s so close

I find it very surprising the amount of layers this game has in its gameplay. If I want to talk about the other elements of this game, I think I better move on before this whole article is about the gameplay.

Let’s talk about the controls. This is something where this game shines again. Since this game is multi platform, this game can be controlled via the Joy Cons or even just with the touch screen alone. The controls are quite easy to master and learn and I rarely to never had problems with them. The only tricky thing to get used to is that some buttons have a different feature depending if you hold them down for some time or just press it once. This timing to be sure it’s a short of long press very occasionally tripped me up.

The music in this game is amazing. The music is composed by Davi Vasc, and it’s one of the reasons why I’m a bit sad that I didn’t buy the game on Steam. Since, I would be able to buy the soundtrack and add it to my playlist. The soundtrack of this game fits the game like a glove. While it reminds me quite a lot of the older Pokémon games, it also sounds modern. Just give it a listen, it’s really well done.

The sound effects are pretty good as well. I really got used to certain sound cues this game gives during solving its puzzles and battles. You know you did something right when the sound effects are easy to understand and learn without having a tutorial about it.

All in all, this game hits it out of the park with a lot of unique mechanics whilst combining the gameplay of old school Pokémon and old school Zelda. The fact that this game also has three save slots so you can have three separate adventures is amazing.

This continues to show in the visuals as well. The pixel art of this game add to the charm of the story. I honestly think that if this game would be turned into an anime, a bit of the charm of the pixel art would be gone. The animations of this game also don’t go overboard but help to make the game come to live.

The attention to detail in terms of the visual presentation is amazing. I mean, take this example. There are over 100 different Coromon in this game and each Coromon has their own unique shiny variant and ultimate variant. Tripling the amount of variantions you can have. And each time, the colorsheme of the Coromon just works to make it stand out from the default version. Another example of the great visuals is how each unique area also has unique visuals. It’s almost they created an unique tileset per region instead of recycling parts. It gets a thumbs up from me.

Overall, I have nothing but praising for this game. But is this game flawless? Well, not exactly. This game does make some missteps that can get in the way. The first thing I have to mention is that sometimes, you’ll have to either grind or get quite lucky to defeat a Titan or some trainers. Personally, I didn’t find the grinding in this game too much of a bother honestly. Especially since when my Coromon where to low level, I usually went back to previous area’s to re-explore area’s to battle trainers I have skipped or try to check if I found all hidden items. But, it can’t be avoided. You’ll have to grind sometimes.

Another annoying issue is how the cloud saves work. You can enable the cloud saves in the options menu and it is a “set it and forget it” option. Now, usually I play my Switch also on the train to work. But, on the train I can’t connect my Switch to the internet. So, then I get almost every 2 minutes that annoying error pop-up from the Switch not being able to connect to the internet. I wish there was a sort of check built in that gave a pop-up message so you could easly disable that without having to remember, oh yes… Cloud saves don’t work right now. Or even, when the game notices that it can’t connect online, just don’t do cloud saves or warn the player in another way then every 2 minutes with the default “can’t connect online” system pop-up. It’s a small annoying thing that can easily be fixed in my opinion.

Another small issue that there are almost no moves that can attack two Coromon at the same time. So, this means that when you encounter two Coromon in one battle, you have to take them out one by one. I also find it strange that I can’t fight with two Coromon. These battles feel like as if double battles were going to be implemented but the devs ran out of time and took the double battles out and left this in. It feels a bit unfinished, underexplored of a mechanic.

A small usability improvement that can be made is to show a spinner icon when you have caught a Coromon. It’s a small feature I loved in Pokémon but now that I miss it, I totally understand the usefullness of it.

Another very minor improvement that could have been created is to show the player’s name on the main menu before you load the profile. Would make things a bit easier for families with a shared Switch.

When I read about this game online, I notice that a lot of people are writing it off as a Pokémon clone and lazy. But honestly, I have to disagree. I look at this game from a different angle. It’s another take on the Pokémon formula with some interesting twists like the SP system or Titans instead of gyms. And lazy? I mean, you can use your save file across platfroms. Or there is a nuzlocke mode built in?

I can agree that this game looks on the surface a lot like the first few Pokémon games but what’s so wrong with that? It’s the execution that counts and this game does it amazingly well. What’s wrong with more content/gameplay of a formula that works? If the game followed the exact same path like also in the story and settings… Then it would be a different story. But, Coromon stands proudly on it’s own two feet. I’m happy that I gave this game a try since I’m quite enjoying myself with this game. While it has some flaws, they don’t really hamper the experience in my opinion.

So, if you enjoy old school Zelda or Pokémon, monster collecting games like Yokai Watch or Digimon, adventure JRPG games, I say, give the demo of this game a chance. Maybe you’ll also fall in love with the charm of this game.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game, I want to thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

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Publishing: Hitbit, when design meets retrogaming

We decided to give retrogaming a new look, using quality design and new technology. Retrogaming is a new trend in the game industry, and many adults who used to be gamer kids in the 80’s are out there today waiting for a new old-school game machine in their living rooms. Playing retro games was easy and simple in comparison to the contemporary video games with their advanced technologies and over-complexities.

While those new video games keep attracting many people today, there is also some people who appreciate simplicity and “classiness” of the retro games like still many people today prefer music such as The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. That is why we decided to give retrogaming a new look with quality material and modern design, yet maintaining its vintage feel. And we powered it up with the newest hardware and wireless capabilities: HDMI, Bluetooth, WiFi and 2400 MIPS CPU. All of them with hassle-free configuration and the possibility of emulating thousands of classic games available in single/multi-player mode. It also integrates with modern wireless joypads.

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Gamer’s Thoughts: Are retro or retro-styled games too hard?

retro consolesThe tweet that started that gave me the idea for this article.

A few days ago, the Well Red Mage made a tweet with the very question that is the title of this article. We talked about this a bit back & forth on Twitter. After a few tweets, I thought that my answer would make a great article in my gamer’s thoughts series. I play retro and more modern games, so I think my opinion can matter in the grand scheme of things here. So, here are my two cents. As usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion about the content of the article and/or the question. 

Are games too hard?

Icon

Back in 2013, I wrote an article talking about: “What’s a retro game“. I asked myself the question, when does a game become retro? For the sake of this article, let’s not go too in depth about that, since we are here to answer another question.

Let’s focus first on the retro games. Games that are at least 15 years old. Are those too hard? This is a tricky question to answer.

Currently, playing games is a more frequent hobby. There are more people who play games than there were in the past. So, modern games became more accessible. This doesn’t always mean that games of today are easier. There are still very difficult games out there like Dark Souls or the Touhou games. Also, let’s keep it general in this article. Since there are always exceptions to the rule.

This does mean that some retro games are less accessible. This makes them overwhelming and more difficult. For example, the first Tomb Raider games. There were no real tutorials or anything of that nature. So, you had to figure a lot out by yourself. Some old Tomb Raider games had tutorials, but they were optional. You didn’t have to play them. This meant that you didn’t learn all the mechanics and moves. But, that has changed. Now, almost every game starts out with a tutorial.

The fact that the gaming industry has changed makes answering the question of this article more difficult. The first commercial game cabinets were published in the late 1970’s and the first consoles came not too long after. The gaming industry is still quite young when you compare it to other media. Nowadays, developers have more experience.

Let’s leave it at that, otherwise, we might be here all day talking about the changes in the gaming industry instead of trying to answer the question of the article. So, are retro games too hard?

Retro games

Wikipedia_NES_PALHonestly, this is too general question to be able to answer. But, I honestly think that it all comes down to the play style a gamer prefers.

A very common issue with older games is that some games required so much time input to memorize each level and area to get the most perfect run. Time, that not everybody has in this day and age.

Additionally, this can be a very frustrating game mechanic. Having to play each level over and over again. So, when we get bored with a game; we simply take another game to play. There are so many games we can play nowadays. Something we lacked in the past, so we tried and tried again until we succeeded to beat the Pokémon Leauge Champion or Doctor Robotnik.

Modern games are spoilt with the latest and best knowledge of the developers. Something that makes a huge difference is the controls. There are more buttons on the modern game controllers compared to the retro style controllers. This means that the developers can give better controls to the player. I grew up with the D-Pad, but I prefer to play platformers with a joystick now. You have better control of your character and this makes the game easier.

Handholding

pokemon-alpha-sapphire-limited-edition-steelbook

Something I noticed in modern games is that they are sometimes too easy. Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire are a perfect example. I didn’t loose one fight in that game, I was able to beat that game with ease.

That isn’t the only game that I played that I didn’t have a lot of trouble with to beat the game. Perhaps, the fact that I’m older and more skilled with games has to do with it. Because I’m nowadays able to beat sections in games I never got passed as a kid for some reason.

I can’t deny that some games hold your hand throughout the adventure or give you tips that help you to beat the game. Mini-maps and mission markers are great examples. There are a lot of modern game mechanics that make games for the player too easy. Some open world games even lack the scene of discovery. Thankfully, Breath of the Wild fixes this somewhat with its towers. Frustrated Jacob made a great video with this point.

In retro games, you didn’t have the hand-holding or all the mechanics we have today. Making the game more difficult in the process. Does that make the games too hard? No, not in my opinion. It makes them outdated. Does outdated mean bad? Far from it!

Retro games are still a lot of fun and they are still relevant. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have retro-styled games. One of my favorite retro styled games is Retro Game Challenge on the DS. In this game, you play through some games that are inspired by retro game classics like Gallica.

I think that retro games aren’t too hard per se, they are out dated due to older and limited technology. Also, modern games are made with more knowledge about how games work. But, let’s not forget about the impact that the internet has in this argument.

Walkthroughs and YouTube videos expose the secrets of every game in mere days of its release. There are a lot of guides to get the best armor or what the fastest or most optimal route is through a game. I think that the impact of the internet speaks for itself here.

So, are retro(styled) games too hard? No, not really. They just use mechanics that have been improved and perfected over time. Games are more accessible now.

I would love to hear your opinion about this. Do you think that retro games are too hard and why? Tell me in the comments and maybe I write a follow-up article using your comments.

But, that’s everything I wanted to say about this subject for now. Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another artice but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day.

NekoJonez’s Question and Purrswer #2: 10 Questions make a long one!

Super Sparta :D
Super Sparta 😀

How’s that for starting off a Question and Purrswer? What’s this? Well, a question and answer with a neko twist of course. Want to ask me a question? Be sure to give a comment, send me a tweet, send me a mail, comment on my Last.FM profile, PM me on my forum… The possibilities are endless. Let’s get to answering the questions I got. And I totally didn’t steal this intro from my first Q & A. Because I add this section to it. Anyways, feel free to comment on this article. I mostly ask for questions for the next Q & A on twitter. Just saying. Oh, and all these questions come from Twitter. (Warning, thanks for the all the questions… This means it will be a long Q & A. Don’t worry, I’m trying out a trick so that this article is split into pages for your reading pleasure.)

#1: Am I going to buy Super Smash Bros / Am I hyped for it? – Asked by Austin from Arpegi

super-smash-bros

Short answer: One day.

Long answer: Well, depends on the money I have at the time of it’s release. Honestly, I’m more hyped for the remake of my 2nd favorite gen in Pokémon. Yes, I love the 3rd gen.

I also recently learned, thanks through my buddy Seraph, that Corpse Party is coming to the PC! And that with bonus features.

So, I have a two other games that I’m looking out for. Then I have a bunch of other titles that interest me. Like Tomodachi Life or Kirby – Triple DeluxePlus, I’m planning to save up my money for a lovely Wii U. Please don’t get me started at the Steam sales. It kills my wallet just thinking about it. 

So, the short answer explains everything.

Now, am I hyped about Super Smash Bros.? … Ehrm, do I have to answer this question? I mean, my reputation… Hehehe… Okay, honestly. I’m not hyped. At all. To be quite harsh, I’m not a fan of the series. I do enjoy the series but it doesn’t pull me in as much as it does to other people.

Why am I planning to buy the 3DS edition then? Well, because I hope that a handheld edition actually draws me into the series. That’s why. But remember, my bar for quality is actually set quite high since it’s a freaking Nintendo game.

#2: Favorite movie genre? – Asked by Sam, a Minecraft friend.

Favorite movie genre, eh? This is a hard question for me, as I tend to be a “jack of all trades”. What I mean here is that I enjoy a lot of movie genres. Lately, movies don’t hold my attention span for the whole movie. When I watch a movie on YouTube or on any platform, I watch it in multiple pieces. I just get bored with there is no interaction. That’s why visual novel adventure games get so much love from me. I get drawn into stories with interaction.

Back to the question, I tried to answer it in a style of “what would you do if you are allowed to watch one style of movies for the rest of your life?”. After much internal debate, I decided. Then the action adventure movies get the highest rating in my taste. Movies like Indiana Jones, Monument Men or National Treasure and even the animated variant, like most anime movies, I tend to enjoy the most.

#3: Bravely Default Questions. Have you beaten it? (Q, Yes. DAT friend) – My opinion on it. (Asked by Drakulus23, a friend in the blogging world.)

Bravely-Default-CharactersI knew that at one day, people where going to ask me about Bravely Default. I talked various times that I was going to write an article about it. And as far I can remember, I haven’t written a full article about it. Not even a first impression.

Yet, I have talked about it in my latest rant. Where I talked about the hate of grinding I have.

Now, did I beat it? No. I haven’t beaten it yet. I’m working on it though. Honestly, I think I’m not going to talk in depth of my opinion since I think I’ll start working on a first impression after I finished up all the articles I have started writing. So, you will know in this month.

#4: Goat Simulator. (Asked by Sarah, a real life friend)

How-about-noI’m sorry Sarah, but I can’t even stand to watch a Let’s Play of the game. After I seen a few moments of gameplay, something occurred to me. This game is nothing more then a tool to joke around with physics.

The game looks pointless, goalless … to me. Am I saying it’s a bad game? Honestly, to some extend, it’s a mediocre game.

I looked up what other critics say, while some disagree with me, I think that the review from the Guardian hits the nail right on the head. It’s nothing more then a phenomenon/meme spun out of control.

#5: My favorite piece of tech (Asked by LeoHartless, a co-editor @ BSB)

Oh lords. The most interesting question to get your friends to answer. The “favorite X” question. I answered one earlier in this article but now I have another one. These are the most fun to answer, since it really makes you think about the subject.

In the end, I choose a laptop. While I can image people thought that I would go for a handheld, I actually think that a laptop is my favorite piece of technology.

Think about it, you can take your games on the go. Plus, you can carry around your own office. It makes things so easy. Do you want to show something to a friend, just turn the laptop around and you can show it. With a desktop it’s harder to do.

I just love laptops for some reason. Even over my tablet. Laptops can just do more then a tablet in my opinion. And thanks to my laptop, I can be a hobby-blogger. And that’s a dream come true.

Rant #005: Modern gaming never grew up.

Thanks to my girlfriend for making this for me.
Thanks to my friend for making this for me.

Let’s face it. The modern games makes the current gaming market a totally different market. You can’t deny it, it’s simply a fact that games lately are getting easier and easier and that you can’t go without a tutorial, even for an easy game. People always go nuts about the graphics and some things no longer matter for them. Is this current gaming market still as good as the old gaming market? Are retro games truly better or is it something else? Let’s rant!

Retro games are better!

Many claim that the original Mario is still better.
Many claim that the original Mario is still better.

Many gamers that are around the age of 20 or older will tell you that games of their childhood where better then the current games. Some will even stick with those good old games and play them even to this day, they are the so called retro gamers.

But if you ask younger gamers, they are going to look to games from 10 years ago and go bashing on the graphics or other things. Saying that they are old and actually saying they suck.

To make a long rant short, you can easily say that it’s a generation thing. Older people grew up with the old Mario and since it holds so many childhood memories, they say it’s the better game. Newer games don’t give that feeling of nostalgia that makes them prefer the newer games above the older games.

Yet, there are also gamers who always think the newer games are better. Graphics, gameplay, story telling… everything gets improved.  But what’s a better game? Surely, it’s personal preference. If I like to play older games, I’ll say that the older games are better. But it can work the other way around too. In addition to that, you need to look to the “quality” of the games too. Are the games actually good for that time period? Or are they garbage?

Flaws of the modern games.

Yearly we get a new Call Of Duty. Yup.
Yearly we get a new Call Of Duty. Yup.

Modern games aren’t perfect. Not at all. The biggest issue I have with them is that they are mostly focusing on the graphical aspect rather then the gameplay. Also, in one of my previous rants, I talked about how many modern games actually hold your hand and tell you what to do. There is no exploration in a game.

Straight or a limit amount of paths are the norm. Games with an open world like for example Zelda always have a certain way to stop you from progressing without an item. This way they manage to make the game extremely linear without you even realizing.

A big example for ranters to talk about is how the Call Of Duty campaign gets shorter each year. The game is a multiplayer game without a doubt. You basically buy it for being able to go online. One of my best friends was a fan of the series but got annoyed by it’s latest entries where his hand was hold for him to finish.

It would be stupid if we didn’t mention the fact that most gaming companies go milking the cash cow. If something sells, they make more of the same to get even more money from our pockets. Let’s take the cheap example of how many Mario games are sold. It’s an easy mascot that kids recognize and buy.

What mostly makes me worry is the lack of creativity in the current gaming world. Outside of the indy developers we barely see new creative work. It’s always the same thing and it the sequel the work out the flaws of the original, but it’s mostly the same idea. Or they cut out on things like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon – Gates To Infinity.

Let’s talk about the systems for a second. Give me one system that can’t run DVD’s or play your favorite music. The Wii & DS couldn’t do that, unless you illegally modified them. Modern gaming platforms are more aimed to the general multimedia lover instead of a gamer. This makes that games need to be aimed for a wider group so they can’t be too difficult.

Flaws of retro games.

Good old Metroid.
Good old Metroid.

One major issue is that some games are way too difficult. The infamous 1 hit death is a welcome example here. Also the fact that there wasn’t an internet to look for walkthroughs or cheats, makes games more difficult. Like some gamers say, when you couldn’t finish a game back then, that’s though luck for you.

In addition to that, there were many games that had cryptic area’s to make the game more difficult. In Zelda II – Adventure of Link for example you need to pass through a wall to finish one dungeon. Or Death Mountain, it’s a maze beyond belief.

Also, games were pretty fragile. Saving worked with an internal battery in the cartridge and when that one ran out, it’s no saving for you. Also when there was dust in the game’s connector pins, you had to carefully blow in the cartridge to make it work again. When the connector pins broken, your game was broken too.

Also the games where more flawed back then. The games where more buggy like the famous cartridge titling glitch. But I can’t count on one hand anymore how much internet memes are created because of the faulty translation of games. “All your base are belong to us.” is a very popular example.

The internet, a knife that cuts both ways.

A generic picture to fancy up the article.
A generic picture to fancy up the article.

If I had to point out something that is good and bad for the gaming community it’s the internet for sure.

The good thing is that indy developers now have more tools to release their work. If they make a website and do some promotion on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube for example; they are set. Another good thing is that (big) companies can now easier support their costumers. They can make FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on their website so that their Q&A (Question and Answer) staff doesn’t have to answer the same question over and over again.

Yet the internet is such a bad influence to games as well. Walkthroughs are such a welcome invention. But I can’t deny that I have finished some games with a walkthrough at hand. Above that, the internet is filled with spoilers. If you are tired of the game and you want to know the ending, you can simply look it up. This defeats the purpose of finishing a game.

Oh, and don’t worry, I’m going to talk about it. The amount of hacks and cheats in a game that you can download on the internet. An aimbot for shooters or a X-Ray for Minecraft. It all exists. And people enjoy using it online. And it ruins the experience for gamers that want to play the game legit. Abusing bugs, I can live with that. But using wall hacks or other things makes my blood boil.

I have to admit that after finishing a game, I messed around with programs a lot that made my character jump higher or that I had unlimited ammo. It’s fun to do once to see how the game is made and how things work. But if you try to finish it for the first time, a lot of the fun is taken away.

Spoilers are also everywhere. If you play a game alongside with one of your favorite YouTubers, the comments are filled with things that will happen in the game. Bye bye thrilling game.

Modern games never grew up.

It’s nearly “pick your poison”. Both games have flaws that make me go nuts. Old games can be too difficult and new games can be too easy or unpolished.

Thankfully there are exceptions to the rule. Some games actually aren’t that bad. Some old games can also be extremely easy. But in my eyes, modern games never grew up to a new gaming level. Many improvements are made to the graphics but does that make for better games? I truly don’t know and I will surely touch upon this subject again. But for now I’m going to leave it here. Thanks for reading and until next time.