When does a system become "Retro"?

[eddhell]

(years ago....)

They became retro as soon as my teenage nephews walked in and asked "What is THAT?"

 

(Now...)

They become retro as soon as my adult nephews walk in and say "oh I've seen that game for download in the PS store" or "I read about that one on Wiki"......"I played that one on an emulator".....etc...

 

[CatPix]

On 1/3/2020 at 7:23 PM, Keatah said:

If I had it has a kid.

 

Other stuff like PS2 and PS3 are just market fodder. Not expressions of a new artform.

 

Not sure if it's irony or not, but I know some people think that way, so I gotta react to it. Very simply :

The market crash of 1984 is the proof that video gaming was market fodder almost fro mthe beginning.

It is a form of art, but you can't pretend that Pac Man on Atari 2600 is more the expression of a new artform than Silent Hill 2.

It just doesn't work.

90% of the Atari 2600 games were garbage, as much as 90% of the PS1 and PS2 libraries.

[+GoldLeader]

Personally I think bringing up specs when deciding what's retro doesn't really make sense...The earlier systems are less powerful and yes, they are "retro", but they're not retro because they're less powerful.  At any rate (again just my opinion), a lot of us associate a certain style with the word retro.

 

Does a game have Polygons in a realistic 3D space?  Is it running off an optical or digital media?  Is there a memory card for the system?  Do the controllers rumble or have a wireless option?  Is the Internet somehow involved (even if it's just how people learned about the game or system)? These are all modern features.

 

To me games that don't look photorealistic, run off of cartridges, Generally don't have polygons or don't have realistic polygons or a high polygon count, and are in 2D or 2.5D (or one could argue a pseudo 3D) are probably retro,  though there are also modern games going for a retro look...Not to go nuts with words, but I guess those are "Neo Retro" or "Retro-Styled" games...

 

In the end,  I don't think of PS2 games (as an example) as "Retro" just because they are old.  But to each his own.  The point of the question was to debate the topic and I figure I've thrown in my 2 cents...

[JacobZu7zu7]

I wouldn't consider PS2 gaming as retro yet.

To me its retro when it appears or plays, out of the usual from its current console counterparts, not how many years have passed by but how a PS2 system compares with the pasts video gaming history (overall)

Definition of retro

(Entry 1 of 2) : relating to, reviving, or being the styles and especially the fashions of the past : fashionably nostalgic or old-fashioned

 

Retro

Synonyms: Adjective antique, old-fashioned, old-school, old-time, old-timey, old-world, oldfangled, quaint, retrograde, vintage

 

 

PS2 still blends in fairly well with modern gaming. IMO.

 

 

 

 

 

SNES below: Is more obviously Retro and isn't like any of the pictures above,

 

 

 

 

 

[CatPix]

Games aren't all about graphisms. Retro style games like OpenTTD, Starbound, Stardew Valley do more things that older games wit comparable graphics did (multiplayer, expansive worlds, more interactions, etc...) that doesn't appears on a screenshot but that you can really "feel" when you play.

 

I tried several racing games on PS2. They all feel sluggish, the cars are floaty and the physics is crude Collision? most games don't have it, you can bang your car all day without penalties, or at best you get a gauge, but nothing visible on the car. It absolutely doesn't compare with what you get on PS3 and PS4.

 

If you go into survival-horrors (well, I should call them psychological horror, since Survival horror now mean "call of Zombie game") well oh boy, does the games have changed too. Stiff, slow-paced, tank controls, automatic aiming...

 

Gameplay also evolved, in both good and bad way. And some gameplays are definitively retro. Some have survived like JRPG, for some reason. But no one has made a classic "adventure" game like you would see in the 80's for years (see l'Aigle d'Or for a perfect example) . They have evolved in both action-adventure, action RPG and point'n'click, another gender that is dying, BTW.

Doom-like may have been synonymous with FPS up to the late 90's, but playing any modern FPS and comparing with Doom shows how different the gameplay between both have changed.

If we go hardware-wise (to connect back to systems and generations) I don't think Nintendo will remove motion detection from their consoles and gamepads.

The "fine aiming" provided with the Switch pad motion detection is unmatched by any joytisck and, as small of an evolution it is, I consider that it's really an evolution of gameplay that will probably spread to other systems eventually, given how natural it feels compared to joystick aiming.

Edited January 6, 2020 by CatPix

[MrMaddog]

Most people would consider "retro" to be anything made before the last generation, or even include last gen if they're that young.

 

The word retro means any comtempory thing that has the characterstics of a vintage style.  Many indie games with pixelated graphics and old school gameplay are actually retro.

 

To be honest, I'm not even interested in collecting lots of post-millennial games for 6th gen consoles like the PS2 since there were so many of them out there and the ones I am interested in I can get digitally for my current systems.  There used to the tons of them available at any Gamestop and other pawn shops but not anymore.

 

Personally, I'm more into PC games and I can still run 20 year old titles on my current machine...with enough tweaking of course.

 

 

[Keatah]

Graphics are naturally one of the best ways to tell if a game is retro or not. It's a visual indicator that instantly places a gamer in a certain epoch. And most serious gamers have some inkling of what hardware and techniques were in use at the time.

 

 

[Flojomojo]

4 hours ago, JacobZu7zu7 said:

I wouldn't consider PS2 gaming as retro yet.

To me its retro when it appears or plays, out of the usual from its current console counterparts, not how many years have passed by but how a PS2 system compares with the pasts video gaming history (overall)

Definition of retro

(Entry 1 of 2) : relating to, reviving, or being the styles and especially the fashions of the past : fashionably nostalgic or old-fashioned

 

Retro

Synonyms: Adjective antique, old-fashioned, old-school, old-time, old-timey, old-world, oldfangled, quaint, retrograde, vintage

 

 

PS2 still blends in fairly well with modern gaming. IMO.

 

 

 

 

 

SNES below: Is more obviously Retro and isn't like any of the pictures above,

 

 

 

 

 

I like HORIZON CHASE, which feels like the best of both worlds. 

 

 

[+sixersfan105]

For what it's worth, on GameStop's website, they list the following consoles under their "Retro Gaming" tab: Nintendo (NES), Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, Playstation, Xbox, Dreamcast, Playstation 2, and GameCube. Not saying GameStop is the sole authority on this, but figured it was worth noting.

 

Only calling something "retro" if you personally grew up playing it is a fairly myopic view. As time goes by, of course additional consoles will be added to the "retro" scene. I'm also not so sure you can use the graphics argument, because games can only get so much better from a graphics standpoint. Time alone is the best judge. But what do I know.

[mozartpc27]

Interesting topic.  Haven’t read it all yet but my personal definition would be: it’s retro once it’s been used from time of purchase until time it became passé, then put aside/away for some significant length of time, so that we are at a point well after it has been considered current, or has been currently manufactured, and now is only available via eBay or second hand stores, and once we are in that phase, the person interested in it “re-discovers” it, either pulling it out or the attic or wherever, or buying a “new” system to play old games, etc. It is there when the nostalgia kicks in, and nostalgia is essential to retro-ness.

 

The gap in time is the critical thing to me.  You get something, you use it for a while, it feels current, modern, with it, and then you put it aside... and then come back to it, ideally for this definition multiple years later, and “re-discover” it.

Edited January 9, 2020 by mozartpc27

[Newsdee]

Was emulation big on Vita? That could explain that retro fanbase. The GP2X consoles had a similar following, even though they had native games as well (mostly homebrew though).