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When Sega and Nintendo were quite new to console gaming, most of thier effort went into platfrom games.
At the time some of them seemed to be very good.
These games developed over time, and made a successful transition to the next generation consoles, the SNES and the Megadrive.
But it was here that they really stopped. When technology moved on they left this type of game behind.
Why?
It was too basic.
3D graphics were all to easy to do, so why bother with a 2D platformer?
Aspects of the games stuck around, but for some reason the idea of the games never seemed to be to reach a goal anymore, but to find something.
Now this I find really odd.
Why did the games become adventures, which involved finding various objects, rather than keep with the theme of just getting to the end of the level to find the next one?
To be honest I think that it was one game that changed this.
Super Mario 64.
This game was intended to show off the environments the N64 could create, those gorgeous 3D worlds. By having different things hidden in the game, you had to see every square inch of each level. Everything Nintendo had put in that game would be noticed.
They also got you to play each level 6 times, to find different things.
Was this because the N64 was not easy to program for?
Rather than creating 90 different worlds, they just created 15.
And we were very satisfied with those.
Those old school platformers often had 30 odd levels, usually split into themed groups, but each was different.
Nintendo cut corners with Super Mario 64 and made up play that same level over again.
Is that a bad thing?
The game really was superb. An excellent game. Discovering things was fun. Finding all of those stars was a challenge, and an enjoyable one, too.
Would it have been any a better game if there was loads of shorter levels, with an aim of simply finding an exit?
Well for a start it would have been far more linear. One of the most amazing parts of gaming since the N64 has been the move away from the linear. All of the adventure games since Super Mario 64 have followed the same format, huge levels, with lots to find in them. You don't even have to find it all, you can play a certain level until you're ready to move on, and given you've met the minimum requirements, you can move on to the next huge level, the next big world of fun.
So the old school platformers were fun in their day, but looking back they really did suffer from linearity. Back then we didn't know any different. All games were linear.
I wonder how we'll look back on today's games tomorrow?
At the time some of them seemed to be very good.
These games developed over time, and made a successful transition to the next generation consoles, the SNES and the Megadrive.
But it was here that they really stopped. When technology moved on they left this type of game behind.
Why?
It was too basic.
3D graphics were all to easy to do, so why bother with a 2D platformer?
Aspects of the games stuck around, but for some reason the idea of the games never seemed to be to reach a goal anymore, but to find something.
Now this I find really odd.
Why did the games become adventures, which involved finding various objects, rather than keep with the theme of just getting to the end of the level to find the next one?
To be honest I think that it was one game that changed this.
Super Mario 64.
This game was intended to show off the environments the N64 could create, those gorgeous 3D worlds. By having different things hidden in the game, you had to see every square inch of each level. Everything Nintendo had put in that game would be noticed.
They also got you to play each level 6 times, to find different things.
Was this because the N64 was not easy to program for?
Rather than creating 90 different worlds, they just created 15.
And we were very satisfied with those.
Those old school platformers often had 30 odd levels, usually split into themed groups, but each was different.
Nintendo cut corners with Super Mario 64 and made up play that same level over again.
Is that a bad thing?
The game really was superb. An excellent game. Discovering things was fun. Finding all of those stars was a challenge, and an enjoyable one, too.
Would it have been any a better game if there was loads of shorter levels, with an aim of simply finding an exit?
Well for a start it would have been far more linear. One of the most amazing parts of gaming since the N64 has been the move away from the linear. All of the adventure games since Super Mario 64 have followed the same format, huge levels, with lots to find in them. You don't even have to find it all, you can play a certain level until you're ready to move on, and given you've met the minimum requirements, you can move on to the next huge level, the next big world of fun.
So the old school platformers were fun in their day, but looking back they really did suffer from linearity. Back then we didn't know any different. All games were linear.
I wonder how we'll look back on today's games tomorrow?
Yes, but didn't Mario 64 have lots of Sign Posts and hints to guide you to the stars.
I really want to play through Skies of Arcadia but i'm only just doing FF7 and I don't really want to be doing another turn based combat game straight away.
Anyways..
Agreed Mario 64 was excellent it proved that proper 3D worlds worked and were fun and yes finding the stars was a lot better than simply finding the exit, it involved more thinking and exploring which made it a better experience for gamers. Look at Sonic on the Dreamcast, it had lots of play but it was boring, it was simply push forward and jump a few times to get to the end, it's just like you said, it was linear all you did was simply find the exit.
The way games are now and the direction they're heading in is the way I like it, nothing to simple yet nothing to hard although apparently Nintendo are set to make some of their more popular titles, Mario, Zelda easier and shorter to make them more appealing to children.
I really want to play through Skies of Arcadia but i'm only just doing FF7 and I don't really want to be doing another turn based combat game straight away.
Anyways..
Agreed Mario 64 was excellent it proved that proper 3D worlds worked and were fun and yes finding the stars was a lot better than simply finding the exit, it involved more thinking and exploring which made it a better experience for gamers. Look at Sonic on the Dreamcast, it had lots of play but it was boring, it was simply push forward and jump a few times to get to the end, it's just like you said, it was linear all you did was simply find the exit.
The way games are now and the direction they're heading in is the way I like it, nothing to simple yet nothing to hard although apparently Nintendo are set to make some of their more popular titles, Mario, Zelda easier and shorter to make them more appealing to children.
I actually miss old school linear platforms.
I know Meka has heard me go a billion times about how Donkey Kong 64 should've linear like it's 16 bit predecessor.
Don't get me wrong here. I think that full 3D and exploration is great. It just wasn't what I wanted out of a Donkey Kong game.
Mario 64 revolutionised gaming with it's amazing 3D environments, but should the old school method have been complete ditched as a consequence?
Both Banjo and Mario ruled the 3D exploration arena.
DK64 was good, nice graphics, but it lost most, if not all elements that made Donkey Kong Country on the Snes so great.
It was more an attempt to expand Mario, only it completely lost the plot.
I later played the ancient Crash Bandicoot, and found it ironic that the platform game I'd REALLY wanted was a first generation playstation game which was made even before Mario.
It's clear that Crash borrowed heavily from the DKC series on the Snes, but that's what made it so great.
I think that the really difficult task Rare should try with a Gamecube Donkey Kong platformer would be to capture the best from DKC and turn it into a 3D adventure which is linear so the player passes through obstacles and enemies the old fashioned way rather than these bad guys being decorations you could ignor while looking for the next banana.
It's not that I think old school is neccessarily BETTER than new 3D exploration games, it's just with every platformer these days trying to be THE big exploration game, having a nice, classic feeling, retro gameplay spiced up with amazing technology and more secrets you can count with all your fingers and toes...
Well, it would be a breath of fresh air for certain!
I know Meka has heard me go a billion times about how Donkey Kong 64 should've linear like it's 16 bit predecessor.
Don't get me wrong here. I think that full 3D and exploration is great. It just wasn't what I wanted out of a Donkey Kong game.
Mario 64 revolutionised gaming with it's amazing 3D environments, but should the old school method have been complete ditched as a consequence?
Both Banjo and Mario ruled the 3D exploration arena.
DK64 was good, nice graphics, but it lost most, if not all elements that made Donkey Kong Country on the Snes so great.
It was more an attempt to expand Mario, only it completely lost the plot.
I later played the ancient Crash Bandicoot, and found it ironic that the platform game I'd REALLY wanted was a first generation playstation game which was made even before Mario.
It's clear that Crash borrowed heavily from the DKC series on the Snes, but that's what made it so great.
I think that the really difficult task Rare should try with a Gamecube Donkey Kong platformer would be to capture the best from DKC and turn it into a 3D adventure which is linear so the player passes through obstacles and enemies the old fashioned way rather than these bad guys being decorations you could ignor while looking for the next banana.
It's not that I think old school is neccessarily BETTER than new 3D exploration games, it's just with every platformer these days trying to be THE big exploration game, having a nice, classic feeling, retro gameplay spiced up with amazing technology and more secrets you can count with all your fingers and toes...
Well, it would be a breath of fresh air for certain!
The Maturity Staff, obviously. One side, you have the cartoony look and place where Ganon's army will walk off cliffs and not fall until they look down, and on the other side, you have Link running around half nude slicing heads off, and Zelda running around in only a bra. With breast implants.
Obviously.
Obviously.
yes, those original Zelda games. Huge great worlds, or comparitively so, anyway.
The thing is the world really didn't change a great deal from NES to N64.
I mean it did in appearance, but it was always Hyrule, Hyrule has always had certain features. As the technolgy has improved Miyamoto has had more of a chance to picture it in the way he sees it.
So why the radical change in graphical style for Legend of Zelda on the Gamecube?
Again I think it comes down to Miyamoto's vision. Realism simply is not part of this. It HAS to remain in the realms of fantasy, completely, or Miyamoto could find himself somehow distant from it.
What I really want to know about that game is not what it will look like, but what will the theme be? A Link to the Past had the Dark World, Ocarina of Time had time travel and music, Majora's Mask had the passing of time, and the morphing with masks. Each of these things have made for excellent games, and I can't believe that this game will exist without something similar, but what will it be?
The thing is the world really didn't change a great deal from NES to N64.
I mean it did in appearance, but it was always Hyrule, Hyrule has always had certain features. As the technolgy has improved Miyamoto has had more of a chance to picture it in the way he sees it.
So why the radical change in graphical style for Legend of Zelda on the Gamecube?
Again I think it comes down to Miyamoto's vision. Realism simply is not part of this. It HAS to remain in the realms of fantasy, completely, or Miyamoto could find himself somehow distant from it.
What I really want to know about that game is not what it will look like, but what will the theme be? A Link to the Past had the Dark World, Ocarina of Time had time travel and music, Majora's Mask had the passing of time, and the morphing with masks. Each of these things have made for excellent games, and I can't believe that this game will exist without something similar, but what will it be?
I think now game makers aren't convinced they're making games any more.
Once again, stick with me here.
Ok, Super Mario World, probably the definitive 2D platformer... certainly one of my favourites, anyway. Look at Zelda, Link to the Past. Once again, an excellent 2D game...
I don't think, however, Shiguru has ever made a 2D game. The thought process that goes into such a thing goes beyond the point of perspective. Just because we are in a fixed position, makes it no more flat than any recent game.
When Shiggy first came up with the idea of Zelda... I don't think he was thinking "You move this bloke around on the screen, and use your sword to hit baddies and bombs and stuff."
He was probably thinking something more along the lines of "I want to make a game where you have to explore a mysterious land... where magic roams free, and the worlds are crafted through the eyes of an amazing artifact that holds the key to the whole lands."
That's 3D vision. Even though, yes, you still keep to a certain perspective, the whole game is an adventure... just because a film is in black and white, doesn't mean it is worse than a film in colour.
But now, people finally have the power to actually make a 3D game. And it's being abused.
Mario 64 was amazing... and I think it was amazing, simply because Shigsy has never thought in any other way than 3D. He wants to explore lands, not move across walls, and go from screen to screen.
Same thing happened with Zelda. That was utterly 3D, and because so, many people found it boring because they couldn't figure out what to do. So used to a linear way of gaming, such open endedness became repetitive.
So... the reason why you'll find it difficult to see a decent 2D platformer now, is because of the epic scale of thought that goes into adventures. If you are limited once, then you can work from it... but be free from that limitation, and no more will you be able to work under it.
Basically saying: If consoles aren't powerful enough to make a 3D game, then you're stuck making 2d ones. But once you CAN make a 3D game, and you do so, it's going to be difficult to change the way that you think again, back to the limited world of 2D.
You speak of linearity. The best game that I've played that manages to effectively combine the two is Skies of Arcadia. :0)
Whenever you resume control, you are told where you have to go next. Didn't happen always in Super Mario 64 or Zelda... or Deus Ex, another of the real 3D games.
But you don't have to go straight there... you've literally got a whole world to explore. So the good old linear players can follow the plot around, while anyone else is free to explore, and can easily carry themselves back into the game at any point.
And you say about Super Mario cutting corners... just look at Donkey Kong 64. Urgh.
Once again, stick with me here.
Ok, Super Mario World, probably the definitive 2D platformer... certainly one of my favourites, anyway. Look at Zelda, Link to the Past. Once again, an excellent 2D game...
I don't think, however, Shiguru has ever made a 2D game. The thought process that goes into such a thing goes beyond the point of perspective. Just because we are in a fixed position, makes it no more flat than any recent game.
When Shiggy first came up with the idea of Zelda... I don't think he was thinking "You move this bloke around on the screen, and use your sword to hit baddies and bombs and stuff."
He was probably thinking something more along the lines of "I want to make a game where you have to explore a mysterious land... where magic roams free, and the worlds are crafted through the eyes of an amazing artifact that holds the key to the whole lands."
That's 3D vision. Even though, yes, you still keep to a certain perspective, the whole game is an adventure... just because a film is in black and white, doesn't mean it is worse than a film in colour.
But now, people finally have the power to actually make a 3D game. And it's being abused.
Mario 64 was amazing... and I think it was amazing, simply because Shigsy has never thought in any other way than 3D. He wants to explore lands, not move across walls, and go from screen to screen.
Same thing happened with Zelda. That was utterly 3D, and because so, many people found it boring because they couldn't figure out what to do. So used to a linear way of gaming, such open endedness became repetitive.
So... the reason why you'll find it difficult to see a decent 2D platformer now, is because of the epic scale of thought that goes into adventures. If you are limited once, then you can work from it... but be free from that limitation, and no more will you be able to work under it.
Basically saying: If consoles aren't powerful enough to make a 3D game, then you're stuck making 2d ones. But once you CAN make a 3D game, and you do so, it's going to be difficult to change the way that you think again, back to the limited world of 2D.
You speak of linearity. The best game that I've played that manages to effectively combine the two is Skies of Arcadia. :0)
Whenever you resume control, you are told where you have to go next. Didn't happen always in Super Mario 64 or Zelda... or Deus Ex, another of the real 3D games.
But you don't have to go straight there... you've literally got a whole world to explore. So the good old linear players can follow the plot around, while anyone else is free to explore, and can easily carry themselves back into the game at any point.
And you say about Super Mario cutting corners... just look at Donkey Kong 64. Urgh.
When Sega and Nintendo were quite new to console gaming, most of thier effort went into platfrom games.
At the time some of them seemed to be very good.
These games developed over time, and made a successful transition to the next generation consoles, the SNES and the Megadrive.
But it was here that they really stopped. When technology moved on they left this type of game behind.
Why?
It was too basic.
3D graphics were all to easy to do, so why bother with a 2D platformer?
Aspects of the games stuck around, but for some reason the idea of the games never seemed to be to reach a goal anymore, but to find something.
Now this I find really odd.
Why did the games become adventures, which involved finding various objects, rather than keep with the theme of just getting to the end of the level to find the next one?
To be honest I think that it was one game that changed this.
Super Mario 64.
This game was intended to show off the environments the N64 could create, those gorgeous 3D worlds. By having different things hidden in the game, you had to see every square inch of each level. Everything Nintendo had put in that game would be noticed.
They also got you to play each level 6 times, to find different things.
Was this because the N64 was not easy to program for?
Rather than creating 90 different worlds, they just created 15.
And we were very satisfied with those.
Those old school platformers often had 30 odd levels, usually split into themed groups, but each was different.
Nintendo cut corners with Super Mario 64 and made up play that same level over again.
Is that a bad thing?
The game really was superb. An excellent game. Discovering things was fun. Finding all of those stars was a challenge, and an enjoyable one, too.
Would it have been any a better game if there was loads of shorter levels, with an aim of simply finding an exit?
Well for a start it would have been far more linear. One of the most amazing parts of gaming since the N64 has been the move away from the linear. All of the adventure games since Super Mario 64 have followed the same format, huge levels, with lots to find in them. You don't even have to find it all, you can play a certain level until you're ready to move on, and given you've met the minimum requirements, you can move on to the next huge level, the next big world of fun.
So the old school platformers were fun in their day, but looking back they really did suffer from linearity. Back then we didn't know any different. All games were linear.
I wonder how we'll look back on today's games tomorrow?
At the time some of them seemed to be very good.
These games developed over time, and made a successful transition to the next generation consoles, the SNES and the Megadrive.
But it was here that they really stopped. When technology moved on they left this type of game behind.
Why?
It was too basic.
3D graphics were all to easy to do, so why bother with a 2D platformer?
Aspects of the games stuck around, but for some reason the idea of the games never seemed to be to reach a goal anymore, but to find something.
Now this I find really odd.
Why did the games become adventures, which involved finding various objects, rather than keep with the theme of just getting to the end of the level to find the next one?
To be honest I think that it was one game that changed this.
Super Mario 64.
This game was intended to show off the environments the N64 could create, those gorgeous 3D worlds. By having different things hidden in the game, you had to see every square inch of each level. Everything Nintendo had put in that game would be noticed.
They also got you to play each level 6 times, to find different things.
Was this because the N64 was not easy to program for?
Rather than creating 90 different worlds, they just created 15.
And we were very satisfied with those.
Those old school platformers often had 30 odd levels, usually split into themed groups, but each was different.
Nintendo cut corners with Super Mario 64 and made up play that same level over again.
Is that a bad thing?
The game really was superb. An excellent game. Discovering things was fun. Finding all of those stars was a challenge, and an enjoyable one, too.
Would it have been any a better game if there was loads of shorter levels, with an aim of simply finding an exit?
Well for a start it would have been far more linear. One of the most amazing parts of gaming since the N64 has been the move away from the linear. All of the adventure games since Super Mario 64 have followed the same format, huge levels, with lots to find in them. You don't even have to find it all, you can play a certain level until you're ready to move on, and given you've met the minimum requirements, you can move on to the next huge level, the next big world of fun.
So the old school platformers were fun in their day, but looking back they really did suffer from linearity. Back then we didn't know any different. All games were linear.
I wonder how we'll look back on today's games tomorrow?