00:00.00 Dave Hello everybody. My name is Dave Jackson and you're listening to tales from the backlog. This is a video games review podcast where each week normally we take games out of the backlog play it and discuss today we're not doing that. We've got a roundtable discussion episode given a a little break. From the backlog work here. So I have 3 wonderful guests with me today to talk about how we approach evaluating, analyzing older games so without any further ado let's introduce the guest. Ah, first up, the host of pixel project radio Rick Firestone Rick welcome back 00:39.99 Rick Um, hey Dave hey everybody how's it going. Thanks for having me really excited to talk about some retro games. 00:43.33 Dave Yeah, of course yeah past ah episodes that Rick has been on many of them. Ah so many that I had to go through and look and I probably forgot some ah but just to name a few. We talked about yakuza like a dragon together, disco elysium way back when. Ah, 13 sentinels eeg just rim Catherine final fantasy 16 lots of stuff rick is a regular on the show. We're happy to have you back. Man. We're also joined today coming back after just a couple of months one of the hosts of fine time podcast andre welcome back. 01:16.43 Dre Hello there, good to be there. It's your boy Dre sorry I don't have a loud brassy hip hop beat you can play 1 behind me right now if you want but to give the full effect. But yep. 01:25.50 Dave ah ah yeah ah if ah, you are around just a couple months ago you would have heard us talk about killer7 in episode 100 of the podcast we're in a weird time here. We're recording this in between when that episode comes out but. We all know it's there in the nether week. Yeah, well good to have you back. Man. We have talked about this topic offline together. So I'm happy to bring you on to pontificate here and we're also joined by see I stole a retro hangover word there because I knew it was coming up. 01:42.75 Dre Um, we're recording this in the nether week and. 02:00.41 Chris Indeed. 02:01.88 Dave Chris Coplien, 1 of the co-hosts of retro hangover is also here with us welcome back Chris. 02:06.55 Chris Thanks for having me again Dave and I just want you to know I'm not a wonderful guest today. I'm a grumpy old man who's here to yell at a cloud and tell everyone how much better things were when I was a kid. 02:18.78 Dave Okay, wow, all right? Um, we'll see where that goes. longtime listeners will recognize Chris from a couple of past episodes of the show including spec ops the line and signalis to. Games that tested our spoiler wall policy on the main episodes. So good to have the 3 of you here today again. We're going to discuss our approach when playing, analyzing and critiquing retro games and all 4 of us. Do this to certain extents Chris has a retro dedicated. Podcast so Chris is doing this all the time Rick and Andre both play a lot of retro games. Both cover them on your shows just depending on what's coming up on that week um and then I've you know obviously done some retro games on this podcast and I have the bonus. Tales from the way backlog show over on Patreon that is dedicated to me going back and playing older games. Ah, so I wanted to talk about our approach when we do this. There's a lot of time when analyzing and discussing retro games. Ah, when I come across something that I don't really like, a design philosophy or a decision about a mechanic or something like that and when I talk to people about it I hear this refrain kind of come up and. 03:47.37 Dave People say well that was just the style at the time. Um and it kind of feels like hand waving to me to just say well. That's how it was moving on this conversation's over now I wanted to kind of dig into that a little bit more talk about how we approach these situations when we are. 04:07.50 Dave Analyzing these games for our podcasts and for our own enjoyment too. Even if it's not for podcasting in particular, are we able to put on our academic cap and just roll with those old school design philosophies and decisions or do they negatively impact our experiences or. Maybe the opposite. Maybe they enhance it. So we're going to dig into this but first I think people need to get to know you guys as retro gamers and kind of get some opening thoughts on the topic here. So ah Chris. I'll kick to you first as the host of a dedicated retro gaming show tells everybody about the types of games that you normally play and where you stand just at the beginning of this episode on this ah approach to playing and analyzing these older games. 04:57.90 Chris So as one could imagine is someone that is part of a dedicated retro gaming podcast that yeah, my taste is pretty much grounded within older video games most of the games I own and play nowadays. Are for older systems I'm talking about back to the and nes I don't find myself playing the and nes too much but I play tons of playstation I've just been playing some n64 recently of sega master system games sometimes come up. Sega saturn is a console I go back to very consistently and. Yeah, sometimes some playstation 2 games as well. I will play more modern games. But even when I do they tend to be retro inspired. Ah the most recent modern game I played was for example c of stars which came out in 2023 but that game is pretty much. Its entire basis is in being a recreation of the 16 bit jrpg experience. So when I'm looking to play video games I'm looking for something that reminds me of what it was like to play games when I was a kid. These are the games I typically tend to enjoy but I will. 06:03.77 Chris Say that? yes I do have a tendency to play more modern games from time to time but not often at all. Um, do you want me to do the analysis now of how I approach these or just talk about how I know what my taste in gaming is. 06:20.96 Dave Yeah, you can just give a quick kind of intro to your thoughts coming into the ah discussion here. 06:25.22 Chris Sure so when I think about your question about how to analyze these games and how to analyze older games in contemporary times I think there's a 2 two-pronged approach to do it and I'll try to be as brief as possible here. But so I can kick it over to Rick and Dre as well as yourself. But. The the way I view it is is there's 2 approaches 1 you can either review it as a game that stands the test time today or or review it as how it compared to his contemporaries and you can kind of do a little bit of both right. Ah, each will take a different mindset when going into the game itself because I think that other things have to be considered. You can say okay, what would what have happened what would happen if this game was released today on steam or what would happen if this game was released on you know ps 5 or the Xbox or the switch. Or you can be like okay this game was released for the and nes. How does this game hold up when you consider all the obstacles that it had to go through and I'm just playing it straight I think that. The the latter is something I tend to do more just because of the nature of what I do as a podcaster but it's not like the the former can be completely dismissed because if someone has not played an older game if someone has not experienced these older games or grew up with those. 07:45.78 Chris It's going to be much harder for them to put that mindset into playing these older games especially when a lot of the things that I take in consideration could be kind of um, kind of ah you know, guided by nostalgia for for lack of a better but lack of a better term. So. 08:04.27 Chris I Think that's kind of the approach I take to it. It can be a lot more nuanced than that. But I am trying to be as brief as I can so I can pick it over to the other guests here. 08:13.52 Dave Yeah, yeah, ah well and we'll definitely dig into that stuff as we go on. Ah, for now I'll kick it over to Rick for the same stuff. What kind of games. Do you normally play and as you come in just real top level thoughts on the topic here today. 08:30.31 Rick Sure thing. So I much like you Dave. I think my show reflects most of my tastes. Um I think what I say on the show is noncurrent. Um I'm not often playing brand new releases with a few exceptions here and there. Ah. Like final fantasy sixteen and we saw how that turned out but um, no, you know I I yo yeah but I I'm not often right on the ball whenever things release I'm generally playing games from the past whether it's a year ago or you know, ah fifteen years ago 09:04.20 Rick I am a big ah fan of retro gaming. I was big into emulation before I started retro collecting which I've been doing for about a year now thanks to the guidance of Chris actually and bill from ah the well couple podcasts 3do experience and gaming and collecting. Um. So that's been a real treat this year to explore some of those libraries that I had as a kid and then some that passed me up like the dreamcast and the psp for example, so I'm big into everything. Not super huge into staying on the latest trends but ah otherwise I like a lot of things. Um, surface level thoughts just about this topic that we're talking about today. Um I kind of have 2 different approaches and approaches isn't the right word I have. I have 2 different rules that I follow whenever I'm thinking about this kind of thing. the first one is pretty similar to what Chris was saying in that you you've got to be careful. 10:36.55 Dave Yeah. 10:51.67 Rick And ah, considerate and deliberate whenever you are viewing things through 2023 or I guess 2024 lens lenses. Um, all that I mean by that is that ah you you need to be I think it's important to be considerate of what was what were the trends of the time. What was the general landscape and design philosophies of the time etc. For example, it wouldn't be fair for me to review resident evil ah and say well you can't save everywhere. This is bullshit right? That's a 2024 lens in a bad way. Um, that's something that I just think should be handled with care. And the second thing that I try to abide by is the notion of ah taste versus criticism. You know I'm somebody that really really believes that ah critics and reviewers should be subjective not fully objective I think subjectivity is super important for an interesting critic. Um, but what I mean is it's okay to dislike something and still say that something is good right? Um, the password system is something that we will bring up. I'm sure older games that I've played this year like tiny tank and gex enter the gecko. And has sub zero mythologies. They all use a password system to save data and these days it's like yeah that sucks I hate the password system I really do. But for the time it was really good. It was a great way to save progress before we had internal memory, external memory with memory cards and things like that. 12:28.20 Rick Ah, so yeah, that's kind of a surface level take that I yeah that I that I that I think about whenever I'm looking into Retro games. 12:35.22 Dave All right and to you Andre same questions. 12:40.65 Dre Well, as for how I play games today I just like to see what's next really . I like to stay modern. I love seeing what's out there. Oh this game is coming up. I love technology. So like I was one of those kids. Once. The new system came out get the hell out of here with your nes I have a super Nintendo now I am never like I didn't play those like late or um, late early 90 s and nes games so they came out unlike Nintendo switch online because once August Ninety one hit and I had that super Nintendo that's it. 13:17.27 Dre You know like I was that kind of person. I'm still that way once ps5 came out I am not like get out of here. PS 4 please you know? So I I love to keep I love to keep really current with technology at the same time I'm forty one years old. I've grown up with you know since the infancy maybe and you know I've also played Atari and stuff that's a little before my time too of course so I played a lot of this stuff and I grew up with it with old games and old game philosophies that we don't have anymore and. I think the thing is for me. Yeah I guess you could say I played retro stuff. But for me, it's about exploring I don't want to go back and play you know something I've played a million times I want to play stuff I haven't played That's why I love stuff like mini consoles like a turbografx 16 mini segas etc. Because there's stuff on there that I've never played and some stuff I've never heard of you know I'm not going there to play sonic to again or something I just think that's like really boring so I don't I I try not to do that. Um, as so that's the kind of gamer I am I guess and. 14:26.44 Dre As far as just the surface level view of the topic. Um I try to meet the game where it's at in time I think that's the only fair thing to do I almost never compare I'm probably the strong and this like hardest line with this about like. Comparing it to modern day I almost never do that because I just don't really think like quite frankly I just don't think it's that interesting I'd rather just stay in the moments like ok this game at the time in this time I try to put myself there as much as I can like for. It's. Like for instance I recently played Hydlide the original pc88 version of Hydlide. Um, on switch. They've been releasing a bunch of pc88 games and you know I've I've been playing them and I am playing this game for the first time. This game is an incredible historical artifact. You can see Zelda here. You can see Ys in here. Especially it's crazy. Is it a good game? I almost don't care. You know who by 2024 standards that's almost. It's like not the point of me playing it so that's my approach. You know when something so far removed from anything that has anything to do with today. 15:41.50 Dre I Don't even try it like when I beat games I make a tweet or now skeet about it on blue sky and like you know I gave it. Ah I gave highlight a B minus. I felt silly even giving it a grade like it just doesn't even matter you know so that's my approach to playing games so far in the past. 16:00.79 Dave All right? and for myself here before we get in. Um like Rick said I think if you look at the games I cover on tails from the backlog. No secret. You know this isn't my job or anything so the games that are on the show are the games that I'm playing and the games that I want to play. So if you go back and look at the games that are on there. There are some that are like I replayed it because I wanted to do a podcast about it but most of them are just stuff I wanted to play. I play them and then I do the podcast. So um. 16:33.55 Dave The contents of the show are pretty reflective of the kinds of games I play so like I do play a lot of new releases. But I wouldn't say that that's like my wheelhouse per se . I kind of joke that the sweet spot for this podcast and for me is 2016 to 2021 like that kind of stuff. Stuff I can get for free or for five bucks or something like that and then I'll play a bunch of the new releases each year's stuff that I'm really interested in. Um and even though like that is where I land on a lot of stuff I want to play these days. It's not because I didn't grow up playing. 17:12.53 Dave Games when I was a kid I grew up with a game gear and a game boy I played. I didn't have a super Nintendo but that was part of my childhood over at friends houses and stuff. Um, but I don't really consider myself to be a big fan of a lot of our retro games and if I kind of. Think about the games I'm going back and playing other than the ones I do for tales from the backlog because that's like a personal challenge type of thing. Um outside of jrpgs I don't really like a lot of older games like that that I play. I don't like a lot of old platformers. I don't like a lot of stuff. Point and click adventures stuff like that I just don't have the best time with them jrpgs seem like the the easiest for me to get on with and that's because I know what's up I know what to expect in all of those if you're willing to put in the time in a jrpg you can usually get through whatever's in your way. So. My approach to this type of thing is like I'm generally able to like academically understand ah decisions and philosophies of the time but I do not really enjoy them most of the time if they cause frustration. We'll say. And this isn't a blanket thing about old games in general. Um, but I am the kind of person who likes on one hand I can say yes, this was a decision made by the restrictions or the design philosophies of the time but that does not translate into me enjoying them any more. 18:47.20 Dave Then I would play a modern game that made the same decisions we'll say so um, it's not really additive to understand that for me personally and I have a really hard time putting myself in that purely academic frame of mind. I'm very much like an experiential type of person when I'm playing stuff like that. So this episode and we'll get into the discussion here. This was really inspired I think by 2 games that I played for the first time in 2023 ah, the first one. Was rocket night adventures which was covered in the retro hangover review crew the monthly games club in Chris's retro hangover discord server I played that game for the first time I had never heard of it before it was the game of the month in there and I fucking hated that game I couldn't I gave it the lowest score of anybody in the ah the review crew I couldn't stand it. Um, and then the other one kind of like this was super mario brothers 3 played that for the first time could not stand that game and they both have the same type of old. 19:58.75 Dave Philosophy that caused me to not enjoy them which is um in rocket knight adventures. It's the fact that ah you basically have no checkpoints if you get a game over you have to start the entire game over again and when that happened to me after a very long stretch of boss fights with no checkpoints and it. Send me back to the beginning. I was like well I'm not playing any more of this. That's that's horse shit. Um, and then Super Mario Brothers 3 felt like a very very unfriendly, very unfriendly, uncharacteristically unfriendly for the main Mario platformers game when it comes to. Ah, checkpointing gives you power ups and stuff like that. Both of these games to me feel like they are from a philosophy of our game is 3 hours long. We need to make sure it's not 3 hours long in actuality. You know what? I mean so like that type of thing is what inspired this topic and then some conversations with you guys? Um, and it's these are good examples for me personally because I am able to like hearing someone say. 21:12.59 Dave Had to make some of these games this way because they had to last you a long time because they're really fucking expensive and that knowledge does absolutely nothing for me while I'm playing the game So that's why they're the good examples here and I'll kick to you guys? Um, all of us play games like this. 21:30.30 Dre can I directly address mario 3 though cause that’s favorite game of all time like straight up. So I want to say that what you're saying is uncharacteristically unfair. That's the lost levels. That's like Japanese Mario 2 21:30.40 Dave What do we think? 21:36.20 Dave Um, sure. Okay, yeah. 21:49.10 Dre You know what? I mean that to me is uncharacteristically Nintendo-like by my standards. Okay, that's an asshole game right? So at. 21:55.17 Dave Right? When I want to clarify I meant because I had just played Super Mario World and then I played Mario three back to back so comparing those I have played Mario 1 and 2 Mario Brothers 1 and two throughout my life too and. 22:11.39 Dre Yeah. 22:14.14 Dave Yeah, 3 just felt kind of like more fuck you than those other games I just mentioned. 22:17.80 Dre So they did that and of course you just said this does nothing for you and it shouldn't by the way I'm I'm saying that because it's like you know you're playing the game you're experiencing it how you how you feel about it. But the reason why I love Mario 3 is because of them. Expressly designed it for experts. It's the third Mario game. You know how to play Mario by now presumably so they're like let's make these levels that are just and I think like mario 3 to me is like the perfect difficulty for me I um I don't know if you guys know. 22:50.62 Dre Any of you guys know this I'm like a super mario maker to freak I maxed out the levels in that game I made a hundred levels in Mario Maker 2 okay like 43 of them were mario three style like I just I just think the game is the absolute best and my point is like that with the checkpoints. 22:52.35 Dave Yeah, yeah. 23:10.61 Dre The reason why I and I listen to your podcast in this and I don't know if that's the first time I listen to tales of the backlog. But I was like yelling at my phone like what the fuck is wrong with you. But like I mean you know but I was just like the checkpoint thing in that game I truly do not understand because like bro. 23:19.22 Chris Oh. 23:29.20 Dre Those levels are often like 90 seconds long or even 2 minutes and if they are longer than that they're slow and they're actually not that hard. The reason why they don't have checkpoints is because they're short. Do you really want a checkpoint. Okay I made it through like 30 seconds as this level I need a flag and like. 23:48.76 Dre Really I That's the part I truly cannot compute with you here. 23:54.89 Dave The the reason why I am complaining about checkpoints is because I did want checkpoints because those level those 30 seconds are really fucking difficult and I would like for the game to acknowledge that I did those 30 seconds and not make me do them over and over and over again. Ah. 24:12.54 Dave Will also admit freely before I pass it on to someone else that I'm terrible at Mario games. I'm very bad at them. The only one that I would consider myself good at is Mario Land 2 on the game boy and that game is very easy compared to the rest of like the console mario games. So. 24:24.77 Dre Oh yeah. 24:28.29 Chris Until it's not. 24:32.70 Dave Ah, until Warios Castle. Yeah. 24:34.50 Dre That's not that bad. 24:37.30 Chris I want to jump in here and I think I'm the middle here. I am a well-known Super Mario Brothers Three hater. I will admit I do ham it up quite a bit. I don't really hate it. But since I don't like aspects about it people like ah you don't like it and I'm just like yeah sure I'll just go with that. That's a lot more fun. 24:54.97 Chris And I'm going to try to avoid this being a super mario brothers 3 podcast here. but ah some things I do want to address in terms of its actual gameplay if you look back at platformers of the time when Mario Ii was coming out and I know this is a philosophy you can give or take. Mario Mario Ii in terms of the way it controls the way it behaves the things that it did in terms of advancing the platform or in and of itself are quite revolutionary. It's one of the best games in terms of pure gameplay top to bottom. I won't question that the things that I have a problem with there's not even so much the checkpoints because I think Drea is right? those. Those levels are short but the thing that I have an issue with is the lack of a save function and Nintendo knew this Nintendo put in this manual itself apologizing to the player that there is no save functionality and this is something that ah didn't. Even exist in Doy Doke panic exists now . I know super minor brothers too when it came over the United States is a little bit different but because doki doki panic came on a famine to-com disc. It had a save function metroid had a save function kid icarus had a save function castle had a save function. All these games had safe functions because they were on floppy disks. Super Mario Brothers 3 didn't have this by this time. The battery backup is well established. I understand that when cost factors are put into the equation that adding a battery at the time was somewhat expensive but they had the password system. So when you're looking at a game. 26:21.54 Chris At the time it was released compared to other games that came out around that time in a retrospective manner and saying even from a modern taste perspective. The fact that if you're playing Mario Brothers 3 on modern hardware and it can't save I say is borderline inexcusable because that game is as Dave said damn near 3 hours long for anyone that is just getting into it. Don't think that's appropriate and usually the counter argument to that is that well there's warp whistles. Well, the only way you're going to know how to find the war whistles is if you're good at Super Mario Brothers 3 and you know where to go and what to do about it. It doesn't. 26:54.11 Chris Really reward the player for playing the actual game which is supposed to be 1 of the best games of all time but yet you're discouraged from actually playing it as the way it was intended to be played I think that's that's a critical argument against it but putting that more into perspective as an overall game in and of itself. There's The biggest issue is that it doesn't really respect the player's time it didn't back then and it kind of rode on its reputation as a mario game which is fantastic. It is a fantastic game in terms of just pure playability. But you also have to think this was at the time Mario was almost. Strictly aimed towards children and didn't even consider the adult and if I was to give this to my kid nowadays and say play it. You know a lot more distractions, a lot more lack of connectivity and all that stuff like that they probably wouldn't be able to complete in 1 sit through at least playing all the levels. But I can't talk to anybody who casually plays super mario brothers 3 that says they love it and say yeah I got through it and played every single level and I think that's something that you can look back on and knock on games from that era when they do things like that. And I think that's completely fair game. 28:15.81 Rick I I don't know that I can speak much to the super mario brothers 3 aspect as I've never actually played it and I don't have the knowledge that dray and christ do of that era of games. Um I did want to ask for a bit of clarification from you Dave and from Dre because I think you agreed, um, when you hear that argument that is ah well that's just that was the divine design philosophy at the time or that was the limitations of the time and you said that does nothing for you. Um, could you just clarify a bit what you meant by that. 28:49.12 Dave Yeah for me personally like when I hear someone say that the knowledge that it was like a deliberate decision that they made you know the decision to not have a save function at All. Or the decision to not put checkpoints in the levels or let you go an entire level without getting a mushroom which is shit that happens in Mario three when I hear that like they're doing these things because of the style at the time I can say okay I So I see. But that does not help me at all when I'm playing the game I don't go through the level and say aha. Yes, they did this because they want me to have a harder time at this level and then you know it's going to take me longer to complete the game stuff like that knowing that does not help me. Whatever and like as a player. Yeah, absolutely as a player I absolutely like experiencing the game. It. It actually makes it worse for me because I start thinking about why couldn't you just put a checkpoint in the middle of that level with the sun. 29:48.44 Rick Um, as ah as a player you mean in the experience. 30:05.20 Dave What would it have hurt to put a checkpoint there I get through a gauntlet. Why not the other Mario games have checkpoints. Um, when I'm looking at the game critically though and I think about the type of challenge that they're trying to set up. 30:23.45 Dave It also doesn't help me there in this specific example it doesn't help me to hear a rationale for why it's that way the rationale that dray gave that it's Mario three so it should be harder than mario two that really doesn't do a lot for me personally and I think there's a lot of people who if you're not mario experts. That's not going to do a lot for you either and that philosophy when designing a game that way is harder to appreciate frankly I think that if that is true then that's kind of shitty and that's just the perspective that I come from because I guess I am very very. Focused in like I can think about these things as they were placed in the past but at the end of the day I am a person in 2024 playing it through these eyes. 31:16.28 Rick Um I can tell dre is ready to pounce. 31:16.82 Dre no no no no no I just I just personally forgot to say the other half of that because the while the designers did say they made super mario 3 for experts. They also said on the flip side they made super mario world for beginners. 31:22.20 Dave Oh okay. 31:34.22 Dre Because it was a new system and that's why that game is a lot easier and it takes after mario 3 but it's like I don't want to say the easy version of mario three. But I think you understand what I'm saying because you've played both games. They have a very different design philosophy and super mario world has checkpoints because those levels are long. Super mario world. 31:54.14 Dre Super Mario World supermarket but there's 3 levels are short so they don't have them. Despite the difficulty I'm just talking about the length of the level so that I should have said that as well. 31:59.55 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 32:06.56 Chris And ah to just kind of expound on what Dre was kind of saying here in terms of design philosophy and if you look at the lineage of mario it stems from the arcades. So when you go back to Donkey Kong and then you go to mario brothers those are arcade games and. What the and nes or famicom was specifically meant to do was meant to bring those arcade games and be able to play them on a home console. Super Mario Brothers was really the you know Nintendo's first real attempt at making a game that was more just this consolized game. For console gamers something that was unique from the arcades but it still had all those arcade roots so it had addictive challenging gameplay because that is also something that was very much valued back in the 80 s among gamers if you go back and watch commercials. This is this is where all the challenging games are played on our system. This is where you're going to have a. Ah, challenging experience and then like you get to mario brothers too in Japan and that game was released like less than a year later after the original super mario brothers and this is actually something commonplace you see in Japan you see with another game called super load runner. Ah lode runner is a game that ah. Like it's hard to describe you're you're walking across lines and people fall in there and all stuff like that. But they came up with a game like super load runner that was specifically designed for experts like super mario brothers too was so the mentality was. We're just coming out of the arcades. We're finally learning what it's like to make games for a console. 33:36.82 Chris And so super Mario Brothers 3 was all those lessons that they had learned in between 1986 and 1988 and they're like okay now we know how to make games for a console the legend of zelda showed us this the famicom disk system in its ability to go up 200 go up to 256 Kilobytes I think showed us that we can make bigger games that aren't necessarily made for a single sit down experience. So that's why the difficulty for super mario brothers is scaled back and is more approachable than super mario brothers too is because Nintendo at this time is learning how to make games. Specifically for the consolized experiences that mentality came out of the arcades and into something new and so that with when you approach it with that mentality. You can look at the nes and the evolution and have a better appreciation for what each game was trying to accomplish. That's what I think. 34:25.94 Dre I think I agree. 34:29.84 Dave Rick were you halfway into an opinion there before. 34:33.40 Rick Um, kind of I was just um, the reason that I no no, you're good. The reason that I asked in the first place is because the the point that I was trying to to make salient was that um I think it's different to look at a decision made. 34:35.79 Chris Sorry Rick. 34:50.83 Rick On a game by game basis versus a decision. Um or excuse me versus trends as a whole at the time. Um, it's 1 thing to say well they chose to do this with this game because whatever versus well this is just how all of these games are um, it's looking at the trends as a whole it is. 35:10.83 Rick The thing that I look at and say um I can understand why you wouldn't like that as a gamer now in 2024 Um, playing it in the hands. But academically I think or on a conceptual level I think it would be worth it to Say. Or ask yourself. Um, you know is it fair to criticize this given that that's just where design philosophy was at the time. Um I'm not sure that that's what you were going after though whenever you said that it sounded like they were Mario specific. Ah. 35:36.20 Dave Right. 35:45.91 Dave Well some of the examples that I wrote down here are emblematic of different trends throughout gaming history like the Mario and the rocket night examples were both just kind of like one of the things that I've realized about myself. 36:05.10 Dave Um, from playing the retro games that I play is that I really rarely get down with a lives and game over system anymore and like that's a personal taste thing but then within that like that's a trend that's ah it was ah an old philosophy games. Don't really do that anymore. Even Mario doesn't do that shit anymore in a lot of the games that you have so um, like it's looking at this trend where like i. 36:25.78 Dre And they should. 36:38.50 Dave I can't really go and say like this game sucks or this is a bad game because it has lives in game overs that would be a really unfair and dumb thing for me to say but I can look at like specific examples like I said with rock at night where they throw a fucking gauntlet at you and if you get a game over you go to the beginning because they don't have. Permanent checkpoints in that game or in mario three where I've already talked about issues I had that are like more specific examples of a greater trend if that makes sense and so like I can definitely take a step back. It. See what it was see the reasoning behind it I can hear all the reasoning behind it Chris and Dre have already taught me a lot about mario three tonight that doesn't make me appreciate the choices. They made more than I did last time I tried to play it. 37:31.94 Dave Another example like the arcade philosophy got brought up and me Andre have talked about this a little bit Andre you wrote it in the notes. So ah, you wrote down that there is a modern expectation from the player that you should be able to finish a game. And I would like for you to expand upon that because I think that's right in line with that arcadey philosophy. 37:48.44 Dre Ah. 37:53.77 Dre Yeah, well I mean obviously games like Pacman or digdug or whatever don't have endings right? like I mean you could play a level you know a billion or whatever. Whatever, like you just play, you lose. That's 1 thing but then there's just games where I don't know. I don't think I mean mario brother super mario brothers. Rather shit we got to ask for my fourth birthday so maybe eighty six I couldn't beat that game when I was four years old I just didn't have the dexterity or like whatever right I kind of beat it. It took me a couple years to do it. But. There was no expectation of me beating the game. I think it's the first game I remember beating that was 6 or seven years old and that's kind of daunting right? Everyone you know how. Like it's it's maze like yeah, how do you find your way around there? I just played it enough until I found everything and it took forever because I was a kid but I did it right? But there was no expectation of me doing that. I wasn't playing it to be like I have to see the end I want to see the end I want to get past this part. If I could I could if I couldn't I couldn't you know and that's all the risk to it now that now Metroid isn't a game with like yeah, it's a password game at least it isn't America so you don't have a lot of lives or continues. It's not that kind of game but a game that does. 39:14.46 Dave Right. 39:18.21 Dre Okay, man like blaster master and that's another example that Chris was talking about of games that are just too fucking long that don't have a safe system and then in America they made our continues limited So like it's insane for us and there's no way as a kid I think I played it a couple years ago not specifically for fine time but I remember talking about it on the show and being like I can't believe like they did that to us you know? and um, anyway. I'm sorry I lost my train of thought. Um, oh um, I'm sorry what the fuck was your question I'm really sorry. 40:01.26 Dave Just yeah, just introducing this idea because we've kind of talked about it a little bit in the Discord servers and stuff before but the idea that you know games are being made without any expectation of anyone ever being able to complete it. 40:17.80 Dre Right? I'm sorry okay I'll give you a couple more senses. So my point of this my point of saying all that is it was fine back then there was if you could if you were good enough and that's that's fine if you weren't. If ah, hopefully find a cheat code and a Nintendo power or something and then like go at it that was the thing but now games are expressly designed to be beaten. So it's completely different and so you can't even really have that kind of difficulty anymore. Someone argue you can like a souls game or whatever but that I I don't think so. But yeah I just think that it's not artificial or whatever to have like lives or continues or whatnot that is literally the game in the video game Dave. 41:07.14 Dave Yeah, these are different arguments. I'm done talking about lives and game overs really? um, a game. You know when you brought up this topic of ah a game where it doesn't feel like they expect people to get all the way to the end I thought of zombies ate my neighbors which I just recently played. 41:25.20 Dave Ah, that's a game that is really difficult and there are a million fucking levels in that game. So I got the feeling playing it that it came from an arcade style mindset where there's like we're just going to put a bunch of levels in you'll play. 41:29.27 Dre Okay. 41:41.87 Dave You'll see how far you get, you're never going to get to the end unless like you said you find the cheats to skip to whatever level you want to skip to Chris you recently did that on on retro hangover did you get that same feeling from that game and. 41:49.90 Dre Um, or the password. 41:54.41 Chris Yes, I mean I don't, I don't know what else to say there. it's very much it very much feels like an arcade game. There's just like arcade games like that the best way to get good at it or really any game from back in the like 8 bit era more particularly. 42:00.38 Dave Yeah. 42:13.10 Chris Is memorization and just knowing where to go, what to grab what items to have and that comes from a lot of increased replays and that that was the expectation and um in a little bit I'll I'll get into why I don't want to hog the mic here because. 42:29.15 Chris I I want to see what Rick has to say about some of the stuff and then I have a game in particular that I think stands up for a lot of these arguments. 42:34.30 Dave So I Guess like the question with this topic is like do you if you played a game like this where it's very clear that they designed it in a way where they didn't expect people to get to the end or to be able to. Easily get to the end does that bother you when you're playing it because it kind of bothered me when I was playing zombies ate my neighbors because I liked seeing new levels and there are a bunch of levels that I was just never going to see so. 42:59.37 Chris Thanks. 43:08.88 Rick I'm you know I'm not sure that I would say it bothers me if I'm thinking about this? um I'm wondering if this idea of games being designed to be beaten if we can accept that premise for a moment of whether or not it's true. Let's just accept it. 43:24.66 Rick I'm wondering if that doesn't come from this new notion of ah you know getting your money's worth quote unquote out of a game. Ah you know I paid $60 and I want $60 worth of an experience which is something that I find ridiculous. Ah wholesale I don't think that's it. 43:42.59 Rick Just don't think that argument holds up in any way. Um, so I'm wondering if part of me is wondering if it evolved out of that I'm not sure. But um, as far as ah, a game that just has levels after levels after levels. Um, you know, thinking of something like ms pac man or Donkey Kong from the arcade where you know you keep going until you hit the death screen and then you the the game just doesn't know what to do programming wise. Um, which I suppose there's maybe a different case if we're talking about an arcade game like that. But I don't think it. 44:14.40 Rick Really bothers me? no um because I know that there's always something new that I could see. 44:20.93 Dave I Think that that notion of getting your money's worth was also a reason why games were so fucking hard back in the day too because they were more expensive and relatively well not relatively. They were more expensive and ah. If you look at how much content there is in those games. It's a lot less than what there are in modern Games. Of course there's technology behind that too. But um I think that people getting their money's worth from games has always been a concern for some people for sure. 44:56.14 Rick I don't disagree. I think that's exactly right? Um, what I was thinking more was that we have the games that are more curated these days, especially story games like the last of us, god of war shit like that. But even games that don't have a forefront. 45:12.70 Rick Story and that are focused on gameplay like death’s door for example, um I I think they're a little more curated as a holistic experience or the devs wanted you to experience this in this particular way than something like. Super mario brothers 3 for example, not saying that they didn't have an experience for the player in mind I just think it's maybe a little more curated these days and that's why people want to quote get their money's worth whereas before they wanted to quote get their money's worth because like you said Dave Games were stupid expensive. There weren't as many games people didn't have the disposable income that we have today. Um well kind of but anyways, um, so that game had to last right? Um I don't know I'm not sure that I'm connecting these dots particularly well. But. 46:07.20 Rick Maybe you guys can help with that. 46:10.67 Dave Definitely like the bridge between somebody wanting to complete the game see all the content you know versus and then like if somebody equates that with feeling satisfied with their purchase. You know like. I Am Personally someone I beat almost every game that I play within reason unless I Just like really can't stand it then I'll put it down but even before I did a podcast that you know I was talking about the full experience I still was this way I am the type of person who wants to beat every game I Play. And so I kind of get the arcade side of things where it's like yeah, you're not going to beat Pacman What are you? an idiot you're you're just going to play until it's over but for a platformer or something like that like the notion that they're going to sell a Mario game and. 47:06.22 Dave Not caring whether people got to the end or not. That's something different I think. 47:12.51 Chris I actually agree with you here Dave because I reject the notion that companies didn't expect you or I'll say ah whatever, company's fucking thing. Okay, the developers of the game didn't expect you to complete the game if the game has an ending and that game is hardcoded into the ending the. Eventual desire of the developer and the creator of that content would be that you are able to see it or else. Why would they create it so I'm going to get to the game I want to talk to in a little bit but there's a couple things I think we need to to remember. And from a modern perspective looking back at that time, we've kind of talked about a couple of them, one of which is that games were more expensive. This is true games were like forty fifty dollars if you want in any nes cartridge in 19 like 88 money which is something like probably $5000 at this point but ah, just kidding, but it's like two hundred two hundred dollars 48:05.10 Chris Ah, ish $180 so somewhere that ballpark that's ah, that's a lot of money even today if I was going to go and drop $180 people are freaking out like oh Spiderman 3 might cost $150 I know this kind of dates this game but ah days this episode. 48:16.91 Dave Okay, m. 48:20.55 Chris But ah, that's kind of the hot topic right now. So Sony's going to release 3 installments and have this game cost $150 that was standard back then the second thing is games were expensive to make cartridges weren't cheap. Memory wasn't cheap. Ah remember ah like when I so ah mentioned a little bit ah back about ah the the size of games. The super mario brothers that came out on the NES and 1985 used all. But I think one kilobyte of information on that disc. Maybe all of that information and that was one hundred and twenty Eight kilobytes that's all they had to work with and so that's the reason they made the famine com disk system is because it would be cheaper. To make and they would have more memory but the reason we didn't get over didn't get it over here is because they had the Emc card I think that's what it was called and that allowed it to expand memory on the actual card itself but just still talking about battery saves that also that battery would cost money going onto these cartridges. So they had a limited amount of space and they had to do the most amount that they could with that and one answer is well. Why don't you make an rpg then well because people generally don't like rpgs. So what you have to do especially in America. So yeah, what you have to do is you have to find a way to get someone to buy a $140 game for your child because at the time the game was meant for children that would appeal to a child and won't have them throwing a fit wanting another game so you still have to have that some somewhat arcade mentality to make the first couple levels easy and get them addicted to it to give them confidence while raising the difficulty so it keeps them coming back. 49:55.67 Chris Moreover, they have that confidence to come Back. So when you're saying oh these live systems these continue systems I don't like that I can understand that. But the thing was that I'm spending a lot of money on a game. I'm probably not going to spend a lot of money on another game if this doesn't work out for me because that's a ton of money. I Need to make a quality product to the point where someone feels confident enough that by the time they invest enough time and that they come back to buy another one. They feel confident that that also is going to be well-invested time on top of that again. These games were for kids So when we're talking about Oh this is obtuse. A lot of the ways to figure things out are obscure like in the legend of Zelda these games specifically Zelda were designed with the mindset that you could go to school and talk to your classmates about how to defeat them and how to get after them a lot of us now are like well I don't know the game doesn't tell me. Because it was also a social thing. It was a social experiment , just a social connection and you also have the thing that also benefits any developer at that time because if a bunch of kids are talking about a game other kids are going to go talk about that game to be part of that in-group. Makes a game like Zelda very very intelligently designed from that aspect. So when you put all these things together and you take out this very connected World. We now have all these guides and all this information at the touch of your fingertips and all these safe states like that had to be the way these games were done. 51:24.70 Chris The game wanted you to become an expert at it. It wanted you to become skilled at it and I think the mentality that a lot of people have nowadays just because games are so cheap and readily available and the competition is different because the oversaturation of the market where back then there wasn't so much of a competition. But. Price barrier to entry is so much higher that people have to be choosing what they get nowadays. It's like beating our game, going to the next one back then, buying our game, staying with it and being confident that the next time you release a game with our name on it. You're going to buy it and these. The mentality you have to go into it when approaching these games and why they're made that way has to be different. 52:12.17 Dre Ah, you said it the best. I actually was thinking about Zelda. That's the first game I thought of when we brought up this when Dave brought up this topic to us because I had the exact experience that you just talked about. I went to school and I said to my friends. Oh you shoot the crab in the eye with the arrow. Oh you know you can kill ganon if you do this? Oh if you bomb this, go up 3 squares from the beginning and then go over to the left and then bomb this wall and there's like rupees in there. We told each other all this shit on the playground that I mean because I'm old enough to have had it. 52:43.61 Dre Experience when the game was out you know, but removed from all of that I completely get it where someone's like I have no idea where the entrance to you know level 5 or 6 is. I was supposed to push this gravestone in the grave like how the hell was I supposed to know that. Well, the reality is you weren't supposed to know that you were supposed to find that out and a lot of cynical people say oh that's how they sell strategy guides or something like that's not that wasn't really much of a thing back then I mean they existed but that that's just like I don't buy that cynical shit. But I mean yeah, that was the 90's that was definitely the 90's. 53:13.60 Chris That was the 90's. 53:19.32 Dre But like yeah I totally I'm glad you said that because that was one of my main points I and zelda is a perfect example of that. Also I thought it was really funny. It was maybe a little bit before the switch came out. Um there was an interview with Miyamoto and Aonuma the producer and this. Interviewer asked them. How do you feel about the original legend is zelda today and Miamoto is like yeah you know I still think it's a lot of fun and Aonuma thought for a couple seconds and he just threw up his hands like I can't I can't do it I can't play it. You know and it just shows that even the guy who works on it is like ok I can't you know and I totally get both sides of that. 54:04.41 Chris It. It certainly requires a different mentality going into it, especially blind if you don't have guides or anything like that. Um, and I think like you said dark souls isn't that much like that and I would also like to counter when I was playing through dark souls in 2023 1 of the things I saw in our community and Dave saw this I'm sure Rick saw this is when I got really frustrated and I started ranting in the server about how much of a pain the ass the game was what's the first thing everyone did they gave me advice on how to overcome the obstacle. They said why don't you try this? Why don't you go with. 54:38.16 Chris Why don't you try going with this build? Why don't you try leveling up these stats. It was the same mindset that was present in the legend of zelda and all these other games back in the 80's and early 90's that people would go to each other. That's what dark souls is like in the dark soul series right now if you have all these. 54:57.87 Chris Things all over the floor that you can those these sigils that you can touch and they say hey this is coming up hey this boss is hard hey try doing this and some set sometimes it's troll but sometimes your friends would lie in troll to you like ah the the Egm stuff are like. Oh yeah, if you unlock shenglong by just. 55:05.50 Dave Try jumping. 55:10.86 Dave Um, that's true. 55:16.93 Chris If you do this code ah in Street Fighter two. You can get a secret character. It was bullshit but that was the that was the playground attitude and all those things are still present in dark souls. So if you take that example, what dark souls is doing I think this was intentional on dark Souls part from what I remember reading they wanted to bring that kind of feeling back that. 55:37.38 Chris Existed in that time that games were designed to do but we lost over time because we just became so connected over the internet with all these guides and just this this this oversaturation of information. 55:50.85 Dave I'm glad that Zelda got brought up because I did not want this podcast to just turn into people taking turns bashing different retro games or different ah mentalities or anything like that. Um, I played the legend of Zelda the first one for the first time maybe two years ago and I didn't beat it but I had a good time playing it like the things that you guys describe did not bother me at all. Maybe it's because I do like more modern games that use those same philosophies. Breath of the wild is very similar in a lot of ways to the original legend of zelda so that particular that's a good example of something where like I can I guess I can more easily put myself back. In the shoes of someone playing it because games are still doing stuff like that today games that I really like um whereas other examples that we talked about like think of the difficult platformers of today. They all have extremely generous checkpointing and stuff like that. Ah, whereas like so it's a little bit more difficult for me to like put myself in that place in time you know Chris you and I are playing through shovel knight right now for the this month's retro hangover game of the month for the review crew and shovel knight is a tough platformer. 57:15.35 Dave That is very very friendly in its mechanics and so the existence of games that have changed things to be friendlier while still maintaining a level of challenge makes it harder for me and that specific mario 3 or if we want to go you know super analogous to shovel night. Something like um zelda two or Megaman or something like that. Those are not zelda 2 is a very unfriendly game, very unfriendly so it makes it harder for me to like again. I can sit back and like to see that perspective from the past but it makes me. Makes it harder for me to put myself in those shoes fully but I was able to do that for zelda zelda one that is so I'm glad we could bring that up as an example, um, Rick have you played Zelda one before or you know any other game recently that. Would rely on this type of playground knowledge and like not put that in the game itself. 58:19.80 Rick Um, no I've I've not played Zelda one actually and as far as that I mean recently not really I mean pokemon is the easiest example to draw from in our age demographic I mean easily that's something that I never really thought about outside of. 58:28.52 Dave Sure yeah. 58:36.12 Rick Pokemon to be quite honest, but I mean it makes sense. 58:39.87 Dave Yeah, and your friends would yeah, everyone was spreading those rumors about using strength to push that truck out of the way and all that bullshit. So yeah, um, yeah I guess the expectation is that. 58:46.54 Dre Yeah. 58:55.35 Dave People were going to do some of that work for you. That's a cynical way to say like they're going to do the work for you like the expectation that people are going to talk with each other and have more of a shared experience. It's harder to pull off today. Yeah harder to pull off today when I can just go. 59:05.99 Rick A Strand type experience. 59:14.73 Dave Type into Google how the fuck do I beat the capra demon as a sorcerer and then I would get a full extra life page detailing exactly how to do it like I don't have to I have to go talk to somebody and share knowledge there. You know. 59:32.38 Chris I disagreed that megaman's unfriendly by the way. That's the game I actually wanted to bring up. Um and I'll start with mega man 2 because Megaman One is unfriendly. It has a lot of jank. I love megaman 1. I think it's a great game. But I can understand why going back to it. It's it's pretty rough a megaman 2 is generally considered to be the starting point for Megaman and the reason why I wanted to bring it up is because I think it does a lot of things right? I think big man 2 has the password system correct. Okay, so that's the first megaman that had a password system megaman 1 did not. 59:59.32 Dave Yeah, it does. 59:59.43 Dre Yes. 01:00:06.35 Chris Generally I don't care for passwords. I like the save system but Megaman 2 is a short enough game and the password system is simple enough and it uses images as opposed to like a 32 character long password system. Ah that I think it's approachable now. The other thing is the other thing that. Compounds on this is the fact that this is a game again, costing $40 and 1988 cash which whatever it is today a lot more than $40 this is a game that is going to have to last you a little bit now this is a discussion we actually had about shovel knight in our server over there. Discord is. Something that you find with 2 d platformers is that the stage is just as much as the enemy as the final boss is for that stage and that's something you don't see in really ah, any other genre if it's a good two d platformer. So for Megaman what you can do is you can go into these stages. And you can fight the bosses and yeah, you might die a bunch of times but the thing is is that there's 8 of them and you get to learn each one of these stages and each time you're going to get to the boss and each time you're going to be like man I couldn't beat that until you find 1 that you can beat and you're like oh wow I got a new ability. So if you're playing through megaman 2 1 of the very first ones you can do is Flashman because Flashman is really easy, especially here in the United States and you go to flashman stage beat flashman all of a sudden you can freeze time and now all of a sudden you're like well what can I do with this, you go to quickman stage because that's been kicking your ass and you don't know how to get through it because those beams are just harassing you. You don't know what to do and finally you're like oh wow I can finally make it through this. 01:01:42.72 Chris And there's these building blocks of reward systems that you start figuring out with the stages and how to make it past the game doesn't tell you that all these enemies have weaknesses but they do give you a weapon and these weapons can be used on other enemies so you can figure out and infer that these weapons can be used on other bosses. At the same time while you're figuring this all out. You can save your progress through the password system so you can always come back later no matter how frustrated you get and then you can go to school and be like hey I beat Flashman now what do I do and someone could be like well did you use the metal blade and they're like whoa the metal blade I'm supposed to beat I'm supposed to beat metal man. but but I bet 01:02:20.94 Chris Point by point because the stages are similar in difficulty between Flashman and Metalman you can make it to Metalman and start focusing on taking him down and then building your weapon set. So when you're looking at how all these things come together for this game at that time and if you really want to review this game as it was. In that time period. That's the way you have to approach and engross yourself in it and if you're gonna compare it contemporaneously then it's okay, go grab a guide and see what everyone was weak to go use your safe states. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not taking that away. I'm not saying you can't enjoy that game. But if you're saying I want to go to this game blind blind and not use a guide. 01:02:46.40 Dre Ah. 01:03:00.25 Chris You have to take into consideration the way these games were meant to be played and experienced within the year that they're meant to be played or else. You're really giving that game a disservice. 01:03:09.18 Dre I think I 100% agree with that. I think that's the way I approach everything whether I'm playing something on the Nintendo switch online or you know arcade archives or whatever I have to do that and it's not like I'm. Oh I'm a purist I'm not going to use safe states I'm going to really beat the game for real because I'm a real gamer or whatever. It's just that if I I feel like if I don't play it the way I intended it to be presented to me. Then like you said I'm doing the game this service I feel like I'm not really playing the game I saw 1 thing that really pissed me off. There was a review of some Shmup and the reviewer was like well. These bosses were too easy because I like you know you can just hit the safe state or I just rewound a bunch and then I beat it row you're playing the game so in it such like I just don't understand why people cannot just like you know that goes back to what we were saying about just you know. 01:04:19.21 Dre Playing the game in its time if you're not willing to do that. Just don't review the game, play the game. However, you just don't tell me it's too easy because you cheat like I don't. I don't want to hear that. 01:04:27.78 Dave That yeah that's that's ah even I as the person who uses save states and stuff like that. Even I would not come up here and try and say that one of those games is too easy. Because my fucking god powers let me just power through the game. You know, um mega man too's a good example of a game that like I played I did it for the tails from the way backlog bonus series was my first time playing it and on those I am kind of like reviewing them and I'm not really putting myself. 01:05:02.15 Dave In that time because I disagree that you absolutely have to 100% like soak in that historical context I think I can review mega man 2 from a contemporary lens as a video game with the knowledge of course that. You know they put in a password system because you couldn't just save wherever you wanted. They had to have like set things that you could save like states that you could save in right like I'm not going to complain about that because some of some of these things they had no choice some of the other examples we have on our notes doc here like. They didn't really have a choice that was the way they had to do it if they're going to make this game so mega man 2 has some stuff that I consider to be pretty fucking cheap and when reviewing a game if I see something that I think is like that is just a cheap roadblock then I don't appreciate that and I don't consider that to be. Good regardless of historical context I'm talking about the boss in mega man 2 where you have to have the bombs and you have to have all of the bombs if you have you're missing 2 of them. You cannot beat the boss. So fuck you ah you can't grind outside the boss door because fuck you. 01:06:05.82 Chris Oh yeah, fuck that boss. 01:06:18.13 Dave Stuff like that I'll look at that and be like historical context be damned. That's cheap. That's bad stuff like that. But my overall takeaway on Megaman too was that I thought that game was pretty good. I didn't like it that much but I didn't come out of it saying It's a bad game. 01:06:18.29 Dre Ah. 01:06:36.62 Dave Except for that one boss that I think is bad and 1 ah one of the final boss stages is pretty shitty in that way too. But anyway not to make this a mega man to podcast as we said? yeah yeah I would like to make this a podcast about. 01:06:46.51 Dre We already made it a Mario three podcast I mean we may as well. Just. 01:06:52.10 Chris Ah. 01:06:54.84 Dave An example that Rick brought because we've talked about a bunch of games that Rick has not played. So um I would love to get your perspective Rick on this topic through an example that you thought about when you come in here. Ah game. You've played some ps1 platformers for pixel project radio recently they're surely have some outdated or otherwise you know, not great mechanics as you talked about on the show. Um, what's your approach when you're doing those? 01:07:45.74 Rick We're talking about. Um no I don't know when I'm playing those older games like on PS one or Sega saturn or whatever. Um I mean I can see where you're coming from Dave I think you can. 01:08:04.75 Rick Review things through a contemporary lens. I just think you need to be really mindful of the balance. It is all I'm saying. I'm holding things to 2023 2024 standards that were made in the late 90's or early two thousands just fundamentally doesn't work. It's like the reviewer that dray brought up. You know this is too easy because I'm abusing it. 01:08:24.24 Rick Ah, contemporary quality of life editions which by the way quality of life editions I often find are just ways to take the challenges away from certain games. But that's another topic entirely, especially especially with Jrpgs Um I'm I'm really of the mind of trying to. 01:08:35.90 Dre Yep I agree. 01:08:43.29 Rick Um, play it as organically as possible with original hardware if possible. That's certainly not possible for a lot of games or for a lot of people but um, doing it that way doing it without save states um, trying to think of examples that were prevalent of the time that are similar to. What's going on to put it into some sort of context. 01:09:12.50 Rick I Just think that's really important um apologies for getting distracted. My cat is being a little fucking demon. Um, yeah so I really do try to. 01:09:26.68 Rick Stick to as close to the original experience as possible. Um I Really don't like you know emulating things on my big computer screen playing with a keyboard that feels terrible. Absolutely awful. I don't like it. I don't like using the rewind feature either. 01:09:36.68 Dre Yeah. 01:09:43.98 Rick You know, going back to that review that you brought up dre I really don't I use save states of course um, especially for games you know, like resident need of one like super Mario Brothers 3 that you can't just save you know some sometimes I've got to answer the door. You know if the mailman's here I can't control for that. 01:10:03.50 Rick But outside of that I really do try to stick to his um I don't want to say pure because that sounds ridiculous and pretentious. But as true to the original experiences intended. Um you know because I think in some ways we owe it that we owe the games that. 01:10:21.16 Rick That much respect at least. 01:10:23.25 Chris Agree as well. 01:10:39.32 Dre Rick brought up the way we modernized jrpgs and stuff nowadays which drive him crazy and I agree with him. There's sometimes oh modernizations that so completely miss the point that that drives me absolutely insane. So and. These didn't drive me insane. But we recently had a new two D Mario and a new two d sonic right? Sonic had unlimited lives. Okay, weird. Ah Mario wonder had lives but it also had no time limits which I also found weird. So I'm like what are we like? What are we doing here? You know what's our like, what the hell is our philosophy to these nowadays you know and there's one that drove me absolutely insane and that was super monkey ball banana mania which came out a few years ago. 01:11:29.14 Dre And this is like it's not a new Monkey ball game per se it just has like all the old levels from all the old games basically which is good enough for me but they really fucked it up in 2 major ways one of them and and and this is a lesser way that the controls. Are bad I don't know if you guys have ever played Monkey ball before but it has like they just took the Arcade Monkey ball like the banana stick where you just kind of tilt the board or at least that's the illusion of it and the but in the monkey rolls on the ball and then like the the camera is right behind the ball so you always can line up everything you know and they just converted that. The control stick exactly on the game cube when it came home as a super Monkey ball right? So It was perfect and you know it? Um, oh I got it. 01:12:19.23 Dre Super monkey ball banana blitz however, doesn't do that anymore. The camera is more dynamic which is to say shitty because you can't line up. You know how that game is: you need to line up some very narrow pathways. Sometimes if the camera's doing whatever it fucking wants to. Good luck to you. You're just going to fall off, there's plenty of old levels where I'm like I never used to fall off this thing. Why is this happening and I figured out. That's the reason and number 2 and the more egregious thing about Banana Mania the game has unlimited lives this is awful. Because those old games, those monkey ball games, were designed around having lives. That's what bananas are for. You get a hundred bananas. You get an extra life if you have unlimited lives. What the hell is the point? Yeah I mean look I get if you were making a new monkey ball game designed around this philosophy of not having lives anymore. But you can't just take the old old ones and take away the lives and then have it work because it doesn't work anymore. The risk reward is completely gone because you'd like different pasts or different situations is okay. 01:13:09.31 Chris Trophies. 01:13:28.60 Dre Should I go for these bunch of bananas over here I could get extra life. But if I fall off that's risky because I only have 2 lives left and you know like whatever like you're weighing those options all that shit's completely gone. It almost trivializes some of the level designs because it's like why would I go for those bananas. They don't even do anything for me anymore. There was a bonus. Levels guys. There were bonus levels where you got a whole bunch of bananas and got like 2 or 3 lies before you go to the now and they still have those reasons why it just it. It was such a baffling decision to at least make it a toggle right? At least like if you want to have unlimited lives here. You go, you can't turn it off. 01:13:49.90 Dave With the. 01:14:07.80 Dre It's just it's just the game now that made me so incensed I can't even tell you and it sounded like I'm being oh, you're against you know accessibility I don't I don't consider lives or difficulty accessibility. That's an entirely another conversation but I was just like no I'm not against it just don't ruin. 01:14:09.85 Dave Um. 01:14:25.64 Dre I don't know man it just made me insane Dave I I couldn't go this whole podcast without talking about it. That's an attempt at modernization that made me absolutely crazy. 01:14:34.33 Rick For what it's worth I Do agree with you about the lives and and the time limit being inherent to the challenge and the enjoyment of the game like I do think that it gives you that risk and reward the incentive to do I play Risky or do I play it safe I Think that's really important. 01:14:53.61 Rick Um, and like you said I A Toggle is the perfect solution. It's the perfect accessibility option. Let people play games the way they want to give us an easy mode. Let us turn on unlimited lives. Let us turn on or turn up the clock if we need more time. I think that's the perfect solution personally. 01:14:57.58 Dave No. 01:15:13.13 Rick You know I mean some of getting back to the quality of life things which is which is where I think that was coming from dry I I do think some of the the modernized modernizations of games with the quality of life things do take away some of the inherent challenges are the one that I always go back to is Jrpgs. Taking away things like the need to grind or being able to well no I won't touch on that one but like the need to grind. Everybody's always like oh there's great quality of life. Update you don't need to grind. Do you just not like JRPGs? I mean there's nothing inherently bad about grinding in the jrpg genre. 01:15:45.54 Dre Um, yeah. 01:15:47.23 Chris Ah. 01:15:50.76 Rick Is a stat based Genre. It is not who can clear the level the fastest It's not who can play the controls the best it is. How do you outstat your opponent whether it's a boss mini boss Random encounter. Whatever grinding is the easiest way to increase your stats to outstat the opponent but it's also the most tedious way. There's also strategies equipment um various level leveling up of your stats through abilities and things like that grinding is one of the easiest ways to do that And yes it is necessary in some in some regards, but it is also the slowest. It's the safest option right? so. It baffles me when people say oh yeah, you don't need to grind. This is such a good jrpg jrpg should get rid of grinding like no, no, you just that's just taking the challenge away from the game I don't I I Fundamentally don't get it random encounters. Yes I can see that I don't mind that random encounters have started to go the way of the dodo. 01:16:34.82 Chris No. 01:16:37.37 Dre Yep. 01:16:49.71 Rick That's fine. It let me choose if I want to grind or not, you know that's ok, um, but yeah I I a lot of these quality of life updates dray and and I don't know how Chris and day feel about this but a lot of the times I do feel like they're just. 01:17:08.46 Rick You know, ah making Gamers Soft is what I want to say I'm that's that's total joke total joke. 01:17:15.70 Chris I think those quality of life improvements for a lot of the Jrpgs You know you don't have to grind or you're invincible or all that kind of stuff that's I think those are more for people who just want to play the story again. They're not. Really wanting to play an RPG they're wanting to experience a story and whether or not we want to admit this I think a lot of us would just play these games for these stories and that's how they sell themselves especially a lot of the final fantasy games. Especially like when you hear people talk about final fantasy Nine I don't. Really hear a lot of people you know sing the praises of the gameplay. Oh This story really touched me. So if I'm asking someone to go back and play some final fantasy 9 and they've played it before and maybe they're like I just didn't get the story and I'm like well play the Story. What's the best way they can do that? So in that sense I can understand the quality of life improvements being attractive to someone who just wants to get through it and just experience all those things. It's not how I would play it. I don't. I don't like it because I like Jrpgs. I like the grind. I like to see numbers go higher. That's what draws me to that genre. But I don't think that's the same for everyone who plays rpgs nowadays I see let's say. 01:18:32.28 Rick So I'm glad that you I'm. I'm glad that you brought that example up because I'm playing through final fantasy 9 right? Now that's a game that I've played countless times I've got close to 200 hours on steam alone. That's not counting switch ps 1 ps 2 whatever um, and when I'm grinding when I'm doing anything that is not a boss battle. Ah I throw on the nine nine nine damage you know because I've done this before I've had this experience so many times I know I can tell you how it works in my sleep. So I'm just in it right now for the story and for the pivotal boss battles like that. When okay, we're playing this by the books. 01:19:07.47 Rick You know we're not going to fast forward through stories. We're not going to fast forward through towns. But I think the key there is to be able to turn it on and turn it off. Um, when maybe quality of life was the wrong way to go about saying this because that kind of implies the rerelease of a game with updated features. Um, in that instance, yes. I'm glad that you can just turn them on and turn them off when you need them. Do I think that you're robbing yourself of an experience if you play final fantasy nine for the first time with all those on. Yes I do but that's your prerogative right of something that I think about is persona 5 ah, the dungeon crawling in that they at a certain point you can effectively. Totally take away the need to grind because you can run into enemies with the cat bus and it just automatically wins and you get experience and points and everybody when I was playing that I I think I was in the discords at that time. Yeah I was everybody was like oh that's such a great feature. That's so amazing. Fantastic and it's like. 01:20:03.78 Rick I Don't know. It makes it feel like it's taking the experience away from me now to counterpoint myself at games long enough already as if it's God damn long enough as it is. 01:20:08.49 Chris And very, ah. 01:20:12.70 Dre If they have. 01:20:13.57 Dave Ah, that was gonna be the counterpoint for persona five was by the time you get the ability to run over things with the cat bus I had done 80 hours of the grind. So. 01:20:14.32 Chris Ah. 01:20:22.53 Chris Yeah, ah and not to make this ah exclusively jrpg podcast. We made this exclusively 3 different podcasts already. But um, they did this with earthbound too. But I understand it because if an enemy's super weak and you can grow an enemy and. 01:20:41.90 Chris You're going to be in a system that takes some time and you just automatically win it and get the experience but the experience is usually insignificant just kind of like oh you ran into an enemy and it's over and you just win congratulations. It's not really going to have an impact on. Your leveling is usually you can only do this to weaker enemies and stuff like that. Ah what I'm looking for more , look what I look forward to with grinding or not look forward to. That's the wrong way of saying what I mean when I say grinding is good. First of all I think grinding just provides a zen experience if you're playing a jrpg that's just something that brings some zen to me. That's not going to be for everybody that that's me it just it comforts me brings me to that point that I could just walk around and just grind the other thing is I think we again this kind of goes back to how rpgs were in the olden days back in the 80 s for the and nes and all that stuff like that grinding. Isn't something that I don't think was meant to be intentional I think the reason that a lot of people view grinding as intentional as is because they know where to go and back in like the n e s s and es days. 01:21:52.96 Rick Um, yeah. 01:21:57.53 Chris If You didn't know where to go. You're walking all over you're trying to go to every town talking to every Npc if you're lost, you're wandering all over that Map. You're just going to inherently gain Levels. You're going to inherently gain that experience So you're when people say I I don't. I Like the fact I don't have to grind anymore what they're really saying is that rpgs now are more streamlined and they are. They're much more guiding you down a path. They're many and I won't say there's a difference in Linearity because I think the linear experience is still there. There is just how it is presented and how it is Explained. You really have to be able to interpret things a lot differently in an nes or snes rpg as opposed to like ah a PS2 Rpg I think final fantasy 10 to this or at least I'm pretty sure tend to this where they have a red arrow telling you exactly where you need to go next when you do that You don't necessarily need to grind. 01:22:55.86 Chris And that's when grinding becomes deliberate and you're leveling up intentionally as opposed to just finding every location on the map exploring the world figuring it out getting your ass pounded because you went outside the barrier a little too far and you ran into that gold golem. That's you were not meant to fight yet. But you knew. Ah. 01:23:15.24 Chris That's where I'm not supposed to go but that's that's how you did it. So the the experience was different ah you and you just wander all over the place looking for something Hidden I Know that's not going to appeal to everybody but that's just how games were the the exploration element was there and that all goes also goes back to hey I'm at school I've been looking all over for something for days. 01:23:35.10 Chris I'm really strong but I can't find this item so I and be like yeah, did you talk to So- and so ah, missed it and then you go and you progress with the story but that's definitely something I don't think we're ever going to get back and it's definitely something I didn't experience just because by the time I was into rpgs guides were there and. They were readily accessible and I kind of wished I had that experience. 01:23:55.97 Dre Yeah I didn't get into rpgs until like I was a teenager So I think the first one I seriously played was like chrono trigger or something and by like 1995 like you said there's guides and like it's a different world then I didn't really play rpgs in the age because I was such an arcade person I was not interested in that type of shit at all. So you know? Yeah, it's definitely different. I Do want to say something real quick about random battles because I've never in my life understood why anyone would ever complain about them because at some point you need to fight things. 01:24:27.78 Chris I'm proud of them. 01:24:33.10 Dre You need to fight them so you can kill the boss or do whatever else you need to do if you need to kill Stuff. What does it matter when they tell you to kill stuff or I walk up to this little thing representing an enemy and then I go to a battle screen? I Just don't see what the difference is in my opinion. Like if you can, if anyone can tell me a game where it really matters that this game doesn't have random battles or does have them feel free to let me know. I just never understood why anybody complained about a system like that where you have to fight stuff at some point So I don't know. 01:25:08.11 Dave There's a couple parts to it like you may be talking about technology that needs to have random battles to introduce encounters to you because you can't have stuff running around on the overworld or you can't have a lot of stuff running around. 01:25:23.88 Dave Fucking Pokemon still trying to make their games work when doing that so there is like ah like earthbound has enemies that you can see and run away from and avoid those encounters and sometimes you need to because those encounters can be really really difficult even in places where you're supposed to be in that game. 01:25:24.42 Dre Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:25:43.67 Dave So the fact that they're not random encounters there and that you can see them and run away from them I think is like part of the strategy of playing earthbound. I personally don't mind random encounters. That's like a very easy thing for me to play a game from like the early 90's and be like. Of course, there's random encounters. They can't have 30 fucking sprites running around on the the screen and then you get to pick who you get who you want to fight like they can't do that so I don't know I that's one of those like like dre you were talking about with mario three. I was basically raised by games with random encounters. That's part of my upbringing as someone who enjoys video games. They are as a part of rpgs as anything to me so they don't really bother me. Ah. 01:26:20.57 Dre Yeah. 01:26:35.90 Dave If I'm playing final fantasy nine and I can hit that no random encounters button because I just want to get to the next town then I'll do that sometimes but like I don't mind that they're there and that's an example of an older you know style. Not a lot of games do random encounters these days. Modern modern jrpg like throwback games even like chained echoes and sea of stars. No random encounters The Yakuza Rpgs turn-based rpgs. No random encounters like that. Guess no Persona doesn't have them. You can see the enemies in Persona five and stuff like so like they're kind of one of these examples of you know things that are kind of. We'll say old fashioned because newer games aren't really doing them but this is something that octopath has them. 01:27:24.13 Dre Octopath has them? yeah. 01:27:26.96 Dave Octopath is still there for the ah for the sickos. Yeah, so like this is one of those where it's a lot easier for me and I knew we were going to get to this as a kind of takeaway in a lot of cases that it is case by case and person by person like what bothers you? What doesn't? What can you abide by and what? 01:27:46.51 Dave Do you think sucks like maybe I come down harsher on a lot of things than the 3 of you. Ah, but there's a reason I invited you all on here instead of other people. So um I needed someone. I needed people to balance me out but random encounters are one of those things where I'm like it just doesn't bother me. 01:28:04.31 Dave Get why they're there I don't really care. A game is not bad because it has random encounters a game is not bad because it has grinding I laughed earlier Chris when you were talking about like. The history of video game marketing and stuff and they're like you can't make rpgs because no one likes rpgs and I was like the 4 of us fucking love rpgs. Yeah I know I know but I laugh because I was like everyone in the room here's a giant JRpg sicko right now. Ah. 01:28:20.24 Chris Um, yeah I was talking about the US in the 90's yeah yeah, yeah. 01:28:24.90 Dre Yeah, yeah, that those didn't exist when I was a kid I just I mean there was just like Dragon Quest was for excuse me dragon warrior was for fucking nerds. You know what? I mean we didn't, we didn't play that shit. Yeah. 01:28:33.64 Dave Yeah, that's. 01:28:37.78 Chris Yeah, it was too slow and menus and blair. 01:28:39.63 Dave Um, yeah, um, grinding is a thing. It is an interesting one to think about because I don't I Still don't really think of grinding as like an old or outdated mechanic at all. 01:28:44.84 Dre Yeah, yeah. 01:28:58.34 Dave Pokemon has introduced a lot of stuff to eliminate some of the grinding that you need to do but you still need to grind in every pokemon game even the new ones. Um the yakuza turn-based games have I would say forced sections where you need to just go chill and go fight in the arena for a while. Stuff like that persona five I did plenty of grinding in that game and it helped out eventually that I could use the cat bus and then so like that's not an old quote old thing people are still doing that there are games where it works. Um. I think that there are a lot of really well- tuned rpgs that give you a really tailored challenging experience throughout without any need to go seek out extra stuff. Um, chained echoes, sea of stars. Both were like that. The other one I was thinking of oh like the ah the Larry and rpgs like you could go grind up in the old baldur's gate games not jrpgs but you could go grind up in baldur's gate 3 you don't need to and you can't you actually can't once you kill something. It's dead forever. Ah, so there are a lot of games that tailor that challenge a lot more than I think. I definitely agree with Chris that a lot of those older games you were meant to be wandering around for a while and kind of inadvertently grind. 01:30:30.99 Dave Some of the newer games still feel like you're on a linear path but there are stops along the way where you're supposed to go chill and and level up for a while you know and then there's another school of thought where they're Like. We're going to Tap. We're going to tailor the challenge every level of the way we know exactly how powerful you're going to be so we're going to make this challenge see if stars that chained echoes do that. 01:30:56.36 Chris I think 1 criticism that I will levy because I have mentioned this already and we can mean it's more in rpgs. But it's not specific to that genre so I can just say games in general from that 32 64 bit era are games that. Almost require guides to get some of the better items or to experience the entirety of the game because that was a marketing strategy back then is that you'd sell the game and then a supplementary um supplementary source of income would be selling the guide as well and you. 01:31:35.71 Chris The internet wasn't big. Not everyone had the internet and these guys were often heavily marketed also in magazines and this is do you need the prima guide. You need the Brady guide in order to have the best strats and just having information that would be somewhat. Deliberately withheld from the player unless you were informed by these guides was total bullshit and these are things that I I think are fair criticisms to be levied against these games during that era just off the top. My head I'm going to use an rpg but. Like getting nights the round in final fantasy 7 and figuring out how to breed a gold chocobo I I don't know who would be able to figure that out just naturally I'm sure someone is going to listen and be like well I did like well fuck you I don't know anyone else who who really honestly could and then figuring out that. 01:32:27.84 Chris Like with the second to last boss and final fantasy 7 if you use nights to the round on that. The final boss will get an additional 75000 hit points or something and these are things you would not know at the playground. This is not some. This is not a pro strat hey by the way, don't use that well how are you going to know that unless your friend. 01:32:34.77 Dre Yeah. 01:32:47.90 Chris Bought a guide and I understand a lot of these things came from Nintendo power back in the playground era but also a lot of them came from personal experiences just how you beat it. Oh I did this and then trial and error. But yeah, there was also Nintendo power strat but I think it's because these developers saw. Or these publishers saw what Nintendo power is doing now people are utilizing it. It. They're like yeah we can get in on this too and fortunately the game facts of the world eroded that because then people just started getting it for free and so developers were like you know what I hate to say developers because I don't think they want you? Ah what. I don't think they did it but a lot of these ah publishers were like you know what instead of hiding it behind some obscure wall. We're just going to make you pay for it so maybe it was you're still paying for it in a way. But ah maybe the guys at least came with something tangible. 01:33:29.82 Dre Yeah, ah. 01:33:37.59 Dre Yeah I um, by the time final fantasy seven was out. Faqs was big enough where there was tons of stuff to find on the internet at that time but like you said, not everyone had the internet like we did. But you know it wasn't totally a thing. So yeah I found out how to get knights of the round from the internet um square's own website spoiled final fantasy 7 for me. I looked in their faq for help at this one part and they just spoiled the big spoiler in the game. They just set it there. But the hell are you guys doing this before the game came out too. I was just looking at it because you know I was like okay, what am I going to expect from the first you know so you know 12 hours of the game or whatever and it's like well now I know that that's great. Yeah here you go. 01:34:21.56 Dave That's 1 thing you can expect? yeah. 01:34:22.13 Chris Um, they were and they were still doing. They were still doing shit like that up until Final Fantasy 12. I'm sure there's an example in 13 but you can't get the best weapon in the game if you open up a treasure chest in like the second village you get to. 01:34:25.79 Dre But ah yeah I agree with what you said. 01:34:37.30 Dave Um, yeah, chrono trigger burned me with a lot of shit like that too where the chrono trigger has a lot of those where it's like don't open this chest. The first time you find it wait till you visit it in the future then open the chest then go back in time then open it. 01:34:39.87 Dre That's ridiculous. Um. 01:34:40.91 Chris Like who does that. 01:34:54.71 Dre Yeah. 01:34:56.94 Dave And it's like I see it look like a smooth brain. I see a treasure chest I'm open in that shit and so like with withholding that I think is an example of a trend that I think it's pretty easy. Yeah, you can look at the reason why they did it doesn't make me appreciate it 1 bit more regardless. 01:34:59.93 Dre Oh yeah, I'm opening it. 01:35:13.25 Chris Oh it's fair criticism. Absolutely fair criticism to be to be levied against it because if you are going in blind and you are putting yourself in that playground mentality that I mentioned you're still going to get fucked. 01:35:16.59 Dave Yeah. 01:35:31.10 Dave Ah, does anyone have any other examples? We want to bring up. We want to move into community thoughts. We can just kind of respond to these. 01:35:37.37 Dre Just just real quick and I don't have a whole lot to say about it. But I do want to bring up camera angles and camera systems real quick because in the 90 s when we were starting to explore that stuff and I think most people know. 01:35:45.83 Dave Oh yeah, sure. 01:35:53.81 Dre I love the tank controls era of risen and evil once we got to 4 I'm like I'm out. Don't want to play this anymore. I didn't like it. Yeah, but you know behind the back. There's a lot of other problems with that game that I won't go into but. 01:36:00.74 Chris I Still like tank control though. Ah. 01:36:07.92 Dre That in my opinion. But I love the original 6. I call him the original 6 resident evil the tank controls and a lot of people said oh you know this is bad. You know the detractors of that and but it wasn't just that it was the cameras you know and obviously it's a prewindered game. You have to strike these angles. In the ps 1 final fantasies. The pre-rendered game. Also, you have to strike these angles but then with the free movement stuff I just wish people would like I'm trying to think of times where the camera has actually killed me in a game and I think I can camp those times on one hand. I never really understand when people say oh man, the camera got me killed in mario 64 like I don't think I've ever played it like does it just lurch in some direction all of a sudden and and you're like dead I understand like sometimes it can get stuck in a wall like um. 01:37:01.53 Dre My friend then he recently a couple years ago played devil may cry for the first time and he hated this camera system because it was kind of free sometimes then it's kind of resonant evil and like I'm totally used to that shit and you know he's about as old as me so he should be too but he he hates that shit you know and then when we did like um. Ah, Kingdom Hearts has a notoriously bad camera. We played kingdom hearts 3 for the first time completely blind. We had never played kingdom hearts before it was an incredible podcast. Um, and he was bitching about the camera and I'm like that's like. 01:37:35.52 Dre Number 37 on the list of things I think are wrong with this game. You know so like so I wanted to. I don't know Rick or whoever likes how you? How do you deal with that like I've just never been one of those people to complain about a camera but like some people are you just got dumb. You just did the guest thing did that that that camera fuck you at all or like. 01:37:55.14 Rick Um, that the camera in gex sixty four was the number 1 reason I had a bad time with that game actually um and and I think that is specific to the 64 version I know on the playstation version I think l one and r one is camera that works I mean that's intuitive with um. 01:37:55.75 Dre Ah. 01:37:59.21 Dre Okay. 01:38:14.12 Rick With the 64 It's the C buttons and even still it's this weird kind of dynamic but it's trying to anticipate where you want it to go and I never died outright but I definitely failed a lot of platforming because of it. Um, the shoulder buttons on the N 64 Um I don't remember what the left one does but the right one is for eating Flies. You know, so I can't use that for a camera. Um, yeah, no I I I don't know that I have strong feelings about cameras but it's definitely annoying whenever. 01:38:50.36 Rick Cameras causing a problem right? I don't want the camera to be a point of friction like it is in kingdom hearts one. Oh it definitely is um I haven't played 3 yet but in 1 Year, absolutely, it's it's you've got twin sticks and the camera is the shoulder buttons in an action game. What. 01:38:50.71 Dave Yeah. 01:38:56.80 Dre Oh yeah. 01:39:07.33 Dave Um, yeah, this ah this is a good example. We had it in the notes I wanted to bring up mario 64 as an example, this is one of those like where if you play mario 64 now for the first time. 01:39:24.34 Dave Or if it's been a long time since you played it. You might think that the camera is rough. It's a really common criticism out there for the game. Um I personally can't identify with that because Mario 64 is a big part of my childhood. I know how to use the camera. It's not a big deal for me. Ah, but this was a time when they're figuring out three d cameras in like a fully 3 d game 3 d platformer move the camera around. However, you won they had to make a character so people would fucking understand what was happening so that's one of those things where like. 01:39:55.47 Dre Yes. 01:40:02.17 Dave Not sure how I would feel if I played it for the first time because I can't have that experience but it's definitely a point of criticism for a lot of people with mario 64 or sounds like with guests and kingdom hearts. Um, and then with tank controls that is something where. I can think in my head like a resident evil one they're trying to figure out how to make a character move in 3 d space and this is what they came up with and I can understand that I still hate it. It still really affects my experience playing that game. Ah. Same with tomb raider when I played that for the first time although tomb raiders is an easier game than the first resident evil game so it didn't bother me as much because the game's just a little bit easier. Um, that's one where I can like. 01:40:45.59 Dre I would say so yeah. 01:40:47.80 Chris That. 01:40:56.69 Dave Take a step back and be like oh I understand what tank controls do and like they you know it adds to the challenge of navigating the mansion in Resident Evil one to have tank controls but you know when I played the remake for the game Cube I turned the tank controls off the second I saw the option to. In the menus and I don't think it affected my ah experience adversely of playing the resident Evil remake. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah in the yeah. 01:41:18.62 Dre I Legitimately didn't even know you could do that. I don't think I've ever tried to do that. Wow. Okay, yeah, Wow, I did not know. 01:41:24.90 Chris I think you can turn them off in the n six 4 version of resident evil two as well. 01:41:33.78 Dave So yeah, tank controls are another example of something where like if I like critiquing a game or something like I can recognize why tank controls are a thing and why they persisted throughout the series for several games even when they moved to 3 d like. With RE4 four tank controls didn't bother me in re4 because you're always pointing forward. You have that quick turn and stuff like that didn't bother me in that game. Um, but that like this is to bring it back to like the greater topic the mario 64 camera or the tank controls or something where like. Especially the tank controls I can look at why they're there and understand the context at the time people are figuring out how to make 3 d games doesn't really make me enjoy it anymore. I'm not going to say that resident evil one is a bad game because it has tank controls. But for me and my experience playing it. It certainly didn't help. 01:42:35.86 Dre Go ahead, Go ahead. 01:42:37.28 Chris I think what Dave said is kind of my feeling on a lot of the way that the cameras work from that era I think that if you're a fan of games from that era and you're trying to get someone else to play a game from that time period and. They're complaining about the camera. I think that's a completely valid complaint that is going to be able to stop someone from getting into a game because cameras have changed so much and I think cameras struggle to really cameras still struggle to get a right in a lot of instances. But. Cameras really failed to get much right until almost midway through the ps 2 era I remember playing god of war on ps 2 in the camera at times was terrible and I think that's fixed a fixed camera It's not a freak and there there are times I'm like I hate this camera same with god of war ii and so even that late they are still having issues with. 01:43:16.87 Dre Yeah. 01:43:33.53 Chris With the camera and that's just something that 3 d games had to grow into and maybe they're still growing into in a lot of instances. But I think that's an example of where games are learning and just getting into a new environment. This is kind of comparing a game like e t. On the Atari which was rather ambitious I know a lot of people like to shit on it and say it was terrible. But that's just because a lot of people didn't know how to play it. You go back? Is it a great game? No, it's not. It's not as bad as everyone says it is. I'm not here to tell you e t is like a hidden jam or some shit it's far from it there you go. 01:44:07.44 Dave You heard it here first. 01:44:11.86 Chris But at the same time like they were learning how to try to make a game more expensive in something more than just a simple arcade port or something like that they're trying to do something different and then you have a game like pitfall and pitfall's not super mario brothers but they were learning how to scale from 1 screen to another and super mario brothers did that just. Much better. So what you have to I think a lot of people have to understand if you're fans of this era and people are like ah the camera I just I can't stand the fucking camera I don't want to fight it and sometimes it's not even that the camera is bad but it's like I just said it's fighting the camera and trying to make sure it gets to where you want it to be. Even though the camera might be where it thinks it needs to be It's not where you want it to be. People don't want to deal with that. They do not want to deal with that at all and so if you're looking back at that as a reviewer and someone who's trying to analyze these games that does have to be something that I think you should communicate. To the consumer of what you're trying to get out. There is that this camera can be abrasive to your experience and it may be a deal breaker that is a perspective you're going to have to accept because this is just something that especially when games are getting into the 3D Era especially in those early games. Ah. Developers just didn't know how to do a hundred percent correct and that's perfectly understandable. 01:45:30.32 Dre You know what I find funny about mario 64 in particular is that if you try to move it in a certain direction. The game will just buzz you at and then it's like well why can't I do that you know a new person might think like why? Why can't I do it just like that? It's such terrible feedback that it's hilarious now. 01:45:37.35 Chris Yeah, but because it's lacking. 01:45:37.60 Dave Yeah. 01:45:50.40 Dre You know at the time I didn't think anything of it Dave but like thinking back on. It's like why are you buzzing me? I just want to move. You said I could move the camera anything. 01:46:00.42 Dave I think that perspective is good. The idea that Chris throughout that like if you're in a position to evaluate a game there. You can have nuance in your critique of it like you can say mario 64 and games of that era are figuring out how to do this in real time it doesn't make it perfect like I don't I don't have a lot of trouble with the mario 64 camera but it is kind of annoying sometimes like you can mention that and like the fact that they were. Learning in real time doesn't make it good. You know objectively, but there is room for nuance and to also say like it's not good because they're literally doing it for the first time like in industry. You know someone had to be the first. 01:46:54.62 Dave And the first one's never going to be the best 1 So there's room for both of those. The cameras are a really interesting example. I think what do you guys say we get into these community thoughts here. 01:48:15.11 Dave For the community's thoughts for this discussion I put out the call whenever we do a roundtable discussion episode in the Discord server for community members to give their two cents on the topic at hand and we got quite a few responses for this topic here. A lot of people have thoughts. So I'll get us started. Ah, with Matt Aka storm Mcddon Matt is a patron from many many many podcasts such as fun and games reignite and screen snark among other projects. Thank you Matt Matt says this is so hard to quantify for me. I think the most basic way I can say it is I always go in with an open mind regardless of when the game was made. It's rarely a consideration because I try to see games where they live and also I've been gaming since the Atari 2600. Please don't do the math. I can't put myself in the shoes of someone who never played any classic games. And lacks the context that said I played final fantasy 4 for the first time in 2023 it was the pixel remasters. There were improvements but at the core it was still that original game and I loved it. I met it where it lives and it's one of my all-time favorites now. Old games aren't inherently bad but I could see how someone might now feel that way with no point of reference and then Matt adds. That said anyone who plays Chrono Trigger nostalgia or not sees how incredible it is 9 times out of 10 so who knows um. 01:49:46.29 Dave I think Matt has a good point here that that point of reference which we've all made a point to mention that like at least making the effort to give yourself that point of reference should be step one I think now. However, far that point of reference goes for you personally in your enjoyment. It sounds like it does more for the 3 of you than it usually does for me personally. I think that I think it was Rick you who said that you at least owe this piece of art that you owe it to at least consider that reference point. 01:50:28.35 Chris All right I will read ah Doug who's a patron from Nostalgium Arcanum The podcast and doug says that that sounds so official I'm old enough that I can't play this game. The only games more retro than me are experimental things like pong. It's weird to have that perspective on an entire medium. 01:51:03.27 Dre I'm practically there with you. I'm not pong old but I mean like you know I was born in 82 so I've seen a lot of stuff right? There ain't a whole lot that's older me pac man galaxian right. 01:51:14.72 Dave I think Doug added this as a joke in the server in the ah like the submissions here but I did think that we're talking about video games here and video games are kind of a unique medium because it is um. 01:51:32.40 Dave Possible or plausible that lots of people who want to join this discussion have been around for much of the medium's history like Doug says here and so it's not like you know any of us wanting to watch a silent movie or something like that and. Really having to dig for historical perspective whereas like some people like Doug says ah none of this is you know, outdated in my opinion because it's all part of my experience which is interesting for video games. 01:51:59.27 Dre You know I was actually would you say you said silent movie that's funny I was thinking of film noir like what if you don't have the perspective of the 1940 s or 50 s or something like that or you're not even thinking about that I mean it's impossible because it's a black and white ass movie. But you know what I'm trying to say. 01:52:18.97 Dre You have to kind of know with any art you kind of have to like put yourself there a little bit. You know. 01:52:24.10 Chris Especially if the movies are are trying to make statements about society at large society changes over time and so if if part of that art is how they're making a statement on something and and how that is interpreted and how that's supposed to make the viewer feel in a movie if you're not willing to put yourself in the shoes of a. 01:52:29.46 Dave Okay. 01:52:42.37 Chris As someone who's watching it in the year it was released then yeah, you're doing a discredit to that piece of art i. 01:52:46.79 Dave Yeah, you can imagine like base take takes some of the attitude that I have towards some retro games and just apply that like imagine me watching a Charlie Chaplin movie and be like what the fuck is this this is ridiculous. Ah yeah. 01:53:00.68 Dre Um, this is bullshit. 01:53:06.65 Dave Why is the one talking I don't fucking understand now like it's all I like it that is yeah, dramatizing for effect. But yeah, um, yeah, go ahead. Rick. 01:53:08.12 Dre Tap dancing, who does that? yeah. 01:53:23.20 Rick Ah, this next submission comes from Jake who is a patron and is from the pre-order bonus podcast. Here's what they have to say: I make a big effort when playing older games for the first time to try to understand games in context. It's something I've done with classic movies and books as well. Although I feel like the quote datedness of video games is usually more pronounced because games rely on interactivity and puzzle work more than other artistic mediums. Video game logic is a very real thing that has evolved alongside everything else too about video games and I understand video game logic to mean coherent puzzle systems and player game expectations. It's kind of a meta knowledge about playing video games. They go on to say this. Long preface to say that if I can't click with an older game's logic then I'm more likely to put it down I think in some genres that logic has evolved less so when playing earthbound or star 64 star Fox 64 excuse me I've had a blast and they don't feel so dated although the save system on nso is welcome because I can manage my time better. But super metro I cannot read the exploration logic of that game to save my life metroid dread I loved though because it used more familiar and contemporary video game. 01:54:35.80 Dre Does it? Yeah I'm sorry to interrupt I Just like well one does it really do you got? can we address that real quick. The super Metroid really feel like I don't I don't I don't know. 01:54:47.58 Dave Oh Met. Ah what Metroid dread is a much more linear guided experience than Super Metroid is they're like super Metroid you kind of have to poke at corners and bomb. Floors and stuff to find your way forward. Metro dread is always just like here's the next place. 01:55:04.97 Chris Really quick metro fusion did that too and that game's over 20 01:55:09.35 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:55:10.40 Dre Yes, it did. Yeah it did? Yeah um, but yeah I think what he was saying about like video game. Logic is very interesting because that's a good point to make because. There's lots of stuff from back then that we just don't use anymore that I may know about that other people will not like so if Dave plays I don't know powerblade for any is or journey journey to cilius or something like that. 01:55:34.52 Chris Great games. 01:55:35.81 Dre I'm going to know stuff and it's like oh this game is going to do this or whatever like I kind of just have that six sense about it whereas Dave might not or Rick might not right? So like I just yeah, that is something to keep in mind and that's just one of those things almost like Matt was saying too where it's just almost impossible to separate yourself from. Because it's just something you're just going to have to acquire from being old from lack of a better term. 01:55:59.21 Dave I talked about this in my secret of monkey island episode where that game and then our resident evil which I talked about kind of not that long after that both of those games use a type of video game logic that games today don't really do. Unless they're remakes of older games like resin evil to remake like the idea of pixel hunting and combining items together and stuff like that like a lot of games don't really do that unless they're trying to invoke that specific thing from the past. 01:56:36.12 Chris To be fair about secret monkey islands and those games made by ah Lucas ours at the time I I think nobody really did because there's the reason why they died and a great success which was. 01:56:40.35 Dave Yeah. 01:56:48.83 Chris Day of the tentacle only sold 60000 copies so don't feel bad about that. 01:56:53.55 Dre I'm so I'm surprised it even did that much to be quite honest with you. 01:56:55.18 Chris It was a great success. Not just if you love him, you love him. I'm not here to criticize your taste but I'm just saying not yeah, a lot of people had problems with them. 01:57:03.83 Dre Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:57:04.25 Dave Right. 01:57:27.83 Dre Okay so Dischimera from game over hell on Youtube, great name by the way he says it's going to be a case by case basis for me. First I try to think of the context in which a game came out when analyzing it or judging the game. It's impossible to detach being used to newer standards and improvements in design and technical advancements though so it makes sense to ultimately still condemn games for not feeling so great to play today. ui problems targeting systems if ill clunky etc. The biggest sources of frustration for me is tied to how games play how their hud and ui and menus work and look and look like and how slow or fast things respond and sometimes I'll even prefer how it was done in the past. And a good example of that is a decentralized camera a lot of modern games use I actually prefer camera characters being in the center rather than being in the corners unless it's a third person shooter. Um, he says the number of things like random encounters or something I don't miss but also don't hate. Exception being when they're super high like entails of fantasia graphics and sound are very minor cons for me I can even have a phone with Atari 20600 games. So it's only tongue in cheek if I make kind of in 64 fog or muddy textures on playstation 1 or dancing wall textures, etc. 01:58:57.81 Dre Outdated aspects of games vary from game to game. If it's a game we played as a kid it can fill our hearts with nostalgia and reminisce about the good times and other times they can be absolutely dreadful. I think outdated aspects of games don't bother us as much if the whole game holds up. It is still fun to play. So I have a couple thoughts I agree with. It's kind of what we were saying about the mario 64 camera you know like yeah, it's a little annoying sometimes but whatever right? It's mario 64 like come on right? You're going to really let that stop you because I'm not but I really. I don't want to say take issue. That's a little strong but I really want to say something about what he says at first when he first tries to think of the context when a game came out when analyzing it. But then the next sentence is it makes sense to ultimately still condemn games for not feeling so great to play today. I think those 2 things are extremely Contradictory. You can't say you're going to approach the game from the context when it was made and then also say you're going to condemn it. That just doesn't make any sense. I'm not saying you have to excuse a game because it's old. You know? But if you're not willing to, it's like it's said, if you're not willing to at least understand why something is the way it is, I don't think you're actually doing the thing you're claiming you're doing in my opinion. 02:00:18.54 Rick With respect to Dischimera this is exactly what I mean when I say judging ah older games through 2023 or 2024 lenses um it's just you know it's it's not not always appropriate I wonder I wonder if we're misinterpreting what Dischimera actually meant though. 02:00:35.90 Dave Like the way that I read this was at the beginning like they said at the top like try they try and think of the context of when the game came out which is what you know this because I think Dis Chimera is coming at it with a pretty similar angle from me where it's like. 02:00:36.51 Rick Ah, is that a possibility? 02:00:55.25 Dave When you start playing you can try to understand the context. But if a game feels like shit to play. It feels like shit to play and it's okay to condemn a game for that. Ah, and I do think that we are not experiencing games in a vacuum. You know you know I picked a game from 1991 I can't disregard that I played a game from 2023 two weeks ago like that's part of my experience now. So I do understand that you can try to approach it with the context of when a game came out. But you're not playing that game in a vacuum and that's what I think Dis Chimera said when they said it's impossible to detach from newer things and newer experiences that you have like I think the ideal would be to detach yourself from that. But I agree with them that it is impossible for me to detach from that and so if I'm playing rocket knight adventures I can't detach from the fact that shovel knight was just as challenging but way way way more friendly. So like I don't experience things in a vacuum. I think that's what they're getting at. 02:02:08.79 Dre Okay, I mean I wasn't trying to be too harsh I'm just saying that you know I just feel like I don't know if you're either. You're either in it to put yourself in the frame of mind and if you're going to do that I think you do have to look past some things. 02:02:11.24 Chris Rocket Knight is incredible by the way. 02:02:25.74 Dre And if you're going to look at it in a modern context. Obviously you're not going to do that. So I just think it's I don't know for me, it's almost impossible to be both I I don't know Maybe it's just my mentality about it. 02:02:35.65 Chris Speaking for myself here and trying to put myself in the context of what discamer is saying here, the first genre that comes immediately to mind to me is first person shooters if I go back and try to play a first person shooter as it was originally released. Like back when doom came out ninety ninety two the controls are going to be almost unrecognizable to a point where I am not having fun if I go and try to play a first person shooter on a console today. Um I mean back in like the playstation one saturn and 64 era. 02:03:11.42 Chris It's going to be very difficult for me to adjust in an age where we have dualtics or wasd plus a mouse and I think it's easy to say that that control scheme just doesn't work as well as what it does today and maybe that's what. He means by condemning it because I can look at those games and be like wow that is rough. I do not want to play a game this way and I think you can do that because you can make mods that can optimize it the way you want to play it today. But if you're critiquing it as an original point of art you can. Put yourself in that era and why they made that control scheme the way they did. But today it it just doesn't it does doesn't fucking work so when I come from it from that perspective I think it's fine to condemn those when control schemes change. So radically I think condemn is a very hard word. Very harsh words. And I think that's a little too harsh. But I think it's perfect. Okay to criticize something that just does not work from modern perspectives and use it as a way to like dock points so to speak when analyzing a game. 02:04:20.69 Dave Yeah, another one that comes to mind is what I've heard about like modernizing the controls for gold and I and actually making it a good game making it a fun game. 02:04:31.40 Dre I think yeah I remember I think Rick was talking about this recently like just play it on pc and save yourself the heartache. 02:04:38.71 Chris Yeah. 02:04:40.67 Rick Um, yeah, it's an objectively better experience on pc. 02:04:42.21 Dre Yeah. 02:04:45.64 Dave Yeah, so I get where disk chimera is coming from for sure. Um, next ah is thrak friend of the show from the 3 d experience podcast thrak says outdated aspects of games. Ah, vary from game to game if it's a game we played as a kid it can fill our hearts with nostalgia and help us reminisce about the good times and other times they can be absolutely dreadful I think outdated aspects of games don't bother us as much if the whole game holds up and is still fun to play. Yeah um I think. In this episode. We have focused on specific parts of games rather than whole games whereas like I don't think that mario three is a bad game I don't like it because of the things we talked about and I think that parts I think that those specific things we talked about. Ah. In my opinion are bad but it doesn't make the whole thing. Bad There's a lot of other things that are good about it same with mario 64 like I don't think someone would like unless you just cannot handle the camera which again I cannot relate to at all. I don't think anyone's going to be like Mario 64 is trash like that would be ridiculous I think to say so if the entire if like the greater package holds up then um I think like thrak said some of those outdated aspects wouldn't bother you as much. 02:05:59.61 Chris I see it. 02:06:13.14 Chris All right next is oh go ahead dry. You let say some all right next is John from the video game lounge podcast say I can say that 1 right. 02:06:15.28 Dre No, no, no I wasn't going to say anything go ahead. 02:06:25.68 Chris Ah, not so much design philosophy but rather included content. I'm glad that we are past the three sixty fps 3 days of every game having a piss poor multiplayer component tacked on to them. Interesting. 02:06:38.78 Rick You know what? The first game that I thought of whenever I read this was spec ops the line with that tacked on multiplayer mode that completely betrays the entire point of the game and I think the developers were even like actively trying to say no to it and the ah. 02:06:40.41 Dave Yeah, exactly yeah. 02:06:41.56 Chris Mass effect 3 yeah. 02:06:51.73 Dave Yeah, and and yeah, and then it got dinged in reviews because it had a mediocre multiplayer when that's like so far from the point I think this is a trend that we can look to and be like that was the style at the time. 02:06:53.60 Rick The the ah the company was like Nope we have to do this to make it so and they're like well fuck us I Guess yup. 02:06:54.41 Dre Yeah, yeah. 02:07:08.17 Chris Yes. 02:07:09.80 Dave Like the very the the core of this episode that was the style at the time and we can look at that and be like yeah I don't really give a shit if the multiplayer is bad because I don't care about the multiplayer and you probably can't play the Spec ops the line multiplayer anymore Anyway, so. 02:07:10.60 Dre Yep. 02:07:11.66 Rick Um, absolutely. 02:07:24.85 Dre That's what people cared about though I get why the publisher I mean I understand why they didn't want to put it in there but I get why they wanted to have it there that was just that was just it. Yeah. 02:07:25.95 Chris Yeah. 02:07:33.10 Chris Yep, the the game that I thought of right off the bat was mass effect 3 and this is why and I I kind of against reviewers when they're like the multiplayer players there but you don't need to play it but your docking points off the main experience for it if the main if it's not the main selling point. Like a call of duty people are always playing that for the multiplayer I think they need to be 2 separate reviews. What the campaign is and what the multiplayer is and ah review sites started doing that and if you care about reviews but when it comes to mass effect 3 The multiplayer wasn't that great and you're like okay I'll just avoid it. But the multiplayer actually had an impact. 02:07:56.30 Dre Here. 02:08:08.26 Chris On what was going on in your single player experience and that's where that's where the tactile multiplayer kind of crosses the line and that's where the criticism and analysis. You can start interweaving the 2 But I think that if you're going back to a lot of these games are off servers I mean. 02:08:10.40 Dre Oh no. 02:08:27.15 Chris In a way I'm happy. We're past that era because that's development resources that could probably be put further into the single player campaign which is great. But I think if you can go back and you don't have to worry about the multiplayer for a lot of these games anymore and you can just take it as a single player experience even with mass effect 3 nowadays because they patch that out but that's if that still existed and that was still the way to get the best ending of the game was playing their you know mid at best multiplayer experience. Then yeah, you just free for All go after it like Hammer them. 02:09:01.84 Dre I was thinking about this recently though since Naughty Dog canceled that last of us online thing like in the last couple weeks as this recording anyway and it's funny how we don't have those modes anymore because it's now we're in the live service era. 02:09:18.70 Dre So we just actually really don't have those kind of just tacked on multiplayer I guess some games I guess I don't know some people might miss stuff like that where it's like and I do kind of wish like why can't they just release the last but like does it have to be this ongoing thing. Of course the answer is yes. Because capitalism but like can't we just like it is weird that we can't just release a multiplayer game now that was like those other modes where it's just like here's a thing you can play and it's thirty bucks or whatever and go for it. No now it's got to be this continuous monster. You know it's weird. 02:09:54.36 Dave Yeah, it's the naughty dog games in particular like there are a lot of people who liked those uncharted Multiplayer modes and the last of us won whatever the fuck Mercenaries or whatever it was called is that faction Mercenaries Resident Evil Yeah yeah. 02:10:04.68 Dre Um, factions I think Mercenaries is Resident Evil three? \ 02:10:13.81 Dave Whatever, whatever it was like there are a lot of people who liked it and it's just it's just I can't I can't relate. But yeah I am glad that those development resources are being put toward. You know in a lot of cases being put in toward the single player experience as opposed to yeah. 02:10:33.76 Dave Tacked on multiplayer because it was the style at the time. 02:10:37.90 Dre Um, that it was. 02:10:54.86 Rick Artful scruff has this to say. They say I think I generally agree with what's been said so far. I treat them on a case by case basis and nostalgia can go a long way. I feel like I was playing an old game for the first time these days. Might have little patience for the parts of it that have aged on the other hand I have a lot of love for future cop lap d back on the ps one and when I revisited it on psp I found it to be nih unplayable. So nostalgia is no guarantee that a game will still be enjoyable, at least for me. Yeah. 02:11:28.46 Dre That's so right. 02:11:29.10 Rick That's always the worst to go back to a game that you loved as a kid to discover that Oh it's not so good. No more. 02:11:29.78 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:11:34.68 Dre Yeah, we've all been there. Um, my um, my first time I ever felt that way and it wasn't even that long of a gap was I don't know if you guys remember the PS 1 fighting game total number one. 02:11:46.69 Rick Yeah. 02:11:47.84 Dre It had like Akira Toriyama designs and everything and I was I'm still an Akira Toriyama freak so like I was like of course I'm playing this game. My friend wanted to rent it for the final fantasy 7 demo I actually wanted to play total number one and I had a great time. We rented that we played it over the weekend I got another copy of that game like I want to say seven years later in like 2004 trash I have no idea how I played that game man and I like I like some really trash fighters sometimes and I was like oh my god this sucks and I'm like ok, let's go to like the dungeon crawling Moby be that's part that maybe that's the part I really liked nope. 02:12:23.20 Dre Oh my God I Really don't understand how I played that game so much and loved it. But yeah I think we all have our examples like that. 02:12:30.22 Dave Yeah, absolutely. The first time I went back and played gold knife fifteen years later or whatever I was like oh all, right? We're going back to Mario Kart okay 02:12:39.56 Dre I never liked Golden eye from the jump. I shouldn't say I didn't like it. I Always just thought it was like all right? So I didn't really have that reaction to it but I'm sure I would if I loved it back in the day. Yeah. 02:12:52.10 Dave Um, oh Dre you got stuck with the next long one again. 02:12:55.66 Dre Oh man, ok, let's let's do this? Ok so piboi says or submits rather it really bothers me when age is used either as a shield against criticism or a cudgel to bash a game slash mechanic. Age has really no bearing on something's quality. I try to approach games for what they are without any preconception. So obviously that's impossible so I can try and evaluate what's there in front of me. However, this doesn't mean I think history and context should be ignored. Understanding how the game was expected to be engaged with at the time what games came before and after those sorts of details can help to understand a game's goals while I can never put myself in the time and place a game came out I can try to keep in mind as I play even if. Ultimately how it plays now is all I can really experience. I just bounced off the first dragon quest he says I read a bit of the I I read a bit around the context of the western rpgs it was inspired by looking through the manual. Doing all this I can see why certain decisions were made and how it could have been compelling at the time. None of this stops me from criticizing many of those decisions as bad game design or makes me enjoy it anymore. Especially when you consider games like final fantasy came out in the years after and made big improvements to the formula in my opinion. 02:14:23.63 Dre He goes on to say understanding historical context can also work the opposite way when an old game still holds up today. The fact that they managed to make something genuinely great in a time when fewer principles of game design were widely understood on very basic hardware becomes even more special. Was shocked when I played at the castle for the first time last year and discovered it. It's a brilliant game with a solid grasp of level and encounter design learning how much of a pioneer. It just makes it stand all the taller to sum up. I think it's important and valuable to take the history of a game into account but that shouldn't override any feelings you have playing it today but that's a lot that's a lot. Um. 02:15:05.66 Dave That's a lot you got the long ones. Yeah, you got the long ones. I just want to point out that I Love the first bullet point here that pie boy sent when they said it really bothers me when age is used either as a shield against criticism. 02:15:22.26 Dave Or as a cudgel to bash a game to either say that it's okay because it's old or that it's bad because it's old is reductive in both scenarios and like a part of the reason we wanted to do this topic is. Because we can't just say that we have to dig a little bit Deeper. So I agree with that for sure. 02:15:47.13 Chris I agree with that on a principle as well. But I I disagree that h has no bearing on certain aspects of something's quality graphics aging our thing graphics like that is that is real thing or or sound quality. Yeah, you might prefer that. But these these are real things that are limitations that existed and the way they've aged looks different pre-render prerender graphics are something I don't think has quote aged very well ah specifically on 32 bit consoles and when they're put in 3 d environments I don't think it looks that good but developers at the time. Thought it was an aesthetic choice that they liked and there are probably still people out there that really like that aesthetic choice. But when you look at the resolution and how it's presented I think it's because of the limitations of the era and what they wanted to do with how they visioned it and now in modern times. It really hasn't. 02:16:44.43 Chris Aged as well as it possibly could have and this is even when you take old models and even if you try to replicate it like in signalis that game that we played together those models even though they're very reminiscent of a Ps 1 game or a saturn game. They could not be duplicated on those systems because. That age has affected the quality over time of what you expect to see and what you would deem good quality. So I do think aging does have its place in certain elements of games. 02:17:12.48 Dre I agree with what you said. I want to take it a little bit different direction though because I take issue with a couple things. He said here one of them being when fewer principles of game design were widely understood on very basic hardware. Maybe I'm reading this wrong. That feels a little bit like they didn't know any better kind of things. Sometimes people say about old games which I almost always disagree with. I think all these things are largely a choice in these old games and not just because they're just doing. They're just experimenting, sometimes that is the case. Don't get me wrong. But I think like 9 times out of 10. It's not that they knew what they were doing so I just don't I don't know. Maybe I am crazy. I'm kind of reading it the wrong way. Maybe but I just kind of feel like it's a little bit of that which I generally always disagree with Dave. 02:18:08.40 Rick That's how I read it too and I agree with you. 02:18:09.19 Chris Yeah I think Dragon Quest is a very well designed game. It might have mechanics that we're not used to anymore. But I'm reading your comments. I mean you wrote this. I'm kind of borrowing it from black here. Ah but it kind of has my perspective on this as well. 02:18:19.99 Dave Yeah. 02:18:26.16 Chris Whereas Dragon Quest was designed to be wizardry for newbies. It was meant to be an experience for everybody again. Kids multimedia experience just adults got into it too because it was simpler. It wasn't as stressful as those old pc rpgs wizardry ultima. 02:18:32.60 Dre Ah. 02:18:46.18 Chris Ah, xanadu they kicked your ass and reveled in it. They laughed at you while you died Dragon Quest was hey don't like dying as much we got this for you. This is the easier, simpler way to play it while still giving you the truth. 02:18:48.34 Dre Oh yeah. 02:19:05.53 Chris Pc rpg experience. It's just you know a little bit more accessible, a lot more accessible so enjoy and that's what Dragon Quest was and it did it brilliantly I thought and it's I think it's a masterclass in an introductory rpg. 02:19:19.25 Dre I 100 % agree with you and I don't know what mechanics he's talking about in dragon quest but if it's like a lot of people complain about the system where you bring up the menu and you have stuff like talk or look or stairs or whatever search and I just think it's like you said. It's an update in a simplification of the stuff that was going on on pc but I mentioned pc Eight eight earlier I am playing xanadu do on on on one of those console releases right now. So like I am, I'm going through it. 02:19:52.46 Dre You know it's like I I understand exactly what you're talking about and something like Dragon Quest is so much easier than all that and that was a point of it and you have to have that context. I Really do think you just can't go back and play a game like that. Without keeping that in mind I Just think it's really unfair if you don't. 02:20:16.90 Dave I Think to the comment is about a time when fewer principles of game design were widely understood on basic hardware. Ah I I get that like. It's not to say that they're just doing what the fuck ever because and like with no thought behind it. But there are games and I can't speak to Castle. I Guess PiBoi is using Castlevania a good example of a time when people were figuring it out. More so than it feels like they are now in a lot of you know, modern games like people are trying new things experimenting but there's a lot that's been standardized at this point whereas back then there were a lot more new things that people were trying And. Castle is a good example here. But I bet there are lots of other examples where people are like hey let's try this weird idea we have and it ends up sucking like I think that that's kind of like what they're setting up and then put in Castle as a good example there where like. They didn't have a lot to work with but it's a rock solid game that they made. 02:21:29.77 Dre Yeah I can get that with that. Yeah I just felt like a little yeah you did experiment back then well you know I like I said I'm playing Zanna do right now on pc eighty eight and it's just like you see I just love seeing. The history of it. You can see it and nobody has to be told you can see all the games in the future that inspired it and what it came from its inspirations and I love that and again, you don't always have to have those context to enjoy something or that they should be necessary but like. I just don't think it was as Lucy you see as as probably intended if that's what he was trying to say it's all. 02:22:13.52 Dave We did an episode last year on the show where it was a discussion about whether video games need to be fun and 1 of the guests I think was Ryan talked about how they enjoy playing games like. From that historian's perspective it almost doesn't matter whether they enjoy the act of playing the game. The act of seeing the game and seeing the inspirations that you can then connect to things in the future is that that's the enjoyment. 02:22:46.84 Dre Yes I am and hide like I mentioned earlier absolutely because I'm such an easy person. So it was so wild for me to like see that you know because I'd never played that game in like holy shit This is incredible on that level. 02:22:47.85 Dave Of playing that and it sounds like you're getting a lot of that from Xanadu yeah. 02:22:55.23 Chris Love these. 02:23:04.75 Dre You know? So yes I enjoyed it. 02:23:05.88 Dave Yep, all right? We've got 2 more of the community submissions. Ah the first one is from Alex from the first five channel on Youtube thank you for writing in Alex Alex says I've been struggling so hard to work my way through star wars knights of the old republic I've tried playing it like 4 times in the past because it's such a classic and I've failed every time but a big podcast started a run through of it. So I decided hey maybe this will be what finally gets me to finish it. Nope, three months later I still haven't made it off of Taris. And that podcast is already almost done with the game. Um Alex says the culprit is the combat. Most of my energy is spent wrestling against the ui to accomplish this simple task ostensibly I'm supposed to be fighting the black vol cars but all I'm fighting is the ui. The final nail for me is just how much of this I have to do combat . Kotor is mostly renowned for its storytelling but there's so achingly little of it compared to this awful combat in true ancient rpg fashion. You spend an hour waiting through repetitive encounters. Just to get to a 5 minute conversation that actually advances the plot then is back to waiting through another hour of combat if I'm here primarily for a good story. That's a terrible use of my time. I'm still banging my head against it little by little but I doubt I'll actually finish it. Um i. 02:24:32.37 Dave Can't really relate to that with KOTOR I. Maybe it's because I played this game a long time ago and I just have that experience with it. Um I think the ui is pretty simplified in that game. But ah, this was a very early like attempt to move. That type of rpg off of Pcs and onto consoles the baldur's gate type of rpg so I get like it's almost It was almost too simplified I think we talked about that on retro hangover Chris about how Kotor is very simplified compared to the stuff that. 02:25:02.43 Chris Yeah. 02:25:09.33 Chris Yes. 02:25:09.77 Dave Directly preceded it? Um, so but I get like if you're having trouble with stuff like you I or like it is a dated style of combat like not a lot of even new rpgs do combat like KOTOR does. Um. 02:25:27.43 Dave If you're not able to get down with that then you're going to have a hard time and KOTOR has a notoriously slow start so you'll make it off terrace one of these days Alex and it does get better. 02:25:38.77 Chris I think just to briefly interject I'll try to be as brief as possible here. Um, this goes back to Dis Chimera's comment about condemning aspects of a game that don't really fit into today's gameplay style, like cohorts. It has its clunkiness. It definitely does. That's not in line with a lot of stuff today and the stuff that there are combat systems that are similar that do it much better today. So going back to it is going to be clunky and it's still trying to accomplish the same thing and it still goes to the aging thing like there's a there's a lot of novel ideas that were still coming out and try and trying to get the d and d formula and mechanics into a video game and being properly representative and they they figured out a lot better since then so going back to the 2 previous comments I think that really could apply to KOTOR and I understand what they're talking about. 02:26:30.89 Dre I am a notorious bioware hater. So I totally like that I just can't do it. I've tried Jade Empire. I was miserable. I tried like the first mass effect. I was much I just. It's just not for me right. 02:26:39.60 Chris Ah. 02:26:48.99 Dre So I do understand what he's talking about. I have not played KOTOR but I totally get the janky stuff like memories of Jade Empire just came flooding back to me. To my head while I was just so yeah I understand him just because I don't like those kinds of games. So I'm unable to evaluate them. But I get what he's saying. 02:27:08.50 Chris All right next is Adam from the revival and extinction podcast and Adam says mine may be a bit of a unique experience but over 2023 I played the super Nintendo versions of the first three dragon quests. There were definitely experiences throughout this that just screamed late eighty early 90 j rpg with these mechanics such as being only able to save on the world map fast travel costing magic having to pay at an end to heal ever increasing and often frustrating experience point curves to level up. Slow battle and forced grinding mechanics. What helped me progress was the charm of the story. I had no experience with the series prior to this year and playing it the way I did not on original hardware. The only extra function I used was speed up but this turned an abhorrent mechanic of grinding into a backwards brain secondary task which ended up being quite a cathartic, quite a cathartic exercise which I looked forward to in my playthroughs. 02:28:11.56 Dre Oh boy. 02:28:14.21 Rick Yeah, it comes down to letting people enjoy the games how they want to? um I have not played the original 3 dragon quests. I just know my own proclivities. I don't think that I would agree with Adam but those options are there for him and it's what got him to enjoy the game. So. 02:28:31.33 Rick Good on you man. Um, that's an abhorrent mechanic I don't know. 02:28:33.21 Dre Yeah, yeah, I just can't I Just can't yeah I've just I think yeah, very strong I think we're all Rpg people. So I think we're all just like what's I Just can't I can't relate man I can't but I get you but I can't. 02:28:35.65 Dave Um, it's strong. 02:28:47.42 Chris Yeah, I'll agree. I'll agree to disagree. Yeah, ah but I hate Dragon Quest too but 02:28:47.92 Dave You know sometimes sometimes I sometimes get to a point in an Rpg like that where it's very very clearly a point where I need to grind or something I'm like. 02:29:04.38 Dave I don't want to grind right now but you know what I do. I put on a basketball game and I grind while I'm watching basketball and it's all good. It'd be like Adam said a secondary brain task which grinding can really turn into is me watching like. Basically an entire and Nba playoff series while beating up dinosaurs in the forest in final fantasy 6. 02:29:28.14 Dre Um, it's like yeah sure I'll watch the ah you know 2009 as you know a l central tiebreaker game again or something while I ah I do this? Yes I have done that um like. 02:29:35.95 Dave Ah, exactly yeah. 02:29:39.94 Dre I Just shit I forgot what I was going to say give me a second I'm sorry hold on um fuck. 02:29:42.30 Dave All right. 02:29:49.36 Dre Shit Rick what was I going to say god damn it tell me. 02:29:55.50 Rick I mean if I could see into your mind. There would be many things that I would do. 02:30:06.83 Dave All right? That's okay so that is all of our community submissions for this episode. I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to write in with your thoughts, much appreciated as always lots of smart people hanging out over the tube Discord server. Ah, so this will be the plug for this episode if you would like to take part in future discussion episodes like this and also be a part of a community full of cool people. Everyone's wearing sunglasses. It's a very cool place. Ah you can join the Discord Server. There's an invite link down in the show notes. So. 02:30:44.44 Dave To wrap up this episode I think we can just kind of give some final thoughts on the topic after the discussion that we had and then hearing the community submissions here. So Andre, you wrote something in the notes. So I'm going to kick you first to give the rest of us a chance to collect our thoughts. 02:31:00.50 Dre All right? Well I think Matt they said it best where to meet the game where it's at I just think that's the most fair thing to do and I think it's I was going to say irresponsible if you don't but I mean that sounds a little strong but. I think you get what I mean I just I just really think that's the ferrous thing to do just play the game on its terms not that not the terms of today or the expectations of the day but the terms of the time in which it was made the best you can because I believe that's the only where. Only fair way to approach anything whether there's some 1984 or 2024 you know it's like trying your best if you're one of those people you get annoyed by this old system and that old system. Try your best to not ask. Why isn't the game doing this or that. But. Ask yourself why it's doing the things it is doing okay, why did they only give you 3 continues right? Sometimes it is because they're dicks right? Sometimes that is the answer but sometimes it's not. You know there's a reason why you can't continue in star fox or Panzer dragoon or like most rails shooters right? There's a reason why I kind of ask myself. Why is the game designed this way instead of being frustrated at it and and you know it's fine to be frustrated, but. 02:32:26.59 Dre Try to play the game on its terms instead of your terms and I feel like you will come away with a much better. Maybe you still won't like the game but you'll come away with a much better understanding of things. 02:32:42.54 Rick Yeah I agree wholeheartedly I really do ah meeting a game where it's at is critically important. You can't go into an experience expecting 1 thing and then getting upset when you don't get that if the experience is completely different. Um I will say I think it's important to play a game. 02:33:00.29 Rick I think there is a balance to be struck. I think you should play a game on your own terms if that's using save states for example on a Nintendo switch online subscription if that's the tipping point for you and without them. You're not going to play it. Well I mean make the decision don't play it or use save states and that's fine. Um, but. The responsibility of looking through 2024 goggles into a 1999 game. Yeah, you need to use it. You need to use it with caution because then what happens is you play Metroid and you say well I'm just backtracking all the time. This sucks. It's like we. Well yeah, that's you're not meeting the game on its own terms. Um, that's largely where I lie, that's where I still lie. Um, yeah I don't. I don't think I have much more to add that hasn't already been said by 1 of us or 1 of the contributors should be honest. 02:33:56.40 Chris I Hate Metroid and I think it's a bad game. Ah but I think there's. 02:34:01.46 Rick Um, you say that in front of a known metroidvania lover Andre. 02:34:04.42 Dre Oh my god you just I physically cringe. Did you see that? Oh my god I literally recoiled from that. Yeah, let's say sorry Chris. 02:34:12.63 Dave Ah, you activate his activation phrase right? there because my eyes turned red. 02:34:16.73 Rick Um, so sorry Chris. 02:34:17.90 Chris I do love Metroidvanias. I just hate metroid but I think that I think what I'm trying to say here is people are going to like what they're going to like and whether or not you want to have the context or not because not everyone has to. 02:34:37.00 Chris Go into a game expecting to have the context that's not something everyone is going to want to do sometimes people are just going to sit down and they're going to play and play a game and maybe because that game was recommended to them by a friend because that friend really likes that game or they just stumbled upon it. And have heard a bunch of noise about how old games were better back in the day. Sometimes that means you're going to find something you really enjoy. Sometimes you aren't, sometimes that's because mechanics that were at that time that were used were mechanics that you're not used to and you just can't wrap your head around. And sometimes something is just going to gel with you no matter when that game came out I love gallagher gallago is released before I was born that game was not made for me or my gaming tastes but it's something I gravitated to I hate metroid but I love castle symphony of the night ah usually those things that that's a contradictory statement towards a lot of players. Why I just can't get along with Metroid and what it was doing at the time but then I can sit here and tell you and just wax poetic about how amazing megaman 2 in castle is so not everything is going to. Just ring with everybody and I think that's the brilliance of gaming whether that be today whether that be from the nes or whether it be in any piece of art or media. It's just something we all kind of have to accept and any criticism is really valid. Ah and you can make that criticism while also recognizing. 02:36:07.32 Chris What advances these pieces of media? What these pieces of gaming did at the time doesn't mean you have to like it. So if you go back and you play something and you don't like it. That's fine if you love it. That's great, but always keep the discussion open. Always be willing to listen and try to understand why that game might be important or enjoyable to somebody else and provide your own context on how that game might inform some of the games you love today. Especially if it's within the same genre This is something we all share, this is something we can all love and this is something that. We can all communicate about and and build and and grow and help this art form grow as well. So That's where I'll leave it there and just enjoy the games you want, enjoy the games the way you want to enjoy them and take care. 02:36:55.56 Dave Amen um I think that for me personally like the takeaway and like I think a lot of us came into this episode and then came out with basically the same ideas but you know we got into some good discussion along the way there. Ah, with our examples and community submissions like I still obviously the value of putting yourself in like the historical context or at least trying to understand it going in this is actually like I'll say this if you are just playing a game and just. Playing it seeing if you like it or not I don't really think that you need to go read about the historical context or ask somebody about it if you're just someone playing a game seeing if you like it or not if you are going to evaluate a game and put out a podcast. Or make a Youtube video or write a review or something like that then I do think you do have a bit of responsibility to try and understand a little bit of historical context in that way but like yeah so I still think that it's okay to. Have that historical context and then go on to criticize things in those games even if the historical context makes sense. It doesn't mean that it's good. It just means you know the historical context for it. Um I think that's where I'm coming out of it. But at the same time. 02:38:24.44 Dave Like sometimes that context is valuable and will kind of take the edge off of some of those things sometimes it doesn't sometimes it will so I think that I agree with what everyone has basically said here that that is important to try and put yourself in that time to understand. Ah, if the purpose of what you're doing is evaluating something ah you would not again that Charlie Chaplin example you would if you're going to review a movie like that you would need to understand why things were the way they were. You wouldn't just go into that completely blind and then wonder why? no one's talking. 02:38:55.76 Dre Yeah. 02:39:03.55 Dave So um, yeah, this has been ah, a fun discussion here and we went longer than I thought we would but should not have been a surprise to me number one. It's this show as Chris said before we started recording but also having 3 people with ah great opinions and stuff. With me here leads to a good discussion that we don't want to end or at least I don't want to. I don't want to put words in your mouths. So as people with good opinions you all happen to have your own projects that you work on podcasts and stuff like that. So it is time. 02:39:27.46 Dre Um, I hated it. 02:39:42.46 Dave For plugs Rick I will kick you first to tell the people about pixel project radio and what's been going on on the show lately. 02:39:50.26 Rick Of course. Ah so as Dave said I'm the host of pixel project radio. It's a video game discussions podcast where we analyze games we play through them and do story beat analysis, occasionally do topic episodes that are related to games such as difficulty or you know a specific Composers music. Ah lately. We just finished up a big three part series on lost odyssey as well as covered gex 64 which was a time and a half and we're moving into 2024 bright eyed and bushy tailed and if you want to check us out where. Available wherever you get your shows on all of the standard socials except for Facebook um, and yeah, that's that's pretty much it we have ah everybody on this panel has been on the show at least once except for dray who is scheduled ah for for 2024? um. 02:40:42.73 Dre Yes, so. 02:40:46.50 Rick So there's no shortage of these folks with good opinions as Dave said if you want more of them too. 02:40:52.42 Dave Awesome and Andre tell the people about fine time. 02:40:55.87 Dre Oh man, just a little thing I do fine time. It's a good old video game podcast I do with my 2 friends Steve and Kevin. The 3 of us just sit around and talk shit. Whatever we're playing. That's what we're talking about whether it could be something brand new like Spiderman 2 it could be something very old. Like hydelide for pc88, you know like whatever whatever we're into at that moment. That's what we're going to talk about and you know we cover industry stuff. We love oh my god we can't wait to talk about these insomniac leaks. Holy shit. We're going to dig into that. We love talking about industry stuff like that or. You know, sort of deeper topics about um, just video games and then we love quiz games too like I don't know shit about pokemon right? Steve loves to play pokemon real or fake with me. He has a list of Pokemon he could have made. They could be real and I have to guess real or fake. Well Kevin just sits there and laughs at me for 20 minutes. It's really good. I promise it's good radio. It's not radio, but it's a podcast. Um, but yeah, that's a fine time. We mean very occasionally we'll cover a movie or an anime or music. Sometimes we just kind of keep it open that way but for them like 9 times out of 10 we're talking about video games and it's real fun. So. I don't know how to find a podcast on Twitter ah, go ahead and find us there. That's our main feed and ah hope you join us for a fine time. Got to say it. 02:42:19.71 Dave He said the thing all right. We can move on to Chris to tell the people about retro hangovers. 02:42:25.52 Chris YesI am part of the Retro Hangover podcast as you have already heard 02:42:41.99 Chris Ah, what we do me and my host Shane I guess I'm the co-host over there. He really does all the hard work. He ah, we have a podcast about old video games, old retro video games where we take a game 10 years or older and we discuss it and we break it down in terms of our personal experiences. Plot the story, the graphics, the audio, and the gameplay. We break that all down and then we discuss whether or not that game holds up today in the similar vein of this conversation. Additionally, um, when does the show come out. Dave do you have a rough estimate February right? now we have. 02:43:15.36 Dave Ah, February I think. 02:43:20.12 Chris Right now we have an event going on over at our Patreon it will be out to the main feed in a few months but right now it's over in our Patreon's called the king of games 96 you can find Dave over there where we pit a bunch of games together from the year ninety ninety six to determine which game overall is the most important or best or however, you want to term it. Ah, we all do that. There's chaos that ensues and we make a bunch of people angry and make a bunch of hot takes but you're going to have to go over there to figure that out or just wait a few more months. It'll be available to everybody. But I think that would be something that you would enjoy over there on our show and has a bunch of different podcasts as well. Not just Dave, a bunch of familiar faces and it's a great time. 02:43:59.21 Chris So yeah, go check us out at ah Retro Hangover at our linktree at linktr.ee/retrohangover. 02:44:04.60 Dave Awesome! And yeah, too much. Ah, quality out there for a lot of individualized praise right now but I'll just say everyone should go check out pixel project radio check out find time check out retro hangover that king of games 96 series was a great time. I'm looking forward to the reactions to how that went. So um, you'll find links down in the show notes for all of those podcasts. Highly recommended. There's a reason that I invited these folks on the show to talk about this today and. I have been on pixel project radio a few times. I've been on a retro hangover a few times outside of that kind of games series. If you're looking for an easy way in , if you can't live without me, seek help but also seek out those guest appearances that I did too for this show. Real quick plugs at the end. I already plugged the discord server, leaving ratings and reviews is really helpful in case somebody searches exactly what the title of this episode is. I don't even know what it is yet. But in case they search for it. It'll get bumped up the algorithm and if you want to support monetarily patreon.com/realdavejackson always appreciated and yeah, with that being said, we will sign off. It's been a while. So thank you Rick! Thank you Dre. Thank you Chris for joining me and thank you everybody for listening to the tune next week for the next game to come out of the backlog.