When does a game become "retro"?

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

PS3/PS4/PS5 games all feel very similar although very early PS3 games feel dated now.

Meanwhile PS2/Gamecube/Xbox games definitely feel like a generation before. Although it's weird for me to even consider PS2 and Gamecube games retro, they definitely are since they're 20 years old now. Fun fact: It wasn't even 20 years before Gamecube came out that the NES was out...as NES didn't come out till 1985.

Yeah I agree.

Honestly if you show me a game that came out in 2012 or so I'd probably not be able to guess it was a decade old already. Naturally that doesn't happen with GC era games and games that came out before that.

I'm not sure we'll ever experience another major graphics jump. Unless games eventually start to look like 100% like reality. But that's never going to be possible for fantasy style games.

[CyberCubed]

Mass Effect 3 came out in 2012. If you play the trilogy remaster it literally could pass as a modern 2022 game.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by sdp

The jump between générations stopped being as big but youre blind if you don't see the differences between a 2012 game and a 2022 release, just physics alone have changed things.
Gaming not being innovative has nothing to do with a game being retro or not.
Again for s while people said retro was only pints based games like arcade titles from the 80s and before and later that 3D meant it wasn't retro anymore etc, definitions have changed as kids age and they see their games as retro because they're old and anything before they were boen as retro. Just because you're an adult and 10 years go as fast as 10 months did when you were young doesn't mean time isn't passing.

You always come across as an annoying know-it-all. Ever noticed that?

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Prowler

You always come across as an annoying know-it-all. Ever noticed that?

This place needs you, my son.

But yeah I have a list of "Drome People I Hope To Set On Fire Before I Die" and sometimes the order of importance shifts but it's always the same five or so people regardless.

[Prowler]

The Switch turned 5 years old early this month. That system came out 5 years ago already.

At this point, 5 years from now, teenagers and young adults will be calling BOTW and Mario Odyssey "retro". Jesus.

[CyberCubed]

I mean is it surprising? Mario Galaxy 2 came out 12 years ago in 2010, that's also basically retro now.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I mean is it surprising? Mario Galaxy 2 came out 12 years ago in 2010, that's also basically retro now.

I played it last year. Holds up pretty well still. Just like its predecessor. They're old by now since 12 years is a really long time in the video game industry. But they definitely don't feel or look like retro games to me like Super Mario 64 or Super Mario Sunshine do.

Is the DS New Super Mario Bros. retro for you by now?

[Leo656]

By the time I get around to playing anything, everything is "retro" to me. I'm always so busy going through my backlog I never, ever have time to play anything "new". Most games are at least 5 years old by the time I get to them, usually way more.

I can't even f*cking remember the last game I played brand new. Injustice 2 is all I can think of. And that was the first one in a very long time, also.

[Prowler]

That definitely happens to me on Steam and whenever I get an older game for the Switch. The last non-Nintendo system I bought was the PS2... and that was about 17 years ago already. So yeah, I've missed on a lot of big games throughout the century.

It shouldn't matter when you play a game unless you're playing something that is exclusively online and thus needs its servers to still be alive. But single players titles such as Zelda games? Who cares if you play it a few years after it came out?

We're all getting older. It's not always possible to buy a game at launch.

[Prowler]

With the Switch 2 out, is the Wii U retro by now? What about Breath of the Wild? That game came out simultaneously on the Wii U and the Switch 1. Is it half retro now or something?

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Prowler

With the Switch 2 out, is the Wii U retro by now?

I wouldn't say so. Wii U is basically a Switch that has the ability to play regular Wii games. It pretty much has the same interface as the Switch as well. Switch was like Nintendo's do-over when they didn't get the sales they were hoping for from the Wii U.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I wouldn't say so. Wii U is basically a Switch that has the ability to play regular Wii games. It pretty much has the same interface as the Switch as well. Switch was like Nintendo's do-over when they didn't get the sales they were hoping for from the Wii U.

Yeah I agree. It's just a system that's pretty much dead and old by now that no one is playing anymore. But still not old enough to be retro.

[CyberCubed]

In my mind retro will forever be 2D games like 8-bit or 16-bit games, but also the first gen of 3D games like the N64 and Playstation 1.

I know PS2, Gamecube and Xbox games are now 25 years old, but I still can't wrap my mind around PS2/Gamecube games being "retro." When they're remastered in HD these games still look good to this day.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

In my mind retro will forever be 2D games like 8-bit or 16-bit games, but also the first gen of 3D games like the N64 and Playstation 1.

I know PS2, Gamecube and Xbox games are now 25 years old, but I still can't wrap my mind around PS2/Gamecube games being "retro." When they're remastered in HD these games still look good to this day.

Nah, I definitely consider games from that gen retro by now. PS2 games in particular often have very ugly graphics that we somehow didn't notice when we were kids. But the Xbox and even the GameCube had better graphics overall than the PS2. Not that it mattered since the PS2 obliterated both in sales. having said that there are some really good looking PS2 games like Final Fantasy X. And that game came out in 2000 or 2001. Yet it looks better than many PS2 games that came out 5 or more years afterwards.

GTA games look shockingly outdated by now. You mention HD remasters, but the the remasters of GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas were completely sh*t on upon by people when they came out.

[sdp]

Leo's been banned for so long now he could be considered retro.

[CyberCubed]

MGS3 Delta remake compared to the original MGS3 really shows how far graphics have come.

[Prowler]

Interestingly, the very last Wii game to come out was Just dance 2020 and it came out in 2019-2020.

[sdp]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Interestingly, the very last Wii game to come out was Just dance 2020 and it came out in 2019-2020.

Well it's not a simple clear line saying what's retro or not, at the same time that Just Dance 2020 on Wii is basically just the same Just Dance from 2010 reskinned with new music and .jpgs in the background to sell to whoever was buying that. hell to further on that

Originally Posted by Prowler

With the Switch 2 out, is the Wii U retro by now? What about Breath of the Wild? That game came out simultaneously on the Wii U and the Switch 1. Is it half retro now or something?

Yes Wii U is retro now as the cycle is more or less followed by most is either "10+years old is retro" and/or "current gen -> previous gen (old but not retro) --> any gen preivous = Retro" so by both definitions Wii U is retro.

Just Dance is a legacy game that could be considered retro since it's on the Wii but maybe not since it's from 2019. But such cases almost always fall with sports games and music games that don't change gameplay and only change roster/songs, so no one cares enough.

BOTW is interesting since it also got relaunched with a sort of mini remaster as a "Switch 2 edition". Doese this remaster count as a new game like other remasters? Safe to say it's a retro game now. I played the Mario galaxy remaster and it feels like a retro game, that's a wii game.

It doesn't really matter there's no written rule anymore and with consoles being PCs and streaming games being a thing and games now continue evolving and being sold like say Minecraft, Fortnite, League of Legends, those are all whithin "retro" standards but are still modern since they get updated so it doesn't matter much, gaming is a different beast now

[CyberCubed]

It kind of blows my mind when the Mario Galaxy remasters just came out on Switch, and you realize Mario Galaxy 1 came out in 2007 and Mario Galaxy 2 in 2010. Even Mario Galaxy 2 is 15 years old now! That is absolutely crazy.

To put that into perspective, when the original Mario Bros. 1 on NES came out in 1985, 15 years from that was the year 2000 when we were in the last year of the N64.

Now 15 years ago Mario Galaxy 2 came out. The passage of time is crazy.

[Prowler]

Let's also remember that Twillight Princess came out at the same time on the GC and the Wii. So where does that leave it when it comes to "the retro checkboxes"?

Sports titles are often some of the last games to come out in a consoles life. FIFA and PES were getting PS2 ports up until 2014 or so. Their PS2 versions were basically just updated versions of PES 2008 and FIFA 07 from 2007-2008 on. They already looked rough and dated at the time they came out.

FIFA 11-14 and PES 2011-2014 on the PS3/360/PC aren't retro, but their PS2 ports? Eh... they make a good case.