Heh. Well, I have a little something to say generally about the generation before mine. My gaming world was the tail end of the SNES and most of the 64’s life. Oh then I got an Xbox but whatever. My point is, I never played a NES game. Ever. I never held a NES controller, I never saw those pixelly screens. The closest would be playing DK Arcade in DK64, and it was horrible. I think the first NES game I ever played and completed was the unlockable original Metroid in Zero Mission for the GBA. Much later I played the Mega Man 2 port to iOS. And while I can appreciate those games now, to some extent, well…

The NES sucked. The hardware sucked, the games sucked. The design of them was awful and not fun. The graphics were offensive, the music mostly unbearable. Even now, that I am actually interested and a fan in many different franchises, I cannot play NES games and I don’t want to. I’ll play Mario All-Stars just fine, planning on starting BS Zelda 1 at some point, liked the Donkey Kong Land games.

I think the Game Boy is better because games for it were designed better with its limitations in mind. It was a post-NES product, with the lessons learned from making games for the NES. But the NES itself was ugly, mired in arcadey sensibilities and only taking the first baby steps towards what is, to me, compelling game experiences.

I fully recognise that it was huge. Enormous. Everyone who was self-aware when it came out was impressed. I was not and am not. I also acknowledge that the SNES was firmly standing directly on its shoulders in a number of ways. It’s even in the name! But I started with the SNES, and when I look back I only see a mess. Even now.

Even so, the reason I started playing Animal Crossing (I received it as a gift some time ago) was to unlock all the NES games that are emulated within it. This is a really cool feature I think, a good way to celebrate history (as with the aforementioned Metroid, or Game & Watch minigames in later titles). So I wanted to give them a shot, give them a chance. Part of it was also sticking it to the Virtual Console.

The Virtual Console is cool, but the games are very overpriced. Especially NES games. I’ve made my point clear here, so for their perceived quality to me, they are nowhere near worth that price. I got Mega Man 2, often called the best ever NES game, for $1 on my iPhone. This comparative pricing structure, as well as the perceived value per cost, will mean I would never consider getting a NES game there. My wife bought Zelda 1 and gave up on it because it was too hard. I would not have done it because I knew it was not going to be fun.

Anyway I’m drifting off point a little but I wanted to try some NES games and this was a cool way to do it. Obviously it’s never been repeated because of the VC. So I started out, got my new house in VC City (as I called my town) and started working with the goal of getting a house large enough to accomodate my future NES collection.

But then a strange thing happened. The game hooked me, and I started playing it just for it. So much that I forgot about the original goal of collecting playable NES games. But I’ll talk about AC itself in another post.

I received my first game from Jingle on Christmas, Balloon Fight. I decided to use Universal codes to cheat my way into the rest of them, because they’re rare, and some were otherwise unobtainable to me. I could only get 10 of the possible 15 (it’s compllicated). Even playing them was complicated. There were compatibility issues.

Back when I played DKC, it initially didn’t work because of a scan line issue or something. Similarly, the NES->GCN->Wii caused some issues. I use a component cable from Wii->TV, which enables 480p support. But GCNs don’t support that, and switch back to 576i 50Hz or 480i 60Hz (sometimes configurable). On top of that, the older NES format which is emulated in Animal Crossing didn’t work at all through component out. I don’t know what resolution it is, but I had to switch back to the default composite cable.

Everything became blurry, it was like stepping into the past. This is how we used to play. I was so used to the sharpness of the 480p Wii, it was a strange feeling. But I went and booted up some games. I tried Balloon Fight, Donkey Kong, Baseball, Pinball, and Donkey Kong Jr. Math. I have yet to try Clu Clu Land, Excitebike, Wario’s Woods, Tennis, and Golf.

It was… disappointing. The games are just limited. They’re stuck in this tiny little world. I realise their value as the first little window into a larger world of gaming possibilities, but like I said before, I’ve looked back and given them a proper go now and there is no reason to play these old games. Gosh I sound so stuck up. My point is though, it made the whole Nintendo retro nostalgia trend seem really hollow and misguided.

I don’t have the nostalgia, and I experienced an old game and found it bad. Therefore making new games that explicitly take after gameplay styles of old games is a bad idea. Also, I never ever bought into the 8-bit aesthetic and I feel it has been done absolutely to death.

Urgh, that’s enough I think. I’ve probably made some enemies with this post. Sorry if it’s overly complainy. I didn’t go into any of the games either, but then I didn’t actually play them for that long. Long enough to finish Donkey Kong though, took me about 5 minutes! Now how is that value? Ahem, anyways. I suppose people could say similar things about the 16-bit era, but I truly believe gaming took great leaps forward in gameplay, storytelling, and audiovisual at that time- pretty much everything. Well, that’s just my opinion after all. And that’s enough from this whiny dude today. Cheerio.