Acceptable Aspects of Retro Games

[Eschaton]

I have mentioned in other topics that what I want to make is to emulate a NES RPG.  Apparently, one aspect I brought up- removing the ability to save in dungeons- was not very popular.

In my reasearch, I played a few games and found that they really haven't aged well.  They're horribly balanced and slow, but the challenge was quite fun.

So, I create this topic asking what aspects of old-school games are acceptable and worth homaging?  I'm not a reliable source, because all (arguably obsolete) aspects of old school games are, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Espon]

I would use the old NES RPG model and only change the more annoying aspects.  Things that haven't aged well would be stuff like the limited saving, high random encounter rates, huge grindfests, and the simplistic and cliché storylines.

I think what most people think of when it comes to NES games is their graphics, music, and blistering hard difficulty.  There are ways to make a game hard without resorting to things like lack of save points, such as forcing the player to exploit enemies' tactics and weaknesses or limiting the player's inventory to avoid item hoarding and making them consider what to take into a dungeon and how to use what they have.

 

[amerk]

While many will argue against it, I'm fine with random encounters and save points, versus touch encounters and save anywhere. Old school to me was first and foremost the graphics, audio, and combat, followed by the good game play mechanics and story. Okay, story wasn't quite what it is now, but Final Fantasy II (NES), Crystalis, and Dragon Quest 3 and 4 had some decent stories going on, even if they weren't written very well.

When it comes to game play, I was really partial to the challenges of the boss fights and finding strategy to overcome the obstacles, the side quests (DQ 3 and 4 were loaded), and being able to explore new areas.

What I absolutely detest (even for nostalgic purposes) is being forced to play an hour plus with no chance to save. I'm not a kid anymore that can afford to sit around for 2 to 3 hours without responsibility, only to die and have to sit around another 2 or 3 hours. Not only is that time wasted, but life duty calls, and I usually have to be able to start and stop on a whim. The worst game I played (on the DS) was Final Fantasy 3 (not to be confused with Final Fantasy VI). The game was great until the last dungeon, in which the difficulty not only spiked, but I was bombarded with random encounters left and right, and took me nearly 2 hours to complete without a save point... only to die at the final boss and have to redo it all again.

My advice, allow the player a chance to save for about every 30 to 45 minutes of game time. If you know a dungeon will take about 2 hours to complete, then there should be about 2 to 3 save points thrown in. With that, you can make your enemies more of a challenge and thought provoking, so the player doesn't just spam attack them; however, try to keep the encounter rate down, and ensure players don't have to grind too much. Some grind for these types of game is okay, and to be expected, and maybe even encouraged; but they shouldn't be expected to have to stand around in a circle and fight for an hour before moving on.

As for encounter rate, I typically suggest the 30 to 50 step rule. 30 steps for smaller areas, 50 steps for larger areas. There are scripts and tutorials that show how to change the rate (with items) to allow players to increase or reduce the encounter rate.

 

[pawsplay]

When I look at retro style games, limited serving if the first thing I look for. To me, it just isn't the same if you can in the middle of a dungeon, then "peek" around the corner and try different paths. It's also important to me from a challenge aspect that you actually face the possibility of running out of resources, so that you have to back out to a safe area. I know it's not a mechanic everyone likes, but I definitely do not think it's problematic or it doesn't age well. If you're feeling merciful, or the game has particularly long dungeons, you can provide multiple save points, or provided a limited use item that saves the game. 

 

[SLEEP]

1. I'll start this with the most "personal opinion" one, and it's level spikes. Provided they are warned for, I find level spikes to be a fun challenge, with a cool reward. Get through a tough area, and get to a later game town, and your reward is being able to purchase super-powerful weapons that will carry you through the game... provided you can leave the town again! FFXII is the only recent RPG in mind which does this, but a lot of older RPGs did, mostly unintentionally by developers who weren't thinking. Intentional level spikes are tonnes of fun though, just warn your players before one occurs. A "peninsula of power" is also a fun + rewarding challenge.

NPC advice. A lot of modern RPGs load their characters up with flavour text, which is fine, but it makes talking to NPC's a bit pointless. In retro RPG's, due to space limitations, there was an economy on NPC dialogue, and a lot was used to convey useful things to the player! Bad engrish usually marred this a lot, think the old man from the first Legend of Zelda game, but he was giving valuable advice! Game Boy RPG's usually balanced dialogue economy with ok-ish translation not not awful gameplay, give a GB RPG a whirl! Contrast the NPC dialogue in Pokemon R/B to that of FR/LG. The economy of R/B shouldn't be emulated, but learned from.
Economy of cutscenes. Again, don't emulate it, but learn from it. Due to space concerns, retro RPGs were extremely conservative with cutscene. In each cutscene, something had to happen. The player needed a payoff from what they'd done to trigger the cutscene, and a guiding hand to show them their next objective. Even as early as the SNES, cutscenes began to expand to do more than this, and that's great! But in an era when games can be bloated with cutscenes, retro games can give some valuable perspective to developers who don't want to bloat but don't know anything else.
Going to the source for inspiration! Retro RPG's had little inspiration to draw from, other than tabletop games and sports games. A look at these sources should be essential for any developer, as a lot of these games have been around and endured for longer than the computer has been around, and contain a ton of great lessons in them. Live-action Roleplay can also suffice, if you don't get second hand embarrassment looking at it. 
Aesthetics. Retro aesthetics are making a huge comeback in modern times, visually and musically. Because they're cheaper and easier to produce, yes, but they also still look great! If you don't want to go the same 8/16 bit lots of other developers want, 256-colour PC monitors, more obscure game consoles, and even pre-rendered 3D are available ideas.

 

[Gilsev]

I would take a look at the games you want to emulate, and find the aspects of the game that you love the most and the ones that irritate you the most. Find ways to improve the parts that irritate you, and find ways to better balance the parts you love (or pull mechanics from the parts you love to create something new and interesting... with its feet planted firmly in the 'Golden Age' of gaming.

Personally, I loved the aspects of games that were less than subtle hints that you needed to level more before going to an area, and pushing players to more acceptable areas. Being able to level beyond an area, but still gain *some* experience/money from fighting there was also a bonus. I was always the one who would take my level 30 character in full Erdrick's gear to fight Goldmen for hours, solely to see how much money I could get... then move to Metal Slimes for the massive EXP spikes. But that's just me, apparently... or at least that is what the wife tells me.

 

[Erynn]

The think it is easier to concentrate on what was done well than what was done badly. Most of it was done well. Economy of dialogue and cutscenes s an excellent example. I think keeping r everything pertinent is one of the better aspects of style rpgs. One could be sure that everything was relevant.

I actually don't mind limited save positions to increase difficulty, but the saves have to be very often to reflect limited play time. Having to abandon 20 minutes of game because the save point is 1/2 an hour away is annoying.

I would also limit the grind, personally. Trim the aspects of play designed to artificially inflate game time. I'm not a fan of a lot of the tricks used to increase play through time. Having quests fast apart, too frequent monster spawns and low xp are ways this has been done in the past. Always very frustrating. If I want to grind I would rather it be my own choice to do so, personally.

 

[kerbonklin]

My favorite aspect of older games that are absent in many of todays would be difficulty in enemy tactics. Like enemies that take low physical damage and absorb all but one element, and hitting them with those elements caused a dangerous counterattack. Then they throw in 5 of those in one battle troop. Use a target-all spell and you're dead. *wink*

 

[Zevia]

and hitting them with those elements caused a dangerous counterattack. Then they throw in 5 of those in one battle troop. Use a target-all spell and you're dead. *wink*

Reminds me of a game over I had in FF7 during a random battle, I think near Wutai - they had these little birds that spammed a lightning spell, which had a long cast time animation. They also counterattacked every spell used against them with it, and they had a high evade rate for physical spells. Not knowing this, I once used a fire-all or something like that on them, and had to sit and wait for about 5-6 minutes while they all went through their counterattacks and slowly wiped out my party before I was ever able to actually take a turn or even progress the ATB bar.

I didn't particulary find this enjoyable or even fair, although it would've been much more bearable if it hadn't taken so damn long. As it's a point in the game when all your materia has been stolen, I ended up just running from every battle until I got it back.

 

[Oriceles]

Economy of cutscenes. Again, don't emulate it, but learn from it. Due to space concerns, retro RPGs were extremely conservative with cutscene. In each cutscene, something had to happen. The player needed a payoff from what they'd done to trigger the cutscene, and a guiding hand to show them their next objective. Even as early as the SNES, cutscenes began to expand to do more than this, and that's great! But in an era when games can be bloated with cutscenes, retro games can give some valuable perspective to developers who don't want to bloat but don't know anything else.

omg i remember back when i was a kid, everytime that I saw that the screen freezed to display a dialogue or something with the characters I felt great because I was really sure that I was achieving somthing. On nowadays games you see a cutscene for tutorial, and another leaving town, and another on the first fight, and another on the first quest and you keep going on cutscene until you fight with the boss. No mistery or where do i go? feel. Also I'll repost a video that Yanfly posted on his blog long ago:

 

[Eschaton]

I watched this video before.  I felt that some of the "design choices" he mentioned were probably just happy coincidences on Capcom's part.  That said, rudimentary tutorial through level design is still pretty damn ingenious.