Sonic Origins is so weird. These games have been rereleased so many times already. They’re running on a new engine here with new features like widescreen support, but also new bugs. You’d think maybe with a new engine they’d spring for new graphics, but they’re mostly unchanged. Go figure.
TMNT 1 was so miserable back then. I still remember the breath of fresh air that TMNT: the Arcade Game was on NES. Yet basically unplayable today when you put it next to Turtles in Time.
It's funny thinking back to how much bashing of our heads against the wall it took for us to realize that licensed games generally suck. We let them disappoint us so many times before ever learning the lesson. TMNT 1 was far from the worst, looking back, but it was still misery for me. I guess as a single-digit-aged kid, I had a mentality that the game HAD to be awesome, it was the Ninja Turtles after all, so the fact I'm not having fun means I just don't get it yet. Once I figure the game out and get past this dam to the cool parts, I'll see. Same thing with Bart vs. the Space Mutants, which a friend owned and we spent countless hours trying and failing to have fun with. And then he went and bought Bart vs. the World, for double the punishment!
By the time of the SNES era, I knew the difference between a good and a bad game much better. Didn't waste nearly as much time on bad games. But I still wasted a rental on Bart's Nightmare, and Virtual Bart, and Home Alone 1 AND 2 on SNES, among others. Why did I do that?
So true, licensed games were an abomination back in the day. Every so often a gem would slip through the cracks, but for the most part, if it was based on a movie or TV show, you better believe it was truly terrible. I still see people trying to defend that first Turtles game, and I kinda get it? The nostalgia for it is real. It was exciting to switch between all four Turtles in a game back in the day, but it wasn't great then, and it really doesn't hold up now.
Bart Vs. The Space Mutants... so much time spent just on level 1 trying to figure the game out. I wonder if developers knew that it was mostly children playing these games? No need to make the gameplay so esoteric and random, just copy Mario and we'll be happy.
I can relate, I remember being so excited to rent The Tick and The Mask on SNES, just because I liked those properties. Those games were more mediocre than terrible, but still not worth more than a rental. Batman Returns for SNES, on the other hand, is a fantastic beat-em-up, far better than any of the other Batman Returns games for the Sega consoles or NES.
I can at least sense that TMNT 1 involved a lot more *effort* to make than a game like Home Alone. Even if the result wasn't any more fun. And indeed, it's a Konami game.
As for why Bart vs. the Space Mutants had that weird gameplay -- maybe games were changing so fast in those days, and the discipline was so new, that the formula for making a decent game hadn't been cracked and wasn't widely understood. There wasn't as much sense of genre, and new genres were still being invented at a fast pace. So someone pitches a new idea to make their game stand out, they try it, it doesn't work, but the deadline and budget are too tight to retool. Other games tried new ideas that didn't work and were never tried again. Even games from Nintendo. Clu Clu Land, anyone? But we moved on from them fast.
Later devs were more likely to put games into tried-and-true genres. Which is what the first successful Simpsons game did -- the Arcade Game. Just make it a brawler. It was beloved, but really its gameplay was nothing special, mostly a reskin of the first TMNT arcade game. I think a brawler was actually much easier to get right in those days than a 2D platformer. It's a lot easier to just reskin, level design isn't nearly as important so it's more about the visuals (which is the whole point of a licensed game).
"maybe games were changing so fast in those days, and the discipline was so new, that the formula for making a decent game hadn't been cracked and wasn't widely understood. There wasn't as much sense of genre, and new genres were still being invented at a fast pace. So someone pitches a new idea to make their game stand out, they try it, it doesn't work, but the deadline and budget are too tight to retool. Other games tried new ideas that didn't work and were never tried again. Even games from Nintendo. Clu Clu Land, anyone? But we moved on from them fast. "
I'm currently playing a lot of games from the NES' early years, and this is what I'm discovering. You hit the nail on the head.
Sonic Origins is so weird. These games have been rereleased so many times already. They’re running on a new engine here with new features like widescreen support, but also new bugs. You’d think maybe with a new engine they’d spring for new graphics, but they’re mostly unchanged. Go figure.
There are so many good games on the list that can be replayed with great pleasure.
My favorites: street of rage, shinobi
I'd have to play Ninja Turtles again. From memory, I never finished the game that was on nes. Stuck on a level I've played dozens of times...
Streets of Rage and Shinobi are top-tier, indeed.
Wouldn't happen to be the dam level on the original Turtles NES game, would it? That level crushed many a child back in the day.
Thanks for the comment, Viam!
TMNT 1 was so miserable back then. I still remember the breath of fresh air that TMNT: the Arcade Game was on NES. Yet basically unplayable today when you put it next to Turtles in Time.
It's funny thinking back to how much bashing of our heads against the wall it took for us to realize that licensed games generally suck. We let them disappoint us so many times before ever learning the lesson. TMNT 1 was far from the worst, looking back, but it was still misery for me. I guess as a single-digit-aged kid, I had a mentality that the game HAD to be awesome, it was the Ninja Turtles after all, so the fact I'm not having fun means I just don't get it yet. Once I figure the game out and get past this dam to the cool parts, I'll see. Same thing with Bart vs. the Space Mutants, which a friend owned and we spent countless hours trying and failing to have fun with. And then he went and bought Bart vs. the World, for double the punishment!
By the time of the SNES era, I knew the difference between a good and a bad game much better. Didn't waste nearly as much time on bad games. But I still wasted a rental on Bart's Nightmare, and Virtual Bart, and Home Alone 1 AND 2 on SNES, among others. Why did I do that?
So true, licensed games were an abomination back in the day. Every so often a gem would slip through the cracks, but for the most part, if it was based on a movie or TV show, you better believe it was truly terrible. I still see people trying to defend that first Turtles game, and I kinda get it? The nostalgia for it is real. It was exciting to switch between all four Turtles in a game back in the day, but it wasn't great then, and it really doesn't hold up now.
Bart Vs. The Space Mutants... so much time spent just on level 1 trying to figure the game out. I wonder if developers knew that it was mostly children playing these games? No need to make the gameplay so esoteric and random, just copy Mario and we'll be happy.
I can relate, I remember being so excited to rent The Tick and The Mask on SNES, just because I liked those properties. Those games were more mediocre than terrible, but still not worth more than a rental. Batman Returns for SNES, on the other hand, is a fantastic beat-em-up, far better than any of the other Batman Returns games for the Sega consoles or NES.
I can at least sense that TMNT 1 involved a lot more *effort* to make than a game like Home Alone. Even if the result wasn't any more fun. And indeed, it's a Konami game.
As for why Bart vs. the Space Mutants had that weird gameplay -- maybe games were changing so fast in those days, and the discipline was so new, that the formula for making a decent game hadn't been cracked and wasn't widely understood. There wasn't as much sense of genre, and new genres were still being invented at a fast pace. So someone pitches a new idea to make their game stand out, they try it, it doesn't work, but the deadline and budget are too tight to retool. Other games tried new ideas that didn't work and were never tried again. Even games from Nintendo. Clu Clu Land, anyone? But we moved on from them fast.
Later devs were more likely to put games into tried-and-true genres. Which is what the first successful Simpsons game did -- the Arcade Game. Just make it a brawler. It was beloved, but really its gameplay was nothing special, mostly a reskin of the first TMNT arcade game. I think a brawler was actually much easier to get right in those days than a 2D platformer. It's a lot easier to just reskin, level design isn't nearly as important so it's more about the visuals (which is the whole point of a licensed game).
"maybe games were changing so fast in those days, and the discipline was so new, that the formula for making a decent game hadn't been cracked and wasn't widely understood. There wasn't as much sense of genre, and new genres were still being invented at a fast pace. So someone pitches a new idea to make their game stand out, they try it, it doesn't work, but the deadline and budget are too tight to retool. Other games tried new ideas that didn't work and were never tried again. Even games from Nintendo. Clu Clu Land, anyone? But we moved on from them fast. "
I'm currently playing a lot of games from the NES' early years, and this is what I'm discovering. You hit the nail on the head.