Sadbrained Thoughts on Modern Gaming

[skykiii]

Yeah I been dealing with this a lot lately so I figure contain it to one thread.

This year, I might not buy any game that isn't an Arcade Archives release or other sort of retro compilation... and even then, only in cases where getting the original version is either prohibitively expensive, outright impossible, or if its something like the Valis collections where they provide an English translation for games that were originally Japan-only.

Okay, I wanna start with this:

"If you don't like modern games, what about retro-style ones?"

I've actually liked quite a few modern games... but I'll get to that.

Retro-style games are.... weird for me. Just yesterday I was watching a video about modern Contra clones that, I'll admit, all of them looked fun. The problem is.... they all also looked like Contra, a game where I already own most of the games in the franchise (both physically and digitally).

When I play something like Oniken, which is done in the style of an NES game, it just makes me wonder "why am I not playing my actual NES?" Seriously, I've got a drawer full of NES games I've never beaten, what's the point of getting more games?

(I don't know if this is a "me" thing, but the funny thing is emulation gives me the exact same feeling--I always feel bad that I'm using a laptop or something while my actual legitimate hardware gathers dust).

Plus, it just feels weird to me that I'm using modern hardware to get an experience that, theoretically, I could've been getting on devices I've owned for decades. Like, why not put these games on actual carts, then? What has gaming been leading up to?

For me, modern gaming is at its best when its doing something games of the past could not do.

Breath of the Wild or Minecraft, case in point... well in all honesty I would say "Dragon Quest Builders" instead of Minecraft, but then I'd have to explain what that is.

Which, yeah, at first glance games like this seem like the fulfilment of a promise--ever since Daggerfall I've liked the idea of games that kinda simulate living in a virtual world and exploring full 3D spaces and being able to jump off of cliffs without dying for real....

.... the problem is a lot of times, these games end up feeling like novelties. I was addicted to BOTW and Minecraft for awhile, but once the addiction was over, that was it. Dragon Quest Builders kept me hooked in part because of its narrative.

..................

And then of course there's the recurring problems with modern gaming, which various threads here have recounted in detail: Corporate corruption, takeover by either hipsters or woketards...

... And the thing that bugs me the most (and I realize this will be rich coming from me)... the obsession with the past.

Like seriously, was I the only guy who was not excited when Sega announced they were reviving a bunch of their old franchises? For me, the only good thing that could come out of that is retro compilations.

I saw a video earlier today where I saw someone lamenting that Capcom seems to have no interest in making new Mega Man games. My response? Good! Mega Man had a long existence of being over-milked and frankly, the last official game kinda sucked. If his fate now is to have his entire back catalogue compiled into Legacy Collections, I am all the way okay with that.

A thing that ends is in a special place: it gets to live on in the realm of memory, pure and uncorrupted.

Keep it going, and well, you go from "Lord of the Rings" to "Gollum" or "Amazon Prime's Third Age."

Gonna stop here and accept my autism stickers with grace.

 

[DumbDude43]

Plus, it just feels weird to me that I'm using modern hardware to get an experience that, theoretically, I could've been getting on devices I've owned for decades. Like, why not put these games on actual carts, then?

because wasting money on physical storage for software distribution is fucking retarded in the age of widely availabke broadband internet
it's double retarded when that physical storage would be proprietary cartridges that work only with the matching proprietary console
and it's triple retarded when it's a "retro style" game, becuase those tend to have very small file size on disk, so downloading is even faster and physical media is even more of a waste

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

When I play something like Oniken, which is done in the style of an NES game, it just makes me wonder "why am I not playing my actual NES?" Seriously, I've got a drawer full of NES games I've never beaten, what's the point of getting more games?

If you've exhausted the library of good games, especially of a particular genre or style, then it's good to have something similar available.

Sometimes you get one-offs like Wind Waker, where the even the very same franchise doesn't provide titles which feel the same, so spiritual successors step in (usually failing, but still).

And, you know, the "NES hard" shit that was prevalent was really just bad game design, mostly, so there's modern games that are better balanced but still give that retro vibe, just without the clunk (and without the charm).

For me, modern gaming is at its best when its doing something games of the past could not do.

Or just doing it better, which is rare. Both work.

I saw a video earlier today where I saw someone lamenting that Capcom seems to have no interest in making new Mega Man games. My response? Good! Mega Man had a long existence of being over-milked and frankly, the last official game kinda sucked. If his fate now is to have his entire back catalogue compiled into Legacy Collections, I am all the way okay with that.

If it wasn't for the risk of series being ruined by woke shit, then I'd like to see them continue. A company like Cuckcum can't be trusted, but Nintendo could definitely revive Donkey Kong no problem, for example. No point just letting a good franchise go dead when it's still getting good entries.

 

[Bonedome]

This year, I might not buy any game that isn't an Arcade Archives release or other sort of retro compilation... and even then, only in cases where getting the original version is either prohibitively expensive, outright impossible, or if its something like the Valis collections where they provide an English translation for games that were originally Japan-only.

I'm not sure what you want from this post as I'm having a hard time nailing down a solid thought. I'm blaming myself on that one though. My main point would be: Do what you want. My secondary point is this: We have moods and tastes for a reason. Two games could be damn near identical but you like Skyrim and not Fallout 4/Starfield/whatever.

Retro-style games are.... weird for me. Just yesterday I was watching a video about modern Contra clones that, I'll admit, all of them looked fun. The problem is.... they all also looked like Contra, a game where I already own most of the games in the franchise (both physically and digitally).

When I play something like Oniken, which is done in the style of an NES game, it just makes me wonder "why am I not playing my actual NES?" Seriously, I've got a drawer full of NES games I've never beaten, what's the point of getting more games?

I'm attributing this to my second point above. I have very good games on the Switch that I know I would enjoy, however I tend to want to play on my computer. Whether it's control scheme, ease of access to my second monitor/distractions, ability to have a stream going while playing a game, etc. I don't really find this to be an issue. If you feel like experiencing the NES some more then you can do so, if you're not doing it then why not? Whatever else you're doing must (or should) be more appealing. I feel this addresses the next couple of sentences too.

Breath of the Wild or Minecraft... "Dragon Quest Builders"

I'd say those are fun games for sure. I stopped playing Minecraft before it ever had an end-game, and I never beat Dragon Quest Builders 2. It is what it is, I still haven't beat TotK and that's after no lifing the game for 2 weeks when it came out.

Which, yeah, at first glance games like this seem like the fulfilment of a promise--ever since Daggerfall I've liked the idea of games that kinda simulate living in a virtual world and exploring full 3D spaces and being able to jump off of cliffs without dying for real....

.... the problem is a lot of times, these games end up feeling like novelties. I was addicted to BOTW and Minecraft for awhile, but once the addiction was over, that was it. Dragon Quest Builders kept me hooked in part because of its narrative.

I'm curious as to why this is an issue to you. Is it that the game doesn't feel it has replayability compared to older games or that you can't continuously replay a game for 1k+ hours? For lack of better comparisons do you re-watch a lot of movies or re-read a lot of books? I feel there must be a point where you set something down for awhile. Gotta shoot some new guns, read new books, watch new movies, something.

And then of course there's the recurring problems with modern gaming, which various threads here have recounted in detail: Corporate corruption, takeover by either hipsters or woketards...

Sure, but I still feel there's no shortage of fun games to play. People gave Hogwarts Legacy a lot of shit for its diversity but I thought it was great. Definitely was worth playing through once and moving on. I bought and beat Scars Above recently, it was fun and I enjoyed it for the 12 dollars I spent, and I probably will not replay it. It was a complete game that came out in 2023, short and sweet.

Like seriously, was I the only guy who was not excited when Sega announced they were reviving a bunch of their old franchises? For me, the only good thing that could come out of that is retro compilations.

I have no strong feelings either way but if they make good games then I'm for it, for instance I enjoyed the Ratchet and Clank reboot and Rift Apart. Likewise I'm alright with a series being retired and then revived through a spiritual successor, I enjoyed Castlevania: SotN and I enjoyed Bloodstained.

A thing that ends is in a special place: it gets to live on in the realm of memory, pure and uncorrupted.

Again I'd go back to point one. Just cause JK Rowling said some transphobic things doesn't mean Harry Potter has to be ruined, and just because Fallout 3, 4, New Vegas, and 76 come out doesn't mean Fallout 1 is now bad.

 

[skykiii]

because wasting money on physical storage for software distribution is fucking retarded in the age of widely availabke broadband internet
it's double retarded when that physical storage would be proprietary cartridges that work only with the matching proprietary console
and it's triple retarded when it's a "retro style" game, becuase those tend to have very small file size on disk, so downloading is even faster and physical media is even more of a waste

That's more an argument to sell the download with an option to let me put it on a flash cart. And considering nowadays there is a market for aftermarket NES games and bootlegs I'm not sure how retarded it is.

But in all honesty the real reason is that games like Oniken actually couldn't run on an actual NES, despite attempting to invoke that look.

Or just doing it better, which is rare. Both work.

Agree.

If you've exhausted the library of good games, especially of a particular genre or style, then it's good to have something similar available.

Agree here too.

Going with your Wind Waker comment:

This is actually a funny area, because one thing that happened with the retro-style boom is some things that used to be kind of rare or unique started getting overplayed. I recall back in the late 1990s I was positively ecstatic to find anything that played like Metroid or Symphony of the Night, even in the barest way, making games like the NES Rygar special. Now though? Half the Switch e-Shop is Metroidvanias. It's not special anymore, its mundane and overdone and they all kind of run together.

That's also partially why I'm happy Mega Man is over. It's a series that has had over fifty games, plus the gameplay style has been cloned and replicated so many times that it--again--has actually become rather mundane and un-special. (This is speaking for the Classic and X series, of course).

Something like Aggelos (a game that plays like the Wonder Boy/Monster World games) though? That's kinda interesting, because that style of game isn't actually something you see too often.

Admittedly, one of my "bummer" factors with this is that sometimes there's something I wish would get a spiritual successor or modern port, and then it doesn't..... or if it does, the nitpick part of my brain sets in and finds that one little thing that's wrong.

And, you know, the "NES hard" shit that was prevalent was really just bad game design, mostly, so there's modern games that are better balanced but still give that retro vibe, just without the clunk (and without the charm).

Yeah honestly, "old game difficulty" was always kind of a myth. I think what happened is people played those games when they were young and less able to think logically and piece things together, and they remember that into adulthood.

Like I said in another topic, a lot of times when I revisit games I used to think were hard, I end up being like "I used to think this was hard? Really?"

........................

Changing subject, going back to the thing about how my brain will nitpick and find ways a modern successor/equivalent "isn't good enough..."

This is actually something I didn't rant about because it's 100% a "me" thing but whenever I play these retro-style games I always see parts where the illusion breaks and I remember I'm playing a modern game. Sometimes its a graphical effect I know the NES could not have done. Sometimes its an aspect of the writing.

A big recurring one for me is when characters swear a lot--I'm not against swearing, but it feels out of place seeing F-bombs dropped in something that is (theoretically) attempting to replicate the feel of a 1990s era game where that would never happen.

It reminds me of the first time I watched that Duck Dodgers show on Cartoon Network, he described some space animal that does nothing but poop.... it took me out of the show because that's just something Daffy Duck would never say, its a word he should not even know. It would be like if you made a show claiming to be a continuation of the 1987 Ninja Turtles, but the first episode had Shredder feeling up April's breasts. It's just fundamentally wrong.

 

[Calandrino]

This year, I might not buy any game that isn't an Arcade Archives release or other sort of retro compilation...

Where's the sad part

 

[skykiii]

I'm not sure what you want from this post as I'm having a hard time nailing down a solid thought.

Yeah, when I sadbrain post it tends to not make a lot of sense. It's like trying to interpret music.

Two games could be damn near identical but you like Skyrim and not Fallout 4/Starfield/whatever.

I hear that! I recall so many times in my life people tried to tell me Game X is irrelevant because of Game Y, but Game X is still the game I wanted to play.

I'm curious as to why this is an issue to you. Is it that the game doesn't feel it has replayability compared to older games or that you can't continuously replay a game for 1k+ hours? For lack of better comparisons do you re-watch a lot of movies or re-read a lot of books? I feel there must be a point where you set something down for awhile. Gotta shoot some new guns, read new books, watch new movies, something.

Yeah this is admittedly a bit tough to explain, but...

It's not about replayability. It's more like...

Like, you know how when you have a vitamin deficiency, you crave certain foods?

Ever had a time where you stockpiled a certain food or snack because you've been craving it a lot, but then suddenly the craving just stops, and now the thing in question is actually disgusting to you, as your body's way of signalling "you're not deficient anymore. Stop"?

It's kind of like that.

Where it gets to be a bummer in this case is, now I have my modern hardware but I have no reason to use it... but I feel bad getting a thing only to let it collect dust. It's kind of the reverse of the "why not play this on my NES?" thing, like now I want to use the new toy but now its like I'm just trying to justify it.

Incidentally, part of the problem also is the prevalence of digital games. Used to be if I owned a Phantasy Star collection on GBA but decided I'd rather have them on Genesis, I would just trade/sell until I got my wish. Now though it can feel like I'm stuck with stuff. This is one reason I stopped buying games on GOG and I'm thinking the Switch eShop might follow suit (as for Steam, I've never used that at all).

 

[Father Fornicatio]

Where it gets to be a bummer in this case is, now I have my modern hardware but I have no reason to use it... but I feel bad getting a thing only to let it collect dust.

I feel ya, i have a beast of a pc yet i play stuff on it which could run on a calculator. I have given up on modern games at this moment, so i dont bother to look at new releases. But the indie scene is thriving with games like: Sons of the Forest and so forth.. The game i am looking forward the most at this moment is the Suikoden 1&2 remaster, but i fear its gonna be a cheap cash grab with some visual filters.

 

[cerulean hydra]

semi-related, youtube put a video in my feed earlier that I didn't click on that looked like it boiled down to "developers making clones of other games is good ahkshually."

I hate that for a decade after Far Cry 3, every open world game was Far Cry 3 with a different skin. It's all the same stew, where you have to get past the rotten vegetables to try and enjoy the meat.

Open world AAA game? Run around and collect resources in order to CRAFT! Don't want to do it? The game will be much harder and less enjoyable as a result. I miss open world sandboxes just giving you toys to play with. Now you have to slog through "content" to get them. When does the fun start? Horizon was a shitty game, and I'll die on that hill.

Action RPG? We're a soulslike now! The AI isn't janky, and the bosses aren't poorly designed, it's meant to be difficult! Git Gud! Map design? What's wrong with linear hallways filled with enemies? That's the challenge!

JRPGs still seem pretty safe, but the quality of the writing has taken a nosedive. Persona 5 felt so poorly written that it made me avoid a lot of newer RPGs, and the indie ones are filled with wokeshit. I don't expect much mechanically from them, but I expect a half-decent story.

The layer of woke covers everything like rancid frosting. People with no talent getting put into positions where they just copy things that seem successful, without understanding why or how those features worked well in other games. And with the new generation of consoles, optimization has gone out of the window, so enjoy not running anything at an enjoyable framerate on a mid spec PC. Sorry gamers, we don't have real engineers or technical artists anymore.

Re: Cravings. For a few years I've been craving a good casual FPS game to play, but everything is either garbage or battle royale shit. Overwatch 1 was fun, then it got ruined. A lot of other games can't seem to deal with the hacking problem. There hasn't been a good Battlefield since 4. Just a long list of shit that boils down to people refusing to make something interesting because it's easier to rip off whatever is currently popular, be that Tarkov or Fortnite.

Anyway those are my own sadbrain thoughts, sorry for shitting up your thread.

 

[instant]

I think everyone has an obsession with the past, with reasons ranging from just the biological factor of specific experiences imprinting itself more strongly on someone when they're young, to fairly true external factors of game development being objectively slower and having much higher overhead costs as time goes on.

It's kind of a multi-pronged issue. Josh actually talked about this in a MATI episode briefly, but it's relevant. There's been a proliferation of proprietary game development software that's completely taken over both the indie scene and small publishers in general. I don't blame the indie developers either, just think about it, they have the option of starting over from scratch and making their own engines or just using Godot, Trinity or even WolfRPG. Even experienced developers with funding from AAA publishers would rather just use Unreal over starting over. But inevitably this makes everything feel... kind of similar. I've lost track of how many times I've played a game and immediately recognize a royalty free sound effect from the Unity store.

I can however end on a slightly positive note, at least for me. In the last few years I've had my obsession with the past completely broken once, and that was when I played Scarlet Nexus. A completely new IP? With novel controls and custom physics? With full backing from a AAA publisher? In 2021?! Not just that, it's actually fun and- dare I say it, soulful?! Unbelievable. I was flabbergasted, shook to my very core. A game hadn't made me feel the way I did since God Hand and that was almost 20 years ago.

Later on I found out that the reason Scarlet Nexus got the funding and support it did was because the game was actually used as a foundation for Bamco's next 2 (planned) cash cows. Anyone would instantly realize within the first few seconds that both Tales of Arise and Blue Protocol were just Scarlet Nexus but with different shaders.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that, while the modern video game development scenes makes it really hard for anything distinct to be made, let alone something that couldn't have been made in the past, the possibility isn't entirely zero. Someone out there could be working on something right now to finally make you feel like you're really living in the now when playing it.

 

[Grub]

(I don't know if this is a "me" thing, but the funny thing is emulation gives me the exact same feeling--I always feel bad that I'm using a laptop or something while my actual legitimate hardware gathers dust).

I'm the opposite. I'm stoked as fuck my new phone is powerful enough to emulate ps2 and GameCube games. My wife and I hung out playing worms 3d for hours the other day. Meanwhile I haven't touched any of my actual consoles in years. I don't see the point. Why would I want to fuck around with all that old shit when I can play the same games more easily with something I carry around in my pocket and I can connect to a TV? I would have been so excited as a kid for something like that.

 

[The Feline Solution]

I was almost done with gaming as a whole last year, again, because the games i waited for were almost uniformly not fun (Jagged Alliance 3, RE4Remake amongst others) for me. Then Rogue Trader released and i was instantly hooked again, despite all its technical faults it felt to me like the vidya of old and i am having a lot of fun with it. I just gotta accept that in present day only two, three titles a year are worth it for me anymore and to just not buy or pirate the rest, also to lower my expectations.

One thing i decided is no more remakes of 90's/early 00's titles i liked, with one notable exception (RE2remake) i got burned by these. Questionable sequels to 20-30 year old titles i enjoyed is another thing i won't get hyped for anymore.

This is actually something I didn't rant about because it's 100% a "me" thing but whenever I play these retro-style games I always see parts where the illusion breaks and I remember I'm playing a modern game. Sometimes its a graphical effect I know the NES could not have done. Sometimes its an aspect of the writing.

I am with you here, one of the main reasons i hardly play these. One of the others being i grew up with the NES and i also spent thousands of hours on emulated games in pre-broadband days, i don't need to relive the past via some modern substitute that is most of the time only a pale imitation. There are, of course, good modern 8 and 16bit games with gorgeous pixel art and respecting old console limitations but they are far and few between.

And, you know, the "NES hard" shit that was prevalent was really just bad game design, mostly, so there's modern games that are better balanced but still give that retro vibe, just without the clunk (and without the charm).

100% agreed. There's also this modern misconception that making a game balls to the wall hard automatically makes it a good game.

 

[skykiii]

Anyway those are my own sadbrain thoughts, sorry for shitting up your thread.

That's what this thread exists for. Please, shit it up!

JRPGs still seem pretty safe, but the quality of the writing has taken a nosedive. Persona 5 felt so poorly written that it made me avoid a lot of newer RPGs, and the indie ones are filled with wokeshit. I don't expect much mechanically from them, but I expect a half-decent story.

I've made this rant before, and I guess this is as good a place as any to contain it.

Honestly, RPGs--both Japanese and Western--used to be a favorite genre of mine. I can go back to Chrono Trigger, Wizardry, Dungeons & Dragons Warriors of the Eternal Sun, etc. and still get some enjoyment out of them.

Nowadays?.... its a crapshoot. For one thing, I just hate modern aesthetics across the board... for the most part. Skyrim is a strange case: I find the world itself beautiful but god damn are those the ugliest elves ever. I had a conversation with my sister last year: she said she thinks the elves in the Rankin-Bass Hobbit are ugly. So I asked "what do you think of Skyrim elves?" and she agreed those are WAY worse.

On the Japanese side... I fucking hate anime art these days. In the eighties and nineties it was beautiful and character designs were attractive. Now a lot of it feels over-designed and too glitzy and glamorous... like a woman with a million layers of makeup on. Some modern Japanese stuff I wound up liking in spite of that (Danganronpa) but again, that's usually either A) in spite of the retardation or B) because the retardation itself actually works (which I argue it does for Danganronpa, whose whole thing is being an off-kilter murder mystery in an insane situation).

Stories have been a bit disappointing.

Here I have to confess something: even during the "golden age" of RPGs (mid-to-late 1990s for me) I reached a point where I started seeing the weaknesses of JRPG writing and decided to instead seek out actual books. At the time though, I always had this idea in my head that RPGs were a young genre and would eventually evolve into something that could equal the weirdness pulled off in something like Frank Herbert's Dune or Doc Smith's Lensman novels....

RPG stories haven't evolved, if anything they've become more stuck in "types," to the point where you can just look at screenshots or hear some lines of dialogue and immediately know what the writer is going for. I wound up getting bored of Persona 5 early in because the story sounded like a retread of several different anime I had already seen.

At best, you've gotten unstable mutations--notably the Undertale clones. And a mutation is not an evolution. I thought Undertale was good, but not great, and ultimately it taught game designers the wrong lesson (much like Earthbound did) where a lot of people think just being "quirky" makes it good. It also led to garbage like Omori.

Unfortunately, even stuff that's trying to be a genre throwback tends to be firmly entrenched in modern trends and aesthetics. This was something that bothered me about Mary Skelter and I'm sure it'll be an issue if I ever start playing Etrian Odyssey. I recall also playing some game where a witch sends puppets down a well (I wanna say it was called Coven of Dusk) and yeah... issues.

The biggest issue I have with modern RPGs though, actually is the mechanics.

First off, I've noticed designers (especially J designers) seem to think that just having more numbers to juggle is the same as having depth. The problem is its not--inevitably you're just always gonna wear the most balanced configuration and most battles come down to just "do the same thing over and over until bad thing dies."

True depth is when something changes how you actually approach battle. To give praise to a PS2-era RPG, the moment I began to respect Final Fantasy XII was when I tried giving all my characters bows, casting a paralysis spell on a monster and pelting it from a distance.. and it worked. Now suddenly I had a possible tool that could win without just boiling down to "come back after you've gained fifteen levels" (which is how most JRPGs are).

Another problem with most modern JRPG mechanics is there can be too many, and they're often not well-explained, which gives me anxiety that I might be doing something wrong if, say, I don't take a certain class-change, or if I take it as soon as its available and thus miss out on some benefit of waiting. And again often these benefits and drawbacks aren't very clear. "Plus One strength" is not something I understand unless I can see a tangible benefit to it. If I equip a new sword and its doing 20 damage consistently while the last one was averaging 15, that's something that makes sense to me. But many times these days the numbers are totally nebulous and the gains/losses have to be in the dozens to even make a tangible difference.

I could go on, because honestly the RPG is the most fucked genre that once showed so much promise and used to be the center of my world, but then gaming got retarded about it.

One thing i decided is no more remakes of 90's/early 00's titles i liked, with one notable exception (RE2remake) i got burned by these. Questionable sequels to 20-30 year old titles i enjoyed is another thing i won't get hyped for anymore.

For me the issue of remakes sucks for another reason.

Simply put.... I don't want to keep two versions of the Resident Evil 2 storyline straight in my head. I'd rather experience a new story, not be a wikipedia stockpile of minor difference with griefing over "which is better."

When I talk to my niece and nephew, I want us all to have a largely united experience. Instead its very often stuff like "well Maleficent was right to hate the king because he cut her wings off!" And I'm like... "the fuck are you talking about?"

 

[cerulean hydra]

This was something that bothered me about Mary Skelter and I'm sure it'll be an issue if I ever start playing Etrian Odyssey

I haven't played Mary Skelter, but I played the original Etrian Odyssey games on the DS and I enjoyed them. The story was a little bare-bones, but I think they added more in the Untold remakes (with the caveat that you can't form a custom party, so fuck that). At least as far as the first three games go, they are enjoyable dungeon crawlers. I tried playing the Untold remake of the first game, but the story and the fixed party they added didn't grab me. It can be played in Classic mode, though. And it looks like the original games got HD releases that don't include the Untold content.

I don't remember them having a lot of stat juggling, newer equipment was always better. The meat of the game was the dungeon exploration and mapping.

edit: I will say they do get grindy, especially if you try to level one character of each class.

 

[The Feline Solution]

On the Japanese side... I fucking hate anime art these days. In the eighties and nineties it was beautiful and character designs were attractive. Now a lot of it feels over-designed and too glitzy and glamorous

I feel this hard.

Some modern Japanese stuff I wound up liking in spite of that (Danganronpa)

Fucking why? I never played the games because i am not interested in the genre but if i were the chara designs would be what would turn me off playing them. Overdesigned bullshit with a terrible colour palette. Soul Hackers 2 is another modern game were i find the design offensivly bad. Most modern JRPG made by the japanese look as bad as the early 00's flood of gook "Look, we can do animu, too! And we are cheaper!" designed games, it's a shame.
I agree with lots of stuff in your RPG/JRPG rant, too, i personally feel like the genre is overflooded by cheap, bad games right now that only bank on weeb aesthetics and nothing more. On the other hand there have been some nice western-made JRPG i thoroughly enjoyed, like LISA:The Painful and West over Loathing/Shadows over Loathing. I am still a sucker for SMT and Persona games, too. Apart from Soul Hackers 2 i had fun with them.

I thought Undertale was good, but not great, and ultimately it taught game designers the wrong lesson (much like Earthbound did) where a lot of people think just being "quirky" makes it good

Another hard agree.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I dunno, I'm slightly optimistic about gaming since the last year was relatively good. A lot of the old titans are finally dying and companies realize some trends are irrevocably saturated. Also woke game sales and reputation finally plummet.

Plus as more Millenial/Gen X commit suicide their overall influence weakens.

 

[X Prime]

What you're seeing on the Japanese side is the overuse of tropes.

Reality is, more money is in the merch side than the actual game in many cases. How do you get that money? You pander, usually to coomers.

This is the same reason that we're getting more and more gachas, with each kind of character invoking a different trope to pander to different kinds of broken individual.

A shocking number of people go nuts for what I can only describe as "-dere" type female characters.

 

[Dysnomia]

Most recent game I've played is Pokemon Violet. I like it. But I can have just as much fun with Gen Wun glitching up the Cinnabar coast.

What you're seeing on the Japanese side is the overuse of tropes.

Reality is, more money is in the merch side than the actual game in many cases. How do you get that money? You pander, usually to coomers.

This is the same reason that we're getting more and more gachas, with each kind of character invoking a different trope to pander to different kinds of broken individual.

A shocking number of people go nuts for what I can only describe as "-dere" type female characters.

Too much coomer stuff. It's taken over and I don't get how people aren't so desensitized that they can't get off on it anymore. Maybe because I'm a woman I don't understand. But after the 10,000th big booby panty shot sexpot waifu doesn't it get kinda... not hot anymore? I'd think you'd have to be pretty ronery to constantly beg for more of the same coomer trash over and over. Go touch grass instead of playing your gacha garbage one handed.

I hate how character design has gotten so fanservicey that everyone is looking the same. There's no creativity. I don't care if you have some sexy coomer characters. But why does every female character have to look like that? It's super boring to anyone not into it. Same with all the shota and loli trash.

 

[geckogoy]

My least favorite thing is needing new hardware to run games that should run on a calculator but require a small supercomputer due to truly horrendous programming

 

[X Prime]

You would fucking think, but it just does not happen.

It's like someone is throwing a couple darts whenever they make a female character design, and the targets on the board are stuff like:

"Giant boobs"

"Pose that inexplicably shows the soles of their feet"

"Thigh windows"

"Womb tattoo"

"Two-tone hair"

"Domineering bitch (tsundere)"

And so on, and so on. It's like they're hitting a randomizer and once in a blue moon they get a character that is not defined primarily by how many people whack off to it.