Nostalgia in games. A topic that you often hear from "old school gamers" especially from the 80's and early 90's
It's actually quite shocking to me how powerful nostalgia can be. How it truly evokes that warm fuzzy feeling when I hear music or see cover art from a game I was enthralled with as a young impressionable gamer.
This opens a massive market for developers to re-release or remaster games knowing gamers like myself will jump all over that like theres no tomorrow.
I have always loved going back to my older consoles to do a run through of Super Metroid or Donkey Kong Country. But as I've gotten older. This feeling has become more and more powerful. I started to go back to playing old school games more and more the past few years. I'm not sure if this is indeed a result of simply getting older and those games becoming more impactful because of how long ago I played them. Or maybe because of lack of time in my adult life. I find myself longing for games that were from a simpler time generally requiring less of a commitment in my days that are generally full of adult responsibilities.
Another theory that crossed my mind was how much more I valued my games back then. Please don't get me wrong. I am not saying that games are less of less quality in modern gaming and therefore modern games should be viewed as such. Some of the most incredible games I have ever played have been on modern consoles. God of War, The Last of Us, and Breath of The Wild. I could also probably list quite a few more. These games are of the utmost highest calibre.
Disposable income however has created a situation where now I can generally buy any game that I want in which I sadly do for better or for worse. This has possibly created a situation where my options tend to be so vast. I flip flop around when my interest starts to stray even the slightest amount. I know this could very well be a "me' situation. But when I was young. I generally got just a handful of games per year limiting my options to only those. I played them whether I liked it or not as it was all that I had available. This let me experience games beginning to end that may have had a rocky beginning or middle but ended up being a fantastic game. I tend to cast games aside way too easily for even the slightest reason these days because I have so many other options to jum Colleagues of mine have also expressed this same situation. I occasionally feel like purchasing less would actually make me play more and experience more games that may not be perfect but I end up loving.
The Final Fantasy VII remake has me literally playing through the original as we speak as well as the plan to play the spin offs directly after. This is just from the E3 game footage and amazing visual screen shots that have been released since then. My mind is constantly running scenes of the original through my head and wondering how AMAZING they're going to look on today's amazing visual technology. Also the promise of a remixed score of Nobuo Uematsu's incredible OST.
So you might be wondering. If nostalgia is so amazing. Wouldn't just playing the original suffice and possibly be better than the upcoming remake?
It's a weird situation where I tend to prefer older games on older consoles. But when one of them is getting the remaster/remake treatment. I am head over heels to hear about it's development.
It's a very complex feeling for me and I don't really have a definitive answer as to if I like older or modern games more. I do know that the older I get. The more I tend to appreciate and fall back to the games of yesteryear. But give me them in a shiny new package and I'm literally salivating at the mouth.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Old age makes you enjoy older things? simple times are more appealing when you have less time in your adult life?
I would actually love to hear your thoughts as it's something that has been on my mind a lot since having a new set up with a ton of my older consoles ready to go.
Email me at: jeppijackson@hotmail.com