[anonymous908213]

I know it's easy to trot out "nostalgia", but do you not think it's possible that older games can genuinely be better than newer games? I very much think it is common to find such games, even games I had never played in my youth. There were bad games then too, of course, and good games now, but I think the ratio of hits was higher. Particularly now that modern game development is so sloppy. Microtransaction-infested games rule the world, and while the indie scene does still produce excellent gems, most of them tend to be significantly less polished and rougher around the edges.

[vlunkr]

Yeah I think that individual retro games can be incredible and stand the test of time. For me Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night are timeless. As a whole though, it’s hard to measure. Today we have microtransactions, in the past we had games that threw in one bullshit level so you couldn’t beat it during a rental. (Lookin at you battletoads) and bad movie tie-ins, lazy arcade ports, etc. There’s always going to be trash.

One thing retro games obviously don’t have is hindsight. Shovel Knight feels like the best NES games, but lacks crap like lives and continues, because it learned from later games like Dark Souls that you can make death punishing without making it un-fun. Hollow knight builds on my favorite games with a couple of decades of lessons on how to make platformers more interesting and less frustrating.

[itsmek]

The difference between microtransaction today and trash in the past is that the old games achieved success by not being trash. Yes trash existed but it was generally not successful and the market generally rewarded quality so the money and dev effort went into quality games. Today the money is made by gacha games so that's where the effort goes. Not the same imo.

[vlunkr]

There was plenty of movie tie-in shovelware that sold well. ET is obviously the infamous example, but this continued to go on into the 3D era. Sports games too. They aren't universally bad, but often they succeeded just because they have the official license. It's just like any kind of media, bad stuff can succeed because of deceptive marketing or slapping a familiar name on garbage.

This is all a vast oversimplification. There are obviously hundreds of games coming out every year without gacha mechanics.

[pjerem]

I do feel like you miss the point if you compare retro games with today AAA games.

The good video games of today are 100% indie.

I love Super Mario Bros as much as the other guy, but a game like Celeste is objectively better in each and every aspect.

I’m a 90’s kid and I had a blast with my N64, gamecube, Wii …

But I’m also having a blast nowadays with :

- Outer Wilds (it’s forbidden to say what it is)

- RimWorld (colony builder)

- Satisfactory (time vacuum)

- Factorio (factory builder)

- A Hat In Time (3d platformer with a lot of love for the n64/gc but with its own character)

- Poi (same)

- Vampire Survivors (dopamine fountain)

- Tinykin (looks like Pikmin but actually the chilliest platformer I played : smooth, calm, beautiful, good design, good music)

- Pizza Tower (Wario Land with a pizza twist and a lot of love)

- Kathy Rain (point and click)

- Stanley Parable (idk what it is but it was fun)

- Evoland

- The Touryist (chill adventure)

- Super Meat Boy (hard platformer)

- Celeste (hard platformer but that loves you and encourages you)

- Hell Pie (3d platformer, ode to Conker Bad Fur Day)

- Stardew Valley

Etc …

There are a lot more but I can already say that each and every game of this list gave me at least as much pleasure as my childhood games.

[surgical_fire]

That's not entirely untrue. Triple A is the current day shovelware. It's just that the shovel is made of gold and expensive.

I find my enjoyment in select retro games and indies nowadays. When I find a game I really like that is not an indie, it is typically something that is explicitly not AAA (such as Octopath Traveler).

Hell, one of my all-time favorites is a indie I olayed a couple of years ago - Ender Lilies. It became the best Metroidvania ever for me, when I thought nothing would ever dethrone Castlevania Aria of Sorrow.

So yeah. If gaming has a future for me, it is with indies.

[bspammer]

I really didn’t expect to get a new favourite game of all time in my 30s, surely the nostalgia factor was too strong, but Outer Wilds was exactly that for me.

[YurgenJurgensen]

1) Anyone who says Celeste’s music is better than Super Mario Bros’ is a liar, and I don’t even like Nintendo games. 2) Let’s look at some of those release dates, shall we? 2019, 2013, 2020, 2017, 2017, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2016, 2013, 2013, 2008(!), 2019, 2021, and 2016.

That’s a period of 15 years. For an American, the NES released in 1985 and the PS2 released in 2000, also a period of 15 years. The fact that your “games of today” list is kind-of competing with four console generations itself is an indication that quality isn’t higher now, even with a considerably higher volume of releases.

Also only two of those games came out in the last 5 years, so things really aren’t looking great for modern games.

[framapotari]

Things aren't looking great for modern games as a whole because a HN poster didn't include new enough games in their list of modern games they enjoy?

[YurgenJurgensen]

Things aren’t look great for modern games because when people think ‘modern games’, they think of titles from the last decade.

[pjerem]

Except most of those games aren't "retro" because, unlike real retro games, they are mostly still updated and they work on any recent computer/console.

So for me, even for the oldest ones, they are still part of the same "era". What I mean by that is that if you buy any of the items in this list in 2026, it will not feel like it's an "old" game.

[YurgenJurgensen]

Surely that just shows how much things have stagnated. If a 2011 game and a 2026 game don’t “feel” different, where’s the innovation?

[fluoridation]

That's not what GP said, what they said is one doesn't feel _older_ than the other, not that they don't feel different at all.

That aside, is innovation (technological or otherwise) the goal of video games? If past a certain year the best games of every don't seem to be any better than any other, but just different kinds of good, to me that's not stagnation, but rather that the designers collectively figured out how fun games that are not constrained by the hardware. There's a reason, for example, that past a certain point lives systems just about went away, or autosaving nearly completely replaced manual saving.

[wizzwizz4]

Super Mario Bros works on any recent computer / console. Is it not retro?

[Wowfunhappy]

> Anyone who says Celeste’s music is better than Super Mario Bros’ is a liar, and I don’t even like Nintendo games.

…I’m a liar, I guess.

And I do like Nintendo games.

[natebc]

I think that person doesn't understand what a liar is either lol.

I'm too slow to finish a game like Celeste but the soundtrack is an all timer. Lena Raine's music is fantastic.

Super Mario music is great too ... why do we have to tear one thing down to lift another up?

[ranger_danger]

> a game like Celeste is objectively better in each and every aspect

As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding.

[GoblinSlayer]

I played Yoshi's island as an adult and think it's the best platformer game. I wonder if it counts as nostalgia.

[youngtaff]

IMV Super Monkey Ball on the GameCube is way better than any of it's successors