What Made Those Old, 2D Platformers So Great?

TheManagement writes "Many current developers of web games seem to have a fondness for 2D platformers. However, their desire to capture what made Sonic and Mario games so great is rarely achieved. In an attempt to breach that gap, Significant Bits takes a look at three common design principles that made those classic titles so enjoyable. 'To start off, the interface needs to be quick and responsive. Input should have an immediate effect on the character in order to foster a sense of full control. Granularity and different control techniques, i.e., pressing, tapping and holding, are also important as they provide a level of precision to the movement. ... Now, as far as the environments themselves, it's not a coincidence that they're often filled with all sorts of slides, bridges, trampolines, ladders, etc. In a way, they're simply playgrounds for the player, both literally and figuratively. They're catered to the moveset, and they enhance the flow of the game.'"

Comments

The fact that you were younger and less jaded then

[LittleJedi]

The fact that you were younger and less jaded then.

One word.

[boarder8925]

What Made Those Old, 2D Platformers So Great?

One word: nostalgia.

Re:One word.

[boarder8925]

What Made Those Old, 2D Platformers So Great?

One word: nostalgia.

Not at the time, of course.

Re:One word.

[gyrogeerloose]

One word: nostalgia.

That, plus the fact that you didn't need to memorize 150 different keyboard commands to play one of those old games. Most of the newer games became too much like work for me to ever really enjoy them.

Re:One word.

[boarder8925]

Old games in general, really. We mainly remember the good games from Ye Olden Days and forget the plethora of shitty ones that were available as well--and as we wade through the current muck we look back to the golden oldies and bemoan the current state of things. Of course this doesn't apply only to video games, but also movies, music, etc. We remember the good and throw out most of the bad.

Re:One word.

[Aminion]

Nostalgia, indeed. I would, however, like to suggest that by lacking in the graphics department, old games were more immersive because you had to use your own imagination more and not rely on the developers' extended imagination. It's basically one of the main points that Scott Mccloud emphasizes in Understanding Comics and I think the idea translated well to computer games. On the other hand, modern games usually have superior audio and graphics design, and more sophisticated storytelling, all key elements of great games.

Re:One word.

[Rary]

What Made Those Old, 2D Platformers So Great?

One word: nostalgia.

What about limited alternatives?

When the first video game was made, it was the best video game in the world. When there were a dozen titles, more than 80% of games were in the top ten.

Today, we've all seen a gajillion games in our lifetime, so anything new that comes out has some serious competition to even be considered "okay".

Re:One word.

[meringuoid]

Not quite. I'd say two words: Shigeru Miyamoto.

Go download a NES emulator and a collection of ROMs. Play through a representative sample of 2D platformers of the late eighties and early nineties. My God, most of them suck so very, very hard. How did anybody ever enjoy this utter rubbish?

Now play Super Mario Bros. 3.

There, you see the difference? Exactly. This isn't nostalgia taking games that were never very good and inflating them to become unwarranted classics. This is time acting as a filter. All those awful games have sunk into richly deserved obscurity. So when somebody publishes a 2D platformer today, we don't compare it against the whole genre: we compare it against Mario at his absolute best. We're going to see some kid's band he's formed with his mates, and we listen critically, and flame them for not being anywhere near as good as the Beatles.

A small number of truly great games, that's what we remember. We've forgotten the crap.

Re:One word.

[Jurily]

On the other hand, modern games usually have superior audio and graphics design, and more sophisticated storytelling, all key elements of great games.

I beg to differ. They can add to a game, but they don't make one. Just contrast Civilization and Spore. Not to mention D&D.

The thing you're talking about is Photoshop or Movie Maker, not a game.

Re:One word.

[BikeHelmet]

The devs back then had to spend a lot of time on the level layouts. When you can't rely on gfx or sfx to make your game a success, you have to spend a lot of time ensuring every aspect of the game is high quality.

That means reasonably good graphics/sound effects(even if "bleeps and bloops" are the best possible), good level design, difficulty level which ramps up over time, etc.

Far too many modern games have poor level design, or difficulty fluctuates randomly, or the input scheme is awful. It can be quite irritating.

Re:One word.

[DMUTPeregrine]

Nethack has turns, and you can use the command reference if you forget. You don't have to memorize everything. Realtime games with just as many commands are much harder to play.

Noticeable lag, even if framerates are OK

[VMaN]

What I absolutely hate the most about any modern 3d game is that even a relatively beefy machine, I get a noticeable LAG on the input, even if framerates are good, unless i set graphics options to low/low/low etc .

It makes my games unplayable, and I lose interest because it prevents any kind of immersion.

Re:Noticeable lag, even if framerates are OK

[KlausBreuer]

While I do agree with you, it has certain advantages: when I buy this game for real cheap in two years, my PC is powerful enough to set it to max/max/max.
Then I have a nice game with good graphics for a low price.

What, you think I'd buy a brand-new game? Full of bugs? Idiotic copy protections? Ridiculously high prices? Needing much more CPU/GPU power than my high-end PC offers?
You must be joking.

Lack of options

[AnonChef]

Seriously

The same thing that makes any game good

[Zerth]

*button *button Fail

*button *button Succeed ENDORPHINS *button *button Fail

*button *button Succeed ENDORPHINS *button *button Succeed ++ENDORPHINS *button *button Fail ANGER

Continue ad infinitum

The trick is to space out the fails such that you don't give up to quickly, but not so far apart that you don't break the flow every now and then. The other trick is to have enough wiggle in your gameplay such that success can be defined many ways, not just winning.

Oh no, carp came in when I flooded the plump helmet field, there are skeletal elephants blocking the caravan, and someone has an odd mood for jello? I'm screwed! *massive endorphin rush*.

Re:They weren't great

[SirLurksAlot]

Warning: This may turn into a "Get off my lawn!" post.

They weren't great, most of them. Anyone who grew up in the 80's and 90's videogame era, knows that at least 90% of those old 2d platformers... were truly, brokenly awful.

I grew up in the 80's and 90's and I don't remember a lot of platformers being awful, but I do remember a lot of them being extremely difficult. TMNT and Battletoads for the NES are two examples that come to mind. I don't know how many times I had to replay the underwater stage in Turtles before I got fast enough to beat it, or how many times I had to replay the racing stage in Battletoads before I didn't get creamed by an obstacle. Awful games for me were the ones that had confusing controls or puzzles that just did NOT want to be solved, but really there weren't a lot of those that I can recall. For the most part games had a good (read "simple") set of controls, straight-forward goals and were at least somewhat forgiving of mistakes (You died? Guess what, you have two more mans!)

I honestly think that games back then had better gameplay for the most part. They were less complicated and more focused on just having fun. Games today are all about shiny glitz and how many polygons are being handled at once. Games were also a lot cheaper back then, and there was a lot less marketing and hype involved, so even if a game wasn't all that great it's not like you were out $50-60 and crestfallen because it didn't live up to your hopes.

Button presses per minute

[Twinbee]

I find many modern 3D games have a low "button-press-per-minute" count. Whilst older games always had something going on almost every second, recent titles just get the player to sprawl around for hours. Give me an older title such Bank Panic or Smash TV (both arcade) over a modern 3D shooter any day.

For the games which aren't like that, then they're just too easy I find as well. I've recently bought great playing games such as World of Goo and Zombies Vs Plants, and although they are great fun while they last, it's over all too quickly - more proof that games today are geared towards the masses for 'throwaway' purchase like a McDonalds. It's pretty sad.

They weren't great.

[log0n]

There just wasn't anything better at the time. My generation.. it's all about how great Quake/Doom/Duke Nukem and how nothing lives up to the gameplay they offered. The more immediate generations will proclaim how nothing before Halo was any good and very little after has come close.

20 years from now we'll have the same thing.

(personally, I think the games we have now are the best (playing/looking/story(not everything of course)/etc) we've ever had)

RTFA anyone?

[Froobly]

Maybe people here should actually read the article before commenting on it. The article isn't just your average list of top ten games from the '80s, or "boy, games sure suck right now" rant. The author actually lays out some decent guidelines for what makes a good sidescroller, given the benefit of experience.

So many of the posts seem to be parrotting the "nostalgia" line, while refusing to acknowledge that some of those games were just plain *good*. Super Mario Bros. 3 and Mega Man 2 are good games, and the existence of Pac Land doesn't make them any less good. The article does a pretty good job of explaining why.

Re:The fact that you were younger and less jaded t

[KDR_11k]

I disagree, the 2d platformers (at least the post-SMB ones) tend to hold up very well even now. They're probably the genre with the least real evolution, you can play SMB1 without feeling it's missing much from the later games in the genre. Sure, that by itself could mean the genre as a whole is outdated but at least to me the games are still a lot of fun (at least the good ones).

Re:There was nothing better at the time...

[Draconix]

Bullshit. I never owned an SNES, and I never even played Super Metroid until around 2002, and it's still an amazing game.

An even better example, Cave Story, is one of the finest games I've ever played, and it was released in 2004. The only "nostalgia" factor that could be argued is the Metroid-esque format and pixel graphics, which is pretty moot. People don't love it because it reminds them of older games, they love it because it's a fun, challenging, beautiful game that Pixel obviously put a lot into.

I think TFA makes some great points. A big problem with most of these Flash platformers is that they're all pretty art with little substance gameplay-wise. I've played Scary Girl, which is beautiful, but it's not that fun to play.

Re:The fact that you were younger and less jaded t

[bonch]

Normally, I would agree with you except for the incredible sales figures of New Super Mario Bros and the fact young gamers are still playing the older 2D games. I don't think there's a secret to their popularity--they're fast to get into and require no prologues or tutorial missions. You can stop playing at any time and easily jump back into it later. It's simple fun.

Re:The fact that you were younger and less jaded t

[Khashishi]

Mario 64 terrible? It's critically acclaimed as one of the best games of all times.