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What Made Those Old, 2D Platformers So Great?

Posted by Soulskill on from the simple-yet-entertaining dept.

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.'"

15 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. The fact that you were younger and less jaded then by LittleJedi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The fact that you were younger and less jaded then.

  2. One word. by boarder8925 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What Made Those Old, 2D Platformers So Great?

    One word: nostalgia.

    --
    Keep your eyes to the sky.
    1. Re:One word. by boarder8925 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What Made Those Old, 2D Platformers So Great?

      One word: nostalgia.

      Not at the time, of course.

      --
      Keep your eyes to the sky.
    2. Re:One word. by gyrogeerloose · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      This ain't rocket surgery.
    3. Re:One word. by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    4. Re:One word. by BikeHelmet · · Score: 5, Funny

      That was amazing! I need to try splitting my insightful posts in two.

    5. Re:One word. by BikeHelmet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  3. Lack of options by AnonChef · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously

  4. There's still new 2D games that are good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Braid, World of Goo, N+, etc.

    The article talks about 2D games like they were things of the past and no good ones existed today...

  5. No limits by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the things that make 2-D platformers stand out today is that you don't feel limited. When you played Super Mario World you don't think about the limitations of the SNES, there are no load times, rarely any lag, etc. Most 2-D platformers were abstract, you didn't think "Oh, Mario's mustache isn't moving realistically", you concentrated on the game. When you got to the SNES/Genesis era, it seemed like any limitation was banished forever for 2-D games, you got bright multi-colored visuals, music that was quite catchy, you had no load times (unlike CD based consoles), and with expansion chips such as the Super-FX the games really got more impressive as the system went on. When games started moving into 3-D and realistic 3-D, things started to get more realistic. They moved out of the abstract. You noticed that Mario was really blocky, round visuals were rendered as squarish, etc. They felt limited. While in a 2-D game you had total freedom within the course till the end, early 3-D games had to constrain you. Even though you could see hills as far as the eye could see, whenever you ran after them you were hit by an invisible wall. The hardware also felt limited, with the rise of CD/DVD based games you introduced loading times, this took you away from being totally immersed for 5 seconds and somewhat ruined the effect you were in another world.

    Today things are starting to get better, 3-D seems less limiting then before, yet with the rise of HD TVs, faster CPUs, etc. I doubt that we can really get seemingly unlimited 3-D games until close to the next revolution, be it true 3-D, VR, or something different. The rise of flash memory, faster drives and HDs in game consoles have cut down on load times too. But still 3-D doesn't seem as limitless as 2-D platforming was.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  6. Shenanigans by yerktoader · · Score: 5, Informative

    So a good number of people have stated nostalgia, and out of those the majority have said that 2d platformers were mostly or all bad. Yet I've not seen any examples of how or why.

    I call bullshit.

    Platformers have continued to achieve success, and while they're far less common than they used to be, many of them have received rave reviews, and deservedly:

    Castlevania: Symphony of the Night(1997)
    Contra: Shattered Soldier(2002)
    Neo Contra(2004)
    Psychonauts(2005)
    Bionic Commando Rearmed(2008)
    Mega Man 9(2008)

    And there's many more that I haven't listed. I think what made those games great back in the day is what makes them great now - simple to interact with, but challenging enemies and environments. Great soundtracks, great graphics, great fun.

  7. Re:The fact that you were younger and less jaded t by James+Skarzinskas · · Score: 5, Funny

    For me, it's the total difference in attitude. Back then, I was a kid with no disposable income to spare. Your parents rented you some games from the video store for the weekend and you played the hell out of them. Very seldom did you get the exact games of your choice, so you learned to just deal with what you got. It didn't matter of they were clunky or poorly designed, or if the music was no better than 8-bit blips composed by someone totally tone-deaf who figured the NES's "noise" channel was a substitute for any instrumentation; you were on a holy mission to beat the game(s) within the rental period. Eventually, you even acquired a taste for some of the crappier ones that would later manifest as nostalgia. You'd give anything, any genre a chance. The information just wasn't available the way it is today. If Nintendo Power said it was awesome, you prayed to the greater gaming deities that it would show up in the ma and pa store that had a game rental shelf. If some kid on the playground said "Sega does what Nintendon't", you bashed his head in with a rock. It's just how it was.

    Now I just find myself cherry-picking for the AAA titles, going for the well-reviewed games, or even following the PR hype train. Games with glitches like "all enemies inevitably randomly lose the will to live and walk into a wall before arbitrarily phasing out of existence" no longer have the chance to penetrate the market, or our nerd hearts.

  8. They weren't great. by log0n · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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)

  9. Re:The fact that you were younger and less jaded t by James+Skarzinskas · · Score: 5, Funny

    We played dodgeball with bricks. You get good, fast.

  10. Re:The fact that you were younger and less jaded t by bonch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.