Silent Hill(PSone Games forgotten)

[Chiasm]

As I finished up playing Silent Hill for the first time today. It made me wonder, if people consider games from the PS2 to be outdated, what chance do PS1 games have in the coming years. Even with the PlayStation Network it seems many who buy and play the PSone classics grew up with them to begin with.

I find I am spending far more time playing PS2 and PS1 games and other retro games more than anything from this current gen. Games such as Dragon Quest 8, Fatal Frame, and Shadow Hearts not to mention everything from Shin Megami Tensei. Are filled to the brim with a certain soul that is getting harder and harder to find these days.

What is everyone else's views on this issue? Will PS1 games become harder to be enjoyed by newcomers due to their early 3D technology? Will games in the future start taking chances with new ideas?

 

[TheVicariousWriter]

I feel for you there man. I still play many of my ps2 and ps1 games from the past. It's probably a nostalgic reasons why we still play them. Then again I find myself buying some just because they are a PS1 or 2 game.

It is true that many of these great games will fade into obscurity as have many great games before the ps1 generation. I think, unless some kind of retro game movement happens, people will only think of bigger and better.

 

[oplinger]

I'm constantly going back for retro games on the 64 and PS1, hell even the SNES and Genesis. I mean yeah nostalgia is great, but I like accumulating a vast knowledge of video games >_> I frequently ask people to give me a list of games they grew up with or something like that. If there's a game I haven't played mentioned, I look into it.

However, PS1 games are already hard to enjoy, some of them are just unacceptably ugly by standards even then. It's much less forgivable now. ...I mean look at Final Fantasy 7. How much -more- pointy could that game get? It hurts

as for future games taking chances with new ideas.....They do now, and will in the future. You just have to look

 

[New Troll]

I'm one of those peops finding it hard to go retro. When I first bought my first PS3, I had a HUGE PS2 collection that I absolutely loved. Shortly there-after, I had gotten rid of every single PS2 game except one. After playing the PS3 games, I just found myself with very little to no desire to play them anymore.

Same went from the PSOne/ Dreamcast transition to PS2/ X-Box. Same goes just about every year on PC. Funny, some of my most memorable gaming experiences where on the Genesis, yet trying to go back to those games just doesn't do anything for me today. Out with the old, in with the new.

I do have a couple of classic PC and a PSOne game I still play occassionally, but they are all strategy games where graphics don't pay as big of a role. I actually turn all the animations off on Brigadine when I play it.

And my favorite game of all time is still Crusaders of the Dark Savant, though I can't play it anymore. Way too out-dated.

 

[Tanis]

I think PS1/N64 era is kind of hard for newer gamers because it was a transitional period for the medium.

Many N64/PS1 games haven't aged very well, graphic or sound or music or story telling, wise.

Most games from that era are classic by 'default' I think.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I've been trying to go back an replay the old FFs...but the old ATB combat system is so damn inferior to the ATB systems of X-2 and 13. The story is still fine, the graphics actually look great running on my PSP, and the music ALWAYS holds up for JRPGs. But the combat is killing it for me...

Old ATB system sucked...

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

To me retro is 16 bit and before as i grew up with my psx but i did own a genesis as a very young kid (my dad used it as much as i did basically).


I still remember thinking ps2 graphics were amazing, i still remember the orgasmic feeling of the intro cutscene from FFX. That said, i don't value graphics like kids nowadays do. A lot of them would never touch an older game cause it played and looked unlike their modern stuff, which is a shame.

Earlier this year i was playing persona 2 (the JP game which wasn't released elsewhere) and i realized something important about those psx and to a lesser degree ps2 games, those cutscenes with pre-rendered graphics that were severely superior to the normal graphics were there to CONTRAST. They were special cause the difference from them and the normal ingame graphics was so huge. Now, even in FFXIII, while the graphics were beyond anything ever seen, the difference between ingame and cutscene was nowhere near as huge as in something like FFVIII or Legend of Dragoon, thus their impact was lessened. I realized this cause while watching one of the few such cutscenes in persona 2 i thought to myself "wow, those are some nice graphics!...wait...those graphics actually suck...what made me impressed by them just now?...ohhh! it's the fact that the normal graphics of the game are all low tech 2D sprites!"

 

[Discord]

I LOVE my Old Games IM thinking about getting an old PS1 cheap to play my Colony Wars, Wargames and Spyro games. Some are on the PS3 which is nice but Still NO Urban or Jungle Strike!

I'll Never Forgot; they could release the PS4 Quad and I'll still be playing my Okami and other PS1 classics

 

[MikhailGH]

I don't think they have dated. Yes the graphics are sometimes rubbish, but I still spend more time playing all the wipeout games from the first two PS's than I played all the new racing games. And as I just discovered a few hundred RPG's from square enix, you know, all the games that have nothing to do with final fantasy (suikoden and chrono series atm.) my ps one is actually keeping me rather busy. Not to mention that I still got a bit of games for the ps2 that I've never even tried. This stuff is cheaply to acquire now, and is often even more fun than these new gen graphic monsters that my PC barely runs sometimes. So yeah...

Oh and not to mention that the ps1 games had some of the most badass soundtracks ever.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The only thing keeping me from replaying some of the older games is the controls. If there's one aspect which this generation has excelled in it's creating silky-smooth controls.
Some older games like Ratchet & Clank, Okami, God of War and Shadow of the Colossus still play fine. But other games like Jak & Daxter and Metal Gear Solid are almost unplayable for me now.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

I LOVE my Old Games IM thinking about getting an old PS1 cheap to play my Colony Wars, Wargames and Spyro games. Some are on the PS3 which is nice but Still NO Urban or Jungle Strike!

I'll Never Forgot; they could release the PS4 Quad and I'll still be playing my Okami and other PS1 classics

Don't forget good old MGS1 =D.

 

[MolotoK]

This is difficult to judge from "our" perspective (I guess most people here grew up during the PSX/N64 era), but many games of that era suffer from "early-3D-game-sickness". Severe graphical limitations, awkward controls and bad camera angles were alright at the time but are deal-breakers today.
Groundbreaking masterpieces at the time, immense historical value, loved by fans.... and yet not fun for the modern gamer.

Exceptional games like Mario 64 or Metal Gear Solid are still masterpieces by today's standards, but even cherished titles like Silent Hill or Goldeneye64 are difficult to enjoy by modern standards. Silent Hill was overshadowed by Silent Hill 2 and Goldeneye is almost unplayable today.

I recently picked up Goldeneye again after not having touched it for over 10 years. It was truly revolutionary for it's time and still fun today, but even I, who spent many months of my childhood playing Goldeneye, have to admit that the controls are horrible and the graphics give you eye cancer. Great experience to play through it on 00Agent difficulty (actually... I'm stuck at Train right now), but I could never recommend it to a friend.

16Bit 2D games on the other hand are pretty much as good as 2D games are ever going to get. Even modern gamers should be able to enjoy them just as much as we did back then. (... except that most 16bit-era games are way too difficult for the modern checkpoint and quick-save pampered gamer.)

 

[Chiasm]

Earlier this year i was playing persona 2 (the JP game which wasn't released elsewhere) and i realized something important about those psx and to a lesser degree ps2 games, those cutscenes with pre-rendered graphics that were severely superior to the normal graphics were there to CONTRAST. They were special cause the difference from them and the normal ingame graphics was so huge. Now, even in FFXIII, while the graphics were beyond anything ever seen, the difference between ingame and cutscene was nowhere near as huge as in something like FFVIII or Legend of Dragoon

I think that's a huge thing I noticed as I go back, The cut scenes really do feel much more like a reward. Where as now it's, "hey I can't move the camera anymore". Which is sad in the way cut scenes added so much in games like Resident Evil, Parasite Eve, and Silent Hill. Allowing you to view all of the monsters instead as highly detailed monsters instead of little blurry lego men. and at least for me with Silent Hill it still had that effect I really think it's helped even more with the PS1 graphics if only as it makes everything more unnatural.

This is difficult to judge from "our" perspective (I guess most people here grew up during the PSX/N64 era), but many games of that era suffer from "early-3D-game-sickness". Severe graphical limitations, awkward controls and bad camera angles were alright at the time but are deal-breakers today.
Groundbreaking masterpieces at the time, immense historical value, loved by fans.... and yet not fun for the modern gamer.

I agree I think the art direction really has hurt these games the most in my eyes, In Silent Hill for example important objects blend in with the environment I had to use a Faq just to find out where a lot of objects where as to me it looked like part of the pre rendered background. Things like a water bottle or a little crank or a book. That and puzzles I swear who would ever have thought of using a rubber ball to clug up a hole for a water run off pipe.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Yeah, the cutscenes were the really cool part, it's not like nowadays where kids would rave about the graphics, back then when you raved about the graphics you talked about those few special cut scenes which made a huge impart by being so much better than the normal game. I remember thinking "what if the whole game was like that" and you know, when that actually happened it initially was amazing but slowly it became common, mundane even. It's a sad state of affairs but I suppose it's the price we have to pay. It's better than just dismissing all older games as ugly and whatnot.

 

[Chiasm]

It is kind of funny when you think now games with,"unique" cut scenes are scaling back the graphics. Either with a type of digital comic type look in Infamous or artwork sketches like in Borderlands. Either that or they just turn every cut scene into Dragon Lair.

It reminds me of photography, now that everyone is using digital photography. Every time I wash my own black and white film, dry it, process it having to make sure all the f-stop and filters are just right for each picture and develop it. It makes each photo a feeling of accomplishment, not to mention the work it takes to make even take a good shot with a 35mm camera in the first place. Compared to how these days when you can just snap, plug it in and upload to a PC, open photoshop make all the corrections you need in a matter of minutes, and click print.


I think we are really losing something in this day an age in every facet of our lives, I know my grandfather always talks about how people used to take pride, "Back in the day" even common in trades like carpentry,house building, even being a salesman. Makes you wonder what we have lost.

 

[GiantRaven]

I think there are certain PS1 games that transcend mere nostalgia and still remain fantastic games in their own right.

Metal Gear Solid
Resident Evil 2
Resident Evil 3
Silent Hill
Final Fantasy VII
Legend of Dragoon (Ok, that might be a bit of a fanboy choice...)

There are probably others I'm forgetting or haven't played but, at the very least, I feel these games easily compare to modern standards of gaming and everybody should experience them at least once.