Nostalgia

So, this is a topic I've touched on before, but I figured I'd try to pull a full post out of it.

So why are we seeing people clamoring over remakes of Final Fantasy VII, Majora's Mask, and a whole slew of older games?  They want gaming to return to the 'glory days when series were good'.

The pinnacle of gaming, I guess.

What is it about these games that warrants such fanaticism?  I don't hear people clamoring for an HD re-release of Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Cross, or other highly-touted favorites?

One one hand, the games did debut during the start of the 3D gaming era, so maybe having the textures bumped up is what they want.  Final Fantasy VII was a blocky mess when it debuted, but do I personally want an HD remake?  Not really.  I think a game should get a remake only if there is going to be some fixes. The re-releases of the middle Final Fantasy's for the GBA cleaned up the script, added some content, and brought games that never really made it to the USA over.

Now, I really don't think that's the case.  I think people want a remake because they've become kinda jaded or desensitized with modern gaming.  To me, part of the blame falls on the games that people want remakes for so badly.

I'm here to remind you of your failures.

A lot of people complained about the story for Final Fantasy XIII being too cliche and the story for XII-2 for being too convoluted.  I view this shift as Square Enix just throwing up their hands and saying "What the hell do you want?"  There are only so many tropes and cliche's in gaming to be used.  So why the hell do people get pissed off when a game displays ANY themes or mechanics from older games?

Gaming is such a strange pastime.  We can see various movies with similar themes, songs that share similar content, and sports that have storylines that repeat, but as soon as a game seems too close to a predecessor, HOT DAMN THE GAME SUCKS AND IS SO UNORIGINAL.

Of course nostalgia is going to play a key role into how you view past games.  If you played Game A before playing Game B, Game A is going to look better by comparison.  Hell, it's why the Sonic vs Mario debates were so popular back in the 90s.  And this is especially true with RPGs.  You get connected to the characters over a 40+ hour experience, so that game will be ingrained into your brain.  The problem is, from where I'm sitting, is that this usually happens when the player is young, and thus, more impressionable.

My first RPG was Final Fantasy VIII, and I will admit that it holds a special place for my gaming history, but I'm not going to crown it the best Final Fantasy ever, and I don't think it's even in my top 5 RPG list.  The thing is, I didn't start playing RPGs until I was about 15, so I was mostly beyond the stage where I would be diehard. (Sonic 2 is the best Sonic game, so suck on that Sonic 3 and Sonic CD).

Chemical Plant Zone. AKA The horrifying drowning music zone.

See, I'm putting it out there that Sonic 2 is the best platforming game I can recall.  I can say that this is probably about 75% due to this being my most played childhood game, and the rest is how damn good the game played... and the soundtrack.

If people could take a step back and look at their own game views, would they view current games any differently?  Probably not, but maybe they'd be able to see where their worldviews come from.