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Chronogaming - A Series of Disappointments?


kitsunebi

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I love making lists and doing things in chronological order.  There are times when this works against me, however.  I'll probably never be able to watch the rebooted Dr. Who because I'm compelled to watch every episode of the original series first, and it's taken me around 6 years to force myself to watch just half of the interminably boring 1963 season 1...

And then there's games.  I've had great success with both replaying old PC Games and trying others for the first time, but when it comes to console games, whatever magic most of them once had seems to elude me now, and playing through old classics is almost always a letdown.   There are a few oldies that I still find engaging (recent-ish playthroughs of the original Zelda and the MSX version of Metal Gear were both enjoyable), but most older console games, even ones I used to enjoy, leave me cold. 

Does anyone else have this problem? 

I really, really love the series of chronogaming videos produced by Dr. Sparkle (Chrontendo, Chronsega, and Chronturbo).  It's a goddamn shame that he seems to have quit producing new videos en lieu of constantly posting non-gaming-related tweets all day, but the body of work he DID complete is very impressive.  Watching those vids is far more enjoyable to me than actually playing the games. 

With all of these mini retro consoles appearing everywhere, I have to wonder if everyone who buys them is getting the bulk of their satisfaction from playing and enjoying all of the games they contain, or if they're getting more satisfaction from the nostalgia of holding the (miniature) hardware in their hands again and reminiscing about the times in the past when they enjoyed playing those games.

(p.s. on a related note, having recently played through Shinobi on the Master System and Revenge of Shinobi on the Genesis, both for the first time ever, I have to wonder...Why?  Why was this series ever popular?  I was always under the impression that Shinobi was one of Sega's top tier properties back in the day, but those games are terrible!  Or at least that's what the 2019-version of me thinks of them...)

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Jeremy Parish (formerly of EGM) is doing something similar to this on his channel, going through every NES, SNES and Game Boy game in chronological order.  It's amazing how you can find some sort of story from even an obscure GB baseball game that was only released in Japan.

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I also do chronogaming, and have full chronological USA release lists made myself for the SNES, PSone, PS2, & PSP.

I had a list for the NES as well, but after 31 years snce getting my original NES I realized I can no longer enjoy 8-bit gaming as it has lost it's charm for me.

But I suppose 4300+ games in order (not including imports) for the other 4 consoles should be enough to last me for quite a while....

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3 minutes ago, Sivilius said:

I also do chronogaming, and have full chronological USA release lists made myself for the SNES, PSone, PS2, & PSP.

I had a list for the NES as well, but after 31 years snce getting my original NES I realized I can no longer enjoy 8-bit gaming as it has lost it's charm for me.

But I suppose 4300+ games in order (not including imports) for the other 4 consoles should be enough to last me for quite a while....

Yeah, assuming you finish off one game per day with no breaks, you should be finished in 12 years or so.😆

That's why I like videos like Chontendo.  Rather than waste hours/days/weeks of my life trudging through games that don't actually bring me much pleasure, I can watch a vid covering 15 games in under 90 minutes with interesting and intelligent commentary (something extremely rare in a world full of AVGN stupidness pervading most gaming vids).  And for whatever reason, watching Dr. Sparkles's videos satisfies whatever irrational internal compulsion I might have to "play everything," so once I watch his coverage of a game, I feel safe crossing it off of my mental "to play" list (although I will choose to actually play one or two of them every now and then).

The only real chronogaming I can do myself involves playing only games or genres that I enjoy.  So, doing a chronological playthrough of all PC games would be insane and a huge waste of my time, but doing a chronological playthrough of all PC graphic adventures is something I have enjoyed doing, since it's a genre I have great fondness for.  With console titles I'm even more selective, since I usually end up underwhelmed by even those games that are universally lauded, and much like your experience with the NES, I find that even the ones that used to entertain me no longer do.

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i don't relate DIRECTLY to this, as i've never felt the need to play absolutely EVERYTHING, but do deal with something similar.

if a game/series comes out that i'm interested in, i have to start at the beginning. take the Metroid series, for example. I won't play Super Metroid until I beat the original and the GameBoy sequel. for offshoots like the Metroid Prime series, i could skip to that series, but couldn't jump in with the upcoming Prime 4. I'd have to play through all three previous entries (i beat the original Prime back when it came out for the GameCube, but haven't played the others). 

This leads me to be VERY hesitant about starting new games/series, as it could quickly add 5 games to my "To Play" list before i could even start on a new one that interests me. This also relates to movies, comic books, and other ventures too. It's frustrating but also deeply rewarding when i am completely caught up.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...
  • 2 months later...

 

I am not much of a completionist, at least in terms of video games. I have utterly no interest in certain genres -- sports games and shumps, for example -- so I do not either collect or play those titles.

 

With RPGs (which I do love), I try to play the series in order. I am currently on Dragon Warrior 4; I previously finished #1, I got stuck in #2, and I did not much care for the design/structure of #3, so I quit after the finishing first chapter.  

That said, while I have played most of the Final Fantasy games, I started with 7 and went through 12 before circling back to the NES (and SNES) titles.  

 

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  • 2 years later...
On 6/16/2019 at 11:15 PM, twiztor said:

i don't relate DIRECTLY to this, as i've never felt the need to play absolutely EVERYTHING, but do deal with something similar.

if a game/series comes out that i'm interested in, i have to start at the beginning. take the Metroid series, for example. I won't play Super Metroid until I beat the original and the GameBoy sequel. for offshoots like the Metroid Prime series, i could skip to that series, but couldn't jump in with the upcoming Prime 4. I'd have to play through all three previous entries (i beat the original Prime back when it came out for the GameCube, but haven't played the others). 

i want to point out that 7 months after this post, a worldwide pandemic broke out, granting me weeks and weeks of free time since i was laid off from work. I used that time to do exactly what i explained in my post: Playing through Metroid 1, 2, Super Metroid, Fusion, Zero Mission, and ultimately Dread as well. Started Prime but wasn't feeling it, so i put it back on the backburner. Hopefully it doesn't take another disaster to make me pick it up again.

Took the same approach to CastleVania (beat 1-4 & Symphony of the Night) and Bloodstained (beat Curse of the Moon 1 & 2 and Ritual of the Night) and Kid Icarus (1, 2, & Uprising). It was a hell of a summer.

I'm trying to use that as motivation to keep playing through game series that i've long wanted to complete- back in December & January i beat Mega Man 1-8 & X. Started the Luigi's Mansion series (beat the first two, so far i'm about 1/3 of the way into #3). 

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