Tom_Gamer

Maybe I'm too judgemental but one thing about Sandy's story is that it doesn't even sound believable to me almost from the very first sentence. I've recently gone down some Derek Smart, Phil Fish, and Pirate Software shaped rabbit holes and the way they talk and frame their "anecdotes" reads exactly the same as this. It's uncanny, actually. We all know or have known at least one person like this in real life unfortunately...

@OldManLav right, was thinking the same thing. What a crock!

@PKDuckman ha, I bet you're exactly right

@Thad ah this makes a lot of sense in hindsight, I never really read those Great Job Internet articles or at least I don't remember them fondly. Goddamn old AV Club was magical though. One of the best sites ever I might even say.

I will say, I only played Densha De Go "in person" for the first time the other day via MAME and I could immediately tell the UI in this game looks like a copy/paste job from the old games. Or I guess if you screenshot the old UI and asked Claude to make a new version.

I don't have a stake in this emotionally but I can see how a certain kind of person would feel like "their culture's thing" is being taken and used by somebody without respect for it...

@Quick_Man agreed with this. Devs/publishers would get a lot more respect being honest upfront, and how many games are out there now with unreported AI-gen assets only because nobody noticed or cared to say something?

So I am about 85% sure that statement was written by AI and it's a little bit upsetting nobody seems to be pointing this out (maybe they are on twitter or wherever they posted this, I hope). I mean even if you don't know what AI writing sounds like, the fact alone that the visual rollout of this has been AI to hell and back should make you assume they would do the same with the writing/text/communication part. Slopophiles gonna slop.

Maaan I would kill at a US version of this I bet. Unfortunately my knowledge of the Amiga and "Zed"X Spectrum is far too paltry to even pass the interview screening.

Guy walks into comments, says "so let me get this straight" before proceeding to not get this straight at all. ANYways I would like to also see an overall comparison of the different retro comps from different companies over the years. For example Namco Museum vs Sega Ages vs Atari Flashback. There are at least three people out there crazy enough to try!

@MeloMan actually same and it took me until like the third paragraph to realize that's not even what it said!

Great game but the most revealing part of this article is finding out what in the entire hell a "Hermie Hopperhead" is.

Glad some others have brought Destructoid up because what the hell has happened there this decade? This gambling thing reminds me of when some longrunning websites get bought out and become straight up Onlyfans aggregate linkslop without any ceremony.

Not quite as an extreme case but speaking of gaming sites like dtoid, escapist, etc, Gamesradar has fallen extremely from its peak, back when it had real humor and personality driven content. imo same with Giantbomb though their peak was unfortunately way too short-lived. More and more I feel 1up escaped a fate worse than death...

Sounds great, now for the inevitable question "How much will this cost for preexisting buyers?"

Awesome article! I decided Omega Boost was one of the most sick-as-hell games of all time and I only needed 10 minutes to come to that conclusion. I especially love the insight on the graphics since I've wondered how they could pull it off. At least playing it on a CRT it really feels timeless, like if somebody told me this was an indie game from 2026 made in the retro style I'd easily believe it(well besides that intro which is awesome in its own way).

Okay this might sound like a weird thing to focus on but I think I'm getting confused by the increasing tagging of this era as "optimistic" or somebody needs to break down what people mean when they say that in this context. Bright colors, simple textures, and a tone that is I guess light and not political. That describes so many games though even ones like Genshin Impact right?

Now the retrofuture thing was definitely real and distinct, I'll give people that!

This just in: Conservative Bootgobbler #69 says the same exact opinions about the same things everybody else just like him has already said a million times over, and we're supposed to give a unique or well-thought out answer in return? I think we could've safely assumed somebody that defines their personality on being anti-gay would also die on the hill of defending AI, and vice-versa. Not a single brain that could think for itself in that room!

One thing lost in the "Japan vs. US" gaming debate is that this stuff goes in cycles. By the HD era Japan was struggling mighty but eventually caught up, budgetwise from changing dev pipelines, increased adoption of Unreal Engine etc, and culturally from bringing some new ideas to the table at the same time the west was going through its own hell of sequelitis. Though you maybe even could argue that the leaders of the current moment are Chinese devs making stuff like Genshin Impact...

Seems like some people have put their Twitter Brand rose-colored glasses on because let's not act like the PSP (fairly or otherwise) wasn't considered a failure even at the time, especially compared to the DS, but even on its own merits.

After people saw the graphics there was this unstoppable hype train that assumed it would be a repeat of PS2 vs GC and blow Nintendo out of the water, but when that didn't come even close to happening people were extremely ready to start writing it off. Again not saying that was fair considering the actual sales but that's totally what the perception was.

Thanks for highlighting that Design Room site, I think it was here where remember reading the ideas for that being kicked around and I was really looking forward to it happening. Seems awesome so far!

People say so often such-and-such game "looks like a PS2 game" but this is maybe the first time I've seen it used accurately. If you told me this was a remastered version of a super obscure game from like 2003 I would believe it. Genre wise it seems to combine elements I am not a fan of even individually lol, but still rooting for them!

Yeah they were talking about this on the DF Retro Show weeks ago; I mean yes the 100% claim is technically untrue but they are still a corporation after all, like when ads say something is "virtually painless."

I dunno a lot (at all) about how FPGA works but this can probably can be fixed with hardware updates right?

Seems like Japan really had a thing with cameras in horror games in the 2000's, I wonder what that was about?

Sweet, have there been any games with translations more wanted than this one and Princess Crown? It'd be interesting to look at the history of fan translations and see if any over the years were more hyped than those..

I know I am overreacting a bit but having a "eh, only so-and-so amount of people will notice or care" attitude is one of the many things that enables execs to keep everything, modern games included, feeling so sloppy and rushed. Why aim for anything better in any production ever made when social media market research shows most don't care?

P.S. Those same execs definitely have data saying most people don't care enough about retro games to make a whole-ass website about them, yet here we are...

I don't really understand what's going on in that video but I like it, kind of reminds me of those sort of dark and aggressively weird gaming ads from back in the day. And I'm pretty much only "familiar" with Doshin the Giant so should be interesting

Huh, where are all the "Every single article is just bashing AI!" commentbros this time?

Surely Piko Interactive looks at this story and laughs their ass off

While a remastered version or remake would 100% be a gold mine, a take everybody agrees with, at this point in gaming with whoever would be in charge (Disney) I'm unsure if it'll come back in a satisfying way. I could see even kicking and slamming on random NPCs being neutered somehow...

Wow seems super weird and super cool. Looks like dude had a very interesting career in general!

Hell yeah, looks sick

I would love it if all the people full-throat defending AI would be forced to play the so-called games it's alleged to start "making" soon. Hey buddy, YOU didn't think there was anything wrong with this, so YOU play those games.

Considering these people have very little actual taste or perspective on anything outside of the internet they'd probably eat it up too. Just a perfect circle of slop grifters eating slop games fed to them by trillion dollar corpos, all of them with a **** eating grin too!

"The Jag DESERVES more 3D games"

Yeah we can all say words! Mode 7 N-Gage wen???

Actually reminds me of that one fighting game where you steal moves from your opponents...Fight for Life for 3DO. Supposedly horrible game but a cool mechanic at least lol

There's only one way to please me as a Nintendo fan...

Four guys playing Four Swords, if you know what I'm sayin'!

They need to bring Battlebots back just for this guy alone

I definitely noticed that they showed SMK in the original but "had to" blur World in the new version. A depressing sign of the times or the stakes just not high enough to risk it anymore?

They had to have ChatGPT write those descriptions, any actual human would be far too ashamed to type all of that. I'm talking like, near suicidal levels of shame.

So is this another case of everybody just reading the headline and heading straight to the comments or...

Thanks Audi Sorlie...

"The industry has a tendency to remake games which already have strong, timeless aesthetic sensibilities."

I mean more like they'll just remake absolutely anything and everything they want regardless of any other factor lol

It definitely doesn't look as interesting as the OG but these tweets are the same kinds of comments I saw when the first remake came out almost word for word, though not like the words are wrong. I really think making the games look better than Orta on the Xbox should be a bare minimum but doesn't look like that's gonna happen.

Now for the inevitable "If everybody ignores this Sega will think nobody cares about Panzer Dragoon and drop the series" vs. "Buying this will reward a mediocre game but might convince Sega to do more entries/proper remakes" debate! (I don't actually know what Sega has to do with the series at this point or if they still have ip ownership tbh)

That Miyamoto interview is so indicative of how business execs think. The game won't sell because it looks "too Japanese" then just a few years later they see they can market games better because it has an anime style.

And actually a lot of people in the west were indeed offput by anime styled graphics in the 90's, but the point is a top-down conservative culture of fear is toxic to creativity as well as even profits at times. Imagine looking at Nintendo's future biggest money maker of all time right in the eyes and saying "no."

Just have to say in case it isn't obvious that the same people that will spend an hour telling you how the Postal series is God's Gift to Humanity also are incapable of taking criticism of their own views without acting like a baby about it. Delicious irony!

I could say Elon would fail Media Literacy 101 with flying colors, but we all know he'd hire somebody to take the tests for him.

@Zybex242 I am suddenly extremely hoping they sell the paddle controller separately for Tempest 2000!

Never had heard of this one but does look cool, a blend of FPS and the adventure style games they had been making is really interesting. At the same time I can see why it wasn't a success, looks years older than it is despite the art direction and that was basically a death sentence for FPS popularity in the late 90's.

Arguably you still see that a bit even now, I've seen people overlook that RoboCop game because of it looking "bad" or "jank" regardless of its merits.

Weird idea or not I really would've liked to play this. Same with the cancelled Pandemic Batman game, I've always wanted to play that one too. Considering how many different devs made Batman games before it's actually a bit weird that Rocksteady has been the only one making them (at least games with the Bat actually playable) since 2009! Well not counting Arkham Origins I guess. Even Activision making Treyarch the "Spider-Man Game Company" didn't last nearly as long.

A Sonic Dimps Collection would be pretty great, right?

I'm all for this, somebody quick add it to Mario Kart/Party/Strikers Splatoon and Welcome Tour too

I like to think of Wade walking into a retro game store, knocking down some Sega Saturn cases, asking "Hey chump, what's your top selling console here?"
"Uhhh...PS2 sir Mr. Wade sir!"
"Not anymore, sucker!"

Immediately his legion of Atari goons ransack the hell out of the place, propping up 2600, 5200, and 7800 carts the likes of which we've never even seen, knifing the anime and Sonic energy drinks and replacing them with Astroids and Missile Command brand in record speed. Wade, clutching a gored and emptied Salior Moon can, droplets piddling on the counter:
"We own you now."

Will be following this even if I don't end up buying one, Vectrex was like the holy grail of retro consoles as a kid