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I'm not sure if it's in the gaming boomer in me, but it's interesting how what constitutes "replay value" has changed for games.
Was playing House of the Dead 2 at a local arcade over the past few months and it made me realize how replaying games has changed. I really suck at this game/genre and I still can't make it past stage 2 on one credit, lol. Through my dozens (if not hundreds) of replays, it made me realize the importance of replay values in games back in the 90s. It hit me when I had to play through the first level for over the 100th time, then it hit me: it's still not getting boring! There are multiple paths which add replay value, but it also rewards player skills in that there are hidden items in certain parts of the destructible environment. First time through, you're focused on enemies charging at you; then as you learn to mow them down fast, there are other things to shoot as well which may contain extra score or health and still new tricks/secrets to discover each attempt.
This made me reflect on replayability these days. It made me realize that games need to have a lot of other things in them to be seen a "replayable". Whether it's multiple characters, various unlockables, roguelike elements where it's different every time, ranking systems, GAAS elements. It's funny how games have evolved to where we need the game to give us external incentives to replay them.
I was born in 1988 and my first console was the SNES. Back in those days, unless you were an RPG fan, you'd (or your parents would) be paying like 60 dollars for platformers/action games which essentially had hour long campaigns. Because of this, if I got something like Mega Man X, it would essentially be the only thing I'd be able to play, and I be playing it over and over again, beating it dozens, if not hundreds of times. The funny thing about it, though, was that it never got boring. Hell, it actually got more fun on replays because I would be dashing through and beating bosses like a badass as I got better and better at the mechanics each attempt. I'd notice little details about enemy placements and stage elements which led to new tricks that I had no idea of my first few attempts. It made me realize that, while these games would have 7-12 levels and short campaigns, that each of these individual stages were probably worked on for months to squeeze the most replayability out of them so that gamers could even discover new secrets/tricks decades down the line.
On the flipside, these days, rather than being stuck with an hour-long 60 dollar game, we now have sales and bundles where you can get like 300 hours worth of older RPGs/open world adventures for under 20 bucks! Backlogs are now a thing too (which I really need to get to, admittedly and grows 5 games for each single game I play, lol), and I feel like it shifted a lot of gaming from focusing on a single game for a long time, to beating games with the intention of moving onto the next, with the value and quality of the game being just from the time spent on the initial playthrough. In such a fast paced market of backlogs, sales, and stream of new releases (especially of 80+ hour behemoths), it can be difficult to really sink in, sit down, and appreciate single-sitting games that could be played multiple times.
HOTD2, and arcade games in general, break that trend. There are barely any unlockables (unless you count Console versions), there are no randomized levels or anything, the games are just replayable due to their mechanics alone, and the ways they reward you through the mastery of the game by adding extra fun tidbits like additional secrets if you're fast enough for score of even "wait I can do that???" moments that blow your mind 10 years after playing. It's refreshing to play games that, even without those extra incentives, are replayable just for the sake of being fun.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go complain that this game I paid 30 dollars for is only 6-8 hours long, despite being extremely fun.
Was playing House of the Dead 2 at a local arcade over the past few months and it made me realize how replaying games has changed. I really suck at this game/genre and I still can't make it past stage 2 on one credit, lol. Through my dozens (if not hundreds) of replays, it made me realize the importance of replay values in games back in the 90s. It hit me when I had to play through the first level for over the 100th time, then it hit me: it's still not getting boring! There are multiple paths which add replay value, but it also rewards player skills in that there are hidden items in certain parts of the destructible environment. First time through, you're focused on enemies charging at you; then as you learn to mow them down fast, there are other things to shoot as well which may contain extra score or health and still new tricks/secrets to discover each attempt.
This made me reflect on replayability these days. It made me realize that games need to have a lot of other things in them to be seen a "replayable". Whether it's multiple characters, various unlockables, roguelike elements where it's different every time, ranking systems, GAAS elements. It's funny how games have evolved to where we need the game to give us external incentives to replay them.
I was born in 1988 and my first console was the SNES. Back in those days, unless you were an RPG fan, you'd (or your parents would) be paying like 60 dollars for platformers/action games which essentially had hour long campaigns. Because of this, if I got something like Mega Man X, it would essentially be the only thing I'd be able to play, and I be playing it over and over again, beating it dozens, if not hundreds of times. The funny thing about it, though, was that it never got boring. Hell, it actually got more fun on replays because I would be dashing through and beating bosses like a badass as I got better and better at the mechanics each attempt. I'd notice little details about enemy placements and stage elements which led to new tricks that I had no idea of my first few attempts. It made me realize that, while these games would have 7-12 levels and short campaigns, that each of these individual stages were probably worked on for months to squeeze the most replayability out of them so that gamers could even discover new secrets/tricks decades down the line.
On the flipside, these days, rather than being stuck with an hour-long 60 dollar game, we now have sales and bundles where you can get like 300 hours worth of older RPGs/open world adventures for under 20 bucks! Backlogs are now a thing too (which I really need to get to, admittedly and grows 5 games for each single game I play, lol), and I feel like it shifted a lot of gaming from focusing on a single game for a long time, to beating games with the intention of moving onto the next, with the value and quality of the game being just from the time spent on the initial playthrough. In such a fast paced market of backlogs, sales, and stream of new releases (especially of 80+ hour behemoths), it can be difficult to really sink in, sit down, and appreciate single-sitting games that could be played multiple times.
HOTD2, and arcade games in general, break that trend. There are barely any unlockables (unless you count Console versions), there are no randomized levels or anything, the games are just replayable due to their mechanics alone, and the ways they reward you through the mastery of the game by adding extra fun tidbits like additional secrets if you're fast enough for score of even "wait I can do that???" moments that blow your mind 10 years after playing. It's refreshing to play games that, even without those extra incentives, are replayable just for the sake of being fun.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go complain that this game I paid 30 dollars for is only 6-8 hours long, despite being extremely fun.
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