My first dedicated gaming system was the PS1, and in general I have no trouble going back to the sprites and chunky polygons of the mid-to-late 90s, whether on consoles or computers

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as long as I can upscale them to 1080P

Beyond that it gets a bit hit and miss- SNES and Mega Drive games look and sound fine to me and I've played plenty of 16 bit console games as an adult. On PC, I can enjoy 2D stuff like Sam & Max Hit the Road or the original X-Com but most early 3D, like the original System Shock, looks a bit too much like visual vomit.

Going to 8-bit, while the vast majority of NES games are too primitive to my eyes and ears, I have no problems with Game Boy/Game Boy Color games.

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(Well, at least the good ones, mostly made by Nintendo)

Is it just nostalgia because I had a GBC as a kid or is it because Game Boy games came later and had more developed visual aesthetics? thinking-about-it

My limit is probably the very late 80s

  • D61 [any]
    ·
    8 months ago

    I've played some older DOS games that were simple polygon/vector graphics and text boxes and with the exception of some QoL things that have become standard in the ... holy crap..30+ years since the 80's (I-was-saying soooo ooolllddd) I could get into them for a while and find them enjoyable.

    I keep thinking I'm going to dig into the old Atari consol roms (had a few of the Atari consoles for a while as a kid long before the NES) but it seems a bit daunting to relearn how to play a game with a "joystick" and "one button".

    I also keep thinking I'm going to try playing the ancient text adventure/interactive story games but every time I try... my brain just can't figure out how to deal with things as a more casual enjoyer of video games. I wind up giving up after about 30 minutes to an hour of "playing".

    Though I still have a blast playing Rogue with ASCII graphics every now and then.

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
      ·
      8 months ago

      While I'm not hugely into NES games I can see their appeal aesthetically and they mostly still read as "video games" to me. Anything Atari starts to look a bit too rudimentary to my 90s eyes

      • D61 [any]
        ·
        8 months ago

        While I'm not hugely into NES games I can see their appeal aesthetically and they mostly still read as "video games" to me. Anything Atari starts to look a bit too rudimentary to my 90s eyes

        Its kinda the reason why I want to sit down and give some honest effort to play through some of the Atari XX00 console games someday. Kinda like going to a "hands on" history museum.