When exactly did you go "Retro" and why?

[Anthony1]

For those of you that feel that at some point you went "Retro", when was that, and what do you think was the reason that you went in that direction?


For me, I just went "retro" rather recently. It started in May of 2003 for me. So I actually haven't even been retrogaming one full year yet. A year ago today I was playing XBOX and GameCube games, and I didn't know a damn thing about "retrogaming". I had no knowledge of this website, that there were these collectors out there, the market for old games on Ebay.... I didn't know about any of this. A year ago had I been at a Garage Sale and seen a mint TurboDuo still in it's box for 10 bucks, I probably would have looked at it strangely and laughed about it, and never bought it. I would have been the type of guy that would have gone into GameStop looking for the latest XBOX or GameCube game, and after seeing a bunch of Genesis and SNES carts in the corner I would have thought to myself, "Damn, people still play that crap!". I didn't have any of my old systems in my closet or in the Garage. I never kept my old systems, I would always sell my old systems and all my games and accesories, before buying a new system. Usually it would help finance the new system purchase. So when I went "retro" I had to pretty much start from scratch.


What made me all of a sudden switch from the state of the art current consoles to the old schools? I think it was a combination of a number of factors that all played key roles. Some of these factors were even somewhat subconcious in nature. I believe that these were the key factors:

1. I started to get somewhat tired of the 3D go anywhere and do anything type games. It almost was a case of having TOO much freedom. I actually missed the old days of having constraints and limitations in the game world. A game like Mario where you go from left to right with some very specific rules and regulations to the game world just started to appeal to me more. I just got tired of all the 3D games that let you do just about anything, with no rules or guidelines. I wanted things more simplistic.

2. I think from a subconcious standpoint, I yearned to re-live the days of my glorious youth. The days of being a young buck, chasing young girls and partying with my friends and doing all that crazy stuff. Being Married with children, means that I was becoming traped in the whole family life thing. You are probably wondering how playing old games would take me back to the days of my wild youth? Well, I don't know really, but it just seems that by playing the games that I was playing back then, it almost takes me back to that time and place when I was probably the most happy. I even collect old video game magazines now too. And that helps take me back to those times as well. I've also noticed that I've kinda gone retro with my music. Listening to stuff that I used to listen to back then. Yeah, I know, kinda creepy, kinda weird. Now, I'm not saying that any of this was a concious decision on my part. But I've come to accept that in the back of my mind, this is probably a big reason why I've gone retro.

3. One of the reasons that I've gone back to the old schools is that I can play tons and tons of games that I never had the chance to play back in the days when they all cost $49.99 per game or more. Some of these games now can be had for a buck. So it's cool to me to start developing these collections of all these games that I never could afford at the time. Now I have tons of them, and I can play stuff that I somehow missed along the way. Also, during my early gaming years, I was more of a sports gamer that just liked to play Football games and stuff like that with my buddies. I didn't get into the action/adventure stuff till later. So now I get a chance to revisit the classic adventure games that I never played back then.

4. I finally came to the realization that there is no Holly Grail of the ultimate video game in terms of graphics and sounds taking me to some Nirvana. I've always been chasing the ultimate audio/visual experience. The next great thing. That is why I would always buy the latest system on the day of release. I would always go to the new systems right away and abandon my old systems. I was always chasing that technological marvel. It got to a point where I realized that great state of the art graphics and sounds are just that, great graphics and sounds. No Holly Grail. No Nirvana. So when I finally realized that, I realized that it was all about the play, and the older games tend to have better "play". You see, I'm a recovering graphics whore.


So basically, I think those were the 4 major reasons. I'm interested in hearing what your guy's reasons are for going "retro" and when you actually did go "retro".

I'm sure that there are lots of you that never actually went "retro" so to speak, that you've always had all your old systems and that you would always play your old games just as much as your new games. Well, this question isn't really geared to you.

It's geared to the guys that always played the latest and greatest gaming systems, the most up to date stuff, and then all of a sudden they had a desire to go back to the old schools.

So if you have always been old school, then this really wouldn't apply to you. Although you can explain why you have always been old school, if you like.

[Captain Wrong]

It was never a conscious decision for me. I never get rid of anything, and I reached a point where I found myself still playing the old stuff and not interested at all in the new.

[Push Upstairs]

Well...i guess i went "retro" in 2000 when i bought my 2nd NES (to replace the one i sold years before) and finding my Genesis in my closet.

Why am i retro? Because collecting retro stuff is easier on the bank account

[§ Gideon §]

8-December-2001: Purchasing an NES with 17 games (all complete) from the classified ads, I "go retro".

I did it in order to play Super Mario Bros. 3.

[Arqueologia_Digital]

I think it was a few years ago when i bought a complete Game boy for $ 7 dollars...and then a Coleco Gemini for 10 dollars...then i started collecting.

Matías

[classicb]

Why am i retro? Because collecting retro stuff is easier on the bank account

I heard that. Why pay $19-$50 on one game when you can get a hand full of classics for the same price. But honestly the newer videogames are getting too complicated for me with all that camera angle stuff.

[l_lamb]

I just never got rid of the stuff I had as a kid so I guess I "went retro" back in 1977 I started actively adding to my collection in 1997 when I got my house and had a room to fill up.

[The Insomniac]

Why am i retro? Because collecting retro stuff is easier on the bank account

I heard that. Why pay $19-$50 on one game when you can get a hand full of classics for the same price. But honestly the newer videogames are getting too complicated for me with all that camera angle stuff.

That's exactly why I went retro too, and I have always had my Genesis anyway.

[omnedon]

I finally came to the realization that there is no Holly Grail of the ultimate video game in terms of graphics and sounds taking me to some Nirvana.

I ditched all things console in 94, in favour of PC Nirvana (DOOM). Then after 7 years of hardcore PC gaming, and endlessupgrades, the graphics and sound began to fail to impress.

I find a Heavy Sixer running Pac Man Arcade (an AA hack) far more impressive graphically than UT2004.

[Shady Smurf]

Personally, i'd consider myself always retro. im only 16, and have been playing gameboy since I was 2, and intellivision since I was 4, around 5, I moved up to nes and the next year I bought an SNES, i've been grabbing games for them ever since, I bought an N-64 on launch day, A Playstaiton when they fell to 100, a ps2 on launch day, and more recently, have aquired Genesis, Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguar, Dreamcast, and an Atari 2600.

[jdc]

I have a slightly different reason.....kinda.

I began working in the video game industry during the N64 years. I wrote some reviews here n' there and ran my own game store. Things snowballed through the Dreamcast and PS2 then kicked into high gear with the XboX and Cube launches.

I got sick and freakin' tired of people bitching and whining about systems "crapping out" and the price of PS2 memory cards and software being a ripoff and GrandfuckingTheftAuto and graphics this and graphics that and THIS system blows and THAT system blows and blah blah blah ad infinitum......

.......so I said "screw it. This is taking ALL of the fun out of it for ME" and I walked. I was never a retro gamer, I started with the 64 (still my fave system and the one I concentrate the most energy on collecting). My store was always a place where the hardcore gamers would convene in the evenings and talk retro over coffees. I remember listening intently as these guys would talk about magical games from the 8 and 16 bit era. I gained an education into what was desirable from "back then". I wanted to play Shining Force so bad that I could pee my pants. As a "goodbye" present I actually received a used Genny and a boxed copy of Shining Force One.

I knew that the answer to my 128 "burnout" was in those simple old magical games. The games are hard....I getr my ass handed to me continuously....but I don't mind dying a million times. It doesn't make me angry like the 128 bit games do. They're easier on the eyes....and yep, easier on the wallet too. They sure are easy to find....boxed, even......as well since most people view them as old "crap" to be traded in towards PS2 games.

I do own a Cube and the newest model of PS2 (Norrath OWNS me right now...) but my love is for my various N64s, my NES and my couple of Gennys. I used to buy 128 bit games like no tomorrow......but now I'm deathly choosy, since I find most of them not worth the plastic they're pressed on. My purchasing of carts has happily increased.

Old games are awesome and pure.

[kainemaxwell]

I just never got rid of my older systems as I got new ones and would occasionally hook one the older ones up for fun. Then I discovered DP.

[digitalpress]

To Anthony1 and several others of you who have answered this thread, I want you to know. I've been asked the question many many times, either as an organizer of Classic Gaming Expo or as a generally accessible collector-type person "Why do people still play these old games?".

I'm glad to see that we're all pretty much on the same page, Anthony1's opening personal reasons are pretty much the ones I use when I answer that question as well.

Ease of play.

Challenge.

Nostalgia.

retroGAME ON.

[kainemaxwell]

Ease of play.

Challenge.

Nostalgia.

retroGAME ON.

I couldn't have put it better myself, Joe.

[Algol]

Well, I owned a NES, SNES, and Game Boy B&W back in the day, and didn't really care about getting one of the then-next-gen systems when they started getting popular, so for a while, I was a "lamer that needs an N64."

Not long after that, I pretty much left video gaming for a couple years until my first year of high school. It was about this time that people started getting nostalgic for the same NES/SNES games that I used to play. Well, I started playing these games again and became "retro."

[Stewie]

I've got 3 reasons

1. Price

2. Nostalgia

3. Lack of reality---The new systems have finally hit a point where they are almost TOO realistic.....It's like you are controlling a movie, I don't want to live real life when I am playing games, I want to delve into a fantasy world. And old school games provide that, they have their own set of fantasy rules.

[TNTPLUST]

LoL I guess I'm in the always have been retro. I was 9 when my father got us a 2600 in 1977. Other systems were to follow. In my childhood my family aquired an Oddysey 2 and a TI-994a. Before I left home to be on my own we added a C64 and a Amiga. Being the youngest when it was time to leave I took these old systems with me. In 1990 while working for an Insurance company I met someone who called himself a Video Game Collector. He took me too his apartment which was jammed from room to room with classic video games and video game junk. I was impressed and soon went through my old stuff and organized it. When Ebay came on the seen I started acquiring games that I had missed in my youth. In 2000 I attended my first CGE and that was the first time I started collecting gaming systems that I had not previously owned.

[KirbyStar27]

Classics are cheaper then newer games, a lot are more fun than the newer, and they are so freakin fun to collect!

[Jasoco]

I've been sorta "Retro" for a while now. About the turn of the Century/Milennium when music turned to shit, I turned to Classic Rock and 80's music.

But if we're talking about games, well, it was last year. July 11th.

I had just bought a Game Boy Player a few days before. I needed a game to play on it that wasn't an oldie Tetris or whatever. So I went to the Game Stop to get a game cheap. I got Zelda: Four Swords.

Played it a little. Didn't want it. Decided to return it.

After I returned it, I began wandering around the store for something to spend my money on, when I saw it..

A complete in box Super Mario Bros. 3!

I'd say that little NES box that could totally changed me. It was that day that I began my descent into madness...

Two days later I bought a Sega Genesis with Aladdin and Sonic 2. I knew I was hooked.

Less than a year and over 500 games and 8 consoles later, here I am. (I even have the other two SMB games complete in box to go with it.)

Thank you Mario, buy my sanity is in another reality.

[jdc]

Well...something else dawned on me while reading the other posts that I forgot to add to mine. It's sorta adds onto what Stewie said.

You know what? No-one is ever going to be able to say that the current systems and software are "charming". I think that THAT is what draws me to the old stuff MORE than any other reason that I can think of.

Little squashed, stubby Link looks "charming" as he appears in the NES Zelda game. The music and sound bites for vintage Mario sound "charming", like they were made on a $20 plastic Bontempi toy keyboard. The colors are simple primaries or pastels with dot matrixed shadowing......all very "charming". The NES controller is merely a little rectangle with a couple of buttons. Aesthetically pleasing to the eye and nice to hold.

The eye candy of the 128 bit systems blew me away just like they probably blew everyone else away......for a while. I'll never, ever forget seeing Soul Caliber on the Dreamcast's launch day. Jesus H.....that WAS amazing.

Since then? It's been sensory overload. Too much eye candy. I'm desensitized to it. I'll stand up and notice a game like Sly Cooper with it's cel shaded simplicity, but the other stuff? Naw.....been there, seen it....next?

I can actually SEE the graphic brilliance in a Genny game wherein the developers had to drag what you see on the screen out of the limited development kit. The screen is never "cluttered", for lack of a better term. The games look clean.

Bah.....maybe it just me getting old..........