Why You Should Play Retro Games on the Original Hardware

so recently I've gotten pretty deep into Retro Gaming this started with me emulating every old system I wanted to play and even buying one of these dedicated emulator consoles but as of now I've actually moved on to playing on the original Hardware it began with me going to a retro game store and seeing a lot of the consoles I used to have as a kid the Game Boy Advance SP in particular seemed to evoke the most Nostalgia within me and I just had to have one now as an adult I mean the thought of holding it in my hands and putting those little cartridges into it seemed so precious but the thing was these systems were now going for two hundred dollars and spending that much money on a console this Antiquated seemed absurd this is crazier considering these things retailed for a hundred dollars back in the day eventually I did end up finding a pretty good deal on Craigslist that included several other systems I now had an original DMG Game Boy a Game Boy Pocket a Game Boy Color and even my beloved Game Boy Advance SP I also bought a couple games that come in the form of these retro cartridges when I put them into the game boys I felt like I was taken back to the time when I was a kid it was a feeling I never experienced while playing on emulators but I still had my doubts about these old consoles at first I was a bit intimidated as I wouldn't have all the features that emulators provide things like save states and fast forward would I really be able to get through an entire game without them what about the low resolution these games ran at would it be too jarring for my mind to look at I will admit that it was a bit of a challenging transition to make at first even now I still dread not having save states in some of these games but the thing is once I got accustomed to these new conditions I wasn't bothered by them at all there's actually a good number of consoles that I now prefer over their emulator counterparts and I think that if you try these old systems you too might pick them over some of the emulators we have so I'm going to make the case for why you should play retro games on the original Hardware now before I get started I do want to point some things out I'm by no means condemning emulation I actually strongly endorse it and still think it's the way to go for the majority of people some retro games can frankly be really expensive nowadays this video is just meant to outline what you'll get from playing on the original hardware and why it's the better experience in many cases holding one of these consoles is like taking a trip to the Past you're holding the actual Hardware that people use back then and it's pretty neat to be honest it might be because it takes you back to when you were a child or it might just be the novelty of holding something this old in your hands nowadays retro Hardware is very collectible and some people build their entire rooms around it that's because a lot of these games look great on a shelf for Game Boy games in particular they make these cool boxes that are great to display your games in there's also dedicated stands that prop up your Game Boy consoles the entire collecting and displaying scene has come really far and it's a hobby in and of itself when you actually pick up the systems and start playing on them you'll notice they have a unique feel you're playing old games on the hardware that they were actually meant to be played on the buttons the game tells you to press match up exactly with the buttons on the console or controller the aspect ratio also fits the screen perfectly whereas with emulators you'll likely end up having a lot of unused screen space you may even be tempted to commit sacrilege and stretch your image to fit the screen but please don't do this look what you're doing to poor Mario another thing you'll notice about these old consoles is that many of them have interesting gimmicks that emulators struggle or even fail to replicate and there's a lot of these believe me Nintendo loves them the Game Boy family of consoles alone has dozens of gimmicky features things like the Game Boy camera allowed you to take pictures on this whole thing or even games like Kirby tilt and Tumble which had a special cartridge that lets you use motion to control your character drill Dozer on the Game Boy Advance also had a special card trick with a built-in Rumble feature and there is of course bog ties cartridge which had a built-in sunlight sensor also who can forget the Link cable this thing was necessary for multiplayer and meant we had to be huddled around to play with each other the DS probably indulge the most in gimmicky features starting of course with it having not one but two screens the bottom one was a touch screen and this was a feature that hadn't really been seen in consoles at the time the screen was mainly used to display maps or game information but it was also used for actual gameplay in Legend of Zelda the Phantom Hourglass use the touchscreen to control link which sort of makes this game unplayable on emulators in New Super Mario Bros you use it to receive your spare item and trust me it's a pain to get this item on emulators the DS is of course one of the more tricky consoles to emulate the biggest issue is in displaying two screens on a device that only has one one option is to display them both simultaneously you can do it horizontally vertically or even make one screen bigger than the other but I'm not the biggest fan of this as it looks kind of tacky and just doesn't feel right the other option is to display one screen at a time and assign a button that lets you switch between them this option works most of the time but it's kind of annoying in games like Pokemon and Mario also if you're playing Mario Kart you won't be able to see your map at all so when emulating the DS you're just gonna have to compromise in one way or another I guess the ideal solution would be to make an emulator console that has two screens there's also the question of replicating the DS's touchscreen this one is more hit and miss as some emulator consoles do have touch screens While others don't some emulators will display a virtual stylus in case you don't have a touch screen this stylus can then be controlled with your right stick this isn't ideal either though as it's not the same as a true touch screen let's also quickly mention the 3DS's stereoscopic 3D which literally can't be done on emulators it gives the illusion that the things you're viewing are popping out of the screen and it's pretty cool to be honest if you're interested in gimmicks you gotta give this one a try now I was also going to bring up the Nintendo Wii and talk about how you can't use motion controls on emulators but you can literally use the original Wii remotes on dolphins so that kind of undermines my entire point so I'm going to make a different point for this console and that's that you should use the original Wii remote whether you're emulating or playing on a Wii I played Super Mario Galaxy for the first time using an Xbox controller and I had to make some weird substitutions this game has a mechanic where you collect these little objects called Star Bits that are flying around your screen you collect them using a star cursor that's controlled by pointing the Wii remote at the sensor bar but when emulating you have to assign this motion to the right stick this makes moving the cursor really slow and sluggish and it's just a terrible way of playing the game now I'm sure you have a ton of other gimmicky features in mind when thinking about these retro consoles and these are just the features that make these old systems truly endearing they're yet another reason to go back and play them it seems that people consume media very differently nowadays services like Netflix Disney plus Spotify Apple music and Game Pass give you thousands of options to choose from where before we would purchase each title individually now we can just pay a small fee and have access to everything no longer do you have to Shell out 60 or 70 dollars for the new Forza as now you can just pay 10 bucks for Game Pass and get it day one the same thing goes with music as people back then had to buy individual records or CDs whereas now they can just pay ten dollars for Spotify and listen to thousands of Records this new way of consuming media while a lot more cost effective is detrimental to our overall enjoyment of entertainment when people bought records individually they really value these records after all they probably weren't getting another one for a good while they would end up listening to a single album multiple times and inevitably develop a deeper appreciation for it this same concept can be applied to other forms of media especially retro games we don't really have a Spotify for them but we do have a ton of ROM sites that let you download games for free the legality of these sites is a bit murky but most people still get their games from them regardless they provide a service similar to Spotify and that one is able to access thousands of titles for little to no cost similar to buying individual records when you play on the original Hardware you'll be forced to buy individual games and given that you just paid money for a single title you'll also have a deeper incentive to finish that title you might display your game on a shelf and every time you look at that shelf you'll have a visible reminder to play that game whereas with digital games you can only see that they exist when you're on the device that contains them this leads me to advocating for buying one retro game at a time and playing through the entirety of it before getting another one I mean think back to when you were a kid and how long you really had to wait before getting another game during that time you really try to get the most out of the games you had you ended up discovering everything those games had to offer and really enjoyed every second of them this might even be why many feel that games aren't as good as they used to be people build up giant lists of games that they tell themselves they have to play and it ends up feeling more like a job than a hobby games are supposed to be fun they're supposed to make us forget our stresses in life rather than adding to them it's therefore very refreshing to go back back to the way things used to be to enjoy games with moderation and really derive that childlike pleasure from them I have to admit though emulators are really practical and convenient they have some features that are honestly hard to live without and this is what I was worried most about when switching to the original hardware for example I use save states a lot when emulating like it's really hard not to use them I usually start off a game telling myself no save states this time okay but then I get to a really hard section in the game and it all goes downhill from there or worse I get lazy and don't want to go through the entire boot up of the game so then I just make a safe stay every time I stop playing here's the thing about save states though I think they take a lot away from your playing experience for starters they shift their responsibility onto you to decide when you want to save and at first you'll probably use them pretty sparingly but then they just get out of hand you end up creating a safe State whenever there's a minor annoyance in a game using them at all means you aren't experiencing the game in its natural state save states take away from the severe difficulty of many retro games beating them without save states is a major accomplishment and some games might even be fundamentally altered when using them take the game boy version of Battletoads for example this game is difficult and it would be entirely ruined if you use save states and by ruined I mean it would be a completely different game Battletoads is an arcade style beat em up that has absolutely no save points within it there are several levels that each use different game mechanics and have unique bosses at the end you only get three continues in the entire game and if you lose all of them you start from the beginning but the fun part about it is simply trying to get through the entire game without losing all your continues and getting a game over screen you could of course use save states and easily get through the game but that would make it a lot less interesting and take all of its charm away I will admit though there are some instances where save states are almost necessary some games just have sequences that are too long or ones that have no save points or both here I'm thinking about Metroid Fusion's ending sequence where you have to fight two bosses in a row without dying and there's no save point in between or in Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga where you have to beat the final boss and escape the castle within three minutes if you don't make it out within that time frame you'll have to fight the final boss again sequences like this feel like they're trying to be as annoying as possible so I don't mind using save states here but if you're the type of person who really loves a challenge you could definitely make an argument for not using them here emulators also have a fast forward feature that lets you speed up any game by a significant margin this one is pretty useful during long cutscenes or in RPGs that require a lot of grinding like save states it's another feature that I relied on a bunch and given that a lot of Pokemon games can be really slow this one had me worried fast forwarding can be just as damaging to your playing experience you never feel as connected to a game when doing it and you're definitely not dedicating your full attention to it almost like having dinner with your family while simultaneously watching a movie on your iPad you aren't truly engaging with them or bonding the way you should and you might be saying why do I need to fully engage with a game if I'm just doing tedious grinding and fair enough that's a good point but you might be going about it the wrong way see I've been playing Pokemon Silver on the original Game Boy Color and it's actually fairly playable without fast forward a game doesn't feel as slow when you've never sped it up you don't have anything to compare its normal speed to so the game speed just feels normal after a while you get accustomed to the game and it doesn't bother you as much you also have to ask yourself how you're approaching a game do you mindlessly grind your character in order to beat bosses and RPGs if so you're missing out on the wide variety of strategy that these games offer which is actually there so you don't have to grind it's a much more enjoyable way of playing through these games in Pokemon games I've had to use a lot more of the interesting status moves that I previously ignored such as gengar's curse which ensures that your opponent's Pokemon will eventually faint or even a simple move like tail whip that lowers your opponent's defense making them easier to take out the same thing applies to any other RPG you might feel requires a bit of grinding playing without fast forward and save states is a very different experience there's games I wouldn't have enjoyed as much if I emulated them For the First Time battle toads is one of these and I'm sure there's tons more the original Hardware forces you to play these games the way they were intended there's no option to save whenever you want or fast forward through the boring Parts you're getting the true experience and playing these games the same way everyone else did so we've established some pretty good reasons for playing on the original Hardware but in order to play on it we still have to obtain the hardware this brings us to the practice of hunting down and collecting these consoles which is an enjoyable and rewarding process I like to open up Facebook Marketplace and look for good deals it's actually surprising how many people are still searching for them in 2023 whenever a good deal comes up in the marketplace it's usually gone within minutes one of the best I found was this blue 2DS that I managed to get for only forty dollars this was only because I messaged the guy as soon as the game was up if I had waited another five minutes or so the 2DS would have been gone you would also think that yard sales are a pretty good place to find deals and they probably are but I haven't had much luck you should in theory be able to find the best deals at them I mean the people here just trying to get rid of their junk and have some extra garage space but no one ever has any retro games and on the rare occasions that they do someone will always get there before you and snatch them all up one time I did find Mario Kart 64 for ten dollars which would be a steal but I later found out the game was fake so that one's on Me overall I'm not the biggest fan of yard sales but I haven't given up yet and I'll still be out there looking for stuff after hunting on the marketplaces and yard sales I decided to ask some of my friends if they had any old stuff they didn't want one of them really came through and gave me a ton of stuff this included various DS consoles two 3DS's and even a Wii U which was awesome because I had been looking for a Wii U it's a console that's still worth getting today and I might even make a video on it but anyways this thing now goes for around 200 this is crazy considering it was one of Nintendo's biggest failures I also haven't mentioned online marketplaces like Amazon eBay and mercari I use these websites when I know exactly what game I want to get Amazon is terrible though so I'd recommend you stay away from it let's say you want to buy a Game Boy Color on here well you can get it for the low low price of 160 dollars like Jesus who makes these price is these consoles are literally worth about 50 bucks if even eBay can also have some outrageous prices but you can find deals on here if you've been on items I tend to gravitate towards mercari though as I've generally found the best prices there so whether you're going on Facebook going to yard sales asking friends or buying these games online just remember to enjoy the process of hunting for games throughout this video I've been heavily advocating for playing on the original retro consoles but there's actually a lot of scenarios where it makes more sense to emulate these old games one of these is if you're broke or don't want to spend a ton of money on retro games the prices of them have blown up in the last couple years while emulating remains free some of the best games on these consoles are locked away at prices Beyond a hundred dollars you can look at Earthbound on the snazz which currently goes for around three hundred dollars Chrono Trigger also on the snazz goes for around 200 Pokemon XD on the GameCube goes for 150 or even Pokemon Emerald on the GBA which also goes for 150 these games are all great and anyone looking to try them shouldn't have to pay these crazy prices Nintendo also hasn't given us any official method to play them so emulation is the way to go here that's not to say that all retro games are expensive though Mario Bros 3 on the NES only goes for twenty dollars Super Mario World on the snazz can be purchased for twenty dollars Donkey Kong country also goes for around twenty dollars and the classic Tetris on the game boy goes for only ten dollars it's generally a mixed bag with retro games as some can be really expensive While others not so much there's also the question of how well retro games and consoles will fit into someone's house I mean a lot of these things look terrible and will ruin the aesthetic of any modern home they can also take up a bunch of space and leave you with tons of visible wire emulation on the other hand allows you to have all your games on a single device a device like a laptop which who doesn't have one in their house a virtual library of games also doesn't take up any space so I can see a lot of people going for this route also there are some consoles that just objectively run better when being emulated this can mainly be seen with games that natively ran at 30 FPS if you emulate them on decent Hardware you'll always get a consistent 60 FPS the original God of War on the PS2 wasn't able to hold the consistent 60fps but now with emulation this is easily achievable there's also to the question of low resolution in retro games and I will say that this one doesn't bug me as much I can definitely live with this but emulation allows you to upscale games to 4K if you want to a good situation where this is useful is an emulating PSP games on a bigger screen the PSP had a resolution that was slightly above 240p and looks terrible on a modern TV but you can of course get it up to 4K and have it looking stunning I think it's just the before and after that's truly shocking to me and I'm impressed that this is even possible I genuinely do love emulation though it's something that will always be necessary as retro game consoles won't last forever companies also make it hard to play these old games through official means it's absolutely bizarre like imagine if the only way to watch an old movie like Snow White was to get it on cassette you don't have to get it on cassette though because we have Disney plus and until companies provide a retro gaming alternative emulation will always be justified this whole experience has really raised my Consciousness as to how Rel relevant retro games are today they're still fun to play and will never be too simple for me it's great to pick up an old Game Boy sit back on the couch and just play Tetris while listening to Jeopardy in the background many look at these games almost with contempt or feel that they might be Obsolete and in some ways they definitely are but in other ways there are only method of experiencing the gaming of the past it'll be the first time that many play these games they'll get to see the evolution of gaming and lastly they'll realize that modern games aren't the only ones worth playing

Channel: Godpuu

Views: 13,367

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Id: imD_XYeruVI

Length: 20min 15sec (1215 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 04 2023