The other day, I felt like playing Ghouls’n Ghosts (also known as 大魔界村). Now I have warm, fuzzy memories of this game. When I was much younger, the was one of them at the Rockdale bus stop. I didn’t know that the protagonist’s name was Arthur, so I called him “Silly Billy”, because you’d have to be pretty stupid to take on all those monsters. When he lost his armour, I referred to him as “Undies Man”.
Playing it now, I like it more than ever. The game is a true work of art. It doesn’t have high-definition video, it doesn’t have three dimensional graphics, it doesn’t even have stereo sound, and yet it still provides a better experience than many of today’s latest and greatest. The music is creepy, and the graphics have a superbly implemented Gothic theme. You shiver playing this thing.
Back when hardware was limited, the game developers put more effort into artistry. There were about 80,000 pixels on the screen, and they made every one of them count. They made sure everything fit together, and provided the gamer with a true experience. Now it seems they just try to blow the gamer away with big, flashy graphics and little or no substance.
What happened to the people who developed games twenty years ago? Did they become corrupted by having access to more powerful hardware? Were they replaced with a younger generation that doesn’t understand? I want them back! I want to see what real games would be like with today’s hardware.