The almighty algorithm led me to watch a video by a younger adult gamer comparing and contrasting modern with retro games in terms of what might be called “hand-holding”. It’s a great video from a very different perspective than my own. For example, I thought the brief discussion of NPCs was interesting — using “NPC” as an epithet is a relatively recent development as far as I’m aware. Viewing NPCs as a contrast to the player’s perceived agency and autonomy is an interesting framing — I’ll just say I don’t know that those who really embrace that perspective have really thought this all the way through or that they’ve carefully questioned what such a framing says about those who embrace it.

However the main thrust of the video concerns a pretty reasonable (and not uncommon) sense that retro games don’t hold your hand nearly as much as modern ones, and that in some ways this move to more hand-holding is not an entirely positive development. I certainly agree with the empirical observations — modern games absolutely take more care (in-game) to guide the player through the learning stages of their various systems.

What I love about hearing other folk’s perspectives is trying to understand their context. The creator of the video in question primarily contrasts modern games with a certain era of games — the mid- to late-90s. Final Fantasy VIII and Ocarina of Time are used as primary examples.

Of course from my perspective (my earliest gaming memories date from the 80s), these two games were themselves part of a larger break from previous eras of gaming. Ocarina held the player’s hand a bit more, as I recall, than A Link to the Past, which in turn was a huge improvement in those terms over the first two TV console Zelda games. To be fair, Navi (Link’s attention-demanding fairy companion) was often more annoying than helpful, but overall the trend was not unintended nor unnoticed.

I should also mention that part of the reason that particular era’s retro games feel more hands-off in terms of player guidance than modern games is that these were definitely part of the first big generation of 3d console games. A lot of ideas were being tried and a lot of problems had to be grappled with. So some of the perception that the games were more respectful of the player’s intelligence, agency, what-have-you is really more a consequence of some problems being addressed and others being viewed as less of an issue. How to use cameras in 3d games was a tremendous challenge, I think, which is why so many of the games from this era are so awkward to play now.

So from a younger player’s perspective, games from that era of first-get 3d consoles represent something different than they do to a middle-aged gamer like myself. And that’s pretty reasonable — games have evolved pretty dramatically in some ways, I think, so the contrast between modern games and the most recent games that can are considered retro is pretty significant.

In the modern era we have settled on some elements of game and/or control design that dominate new games. This is not some unique development. This is kind of always happening, as well it should. One of the challenges that games face is acquainting the player with the game’s various systems. These systems can be innovative, but the developers have to strike a balance between novelty and modern conventions so as not to lose too many players to frustration. Retro games with high barriers to entry had high barriers back then as well — not everyone thought drawing maps on graph paper in order to slowly & painfully progress in The Bard’s Tale was a fun time. It certainly kept a lot of folks at a distance. I’ve been playing a little Phantasy Star lately thanks to the Switch “Sega Ages” version, which provides simple but welcome amenities like auto-mapping and fast-forward. I had no patience for it before, and I have better ways to use my brain than berate myself for not doing tedious grunt-work for an RPG, or to feel that I’m somehow cheating myself of the “true” experience. These games had very limited audiences and a huge part of that was all that friction. And I’m talking about games that I consider to be groundbreaking, fantastic games. But the games were designed in a different context with different challenges and incentives. That’s just how this stuff goes.

If I have any criticism of the video at all it’s that the video’s creator engages in a short bit of entirely unnecessary and inaccurate self-deprecation where she refers to herself as a “dumb girl” or something. Her thoughts were interesting and astute, and certainly provoked a lot of reflection and thought on my part. And that’s not even really a criticism of her, as much as it is that such social lubrication is required at all. But that’s still the world we’re in at the moment, sadly.