/vr/ - Retro Games

>>6325035
>I connect this particular experience with pic related

Same. Shigeru didn't have one iota in it, and you could tell it was a little off.

>>6325035
It's because the lo-fi b&w aesthetic of the original game boy creates an uncanny valley vibe. Same reason people find Gen 1 of Pokemon to be "unsettling"

>>6325035
Also you kill chinks in it

SML1 feels like an alternate reality romhack of what Mario could've been. The only other games that give a similar feeling are knock-off pokemon hacks from the GBC era, like the poorly translated Pokemon Diamond (Telefang). I don't think SML1 is a bad game either, it's just slightly off in every aspect. Powerups, enemies (moai statues, sphinxes and other hints of reality), "physics", and the inclusion of an alien antagonist instead of someone more standard. I wish Mario would take more risks like this instead of following such a strict formula.

SML really feels like Mario: /x/ edition.
But when you think about it, the original SMB is also weird as fuck. We take everything about the Mario universe for granted because we're just way too familiar with it, but if you came from an alternate reality where Mario would regularly fight aliens and sphinxes, and suddenly he was fighting monsters based off japanese folklore it'd also feel super wierd.

>>6325157
For me R&B are unsettling because of the music.
Viridian Forest used to send shivers down my spine. It sounds so sinister.

>>6325035
Not too many GAMES persay (at least unintentionally) but definitely films.

>>6325157
Meh for me the Pokemon thing had to do with certain elements of the story/world specifically....namely, cinnabun island where you discover the genetic experimentation angle, velvet town with the witches and dead Pokemon, what you said definitely helped those things along by not being pristine and bright like later graphics, but it was more those elements in the first place

For SML, I kind of think I know what OP is saying, but for me I think it was just because I already had a set mindframe for what Mario was as a kid, and that game wasn't part of it, and also nobody ever really talked about it cause it wasn't one of the classics, it felt like some weird obscure thing and also felt "wrong" for Mario simply because everything was different

If I can compare it to something, it reminds me of the first times I watched anime as a little kid, it was LIKE cartoons I grew up on...kind of...but something about it was just foreign and didn't fit my preconceived idea of how cartoons looked.

Or another example, I collected Transformers and Beast Wars a lot as a kid, and I remember getting Japanese exclusive products at hobby stores and would just stare forever at the boxes and product catalogs they came with just feeling very weirded out by it, like looking into a pocket of reality that makes you question what you already know

Sml was a little off yes but every Mario game was different each other. SMB2 was different to SMB but then you play SMB3 that was different to them. OK, 1 and 3 shared a lot of enemies and Koopa but sm show told me 1 and 2 were the same universe. What I trying to say is "super Mario standard wasn't defined yet"
>do the mario

>>6325035
I felt the same about the final zone in SMS Sonic 2.

For a final level, it's oddly quiet and unthreatening - faded violet background, chipper music, barely any enemies.

It's described in the manual as being 'made just for you'. And it's pristine and sparkling, but made out of blocks that have a weird realistic silhouette of Robotnik.

It's like some sad, imperfect dream. Like it was designed to be a paradise, but it's ended up lonely and wrong.

Right in the centre, the boss battle is the complete opposite - a dark, weirdly coloured room, made from this oddly nondescript technology. It's either pitch black or filled with lightning, and you're constantly running.

And when you finally rescue Tails, who was just bait to get you to this place, he's gives you this 'Um....what?' reaction, like he wasn't aware he had even been kidnapped.

Really, it was all probably just a mix of leftover ideas & quick end-of-project design choices, but to my 7 year old mind, it all felt so off-kilter, and like it meant something more than it obviously really did.

>>6325208
Holy shit you’re not even memeing

>>6325512
sms/gg sonic 2 in general has a very uneasy feeling. with the weirdly harsh beginning both in setting and difficulty that doesn't feel like any other sonic game, to tails fucking dying in the bad ending. feels more like an uncanny pirate game than an official sega one

>>6325525
they're already dead though so it's not a hate crime

>>6325565
>tails fucking dying in the bad ending
Get that fucking meme out of here. The ending just says "Go back and get the Emeralds, you dumbass."

>>6325618
do you see tails at the end my dude? he appears as a memory in the sky from sonic. he's dead as fuck

>>6325629
And in the good ending, you see both Sonic and Tails up there in the same scene. Guess they're both dead and running in Purgatory now.

>>6325641
that just makes it even more unsettling. it uses all these symbols for death and memorial but doesn't even mean it

>>6325035
I loved that thread where the guy pointed out the UFO levels melancholy. I thought I was the only one that felt that.
Also DQ1 cave
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPLfeX50uBY

You guys think SML1 is weird, but SML2 sounds like the half-remembered/half-made up dream of an 8-year-old when you look at it with some objectivity.
>Mario lives in a castle on a random island in the sea
>but it's actually been taken over by this weird Nega-Mario who's fat and ugly
>one of the worlds is a house which leads to an island that you get to by going through a hill which shrinks you
>one of the worlds is a giant Mario statue that you go inside and fight toys and robots, the boss of which is the three little pigs
>one of the worlds is an underground halloween area where you fight jason voorhees and vampires
>one of the worlds is a giant tree that you go inside and swim around in nectar (?) while fighting larvae
>one of the worlds is secret and in space that you access by going into a hippo statue's snot bubble and finding a secret exit in the sky. The boss is the final boss from SML1, but you just jump on him
>one of the worlds is the inside of a turtle (complete with bones) that you get to by being eaten by the turtle
>there are multiple tiers of slot machines that you can spend up to 999 coins on
>the game counts every single coin collected and enemy jumped on
>there's a tutorial level and autoscrolling level that aren't part of any "world"
Love the game, but it's fucking WACKY.

>>6325681
One of the levels takes place in Mario’s cock

>>6325689
underrated post

>>6325689
yeah and that level is made of balls too, those cheeky cunts

>>6325681
That's why games like this and 64 are soulful.

>>6326014
>soulful
You mean charming.

bump

I always liked SML and SMB more than the rest of the franchise. Both have a charm even the sequels on the same consoles lack.

>>6325035
the turok games did it for me, they were fun and all but i guess the color palate or something just set me with that feeling after playing for like 20 min.

>>6325681
loved this game, had it on the original gray brick gameboy, but yes it was basically super mario clownworld

>>6325035
Master System Wonder Boy 3 was a great game, but had an odd feel to it. You've just saved Wonder Land and it's people at the start of the game, but you're cursed into a dragon form. You never see or talk to any humans, and have to comb the area surrounding your last battle for some way of lifting the curse. When you finally do, there's no one there to congratulate you. It acts like an epilogue to the previous game where you were only fighting to save yourself, and the rest of the kingdom had already forgotten you.

>>6325681
>sounds like a terrifying Mario fever dream
Nice write-up, anon - sign me up

>>6325035
I know exactly what you mean, OP.

>>6325223
>Telefang
That's not a Pokemon translation, that's just an obscure Pokemon ripoff rooted firmly in the early 00s and its obsession with cellphones

Harmony of Dissonance felt waaay different than other Castlevania games.

>>6329046
It was frequently bootlegged at Pokemon Diamond + Jade back in the day.

>>6325035
>Has an 'atmosphere' or 'feel' of a game ever made you wary or uncomfortable? Sort of like there's a sinister or alien feel to it?
Queen's Hospital and undergrounds of the cathedral in Snatcher.

>>6329058
not retro

>>6329415
Pedantic faggot detected

>>6325035
I remembered this Famicom game I had home (played with an adapter) where you played as some ninja-kid or something, where you'd go through cemeteries and there were ghosts as enemies, it was super ultra creepy.
I'd love to find out it's name so I could play it again.
I remember the levels were very repetitive and there was an overworld map that resembled the Kirby games

>>6329879
I may still have it inside some box in my house, if I find it, I'll try and figure out what it is

>>6329879
There's a game like that that literally got localized in North America as "Ninja Kid" so probably that one.

>>6329832
Die, titty monster! You don't belong on this world!

>>6325035
Harvestor legit makes me ill. Xcom is kinda panic.

>>6325512
The final stage of Megaman 2 is about the same. The Wily overworld reveals a new route, which drops you down a green, silent cavern where apparently blood continually drips and can hurt you, before you enter a pitch black room where Wily levitates and mutates into an alien.

>>6325035
i think it's just because you were really young, having a bit of difficultly making sense of what you're seeing
when i think back to the first time i saw/played crash bandicoot at a friends' when it was new and i was maybe 7 years old, i recall some pretty weird feelings about it, especially things like the death screens
as an adult the game is just too cartoony to take seriously, but things like slightly grazing an enemy causing a WHOAH and the screen quickly turning black with my character falling over can really make a little kid jump
it could have also been the first 3D game i played, so there's that

For me, that game is Knuddel's Quest for the PC. Got it on a 100 great games for Windows 98 demo disk and it scared me as a child so much that I still feel uncomfortable about it even as an adult. Just a generally weird 'off' feel to the whole game, and when you fall in a hole he screams bloody murder. Something that should definitely not been in a game intended for children.

>>6329046
I know, that's why I referenced it by name. A lot of people only experienced Telefang through shitty localised romhacks known as pokemon diamond/pokemon jade. They were unstable and the translation was awful. Still, I'm sure many kids have fond memories of them since Telefang is fun. It'd be weird as a kid though playing them thinking it's pokemon, since the monster designs are slightly off.

>>6325035
Links awakening was really surreal and never fails to make me feel sad and wistful. This room makes me feel.

https://youtu.be/698TQ2EeZ-8

>>6330886
I mean, the scoreboard says it was made by "Digital Nightmares".

do edutainment titles count?
a couple of the scenes in this weirded me out as a small child

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH-UGtfGH8I
Everyone claims this level's music is super relaxing yet every time I hear it I tense up and feel like I'm about to enter some sort of science-fiction nightmare. Which makes it very clear why I've never played Ecco the Dolphin.

>>6325035
The boss music that plays when you fight King Totomesu, combined with the weird sheep "baa" sound effect when you hit him, definitely creates that uncanny vibe. Still, Super Mario Land is one of my favourite Mario games. It has so much soul.

>>6325035
you know what? i think i might have to say Croc.
the game never really frightened me, but there was a certain sense of discomfort with the way things looked and felt, i really don't know how to describe it, and it was too long ago to give any examples, idk, maybe it was that the game comes off as a bit cartoony, but the enemies and scenarios aren't comical at all
.. i don't think the lack of music helped, either, was the game meant to have music? because mine didn't.

Warioland 4 gives me this feeling of being in constant danger. Think about. Wario, led by greed, gets trapped in this pyramid, going through absolute horror, every level being an uncertain maze, the music is generally going apeshit and once you can almost reach the end of a level you have to flee from that hell hole on a time limit. What for? To defeat a boss that has it's own economy behind it (buying extra weapons for cash). Playing that game creeped me out. It always seemed like it was designed to be a lesson on how awfully horrid life can be if it is led by greed. It's just unsettling for me.

>>6330886
>sad green Q*Bert claws at angry yellow Lolo
This looks like a miscolored Chinese knockoff of rad puzzle games

>>6331274
WL4 is better than WL3 but it is also NOT RETRO

I always got a weird feeling playing the TI-86 Mario games.

>>6331042
If it's any consolation, Baldi's Basics was inspired directly by edutainment titles, you're certainly not alone.

>>6329879
There's also Mystical Ninja on the SNES, grand series

>>6331504
The creature on the left reminds me of Weepinbell

>>6331274
NOT RETRO

>>6329879
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kaiketsu-yanchamaru-2/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWYQZa_A6e4

Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 2 - Karakuri Land

>>6325305
>cinnabun island
>velvet town
>witches

What the fuck is wrong with you

>>6331158
I remember that whole dungeon area was really creepy.

>>6331274
That's such an interesting way to look at it.

>>6331704
they're unofficial and silent