How to Play 8bit and 16bit Console Games
Save states
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| The Revenge of Shinobe, Sega Mega Drive |
My first rule is not to use save states, with a few caveats. Definitely don’t use rewind.
This is to retain the consequence of a play session and retain elements of threat, urgency and immediacy, otherwise lost if save-stating.
You may use save states when a password is displayed or when saves are offered, for instance, passwords or if saving is allowed through battery backup chips.
This retains the pacing of the game design as it was originally conceived.
Sometimes a game may be particularly poorly designed, maybe to extend the gameplay or lack of consideration by overly skilled or zealous programmers and designers. So if it is a game you do not respect or particularly enjoy, I advise placing save points at the end of sections which are a particular struggle, even after numerous concerted efforts.
Therefore, if you follow this advice, I find that you will have more fun in these games, which were generally designed for bite-sized play sessions, in line with the limited free time available to children and teens, if you avoid save states almost entirely.
Dealing with frustration
This means that you are playing the opening stages of the game repeatedly. This is why these games are often ‘front loaded’, meaning more consideration, design and development was afforded to the opening stages in order to attract new players, lighten the tedium of playing them repeatedly and promote the game in general.
The opening stages are often crucial in introducing the player to the game mechanics and central themes. But they should also be completable in ever shorter time periods, wasting less of your time on repeat plays. A case in point being Micro Machines, which awards a Super Lap if the first lap is completed inside a particular time, moving you onto the next stage without the need for completing all three laps. Games may also include secret short cuts, or overall, just by not making mistakes, the play time of the opening stages, over time, is considerably reduced and hopefully will not feel repetitive.
In this way, you will refine your understanding and mastery of the game’s controls and mechanics in a thorough way, which you would not if you were to pass over the initial stages on future plays of the game, leaving you vulnerable to becoming stuck when your skill set is not honed enough to tackle the gradually increasing challenge of the later stages.
Without the training of the easier early stages in place and without sufficient power ups and lives awarded by advanced play, to give you the skills and advantages awarded to the competent player, you will find the later stages too much of a hurdle to overcome.
Using these methods, you will be less likely to become frustrated by the design of the games, which, by and large, award focus and practise, to master the game in a meaningful way and explore and understand the game mechanics as intended, as they become more complex further into the game.
When to stop
My advice is to play the game until you become annoyed or run out out lives and face the game over screen. Take this as a sign that you have reached the point of skill and understanding of the game up to that point and maybe take account of your score or position in the score board and make a mental note of your accomplishment thus far.
At this point, consider doing a different thing, such as washing the dishes or making an elaborate sandwich or a different game.
Dealing with death
Do not feel that you are entitled to progress into these games as is customary in contemporary game design, more focused on ‘content’ than complex mechanics or mastery or improving skill, awarding entry level skill with new backgrounds and abilities, with time investment alone.
Do not be afraid of the game over screen. This means that you have exhausted your skill and understanding of the game up to that point. Sometimes, the skill level of the game is very high from an early point in the game. An example of this is the scrolling shooter genre, in which prior experience is often assumed by the game designer.
Choosing a system
I would strongly advice against playing the SNES, because of the lack of power in the console’s hardware, games are often unresponsive, which leads to your inputs being delayed, or even 'dropped'. in fast paced or action based games requiring fast ‘twitch’ reactions you are left vulnerable to taking damage until you can pre-emt your inputs to the degree that you can handle the action as it’s presented, in good time, as you observe your queued actions play out over the subsequent moments.
Avoid any Nintendo platforms or related products or franchises such as Pokemon, Castlevania or Contra.
Other 8-bit and 16-bit systems offer responsive controls suited for action games.
Beat or complete?
Don’t try to use cheesy tactics such as ‘farming’ or ‘grinding’ for health, lives or power ups etc as this will introduce the element of tedium or monotony, as you approach the game with conflict, and a fierce intent to simply get to the end without engaging earnestly with the design, assuming that the designers have made a mistake.
If the intent of the game designers was for you to repeat a monotonous action in order to expend lives in future difficult spots, then I would question their wisdom. You should always aim to be finishing the game without losing any lives. Which is not to say this is important, but rather a goal.
Games must be approached as casual entertainment and are not really important beyond granting distractions or involving narratives. Otherwise they risk becoming a bad habit.
Grinding is a fundamentally flawed approach people often acquire, watching instructional videos on how to ‘beat’ a particular game. How I approach these games is to ‘complete’ them. What this means is that I approach them as artefacts to be explored and understood and not obstacles to be defeated and then dismissed.
Research
Having all the library of a system, it’s easy to become blithe and whimsical at the simplicity of the game as you browse through them casually. But consider that these games took in excess of 6 months to complete, with dedicated teams of professionals who are accomplished in art and programming. Just because the resolution is 224p, does not invalidate these games as disposable or obsolete relics. The artwork, sound design and music are all unique and worthy of consideration and respect, even if internet commentators have dismissed them for the sake of a video or article that contains bias or hyperbole.
Watch the demos by waiting at the title screen, possibly meaning waiting for a introductory story to play out. These may (although very rarely) even include full tutorials such as with Columns 3 or Puyo Puyo 2. Neo-Geo arcade games usually include tutorials.
Watch instructional videos or play-throughs only when you have become frustrated after many serious attempts.
Do read the manual almost every time if you found the game appealing enough to attempt to play it in earnest or get to the end. To learn the controls or rules. If you are still finding the game difficult to comprehend, read an FAQ for hints.
For adventure games, this is a difficult topic, because they often use bizarre and unintuitive puzzles requiring lateral thought, which could see you completely stuck. In which case, finding the solution will help to elucidate you on the design logic of the puzzles and may allow you to understand the subsequent solutions.
Difficult puzzle games such as Sokuban World require mind bending solutions, which may stump you on a single stage for hours. Looking up the solutions to these puzzles will remove any enjoyment, reward and understanding you would have gained by solving them independently. Puzzle games should be difficult, otherwise, you are playing a casual game similar to a jigsaw or a simple, essentially mindless Picross or Sodoku game.
Always check the options before starting a game to see if there are difficulty options and to see if there is a button config screen to quickly learn the basic controls as a precursor to reading the manual, if you are too impatient to look one up.
Difficulty settingsConsider the default difficulty as intended by the designers and try that option first, unless you are not confident in your abilities, in which case, reduce the game’s difficulty level if you are keen to experience further into the game without engaging fully with the mechanics.
Leave the lives and continues on the default settings. This saves time starting games and respects the designer's intent.
Don't use cheat codes.
Controllers
Consider investing in an ‘arcade stick’, although be aware they have become excessively large in recent years. I use a Qanba Obsidian Q1 with separately purchased Seimitsu buttons with a microswitched stick for a significant advantage, although heavy on the lap. A good condition Mega Drive Arcade Stick is a very convenient form factor for those with limited space or funds. Although be aware, the condition might not be ideal as they have been out of production for decades.
Avoid all Nintendo products. If you really want to play fighting games with a control pad on a 16bit game, then you are probably playing casually and the discontinued but readily available Retrobit 6-button bluetooth controller would be my choice as it does not consume a usb port for a WiFi dongle and does not look ugly, as per the 8BitDo M30 and offers acceptable input delay for a wireless controller and without the mess of wires an original controller and Mayflash adaptor require.
Most importantly, the Sega d-pad is not the Nintendo ‘cross’ style or Sony button style, but rather, the concave, 'rocker' Sega style, which allows rapid alternation of directions and ease of quarter or half circle motions without the risk of losing your contact with diagonals.
As well, the 3 button layout is much simpler for you to comprehend in fast action games, with the linear layout of the three, large, concave buttons that your fingers naturally fall into, with a slightly more significant travel and stiffer resistance than the Nintendo style of button and d-pad.
Systems
Avoid anything made by or for Nintendo as well as games closely associated with their platforms such as Castlevania, Mega Man or Contra, as these games tend to the banal and mindless, rewarding grinding and repetitive actions, with very simple mechanics which beguile, if you are willing to submit to the tedium or tackle the frustration, with simple themes and gameplay or frustrating design that require highly specific actions, performed exactingly, for progression, at specific points, or otherwise a serious lack of challenge without the gradual difficulty curve which is the mark of a well designed game, that will improve your skill and introduce more complex mechanics through repeated play.
As well as the SNES having tortuous sound, unresponsive control or degraded graphics, it offers the inferior versions of popular or multi platform games of the time and colour sets that tend to the pastille, which can become tiring to the eyes.
Nintendo exists as an ecosystem, parallel to video games in the traditional sense and represents a threat to the industry as a whole as the style and design is quite different to other game companies and their properties, who do not compete directly.
Nintendo commonly enforce strict censorship and tampering to titles published on their platforms in an attempt to affect tastes and sensibilities from their customer base and discourse on their products and company is closely monitored and dictated.
Recommendations
In my experience, the PC Engine offers the best gameplay for shooting and action games, although the limited data size of the HuCard games often see a limited number of unique background tiles in a scene, or frames of animation in the sprites, as well as the potential language barrier.
The US variant, the 'TurboGrafx-16', however, offers very little and I would avoid it entirely.
This Japanese PC Engine system does, however, offer the most responsive games, with the least amount of slowdown and the very best ports of classic such as Gradius, Space Invaders and many others.
It may, however, take significant research to explore the CD library, as downloading the entire CD library is impractical, due to scarcity of available cd image files found online and the subsequent issues downloading and storing such a large amount of data.
Emulation of the PC Engine has only recently become available, although I recommend the system above the Mega Drive for it’s more expansive CD titles such as the Y’s series or SNK fighting games, which may even have translation patches available, but, again, this is a time investment for the more dedicated 16-bit gamer.
If you are playing Mega Drive games, I recommend the European PAL versions, if available, and taking care to set the emulator to PAL (although not available in Mednaffen emulator), as they offer the most stable performance as well as square pixels, whereas, the US NTSC region versions can result in lagging and slowdown on more demanding sections of gameplay in titles such as in Sonic and Thunderforce games.
Despite a potentially slower speed of around 15%, you will find that you are still challenged to your limits, and the more consistent frame rate results in a more engaging and predictable experience.
Neo-Geo and arcade
The Neo-Geo is really an arcade system and not a home system, featuring games designed for arcades, exclusively. Whilst these games offer the very best graphics and sound for the time period, they are all aimed at short play sessions with a very high level of challenge and limited macro gameplay elements such as strategic levelling options and extended play sessions, that are very intense and can become exhausting. Also, they often lack a lives or continue system, with the ability to coin-feed your way to the end, reducing your engagement to that of a tourist, rather than a gaming session of serious intent, due to the lack of predefined limits to progress.
Consider limiting the amount of credits you input and ending the game when they expire.
Shooting games
Likewise, the shoot-em-up or ‘space shooter’ genre can become fatiguing as you press for progress to be made and the continued dying must be dealt with philosophically. The playing of a shooting game is another subject I intend to address in more detail in a subsequent article.
Consider leaving auto-fire off, especially if it defaults to that option, as often, Japanese shooters are carefully designed with this in mind, which is called a ‘tapper’, although the Japanese are more likely to have invested in a joystick, specifically for this purpose and the fighting game genre, as pressing repeatedly, quickly becomes tiring on muscles and can cause stiffness or pain.
This means you only press the fire button when you have a target, which prevents straining wrist or finger muscles. Some shooting games fire a short volley to reduce strain or include periods of inactivity.
But some games are designed to hold the fire button down.
Role playing games
Closing
So that is my advice to newcomers, or even those experienced with 90’s era games, but are finding the experience frustrating with a ‘play to beat’ mentality as opposed to a ‘play to complete’ mentality.
Modern games can be engrossing and consume large amounts of time and are often designed to manipulate players into addiction.
The 16bit game, generally aimed at younger or casual players, respects your time and you are not actively persuaded to pour ever more time, effort and money into a single title.
It is for this reason that 16bit games offer the opportunity for more digestible and manageable experiences that allow for a better life balance of using and being able to remain in control of this hobby to avoid it becoming a bad habit.
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