As someone who lived through that era, let me tell you, the gameplay graphics were never a disappointment. In your mind they looked as good as graphics today. The only thing I can remember being disappointed about was the Nintendo Powerglove. Man, what a collosal, non-working, over hyped advertising lies, piece of shit that thing was!
Nah there were definitely games that had disappointing graphics relative to what I was expecting lol
Although it’s true, we generally were more forgiving about graphics back then than we are these days.
The Wizard lied to me for 2 hours about that useless piece of plastic.
I’m gonna press X to doubt on that one.
No, he’s right. The power glove was garbage from the get-go. Really cool cyberpunk thing on paper but … hell, we still aren’t there today!
We absolutely could be “there” today but the lingering aura of the Powerglove is still so powerful that nobody has tried to make a better one. It got clowned on so hard the first time that the echoes of that are still rippling through our global subconscious 35 years later.
Also, Nintendo would probably try to sue you if you sold a glove-based controller, even 35 years later.
No X button on the controller. Just A and B.
Touché.
Mario 3 was the most mind blowing leap in graphics I think I’ve ever experienced.
But if you would have saved it until today you could resell it foe a whole $25 more (of course accounting for inflation it’s actually $105 less)
…
Wait is that true? Did a rare Nintendo product depreciate in value???
The game in the example is Bad Street Brawler which is every bit as terrible as portrayed. I have it somewhere still. Could never get past like thr second level.
It’s the same with lots of indie games now. Oh, and mobile ones too
Back in the day, deep down you knew what you were really getting. I’m a little annoyed these days when indie games use marketing visuals that look like they could be in-game for a modern title and then it’s all pixel art style. I get that you don’t make a pixel art poster, but in that case, go all-in on an art cover don’t let it be mistaken for game graphics.
Bro, that stupid game with the guys that shoot barrels to get more fighters/better weapons looked fun. The actual game is a shitty base builder with timed progression, of course you can pay to get past the time locks. Fuck that company and every “influencer” that takes their dirty money.
ahem…
I remember renting Phalanx just because of the box. like “why’s this old man playing the banjo?” then you look at the back and it’s a friggin space shooter. I had to rent it.
The agency that created the box art created it for the exact reason you picked it up.
yeah after posting this I read the story on Destructoid about it. It worked. it was a meh game but the only reason I wanted to play it was because of that box.
Holy crap that’s Bad Street Brawler. I have this game still. It’s straight up the worst game I’ve ever played.
I 💯 went through this disappointment. I used to also love looking at a game’s concept art because they always looked so much cooler and atmospheric than the game. I remember the inflection point clearly. I was playing Mass Effect 3 and walking around the citadel wards/docks, with it’s beautifully detailed textures, evocative colours, and painterly lightshafts, feeling absolutely enthralled, and thinking “Holy shit, they’ve finally done it, the gameplay looks better than the box/concept art.”
My games were all pirated. Covers had a handwritten list of all games on the cassette (and later CD). The first legit game I’ve ever seen was Mortal Kombat Trilogy and I remember being taken aback by the waste of using a full CD for a single game (iirc the game used just 30 MB of space on that CD).
10s of MB software with the rest of the disc as CD audio was standard for the time.
Even with those constraints PS had noticeable mid-battle lag as it loaded in animationss.
You miss half the fun then, the imagination in your head of transforming the graphics into whatever you want. And then gameplay is the most important
but all the fun is taking the game graphics and transforming it in your head to resemble the cover art
Looks like a swell game to me!
