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Gaiden, or How I Stopped Worrying & Love the NES


Shakespeare1142
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So I've been playing Gaiden on the NES, and I'm honestly pleasantly surprised this game is of course dated I mean it's almost 30 years old and in the gaming world that's an eternity but I honestly think it's ahead of it's time, narrative wise it's lacking but for an NES game the sense of scale is spectacular, the tactical elements are there, the element of exploration is very well developed, i honestly don't get why this game is so ostracized by this community, it's weird and it's different but it's innovative and fun, and simple and endearing, why do people hate this so much? It's not bad

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6 minutes ago, Shakespeare1142 said:

So I've been playing Gaiden on the NES, and I'm honestly pleasantly surprised this game is of course dated I mean it's almost 30 years old and in the gaming world that's an eternity but I honestly think it's ahead of it's time, narrative wise it's lacking but for an NES game the sense of scale is spectacular, the tactical elements are there, the element of exploration is very well developed, i honestly don't get why this game is so ostracized by this community, it's weird and it's different but it's innovative and fun, and simple and endearing, why do people hate this so much? It's not bad

I assume it's due to the fact the fanbase has been spoiled from playing the modern games and the fact it's retro in design. But also due to "word of mouth"

A fan who's first game is Awakening or Fates or even the GBA games and not into retro games would not like Gaiden or even the SNES games.

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4 minutes ago, Spatha said:

I assume it's due to the fact the fanbase has been spoiled from playing the modern games and the fact it's retro in design. But also due to "word of mouth"

A fan who's first game is Awakening or Fates or even the GBA games and not into retro games would not like Gaiden or even the SNES games.

yeah but i started there too and i guess a quality game is a good game, even if it's dated and from interviews with the creators, it seems like they were really proud of it, it's really good for an NES game, maybe it can't hold up to contemporary games, but i dunno, it's charming

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There are a few things I can say about Gaiden.

You're correct about the tactical elements being "there", but it plays out far more like a typical JRPG than a strategy/tactical game. The barren maps, limited unit types and equipment helps convey that. I think this is the numero uno reason it is a black sheep in the franchise, which gets compounded by numero dos:

The NES games are slower than molasses. SD gets by due to its deliberate pacing, which is still slow, but tolerable. Gaiden doesn't get the same benefit. In a game that is more akin to a JRPG, with dungeons and random battles(Which all end up being roughly the same in the grand scheme of things), it's a death knell for anybody not looking for that kind of game. It's very easy to get very bored of Gaiden, very quickly.

I fucking HATED Gaiden for many, many years. I even liked Sacred Stones more than it for a good long while, and I was very conflicted when the remake was announced.

But it turns out the faster pacing of modern FE gameplay compliments the style of game that Gaiden is very well, and I enjoyed SoV a lot.

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7 hours ago, Shakespeare1142 said:

i honestly don't get why this game is so ostracized by this community, it's weird and it's different but it's innovative and fun, and simple and endearing, why do people hate this so much? It's not bad

let's not make assumptions about the whole community now, not everyone thinks the same way. usually the few haters are those who tend to be more vocal about things they don't like, compared to the majority.

as for myself, i like Gaiden for the game it is, despite its flaws and difficulty spikes that can become quite tedious in some situations.

the game was overall fun to play, and it's one of those classic overlooked titles that are appreciated mostly by people who like retro games, simply because they grew up playing with them.

if i had to choose between modern and retro, i would probably prefer to play a game like Gaiden without even thinking about it twice, instead of the usual catcha games spawning like mushrooms these days. that's just me thou.

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Gaiden always had some very interesting ideas, which is why I was thankful that it actually received some love in the form of a remake.

Agreed on the general slowness. I played through the entire game a couple of times without it but it's hard to without a speedup button these days.

I actually dislike Sacred Stones for basically taking most of Gaiden ideas and executing them poorly in my opinion. I don't even know how the world map in Sacred Stones is less dynamic than a predecessor NES game 12 years older than it.

Edited by Tryhard
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4 hours ago, Fenreir said:

let's not make assumptions about the whole community now, not everyone thinks the same way. usually the few haters are those who tend to be more vocal about things they don't like, compared to the majority.

Basically this. =) I am in the middle of my own blind Gaiden playthrough at the moment, and even though I have found it a tad boring at the beginning indeed, I was hooked the moment chapter 2 kicked in. It does play a lot different to a normal FE game, but the spirit is still there. Recently I would even venture to argue that due to there being less unit classes and each unit being limited to single item AND maps being a lot less pre-designed, the pure army positioning tactics (one of the core elements of FE gameplay, no?) are strongly emphasized and basically make or break the encounter. It is bloody difficult though, I didn't even finish chapter 3 yet and I am already at my wits end more often than I would like. -_- All in all it is a very good game, definitely worth a shot if you can stomach retro games.

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5 hours ago, AwakeningNoob said:

definitely worth a shot if you can stomach retro games.

There are some that ages very well and some that do much less so there's probably many kinds of retro gamers.

I play a lot of old games, particularly platformers but I probably wouldn't go back to old clunky RPGs, even though I liked them when I was much younger. 

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14 hours ago, Vince777 said:

There are some that ages very well and some that do much less so there's probably many kinds of retro gamers.

I play a lot of old games, particularly platformers but I probably wouldn't go back to old clunky RPGs, even though I liked them when I was much younger. 

meh i like old dragon quest ok and a lot of 16 bit stuff is cool

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Old Dragon Quest is an example of a game that has aged terribly. 

Opening a tab to 'talk', 'search' or take the stairs? Ugh. 

It had pretty classic 8-bit music and I enjoyed it as a kid but I'm never going back to it the way I'll always go back to FF6, for instance.

There's a lot of retro rpgs on the snes that have aged well but I don't think there is one on the nes that did. Imo.

 

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17 minutes ago, Fenreir said:

FF I and III have always been rough diamonds.

you can either like them or not, there's no middle way.

meh it's ok just cryptic and slow and there isn't much story, a product of the time i guess, which is weird cause i'm the freak who actually likes 2 and doesn't really like 7 i sware to god something wrong with me

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34 minutes ago, Shakespeare1142 said:

oh yeah definitely if you're talking the original version, both have been remade  a lot and the remakes are better

Must have been nostalgia since I played FF1 a lot as a kid but I was disappointed with the remake (if at least the one I played on GBA) because the level of difficulty, much lowered, didn't do the original's justice.

All the other GBA FF remakes I felt were very good though. I enjoyed FF5&6's added content and FF4 allowing you to change your party after the end game for the extra dungeons.

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5 hours ago, Vince777 said:

Must have been nostalgia since I played FF1 a lot as a kid but I was disappointed with the remake (if at least the one I played on GBA) because the level of difficulty, much lowered, didn't do the original's justice.

All the other GBA FF remakes I felt were very good though. I enjoyed FF5&6's added content and FF4 allowing you to change your party after the end game for the extra dungeons.

 

So many 16 bit games have aged well though, i think it must be because it was one of the last eras focused on sprite art meaning that the more high-tech sprites could render animation that kind of imitates hand-drawn art, it was one of the first eras where form could be considered over function and good design graphically always ages well, i think a lot of graphics before and after 16 bit look wonky because they were so focused on function (on the NES and master system they had to consider the color palette and the number of sprites they can have and on the PS1 Saturn and N64 they had to figure out how the models would animate and stuff) i love 16 bit graphics man, i wish they would make more sprite-based rpgs

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On 1/6/2019 at 10:38 AM, AwakeningNoob said:

Basically this. =) I am in the middle of my own blind Gaiden playthrough at the moment, and even though I have found it a tad boring at the beginning indeed, I was hooked the moment chapter 2 kicked in. It does play a lot different to a normal FE game, but the spirit is still there. Recently I would even venture to argue that due to there being less unit classes and each unit being limited to single item AND maps being a lot less pre-designed, the pure army positioning tactics (one of the core elements of FE gameplay, no?) are strongly emphasized and basically make or break the encounter. It is bloody difficult though, I didn't even finish chapter 3 yet and I am already at my wits end more often than I would like. -_- All in all it is a very good game, definitely worth a shot if you can stomach retro games.

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i'm in almost the exact same situation, i'd like to see a modern interpretation of these ideas cause while the graphics and UI are dated it has some really good ideas and more than most other FE games you really get this civil war vibe like a real medieval conflict moving from region to region fighting a guerilla war, taking forts, the gameplay really helps to convey the story, it's really briliant for a Famicoms game, as far as the scale and worldbuilding goes, i need to play he remake

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