Topic: Should classic video games be tampered with before being put on the Virtual Console?

[GoldenPhoenix]

I personally would love to see some upgraded changes to some of the VC games, but like others said as long as they are optional. Personally it would be really cool to play the Nintendo DS version of Mario 64 with true analog control (probaly won't happen though!). Cleaning up some of the misspellings and stuff wouldnt' really impact me that much, so they can go either way on that. It would be neat to also see some graphical upgrades to some of the games if it is at all possible and possibly the removal of some of those nasty NES glitches that seem to pop up.

[Ian Sane]

"They could support save states, but I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, they're handy beyond description. On the other, they make it really easy to cheat by letting you try the same thing over and over until you get it perfect, then save again. That tends to take a lot of the enjoyment out of games I've played emulated. I personally find it a very difficult temptation to resist, unfortunately. I suppose they could make it menu driven, which would slow things down enough to make them less useful for cheating."

I think the ideal way to do it is make the save delete itself when you open it.  Ideally what you need a save for is to stop playing a game and resuming it later.  Then you can't abuse it but you don't have to dedicate hours to beating a game in one sitting.  It's effectively just pausing the game to play it later.

Though I would recommend adding saves for high scores since some games didn't have that.  Another example is that Excitebike originally didn't let you save your track designs and they later added a save for that in the GBA re-release.  I think that sort of change is fine.

[Famicom]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
I think the ideal way to do it is make the save delete itself when you open it.  Ideally what you need a save for is to stop playing a game and resuming it later.  Then you can't abuse it but you don't have to dedicate hours to beating a game in one sitting.  It's effectively just pausing the game to play it later.

This still doesn't prevent cheating though. If I saved before a boss and died and reloaded the save, even if it deletes itself I can just save again right on the spot. The only true way around this would be to include it as a Save & Quit option, which is essentially quitting with a guaranteed restart point, then have THAT delete upon opening the game again.

But really, I'm not one of these loyalists who need their games cheat free. I don't have the patience to suffer through a class 1000 difficulty level game like I used to when I was a kid (and I didn't have much patience for it then either), I play the games for fun. And fun for me is the experience of winning! I'm not asking for automatic god mode/unlimited ammo cheats or anything, but an unlimited save point would be nice.

[Spak-Spang]

Ian I think you were hard on the Metroid idea.  

Super Metroid was great...but not perfect.

For example, Being able to use the shoulder buttons to angle attacks would make the game design much easier.  All ready Super Metroid's Grappling Hook can be hard to manipulate...this is the reason it hasn't been used again.  If Nintendo can find a means to make the game play, and feel better I believe they owe that to the gamer.

I understand the point of not adding powerups because it hurts the purity of the game...however, I think adding something like the Powergrip or something would be great.  

[vudu]

Quote
Originally posted by: Famicom
This still doesn't prevent cheating though. If I saved before a boss and died and reloaded the save, even if it deletes itself I can just save again right on the spot. The only true way around this would be to include it as a Save & Quit option, which is essentially quitting with a guaranteed restart point, then have THAT delete upon opening the game again.

I think we all knew that's what Ian meant.

[Ian Sane]

"I think we all knew that's what Ian meant."

That is what I meant but I really should have specified it.

"For example, Being able to use the shoulder buttons to angle attacks would make the game design much easier."

You already can angle attacks with the shoulder buttons in Super Metroid.  One of them angles up, the other angles down, and if you press both together you aim straight up thus allowing the cool ability to duck while aiming.  That's the problem with the shoulder missile idea.  While a great idea in later Metroid games Super Metroid was originally designed to make use of using both shoulder buttons for aiming.  Though I think the classic controller has four shoulder buttons so you would have enough buttons for it in that case.  I just don't like Nintendo having the precedent for changing their games because they WILL abuse it to try to make their old games fit better with later games or appeal more to current trends.  Look at what they did to the SNES-to-GBA ports.

How about you can customize your virtual console's button mapping?  If I want A to be the left shoulder button I can, even if the game itself doesn't allow for customized controls.  That isn't going to allow shoulder button missiles but it gives us a lot of flexibility.  

[Kairon]

I personally believe in as straight and faithful a translation as possible. As faithful as possible in control, mechanics, graphics, everything. I'd rather have the games in Super Mario All Stars with NES graphics, not the rounded Super NES ones. BAH.

But the market has shown otherwise, and even though I disagree with them on principle, I must say that Square-Enix certainly DOES a lot of work "updating" and re-envisioning their FF rereleases, work that cannot be pooh-pooh-ed just to suit my belief in non-retouched ports.

Also see: George Lucas and Star Wars. *sigh*

Just give me the original as an option and I'll be perfectly content.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[JonLeung]

What about games that do have saves?  Perhaps you want more.  Maybe just four saves (or however many there were) in Secret Of Mana isn't enough!  Maybe you want as many as you want, limited only by the medium that you're saving your games on!

See?  Change is tempting.

EDIT: Then again, infinite saves can be achieved by copying and renaming files, which should hopefully be achieveable simply because of the use of SD cards which can be read on a PC.

[Spak-Spang]

I forgot that you could aim with L/R triggers on SNES Metroid.

The main thing I want is for games to actually introduce saves.  Even if they didn't originally have them.  You might argue it makes games too easy...but I have played too many old school games where the game just takes too much one time commitment, because saves don't exist...and any game with Passwords would be much better to feature saves instead, so you don't go crazy inputting in those codes.  It is unneccessary and old technology that could use an upgrade.

[Ian Sane]

"I have played too many old school games where the game just takes too much one time commitment, because saves don't exist"

Most old school games I've played either take within an hour to beat if you're good enough to beat them or less than that to die trying.  There are some exceptions like Super Mario Bros 3 and Jurassic Park but back in the day most games followed the arcade design of short but difficult and your play time came from replaying the game to get good enough to beat it.  A game like Contra for example is designed to be completed in like half an hour.  If you play longer than that you've lost enough lives that you'll never beat it in that try.  Anything beyond a temp save would totally ruin the intended challenge of the game.  They try making old school style games on the GBA but they have no replay value because you can save anywhere so you beat it the first night you get it.  The difficulty level of a classic game is part of the design and tinkering with it can affect the balance as much as tinkering with the controls.  Again it should be case-by-case.  Final Fight with a save feature is ridiculous.  Mega Man (the original doesn't have passwords) is not.

"and any game with Passwords would be much better to feature saves instead, so you don't go crazy inputting in those codes."

Some games benefit from having passwords though.  Some have unique passwords that provide secrets not obtainable any other way and with passwords you can jump ahead a level if you're stuck or something.  I think it would cool if there was a password book built into the VC so that you can store your passwords.  When a game gives you a password you can choose to store it in the password book and then load passwords from the book without having to enter them in.  You can enter a description of the password too and some games could automatically provide one (ie: "Level 5" or a description of your status in Metroid).  They would have to add code to the games themselves to use this feature but it would effectively allow you to save while keeping the classic feel of the passwords.

[KDR_11k]

Super Metroid has Y bound to unselect missile/powerbomb/whatever, setting it to restore the last selected weapon if you press it without anything selected should be simple, if you add the option to bind Y to a shoulder button on the Wii controller and add an option to have the weapon selection be ignored unless Y is held down (which wouldn't reset the selection then, of course) you'd have the quick missile button.