Re:Retro

What is retro?

by Jonic Linley on December 23rd, 2005

Seeing as though this is my first proper post in this blog this is like a special post. Not every entry here will be this long, I just thought it would be nice to start of with a nice long post so you can get used to the way I maul the English language.

Retro. Say it with me. Retro.

Retro is of course a shortening of the word ‘retrospective’. Etymology aside, what does this word actually mean to us as gamers? We all know for certain what games are retro, but where do we define what is retro and what is not?

As tautological as it may sound, logically anything that is no longer being manufactured can be classed as retro. So anything that’s not new (old) is retro (old).

So I’ve really done some great work here so far, haven’t I? But that doesn’t help us at all. As far as I know Microsoft haven’t set a date for ceasing production of original Xbox units (probably not until their backwards compatability debacle is under control), once they do stop does that make it retro? By this time next year are you really going to be prepared to call an Xbox retro? I’m not so sure.

Let’s take a look at what we have had in the past. We’ll start where most of us picked up this addiction. Of all the major consoles from the NES up to the Xbox 360 here are the ones I would consider to be retro:

• NES/Famicom
• Master System
• Genesis/Mega Drive
• SNES/Super Famicom
• Saturn
• PlayStation
• N64

What about the Dreamcast? I’d say that’s where the line gets a little blurry. It was released just a little over six years ago and I personally don’t think that it’s been long enough. Almost, but not quite.

The Dreamcast was an odd creature. Released in late 1998 in Japan it stuck around for three years before Sega ceased production. However, the last game that was released for the system hit the shelves in April of 2005. Sega’s last first party release for the beloved box dropped in early 2004, so can we really say that this console is retro yet? If we were to say that then we might as well welcome the PlayStation 2 to the retro fold in the Summer. It’s not retro, but it’s not current-gen. It’s in console purgatory. Maybe in a year or so the Dreamcast could be considered retro, but right now I’m not so sure. I still have one and I still love (and play games on) it, but I don’t get the retro feeling from it. And that’s where we hit the nail on the head.

This is an interesting topic and one to which there is no clear cut answer to the question posed. To my mind the concept of retro is in the eye of the beholder, and as such nothing will ever fit into a strict definition of what is and what isn’t retro. It’s not a classification system, it’s what it means to you.

It’s how slipping the puck past the goalkeeper in the final of the playoffs in NHLPA feels. How R-Type feels when you tackle dozens of enemies at once and somehow survive. How Mario Kart (SNES) feels when you red shell the leader and sneak that crucial first place to take the cup.

It can even be something as simple as blowing into a cartridge. They bring back good memories, and are usually more fun than most games that are being released by the sequal machines (from space) today. There’s nothing quite like getting a couple friends around to your house, picking up some beer, ordering a couple of pizzas, and trying one last time to finish ‘Streets of Rage 3′, something I never accomplished. After that is four-player Micro Machines, you remember the J-Cart, right? What other games had the J-Cart functionality? That’s right, Pete Sampras Tennis and Super Skidmarks… Does any of this make you want to break out the old Mega Drive again?

Retro means something to each of us and we’ll always know what games we think are retro. There are so many instantly forgettable titles on the market today that we should be fortunate that we have a whole history of great games behind us. Forget trying to work out what’s retro and what’s not, you just know.

And that’s enough.

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POSTED IN: General