Check out the trailer for the Virtual Boy: Nintendo Classics, a chance to finally play classic Nintendo Virtual Boy games on your Nintendo Switch 2. 14 class...
Wario Land is still a really great game on it even today that doesn’t deserve to be locked on flawed hardware (the motherboard disconnects one of the lenses over time and it’s a pain to repair), and Red Alert is one of those games in which the limitations actually, probably accidentally, give it a really unique hypnotic style, and the dual gamepad controls (also used to nice effect in Teleroboxer) ensured it didn’t just feel like a regular Nintendo game of the time. I don’t doubt it inspired actual classics like Rez.
I get the hate for the Virtual Boy - most games on it barely feel complete, it was uncomfortable to use, it made your pupils dilate - but it is a fun and important piece of weird gaming history, and Nintendo acknowledging it as such and finally officially allowing people some way to play those games again (knowing full well it’s going to get a lot of hate) is still a good thing overall for classic game preservation.
I don‘t think it does anything for game preservation. What is it preserving exactly? Not the titles. Those are subscription based. A piece of plastic where you can insert your handheld in? Just get a cheap VR headset for your phone. And if Nintendo thought Wario Land was so great then why did they stop making those games like 2 decades ago?
And if Nintendo thought Wario Land was so great then why did they stop making those games like 2 decades ago?
Because the last games didn’t sell so well, and because the staff that worked on them have other projects.
Just because a game didn’t get infinite sequels forever doesn’t mean no one can appreciate the originals. By that logic, Chrono Trigger must be one of the worst JRPGs of all time to you.
Like everyone else here, I’ve got no love for Nintendo’s business practices, but the owner of the software having officially endorsed ways of playing their stuff on modern devices (let alone replications of original hardware, like with their old controller releases) has basically always been a good thing, both for average Joe consumer that’s interested in game history and doesn’t know what a ROM is, and for the emulation community who wouldn’t ever pay for this stuff but can often build off the tech (or educate us on the problems with it). Is any of this the ideal? Of course not, locking ancient games being a subscription is typical megacorp horseshit. But a kid being able to pick up a brand new Switch 2 and play Game Boy Arkanoid and Virtual Boy Teleroboxer on it is something.
Art of all forms shouldn’t be virtually inaccessible to the masses outside of methods of questionable legality (although, make no mistake, I think those methods are good too, and these things can coexist).
Whether or not the games are objectively “good” or popular is totally beside the point. Just because I can easily download a pirated version of some forgotten 80’s b-movie doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing when it finds some form of new life through an overpriced official boutique blu-ray release.
Wario Land is still a really great game on it even today that doesn’t deserve to be locked on flawed hardware (the motherboard disconnects one of the lenses over time and it’s a pain to repair), and Red Alert is one of those games in which the limitations actually, probably accidentally, give it a really unique hypnotic style, and the dual gamepad controls (also used to nice effect in Teleroboxer) ensured it didn’t just feel like a regular Nintendo game of the time. I don’t doubt it inspired actual classics like Rez.
I get the hate for the Virtual Boy - most games on it barely feel complete, it was uncomfortable to use, it made your pupils dilate - but it is a fun and important piece of weird gaming history, and Nintendo acknowledging it as such and finally officially allowing people some way to play those games again (knowing full well it’s going to get a lot of hate) is still a good thing overall for classic game preservation.
I mean
The game is called Red Alert for a reason
I don‘t think it does anything for game preservation. What is it preserving exactly? Not the titles. Those are subscription based. A piece of plastic where you can insert your handheld in? Just get a cheap VR headset for your phone. And if Nintendo thought Wario Land was so great then why did they stop making those games like 2 decades ago?
Because the last games didn’t sell so well, and because the staff that worked on them have other projects.
Just because a game didn’t get infinite sequels forever doesn’t mean no one can appreciate the originals. By that logic, Chrono Trigger must be one of the worst JRPGs of all time to you.
Like everyone else here, I’ve got no love for Nintendo’s business practices, but the owner of the software having officially endorsed ways of playing their stuff on modern devices (let alone replications of original hardware, like with their old controller releases) has basically always been a good thing, both for average Joe consumer that’s interested in game history and doesn’t know what a ROM is, and for the emulation community who wouldn’t ever pay for this stuff but can often build off the tech (or educate us on the problems with it). Is any of this the ideal? Of course not, locking ancient games being a subscription is typical megacorp horseshit. But a kid being able to pick up a brand new Switch 2 and play Game Boy Arkanoid and Virtual Boy Teleroboxer on it is something.
Art of all forms shouldn’t be virtually inaccessible to the masses outside of methods of questionable legality (although, make no mistake, I think those methods are good too, and these things can coexist).
Whether or not the games are objectively “good” or popular is totally beside the point. Just because I can easily download a pirated version of some forgotten 80’s b-movie doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing when it finds some form of new life through an overpriced official boutique blu-ray release.