I saw this interesting indie game today. Noitu Love. It’s pretty interesting retro work. But I think it misses the mark for retro games in my opinion.

The environment, the controls, the graphics, animation etc all look really spot on for a NES game. But I think it misses the mark for that very reason. Retro games should definitely be sprite based, retro styled affairs. But they should really have more modern gameplay devices. More like an amalgam of the styles of yesteryear, but with the gameplay that’s only recently become popular. 

It’s easier for us to have more animation, sprites, sounds with more complex interactions. NES and SNES games were pushing the limit of what the machine could do. We can do much more now, much more simply since there are so many libraries and frameworks that facilitate fading, mixing, particles etc. 

I’m not saying the maker didn’t make what he wanted to make. But I just feel as if a really hard core retro game is closer to Metal Slug, still 2D sprites, but with so much animation and characters onscreen that it blows your mind.

Update:

Actually. It looks like Noitu Love 2 does just that. Noitu Love was free. NL2 is 10$.