Our Memories are Dirty Liars
"Actual Game Graphics (as seen by my memories)"
As the internet makes everyone’s voices heard more and more, whether it be through comment systems, forums, or social media sites, it’s interesting to see the different patterns that develop. One I’ve taken note of in the last couple of years is the inaccuracies of our memories. Yes, I say “our” because I’ve fallen into this same trap from time to time just like everyone has.
Most people have games they remember loving long ago, but haven’t played in years. It can be a sad truth to find out that games you use to love don’t stand the test of time, but it can also be fascinating to see just how different reality is from our aged memories.
This curiosity is one of the motivations behind our Friday Old Games series. Sometimes we battle against our own memories as I did when reviewing Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi; a game my memories would have me believe is fantastic, but in reality is a pretty shoddy licensed game. Other times, we want to set the record straight on games like Goldeneye that have been put on a pedestal for merits that are no longer relevant today.
In many peoples’ experience (including my own), a lot can be attributed to finances. When you are a little kid with little to no source of income, you don’t have a lot of options when it comes to gaming. Even so much as renting a game can drain all the money you have. And when you’ve gone and spent all the money in your possession, it better be justified. While you might not feel it’s worth it to spend time on a poor quality game now, back then there was no turning back. You already spent all your money and now you’ll drain every ounce of fun the game has to offer, regardless of how much bad design it’s buried under.
Fortunately, there are a lot of great games that hold up really well. But in order to find out which ones truly stand the test of time, we can’t rely solely on memories.
I’ve heard many people complain about both the supposed increase of licensed games today and how they wish Nintendo would bring back their “Seal of Quality“. This is something that always gives me a bit of a chuckle as the first thing that enters my mind is Yo! Noid. Not only is it an NES platformer based on the mascot of a pizza chain, it’s also one of the many terrible games sporting Nintendo’s old “Seal of Quality”. The NES is a great system with many wonderful games. However, there are also plenty of licensed games and plenty of terrible games with a false assurance of quality printed on them.
One of the most common comments displaying memory failure I hear in this generation are regarding graphics. While some are intentional exaggerations, many people look at a game with graphics they don’t find satisfying and honestly believe they don’t look any better than that of the previous console generation. I’m not saying it’s impossible for that to be true, but more often than not it’s based on inaccurate memories.
To illustrate, I’ll relate a specific example in which I fell into this same trap. I once rented Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube. While I didn’t put a ton of time into it, I enjoyed its visual style. Four years later, the sequel released on the Wii. When I saw the trailers I thought to myself, “These graphics don’t look any better than the first game.” I honestly believed that until I then looked up screenshots of the original. Below is my memory’s lie, completely exposed.
"My memory would have me believe these look identical."
Unfortunately, it’s not just random people on the internet making these mistakes where few will read them. Even people from large media outlets let their memories get the best of them. A recent offense came in the form of Destructoid’s Final Fantasy XIII review with the quote, “…if this is the future of the franchise, that future is incredibly bleak indeed.” Like Final Fantasy XIII or not, the next inevitable non-online entry will most likely play nothing like it. Even if we just look at the last few games in the main series (IX, X, and XII), we can see just how incredibly different each game is, making “the future of the franchise” something you can’t effectively predict. But alas, the reviewer’s memory betrayed him.
While some may have better memories than others, we all make mistakes. The next time you’re in a discussion or even writing on your own blog about something from an old memory, take a step back. Think for a second on the subject. Ask yourself, “Are things really the way I remember them?” And of course, when in doubt, do your research! Look at images of the old games that supposedly look just as good as this generation’s, research facts about gaming history, and re-play that game you use to love to see if it still holds up.
Tags: Editorials, Final Fantasy XIII, gamecube, licensed games, memories, NES, Nintendo, Seal of Quality, Tales of Symphonia, Wii, Yo! Noid
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 14th, 2010 at 9:49 am
MrColinP says:What a great idea for an article! And good job with it too. I know I had an experience identical to yours with Tales of Symphonia, but I’m having trouble remembering exactly what it was…
April 14th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it.
And just so people don’t get the wrong idea from the top image on this article, I play Super Metroid about once a year and it is still the greatest game of all time. No memories lying on that front.
April 14th, 2010 at 6:36 pm
TheWon says:Sorry but most of your story is flawed due to your misinterpretation of the Seal of Quality.
The Seal mad it so that 3rd Parties had a limited amount of games. The could release during a year. This limited the amount of me too, rushed sequels, and shovel ware.
Something that has been a major problems since the PS1 era started.
Then it made 3rd parties make unique versions of the same game. Pretty much giving each console a exclusive version of the same game. This shows why the SNES and Genesis version of the same game where different everytime. Which adds to creativity. So yes having more control on 3rd parties now. Would be alot better then it is now. Less companies milking their franchise. Where in the past we just had Capcom!
April 14th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:@TheWon
I figured this would come up sooner or later. Perhaps I should be clearer. I realize that Nintendo use to limit the amount of games people could put out. In fact, I linked in my article to a page stating that very fact. However, it’s many of these people I hear asking for the seal that have misinterpreted it to the point of not realizing just how common terrible games and licensed games still were when the seal was still in use.
Additionally, there is literally only 1 paragraph out of 10 that has anything to do with the Seal of Quality. I really don’t think that qualifies the use of the word “most”.
April 15th, 2010 at 4:18 am
MIchelle says:This made me chuckle. I dug out the Atari 2600 a few months ago after not playing on it in at least a decade, somehow my mind had rebuilt the very sparse and basic Centipede and Yar’s Revenge graphics into beautifully coloured SNES style 16-bit graphics complete with perfect sound.
So I completely sympathize with this piece, we’ve all been there.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:55 am
Patrick says:I had a similar experience recently when I considered buying the SMS version of Sonic Chaos on Virtual Console. I spent hours playing the Game Gear version as a kid, and I remembered it being a huge adventure. Fortunately, I watched a play through on YouTube before buying it, and realized that it was actually a relatively uninspired game that could be beaten in under 20 minutes.
I’m afraid to look up the rest of the Game Gear games I played, since Sonic Chaos is supposed to be one of the standouts. I’ll keep my fuzzy memories, thanks.
May 11th, 2011 at 9:02 am
Tales From the Backlog #3: Mega Man Legends (PS1) - WingDamage.com says:[...] have come out sounding more like a backhanded compliment than intended. The truth of the matter is, our memories are dirty liars. There are so many games from the PS1 era that don’t hold up (I’m not singling it out, [...]