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My wife is always getting on my case about the old games I play. She'll say, "Why do you play those old games? The graphics are horrible!" Ah, but the graphics only need to be good enough to enjoy playing the game.

There are 2 major differences between older games and newer games. First the graphics of today's games are far superior to those of the eighties and nineties. Second, the gameplay of the older games is (generally speaking) far superior to those of today.

For example, Final Fantasy X-2 was released for the Playstation 2 in 2003. While playing, you could see the hair of the characters flying about in the air as they fought, ripple effects in water, and each class had a distinctive look on each character. However, playing the game became quite easy and boring about halfway through. Also, most of the dialogue was obnoxious and abrasive.

Final Fantasy (that's the first one fellas!) was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987. While playing, the characters changed appearances once, other than that, they looked exactly the same throughout the game. It was a character icon, they made the arms and legs move for performing different actions, but the hair, armor, and everything else was static. The oceans and rivers in the game were drawn and never look different, even when you're zooming through it on your boat. However, the game is a giant puzzle: get THIS to get THAT which will help you defeat THIS guy so you can get THAT which goes with THIS other thing over here to help you get THAT...and the battles in the game were difficult enough to keep any player challenged with the battles alone.

My theory is this: video game developers didn't have as much graphics to work with on older games, so they could spend more time on making the actual playing of the game fun and exciting. Now, however, video game developers are only interested in making the game look good and spend all of their time towards that end instead of making the game fun to play.

Learn more about this author, Kevin Harmon.
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