3rd Gen Are these games retro yet?

[MylittlePlusle]

Do you view these games as retro yet? If not when do you think they will be?

I can't see how the 2nd gen is retro but not the 3rd gen, it only came out thee years after... The 3rd gen didn't even have the physical/special split...

 

[Altairis]

Yup, definitely! They are 3 generations old and are almost completely outdated in terms of mechanics. I don't see how they COULDN'T be considered retro - I mean, they're getting remakes! ;)

 

[Megan]

It's actually a tough question to me. The graphics where a hugh improvement and found their uses up to gen 5, they introduced new mechanics that are still in use (mainly the EV/IV system) and also my thinking of retro games only being made before 2000 (the time before good quality control for games existed) leads me to not consider them retro just yet.

Maybe as soon as the 3D era has settled a little bit more in the main series my opinion might change. So, when the remakes come out or maybe even later (like gen 7) I could consider them retro.

 

[Blazikong]

It can definitely be considered as a retro. The graphics are fairly outdated, and the Pokemon franchise took it a step farther in gameplay and graphics when they made Pokemon X and Y.

 

[Hikamaru]

Yeah I do consider RSE as retro now, the graphics have been outdated for several years now plus the Pokemon franchise has now gone fully 3D as shown with XY, and of course RSE are now getting a remake on the 3DS.

 

[Sydian]

I have to remind myself they're not new sometimes, so I guess they haven't reached retro status in my book, though technically, I guess they are. :( It feels weird saying that UGH.

 

[Pepperton]

These were the first games that I vividly remember playing, haha, but I do think they're retro at this point. Hard to comprehend such a thing, as it feels like just yesterday I saw a Ralts for the first time on my Gameboy Advance and fell in love with the thing. Fast forward to today, and I'm still obsessed with Hoenn!

 

[ObnoxiousOboe]

In a way, yes. But that's kind of a subjective question. Considering that they're at least a decade old, they could be better labelled as "retro." The same will apply to Generations IV, V, and VI when video games reach a certain longevity in development. So I would say yes, R/S/E have reached that stage. But I wouldn't consider them "classic." Wait another ten years for that!

 

[Hiatus]

Technically, yes; by now, they could definitely be considered retro. Personally, though, these games still feel pretty new to me; it feels as if only yesterday I had finished playing Emerald, haha.

 

[Apollo]

Definitely! They're a decade old, which is long from now. I think it's hard for me to label them as such because they were such a huge step-up from the previous generation - bigger than the step-up of the fourth generation to the third. It also doesn't help that I'm currently playing through Emerald right now. :p

 

[Itcheeee]

When it comes to being "retro" I suppose they are getting there, with remakes it really hit me. They may be old enough for remakes, but GBA in general is like the border of retro to modern to me. The graphics are just good enough, that for me I can focus on them well enough. I have a hard time doing this with NES and GB/GBC games but that's just me :P

 

[Imperator161]

I don't tend to think of them as retro, even though I realize they've been out for a long time at this point. Relatively, the first two generations became retro much sooner for me. I think the difference was the compatibility with other generations. After gen 2, the game mechanics changed and Game Freak essentially opted for a clean slate; that decision helped make gens 1 and 2 seem obsolete. Gen 3 Pokémon, by contrast, can still be sent forward to X and Y, so they don't seem as cut off to me from the modern games. I think another factor is that thanks to the internal battery saving mechanism in gens 1 and 2, my gen 2 games died years ago (Gold back in '06--it's been gone longer than it actually worked). Dead, non-saving games seem more retro to me. Sure, I've started to get battery error messages in RSE, but it's much easier to ignore the effects of a dead battery in those games, so they seem much more like they did when I got them.


And then, there's the fact that I played the first two generations at the height of the Pokémon craze, or close to it. I associate them with elementary school, and everyone I know playing. Life was just so different back then. Sure, times have changed a lot since I played RSE, too, but in terms of my gaming habits, it just doesn't feel as different. I started frequenting gaming forums and making accounts (not on this site, but others) during third gen. I primarily played by myself, but began to realize just how many people still played from my forum browsing. That dynamic, of playing alone and browsing the internet, has been the same for me from third gen through sixth, but wasn't my experience in gens 1 and 2.


It's not just the age of a game that makes it retro for me; it's the context. Thus, RSE may seem retro to many people in this thread, and I'm sure that there are some people who even think DPP are retro, perhaps a growing number now that wifi is gone. Objectively, perhaps I should see RSE as retro. Sure, the graphics are obsolete, though they still seem vastly different than those in gens 1 and 2. Sure, they weren't designed for a DS family system, and I can't even play them on my 3DS. But in many ways, it still surprises me just how much time has passed since RSE came out. Who knows, maybe I'll see RSE as more retro once the remakes are released.