Early 2000s Games Appreciation

11:59 PM

I remember in 2001 or so seeing some previews of what would become Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire. I had played Pokemon Gold game for the Gameboy Color, and was super impressed at how much better the graphics would be for the new Gameboy Advance. I would say that even today, 23 years later, the graphics for that game hold up well.

I have recently started appreciating games from the early 2000 more, because I now have experience in the fields of programming, project management, art, music, and so on. I haven't actually created any works of art from scratch like drawing them, but I have made different computer artworks over the years. I also can't really say I've made any music from scratch, but I have some songs on all the music platforms like Spotify and Apple Music (just search Megawattz Music). Anyway, I'm just so blown away at how good these games for the Gameboy Advance are, they blow away any mobile games made from this era in my opinion.

The mobile games of this era are all about microtransactions and pay to win. It's how I became the rank 1 player in Waifu Zone Combat, I spent around $200 on that game, and became the top player. I've quit it now, and I'm sure there are people who have surpassed me now, but while I was playing, I was the best. The games these days are senseless and purposeless. I felt like the games I played growing up, they had lessons in them.

Some games from the early 2000s era are just masterpieces. Of course games like Super Smash Bros. make the list, because people still play it today, decades later. In terms of appreciation though, Super Mario Sunshine is an absolute masterpiece, same with the Legend of Zelda Windwaker. I've not played any of the recent Mario and Zelda games after 2009 or so, so I can't compare how good they are, but I'm sure Zelda Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece as well, it has a lot of rave reviews.

I've never owned a Nintendo Switch or anything newer from Nintendo after their Wii. I've never owned any Xbox console newer than an Xbox 360, which came out in 2005 or so. I've never owned any Sony console, no Playstation, no PSP, never owned a single one. So I guess my scope for gaming is kind of limited to the early 2000s mainly. Even World of Warcraft came out in 2004, I played it in 2004 when I was in 4th or 5th grade. That was a golden era game. Warcraft 3 was my favorite game ever, I think it still is, and will always be actually.

Yeah, I haven't really gamed at all after 2009. I never owned any new consoles. I have Steam, and have played PC games sporadically. There's a few I've beaten like Undertale, which came out in 2015 or 2016 or so. Anyway, so yeah, my experience with games is kind of limited, and biased, and I know I am praising the early 2000s games a lot, probably because they are the only games I've played.

But, for the early 2000s and even the 90s gaming, the game engines Unity and Unreal weren't around yet. Games had to be made from scratch, with their own engine. So they had to create a game engine and the graphics and music, and tie all of that in together into cohesive gameplay. That's just insane. I think some of them even programmed in Assembly, which I think is a chip or system specific language, the language differs from one system to another. I think games like the original Super Mario Bros. were made in Assembly. That game was a work of art.

To me, it just blows my mind. There is something called the "Mirror Problem" in games (actually I just made this term up because there's not really any official term for it, when I do a search for "mirror problem game" nothing directly calling this issue the "mirror problem" comes up, so I made up this term), and it's that mirrors are extremely hard to program in. You can either get a mirror to work by duplicating the world to have an exact reflection of it, or just duplicate the character when they enter into the room with a mirror. Either way, it can take significantly more resources.

Well, in early 2001 or 2002, Super Mario Sunshine came out and it has crazy usage of multiple gigantic mirrors that you walk on, in a level called Mirror Madness. Here they not only reflect Mario walking on top of the mirror, but the entire world around it, and any monster or object that gets within view of the mirror, and there can be several. I'm only impressed by this feat years later, because when I played it at the time, I took it all for granted. I took all of this brilliance and cohesion for granted, because I didn't think about how hard it would be to make this.

Another set of games I played was the Megaman Battle Network series. I actually only played Megaman Battle Network 3 Blue Version, but that game definitely impacted my life. I played it in 4th grade. It had crazy graphics for the time, that still hold up to this day.

I kind of hate how back then, everyone said the Xbox and PS2 had the best graphics, and no other console even compares. I think that's false, the Gameboy Advance's graphics and the Gamecube's graphics, all of them hold up fine to today, it's actually the Xbox and PS2's graphics that look dated today. I think it's because Nintendo's graphics were more cartoony, which is a timeless art style, while the PS2 and Xbox games were trying to be more realistic, I guess in that way they are better, but they look so dated compared to today's more realistic looking games.

Anyway, as a kid owner of a Gamecube, which I got as a Christmas gift, I saw it basically as a "kid's console", while the PS2 and Xbox, I saw those as the more mature and adult consoles. That's just how they were viewed at the time. Gaming was not very popular, even though it seemed like ti was everywhere, it wasn't a that much of a thriving industry.

So anyway, back to Megaman Battle Network. I think these games were masterpieces too. The game was targeted at kids, I played the game when I was in 4th grade, and they had adult NPCs in the game giving life advice. I played this game decades ago, and I was a kid then, so maybe my memory of it is just glorifying the "life lessons" but there were definitely some conversations in that game that made me think. Maybe it was literally 1 line in there and that touched me, but I felt like it was a cool aspect, to be giving life advice to the player. It was something about keeping friends or something.

The gameplay for Megaman Battle Network was insane. As an adult, I should have the capability to make that game too, that same exact game, with all the resources from the future. I think that game was too much of a masterpiece for me to be able to create just by myself and a handful of others. It really needs a whole team of people, I think, or the handful of people must be extremely skilled. I mean the story is long, the events in the game are plentiful, I can't imagine just a handful of people being able to make it.

Anyway. Today was another normal day. I ate some rice and lentils today. I talked with Mary on the phone for over an hour today. I did some work today and that was cool. Other than that, I didn't play any video games or watch any anime. Though, I can't really say I am more productive. I am tired. I'll write more and better tomorrow.