Some games back in the day needed a patch the first week of release and never got one. Famously, the Japanese version of Kirby super star had to be recalled because it was so buggy. Half the intended mechanics in ff6 either don’t work properly or just flat out do nothing.
I really like old games, I have a bunch of old consoles that I play all the time, but this rose tinted view on things has got to go. Old games were buggy, too, they just did less and so had less to fail on.
And up until the ps2/3 era, qa was just the developers testing it themselves.
I’m with you. I love old games. Here’s some (non-exhaustive) information on the NES version that I still play from time to time.
The first Final Fantasy had a bunch of bugs. Red mages were just as powerful as black and white because of an INT bug. You could walk through walls in certain places. The peninsula of power wasn’t supposed to happen. Spells that were supposed to help physical attributes in battle just didn’t. At least one spell meant to decrease enemy evasion increased it instead. Houses saved before giving you back spell slots. There was an invisible woman in the first castle. Running was supposed to be based on luck and level but was based on luck and the level of whoever was two slots below you. Status effects weren’t properly protected against by a bunch of items.
Some games back in the day needed a patch the first week of release and never got one. Famously, the Japanese version of Kirby super star had to be recalled because it was so buggy. Half the intended mechanics in ff6 either don’t work properly or just flat out do nothing.
I really like old games, I have a bunch of old consoles that I play all the time, but this rose tinted view on things has got to go. Old games were buggy, too, they just did less and so had less to fail on.
And up until the ps2/3 era, qa was just the developers testing it themselves.
I’m with you. I love old games. Here’s some (non-exhaustive) information on the NES version that I still play from time to time.
The first Final Fantasy had a bunch of bugs. Red mages were just as powerful as black and white because of an INT bug. You could walk through walls in certain places. The peninsula of power wasn’t supposed to happen. Spells that were supposed to help physical attributes in battle just didn’t. At least one spell meant to decrease enemy evasion increased it instead. Houses saved before giving you back spell slots. There was an invisible woman in the first castle. Running was supposed to be based on luck and level but was based on luck and the level of whoever was two slots below you. Status effects weren’t properly protected against by a bunch of items.
A lot of this was fixed in re-releases.