For many gamers who grew up with the classics of the 1980s and 1990s, 8 and 16-bit video games hold a special nostalgic charm.
Yet despite the recent surge in retro style indie games, it’s apparent that even talented Millennial developers struggle to recreate the authentic look and feel of original titles from the 2D era.
What makes capturing the magic of old-school games so challenging? Let’s explore some of the biggest hurdles.
Millennial developers grew up in a vastly different technological landscape than the one that birthed original 8 and 16-bit games. While consoles like the NES, Sega Genesis, and SNES operated within strict memory, processor speed, and resolution constraints. These limitations forced developers to use ingenious techniques to maximize visual appeal and gameplay within tight bounds.
But to Millennial developers used to far more powerful hardware, advanced game engines, and almost limitless resources, restricting themselves to older technical parameters can feel self-defeating. So they may overlook the subtle ways in which those limitations shaped the style and pacing of early games.
This counterintuitive principle was elaborated on by comedian Sam Hyde in a recent video. While Sam referred mainly to professional boxing, his example applies just as well to any martial art–or art form in general.
Watch it here:
What Millennial devs miss is that pixel art in the 8 and 16-bit eras wasn’t a design choice; it was a necessity.
Game artists had to make every pixel count. And so they did, creating richly rendered characters and worlds with a handful of colors on a limited grid.
Today’s developers too 0ften approach pixel art without fully understanding the limitations that defined the style. Modern retro-style games tend to have sprites that are too large, too detailed, or use color palettes that weren’t feasible on older hardware. These anachronisms create a kind of uncanny valley effect that spoils the true retro aesthetic.
And while every critic of contemporary retro games homes in on the visuals, an equal impediment to authenticity often goes overlooked … or rather, unheard.
Like old school graphics, music in 2D-era games was composed within set technical constraints. Sound chips like the 2A03 in the NES or the Yamaha YM2612 in the Sega Genesis offered a limited number of audio channels, forcing composers to flex their creative muscles. But not only did some of the catchiest, most iconic vidya tunes come out of that era, each console’s unique sound hardware helped to differentiate it. Hard as it is to fathom in this time of samey digital audio, but you could tell a given game’s SNES and Genesis versi0ns apart by the sound alone.
Related: How AAA Studios Killed 2D
In contrast, modern developers often use emulated chiptunes or more advanced sound design that lacks genuine retro textures and tones. The result is music that sounds superficially nostalgic but lacks the foundational structure and distinctive quality of the original.
When you get down to it, retro games were produced in a context that dictated a particular design philosophy. Early console games were arcade-inspired. That ameant they were built to be challenging and short—encouraging mastery through negative reinforcement and repetition.
And with finite storage and no ability to patch games after release, designers prioritized simplicity, responsiveness, and replayability. Those technical constraints also ruled out the now-dreaded DLC and game-as-service models that infest contemporary gaming.
Millennial developers grew up with games which lacked that context. Post-Ground Zero games prioritize graphics and world building, which can taint their retro-inspired titles with mechanics and pacing choices foreign to old-school design.
One glaring example is how older games relied heavily on player skill and memorization rather than hand-holding. Current design conventions like frequent tutorials, detailed HUDs, and complex control schemes can often sneak into retro-style games, breaking the illusion of authenticity.
Related: Millennial Online Nostalgia
One key difference between modern indie developers and those from the 8 and 16-bit eras is their cultural background. Early video games were developed in a pre-internet, pre-globalized world where Japanese and Western developers operated in their own specific milieus. The distinct stylistic differences in these regions—whether in sprite design, sound composition, or gameplay approach—have become homogenized in Current Year.
Millennial developers, influenced by decades of gray goo game culture, often miss the subtle regional influences that shaped the look and feel of retro titles. And the new crop of indie developers often cater to niche audiences, leading them to inject personal hobbyhorses, subversive themes, or transgressive sensibilities that clash with the era they’re trying to emulate.
Let’s no sugarcoat it. Some Millennial developers have a tendency to overcomplicate originally simple, clean design. They might add excessive features, overly detailed backgrounds, or too-fluid animations that weren’t possible on older systems, making the game feel like a “retro-plus” experience rather than an authentic homage. All these “enhancements” produce is a departure from the minimalist approach that defined the era.
While enthusiasm for recreating the spirit of retro games is admirable, the challenges Millennial game developers face stem largely from the division between past and present. Authenticity requires more than pixelated graphics and chiptune soundtracks; it demands a deep understanding of the creative limitations and cultural contexts that shaped the original games. Only by embracing those constraints can today’s developers reweave the magic of the 8 and 16-bit eras.
Because for Gen X and Y gamers who grew up with these titles, authenticity matters. It’s not about just playing an old-looking game; it’s about recreating moments once lost to time.
A timeless setting reminiscent of Tolkien hosts a brutal war worthy of Glen Cook in the dark fantasy prelude to the acclaimed Soul Cycle!
While I think we can place part of the blame regarding excessive tutorials on the lack of instruction manuals in the digital era, there’s another element that a lot of modern designers overlook when it comes to teaching the player: the first level. Super Mario Bros didn’t drop players into a tutorial level to teach them how to run, jump, and stomp. The first level taught you all these things through trial and error. Devs who grew up with parents that never allowed them to fail may have a hard time with the concept of teaching the player through failure, even as games like Dark Souls and the genre it established operate on exactly that idea.
That design element is called conveyance. It’s become a lost art form.
Devs have mentioned that have to put in tutorial levels and such because they will get negative reception and refunds on Steam if they don’t. I remember specifically the beat ’em up Final Vendetta, by the Xeno Crisis team, originally had no continues until they were absolutely savaged in reviews and reception and ended up patching it into a lower difficulty.
It’s easy to say the developers are falling short, but the truth is that the audience expectations are different. Until that changes, I don’t expect this will.
For an example of what it means to make a modern retro-inspired game right, this review of Shadow of the Ninja Reborn is fantastic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EonPKTXuej8
They were also written in assembly which we are less likely to know. The best modern retro games will literally be written in NES assembly and have to be run on an NES emulator. And they will also suck in the ways real Nintendo games did becauae they’ll basically be real Nintendo games.
Another element too is arcade was a thing and many games began as arcade games. And those that didn’t were still influenced by arcade style because the devs had experience developing for arcade. So games weren’t movies. wven with Mario you can see the arcade influence. The limited number of lives for instance; had it been in an arcade then that would be putting in another quarter. Even a game not written for arcade was written to where it could be easily converted to arcade. You can take this beyond spire retro attempts and compare Street Figher 5 to SF2; SF2 quick flight animation then announce name of place while showing faces of combatants, and boom less than 1 sec and the round begins; SF5 feela like 5 minutes of fake loading between rounds. Because one has to transition quick since its arcade and the other is like “hey they’re at home and didn’t put any quarters in, give them 5 minutes for a restroom break.”
Brian, have you heard of UFO 50? A compilation of 8-bit style games for a fictitious console called the LX, it seems by all accounts to have dodged most of the retro game missteps you mentioned here, with a particular color palette and sound design shared between the games in much the same way Sega and Nintendo were distinct. I haven’t played it yet but my brother was quite enthusiastic about it.
I had not. Looking it up.
I would like to offer a potential counterpoint – many modern designers may be deliberately choosing to use pixel art and other “retro” elements because they simply believe them to be interesting and pleasing aesthetically, rather than as an attempt to capture nostalgia for a time gone by. For instance, the entire HD2D mini-genre. Octopath Traveler is a game that obviously could not have been made in the 90s, but it looks gorgeous on its own merits, and I for one enjoy it more than a well-detailed 3D game, because I simply enjoy 2D sprites more. It may simply be a rejection of the Cult of Photorealism rather than an attempt to recreate 90s Nintendo.
Yes, we agree that new games with some retro style elements are in a different category than full-fledged retro games.
It probably doesn’t help that the only way people usually see these pixelated games, is on LCDs that don’t have that CRT grill filter/interlacing effect that actually blends the image together, in addition to CRTs having just a completely different color grade compared to modern display standards. (The fact that OLEDs are the only display that has fixed the Black levels and little else, is a further indictment on just how much of a mistake LCD adoption truly was. FEDs/SEDs dying from patent trolling is just further proof to me we’re on the dark timeline.)
When you’re missing a major part of the art direction to these games because such tech is no longer made, nor is it readily available because of all the hoops you need to jump through just to get proper 4:3 display on modern hardware, in addition to emulation being the option people are pushed to just to play these old games in a convenient way, you have a situation where you’re not given a proper understanding of the past. And given how Youtube Channels like History for Granite are showing how that kind of problem is distorting our understanding of even Ancient History, I don’t think we should be too surprised with the current state of affairs.