this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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There were fewer game breaking bugs though, since the developers knew they couldn't be patched after release.
The game itself was smaller in virtually every way. Even if it took you 80 hours to beat, the data was nothing in comparison to modern games.
Sure, but what I meant is that good developers took a lot of care in ensuring the game was ready for release, and companies like Nintendo and Sega did a lot of checks to ensure there were no major issues (for example, they'd keep it running for a long time while monitoring memory usage to ensure there were no memory leaks).
These days, some games need a patch within the first week of release. Manufacturers have gotten lazier in terms of ensuring the game works properly, since they can just patch issues after release.
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.
Do you recall a game released in the last 5-ish years that didn't have a patch in the first week of release? I obviously haven't played every game released in that time frame but it seems like many are still fixing day one bugs months after release.
Games have got a lot more expensive to make these days. It's never laziness, it's money. Everything is money. And it costs money to hold up a game release, but you had to back in the day because you had no choice. Now you do have a choice, because you can keep working on a game long after you send it for mastering and certification.
Sure, you can argue that publishers should spend more money on testing and stop being "lazy" but that extra cost is getting passed on to you. It's already obscene how expensive some games are to produce.
For PC atleast, you could buy a magazine that came with a floppy disk containing patches.
Wow I completely forgot about this. Later on it was CDs with both patches and demos.
Also later printings of the games themselves could be patched out of the box. Somebody buying day one versus a year later could get a slightly different version of the game.
There were some infamous cases though, even in games that ended up being fucking brilliant. Like Master of Magic.