Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

honest, no sarcasm here. i have read posts in this form which speak of games from the 1980s and then also from the 2000's.
so where is the line drawn?

I dont want a "Phaux" Pas in this Phantasy forum when speaking of the godliness of a non-phantasy game, which is consider retro, classic, epic, and not praised enough.

I'd say any game you can no longer find on the shelves of a regular store qualifies as retro.

Dreamcast and below at the moment. Though honestly PS2 era is quickly approaching retro status (if it hasn't already).

I consider retro to be PSX/N64/Dreamcast and back. Basically the cut off seems to be the infancy of 3D as the standard. But PS2/XBox/Gamecube maybe starting to approach that point of being retro. Some of those games are 10+ years old now.

Suppose I wanted to talk about Xenogears, one of the greatest games ever made. There's teens alive today who werent alive when Xenogears came out. But i by far, dont consider it Retro.

Zio_Falz wrote:Xenogears came out. But i by far, dont consider it Retro.

Retro applies to a generation. If you're going to debate the retro status of every game instead, what's the point of this topic really? It becomes so subjective that it is no longer really debatable.


Also: Xenogears is from a dead and buried console. If it isn't retro, I don't know what is.

Aeroprism wrote:

Zio_Falz wrote:Xenogears came out. But i by far, dont consider it Retro.

Also: Xenogears is from a dead and buried console. If it isn't retro, I don't know what is.

true, however we live in the age of the virtual console where old games are making new hits. and even in the case of a non virtual console example of older games that made a hit simply due to delayed localisation by years, is Phoenix Wright. Released for the near death GBA in 2001, it wasnt localised to usa on the NDS till 2005. I am sure there are other examples like this.

for this reason, the term retro is subjective. but I can agree with your extinct videogame console definition.

At that rate I wonder if Phantasy Star Online 2 will be considered retro by the time it sees a western release. its been out in Japan for years already.

Zio_Falz wrote:Suppose I wanted to talk about Xenogears, one of the greatest games ever made. There's teens alive today who werent alive when Xenogears came out. But i by far, dont consider it Retro.

Of course Xenogears isn't retro. It's just horribly dated.

This is a very good question, Zio! And, it was interesting to read everyone's answers so far. I always think of "retro" as being something old or very old, or a blast from the past, as some might say. However, I suppose "retro" may really have many definitions or ways to define it or terms as each person thinks of it for themselves. Good question. It really makes you think.

Speaking from the Site Admin perspective, I consider anything that saw it's first release more than 5 years ago from the time you're posting to be a valid topic for conversation in the Retro Roundup forum.

The cut off is completely subjective, I know, but historically a console generation typically runs around 5 to 7 years before the succeeding generation begins to be released. A specific console in a generation may last longer, like the Xbox 360 with a run of 10 years that's still not over, but it's not unusual for a console to continue to see releases after the successor is released.

All that said, there's no such thing as a faus pax or getting in trouble when it comes to posting about a game in this forum. The 5 year mark is a general guide, not a rule. If a topic turns out to be out of place, we can easily move it.

At that rate I wonder if Phantasy Star Online 2 will be considered retro by the time it sees a western release. its been out in Japan for years already.

At this point, I'd assume there will be no western release. Sad, but that seems to be the way the cookie crumbled.