Once in a blue moon games I define as games we will probably never see again, or at least in our lifetime. Games like this include super mario bros, metal gear solid 2, halo 1, and other influential or unique games in the industry. In the early days of the gaming industry there were a surprising amount of unique games. But today this amount has shrunk significantly. We will probably never see another game like cuphead ever again. We will never see another game like super smash bros ultimate (in terms of scope) again.
I don't think this is necessary a bad thing, as there are many factors leading to this occuring (no truly new game genres having been created in the past 35+ years, e.c.t). I just wanted to point out something I realized.
Is it weird to say that I feel Ace Attorney falls into this? Not necessarily in terms of the game itself (although I doubt anyone beforehand would've thought of the idea of turning general court proceedings into the most over-the-top anime duel imaginable) but rather the circumstances it was created in: the main director of AA (Shu Takumi) was given free-reign by Shinji Mikami to make whatever game he wanted as a congratulatory gesture for his work on games like Dino Crisis 1&2, provided he could work within the constraints of only having an extremely small team of available devs on stand-by, with the end result being, of course, the first Ace Attorney game.
With the way games are made nowadays, it feels frankly impossible to imagine any major company giving someone the reigns to create such an iconic series in the most Laissez-Faire type of manner ever again XD
Chrono Trigger is the game that comes to mind for me. It's known for its "dream team" of developers containing Final Fantasy's Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu, Dragon Quest's Yuji Horii and Akira Toriyama, Live A Live and Parasite Eve's Takashi Tokita, and Yasunori Mitsuda and Masato Kato's first gigs as composer and writer respectively, both of which knocking it out of the park. The sheer amount of industry legends working on a single project like this is still completely unparalleled and I doubt we'll see anything like this ever again.
Def think Stardew Valley is one of these so-called "gems", it was made by one guy out of pure love for the farming sim genre at a time when the genre itself wasn't exactly popular, and almost single-handedly revived it. All one guy.
I think Star Fox 64 is a once in a blue moon game, because they've tried to re-create its magic several times now and its never happened. Yoshi's Island too.
I think Mario Kart 8 could count since no one would've predicted the direction that game went. It was just planned to be the 8th Mario Kart, it wasn't supposed to be a re-released game on the next system that outsells everything to the point of justifying remastered courses 5 years after that re-release. They were probably just gonna make Mario Kart 9 on the next system, same with GTA 5 (though I think that game's fate was more pre-planned when they decided to not do single player DLC). Or even Shovel Knight having 5 years of work for free DLC in order to properly fulfill kickstarter promises.
Or games like Goldeneye or OOT that have aged in such a way that its arguably not possible for the games themselves to be what they were when they were new (far more true for Goldeneye, since OOT has aged better).
I feel like the N64 era scope of game in general is largely dead. Games these days are either much, much larger than that or they're small independent studios who are probably going to lean more into a 2D release. Of course they can exist and do exist to some degree but it's a very small niche
And it's especially true for those "novelty racer" kinds of games. Something like a 1080 Snowboarding or Wave Race for example. Even going a bit further down the line a game like Excite Truck or something. Would anyone even care if you made a game like that today? Or do we just now expect that to be a mechanic as part of a larger game, like surfing on your shield in BotW? Or maybe just a full on racing sim
(no truly new game genres having been created in the past 35+ years, e.c.t).
Well... MMOs. And I would argue the true modern motion control games like Wii Fit. And battle Royales. Oh and gacha games 😝 And some really silly newer genres like mobile 'idle' games. Some genres really don't have a well respected genre-defining game though, they just sort of trickle into existence.
I think it's interesting most of the games you listed are ones I never would have thought of for this topic. I know Halo is influential and I know a little about it, but I've never played it so don't really think about it. metal gear solid... I know exists and that's about; I had not the slightest notion that it was influential. Cuphead? Honestly just a cute game which took some graphics ideas from old school disney.. That exact game won't reappear but there will be many games, even many platformers, that are just as high quality and creative in slightly different ways.
@jedgamesguy +1 for Stardew. Even though 'farming games' and even farming/fighting in mines/social sim games were already a big genre, Stardew somehow just remade the genre for itself.
For me, it’d be Conker’s Bad Fur Day, since it’s maybe the only game I can think of as a “once in a blue moon” game. I wouldn’t call it influential, though I’d say the game was super unique and had an interesting game development history.
Rare had started the game off as a typical family-friendly platformer titled Twelve Tales: Conker 64 and near that time, developed an obscure Game Boy Color Conker game that carried the same tone as its N64 counterpart, as at that point they had intended for it to appeal to the child demographic. After the N64 game was criticized for being generic and similar to their own Banjo-Kazooie, (which was far more popular) it was at risk of being cancelled if the development team didn’t fix the project or rejuvenate interest in it. An artist on the game (who eventually became the director and voice of the titular character in the final game) recommended turning it into a raunchy game full of alcohol, innuendos, graphic violence and vulgarity, all juxtaposed with colorful visuals and a cute-looking squirrel who acts obscene and rude. The idea given the green light, and they intentionally went radio silent for a few years and then revealed the rework to shock audiences that were expecting a kid platformer.
What makes this game “once in a blue moon” to me aside from the circumstances the game was developed in would be the gameplay and humor. While the game does start off as a simple platformer, it combines some elements from other game genres, including racing and shooting sections, and by the end all the platformer elements are gone. It’s pretty rare (no pun intended) to see modern platformer games combine gameplay from other genres disimilar to platformer into platformers and having it work smoothly. Rare’s N64 platformers were well-known for their shocking and bizarre gameplay shifts, which you could say were a recurring trope in their cartoony games. I can’t really think of any other games (both old and modern) that do this besides Bad Fur Day and the N64 Banjo-Kazooie games (especially Tooie). To add, the gameplay is not that complex, and is “context-sensitive,” which means that the buttons can accomplish multiple different actions and change depending on the context they are used in. For example, in one situation, you might use the B button to perform a simple attack using a frying pan (which is actually used as as a weapon in the game) and then in another situation, you’ll use the B button to use a shotgun instead. It probably isn’t that uncommon and the game sure as heck didn’t invent that, but I don’t see games nowadays that have a large focus and emphasis on this type of gameplay mechanic.
The “adult” humor mainly consisted of crass scatological humor alongside suggestive references and situations that would be sure to raise an eyebrow. I should add that this type of “adult” humor is commonplace and not all that original, but I see the humor as being “unique” moreso in the way it is utilized. While most “adult” media nowadays do this just for shock value and to act offensive cause why not, the game used this type of humor to subvert common tropes and cliches associated with platformers at the time and to differentiate itself from other titles in the platformer genre, which, at the time was oversaturated and aimed solely at children. To add on, the game’s humor had some non-risqué aspects, including parodies of movies that were popular in the late 90s-early 00s. Some of the pop culture references are actually used in relation to the themes of the levels, for example, a ridiculous spoof of a scene in The Matrix is done during a bank robbery, not to mention that some of these parodies are used to progress the game’s story. This, alongside the “adult” content was what made the game so unique and seemingly like no other during the time period it released in. I have heard others say that around the time, the media was very strict over mature content and what could be shown to the public, and only near Bad Fur Day’s release people started to become more accepting of “adult” content. To add on, the vulgarity of the humor was also to likely juxtapose the cute character designs and bright visuals, which are commonplace in kid’s media.
A sequel was planned but cancelled from Microsoft’s lack of interest, as well as the signature humor of the original becoming outdated by the time the sequel was underway. There was an attempt at a semi-sequel in 2015 with an episodic DLC in an unrelated Xbox One game called Project Spark, but was swiftly cancelled and delisted after a single episode was released. I watched a walkthrough of the DLC, and while the self-aware humor taking jabs at modern video game tropes (e.g. QTEs, repetitive gameplay design and microtransactions) was funny, it seemed to lack some of the magic that made the original so great and appealing to many, though it isn’t surprising given Rare had no involvement with it and no one from the original team worked on it sans the director, though he only came back to do character voices. It just tells me that the humor of CBFD won’t or can’t be replicated again perfectly in a possible modern title or a game similar to it without being dated, passed off as childish or upsetting someone. The circumstances it was developed in seem to be something that wouldn’t fly with higher-ups at video game companies, or just any company nowadays; they likely wouldn’t allow kiddy IPs to be redeveloped into “mature” IPs, or they want creatives to make their ambitious “mature”projects watered down and worse than their initial vision. There was a remake released in 2005 that was initially marketed as a fully uncensored experience and eventually ended up suffering from the latter thanks to higher-ups and released with some censored material, so companies enforcing this stuff isn’t anything new. It’s a game I don’t expect to make a comeback, since it’s so niche and the company behind it prefers to make IPs that are a one and done thing, not to mention they said they don’t want to make any more games that carry an intentionally offensive and “mature” tone like Bad Fur Day.
Sorry for the huge wall of text. This game makes me go crazy and I think I need help…
Cuphead? Honestly just a cute game which took some graphics ideas from old school disney.. That exact game won't reappear but there will be many games, even many platformers, that are just as high quality and creative in slightly different ways.
Yeah, Cuphead struck me as an odd example also. I was going to mention it but decided against being confrontational. I certainly feel like Cuphead is very much not what I'd think of when answering the thread's question because it just straight up doesn't fit. Sure, it's its own thing and there isn't another Cuphead specifically but..... it's not like there aren't other 2D action platformers especially in the indie space. And it's also not the first, or last, game that goes for a hand-drawn-animation aesthetic
Just off the top of my head, Rayman Origins, Child of Light, Hollow Knight, Gris. And even Nintendo dabbled with it on Wario Land Shake on Wii. Again, these games aren't specifically Cuphead (especially in terms of the specific style and the specific genre) but still, it's not an art direction I would say is unique to Cuphead. And in terms of gameplay? I mean you can do the same for gameplay also
Once in a blue moon I would think of as something more along the lines of Nintendo Land, Red Steel 2 or Phantom Hourglass. Stuff that happened because of a bunch of circumstances that allowed it to happen and probably won't happen again because that time has passed
Leaving aside the fact that 35+ years means the whole of history, didn't MUD come out in the late 70s?
Apparently MMOs were originally called 'graphical MUDs' before being relabeled as MMOs/MMORPGs. That said, and regardless of quibbles like what 'massive' means, I feel like control schemes and graphics (not the exact style but surely the existence) are part of a genre's definition. Similarly, I would not say 2D platformers and 3D platformers are the same genre or that first person shooters and traditional space shoot-em-ups are the same genre. That said, genre definitions are always arguable and can be defined very specifically or very broadly, so you could easily make the argument either way. Personally I tend to be impressed at just how many new game concepts continue to pop into existence and I prefer more fine-tuned genre definitions to take this into account.
Competitive or Versus Shmup is a genre I feel doesn't come around all that often. One of my favorites being Twinkle Star Sprites. More recently you have Rival Megagun. A genre that's ripe for tournament play or some sort of 99-series on NSO.
If we ever got a Star Fox 99 I think that concept would work well.
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