I brought up the dreamcast game, Elemental Gimmick Gear, in an earlier journal to see if anyone had played it. It seems like it went by pretty unnoticed. It was a big part of my childhood, and I've always loved it despite its shortcomings. Awhile back, out of curiosity, I looked up some reviews of it. They're all pretty favorable, with some understandable critiques for the clunky battle system and sub-par graphics.

Wait a second...

Sub-par graphics? I've always thought of E.G.G. as one of the prettiest games of its time. In fact, most of the reviewers agree that it looked great. They also all agree that, because it was 2 Dimensional, it was far behind its time and therefore inferior. It's pretty much universally rated badly in the graphics department. And that really bothers me.

In my experience, the art that goes into a game is far, far more important than the technology that backs it up graphically. A lot of games with great "graphics" are just plain boring to look at, and easily forgotten, because they had crappy art, and no amount of High Dynamic Range and motion blur could save them. Art is always more important than graphics. So why is it that games are always rated on the latter, rather than the former? It's ridiculous.

I think it's this obsession with technology in games that spearheaded the death of the platformer on consoles, which is only now seeing a small resurrection in the former of indie games. The industry kept pushing ahead with 3D, until anything in 2 dimensions was considered inferior, without question, and therefore couldn't be marketed as well or sold for as much. Some companies tried to re-imagine the platformer in 3D, with varying degrees of success. Nevertheless, the general popularity of the platformer waned drastically with the loss of simple control schemes and addition of troublesome cameras.

It's a damn shame, too, because I love platformers. Always have. They're a form of entertainment that don't really have any sort of real-life equivalent. Strategy games can be replaced by board games, RPGs with books and movies, shooters with paintball. There's really no equivalent to the simple fun of a 2D platformer, and its a damn shame that our obsession with technology has all but removed them from the industry.