It'll get you drunk.

 With all of the retro goodness coming out on the XBLA, PSN, and Virtual Console, you would think that somebody out there would really take some pride in doing good work on the actual home consoles they are based on. It's rare, but occasionally there's a pet project out there that takes advantage of the resources our generation has to make this possible. Pier Solar, for example, is a Genesis (optional Sega CD bonuses) RPG currently in development that will be released on actual carts by the homebrew community. The potential is there, but who's taking advantage of it?

 Most people limit their idea of "homebrew" to the creation of mods for current IPs. At times, the ideas work really well. Someone once ported Sonic to one of the earlier 3D engines (Doom, Quake, Half Life....I really don't remember nor can I find it) a while back, and it actually looked like it was more fun to play than the vast majority of modern 3D Sonic games because it kept the feel, look, and mechanics intact while making the 3D jump more natural. That's the main problem with the fan community out there for older IPs: something is lost in many of the translations. You absolutely have to have the authenticity to make these projects work, and while I applaud gamers at any point when it comes to putting an original creation out there, I think that when it comes to honoring the past, nothing ruins the acceptance of an idea  than to take one single aspect of the retro scene and running with only that.

 Staying with Sonic, there's a Sonic fan project site that hosts Sonic Megamix, a combination of 2D Sonic elements into one game that plays like it's completely official. The difference, I think, is that it takes all aspects of what people liked about Sonic games and incorporated them all into something different, yet familiar. It's one thing to make a first person Sonic mod for Half-Life, but it winds up being a novelty in the end compared to something with a little more soul in it.

 So when it comes to questioning the homebrew scene, I often wonder why people waste their time with mods when they could be putting real projects into circulation. I'm not even referring to the deceased (choke on it, Square) Chrono projects that nearly made it. I'm talking about something original. Retro is more than just nostalgia. It's also about appreciation for the older game mechanics that have been lost along the way and giving the old hardware news legs. Sometimes, it begins with a simple fan translation project that can be dumped onto a real card or burned to disc. Other times, as with Pier Solar, it gets beyond that.

 While I can't speak for programmers, I'd like to imagine that it isn't impossible with the knowledge and resources available to us to make something happen with those old consoles. Consoles such as the Jaguar, Sega CD/32x, 3DO, CD-I, and the Virtual Boy were considered to be terrible consoles, but the limited library of games often made me wonder what kind of games were possible on them if their potential was ever really tapped. The CD-I, for example, had a firm grasp on multimedia applications and offered up some of the cleanest visuals despite extremely limited gaming power. The 3DO and Jaguar have a difficult time proving themselves due to some really shoddy games and severe problems with polygons which were becoming standard at the time, but there was so much power in those consoles to do hundreds of other things really well. The Jaguar never had a game that pushed the hardware, and it makes you wonder. The Virtual Boy had some surprisingly good power behind the goggles, but no one ever even tried to do anything with it because of the crippling red color scheme. The Sega CD and 32x combination never quite caught on the way that Sega hoped, but each addon added more functionality to the Genesis that was only touched in a couple of games.

 The majority of these systems have something in common, and that's the CD format. Either the system itself or an appropriate addon gave these systems CD functionality, and I think that the homebrew community has really glossed over this when it comes to choosing projects. Considering that there is zero copy protection on any of those systems, it sort of makes you wonder what's possible.

 I dare to dream, but take the FMV movement as an example. YouTube is starting to be experimented with more and more as time goes by, and I've actually seen an interactive game or two hosted through video clips on the site as an experiment. Take that to a console that can handle it, and you've got yourself a homebrew game on your hands that could conceivably get cross released for retro gamers looking for a nostalgia bomb. I doubt any retro fans would pass up a popcorn opportunity to play through a purposefully cheesed horror game in FMV, fully original and littered with tongue in cheek humor about the old days.

 Digitized fighting games that cloned Mortal Kombat such as Tattoo Assassins, Way of the Warrior, and Kasumi Ninja weren't the pinnacle of control or quality, but if Bikini Karate Babes has taught us anything, it's that new life can get into this genre at any moment. But why stop there? All it takes is for someone to take it a little more seriously, throw down with some good controls, and suddenly the charm is back. If you don't believe that's possible, find someone versed in the M.U.G.E.N. system and you'll find yourself talking to someone who knows just how feasible that could be.

 The point is that while people are out there making useless mods for everything modern, there's still a lot of potential for the retro systems to get their due. With unused hardware to play with, it's not even bold to say that the best games on each of these systems haven't even been made yet. I challenge the homebrew community to stop porting for a week and take a good look into what's possible on those forgotten consoles. It's not only interesting to push boundaries, but to be honest, most of the current projects just don't live up to the retro feel. The spirit has been lost somewhere in translation, and it's time to bring the devotion back to the consoles that inspired you in the first place. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit