These days I have been playing the catalog of the PlayStation 1 and 2 games that marked me when I was young or at the time I couldn’t play: the trilogy of Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Rayman, Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank, etc… And I realized that nowadays you practically don’t see characters like that in video games anymore.

Just as there was a time when all games were made for children, nowadays it seems that all games are made for teenagers and adults. Even those that don’t seem to be, such as Astrobot, appeal to the nostalgia of the more adult public.

What kind of heroes does my nephew have, for example? There’s Sonic, and it’s something in which we have a connection, but Sonic and other heroes that still remain current, like Mario or Link, are from an era that long predates him and perhaps for him they feel more like a thing of the past, similar to how I feel about Sailor Moon or Mazinger Z, which were heroes of my older siblings and parents respectively.

I don’t know of any heroes that are specifically intended to appeal to young people like my nephew, at least not in a “wholesome” way. Much of what he likes was not made with the child audience in mind, such as Five Nights At Freddy’s or Among Us; and what does, was made for more predatory motives, such as Poppy Playtime or Garten of Banban. The only thing I can think of is Minecraft and… I don’t know, it just doesn’t add up for me.

My nephew doesn’t have a Crash, a Spyro, a Sly to be nostalgic about when he gets to my age.

It’s a little… Bleak…

  • NONE@lemmy.worldOP
    22·
    3 days ago

    OK, but are we all going to be nostalgic for the same three things for the next few decades?

    Ben 10 was new to me because it really was, I still remember watching the first episode when it came out, as well as Adventure Time, Regular Show, Clarence, etc. But back to the games… There was also a time when Sly, Rayman, Jak and so on were completely and utterly new, not in perception but in fact, just as Sonic and Mario were decades before them.

    Don’t young people deserve to have their own heroes for whom they alone feel nostalgia? Do we have to lend our nostalgia to them?

    • MudMan@fedia.io
      13·
      3 days ago

      Yeah, but… they do.

      It’s just it’s always going to be a mix of new and old things. Just like you got into Batman form the 1930s and Mario from the 80s they’ll be into Spider-Man from the 60s, Minecraft from the 10s and Astrobot from the 20s.

      That’s how culture works. Some things stick around, others phase out, new ones come in.