An upcoming new release which really caught my 8BITISH eye is ‘The Messenger’, which has been developed by Sabotage and is being dropped by Devolver on 30th August 2018.
Devolver are certainly no strangers to the 8-BITish / retro aesthetic. Having already put out retro inspired modern cult classic games like Hotline Miami, Not A Hero, and Bro Force you might say The Messenger is nothing new.
There is something extra special, however, about this one that grabbed both my attention and my curiosity like a catfished Leonardo Di Caprio in Django…
The 8Bitish Ninja Gaiden-esque platformer transforms when the player time travels… from an 8BITish world to a 16Bitish world! Check this out…
Of course, pedants among us might be inclined to debate the legitimacy of the 8-BIT / 16-BIT labels as usual, like this helpful reader on IGN…
To be fair to BasketCase9483, they do seem to enjoy the game and yeah, quite possibly a fair argument but… who cares? Life’s too short and this game looks too good.
I do think most of us understand that what people refer to as ‘8-BIT’ in modern games is inspired by 8-BIT era games but doesn’t necessarily conform to all the authentic restrictions of the era. It may not strictly be exactly feasible for an original 8-BIT console experience but does it matter? Can we not just enjoy new 8-BITish games?
For me, personally, I just love seeing games that are true to the spirit of the 8BIT era. I love the aesthetic. Those that worked within the limitations of 8BIT and 16BIT back in the day deserve our admiration. It took an incredible amount of skill and effort to get every last drop out of the medium.
Projects which continue to work within the same limitations today for the challenge and the love of the culture like Big Evil Corp’s 2018 SEGA Megadrive / Genesis Cartridge Release ‘Tanglewood’ also deserve our utmost respect.
BUT… I am also all for developers and artists pushing it further than they would have been able to back in the day. There’s no point restricting a project unnecessarily just to fit into a now largely redundant set of technical restrictions… unless of course you want to!
In the example of The Messenger, it definitely seems to me that they have nailed the 8BIT / 16BIT vibe enough that those who grew up with Nintendo Entertainment Systems and SEGA Master Systems will get that warm fuzzy nostalgic feeling when playing it.
I mean… look at it…
If you like the look of the game and want to see more, check out the trailer below…