Is it the age of the game? Is it the generation of the console you play on? Is it a combination of the two?
I recently learned about an ongoing commercial development scene for the NES long past when Nintendo dropped official support for it, and it got me wondering about this. There are new games still being published for the NES that I can buy as a physical cartridge. I bought one last month in person from a physical store.
It feels retro to play this game on original hardware, but in reality it didn't exist until 2021. Does the fact I can play it on an NES make it retro, or does the game being only 2 years old mean that it's clearly not?
On the other hand, classic games are re-released in collections on modern systems all the time. These games definitely feel retro, but the console you're playing on certainly isn't.
Is there anywhere a line can be definitively drawn here, or is retro gaming more of a feeling than something that can be locked down to one definition? I wanted to get some opinions on this, what do you guys think?
How would you say a new game released for a definitely retro console, or a retro game re-released on a modern console fits into this? Or even emulators?
I'd consider the new game to be retro-style, similar in vein to "boomer shooters", while I'd consider the rerelease to be a retro game on a modern platform.
Same with emulation on PC, it's a retro game on a modern platform. Emulation handhelds is where things get iffy though, I'd consider a Linux based handheld such as the Anbernic RG35XX to be a retro handheld despite being pretty new, while an Android (yes, I know it's a heavily modified Linux) handheld such as the Retroid Pocket would be retro games on a modern platform.