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…
…
I mean, the last Crash game came out in 2020. Ratchet was 2021, Spyro 2018, Rayman all the way back in 2013, but… you know you can still buy it. Sonic was 2023, just like Mario. Zelda starred in a game in 2024.
And of course Astrobot was last year’s GOTY.
Consider the possibility that you aren’t as aware of the characters that will stick with this generation because you’re not playing the games they are.
Although it’s entirely possible you are. Kids in my life are quite obsessed with Minecraft, Animal Crossing and Pokemon in extremely familiar ways. I semi-successfuly introduced Professor Layton to some of them, but I may have jumped the gun on that one, as they found it a bit too hard still.
I am referring to new heroes for this generation, not to the ones that have been around for more than 20 or 30 years…
Yeah but… the only reason you had new heroes then is that videogames didn’t exist before.
We also got games with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny. It wasn’t depressing to my parents that I was watching Road Runner cartoons from the 50s. They were new to me.
There ARE new games, too. I mentioned Astrobot, you mentioned Minecraft. Just for as long as I’ve been alive kids have gotten into Pokemon Ben10, Splatoon, a bunch of Lego games, Animal Crossing, Spongebob…
But why would it be invalid for them to discover Sonic and Mario and Crash and Spyro in the 2020s? It’s new to them. They can be nostalgic about the same stuff you and I are, just like I am nostalgic about Daffy Duck or Star Trek even if they were technically before my time. Spider-Man is as popular with kids now as it was when I found out about it, and the whole thing was 20-30 years old when I got around to it.
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?
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.
I guess you got a point there…
Why make the distinction?
Can they not be considered video game heroes for kids just because they have existed for a while?
I’m not saying they can’t be considered video games heroes for kids, but they are more heroes of past generations than of this generation, which I think needs their own heroes to grow up with and have a connection that only they can have.