I always find it funny how whenever I see a modern day game with so-called "retro" graphics, they always do some things that you almost never saw in real retro games.  Here is a list of top 5 retro game tropes, rarely found in real retro games.

5) Multiple Overlapping Layers of Parallax.  Sega Genesis games are known for having a lot of parallax layers, but they have some very noticeable limitations.  You rarely saw vertical parallax scrolling, and you hardly ever see parts of one layer overlap another layer on the same scanline.  In a typical "retro" game mockup, there are usually 4 or more layers, overlapping eachother everywhere, and when you climb up or down the level, the background layers scroll vertically and horizontally at the same time.

4) Suspiciously Accurate Transparency Effect.  At first glance it looks exactly like the transperancy on an SNES game, but once the transparent object overlaps another transparent object, the fakeness shows through.  A real SNES can't overlap two transparent objects, without one of the transparent objects disappearing behind the other one.  In a modern "retro" game, you could see several ghosts in the same place at the same time.

3) 8-bit Music with 16-bit Graphics.  Take a typical modern game that is done in the "old skool" style, and listen to the music.  Compare it with music from different retro game systems, and they almost always sound the most like an NES game.  Now look at the graphics of the same game, and they typically look more like a Genesis or SNES game than an NES game.

2) Super Fluid Animation.  Just how many oldschool games have atleast 20 fps sprite animation?  Old games had memory limitations, and even games that did have smooth animation, such as DKC and Earthworm Jim, couldn't have more objects onscreen than it was possible to fit in the vram.

1) Multiple Rotating and Scaling Sprites.  The only oldschool system that could rotate and scale "sprites" was the SNES, but the SNES was only capable of doing it for ONE OBJECT at a time, with NO BACKGROUND SCENARY.  These new "retro" games scale and rotate anything and everything.  Not only are they rotating several objects at once, but they also have a full set of background layers, and I wouldn't be surprised if any "retro" game ever rotates every single background layer at once.

Interesting analyzations there, coming from the retro era and playing the games on their intended hardware and both knowing and feeling the limitations first hand, lots of this stuff is pretty easy to spot.

People from this generation, however, don't know the differences and can't see the technical aspects of how the game should operate graphically if not overall function due to the limitations. That's why kids today wonder if you can put flash games on a repro cart and play it on NES.   (I'm not saying everybody says that though, some of you guys from this generation are smart cookies)

And the ones that bring "retro" back... kinda feels like it's more of a "parody" than a "nod" to retro games.

Like "OMG IT HAZ PIXULZ, EET'S 8-BIT!", when technically, it's not.

Google a dude named "Joakim Sandberg." He is the king of technically impossible "8-bit" games.

These cover a good range of why I don't bother with modern "retro" games. Although I do appreciate that they're around: they indicate market interest for a category that's been resurrected lately.

The 16 bit graphics with 8 bit music really bugs me though. And calling a game "8-bit" that is clearly styled (in every way) in 16 bits.

I love people call a game 8/16-bit, and they use gradients in the graphics...wtf.

Somebody should design a console that is actually capable (or near capable) of handling these so-called "retro" games, without going too much over. That will be pretty interesting.

Even Capcom was guilty of this, Mega Man 9 and 10 would be technically impossible on an actual NES, though they're probably the most accurate "retro-styled" games around.

I love the "don't use more than 3 colors per sprite, unless that sprite had more than 3 colors in the original game" rule.  If there were no sprites-per-scanline limits, there wouldn't be any reason why you couldn't use 12 colors per sprite.

I'm personally still baffled when people consider PS1 and N64 to be retro.

I know a guy at work that has a ready-made rant just for stuff like that.  As soon as anyone uses the word "retro" in combination with a game console, it's sort of an "oh no, now you've done it" and he launches into it.  His basic point is that old game consoles are vintage, because they are from an older era.  Modern things trying to capture the aesthetic of vintage things are retro.  He always ends with a quote of "The bellbottoms I've had in my closet since the mid-70s are vintage.  The ones your girlfriend bought at the Gap are retro.  LEARN THE DIFFERENCE /RAAAGE" and such.

Cracks me up.  He has a special place for people that think PS1/N64 are "old, retro/vintage" though.  I always apply a 30 year rule.  30+ years is vintage.  Anything younger than that is just "classic".  Older than vintage is antique.  My Pong is an antique.  My 2600 is vintage.  My NES is classic.    Not everyone's scale, but it works for me.  

Hell, I'd still consider PS1 to be fairly modern.  Then again, I still can't get out of the mindset that the 1990s were "about ten years ago".

My most hated trope about fake retro games? It's how they pretend Atari 2600 graphics look. They are all presented as colorful graphics with very large pixels, with many different colors together on the same scanline. Atari graphics actually had a normal vertical resolution, they just had a very low horizontal resolution. Only the Intellivision actually had low-res graphics with square pixels.


Edit: One more thing.  Fake NES games that contain the color of Yellow.  The NES can't actually draw that.

Yeah, the faux-2600 graphics always irritate me. Especially because I collect the everliving hell out of Atari stuff.

Don't get me wrong, at the end of the day, I appreciate anything with retro flavor gaining popularity, because it's a gateway drug to the real stuff. Sooner or later, those people thinking retro styled games are all the rage might actually pick up an NES controller, or a one button 2600 stick, and give the real thing a try. Every pair of hands from a later generation that grabs one of those controllers is one more convert.

The "google maps for NES" April Fools joke, used a shade of yellow that made it look obvious.  If I remember correctly, they used a lemon-yellow, with honey-yellow shading.  The honey-yellow they used looked close enough to be $28, but the lemon-yellow wasn't orange enough to be $38, nor green enough to be $39.

I'd say Megaman 9 was pretty ok in terms of being "nes style". It was mostly accurate, except where they felt it compromised the game. I mean it makes no REAL sense to not do some of this stuff if the hardware doesn't have the same limitations.

Wait, what?  So what color am I looking at on Dick Tracy?

orangy-yellow

What about the parts where it's just yellow-yellow?

It's more orange than yellow. Probably more on the TV's adjustments. Here's the NES palette below. The color used in dick tracy is $28. That's pretty orange to me, while $29 is more of a green tint. Pac Man uses $27 for it's yellow, that's a lighter orange.

http://www.deviantart.com/downloa...

That NES palette looks like it has a few problems. In general, a NES palette should have roughly equal brightness for every row, and not jump around in brightness too much when going to the next color on a row.
I think Nintendulator has the best palette.

"An AUTHENTIC 8-bit experience"... only if it is a Turbografx-16 8-bit... and even then it would be a stretch.

One of the most obvious problems with that is the screen resolution.  It has a resolution of 320x240 square pixels.

I've seen that palette before on a couple of other websites.  I always find it funny how whenever somebody posts it, there is always somebody who says "Man, the NES color palette sure looks ugly.  Whoever was working at Nintendo at the time, didn't have very good artistic skills.  Look at those lousy color gradient scales!"

Check this... look on the right hand side at the three pictures. Can you read the numbers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Blindness#Dichromacy

Don't get too caught up on Colors.  I'm Partially color blind..  the "deuteranopia" test image is almost completely blank to me, just little sparks of color to make out the "49".  The other numbers in the other two are plain as day.  I'm typically unable to distinguish between colors in the green–yellow–red section of the spectrum.

According to that page, I have protanopia, and some deuteranopia. I can see the blue 56 just fine though...

You're thinking too much. They're not supposed to be carbon copies in terms of style to actual 8/16 bit games. They're supposed to give off a retro feel but be modern enough not to cut off a large majority of the market.

Genesis has 2 layers, a sprite layer, and a window layer (which is useless for any parallax effect, so don't count it as it actually replaces once of the layers when it's visible, and can't do any scrolling).

Vertical parallax was in many games on the Genesis, and a lot of times, developers used sprites to give a more "layered" look. Also, there's a few programming tricks (or bugs, whatever you want to call it) on the Genesis and TG16 that allows transparency by confusing the priority order of backgrounds and sprites.

Oh, and the Genesis can also rotate sprites.