Imitation isn’t just a sincere form of flattery for these indie games: Fan-driven passion projects continue and improve on the legacies of classic games abandoned by their original creators.

对于这些独立游戏，模仿不仅是一种奉承的奉承：粉丝驱动的激情项目在不断被原始创作者遗弃的经典游戏遗留下来，并在不断发展和完善。

By Jordan Minor

由 乔丹小

In my most recent opinion column, I argued you shouldn’t get upset when franchises change, because other games may take up the torch of the older styles. If you want to play an RPG in the vein of classic Paper Mario, play Bug Fables. If you’re an old-school Sega fan hungry for more Jet Set Radio or Nights: Into Dreams, keep your eyes peeled for the recently announced Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and Balan Wonderworld.

在我最近的观点专栏中，我认为，当特许经营权发生变化时 ，您不应该感到沮丧，因为其他游戏可能会取代旧款游戏。 如果您想像经典的纸马里奥一样玩RPG，请玩Bug Fables 。 如果您是昔日的世嘉迷，渴望获得更多《喷气机收音机》或《夜晚：入梦》，请为最近宣布的“炸弹奔腾”网络恐怖小说和《 Balan Wonderworld》睁大眼睛。

时光倒流 (Back in Time)

Nostalgia plays a key role in what makes these familiar, yet new, indie games appealing. By creating games that look like they fell out of the 1980s but are spruced up with modern quality-of-life improvements, the developers give us the warm memory of what we played rather than the iffy reality. They also save themselves from massive AAA spending costs.

怀旧在使这些熟悉而又新颖的独立游戏吸引人的过程中起着关键作用。 通过创建看起来像1980年代的游戏，但随着现代生活质量的提高而不断完善，开发人员为我们提供了对我们所玩游戏的热情记忆，而不是真实的现实。 他们还节省了巨额AAA支出成本。

Many of these games ape a very obvious reference point. Shakedown: Hawaii puts its own spin on classic, top-down Grand Theft Auto open-world mayhem. The Bloodstained games, produced by former Konami employee Koji Igarashi, evoke specific Castlevania memories, specifically Castlevania III on NES and Symphony of the Night on PlayStation 1. Speaking of Konami, Blazing Chrome ‘s crunchy, side-scrolling shooting stands out in a sea of Contra clones. Meanwhile, Stardew Valley began as a passion project from one Harvest Moon fan and became the defining farming sim of our era.

这些游戏中的许多游戏都是非常明显的参考点。 放慢脚步：夏威夷将自己置于经典的，自上而下的侠盗猎车手开放世界混乱之中。 该染血的比赛，由前柯纳米员工五十岚孝司，呼魂特定恶魔城的回忆，特别是恶魔城III对NES和夜想曲在PlayStation 1.生产说到科乐美的炽天Chrome的脆脆的横向卷轴射击在海中脱颖而出Contra克隆。 同时，星露谷(Stardew Valley)最初是由一个“收获之月”的粉丝发起的一个激情项目，并成为我们这个时代的典型农业模拟。

Personally, I enjoy games that blend multiple references together to create a more original whole. The Messenger starts off as a straightforward Ninja Gaiden homage before morphing into something else entirely. Shovel Knight wouldn’t be nearly as iconic if his adventure didn’t pull from 8-bit hits as varied as Super Mario Bros. 3, Mega Man, and DuckTales.

就个人而言，我喜欢将多个参考文献混合在一起以创建更原始整体的游戏。 Messenger最初是直接向Ninja Gaiden致敬，然后完全演变为其他东西。 如果“铁锹骑士”的冒险经历不是来自《超级马里奥兄弟3》，《洛克人》和DuckTales等8位大片，那么他的冒险就不会那么具有标志性。

雄心壮志 (Growing Ambition)

There’s nothing wrong with indie games that riff on pixelated 2D games of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. But as gaming evolves, nostalgia evolves with it. Now, there are generations of players with fond memories for early 3D games. Fortunately, ambitious indie homages have shifted their focus as well.

独立游戏完全没错，可以占领8位和16位时代的像素化2D游戏。 但是随着游戏的发展，怀旧也随之发展。 现在，有几代人对早期3D游戏怀有美好的回忆。 幸运的是，雄心勃勃的独立敬拜也转移了他们的注意力。

Never Stop Sneakin’ gleefully skewers Metal Gear Solid’s absurdities and combines it with a smooth and effortless stealth mechanic. In Aragami, the shadows conceal you in the best 3D ninja-stealth game since the Tenchu series. The Rock of Ages series isn’t exactly like Odama, but they both scratch the very specific itch of absurd and vaguely historical games where players cause destruction with a big stone ball. In Skully, you play as a little skull ball rolling around levels that mash up Super Monkey Ball controls with action-adventure game level design. For EA fans, Skater XL may not quite be the Skate 4 you’re looking for, but Cities: Skylines is the best SimCity in ages.

永不停止Sneakin的狂喜扭曲Metal Gear Solid的荒谬之处，并将其与平滑而轻松的隐身机制相结合。 在Aragami中，阴影可以掩盖自Tenchu系列以来最好的3D忍者隐身游戏。 历代摇滚系列并不完全像Odama，但它们都触及了荒谬而隐晦的历史游戏的特殊痕迹，在这些历史性游戏中，玩家用大石球造成破坏。 在Skully中，您可以像玩个骷髅球一样在关卡中滚动，通过动作冒险游戏关卡设计将Super Monkey Ball控件融合在一起。 对于EA爱好者来说， Skater XL可能并不是您想要的Skate 4，但是Cities：Skylines是有史以来最好的SimCity。

Parallel to this is a growing trend of old-school creators making spiritual successors to their original work. A new team from the folks behind Banjo-Kazooie debuted with Yooka-Laylee, another 3D platformer with its own animal-buddy duo. Obsidian’s history with the Fallout franchise shines through in The Outer Worlds, its latest open-world, sci-fi RPG. Daemon x Machina wears Armored Cored roots on its giant mech sleeve. Even though we did get an actual Shenmue 3, the real legacy of that bonkers, action-packed Japanese city life game continues with Yakuza, also from Sega.

与此平行的是，老派创作者正在为他们的原创作品提供精神继任者。 由班卓·卡祖(Banjo-Kazooie)背后的人组成的新团队与另一位拥有自己的动物好友二人组的3D平台游戏玩家Yooka-Laylee首次亮相。 黑曜石与《辐射》(Fallout)系列的历史在其最新的开放世界，科幻RPG《外部世界》中大放异彩。 Daemon x Machina的巨型机甲袖子穿有Armeded Cored根。 即使我们确实获得了《神木3》的真实版，但这些诱人的真实遗产，充满动感的日本城市生活游戏仍然延续了世嘉公司的Yakuza。

We’re also seeing companies hand the keys to their franchises to smaller teams. The Square Enix Collective lets indie teams pitch ideas based on Eidos properties, so come up with your best Gex design doc. Games Workshop offers a similar deal to diversify its selection of Warhammer games. Christian Whitehead got his start porting old Sonic the Hedgehog games, developed the truly incredible mascot redemption Sonic Mania, and is now working on Freedom Planet 2, the sequel to an indie game very much inspired by Sonic. That’s like a loop-the-loop of fan creator to official creator and back again. Blur the lines until they no longer matter.

我们还看到公司将特许经营权的钥匙交给较小的团队。 Square Enix Collective使独立团队可以根据Eidos属性提出想法，因此请提出最佳的Gex设计文档。 Games Workshop提供了类似的协议，以丰富其《战锤》游戏的选择。 克里斯蒂安·怀特海德(Christian Whitehead)开始移植刺猬索尼克(Sonic the Hedgehog)旧游戏，开发了真正令人难以置信的吉祥物救赎索尼克躁狂症 ( Sonic Mania) ，现在正着手制作《自由星球2》(Freedom Planet 2)，这是一款受索尼克启发的独立游戏的续集。 这就像是粉丝创建者与官方创建者之间的循环，然后又返回。 模糊线条，直到它们不再重要为止。

现在您正在发挥力量 (Now You’re Playing With Power)

It should come as no surprise that the company that inspires far and away the most indie imitators is the company that inspires so many young players to get into gaming in the first place. Tons of indie games clearly started as “we want to make X Nintendo game” and went forward from there. Because Nintendo has so many classic franchises, that broad starting point leads to many different outcomes.

毫不奇怪，启发最远的独立模仿者的公司就是激发如此多年轻玩家进入游戏领域的公司。 大量独立游戏显然是从“我们想制作X Nintendo游戏”开始的，并从此开始。 由于任天堂拥有众多经典特许经营权，因此广泛的起点会导致许多不同的结果。

Brawlout brought platform-based fighting to the Nintendo Switch months before Super Smash Bros. Fast RMX fills the high-speed, futuristic hole Nintendo has yet to fill with F-Zero. Temtem wants to be the Pokemon MMO we’ve always dreamt about. Golf Story recalls the handheld Mario sports RPGs. While Fire Emblem enjoys newfound success, Tiny Metal and WarGroove show love to fans of Nintendo’s other strategy franchise, Advance Wars. The Venn diagram of EarthBound fans and Undertale fans is a perfect circle. Save Me Mr. Tako doesn’t reference a game as much as it references hardware, with its green Game Boy color palette and compact, handheld-friendly gameplay. While writing this column, I learned about an upcoming Star Fox-esque game on Steam called Whisker Squadron.

在Super Smash Bros.Fast RMX填补了高速，未来派的空缺之前，Brawlout为Nintendo Switch带来了基于平台的战斗，任天堂尚未填充F-Zero。 Temtem希望成为我们梦dream以求的神奇宝贝MMO。 高尔夫总动员(Golf Story)召回了手持式Mario体育RPG。 尽管《火焰纹章》获得了新的成功，但《 Tiny Metal》和《 WarGroove》向任天堂其他战略系列“ Advance Wars”的粉丝们表示了爱意。 EarthBound粉丝和Undertale粉丝的Venn图是一个完美的圆圈。 “救救我” Tako先生没有提及游戏，没有提及硬件，而是拥有绿色的Game Boy调色板和紧凑的，便于手持的游戏玩法。 在撰写本专栏文章时，我了解了Steam上即将推出的《星狐》式游戏Whisker Squadron 。

The biggest Nintendo games are just so influential that naming all of their imitators would be impossible. From Oceanhorn to Okami, we have an entire list of Zelda-type games on the Switch alone. Metroid’s name makes up one half of an entire subgenre encompassing games as varied as the moody Axiom Verge to the monochrome Gato Roboto. Practically any game about running and jumping, from Braid to Celeste to Super Meat Boy, takes inspiration from Super Mario Bros.

最大的任天堂游戏是如此有影响力，以至于不可能命名所有的模仿者。 从Oceanhorn到Okami，我们在Switch上就拥有完整的Zelda类型游戏列表。 银河战士的名字构成了整个子游戏的一半，涵盖了从喜怒无常的Axiom Verge到单色的Gato Roboto等各种游戏。 几乎任何有关跑步和跳跃的游戏，从辫子到Celeste再到Super Meat Boy，都是从Super Mario Bros获得灵感的。

最真诚的奉承形式 (The Sincerest Form of Flattery)

Aside from an occasional high-profile debacle (doomed Mega Man revival Mighty №9) or a Kickstarter that fails to materialize (Project Rap Rabbit from the makers of PaRappa the Rapper), countless indie games picking up where famous games left off leads to more and better games for everyone. Can’t find that old Neo Geo Pocket Color? Fire up Pocket Rumble instead. If you’re going to steal, you might as well steal from the best.

除了偶尔发生的引人注目的崩溃(Mega Man复兴版《强大的力量》№9毁灭)或无法实现的Kickstarter(来自说唱歌手PaRappa的制作者的Rap Rabbit项目)外，无数的独立游戏也出现了，著名游戏停滞不前导致了更多和更好的游戏给大家。 找不到旧的Neo Geo Pocket颜色吗？ 改为启动Pocket Rumble。 如果您要偷东西，最好也从最好的地方偷东西。

Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.

最初发布在 https://www.pcmag.com 。