How did retro games get away with showing so many flashing lights?

CRTs handle light balancing better so it wasn't a problem. Also less legislation thanks to the medium being fairly new.

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>>3858490

I remember the flashing in this sequence being obnoxious, even on a CRT.

I keep trying to play FF1 on different lcds/emus and i cant stand the flashing white when someone casts a spell. Wish someone would make a mod to remove it.

I wonder if there is like a fiver service/person that will attempt to mod games..hmm..

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Did someone say "flashing lights"?

I always liked how all the summons in FF8 at some point have a pure white screen.

>>3858480
Do something else with your time then

>>3858480
Get magic upgrades from the old man in Zelda II a few times. Japanese version only though.

>>3858527
because brits are fucking retarded. It's irritating on any display, so when you have an 80% dark/black screen, all the sudden it flashes white for a frame, it is very irritating regardless of how it's being viewed.

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>>3859336
>tfw you will never see sequences like this ever again

>Play Zero Wing arcade version
>Every single enemy you shoot down causes the background to flash red

So in addition to being boring as fuck to play, they also made the main aspect of the game a legitimate eyesore. The meme truly is the only reason people give a damn about this game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ42Afr_F3E

>>3858480
they didn't think about epilepsy at all
flashing the screen looked impressive, and loads of games use flickering for transparency (eg, shadows) because actual hardware transparency was expensive

>>3859930
Man, Toaplan is usually a decent dev, it's surprising how meh Zero Wing is.

I don't think it was considered a big deal until that one Pokemon episode that fucked all those kids up, and after that parents were freaked out so game companies had to really be careful

>>3860618
Most "flashing lights" aren't really a trigger for epilepsy. As I understand it it has to be within a certain (slow) frequency range, like three or four times a second. The only one ITT that seems like it might be an actual risk is this one >>3858527, and I'm not sure the bright part of the flash even lasts long enough to matter.

>>3858480
The waterfall in doki doki panic has killed millions of children.

>>3858527
>Trying to pause the game on the white flash
Takes me back...

>>3860629
American Mother magazine, March 1999:
"How YOUR CHILD (yes, YOURS) could get FUCKING MURDERED by VIDEO GAMES
—Experts say flashing lights may or may not affect 1 in 300 kids WHICH MEANS KILLING YOUR CHILD"

>>3860640
Did you know that was a Mario game in the states?

>>3860629
Regardless, game developers are going to be extremely careful now, because they don't want to accidentally trigger someone thinking they wouldn't, or simply freaking out overly cautious parents with any excessive flashing.

>>3860653
There was a lot of hysteria about video games in the 90s. That doesn't mean there was any truth to it.
A huge number of people actually believed that video games were causing children to join satanic child-rape/murder cults which didn't even exist. Some kids even went to prison because they were accused of being in such a cult. It was a literal witch hunt.

>>3860659
It's also extremely annoying and unpleasant to look at. Commercial video games are a bit less experimental and certainly aren't made in the same flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants cowboy style as some notable studios from back then, so they have actual art direction that steers them away from such unpleasant choices.

>>3860661
I agree in general, but I also can see how a developer might still want to use flashing lights in a genre like survival horror specifically to make the player uncomfortable/nervous. But you're totally correct that it's basically a relic of older games in other genres.

I wonder how many kids went into seizures from playing light gun games.

>>3860939
You'd probably need 2 people both mashing as fast as they can in something like Point Blank to do that shit.

Honestly, I don't know why people dislike flashing. I thought it was a great way to deal with the hardware limitations of light guns in a way that makes reasonable sense, and adds to the difficulty of the genre. Then again, I didn't play 2P much, so maybe it's much more annoying when you aren't the one causing the flashing.

>>3858480
Anyone remember the controversial Snes release "Zoop" - the news at the time said it had subliminal messaging in it!

Never even thought they were problematic.
This is coming from a country that's totally fine with children growing up watching this
https://youtu.be/419BrrzsXc0?t=1m5s