Are there games that you tried but just couldn’t get into because they feel outdated? Games that, in theory, you would enjoy, but don’t because the controls, graphics, writing, or mechanics just don’t feel good anymore. Games that, compared to today, just don’t hold up to your standards.
I recently tried playing Heroes of Might and Magic III, and I realized that a lot of the invisible language used through game design from that era, I do not understand. There are many things that the game didn’t explain, and I assume they were just understood by players. Not only that, but I imagine there was a lot of crossover between video games and board games back then, so maybe that language was used as well. I ended up downloading a manual and putting it on my second screen and I get it and played it, but it just wasn’t for me.
I also dropped Mirror’s Edge, but this time it was because of the graphics. It looks and feels great, but the graphics give me a headache. There is way too much bloom, and for some reason, there are some parts that look like the imaginary lens has been covered in Vaseline. This didn’t bother me before, but my eyes are not used to it anymore.
There are also games like the first two Tony Hawk Pro Skater games that I can’t fully get into because they’re missing mechanics from the later games. The levels and controls feel great, but they don’t feel complete without those mechanics. It keeps me from enjoying the games as much as the others.
Please share yours!
Yeah absolutely. I think with a lot of these older games that are considered to be the GOATs of their respective genres you’ll run into the same problem: They were so good, that the mechanics/ideas become the minimum requirement for all games thereafter. So, if you played the game on day 1, it was an innovative masterpiece the likes of which you’d never seen before. If you play it 10-15 years later after having played modern games in the same genre, it feels like the same old shit except without the 10-15 years of improvements.
For me personally, the game I’ll get crucified for not enjoying is Half Life 2. I played through the entire game. It was ok. I was pretty bored for most of it though. Shooters aren’t generally my thing for one, but even that aside the game was very milquetoast to me. I did a lot of reading up on the history of HL2 afterwards because I was astonished that I didn’t enjoy such a legendary game and I think I came to the conclusion that some new mechanics such as the cover system and story-driven nature of HL2 were what made it such a hit in 2004. But 15 years later those mechanics weren’t new and exciting to me and the story is decent but a far cry from amazing.
The other game that stands out to me is Assassin’s Creed 1. I couldn’t make it more than a few hours into that game. Just so boring and repetitive, the combat was boring, the collectables were boring, most mechanics didn’t actually seem to matter…I just hated the game lol. I do think it’s another example of later entries in the series/other games doing the same thing but better so going back to the OG just felt like a slog. But I really hated AC1 hahaha.
Half-Life 2 has suffered the fate of Seinfeld - the work was so monumental in its field that it revolutionized everything coming after it. Many of those iterations accomplished certain things better. Going back you think: what’s the big deal? Basically every game has physics, ragdoll enemies, novel gimmick weapons, and an action-packed cinematic feel.
Reminds of me of when I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey and was confused because I had heard great things about the soundtrack, but it was just a bunch of songs I had heard before.
About halfway through the movie I realized that it was an original soundtrack and it was so influential that it became a cliche. 2001: A Space Odyssey was a cliche, not because it followed a saturated trend, but because it itself was copied by everyone else.
AC1’s concept and maybe even story has held up, but you’re right that the later entries feel miles better.
Reminds of me of when I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey
Exactly this. The same applies to many of the Great Films or the Great Games. They were amazing for their ground-breaking and their trend setting.
But now, decades later, everyone learned from it and improved on their work. We take the new things for granted, so the originals looks boring and dated.
AC1 is the foundation of basically every ubisoft game since, but I can totally see how it’s unplayable if you didn’t play it first.
Half Life 2 was mostly noted for the extreme technical advancements. Take a look at what a gaming pc looked like when it came out. It shouldn’t have been allowed to be so advanced.
Half Life 1 was the one with the gameplay advancements. I played both on release, and both times felt like I’ve just entered another multi-verse.
Far Cry 1 managed that, too.
None of them hold up today. They are still as great as they were back then, but the feeling is all gone. I’ve recently finished all of them again, just to check.
For half life, try playing it in VR. completely new experience
I second this!
Do you mean Alyx? I actually do own that, but haven’t got around playing it yet.
Oh no the original half life 2. There is a VR mod for it that gives 6DOF with motion controls
Def agree on half-life 2. I even played HL1 before to prep, and weirdly enough enjoyed that more than I enjoyed HL2. Guess it’s hard to understand the hype when you weren’t there when it came out.
Recently had this with PS1 Tomb Raider.
I can see the skeleton of an amazing game. For 1996 and no reference its absolutely amazing achievement. But the controls suck, gameplay is stiff and I hated climbing that damn waterfall and the combat was terrible.
I appreciate what’s there but I’d need to cheat, or use save states to play any further than the second cut scene.
When Witcher 3 was winning all those awards, I wanted to give the original game a go.
Don’t. I imagine it’s nothing like Witcher 3. It aged terribly poorly.
I bought a bundle with all the 3 witcher games and tried both 1 and 2. I could jot even get through the tutorial in 1 and could jot beat the first boss of 2. Each game controls completely differently from one another.
That Kayran fight is one of the most unfortunate things about Witcher 2. It’s far too difficult a fight for a first boss, and almost all of that chapter is a drag to boot. The game is so much better after that point.
My favorite moment in that game is a serious case of understatement in dialogue prompt. You have an option to help one of two diametrically opposed people and if you choose “Help person A” you draw your sword on person B. If you choose “Help person B” you immediately throat punch person A.
Similar to how “push dijkstra aside” leads to Geralt breaking his ankle in a really violent matter.
Yeah, Witcher 2 felt like something completely new when I started it up right after finishing the first game.
I imagine going from 2 to 3 will feel the same.
Not so much to be honest. The 3rd one is just way more open world and the combat is so much smoother and more responsive.
The typical advice for people looking to get into the Witcher games is to watch a cutscene compilation of the first game, then start with the second. Don’t bother with too many side quests in the second; Just make it through the story so you know the broad strokes and major decisions. Then take that save to the Witcher 3, and just play that one from now on.
Because going backwards is so incredibly difficult; Each game adds a ton of quality of life improvements, so going back to older games feels horribly sluggish and clunky.
Yeah, I actually enjoyed the plot. But the gameplay kept getting in the way of that…lol
Pokémon, actually. Just a month ago I wanted to play Soul Silver. But man, it is tedious. There’s so much slow dialog, long animations, and little inconveniences everywhere (even in the menus). And I feel like you also have to grind to progress, which I absolutely hate in games (but maybe I also just didn’t play well enough, whatever). So yeah, quite disappointed with it since I remember the 3DS games being quite fun.
I think this is a greater problem with games that are technically aimed at children. There is so little respect for your time generally, but I think it’s especially egregious when it comes to menus, dialog, and animations. Additionally, there are many things that are in sequence (with large unneeded gaps between) that could happen more or less simultaneously.
Conspiratorially, I think this is to pad play time, and for kids the animations and what not are jingling keys that keep then occupied enough they don’t care or notice.
I was just thinking this exact same thing… but about Red Dead Redemption 2. I had to stop playing it because it had no respect for my time.
I’m used to driving to places to start a mission like in all the other GTA games, but in RDR2, it would be about 10 minutes of riding a horse before the real mission started.
The animations take way too long sometimes, and cutscenes and a lot of dialogue are unnecessary and feel like padding. Those 1-2 second animations add up when it’s a 50+hr game
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I haven’t played since ORAS, but I think they’ll always have those tutorials cause they’re targeted at kids. Like I was playing the original at 10 and now my kids starting to get into Pokémon at 6.
I feel like they should allow an “adult” version though. Like no hand holding and harder.
It’s wild how little the most financially successful franchise of all time has innovated.
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I’ve always wanted there to be an option when you start a new Pokemon game that just lets you say “I’ve played Pokemon before let me get into it”, it really is a pain in the ass as an adult.
Ironically another draw y for emulators over the two thing. Just speed up the boring bits 8x
The games really need an option to just turn off tutorials. I imagine it’s a little bit trickier than that because they need to be designed in a way a small child won’t accidentally turn it on without realizing. But there must be a way to do it.
Civilization has settings buried in the menu like
New to Civilization (default)
New to Civilization VI
New to Civilization [Expansion 1]
New to Civilization [Expansion 2]
Disabled
Something like these options could go a long way -
New to Pokémon (all tutorials)
New to Pokémon on [Console] (tutorials specific to controls on that console)
New to Pokémon [Generation] (tutorials specific to new mechanics in that generation)
Disabled (no tutorials)
Pokemon is better with game shark style cheats. It’s way more fun to have the option to get 100x more xp, and force Pokemon to appear rather than grind a 1% appearance rate. Pokémon even made TMs reusable eventually, but you need cheats for that in the early games.
Or just a speedup button! Red and Blue are some of my favorite games ever, but I haven’t played them without a speedup button in like 20 years.
Hm I’ll think about it. Seems like this is really the way to go. I was playing on a modded DSi though, so I will probably have to switch to an emulator to use these kinds of cheats. Still, sounds like a good idea.
Check out the myriad of rom hacks out there. So many of them improve on the original games in virtually any way you can think of.
This is the way. I stopped playing the originals after X/Y, but some ROM hacks and fan games are so much fun.
I was thinking about that. Thank you for the suggestion and also the link :)
Starfield
Came here to say this. That’s and old game with lipstick. Poorly applied lipstick.
Damn! Burn
Probably going to get some hate for these.
FFVII. The pc port was ass, controls were a pain on keyboard and there wasn’t great controller support. The graphics were really tough to ignore, and the combat felt like fighting the control scheme more than anything. I’ve played and liked many other titles in the series, but I couldn’t manage this one by the time I got to it. The experience was also so bad I have no interest in the remake/remaster.
Morrowind. Played it a ton on Xbox, but I can’t get back into it on pc anymore. Even with mods to alleviate the graphics and draw distance, the game is so dated. Building a character can be very punishing in the early game, and easily break able in the late game. Many weapon skills are garbage because they lack enough support in items. Movement speed was tied to a skill, jumping is significantly faster, but also a skill. The leveling process is arcane and not adequately explained in game. The journal is awful, so you better remember what quests you are doing. Item storage was a pain because crates had weight limits, and merchants had pitiful amounts of gold to sell items.
Have you tried Tifa’s Bootleg? There are mods that can drastically improve the graphics
Modded FF7 on PC ruined PS1 FF7 for me. Wonderful stuff. 7th Heaven is such a joy.
Unpopular opinion for sure, but Vampire: The Masquerade. I’ve started so many playthroughs over the years but just cannot fall into it like other RPGs on account of its dated mechanics and graphics.
It feels like trying to play a really old Half-Life 2 mod that was never updated after the initial release. Which makes sense since it was the first Source engine game to be produced by a 3rd party. Also doesn’t help that they tried to make an RPG in an engine designed for FPS.
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Halo, even the remaster. The world’s feel empty and vehicles make me long for the Mako
I’ve since been told it’s just one of those “you had to be there” things. Was really hard to admit the hype cycle sometimes has value
Personally I kinda like that feeling of an empty world sometimes. One of my favorite places in any game is the mall in GTA Vice City.
I can’t explain why though lol
I used to say at the time that Halo 1 was by far the most amazing shooter… on consoles.
The characters are slow and sluggish, the maps are mostly empty, the vehicles are cool but just as sluggish, the weapon selection is pretty lacking even compared to games a decade older.
But for consoles, it was amazing, because all they had were shooters made for PC, and that didn’t work at all for controllers, at least not for casual players. Halo was basically the first shooter seriously created to be played with a controller and still offer depth. It also launched basically completely unopposed.
It releases in the same year as Red Faction, Tribes 2, HalfLife blueshift, Ghost Recon and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Quake 3 Team Arena and Counterstrike came out the year before. The PC market was drowning in amazing FPS games. But on console, nah, it was just Halo.
Halo 1 requires nostalgia now to really get through. 2 and 3 were vast improvements.
I never did really beat morrowind or even finish any of the factions questlines, i was too young at the time to care about that i just did the infinite intelligence potion exploit to create an unbeatable god character slinging 50ft radius fireballs from level 1.
A part of me really wants to revisit it and and least complete the main quest, but damn does it feel dated.
Yeah, it was in a weird sort of Uncanny Valley for gameplay. It was a 3D game with real-time combat, but was still relying on the old school tabletop RPG mechanics that the series was built on. So when you attack, the game does some math to figure out if you actually hit. But that causes some cognitive dissonance because I just saw my character’s attack connect and yet it was labeled as a miss because the invisible d20 rolled too low.
Rolling for an attack is fine in a turn based game, or a 2D game where sprites are just bouncing around. But when I saw my sword phase through the enemy without hurting them, it made it hard to continue playing.
The game also requires a lot more focus and time than I have these days. As an adult, I typically only have a few hours a week to play. And that’s intermittent, while constantly getting pulled away for other things. And in a game like Morrowind, things like the quest notes just aren’t conducive to my lifestyle. No quest marker, because the game gives me a note with vague directions? That’s fine if I’m a kid who can spend 5+ hours wandering around looking for the right boulder to take a left at. But if I’m getting pulled away and distracted constantly, I won’t even be able to remember what the note said when I come back to my computer.
No quest marker, because the game gives me a note with vague directions? That’s fine if I’m a kid who can spend 5+ hours wandering around looking for the right boulder to take a left at. But if I’m getting pulled away and distracted constantly, I won’t even be able to remember what the note said when I come back to my computer.
I dont mind the no quest marker, as you can re-read your quest journal to get the directions again. The problem was that the quest journal was unsorted so if you happen to advance in multiple quests at a time or put off a quest and come back to it, then good luck paging through to find the relevant info.
Tribunal added the ability to see specific quest entries iirc
No quest marker, because the game gives me a note with vague directions?
It took me years to figure out, but the directions are actually absurdly precise once you understand how they were written. For instance, if they say to follow the road north out of Caldera until you get to a tree, then turn west and continue until you reach your destination, that tree will be literally encroaching onto the road rather than one of the couple dozen that you pass that are near the road. At that point, you use the minimap to orient yourself exactly dead west and proceed in a perfectly straight line, hopping over rocks if need be, and you’ll arrive at the destination, just like the directions said.
This is incredibly unintuitive, though, since absolutely nobody writes directions like that IRL. Not to mention the typos and sporadic instances of east and west being reversed.
There has to be a better option than a floating quest marker or written directions, but I’m not sure what. Maybe the breadcrumb trail from Fable?
I actually really enjoyed replaying it recently after many many years. Other than the dialog, what bugs you about it?
By the way, the engine replacement is really good.
As someone who didn’t even know it existed until like 2 years ago. It feels incredibly dated. I have 2 friends who love it and beg me to play with them with the multi-player mod but I just can’t get into it. Controls feel clunky, combat is janky and graphics are meh. I understand it probably has great systems and writing and for the time it was great but it just doesn’t hold up unless you have prior history with it. I’m not even hating on it, I understand it’s probably a great game. I also played Mario 64 and ocarina of time way after their release (grew up a poor kid in a tiny rural town with no internet and 1 TV that had like 3 channels) and both felt pretty decent and like they held up while also being older than morrowind.
I’m so glad I went back and finished it recently. The MQ story is really good. I put on a mod to make magicka regenerate like in later games and played a straight mage, eventually crafting rings to be able to jump around town super fast and another to cross the continent.
What put me off of the game initially was that it had a nasty bug where the game would immediately crash and close to desktop after about 15 to 30 mins of play. So if you didn’t regularly save, you’d lose progress.
This happened to me on multiple OSes (Windows 98, XP, 7 & 8.1), across different copies of the game and after trying various community patches to fix the problem to no avail
Bought the GOTY edition with the Bloodmoon and Tribunal expansions on Steam when it was heavily discounted and it works just fine.
Unfortunately this is one of those many instances where a game is released absolutely fucking broken and you have to buy the expansion to fix it. Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 is another such game where the base game has a game breaking bug can randomly plummet the stats of all your rides.
You should really wait for the Complete Edition and then grab the Unofficial Patch for every Bethesda game. They’re all varying degrees of broken on release and expansions may improve it or make it worse, or sometimes both at the same time. Best to wait.
As a once hardcore RCT fan, 3 was a huge let down anyways. Played for like 15 minutes before going back to 2.
For me it was Ocarina of Time. Ugly, and very clumsy. And I play tons of retro games. Early 3D stuff can be rough.
The first witcher. The story seems really interesting and it has some great rpg elements but the combat is just so boring that I ended up startin witcher 3 without knowing the lore
Witcher 3 actually assumes you’ve read the books, too, so just playing 1 and 2 wouldn’t necessarily have informed you of what was going on.
Huh, good to know. I would love to read the books at some point
My two are Morrowind, where I loved the quest design and lack of handholding, but the random hit chance and BS difficulty distribution were just… too much to handle.
And also, KOTOR, which I expected to love as a huge Star Wars fan, but the “stand around while dice are rolled” combat was just… exceptionally boring and tedious.
My issue with Morrowind is the level up system where you gotta metagame it to get +5s for 3 stats per level if you want to be most efficient. And you gotta max endurance ASAP to gain the maximum potential health by end game. I simply can not handle it. It sucks the fun right out of the game for me.
Maybe relax on the “you gotta max this stat” and it may be more fun for you.
Lol, who is this comment for?
Me: I don’t like the level up system of an ancient RPG because I invariably feel drawn to minmax based on the design. It just sucks the fun out of the game for me every time I try.
You: Maybe relax and pretend not to have that issue.
Back up, he’s a hero.
Final Fantasy Tactics. I always hear its praise and apparently the story is really great, but… I just can’t stand it. Despite being a massive fan of its sequel on the GBA.
I’ve had multiple story battles end before I even got a turn it, just because the NPC I was supposed to protect walked straight into his death. And that’s kinda true for every NPC, in a game with permadeath and NPC companions for a big chunk of the inital hours. Sometimes you just gotta repeat a mission several times for a single chance to actually play and win.
You want to recruit monster? Great! Now they multiply like rabbits and your whole squad will forever be clogged with monsters.
Outside of NPC suicide, a lot of the battles are stomps. Either you know how to abuse the jobs and become a literal god or you kind of suffer, since once again permadeath. Oh, but even if you struggle through, you just get the most overpowered unit for free, making the last part mostly trivial anyways.
There a literal softlocks if you save right after a mission with a mandatory follow-up without being able to handle it. Your save will just throw you into a battle you cannot win.
It just feels like a game made before proper playtesting was a thing.
I haven’t played it, but it’s interesting that it’s too difficult.
A lot of the games I go back to from the NES era are often too difficult for me. I find a lot of them to be unfair and I wonder if the difficulty something that was brought over from the arcade games form right before it
Either that or padding to make the game longer. If that’s the case, I prefer side mission padding because at least that’s usually optional lol
Loved the GBA version. Solid game, simple but effective; would recommend to anyone.
Have fond memories of FFT but in hindsight I kept playing mostly because I was a kid and thought grinding was normal. The plot is also cool but the original translation was shit and I couldn’t figure out what was going on half the time.
Also the soft locks. Sometimes it’s better not to save when the game gives you the chance…
Plus most of the named characters took center stage and your team was mostly irrelevant once you got Orlandu.
Definitely one of those that needs a new release. The underlying system that continued into the Advance games is still one of the best sandboxes for fans of Final Fantasy jobs. Just not being able to undo moves feels ancient today. A lot of the rest of the jank was just how Matsuno did games, though. He’s one of those that thinks players should grind a bit, even on Twitter recently defending a notoriously difficult recruitment quest in Tactics Ogre Reborn.
Unfortunately, despite the otherwise reliable Nvidia leak, it’s sounded like a remaster for this one isn’t coming any time soon.
Actually I’m curious about Tactics Ogre Reborn, did you play it? I initially wanted to get it but my recent experience with FFT stopped me from doing so. Would you recommend it despite my gripes?
I believe there still is permadeath, but I read somewhere that units only actually die if you let them fall in 3 missions or something like that. That would be fine, if they don’t spam rescue missions and NPC companions.
I have played Tactics Ogre Reborn, yes. I think it depends on what you’re looking for. The story is one of Matsuno’s better ones, and the way to navigate its branches is still to this day not a device that’s been used much in gaming. Parts of the gameplay are still dated, and the equipment system is on the obtuse side.
On your specific gripes, yes, the permadeath works on a “heart” system, so it’s not one-and-done. That’s kind of necessary too, since there are some instant death situations (mostly in the game’s side areas). The good news is that everyone is qualified to use resurrection items, so the limitation for that will be money, especially early on. The game’s battles–especially the story battles–have fewer rounds than FFT does. There is a generous rewind system that helps, too. Between those two factors, for the most part, it’s going to be less of an issue of permadeath and more whether you can actually clear the battle.
Unfortunately, Tactics Ogre has long been notorious for NPC AI issues. It seems somewhat improved in this version but it can still certainly be a problem. Here it’s not going to impede your story progress (unlike a couple of fights in FFT where it’s Game Over if a guest goes down after you picked the wrong dialogue option to start the fight), but it will close the opportunity for recruitment temporarily. Rewind helps again here.
Amusingly, the game specifically warns you about softlocks, so as long as you’re not accidentally deleting saves it won’t be an issue. It’s possible you might find yourself deep in a long dungeon and can’t handle the last floors, and in that case you’ll have to go back to an outside save.
Overall, I would rate the difficulty higher than Final Fantasy Tactics. As you found, FFT gets to a point where player knowledge equates to a massive power increase. Player knowledge plays a role in TOR, but not really to that degree. A solid grasp of the tactics is required, and the game does offer a far smoother difficulty curve. It’s really only a certain early sidequest involving some undead that has a difficulty spike, and that’s mostly because players may not realize it’s a battle they can come back to later.
Morrowind.
Great characters, setting, dialog, and lore, but clunky af, even compared to Oblivion
I really want to like it too. My first Elder Scrolls game was Oblivion which I loved and then of course Skyrim happened (multiple times).
I even tried going back to Oblivion, which I’ll still play a bit out of nostalgia, but if I picked it up today I don’t know if I would like it.
You’ll get used to it
That’s such a shame, it was the first RPG I ever played and I absolutely loved it.
Yeah I get that there are many that feel that way. And I love RPGs, though my first was probably Diablo, which I played the hell out of. I just wasn’t even aware of Elder Scrolls until Oblivion so it wasn’t until later that I tried to go back and play it and it’s just tough.
a lot of the invisible language used through game design from that era, I do not understand. There are many things that the game didn’t explain, and I assume they were just understood by players
A lot of the UI/UX and game mechanics from HOMM3 were taken from Sid Meier’s games, like Colonization and Civilization. When you say you didn’t understand stuff in HOMM3, I want to ask if you’ve played CIV6 or CIV5 or other modern games in that same genre? If not, you’re going to be confused by them regardless of whether you’re starting with CIV1 or HOMM3 or CIV6.
Super Mario 64, while i started with the nes i never really fully played the 64 title
I played it on stream some time ago but eventually stopped cause mario just felt so weighty and clunky to control. I tried 3 different controllers just in case it could have just been me, but unfortunately, i just didnt jive with it.
Coming to it from Crash Bandicoot, there was just something off about how Mario 64 controlled.
I tried to replay GoldenEye on switch and just couldn’t. The control scheme is just too dated and I can’t get past it.
Goldeneye just isn’t a very good game. It was one of the best fps games on the N64 so if all you’ve got is an N64 you’re going to think it’s amazing. But other games have done much better what it tried to do so today it feels clunky and bad. Contrast to something like Doom which still holds up today because that style of gameplay hasn’t been massively improved on.
Same. I turned into a PlayStation gamer before I played Mario 64. It just seemed boring to me at that stage in my life. I’ve never completed it or played it for more than 30 minutes.
For me it’s one of the most memorable gaming moments in my life. The feeling of playing Zelda and Mario in 3D for the first time is an experience I will never forget.
