Are there games that you tried but just couldn’t get into because they feel outdated?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!
Gta 5. Story progression is just awful. You play a mission, it ends and you’re forced to do open world activities instead of continuing the story. Then just when you’re getting into the groove in the open world you get a call to do a story mission and it turns out to be shooting imaginary aliens. The missions are too linear and short. Gunplay is weak. Also the characters feel like they were written for 10 year olds who think swear words are funny.
I’m hoping rdr2 is better
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
I really enjoyed those tbh. One of my favourite things to do in RDR2 is just riding around and enjoying the scenery, or chilling in Saint-Denis at night time. Gaming time is chill time. There’s no rush to finish a story.
Yeah, I was going to say the same. RDR2 is one of those weird games where I’m okay with wasting time. Because the entire game is so fucking scenic that I can just wander around doing whatever catches my eye. The mission pacing in the beginning of the game could benefit from some tweaking, (the snowy sections are just so slow,) but the rest of the game feels like a nice scenic drive; Even if you have an eventual destination, you’re just enjoying the journey.
I was very disappointed that one of the animations they didn’t bother with was shaving and hair cuts. I wanted to see that.
The new games are still the same way.
Quit holding my fucking hand and let me play the damn game already.
“This is a Pokémon and this is how you battle…”
Motherfucker, I’ve been playing these games since I was 7.
It took me so long to keep sticking with Sword and I just couldn’t. I just wanted to hop into the world and catch some Pokémon, battle, and discover the world.
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.
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
Oh yeah most definitely. Not even just for kids, but I’m sure there are adults who are just getting into the games too and need a tutorial.
I just am sick of forced tutorials where you can’t skip them and they want you to know the story and no way to skip all the dialogue that most seasoned players already know. It seems like every Pokémon game does this and is one of the worst offenders of this.
By all means, do continue to make tutorials and incorporate the story elements, but make them skippable if the player so desires.
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)
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 :)
You can change options to remove animations and speed up dialogue.
Also, switch from “Shift” to “Set”.
Shift is little kids’ mode. Set is normal mode. Too bad it’s set to easy by default
I always thought about the differences of these 2 modes, but never tried it out. What exactly does it change?
You know how in default when you are in a battle and knock out an opponent’s pokemon, it tells you what they’re going to put out next and asks you if you’d like to switch pokemon? That’s ‘switch’ mode, in ‘set’ mode you aren’t asked that and have to use a turn to switch pokemon if you’re at a type disadvantage, meaning they get a turn of damage or set up. Really makes you think about strategy a lot more, and is integral to challenge runs like nuzlockes.
Oh I see, thank you.
In “set” mode, the game doesn’t ask you if you want to switch every time an opposing trainer sends out a new pokemon.
Alright, thanks for the info.
Although the original commenter’s mileage may vary considering they complained about too much grinding, so I don’t think their issue is with the game being too easy.
Fair point, but this forces the player to get better! Haha
Trust me, first things I do in Pokémon games. Didn’t help.
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.
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.
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.
Life
Not to be confused with John Conway’s the game of life. That one is fine, a classic.
I dunno man, Conway’s Game of Life has a quite boring endgame, I must say.
Yes, but absolutely no grind.
Quite a few, but more recently:
Neverwinter Nights. Even the Enhanced Edition.
Diablo.
Other older RPGs just start off too slow, but that isn’t necessarily age related, but by design.
Morrowind, but only because I’ve lost where I was up to in my saved game from 3-4 years ago, not so much because of the mechanics; they didn’t bother me too much.
Diablo II holds up to me, and they did a wonderful job with the remaster!
If I was offered a million dollars if I could continue where I left off in Morrowind (major, minor, side, or goals)… Yeah, I’ll be in tomorrow, boss.
Diablo in its vanilla form is rough, there’s an amazing mod which sort of upgrades it to d2 style called bezzelbub. I recommend trying it with that if you cash jam D2 but my D1
Persona 1 and 2. As a Persona fan I see some people saying how great they are, and the story does seem interesting, but I can’t deal with that map movement, battle system and endless random battles.
Really, any RPG with random battles is a little harder to get into compared to overworld monsters you can avoid or target at your own pace.
Even as a kid growing up with that stuff I hated the random battles.
Same. I used to play some fantasy RPG with random battles. Me, being like 9, realized that you can escape, and if you fail you can try again. Well, I started skipping all battles, and somehow ended up in a boss fight that was level like 25, and I was about 12. I didn’t have any earlier save, and I couldn’t go back.
It was some game about going on a pilgrimage.
Sounds like Final Fantasy X, but it really depends on how old you are. It has a Flee skill which allows you to instantly escape nearly any battle. Lots of new/young players abused it because they thought “hey, less battling.” But then they were horribly underpowered for the bosses.
And yes, it features a pilgrimage as a main plot point.
If you’re interested, the PC remaster has some nice added features. You can up the speed to 4x, enable auto-attacks, enable a “boost” mode that gives you a full heal every turn, etc… And if you install the Untitled Project X mod, you can enable exp gains for characters on your bench, so you don’t even need to swap out characters for them to receive exp. It takes a relatively grindy game, and turns it into one where you don’t need to grind at all. Giving exp to benched members means you spend less time on each battle, and you don’t end up with any characters who are underpowered because you never use them.
I remember I struggled with my first play through because I rarely used Wakka or Rikku. And those are two out of three characters who can fight underwater. Near the end of the game, there’s an underwater boss fight that was basically a brick wall for me. All because those two characters weren’t leveled up enough.
Good tip, but it was definitely mot FFX. I remember starting in a village, on a sort of peninsula, being sent out on a pilgrimage for whatever reason, going north. It was definitely not 3D graphics.
EDIT: After a lot of searching, it was probably “Legend of Heroes 2: Prophecy if the Moonlight Witch”, but I am not too sure. It’s the closest I could match from my memory. It is almost 20 years ago lol.
EDIT2: It is definitely it.
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.
Watch Dogs 2. It was going cheap on steam, but it feels so outdated, the most generic game-themed game with all the game elements you’ve seen before.
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Suikoden III really should have used voice acting. I think it came out at the beginning of the voice acting era, but chose to make the player read everything. It’s a fantastic game otherwise, but that makes replays unappealing.
On the contrary, not being able to turn off voice acting can be a deal-breaker for me! Haha
In general I can play any game regardless of age, unless the controls are complete garbage and cannot be changed. Luckily on PC a ton of games can be modded for the better, but not always and it’s always down to controls feeling too off that I’ll drop something I’m otherwise interested in.
Reading the comments here hurts my soul, everyone hates all my favorite games. 🤣
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.
Yeah oblivion ruined games for me i played skyrim after but just couldnt get into it as much but then going back to oblivion feels bad especially since pc didnt get controller support I cant just sit on the couch and play and if im going to sit at my desk i feel i need to get through new game backlog since desk time is a commodity now for me
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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.
Pretty much all of the iconic games from my early teens. (I was a teen in the late 80s and 90s). The games that I grew up with, that I fell in love with, are unplayable now.
Dragonstrike, a flight sim where you fly a dragon in the D&D Dragonlance world was mind blowing when I first played it. Now, it’s so bad that replaying it spoiled my memory of the original experience!
Pretty much all of the iconic games from my early teens. (I was a teen in the late 80s and 90s). The games that I grew up with, that I fell in love with, are unplayable now.
I’m generally with you, but I’d go back and play some of them (and have).
Technology didn’t really permit for a lot of improvement on side-scrolling platform games after that era, and I don’t feel like gameplay advanced a lot either; I think that the Super Mario Brothers series is still playable. I like Super Metroid, would still say that it competes with modern Metroidvanias (though the limited screen size is a bit painful).
There are certainly more-realistic racing games, but games like Outrun are IMHO still playable.
Tetris has advanced from a visual and audio standpoint, but the game hasn’t really changed that much. I’d probably default to playing a modern variant, but the 1980s versions are fine, IMHO.
Pac-Man is still playable, IMHO. Not much that really superseded that.
Vertically-scrolling shmups like 1943 have seen more graphical glitz, but I don’t feel like the genre has really deeply benefited much from technical improvements.
Damn, that game sounds amazing as a concept though. I’ve been really looking for something that’s a decent dragon-based game which doesn’t involve the dragons being relentlessly shat on by the story/all being dead or super rare.
How bad are we talking, exactly…?
It’s a flight combat sim. You’re on the back of a dragon instead of in a cockpit. You can either blast enemies with your breath, or get close and rake them with your claws. I was on PC at the time, and this runs on DOS, so don’t expect any marvel of technology.
Like a scientifically accurate dragon MMO?
I’m listening. What’ve you got?
There are a couple of dragon flight games out there, but the ones I’ve played take too many pages from flight sims, and not enough from riding horses. You can’t get a horse to try to jump the Grand Canyon, but in the sims I played, the dragons would let you fly them into a mountainside.
Someday, though.
It’s a meme. A glorious one.
Yeah I get that. Sometimes I wish I didn’t revisit games and instead kept the nostalgia glasses on haha
Exactly! I’m much more inclined to not revisit things these days. The original Fallout games fall in this category for me
The Elder Scrolls Online. Bought it, played 2 hours max.
If you’re talking about Elder Scrolls Online, then I had the same experience. It’s too repetitive and not satisfying enough
Woops yes ESO indeed.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
AC1 had those same criticisms back then too. I played it back then and hate finished it and wasn’t going to check out the rest of the series but then the ending reveal hooked me. And AC2 addressed lot of the complaints.
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.
Ezio or bust.
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.
A big part of HL2 was also the physics. No game did that before to the same extent, so it was novel and cool. The gravity gun was super unique and all the physics puzzles were new and cool.
I tried replaying it a few years back and had the same experience as you. Every physics puzzle felt boring and just stopped the flow of the game. The gravity gun is still fairly unique, but it has lost a lot of its charm. It’s just not the same experience as it was around the time it released.
I liked that gravity gun was op but you need to find things to throw before you can use it
Emperor: Battle for Dune was a solid Westwood RTS but it only allowed for one-button controls, rather than the two-button system that arrived with Age of Empires 2 which dominated all RTS games since.
Also from AoE2 the idle peasant button.
Do you mean Dune II? Emperor was the 2001 reboot. Two button RTS controls were around since at least as early as Warcraft: Orcs and Humans in 1994.
Yep. Starcraft came out in 1998 and had two-button controls, but Westwood’s Dune II rebalancing in Emperor did not. Two Button controls were there in Generals in 2003 (which was my staple at the time). I didn’t play Tiberian Sun.
Knights of the old republic 1 and 2. First my old PC couldn’t run it and my new one it just feels too jank and ugly. I love star wars games and am sad if the remake stays dead.
Personally I love that era of graphics tbh. I bought Valheim on the Steam sale just for the jank graphics lol
KOTOR is jank, but I would say it’s entirely due to the controls. It acts like point-and-click even on controllers, where you have to use the D-pad to select the element and interact with it using the face buttons.
Also, the semi-pseudo-turn-based combat system doesn’t really totally hold up, I wish there was a way of smoothing it out.
There are higher resolution texture projects for both KOTOR 1 and 2, I think KOTOR 2 has it available natively with the Steam Workshop.
I feel the same way. I wanted to love them, but I just don’t. They feel tedious to me.
Funnily enough I’ve played KoTOR so much that I can still go back and play those, and aside from the camera control it’s totally comfy for me.
