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venotic @kbin.melroy.org

What are some old games that are hard to revisit, because a more modern and superior version exists?

I tried playing Harvest Moon on the SNES today and having played Stardew Valley for hours, I thought I'd try and see how tolerable the original Harvest Moon was in comparison. I know and understand it is unfair because there's a 20 year gap between Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley, while also discrediting Harvest Moon's later entries since there's more than one.

Harvest Moon to me is a bit hard to revisit. Having to get used to only carrying two tools at the same time, your farm doesn't seem as big, you don't have a way to know that you're tired as readily, you just have to watch for the signs and the village you visit doesn't seem as characteristic. It's a basic farming sim, it has to start somewhere.

But Stardew Valley does so many things that it is easier to revisit.

176 comments

  • The Battlefield franchise. I went back and played 1942, and disregarding the graphics, omg it’s so slow and clunky. It was the shit for the day, but man…compared to 2042 it’s super-dated.

  • Having grown up with the PS1, it's been fun revisiting old classics and see what has aged well and what hasn't.

    Platformers like Spyro, Crash, Rayman, Abe's Oddysee and Ape Escape have aged like fine wine (although Crash 1 is a lot more janky than the others). But that back into the past, some games also showed no signs of proper playtesting aimed at kids, which means overly difficult levels, annoying completions and such - I remember spending months playing Tarzan, The Emperor's New Groove, Croc 2, Kingley's Adventure and others to 100% them, and some of them I could never finish. I only recently 100% Croc 2 for the first time, for example, and yeah, it wasn't really that good.

    Some JRPGs are also as great today as they were the day they were released (Final Fantasy IX, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Star Ocean and even lesser known ones such as Legend of Legaia, Threads of Fate and Wild Arms), and are arguably better than many of their contemporary competitors. But you sometimes have to stomach one too many random encounter, overly distracting old/early PS1-era graphics, bad translations, or all of the above (I've never been an omega-fan of FFVII, and let me tell you, revisiting it in the pandemic really didn't improve my opinion of that game).

    The slow gameplay afforded by the console really allows action-horror games such as Resident Evil, Dino Crisis and Silent Hill to shine, but those that attempted to be more action-oriented, such as Siphon Filter, really show the signs of age. Dino Crisis 2 is the exception here, being very action-heavy, but also distinctly "modern" in many of its design choices.

    Stealth games such as Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu are also great, although very limited in scope by today's standards, and the latter's low render distance is something that may annoy players accustomed to modern gaming.

    FPS games (Medal of Honour being the biggest title) really have no place in any contemporary gamer's playlist. The same can be said about Race/driving games, unless you like revisiting the catchy tunes of the Gran Turismo 2 soundtrack. For example, I found CTR - Crash Team Racing quite dull and too easy even at max difficulty, but had a blast collecting all achievements in the remake (shame it never got released on PC - I wonder why).

    It's probably the same about fighting games: modern entries are much more fluid and dynamic, have better AI and allow for a greater skill ceiling. I say "probably" because I suck at fighting games and I've never played them extensively, aside from a few sparring matches with my brother on Tekken 3.

    There are other cases where I found the original game "good enough, but not worth your time over the most recent entries". For example, as a kid I spent countless hours crossing the skies of Ace Combat 2, but all the titles that came after it are just better. If I had to chose only one game for this post, AC2 would probably be it. I loved it and I still do, and its soundtrack is bonkers (seriously, it's really good), but yeah, I'd take 4, Zero and 6, or even Project Wingman, over it any day.

  • Honestly, Diablo 2. It's a classic, it set the standard for the entire genre and it was a brilliant game. Playing it recently, it feels quite shallow compared to modern ARPGs and lacks a ton of quality-of-life features. Games like Grim Dawn, PoE, Torchlight 2 are way better.

    • This is kind of the opposite for me. I didn't try the original Diablo until long after playing plenty of more modern arpgs. While it's very rough around the edges compared to current titles, I feel like it has something unique that later games lost - even D2. I think it's the combo of your character feeling underpowered, like not much more than a normal person immersed in a world of otherworldly horrors; the way the darkness and aesthetic really comes together to create an atmosphere; and the slower, crunchier gameplay.

      Pretty much all newer games put way too much emphasis on letting you play essentially a Marvel-style superhero who fills the screen with bright lights, and more more more numbers go up.

      But then again I guess I have to admit I still spend more time playing the newer games.

      • Diablo 1 is like actually scary. I love all those other games but they are farther on the Halloweeny/spooky/edgy spectrum, if that makes sense. I mean so was the original, but in that one I felt like an insignificant little mote, a pathetic ember of humanity, up against overwhelming evil.

        The PoE aesthetic definitely comes closest to capturing that feeling. But like you said, it's more of a power fantasy once you get going.

    • Action RPGs, especially the ones with a heavy focus on loot, suffer the most for me. Trying to play through Vagrant Story now is brutal. MP for fast travel!

  • This will be controversial but Hitman blood money.

    I have put hundreds of hours into the Hitman trilogy, but no matter what I can't get past the first guard of blood money, that is if I can get past the clunkynes to even get to him in the first place.

    I would like to try it as I have heard a lot of good about it, big portion of the fan base think it is the best game ever, but no matter how many time I trow that god dame coin the guard refuses to move and I can't progress and that combined with general age and clunkynes of the controls don't make it an enjoyable experience to try.

    In the trilogy and Absultion if I got stuck it was at least enjoyable trying to get around it, this is just frustrating.

    • That's curious because I remember Blood Money feeling really good, especially if I compare it to my memories of the original (don't bump the banners in front of the building - the physics cause my PC to seize up!).

      I'll have to check it out again so I can ruin my memories.

    • I am an absolute die hard Hitman fan. I’ve played all of them. Replayed the whole series last year. Blood money was a better sandbox by far than the previous games. And it’s still a blast to go back and play just for the nostalgia and the vibes. But the people who insist today that it’s better than the World of Assassination trilogy are smoking crack. Not only that, but in some ways Blood Money was a big downgrade from the previous games. Hitman 3 in its current state today incorporates all the best things about Blood Money, the games that came before it, the game came after it, while cutting out the negatives.

      The biggest problem with Blood Money for me was that it trivialized all challenge the game could have had by making disguises perfect and infallible. In the games that came before, having the right disguise only working from a distance, and get this: you actually had to act natural. You could just sprint between two armed guards, brushing both of their shoulders with a huge machine gun out as you passed by. In Blood Money disguises were simply an indicator of which rooms you were allowed to be in, and if you got a good enough disguise you could just be in all of them.

      In WoA they fixed this without making you have to walk everywhere via the enforcer system, and better level design with tiered guards. Finding a disguise for the highest level guards let you go anywhere you want, but there would be more enforcers for you to have to avoid. Where’s more niche disguises that would reasonably make sense for nobody to recognize you were much better for moving around unabated.

  • Those old computer dungeon crawler games, like Wizardry or Might and Magic 1-2. Jesus, they're absolute exercises in patience. You don't even have to play anything very recent to see how poorly they aged, even SNES JRPGs of 1992-4 were much better.

  • For me games from the NES era can tough to enjoy for more than a short period of time. They just tend to feel punitively difficult in a way that is not very fun. I’d much prefer a Mario from SNES onward any day for example.

  • Pretty much all the racing games from my childhood. I remember them having super realistic grip and aerodynamics, but playing them again compared to even sorta SIM modern racing games today is just night and day.

    I will blame my 1000+ hours in beamNG for some of that. Once you have seen super detailed soft body physics it's hard to play anything that doesn't have it. Wreckfest 1 had a decent hybrid soft/ridged system that worked for that game. Seems the second game that just dropped on early access improves on it some, but I'm gonna wait for the full release before I pull the trigger on that one.

  • Diablo 2 Lord of destruction, Diablo 2 resurrected is sooo much better in many ways I'll probably never play the og again.

  • I haven't been on Space Station 13 since Space Station 14 came out. The controls are just actually intuitive and BYOND is dead in the water.

    • Wow I didn't even know 14 is a thing!

      • Yeah its disconnected from BYOND. I think you can launch it standalone but it also comes through Steam (always free). It was pretty bare bones but now its catching up. Looks easier to maintain and mod on the back end.

  • After playing Megazeux, going back to ZZT just was never the same

  • I still do it from time to time because I like playing them on original hardware, but Sonic 1&2 on Genesis/Mega Drive. The Origins Plus versions may not be 100% accurate gameplay with regards to movement/moveset, but anniversary mode's retry special stages is real nice when half of the time I get screwed in those. Especially 2's special stages where I feel I feel like I'm constantly getting screwed over by my favorite character/sidekick being incompetent at the special stages.

    Just recently got the 3rd game (still need & Knuckles to complete the set) and while not being able to retry special stages is an issue, I can at least reset the game without having to worry about needing to replay the whole entire game over from the start. So it gets a pass because all I gotta do is replay a stage.

    • 2's special stages genuinely got my nerves when i played the OG cartridge. It felt like Tails was more of a nuisance then an aid sometimes lol

  • Fatal Frame 1. I think it may be the only one with a different button map for the camera and it's so annoying. I purposely only emulate it so I can remap the buttons.

  • I find it the other way around. I can't play Vampire Survivors because of Robotron/Smash TV/Geometry Wars.

  • I have Grand Bazaar on the ds and I agree its hard going back to that from Stardew Valley. I managed to play through Knights of the Old Republic once and man. Loved it, can't do it again. (I also had to cheat to make it through the end because "force powers? Nah sniper rifle is fine" turned out to be not fine)

  • I haven't gotten around to them myself yet (they're on the docket this year) but I've heard this said about Yakuza 1&2 since the release of Kiwami 1&2.

176 comments