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.
Goldeneye. Revolutionized the FPS genre at the time. Nigh unplayable now. Tried recently using both NSO and on an original N64, it just hasn’t aged well when compared to something modern.
I played Goldeneye at an arcade recently that had an N64 set up and actually had a great time. But people who hadn’t grown up with it and tried to join in found it pretty frustrating. So I can see that going either way tbh.
Yeah it already had inferior controls at the time if you were familiar with FPS gaming on computers. But it was still a ton of fun and when I went back to it some years ago I fell back into the n64 controller muscle memory no problem
The key is to change the layout, then the only problem is really replacing a mouse with the joystick.
Plug in a second controller and switch the control option to 2.4.
Perfect Dark, on the other hand, totally still holds up today in my opinion, and there’s a decompilation project that works great on PC and Steam Deck.
This is pretty obscure, but the Game Boy Advance remake of Mario Bros. (Not Super Mario Bros.) is more fun than the original.
You can run, for one thing, and the controls are more responsive in general.
It’s one of the games on Super Mario Advance, and one of the main reasons I originally wanted a GBA when it came out! I had the original Mario Bros. for the NES and thought it would be fun to have a portable version. I was right.
They did a great job updating the game!
Yeah the controls in the OG Mario Bros (and even the OG Super Mario Bros, to a bit of a lesser extent) are very clunky compared to modern entries. I’d say SMB3 holds up well though.
I tried, but I just can’t go back and play Oblivion after playing Skyrim with all the quality of life mods. I’m waiting on the Skyblivion release to revisit it.
The loading screens omg
I put hundreds of hours into that game and loved all 15 of them I spent actually playing
I managed to play and enjoy Oblivion after Skyrim, but found a brick wall when trying Morrowind.
I’d say TES as well, but with Oblivion > Morrowind. I had trouble getting used to it being more toward the RPG side than Action. But it’s rewarding if you see it through.
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I actually did. After waiting 10 years for a new TES game after Skyrim, I got bored and installed Morrowblivion. Played that all the way through. Then I played Oblivion with some visual mods. It was still quite fun, though I didn’t do a full play through. If I hadn’t already done a full play through, then Oblivion would still be an awesome game after playing Skyrim.
I could and i did. It was great. Sorry you couldn’t find a similar feeling.
Ps: nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh
Zork, or any of the old text bases adventure games.
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.
I was going to comment harvest moon after reading the title!
A lot of the older games for me. They’re just a lot harder. Like maybe they expect you to be willing to replay an area or a level over and over, getting a little farther each time until you beat it and I just don’t have the stamina for that anymore, or the time.
Newer games baby you, they increase the difficultly perfectly along side your ability growth. They might even make a level easier if you’ve failed twice. Older games don’t care if you’re having fun as much. There was less competition (fewer game choices) and more of a “gamers like this. If you don’t like it, you’re not a gamer” attitude, and now games want to attract everyone.
I have become such a baby about games. I want to have fun the whole time! I can’t handle failing over and over. I’d rather just read a book.
Same, this is how I got frustrated by Hades. I no longer have endless time to sink into a game to get good.
The “story” of Hades is that the guy you control gets better over time and finally escapes. How else can you convey it? With text (cardinal sin)?
I don’t think anyone is saying that the story of Hades isn’t portrayed well with the rougelike style, but it’s totally ok to say “I don’t have time to play a game that’s designed such that you fail dozens of times before you win”
NES Metroid, being replaced by Metroid Zero Mission.
NES Metroid is interesting to play through to see where the franchise came from, or for the nostalgia factor, but Metroid Zero Mission is vastly superior in nearly every conceivable way, its not even close. Its not like Silent Hill 2 or Resident Evil 3, where the originals are still better than the remakes overall, everything taken into account (though in that case, SH2 remake is superior to the RE3 remake). Absolutely every element of Zero Mission is an improvement on the original.
Metroid Zero Mission did not make vast sweeping changes to alter the identity of the game, making only minor adjustments to designs that were not thematically important (for example, the physical appearance of Ridley or Kraid being different is not thematically important). There were not big amounts of cut content, with only minor elements being cut like the fake Kraid enemy, which was not thematically important. The music is all familiar with the same composition, but with added flair. Its not different just for the sake of being different. Items and suit upgrades are almost all in the same places as the original NES Metroid, with the addition of new items that were added to the Metroid setting later on such as the Charge Beam and Super Missile. A map was added to the game, and the beam weapons now stack like in Super Metroid, rather than replacing the last beam you had.
All in all, Zero Mission leaves very little reason for the player to play the original game, especially if all the player cares about is the overall story of the Metroid IP. The player won’t get more thematically important designs that enhance the story like they would playing the original Silent Hill 2, and they won’t get more original game content and story like they would playing RE3 Nemesis. They wouldn’t get an improved experience. The choice to play NES Metroid mostly just comes down to nostalgia, historical value, or personal preference. Or if someone only has an NES or device capable of emulating the NES but not the GBA.
I completely agree and to I’ll add that this also applies to Metroid II. As Metroid II was on the Game Boy the game resolution is far too small to ever revisit. For a side scrolling game you can barely see what is in front of you.
Luckily the fan game AM2R, or the slightly less good but still excellent 3DS remake do for Metroid II what Zero Mission did for the original.
Luckily the fan game AM2R, or the slightly less good but still excellent 3DS remake do for Metroid II what Zero Mission did for the original.
I just started with the Metroid saga (it is never too late I guess) and I started with Zero Mission, I am actually struggling with what is next for me, whether to start with AM2R or the 3DS one… Both look appealing to me, but as I don’t have nostalgia googles for the older 2D games and the 3DS one has always called my attention, I might lean more to it… On the other hand, AM2R is a fan game… And I have a huge respect for those…
Did you look into Super Metroid for SNES? I was just replaying it recently and it still holds up as a true gem
Super Metroid is definitely the gold standard. Zero Mission definitely feels like it uses Super Metroid as its base. The same is also true for AM2R.
I think if you are getting into the series for the first time, Zero Mission, AM2R, Super Metroid & Metroid Fusion is the order to go in. They all share a similar set of gameplay & graphics.
I think the 3DS Metroid II remake is great, but in terms of cohesiveness, it’s going to stand out among the four games.
That being said it’s made by the same developers who will then go on to make Metroid Dread, which is probably my favorite Metroid game behind Super Metroid, which is the best.
I haven’t played it, I guess this one should come after Metroid II shouldn’t it?
Anyway, yeah, I obviously know about Super Metroid and it is one of the prettiest games even today.
I don’t know if it really matters if you play them in any sort of order - Super Metroid really perfected the style and set the standard for the rest of the games
I have an NES and a PS5. I guess I’ll be on the old version.
If you have a smartphone, or a computer built after 2005, you can definitely emulate Metroid Zero Mission, but unfortunately Nintendo makes it really hard to do it the easy way.
I recently finished playing Breath of the Wild and declared it as one of my favorite games ever played. I just started Tears of the Kingdom, and it feels like I may not go back to BOTW, which is crazy that I could consider it one the best experiences ever, and also feel like I may never play it again so shortly after beating it. TotK seems to have everything in BotW and more, with quality of life changes on top of it all.
Totk is… more of an expansion/dlc than a sequel. Even the intro has near identical beats. The map is literally re used.
Fun game still.
The early Pokemon games are pretty rough, after you get used to improvements from the GBA era. Particularly the remakes.
Likewise, the original NES Metroid after playing Zero Mission? Takes some getting used to.
That’s just crazy talk. Pokémon Blue is my favourite, although I’ve only played up to gen 4 (Diamond, I think is the name). It’s not as good as the previous generations and the physical special split is just weird IMO. I’m sure that’s an unpopular opinion for people who are used to playing like that though, I think it would make more sense to me if it was how it had always been. Abilities were a neat addition though, I’ll give you that
I have set up the original Fallout (fully modded and running through Fallout 1n2), but it’s pretty hard to get into. Not because of the graphics, which are actually fine, but just because the mechanics are quite intricate and I think my ability to learn new gameplay mechanics is declining as I enter my mid-30s (I’ve only played Fallout starting with Fallout 3). I’m going to keep trying to get into it!
The classic Fallouts do have some quirks, but I hope you get through them and can get into it. They are absolutely amazing games, well worth your time.
As someone who played Fallout 2 as a teen it’s not your age, the first 2 have a lot of little things that end up having a big effect, and they are difficult. They do not pull their punches and will happily smack you around.
I restarted Fallout 2 many times when I was first playing it trying to figure out a build I liked.
No worries bud, the mechanics for 1 and 2 has always been shit. People sucked it up and played anyway because the writing was so damn good. If you can’t get into the game because the mechanics or controls are bad thats the games fault not yours.
I have been trying to replay both for years and everytime I give up after a few hours because the experience is just painful.
Mount and Blade. Warband is just the better version all around. It works in reverse too cause Warband is better than Bannerlord.
I can’t see myself going back to the original Half-Life after playing Black Mesa. The changes to Xen alone are massive improvements.
Just started a playthrough of Black Mesa the other week after having played HL1 like fuck idk, 18 years ago? Barely remember it, but going through the levels I’m like “Oh yeah I remember this part, with the mine cart/train thingies”
Looked at screenshots of HL1 the other day and laughed that I will never play it ever again
The older Final Fantasy games. I made a point of doing a playthrough of the NES version of FF1, and I’m glad I did. The increased difficulty over the GBA version is mostly better than the absolute lack of challenge in later versions, but the added content and qol improvements make it preferable to play a hardmode hack of the gba version in the future.
The NES FF2 is just too much. I lose stats? No thanks.
And I’m really glad the Pixel Remaster version of FF3 exists now, the NES version was pretty unpolished and glitchy.
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.
007 games. But the N64 soundtrack was great.
