Old Games that Still Hold Up

[᠌糞᠌]

The old Diablo II cutscenes.

They still give me the chills. Absolute masterful voice acting by Frank Gorshin as Marius. Dude also played The Riddler in the old Adam West Batman series. May he rest in peace.

Someone digitally remastered them, by the way.

 

[Timepace]

Super Mario 64, Midnight Club 2, Smugglers Run, GTA 4, GTA San Andreas, Banjo Kazooi, Golden Eye, Sven Co-op, GMod, Half-Life 2, COD (Bo1, Bo2, MW3, MW2, WAW). Resistance 2, Wii Sports, Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Super Monkey Ball, The old crash bandicoot games, Battletanx on the 64, Old Ace Combat games, Mario Kart Double Dash

 

[Autischen]

Pong

 

[nobodyworthwhile]

Unless it's on the Atari I also don't really get comments about games "aging."

Same here. Usually when I hear a game "aged badly" what that usually means is "it was never good in the first place." If its a game that was popular, then it had some sort of gimmick appeal or hype or was a right-place-at-the-right-time situation.

As for games I think hold up fine.... I go back and play older RPGs a lot. I'm talking like old MS-DOS or even NES. There's a lot of things the genre did back then that aren't done anymore and I kinda wish someone would have a renaissance of this style. The world does not need another SNES style RPG.

 

[BallzyCPU94]

Maybe not an OLD old game, but I still prefer Smash Bros. Brawl over Melee, and even Ultimate in some ways. Maybe it’s nostalgia bias.

 

[Pepsi Man]

Anyone else here a fan of old RTS games like Age of Empires II or the first Empire Earth?

Empire Earth is one of my favorite games

 

[Pepsi Man]

Super Mario 64, Midnight Club 2, Smugglers Run, GTA 4, GTA San Andreas, Banjo Kazooi, Golden Eye, Sven Co-op, GMod, Half-Life 2, COD (Bo1, Bo2, MW3, MW2, WAW). Resistance 2, Wii Sports, Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Super Monkey Ball, The old crash bandicoot games, Battletanx on the 64, Old Ace Combat games, Mario Kart Double Dash

Pretty much all these except a few, glad too see someone else loves Smuggler's run (sorry for doublepost)

 

[Goodspot]

I'm not sure how long ago a game had to be released to be consider "old", but I really enjoy playing the original Star Wars: Battlefront II from 2005. I always come back to that game due to the way that the Star Wars setting translates so well to the Battlefield-esque gameplay. The original Battlefront II is superior to EA's remake of it in 2017.

 

[Crimson Fucker]

Oblivion will never stop being a great game.

 

[nobodyworthwhile]

Oblivion will never stop being a great game.

Heck... has there ever been a genuinely bad Elder Scrolls game? The only ones I've heard of are those two weird spin-offs released after Daggerfall but before Morrowind. In my experience none of the main series ones are bad--even Arena is fun and playable.

 

[Kunikazu Okumura]

If we're talking old old then Pac-man, Ms. Pac-man, and Galaga. I like the original Mario trilogy on NES still, OG Doom 1 and 2, Starcraft 1, Tetris, FF7-9, and AOE2. I'd also say that pinball machines hold up, but I never see them anymore unless I go to an arcade. The only arcades now are barcades though. I also say light gun games like House of the Dead or Time Cop.

 

[nobodyworthwhile]

If we're talking old old then Pac-man, Ms. Pac-man, and Galaga. I like the original Mario trilogy on NES still, OG Doom 1 and 2, Starcraft 1, Tetris, FF7-9, and AOE2. I'd also say that pinball machines hold up, but I never see them anymore unless I go to an arcade. The only arcades now are barcades though. I also say light gun games like House of the Dead or Time Cop.

Mostly agree here, except I would add Final Fantasy 1, 4, 6, and Mystic Quest (fuck the haters). Final Fantasy is a weird series in that a lot of the games I don't like now are also ones I didn't like back then either.

I dunno, for me that's the constant--I rarely find a case where I go back to an old game and find its gotten hard to play because of advancements. Probably the closest is the very first Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, where I keep wanting to do the "right-click everywhere" thing that Warcraft II introduced... but even then its super easy to adapt since both games also still do hotkey commands and you use those way more than just standard clicking anyway.

Warcraft I also reminds me of another way a lot of old games hold up and in fact probably have gained new relevance--when they have a specific feel or vibe that you just don't get anymore. In fact the closest thing I've felt to the vibe that mid-1990s DOS fantasy games like Warcraft gave me was... Stardew Valley, which somehow feels like something from the DOS era even though its modern. But its not a real time strategy game so its no replacement for Warcraft.

 

[Kunikazu Okumura]

Mostly agree here, except I would add Final Fantasy 1, 4, 6, and Mystic Quest (fuck the haters). Final Fantasy is a weird series in that a lot of the games I don't like now are also ones I didn't like back then either.

I dunno, for me that's the constant--I rarely find a case where I go back to an old game and find its gotten hard to play because of advancements. Probably the closest is the very first Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, where I keep wanting to do the "right-click everywhere" thing that Warcraft II introduced... but even then its super easy to adapt since both games also still do hotkey commands and you use those way more than just standard clicking anyway.

Warcraft I also reminds me of another way a lot of old games hold up and in fact probably have gained new relevance--when they have a specific feel or vibe that you just don't get anymore. In fact the closest thing I've felt to the vibe that mid-1990s DOS fantasy games like Warcraft gave me was... Stardew Valley, which somehow feels like something from the DOS era even though its modern. But its not a real time strategy game so its no replacement for Warcraft.

The only SNES RPGs I was into were Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger. Frog boy 4 lyfe.

 

[nobodyworthwhile]

The only SNES RPGs I was into were Super Mario RPG and Chrono Trigger. Frog boy 4 lyfe.

Those are some very good ones to be into.

Like, I know I just talked up the SNES era Final Fantasy games but that series has always had some quirks. FF6 has likable characters and great music but some of its mechanics just feel ehh, and in the second half of the game the strat is just "get the Ultima spell as soon as possible and on as many characters as possible." FF1 is a good classic style RPG that shows promise from an up-and-coming developer and its mistakes can be forgiven because its a first effort... until you play the remakes which insist on making changes willy-nilly for literally no reason. FF4 is fun literally because again, music and having that early SNES look, but also just how its plot goes off the rails in the second half.

Mystic Quest at least was never trying to be anything grand.

Gonna be honest I didn't like FF7 or 8 even when they were new. 9 I played for a bit but got bored--I remember one issue I had was it used a "learn skills by keeping items equipped while battling" system, which meant that if you had a sword then found a better sword in a chest, you could not immediately equip the better sword because you had to grind up on the old one. FF is always experimental like this and more often than not I feel the experiment doesn't work.

 

[Kunikazu Okumura]

Those are some very good ones to be into.

Like, I know I just talked up the SNES era Final Fantasy games but that series has always had some quirks. FF6 has likable characters and great music but some of its mechanics just feel ehh, and in the second half of the game the strat is just "get the Ultima spell as soon as possible and on as many characters as possible." FF1 is a good classic style RPG that shows promise from an up-and-coming developer and its mistakes can be forgiven because its a first effort... until you play the remakes which insist on making changes willy-nilly for literally no reason. FF4 is fun literally because again, music and having that early SNES look, but also just how its plot goes off the rails in the second half.

Mystic Quest at least was never trying to be anything grand.

Gonna be honest I didn't like FF7 or 8 even when they were new. 9 I played for a bit but got bored--I remember one issue I had was it used a "learn skills by keeping items equipped while battling" system, which meant that if you had a sword then found a better sword in a chest, you could not immediately equip the better sword because you had to grind up on the old one. FF is always experimental like this and more often than not I feel the experiment doesn't work.

I loved 7 and 8. Really, 8 is probably my favorite, but only because it came out when I was an angsty teen.

 

[nobodyworthwhile]

I loved 7 and 8. Really, 8 is probably my favorite, but only because it came out when I was an angsty teen.

I got into RPGs in the SNES era. While the love kinda continued onto the PS1 (they were the main reason I jumped ship from the N64 to the Playstation), it was where the love started to dull... especially as I used to be a Squaresoft fanboy but this was when I started realizing they were kinda crap.

There are some games I still occasionally revisit. Parasite Eve is awesome, and Xenogears is at least interesting.

But for me RPGs have two golden ages: the NES era and the SNES era.

Ironically I didn't play NES RPGs as a kid--I discovered them retroactively as an adult. But sperging about what attracted me to them would probably take a full post on its own. Mostly though, I hate how nowadays RPGs are either completely linear or else totally wide open, and NES games often showed you could have a compelling middle ground. The first Dragon Warrior is a game I replay often because its so pick-up-and-play--I call it a "coffee break RPG"--and Might and Magic on NES is one of my all-time favorites.

With the SNES its easier... one way I put it is "NES are the RPGs my head likes, SNES are the RPGs my heart likes," because those take me right back to when I visited game rentals on weekends in the mid-1990s. That's not to say they're all great (I've played plenty that I'd consider bad or at least mid), but they do all at least take me back.

 

[Kunikazu Okumura]

I got into RPGs in the SNES era. While the love kinda continued onto the PS1 (they were the main reason I jumped ship from the N64 to the Playstation), it was where the love started to dull... especially as I used to be a Squaresoft fanboy but this was when I started realizing they were kinda crap.

There are some games I still occasionally revisit. Parasite Eve is awesome, and Xenogears is at least interesting.

But for me RPGs have two golden ages: the NES era and the SNES era.

Ironically I didn't play NES RPGs as a kid--I discovered them retroactively as an adult. But sperging about what attracted me to them would probably take a full post on its own. Mostly though, I hate how nowadays RPGs are either completely linear or else totally wide open, and NES games often showed you could have a compelling middle ground. The first Dragon Warrior is a game I replay often because its so pick-up-and-play--I call it a "coffee break RPG"--and Might and Magic on NES is one of my all-time favorites.

With the SNES its easier... one way I put it is "NES are the RPGs my head likes, SNES are the RPGs my heart likes," because those take me right back to when I visited game rentals on weekends in the mid-1990s. That's not to say they're all great (I've played plenty that I'd consider bad or at least mid), but they do all at least take me back.

I still have my copy of Parasite Eve. Such a good game with such a shitty sequel. Way to run it into the ground Square.

 

[nobodyworthwhile]

I still have my copy of Parasite Eve. Such a good game with such a shitty sequel. Way to run it into the ground Square.

Don't forget its PSP sequel/spinoff The 3rd Birthday, which... I've heard mixed reports about (and never got to play myself. By the time it came out I was basically avoiding anything with Square's name on it).

Square is one of those companies that used to be considered gods of gaming but, much like Bethesda, EA, Nintendo (in some circles) or really so many others, nowadays I'm wary... in my case mostly I just don't care for how pretentious their games often are.