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.
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.
Black Mesa & SystemShock-Remake
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
From GTA to GTA san andreas are all a pain now because the control scheme is so outdated, The pcs ports are even worse because they have the shittiest jankiest controls imaginable but they had that from the start. GTA 4 is borderline unplayable because of the trash camera controls but that was true when it came out as well.
The original Metro 2033 is a bit of a slog to get through as well if you can even get it to run.
Dark Souls 1. Especially on PC it’s almost unplayable due to bad porting and DS3 and Elden Ring have refined the formula so much, it’s insane. The remaster is ok though, so I don’t know if that counts.
The original is rough yes, but I don’t know anyone that would play it over the Remaster these days. And the remaster is fine as far as playability goes. However, it’s still a candidate for this thread simply because the DS1 bosses will feel very anticlimactic for anyone who has played DS3/ER/Bloodborne/Sekiro.
I kind of prefer DS1 with DSFix to the Remaster, but I might be weird. I just think it nails the atmosphere better somehow.
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.
Plug in a second controller and switch the control option to 2.4.
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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.
With the N64, it helps if you can hook it up to a TV from around that era too. Games like Goldeneye look terrible on a modern LCD. I had that experience myself - “Man, I know I’m used to modern games now, but I don’t remember these games looking this shitty”. Then I dragged out my old CRT and hooked it up, and instantly it was “Now this is how I remember these games looking like”.
Play the xbla version via Xenia with mouse support and you’ll love it more than you ever did.
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.
I love love love perfect dark. But it’s uhhh it does not hold up. The campaign starts fairly strong and craters pretty quick. It really feels like they just weren’t able to really… Finish the game when it came out.
Also, like GoldenEye, a huge component of Perfect Dark was multiplayer.
Perfect dark holds up even better if you use two n64 controllers. Basically modern FPS style controls! I think Golden Eye had the same option?
I tried that with a friend once and we were confused about the purpose. Now it makes sense!
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”
I find it the other way around. I can’t play Vampire Survivors because of Robotron/Smash TV/Geometry Wars.
That’s not quite the same, though; bullet heaven ≠ twin-stick shooter.
Starcraft! I really think Starcraft Brood War is a better, more balanced game. The quality of life changes in Starcraft 2 make it so hard to go back to playing Brood War. I don’t know if I can adjust back to only selecting a lot amount of units or needing to click on each building to build stuff or not having smart-casting and good pathing.
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.
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
Even though it’s hard to go back, I think Gen I is still quite good. I replayed Red maybe 3ish years ago, and had a great time. It’s just that it’s very rough around the edges until I’m used to it again.
The main thing that made me bring it up actually was remembering going back after playing GSC, and really missing the in-battle exp bar.
I’m surprised to hear you didn’t like the physical/special split, I think it makes much more sense the new way.
That split was great, the sp. atk/def split is very good, hold items and abilities added a lot. Inventory management got a lot better in later games. And monster sprites did too, although the bad sprites in Gen 1 have a lot of charm and nostalgic appeal of their own.
I enjoyed the fighting simplicity of the original pokemon games. I could recognize and know the names of 151 pokemon and their weakneses/strengths. Now there’s too many pokemon and too many counters and hybrids. Too much work to keep track of.
As much as I adore, love and still prop Gen II as peak pokemon. I also have to blame Gen II for bringing in EV and IV that has served for the longest time, as fuel to the fire. Additionally so has making pokemon born and all that.
Now there’s mega-evolutions, old pokemon have aurora forms or whatever. Why complicate it?
The IV and EV system in Gen II is the same as in Gen I.
The “mordern” EV and IV system that’s being used today was introduced in Gen III with Ruby and Sapphire.
Ahhhh I love how crunchy the old versions are! The only thing I wish I had on my carts is a FFWD feature for grinding.
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.
Silent Hill 2 remake has achieved a superior game in all aspects that it’s nosense now playing the original one
I think they knocked the SH2 remake out of the park too, but I would absolutely still recommend playing the original as well. Especially the PC enhanced edition.
I started Monster Hunter with 4U on the 3DS. After World, Rise, and now Wilds, I have a hard time justifying crumpling my hands into a pretzel to play the old games on portable. The movesets are comparatively barebones, and there’s a lot of tedium and jank that the new games stripped away. Veterans will tell you that’s the real Monster Hunter and the new games are infantilized arcade games, but whatever. I play games to have fun, not bang my head against a wall.
I do love old-style MH still! World and Rise are wonderful and Wilds is great so far, but MHXX/MHGU is my favorite Monster Hunter game for sure.
Mount and Blade. Warband is just the better version all around. It works in reverse too cause Warband is better than Bannerlord.
Add Floris and it’s basically the only game in that sphere worth playing at all!
Prophecy of Pendor is legendary. I might get bannerlord if they release a Pendor mod for it.
