Are there games that you tried but just couldn’t get into because they feel outdated?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!
When Witcher 3 was winning all those awards, I wanted to give the original game a go.
Don’t. I imagine it’s nothing like Witcher 3. It aged terribly poorly.
I remember playing the first game and getting stuck on the tutorial because I was mashing the left click button trying to swing my sword only to have Geralt hip thrust at the enemies.
But once you figure out how to swing the sword, the game’s actually pretty fun. One thing I particularly liked is that there’s an investigative storyline where you actually have to go and investigate and figure out the answer with the clues provided, and you can fail. I went into it thinking it would be like most modern games where you only get obviously correct or incorrect dialog options and angered everyone in the process.
It did have some positive traits, but the gameplay just didn’t do it for me at all.
I did make it through the whole game, so I feel like I can hold that opinion, haha
People didn’t like its mechanics even back when it launched. Personally, it’s still somehow my favorite even tho objectively it’s less fun to play and less polished than the other two. Something about its story and the atmosphere makes it more unique and genuine.
It does have a great story!
The typical advice for people looking to get into the Witcher games is to watch a cutscene compilation of the first game, then start with the second. Don’t bother with too many side quests in the second; Just make it through the story so you know the broad strokes and major decisions. Then take that save to the Witcher 3, and just play that one from now on.
Because going backwards is so incredibly difficult; Each game adds a ton of quality of life improvements, so going back to older games feels horribly sluggish and clunky.
Yeah, I actually enjoyed the plot. But the gameplay kept getting in the way of that…lol
Yeah, I don’t know how unpopular the opinion is, but the original Witcher didn’t strike me as a particularly good game. It was a… fine… I guess game, but with mature elements and tone that other games in the genre lacked. I slogged through it in preparation of playing Witcher 3.
I bought a bundle with all the 3 witcher games and tried both 1 and 2. I could jot even get through the tutorial in 1 and could jot beat the first boss of 2. Each game controls completely differently from one another.
That Kayran fight is one of the most unfortunate things about Witcher 2. It’s far too difficult a fight for a first boss, and almost all of that chapter is a drag to boot. The game is so much better after that point.
My favorite moment in that game is a serious case of understatement in dialogue prompt. You have an option to help one of two diametrically opposed people and if you choose “Help person A” you draw your sword on person B. If you choose “Help person B” you immediately throat punch person A.
Similar to how “push dijkstra aside” leads to Geralt breaking his ankle in a really violent matter.
I never did really beat morrowind or even finish any of the factions questlines, i was too young at the time to care about that i just did the infinite intelligence potion exploit to create an unbeatable god character slinging 50ft radius fireballs from level 1.
A part of me really wants to revisit it and and least complete the main quest, but damn does it feel dated.
Yeah, it was in a weird sort of Uncanny Valley for gameplay. It was a 3D game with real-time combat, but was still relying on the old school tabletop RPG mechanics that the series was built on. So when you attack, the game does some math to figure out if you actually hit. But that causes some cognitive dissonance because I just saw my character’s attack connect and yet it was labeled as a miss because the invisible d20 rolled too low.
Rolling for an attack is fine in a turn based game, or a 2D game where sprites are just bouncing around. But when I saw my sword phase through the enemy without hurting them, it made it hard to continue playing.
The game also requires a lot more focus and time than I have these days. As an adult, I typically only have a few hours a week to play. And that’s intermittent, while constantly getting pulled away for other things. And in a game like Morrowind, things like the quest notes just aren’t conducive to my lifestyle. No quest marker, because the game gives me a note with vague directions? That’s fine if I’m a kid who can spend 5+ hours wandering around looking for the right boulder to take a left at. But if I’m getting pulled away and distracted constantly, I won’t even be able to remember what the note said when I come back to my computer.
No quest marker, because the game gives me a note with vague directions? That’s fine if I’m a kid who can spend 5+ hours wandering around looking for the right boulder to take a left at. But if I’m getting pulled away and distracted constantly, I won’t even be able to remember what the note said when I come back to my computer.
I dont mind the no quest marker, as you can re-read your quest journal to get the directions again. The problem was that the quest journal was unsorted so if you happen to advance in multiple quests at a time or put off a quest and come back to it, then good luck paging through to find the relevant info.
Tribunal added the ability to see specific quest entries iirc
No quest marker, because the game gives me a note with vague directions?
It took me years to figure out, but the directions are actually absurdly precise once you understand how they were written. For instance, if they say to follow the road north out of Caldera until you get to a tree, then turn west and continue until you reach your destination, that tree will be literally encroaching onto the road rather than one of the couple dozen that you pass that are near the road. At that point, you use the minimap to orient yourself exactly dead west and proceed in a perfectly straight line, hopping over rocks if need be, and you’ll arrive at the destination, just like the directions said.
This is incredibly unintuitive, though, since absolutely nobody writes directions like that IRL. Not to mention the typos and sporadic instances of east and west being reversed.
There has to be a better option than a floating quest marker or written directions, but I’m not sure what. Maybe the breadcrumb trail from Fable?
As someone who didn’t even know it existed until like 2 years ago. It feels incredibly dated. I have 2 friends who love it and beg me to play with them with the multi-player mod but I just can’t get into it. Controls feel clunky, combat is janky and graphics are meh. I understand it probably has great systems and writing and for the time it was great but it just doesn’t hold up unless you have prior history with it. I’m not even hating on it, I understand it’s probably a great game. I also played Mario 64 and ocarina of time way after their release (grew up a poor kid in a tiny rural town with no internet and 1 TV that had like 3 channels) and both felt pretty decent and like they held up while also being older than morrowind.
I actually really enjoyed replaying it recently after many many years. Other than the dialog, what bugs you about it?
By the way, the engine replacement is really good.
I’m so glad I went back and finished it recently. The MQ story is really good. I put on a mod to make magicka regenerate like in later games and played a straight mage, eventually crafting rings to be able to jump around town super fast and another to cross the continent.
What put me off of the game initially was that it had a nasty bug where the game would immediately crash and close to desktop after about 15 to 30 mins of play. So if you didn’t regularly save, you’d lose progress.
This happened to me on multiple OSes (Windows 98, XP, 7 & 8.1), across different copies of the game and after trying various community patches to fix the problem to no avail
Bought the GOTY edition with the Bloodmoon and Tribunal expansions on Steam when it was heavily discounted and it works just fine.
Unfortunately this is one of those many instances where a game is released absolutely fucking broken and you have to buy the expansion to fix it. Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 is another such game where the base game has a game breaking bug can randomly plummet the stats of all your rides.
You should really wait for the Complete Edition and then grab the Unofficial Patch for every Bethesda game. They’re all varying degrees of broken on release and expansions may improve it or make it worse, or sometimes both at the same time. Best to wait.
As a once hardcore RCT fan, 3 was a huge let down anyways. Played for like 15 minutes before going back to 2.
Baldur’s Gate 3 was good, but I can’t play 1 or 2. They definitely don’t feel the same.
For newer games, I can actually play the older Zelda games, but I can’t stand the latest games. Not a big fan of the gameplay with weapons breaking and how much they pushed the open world thing. I very much prefer smaller maps with more story.
Oh! I tried playing Neverwinter Nights recently and… I bounced. I want to try again soon because people really love that game (and its modding scene!), and I love D&D (having only played 5e, however), but it’s not appealing to me as much as I wish it did.
I played the crap out of Neverwinter Nights back in the day, but I picked up the remastered or whatever version on steam and just can’t handle the controls anymore. Hooray for BG3 to scratch the same itch with improved controls!
I really enjoyed the original Neverwinter Nights, went back and played it relatively-recently (despite the fact that the main storyline, pre-DLC, is pretty bland).
But I tried playing the newer Neverwinter Nights 2 and it just did not draw me in at all.
Still haven’t tried BG3.
For what it’s worth, the story to the main campaign of NWN2 is pretty tropey and bland. However, you should give Mask of the Betrayer a shot if you don’t mind main campaign spoilers and think story could keep you invested over gameplay. I never finished it, but the story was quite fresh and unique. It’s wildly well reviewed, to the point that while you have to deal with the Epic level rules, its still worth playing a bit just for the weirdness involved.
BG3 is the best version of DnD on a computer in my opinion. Great characters including enemies, so much flavor, and it moves right along with tooltips galore to let you know aht is going on. While there is a lot of gratuitous romance available, you can easily turn everyone down if it isn’t your jam. You can do pretty much anything and “screwing up” just tends to lead to more options!
I love talking to the goblins! Make friends before wiping them out!
Being DnD there is a lot of fiddly bits and the devs love exploding barrels, but to be honest they kind of add to the charm.
What’s so different about the first two Baldur’s Gate games? I was thinking about getting the first one on my phone
To add to what everyone else is saying, the combat isn’t the same in that it’s not turn based like you’re thinking. Fights involve everyone getting into a fracas at once and swinging, the game expecting the player to regularly pause to give specific commands. Also, in BG1 you start at level one which feels reeeeeally weak so fights will be quite difficult until you’re about level 3-4.
That said, I had a lot of fun with the game after I got used to it. Writing is the main star of the show and it’s quite good.
I tried playing Icewind Dale on my phone after enjoying Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 on my PC. Don’t bother. The touch UI just cannot keep up in any remotely tactical situation, at least not for my tactics-heavy wizard playstyle with milking every turn as much as I could.
Thief.
But I HAVE to try again! I want to write my bachelors about game design of stealth games and not analyzing Thief would be a crime against humanity
I guess it’s the graphics and the weird keyboard combo? Because otherwise I don’t really see what’s the issue. It was so influential and good when it came out that you can get into actual arguments if any successor games are actually better than the original series (disregard the remake).
It’s basically still top tier stealth game, but the keyboard interface is weird as fuck initially. But you get used to it within hours, if you want to.
The graphics might be insurmountable for many people.
I let civvie11 play it and I lived thru him vicariously
Probably going to get some hate for these.
FFVII. The pc port was ass, controls were a pain on keyboard and there wasn’t great controller support. The graphics were really tough to ignore, and the combat felt like fighting the control scheme more than anything. I’ve played and liked many other titles in the series, but I couldn’t manage this one by the time I got to it. The experience was also so bad I have no interest in the remake/remaster.
Morrowind. Played it a ton on Xbox, but I can’t get back into it on pc anymore. Even with mods to alleviate the graphics and draw distance, the game is so dated. Building a character can be very punishing in the early game, and easily break able in the late game. Many weapon skills are garbage because they lack enough support in items. Movement speed was tied to a skill, jumping is significantly faster, but also a skill. The leveling process is arcane and not adequately explained in game. The journal is awful, so you better remember what quests you are doing. Item storage was a pain because crates had weight limits, and merchants had pitiful amounts of gold to sell items.
Morrowind. Played it a ton on Xbox, but I can’t get back into it on pc anymore. Even with mods to alleviate the graphics and draw distance, the game is so dated.
I played through it for the first time a few years ago, using the open-source OpenMW engine. It definitely isn’t graphically-competitive with modern games, but I was still able to enjoy it.
Here’s a current image:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQUYr7JhNXg
Building a character can be very punishing in the early game, and easily break able in the late game.
I feel like a lot of people enjoyed the game because they could break it in the late game.
Many weapon skills are garbage because they lack enough support in items.
Yeah, though I don’t think that any Elder Scrolls or Fallout game has really had a truly balanced skill tree, though.
The journal is awful, so you better remember what quests you are doing.
Yeah, I have to say that automated quest tracking and note-taking is definitely something that I like about modern RPGs. Sometimes it starts to feel too much like “go to waypoint, do thing, repeat”, but I remember manually mapping dungeons with teleporters on graph paper in the D&D Gold Box games, and it was just arduous.
I get that. FF VII is probably my favourite game. But, I grew up with it. I think that plays a huge roll. If I discovered it for the first time now, I’d probably feel the same way you do.
Don’t skip the remake, though. I hate that there’s differences from the original, but I view it as a retelling from a different perspective regarding the story. The gameplay kicks ass. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes the style of game.
Have you tried Tifa’s Bootleg? There are mods that can drastically improve the graphics
Modded FF7 on PC ruined PS1 FF7 for me. Wonderful stuff. 7th Heaven is such a joy.
I started a new play through of Morrowind after lasting playing it in the 2000s. I used OpenMW on my Steam Deck, it plays really well.
It was really refreshing how more immersive it is as you have to read the journal and use the map to figure out where to go for quests. I really enjoy not having a quest marker guiding you.
At this stage, I am loath to go back to any game where the UI takes up half the screen. RTS games especially just used so much screen real estate back in the day, that couldn’t be scaled or hidden to get any back. Like playing your game through a letterbox surrounded by stickers.
I hate playing StarCraft because the UI is gigantic and you can’t zoom out far enough on the map. I’ve got massive, high-res monitors, but the game treats me like it’s still 640x480.
And really, more strategy/sim games need to support multi-monitor setups. Supreme Commander spoiled me, and more games should follow their example.
Start craft specifically, but I believe most RTS games in general, limited the visible map area to make sure all players in a multiplayer games were on equall footing. They didn’t want people with larger monitors or more powerful computers to have an advantage by being able to see more terrain and units than those with lower resolutions. Lack of zoom is usually down to network optimization where bandwidth was significantly limited in the dial-up days.
On multiplayer - fine. I played single-player and it was annoying as hell.
Sup Com FA was a pretty elegant UI, yeah. Very unobtrusive but combined with the split screens, multi screens and all the hotkeys it was so versatile. Probably a bitch to create though and not used by most players at the time.
FONV and Skyrim. Even with mods, FONV looks like microwaved dog shit. Im mot even a huge graphics nut but at a point it becomes too distracting and FONV goes far beyond that. Skyrim’s sluggish movements keep me completely disengaged, although the graphics don’t throw me off quite as much, it feels so outdated that the immersion is ruined right from the very start.
Skyrim’s sluggish movements
What’s sluggish-movement about Skyrim? You mean the character movements, or something else?
The high-running-speed in Skyrim compared to even some modern AAA’s has always been an upside to me.
The horse speed on the other hand is awful. There’s a mod called “faster horses” though that addresses it.
Yeah, I can agree with that. Horse speed is pretty lackluster. I think part of that is valid, and part of that is how fast the character normally moves (since they move a lot faster than a real human would)
Character movement. All the animations, running, walking, and turning in 3rd person are about the worst they could be. 1st person isn’t much better but at least you can’t see anything but the arms. My take is that the animations just didn’t match the quality of everything else.
It’s like taking a beautiful road trip all the way down the Pacific Coast Highway from the Redwoods to sunny SoCal but doing to in a old ass rustbucket with no power steering, the breaks are shot and making that noise and it always smells like gas inside but the windows won’t roll down. What’s outside the window is pretty great tho.
Luckily, there are plenty of mods to help with that whilst keeping the experience authentic.
Wish more games supported modders to this extent.
I’d love to give Skyrim another go with my PC as I’ve only ever played it on console. I have FONV on PC with all the best rated popular quality of life mods and it’s still horrendously ugly. I’ve seen others mod skyrim and it looks beautiful.
Have you tried FO3? It came before NV and might draw you in more because the locations in it are far more iconic. I like it a bit better in some ways as well.
For me it was Ocarina of Time. Ugly, and very clumsy. And I play tons of retro games. Early 3D stuff can be rough.
Did you try Ship of Harkinian? It has a lot of improvements that make it easier to play nowadays.
Oh thank you. I’ll check it out. I always wanted to get into the Zelda franchise and I love the lore of Ocarina/Majoras Mask
There are specific things about OoT that irritate me, but I can generally still get some enjoyment.
Fallout 1&2. I love isometric top down rpgs and have played every title since fallout 3 to completion. Something about the clunkiness leaves me with a lot to be desired. I didn’t pay more than $4 for both titles on a steam sale so I’m not mad they’re in my library, I just wish I could break through the barrier and experience the beginnings of that world.
I’m the opposite and grew up with 1&2. I spent a ton of time modding 3 and then just got bored. I bought NV but have never even launched it and I don’t think I’ve even bothered looking at 4. I’d love for an HD remake of 1&2
For what it’s worth I personally find fallout 3 soulsucking. It’s got interesting stuff throughout but it feels randomly scattered into a disjointed and confusing world.
New Vegas is a lot better at making the area feel like a cohesive environment. You understand petty easily why people are where they are and move along the routes they do. We’re practically a cult so I’ll spare you further recommendation.
New Vegas is the closest you’ll ever get to more fallout 1/2
“I’m gonna’ let you finish, but New Vegas is one of the greatest games of all time.” -Kanye West
Nv is my favorite of all time, you should really give it a chance.
but I’m curious which is your favorite from 1 and 2? I have a few days off and might get into one of them.
Yeah, I love the idea of fallout 1 & 2 and remember watching a friend play it when it was new, but I tried to get into it as an adult and just can’t…
Same boat as you practicality
There are a lot of us afaik. I vaguely remember hearing about a project where fans were recreating FO1 in the NV engine. I can’t remember the name but it was definitely intriguing.
The first witcher. The story seems really interesting and it has some great rpg elements but the combat is just so boring that I ended up startin witcher 3 without knowing the lore
I don’t think it actually matters for the Witcher series. They don’t tend to dwell too much on the events of the previous game.
I assumed that Yen was something from the Witcher 2 (that I skipped), but I don’t think she’s in that at all. If anything it relies more on the books for the backstory of each game.
Witcher 1 is a very odd game, gameplay-wise, that makes more sense when you realise it was initially some top down D&D game. It’s just presented as a regular 3rd person game that we now expect to play somewhat differently, rather than the odd “click the mouse at the right moment” system they went with. It’s worth it just for the story. Just turn down the difficulty as it’s really not worth struggling with, although for me the hardest boss in the game was a dog near the start.
Yeah I kinda realized the same thing. I might not know everything but witcher 3 with no extra information has been great and I havent felt like I don’t know enough to enjoy the lore
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Damn I didn’t know about that! I’m definetly going to try it out when it gets released
Witcher 3 actually assumes you’ve read the books, too, so just playing 1 and 2 wouldn’t necessarily have informed you of what was going on.
Huh, good to know. I would love to read the books at some point
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
A lot of the UI/UX and game mechanics from HOMM3 were taken from Sid Meier’s games, like Colonization and Civilization. When you say you didn’t understand stuff in HOMM3, I want to ask if you’ve played CIV6 or CIV5 or other modern games in that same genre? If not, you’re going to be confused by them regardless of whether you’re starting with CIV1 or HOMM3 or CIV6.
Super Mario 64, while i started with the nes i never really fully played the 64 title
I played it on stream some time ago but eventually stopped cause mario just felt so weighty and clunky to control. I tried 3 different controllers just in case it could have just been me, but unfortunately, i just didnt jive with it.
Coming to it from Crash Bandicoot, there was just something off about how Mario 64 controlled.
I tried to replay GoldenEye on switch and just couldn’t. The control scheme is just too dated and I can’t get past it.
Goldeneye just isn’t a very good game. It was one of the best fps games on the N64 so if all you’ve got is an N64 you’re going to think it’s amazing. But other games have done much better what it tried to do so today it feels clunky and bad. Contrast to something like Doom which still holds up today because that style of gameplay hasn’t been massively improved on.
Same. I turned into a PlayStation gamer before I played Mario 64. It just seemed boring to me at that stage in my life. I’ve never completed it or played it for more than 30 minutes.
For me it’s one of the most memorable gaming moments in my life. The feeling of playing Zelda and Mario in 3D for the first time is an experience I will never forget.
Personally, the earlier Witcher games. Great story, but it’s trapped in an old RPG missing all kinds of modern features and mechanics.
When the first Witcher came out, Yahtzee’s review was spot on. It’s a good game, it’s got a lot of depth, but a lot of the mechanics are arcane and just not fun.
Witcher 2 made big strides in this department, finally culminating in Witcher 3 - I am in a similar boat in terms of having serious issues trying to play the first two Witcher games.
I really enjoyed the branching paths in Witcher 2. They were two different games depending on what you chose with the different characters and areas you’d go through.
The UI in the Witcher 2 is awful
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.
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.
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.
Personally I love that era of graphics tbh. I bought Valheim on the Steam sale just for the jank graphics lol
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.
