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[Manuel Magalhães]

So I got BIT. TRIP. RUNNER from the latest HB and I was happy to try it out on Steam, since I liked the Wii version when I played.
Well, looks like that I got seriously disappointed by it. The game didn't change much between versions, is that me, the player, was the one that changed.

My problems with it:

-The game looks horrible. The font is stupid and the graphic style is so dull. It's like the artists said "imz from teh 80s and I heard that CRTs make the image look bad (lol), so i'll put lots of noise in teh bonus level!!". There are some awful color choices too.

-The difficulty isn't very well set. Some latter levels seem easier than others.

-Passing the level again just to get a perfect in the bonus level is a bad design decision.

So yeah. Do you've any game that you got disappointed after playing it again?

[peanutbuttershoes]

All of them.

[Noah!]

Knytt.

When I first played it, years ago, I loved it. I loved exploring the world, wandering aimlessly. It was exciting to discover what lay beyond the edge of each screen. I would reach what I thought was the end of the world, yet with enough exploring I'd find another way that led to something new. I wondered if the world was truly limitless.

A year or so later, I played it again. But by then the magic was lost. I knew where everything was. What had seemed exciting and special before had now become commonplace. A game about exploring a vast and diverse world became a mundane fetch quest.

In a way, it's almost depressing. Knytt was one of my favorite games to play through, yet it is built in such a way that it cannot be replayed. It's a feeling that you can only capture once, and any attempts to re-live that moment will only end in disappointment...

[Dragonmaw]

Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye 64

This thread may as well be "games which aged poorly"

[C.A. Sinner]

Half-Life 2

Bought it the day it came out and enjoyed every minute of it despite playing most it on a computer that was 4 years old at the time. It really seemed like "the future of videogames" with the use of the physics engine, graphics and "immersive" storytelling and what not. Replayed it last year and found it hasn't aged well at all. A lot of the phyiscs puzzle stuff, which was impressive at the time, seems gimmicky and forced from today's perspective and really kinda breaks up the pacing. Also boring weapons (aside from the gravity gun), overlong vehicle sections and some bland level design. The first HL is a better game imo.

Goldeneye has aged badly due to its controls but I played the 3DS remake of OOT and enjoyed just as much as in 1998 so...

[Manuel Magalhães]

This thread may as well be "games which aged poorly"

Fixed.

[vinheim3]

I second Ocarina of Time. I don't recommend people replaying it or getting it again for 3DS and instead, remember it as how great it was at the time. Although, if you didn't 100% it (or close) the first time, replaying it wouldn't take away from its charm. You get to rediscover the world, only this time, more of it.

For the same reason, Super Mario 64 and Cave Story, but a bit less so on Super Mario 64 because it was still enjoyable in the DS version.

[C.A. Sinner]

Oh yeah, here's another one: Nethack

This game is pretty important to me because it was my intro to the roguelike genre (like I could imagine it was for a lot of other people). But replaying it recently, I'm finding the controls pretty terrible, even by roguelike standards, and too many aspects of the game purely luck-based. Nethack is a classic of course, but later roguelikes, such as ADOM, Crawl, TOME, etc. are much better.


Also, Final Fantasy 7

Like OOT, there seems to be a of kneejerk hate for this game for some reason, but I really didn't like FF7 when I replayed it. Convoluted animu story, cheesy dialog, cliche characters, boring combat. I feel the same way about most other JRPGs I liked as a kid.

[phubans]

Yeah, I got BTR on one of the recent bundles and was pretty excited for playing it, because I remembered it looking/seeming really cool. The game was horrible. I tweeted about how bad it was calling it a linear and shallow game with an absurd difficulty curve, which made it difficult to pass even the second level but I breezed past the third. In short, I thought the game was shit and I don't intend to ever try it again.

On the topic of this thread though, I've found that 3D games in general age horribly compared to their 2D counterparts. I always had a saying that 2D graphics were like wine, getting finer with time, while 3D graphics were more like a carton of milk. I think it's because 2D graphics are more expressive/iconic and 3D aims to push realism, and that technology only gets better with each passing year, constantly making itself obsolete.

That said, I agree with Dragonmaw on 007, and I think this is true of many classics, like Final Fantasy VII, which I've wanted to play again for years, but never wanted to have to deal with chunky, over-saturated polygons. The music still holds up and I'm sure the gameplay is fine, but the graphics are an eyesore compared to what's on the market right now.

[Dragonmaw]

I really want a reasonable remake of FF7 with improved fidelity and THAT IS ALL.

No rewrites, no Advent Children or Crisis Core shit, none of that nonsense. Retain the original translation, retain all the writing, add nothing but a new coat of paint.

While FF7 has definitely not aged well in the visuals department, I still highly enjoy it every few years when I replay it. The battle system is fun (and makes more sense now, as an adult; materia choices do matter!), the story is a lot more nuanced and heartfelt than the sequels/expanded canon give you reason to believe, and it is overall a very fine game. I would honestly rate it as the best Final Fantasy, not because it has the best first playthrough (that would be 6) but because it offers the most return value. To me, anyway.

Generally speaking, 3D games made before the Xbox era did not age well. This is alleviated on PC with source ports (Darkspaces <3), but not so much with consoles.

Edit: I also definitely agree on HL2. Episode 1 holds up better, though, and Episode 2 is downright fantastic.

Surprisingly, I feel like Doom 3 aged better than HL2.

[Gimym TILBERT]

Golden eye/perfect dark: put "mode solitaire" control (1.3) hey presto great game!
M64 has not been topped to this day (except maybe cam control)
Ocarina is still good, don't see any problem, actually puzzle is more complex that sequel.

But I guess graphics and "comfort" option is what makes great days today

[kyn]

In a way, it's almost depressing. Knytt was one of my favorite games to play through, yet it is built in such a way that it cannot be replayed. It's a feeling that you can only capture once, and any attempts to re-live that moment will only end in disappointment...

I know that feeling all too well, but for me it was Knytt Stories instead.
But either way it didn't age badly, it just doesn't have replay value.

[C.A. Sinner]

Golden eye/perfect dark: put "mode solitaire" control (1.3) hey presto great game!

The Perfect Dork XBLA port has an option for modern-style dual stick shooter controls and is a fun game. Timesplitters 2 (made by the same dev team) is better than both Goldeneye and PD though.

[Manuel Magalhães]

Timesplitters 2 is a great game, indeed.

[Paul Eres]

i think there's two types of things here -- the first are games which are good the first time you play them, and not good the second time. the second are games which, because they are old, they play badly to a modern audience, so that even if you play the old game for the first time you might not like it

anyway, i recently started playing geneforge (by spiderweb software). they are a bit old and look even older, which makes them hard to play, but the setting and mechanics are interesting enough that i keep playing. but i can see how someone would be put off by the visuals