The first game that comes to mind for me is Civilizations 4. I’ve probably spent hundreds of hours playing but after getting used to 5 and 6 I have a really hard time going back. Going back and forth between 5 and 6 I need to rethink some strategies but with 4 I feel like I need to rethink everything. I don’t know if it’s because of the tech tree layout in combination with the civics system, things like unit stacking, or maybe just a bunch of little things but it takes me a while to readjust.
World of Warcraft
Love the world and history and characters. Gameplay is now pretty shit.
Ditto
Had a great time but no longer want to spend that much time
Outer Wilds. Wish I could forget it, as the progression is based entirely on player knowledge it has 0 replayability(I mean this as an endorsement).
Watch playthroughs on YouTube and you get to see someone else play it for the first time.
I’ve recently started using the archipelago randomizer mod to get another taste of replaying it, but unfortunately the satisfaction of completing a rando pales in comparison to that first experience.
I will never not recommend this game. It’s so good and I can’t wait to see what Mobius comes up with next.
7th Saga. It’s a turn based top down RPG (similar to Final Fantasy 1 or Dragon Warrior 1). The games AI sometimes just kills you (and takes great delight in it). Easily the most frustrating RPG I’ve played.
Blaster Master for the Nintendo (NES) as well. Instead of evil AI you get evil level design that wants to kill you.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to have a sandwich and play some Leisure Suit Larry 3.
Morrowind. Every once in a while I reinstall it, but I can’t get over the “it looks like an action game but it’s a stats game” thing anymore. And I never liked Oblivion or Skyrim. But when I was a kid, Morrowind was so full of wonder and stuff to discover. I also wasn’t playing with a guide, so discovering stuff like “You can enchant an item to have 1-100 strength, duration permanent. It picks the bonus when you put the item on, and it stays that until you take it off. So put it on and off until you get a big number. Much cheaper than trying to enchant it to +100 straight out” felt more personal.
Unmodified unpatched original Morrowind had this strange bug where a goblin (can’t remember where, but he was in a castle) would sell you 5000 gold for 5000 gold. He would reset every day so you could continue this indefinitely. Then if you killed him you could then loot him for the accumulated gold you had sold him. (Let say you had done this 365 days it would net you 1 825 000 gold)
Well, I’d say Morrowind is still decently playable today, esp. with OpenMW. Sure it shows its age, but I’d ratber play that than e.g. Oblivion.
I might give it a go, I believe it fixes the exploit where you can increase the stock of merchants with restocking ingredients, which makes alchemy a cake walk, no ? I could never resist that
Warframe. I spent 2 years around 2020 farming up every frame, every item, every pet, every everything – without spending a dime. I was so grateful for the experience I spent nearly $300 in cosmetics when I finished the game.
They’re always adding more stuff, but I consider Warframe “beat”. It was a killer experience, I had a lot of fun with all the different builds and overpowered shit you could pull off if you were smart. Along with Path of Exile, Warframe stands a pinnacle of how to do Free to Play correctly.
I also did a “No Engram” run on ARK: Survival Ascended – You’re not allowed to learn any of the things you can build; you HAVE to find the items naturally in the world. That was a nightmare, but I managed it – and will NEVER do it again. It gave me new appreciation for specific aspects of the game.
I was considering playing Warframe a while back because I was a fan of Dark Sector but the reviews I saw online mentioned an incredible amount of grinding. Do you think it’s worth picking up for someone who isn’t into that kind of thing?
If you’re impatient, no. Most of the “grind” was starting a crafting job, and waiting 72 hours for it to complete.
Unfortunately everyone wants instant gratification and Warframe is not an instant-gratification game.
What I did was work on things bit by bit, and when I started crafting it - I moved onto farming something else.
Some of the worst items to get in the game, I had to wait a year before they ‘unvaulted’ the relics for. Other things, I had to log in daily for over a year before they would become available as login rewards.
So – I repeat – If all you care about is instant gratification, Warframe is not for you. Unless you have deep pockets. Their monetization scheme is “If you don’t want to wait on this thing, pay up”. For people who are patient, this is wonderful.
Warframe has gotten so much better since 2020. I highly recommend coming back for a bit just to do the new quests. All your stuff will still work great in the new content. In fact, it’ll work better now that other damage types are way more viable. No longer have to mod everything viral/slash/heat.
Played from 2020 to around the end of 2022, already did all of the rebalance stuff since Rebecca became design lead. I really cannot go back. I beat it. It’s done. Regardless of the new frames, etc – I’m out of that “cycle” now. I’m mastery rank L2 if I am remembering correctly. No matter how much content they release - they’ll never release enough of it for me to want to return. I conquered Warframe. Legendary 2 rank. Most people don’t even reach MR15 before they crash out. Once I had everything in the game, it was done for me. Permanently.
Man warframe is such an interesting game. I bounced off it twice. When it first released and then again in like '17, but not long ago I fell into it hard for 3 months. So much so it was my #1 played game for my steam recap lol.
Toe Jam & Earl. As a kid, it seemed just endlessly creative, you could just explore & explore forever. And the shit humor - I was the exact right age where every joke was a banger. Although the game itself would be badly dated today, I bet the music holds up well, albeit in short bursts. I still get snippets stuck in my head.
NES TMNT
Good one. Pretty sure I’d die in that water tunnel just like back then.
I had that level down so good. It’s the level where Mike really shines since why would you want anyone else to get hurt?
The technodrome was my killer level. There just wasn’t enough room to manouver and you could so easily spawn those flying rock troopers. Ugh.
Maybe someday I’ll go back and actually beat the game after watching a playthrough.
For me it would probably be most old DOS era games like Dune 2, Ultima Underworld, Warcraft 1, Civilization 1, etc. All of them were great, but it’s really difficult to get used to those old control schemes nowadays. Pixelated graphics wouldn’t bother me, but those like 15 FPS at max is also hard to get over these days.
Other than that it would be some newer games that lacks a bit of convenience stuff. Like e.g. Diablo 1, where you can’t run yet. Or some of the first 3D accelerated shooters that can’t remap controls to WASD.
Having to rely on reading and retaining information in manuals is a big thing that keeps me away from a lot of DOS games
And don’t even get me started on that damn copy protection level “what is 7th word on 16th line on page 23 in manual”!
I don’t think I could ever play Jet Force Gemini, but I recall it fondly.
It’s playable via Rare Replay, though still a bit rough around the edges. Absolutely avoid any other versions as the controls elsewhere are unusually unusable.
Fantastic game but lemme tell ya, the controls for that game did not age well. I’ve tried to go back and play it, even on an emulator where I can customize the controls, and it is baffling how unintuitive the controls are on modern controllers. It worked when the N64 controller was considered good. But with how controllers have evolved it’s basically unplayable no matter how it’s configured.
It will literally never happen, but a remaster would be sick.
Lies! The N64 controller was never considered good. That half-stick was one of the worst design choices I’ve ever seen for a controller. Too tall as a thumbstick, too short as a joystick.
It worked when the N64 controller was considered good.
So it never worked? ayyylmao.
Ragnarok Online. My favorite game ever and it’s all MTX now and will never be like the old days. I wish it was. They made RO classic and shut it down. There’s private servers, but they’re not very populated.
Hit me right in the nostalgia with this one. Used to played the heck out of it on SEA and my local country server. The game is super grindy for my taste now but I still feel nostalgic about the community and people there.
Parasite Eve.
When I first played it the setting and such seemed so cool…but the story and dialogue are actually quite cringe and cliche.
I remember the opening cutscene blowing my little mind
I still get nostalgic when I see it !
Gen 1 pokemon. It was awesome to experience, but the formula is just better in later versions.
GoldenEye, I did try it years ago, but going back to one stick for a shooter is really awkward.
Wow, I don’t have the time for an MMO anymore and they are a lot less fun after your first experience.
Oblivion and Morrowind, the changes in Skyrim are almost all improvements, and the mod support is better. You can smoothe out the edges of the older games, but it’s a long process I’m not interested in. I’ll stick with find memories.
Have you tried the mouse and keyboard mod for GoldenEye? I imagine it makes everything incredibly easy but it could be different enough to justify a playing one more time
Pretty much any jrpg for Gameboy, DS, PSP and PS2 (haven’t tried many newer). I loved them a lot as a kid/teen but now when I try to play them do I get bored very quickly… I think the audience is supposed to be kids and teens so I am not surprised I don’t enjoy them anymore
I get you. I’ve been going through a lot of “best of” lists for various consoles and it’s tough going back and playing them because they were obviously made for a younger audience and and having never played them as a kid I don’t really feel the same pull.
The Kirby games are a big one. I’ve seen a lot of recommendations but can’t really get into them.
I recently replayed Legend of Dragoon, and I’d do it again.
I tried to play Golden Sun again though, and it just has WAY too much dialogue. And not in a good way. Just lots of filler dialogue that doesn’t add depth; it just restates the story and what’s currently going on.
VOLCANO!
That’s where an emulator comes in handy, there’s a ton of text to fast forward through in golden sun.
I’m playing a Steam release of an old PC JRPG (Trails in the Sky) and it has the best feature ever…
A turbo button that doesn’t affect the sound of the game. Dialogue plays, music plays at the normal rate, no pitch shifting… it’s glorious.
I’d pay for any emulator that could support something like that for every game.
N64
Emulated maybe some games, but I just can’t with most games with the original controller. I grew up with it too, it’s just insane.
I played so much goldeneye that when someone fired it up almost 20 years later the controls were still in my muscle memory. I played fps on pc even back then so I knew the controller wasn’t ideal, but it worked well enough.
Haha, I played it quite a lot and I did not have the same experience! Respect to speed runners cause my goodness…
I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t revisit that still exists.
So things like Diablo 3 vanilla. man, fuck whoever thought of balance patching single player games.
or WoW BC, it’s the people and excess free time of youth that made it good so it will never exist again.
Maybe Shenmue 2 import. I finished that game without knowing a word of Japanese, that’s a lot of time investment I’m glade I made but wouldn’t want to repeat …
One of my hottest takes is I liked vanilla D3 better than what it became. Taking out trade and economy made all items feel worthless. Getting a primal ancient legendary just didn’t hit like finding a high end weapon in vanilla, or a high rune in D2.
the real money auction house was a mistake that ruined drops but I’m right there with you, I’d play day 1 D3 over the current mess if I could.
Yahhhh RMAH was a good idea in theory. In practice, having RMT harder to access and shadier works much better than building your game and its drop rates around an actual auction house. When I was young I hated RMT so it feels weird saying that.
