Games Through Rose-Colored Glasses

[Nightingale]

There's a whole bunch of games from my childhood that I can still pick up and play (and had a blast with) regardless of how much time has passed since I tried them out for the first time or how much higher my standards for what a "good game" is -or is supposed to be- have risen since... namely, Secret Agent. I got addicted to it as a five-year-old kid and I still consider it to be a great side-scroller, despite how many more entries to the genre I have played in the meantime. It is just a good time-killer and I still love it.

But, of course, there's also games that I genuinely enjoyed back then but simply cannot play now. Games that have either aged horrendously, have been outdone by later additions to the genre or maybe -just maybe- weren't that great when I had them as a child and only now can I realize the fact. Like, I'm seriously pissed off that I cannot enjoy Sensible Soccer now, after it being one of the three games I would play the hell out of in my DOS-powered system in 95.

There's also weird middle ground titles for me. Games that I was kind of into as a kid and I'm still just kind of into now; they haven't improved nor gotten worst as my opinion changed on a lot of other topics. I think my pick for this one has to be Halloween Harry: a game my dad wanted to buy when we first got a 3 1/2 floppy disk drive on a shiny new Windows 95 PC (as opposed to our 5 1/4 floppy disk drive on our shiny, but heavily outdated first PC). I technically I still have that game, by the way... but the disks have gone MIA a long time ago and I doubt they would still be working right now (not that I have the required hardware to check that out).

But let me ask ya... has your opinion changed for the worst on a childhood favorite? Or maybe it has improved significantly on a game you neglected back then? Do tell us.

[lp0 on fire]

Some times I doubt it is nostalgia, at lease for me at times I can separate my self from modern mechanics and put my self in the midset of that time period (other then Doom/Wolf3d not using WASD....thank goodness for source ports).

Some times it can be annoying with out the stuff that makes life easier for us now in older games but normally I adjust.

Now there have been some games now that make me feel sick every now and then (well thte only one I know off hand is Minecraft, but it happened to me when playing early 3D games too).

I find it harmful (in a history of games sense) to judge older games by new(er) standards, other wise we fail to see the impact that game had on future games (assuming its one of the influence titles like Wofl3D/Doom) , Most people today would hate Citizen Kane but back in the day it was new it was fresh and is still quite influential these days.

[Grungie]

I think I got lucky with having really good games as a kid, so I can still go back and play them. I do go back and play retro games, particularly RPG's, and I try to see them on their particular merit for the specific time period, and it's interesting to see either historical revisionism towards some of these games. Idk if I'd classify this as revisionism, but something I found really weird was how Legend of Dragoon was a really popular game back when it came out, and when I checked, was the fourth best selling RPG on the PS1, but everyone and their grandmother who played the game acted like it was this hidden gem that nobody has ever heard of.

[Nightingale]

I find it harmful (in a history of games sense) to judge older games by new(er) standards, other wise we fail to see the impact that game had on future games (assuming its one of the influence titles like Wofl3D/Doom) , Most people today would hate Citizen Kane but back in the day it was new it was fresh and is still quite influential these days.

For me it is not a case of comparing, but a case of seeing how much of that game has become obsolete. Like, you can pick up and play Wolfenstein 3D and still have a blast with it despite the fact that we don't make maps like those anymore. That game has aged really well.

My point was that most others really haven't.

[lp0 on fire]

I find it harmful (in a history of games sense) to judge older games by new(er) standards, other wise we fail to see the impact that game had on future games (assuming its one of the influence titles like Wofl3D/Doom) , Most people today would hate Citizen Kane but back in the day it was new it was fresh and is still quite influential these days.

For me it is not a case of comparing, but a case of seeing how much of that game has become obsolete. Like, you can pick up and play Wolfenstein 3D and still have a blast with it despite the fact that we don't make maps like those anymore. That game has aged really well.

My point was that most others really haven't.

My point is that classic games can still suffer form not ageing well even if they revolutionized the market.
The issue is two fold:
1) As we age we start to like different things even if everything else stays static,
2) As we age things progress so even if we do not mean to we still subconsciously compare what we are doing to other things like it.

Here is a personal example of what I mean I spent 100s of hours in Just Cause 2, I enjoy it a lot (even if driving is shit) but after playing Just Cause 3, since it [just cause 2] is missing the Wing suit (especially with the jet pack DLC) it just feels more tedious to move around large distances and I lost some enjoyment I had in JC2 from the "Progress" of JC3.

Another example is HL2 back when it came out its physics were revolutionary and it showed off its physics engine via physics puzzles, people who are use to games today will not enjoy what HL2 brought to the market at the time, along with silent protagonists being more normal now. That takes a good portion away from Half Life.

[Grungie]

When it comes to looking at old games, you can come up with separate conclusions based off when the game came out and the standards for the time, and mention certain modern features that might hamper a modern gamer’s enjoyment of it. Some modern features can be negligible while others can be awkward.

Let’s look at the original Final Fantasy. Some stuff like only being able to save at an inn vs saving whenever can be a whatevs feature imo. Then you have a situation like how half the spells don’t work, or how there’s a good chance a level 1 spell can do more damage than a level 3 spell is where it can hinder an experience.

[Maniakkid25]

See, on the old forums, I had a blog post called "My Rose-colored Glasses are Tinted Jade". It's about how I hate the idea that games that are older are the best ones or that you love a game only because it was a game you grew up with. By all means, love the game, but be prepared to defend it or, if you're really honest, tear it to pieces. My childhood favorites like Digimon World 2 or Dark Cloud 2, or some of the older games that I like like Majora's Mask, SMT Nocturne, and Paper Mario I keep tempered with the brilliance I've seen in games like Halo 4 (before Spartan Ops ruined it), Titanfall 2, Vanquish, and Blue Dragon. It helps remind me that there's always a game that can impress. By all means, remember the games that revolutionized aspects of gaming. Remember what Ocarina of Time did for action-adventure, what System Shock 2 did for FPS RPGs, what Silent Hill and Resident Evil did for survival horror, and what Final Fantasy 7 did for JRPGs. But that doesn't mean that games can't come along to do what they did better.

WITH THAT SAID: actually, PM, Half-Life does still have something that a lot of newer games don't: good AI. For a game released nearly 20 years ago, it still has some of the best enemy AI on the market, and anyone with a thirst for a decent challenge from their enemies will find it there. I will never let people forget that the Combine Gunship has some of the most brilliant forms of accidental AI ever devised, and the AI itself has its moments of brilliance when given the chance to shine.

[Dragon Lord]

I've never had the problem of nostalgia clouding my vision of a game. I tear every game from my childhood to shreds. I can't think of one game that I don't have at least one criticism of.

Though that doesn't prevent me from enjoying them still. I can still go back and play most of the games from my childhood with no problem. The only ones I can think of that I can't go back and play are the original Spyro games, just because the controls have aged so horribly and they are awful. Though luckily that's going to be remedied in September.

[Moonface]

Crash Nitro Kart aged terribly control wise despite me remembering it to be better than it is.
Jak X was another, again with control problems.
Area 51 felt like a solid shooter but when I went back to it, it was terrible.

I can't think of an old game that I played where my opinion of it improved aside from feeling like it held up or was ahead of its time in the visual department. To me Crash Bandicoot 2 on PS1 still looks amazing for a game of its time.

[Kyng]

I guess the original RollerCoaster Tycoon falls into this for me. I played the heck out of it for a year, then RCT2 came out. Since that contained so many quality-of-life improvements over the original, I've found it very hard to go back to RCT1 ever since.

Then there's LEGO Island. I thought it was awesome when I was 7 years old. But, today? Just....no.

[Grungie]

what Final Fantasy 7 did for JRPGs. But that doesn't mean that games can't come along to do what they did better.

Tbh compared to those other games, Final Fantasy 7 has basically done the least in the actual act of doing something revolutionary. Outside of just the use of cutscenes, and popularizing pre-rendered backgrounds in RPG's. FF7's claim to fame was that it was just the one that got popular. Just taking a look at OOT, and compare that to LttP. You went from solving 2D top-down dungeons and Nintendo had to figure out how to do it in 3D and come up with 3D combat. FF7, despite having 3D polygonal characters, still mostly functioned the same as a 2D top-down RPG, and the battle system was basically unchanged since FF4. Storytelling wasn't that different from FF6 outside of using cutscenes.

You'll see examples like that in other genres or entertainment mediums where you'll see a "revolutionary" example really just being the one that made it popular.

[lp0 on fire]

See, on the old forums, I had a blog post called "My Rose-colored Glasses are Tinted Jade". It's about how I hate the idea that games that are older are the best ones or that you love a game only because it was a game you grew up with. By all means, love the game, but be prepared to defend it or, if you're really honest, tear it to pieces. My childhood favorites like Digimon World 2 or Dark Cloud 2, or some of the older games that I like like Majora's Mask, SMT Nocturne, and Paper Mario I keep tempered with the brilliance I've seen in games like Halo 4 (before Spartan Ops ruined it), Titanfall 2, Vanquish, and Blue Dragon. It helps remind me that there's always a game that can impress. By all means, remember the games that revolutionized aspects of gaming. Remember what Ocarina of Time did for action-adventure, what System Shock 2 did for FPS RPGs, what Silent Hill and Resident Evil did for survival horror, and what Final Fantasy 7 did for JRPGs. But that doesn't mean that games can't come along to do what they did better.

WITH THAT SAID: actually, PM, Half-Life does still have something that a lot of newer games don't: good AI. For a game released nearly 20 years ago, it still has some of the best enemy AI on the market, and anyone with a thirst for a decent challenge from their enemies will find it there. I will never let people forget that the Combine Gunship has some of the most brilliant forms of accidental AI ever devised, and the AI itself has its moments of brilliance when given the chance to shine.

AI is like working IT or working stage crew, when it is done well no one notices (in normal circumstances) when its bad every one notices and it ruins the experience.

@Kyng I have the opposite issue with RCT I spent so much time in 1 that I find it hard to play 2 (in terms of "Oh man I wish I could play Dynamite Dunes right now."
I need to find a way to play the RCT 1 maps in OpenRCT2 with RCT2 settings...

Oh man Lego Island I agree with, also holy crap how much nightmare fuel was in it...

[Moonface]

About a month or two ago I played through Jak 3 again because I got it on PS4, and it was not at all as good as I remembered it being. It almost feels like it wasn't finished or given the time it needed, with multiple missions happening with zero lead up to them. There's a Monk Temple in the game, and for no reason at all Jak goes to visit it and climbs to the top. Later, Jak randomly decides to destroy a shield on a Dark Maker ship but you have zero clue that that is what you are doing or did. You just explore this new area and take out some tank that explodes and then the mission just ends. At no point does the game explain what you actually did, and only through the mission select screen do you get told you destroyed a shield because the mission is called "Destroy Dark Ship shield". Another mission after this sees a character taking part who shouldn't be present; they are living out of the city in the wasteland, and even say they will not return to Haven City, yet suddenly they turn up for one mission then disappear again back to the wasteland. Finally, throughout the game you get given Dark/Light Eco Crystals, with zero context on what they do. Near the end of the game, Jak combines these off camera to make them into an orb to power something, but you have no clue the orb he holds is made from this. To the player it just looks like he plucked it out of nowhere. I never knew it was made from the crystals until I looked them up on the Wiki to find out what they actually do in the game. The story overall is also just a complete mess, and the desert vehicles drive like ass. I used to think this was the best Jak game and after that recent playthrough it's easily the worst one and easily Naughty Dog's worst game.

So what about you guys? Have you played any games that you thought are really good but actually your view was just skewed by rose-colored glasses as they say?

[Kyng]

Yeah, it happens to me too. One of the most memorable examples was when I was 11 years old.

About four years previously, I went around to a friend's house - and they introduced me to LEGO Island. Back then, it was a brand new game - and my 7-year-old mind was completely blown by it :O . I really wanted a copy for myself - but, sadly, it didn't run on the old computer that we had at our house . Still, I kept the game in mind - and resolved to get a copy once we had a better computer.

Eventually, we upgraded our machine - and, I made good on my promise to myself, and got a copy of LEGO Island. By now, the game was four years old... and, it hadn't aged well:



It wasn't a total disaster: I was still able to have some fun with the game... but, not nearly as much as I had hoped. By this point, LEGO had released much more modern games (like LEGO Racers 2), and this game just didn't stand up at all compared to those.

[Moonface]

@Kyng: Oh dear lord that first person biking sequence. I could barely stomach watching that let alone play it.

Ugh, I'm convinced that apart from the first game, nothing about Jak & Daxter as a series is as good as I thought. I just started Jak X and the driving is getting worse as the cars get faster and the tracks more complex. This is a series that never deserves a reboot and should stay dead. It has nothing worth bringing to today's world.