Nostalgia: Failure and Success

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Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Nostalgia is failing me here and there, and I wanted to see who might share feelings, either on these games or some of their own attempts to recapture magic of the old days (maybe with GoG or even remakes/reboots of franchises).

There were games I loved in my adolescence that just aren't doing it for me when I try to go back to them. I've mentioned some elsewhere.

Turok 2: I don't know how I ever controlled a FPS on the damn N64 controller, let alone played it in splitscreen with two siblings. No wonder we banned playing the monkey; who could ever aim with this shit?

Conker's Bad Fur Day: Shockingly not as funny for me as it was 10 years ago. I end up just making a "really?" face at the TV more often than not. The controls suck. The multi-player isn't fun without my siblings maiming each other.

Legend of Dragoon: This was one of my most sought after games to be released on PSN... and I'm just bored. It's nowhere as good as I remembered.

But then there are games that have held up. Parasite Eve was just as great as I'd remembered, even if it was a bit easier as an adult. Rogue Squadron II on Gamecube actually improved a lot for a game I hadn't picked up since the week I bought it. I'd probably play it more if it weren't so stingy with lives.

This kind of uncertainty has made me wary of re-purchasing old games. I'm sad about selling Earthbound, but I have to wonder if I'd have really sat and played it again from start to finish and enjoyed doing so. Do I really want Banjo-Kazooie or am I going to find disappointment? And then there's the Final Fantasy series... much as I want to experience FFVI and FFVII again, I can't help but feel I'll be bored compared to RPGs with much more interesting gameplay and NO GRINDING (thanks Bioware, Bethesda).

(I didn't count games that I never stopped playing/replaying since adolescence, like Zelda: OoT or Final Fantasy Tactics.)

Anyone have opinions on any of these? Stories of your own (good and bad)?
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Yup. Some games fail hard on replaying them X years later. Some hold up really well. I own about half of the GOG catalogue (well, of the old ones - their newer games not so much).

In general, I'd say it's about 50/50 on nostalgia turning out OK or not. It's often interface that annoys me the most. It's weird, but little things really do matter; some games I simply can't play anymore because the control scheme is so damn impossible. Otherwise, obviously, the games that were cool for "oohh graphics" and "omg action" tend to be a let-down, mostly. Some older action games are still a frickin' hoot, though.
Often, though, it depends on personal taste. For example, I think Dungeon Keeper holds up very well; it's easier, to me, now than it was back then, but I'm an adult now, so it's not surprising. Dungeon Keeper 2 I can't replay as the graphics just hurt my eyes, oddly enough.
Might and Magic V, VI and VII hold up well for me. Heroes of Might and Magic III is still a favourite of mine and is genuinely better, gameplay-wise, to me, than IV, V or VI.
I'll try to think of some more :)
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Well, that would be AoE II, MoO II, and most of Diablo II. Also, I'm sure Lemmings! should be on that list, as well as You Don't Know Jack!

--Patrick
 
Frank

Frank

I played through Earthbound not too long ago. It's still as wonderful, charming and bizarre as you remember. It was to me anyway. And it's a God damn shame it's been as neglected as it has been by Nintendo. It's easily my favorite Nintendo IP.

I still regularly play through Fallout and Star Control II because they are still two of the absolute best games of all time.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I never played Earthbound, so I don't have any nostalgia to fall back on. I decided to finally give that game a try just a few months ago, and was instantly enamored. It definitely holds up to today's standards, it just oozes character. They could release the game as-is on DS or something, and it would sell.
 
Frank

Frank

Ravenpoe said:
I never played Earthbound, so I don't have any nostalgia to fall back on. I decided to finally give that game a try just a few months ago, and was instantly enamored. It definitely holds up to today's standards, it just oozes character. They could release the game as-is on DS or something, and it would sell.
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Nintendo did a whole Mother collection in Japan and as Nintendo is wont to do with the franchise, ignored North America. The music is always given the blame (yet Mega Man 1 has been recollected and released on Virtual Console etc and that game is almost entirely lifted music) but I no longer buy that shit.
 
Frank

Frank

Illusion of Gaia (as someone corrected me when I made the same mistake after talking about how much I liked the game), and no.

Illusion of Gaia is part of the Quintet Quintology included Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, Actraiser and Actraiser 2. All fantastic games, except some people say Actraiser 2, but I've never played it to know.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Frank said:
Illusion of Gaia (as someone corrected me when I made the same mistake after talking about how much I liked the game), and no.

Illusion of Gaia is part of the Quintet Quintology included Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma, Actraiser and Actraiser 2. All fantastic games, except some people say Actraiser 2, but I've never played it to know.
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Weird; I thought Illusion of Gaia was related to Secret of Evermore.
 
ThatGrinningIdiot!

ThatGrinningIdiot!

mr_thehun said:
Illusion of Gaia isn't SOE. IoG is more like LoZ except you can turn from being a boy with a floot to a knight with a sword into a shadow that shoots shadowy things...

I liked the setting in IoG, at least I remember liking the story in IoG.
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You're kind of preaching to the choir here. I've played Soul Blazer, Terranigma, and Illusion of Gaia, but have only beaten two of the three.

The three characters you mentioned? Will, Freedan, and Shadow. :p
 
Tress

Tress

Recently I played FFVI again after a few years, and it holds up. It has some charm to it that can't be put into words, something that really sets it apart from most other games.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

FF IV and VI still hold up for me, though I replay them once every couple of years, anyway, so not much time passes. I never got to play Chrono Trigger or Earthbound on SNES, and only played them on emulators, but love them both.

Actraiser 2 is, indeed, a disappointment. They removed the sim elements to it and kept only the side-scrolling action, which removed most of the charm and enjoyment for me.

Personally, I find all the games I played in my youth hold up. Nightshade, the Mario games, Link to the Past (I was never a fan of the NES ones for whatever reason), Battletoads (despite its stupidly high difficulty). I recently played through Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father for the first time in many years and that still holds up very well. One series I'd like to try playing again are the games like Shadowgate, Deja Vu, and The Univited. I used to love those.

One obscure game that likely no none here played (or maybe even heard of) is a PC adventure game called Noctropolis. Really cheesy voice and video acting, but I always enjoyed it. Sadly, the CD copy of it I held onto for many years stopped working (previously played sounds kept overlapping over current sounds/speeches). I've sadly never found a good, working copy of it again. :(

I have to wonder how many of today's games will hold up to time as well as the ones we grew up on have held up. How many kids today will look back at Call of Duty Black Ops fondly and play it again 20 years from now?
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

ThatNickGuy said:
FF IV and VI still hold up for me, though I replay them once every couple of years, anyway, so not much time passes. I never got to play Chrono Trigger or Earthbound on SNES, and only played them on emulators, but love them both.

Actraiser 2 is, indeed, a disappointment. They removed the sim elements to it and kept only the side-scrolling action, which removed most of the charm and enjoyment for me.

Personally, I find all the games I played in my youth hold up. Nightshade, the Mario games, Link to the Past (I was never a fan of the NES ones for whatever reason), Battletoads (despite its stupidly high difficulty). I recently played through Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father for the first time in many years and that still holds up very well. One series I'd like to try playing again are the games like Shadowgate, Deja Vu, and The Univited. I used to love those.

One obscure game that likely no none here played (or maybe even heard of) is a PC adventure game called Noctropolis. Really cheesy voice and video acting, but I always enjoyed it. Sadly, the CD copy of it I held onto for many years stopped working (previously played sounds kept overlapping over current sounds/speeches). I've sadly never found a good, working copy of it again. :(

I have to wonder how many of today's games will hold up to time as well as the ones we grew up on have held up. How many kids today will look back at Call of Duty Black Ops fondly and play it again 20 years from now?
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I feel like sprite rpg's hold up a lot better than early polygon rpg's. I know everyone loves FFVII, but I only played it for the first time a few years ago, and I do not think it has aged well at all.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

I tried to play FFIV again, the new DS version. Looks good and I felt the story more since you can see the body language of the characters (plus voices), but the random battles annoyed the hell out of me. Which is why I worry over FFVI.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Quotemander Prime said:
I tried to play FFIV again, the new DS version. Looks good and I felt the story more since you can see the body language of the characters (plus voices), but the random battles annoyed the hell out of me. Which is why I worry over FFVI.
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You still have random battles, but they're way toned down in frequency from IV. IV is the worst offender of that (aside from maybe FFI)

Seriously, play FFVI for just 10 minutes, and just see if you can put it down.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

FFVI I think is generally regarded as the pinnacle of the series, and for good reason. I own every single FF series game except for the second MMO one. (insert my usual rant about how much it pisses me off that the MMOs were in the numbered series...grrrrr)

FFVI still holds up incredibly well.

Also, Tales of Phantasia still holds up really well.

One game that I remember loving but just could not get back into is Y's. Combat via running into things is just not fun at this point.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

While I do still love FFVI (certainly more than anything after VII), I've always held a fondness for FFIV, more. I guess my problem with VI is the story pacing takes a nose dive after the end of the world. Then, the story is pretty much, "Collect all your friends, go fight bad guy!" Before that, it was this huge, non-stop, world-trotting adventure. Which I suppose is part of the point, to get across that bleakness, but there isn't much story after that, either.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Some people view that like FFXIII, that you have to play through the linear stuff until you get to the "real" game.

Which is fucking wrong because FFXIII SUCKS.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Tress said:
Uh, yeah. I don't think spoilers apply here.
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There are people in this very thread who have said they haven't played it and are thinking about it. I have played it, nothing was spoiled for me. I'm just saying there are others who might want to enjoy it, since they've said as much.
 
Bumble the Boy Wonder

Bumble the Boy Wonder

Even still.. It's 20 years old, maybe Nick hadn't read all the posts in this thread? He shouldn't have to worry about spoiling something that happened decades ago, no offense to those that may have had it spoiled. Also, our princess is in another castle.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Bumble the Boy Wonder said:
Also, our princess is in another castle.
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Fucking spoilers, dude!

For whatever reason, when I was a teen the fact that FFVI got to "that point" was common knowledge even to those who'd only played FFVII. Since the details of how it got there were a mystery, it wasn't considered much of a spoiler, just a neat twist considering most games are trying to avoid that even at the end, yet it's really only halfway through the plot of that game (even if the plot beyond there is largely optional).
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

FFVI has aged well, though I do recommend getting the GBA re-release if you can. It's got more content and fewer bugs. Evasion actually works for one.

Personally, I think Final Fantasy 7 holds up still, even if it needs a graphical update. The Materia system is STILL the best equipment system they've done, in that it let you customize your characters without taking away what made them really special (their Limit Breaks). Some people complain about the story, but it's actually quite good if you get what it's actually about. The producer of the game lost his mother during development, which drove him to make a story about how the people in your life never really leave it, even if they are dead. This introduced concepts like the Lifestream, Mako, and affected most of the cast in major ways. It's actually quite deep, but it's also very subtle when compared to the saving the world stuff.

In a way, the subtle stuff from 7 is a lot like the major plot in 12, which probably explains why I like Final Fantasy 12 so much.
 
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