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What games can you not get into because they feel too outdated?

Are there games that you tried but just couldn’t get into because they feel outdated?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!

Hazzard ,

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.

uriel238 ,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Emperor: Battle for Dune was a solid Westwood RTS but it only allowed for one-button controls, rather than the two-button system that arrived with Age of Empires 2 which dominated all RTS games since.

Also from AoE2 the idle peasant button.

SanguineBrah ,
@SanguineBrah@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Do you mean Dune II? Emperor was the 2001 reboot. Two button RTS controls were around since at least as early as Warcraft: Orcs and Humans in 1994.

uriel238 ,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yep. Starcraft came out in 1998 and had two-button controls, but Westwood’s Dune II rebalancing in Emperor did not. Two Button controls were there in Generals in 2003 (which was my staple at the time). I didn’t play Tiberian Sun.

otp ,

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.

Wizard_Pope ,
@Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Ashtear ,

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.

Lesrid ,

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.

Wizard_Pope ,
@Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world avatar

Similar to how “push dijkstra aside” leads to Geralt breaking his ankle in a really violent matter.

howrar ,

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.

otp ,

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

ChaoticEntropy ,
@ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk avatar

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.

metaballism ,

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.

otp ,

It does have a great story!

FuryMaker ,

Quite a few, but more recently:

Neverwinter Nights. Even the Enhanced Edition.

Diablo.

Other older RPGs just start off too slow, but that isn’t necessarily age related, but by design.

Morrowind, but only because I’ve lost where I was up to in my saved game from 3-4 years ago, not so much because of the mechanics; they didn’t bother me too much.

Empricorn ,

If I was offered a million dollars if I could continue where I left off in Morrowind (major, minor, side, or goals)… Yeah, I’ll be in tomorrow, boss.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Tony Hawk Pro Skater games that I can’t fully get into because they’re missing mechanics from the later games.

What mechanics is the new THPS1+2 remake missing besides being able to get off your board and walk around? Or do you just mean mechanics from other skate games like Skate or Session aren’t in it?

null ,

I don’t think they’re talking about the remake

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Yeah I think you’re right… I’m an idiot. 😵‍💫

otp ,

Not sure about 2, but even decades ago, I found it hard to go back to the original without manuals.

timo_timboo_ ,

Pokémon, actually. Just a month ago I wanted to play Soul Silver. But man, it is tedious. There’s so much slow dialog, long animations, and little inconveniences everywhere (even in the menus). And I feel like you also have to grind to progress, which I absolutely hate in games (but maybe I also just didn’t play well enough, whatever). So yeah, quite disappointed with it since I remember the 3DS games being quite fun.

ryathal ,

Pokemon is better with game shark style cheats. It’s way more fun to have the option to get 100x more xp, and force Pokemon to appear rather than grind a 1% appearance rate. Pokémon even made TMs reusable eventually, but you need cheats for that in the early games.

NoneYa ,

The new games are still the same way.

Quit holding my fucking hand and let me play the damn game already.

“This is a Pokémon and this is how you battle…”

Motherfucker, I’ve been playing these games since I was 7.

It took me so long to keep sticking with Sword and I just couldn’t. I just wanted to hop into the world and catch some Pokémon, battle, and discover the world.

BillyTheSkidMark ,

I haven’t played since ORAS, but I think they’ll always have those tutorials cause they’re targeted at kids. Like I was playing the original at 10 and now my kids starting to get into Pokémon at 6.

I feel like they should allow an “adult” version though. Like no hand holding and harder.

It’s wild how little the most financially successful franchise of all time has innovated.

JokeDeity ,

I’ve always wanted there to be an option when you start a new Pokemon game that just lets you say “I’ve played Pokemon before let me get into it”, it really is a pain in the ass as an adult.

BillyTheSkidMark ,

Ironically another draw y for emulators over the two thing. Just speed up the boring bits 8x

carnimoss ,
@carnimoss@lemmings.world avatar

I feel like after BotW and TotK, older 3D Zelda games seem clunky yet easy. I can’t get used to the cameras in OoT and MM it feels so stiff as opposed to an old game like Kingdom Hearts where the first game aged well and the controls are still good.

sgibson5150 ,
@sgibson5150@kbin.social avatar

These days, for me the absolute minimum is full controller support due to the wife acceptance factor. She loved Dragon Age Inquisition so we tried to play Origins a couple years ago, and even though I'd cloned the displays, me sitting behind her at my computer instead of next to her on the couch was a deal breaker.

There are other plusses in terms of WAF, full voice narration and a good story being chief among them. There's a reason the only soulslike I've ever really played is Fallen Order. 😆

For me playing alone (which I almost never do anymore), one example I can think of is trying to go back to Dark Age of Camelot after playing WoW for a while. That was...painful.

all-knight-party ,
@all-knight-party@kbin.run avatar

I'm curious how your wife might enjoy the Xbox 360 version of Dragon Age Origins. It's a shame they didn't patch the PC version so that you could use that interface.

sgibson5150 ,
@sgibson5150@kbin.social avatar

Thanks to the modding community we were able to play Mass Effect as if it were running on console many years before the Legendary Edition was available.

Valmond ,

Zork I guess. Or IDK.

Fiivemacs ,

Anything with consoles as the primary focus. You know the games, the ones where the controls suck if you don’t use a controller…like witcher, and all those dark souls copy/paste clones. Cameras are too jank

ImplyingImplications ,

Personally, the earlier Witcher games. Great story, but it’s trapped in an old RPG missing all kinds of modern features and mechanics.

canis_majoris ,
@canis_majoris@lemmy.ca avatar

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.

stardust ,

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.

LaserTurboShark69 ,

The UI in the Witcher 2 is awful

Psythik ,

Starfield

DoucheBagMcSwag ,

Damn! Burn

amio ,

Morrowind was always this for me. I started the series with Oblivion and Skyrim. Those have their own issues, but at least you hit things when you hit them, and their leveling systems won't actually screw you over if you don't Excel it correctly.

SMB 1 and 2. The SMB1 engine was revolutionary, but I hate the controls. SMB2, the Western one, just never felt like Mario, even back then. I also mostly started on SMB3 which had much better platforming and controls and was actually a Mario game, so that's probably why.

I consider myself, more or less, a "Zelda fan", at least from LttP to about half of Wind Waker. I will never play the first two NES games, though. Aside from 2 being "pretty much not zelda", 1 is so full of arbitrary wonk, "Guide dammit", and "Nintendo hard" that I don't feel like it even for historical purposes.

prole ,

Zelda II is dope. You’re missing out.

nyakojiru ,
@nyakojiru@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Life

MxM111 ,

Not to be confused with John Conway’s the game of life. That one is fine, a classic.

all-knight-party ,
@all-knight-party@kbin.run avatar

I dunno man, Conway's Game of Life has a quite boring endgame, I must say.

MxM111 ,

Yes, but absolutely no grind.

ryathal ,

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.

DoucheBagMcSwag ,

Have you tried Tifa’s Bootleg? There are mods that can drastically improve the graphics

DadVolante ,
@DadVolante@sh.itjust.works avatar

Modded FF7 on PC ruined PS1 FF7 for me. Wonderful stuff. 7th Heaven is such a joy.

tal ,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

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:

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.

kayazere ,

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.

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