I tried playing Harvest Moon on the SNES today and having played Stardew Valley for hours, I thought I’d try and see how tolerable the original Harvest Moon was in comparison. I know and understand it is unfair because there’s a 20 year gap between Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley, while also discrediting Harvest Moon’s later entries since there’s more than one.
Harvest Moon to me is a bit hard to revisit. Having to get used to only carrying two tools at the same time, your farm doesn’t seem as big, you don’t have a way to know that you’re tired as readily, you just have to watch for the signs and the village you visit doesn’t seem as characteristic. It’s a basic farming sim, it has to start somewhere.
But Stardew Valley does so many things that it is easier to revisit.
OK, maybe a slight twist, but Left 4 Dead absolutely sucks vs. Left 4 Dead 2. Want L4D? Fine. Play it inside L4D2 with better guns and zombies.
There’s something different between the two that I can’t put my finger on. Like everything feels a lot more solid?
I personally have a lot more memories of L4D and it’s cast of characters over L4D2.
Oof, can not agree. I found the first one being much easier to palate, not having any of those sections where you have to collect a bunch of items into another item. Like fueling the car in the mall. Absolutely frustrating trash.
I was going to comment harvest moon after reading the title!
A lot of the older games for me. They’re just a lot harder. Like maybe they expect you to be willing to replay an area or a level over and over, getting a little farther each time until you beat it and I just don’t have the stamina for that anymore, or the time.
Newer games baby you, they increase the difficultly perfectly along side your ability growth. They might even make a level easier if you’ve failed twice. Older games don’t care if you’re having fun as much. There was less competition (fewer game choices) and more of a “gamers like this. If you don’t like it, you’re not a gamer” attitude, and now games want to attract everyone.
I have become such a baby about games. I want to have fun the whole time! I can’t handle failing over and over. I’d rather just read a book.
Same, this is how I got frustrated by Hades. I no longer have endless time to sink into a game to get good.
The “story” of Hades is that the guy you control gets better over time and finally escapes. How else can you convey it? With text (cardinal sin)?
I don’t think anyone is saying that the story of Hades isn’t portrayed well with the rougelike style, but it’s totally ok to say “I don’t have time to play a game that’s designed such that you fail dozens of times before you win”
I can’t even leave the starting room of the original System Shock. So glad the remake updated the controls.
I did manage to finish System Shock 2, but the “puzzles” are just RNG, so I’m hoping the remaster changes that and maybe even fixes the ending.
I just played the original System Shock and System Shock 2. Incredible games.
I saw the trailer for the remake for the first one and wanted one last memory before I get my mind blown.
The remake for the first game is so actuate to the original, you can use the old walkthough guides to beat it.
You could tell the ending was cut short for time with SS2. It would be nice if they took some creative liberties to bring it closer to what it was originally suppose to be.
This is ironic because I loved Prey but couldn’t finish SS2’s tutorial!
007 games. But the N64 soundtrack was great.
Esp given 007 on N64 varied so widely.
Idk how Goldeneye was ever playable yet it damn well was and the best!
Starcraft! I really think Starcraft Brood War is a better, more balanced game. The quality of life changes in Starcraft 2 make it so hard to go back to playing Brood War. I don’t know if I can adjust back to only selecting a lot amount of units or needing to click on each building to build stuff or not having smart-casting and good pathing.
Halo MCC version over the original.
I saw Halo running on a classic Xbox and tried to play with the clunky Xbox controller. Couldn’t do it. Everything looked so low res and blurry.
Dark Souls 1. Especially on PC it’s almost unplayable due to bad porting and DS3 and Elden Ring have refined the formula so much, it’s insane. The remaster is ok though, so I don’t know if that counts.
The original is rough yes, but I don’t know anyone that would play it over the Remaster these days. And the remaster is fine as far as playability goes. However, it’s still a candidate for this thread simply because the DS1 bosses will feel very anticlimactic for anyone who has played DS3/ER/Bloodborne/Sekiro.
I kind of prefer DS1 with DSFix to the Remaster, but I might be weird. I just think it nails the atmosphere better somehow.
I can’t see myself going back to the original Half-Life after playing Black Mesa. The changes to Xen alone are massive improvements.
Just started a playthrough of Black Mesa the other week after having played HL1 like fuck idk, 18 years ago? Barely remember it, but going through the levels I’m like “Oh yeah I remember this part, with the mine cart/train thingies”
Looked at screenshots of HL1 the other day and laughed that I will never play it ever again
Call of Duty: World At War Zombies
Every map in WaW zombies has been re-released at least twice. WaW zombies is cool because of how simple and barebones it is, but holy fucking hell that game was not coded for any sort of melee combat. The zombie bodies are so damn large, according to their hit boxes. Try to run past them but brush up against their pinky? Guess you’re done. Also for some reason the co-op splitscreen is not split vertically, and it’s not split horizontally, each of the two players just gets a quarter of the screen in a tiny box. Who knows why.
I love it to death but it’s real hard to go back to it.
The Battlefield franchise. I went back and played 1942, and disregarding the graphics, omg it’s so slow and clunky. It was the shit for the day, but man…compared to 2042 it’s super-dated.
Those old computer dungeon crawler games, like Wizardry or Might and Magic 1-2. Jesus, they’re absolute exercises in patience. You don’t even have to play anything very recent to see how poorly they aged, even SNES JRPGs of 1992-4 were much better.
Black Mesa & SystemShock-Remake
Almost.
From GTA to GTA san andreas are all a pain now because the control scheme is so outdated, The pcs ports are even worse because they have the shittiest jankiest controls imaginable but they had that from the start. GTA 4 is borderline unplayable because of the trash camera controls but that was true when it came out as well.
The original Metro 2033 is a bit of a slog to get through as well if you can even get it to run.
The older Final Fantasy games. I made a point of doing a playthrough of the NES version of FF1, and I’m glad I did. The increased difficulty over the GBA version is mostly better than the absolute lack of challenge in later versions, but the added content and qol improvements make it preferable to play a hardmode hack of the gba version in the future.
The NES FF2 is just too much. I lose stats? No thanks.
And I’m really glad the Pixel Remaster version of FF3 exists now, the NES version was pretty unpolished and glitchy.
I tried, but I just can’t go back and play Oblivion after playing Skyrim with all the quality of life mods. I’m waiting on the Skyblivion release to revisit it.
I agree, but going back to Morrowind is incredibly easy oddly. Oblivion was on the path to Skyrim, but Morrowind is in a totally different position.
Oblivion’s graphics did not age well, but just about everything else about it was better than Skyrim.
Better quest lines, better setting, better plot (probably, I never really get super far into the main quest of these games)…
The loading screens omg
I put hundreds of hours into that game and loved all 15 of them I spent actually playing
I could and i did. It was great. Sorry you couldn’t find a similar feeling.
Ps: nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh
I’d say TES as well, but with Oblivion > Morrowind. I had trouble getting used to it being more toward the RPG side than Action. But it’s rewarding if you see it through.
I couldn’t ever get into oblivion since skyrim was my first Bethesda game and a lot of oblivion felt like (to me) slightly janky skyrim. I was able to get into morroeind though because it was just so diffrent.
And I’m from the other end where I came from Morrowind and couldn’t get into Oblivion because it was so generic compared to the earlier game. Monsters leveling to the character made it so safe.
I remember when the monster that was spawning everywhere changed type I knew I had leveled up.
I actually did. After waiting 10 years for a new TES game after Skyrim, I got bored and installed Morrowblivion. Played that all the way through. Then I played Oblivion with some visual mods. It was still quite fun, though I didn’t do a full play through. If I hadn’t already done a full play through, then Oblivion would still be an awesome game after playing Skyrim.
I managed to play and enjoy Oblivion after Skyrim, but found a brick wall when trying Morrowind.
