Games that poorly aged (no Animal Crossing examples please!)

[JCnator]

Ever remembered a game that you used to play while you were younger, but couldn't easily go back to it today? Have you tried a game that was heavily praised years ago, only to find out it's a flawed masterpiece?


Chances are, you've played a game that didn't aged as well as you hoped for. Perhaps one or more aspects (gameplay, visuals, and whatnot) was/were so revolutionary that any imperfection is unseen until we took the improvements from the more recent games for granted.



If you come across any poorly-aged video game that was considered good back in its heydays, do describe the reasons to support your opinion. A few things to keep in mind of, that we don't want examples from the Animal Crossing games and that just merely stating your opinion isn't going to contribute much to the discussion.

One excellent example of an "outdated" game I can give you is the 1987 Commodore 64 classic called The Last Ninja. It was considered to be one of the most successful games in the history of Commodore 64, most notably for its detailed isometric graphics, memorable music, and revolutionary gameplay. After all those years, does it really stand the test of time? I don't think it's still a masterpiece. It's more like a mass piece of garbage!

I'll have to give credit for it pushing the limits of Commodore 64 hardware and boasting a pretty solid presentation. The SID-styled musics are still a joy to hear and fit with the oriental-themed aesthetics quite nicely.
However, the gameplay is objectively very flawed if we take the today's expectations into consideration. The controls are too convoluted for a controller with one joystick and one button, there's too much reliance on pixel-perfect precision to connect hits and landing on solid ground, and the angle of view is a bit imprecise at times. If you aren't careful and/or looking on a walkthrough, it's even possible to get permanently stuck in one level and be forced to reset the entire game if you somehow missed certain items, since you can't backtrack to the previous levels.

For such a classic game, The Last Ninja has been an extremely disappointing experience for me.

 

[abbydoll]

RuneScape.

I would go into to detail but I'm guessing not many people play that game here lol and if they do, they know what I'm talking about. ~

 

[Zireael]

FFVII is one that sticks out in my memory. The game play is still fantastic in most places but lord, those graphics. Thankfully you can mod this game to hell and back so it doesn't look as ****ty, the cinematics still make me laugh though. I remembered them looking so good back in the day too, memory distorts things in strange ways.

For a more recent title: Twilight Princess. That game is just insanely ugly, period. I don't even know why Nintendo wasted their time with an "HD" remake. Even with the high res textures, it still looks like crap. But at least it plays well, Zelda games tend to remain solid in terms of gameplay and mechanics.

 

[-Apples-]

Pretty much a big deal of the games released during the N64/PS1 era. If you were used to the graphics we see today, you would realize how bad the graphics were in the N64/PS1 era. It looks blocky, a little more saturated, and in some places, foggy. And it's not just the graphics. It's also the gameplay. Like smaller levels, simpler tasks, cheesy controls, and outdated mechanics.

One game I can think of at the top of my head is Gex: Enter the Gecko. I didn't realize how small the levels were when I was a child, but now I can see how small they really are.

And it's not just the PS1/N64 games that are aging poorly. The PS2/GC/Xbox games are facing that fate too.

 

[Stalfos]

Star Fox. At one point this was my favorite game. Somehow it never really bottered me that the game drops down to 1 FPS at times, or I just never noticed.

Games like Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct (both by Rare btw) got loads of attention for their "ACM"-graphics. And yes, they looked fabulous for the time, but once you started seing through the shiny exterior you kinda noticed that those games where pretty mediocre, especially compared to the games they were inspired by. I can still enjoy the DKC-games though, they are by no means bad games.

Most early 3D-games (I'm looking at you 5th gen) looks like crap but I don't really mind as long as they're fun.

 

[MOON TRIPS]

yeah, def many N64 games.
I'm super blinded by nostalgia when it comes to the N64, but I can safely say several games on it that I played didn't age well.
the N64 Mario Tennis is......... no. GameCube trumped it with new play modes, courts, and everything. also the N64 version feels really sluggish sometimes. :/
the blocky models of the first 3 Mario Party games are... bad. I think 2 and 3 as games hold up pretty okay, but I also think every Mario Party up through 6 is pretty good. so maybe what I think doesn't matter much. :^)
but generally, graphics of N64 games don't hold up. Paper Mario is the only game I can think of that might hold up graphically. lol
early attempts at voice recognition are either memorable for being bad or not memorable at all. why did Mario Party 6 even have those dumb mic minigames? at least you could use buttons to play them, but still. def don't hold up today, for sure. the idea wasn't even good in the first place, honestly... and while I think Hey You, Pikachu! was hilarious, it wasn't good.

 

[Corrie]

Sonic Heroes. I don't know how I was able to deal with the slippery controls as a kid. Speed formation is awful to deal with.

 

[GreenLeaf]

speaking of nintendo 64 mine is sure super mario 64
the landscapes are so basic and ugly now... they seems unfinished to me
also the first myst for pc I like the story but...

 

[That Zephyr Guy]

FFVII is one that sticks out in my memory. The game play is still fantastic in most places but lord, those graphics. Thankfully you can mod this game to hell and back so it doesn't look as ****ty, the cinematics still make me laugh though. I remembered them looking so good back in the day too, memory distorts things in strange ways.

For a more recent title: Twilight Princess. That game is just insanely ugly, period. I don't even know why Nintendo wasted their time with an "HD" remake. Even with the high res textures, it still looks like crap. But at least it plays well, Zelda games tend to remain solid in terms of gameplay and mechanics.

I'd argue the opposite. To me a game that ages well isn't just a game that looks bad by today's standards. By that definition 99% of games have aged like milk.

I'd say a game that has aged very poorly is a game that was once very good but by today's standards is nearly unplayable.

The best example I can think of with this is GoldenEye. The game is revered as god's gift to couch multiplayer and one of the fathers of fps gaming, but pick it up now and the game is just... just awful. It's really only playable with a plethora of mods.


Another example that completely caught me off guard was Tales of Symphonia actually. When I first played it like 10 years ago it was one of the best games I had ever experienced - but now the combat system is just horrendously clunky and unenjoyable compared to newer games in the series.



A game that hasn't aged at all since it's release back in like 2003 is Wind Waker. The controls are still very tight, it's relatively bug free, and the graphics are stylized - so the visuals will never really "age".

 

[Zireael]

I'd argue the opposite. To me a game that ages well isn't just a game that looks bad by today's standards. By that definition 99% of games have aged like milk.

I'd say a game that has aged very poorly is a game that was once very good but by today's standards is nearly unplayable.

The best example I can think of with this is GoldenEye. The game is revered as god's gift to couch multiplayer and one of the fathers of fps gaming, but pick it up now and the game is just... just awful. It's really only playable with a plethora of mods.


Another example that completely caught me off guard was Tales of Symphonia actually. When I first played it like 10 years ago it was one of the best games I had ever experienced - but now the combat system is just horrendously clunky and unenjoyable compared to newer games in the series.



A game that hasn't aged at all since it's release back in like 2003 is Wind Waker. The controls are still very tight, it's relatively bug free, and the graphics are stylized - so the visuals will never really "age".

I made a point of saying that those games have aged poorly in terms of visuals, not gameplay. They're still highly playable by today's standards, but graphically? No, they haven't aged well. That comes naturally with the progression of video game technology. I do think aged visuals can hinder gameplay in some aspects though, I'll go back to FFVII as an example; I struggle now to differentiate between the background and foreground, or essentially which terrain is solid and which terrain is part of the pre-rendered background. It made some parts of the game a little confusing and clunky.

Oddly enough, I'd disagree with Symphonia aging badly. I played it only recently (literally last year) and it felt smooth enough to me. Sure, the Tales series has advanced significantly in terms of combat and Symphonia might feel dated in comparison, but it's by no means unplayable.

I do agree about Wind Waker though, that's a timeless classic done correctly. Most Zelda games hold up very well because the core elements have largely remained the same.

 

[KaydeeKrunk]

There was a picture that perfectly summed up the graphics thing but I can't find it, it was like an 8 Bit game and it says, "How it really looked" and then a super detailed artists rendering of it and it says "what my 8yo brain saw" or something like that, and that is totally how I feel, like I see Spyro graphics and other PS1 games i grew up with and I am like, omg why does it look so terrible, because back then THOSE WERE GOOD GRAPHICS and we like, filled it in with our minds, like I remember the games being MORE detailed, but really they were just trash graphics, it's kind of sad, but I like that they're making new versions because then you can really tell how much stuff has improved. =]

 

[Tao]

Practically any console FPS before duel analog sticks were a thing. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark specifically. I didn't like playing them at the time anyway pretty much due to how they control, so...

A lot of early 3D platformers, again, largely those before standards we set and (at least for Sony) before duel analog sticks. Megaman Legends is awful, Croc is a chore to play with its clunky tank controls, heck, even something like Bubsy 3D which was already awful is made worse from its heavily dated control scheme.



I think it would actually be easier to list the games from the 5th generation that did age well than those which didn't, even then, the list would mostly be 2D games and RPG''s.

 

[idiotdoomspiral]

sonic adventure and sonic adventure 2
why are people realising it's bad only recently

 

[Cheren]

Neopets.

It wasn't always bad, it just became bad. As one of the pioneers for web-based games, Neopets had so much going for it. I returned after the apocalypse last year only to realize nothing has really changed, but somehow it's still worse. It's kind of tragic, really.

 

[Kapriznyy]

Oh my gosh of course Commodore 64 games aged horribly. That should go without saying. I'd say the vast majority of NES, Atari, Amiga, etc games all fall under the "poorly aging" thing as well. I wouldn't have even thought to include them had C64 not been mentioned in the first post.

I think that, sadly, a lot of Playstation 1 RPGs have failed to age with any real grace. There are so many that, unless you have the nostalgia factor going, it's just... difficult to make yourself sit down and play them nowadays. Depending on the style of sprites used a lot of RPG Maker games also count for this - there are apparently a handful of games with quality stories but good lord the visual style is so harsh on the eyes that I can't play them long enough to find out. That's more of an issue with the age of the graphics than the game itself though...

 

[Captain Crazy Chicken]

Mario Sunshine.

 

[mondogecko9]

Mortal Kombat Ultimate 3 for the N64, I played the PS1 Version recently, and It was great! But on the other hand the N64 Version sucked, because of having to press several combinations of the C Buttons, and A/B. The over the top violence and the fact that it was even on the N64 was amazing, but my nostalgia masked the awful controls of the Poorly aged garbage.

A game that has aged amazingly is Tomba! for the Playstation 1. Very underated, but It got way better with age and stood the test of time.

 

[ApolloJusticeAC]

Fallout 1 and 2.

 

[RainbowCherry]

Already been said, but Sonic Adventure (DX too) aged very poorly imo. The only part of the game I think isn't rotten mush and literal **** is the final boss fight. Open Your Heart is catchy, and the boss fight is pretty good (especially the Generations version).

Zubo. I don't think anyone know this game, but it was a similar style to Pokemon 3v3s. You have three party members from a pretty large pool, and when I first played it it felt like one of the best games ever. It feels, strangely, very dated, even though it's only about 7-8 years old.

 

[pocky]

I'd say that most of the old games that tried to go for a realistic style ended up aging badly. In today's standards they don't look realistic at all and the style in graphics are usually not interesting enough to enjoy. So it just looks awkward.

The only old games that look good to this day are the ones with really cool/interesting stylistic choices. So for example:

Vanilla Skyrim (2011) looked awesome when it first came out, now it looks pretty mediocre. Whereas a game like Professor Layton and the Curious Village (2007) still looks amazing because of its stylistic choices even though the graphics are far simpler.

Obviously these are two very recent samples