Late to the party and dealing with hyped games

[Dalisclock]

I've mentioned a couple times before that I'm one of those people who never played Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the N64. Chiefly because I didn't see the N64 as worth it at the time so I passed the whole thing by. However, for years I've heard that LoZ:OoT was one of the "Best Games EVER!" and I always had a curiousity about why it's regarded as such.

So I finally broke down and got the 3DS remake version and I played it with the mindset of comparing it to other games from the late 1990's and other Zelda games I've played(LoZ,Z2 and Link to the Past). So much of the first half of the game was "It's Good, but nothing amazing". However, since around the water temple it's definitely dug it's claws into me and I'm starting to get those Zelda vibes I remember from playing the other games years ago.

That being said, I suspect it will never be the same for me having not played it 20 years ago. Partially because I'm in my mid-30's and not a kid/young adult anymore(I played Link to the past when I was like 10), partially because the game is no longer new and fresh anymore.

However, the big thing that kept coming back to me is that I remember playing Link to the Past on the SNES and I beat the game multiple times, so much that I have a decent amount of that game burned into my memory somewhere(taking up space that should have been used to learn how to do calculus), and Zelda is nothing if not iterative. A lot of what OoT does well was done in LttP, or is a notable derivation from it. And that's not a dig against the game, because Link to the Past was good and fun and a classic SNES game. It's just that OoT basically took LttP and remade a lot of it for 3D, adding some new mechanics but essentially feeling like evolution rather then a revolution. They took a good game, used it as a foundation to build another good game from, which is still a win. It's just not the Game of All Time it's made out to be by some fans.

And on a side note, the Infamous Water Temple isn't nearly as awful as I've always heard it is. Yes, I'm aware of the issue with the iron boots in the original version, but as far as level design goes, it's really not that bad, especially when compared to other temples in the same game, let alone other games from the same era(The Cistern from Tomb Raider...which, BTW, can fuck right off). That and, again, Link to the Past also had a dungeon where you had to change the water level over and over again to proceed.

Anyway, where I'm gong with this is that it's been an interesting experience jumping into a revered classic for the first time a long ways down the road, bereft of any Nostalgia googles. I hadn't played any Zelda games more recent a Link to the Past though I've kept some awareness of the series in mind.

With that said, I'd like to hear other peoples experiences along these lines. What Classic/Amazing/Revolutionary games did you not play until years down the road and how did you feel about them now that the luster of newness has worn off?

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

I've mentioned a couple times before that I'm one of those people who never played Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the N64. Chiefly because I didn't see the N64 as worth it at the time so I passed the whole thing by. However, for years I've heard that LoZ:OoT was one of the "Best Games EVER!" and I always had a curiousity about why it's regarded as such.

It's ok, I think many N64 owners realised the majority of people felt that way towards it, you're certainly not alone. A shameful moment of human history, but in solidarity we can overcome it together.

I 'member it being the first game exposed to that let you play music as an integral part of the story, alongside it feeling like an actual grand explorative adventure with your own loyal horse and a soundtrack full of mysticism and charm. Those were wonderful to experience for the first time, but can understand anybody going through it now cannot feel that way, naturally. Personally I've no desire to return to it, having served its' much appreciated purpose and there is a lot more new experiences yet to be had. More games should let you play music though. And provide a horse friend. That can be called with said music.

 

[Hawki]

I can think of a few:

-BioShock: Love it. Very solid game in gameplay and story.

-Command & Conquer games: This is me being lazy, but basically, while the first CnC game I played was Tiberian Dawn, the first one I owned was Tiberium Wars, which stands as my favourite in the series. I went back and played the old games through the CnC collection. Still, I like them. I actually like the EA ones more, believe it or not (bar Tiberian Twilight, for somewhat obvious reasons), but they still hold up (though I really don't get the love for Generals).

-Diablo & Diablo II: Okay, again, kind of cheating, as I briefly played D2 when it came out, but didn't 'properly' play them until D3 came out. I'd originally planned to go straight into D3, but as fans lost their collective minds after its release, I thought it best to play the early games.

D1 is very solid, and holds up...mostly. It's irritating that you have to walk everywhere, and the 'story' is barely worth discussing, but it's carried by its atmosphere, and sense of survival/horror. D2 however...I'm sorry, I get that being objective, it's better than D1, and I agree that it's a "good" game, but I just don't enjoy it. I didn't enjoy it when it came out, and I don't enjoy it now. I get that a lot of people love it, but I just don't feel it. D3's my favourite in the series, and even then it's a case of "like" rather than "love."

-Half-Life 2: It's...okay. It's fine. It's average. I think it's overrated as fuck (though granted, "overrated" is a term that's used far too losely), but...it's enjoyable. Just don't get the hype.

-League of Legends: Okay, fun fact, my order of MOBA playing goes DotA 1-Strife-Heroes of the Storm-LoL. Of that bunch, HotS is still my favourite, but League...yeah, it's mostly enjoyable. Different feel from HotS. Not a game I "love," but it's the top dog of its genre (least in terms of market share), and I can see why.

-The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Played this for the first time with its GBA re-release. And...yeah, I don't get the love for it. I mean, I get why it's considered groundbreaking, if only because a plenthora of 2D Zelda games use it as a template, and it does hold up, but I don't get why it's so beloved. I mean, it's story is easily the weakest of the 2D Zeldas (that I've played), and I dare you to name one thing LttP does that A Link Between Worlds doesn't do better. While not my least favorite LoZ game, it does hover fairly low on my list.

-Super Metroid: Played this on my 3DS. And...yeah. I like it. That said, I like Zero Mission and Fusion a lot more, but they still use this game as a template, so good on it for that.

-Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Another theme here in that everyone and their mother seems to love this game, and swear it's the best game in its trilogy and the series as a whole, and...yeah. I mean, I enjoyed it, but it was average. Nothing special for me. I liked it more than the original PoP, so I guess it technically is the best PoP game I've played, so...yay?

-Quake: Yep. Played it. Slightly a net positive, but I have no desire to go back to it. Doom holds up far better for me.

-World of Warcraft: Not that I've played it for long, but, yeah. At the end of the day, MMOs aren't my thing, and while I did enjoy LotRO, and while I do remain invested in the Warcraft universe, I can't get into WoW. I'd rather just have Warcraft IV.

-Xenoblade Chronicles: Played this on the 3DS long after the Wii release, and...holy shit. Love this game - got a spot in my top RPG and top overall games list. I mean, the world and story are bonkers, but it's all endearing enough (along with the gameplay) that I loved it all the same.

 

[Hawki]

On a related note, if we're discussing OoT...okay, it was the first LoZ game I played, so there is that. Plus, it was a bona fide experience. I can get why people might have trouble playing it today. It does take the #3 spot on my LoZ list...

But again, I've never understood the love for A Link to the Past, at least in retrospect. LttP might hold up gameplay-wise, but it's so lacking in story, character, and...soul, for me. The point where you get to the Dark World it's basically a case of "yeah, like, go rescue the maidens, who have no personality whatsoever, in seven dungeons that look identical bar that one underneath Thieves' Town," because you've got to defeat this guy who's evil because...reasons, who turns out to be controlled by another evil guy because...reasons." Compare that to OoT, where each sage has personality (well, maybe not Raaru), where Hyrule feels like an actual world with actual history (not to mention how each temple has a clear theme), where we get actual narrative themes in the game (primarily the loss of innocence and the nature of time itself). Even Ganondorf has more of a presence - not exactly a deep villain, but still better than "evil pig guy who's evil."

I'm not going to claim that OoT is the best game ever, especially when it's not even the best game in its series (for me), but even while I can understand that for some the gameplay of LttP is enough to elevate it, again, I point to A Link Between Worlds. I get that LttP is the template, but if one had the two games side by side, would anyone claim that LBW is inferior?

And before you say anything, yes, I have seen the Sequelitis video on OoT. I can appreciate the arguments, even if I'm on the opposite of the spectrum from what I want in a LoZ game.

 

[Saelune]

And on a side note, the Infamous Water Temple isn't nearly as awful as I've always heard it is. Yes, I'm aware of the issue with the iron boots in the original version, but as far as level design goes, it's really not that bad, especially when compared to other temples in the same game, let alone other games from the same era(The Cistern from Tomb Raider...which, BTW, can fuck right off). That and, again, Link to the Past also had a dungeon where you had to change the water level over and over again to proceed.

Because the 3DS version fixed the Temple. They made navigating it more clear with those colored lines, and made the Iron Boots an item you can assign. In the N64 version, those lines either were not there, or not clearly there, and you had to pause and go into your character screen every time you wanted to change your boots.

 

[Dalisclock]

My most relevant example of this topic would have to be Deus Ex: GOTY edition. I only added a mod for HD resolution, so I was technically still playing the original version.

My thoughts were that it was both outstanding and incredibly dated at once.

Outstanding for its immense legwork in terms of visionary storytelling and technically compelling gameplay systems, making it feel like a deeply intricate cyber-politico-punk conspiracy novel adaptation that puts you right in the protagonist?s shoes with a smorgasbord of cool tools to use as you see fit, and often leading to some of gaming?s earliest self-authored moments. The original design document [https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/5g9jmd/the-original-deus-ex-design-document-is-fascinating-reading] is in itself a testament to how forward-thinking its creative leads were. That they pulled most of it off, especially for its time is truly exceptional.

Dated because aside from the obvious it has far, far since been surpassed in terms of gameplay mechanics, and as an actual shooter it is pretty god-awful. Like, in terms of games with guns and aiming involved I?d almost rather play DNF. Outside of an occasional LAM or sniper shot I stealth melee?d my way through 95%+ of enemy encounters; at least until the last few levels when my aiming felt like actual aiming.

What game designed for exclusive use on PC with a mouse input makes the player wait nearly a half dozen seconds for a cursor to zero in on a target when said target is already zeroed in on by the player?!? Did I mention with a mouse input no less. I get that they were pushing the ?upgrade your aiming? angle for your augmentations, but that was too much. Maybe there?s a mod I could?ve installed for that but wanted to play the game as originally intended.

For anyone who missed it but is at least intrigued, if you play a stealth approach it becomes much more playable, and the shooting gets ?better? if upgraded enough along the way. The game is undoubtedly worth a run-through for the experience as a whole.

 

[CaitSeith]

Yeah. I like how much it was inspired by LttP and Link's Awakening. It took concepts from those games and expanded them.

OT: Omitting the countless SNES games I played for the first time through emulator...

Persona 4. I kept hearing good things about it. Just played it this year, and now is one of my favorites JRPG/High-schooler simulators (and the soundtrack is epic!)

Shadow of the Colossus. I played first time in the PS3 remake a couple of years ago (bundled with ICO), and I also saw how far games have come since then, and yet it still is a decent baseline for an open-world game.

ICO. That didn't age that well (except the boss fight), but I could clearly see how Naughty Dog got inspired from it for the Uncharted series.

Mass Effect trilogy. It was 2015. Until then, Mass Effect and everything related to it had been in the periphery of my radar. But then I noticed a lot of complaining about ME3 ending (and lots of people complaining about people still complaining). So I decided to play the whole trilogy and decide by myself if the ending was as bad or they were just exaggerating. I... already wrote more than enough about the ending; but, despite of all its flaws, the previous 80 hours were some of the most enjoyable I had played.

Portal. I played it the first time in 2013 and found it surprisingly fun.

Assassin's Creed. I played it the first time in 2013 and found it surprisingly boring.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The origin of the tried-and-tested Metroidvenia formula. It still holds pretty well.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

And on a side note, the Infamous Water Temple isn't nearly as awful as I've always heard it is. Yes, I'm aware of the issue with the iron boots in the original version, but as far as level design goes, it's really not that bad, especially when compared to other temples in the same game, let alone other games from the same era(The Cistern from Tomb Raider...which, BTW, can fuck right off). That and, again, Link to the Past also had a dungeon where you had to change the water level over and over again to proceed.

Because the 3DS version fixed the Temple. They made navigating it more clear with those colored lines, and made the Iron Boots an item you can assign. In the N64 version, those lines either were not there, or not clearly there, and you had to pause and go into your character screen every time you wanted to change your boots.

The biggest fix was one tiny little thing actually. They added a short little cutscene for when you change the water level when inside the central pillar of the temple so that it shows that there is a room at the bottom of it that is covered by a block when the water is low. All of the things you mentioned are indeed great improvements but I think that that one little change got rid of one of the biggest sticking points for that temple.

 

[Hawki]

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The origin of the tried-and-tested Metroidvenia formula. It still holds pretty well.

Pretty sure it was Metroid that did that (or specifically Super Metroid).

 

[Casual Shinji]

Shadow of the Colossus. I played first time in the PS3 remake a couple of years ago (bundled with ICO), and I also saw how far games have come since then, and yet it still is a decent baseline for an open-world game.

If you're talking about graphics, sure, but in almost every other regard SotC is pretty much in a league of its own. The way it handles interaction with bosses is something no other game has even come close to in all these years.

 

[sXeth]

Bioshock for me. Certainly not terrible, or even below average. But lots of minor issues in it (or major in the case of the obnoxious hacking game and goofy photography thing). Audiologs are a dull and inconsistent approach to presenting story. Human enemies that can just eat bullets to the head like candy and spammy nonsense spawning. Towards the end it goes full on Dark Souls 2 where you do something ludicrous to get around a locked door, which isn't even reflected in the gameplay.


In a somewhat inverted case. Final Fantasy 8. Yeah the story's not even great without its asspull nonsense twist, but I could count the good Final Fantasy stories on less then one hand. Drawing might be grindy junk but compared to some of the levelling elsewhere in the series its downright quick and clear-cut in effect. I wouldn't recommend it or anything, but OMGWorstgameEver is a little overblown.

 

[Dalisclock]

ICO. That didn't age that well (except the boss fight), but I could clearly see how Naughty Dog got inspired from it for the Uncharted series.

Assassin's Creed. I played it the first time in 2013 and found it surprisingly boring.

I played ICO for the first time a few years ago. I found it fine and solid but not great. I replayed it again a few months ago and my opinion has held. It was interesting considering I played the Last Guardian soon after and felt it was a much better ICO then ICO was. Also, ICO apparently served as an inspiration(one of many) for the Souls games.

I played Assasins Creed around the time it came out and yeah, I wasn't terribly impressed by it. It's the only game in the series I have no interest in replaying ever.

 

[Something Amyss]

I never played Super Mario 64 until it came out on DS. I know there are changes and whatnot, but I don't really care. I had fun with it

 

[Dalisclock]

On a related note, if we're discussing OoT...okay, it was the first LoZ game I played, so there is that. Plus, it was a bona fide experience. I can get why people might have trouble playing it today. It does take the #3 spot on my LoZ list...

But again, I've never understood the love for A Link to the Past, at least in retrospect. LttP might hold up gameplay-wise, but it's so lacking in story, character, and...soul, for me. The point where you get to the Dark World it's basically a case of "yeah, like, go rescue the maidens, who have no personality whatsoever, in seven dungeons that look identical bar that one underneath Thieves' Town," because you've got to defeat this guy who's evil because...reasons, who turns out to be controlled by another evil guy because...reasons." Compare that to OoT, where each sage has personality (well, maybe not Raaru), where Hyrule feels like an actual world with actual history (not to mention how each temple has a clear theme), where we get actual narrative themes in the game (primarily the loss of innocence and the nature of time itself). Even Ganondorf has more of a presence - not exactly a deep villain, but still better than "evil pig guy who's evil."

I'm not going to claim that OoT is the best game ever, especially when it's not even the best game in its series (for me), but even while I can understand that for some the gameplay of LttP is enough to elevate it, again, I point to A Link Between Worlds. I get that LttP is the template, but if one had the two games side by side, would anyone claim that LBW is inferior?

And before you say anything, yes, I have seen the Sequelitis video on OoT. I can appreciate the arguments, even if I'm on the opposite of the spectrum from what I want in a LoZ game.

I agree with some of what you said. I haven't played ALBW but I have no doubt it's probably better then LTTP or OOT in many ways, considering Nintendo has had another decade or so to tweak and evolve the series. The same can be said of OOT and LTTP or LTTP and the previous 2(though Zelda 2 is kinda of it's own special case due to being so different). In 1991, LTTP was a substantial improvement over the NES games, especially in that it had a story that didn't require you to read the manual to learn about, more complexity in world and gameplay and the introduction of a lot of staples for later games(duel world, the ocarina, the hyrlian religion), and then OOT came along later and continued the process(3d world, actual vertical levels, some semblance of characterization which is 2 dimensional at best) but in many ways they're similar games(get 3 plot coupons to access master sword, the 2nd world opens up and more complex dungeons become available where specific objects gate progress and are required for bosses). And in both cases, themed dungeons where the item found in dungeon were needed to complete them were present in both(a hell of a lot more then LTTP then any game prior to that).

And while, yes, OOT, has a little more plot then LTTP, it's not much more(none of the Zelda games are particularly plot heavy) and the time travel mechanic isn't utilized nearly as much as it really could have, so essentially it ends up being another version of the light/dark world from LTTP. Both good games built around the same core loop that

It's the strength and weakness of having a formula that's tightly held to in a series like this. There's a solid core gameplay loop that the series never strays very far from, except on rare occasions when it decides to change things up a bit (Majoras Mask, Wind Waker) and everything else is tweaking the experience for this particular iteration.

 

[Yoshi178]

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The origin of the tried-and-tested Metroidvenia formula. It still holds pretty well.

Super Metroid and Castlevania IV on the SNES were clearly around before symphony of the night on playstation was.

symphony of the night wasn't the origin of anything other than of castlevania games coming to playstation

 

[Hawki]

OOT came along later and continued the process(3d world, actual vertical levels, some semblance of characterization which is 2 dimensional at best) but in many ways they're similar games(get 3 plot coupons to access master sword, the 2nd world opens up and more complex dungeons become available where specific objects gate progress and are required for bosses). And in both cases, themed dungeons where the item found in dungeon were needed to complete them were present in both(a hell of a lot more then LTTP then any game prior to that).

OoT does use the same template as LttP, but I disagree that LttP has "themed dungeons." It has items that come from dungeons, but there's little to distinguish one dungeon from another in terms of theme or aesthetic.

And while, yes, OOT, has a little more plot then LTTP, it's not much more(none of the Zelda games are particularly plot heavy) and the time travel mechanic isn't utilized nearly as much as it really could have, so essentially it ends up being another version of the light/dark world from LTTP. Both good games built around the same core loop that

I'll bypass the question of how much plot LoZ games do or don't have, but I do disagree that in terms of plot, that OoT is simply "not much more."

LttP has a handful of plot points, namely:

-Link wakes up and rescues Zelda

-Link is given the quest for the pendants

-Link recovers the pendants and Master Sword

-Agaheim finds Zelda and does his thing. Link defeats Agaheim, and is sucked into the Dark World

-In the Dark World, Link rescues the seven maidens

-After saving the seven maidens, Link defeats Agaheim and then Ganondorf

-Link uses the Triforce to restore the Golden Realm, along with the lives of his uncle and father

Now, that may seem like a lot of plot points, but if this was following OoT, every pendant would be its own plot point, every maiden would be its own plot point, and there's be numerous other plot points in-between (such as the time travel aspect). That's not even getting into OoT having better characters, better worldbuilding, and better themes. Even if we accept that the characters of OoT are two-dimensional, try comparing the sages to the maidens. In the case of the former, every sage makes an appearance in the child/adult eras, and has a connection with Link to some extent. In contrast, the maidens aren't just lacking in characterization, they're lacking in any names whatsoever.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I played ICO for the first time a few years ago. I found it fine and solid but not great. I replayed it again a few months ago and my opinion has held. It was interesting considering I played the Last Guardian soon after and felt it was a much better ICO then ICO was. Also, ICO apparently served as an inspiration(one of many) for the Souls games.

Hm, I'm not a monster fan of Ico, and overall The Last Guardian is a more relaxing experience, but I'd still have to choose Ico over TLG as a better game. It handles its storytelling and controls way better, and lets the emotions flow more naturally. Also, no narration and better music.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Late to the party is my bread and butter. For a large part of my gaming life I've had a "country boy in the big city" wonder for videogames, because I'm late to pretty much every generation. For all the criticisms I can rack up on any given game a part of me will always be amazed the things even exist. I think we take too many things for granted and we like to play coy around games that are perfectly fine because it belies critical thought. Like if you haven't found a flaw and you can't magnify it to the point it doesn't impair your experience then you don't know what you're doing. I like to play critic like anybody else but the truth is there's a baseline of competence and fun that most AAA games respect, at least around the 4th generation (ca. "We no longer have to extort money from arcade machines") and this side of the 6th generation (post-"We figured out 3D camera and controls").

 

[BrawlMan]

As many games as I have played; I am always late to the party on something. Just last year or 2, I completed F.E.A.R Extraction Point, Alan Wake (watched a playthrough of most of the game when first released), Shadows of the Damned, Evil Within 1 (after beating the 2nd game first; saw Two Best Friends Let's Play), and some others.

Right now, I am playing House of the Dead: Overkill for the first time. Loving it. Then again, I am a fan of rail shooters and the series, so it's a given. I kept putting the game off, but told myself I was going to pick it up at some point. It was another game where I did watch a playthrough of it when the game first launched, but I barely remember much with the story or jokes, so it'll be almost new to me. I can tell you this, Overkill was one of those games that were following the trend of Grindhouse in the late 2000s, and it shows hard. Overkill is one of the better ones, along with Shadows of the Damned. WET, not so much. It also the time when Sega was releasing a trio of M-rated games, with Overkill being the first. MadWorld was next, and then the ConduitAfter the Conduit 2, Sega would not release anymore M-Rated games on the Wii. I still have no interest in the final one, but it did get a sequel. The only thing that interested me was Mad World, because of its slick, visual style, and simple arcade mechanics.

 

[Dalisclock]

I played ICO for the first time a few years ago. I found it fine and solid but not great. I replayed it again a few months ago and my opinion has held. It was interesting considering I played the Last Guardian soon after and felt it was a much better ICO then ICO was. Also, ICO apparently served as an inspiration(one of many) for the Souls games.

Hm, I'm not a monster fan of Ico, and overall The Last Guardian is a more relaxing experience, but I'd still have to choose Ico over TLG as a better game. It handles its storytelling and controls way better, and lets the emotions flow more naturally. Also, no narration and better music.

Don't get me wrong. I really do appreciate what ICO is and I've liked it well enough both times I've played it. It's hard enough to tell a story with almost no dialouge whatsoever. I just felt like TLG was a lot more enjoyable. However, the narration really wasn't needed(or at least not to the extent they did it) and the constant reminders of the controls was just dumb.