Not being able to get into older games.

[remnant_phoenix]

It depends on the game.

I didn't ever play Secret of Mana, Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, or any of the Legacy of Kain games until well into the 7th-gen, and I still thought they were all great (except Blood Omen 2; that game can die in a fire).

On the other hand, I had to FORCE myself to finish Final Fantasy V. I considered myself a big FF fan (in the aftermath of the crapfest [my opinion] that is FFXIII and its sequels, my fanhood is up for debeat), and, at that point FFV was the only one I hadn't played. If it wasn't for the fact that I wanted to have "played all the main series FF games" under my belt, I would have given up halfway through. The story was just so...silly...and deritative. IV before it and VI after it both blow it out of the water, and compared to some of the more complex and nuanced stuff that we see in VII, IX, and X...V is just rubbish.

 

[Ratty]

I absolutely love Final Fantasy VII, and Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer. I went ahead and bought every single Might and Magic game, including X (ten) in order to delve into some serious old-school fun. I tried my hardest to like Might and Magic X, but I hated it. Then I took it upon myself to play Might and Magic I, II and III respectively and I find it so hard to get into these games. I tried the first two Might and Magic games for days at a time to try and like them, but I just couldn't get invested in any of it. And no, it's not because of the graphics, that's only part of the problem for me. It may just be that the first three games don't do anything for me because I'm so used to the little comforts modern games provide, yet modern games never have the depth of older games. In the past it was on extreme on the one side, and today we have the extreme on the opposite side.

EDIT: Actually, it's weird because I really love games like Gunpoint and Receiver, a really awesome, primitive looking gun simulator.

I wondered if there are other people out there who honestly tried to play older games and simply couldn't do it. Oh yes, and I recently played Deus Ex, awesome game.

Have you tried putting yourself in the mindset of the time for those games? It comes from an era where that dungeon crawl is one of the only games you have. You have to map out the dungeon on graph paper and obsessively reload to get the best EXP from every encounter. Even if you're willing to invest the time, they're not all good, and many of them were improved with later ports and remakes. http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/mightandmagic/mightandmagic.htm you might like to try a more modern example of the genre like The Legend of Grimrock.

Also if you like FF7 you should play Final Fantasy 6 and 9, just about everything in those games is better than in 7 imo. 7 just gets so much praise because it was the first one in the series a lot of people played. The graphics were "Wow gee whizz" when it came out and anime was new and shiny outside Japan at that time. Also check out Chrono Trigger.

 

[Mikejames]

Shattered Memories fixed so many of these issues, shame everyone just forgot about it. Granted if it had combat I imagine it'd be better (but blood on the Wii does sound a bit odd).

Shattered Memories wasn't as definitively scary as the earlier titles, but I love the new directions they took with the story. It really defines a psychological aspect of the series in a way that a lot of the crazy cult plot-points never hit for me.

 

[AD-Stu]

Yeah, old games can be a bit hit and miss for me. I'm old enough that I was gaming when most of the GOG catalog originally came out, so maybe I'm aided by nostalgia in some cases. But it really depends on the game.

I just replayed the original Jagged Alliance, for example, and really dug it. I'm still a huge fan of Ultima VII... but I can't for the life of me force myself through Ultima IV, the interface is just too painful and clunky. I made it through the original Fallout on the back of the story, but try as I might I just couldn't get into Planescape Torment (I keep meaning to get back to it).

For the most part I'm willing to give dodgy old graphics and sound a pass if the gameplay and story still stand up.