Things we miss from old games.

[Arqus_Zed]

And yeah, sure... All JRPGs released on the gamecube were pure gold, all... three of them.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
Tales of Symphonia
Skies of Arcadia: Legends
Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean
Baten Kaitos Origins
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Custom Robo
Lost Kingdoms
Lost Kingdoms 2
Evolution Worlds
Phantasy Star Online
Pokemon XD: The Gale of Darkness

And they were all good

Actually, one of the most disappointing things is that Baten Kaitos never got another installment

Okay, Fire Emblem, I can get. I don't like the series (TRPG and all that), but I can respect it. The same for Tales of Symphonia: good reviews, but not my cup of tea. Then there's Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, it's a fairly good game, but I always had a bit of trouble seeing it as an RPG. It's kind of like calling Super Smash Bros. a fighting game. It's not. It's really more a party game with heavy beat 'em up influences. With Paper Mario, there's not enough depth to call it a full-fledged RPG, but it balances that out with all the stuff it does besides that. It's kind of how you wouldn't really call a Zelda game an RPG, but for different reasons.

Skies of Arcadia? Sure, port of a Dreamcast game, but a good one. And the Baten Kaitos games were made by Monolith Soft, they know how to make a good RPG. These were actually the three that came to my mind in my previous post.

But Evolution Worlds, really? Really?! Really... "Pure gold", you said. Son, I can shit bricks shinier than this turd. And then there's Pokemon XD: The Gale of Darkness. Christ! Now, the Pokémon series has always been infamous for its utterly shameless recycling behavior, but even for Pokémon standards they went really overboard with this one. Fool's gold is more like it.

Then there's Custom Robo, never heard of it (and a quick google search explains why: no PAL release). Same for the Lost Kingdom series, these did have a PAL release, yet they somehow eluded me. So I've got only your word to go on that they are "pure gold RPGs", but since that was also what you said about Pokemon and Evolution Worlds... I really don't know if I can trust you on that. Also, I've actually managed to pick up Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution just recently, but I haven't played it yet, so I can't give my opinion on that one either.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

The lack of the obsession with depressing and "realistic" settings.

 

[The_Echo]

I miss collectathons.

I miss cheat codes.

I miss the days when games understood they were games, and had fun with it.

I miss the days when L2 and R2 were buttons. I fucking hate "triggers."

 

[mad825]

Loading bars.

Nowadays we usually have a stupid little spinning logo or something, like a little buffering sign in the corner. They're just so ambiguous... They don't tell you anything about how long you have left to wait.

To be fair, loading bars never really told you how long you had to wait either, and you'd always get those times where the loading bar would stop for too long and you'd start wondering if the game had frozen. At least with the stupid spinning logos you know the game is still loading and hasn't secretly crashed.

There's nothing really stopping this from happening. When my OS (Win7) plasters this feature on everything to installing updates, booting,copying/deleting and shutting down I can't help to think that the developers just got lazy.

 

[The_Echo]

little to no hand holding. and come on, do we really need a tutorial on 90% of the games we play.

Yes, we do. Tutorials aren't handholding. Batman: Arkham Asylum would show you button prompts for the most basic of actions, and those prompts would show up the entire way through the game. That is handholding.

You and I have been playing games for a while. But, say, my mom? Far as I know only thing she's played is Wii Fit.

There's no singular "first game" for everyone. That's why they all have tutorials. It's basically an evolution of the instruction manual. Though it'd be nice if all tutorials were skippable.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

For PC: A fully functioning and useful console. Like here [http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/24WDpyWKArA/hqdefault.jpg] and here [http://i71.servimg.com/u/f71/14/26/98/51/consol10.jpg].

For Game Consoles: Cartridge load times. (read: none)

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Killable children.

Spoiler

Need I say more?

 

[Fireaxe]

I miss RTS not being shit, that's what I miss from old games..

 

[Nazulu]

When we had heaps of different genres to choose from. You know, when all of them where made like they were AAA games and treated equally, and a lot of them weren't playing it safe either.

I can't find modern games that really interest me which is why I've been playing everything I have missed in the past. I know some idiot will eventually tell me to look around, but I FUCKING HAVE! I shouldn't have to look for hours and hours for something to interest me. It's fucking terrible these days, it really is. After so much time looking around I can tell you 99% games borrow so heavily from popular games that none of them are really unique.

 

[Amir Kondori]

What do I miss about old school games?

1. Not having a huge flashing arrow telling me exactly where to go next

2. 2d Castlevania and Metroid and MegaMan games not a handheld platform

3. Games that are not afraid to let you fail

4. Games that don't require me to sign up for some online account and sign in to play

5. Not having to pay more for an extra quest the day the game launches. Unlocking things like extra costumes through playing the game, not taking out my VISA card

6. Actually owning my games

Those are some of the big things. I could probably double this list if I spent enough time but honestly I'll give myself high blood pressure if I think about this too much longer.

 

[drthmik]

Nothing; Old Games were more often than not exercises in hair-pulling frustration and mind-numbing boredom compounded with near endless repetition only made playable because we didn't have anything better to compare them to.

 

[lapan]

I miss old humorous point&click adventures like Lucas Arts made them. Most new adventure games try to be dead-serious

 

[Neonsilver]

- Multiplayer being optional in the development of games.
- Manuals, short story of the game, infos about the characters, some artworks and an explanation of how the game works.
A good tutorial works well to explain the game mechanics but it's annoying to not have something to look up if you didn't play the game for a while.

There is a lot more, but nothing comes to mind right now that isn't already mentioned.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Tales of Graces f
Tales of Xillia
(You know, I never liked the art style of Tales of Vesperia and I thought the story/characters were far from being on the same level as FF IX or Shadow Hearts, but I guess I still kind of managed to enjoy it. But now, the continuation of the "same old, same old"-gameplay and the persistence of that generic "new anime look" they push into... well, everything, made me skip on these all together.

Did you even give Tales of Graces f and Tales of Xillia a chance? Both of them have drastically different combat systems from Tales of Vesperia and even from each other. You would be missing out if you judged every other title, based on just one. Every title is unique unto itself through tone, theme, setting, narrative and gameplay. I believe you would be mistaken to say they all use "same old, same old" gameplay. If you don't particularly enjoy the Tales series, that's perfectly fine. Just try the other titles before you judge them.

What I miss from old games is turn-based combat. It seems I'm of the minority that actually enjoys it. I'd like to see some more quality titles with turn-based combat, personally.

 

[Pink Gregory]

I miss old humorous point&click adventures like Lucas Arts made them. Most new adventure games try to be dead-serious

Which? Most of the new adventure games I see coming out are rooted in humour.

There were both more serious and more comic adventure games during the 'golden age', same as is now.

 

[lapan]

I miss old humorous point&click adventures like Lucas Arts made them. Most new adventure games try to be dead-serious

Which? Most of the new adventure games I see coming out are rooted in humour.

There were both more serious and more comic adventure games during the 'golden age', same as is now.

They have been getting more popular in the last 2 years again, but there was a long time during which it wasn't so.

 

[Sir Pootis]

Having too much side quest.

Don't get me wrong, I like a little extra quest on the side, but nowadays half of any open world game is just completely unrelated plot lines and stuff to do. If the quest doesn't tie into the story at all, and there's no significant reward to completing it, like a new weapon, power or even some stat points then it's not really worth existing.

 

[Foolery]

Proper expansions instead of DLC. Unlockables like alternate costumes or whatever, instead of DLC.