Taking away the rose coloured lens of childhood gaming.

Ever go back to a game you haven't played since you were a kid, that you remember being awesome in terms of story/gameplay only to find that its kind of a steaming pile of garbage? So disappointing. I recently came into the possession of two games I loved the hell out of when I was a kid: Quest 64 and Illusion of Gaia. I never actually owned either, we just rented them (several times each). I was thinking about playing something that wasn't modern, and that I hadn't touched in a looong time and all I could think about was how much time and fun I had with them. So I got pretty curious about how those games would play to the adult me.

To be fair, the gameplay and style of Illusion of Gaia aren't bad, but I can't tell if the plot is vague and nonsensical because of the translation or if it was always like that. Quest 64 is just kinda sad. I put that one to bed after the first boss. But I'll probably keep playing IoG to see if it ever starts to make sense. Kind of nice to see how far we've come in terms of localization; If a game came out with IoG's quality of translation/plot today, it would have to be completely intentional.

Anyway! Anyone else have games they thought were the bee's knees until an adult's/modern gamer's perspective proved otherwise?

I remember loving the hell out of Rampage World Tour for the N64 and had just across it just recently. 5 mintues into it I couldn't understand why I had loved it so much when I was 10 years old.

I can't play most old JRPGs anymore because of how poorly translated they are. This guy are sick indeed.

EDIT: Speaking of which, holy shit ZVGQ is still up. That's amazing.

Nope ... I still enjoy them the same

I rarely go back to the oldies but as a recent example I bought the toe jam and earl collection after that quick look. I adored the first one as a kid and it is still just as great as I remember. I do not doubt that other games haven't aged as well though.

The late 90's to early 2000's have this the worst.

Well, my mind immediately went to Final Fantasy X. When I first played it I was like, "Holy shit these people are talking!" and now it just sounds hilarious. Everything else is fine, but that 'revolution' just sounds fucking bananas now.

I hooked up some of my old systems awhile ago and realized that I still really like the 16-bit games, the 32X only had a few games that actually took advantage of the hardware and even the best of them couldn't compare to true 32-bit systems, the Sega-CD had horrid load times and the games had fewer colors on screen then I remembered, and that only a few of my Nintendo 64 games hold up at all anymore.

I don't know I bet Illusion of Gaia will hold up over all because it was just a reasonably fun game. The story never was "great" though I seem to remember there was enough of it to hold it all together and at least make some sense. For me this shocker came with TV shows. I used to watch Centurions and Thundercats when I was a kid and I loved them. Then I saw them both again when I was a senior in high school. I found myself wishing I could use a time machine to go back in time to smack the crap out of my young self.

When going back to games, the ones that seem to have the most trouble are the early on versions of a new sort of feature or style.

Like Donkey Kong 64 is a real rough game now, and the controls are a bit iffy. But something like 2D Mario or sonic was pretty much good (for what it was intended to be at the time) so it still works out in the overall. Storyline or bad voice acting still don't bother me to much, but the big thing that puts me off the old games was the high difficulty and being forced to re-start to the start of the game. So many games I never was able to finish, even if the first few levels were memorized.

Well I didn't play console games as a kid (my parents wouldn't let me) and the PC games I played have major issues but I can enjoy them somewhat. I'll say this, since I started buying my own games and systems I've taken it upon myself to play the games from the 80's and 90's I missed as a kid. And sadly, without any sort of nostalgia for any of them, most just don't hold up at all. I find this to be more true of PSOne era games than of 2D games. The early forays into 3D were just so clumsy that it is really all but impossible to enjoy any of those games anymore. I did enjoy Metal Gear Solid when I played it recently, but that really is the only PSOne game I can say has held up, and Ocarina of Time was okay from the couple hours that I played, but I certainly wouldn't call it amazing. The same goes for most Nintendo and Rare games on the N64. They hold up better than most other games of that era but I don't think I'd actually play any of them as more than a point of historical reference. 16 Bit games I actually enjoy a lot more than the later games. I think by that era most companies had really mastered 2D gaming and there was very little holding them back from a technical standpoint either. So a lot of those games really hold up very well today. I'll admit that I wouldn't play them without a way to save (something that most retro collections luckily have now) but besides the lack of saving I enjoy most of them. I also think it's silly when people say how games are getting shorter now. Outside of some of the RPG's most 16 bit and 8 bit games can be beaten in one sitting. When I picked up the Sega Genesis Collection I beat every Streets of Rage game in an hour and a half. All three games in an hour and a half. Sonic has like 20 levels that can each be beaten in under 5 minutes. The same goes for all the other platformers. I don't get how people say games lack value today. Maybe compared to PC games in the mid to late 90's but people obviously don't remember how damn short most of the "classics" were. The only reason they lasted people a long time is because you had to start from the beginning when you ran out of continues in most of these games. Without deaths you could beat almost any non-RPG of either the 8 or 16 bit eras in under 2 hours. And there were no other modes to play, no DLC to add value. You play for two hours at most and you've seen it all. No branching paths. Only the occasional hidden collectable (which usually did nothing but increase your score), no difficulty levels. People go on and on about how games today are so much worse than before. I say anyone who says that is crazy. Yea, some of the classics do hold up really well. The vast majority of them, though, don't hold up at all. They are hard for the sake of being hard. They lack content. And when they do have content it is made up of a bunch of repetitive fetch quests. It's just all plain bad. Again, some gems really do hold up. But those gems are extremely rare (and mostly made by Nintendo). I mean I still enjoy some old PC games from my childhood but only a select few really are as good now as they were back then. And virtually all of those games are turn based strategy games, a genre which gets little to no benefit from improved technology.

Going back to GoldenEye is nothing but betrayal.

Depends on the game, some games don't age well others do. I don't think games have gone up in quality in general, but there are some convenience things that you're just used to now that might not have existed in the past. Additionally blocky polygonal models from the N64/PSX era are kind of hard to look at for an extended duration, this isn't much of an issue for something like Final Fantasy since it still looks okay but some games just look so damn bad relative to just being 2D or PS2 era instead.

Not too long ago I played through Super Mario Land for the Game Boy, one of the earliest games I can remember playing. When I was a kid it was a challenging and wondrous adventure, now I breezed through it in no time while dying maybe once or twice and realized that it's a pretty mediocre platformer. Ending theme made my eyes tear up though and I remembered how ecstatic I was when I first beat it all those years ago -- my first big video game triumph.

Also went back and played Tekken, my first fighting game. Spent countless hours duking it out with my brother on the Playstation way back when, we'd even pretend to be Tekken characters when playing around in real life. Fired it up now and could only endure a couple of matches before I had to turn it off. What an incredibly ugly, stiff, boring game. I should've spent all that time playing Street Fighter II instead!

I think it's a bit of an unfair argument, though. I mean, you don't remember anything exactly as it was. For instance, I'm sure many people thought their horse-drawn carriages were fast as hell, but now they seem ridiculously slow. You don't remember something for its exact details, but more for its relativity to the other competitors of that time. I mean, I bet you probably thought your first computer was SO good back when it came out. It's just how your memory works.

So, I wouldn't say it loses its luster when you go back to it. You just compare it to the games of today, which weren't out when you played it the first time. That said, I've gone back and played Pokemon Blue before and it holds up like a beast. Also, things like Star Wars: Battlefront really don't, though I remember playing the hell out of that game back in the day. Co-op was such fun

The Sonic Adventure games. My message to anyone that wants Sega to make Sonic Adventure 3, I urge you to go play those games again, they do not hold up at all. Those games are just barely a step up from Sonic '06, they're really not good, and I thought they were the greatest games ever back when the Dreamcast was still relevant (I was around 10 when the Dreamcast came out).

Ugh, Quest 64. I rented that way too many times as a kid.

I played AutoDuel in the late 80s, and while the premise is still badass, I just didn't have the patience to go through it again once I tried returning to it.

This is at least partially because the copy I have runs on the Apple IIe, which does not have a color monitor. Also, turns out saves get corrupted extremely easily on 8" floppy disks.

@ll_Exile_ll said:

The Sonic Adventure games. My message to anyone that wants Sega to make Sonic Adventure 3, I urge you to go play those games again, they do not hold up at all. Those games are just barely a step up from Sonic '06, they're really not good, and I thought they were the greatest games ever back when the Dreamcast was still relevant (I was around 10 when the Dreamcast came out).

I never say Sonic Adventure 3, I kept saying "Sonic Adventure 2 2". And yes there should be a sequel to Sonic Adventure 2 (not the first) and Generations should have a 3rd Sonic added whether through DLC or a sequel.

@Euphorio: But that's what I mean, the "lens of childhood" bit, at least. All I can remember is playing the game, and loving it, no specific details. Classic hit games, like the snes and psx Final Fantasy games, Ocarina of Time and the like, most people end up going back to once every few years because they get bit by the nostalgia bug. The game is flawed for sure, but you can remember that just as much as the parts that made it awesome. I couldn't remember what made Quest 64 and Illusion of Gaia so awesome, only that my experience with them and the fun I had left me with nothing but warm fuzzy feelings. Maybe it wasn't the game itself, but just the fact that I was happy and was playing that game at the time that made it awesome in my memory. Its nice to think that a kid can get so much joy out of something that isn't a super amazing game, and kind of like getting in touch with your past self when you revisit those old things. Think of all the weird 90's cartoons and shows we used to watch and love. Dinosaurs? That show used to be the shit to me. Looking at it now though, and it looks like something from a nightmare.

But yeah, some games hold up for sure. I never got into Pokemon back then and I kind of regret it.

It's just, I don't feel the games lost their luster with us growing up. I feel that it's just what time does to the memory. I was a wee lad back in the days of the N64, but I'm sure theres an adult who played those games, and they thought the exact same thing as you. What I'm saying is that they would also think that those games suck now even if they loved them back then. Times have just changed. I mean hell, I thought the game Flying Dragon was the best fighter to happen to any system ever, but I will never play it again because I know it probably sucked, and I'll probably hate it. Some things are better left preserved in memory rather than trying to rekindle their greatness

The games I have gone back to play, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Fallout 2, Jagged Alliance 2 and Silent Storm have all held up fantastically. The only game I went back to play which didn't really hold up was Final Fantasy VII. And Dark Age of Camelot.

i think what alot of people have issues with is knowing the diffrence between "nostalgia glasses" and a game that hasnt aged well. goldeneye and resident evil are two examples. they have aged pretty bad but the impact that they had hasnt. those are two landmark games that deserve every bit of respect they get.

then theres games that we remember as awesome but upon a closer look, are awfull. i used to play the shit outta those army man games back in the day and thought they were fucking great. turns out i was just 13 yrs old and didnt know what the fuck i was talking about. Pokemon snap anyone?