What classic video game genre do you want to see revived the most?

Personally, I'd love to see a return of Space Flight Sims, similar to Colony Wars.

I'd like to see an entire genre of "Ponglikes". Anything that leads to a paddle controller boom can only mean good things for the industry.

JRPG.

I would probably have to go with 3D platformers in the vein of something like Banjo-Kazooie, Crash, Spyro, Beyond Good & Evil, Ty, Voodoo Vince, Rayman, Donkey Kong 64, Kya Dark Lineage, Blinx (because fuck you, Blinx 1 was awesome), and games like that.

A Hat in Time is coming out some time next year and I'm super excited, but other than that, the only notable platformers I can think of that we've seen lately are Ratchet & Clank and Mario, both of which are kinda "meh" to me. This genre is, for all intents and purposes, dead now and while it's understandable, I wish someone would come back and take a stab at this wasteland. Maybe A Hat in Time will be the one to light the fire, maybe not. At the very least, I just hope it's a good game.

There's a about a hundred Space sims currently in development so you sir are in luck.

Rpgs, there's still some good ones occasionally like shadowrun and tales of xillia but nowhere near as many as before.

Non dumbed down Western RPGs.

and that. I would also like to be able to buy one without shelling out 100 dollars a day after release.

Anything turn based.

@alexw00d: Good to hear! I can only hope they make their way to consoles at some point. No access to a gaming PC here.

I've played a few good JRPG's that were released in 2013, and there are still more on the way. Something needs to be dead before it can be revived.

Classic third and first-person shooters would be good assuming they do it right. That's kind of the thing though - there are 1,000 ways they can easily fuck it up but only a few ways to make it awesome.

I wouldn't mind more of the Metal Slug type games. I'm not sure what they are called genre wise, but I like those. Seeing that quicklook for Mercenary Kings got me excited that those types of games might be coming back

Classic first person shooters and

This. Kinda. If I were to describe the kind of JRPG I really want, though, it would probably be summed up as "Chrono Trigger in 3D HD graphics". I feel like a lot of JRPG's get one thing right only to severely falter in another. Final Fantasy XIII is aesthetically gorgeous and has a pretty fun combat system, but miserably fails with dialogue and it's essentially one long corridor for a large stretch of the game. Xenoblade Chronicles, from the bit I've played of it, seems to be very open-ended and full of places to explore, but it opened with some annoyingly bad dialogue spoken by some walking cliches. The rest of that game might be different, but I knew how the opening scene was going to play out as soon as I saw it. Final Fantasy 12 is pretty open-ended, too, but some of the characters are terrible (Vaan, in particular) and the game often plays itself.

I'm seeing all this from a limited pool of reference, but nothing looks all that different. Why are all of these games so badly written? Why do the characters and outfits in Tales of Xilia look similar to the ones in Xenoblade Chronicles? I really want to like them a lot more than I do, but there is always something in the way. SMT IV was very well written but I'll be damned if its battle system hasn't been underwhelming and often full of cheap one-shot bosses so far.

Sorry, that's just the reaction I've been feeling from looking into JRPG's. All the ones I really like - Persona 3, Nocturne, Chrono Trigger, Etrian Odyssey IV, Fire Emblem Awakening - are a step above the others because they're well-written, well-playing, and full of exploration and fun ideas and mechanics.

EDIT: While we're on the subject of turn-based stuff, I'd like to see something like Shadowrun Returns, but that is less linear and allows you to save anywhere. I've played some Baldur's Gate 2 for the first time recently and I like that isometric view and those tactical combat systems but I prefer them turn-based. BG2's combat feels like a clusterfuck too often, much like its spiritual successor Dragon Age Origins did. Turn based also gives me more control over my party; cutting friendly AI out of the picture as often as possible is always a good thing in my book.

i would love to see actual survivor horror come back and not this action adventure that claims to be horror or only horror because they took out combat.

I'd love some new turn based RPGs, just like many others before have stated.

But I certainly would buy a Timesplitters-esque FPS if one came out (but not as extreme in that direction as Serious Sam, if that makes sense)

Kind of drawing a blank...

I'd love to see more games like dishonored/deus ex get made.

Would like to see an RTS renaissance that has absolutely nothing to do with Blizzard.

tactical turn based rpgs

all of those have already been "revived". I think that anything that can be revived has already been revived...

The more classic turn based style of jrpgs and the isometric pc rpg style like baldurs gate. Party games would be fun too.

I want isometric real time tactic games like commandos, desperados, robin hood

What exactly is implied by "classic third-person shooter"? Is it less "over the shoulder" aiming, less cover-based shooting etc etc? My parents were quite strict when it came to the Max Paynes and Grand Theft Autos, so (aside from my ventures back to play these older games) I don't know how the trope "classic TPS" is defined.

@sunbrozak said:

That's a good question... By "classic" I mean those games from the late 80's to early 00's that focused more on just pure fun over realism or "cinematic action". Games like Giants: Citizen Kabuto and Jet Force Gemini. I guess 3D platformers like Jak or Ratchet and Clank could also fit into this category as well.

well tomb raider i think came back this year really strong! And max payne has never been dead, but i would love to play Doom again!

Horse-racing sim.

I kid, I meant 3rd person shooters. But you play as a horse.

Definitely old school shooters. Though after playing a bit of Rise of the Triad, I dunno that they would actually be any good. I think I just want them making more games with those same old engines, specifically the Doom engine.

I'm probably going to get some flack for saying this, but JRPGs. Honestly, the subgenre seems completely dormant at this time unless you have a Vita or 3DS to the point where it is starting to become a legacy genre. Can anyone else name the last significant JRPG not named Final Fantasy? I could be wrong, but the subgenre just seems completely dead right now.

I think older fighting games would be an interesting thing to revive nowadays with focusing on central tactics similar to SFII than something that has more mechanics driven gameplay.

@differenceengine: several people have said JRPG's. Handhelds are very popular in Japan so that's where most of the JRPG's are. Occasionally we'll get a big console release like Ni No Kuni or the recent Tales of Xillia, both on PS3 and out this year.

I miss local multiplayer mattering, but everyone loves the Internet so fucking much that there just isn't a market for it anymore.

Also, agreed on JRPGs. I think they just need to dial back a lot of JRPG character design (FF, Tales, in particular) and just go back to basics with the story basis, instead of everything needing to have crazy ancient techno magic that will end the world. Or at least have some fun with it, like Skies of Arcadia or something.

Whatever Descent would be considered these days, I think we could use a new one. Or at least I could.

where are my sims where I can maliciously drown people in a huge body of water.

While I'm fine with the "Real-Time with Pause" combat that defines those Infinity Engine titles, if you want the black-tar heroin of turn-based combat you should follow me into this dark alley where you can purchase some Temple of Elemental Evil and Wizardry 8 from some Polish guy. No, neither is new (though I still feel it fair to recommend either to anyone who is remotely interested in mechanically-focused RPGs), but I also think it fair to mention that Wasteland 2, a game that is still ostensibly coming out this year, will have turn-based combat and won't be an ultra-linear RPG-lite like Shadowrun is.

Really, I'd say "Old School RPGs", except for the part where they're sort of coming back and not just in the form of low-budget indie games. If you had asked me a year ago if there would ever be a Might and Magic X, I would've laughed. And yet the early access version of said game exists on my hard drive. Huh.

Arcade sports games like NBA Jam and NFL Blitz.

It feels like every genre isalready being revived somewhere in some form or another. Also I think it is important that they recognize what was bad about the old games and improve it.

Quite a few come out on a year-to-year basis. Just this year we've already had Tales of Xillia, Shin Megami Tensei 4, Disgaea D2 and Ni No Kuni. While they're not your "classic" JRPG, akin to something like FF7, there's still some really good games coming out in that genre.

I found an interest in first person dungeon crawlers this year with Etrian Odyssey IV and SMT Strange Journey, so I'm a little keen on seeing how Might and Magic X turns out. How is the early access version?

EDIT: Also, I forgot about TOEE. I'm watching a video of it now and I'm already enjoying what I'm seeing. Seems more up my alley than Baldur's Gate 2, even though I was enjoying that a lot more than I was enjoying Dragon Age Origins.

The Secret of Mana-style mix of action adventure and RPG. Kingdom's of Amalur, Dragon's Dogma, Darksider II, Dark Souls - they all kinda go in that direction. So I guess I just want more of that, since that's already a quite popular thing.

I don't really have a good answer to this question because I feel like the indie community is doing a pretty good job of filling in the gaps that major developers can't or won't.

All of these games are still up and running.

I want more space flight sims, but Chris Roberts new thing and that new X game look great.

Also want to see more basebuilding sims like Dungeon Keeper and Evil Genius.

Classic FPS on your list but I would love a return of music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. The conversation on the Bombcast really brought back memories of how much I really loved those games

I would also like to see more 3D platformers. There are already plenty of shooters (First Person and Third) so we certainly don't need more of those.

Reviving something doesn't necessarily mean it's dead. It can also mean to renew or make operative or valid again. That's what I mean.

*click* "I'm coming" *click* "consider it done." Oh Commandos... what nostalgia. I think there are some newer games like that, but I can't remember them right now.

Party based Western RPGs. These days, for all the Western RPGs that are out there, if you want to have more than one controllable character, you're waiting for whatever the next thing that Bioware puts out.

@believer258: That was a really good description of my problem with modern JRPGs, too.

@believer258: Well, conveniently enough I wrote something up about that very subject! I do feel like that game in particular is trying to go for something of a nostalgia play, so I have no clear idea how someone less obsessive about that series than I would view it. It does seem promising though.

Also, I've given away like 5 copies of Temple of Elemental Evil, because that game is insane.

Yeah, party based cRPGs fo sho. FFVI style JRPGs. Survival horror.

Also, not really a genre, but I really miss targeting systems like ED and Vagrant Story had where you can select which part of the enemy to attack.

@chaser324: Then where's my schmups!!! I'm sorry but Sine Mora and Jamestown just don't cut it. RIP Gradius =(

@icyeyes: exactly. I want the opposite! Use the old engine, make another game.

turn-based, isometric RPG's a-la Fallout and Wasteland.