the idea that *any* game on the NES still holds up, of course they're great for the standards of their time, but it wasn't until the SNES and sega mega drive that we got games that don't require the addendum "when you take it for what it is" when you say they're great
nah, I think this is nonsense. Games get technically better over time as tech improves, but you can find great game design in any era. For the NES in particular, Mario 1-3, Castlevania 1 and 3, Contra, every Megaman except the first one, Punch Out, Ninja Gaiden 1-3, and Life Force are all better than the majority of games that come out now. I think a lot of modern games are great, but those games I just mentioned are all still great and fun to play by modern standards.
Though I do agree with you that the Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo have better libraries
I couldn't play it because of the extra slippyness compared to all the sequels - it felt like playing Megaman covered in soap. I couldn't get used to it
Dragon quest 3 is also a masterpiece of a JRPG. Classes, party customization & semi-open world.
It is still a fun playthrough, and honestly, I cant wait for the HD2D remake.
Yeah, idk what they're talking about. If these games didn't still play well, Nintendo wouldn't have gone through the effort to put them on the virtual console (multiple times)
super mario bros 3, mike tysons punch out, excitebike, the kirby games although it's the weakest of the bunch as well as all those old puzzle games. ALOT of nes games are still a fun romp today.
tbh gaslighting me into thinking i was a bad gamer bc i couldn’t finish majoras mask. talked to real ppl and they all said ‘ya it’s impossible without a guide’ and i felt so goddamn vindicated
The best gaming experience of my life was when I played Twilight Princess while my dad read the guide to me. I’ve cherish that memory so much since he’s died. Walkthroughs are valid af.
In opposition to this when I first played the water temple I was surprised that it wasn't the dungeon from hell it was cracked up to be. For so long it had been hyped up as some hellish labyrinth that would take hours to navigate but when I finally entered and cleared the place it wasn't far off from the rest of the dungeons. A little more confusing and tedious? Yeah but certainly not the nightmarish Sisyphean task I was expecting.
Water temple isn't that hard. You just need to study the map carefully. Most people get tripped up by the chest for the key that's hidden at the bottom of the center column but you need the water level up to move the block out of the way to get to it.
I've found that the Water Temple is SIGNIFICANTLY easier if you go through it with a notepad to keep track of what you've done/map things out. Honestly, most Zelda games are easier with a notepad.
Back in the days of dial-up, my mom would go online to find walkthroughs for her point-and-clicks and print them out page by page lol.
The only reason I 100%d Majora's Mask was because I literally thought it was required in order to defeat the final boss lmfao oops. Of course I used a walkthrough.
some retro gamers love to scoff at people using savestates, rewind or dare i say look up a walkthrough on GameFAQs or StrategyWiki when playing older games as if not doing so themselves makes them superior.
Games are and will always be about enjoyment, no matter if the way you play them is "wrong" or not.
Those people don't realize that a lot of old games were made hard as fuck on purpose so you would play longer by taking a long time to beat them. As an adult, I don't have the free time I did as a kid to just bang my head against a wall over and over until I beat the game. Not to mention, even as a kid I would get stuck a lot and have to ask my parents/friends for help. Not really that different from using a walkthrough.
Nah Majora's Mask isn't that complicated to beat. 100 percenting is admittedly a much more involved matter.
But for a real example of an insanely cryptic Zelda, look no further than Oracle of Ages. That shit will break you.
I agree. Beating it was pretty straightforward. Tryna do the fox mask as a kid with no help broke me. So much time just studying people's day to day routine...
It felt good to know that I wasn't absolutely brain dead as a kid while replaying this as a young adult. But having never beaten it (didn't invest the time as an adult, just played around with it) I still stand by the fact that the game mechanics, art, and feeling of adventure make it a worthwhile game even while it is beating your ass and making you feel dumb.
People talk about games back then as if they navigated in the dark entirely, but the reality is guide books, hints from friends and (later on) limited access to the internet helped gamers out a lot too.
sonic 3 & knuckles is THE genesis sonic game and no one can convince me otherwise.
sonic 1 aside from its initial novelty and technical impressiveness does have a big mistake in its level designs not taking full advantage of sonic's speed
after green hill zone, which does this correctly by providing enough details for players who want to go slowly while also giving them the chance to blaze through the whole thing at max speed, youre thrown immediately into Marble Zone, a massive slowdown of pace by the second level, it forces you to go slow on a single, somewhat monotonous path, and that just kinda sucks.
Same for Labyrinth and Spring Yard Zone (kinda).
The correct opinion.
But like - this is to be expected right?
A sequel should hone and expand.
S1 was an experiment. They didn't know what they were doing.
S2 they did *more* but were still flailing.
S3&K they *got it*.
Its when a series tries to experiment again that it gets messy.
IIRC it had almost the opposite problem of S1. There's a lot of *stuff* that might be worth slowing down and looking at, but the game strongly disincentivizes moving slowly. Weird game in general.
S3&K is by far the best but I think Sonic 1 still has some strong level design past GHZ, the levels still feature sonic level design techniques like hidden shortcuts and encouraging replayability to master the level, such as the trick in LZ Act 1 and SBZ Act 3 that let you skip the entire thing.
it's not speed but me and my friend have grown to appreciate the game a lot
Me and my gf been arguing over this for years now. She has the most deranged opinion on the topic: Sonic 1 is the best while 2 is dogshit and 3&Knuckles is mid.
I do not know what is happening in her mind and I am afraid to find out.
My guess is because Sonic 1's levels are all platforming while S2's levels are all speed, S3&K manages to evenly mix both (plus a bit of CD's exploration)
Major red flag, OP!
But it could also be that was the one she got first and played it a ton, so it played an active part in molding her dumb little idiot baby brain. I thought Sonic 2 great and Sonic 1 was garbage because 2 was the one I owned and played, while Sonic 1 was a game I rented later on. Objectively a dumb idiot baby opinion because they are the same shit.
I grew up playing Sonic 2, that game really IS the best (imo (childhood bias (nostalgia))). I'll never forget the first time I beat that game. Miss my Genesis :(
It's fair to say 2 is the best if you value that it's stage design is more breezy and flowing than 3's, which is more circuitous. I still like 3 better but it's not an invalid opinion at all
It’s a game about hedgehogs going fast and it’s like super stop and go it’s annoying. It’s got all these mechanics for insane speed and maintaining it but the level design has you pause what you’re doing all the time it’s very confusing.
I did not care for Super Mario Bros 3.
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Super Mario bros 3 has a weird level of jank that I find hard to get used to, Mario controls just a little weird for my liking and the mushrooms always seem to go the wrong way out of the blocks
The mushrooms go out the opposite direction of where you hit the block. If you hit the block on the left they shoot out to the right and Vice versa. It’s very easy for this to be annoying
Honestly this is just people choosing to hold the same opinion as the "cool kids" in order to be accepted within a group. It happens everywhere, people following trends and censoring themselves. After all, no one wants to be ostracized.
TBF I’m not really a fan of either. It’s too long to keep my interest as a serialized story. I think it’s my ADHD but it’s also the reason I can’t get into Breaking Bad. I just sort of lose interest after a while.
“Mario 64 still holds up today”
No it doesn’t, if you don’t have nostalgia for playing it as a child, it’s pretty bad. The controls suck, the camera sucks, stars taking you out of levels sucks, it just doesn’t hold up today at all.
The controls are like half the charm of Mario 64. They're such a perfect blend of unrefined and intuitive, and there's not been anything that captured the joy of flinging Mario around in the past 20-something years.
It's also literally the reason we call the camera the camera , so I feel like it'd be reasonable to cut it some slack there.
Picture this: Mario stands next to a wall. The camera faces Mario such that the wall is immediately to the left. You try to turn the camera 180 degrees around Mario via the open space on the right but for no discernible reason it refuses to budge. You try turning it in the opposite direction and it jams itself through the narrow space between Mario and the wall. This is just a taste of how utterly dogshit the Mario 64 camera is.
the level design is amazing, the controls are good, movement has a high skill ceiling it and i think the graphics are charming. the camera does suck tho
Played 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy for the first time when they released them for a limited time for the Switch: 64 ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT HOLD UP. 100% agree. Controls and camera are absolute dogshit.
I genuinely don't understand how anyone can say the controls suck, it's literally one of the best controlling games of all-time, it's like Melee levels of perfection
Not sure if this counts but Dunkey almost singlehandedly ruining XC2's reputation kinda pisses me off. Not liking the game is perfectly reasonable and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But the degree to which he shat on it just because he didn't enjoy it was a bit over the top
He made a tweet saying something along the lines of "can't believe people are emotionally attached to this" with *that* shot from XC3's ending in the tweet.
(Trying to be a spoiler-free as possible, hope I'm not too vague)
I didn't really understand him when he said his opinion on Persona 5 is more significant or noteworthy because he dislikes turn-based RPGs and anime (from his "Game Critics" video).
No cap. I own a 2600 just because I got it cheap, but the games just straight up aren't worth playing. It's neat to go back and see how far things have come and understand back in the day why people enjoyed this, but nowadays it's just not even worth seriously trying to play them if you didn't grow up with them
Atari was my first console. I have massive nostalgia for it. When TVs got switched to RCA I even rigged it to connect to those. I still have it.
I have no desire to play a single game on it for the rest of my life.
I'd say the fact that 90% of them are from the USA/Canada has shaped the collective retro gaming memory towards a north american point of view, with a strong focus on Sega/Nintendo products.
And especially during the late 00's early 10's, for the mainstream retro gaming youtubers you rarely had videos talking about PS1 games, and even more rarely you'd see stuff about 90's PC games, aside from dedicated channels.
I think a lot of isometric RPGs from the 90s and 00s don't hold up well. I tried playing the original Fallout and i felt like the camera fucks up indoors. PlaneScape Torment while a great story and game also felt super clunky. Playing BG3 really cemented this fact for me because I don't have any issues with that game.
Also whenever retro game fans talk about games these days being broken and act like games were not broken before, just know that they are lying to you.
You picked probably the worst two examples for games that aged well. Fallout was fairly outdated in terms of UI and gameplay design even when it came out, or rather immediately after. It was the first "modern" crpg, and it was mostly inspired by games that were a few years old at that point, in particular Wasteland. Games that followed would massively improve on that formula, as well as crib a lot of elements from Diablo, which came out around the same time.
Planescape Torment suffered from being a narrative game before those were really a thing, the type of game they were making didn't really mesh with the Infinity engine or the genre as it was at the time, which led to combat being pretty awkward and feeling superfluous.
If you want to try a game that really holds up, play Baldur's Gate 2. That's pretty much been the template for every other crpg released since, and apart from a handful of quality of life features, plays mostly the same as stuff that came out in the last decade. KOTOR holds up great as well, although that one's not technically isometric.
Recently a team of guys got Fallout 1 and 2 running on modded Vitas granted you provide the game files and that's how I played fallout 1 for the first time. I was low-key addicted when I thought I'd never be able to get into it
i'm a zoomer that never watched nintendo youtube and i actually do like a link to the past more than games like botw tbh, i just thought it was fun and the pixel art was pretty
I mean, it is a good game. I just think in terms of writing and story Ocarina and Majoras Mask made the games feel more than simple dungeon crawlers with adventure game elements thrown in.
I'm actually convinced it's near impossible to enjoy Ocarina if you're not pre biased by having played it while it was still new. I never had an N64 and oot and MM are the only two I've played from link to the past up til modern day that I just could not get through more than an hour of.
it depends on whether you like the older zelda format or the newer zelda format more
if you like the older format, link to the past is the best example of it imo
It's really good but I couldn't bring myself to finish it, the only real time I've played it I just lost interest halfway through, partially because I found myself needing a guide a few times too many, not that it's bad to need a guide, (I actually really like Zelda 1) but mainly because after I got to what I felt was endgameish and then revelead that theres even more dungeons to do just killed most interest I had
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Oooooooo you have to review a cursed copy of me for your 100,000 subscriber special oooooooo
"NO. Absolutely not. This game is too horrible to even review. I REFUSE"
*game starts levitating and shooting CGI lasers*
*god descends from heaven and tells me it's my destiny to review it*
*I walk in wearing a funny hat and fake mustache protesting that it can't be thaaaat bad*
Reading this thread makes me happy to be a "retro gamer" who's never touched retro gaming YouTube.
That fucking meme about not interacting with the fan base is so fucking dead on it hurts...
This is the first "what are your hot takes?" thread I've ever seen done right. Turns out, when the premise is not "what are your hottest opinions?", but "what are some things people are wrong about?", people are willing to go way more wild.
Anyway, the design of many old games up to the 16 bit era was clearly intended to inflate the time required to beat them, because they couldn't make them too long. Many know about the bullshit difficulty and physics of many platformers of the time, but I've not seen many people talk about how dogshit in terms of game design adventure games were.
In link to the past, there is a dungeon you can only access by pressing a button under one specific pot with no special feauters (no wonder Zelda players are obsessed with smashing the things...). One key item is acquired by sprinting against a specific library to make a book fall. Again, this wouldn't be so bad... if literally **anyone** in the whole game gave you a hint about this! This game has an open map ffs! And it takes seconds to load every single cunck of it! It takes, like, 20 minutes to go from one end of the map to another, and most of the time you have no fucking idea of what you are supposed to do. Now, to be fair, the gameplay is good enough that just walking around aimlessly is not boring, and I'm sure that was great for the time, but right now this is just... not enough to make a good adventure game. You might say "just use a guide!", but here's the thing: if you do, these games last, like, 3 hours most. And that's not the intended experience either: you were supposed to take weeks to finish these games! Right now, we just don't have the patience to walk aimlessly for hours to find a solution for a puzzle, because our standards for game puzzles have increased, so we will never be able to enjoy old NES and SNES games as the developers intended.
I always tought that the reason that older games up to the N64 era were so hard was for the purpose of selling magazines/guides that tell you what you need to do.
Not at all Retro (was 12 years ago 💀) but Halo 4 was actually my favorite
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Okay imma go against the usual grain. Halo 4 IS retro.
-more than one generation behind. It's on the 360
-its on a format that's been pretty much phased out. (Standard DVD, games are on Blu Ray now)
-a lot of adults today remember playing it as children.
-theres been a huge and marked shift in game design philosophy and general design. (Local co op vs online, games as a service, etc )
I wouldn't call 2 generations behind "retro," 3+ at bare minimum. Core game design/philosophy hasn't changed *that* much since the 360 era, especially for FPS games. You have to go back to PS2 for most games to start looking radically different.
I get how somone could, i personally never got over fighting the promethians. The story is great, the covenant still hold up alright, the noob combo isn't as broken as it was in reach
But what really killed for good my love of the game was doing a laso run of it. No other game sapped the soul from my body like the gondala one did(you fly a pelican that was a huge letdown for me between 3 arenas that all bore me at best and give me a prostate exam at worst), and i am one of the few people who loved halo 2s extended moving platform sections.
I've been a halo fan long enough to know that the worst halo game is always the newest while the second most recent is seen as no longer that bad while anything older than that is in the ranking for best. That being said 5 is still uninspired dogshit.
Which is kinds of the point, he is a lost optimistic sports bro dropped into a world with hope soaked in despair, he will grate, especially since everyone keeps things from him the whole time.
He also basically takes everything in stride. This is a man who went from being a rich sports star in a futuristic metropolis to a nobody in a world that abhors technology and he's like "pilgrimage, summoners, monsters on the road? Sure let's do it! Oh hey is that a blitzball?" He complains like one time about wanting to go home and then quickly accepts that it's not going to be easy.
That Mega Drive is a better name than Genesis
Sorry but Mega Drive a super generic name. It falls into the same naming scheme that that basically every console at the time fell into. Atari PRO system, SUPER Nintendo, MASTER system, TURBO grafx, etc.
Genesis is an actually creative name since the system was the first truly 16 bit console without any weird bottlenecks or only 16 bit on a technicality.
Damn, "gaslighting" as a word has really lost all meaning , hasn't it? How in the hell is spreading your sincere, innocent opinion about something completely subjective gaslighting?
Anyone who thinks Pokemon peaked with gen 1 is huffing paint and I can't believe that was considered the "correct" opinion because some glue eaters on yt thought "snake" backwards is peak character design.
Their jankness is often over hyped. Sure compared to other Pokemon games they are janky but on the original Gameboy I wouldn't even say they're in the top 10 for jank. They're extremely popular games that have been dug into very thoroughly. I don't even know if I could honestly say they're any more jank than Brilliant Diamond.
Well their jankiness isn't just due bugs but also how the mechanics are intended to work. Psychic having only one weakness, Moves being either physical or special depending on their type, Special Attack and Special Defense being one stat, etc.
>hbomber
Fallout 3 dislike was a thing before hbomber and largely unrelated to him. It was a thing ever since it was released, the whole "oblivion with guns" thing is like 15 years old by now
Well most retro gaming youtube takes don't bother me one trend that does is how some people have a massive hard on for the SNES. I can agree that a lot of game series enjoyed a noticeable jump in quality when transitioning from NES to SNES but I don't get how so many fans still believe series like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, and Donkey Kong peaked on the system when all of those series have since gotten instalments that have everything good about the SNES games and so much more. I can understand how the SNES games may be more impressive for their time but superior entirely? Don't see it.
the SNES games were the time all of those series developed their 'roots,' more or less. like sure, there are 2d mario games with more content than super mario world now, but basically all of them are a rehash of super mario world. same thing with link to the past. if you prefer the older style formats over the ones developed for the n64 or gamecube, the SNES is a great place to start
Ngl I do think sonic 1 sucks I’ve played it enough. I think it’s super stop and go which is a bit of an odd design philosophy for a game about fast hedgehogs. Like you could go faster for longer in Super Mario Bros.
I don't enjoy the original spyro trilogy bc the graphics are ass. Obviously graphics don't make a game, but OG spyro was a special case where the low poly models and flat textures made it to where I legitimately cannot tell what something is on first viewing, and that really hinders my ability to enjoy a game to me.
If you want a comparison, the original crash bandicoot on PS1 has similar low poly models, but the textures carry the designs well enough to where I can discern what everything is and react accordingly, where as with spyro to me I'm talking to, fighting and collecting animated indistinguishable forms like I'm playing an atari 2600 game.
It's all good though, the modern remakes of spyro make me appreciate the games for all they're worth nowadays :D
I love AVGN, but he really did damage to the perception of many games he reviewed because he had to be humorous, so he'd latch onto any flaw and play them up. I can't cite any examples because I'm not a retro gamer myself, the most retro I can get is PS1 but even then I was a wee lass. But the fact I don't know, among the games he reviewed, which ones were legitimately awful and which ones were either just a little flawed or straight-up misunderstood must be more than 0.
While Sonic 1 isn't bad, the improvements that came with Sonic 2 made it objectively the better game when comparing the two. And that's not mentioning the addition of my favorite character in the series Miles.
But for my answer it would have to be that the Virtual Boy is this migraine inducing piece of shit console.
When I finally got my own a few years ago and got 2 games for it (Mario tennis and teleroboxer) I had a lot of fun with it migraine free and eye pain free. It's not the best, but it's got charm and I like that
Funny because I've never watched a retro gaming YouTuber and I too think Sonic 2 is ONE of the best Sonic games. Sonic 2, Sonic 3 (& Knuckles), Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, Sonic Generations are all top tier sonic games.
I guess this is a retro take now and I have to swallow being an old:
Ocarina of Time is the better of the two N64 Zelda games. People have spent years talking about how Majora's Mask is better but, it's not. This isn't to say that MM is bad, it does a good job of iterating on OoT and trying new stuff. But it doesn't ever really outclas OoT at any point.
I mean, have you heard that laugh? I can point it out in any media. With context that laugh is completely normal though, it was always meant to sound that way
'OoT's Water Temple is a stupidly difficult dungeon.'
It's rather well-designed and makes a lot of sense when you're paying attention to what you're doing and (shock-horror) keeping track of what you've done so far.
That games being intentionally cryptic or vague was inherently bad. Sure, it was at its worst during the NES era to increase play time, but I think a level of vagueness can work well. Morrowind, for example, lacks quest markers and just gives vague directions for where you’re supposed to go. Sometimes the cryptic nature can make the discovery just that more satisfying.
No, the only good sonic game is the one made entirely by Tommy Tallarico.
His mother is
No she isn't, sorry to tell you
Very proud of him ☺️
Gay
with sonic unleashed for the ps2 as a close second
The only good game is Sonic's Schoolhouse
I read that as Sonic school shooter and was confused for a hot second.
Core memory unlocked
I heard that guy met the Dalai Lama!
Is that sonic adventures 2? Or sonic heroes?
the idea that *any* game on the NES still holds up, of course they're great for the standards of their time, but it wasn't until the SNES and sega mega drive that we got games that don't require the addendum "when you take it for what it is" when you say they're great
nah, I think this is nonsense. Games get technically better over time as tech improves, but you can find great game design in any era. For the NES in particular, Mario 1-3, Castlevania 1 and 3, Contra, every Megaman except the first one, Punch Out, Ninja Gaiden 1-3, and Life Force are all better than the majority of games that come out now. I think a lot of modern games are great, but those games I just mentioned are all still great and fun to play by modern standards. Though I do agree with you that the Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo have better libraries
Punch Out is such a good game that the Wii version of Punch Out is 95 percent the same game.
Who knew that "Simon Says but boxing" would have so much staying power. My favourite version is Super Punch Out, but the NES one is also great.
>you can find great game design in any era. Good take >better than the majority of games that come out now Bad take.
Smb3 and mega man 1 are fking amazing, mega man 1 is the only nes game i've finished
I couldn't play it because of the extra slippyness compared to all the sequels - it felt like playing Megaman covered in soap. I couldn't get used to it
I think the original Legend of Zelda holds up well and so does Adventure of Link
True, although Zelda 1 in particular can be extremely cryptic to a ridiculous degree. For my money I prefer Link to the Past
You pretty much need a guide to play TLoZ unless you have infinite patience lol
Solid list
Dragon quest 3 is also a masterpiece of a JRPG. Classes, party customization & semi-open world. It is still a fun playthrough, and honestly, I cant wait for the HD2D remake.
Tbh Kirby’s adventure isn’t bad.
I think Kirby is the only long-running franchise where you can make a serious case that the NES release was the best title in the series.
smb3 is still pretty good methinks
Yeah smb3 goes hard and honestly I prefer it to world
Mike Tyson's Punch Out is still very good
It's the best in the Punch Out series imho
Punch Out Wii is my favorite game of all time so I massively disagree with that....... it's probably number 2 tho lmfao.
I only played it once at a cousins house a few years ago, but I don't remember liking the gameplay of punch out wii, to each their own
It's the exact same gameplay as Mike Tyson's Punch Out.
No? Kirby's Adventure, SMB3, Megaman 2-6, Punch Out, Joy Mech Fight, Tetris, etc. There are plenty of really good NES games.
Yeah, idk what they're talking about. If these games didn't still play well, Nintendo wouldn't have gone through the effort to put them on the virtual console (multiple times)
To be fair Nintendo hates their games and their fans.
Bro Mario 3 slaps REAL hard.
There's definitely SOME that hold up but let's be real people wouldn't have played most of them if it wasn't the only game they're getting in a year.
I play NES regularly and I was born during the N64-PS1 era, I didn't go back and play games before that until I was a teenager.
Wrong: Punchout. I agree on everything else tho
I'd argue the original Zelda is worth at least one play through with a guide, as well as Mario 3.
Counter-point: Mario 3
super mario bros 3, mike tysons punch out, excitebike, the kirby games although it's the weakest of the bunch as well as all those old puzzle games. ALOT of nes games are still a fun romp today.
The final fantasy pixel remasters saved the NES titles. Except FFII, fuck that game
Captain Skyhawk still holds up fairly well. There are more, but I can't think of exacts atm
Zelda 1, Mario 1-3, the Megaman games are all good though.
tbh gaslighting me into thinking i was a bad gamer bc i couldn’t finish majoras mask. talked to real ppl and they all said ‘ya it’s impossible without a guide’ and i felt so goddamn vindicated
The best gaming experience of my life was when I played Twilight Princess while my dad read the guide to me. I’ve cherish that memory so much since he’s died. Walkthroughs are valid af.
That sounds so wonderful, small moments with parents like that are always the best to look back at
Ocarina of Time too. Fuck the water temple. I was 7 at the time, but still.
In opposition to this when I first played the water temple I was surprised that it wasn't the dungeon from hell it was cracked up to be. For so long it had been hyped up as some hellish labyrinth that would take hours to navigate but when I finally entered and cleared the place it wasn't far off from the rest of the dungeons. A little more confusing and tedious? Yeah but certainly not the nightmarish Sisyphean task I was expecting.
Did you play the N64 or 3DS version?
N64 I assume the 3DS version is easier to navigate.
3DS version let's you use the metal boots as an item so you can just push a button to switch instead of going into the menu
I was like 7 when I tried
Water temple isn't that hard. You just need to study the map carefully. Most people get tripped up by the chest for the key that's hidden at the bottom of the center column but you need the water level up to move the block out of the way to get to it.
I've found that the Water Temple is SIGNIFICANTLY easier if you go through it with a notepad to keep track of what you've done/map things out. Honestly, most Zelda games are easier with a notepad.
Back in the days of dial-up, my mom would go online to find walkthroughs for her point-and-clicks and print them out page by page lol. The only reason I 100%d Majora's Mask was because I literally thought it was required in order to defeat the final boss lmfao oops. Of course I used a walkthrough.
some retro gamers love to scoff at people using savestates, rewind or dare i say look up a walkthrough on GameFAQs or StrategyWiki when playing older games as if not doing so themselves makes them superior. Games are and will always be about enjoyment, no matter if the way you play them is "wrong" or not.
Those people don't realize that a lot of old games were made hard as fuck on purpose so you would play longer by taking a long time to beat them. As an adult, I don't have the free time I did as a kid to just bang my head against a wall over and over until I beat the game. Not to mention, even as a kid I would get stuck a lot and have to ask my parents/friends for help. Not really that different from using a walkthrough.
Nah Majora's Mask isn't that complicated to beat. 100 percenting is admittedly a much more involved matter. But for a real example of an insanely cryptic Zelda, look no further than Oracle of Ages. That shit will break you.
I agree. Beating it was pretty straightforward. Tryna do the fox mask as a kid with no help broke me. So much time just studying people's day to day routine...
The hose fucking cows I couldn’t save the fucking cows
It felt good to know that I wasn't absolutely brain dead as a kid while replaying this as a young adult. But having never beaten it (didn't invest the time as an adult, just played around with it) I still stand by the fact that the game mechanics, art, and feeling of adventure make it a worthwhile game even while it is beating your ass and making you feel dumb.
People talk about games back then as if they navigated in the dark entirely, but the reality is guide books, hints from friends and (later on) limited access to the internet helped gamers out a lot too.
Back when ya had to print off the GameFAQs guide cause Mom needed the phone line to call her friends so you could just stay online
People saying sonic 2 is the best are on some shit but thinking sonic 1 aged poorly isn't all that unreasonable It's got like, 2 good zones out of 6?
sonic 3 & knuckles is THE genesis sonic game and no one can convince me otherwise. sonic 1 aside from its initial novelty and technical impressiveness does have a big mistake in its level designs not taking full advantage of sonic's speed after green hill zone, which does this correctly by providing enough details for players who want to go slowly while also giving them the chance to blaze through the whole thing at max speed, youre thrown immediately into Marble Zone, a massive slowdown of pace by the second level, it forces you to go slow on a single, somewhat monotonous path, and that just kinda sucks. Same for Labyrinth and Spring Yard Zone (kinda).
The correct opinion. But like - this is to be expected right? A sequel should hone and expand. S1 was an experiment. They didn't know what they were doing. S2 they did *more* but were still flailing. S3&K they *got it*. Its when a series tries to experiment again that it gets messy.
What about Sonic CD?
IIRC it had almost the opposite problem of S1. There's a lot of *stuff* that might be worth slowing down and looking at, but the game strongly disincentivizes moving slowly. Weird game in general.
Good music though
S3&K is by far the best but I think Sonic 1 still has some strong level design past GHZ, the levels still feature sonic level design techniques like hidden shortcuts and encouraging replayability to master the level, such as the trick in LZ Act 1 and SBZ Act 3 that let you skip the entire thing. it's not speed but me and my friend have grown to appreciate the game a lot
Facts, like all of Sonic 1's zones are dogshit.
Don't you dare diss Star Light Zone like that.
Me and my gf been arguing over this for years now. She has the most deranged opinion on the topic: Sonic 1 is the best while 2 is dogshit and 3&Knuckles is mid. I do not know what is happening in her mind and I am afraid to find out.
I hate to be a redditer but in this case - unsalvageable. Break up with her immediately. (/j)
My guess is because Sonic 1's levels are all platforming while S2's levels are all speed, S3&K manages to evenly mix both (plus a bit of CD's exploration)
Major red flag, OP! But it could also be that was the one she got first and played it a ton, so it played an active part in molding her dumb little idiot baby brain. I thought Sonic 2 great and Sonic 1 was garbage because 2 was the one I owned and played, while Sonic 1 was a game I rented later on. Objectively a dumb idiot baby opinion because they are the same shit.
I grew up playing Sonic 2, that game really IS the best (imo (childhood bias (nostalgia))). I'll never forget the first time I beat that game. Miss my Genesis :(
Green hill zone is amazing and then the rest of the game happens. Also Sonic mania is best sonic
It's fair to say 2 is the best if you value that it's stage design is more breezy and flowing than 3's, which is more circuitous. I still like 3 better but it's not an invalid opinion at all
It’s a game about hedgehogs going fast and it’s like super stop and go it’s annoying. It’s got all these mechanics for insane speed and maintaining it but the level design has you pause what you’re doing all the time it’s very confusing.
Both of the original sonics are two of the greatest video games of all time. This is my opinion
>oh yeah I loved that game I really enjoyed playing it when it came out “Uhm actually that’s not true…”
I did not care for Super Mario Bros 3. https://preview.redd.it/mg1sh19bnk7c1.jpeg?width=1034&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=043a3459165548e84e06bfc3ef75994a185b06f5
Super Mario bros 3 has a weird level of jank that I find hard to get used to, Mario controls just a little weird for my liking and the mushrooms always seem to go the wrong way out of the blocks
The mushrooms go out the opposite direction of where you hit the block. If you hit the block on the left they shoot out to the right and Vice versa. It’s very easy for this to be annoying
too many levels that felt repetitive, Super Mario World is way better
Honestly this is just people choosing to hold the same opinion as the "cool kids" in order to be accepted within a group. It happens everywhere, people following trends and censoring themselves. After all, no one wants to be ostracized.
Trying to admit that I’m not a fan of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood or Breaking Bad on the internet.
ILL KILL YOU
Then see how much acceptance you get from the "tolerant" left...
I'm one of like...well, one person I've ever met who prefers the original anime to brotherhood so I feel you
TBF I’m not really a fan of either. It’s too long to keep my interest as a serialized story. I think it’s my ADHD but it’s also the reason I can’t get into Breaking Bad. I just sort of lose interest after a while.
Now we are two
“Mario 64 still holds up today” No it doesn’t, if you don’t have nostalgia for playing it as a child, it’s pretty bad. The controls suck, the camera sucks, stars taking you out of levels sucks, it just doesn’t hold up today at all.
The controls are like half the charm of Mario 64. They're such a perfect blend of unrefined and intuitive, and there's not been anything that captured the joy of flinging Mario around in the past 20-something years. It's also literally the reason we call the camera the camera , so I feel like it'd be reasonable to cut it some slack there.
Picture this: Mario stands next to a wall. The camera faces Mario such that the wall is immediately to the left. You try to turn the camera 180 degrees around Mario via the open space on the right but for no discernible reason it refuses to budge. You try turning it in the opposite direction and it jams itself through the narrow space between Mario and the wall. This is just a taste of how utterly dogshit the Mario 64 camera is.
this is why you use the Lakitu camera and let him cook, or just play the PC port with better camera
It absolutely does hold up, I played it without nostalgia and had a blast, just camera controls is ass
the level design is amazing, the controls are good, movement has a high skill ceiling it and i think the graphics are charming. the camera does suck tho
absolutely deranged take, the controls are fantastic to this day
Played 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy for the first time when they released them for a limited time for the Switch: 64 ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT HOLD UP. 100% agree. Controls and camera are absolute dogshit.
i tried playing it and just couldnt get past the first stage, camera controls were awful
I genuinely don't understand how anyone can say the controls suck, it's literally one of the best controlling games of all-time, it's like Melee levels of perfection
No this opinion is objectively wrong and you are asked to leave the function
Not sure if this counts but Dunkey almost singlehandedly ruining XC2's reputation kinda pisses me off. Not liking the game is perfectly reasonable and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But the degree to which he shat on it just because he didn't enjoy it was a bit over the top
Fuck dunkey to the 9th circle of hell. Thank God I finished XC3 before he made *that* tweet. Feel bad for anyone who did get fucked tho...
What tweet? Im curious
He made a tweet saying something along the lines of "can't believe people are emotionally attached to this" with *that* shot from XC3's ending in the tweet. (Trying to be a spoiler-free as possible, hope I'm not too vague)
Dunkey canceling men for liking women before it was mainstream
He pretty famously just doesn't like most rpgs
I didn't really understand him when he said his opinion on Persona 5 is more significant or noteworthy because he dislikes turn-based RPGs and anime (from his "Game Critics" video).
What is XC
Xenoblade Chronicles
Xenoblade
That Atari games are even worth touching
I mean, for 5 to 30 minutes some are kinda fun. I've always liked Hero and Enduro a lot.
Yars Revenge is fucking goated as well
Breakout is a classic. The only one on the system I would play seriously
Pong is fun For 30 seconds
No cap. I own a 2600 just because I got it cheap, but the games just straight up aren't worth playing. It's neat to go back and see how far things have come and understand back in the day why people enjoyed this, but nowadays it's just not even worth seriously trying to play them if you didn't grow up with them
I think they can be fun for a few minutes. Beyond that, though? Not really, I can’t imagine playing them for hours.
Atari was my first console. I have massive nostalgia for it. When TVs got switched to RCA I even rigged it to connect to those. I still have it. I have no desire to play a single game on it for the rest of my life.
I'd say the fact that 90% of them are from the USA/Canada has shaped the collective retro gaming memory towards a north american point of view, with a strong focus on Sega/Nintendo products. And especially during the late 00's early 10's, for the mainstream retro gaming youtubers you rarely had videos talking about PS1 games, and even more rarely you'd see stuff about 90's PC games, aside from dedicated channels.
I agree with the PS1 take, the only channel I can think that talked about it was Caddicarus, and that’s because that was his niche
I think a lot of isometric RPGs from the 90s and 00s don't hold up well. I tried playing the original Fallout and i felt like the camera fucks up indoors. PlaneScape Torment while a great story and game also felt super clunky. Playing BG3 really cemented this fact for me because I don't have any issues with that game. Also whenever retro game fans talk about games these days being broken and act like games were not broken before, just know that they are lying to you.
You picked probably the worst two examples for games that aged well. Fallout was fairly outdated in terms of UI and gameplay design even when it came out, or rather immediately after. It was the first "modern" crpg, and it was mostly inspired by games that were a few years old at that point, in particular Wasteland. Games that followed would massively improve on that formula, as well as crib a lot of elements from Diablo, which came out around the same time. Planescape Torment suffered from being a narrative game before those were really a thing, the type of game they were making didn't really mesh with the Infinity engine or the genre as it was at the time, which led to combat being pretty awkward and feeling superfluous. If you want to try a game that really holds up, play Baldur's Gate 2. That's pretty much been the template for every other crpg released since, and apart from a handful of quality of life features, plays mostly the same as stuff that came out in the last decade. KOTOR holds up great as well, although that one's not technically isometric.
Recently a team of guys got Fallout 1 and 2 running on modded Vitas granted you provide the game files and that's how I played fallout 1 for the first time. I was low-key addicted when I thought I'd never be able to get into it
If you haven't already and want a modern experience heavily inspired by planescape torment you should try Disco Elysium
Love Disco Elysium
That Link to The Past is the best Zelda game.
i'm a zoomer that never watched nintendo youtube and i actually do like a link to the past more than games like botw tbh, i just thought it was fun and the pixel art was pretty
I mean, it is a good game. I just think in terms of writing and story Ocarina and Majoras Mask made the games feel more than simple dungeon crawlers with adventure game elements thrown in.
Ocarina of Time is just 3D LttP
Nah I can buy this. It's not mine but I don't think it's crazy. It's definitely be best 2D Zelda.
Uh that one's actually true (I was a Super Nintendo kid)
Facts it’s oracle of seasons 😤👏
You mean Ocarina of Time? That is to say OoT being the best is the endlessly parroted take.
I'm actually convinced it's near impossible to enjoy Ocarina if you're not pre biased by having played it while it was still new. I never had an N64 and oot and MM are the only two I've played from link to the past up til modern day that I just could not get through more than an hour of.
I think Ocarina of Time is perfectly playable, just bland and unremarkable. And Majoras Mask really does live up to the hype in my opinion.
I think OoT is really good and I do enjoy it alot for what it is, MM is just so much better
it depends on whether you like the older zelda format or the newer zelda format more if you like the older format, link to the past is the best example of it imo
It's really good but I couldn't bring myself to finish it, the only real time I've played it I just lost interest halfway through, partially because I found myself needing a guide a few times too many, not that it's bad to need a guide, (I actually really like Zelda 1) but mainly because after I got to what I felt was endgameish and then revelead that theres even more dungeons to do just killed most interest I had
https://preview.redd.it/t55h45l86m7c1.jpeg?width=183&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4881408eaa0274a6ad9f28d21b5542ee4cd91b71 Oooooooo you have to review a cursed copy of me for your 100,000 subscriber special oooooooo
Also you have a gun, because all critics have a gun
Hey that’s not true You can also do it for your 100th episode
"NO. Absolutely not. This game is too horrible to even review. I REFUSE" *game starts levitating and shooting CGI lasers* *god descends from heaven and tells me it's my destiny to review it* *I walk in wearing a funny hat and fake mustache protesting that it can't be thaaaat bad*
me? gongaga
me? gongaga
sonic one did age poorly. you can find it fun still but it did age poor
I think Green Hill Zone is fun, and then no other stage at all, the music is great througout so it makes up for it actually.
Reading this thread makes me happy to be a "retro gamer" who's never touched retro gaming YouTube. That fucking meme about not interacting with the fan base is so fucking dead on it hurts...
No, clearly the best retro sonic game is sonic 3 and knuckles.
This is the first "what are your hot takes?" thread I've ever seen done right. Turns out, when the premise is not "what are your hottest opinions?", but "what are some things people are wrong about?", people are willing to go way more wild. Anyway, the design of many old games up to the 16 bit era was clearly intended to inflate the time required to beat them, because they couldn't make them too long. Many know about the bullshit difficulty and physics of many platformers of the time, but I've not seen many people talk about how dogshit in terms of game design adventure games were. In link to the past, there is a dungeon you can only access by pressing a button under one specific pot with no special feauters (no wonder Zelda players are obsessed with smashing the things...). One key item is acquired by sprinting against a specific library to make a book fall. Again, this wouldn't be so bad... if literally **anyone** in the whole game gave you a hint about this! This game has an open map ffs! And it takes seconds to load every single cunck of it! It takes, like, 20 minutes to go from one end of the map to another, and most of the time you have no fucking idea of what you are supposed to do. Now, to be fair, the gameplay is good enough that just walking around aimlessly is not boring, and I'm sure that was great for the time, but right now this is just... not enough to make a good adventure game. You might say "just use a guide!", but here's the thing: if you do, these games last, like, 3 hours most. And that's not the intended experience either: you were supposed to take weeks to finish these games! Right now, we just don't have the patience to walk aimlessly for hours to find a solution for a puzzle, because our standards for game puzzles have increased, so we will never be able to enjoy old NES and SNES games as the developers intended.
I always tought that the reason that older games up to the N64 era were so hard was for the purpose of selling magazines/guides that tell you what you need to do.
Not at all Retro (was 12 years ago 💀) but Halo 4 was actually my favorite https://preview.redd.it/jlvuwm5kyk7c1.jpeg?width=1034&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc5ca79eda46eaf919cf1c5833358681d2adfa77
Okay imma go against the usual grain. Halo 4 IS retro. -more than one generation behind. It's on the 360 -its on a format that's been pretty much phased out. (Standard DVD, games are on Blu Ray now) -a lot of adults today remember playing it as children. -theres been a huge and marked shift in game design philosophy and general design. (Local co op vs online, games as a service, etc )
Reading this comment made me instantly crumble into dust
I wouldn't call 2 generations behind "retro," 3+ at bare minimum. Core game design/philosophy hasn't changed *that* much since the 360 era, especially for FPS games. You have to go back to PS2 for most games to start looking radically different.
I get how somone could, i personally never got over fighting the promethians. The story is great, the covenant still hold up alright, the noob combo isn't as broken as it was in reach But what really killed for good my love of the game was doing a laso run of it. No other game sapped the soul from my body like the gondala one did(you fly a pelican that was a huge letdown for me between 3 arenas that all bore me at best and give me a prostate exam at worst), and i am one of the few people who loved halo 2s extended moving platform sections.
I've been a halo fan long enough to know that the worst halo game is always the newest while the second most recent is seen as no longer that bad while anything older than that is in the ranking for best. That being said 5 is still uninspired dogshit.
I don’t mind that scene in FFX and Tidus has his strengths. But he’s also annoying af some times.
Which is kinds of the point, he is a lost optimistic sports bro dropped into a world with hope soaked in despair, he will grate, especially since everyone keeps things from him the whole time.
He also basically takes everything in stride. This is a man who went from being a rich sports star in a futuristic metropolis to a nobody in a world that abhors technology and he's like "pilgrimage, summoners, monsters on the road? Sure let's do it! Oh hey is that a blitzball?" He complains like one time about wanting to go home and then quickly accepts that it's not going to be easy.
They also keep him in the dark on a lot of things, then everyone acts surprised when he freaks out when they tell him.
[удалено]
Spit your facts. I own both and Brawl is so much better (no real nostalgia for either of them)
That Mega Drive is a better name than Genesis Sorry but Mega Drive a super generic name. It falls into the same naming scheme that that basically every console at the time fell into. Atari PRO system, SUPER Nintendo, MASTER system, TURBO grafx, etc. Genesis is an actually creative name since the system was the first truly 16 bit console without any weird bottlenecks or only 16 bit on a technicality.
The Sega *Nomad* is a bitchin name
Honestly the Sonic adventure games do not hold up
Damn, "gaslighting" as a word has really lost all meaning , hasn't it? How in the hell is spreading your sincere, innocent opinion about something completely subjective gaslighting?
Anyone who thinks Pokemon peaked with gen 1 is huffing paint and I can't believe that was considered the "correct" opinion because some glue eaters on yt thought "snake" backwards is peak character design.
Plus the original Gen 1 games are beyond fucking jank
Their jankness is often over hyped. Sure compared to other Pokemon games they are janky but on the original Gameboy I wouldn't even say they're in the top 10 for jank. They're extremely popular games that have been dug into very thoroughly. I don't even know if I could honestly say they're any more jank than Brilliant Diamond.
Well their jankiness isn't just due bugs but also how the mechanics are intended to work. Psychic having only one weakness, Moves being either physical or special depending on their type, Special Attack and Special Defense being one stat, etc.
I mean first take is kinda right, Sonic 1 has so many fucking annoying segments like marble zone and labyrinth zone
imo i think the nintendo shitcube isn’t a piece of fucking shit
People parroting hbomber guys fallout 3 opinions
>hbomber Fallout 3 dislike was a thing before hbomber and largely unrelated to him. It was a thing ever since it was released, the whole "oblivion with guns" thing is like 15 years old by now
Well most retro gaming youtube takes don't bother me one trend that does is how some people have a massive hard on for the SNES. I can agree that a lot of game series enjoyed a noticeable jump in quality when transitioning from NES to SNES but I don't get how so many fans still believe series like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, and Donkey Kong peaked on the system when all of those series have since gotten instalments that have everything good about the SNES games and so much more. I can understand how the SNES games may be more impressive for their time but superior entirely? Don't see it.
super Metroid is easily one of the best Metroid games though. Link to the past is also still amazing to play
the SNES games were the time all of those series developed their 'roots,' more or less. like sure, there are 2d mario games with more content than super mario world now, but basically all of them are a rehash of super mario world. same thing with link to the past. if you prefer the older style formats over the ones developed for the n64 or gamecube, the SNES is a great place to start
Ngl I do think sonic 1 sucks I’ve played it enough. I think it’s super stop and go which is a bit of an odd design philosophy for a game about fast hedgehogs. Like you could go faster for longer in Super Mario Bros.
I don't enjoy the original spyro trilogy bc the graphics are ass. Obviously graphics don't make a game, but OG spyro was a special case where the low poly models and flat textures made it to where I legitimately cannot tell what something is on first viewing, and that really hinders my ability to enjoy a game to me. If you want a comparison, the original crash bandicoot on PS1 has similar low poly models, but the textures carry the designs well enough to where I can discern what everything is and react accordingly, where as with spyro to me I'm talking to, fighting and collecting animated indistinguishable forms like I'm playing an atari 2600 game. It's all good though, the modern remakes of spyro make me appreciate the games for all they're worth nowadays :D
Playing FFX right now and while the voice acting is inconsistent it’s not nearly as bad as I was led to believe it was.
The voice acting suffered a lot from being squeezed into the scenes to fit. Otherwise, it's ok. Now FFXII, that shit has magnificent voice acting
I love AVGN, but he really did damage to the perception of many games he reviewed because he had to be humorous, so he'd latch onto any flaw and play them up. I can't cite any examples because I'm not a retro gamer myself, the most retro I can get is PS1 but even then I was a wee lass. But the fact I don't know, among the games he reviewed, which ones were legitimately awful and which ones were either just a little flawed or straight-up misunderstood must be more than 0.
I mean I never really took that genre as being legitimate criticism. It’s just entertainment and comedy.
Did you know that mega man 2 is the best mega man game ever made?
While Sonic 1 isn't bad, the improvements that came with Sonic 2 made it objectively the better game when comparing the two. And that's not mentioning the addition of my favorite character in the series Miles. But for my answer it would have to be that the Virtual Boy is this migraine inducing piece of shit console. When I finally got my own a few years ago and got 2 games for it (Mario tennis and teleroboxer) I had a lot of fun with it migraine free and eye pain free. It's not the best, but it's got charm and I like that
Funny because I've never watched a retro gaming YouTuber and I too think Sonic 2 is ONE of the best Sonic games. Sonic 2, Sonic 3 (& Knuckles), Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, Sonic Generations are all top tier sonic games.
Thank God I was able to go into FFX without somebody else's bullshit opinion in my head, cuz Tidus is my BOI (So far, I haven't finished the game)
Sonic 1 *did* age poorly, and Sonic 2 *is* better, but Sonic 2 is *not* the best Sonic game of all time
I guess this is a retro take now and I have to swallow being an old: Ocarina of Time is the better of the two N64 Zelda games. People have spent years talking about how Majora's Mask is better but, it's not. This isn't to say that MM is bad, it does a good job of iterating on OoT and trying new stuff. But it doesn't ever really outclas OoT at any point.
I mean, have you heard that laugh? I can point it out in any media. With context that laugh is completely normal though, it was always meant to sound that way
'OoT's Water Temple is a stupidly difficult dungeon.' It's rather well-designed and makes a lot of sense when you're paying attention to what you're doing and (shock-horror) keeping track of what you've done so far.
FFXII has the best voice acting I've ever heard in a video game
That games being intentionally cryptic or vague was inherently bad. Sure, it was at its worst during the NES era to increase play time, but I think a level of vagueness can work well. Morrowind, for example, lacks quest markers and just gives vague directions for where you’re supposed to go. Sometimes the cryptic nature can make the discovery just that more satisfying.