I tried playing Harvest Moon on the SNES today and having played Stardew Valley for hours, I thought I’d try and see how tolerable the original Harvest Moon was in comparison. I know and understand it is unfair because there’s a 20 year gap between Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley, while also discrediting Harvest Moon’s later entries since there’s more than one.
Harvest Moon to me is a bit hard to revisit. Having to get used to only carrying two tools at the same time, your farm doesn’t seem as big, you don’t have a way to know that you’re tired as readily, you just have to watch for the signs and the village you visit doesn’t seem as characteristic. It’s a basic farming sim, it has to start somewhere.
But Stardew Valley does so many things that it is easier to revisit.
Having grown up with the PS1, it’s been fun revisiting old classics and see what has aged well and what hasn’t.
Platformers like Spyro, Crash, Rayman, Abe’s Oddysee and Ape Escape have aged like fine wine (although Crash 1 is a lot more janky than the others). But that back into the past, some games also showed no signs of proper playtesting aimed at kids, which means overly difficult levels, annoying completions and such - I remember spending months playing Tarzan, The Emperor’s New Groove, Croc 2, Kingley’s Adventure and others to 100% them, and some of them I could never finish. I only recently 100% Croc 2 for the first time, for example, and yeah, it wasn’t really that good.
Some JRPGs are also as great today as they were the day they were released (Final Fantasy IX, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Star Ocean and even lesser known ones such as Legend of Legaia, Threads of Fate and Wild Arms), and are arguably better than many of their contemporary competitors. But you sometimes have to stomach one too many random encounter, overly distracting old/early PS1-era graphics, bad translations, or all of the above (I’ve never been an omega-fan of FFVII, and let me tell you, revisiting it in the pandemic really didn’t improve my opinion of that game).
The slow gameplay afforded by the console really allows action-horror games such as Resident Evil, Dino Crisis and Silent Hill to shine, but those that attempted to be more action-oriented, such as Siphon Filter, really show the signs of age. Dino Crisis 2 is the exception here, being very action-heavy, but also distinctly “modern” in many of its design choices.
Stealth games such as Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu are also great, although very limited in scope by today’s standards, and the latter’s low render distance is something that may annoy players accustomed to modern gaming.
FPS games (Medal of Honour being the biggest title) really have no place in any contemporary gamer’s playlist. The same can be said about Race/driving games, unless you like revisiting the catchy tunes of the Gran Turismo 2 soundtrack. For example, I found CTR - Crash Team Racing quite dull and too easy even at max difficulty, but had a blast collecting all achievements in the remake (shame it never got released on PC - I wonder why).
It’s probably the same about fighting games: modern entries are much more fluid and dynamic, have better AI and allow for a greater skill ceiling. I say “probably” because I suck at fighting games and I’ve never played them extensively, aside from a few sparring matches with my brother on Tekken 3.
There are other cases where I found the original game “good enough, but not worth your time over the most recent entries”. For example, as a kid I spent countless hours crossing the skies of Ace Combat 2, but all the titles that came after it are just better. If I had to chose only one game for this post, AC2 would probably be it. I loved it and I still do, and its soundtrack is bonkers (seriously, it’s really good), but yeah, I’d take 4, Zero and 6, or even Project Wingman, over it any day.
On the subject of fighting games, its true that modern games are more fluid and dynamic and obviously visually superior, but they are also chopped up into a thousand microtransactions and dumbed down. There are six games in the Soul Calibur series now, and SC2 is still the peak there. I’d also argue the best games of both the Mortal Kombat and Dead or Alive series lie somewhere in the middle. The latest entries in all three of these series are honestly disappointing, as well as absolutely riddled with microtransactions.
Depends on the game I think. Guilty Gear is doing better than ever with Strive and actually has a decent population base for the first time. I do take some issue with the DLC character seasons but it’s hard to fault them too much for following what has become standard practice, and they’ve been continually releasing high quality content in every update. Their netcode needs some work but the game part of the game is pristine, it’s my favorite fighting game by a mile and as they continue to add in the rest of the old roster there’s becoming less and less reason to try and play the older Guilty Gear games.
That’s sad to hear. I was aware of some of them MTX-heavy, but I thought it was compensated by the base game being more feature-rich than their predecessors.
I appreciate the correction, I really am ignorant when it comes to this genre.
Great comment, lots of examples! I agree with pretty much everything you listed.
Regarding CTR, have you tried Crash Nitro Kart? I always loved that one more than the original. It had a few improvements over the first game, so I wonder if it aged a bit better.
Unfortunately, I haven’t! I didn’t have a PS2 growing up, I went straight from the PS1 to the X360, so I missed on a lot of titles from the sixth gen. I eventually got back to play some of them (.hack games, Ace Combat titles, and a few more), but I don’t have as much free time as I did when I was a kid and I’m still missing a ton of stuff.
That being said, the CTR remake did have all the Nitro Kart levels in it and they were a true joy to play. I liked them even more than the original’s levels, which I certainly did non expect as I had a lot of nostalgia for the OG. Let me tell you, if the remake had been released on PC with cross-play, me and my brother would still be playing it to this day lol
:O I did not know that! Will check it out, thanks!