Most overrated "classic" games (anything before the PS2)

[George Floyd Sneed]

This is correct on all counts. FF Tactics is basically carried by the FF name.

Another big factor was that FF Tactics on PlayStation was out of print for several years so it went for $100-150 until popular demand drove Square to reissue it as a greatest hits. So it got a lot of hype that wouldn’t have happened if Tactics was always in print. Xenogears was the same way.

Basically any out of print and hard to find Square game during the PlayStation era became legendary. It was kind of the same way for the SNES until emulation and fan translations popped a lot of those bubbles. Many of those games were good but just good, not the omg legendary games they were hyped to be.

surprised no one has mentioned tetris. low skill ceiling, repetitive game play, more cash grab "alternatives" then monopoly. theres not much to say about it because it so simple but the success of tetris has never made sense to me because its not challenging enough to be engaging or even annoying. solitare is harder and more rewarding because at least you get the card waterfall.

Tetris was a smash hit for the Game Boy because it was perfect for that time and that platform. It doesn’t hold up under any other circumstance.

 

[X Prime]

Another big factor was that FF Tactics on PlayStation was out of print for several years so it went for $100-150 until popular demand drove Square to reissue it as a greatest hits. So it got a lot of hype that wouldn’t have happened if Tactics was always in print. Xenogears was the same way.

Basically any out of print and hard to find Square game during the PlayStation era became legendary. It was kind of the same way for the SNES until emulation and fan translations popped a lot of those bubbles. Many of those games were good but just good, not the omg legendary games they were hyped to be.

Case in point: Bahamut Lagoon.

Treasure of the Rudras was also not that good. Though it is the one and only game I know of where you can attack your foes with variations of the NIGGER spell.

I will carry water for Seiken Densetsu 3 and Treasure Hunter G though.

 

[Calandrino]

Chrono Trigger?



more like HOMO NIGGER

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

As I only rented DK64 and have only vague memories of it, what is the 411 on why it sucked? Was it not just like Banjo and Conker? (I recall a sand land and there was a....casino building or something and this uhhhh very sexualized lady was in it. Candice? Granted it was a rental so i hadnt started it from the beginning)

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

As I only rented DK64 and have only vague memories of it, what is the 411 on why it sucked? Was it not just like Banjo and Conker? (I recall a sand land and there was a....casino building or something and this uhhhh very sexualized lady was in it. Candice? Granted it was a rental so i hadnt started it from the beginning)

You can find deep dives on Youtube about this I'm sure, but to keep it short and sweet they basically created the most tedious game ever by cramming it with the most collectibles of any game ever while also making it so that had to constantly swap between 5 characters to explore and collect said collectibles.

And you don't get to swap them on the fly, you need to go to specific swap points on the map.

Edit: Also the bonus barrels were like 95% bullshit. I honestly wonder if anyone even playtested them because of how awful they were.

 

[cybertoaster]

I am dead certain the only people on the planet who owned master systems were 40yo eurotrash, who in turn gave way to the 45yo cultists who still pretend sonic was ever good.

It was huge over in europe and brazil so most of their fans are from there.

In fact had sega moved faster and beat the nes to the market here in america history would've been very different. That's basically what happened in those markets, they got there before nintendo.

Zelda is not an RPG.

You role play as link, even put your name, ergo RPG. Just because its a really basic one doesnt mean it isnt one.

I was a tit who got a saturn instead of a playstation because muh Sonic.

Join the club, its been like 25 years or so and I still regret it.

then you realise theres only 2 cars and 4 tracks. Colin macrae and vrally were vastly superior.

Because it was an arcade game, tho they could've done like virtua racing deluxe and add some extra tracks to compensate.

 

[Tren Shapiro]

You role play as link, even put your name, ergo RPG. Just because its a really basic one doesnt mean it isnt one.

That's not what an RPG is. The genre started as a digital recreation of tabletop role playing games which is why they were called CRPGs, or Computer Role Playing Games. Pac-Man is also not an RPG despite playing the role of Pac-Man and being able to input your initials when you get a high score.

 

[skykiii]

surprised no one has mentioned tetris. low skill ceiling, repetitive game play, more cash grab "alternatives" then monopoly. theres not much to say about it because it so simple but the success of tetris has never made sense to me because its not challenging enough to be engaging or even annoying. solitare is harder and more rewarding because at least you get the card waterfall.

Okay, so I said I wouldn't defend any game... but I absolutely have to go to bat for Tetris.

Although I will agree with you that older versions like the NES and Gameboy absolutely do not hold up.

That said, what needs to be remembered is that Tetris was essentially one of the world's first "casual" games.

Even then though, it does have more depth than most would let on....

.... Especially in modern incarnations which have multiplayer.

Seriously, once you've gone through and managed to win a match of Tetris 99, or go through and Three-Star-Ranked every stage in Puyo Puyo Tetris, you understand this game has depth (and yes, some stages are literally just Tetris, so the depth isn't all coming from the Puyo side or the crossover aspect).

Tetris is a game that changed massively. Old versions were all about maximizing your score by trying to get as many four-line-clears as possible, and one reason I find them hard to go back to is because they're basically random and you can get screwed easily (especially if you get nothing but Z and S shapes several times in a row).

Modern Tetris made the "pattern of doom" (the afformentioned nonstop S and Z shapes) literally a thing that can't happen... and also made the game more competitive by prioritizing combos, which leads to tactics around those combos... as well as the official recognition of the T-Spin maneuver which is now actually better than scoring a Tetris.

Seriously, if you can stand TheJwittz, his reaction when playing Tetris 99 and finding out how different it was from what he used to know is pretty apt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNdk3pIrfy0

 

[The Foxtrot]

Heard Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods over-explained the absolute fuck out of its story to the point that it just became a mess of shit.

Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods tried way too fucking hard to ape Marathon (Specifically Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon: Infinity), while forgetting that Doom as a franchise was never supposed to have a deeper story [Carmack infamously said that "story in a game is like story in a porno"].

Also making Doomguy ("The Doomslayer" is a cringey as fuck name, you idiots.) suddenly this ancient demigod "good twin" of Satan (instead of one of BJ Blazkowicz's descendants, given Doomguy's name is BJ Blazkowicz III) and making Hell/the Demons aliens from another dimension...instead of just literally Hell was also retarded as well IMO. They took a relatively simple formula (which 2016 kept - Doomguy is a badass and kills demons, demons are on Mars again, go kill more demons!) and overcomplicated it with "lore" that is painfully generic.

I also agree on Doom but beyond the game there's a cult that treats Carmack as a demigod. The greatest genius who has ever lived. You literally google his name and the first result is "is carmack a genius?" .

Carmack had made Doom and... Well... stuff

His career past ID is a whole lot of vapor.

Romero's visionary mind is also a gigantic meme, Daikatana followed by 20 years of nothing is enough proof of that. These guys have coasted on over-inflated reputation from all the press they got after Doom's success.

Boomer shooters. Terrible mazey level design, weird faux 3D that looks and feels bad, shit story if any. Very few redeeming values. Duke Nukem gets a pass for being funny and cool, but Wolfenstein, Doom, etc? In the dumpster they go, but to be fair the dumpster is full of basically every early genre defining game like Zelda 1 and Street Fighter 1.

Doom gets a shitload of undue credit for being "teh first FPS!", when it wasn't (Wolfenstein 3D was). Modern day FPS games also don't take much design cues from Doom unless they're Boomer Shooters, which let's be honest, are only as "popular" today due to inertia from manchildren and Zoomers who think they're cool for totally not being into, like, CoD bro. The formula was insanely repetitive and there's a reason they went functionally extinct for over a decade, almost two.

Most modern day FPS games owe their existences to Marathon, Half-Life, Halo, and Medal of Honor. Also, Carmack's quote aged poorly...actually no, it is probably one of THE worst-aged quotes in existence, given the four titles I mentioned earlier (especially Marathon and Halo) are huge on story being a driving part of the game, and this remains true for most games that release nowadays.

I never liked Halo 2 either, even tried to replay it in 2017 and didn't even finish it.

But then I played Anniversary and had a great time with it, call me as shallow as you want, but having the graphics be 10,000 times better than the ugly plastic looking graphics of the original that were ugly even when they were new helps you enjoy the combat a lot more.

It still lacks 1 and 3's sense of scale and I'll never understand why they thought those ugly graphics were worth the trade off in 2004, but the new coat of paint it got helps a lot.

I'm a hardcore Halo fan, and even I'll admit that Halo 2 is the least favorite of mine. The graphics are just butt ugly. They don't have the low-poly charm of Combat Evolved, but they're not the "relatively" modern graphics of Halo 3/ODST and Reach. They're in a really shitty halfway point. Not to mention the campaign is the least balanced and most unfun (despite having the best story, IMO). And I think a major reason the Anniversary re-release with MCC is seen in a more positive light is due to the insanely good cutscenes from Blur and the graphics now actually looking good.

That being said, what ALSO hurts H2, in my opinion, is the fact that it was released half-cooked. If my memory serves me right, Bungie released the version of Halo 2 we got in less than a year, and they cut a LOT of shit out to meet the deadline and fit on the Xbox's hardware. It's a miracle that it's not a buggy mess, true, but that explains the game just fucking stopping with that infamous cutscene "ending" and the campaign being as unbalanced as it is.

 

[skykiii]

given Doomguy's name is BJ Blazkowicz III)

I thought his name was Flynn Taggart?

Doom gets a shitload of undue credit for being "teh first FPS!", when it wasn't (Wolfenstein 3D was).

Hovertank 3D, Catacombs Abyss, Castle Master and freaking Battlezone are shaking their fist at you.

 

[YE24]

I am dead certain the only people on the planet who owned master systems were 40yo eurotrash, who in turn gave way to the 45yo cultists who still pretend sonic was ever good.

They were popular in Canada to the degree that they were viewed as equals to the NES. In the 8-bit era, I knew more people with Master Systems than NESes, but I lived in a very weird rural community with very narrow horizons.

Wasn't the Mega Drive backwards compatible to it?

Backwards compatibility required a hardware shim. https://segaretro.org/Power_Base_Converter

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

are huge on story being a driving part of the game, and this remains true for most games that release nowadays.

And this has become an absolute mistake in regards to gaming

 

[skykiii]

And this has become an absolute mistake in regards to gaming

Ehhh... not all the time. I do understand the hate for "games" that basically devolve into interactive movies though.

I also wish most game writers weren't shit.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

And this has become an absolute mistake in regards to gaming

Only more recently where they leaned way too hard into it, a balance should be struck. It was still bearable until stories became vehicles for woke ideology instead of actual entertainment.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

That's not what an RPG is. The genre started as a digital recreation of tabletop role playing games which is why they were called CRPGs, or Computer Role Playing Games. Pac-Man is also not an RPG despite playing the role of Pac-Man and being able to input your initials when you get a high score.

I hate people who interpret game names as literal.

"You play the role of link so it's a role playing game"
"People battle in an arena so it's a MOBA"
"There's lots of people in it and it's online so it's w MMO"

Legit triggered when people in the industry say stuff like this.

These titles are arbitrary and mean nothing. They usually reffer to games with certain characteristics.

 

[The Foxtrot]

Only more recently where they leaned way too hard into it, a balance should be struck. It was still bearable until stories became vehicles for woke ideology instead of actual entertainment.

Like I said, the story should drive the game. When the story is the game, I'd better be playing a visual novel or you're doing it wrong.

 

[Overcast]

Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods tried way too fucking hard to ape Marathon (Specifically Marathon 2: Durandal and Marathon: Infinity), while forgetting that Doom as a franchise was never supposed to have a deeper story [Carmack infamously said that "story in a game is like story in a porno"].

Also making Doomguy ("The Doomslayer" is a cringey as fuck name, you idiots.) suddenly this ancient demigod "good twin" of Satan (instead of one of BJ Blazkowicz's descendants, given Doomguy's name is BJ Blazkowicz III) and making Hell/the Demons aliens from another dimension...instead of just literally Hell was also retarded as well IMO. They took a relatively simple formula (which 2016 kept - Doomguy is a badass and kills demons, demons are on Mars again, go kill more demons!) and overcomplicated it with "lore" that is painfully generic.



Doom gets a shitload of undue credit for being "teh first FPS!", when it wasn't (Wolfenstein 3D was). Modern day FPS games also don't take much design cues from Doom unless they're Boomer Shooters, which let's be honest, are only as "popular" today due to inertia from manchildren and Zoomers who think they're cool for totally not being into, like, CoD bro. The formula was insanely repetitive and there's a reason they went functionally extinct for over a decade, almost two.

Most modern day FPS games owe their existences to Marathon, Half-Life, Halo, and Medal of Honor. Also, Carmack's quote aged poorly...actually no, it is probably one of THE worst-aged quotes in existence, given the four titles I mentioned earlier (especially Marathon and Halo) are huge on story being a driving part of the game, and this remains true for most games that release nowadays.

I'm a hardcore Halo fan, and even I'll admit that Halo 2 is the least favorite of mine. The graphics are just butt ugly. They don't have the low-poly charm of Combat Evolved, but they're not the "relatively" modern graphics of Halo 3/ODST and Reach. They're in a really shitty halfway point. Not to mention the campaign is the least balanced and most unfun (despite having the best story, IMO). And I think a major reason the Anniversary re-release with MCC is seen in a more positive light is due to the insanely good cutscenes from Blur and the graphics now actually looking good.

That being said, what ALSO hurts H2, in my opinion, is the fact that it was released half-cooked. If my memory serves me right, Bungie released the version of Halo 2 we got in less than a year, and they cut a LOT of shit out to meet the deadline and fit on the Xbox's hardware. It's a miracle that it's not a buggy mess, true, but that explains the game just fucking stopping with that infamous cutscene "ending" and the campaign being as unbalanced as it is.

Halo 2 being half cooked at least was a blessing in disguise, because we got Halo 3 out of it. How many franchises does that happen to? The fact that OG Bungie, despite all the problems they ran into (that we know of) throughout the development of all three of these games and they still manage to churn out absolute bangers is a testament to how talented and dedicated they were to their craft.

I'll also admit that I actually liked Halo 2's graphics. Although that may be due to it being my first Halo and having nostalgic attachment to it. The humans (besides Chief himself for obvious reasons) admittedly don't look very good, but I liked how the Covenant looked at least.

 

[Mr. Idiot]

I want to play Conker though. I never got to because I was not old enough. How is it, compared to BK?

Late reply, but in my opinion, past the whole parody/dark comedy appeal the game's incredibly clunky and it's very easy to die.

Sure the cutscenes and some of the actions you get to perform with the whole 'Context Sensitive' pad prompts are funny when you get to it first-time but you also have to put up with varying controls and gimmicks depending on the area that don't feel very responsive or it's very easy to slip up. Conker's also very fragile and falling from too high onto the ground for example will instantly kill him despite what you might think of the fucker having a aerial tail rotor move that's at best used to platform a bit more safely across gaps.

The point where the game especially loves to set you up to die very easily is when you reach the haunted mansion and warzone area's where you're given weapons to shoot at zombies and murderous teddy bears in the respective area's, and it's very easy to get overwhelmed or ambushed so you have to be very slow and cautious to the point of employing some tactics like standing on a tombstone in the very first area with the zombies because the gun you get there reloads very slowly and only headshots will do them in permanently.

The worst part for me is that after the warzone's boss fight you have to escape with a time limit and while the escape sequence in itself is already tricky enough to get through without losing a whole lot of health or dying, at the very end you have to get past teddy's packing bazooka's that will usually one-hit kill you regardless of your health and they have near-pinpoint accuracy that even with cover I found it a gamble to kill them before I died and lucked out reaching the very end.

I swear Rare spend more time on the parody humor than actually polishing it up as a game because after my first playthrough I hardly wanted to replay it. Keep in mind I played it on the original N64 with it's shit framerate but I don't know if the Xbox version made it a tad easier in spite of censoring some of the cutscenes' dialogue or the best bet to try it these days is to get the Rare Replay version of the N64 if you're curious but prepare to die a shitload in the process. Banjo is way more forgiving/actually polished by comparison in my eyes, even Tooie.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

Only more recently where they leaned way too hard into it

Basically when they stopped treating it the same way porn treats story

 

[Jeff_the_Thriller]

FF7. All my weeb friends in high school said I needed to try it since I was such an RPG fan, Fallout, Arcanum, Jagged Alliance 2. I picked up FF7 from an EB games bargain bin for like $10 because PS2/Xbox/GameCube were the dominant consoles. I took it home fired it up and fucking hated it. The combat sucked, the gameplay was completely on rails, and you did more reading than playing the game. I was told it picks up after you leave the first city but fuck if I could stand playing it that long. On the other hand, l loved 10 despite its retarded story.