Games

Super Mario Bros 3 after playing the all stars version.

I was going to comment harvest moon after reading the title!

A lot of the older games for me. They're just a lot harder. Like maybe they expect you to be willing to replay an area or a level over and over, getting a little farther each time until you beat it and I just don't have the stamina for that anymore, or the time.

Newer games baby you, they increase the difficultly perfectly along side your ability growth. They might even make a level easier if you've failed twice. Older games don't care if you're having fun as much. There was less competition (fewer game choices) and more of a "gamers like this. If you don't like it, you're not a gamer" attitude, and now games want to attract everyone.

I have become such a baby about games. I want to have fun the whole time! I can't handle failing over and over. I'd rather just read a book.

OK, maybe a slight twist, but Left 4 Dead absolutely sucks vs. Left 4 Dead 2. Want L4D? Fine. Play it inside L4D2 with better guns and zombies.

I have set up the original Fallout (fully modded and running through Fallout 1n2), but it's pretty hard to get into. Not because of the graphics, which are actually fine, but just because the mechanics are quite intricate and I think my ability to learn new gameplay mechanics is declining as I enter my mid-30s (I've only played Fallout starting with Fallout 3). I'm going to keep trying to get into it!

Dark Souls 1. Especially on PC it's almost unplayable due to bad porting and DS3 and Elden Ring have refined the formula so much, it's insane. The remaster is ok though, so I don't know if that counts.

I can't even leave the starting room of the original System Shock. So glad the remake updated the controls.

I did manage to finish System Shock 2, but the "puzzles" are just RNG, so I'm hoping the remaster changes that and maybe even fixes the ending.

007 games. But the N64 soundtrack was great.

I can't see myself going back to the original Half-Life after playing Black Mesa. The changes to Xen alone are massive improvements.

Mount and Blade. Warband is just the better version all around. It works in reverse too cause Warband is better than Bannerlord.

I tried, but I just can't go back and play Oblivion after playing Skyrim with all the quality of life mods. I'm waiting on the Skyblivion release to revisit it.

Starcraft! I really think Starcraft Brood War is a better, more balanced game. The quality of life changes in Starcraft 2 make it so hard to go back to playing Brood War. I don't know if I can adjust back to only selecting a lot amount of units or needing to click on each building to build stuff or not having smart-casting and good pathing.

The Battlefield franchise. I went back and played 1942, and disregarding the graphics, omg it’s so slow and clunky. It was the shit for the day, but man…compared to 2042 it’s super-dated.

Halo MCC version over the original.

I saw Halo running on a classic Xbox and tried to play with the clunky Xbox controller. Couldn't do it. Everything looked so low res and blurry.

Goldeneye. Revolutionized the FPS genre at the time. Nigh unplayable now. Tried recently using both NSO and on an original N64, it just hasn't aged well when compared to something modern.

I recently finished playing Breath of the Wild and declared it as one of my favorite games ever played. I just started Tears of the Kingdom, and it feels like I may not go back to BOTW, which is crazy that I could consider it one the best experiences ever, and also feel like I may never play it again so shortly after beating it. TotK seems to have everything in BotW and more, with quality of life changes on top of it all.

Zork, or any of the old text bases adventure games.

Do the original version of Doom and Doom 2 count? The relatively recent, re-released duology is objectively superior. Also, OpenRCT2 makes classic RCT and RCT2 feel incomplete at best, and outright horrible to play at worst.

NES Metroid, being replaced by Metroid Zero Mission.

NES Metroid is interesting to play through to see where the franchise came from, or for the nostalgia factor, but Metroid Zero Mission is vastly superior in nearly every conceivable way, its not even close. Its not like Silent Hill 2 or Resident Evil 3, where the originals are still better than the remakes overall, everything taken into account (though in that case, SH2 remake is superior to the RE3 remake). Absolutely every element of Zero Mission is an improvement on the original.

Metroid Zero Mission did not make vast sweeping changes to alter the identity of the game, making only minor adjustments to designs that were not thematically important (for example, the physical appearance of Ridley or Kraid being different is not thematically important). There were not big amounts of cut content, with only minor elements being cut like the fake Kraid enemy, which was not thematically important. The music is all familiar with the same composition, but with added flair. Its not different just for the sake of being different. Items and suit upgrades are almost all in the same places as the original NES Metroid, with the addition of new items that were added to the Metroid setting later on such as the Charge Beam and Super Missile. A map was added to the game, and the beam weapons now stack like in Super Metroid, rather than replacing the last beam you had.

All in all, Zero Mission leaves very little reason for the player to play the original game, especially if all the player cares about is the overall story of the Metroid IP. The player won't get more thematically important designs that enhance the story like they would playing the original Silent Hill 2, and they won't get more original game content and story like they would playing RE3 Nemesis. They wouldn't get an improved experience. The choice to play NES Metroid mostly just comes down to nostalgia, historical value, or personal preference. Or if someone only has an NES or device capable of emulating the NES but not the GBA.

Call of Duty: World At War Zombies

Every map in WaW zombies has been re-released at least twice. WaW zombies is cool because of how simple and barebones it is, but holy fucking hell that game was not coded for any sort of melee combat. The zombie bodies are so damn large, according to their hit boxes. Try to run past them but brush up against their pinky? Guess you’re done. Also for some reason the co-op splitscreen is not split vertically, and it’s not split horizontally, each of the two players just gets a quarter of the screen in a tiny box. Who knows why.

I love it to death but it’s real hard to go back to it.

This is pretty obscure, but the Game Boy Advance remake of Mario Bros. (Not Super Mario Bros.) is more fun than the original.

You can run, for one thing, and the controls are more responsive in general.

It’s one of the games on Super Mario Advance, and one of the main reasons I originally wanted a GBA when it came out! I had the original Mario Bros. for the NES and thought it would be fun to have a portable version. I was right.

They did a great job updating the game!