Seeing all of the Metroid I hate being flung around has put this topic on my mind.

What makes a game age well? What makes a game age poorly? Is nostalgia the biggest factor of your enjoyment of an old title?

Feel free to share any of your experiences. I'll start with one: StarTropics. A very divisive game. Never played it back in the day, bought it on VC. It was clunky by modern standards, but still eminently playable, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. In fact, I found it's lack of mercy to be quite refreshing. That's how most of the games that I was introduced to on the VC feel to me: refreshing. It seems that many of the modern tenets of game design annoy me.

A counter-example: Beyond Oasis. Blech. Interesting in concept. Horrible in execution. Actually, much of the Sega Genesis Collection gave me that impression.

Begin the Segacide!

But first, let's go back to good ol', controversial ol' Metroid 1. When I played that game, it was like a nuclear bomb. Just so fresh and innovative and incredible, and, at the time, I was so receptive to that type of exploratory experience. And, like StarTropics, I feel like the game design generally accounts for those 'antiquated' elements. But maybe it's almost impossible for a new player to appreciate things like the Ice Beam and Morph Ball after the game has had so many sequels.

On the other hand, I got the 3D Classics version of Twinbee, which is significantly more simple than the sequels that I am familiar with. But I can appreciate it for what it is.

So it seems that I am capable of enjoying an old game, as long as the design is solid (or NOT enjoying one, if it's a Sega game). The question is, can I personally overcome the power of nostalgia? I'm trying to think of a game that I loved before, but hate now (or vice versa), and I'm having some difficulty. So either my judgment was always coolly rational, or I can't separate out my happy memories.

How about you guys? What's your take on vintage games?

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DK64's collecting was way worse than Tooie, by far.

@anon_mastermind He found a way. He... found... a... way.

I didn't mind doing all the collecting in Banjo-Kazooie. It gave purpose to the big stages the game was set in. I haven't played much of Donkey Kong 64 to really form a decent opinion about it, and I've never touched Banjo-Tooie. I'll get to those eventually. Someday. Probably.

I actually beat Donkey Kong 64 as a kid (with the help of a player's guide), but that was before I got tired of collectathons. I've since lost my copy so I can't immediately try it out to see if I still like it, but I plan on replacing it for the sole purpose of unlocking the Donkey Kong arcade game.

@X-pert74 Jetpack's where it's at

@Marsh

* Jetpac

I'm always tempted to get Jetpac Refuelled on XBLA.

stephen08 said:

@kriswright

Well first of all, you don't need to collect all the notes the only purpose they serve is to open the note doors. Second, there are 100 Notes per level, 5 Jinjos, and a couple Mumbo tokens which again, are not mandatory. I guess if you have OCD or something it could be a little much but I hardly find it to be a problem.

I agree. I never found the collecting in Banjo Kazooie any more tedious than say Mario 64, though admittedly there was a little more.

Banjo Tooie however was kind of a clusterfuck. The levels were too big which led to a lot more downtime, I felt they weren't designed anywhere near as well... each world in Banjo was like a compact theme park, Tooie was far more bloated. Throw in the absurd amount of collecting and frame rate that droped to the low teens at times and I agree the game hasn't aged well at all.

That said the original is one of my favorite platformers of all time.