What are some eras of gaming that you've stopped feeling nostalgic for?

Case, 21 days ago

Honestly, I pay for top of line parts. I realize I’m limitiing myself on good games, but…

I paid for this shit, I try to keep top of the line because it is still my hobby (though, my time doesn’t allow anymore) and I want to push my hardware.

Low bit games, however good, don’t get a chance because… god damn, I expect better. I’m a 80s baby, and 90s kid. Nickelodeon early nick toons are my jam.

I paid for it, let me experience it.

I want to PUSH my hardware, and fine tune for play-ability, as expenses allow.

That being said, I love MMOs and realize how hard they can be to “upgrade” for all users… but damn, I don’t have the time or energy anymore. I wish I could raid EQ bosses like I was 13 on summer break, but I fucking can’t.

At the end of the day, I hope creative minds create new paradigms in gaming with limited resources. At this point, it is the only way we will grow. AAA studios make rehashes of former successes, which fail, and no one wants them. Gameplay has died, its been several years, and as an “old-head” (Quest for Glory 1 was my first PC game, with parser prompts) and I miss games. Even those are simple by today’s standard - but they still stand up in a shorter format.

Doof, 22 days ago

The 5th generation (ps1 mostly) has aged the worst (imo) and it’s the generation I revisit the least.

Kolanaki, 23 days ago (edited 23 days ago)

I went from getting everything to maybe playing up to 3 new games a year about the same time the PS3 came out. I know what I like and what I want, and the vast majority of games do not deliver these days.

13esq, 23 days ago

I used to get maybe three games a year and now I hardly play at all. I still have a PS3 and absolutely can’t justify upgrading.

(I’m sure loads of the new games are great, I just don’t have the time for them)

any1th3r3, 23 days ago

Most handhelds tbh.
I didn’t really grow up with “traditional” (home) consoles, but I always had handhelds (and a PC).
I have trouble going back to most handheld games pre-Vita nowadays, even if I remember the PSP (and GBA to a certain extent) fondly, between the controls, smaller screen and cut versions of games vs their home console counterparts, it’s hard to go back. Emulation makes it somewhat nicer for me, but still.
And let’s not begin with GB or GG games, they have a certain charm, but I usually can’t stand them for more than 5 mins nowadays.

the16bitgamer, 23 days ago

Atari era/Pre-Windows PC era.

The Atari era is mostly because the games are short and have very little replay value. It’s a fun novelty especially when you see an angry nerd swearing at them on YouTube. But you’d get the gyst of the game after 30 seconds. Or are so confused that you don’t know what to do without the manual… even then it’s not that helpful.

Now for the Pre-Windows PC era, mostly DOS and Commodore. It’s mostly because I don’t have the right mindset to play them, and forcing myself to just makes me not want to hate them. Outside of Police Quest, Wolfenstein 3D, and F29 Retaliator (<- I can’t believe this is on Steam) which I like because they are nostalgic to me, I wasn’t able to get into Civiliation 1, Ultima, SimCity or other giants from the time.

mephiska, 23 days ago

Pre-Windows PC Era games worth mentioning:

• Wing Commander 1 & 2
• X-Wing and TIE Fighter
• Sierra point & click adventure games like Kings Quest & Leisure Suit Larry,
• Doom
• Quake
• Dune 2
• Command & Conquer
• Warcraft 1 (zug zug!)
• X-Com
• Fallout 1

B0NK3RS, 23 days ago

Even though I grew up with 8/16bit I’ve never really had any nostalgia for it apart from a select few games.

MysticKetchup, 23 days ago

Not so much as stopped feeling nostalgic for, but realizing that there weren’t as many great games available as I thought that haven’t had better successors or remakes. And for Nintendo consoles, non-Nintendo games that stand the test of time are difficult to find outside of a few franchises that usually have more modern versions on Switch.

We are just spoiled for choice these days when it comes to games, especially with indie games. And indies these days often have better UX than most mainstream games back then.

spriteblood, 24 days ago

8-bit and most of 16-bit eras.

For 8-bit era, a lot of those games are rough around the edges. Games like Mario Land 3 hold up pretty well, but honestly I'd rather play the remastered version in Mario All Stars. Zelda is still interesting, but it feels so dated even compared to A Link to the Past, which only came out 5 years later. Tetris holds up, but there are many better versions that have come out since the GameBoy.

You get into the 16-bit era, and it really feels like devs have enough room to flex their muscles. We were getting stuff like Chrono Trigger, Yoshi's Island, Mario World, Earthbound, Super Metroid, Street Fighter II Turbo, Sonic & Knuckles, etc. But by this point, I've played these games so many times that it doesn't feel like nostalgia anymore. Other games from that era don't always feel as polished as the ones I remember fondly, so trying a new game is always hit or miss.

Modern indie games inspired by the 16-bit era just feel like modern games with pixel art, so I think there may be some level of conflation in my nostalgia muscles, as well.

The games that are really feeling nostalgic for me now are early 3D era games, and the indie games that scratch the same itch. Lunacid and Crow Country hit this primordial nostalgia I didn't even realize was there.

edgemaster72, 24 days ago

Growing up I skipped the PS1/Saturn/N64 generation so I’ve never had nostalgia for that super early low poly 3D era

canis_majoris, 24 days ago

Most of them, honestly.

When you look back, it was cool what they were doing at the time, but progress is such that all newer games have iterated on those groundbreaking formulas and improved upon them, making the older games seem less spectacular than they were at launch. I have fond memories of playing PS2, N64 and Dreamcast, but when I go back to play some of those games I enjoyed as a kid, I find that there’s always something super sub-optimal like the controls or some arcane mechanic that doesn’t make much sense. I find this to be the consistent issue going back to PS2 era and earlier.

I think the PS3/360 era is the one I have the most nostalgia for all things considered. There were a lot of stellar RPGs like KOTOR and Mass Effect that generation. Stuff like Red Dead Redemption was coming out. Control schemes finally became generally standardized and understandable. Tutorials, saves and decent graphics were really finally all combined properly for the first time.

I find the same sort of issue with movies. When you go back passed the 80s, you start hitting pacing issues. Same with video games. When you go back passed the mid-2000s, you’re going to run into early installment weirdness.

EncryptKeeper, 24 days ago

This is broadly true, but I think that many older games that were much simpler, with a narrower focus and more fleshed out presentation have a spot on the leaderboards that won’t be knocked off any time soon. One example is the Legend of Zelda series. With Breath of the Wild and its sequel, it did some pretty innovating things. But in the process it sacrificed much of what made the earlier Zelda games great. We figured out how to make a game with “more dungeons” but they were uninspired and they all looked the same. Gone were the huge, sprawling, uniquely thematic dungeons with memorable bosses and iconic music. The overworld got much larger and they crammed more overworld activities into it, but now those activities were just the same four or five things copy pasted to every inch of the world, none of which did much individually besides making one of a few numbers go up by a tiny fraction. New technology allowed them to make huge sprawling worlds to explore, at the expense of the ability to effectively fill those worlds with stuff worth exploring for.

New games innovate in what is technically possible, but they move backwards in other areas that don’t get the same attention. It’s more than just “These old games were good for their time”. In many cases they are still unsurpassed by modern games because the focus changed.

canis_majoris, 23 days ago

I agree.

Even using my examples of KOTOR and ME, comparing them to (relatively) modern counterparts, Jedi Survivor and Andromeda, you can see that the storytelling has taken a back seat to the open world. ME 1-3 were all very tight corridor cover shooters, going from fully constructed combat environment to another, while Andromeda tried to shoehorn in survival crafting and exploration. KOTOR has more deep RPG mechanics and overall a better story than Jedi Survivor, and I would agree it’s because the focus changed on providing sprawling open worlds over more bespoke environments. I would also say that the combat in Andromeda and Jedi Survivor are superior to their older counterparts, but at the loss of other things.

ampersandrew, 23 days ago

Breath of the Wild’s equivalent to dungeons were the beasts, not the shrines. The activities in the overworld were only the same in that they ended in a shrine, but the things you did to unlock them were generally very different. Half of them aren’t even visible at first. The people who thought that world was empty just didn’t find what was hidden in the negative space.

EncryptKeeper, 23 days ago (edited 23 days ago)

Breath of the Wild doesn’t have an equivalent to dungeons. There are only four divine beasts, and just like the shrines they are extremely short, and identical in appearance. They were just slightly more complex shrines with an animal theme. And the overworld doesn’t realistically have a whole lot to find, by design. Since the game is entirely unstructured, you can’t put anything to find in the game, because you don’t know where the player will go and nothing to stop them from going anywhere. Thats why nothing amounts to anything more than a fractional stat boost or a temporary weapon. The outfits and the master sword are the only things worth actually finding in the game.

As a shit your brain off and run around a pretty overworld type of game, it excels. But it doesn’t delivery anything a typical Zelda game does.

ampersandrew, 23 days ago

The divine beasts are not identical, though they are shorter than traditionally Zelda dungeons. The overworld has a ton to find; you just didn’t find it.

EncryptKeeper, 23 days ago (edited 23 days ago)

The divine beasts are in fact visually identical. The only real difference between them is which animal they’re vaguely shaped like. As for the overworld, I found all of it. It’s just that “all of it” was for the most part just copied and pasted over and over with minor variation.

catalyst, 24 days ago

There was a time in my life when my friends and I played a whole lot of Halo, particularly Halo 2 and 3. I never played online but we would have essentially LAN parties where multiple people lugged over their TVs and consoles and play for hours. It was a blast. In college Halo was the de facto way to spend Friday night if nothing else was going on.

Strangely enough though I feel no desire to go back to that.

wheeldawg, 23 days ago

Halo 1 was the first game I ever played online. I played a lot of it.

But I was a very different person then, and replaying it now reminds me of how stupid I was (because I got into a clan that was very based on that kind of person) and the internal ick just his a fever pitch and ruined the game for me.

I never played 2 since that was on Vista and I never went back to it after finally getting Win 7.

After that the series just felt tainted to me. When I first tried it on a console it was really weird with the control setup. I was very used to hundreds of hours on Perfect Dark with the default controls. Having a second stick and rearranging what hand controlled what bent my mind in knots for a while. But it ended up making more sense that way (as you can easily tell by how much it caught on- not saying Halo pioneered it, but it was my first experience with it).

iAmTheTot, 24 days ago

I certainly feel like people tend to be more nostalgic of the 16 bit era than the 8 bit.

Drummyralf, 23 days ago (edited 23 days ago)

I think because the 16-bit astethic (when done right) still looks amazing today, where 8-bit is just a bit too limiting.

ampersandrew, 24 days ago (edited 24 days ago)

I’ve been fairly nostalgic for 6th gen consoles lately. Not that it was some magic time for video games, but there were certainly genres that were well represented back then that aren’t so much today, like stealth games, arcade racing games, and campaign first person shooters with co-op and split-screen deathmatch. These days, every multiplayer game is designed to be played forever or not at all, rather than being designed to be fun with friends a handful of times.

Games also came out at a rapid clip, with most sequels coming out only a year later. Sure, some of that was due to crunch that we were oblivious to, but even if that cadence were twice as long, it would still be a huge improvement over development cycles today. Most single player games these days are open world by default, as though that’s the natural goal for all video games, no matter how many of them it’s made worse and no matter how much time and money it takes to make them.

Edit: I was half-awake enough while typing this that I ended up going almost opposite of the prompt, but so much to say that no era was all sunshine and rainbows, so I’ll never be fully nostalgic for any era.

snownyte, 24 days ago

I remember how many damn licensed games came out during that period. There was just almost a game for everything, it was nuts.

American Choppers had a game. Hannah Montana had several. Let's give Dukes of Hazzard a game, let's give Starsky and Hutch a game. Do they have to be good? Nope, they never were but let them be a thing anyways.

otp, 23 days ago

Do they have to be good? Nope, they never were but let them be a thing anyways.

There were definitely some good licensed games!

TMNT Turtles in Time and The Simpsons are two amazing beat 'em ups.

The licensed games by Capcom on the NES are generally a safe bet for a good (if not great) game. Even into the 16-bit era, too.

The [X] of Illusion games on the Genesis are great kid-friendly platformers (Mickey Mouse games).

Plenty of great licensed games throughout the generations too. For something more “recent”, consider the success of the Lego games…which are often basically doubly-licensed.

IsThisAnAI, 24 days ago

I couldn’t care less for anything made before 2016. It’s all aged horribly. Every time I hear play shadow of the Colossus I vomit in my mouth. Ground breaking at the time, but an otherwise garbage game with okay story in a modern context.

And while not an era I’m going to stay on my soap box. Open world games without strong narrative and massive amounts of backtracking. Every open world game on the planet minus God of war(s), the first hzd (and this was pushing it), rdr2( pushing it), and cyberpunk has way to much shit spread out with little drive to finish narrative. You shouldn’t be backtracking into previous areas or sections in areas without some clever ass level design.

ampersandrew, 24 days ago

Man, I’m far closer to calling everything after 2016 garbage. I’m not sure how SotC hurt you, but some games are just timeless.

glimse, 24 days ago

“All” is straight up wrong but I’d agree with you if you said most games pre-2016 don’t hold up

iamericandre, 24 days ago

Multiplayer games in general don’t do it for me like they used to. These days I just want to get on and play a few missions in single player then hop off.

WereCat, 24 days ago

I love MP but I can’t bring myself to play due to how incredibly obnoxious it became.

FeelzGoodMan420, 24 days ago

Same. I play games to enter a relaxation state after a long day at work. Playing a 45 minute cutthroat CS2 match with my friends where I have to be at attention constantly, while they’re all screaming at each other for being bad, isn’t exactly my idea of relaxation…

cyborganism, 24 days ago

Oh yeah! I used to play Unreal Tournament every day for hours. Also played Wolfenstein Enemy Territory a lot in the past.

Nowadays these games just don’t appeal to me anymore.

snownyte, 24 days ago (edited 24 days ago)

What turned me off from multiplayer games was the entitled obnoxiousness of the other players. Playing with others is cool for a few minutes, but if you run into several shit players, ruins everything. This is when the whole "if all you find are assholes, you must be one yourself" rhetoric does not apply when it comes to multiplayer games. People just choose to be bastards.

Like one time I was playing Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege for the very first time with absolutely no prior knowledge or previous attempts. I join one server as a new player, I make one mistake and already like 3 people wanted to vote kick me and succeeded. I hadn't even said a single word to anyone to antagonize them either.

acosmichippo, 23 days ago

This is when the whole “if all you find are assholes, you must be one yourself” rhetoric does not apply when it comes to multiplayer games.

it’s the internet in general.

Konraddo, 23 days ago

Same. It’s enough to team up with people at work so there’s no desire to do the same at home. I also don’t find grinding as much fun anymore. It used to be a fun way to spend time as a kid because we had too much time. Now, I don’t even pick a game which doesn’t have basic QoL features implemented.

caut_R, 24 days ago

Since publishers are allergic to dedicated community servers nowadays, I’d argue there‘s just no feeling of community anymore and hence it‘s worse or at least different than it used to be. You just get matched with random people you‘ll never see again and that makes it easier for people to be unhinged pricks.

I think I‘ve spent hundreds of hours on an militia only server (uk2 or sth?) in cs1.6 in the past and hundreds on a back to karkand (or so?) rush only server in bf3 back in the day. I recognized a lot of names on these servers every time I played.

With how multiplayer games work now, I also try to avoid them.