I’m trying my best to dive back into the past and play all the gems that I missed as a kid because I was either born too late or too much of a kid to consider playing them. I found myself really disappointed going back to the old mario nes/snes titles because they felt really bad to play as I’ve become accustomed to modern platformer design sensibilities (like coyote time and responsive movement).

Are there any oldies+goldies that have stood up to the test of time and not shown their age in the same way? Or are so good that they’re worth playing despite showing their age? Preferably avoiding racing, sports, and final fantasy-esque titles. Not really interested in anything more recent than PS2 era either.

I already have Earthbound in my sights as it isn’t one I’ve played before but it comes highly recommended.

  • apotheotic (she/her)@beehaw.orgOP
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    1 month ago

    I’ll look into mods, thank you for the recommendation :)

    I do love having GOG versions available.

    I remember playing the original Deus Ex and I think my mum forced me to stop playing because it was too violent or some such nonsense (this being the same mother that had me playing Oddworld while I sat on her lap at the ripe old age of like 5. A game that routinely features people and monsters being blown/crushed/ground/shot/shredded/chewed to giblets). I may have to look this up again.

    • 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 month ago

      The main patch you’ll want is TFix/T2Fix, posted on TTLG Forums. I think it comes prepatched from GOG, on Steam you’ll have to patch it yourself.

      @comicallycluttered@beehaw.org what do you mean by very clunky? I don’t think they are at all. Except maybe the default control scheme which is pretty bad today, but you can rebind everything (or use my bind file, works for both games)

      • comicallycluttered@beehaw.org
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        1 month ago

        Maybe “very” was too strong a word, but I mainly meant the melee combat.

        Although to be honest, other than the blackjack, people shouldn’t really be using melee much, so it’s not that much of a problem.

        It’s mostly when the zombie dudes come into play that the sword combat can feel dated if you take them on directly.

    • comicallycluttered@beehaw.org
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      1 month ago

      No prob. The first game actually has some fantastic mods and also a ton of incredibly well-crafted fan-made levels.

      You might want a few tiny mods for Deus Ex as well, though it doesn’t really require much.

      Kind of funny that it was “too violent” because you can go through most of the game without even killing anyone. It’s my preferred playstyle, just sleep darts and stealth stuff.

      Actually, you’ll have a bit of a rough time if you go in guns ablaze. A lot of people used to shooters end up being obliterated on the first level when they initially play it, which is what happened to me when I first played it on release. Came back to it years later after I’d discovered Thief and suddenly felt right at home.

      Edit: Oh, and it’s also available on GOG. Most of the early immersive sims (Thief, Deus Ex, System Shock, Ultima, Arx Fatalis, etc.) are.

      • apotheotic (she/her)@beehaw.orgOP
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        1 month ago

        Awesome to hear

        And yeah, like I was quite young so the idea of having weapons and not using them probably went a bit over my head at the time so it ended up being violent. I was also coming off of the back of games like Duke Nukem 3d and DOOM (which I somehow was not discouraged from playing - go figure)