Games

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 see myself going back to the original Half-Life after playing Black Mesa. The changes to Xen alone are massive improvements.

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.

Those old computer dungeon crawler games, like Wizardry or Might and Magic 1-2. Jesus, they're absolute exercises in patience. You don't even have to play anything very recent to see how poorly they aged, even SNES JRPGs of 1992-4 were much better.

Black Mesa & SystemShock-Remake

From GTA to GTA san andreas are all a pain now because the control scheme is so outdated, The pcs ports are even worse because they have the shittiest jankiest controls imaginable but they had that from the start. GTA 4 is borderline unplayable because of the trash camera controls but that was true when it came out as well.

The original Metro 2033 is a bit of a slog to get through as well if you can even get it to run.

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.

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.

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.

Having grown up with the PS1, it's been fun revisiting old classics and see what has aged well and what hasn't.

Platformers like Spyro, Crash, Rayman, Abe's Oddysee and Ape Escape have aged like fine wine (although Crash 1 is a lot more janky than the others). But that back into the past, some games also showed no signs of proper playtesting aimed at kids, which means overly difficult levels, annoying completions and such - I remember spending months playing Tarzan, The Emperor's New Groove, Croc 2, Kingley's Adventure and others to 100% them, and some of them I could never finish. I only recently 100% Croc 2 for the first time, for example, and yeah, it wasn't really that good.

Some JRPGs are also as great today as they were the day they were released (Final Fantasy IX, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Star Ocean and even lesser known ones such as Legend of Legaia, Threads of Fate and Wild Arms), and are arguably better than many of their contemporary competitors. But you sometimes have to stomach one too many random encounter, overly distracting old/early PS1-era graphics, bad translations, or all of the above (I've never been an omega-fan of FFVII, and let me tell you, revisiting it in the pandemic really didn't improve my opinion of that game).

The slow gameplay afforded by the console really allows action-horror games such as Resident Evil, Dino Crisis and Silent Hill to shine, but those that attempted to be more action-oriented, such as Siphon Filter, really show the signs of age. Dino Crisis 2 is the exception here, being very action-heavy, but also distinctly "modern" in many of its design choices.

Stealth games such as Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu are also great, although very limited in scope by today's standards, and the latter's low render distance is something that may annoy players accustomed to modern gaming.

FPS games (Medal of Honour being the biggest title) really have no place in any contemporary gamer's playlist. The same can be said about Race/driving games, unless you like revisiting the catchy tunes of the Gran Turismo 2 soundtrack. For example, I found CTR - Crash Team Racing quite dull and too easy even at max difficulty, but had a blast collecting all achievements in the remake (shame it never got released on PC - I wonder why).

It's probably the same about fighting games: modern entries are much more fluid and dynamic, have better AI and allow for a greater skill ceiling. I say "probably" because I suck at fighting games and I've never played them extensively, aside from a few sparring matches with my brother on Tekken 3.

There are other cases where I found the original game "good enough, but not worth your time over the most recent entries". For example, as a kid I spent countless hours crossing the skies of Ace Combat 2, but all the titles that came after it are just better. If I had to chose only one game for this post, AC2 would probably be it. I loved it and I still do, and its soundtrack is bonkers (seriously, it's really good), but yeah, I'd take 4, Zero and 6, or even Project Wingman, over it any day.

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!

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.

The early Pokemon games are pretty rough, after you get used to improvements from the GBA era. Particularly the remakes.

Likewise, the original NES Metroid after playing Zero Mission? Takes some getting used to.

Honestly, Diablo 2. It's a classic, it set the standard for the entire genre and it was a brilliant game. Playing it recently, it feels quite shallow compared to modern ARPGs and lacks a ton of quality-of-life features. Games like Grim Dawn, PoE, Torchlight 2 are way better.

The original Neverwinter Nights after Baldur's Gate 3.

NWN was fantastic for it's time, loved the DM mode and online mods, but the clunky movement and walls of text without voiceovers just can't compare.

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!

A lot of strategy games fit this bill to me. Mainly the Paradox ones like Europa Universalis or Crusader Kings. I'd much rather play the most recent version (EU4 and CK3). However, it's interesting that I feel the exact opposite about the Total War and Civilization Series, where I'll prefer the original Rome Total War and Shogun 2 Total War over many of the more-recent games, as well as Civ V over VI and VII (though I haven't played VII yet, to be fair).

The Football Manager series also comes to mind. There's little tweaks and improvements each year (this year being an exception where they are redesigning the entire engine) so I prefer playing the most recent one (even if I still boot up a few of the older games for some nostalgia every now and then).

For me games from the NES era can tough to enjoy for more than a short period of time. They just tend to feel punitively difficult in a way that is not very fun. I’d much prefer a Mario from SNES onward any day for example.

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

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.

Super Mario Bros 3 after playing the all stars version.

Pretty much all the racing games from my childhood. I remember them having super realistic grip and aerodynamics, but playing them again compared to even sorta SIM modern racing games today is just night and day.

I will blame my 1000+ hours in beamNG for some of that. Once you have seen super detailed soft body physics it's hard to play anything that doesn't have it. Wreckfest 1 had a decent hybrid soft/ridged system that worked for that game. Seems the second game that just dropped on early access improves on it some, but I'm gonna wait for the full release before I pull the trigger on that one.