How much does nostalgia effect a game?

When I was younger the only Final Fantasy game I managed to play was FF9 and recently I completed it again after downloading it from the PSN store. I really enjoyed it and playing it reminded me of much I loved it first time round. Despite it obviously being dated compared to games today I did not mind and if anything it added to its charm.

On the flip side having heard so much about how good FF7 is I decided to download it and (don't shoot me) didn't like it. In fairness I have not given it a proper try and will definitely try it again.

Finally to the question,

Do you think older games such as the final fantasy series are actually better than more recent games or does the nostalgia of playing these games as a child effect how good they are?

I think it comes down to nostalgia and changing standards that really effect a game. Case in point, I loved the holy f*ck out of Dragon Warrior VII back in the day and will always have fond memories of it. I recently picked it up again and it has aged, terribly. Looking back at the game, I'll have a nostalgia attack, but when actually playing it it's a different story.

i think the whole thing is the fact we was younger and the games you loved were at the top of their genre's and the gameplay was suited to that era, like many are saying when they went back they started to think how the hell did i like this but in reality,we forget that the rubbish controls weren't rubbish when it came out we was all used to them, an example of this is when i went back and played syphon filter, god that game in my mind was amazing the stealth the fighting top notch and then i played it and i couldn't even run properly shooting seemed rubbish, i ended up turning it off never to return.

but back then we all played games, and we was all used to how games handled and the graphics were good, and now we have games what handle with so much fluidness to them and the gameplay is so much more advanced that it's hard to go back.

this said there are games that age well and stand the test of time, monkey island 1 and 2 are great examples and so is broken sword 1 and 2, also theme hospital and theme park, super mario world, (there still using the same god dam formula now), even great game i feel like going back to them wont be as enjoyable as they was when they first game out, thinking back to tomb raider 1 and 2, the gameplay wont be great, comparing it to the gameplay to uncharted say.

the true question tho is are games really going to get any better gameplay wise from right now.

i think the graphics now are pretty good, but in 10years am i going to look back and ask the same question your asking now?

because back then i thought them graphics were top quality

I think it has a very big impact on lots of people.

I actually had the opposite experience. I never grew up with ff9 and went back to it. I was surprised how well it had held up over time.

Anyways it affects it a hell of a lot. There are so many games I have tried out that people loved and hated them. Sure, they could be dated, but still I think that people always feel what they grew up with was better. A lot of this has to do with the fact that when we were young we liked games a lot more because of how few games we had experienced. Now, however, we've played so many games we can easily find flaws where we couldn't before.

Oh and to answer your question. It depends on the case. For Final Fantasy, it doesn't have to do with nostalgia. I went back and played all the ps1 games (and now I'm on ff6), and I played ff13 first out of all of them. I enjoyed 13 to some degree, but it doesn't have as nearly as much quality as the other games. People DEFINITELY overrate the characters in the old Final Fantasies though.

It's just like any other memory you look back on and remember the good parts of. It's like a gloss covering, would you rather have a glossy paint job or simply paint on you car; Everything is going to pale when you compare to your personal memory.

A good game will always be a good game it's just gamers who don't appreciate them anymore forgot how to enjoy them.