Are "older" games more fun than current games?

Fell into a YouTube blackhole recently and watched a few videos where the narrator was lamenting how modern games just don't live up to the entertainment standard of earlier game design. Ie... Entertainment factor in Games have devolved, not evolved...

I'm wondering where system wars stands in all this? Do you consider games prior to say, ps4 generation or X360 gen to simply be designed to be more fun and entertaining against today's more cinematic offerings? I find myself, lately, preferring to bomb through another section of Castlevania 4 rather than an hour playing ghost of Tsushima. I find myself going back to older games, or even modern classics like Vampire Survivors more and more in favor of games with much slower pace and large swaths of dead air....

Anyway, I present the video I came across that got me thinking a little more on it. It could be a product of free time and desire, but "old" games feel less bogged down with modern day baggage. Is that crazy or right on?

I guess it depends on which games you are comparing but I would say, “No”. I love replaying a whole bunch of games from the past but there are tons of games that I think are just as fun, if not more so, currently.

- Street Fighter 6

- Monster Hunter World

- Monster Hunter Rise

- Baulder’s Gate 3

- Tekken 8

- Guilty Gear Strive

- Final Fantasy Remake

- Final Fantasy Rebirth

- Super Mario Odyssey

- Super Mario Wonder

- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

- Devil May Cry 5

- Resident Evil Village

- Resident Evil 4 Remake

- Elden Ring

- Lies of P

- King of Fighters XV

I could keep rattling of numerous other games but I think you get the idea.

I don't think so, in general. A game does not have to be wholly unique to be good. It's non-different to how music is; an old formula can be refined.

Kind of, in the AAA industry I feel like it is. There are many indie devs out there now though that make up for the mobile/gambling/incomplete AAA games we've been seeing released commonly in the past few years.

It depends on the game and if it is infested with live service garbage, woke nonsense, and other modern trash. There is a reason that there are so many remakes these days and why they are successful. People want quality games and they don't make 'em like they used to. So, people gravitate towards these remakes because they know they come from a good foundation.

For me I think it's a question of Impact...and possibly my age :P. Note: I haven't watched the video.

Today's games (outside of MTX infected mobile trash) tend to be very polished in the gameplay department. They have taken old ideas and refined them to the nth degree. They then just put a new coat of paint on things.

I'd say, for younger gamers, if you were to present them with a Nes or Snes after they have been used to Xbox/PS/Switch and modern PC games....in many cases they will think "what's the big deal?". If you present OOT to someone who played Twilight Princess HD or BOTW they would probably think OOT is just very rough and ordinary....with crap graphics.

However, for old fogies like me especially, I think what games are lacking is Impact. It's been a long long time since I have seen a game that has grabbed me, slapped me across the face and shouted "BASK IN MY MAGNIFICENCE!". Oddly enough, for me the last game that probably did that was Xenoblade 1. The combination of the scenario, the setting and the music just really grabbed my attention.

But we haven't had a Crysis or a Gears or Assassins Creed in an age in terms of impact. I thought, with the sizeable bump in CPU power current gen consoles got, that developers would try something more interesting....but it hasn't happened. We get many great fun games, but nothing that really makes me go WOW. BOTW has one of the most interesting simulations in a game this gen....and it runs on a 12 year OLD CPU....that's under clocked......a lot.

So, in many ways, I think games today are technically better and are fun to play. But it's just a little bit better. The standard was set back in the PS360 era and it hasn't really moved since....and it's causing some boredom to set in.

wukong and, to a less extent, shadow of the erd tree, have saved the year for me. i needed to be dragged off them in an evening and im waking up early to play them before my day starts. both had that magic, wukong in particular. very rare these days. the aaa market has been slim pickings for a while now.

but i know where the guy in the video is coming from. all it was took was a post on here last night that mentioned dishonored that made me install it, fire it up and stay up playing through the first few missions. and i'll be playing it again later tonight. what a game.

he also touched upon a feature us adults really need in modern gaming, which is a pick back up feature. one that at any time will summarise the mechanics, the story, the progress so far and makes picking a game back up easy when you've not had chance to touch it for weeks. so many times i've played a new game, then not played it for weeks because of reasons, eventually tried to revisit, can't remember much and can't be bothered starting over, so it gets shelved

Back then challenging was part of the game, now it's detriment to the game.

Heck yes they are. There are several outliers, but overall games were way more fun in past gens

Depends on the game, but I find myself playing a lot of older games these days since I have so much access to them now as opposed to hooking up an old consoles like I used to. I think older games took more risks and felt more original than they do today, which makes them more likely to be flawed, but also more unique. There's some truly excellent new games that come out now, but there's a much higher probability of it being a reskin of something i've already played because systems and mechanics are all copied rather than creating something new.

What this man said here is spot on👌

There's a reason why most of us play older games on PC as it's still the ultimate BC you are able to play oldie games to new ones that aren't crap to begin with. If there's a demand for older games to get remasters/remakes, of course that game has an audience as it was a beloved game from the past.

Games being made today is nothing like we had back during the 5th, 6th, 7th, & even 8th gens. This gen is just too much going on what's being interjected to our games. The lack of inspiration, visionary, and most of all fun gaming is slowly dying. Even playing retro games is always great.

Yes, older games are more simple and more arcady, which makes them better and worse at the same time.

Let's take Blops 6 as an example: the game has very complex mechanics.

You can jump and sprint in any direction, you can crouch and lay on the ground, you can lean, ..

But I feel every aspect of the game would've been way better in a more tactical game. Like the mechanics of the game are at odds with the rest of the gameplay. Which feels too fast and too much like cod really.

And a lot of modern games feel overdesigned or designed around addicting/live service mechanics.

And then you return to a PS2 game where it was all about fun, having a very high fun factor for the player and just making sure people had a good time.

Yes, olden gaming was better, but it was also worse (in some ways).

Playing Halo CE to Halo: Infinite is massive different, it's now hard for me to go back and play CE. That's why I'm hoping MS consider remaking CE using the same gameplay from Infinite while using UE5. Some good older games just don't stand the test of times.

@TheEroica: I've spent around 20k in the last 3yrs building up my retro collection because games these days have 10hrs of cutscenes, hand holding, walk & talking segments etc, may as well just call them interactive movies at this point.

Could it have something to do with 2d vs 3d? Because I feel like you have much sharper control in 2d which makes gameplay feel more snappy.

The second thing is pacing ofc. Just more focus on pure gameplay.

I dunno, I think a modern 2d game like Ori has all the fun of older games, but better playtested, better feeling controls. Obviously the art is miles better.

I personally like modern games more 🤷🏻‍♂️

Even Halo Infinite could use some love, port some weapons from the multiplayer to the singleplayer. The system to unlock them is already there.

That's the thing about open world, it really is meant to be played for a very long time, but Halo Inf needs some new content.

I know games in the old day didn't get new content: GTA Vice City or San Andreas never got DLCs... But those games launched feature complete and full of content I feel.

Modern games often have too much crap getting in the way of the fun - mostly for story sake or trying to be a movie. Also come to the conclusion open world games are not fun to me - you spend like half your time just navigating between map markers.

Older games typically let you get into the action more quickly. Oh and every other game wasn't trying to emulate from software's stale combat either.

I hate to say this but I agree. While there are some plenty of really good games this generation, I just feel that older games were much better.

For starters we don't get any good first person shooter single player campaigns from big companies anymore but instead it's the indie developers who are making them.

And I really hate that there are still long pointless cutscenes in video games. I still play retro games on the SNES and Sega Genesis since so many games on those consoles are fun to play. Same goes for playing on the PS2 and classic PC games as well.

I will say that horror games are good this generation.

Yes, no freaking question. My favorite old games still haven't been bested by newer games. New games focus way too much on graphics, presentation, milking and other things that aren't "fun", while old games pretty much had to be fun to sell.

Gaming in the 90's up until maybe 2008 was like heaven. Gaming now is like dodging turds coming from every angle, trying not to get fucked over or have your time completely wasted.

@TheEroica: Most PS2/OG Xbox games are better than ones today. I think the time of the PS2/OG Xbox through the 360/PS3 gen was the best in "modern games", and I don't think any gen will come close to it. Graphics have improved since then, for sure. But the gameplay, stories, originality were unmatched back then.

Fallout 3/NV, Jade Empire, FF X/X-2, ES Morrowind and Oblivion, Halo 1-3, Metriod Prime, Skyward Sword, SM galaxy, Metal Gear Solid 4, The Last Of Us, Uncharted series, RDR, GTA games, Mass Effect series, Drag Age, Gears 1-3, Assassin's Creed 1-3, Rayman series, Borderlands, Demon's Souls, Little Big Planet, God Of War, Bioshock 1-3, the list goes on and on. All of those started in the PS2/XBox - PS3/360 time frame - game devs have been chasing those glory days ever since.

Gamings favorite book... Brown spots on the wall, by Japanese author, Hu Flung Poo.

These days being burnt out by games that want to demand so much of your time, the shorter sweeter games are definitely a breath of fresh air. They still make those. I think large budget AAA games fall under trap overly padded grinds or live service traps and financial blunders.

some old games are better than new games.

some new games are better than old games.

if by old means late 90s and early 00s. nothing top them but if by old means 2008-2015 than LOL NO!!!

What’s interesting is that this exact discussion was launched 5 or 10 years ago and the want for older games wasn’t as universal.

Eventhough we still get kick ass newer games like System Shock or Trepang, those aren’t the games that sell or turn heads.

As long as games like System Shock and Trepang2 sell well enough to fund other games like them, we are not in too bad shape.

I don't know about more fun though I'd say back then there was at least more quality control

not inherently. I think for me, peak fun is/was Chivalry 2 so I guess I'd disagree that older games are more fun.

I think its probably true I was more easily impressed/was able to have fun in games as a kid since everything is new and novel.

I try not to be nostalgic or biased when I think of my answer to this question. Games nowadays are impressive visually, and offer a lot more mechanics, but I honestly think most older games were made to be more “genuinely” fun, not just tapping into any visual effect or trigger to take advantage of your dopamine receptors and make you feel like you are having more fun/making progress in a game. Most modern games shower you with items you have “unlocked” every few minutes, or have you “level up” endless items in the game (weapons, skills, characters, badges, etc.). I found with older games the reward and stimulus was from clearing a level/challenge, or beating a boss, not just playing for 10 mins and all of a sudden “congrats! You unlocked/levelled up ‘X’”. Essentially I’m saying modern games are designed to be more predatory to our dopamine sensors.

Chivalry was super hard for me to get into. I love the style of the game, the endless yelling of taunts and the humor by far.

But the combat style is quite hard to learn for me. The moves and jabs are all bound to several mouse buttons and mouse inputs, which makes the combat more fun and deeper. But for me it was very hard to learn as I couldn't really relate say pressing TMB to a overhead swing.

So in the end I always went into combat full of enthousiasm but I always hit a wall, which was my skill ceiling to truly understand the combat system. Still a hilarious and fun coop/team game.

Adding horses and horseriding was the cherry on top.

@R4gn4r0k: for some reason I find the Chivalry combat system super intuitive and natural. Having stab/overhead swing bound to the mouse wheel feels great to me.

I would get frustrated in Chivalry 1 and Mordhau but they made some tweaks to Chiv 2 that make it way less frustrating and more consistent.

I dont use all the mechanics, i never feint or dodge but rely on timing/spacing and the odd kick. It's so much fun to me and so satisfying to win a hard fought duel or win out against multiple opponents. Nothing else like it honestly, its got great atmosphere and is absolutely hilarious but also has very deep gameplay with a high skill ceiling.

For sure. I find modern AAA games to be boring. I no longer have the patience to put up with long ass games bloated with excessive padding. I get way more fun out of shorter, arcadey games packed with fun and little to no padding or bloat... In other words, mostly either older games or retro-style games.

yup people praise old games for the sake of old games. are you kidding me? this is good now? this ruined IO interactive to the point Hitman trilogy save them.

Personally its cause the genre of games I like is better in those days compared to now.

In fairness not many people are holding kane and lynch up as a shining example of old v new....

Yes