Are older games better than newer ones?

[The name master]

I think it's nostalgia for the most part when people claim old games are best

I agree! It's so sad that I can't remember all the games I had on my Gameboy Advance or the titles of some of them! I'd like to play them again for nostalgia reasons.

So far I have found Wario Land 2 & 4, Super Mario Land 2, and Super Mario Advance!

[Meowstic Royalty]

Even today I still like picking up my ancient DS games from like an eternity ago and replay them

And the nostalgia is wonderful

But the majority of the time, it occurs to me "wow, this game SUCKED."

[Lord Raven]

You said DS games are ancient to you, but I checked your age and you're 15.  Jesus, a whole generation of gamers where DS games are considered ancient.

A lot of DS games were great though.

[the bread dragon]

it's called hyperbole muhed. why are you such a grouchy old man )':

[Lord Raven]

I'm very well aware it's hyperbole.  I don't know how you could construe me missing that in the post I made.

I was just saying that the poster was like 6 when Diamond/Pearl came out whereas I was 14, which I was commenting was crazy.

[the bread dragon]

i just wanted an excuse to call you a grouchy old man

[Milsap]

If DS games are ancient that makes me feel even older than I am.

[Meowstic Royalty]

You said DS games are ancient to you, but I checked your age and you're 15.  Jesus, a whole generation of gamers where DS games are considered ancient.

A lot of DS games were great though.

I mean, the DS games came out when I was five years old, so it's quite understandable. I've sold the majority of them but I still have games from like almost a decade ago. It's not the same as a lifelong pokemon fan going straight back to gen 1 which they grew up with but still.

[The name master]

straight back to gen 1 which they grew up with but still.

Gen 1 was a terrible generation of pokemon because of graphics and other things like music but because of nostalgia some people love gen 1 I don't really like it because of those things but if I had grown up with it I may like it now because of nostalgia

But in those days no one cared about graphics because lets face it the graphics were terrible but like I said no one cared because the gameboy was a portable game console which at the time was a great invention

[the bread dragon]

i definitely wouldn't go so far as to call gen 1 terrible, they're good games

[The name master]

i definitely wouldn't go so far as to call gen 1 terrible, they're good games

You obviously must be one of those people who don't care about poor graphics

I admit fire red and leaf green were OK

[Meowstic Royalty]

I wouldn't call it terrible, but my least favourite generation by a landslide. I understand it's of course the first generation and they have a lot to learn but that doesn't change the fact that it's glitchy, unbalanced and all round rather cringeworthy as opposed to today.

For people who grew up with it it's understandable. In comparison to today, it's a bit of a nightmare.

[Lord Raven]

The graphics were fine at the time, they just haven't aged well

You obviously must be one of those people who don't care about poor graphics

how do you figure from that?  the graphics aren't poor so much as parts of the interface were weird.  I'd also like to note that the old instruction manual was really terrible because there were constant instances of stuff/text in there that didn't appear in the game at all.  They also weren't poor for their time either, have you played any other gameboy game?

[Turner]

I think about this sometimes.

The correct answer everyone wants to hear is "It depends" because it's nice and neutral. Yes it's true there are great and terrible games in every generation of gaming.

But on the other hand, when I studied some of what Satoshi Tajiri had to say about game design, it made me think that we're not really up to our potential. I read one interview where he talked about the design of Pac-Man and how the speed of the ghosts is actually balanced with how quickly you can turn around corners so there are different methodologies for clearing the map as the levels get harder based on which route you take.

Some of the greatest classic games have amazing attention to detail in terms of gameplay and difficulty curves that really isn't apparent until you know what to look for. In terms of programming and design, they totally maximized the potential with the constraints they were given. That kind of effort hasn't really proportionately scaled upwards. If you take the best looking games of all time today, I don't really think that there's an equal amount of effort and design gone into stuff like gameplay, difficulty, level design etc. as there has with the graphics. I'm not saying they're all shallow, but they haven't gone over it with a fine-toothed comb to get the absolute maximum out of the games like they did with the classics, probably because it would take twice as long to actually get the game released in the first place.

But still...in terms of fun. There are great old games and great new ones. Every year I'm able to find games I enjoy, 2016 looks to be no exception. I just (sort of) wish there was more of them and that I had more time to play them.

[Liam]

I think the last game i bought was Pokémon Black version... that was ages ago! I'm really out of the loop with games nowadays, a lot more stuff is on PC now than there was before but I don't have the time or equipment to really get into it. It's a testament to older games that I'm always drawn back to them though! All I really play nowadays is fifa and the wii/gamecube every now and again. I might try play through Metroid Prime again I don't think I ever completed it lol

Older games aren't necessarily better than the newer ones though, I suppose it's very generational as to which games you grow up with and are more inclined to say are your favourites.