Opinions blinded by nostalgia- Time to get real!

OK, this has the possibility of being a very controversial topic. But that's good, right? Anyway...

There's some games that people think are great stuff, and maybe they seemed it at the time, but now I still see them on "top Genesis" lists...and I just think it's nostalgia. There's great games on the MD, but some of these games...hell, I thought they sucked then. And now with the VC reviews, some of them are rated kind of low, so at least others agree.

I'll just start out with: Kid Chameleon. Man, I hate this game. It's ugly, it's not much fun, and the length....god! Well, emulators and VC saves it from that. But I still think the game is mediocre at best. No way is it a "top MD game". I'll be saying that on the day I die, man! When I got it I thought it was a huge disappointment(way back when, in the stone age).

Golden Axe. LOVED it when it was out. But now, it just doesn't hold up to me. I just think it's a pretty ancient beat 'em up. Doesn't help that I don't really like the genre.

Altered Beast. It sucks. Loved it back then though.

Streets Of Rage. The FIRST one. I didn't really like it back when, and I think it's really overrated now, by fans. 2 slaughters it, and Bare Knuckle III is also MUCH better.



OK, enough of my controversial statements. If you love these games, don't think i'm attacking you! I'm just stating my opinion. What games do YOU think are overrated by nostalgia, and can't be seen for the mediocre/sucky games that you believe they are. And if anyone says Sonic....well, you're just wrong on that, my friend.

All the Phantasy Star games for Genesis are overhyped (and the Master System one, even more). As much as I'd like to love them (and I do like them, actually) they don't hold up if you compare them to many Snes RPGs. On the other side, I have yet to see a strategy rpg as good as Shining Force II on Snes.

Also, I don't think Kid Chameleon is overhyped at all, many people here dislike this game a lot. I'm among the ones who love it to death, but I really can understand if someone think it is rubbish. It's just not the greatest game... or maybe it is :)

Anyway, gotta agree about Altered Beast. It's aged very badly. I don't why, but this definitely is not as good as it used to be. I only get any fun out of it now when I play it with my friends.

I agree with your examples except for Streets of Rage. The original isn't as good as 2, true, but I still think it's a great beat 'em up. I find it a lot more fun than Golden Axe despite the similar engine.

Jurassic Park for me. I don't even think this one was highly rated back then, no idea, all I know is I personally loved it and played it a lot when I was younger. Now I just don't see what the appeal is, it looks ugly, music is awful, control is horrible and you're lucky to make it through any single level, the gameplay is just generally not good at all.

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Originally Posted by evil_ash_xero

I'll just start out with: Kid Chameleon. Man, I hate this game. It's ugly, it's not much fun, and the length....god! Well, emulators and VC saves it from that. But I still think the game is mediocre at best. No way is it a "top MD game". I'll be saying that on the day I die, man! When I got it I thought it was a huge disappointment(way back when, in the stone age).

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As did everyone, until they played it properly and found it to be a hugely complex, in-depth platform game with masses of content, secrets everywhere, tactics, variety and rewarding gameplay.

I’m a little confused here, are we talking about games that haven’t aged well, or about games that never were that good in the first place?

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Originally Posted by evil_ash_xero

Altered Beast. It sucks. Loved it back then though.

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To be fair I wonder how did this become famous in the first place (even in the arcade!), the game sucks ass no matter what you do. I never liked it.

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Originally Posted by Loggo

I’m a little confused here, are we talking about games that haven’t aged well, or about games that never were that good in the first place?

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Games that were never that good in the first place but for whatever reason people think they were good.

I'd argue that games don't really age, the flaws are just more obvious as time marches on. Golden Axe and Altered Beast on Genesis have always sucked.

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Originally Posted by GohanX

I'd argue that games don't really age, the flaws are just more obvious as time marches on. Golden Axe and Altered Beast on Genesis have always sucked.

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Golden Axe doesn't suck at all, its one of the main originators of the entire beat-em-ups genre, christ knows why people on here always feel the need to compare it to the Streets of Rage series, even the 1st Streets of Rage is much, much newer than Golden Axe, Golden Axe predates Streets of Rage 1 by like 2 whole years.

The problem with Golden Axe is that the series never went anywhere, after the 1st game Sega just threw out rehashes adding very few interesting features or improvements, they shifted their focus entirely to Streets of Rage, Golden Axe stood still whilst Streets of Rage improved and surpassed it.

Phantasy Star 1/2/3/4

Sure its got a fun story but the entire series look like they belong on the Master System.

No wonder the pirates "ported" PS4 to the Famicom, it must not have been a very hard conversion.

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Originally Posted by NeoVamp

Phantasy Star 1/2/3/4

Sure its got a fun story but the entire series look like they belong on the Master System.

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How is that a valid criticism for Phantasy Star 1?!?! :)

The Phantasy Star series have absolutely no place in this thread. The original Phantasy Star was released back in 1986, in what way it’s overrated? Along with Dragon Quest and the original Final Fantasy, these games set the standards for the whole JRPG genre. Sure, it’s difficult to go back to it now but that’s a different story. The same goes for the rest of the games in the series, except PSIII of course. Phantasy Star II for example was released in 1989, back then it was one of the best, if not the best JRPG around.

Totally agree on Altered Beat. It’s a classic title sure, but gameplay wise it never was anything special. Altered Beat owes its popularity to its graphics. It was one of the first, if not the first, games that showed what the new hardware was able to do. Seeing those giant character sprites on the screen made the 8-bit graphics look so tiny and abysmal, but as a game it was mediocre at best. There were hundreds of better titles on the 8-bit consoles at the time.

The Mega Drive version of Strider was OK, but overrated. The game always had problems with the hit detection, the clunky controls ect, that we just weren’t able to see back then. It certainly was an OK game, very impressive back in the day, and helped the console in its first steps on the market. But, graphics aside, there were better action games on the 8-bit consoles at the time and, certainly, lots of better games were released later on the Mega Drive.

The Vectorman games are also very overrated. Quite generic Action/Platformers in almost every aspect, but with impressive graphics. That was the main reason behind all the fuss that surrounded the games back in the day. Today they are regarded as classics, but the truth is that if Vectorman had standard 16-bit level graphics almost no one would give a damn. To be fair, the first Vectorman isn’t bad at all, it’s quite good, just nowhere near as good as it’s regarded. Vectorman 2 on the other side is a, graphically impressive, broken mess.

The game which most deserves to be on here is Taz-motherfucking-Mania, one of the most awful games of the entire 16-bit generation, and yet the game sold a ton and still gets positive feeling from forums and gamers.

Ah yes, Vector Man. Don't know what to think about these yet. They look so....bland. I mean, they got these weird graphics going on, but they look colorless and bland. It looks like "Ballz". Pun intended.

Just another selfish generic thread.