>>14507
>nothing made within the last ten years.
Ten years is a little soon. I'd say at least 15 years to be considered "older", and even that's pushing it.
I've played a lot of Morrowind. I wasn't satisfied from my first full playthrough of the main quest because I exploited the systems far too much.
I might try Symphony of the Night soon. I enjoy the genre, but it's still fresh.

I just played the original Halo. I've never much liked xbox or microsoft, so I've avoided all... what, four of their note worthy exclusives? But after all this time I figured I might as well put the console war stuff behind me and give it a fair chance now that it and it's squeals on PC. After all, I'm not the play station fanboy I once was.

Trying to get this started wasn't doing much for my impression of Microsoft. I couldn't care less about multiplayer and only wanted to play single player, but the game wouldn't let me in until I signed up for a Microsoft account. I tried to find a work around but said fug it and made one. Then when I came back to the game the next day, I couldn't start it because they locked me out of the account I made. They asked for a phone number, which I gave, then deleted my account? wtf? So I made a new disposable account, which has been holding up okay I guess?
Anywho, as for Hola: Combat Evolved. The story felt a little... missing. Especially for the first half of the game. There's very little context given for much of anything going on. With what is there, I guess Mass Effect must have drawn a lot from it. For better or worse I could see elements from a lot of FPS in this. I think this was where recharging shield/health when out of combat came from? and I'm guessing the two gun carry limit too.
Somehow, after all these years, the nature of the ring and the whole zombie thing was never spoiled for me. Not that it was all too surprising. Did help to mix things up a bit by the end.
Guns all aim like crap. Found myself having to run right up to enemies a lot for bullet flavored hugs because of this. Getting the shotgun as a result felt very natural, at that time I was used to having to go point blank anyway. grenades seem OP as hell, which is something I vaguely recalled from the past. One good toss and you're insta dead. vehicles are, not great for the pc version. I understand why they'd point where the cursor is pointing, but as someone who's played a ton of car games this just doesn't feel right at all. Makes sense for something like a tank at least.
Cortana ranged from being annoying to being a condescending bitch, why people like her so much I don't know, squeals maybe? As for halo himself, I like him, he kill alien and don't afraid of nothing.

Mater Chaf: How do we take control of the weapon?!
Cortana: It's not a weapon you barbarian!
-latter-
Cortana: We have to stop this weapon!
Master Chaf: how?!
Cortana: Blow it up!

Not exactly the best story to it I gotta say. All in all it's a very "okay" game. Not bad by any means, but also doesn't feel like the console selling/saving grace mega smash hit that would be the face of the companies gaming division and even influence their other divisions from then on. Or why so many games would line up to try and take on the role of "halo killer" (that was literally a tag line put on the box of the game Tribes.). I guess it's all about the multiplayer, but since I don't much enjoy playing video games with people that aspect is pretty lost on me.

Currently playing Reach since it's a prequal, then I'll hit up Hola 2 and then 3.

>>14509
Halo is alright. I think what really made it so notable is that it's fairly accessible. I think multiplayer was a big deal too.
>Guns all aim like crap. Found myself having to run right up to enemies a lot for bullet flavored hugs because of this.
Halo CE doesn't really have very many good weapons. Only guns really worth using are the pistol, the sniper, and the shotgun. It gets a little better with the sequels. The first three games all feel pretty a bit different.

Even as someone that mostly played Xbox back when Halo didn't suck, I'll tell you it's nothing that special. It's not really anything to put any thought into, as it's simple in every way. Just shoot the space aliens dude. The games do get better, but don't expect anything game-changing. Just don't bother with anything released past Reach.

>>14509
>The story felt a little... missing.
That's one of the things I really like about it actually. It's more atmospheric than really plot-heavy.

I started playing Fire Emblem 4. It's a much more in depth game than I imagined it would be, even having played a few of the others.

>>14509
It's the kind of thing you had to grow up with I feel. Halo was the first shooter I ever played, it was the first 3d game I ever played it amazed me, then Halo 2 comes out and amazes me all over again, then Halo 3 comes out and it does it all over again. Each time the graphics are better the world is bigger the gameplay is better. I think Halo 1 was always my least favourite though, it always felt lacking even though it was so revolutionary for me. But as the other poster said, everything past Reach is pretty bad.

>>14512
FE4 is really cool. It's my favorite of the series. It's very unique compared to the rest.
I don't know that I'll ever play it again though. It's a very exhausting game.

>>14514
I've definitely gotten that impression. A single map is such a commitment. It's wonderful but exhausting.

I only play older games, modern games are all terrible

>>14516
Try Japanese doujin games.

>>14515
I really wanted to play it at one point, but I feel like I've already become too spoiled on its mechanics and secrets and become jaded towards it.

Post edited on 25th May 2022, 12:09am

>>14507
Does a retro game that has been fan-modded count?
https://newlegacy.fr/old/oken.html

Just finished the original Donkey Kong Country. I only had very limited experience playing the first one and the n64 game. Figured I might as well give em a go.
The game is just as brutal as I remember it. I played the first one at a daycare center where none of the kids were able to get to the first save point. I think the (first) mine cart level was as far as any of us could get. Not a bad game by any means, but a tad bit more context in game might have helped things a bit. Interesting ideas for some of the levels too. I'm surprised some of them were only used once, like the dark level where you're followed by a bird with a flashlight, or the one where you have to stop enemies from moving. I guess I'll give the sequel a shot next.

Just got me a VITA

>>14608
Nice! Hope you enjoy it, as it brought me many good memories. (And God bless the hackers who freed us from Sony's awful memory cards.)

I wouldn't consider it retro myself, but it fits the thread's criteria. I'm playing Bionicle Heroes.
It's just a stupid kid's game, but I played it a lot when I was a stupid kid. Surprisingly, it holds up okay. Maybe it isn't a masterpiece, but it's alright for those times when you want to space out and keep your body busy. Not much more than that because it's piss easy. Either way, it's decently fun, the environments are pretty cool, and there's plenty of stuff to unlock/collect.
I was pretty surprised to learn this game has mods. They are mostly things like visual modifications, but there's a rather large re-balance mod too.

I wanted to play Dark Souls but I don't have the right equipment at the moment so I settled for King's Field instead. It has the wonderful gloominess and crushing oppresiveness that you expect from a from software game. The soundtrack is really great. I really like how this game is only 5.5 mb large. Must be because it doesn't have any FMV scenes, the dungeon textures are mostly copypasted and the character models have very little detail. I appreciate how they managed to make such an experience with a such a small filesize.

Controlling the game takes a little while to get used to. The movement speed is really slow. It doesn't help that the first enemy that you're likely to encounter is a skeleton behind a secret door that kills you in two shots. But if you ignore it then you'll find that the other enemies aren't so bad. The important thing to remember is that theirs always a moment when the enemy is vulnerable to attack so you just have to keep out of their reach by strafing or backpedelling until the time is right to strike. Once I got into the groove it was quite manageable to play, and when I bought some of the equipment at the shops on the first floor it became easy to strike everything down. I built up a huge supply of gold and healing items. I didn't have a problem again until floor 4 with the golems and the beggining of floor 5 with the bomb skeletons, but then I unlocked the strongest weapons and armour and a powerful lightning spell and easily managed to blow everything away with it. It was quite fun.

The game only has one boss right at the end. It would have been really difficult if I didn't have my stash of healing items. It had a homing missile attack that did a large amount of damage that I couldn't figure out how to dodge. There are maps in the game but it can take a while to track them down so in the meantime I had to draw some of my own to figure out where I was going.

There is also a story in this game, but I can't remember much about it. I read some of it after I finished the game. Apparently the main character enters the dungeon in search of his father, I can't remember whether he finds him or not. I think I remember someone saying something a brave knight that fought to the death to slay some monster, maybe that was him? Also the final boss is supposed to be some king. All I remember was fighting a giant tree. The story was so vague they might as well not have put it in.

>>14613
King's Field is cool. I don't remember what I was playing it on, but I played King's Field IV earlier this year which was quite fun. The first person perspective and slow movement really adds to the atmosphere. Maybe I'm not the person to speak on it, as I've played Dark Souls a lot, but the fact that you can run through most things in that game and easily get really powerful easily takes away from the oppressive feeling that you might get on your first time around. I also like that it has more of an adventure game feeling to it, where Dark Souls is focused on the action portion.
I didn't get too far into KFIV, but I definitely need to get back into it. I think I lost a lot of progress because there were no save points that I could find for quite a while.

Just finished Red Faction II. Played the first one a couple years ago for the first time, don't remember a lot about that one but do remember enjoying it more than this one, in spite of getting stuck in some caves for a long time and struggling to find my way out. both games have this gimmick that lets you destroy chunks of the environment, which is pretty cool for the era but at times can make it hard to understand where to go. That wasn't 'too' bad with 2, but I did get lost for a while in the sewer section. The game was really short too, something you can easily knock out in a day. It has a false ending and corny twist where your team turns on you and each become bosses which was kind of neat, but you barely have any interaction with any of them before the twist so it's kinda whatever. The red faction itself acts as a weird little side story foot note in the game for some reason. They have you fighting the enemy of the red faction for reasons mostly unrelated to the faction, but you work with them a bit a few times. It just comes across as a weird direction to go with the series to not have the faction in the name of the game be the focus. I also noticed a little red star icons that came up when killing faction members, which showed up as green when killing the last boss. I'm guessing this was probably meant to play into a reputation system that must have been scrapped during development, because it didn't seem to effect anything that I could see. All in all, old school FPS have a certain charm to them, but one thing I sure as heck don't miss is unskippable cut scenes, especially before harder sections.

I still play DIABLO II

I got a PS2 again, after having to sell mine some years ago alongside a copy of Symphony of the Night. I will be playing that for now.
I feel a bit silly for doing that, since I still have all my old FreeMCBoot card so piracy is readily available. Additionally, it seems there has been a lot of development with the homebrew scene. Apparently some models can get rid of the stupid region lock. That was always a massive pain, but hopefully it won't be anymore. I will have to do more research to see what else is new.

I am playing Girlish Grimoire Littlewitch Romanesque: Editio Perfecta!

I've been on and off playing Final Fantasy VI Type-T. I've kinda been getting filtered by the difficulty a bit tho. I have to grind every now and then to keep up. I also skipped over Gau's rage/leap tutorial so I don't know how it works.

This one is interesting. It has the typical 90's adventure comedy style, which I happen to greatly prefer to tragedy as I do not care for the fixation on petty drama that the latter encourages. This is mixed with a noir detective story which draws details from a tapestry of a sci fi conspiracy. It's an FMV game with polygonal delights and a suggestive MIDI soundtrack (suggestive of what I don't know exactly - sometimes I think that 90's 3D and primitive MIDI is like experiencing another dimension, but I don't think that's entirely the right way to describe it). The main character is quite compelling - he easily traverses from states of melancholy into farcical expressions which almost mirror my own state of mind. Maybe I should live my life as if it were a comedy.

The puzzles are easiest to solve that I've come across in the early genre thanks to the addition of a hint system. Movement is an abomination - you press the space bar to enter move mode and then push the mouse around to navigate. I often found myself spinning in circles because the system was so sensitive. When a real time stealth section was introduced I almost gave up entirely but aesthetic considerations forced me to continue.