There's a game called Castle Of The Winds, which I the first RPG I played probably. I had it in school, and it was the only game there so me and my friends always played it, although it looks quite bad (maybe I'm just comparing it to today's graphics). Actually I got the game once in a trip to Europe...I think it's less than 1MB, which is a terrible waste of a CD-Rom :)

Mikle

Quote:But I've noticed something, many people listed here older games and I agree with them. So I wonder why there are so few good games today? Or maybe the market is too saturated with "just" commercial stuff and finding good games (for me that means games that have everything I need, not just shiny graphics) it's more like winning the lottery?

This is a common fallacy. The quality of the average game now far outshines the quality of the average game 10 years ago (heck, 5 years ago). We remember the NES/SNES/Genesis as the "glory days" because we only remember the really good games. Do you fondly remember Mr. Nutz? Wicked 18? Inindo: Way of the Ninja? Tagin Dragon? Spelunker? Kileak: The DNA Imperative? Of course not... they sucked, and sucked hard. Many people here listed older games because there are more old games than new games (game consoles have been around for 25 years, the previous generation has been around for only 5 years).

Sneak King - A $4 Burger King advergame, but certainly worth a few hours of laughs.

Final Fantasy II - No, not IV, the actual NES II that was re-released on the GBA a few years back. I finished replaying FFI last week, more for nostalgias sake than anything... it is retardedly simplistic by todays standards and piss-poor dungeon designs. So it was with some apprehension that I started FFII... an hour in I was hooked. I always thought the more clever combat strategies in the FF games (healing the undead to hurt them, attacking your sleeping party members to wake them up, etc) were an incremental evolution... nope, FFII's battle system + Active Time = FFIV-FFIX's battle systems. It introduced pretty much everything we know and love about the later games. Add that to the removal of experience points and leveling for a system more like the Elder Scrolls games (dammit, why did they change BACK!) and a real storyline, and you have to wonder why it never made it to the states before.

A lot of these were pretty great.

Has anyone ever had International Superstar Soccer 64?

This didn't sell very well but it was a great game at the time. My brother and his friends stole it to trade it in for FF7, which I found out years later after "losing" it. I was real pissed because its been impossible to find.

Quote:Original post by Trapper Zoid

Quote:Original post by LeChuckIsBack
But I've noticed something, many people listed here older games and I agree with them. So I wonder why there are so few good games today? Or maybe the market is too saturated with "just" commercial stuff and finding good games (for me that means games that have everything I need, not just shiny graphics) it's more like winning the lottery?

Well, the question being asked isn't listing which games we think are good, but surprisingly good, which suggests games we think suspect are mediocre but turn out to be great. I can only speak for myself, but I only shell out the big bucks to buy a new game at full price if I think it will be great, which doesn't leave much room in expectation for "pleasant" surprises. I tend to be surprised in a good way when I pick something up from a bargain bin on a whim and it turns out to be a fantastic game.

Yeah that's pretty much it. I could list a ton of amazing recent games but none of them were surprising. A lot of older titles are surpises because we simply have never heard of them before, or never heard they were good, especially for the younger crowd here or people who weren't into games ever since the days of Pong.

Nowadays I follow the industry so much I know roughly the quality level of almost every major game in production, and I don't have enough income (or time) to try indie titles I'm less familiar with.

As for games that are surpisingly good, I'm going to say Kim Possible: What's the Switch? because it's a crap license but the game is actually really fun. It's a solid 2d platformer along the lines of Viewtiful Joe or Klonoa 2, which is way better treatment than most shitty Nicktoons licenses get.

Persona - Low budget, poorly translated, and just plain weird... yet thats just part of the charm in this bizarro PS1 JRPG. I didn't expect much, but the combat system was unique (player/monster negotiations) and the presentation was too weird to not be entertaining... good times.