Killing GOATs

[marurun]

If there's one thing to be learned from this exercise it's that it's REALLY hard to truly look at a game through fresh, unvarnished eyes if it's one that was an important part of your gaming history. That's why my writeup on SotN looks nit-picky. I genuinely think that game doesn't quite retain GOAT status as a play-it-today-for-the-first-time title, but I also love it to death. It's one of my favorite games and I own it across 3 systems (the only 3 I have that will play it legally). So I have to use any minor annoyance as an entry point, and then I use that to build a stronger case by looking to see if my nitpick is an indication of an underlying problem or flawed design decision. In the case of SotN, the case has to do with movement and in-the-moment play issues in the inverted castle resulting from the inverted castle being a design hack to save on asset generation and development costs. I saw one article which claimed the castle was designed from the start to work perfectly inverted, but it cited no sources or interviews and was not a particularly reputable source (just a random editorial on a gaming site). It was clearly just an "I love this old game!" piece (not that there's anything wrong with that, but an assertion like that about the design should be backed by, I dunno, evidence).

If I examine my nitpicks and can't find a way to really tie them firmly to larger design or gameplay issues then either my nostalgia is still getting in the way or the game just holds up.

[Ack]

Doom holds up. It is still a challenge for FPS fans and still a badge of honor to go back and play through on Ultraviolence. The weapon variety is varied but retains it's usefulness through, with the exception of the pistol (though the "pistol start" challenge that the fan community engages in emphasizes how it's still crucial for challenge purposes). The music not only holds up, it remains catchy and interesting 30 years later. Even knowing the game is only faking 3D, my tactics adjust accordingly, and I am awed by what the devs managed to do...

And then I am even more awed by how the community has run with it. Updated controls, new games with widely different takes and designs built out of the engine. New maps by the thousands to challenge me, ranging in length and tone. Total conversions to create entirely new games.

The only complaint I would have initially is the controls, but by now most ports and rereleased feature updated controls that fit modern styles and yet still fluidly integrates into the game. Doom has stayed a classic, and it's still fantastic.

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You guys didn't realize the GreaseMonk was a mechanic? Also, he appears in a region overrun by the Empire. Think of it as overrunning enemy supply camps.

[Limewater]

Super Mario Bros. 3 - This game does so much, so well, but it has held up only OK. The stages are too short, but the game is really too long for a single sitting. (Remember! The original had neither a password or save system.) Accordingly, you had to know the location of the warp whistle to really get through it. (Thanks, Nintendo Power!) Once you had two of those, you could warp to the end, skipping a lot of the game’s best, most creative content. This meant that most people spent a lot of time in the boring first two worlds getting warp whistles, or learning how to push through the eighth world, mostly skipping all the awesome content in the fourth, fifth, and sixth world. (Does anyone remember the seventh world?) The addition of a save feature to later releases helps a little, but the game wasn’t really designed for that either. (Since you naturally load up on extra lives and power ups, the end becomes too easy.). Finally, some of the game’s best secrets are too well-hidden, and the game offers no clues regarding how to find them. Super Mario World is better in every way (almost…the spin jump is worthless, and the cape isn’t as good as the tanuki tail).

I completely agree that SMB3 holds up, but I actually like it better than Super Mario World by a wide margin. I do agree with the save issues, and that's why I think the All Stars version on SNES is actually the best way to play. I super love the shorter levels. I feel it really distills the theme or gimmick of the specific level down to its essence. SMB3 is a game that, for the most part, does not feel like it is wasting my time. I think SMW is also a classic that holds up, but sometimes the levels can drag on a little and the various powerups and abilities feel more inconsistent to me (cape and spin jump, yes). SMB3 just feels like a more tightly crafted experience which has no excess to trim.

Super Mario Bros. 3 holds up and is wonderful.

Sure, it doesn't have a save feature, but the levels and world are meant to be replayed. There are so many secrets in each level that you won't find without spending time and exploring. Similarly, there are things like the white Toad house and the coin ship in the overworlds that you will only discover playing through the worlds several times. You also get the fun of learning to master the mini-games to get extra lives.

And yes, the game is too large for one sitting, but the warp whistles are so close to the beginning and so easy to find and so well known that it mitigates that issue quite a bit. The easier early world also give you a chance to "grind" for extra lives and treasures to make exploring the later levels easier.

World 7 isn't my favorite (that would be world 5), but I can still tell you my favorite level in world 7. It's 7-7, which is the one where the little piranha plants (apparently these are called munchers?) line the ground and the only way across is to string together a series of star-man invincibility power-ups.

In comparison to Super Mario Bros. 3 or World, Super Mario 64 is a frustrating mess, largely coming down to the camera. The camera issues in Super Mario 64 negate SO MUCH of what that game does right. I've played through it two or three times, and I've not had any desire to try to collect all 120 stars.

[bmoc]

My biggest issue with FFVI is that the characters' special abilities are largely wasted by allowing everyone the ability to use magic. End-game everyone can have Ultima which just feels cheap and lazy. Woulda been cool if only the true "mages" were given the ability to wield magic and everyone else had more tools, dances, etc....

It is my favorite game though.

This is kinda where I am at with FFVI as well. As an adult, I can acknowledge that it has many flaws. However, I still have so much nostalgia for it that I can't help but love it and replay it every few years.

I've been meaning to play the T-Edition English ROM hack that was released last year. https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/6339/ Has anyone here tried it? I tried firing it up on my Everdrive but it would not save if I recall correctly. I'll have to give it a go on my PC later.

[o.pwuaioc]

The criticisms against Symphony have been aired here plenty of times before. It's all true. While I like the game a lot, the very beginning (voice acting) and very end (upside-down castle) keep it from being a greatest of all time. Super Metroid is still the best Metroidvania, although I really wish wall jumping wasn't a thing in the game...

I throw up a few more.

Ico is boring. Just...boring. It was overhyped then, and it definitely doesn't hold up now, especially if you're coming into it fresh.

Ocarina and all 3D Zeldas will not and cannot be better than their 2D counterparts. Link to the Past is perfection, and the awkwardness of the camera, the 2D representation of 3D depth, the grating fairy, the sheer ugliness of it all, keeps Ocarina from being a greatest of all time; and in fact that game personally led me on my path to eschew all 3D games like it, with just a very small handful of exceptions.

FFII US has its faults, but it's still great, and the 5-party system and music puts it ahead of its 4-party successors. FFIV is of course the superior experience. Not that later games, including 6, 9, and even 7 which I think is overrated, aren't great in their own right, but honestly 3-6 and then 9 is all one needs with middle era Final Fantasies.

That said, the sci fi and "weird" enemies of FF are present at the very beginning, and really rub me the wrong way. I can get past it just fine, but I think the game would be improved with their removal.

While SMB3 is a bit much for a single sitting, and the levels are on the short side, it's still so perfectly crafted that it's hard to *feel* those faults in playing it. It's still something I love going back to time and time again. Choosing between SMW and SMB3 as the GOAT is incredibly difficult; both sides make valid points, but I just can't choose one. You need to experience both. (And the true trilogy is SMB1, SMB3, and SMW. I love SMB2, but it's not a true Mario game, and it doesn't feel like it anyway.)

Portal's divide might come down to high spatial or high analytical people v. their low counterparts, but the game is overrated anyway. A truly fun novelty, I just can't see it being a GOAT. And it's definitely not the GOAT shooter...

Speaking of which, Doom fucking holds up. Doom 64 is underrated.

For some other games:

Crimzon Clover is mediocre. It's just a pastiche of every other bullet hell. Ikaruga is also overrated. It's decent for what it is, but it's not a good STG. Skyrim and other open world games can be fun at first, they generally get tedious and then boring. I want to really love open world experiences, and certainly do at first, but after a while it's just a sad mirror of reality: eat, work, sleep, die. And so many fetch quests. Solo Borderlands is the same. In fact, nearly every post-2005ish FPS is rather boring. Also, Diablo II is a fantastic mtuliplayer experience, for solo-gaming it gets so repetitive after a while. I love the game, I really do, but it can get boring. Why can't modern games stay focus more on level design?

Here's the real goat sacrifice:

Treasure is the most overrated company, and their games are not actually all that good. Their background art sucks, and they don't know how to design a level at all. This is why they're all boss rushes. They're so focused on gimmicky flash bang wow that they're actually not good game designers. I've slowly shed all my Treasure games, and I think only Ikaruga is left at this point. Major yawn from me, but I think I might be damn near the only person on earth who thinks this way.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Treasure is the most overrated company, and their games are not actually all that good. Their background art sucks, and they don't know how to design a level at all. This is why they're all boss rushes. They're so focused on gimmicky flash bang wow that they're actually not good game designers. I've slowly shed all my Treasure games, and I think only Ikaruga is left at this point. Major yawn from me, but I think I might be damn near the only person on earth who thinks this way.

I largely agree with this. Guardian Heroes is exponentially worse than stuff like Contra and Metal Slug. Dynamite Headdy is awful. Alien Soldier is meh. I do like Light Crusader, Guardian Heroes, Mischief Makers, and Sin & Punishment well enough but they're far from being my favorite games.

And "gimmicky flash bang wow" stuff is a problem I often have with the Genesis in general, beyond Treasure.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Astro Boy: Omega Factor, Gunstar Heroes, Guardian Heroes, and Sin & Punishment: Star Successor are all stupendous. Sin & Punishment is very good. The rest, though, are a bit hit or miss, IMO.

[o.pwuaioc]

Treasure is the most overrated company, and their games are not actually all that good. Their background art sucks, and they don't know how to design a level at all. This is why they're all boss rushes. They're so focused on gimmicky flash bang wow that they're actually not good game designers. I've slowly shed all my Treasure games, and I think only Ikaruga is left at this point. Major yawn from me, but I think I might be damn near the only person on earth who thinks this way.

I largely agree with this. Guardian Heroes is exponentially worse than stuff like Contra and Metal Slug. Dynamite Headdy is awful. Alien Soldier is meh. I do like Light Crusader, Guardian Heroes, Mischief Makers, and Sin & Punishment well enough but they're far from being my favorite games.

And "gimmicky flash bang wow" stuff is a problem I often have with the Genesis in general, beyond Treasure.

Did you mean Gunstar Heroes? I've yet to play Guardian Heroes, so I have nothing to bad say about that. I just don't want to be disappointed by yet another treasure game that everyone hypes up.

Astro Boy: Omega Factor, Gunstar Heroes, Guardian Heroes, and Sin & Punishment: Star Successor are all stupendous. Sin & Punishment is very good. The rest, though, are a bit hit or miss, IMO.

Astro Boy really felt boring and repetitive to me. I gave up after 5 or 6 levels, maybe? Can't remember now, but the only part I remember enjoying were the STG sections, and even then they felt too easy. I never got the appeal of the game and felt no regret selling it.

Gunstar Heroes I was told to hold off on judging until I played multiplayer, but, granted this is coming some many years ago, I remember just not liking the game and feeling very underwhelmed when I had played it for the first time. Especially the graphical detail. But I most of all hated the level design. You can really tell they spend all their effort into boss battles, but level design was mediocre at best. I'm far more of a fan of good level design than boss rushes, so especially later Treasure games just don't do it for me.

I'm not a huge fan of rail shooters, so while I believe people when they say Sin and Punishment 2 is good, it's generally not my cup of tea.

[Ack]

Doom fucking holds up. Doom 64 is underrated.

Truth is spoken. Doom 64 is fantastic.

[BoneSnapDeez]

lol yes, good catch, I goofed.

Gunstar Heroes = just okay....... Guardian Heroes = fun!!