Games that have/have not aged well

[samsonlonghair]

This will be unpopular for a few denizens, but there are quite a few 8-bit RPGs that haven't aged well at all. I think, for all its importance, the original Dragon Warrior hasn't aged all that well. It does maintain a good deal of its charm, though. Similarly, Phantasy Star was very ambitious for its time, boasting a scale and scope that were unheard of at the time (at least here in the West). But I find the combat very, very lacking, so I actually prefer all but the first Dragon Quest/Warrior to it.

I'm going to agree here. The 8-bit RPGs (Phantasy Star in particular) were borderline abusive with grinding.

[Anayo]

Games where you can't save your progress have always bugged me, even back in the day when all I had to play was 8 and 16-bit games. I prefer Super Mario All Stars on the SNES over the NES version of Super Mario 3 for this reason.

[TSTR]

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[Tanooki]

Anayo agreed, why I keep around Ninja Gaiden Trilogy over the originals. While not heavily 16bit polished, they restored the NG3 difficulty to the famicom cart and put in per stage passwords.

And I'll agree into that argument that 8bit RPGs aged horribly as did most (not PS4) of the phantasy star games. One can be tolerable but 2 and 3 are just grinding abusive (both grinding levels and on your patience.) I experienced them within the decade of them coming out (PC smash pack for PStar2) and even I couldn't tolerate that garbage more than a 1/3 into the game as it just felt awful after coming off of some other stuff from Square, Enix, and even others like say Grandia 2.

I'll throw another nod to early 3D stuff, much hasn't aged well. N64 fares a little better than PS1 in some aspects as least when the AA filter was used right and not abused, plus not horrid FMV with all the issues it had. But I'm sure not to please people throwing the pre-NES era 2D under the bus as it's just so bad you have to draw a line somewhere where no amount of imagination would make some crappy blocks become what they intended or the overly dumbed down gameplay even weaker than the arcade games of the era. Colecovision (being after Famicom) is about as far back as it gets before you can forget it. I can deal with some 2600 titles and Fairchild but that's about it, and only because I liked them back then.

[marurun]

There are a couple 3D Saturn games that hold up OK, but they do by virtue of art direction and crazy effects using VDP1/VDP2 interplay (like Panzer Dragoon 1 & 2).

[Flake]

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As a Mod, I think I'm going to allow this. Heresy on, folks.

Zelda II. Fuck that game. I loved/hated it as a kid. Now, it's just hate. I almost did not opt into the 3DS ambassador program because they included that title.

Also - almost all of SNK's pre '96 games. I love Neo Geo but half the library is only playable if you justify the use of time to yourself.

[TSTR]

I suppose I never will get those hours back it took to beat Geese in Fatal Fury...

[ElkinFencer10]

Have nots:
-8-bit JRPGs - Poor interfaces, lacking dialogue and tons of grinding

I gotta disagree. The grinding definitely sucked, but all in all, I think they've aged as well as any early narrative driven game. The dialogue definitely got better as the genre developed, but I'm still a fan of 8-bit RPGs (especially Phantasy Star).

[Tanooki]

My tolerances of 8bit console RPGs are pretty thin. Top of my head goes to FF1, DQ1 and 4, and Phantasy Star. Handheld I think they fared far better. GB had the FFLegend series and Pokemon as obvious stand outs, and also Revelations the Demon Slayer (last bible) on GBC. And Defenders of Oasis on GG is really nice as are (translated) the other RPGs the GG didn't bring out of Japan. Sad thing is I can't think of any 16bit Sega RPG that really aged well at all other than Phantasy Star 4.

[Exhuminator]

I can't think of any 16bit Sega RPG that really aged well at all other than Phantasy Star 4.

I can think of one:

It's just as playable today as it was upon release, if you're a fan of the subgenre anyway.