I went over some of the games that I didn’t like when I played them; now I want to go over some of the games that I’ve changed my mind about. This will be a mix of games that I like more now and ones that I like less. Thankfully, there aren’t any that I’ve learned to strongly dislike.
There were quite a few games that my friends or the internet told me were bad, and for whatever reason, I went with that. Quite a few of the early internet comedy series were about “bad retro games,” which had an impact on me getting back into collecting and altered how I felt about them. When I went back to play many of them, I didn’t see them as bad games.
To go along with that, when I started checking out the reviews for these games, I often disagreed with them. For a lot of the games that I’ve reviewed, I’ve learned to ignore what people said about them in the 2000s. Some critics rate games unfairly or are simply delusional.
I’m going to try to keep this list between 10 and 15 games. These games will be taken from several consoles, but all will be retro games. They won’t be in any order.
TLDR: A list of games that I’ve changed my mind about over time.
Final Fantasy (NES) from Love to Indifference
This is one of the games I used to love, but as I’ve played it over the years, I’ve gotten sick of it. There isn’t anything wrong with the game; I’ve just played it way too much.
The story, gameplay, and graphics are good for the NES. Final Fantasy is a quality RPG, and I like most of what is in the game. I started playing this game in the early 1990s and have just played it way too many times over the last thirty years.
It feels like muscle memory at this point. There isn’t anything for me to discover with this game, and even changing up my party isn’t all that much fun. I’ve just gotten tired of playing, talking, and writing about this game.
Dragon Quest II from Like to Dislike
Here is a game that I liked at first. The more that I played it, the more issues I had with it. While it has a lot of improvements over the first game, none of them make up for the tedious slog of fetch quests that never really felt fun.
I do like the story. The developers did a good job of expanding on the story from the first game, but the rest of it is just annoying. I don’t mind all the grinding in this game; what I don’t like is how unfulfilling the quests were. This game felt more like a checklist of things you had to do instead of being an adventure.
This all happened after the first time I really tried the game in the 2010s. After I beat it, I liked it. When I went back to play it, I found it to be way too tedious a game. Even when I got to the end, I was happier that it was all over.
Conflict
Conflict is an odd game. This is a military strategy game, and it isn’t all that great. It does stand out from the other games on the NES, but I would rather play Desert Commander or import a copy of Famicom Wars.
I can’t remember when I first saw this game, but I remember thinking it was great! It didn’t look like any of the other games that I’d played, and it stuck with me. The game in my mind didn’t match reality.
I picked this game up in the early 2000s. After I played it for a little while, it was clear to me that it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be. The gameplay wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be; the graphics were nice, but that wasn’t enough to carry me through it. There are just better strategy games than Conflict on the NES.
Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest
Simon’s Quest is an odd game on this list. I had to watch my older brother play this when I was a kid, for reasons. Then I forgot all about it after I bought it alongside the other Castlevania games in the late 1990s. It wasn’t until the 2010s that I learned it was a “bad” game. I went back to play it a few years ago, and I thought it was good.
The game definitely has problems, but it isn’t as bad as the internet says. It feels a little unfinished at times, and really needs more signs to tell you where the heck you are. The translation is also a mess because it makes the clues in the game nearly nonsensical. Despite all that, I think it is still a better game than most of the NES library.
The game did need a map or a guide. Simon’s Quest is one of those attempts to take a series in a different direction. I like the game for what it is, and I enjoy it more now than my first experience with the game.
Final Fantasy II (NES) Dislike to Like
I really didn’t like this game when I first played it. Final Fantasy II is one of the games that I first played on an emulator, and I had no idea what I was doing. I kept trying to figure it out, and it just never made sense to me back then.
When I first played it, I thought the graphics looked better than the first game, and I liked that there was more of a story for the main characters. The gameplay was a bit hit and miss for me. Outside of combat, I like the additions to the game, like better characters and a secret word system.
There are a lot of good things in this game. It definitely doesn’t deserve the hate that it gets online. I prefer this game to the first one, especially now that I know how to play it. The story really is the best part of this game.
Friday the 13th
This was my entry point to the Friday the 13th movies. I knew about them before the game, but this was my first experience with anything concerning the series. Friday the 13th is one of the better games published by LJN. It feels like the developers were trying something different.
The game is a bit confusing, but it isn’t impossible to figure out. My friend Joey rented the game, and we didn’t really know what we were supposed to do. I remember thinking the graphics were creepy, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, aside from save the kids. I never thought it was a bad game, just one that was too complicated for me.
When I played this a few years ago, I liked it. Thankfully, I knew what to do because of the internet. I went from being confused and not liking the game too much to enjoying it for what it is, and finding some of the secrets in the game.
Jaws
This went from a game that I didn’t fully understand to one that I think is pretty fun. Jaws on the NES was my introduction to the movies, as odd as that might seem. I remember playing it at a neighbor’s house one night when all the older kids and the adults were watching the movies. I think it was just the first two, but I could be wrong.
I didn’t understand it that time, or any of the other times I played it with my friend Joey. When I started collecting games in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I picked this up and still didn’t get it. Thanks to the internet, I figured out how to play the game, and now I think it’s fun. It’ll never be on a list of my favorites, but I think it’s fun.
Jaws doesn’t really know what it wants to be. This is one of the games that feels like the developers were experimenting with mechanics while slapping together a game for LJN to publish. There is something about the variety of gameplay that I enjoy, and I like how relaxing the graphics are.
Phantasy Star II
My first experience with this game was on the Game Boy Advance. I think I had it for the Genesis, but I don’t remember if I tried to play it for that system. Playing this game on a submarine while trying to finish the qualifications for your warfare pin is not the ideal way to play this game. I have few, if any, good memories from that time in my life.
Looking up information on this game wasn’t really an option at the time. It is a grind heavy game, and you have to randomly return to the main character’s house to get new characters. That’s probably the one thing that I truly dislike. The story is very good, and I like the ending, even if it doesn’t tie into the rest of the series.
While this isn’t my favorite game in the series, I do like it more than when I first played it. There are some things in it that I don’t enjoy; I do like the story quite a bit. At the end of the day, there are more things that I like about this game.
Phantasy Star III
I’ve written about this a few times. Phantasy Star III is the second game I played in the series, and it didn’t quite match up to the fourth game. The first few times I played this game, I didn’t get too far into it. I ended up not liking the game as much because it wasn’t the fourth game, and it just wasn’t as much fun.
When I played this game in the late 2010s, I pushed myself to really get through this game. I found the story to be very good, and the three generation plot structure was unique for the time. While the graphics are muted and the cutscenes aren’t as good, the gameplay and story are very good. This is now my second favorite game in the series.
Coming back to play this game is one of the reasons why I started reviewing retro games. Not only did I think I had something to say about them, but I wanted to give some of the games on my shelf a second chance. In the case of this one, I’m really glad I played it again.
WWF Attitude (All Platforms)
When this game came out, it was great, especially if you didn’t own an N64, where some of the better wrestling games were. WWF Attitude is one of the games that I loved when it was first released. I didn’t own it right away; instead, I rented it a bunch of times with my friend Drew.
What I remember is playing through the season mode with my friends and messing around with the character creation. It was a lot of fun until the first Smackdown game was released, and I completely forgot about Attitude. There was a good six to ten month stretch where this was a very fun game.
When I went back to play each version of this game for a project I was doing, I found this to be a tediously average game. I don’t think it is as bad as some people have told me it is. It’s an average wrestling game on each of the platforms it is on. It is fine, but it isn’t anywhere near as good as the best games on the PS1, N64, or Dreamcast.
E.V.O. Search for Eden
When I first played this game, it was on an emulator. I didn’t know much about it, and my only friend who played SNES games didn’t know about it. He probably pretended to know about it because that is just who he is.
E.V.O. is one of the games that I really got into. I eventually found a copy of the game, and I did enjoy it when I was in high school. A few years ago, I went back to play the game, and I didn’t have the same experience. I found it to be a very cheap game, especially when fighting some of the bosses. You can get stun locked at times, but you can do this to the bosses as well.
The game has some really good mechanics, and I really want to enjoy it more than I currently do. I love the graphics and parts of the gameplay. It simply didn’t feel as fun as the first time I played it.
Seventh Cross Evolution
Much like E.V.O., this game has you slowly evolving a creature over time. Seventh Cross Evolution is an overly complex game that takes a great premise and makes it more frustrating than it needs to be. This was one of the first Dreamcast games I bought, and I still have it to this day.
I remember being confused by this game, but because I liked E.V.O., I kept trying to enjoy this game. Seventh Cross Evolution was one of the games that I forced myself to like, especially since I didn’t buy a lot of games at that time. I’m sure everyone had one of those games where they had to play it because it was all they had.
As I look back at it, the graphics aren’t great, and the gameplay isn’t too good. There are six sections, and nothing feels as good as it did in E.V.O. Much of it is way more complicated than it needed to be. Much of the story is told as you play the game, but it isn’t all that good either.
Conclusion
Going back and looking at the games I’ve played is fun. What is also nice is finding a game that I like more the second or third time that I’ve played it. There are a few that I don’t like as much the more I play them.
These are just some of the games that I either liked or disliked when I played them for my YouTube, Blog, or just when I wanted something to do. I haven’t written about all of these games, and I’m not planning on doing that at this point. There are more games like this, and at some point I’ll have to get to them.
A few of the other games are RPGs on the PS1. There were a few rentals from the late 1990s that I didn’t really give much of a shot when I played them, or only rented them once and then moved on. I played way more PS1 games in the 1990s than I did on the SNES, NES, or Genesis.
The next list I put together might explore some of the games that I played for the first time or beat for the first time. It will focus on games I’ve reviewed on my Blog and YouTube, just like the other lists I’ve done. I might try to structure it a bit better.
If you liked this post, check out some of my other posts on NES games. Such as Gauntlet II or PaperBoy.
This is a great list and very fun to think about! I love the concept of games changing for us over time, for better or worse. Coming back to something years later may make us realize that it was trash all along – or perhaps a hidden gem. Or maybe a game was exactly what we needed at the time even if it wasn’t considered anything special by the masses.