IMO the true test of a console's greatness, is how they hold up years later. As a console gets older, fewer, and fewer games in its library are considered fun by modern standards. And some of those games get remakes that make the original completely obsolete (SSF2THDR is a great example of this.) Then there's games that were meant to be played online, and had their servers shut down. Or a game that is still fun, isn't as good because the graphics aged with zero grace. As soon as a successor is announced game prices seem to plummet, for a system. There's usually a period where a system is considered old, but not classic, so prices bottom out. Eventually prices go back up as working discs, and carts dwindle, and as those systems are considered retro. Once a console is two generations in the rearview mirror it has entered its golden years.
I'm bringing up this topic, because I just streamlined my PS3 collection. Some games on that system were too old to keep due to the list of reasons listed above. Fallout 3, Skyrim, Dragon Age Origins, and the first two Dark Souls games were sent to the local trade-in shop. The Bioshock Trilogy was swapped out for the PS4 Remaster. Some games never ran very well on the PS3, and they run especially poorly, in comparison to modern systems. Other games like The Orange Box, Mass Effect series, and Dragon Age II were kept due to the need to have DRM free copies of the game. Games made with the PS3 in mind, and exclusives were all kept.
Anyway, this makes me think about how other systems have aged, and how the PS4/XB1 might age. I'll post my thoughts on a few sysetms, and maybe some other people will be willing to post theirs. I thought it would be a thought provoking discussion, and a bit of philosophy on growing old. I'm 34, and sometimes it hurts to see things change so much that I hardly recognize the current gaming landscape.
NES
I think most NES games hold up decently well. For the NES there's the obvious Super Mario Bros. 3. And then there's a little gem called River City Ransom. Hands down the best 2D beat'em up ever made. It has a plethora of moves that dwarf even games made years later. You can level up your fighters, and customize them as you play the game. Old JRPGs like Final Fantasy 1 Don't hold up very well, but DragonQuest 4 is good for its time if you can find it. But that got remade on the DS.
SNES
2D sprites hold up well, and Indie developers still struggle to match the best games that these systems have to offer. Movie Tie-Ins were yet to be considered Shovelware, so the SNES boasts quite a few quality games like Aladdin, and The Lion King. There are five titles on the SNES that I consider to be timeless classics. I refer to them as the big 5. They are Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 3, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, and A Link to the Past. Secret of Mana, Yoshi's Island, and Super Mario RPG also hold up fairly well, but aren't pure classics.
MegaDrive/Genesis
I have a small but good Genesis collection. Four Sonic games, Thunder Force series, Contra Hard Corps, Castlevania Bloodlines, and good RPGs like Phantasy Star IV, and Shining Force II. IMO the Contra and Castlevania games for Genesis are just better than the SNES versions. They were all made after the SNES versions, so just had smoother gameplay elements. Other games like Kid Chameleon and Ecco are just old now. KC lacks save points, and is brutally hard. Ecco suffers from a lack of analog control in a game where you can Swim in 360 degrees. X-Men 2 has to be one of my favorite Genesis games. It's a platforming hack'n slash with a good list of characters to choose from. Wolverine is hilariously OP in this game. I love the Genesis cases, and wish SNES had them.
PS1
The only PS1 games that truly hold up anymore are the RPGs, and a few Konomi games. But there's enough here to build a decent collection of games that are still enjoyable. Final Fantasy VII pretty much takes everything from FF3 on SNES and copies it, with a few changes here and there. Square had a heyday with experimentation during the PS1 years, so there's lots of hidden gems from that company. Atlus and other JRPG devs didn't get coverage so there's a lot of hidden gems from them too.
PS2
PS2 still holds the record for highest selling console of all time, and it supported a ton of AA developers that died out in the PS3/360/Wii era. The platformers on the PS2 are still fun, mostly because everybody except Nintendo and Insomniac gave up on making 3D platformers over ten years ago. I still think Ace Combat and Devil May Cry have their best entries on PS2. PS2's cases are really heavy duty compared to modern day cases. They are fun to collect.
360
This was my first system of the 7th generation. It plays a lot of multiplat games better than the PS3, but really lacks exclusives. Aside from Halo , Gears, Fable II, and Viva Pinata there's little on it that PS3 doesn't also play.
PS3
Overall a good system that plays quite a few games that are either still exclusive to the system, or only really got a resolution upscale version on PS4. Some games like Mass Effect 1-3, Skyrim, Dragon Age, and Fallout just don't play very well at all.
Last edited by Cerebralbore101 - on 03 September 2018
