Classics you beat >10 years late to the party

[nightdreamer]

Title is self-explanatory but are there old classic games that you've first beat more than 10 years after they were made, and how do they hold up? Pick only games that were released AFTER you were born!

Super Mario 64 - I've never owned an N64, so for a long time my only way to play its games were on emulators. SM64 does not control well on emulators, so even though I got pretty far into it in many tries I've never rolled credits... until 2012, when I beat it on Virtual Console, and collected 121 stars. This is after I've beaten both Galaxies. SM64 for some weird reason has been getting a few vocal critics as of late, saying it's 'boring' and 'not twitchy' and I honestly don't get those. The graphics may not compare favorably with its successors BUT it still controls damn well, and it still filled me with wonder and amazement because of how much thought went into all of its polygons -- like all these things had very deliberate placements and had purposes that you'd understand once you get the grasp of Mario's deeply complex acrobatic skillsets. It's a game that transformed him from a mere 'jumping man' to a full on gymnast and the game takes every opportunity to let you understand the tough but really impressive things gymnasts can do to various structures. I wish I could play the DS remake but the control seems like a huge barrier of entry.

Mario Kart 64 - delay was the same deal for why I didn't play SM64 earlier, but I beat this in emu. Before that though, I used to play battle mode with my best bud and always sucked at it (I'm really bad at vehicle combat games). It's alright, but it really played better multi, and I was honestly more into Bomberman Fantasy Race and Chocobo Racing than this despite this being a better designed game. Why? I guess the art style and the element of fanservice don't quite connect with me? I find Nintendo characters to be too ubiquitous that their crossovers don't feel all that special to me (especially given how frequently Ninty do that anyway).

Someday Ocarina of Time might find its way into this thread.

Mega Man 1-3 - I had a huge Mega Man kick in my college years where I attempted to play and beat every MM roms I could get my hands on, but I really only completed MML1 and 2 (which I loved) and MM1-3. And this was... I think, around 2004-ish? MM2 was the very last MM I beat before MM9 came out so that still left a lasting impression to me. I kind of, gulp, cheated with MM2, because I don't really like mashing buttons very much so I tend to hold a turbo key, which made some of MM2's Wily Castles insultingly easy. Handing over my gamer card now...

I think MM3 was a favorite of the original trilogy, but maybe my mind will change once I revisit them.

Your turn!

[The Great Klaid]

I was born in 1992. If it wasn't on PC or Genesis I didn't play it until the 2000's. That all adds up to every single SNES game I've beaten. And I don't think I've missed too many classics. Actually, thinking about it, the first 8 Final Fantasys were all 10 years after they came out too. I think 9 just misses it by a year or two.

Really, I've just been playing catch up through most of the last decade. Until recently, I'm a generation behind.

[nightdreamer]

Okay I'll mod the rule: you have to have existed when the game came out.

[The Great Klaid]

Well, then I lose NES games, but I don't play a lot of those anyway. Most of my completed stuff still counts!

[X-pert74]

Soooooooooo so many games. I'll name a few, but there's no way I could list everything. Also for reference, I was born in 1990, so nothing before then counts for me.

I beat the other Mega Man games for the Super NES (so, basically the first three X games) within about 5 years after first playing them, so they don't count. Mega Man 7, however, I only finally beat in 2010. Dr. Wily's second form is really insanely fucking hard. I still don't know how to beat it without getting hit a whole bunch; I basically brute-forced it by using every single energy tank I had, and hanging on until the bitter end, when I had literally a sliver of health left. I don't know if I could ever beat Wily again like that. The challenge of the rest of the game I think is reasonable, but I just cannot figure out how to smoothly beat Wily.

There are several PC games for which this is the case for me; I actually played a little bit of X-COM: UFO Defense as a kid, but didn't ever seriously play through and beat it until late 2011/2012. I love it, and now consider it perhaps my favorite game ever. It was a little clunky, admittedly (I beat it before OpenXCOM's release, which smooths out a lot of the UI issues and the like), but I still really loved it. Some other PC games I beat 10+ years after their release include The Ultimate Doom and Doom II: Hell on Earth (fucking love them both; they're perhaps my favorite FPSes ever. I love classic maze-like FPSes with puzzles and traps and the like), Fallout and Fallout 2 (love them both; it took maybe 15 minutes or so to get the hang of the interface, and from there on I loved them), and Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny.

Since there were NES releases after 1990, I can name at least one that I played and beat long after its release; Metal Storm! It was really awesome, and I had a lot of fun with it. I love its gravity-based gimmick; it's like VVVVVV several years before it, and with shooting and stuff.

I'll just name one more for now; EarthBound. I first started playing this... I can't remember when exactly. Maybe in 2010? Despite my initial concerns that it wouldn't live up to the hype, I still ended up loving it, and now consider it one of my favorite games ever. I was a little iffy on the simplistic JRPG combat at first, but I got the hang of it after awhile, and the difficulty becomes more manageable as you get more people in your party.

[Scylla]

Most that I've played? Or if not 10+ years then still a good number of years past release. Chalk it up to a combination of my interest in niche games that often leads to me ignoring the big-name stuff, the infrequency of me acquiring games prior to around 2000 (limited funds of my own before that and I'd basically only get games from my family on Christmas and my birthday), and my backlog that causes games to sit for years on my shelves until I get around to playing them. I never owned a non-Nintendo system until 1999 too. Oh, and I'm also not too crazy about the hype machine, so I kinda prefer to enjoy a game in the quiet later years, maybe chatting with the diehard fans who still love it, rather than drown myself in the media and day-one buyers who all won't give a shit about the game in a few months.

If you want me to name some specific titles, in the last decade or so I've beaten for the first time Zelda 1-3, Super Mario World, Sonic 1-2, Mega Man X, the first Castlevania and Bloodlines, Final Fantasy 1-5, Bonk's Adventure, Shining Force 1-2, Phantasy Star 2, and many many more games that were over 10 years old when I played them. And still now I have many big-name classics I've yet to play through.

[spekkio]

Final Fantasy 7 was a game I would pick up and briefly play, and then drop it shortly afterward.  I'm not sure why, but it happened multiple times.  It wasn't until 2007 that I finally made the dedicated effort to thoroughly play through the game.  Needless to say, it was worth it to finally have the full experience.

[Deleted]

Hmm. Having a hard time thinking of examples, but I know for sure that I beat Night Trap, Shining Force CD, and Snatcher earlier this year for the first time. They were all worth the wait, but it would have been nice to play them when they were new.

[steven]

Oct 18, 2014 0:24:53 GMT -5 X-pert74 said:

Mega Man 7, however, I only finally beat in 2010. Dr. Wily's second form is really insanely fucking hard. I still don't know how to beat it without getting hit a whole bunch; I basically brute-forced it by using every single energy tank I had, and hanging on until the bitter end, when I had literally a sliver of health left. I don't know if I could ever beat Wily again like that. The challenge of the rest of the game I think is reasonable, but I just cannot figure out how to smoothly beat Wily.

It's so weird but I always hear how hard MM7 Wily is, but I remember beating without that great of a struggle. In fact, MM7 is the only MM game I've beaten. Go figure.

As for games I beat 10+ years after they came out, so many as well. But when I got back into the SNES scene in early 2006, the big 3 I can think of was Super Mario World, Super Metroid and Link to the Past. Of course there was also Contra III, Super Castlevania IV, all 3 DKC games, etc. What a ride it's been.

[elektrolurch]

Lots of JRPGs,i hated the style when they came out and wasnt interested in them. Plus i never had a SNES. I had an emulator which worked rather well quite early but still couldn't be bothered with them. It was only until 2010 or so that I got around to play and beat Earthbound,Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana,Metal Max Returns und many more. Was a great ride.
And Console games in general, being raised on home computers. Super Metroid, Castelvania:TOS,also Zelda:Link to the Past.
And some non-Sierra and non-Lucas-Arts Adventures. Like Beneath a Steel Sky.
I think there are many, many more.

[nightdreamer]

Oh, I forgot I also beat Snatcher and Policenauts quite recently, around 2011, back-to-back, running emulators on a homebrewed PSP. That and the Ace Attorney games may have been an influence to me enjoying visual novels on portable devices (whereas I couldn't stand playing them on TV). Love those two games, found the OSTs on the internet and really liked those too, and could not stop reading about them for a while. Maybe I'm one of the minorities who prefer Policenauts over Snatcher but it's an assessment I will have to reevaluate someday.

Kind of breaking the rule here but Donkey Kong Country 3 is another one, which I did beat but having never found all the banana birds and viewed the true ending for more than 10 years. It's nagged at me for forever until I recently (around 2010ish) sat down and played the game again and learned to access the secret world through the use of FAQs.

Looking at steven's avatar reminded me that I also beat Super Punch-Out!! 10 years after. I loved Punch-Out!! too (that's actually another game I first beat in college), but I preferred this because it was clearer to me what I had to do to access the uppercut (sometimes I couldn't tell how to get the stars in the NES game). Still fire both up on emulators very frequently.

[nightdreamer]

Oct 18, 2014 5:03:57 GMT -5 steven said:

Oct 18, 2014 0:24:53 GMT -5 X-pert74 said:

Mega Man 7, however, I only finally beat in 2010. Dr. Wily's second form is really insanely fucking hard. I still don't know how to beat it without getting hit a whole bunch; I basically brute-forced it by using every single energy tank I had, and hanging on until the bitter end, when I had literally a sliver of health left. I don't know if I could ever beat Wily again like that. The challenge of the rest of the game I think is reasonable, but I just cannot figure out how to smoothly beat Wily.

It's so weird but I always hear how hard MM7 Wily is, but I remember beating without that great of a struggle. In fact, MM7 is the only MM game I've beaten. Go figure.

I don't know if it's xpert74 but for me, I kept thinking I should use the RUSH armor but it turned out to be bad way of beating him. I did anyway, and under similar condition as her. That was in my elementary years. I replayed MM7 recently and found that using the electric weapon makes his attack easier to predict, and that made him manageable.

[zerker]

Yeah too many to list here too. When I was a kid, I never got too far into Zelda 1 or 2, but finally beat both of them around 2003 or so. Unlike X-pert74, I did finish the Doom games 'back in the day' but promptly forgot them as time went on only to have my love rekindled around 2005 or so when I finally played them again . I did play a few Retro FPSes since then that I have since loved: Dark Forces and Blood being the main ones.

But the game I want to focus on JUST BARELY qualifies for this. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. I played this a little bit not too long after it came out, but got frustrated with one of the boss battles and bought into the whole 'it sucks because it's grimdark' thought train. Well, I finally dug it out this year and replayed it: and I actually liked it . The battle I was stuck on before still gave me some trouble, but I eventually worked out a strategy and kept going. I'm not sure exactly how I'd stack it up against Sands of Time or Two Thrones (it's been quite a gap between when I played each of them), but it's a game I'm happy to own now.

[nightdreamer]

Warrior Within does not suck DESPITE the grimdark. The platforming is very well done, even if its aesthetic is coated in... something really nasty!

[kyouki]

Phantasy Star SMS(MD)
We had a SMS growing up, but we never got this game. I remember seeing screens of it in mags at the time and I could not believe how good the graphics were.

I recently started collecting MD games and decided to pick up the Phantasy Star series and work my way through them. Phantasy Star is an unbelievably massive game. Unlike Dragon Quest/Warrior I it is balanced so that you don't need to ever artificially grind exp/money, but even so it probably took me 40-50 hours to clear. It's lost its luster a bit over the years (I don't like it nearly as much as I like DW2), but I imagine it must have been extremely impressive back in the day. I mean, this game came out a little over a year after Dragon Quest I!