RPGs you thought aged well but didn't?

Based on a Gothic thread I thought I would start a new thread about RPG games you thought aged well but didn't actually age well at all. So lets get started.

My first addition to this thread would be NeverWinter Nights by BioWare. As much as I enjoy playing that game it really needs s massive facelift. Some might not agree.

Next would Gothic and gasp many might say your wrong bro but come on just admit it. I loved playing it many years ago but by today standards it looks and plays to clunky.

For reference for those who don't know what clunky means.

awkwardly solid, heavy, and outdated.

I don´t have a problem with Gothic probably because I´m used to it

Underworld 1 & 2 and Systemshock 1 on the other hand I find very hard to play today

Aye the original System shock hasn't aged well. I believe there is a remake in the unreal engine. I'll add one more game I love to play called Anachronox. It looks terrible.

I love the first half of Anachronox which seems like the part that was finished

My problem with any of the games isn´t the graphics it´s the control scheme and ui

Probably every JRPG I played in the '90s. One specific one I've been curious about is Vagrant Story. I liked it a lot when it came out, but I have a feeling I would have a tough time with it today.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Probably every JRPG I played in the '90s. One specific one I've been curious about is Vagrant Story. I liked it a lot when it came out, but I have a feeling I would have a tough time with it today.

Loved playing Vagrant Story but I agree nowadays probably not much. As for all JRPG's I hate the young protagonist and the old random encounters. Don't miss them at all.

I thought Baldur's Gate 2 aged well, but then I watched my boyfriend play it this morning after a sudden surge of motivation he got, and I couldn't believe how bad everything looked. The saving grace was the pre rendered scenarios, but the UI, the delay on every action, the character models and animations oh my…

At least it's a game that doesn't need to excel in those areas, but my memory had me totally fooled. And yes, that was the Enhanced Edition, can't imagine how the original one would be if I saw it now.

Originally Posted by Nereida
At least it's a game that doesn't need to excel in those areas, but my memory had me totally fooled. And yes, that was the Enhanced Edition, can't imagine how the original one would be if I saw it now.

Virtually identical, if you're using a resolution patch.

Changed the thread title because the original doesn't really make sense.

Morrowind immediately comes to mind for me. I still think it's a very enjoyable game with the right mods, but forget about playing it unmodded. The vanilla game looks and plays terrible.

I agree with NWN being another one. To be fair, I was never a big fan to begin with since it wasn't what I wanted at the time. I tried playing the EE version not long ago and just couldn't do it. I'm sure it's a lot better with friends though.

I'd also add Betrayal at Krondor and the entire Ultima series, although those games are so old it might not be fair to include them.

Really? Do you need to nitpick every thread or comment I post.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Virtually identical, if you're using a resolution patch.

It was almost the same Beamdog just added some new textures, better resolutions & so on. The plus was it allowed modern gamers to play without modding the original.

Still with all the new features came a ton of new bugs as well. Guess you can't win.

Originally Posted by mprod
My problem with any of the games isn´t the graphics it´s the control scheme and ui

For me it's the graphics but the UI and controls matter as well.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Morrowind immediately comes to mind for me. I still think it's a very enjoyable game with the right mods, but forget about playing it unmodded. The vanilla game looks and plays terrible.

For sure. Morrowind is one of the most enduring games of my life, but I wouldn't even consider playing an umodded version of it and haven't since, I dunno, maybe 2010 or so? With the graphics extender and updated textures/meshes and such it's still a very nice looking game, and the art direction is great still of course. The combat still sucks, but I don't play Morrowind for the combat.

I wouldn't play any Bethesda game if mods weren't available and easy to install.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
NeverWinter Nights

That one was rubbish since it appeared. It needed no aging to be garbage.
I have no idea how could anyone expect a good wine today from it.

A title others didn't mention: Summoner.
It looks and feels too outdated yet was a fine game back in the day.

Hmmmm… Atari Adventure? No, that didn't age a day. It looked just as bad then as it does now!

Atari Adventure? Well guess I can add pong or PacMan if we want to go that far back.

Originally Posted by joxer
That one was rubbish since it appeared. It needed no aging to be garbage.
I have no idea how could anyone expect a good wine today from it.

A title others didn't mention: Summoner.
It looks and feels too outdated yet was a fine game back in the day.

NWN was supposed to be like Baldur's Gate but Bioware switched to a new engine. Interviews with the developers talk about this, and one is on the old RPGDot.

Basically early 3D graphics weren't that good looking.

.. along the same lines, for me it's NWN2. When it came out I thought it looked great but the idea of playing a child for the original campaign was unappealing, so I played Oblivion which came out the SAME DAY… (Imagine if TES VII and DA4 came out on the same day). I have kept going back to NWN2 over the years but can't bring myself to play for more than a few hours before ditching it - each time I see how it's aging.

Originally Posted by mprod
Underworld 1 & 2

Yeah I agree with this. I tried them recently, couldn't get into them at all. I can totally believe that they were groundbreaking though, and I wish I'd played them on release rather than trying twenty years later.

Some people love NWN, because of the Dm mode, and indeed there were some good user made modules from it. The original campaign though has to be one of the worse stories Bioware has written. It also looked awful when it came out, especially in comparison to Icewind Dale, which was using the older engine.

I bought and tried playing Anachronox a few years ago. I'm sure it was great when it came out, but it has a terrible U.I., camera, and 3d graphics. The story seems interesting, but gave it up after 10 hours, because I just couldn't get past the rest of it.

I honestly think NWN is one of the games that has aged best. The main campaign I can't tell much about, I don't even remember it. I think to have the feeling that it was okay.

That said, NWN was always about the multiplayer aspect, with how easy to build a world was as they provided the tools for it, tileset based world builder with scriptable everything… NPCs, items, transitions, sound, lightning, etc. You can do literally anything you want, the only limit was the amount of time you were willing to sink into it. I've seen pretty well done Star Wars mods in NWN.

The Enhanced Edition added modern resolutions, and many options to modernise the general aspect of the game, including reflections, contrast lighting, and such that make the game look pretty good (if obviously not AAA good).

The vanilla character models would look bad now, but luckily with the enhanced edition you can add hi-res texture packs that players don't even need to find manually to play the server, it gets automatically detected and downloaded via steam upon login. This is just an example of the first hi-res human head pack that came up on a google search -


It holds pretty well nowadays. It blows, say.. Age of Decadence out of the water, which is a pretty well praised modernish game. And there's the same for all kind of creatures, objects, props, scenario, tilesets.. and if there isn't, you can create it. Again, only limited by how much time you want to put in it.

I can say a lot of things about Neverwinter Nights, but not that it didn't age well. Playing the vanilla, non-enhanced edition without mods/haks, yeah, that doesn't hold very well nowadays, but that's not really what the game is today.

Generally UI and lack of key rebinding in older games makes them difficult to get into. Dosbox can help there with a bit of fiddling as you can rebind keys but some of the older games are very obtuse. Then again you were expected to read the manual and the key layout was usually on a bit of cardboard if you bought the game. I don't want to have to refer to a pdf and play in a window so thats an issue for me.

As for game examples:
The original Diablo almost holds up but for walking around being the only option. Not an RPG but Dune 2 and Warcraft 1 not having drag to select really dates those games playing wise.

Games like Eye of the Beholder not having an in-game map dates it for me but that was a problem for me back in the day also. I am hopeful for a Bard's Tale style update for that game series.

Overall when I play those older games I enjoy fiddling around with different music setups and seeing what they sound like as mt32 or roland as I never had access to those sounds back then. X-com with roland sound is probably the most dramatic improvement but mt32 and sierra games have the most improvement over standard adlib and sound blaster.