Sombrero wrote on 2024-04-19, 05:54:
I haven't listened to the podcast and assumed they were retro enthusiasts who just didn't like the game because it's not their thing, but that sounds like the "I didn't read the manual, don't know how it works therefore it sucks" attitude I so very much hate. I'm starting to understand why you guys are getting so bothered by this, I kinda assumed this is just another old man yells at cloud case 😀
I do feel bad about criticizing them, as the podcast is just for fun--they have an online club where they vote for a game each month, and then try to play it as much as possible the following month for discussion during the podcast. There's no pressure at all, and no one is required to actually finish the game. These aren't just a bunch of random people trying old games for a laugh, as most of the regulars did actually grow up playing DOS games... which just makes it more frustrating, because you still get the comments about how old games are so unplayable because game design has advanced so much over the years, or how they have "no time" in their busy adult lives to figure some old game out (but do have 50-100 hours to spend doing every little thing in Horizon Zero Dawn or whatever).
appiah4 wrote on 2024-04-19, 07:47:
Eye of the Beholder was not a game for everyone back when it came out either. It is a love affair for me, and probably one of my favorite games of all time. My last run through EOB and EOB2 was in 2011 IIRC and I still loved every single bit of them, so it is not a nostalgia only feeling - I still love playing them. However, I also had friends at the time who just did not 'get' it. There were even those among people I knew to love gold box SSI games who did not really enjoy the dungeon crawling of EOB. They probably still don't 'get' it. It happens. I love strategy games in general but Paradox's Europa Universalis / Hearts of Iron / Stellaris games completely elude me - I don't 'get' them, which is heresy to a lot of my friends, but they just don't tick for me. To each their own.
That said, EOB is GOAT and if you don't like it you are wrong.
Yeah, this is true, and I don't mean to suggest everyone should love EotB; I definitely prefer the Gold Box games, myself. I just cannot believe that, in this day and age where we have every resource at our fingertips including walkthroughs and maps if you need them, someone can have an entire month to play EotB with no pressure at all just for fun, only to whine about not knowing what a Fighter or Magic-User is and whether your Magic-User should have high Strength or whatever, and complain about getting lost in the maze. This is precisely the reason why the game comes with a default party on disk and partial maps for the first few levels! There's no rule against using walkthroughs and maps, either (I'm sure plenty of people back in the day played with official cluebook in hand). What more can one possibly need just to give the game a fair chance?
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Anyway, I don't know about everyone else, but the nostalgia argument really bothers me because it suggests that old games weren't good, but you were just a dumb kid or tasteless adult when you played them, so of course you liked them. It also, therefore, sort of suggests that you're still pretty dumb if you still like playing them today. What's even worse, is that this thinking is pretty pervasive, not just among people who write about games for a living, but even among hobbyists that should know better.
For example, in addition to computer RPGs, I also really enjoy a good console RPG... so I bought this book, A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games, thinking I could use it to look for recommendations. I read this 600+ page book cover to cover, and nearly every single entry ends with a sentence or two about how archaic the game is and how it's just a bunch of grinding "like all RPGs of the time." I've actually completed a LOT of these console RPGs and I know for a fact you don't have to grind at all (in fact, most console RPGs are extremely linear, simple, and easy)... so I know these "reviews" are complete bullshit written by people who haven't completed, and probably only briefly played, the games they are writing about. And this is supposed to be a love letter to Japanese RPGs written by fans! Absolute nonsense.