Outer Wilds, Baba is You, Blue Prince, Hades 1&2, Disco Elysium, Hollow Knight, Slay the Spire, Vampire Survivors, Clair Obscur, What Remains of Edith Finch, 1000xResist, Return of the Obra Dinn, Roboquest, Rocket League, Dark Souls, etc. I could go on, and on, and...

Not rehashes. Original, phenomenal games covering damm near every genre and if there is a genre you're missing, I can find a modern game to match.

Do you actually engage with modern games?

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chongli 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Those may be some amazing games you listed but none of them scratch the itch that some folks have for twitchy NES games. For some reason, modern indie developers never try to emulate the tight, twitchy, highly responsive controls of NES games. Instead, they go for floaty, slow acceleration-based, more forgiving controls.

The puzzle games in your list have no equal though. The NES is pretty light on puzzle / adventure games, though it did receive really nice ports of the MacVenture games (Deja Vu, Uninvited, Shadowgate) as well as Maniac Mansion, and it has a couple of unique ones with Nightshade and Solstice that blend in a bit of action while remaining primarily adventure games.

	▲	CoolGuySteve 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		A large part of this is because the latency on modern TVs can be anywhere between 4.7ms and 150ms so games have to allow for a lot of slack in their input. The NES and SNES had 1-3 frames of latency depending on the game.
	▲	darth_aardvark 11 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Have you tried UFO 50?
	▲	anyfoo 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Dark Souls and Hollow Knight were among the listed titles, come on.

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phatfish 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Of course there are good modern games, but I agree there was something special about the first 3D generation of hardware (hardware cheap enough to be in home consoles at least) and the games it enabled.

Only VR has come close recently, but that hasn't hit in the same way because it is still too expensive and cumbersome.

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reactordev 3 hours ago | parent [-]

This. Half-life was amazing, and not because it was Quake 2. It was a story. Less about blowing stuff up with guns and more about uncovering the secrets of Black Mesa. Then came along mods…

The first one was Team Fortress. Remember that? Still strong today as a ftp title TF2. The second one was a spec-ops style delta force mod (I can’t remember the name) but it gave the 3rd modder the idea that a modern setting could work. Counter-Strike was released as an early alpha on my forum and the rest was history.

I mention this because this was a tuning point from fixed function pipelines to programmable pipelines (shaders).

There was this awe of what we can do, what could be possible, and today’s modern games are a fulfillment of that. I feel this same sense of awe when it comes to some of these foundational models. It’s just incredible what they are capable of.

In reality, while AAA titles have been pumping out annual titles to keep shares high and pigs fat, there have been some wonderful indie titles, smaller budget games, that have made a significant impact on the games industry as a whole.

	▲	lgl an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Half-life was amazing, and not because it was Quake 2. Half-Life used the GoldSrc engine [0], based mostly on Quake 1 and also some parts of QuakeWorld and Quake 2 [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoldSrc
	▲	anyfoo 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I loved Half Life 2, and it was highly influential, but that influence lives on. Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium, Dark Souls, and Return of Obra Dinn were among the mentioned titles. All of these games tell a story, each of this game does it in its own, magnificent way. You act a bit like those kind of games are hard to find, but some of them are highly popularized best sellers that keep getting remasters (I don't mean remakes), and still find a huge audience in entirely new YouTube Let's-Plays alone.

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reactordev 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ok, I’ll give you Rocket League. That’s an entirely new spin on a genre I didn’t see coming. The rest are just RPGs or platformers you like. Good games, but not innovative. Yes, some new franchises have been born and some successful indie titles have been launched but most of the market share in the games industry is held by the top 5.

Yes, I have over 1,000 games in my Steam library going back to 1999. I engage in most games that make the top 500 and have so since I was a teenager making games myself.

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mietek 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So, is Outer Wilds a RPG or a platformer?

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reactordev 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Open world game but also a mystery game as we’re a couple others mentioned above. Those go back to Carmen San Diego and Sherlock homes series. Open World, we’ve seen plenty of those.

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gambiting 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Well, nothing new has been invented since checkers, if you really think about it hard enough and reduce everything to a few buckets of games that everything can fit neatly into, then everything is just a mystery game or just open world or just a platformer. Again, I have a feeling like you're just looking at it mechanically and not how these elements work together to produce a game that is larger than just the sum of its parts. Outer Wilds has puzzles and open world and mystery element to it - and all of those have been done before. But has anyone else combined them this way to produce a game with this narrative? No, I don't believe so(happy to be proven wrong, as always).

Like the other commenter said - I hope I don't become jaded like this about video games, it still brings me joy to see how every new game twists the known formula a little bit more and in new and exciting ways, I believe there are several nieches where we haven't seen the game of that genre yet and I can't wait to see it emerge and how and who is going to do it.

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reactordev 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Have other games put together open world and mystery? Yes.

I have a feeling you haven’t played those games otherwise you’d see the similarities.

Yes, I am ABSOLUTELY looking at the mechanics of the game. I’m also looking for innovation. Take something someone tried (maybe it was a big part of their design) and make a full blown out version of it. Pushing the genre in either a new direction or opening one up. Outer wilds did neither. Not to say it wasn’t a good game. That’s not at all what I’m saying. I’m saying outside of those that played it, it will be forgotten. It changed nothing. It came, it endeared, it left.

	▲	an hour ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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TimorousBestie 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I hope I never become this jaded and cynical about video games.

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reactordev 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Keep playing them for 20 years :D

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anyfoo an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Into the Breach only came out 8 years ago, but I'm still playing it vigorously.

I'm sorry to say, your nostalgia-colored-glasses are so strong, you're actually blinded by them. I grew up in the same gaming era as you (started around early to mid 90s, but the peak was later), and I too have fond memories. But there undeniably has been some magnificent progress in pretty much all aspects of gaming.

Somewhere between 2005 and 2010, I thought I had outgrown gaming, and that no game would have anything to offer to me anymore. But years later I learned that that was just because I was stuck thinking that JRPGs were the pinnacle of gaming, it turned out that I had grown out of those. Obviously your story will be different, but I bet there is some story to you somewhere.

	▲	lgl an hour ago \| parent [-]
		This! Both FTL and Into the Breach are evergreen games imho.

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Novosell 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I've been playing games since I could hold a controller basically, so 26-ish years, and I think modern gaming is phenomenal. I feel sad for you, but it is what it is. Just your loss in the end.

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reactordev 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Modern gaming is a micro transaction DLC hellscape. Are you serious?

Are they fun? Yes, they are designed to be addictive. So you spend money on pixels.

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Novosell 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

None of the games I mentioned have micro transactions.

Outer Wilds, 1000xResist and What Remains of Edith Finch all moved me to tears. I still can't casually listen to the soundtracks of Outer Wilds or 1000x, as they simply evoke too many emotions.

Stop conflating Call of Duty and the like with "modern gaming".

You're jaded, and I feel sad for you.

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anyfoo an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe give it another try? I have been playing lots of games for the past few years, some vigorously. Not a single one of them has a single microtransaction, because that's an immediate turnoff for me.

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charcircuit 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What’s wrong with paying for entertainment?

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reactordev 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Nothing, that’s why I bought the game. Don’t shake me down for more money because you couldn’t forecast.

	▲	charcircuit an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Microtransactions are part of the forecast of revenue the game will make.

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anyfoo 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So Dark Souls is just another RPG, and not innovative?

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gambiting 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>>Good games, but not innovative

Calling outer wilds or Clair Obscur "not innovative" just tells me you haven't played these games from start to finish, and I don't mean any offence saying this. Unless you mean just mechanically?

	▲	reactordev 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I have played both. I stand by my statement.