# A favoured style of now uncommon game, consider why it might have gone away.



## sarkwalvein (Apr 20, 2018)

Turn-based local multiplayer physics based platform battle royale games (oh, Worms Armageddon /s)

Turn-based local multiplayer stats heavy tactics rpg with components of base building (erm, Heroes of Might and Magic 3)

Perhaps those were always niche anyway, not sure of favored style of game.
Oh wait, I find two connections "turn-based" and "local multiplayer", two previously favored style of games that have become quite uncommon 

Also, point and clicks never died in Germany, the same as 80s music on the radio.


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## JellyPerson (Apr 20, 2018)

There aren't any new FMV games either. Sad.


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## FAST6191 (Apr 20, 2018)

sarkwalvein said:


> Turn-based local multiplayer physics based platform battle royale games (oh, Worms Armageddon /s)
> 
> Turn-based local multiplayer stats heavy tactics rpg with components of base building (erm, Heroes of Might and Magic 3)
> 
> ...


I might have to look into that point and click thing. I generally follow the "just in Germany (maybe also Austria)" side of things for RPGs, action games and the like as there is a lot to like there and it was often a long time making it outside of said region. Unless you are counting things like Little Big Adventure and Discworld Noire, both eminently playable games and owed a lot to point and click but not quite the same.

Worms wise I was more of a fan of 2 than Armageddon, though we did have a lot of PS1 Worms (basically Worms 1, before it went cartoon) in there for whatever reason. I almost forgot about it, though that might have been how much I really disliked Hogs of War.
The second DS entry for worms is not bad though, maybe skip the first.
Equally while it was technically turn based we usually went in for rather punishing time limits (too much ninja rope otherwise) so I was able to scratch a lot of the itch via Soldat.

As far as Heroes goes I was more of a 2 gold kind of guy, 3 was probably a better game but never really did it for me and 4 was playable but lacked any of the charm of 2 or 3. Equally Civilisation seemed to work for me when wanting to play that sort of thing. I did have a go on Illyriad for a little while which reminded me a bit of it, though the purposeful time limitations stopped me from playing the same way. I do also have to note King of Dragon Pass got tarted up and rereleased the other year.


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## CeeDee (Apr 20, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> It has long been noted that it is basically only Nintendo doing the N64/Rare style 3d platformer games these days. Why might that be?


Hat in Time? Yooka-Laylee?


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## FAST6191 (Apr 20, 2018)

CeeDee said:


> Hat in Time? Yooka-Laylee?


Two games, fairly mediocre at best, both from small independent devs and one even being partly crowd funded. Both in the last year. Ignoring remakes/rereleases then prior to that you had? Jak and Daxter, whatever became of Spyro, Ratchet & Clank if you squint. I doubt you would pick up a Playstation or xbox during their eras and expect to be able to not miss out much -- not having a PS3 for much of last gen I missed out on God of War, however on my 360 I had Ninja Gaiden, Ninety Nine Nights, I guess Bayonetta, and the list goes on for a while.

Compare say the N64/PS1 era where you had Nintendo and Rare pumping them out fairly rapidly, bunch of the big pubs of the day doing things and more besides. I will give it was not quite as insane as the "mascot platformers" of 16 bit and older but you still had loads on all platforms, save perhaps the PC.


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## Searinox (Apr 20, 2018)

I would love to see more Lucasfilm-styled point-and-click adventure games. Broken Sword series was nice but I felt the mechanics lacked the richness to make it truly difficult to figure out what to do next. These games also tend to be a one-time experience because once you figured everything out, future playthroughs have little substance to them. It seems to also be discouraged because games nowadays spoonfeed you with what to do next whereas progress obscurity is the key to these games. If the replay value is so low, who spends the time to think up so many puzzles, an engaging story, and detailed artwork for such an experience?


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## FAST6191 (Apr 20, 2018)

I have played a few point and click games where you set up your character beforehand and then depending upon the skills, or the extent thereof, you picked it changes your playthrough of the game quite dramatically.
I would also look to something like the old school fallout or baldur's gate titles, or indeed the king of dragon pass game I mentioned earlier. More recently I played Academagia which was a "life simulator" of sorts but had the events and conversation puzzles such that no two plays are the same.
I have never seen that also done in LucasArts style (Discworld Noire came close at points but is also fairly linear) but I can see a path for it, one some games already went in for.


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## McWhiters9511 (Apr 20, 2018)

im ready for battle royal to die out im sick of it already


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## Primalus (Apr 20, 2018)

I'm missing proper match-3 games.  The last one that I don't consider trash came out in 2011 (Bejeweled 3) and there hasn't really been anything good since.


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## ordos9 (Apr 20, 2018)

I miss classic style survival horror  3rd person, pre rendered backdrops, tank controls. The first three silent hills, the first three residents evils plus veronica. Haunting ground, Clock Tower 3. Would love more well produced games in their style.  I hope one day we can see a amateur game engine that can make those style of games the same way the rpgmaker does for jrpg style games..


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## VitaType (Apr 20, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> I might have to look into that point and click thing. I generally follow the "just in Germany (maybe also Austria)" side of things for RPGs, action games and the like as there is a lot to like there and it was often a long time making it outside of said region. Unless you are counting things like Little Big Adventure and Discworld Noire, both eminently playable games and owed a lot to point and click but not quite the same.


I think he is refering to something Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Thimbleweed Park) once said, something like Point'n'Click Adventures only live on in our imagination and in germany. There where a couple of smaller releases during the early-mid 2000s such as the Ankh series and the Secret Files series (the later is quite nice), but today the genre here is mainly covered by Daedalic Entertainment who makes/publishes hand-drawn 2D LucasArts style Point'n'Click games.



sarkwalvein said:


> Turn-based local multiplayer stats heavy tactics rpg with components of base building (erm, Heroes of Might and Magic 3)


Like and even?


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## sarkwalvein (Apr 20, 2018)

VitaType said:


> Like and even?


Me ignorant. Didn't even realize the heroes franchise was still around. Seems interesting, now I only need friends to play them with


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## VashTS (Apr 20, 2018)

arcade style fighting games a la 90s MK and SF, the new ones just don't feel the same


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## anhminh (Apr 20, 2018)

That is why I only stick with tradition genre like fighting and JRPG on console instead of follow nonsensical PC game trend. But tbh, I do miss those real time strategy though. Age of Empire III is still the best even in today competitive scene.


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## VitaType (Apr 20, 2018)

ordos9 said:


> I miss classic style survival horror  3rd person, pre rendered backdrops, tank controls. The first three silent hills, the first three residents evils plus veronica. Haunting ground, Clock Tower 3. Would love more well produced games in their style.  I hope one day we can see a amateur game engine that can make those style of games the same way the rpgmaker does for jrpg style games..


There is Banned Memories, but who knows if it ever will be finished. It's a RE1-3 style game with retro graphics. PS1 retro graphics 
You mentioned the original RE trilogy and Code Veronica idk if you may only forgot about it, but there was a GameCube entry in the series called Zero which also has a HD remaster and is in the style of the early RE games with tank control.



JellyPerson said:


> There aren't any new FMV games either. Sad.


Her Story, but it's more a interesting concept then a fantastic game. For the price on steam it's okay and a nice evening if you sit down on your PC and play it with the lights off (for the atmosphere, don't worry no jump scares or such).


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## FAST6191 (Apr 20, 2018)

Thought of another for me.
Pokemon clones.
The GB/GBC and GBA provided severally really nice alternatives, especially as I find pokemon itself to be quite samey and boring. Today I have... Yo-Kai Watch. No thanks.



ordos9 said:


> I miss classic style survival horror  3rd person, pre rendered backdrops, tank controls. The first three silent hills, the first three residents evils plus veronica. Haunting ground, Clock Tower 3. Would love more well produced games in their style.  I hope one day we can see a amateur game engine that can make those style of games the same way the rpgmaker does for jrpg style games..


While I like many of those games I have never found tank controls to be essential to the game, and indeed would probably even oppose them in favour of a RE4 or RE5 style movement mechanic. If nothing else consider all the things they were adding as the games wore on as far as dodge, turning... mechanics. Give me a "dodging is as good a plan as fighting, especially with the amount of ammo around" type game again, that I would like (I don't mind the Penumbra/Amnesia style things)

Also to be a pedant I do have to point out Resident Evil 0 exists. 

I did actually pick up a copy of Code Veronica for the PS2 the other day too.

Where do you sit with Dino Crisis? Or at least the first two, by all means ignore that thing called Dino Crisis 3.

You might also like Ronin Blade/Soul of the Samurai on PS1. Some write if off as a bad clone but I actually had a blast with it once it clicked and you get off the first weapon or two for the samurai character, though once you get late in the game and the timing kicks in the first few weapons make sense for the next playthrough.

Possibly going a bit further from it if you never played Cold Fear (PS2 and xbox both got versions) then I can maybe suggest that as well.



VitaType said:


> I think he is refering to something Ron Gilbert (Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Thimbleweed Park) once said, something like Point'n'Click Adventures only live on in our imagination and in germany. There where a couple of smaller releases during the early-mid 2000s such as the Ankh series and the Secret Files series (the later is quite nice), but today the genre here is mainly covered by Daedalic Entertainment who makes/publishes hand-drawn 2D LucasArts style Point'n'Click games.
> 
> 
> Like and even?



I did wonder if that was the sort of thing mentioned. I am familiar with those, indeed the second featured as one of the earlier entries in the old game of the week series https://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-game-of-the-week-week-3.294219/

I was kind of hoping it would be like when I went exploring Russian games and found all sorts of buggy but really interesting stuff, or you occasionally go back through a Japanese game dev's library that just got a sleeper hit or something and find some goodness. Sort of like the times I had Venetica, Anno (I mentioned Austria in the first part) or Risen sprang upon me. Oh well, on the other hand I suppose I had better properly go through Daedalic Entertainment's offerings as I have seemingly skipped a few.

While I am at it then for others reading it is technically a Spanish dev but if you are liking games like this I might also suggest the Runaway series, one that was also a game of the week way back when https://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-game-of-the-week-83.339957/

The 360 also got a few things here in the various Sherlock Holmes games and Gray Matter but I am getting off topic.



Primalus said:


> I'm missing proper match-3 games.  The last one that I don't consider trash came out in 2011 (Bejeweled 3) and there hasn't really been anything good since.


Something of a rarity on a site like this. I assume you played the Puzzle Quest series... I kind of want to say skip the first DS title -- if you are a serious player of such things then you will probably notice the repeating boards before too long. I have not played their Gems of War game but it also seems to be fairly well liked and rather newer than 2011.




anhminh said:


> That is why I only stick with tradition genre like fighting and JRPG on console instead of follow nonsensical PC game trend. But tbh, I do miss those real time strategy though. Age of Empire III is still the best even in today competitive scene.


JPRGs have changed loads over the years. Try to find me a final fantasy 1-6 clone these days like you could during the 16 bit and early 32 bit era, quite hard and you are surely not going to tell me the Bravely Default hold up. I mean I am myself not particularly bothered by that and would much much rather play the likes of Resonance of Fate, Eternal Sonata and even though technically it is a Korean game then MagnaCarta 2.


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## pedro702 (Apr 20, 2018)

i miss the arcade racers

burnout, crusin usa, daytona usa, etc, now every now and then we get a random indie arcade racers and thats about it.

what about stealth games? basicaly after mgs5 and splinter cell blacklist they disapeared ... i want another splinter cell ubisoft cmon.


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## The Real Jdbye (Apr 20, 2018)

I do love a good classic scrolling shmup, they do still exist to some degree though, for example the Darius series is still living on, I bought Dariusburst on Steam just last year.

What I miss the most is classic JRPGs. They are still being made to some degree, but I wish I could go back to the time when Final Fantasy games were still good. No RPGs in recent years have been as good as Final Fantasy used to be. The last truly epic JRPG I played was Blue Dragon on 360 and it's exactly what I want from Squeenix but they refuse to make a proper large-scale home console quality classic JRPG, all we get is stuff like Bravely Default, which is fine, but it's nowhere near as good.

Octopath Traveller looks great though. Haven't been this excited for a new JRPG in a long time. I doubt it's going to make me forget about Final Fantasy but at least it's something.

I would say collectathon platformers but they seem to have returned. Yooka-Laylee was a decent attempt and a decent game but I have to say I think I like A Hat in Time better. I'm surprised it took this long for them to return. Besides Nintendo no one else has made them since around the N64, and even Nintendo didn't make any after the Wii until now with Mario Odyssey. If you even count Super Mario Galaxy as a collectathon platformer that is. I suppose technically it is, but it's certainly not in the style we associate with collectathon platformers, which are normally not linear.
It seemed like a huge untapped market, in fact I'm not even sure why they died out in the first place.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



FAST6191 said:


> Thought of another for me.
> Pokemon clones.
> The GB/GBC and GBA provided severally really nice alternatives, especially as I find pokemon itself to be quite samey and boring. Today I have... Yo-Kai Watch. No thanks.
> 
> ...


You may like Eldritch, it's a game based on H.P. Lovecraft lore, in the game ammo is very limited and dodging is indeed a viable alternative to fighting in the vast majority of cases.
It's a sort of roguelike game, which I'm not a huge fan of myself, but it does look like a lot of fun despite that.
It has a very Minecrafty aesthetic, but don't let that fool you, it's very different from Minecraft.


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## VitaType (Apr 20, 2018)

anhminh said:


> That is why I only stick with tradition genre like fighting and JRPG on console instead of follow nonsensical PC game trend.


Wasn't the classical Final Fantasy (ATB) style on console also death not that long ago? What is with 3D collectathon, that was a typical console style game back in the days when PC gamepads sucked and rarely had a anlog stick. It's not just a PC phenomenon.



anhminh said:


> But tbh, I do miss those real time strategy though. Age of Empire III is still the best even in today competitive scene.


Iron Harvest, Dawn of War III, Age of Empires IV, AoE Remaster (with new orchestra sound, which was deeply needed), Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, Halo Wars 2 (I know, I know, it's a watered down RTS), Sudden Strike 4. It looks abit like a early stage of a revival atm, lets hope we get a new Warcraft or a new C&C maybe that could help the genre to come back.


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## Captain_N (Apr 20, 2018)

the entire RTS genra got crapped on. There arent many new ones. War craft 2, command and conquer and age of empires saw that series take off. It kinds started with Dune 2. Now we only really have starcraft 2...
There used to be many more. Empire earth, empire earth 2 (3 sucked but still is an rts), Empires dawn of the modern world, age of mythology, command and conquer red alert + Yuris revenge. Star wars galactic battle grounds(age of empires re-skin with star wars and the settlers 3 and 4. All these RTS game are installed on my gaming PCs and all have lan mode which is something stupid steam games lack. Remember the old IPX protocol? great stuff for LAN mode games. AS for the Discs I use a server to serve the cd images for any computer wanting to play the game that needs a disc.

The RTS games started to suck when the publishers thought we needed them to be more simplistic. They killed off the RTS genra by making shit RTS games for dummies. If they revive them they need to be like the older games. No limiting the number of towers no anti camping. Just let it all be there. Players can camp or rush. Up to them. No modernizing the RTS. A great RTS, Empires dawn of the modern world has a max population of 36,000. the game is 3d and does not slow down on a cpu like an intel core 2 quad which is a 10 year old chip. The ai is good also. The Chinese AI is ridiculous. ANd furture more There needs to be LAN mode. Everyone that has a router has a LAN.


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## Coto (Apr 20, 2018)

Trauma Center series:

UTK 1, UTK2, Second Opinion and New Blood. (Trauma Team sucks)

I have yet to find gameplay like that. I could even think it improves logical thinking and reflexes.


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## FAST6191 (Apr 20, 2018)

Arcade racers here usually means something slightly different -- it being racing games that are not quite simulations like Gran Turismo or something.

Of the style of game of which you speak I am at a loss as well, give or take the GBA and some points of the DS. That said I don't miss those so much as things like Road Rash.

On stealth are we counting Blacklist and Conviction?

That said while I would not mind seeing a revisit of some of those games I enjoyed the stealth options of Watch Dogs well enough, and the modern Deus Ex titles have a surprisingly robust stealth playthrough, the Thief reboot was not up to much but Dishonored did nicely for me, similarly Hitman has it as a play style too and the Sniper franchise does it well too.
On the other hand out and out light meter, noise UI, odd means of traversing the place a la splinter cells before the ones I brought up is something I would be OK with seeing revisited. Wonder what will become of the Ghost Recon DLC with Sam Fisher in it.


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## biosyn (Apr 20, 2018)

IMO it's less about changing fads and more about changing tech and aging demographics. Most things people have described didn't 100% fall off the map - they still have their audience, it's just a smaller and more dedicated one. 
Games of yesteryear are today's marbles - sure I can go back to the primitive basics, or I can submerge myself in the latest tech. Younger audiences generally start off with the latter.

On the other hand, games that try to revive a more old-school genre or element of gameplay - sometimes come out with surprisingly good results that end up enriching the genre.


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## neotank19 (Apr 20, 2018)

How how about games with multiple modes, games that can do more than one thing. I like games that have a story mode and then have multiplayer modes.

Toy commander and super monkey ball. Gimme a main game and lotsa fun little multiplayer minigames, 4 player split screen please.


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## VitaType (Apr 20, 2018)

Coto said:


> Trauma Center series:
> 
> UTK 1, UTK2, Second Opinion and New Blood. (Trauma Team sucks)
> 
> I have yet to find gameplay like that. I could even think it improves logical thinking and reflexes.


A new Trauma Center for 3DS indeed would be nice. The most close thing we have atm is the Surgeon Simulator, but that really isn't the same


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## FAST6191 (Apr 20, 2018)

I forgot Rampart. Most consider it the ancestor of tower defense/defence but it seems like it would be a perfect thing in today's world.



biosyn said:


> IMO it's less about changing fads and more about changing tech and aging demographics. Most things people have described didn't 100% fall off the map - they still have their audience, it's just a smaller and more dedicated one.
> Games of yesteryear are today's marbles - sure I can go back to the primitive basics, or I can submerge myself in the latest tech. Younger audiences generally start off with the latter.
> 
> On the other hand, games that try to revive a more old-school genre or element of gameplay - sometimes come out with surprisingly good results that end up enriching the genre.


I don't know if I can get there. While all of those things may well be at play I don't think any one time major "genre" of games could not sustain fairly serious efforts today. Some might take some considerable retooling and blurring of lines (text adventure begat point and click which begat something like old school fallout and today I would look at Telltale's effort) but the mere fact there are consistently revivals in things alone serves to trouble that notion.

Just because I no longer play elite on a BBC micro and instead play elite dangerous on a system resembling https://www.geek.com/games/this-is-the-ultimate-in-home-flight-simulation-1287908/ does not mean both are not space sims. I agree many older games are primitive, considerably more so than books or films of the same eras, and in many ways "would not stand up" today but it is not quite where I was heading.

On the other hand I could stand to consider the willingness of people to jettison "old" concepts more than I have thus far, especially as it seems to have slowed a bit -- compare my mid era PS1 game to a later stage PS2 one and it is night and day, so much so that I can barely play a lot of N64 games natively today (remakes and fancy tart it up emulators are a different matter). 360 to xbone... harder for the man on the street and not actually that bad for those are into their games.

Something for me to ponder anyway.


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## Dontwait00 (Apr 20, 2018)

Mmm okk


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## guisadop (Apr 20, 2018)

Well, RTS are a rare breed these days.


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## Taleweaver (Apr 20, 2018)

I felt almost betrayed when the industry moved away from double dragon style beat em ups. Granted, it was at a time when i discovered mame, but putting money in a machine with your buddy just want the same as sharing a keyboard.

The realistic shooter genre was something i just didn't get. Why would you want an fps where you can get shot dead instantlyi if you show your face, when you can play an "actual" FPS like unreal tournament, or (if you really HAD to) quake 3?



Captain_N said:


> All these RTS game are installed on my gaming PCs and all have lan mode which is something stupid steam games lack. Remember the old IPX protocol? great stuff for LAN mode games. AS for the Discs I use a server to serve the cd images for any computer wanting to play the game that needs a disc.


I remember IPX mostly in the sense of "glad THAT isn't around anymore". Getting everyone a disc with a different key on was a hassle, but ipx managed to screw up most of the games we did got running


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## dimmidice (Apr 20, 2018)

I really miss turn based RPGs. Yeah i know it was mainly used because it fit best with the limited resources of the time but i still favor it very much over an action type RPG. I wish there'd be more games like it again :/


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## pedro702 (Apr 20, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> Arcade racers here usually means something slightly different -- it being racing games that are not quite simulations like Gran Turismo or something.
> 
> Of the style of game of which you speak I am at a loss as well, give or take the GBA and some points of the DS. That said I don't miss those so much as things like Road Rash.
> 
> ...


well while there is stealth in manny games its often optional you can play most of those games without doing preety much any stealthing, on splinter cell games and mgs games if you dont use stealth your preety much screwed and often fail, sure blacklist has options for noone stealthers i guess.

arcade racers for me is just having a blast without thinking too much on perfect controlling and racing, burnout 3 takedown imo is by far the best arcade racer ever made, that is how you make some fun arcade racing game.


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## Xzi (Apr 20, 2018)

dimmidice said:


> I really miss turn based RPGs. Yeah i know it was mainly used because it fit best with the limited resources of the time but i still favor it very much over an action type RPG. I wish there'd be more games like it again :/


As in not party-based?  Because there have been plenty of those lately, the newest and one of the best being Divinity: Original Sin 2.

Really with the resurgence of Roguelikes I can't say there's any genre I feel like is being missed out on these days.  Admittedly I used to be more into RTS, and Total War Warhammer 2 looks good, but unless Blizzard does an HD remaster for Warcraft 3, I probably won't spend too much time honing those skills again.

Mostly I wish there were fewer multiplayer fad games.


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## dimmidice (Apr 20, 2018)

Xzi said:


> As in not party-based?  Because there have been plenty of those lately, the newest and one of the best being Divinity: Original Sin 2.
> 
> Really with the resurgence of Roguelikes I can't say there's any genre I feel like is being missed out on these days.  Admittedly I used to be more into RTS, and Total War Warhammer 2 looks good, but unless Blizzard does an HD remaster for Warcraft 3, I probably won't spend too much time honing those skills again.
> 
> Mostly I wish there were fewer multiplayer fad games.


Nah party based. I love that genre so frigging much. Think FF7/8/9. I've been playing Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia on my phone lately and it made me realize how much i missed this kind of gameplay.


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## Depravo (Apr 20, 2018)

Turn based JRPGs. Gone because mashing buttons is easier than considering your next move.


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## sarkwalvein (Apr 20, 2018)

Depravo said:


> Turn based JRPGs. Gone because mashing buttons is easier than considering your next move.


But Shin Megami Tensei, and spin-offs like Persona!


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## Depravo (Apr 20, 2018)

sarkwalvein said:


> But Shin Megami Tensei, and spin-offs like Persona!


Yeah, not entirely dead but certainly less common than they once were.


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## Deleted User (Apr 20, 2018)

VashTS said:


> arcade style fighting games a la 90s MK and SF, the new ones just don't feel the same


90s-early 2000s Capcom had some excellent 2D fighters up their sleeves. My favorites would have to be Capcom VS. SNK 2, Marvel Super Heroes, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and Street Fighter III. They all seemed to carry this very vibrant and unique style, which pervaded all games and IPs they laid their hands on.

Also worth noting is SNK's outings. Garou MOTW and the KOF series are really fun to play through, if you have the patience. AOF3's animation is fantastic to look at. Their more muted color palette and detailed shading was a great foil to Capcom's colorful and cartoony style.

This isn't to put down any of the excellent modern fighters, such as Skullgirls or BlazBlue, but there's just something unique about the the style of late 90s arcade games that I find endearing.

I guess that I like having detailed pixel art complete with cool palette-cycling and sprite scaling effects in my fighting games, complete with sample-based music to supplement the frenzy.

I wouldn't call it nostalgia, though.  I play these games fairly regularly in Fightcade


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## BLsquared (Apr 20, 2018)

I miss proper stealth games (Pandora Tomorrow, Chaos Theory) as well as the Battle Network games.
Yes, we got Star Force, but it wasn't good until the third entry. Even so it is dead at this point and we haven't seen anything like them since.
Modern "stealth" games aren't stealth at all but just action games. I'm playing through Arkham Asylum right now, and It's OK on the stealth, but it feels more like Metroid Prime than Chaos Theory, not that I don't like it, but it's not the same.
Also, what happened to the platofrmers (both 2D and 3D) that had the quirky gimmicks/abilities? I can't name any good examples off the top of my head, aside from examples like Kirby or VVVVVV for some reason. But like a platformer where you had an ability that changed the game, but you were limited and had to think outside the box to use it well. *shrug*
Just my two Zennys I guess.


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## Depravo (Apr 20, 2018)

B_E_P_I_S_M_A_N said:


> AOF3's animation is fantastic to look at. Their more muted color palette and detailed shading was a great foil to Capcom's colorful and cartoony style.


I agree. The SF character looked their best in SNK vs Capcom.


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## felix.200 (Apr 20, 2018)

BLsquared said:


> I miss proper stealth games (Pandora Tomorrow, Chaos Theory) as well as the Battle Network games.
> Yes, we got Star Force, but it wasn't good until the third entry. Even so it is dead at this point and we haven't seen anything like them since.
> Modern "stealth" games aren't stealth at all but just action games. I'm playing through Arkham Asylum right now, and It's OK on the stealth, but it feels more like Metroid Prime than Chaos Theory, not that I don't like it, but it's not the same.
> Also, what happened to the platofrmers (both 2D and 3D) that had the quirky gimmicks/abilities? I can't name any good examples off the top of my head, aside from examples like Kirby or VVVVVV for some reason. But like a platformer where you had an ability that changed the game, but you were limited and had to think outside the box to use it well. *shrug*
> Just my two Zennys I guess.


If you are searching for 2D platformers the Boxboy games are really innovative platformers if you ask me. You should really try them out


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## BLsquared (Apr 20, 2018)

felix.200 said:


> If you are searching for 2D platformers the Boxboy games are really innovative platformers if you ask me. You should really try them out


Huh, those look pretty cool! Thanks for the suggestion.


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## Deleted User (Apr 20, 2018)

The Real Jdbye said:


> I do love a good classic scrolling shmup, they do still exist to some degree though, for example the Darius series is still living on, I bought Dariusburst on Steam just last year.
> 
> What I miss the most is classic JRPGs. They are still being made to some degree, but I wish I could go back to the time when Final Fantasy games were still good. No RPGs in recent years have been as good as Final Fantasy used to be. The last truly epic JRPG I played was Blue Dragon on 360 and it's exactly what I want from Squeenix but they refuse to make a proper large-scale home console quality classic JRPG, all we get is stuff like Bravely Default, which is fine, but it's nowhere near as good.
> 
> ...


I completely  agree on the classic final fantasy  games being some of the best rpg/turn based games. No, there really hasn't been a good rpg in years. I would be nice to go back to the roots with games like legend of dragoon,  the first grandia, xeno gears and a long list of other. Sure there has been a few suprise in the recent years, but not nearly as good.


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## Foxchild (Apr 20, 2018)

I miss REAL arcade cabinet games.  Today's video arcades are all claw catchers with the odd dance or racing game, maybe a target shooter.  Used to love sinking some quarters into Mortal Kombat, or TMNT, or even pinball which you hardly ever see anymore.


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## FAST6191 (Apr 20, 2018)

sephurchin said:


> I completely  agree on the classic final fantasy  games being some of the best rpg/turn based games. No, there really hasn't been a good rpg in years. I would be nice to go back to the roots with games like legend of dragoon,  the first grandia, xeno gears and a long list of other. Sure there has been a few suprise in the recent years, but not nearly as good.



I have never got the appeal of legend of dragoon, certainly not enough to include it on a list like that. My friend loved it, just could not do it myself.
I found the plot meh, the characters boring and the engine.... so much boredom.

That said it sounds like someone is getting fairly far on with redoing the script http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=25929.0 so I might start with that once it is released.



Foxchild said:


> I miss REAL arcade cabinet games.  Today's video arcades are all claw catchers with the odd dance or racing game, maybe a target shooter.  Used to love sinking some quarters into Mortal Kombat, or TMNT, or even pinball which you hardly ever see anymore.


That might depend where you are in the world.
I grew up and joined the internet, not long later I heard someone opining on the demise of the arcades. It never happened here though, I had played them all throughout them being "dead" in the US, and continued to play for years more. Mostly in seaside towns but... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/3090539.stm
I tend not to go in them if I am in such places these days but they appear to still be there.


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## netovsk (Apr 20, 2018)

Lost me when you said DotA is a reflection of World of Warcraft end game raid PvE.


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## CeeDee (Apr 20, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> Two games, fairly mediocre at best, both from small independent devs and one even being partly crowd funded. Both in the last year. Ignoring remakes/rereleases then prior to that you had? Jak and Daxter, whatever became of Spyro, Ratchet & Clank if you squint. I doubt you would pick up a Playstation or xbox during their eras and expect to be able to not miss out much -- not having a PS3 for much of last gen I missed out on God of War, however on my 360 I had Ninja Gaiden, Ninety Nine Nights, I guess Bayonetta, and the list goes on for a while.
> 
> Compare say the N64/PS1 era where you had Nintendo and Rare pumping them out fairly rapidly, bunch of the big pubs of the day doing things and more besides. I will give it was not quite as insane as the "mascot platformers" of 16 bit and older but you still had loads on all platforms, save perhaps the PC.


Hey, Hat in Time was damn good. Yooka, not so much, but HiT is pretty darn good


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## FAST6191 (Apr 20, 2018)

netovsk said:


> Lost me when you said DotA is a reflection of World of Warcraft end game raid PvE.


I don't know what to say really.

We saw a massive decline in WOW numbers, guilds dropping off and the like as the various DOTA/MOBA things took off. People directly cited those as the reason for their lack of time in WOW and desire to play in raids, and many of those playing it otherwise stated it was like an easier entry into that. Equally watching what goes into a raid and the average DOTA/MOBA of the time it appeared much the same skills got stretched, teamwork gets done and so forth.

To that end I will happily reaffirm that statement.


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## orangy57 (Apr 21, 2018)

Another genre of game that I think has mostly died out is the "two tanks fighting each other on a 2d plane" game.
It used to be everywhere, Pocket Tanks and Worms come to mind, but I haven't seen many games do this in a long time, or at least haven't been too popular.


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## sarkwalvein (Apr 21, 2018)

Orangy57 said:


> Another genre of game that I think has mostly died out is the "two tanks fighting each other on a 2d plane" game.
> It used to be everywhere, Pocket Tanks and Worms come to mind, but I haven't seen many games do this in a long time, or at least haven't been too popular.


Don't forget the classic MS-DOS QBasic included demo game "Banana" (I think that was the name?)

PS: Lol, it was called Gorillas... close. /s


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## FateForWindows (Apr 21, 2018)

Not really a genre, but Pac-Man World. The first two were pretty decent 3D platformers though the third one wasn't that great.


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## MionissNio (Apr 21, 2018)

Loco roco and patapon like games, these were gems on PSP. Couldn't really find alternative to both of them really.


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## The Real Jdbye (Apr 21, 2018)

Foxchild said:


> I miss REAL arcade cabinet games.  Today's video arcades are all claw catchers with the odd dance or racing game, maybe a target shooter.  Used to love sinking some quarters into Mortal Kombat, or TMNT, or even pinball which you hardly ever see anymore.


Claw catchers with video? What? 
Anyway, you can still find good arcades with both modern (as modern as arcade games get anyway) and classic arcades, and a large selection of them. You might have to look a little and it might not be near you. But hey, at least they exist.
Though the same places also tend to have a bunch of claw machines and similar things like Key Master.


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## FateForWindows (Apr 21, 2018)

The Real Jdbye said:


> Claw catchers with video? What?
> Anyway, you can still find good arcades with both modern (as modern as arcade games get anyway) and classic arcades, and a large selection of them. You might have to look a little and it might not be near you. But hey, at least they exist.
> Though the same places also tend to have a bunch of claw machines and similar things like Key Master.


Trust me, they're pretty common, at least in the part of the US where I live.


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## DS1 (Apr 21, 2018)

This is a great one, it was actually going to be the topic of my next 'hot take' blog, lol. I think the major issue for the genres I like is that they were mainly championed by mid-size Japanese devs that stood no chance when Sony pushed out the PS3. The only one that seemed to have taken it with grace was From Software, but that's no different than the fact that someone wins the lottery (nobody speaks of the hundreds of millions of losers).

So beat-em-ups are a sore spot for me. While I think the games mentioned as the 'logical progression' of the genre into 3D (and I'd also add Urban Reign, the crowning jewel of '3D beat-em-ups' and maybe even video games in general) are a great point, we also have games like Kenka Banchou (the evolution of the River City Ransom/Kunio-kun games) and Ikki Tousen/Senran Kagura (what should have been the resurrection of the beat-em-up genre, but handled rather sloppily). All of the above have more or less died out, and ironically, there have been more River City Ransom reboots in the past few years than Kenka Banchou or the like.

Unique Japanese history ninja/samurai games have been lacking as of late. Way of the Samurai 4 is not 7 years old. The last Tenchu was 9 years ago, Shinobido 2, 6 years (the latter unfortunately rushed out as a Vita launch release, missing the features that made the original interesting). I've wanted to get my hands on Ni-Oh because at least it's something, if fantastical.

My absolute #1 dead genre, very unlikely ever to be revived, despite its ardent fans dying for a new release is fun racing games with real cars. The Gran Turismo games went from mediocre car-collecting exhibitions to (to their own admission) a full-on simulation to rival and in some ways surpass PC titles like iRacing and Live for Speed. Likewise, few people dare announce a racing game without pushing the realism and online components (neither of those things intrinsically make a game fun). Games with a more arcade-edge have been limited to Japanese arcades (go figure), with no possibility or reason to have a console release of Initial D or Wangan Midnight. Trashy racers like Need for Speed have only gone further towards the cinematic boredom that clouds other western releases. We'll just never have another Tokyo Xtreme Racer - no doubt because the subculture is no longer popular in Japan.

On the bright side, one genre I appreciated as a kid - the isometric PC strategy game (Commandos) has actually been revived in Shadow Tactics. Unlike other revivals, they really hit their mark on that one.


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## medoli900 (Apr 22, 2018)

If you had brought this topic a year or two back, I would have said good 3D platformer. I had to return to the gamecube era to find those, until Mario Odyssey and the remaster of Bubsy the Cat, Crash Bandicoot and soon Spyro the Dragon. Now I must say that I am pretty satisfied with the kind of game we have. I never really liked racing car game, aside Mario Kart, and they were all the rage in the Xbox era. I don't like beat 'em up (unless you call Fire Emblem Warriors and Hyrule Warriors beat 'em up).

I guess I could say that I would like the bullet hell genre to resurface, but I discovered that genre pretty recently, so I still have a whole library of great danmaku to play.


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## FAST6191 (Apr 22, 2018)

DS1 said:


> This is a great one, it was actually going to be the topic of my next 'hot take' blog, lol. I think the major issue for the genres I like is that they were mainly championed by mid-size Japanese devs that stood no chance when Sony pushed out the PS3. The only one that seemed to have taken it with grace was From Software, but that's no different than the fact that someone wins the lottery (nobody speaks of the hundreds of millions of losers).
> 
> So beat-em-ups are a sore spot for me. While I think the games mentioned as the 'logical progression' of the genre into 3D (and I'd also add Urban Reign, the crowning jewel of '3D beat-em-ups' and maybe even video games in general) are a great point, we also have games like Kenka Banchou (the evolution of the River City Ransom/Kunio-kun games) and Ikki Tousen/Senran Kagura (what should have been the resurrection of the beat-em-up genre, but handled rather sloppily). All of the above have more or less died out, and ironically, there have been more River City Ransom reboots in the past few years than Kenka Banchou or the like.
> 
> ...



I think I would make the same remark, but for one generation on. A lot of the stuff I like would have taken a top tier dev on the PS2 to pull off but could be done on the PS360 by a "compile and hope" type dev. While the PS4/xbone should have made that easier then it seems not.

On beat-em-ups it was more the slew of mediocre ones that clogged up XBLA a few years back that got to me. Scott Pilgrim (which I don't think you can even get any more) was kind of OK, but seeing the ninja/hero turtles effort and all the others... urgh. A lot of them would probably not even have held up in the early 16 bit era. This made all the odder for me by there being quite a few indy platformers that more than pull it off.

Now that I think about it they are far rarer than they used to be but I would not say they were gone. Did trackmania not do it for you?

That's an older one and there are new ones, all confusingly still called trackmania 2 but with subtitles.
Strictly speaking it does not feature licensed cars but... it is a user mod driven affair. If you go looking at reviews I do tend to find them brought down by those that enjoy the car game equivalent of the grim und gritty trend in shooting games, those that were there for the PS1/N64-early PS2 times seem to do OK though.

Japanese games about Japan... there do seem to be rather fewer historical ones of late if I ignore the ? warriors series (which I do intend to continue to do). I don't know if it is modern, or at least 80s, that caught on over there. Somewhat amusingly it seems we have a whole slew of European history based ones of late.



medoli900 said:


> If you had brought this topic a year or two back, I would have said good 3D platformer. I had to return to the gamecube era to find those, until Mario Odyssey and the remaster of Bubsy the Cat, Crash Bandicoot and soon Spyro the Dragon. Now I must say that I am pretty satisfied with the kind of game we have. I never really liked racing car game, aside Mario Kart, and they were all the rage in the Xbox era. I don't like beat 'em up (unless you call Fire Emblem Warriors and Hyrule Warriors beat 'em up).
> 
> I guess I could say that I would like the bullet hell genre to resurface, but I discovered that genre pretty recently, so I still have a whole library of great danmaku to play.


I did say ignoring remasters/rereleases. I did banjo and the other rare efforts the first time around.

Bullet hell and things that fall from it, not every Japanese effort is strictly a bullet hell but they kind of all fall from it in the same way that things all aped doom, goldeneye or halo for a while, was also the one that stuck around -- the 360 got loads of the things https://gbatemp.net/threads/ps3-and-360-exclusives-a-discussion.360416/
Go for the styles of shmup favoured in the US and Europe in the 80s, ones Japan even put out a few in, and that is quite a bit harder

It is not impossible to find any, the DS got a handful, but would be arcade/home console style ones are harder to source.


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## MadMageKefka (Apr 22, 2018)

Is it just me, or does the GBAtemp logo in the OP look like an emo "Hey Arnorld!"? ....with a game controller glued to his face.


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## Geezerdorf (Apr 22, 2018)

VashTS said:


> arcade style fighting games a la 90s MK and SF, the new ones just don't feel the same





B_E_P_I_S_M_A_N said:


> Also worth noting is SNK's outings. Garou MOTW and the KOF series are really fun to play through, if you have the patience. AOF3's animation is fantastic to look at. Their more muted color palette and detailed shading was a great foil to Capcom's colorful and cartoony style.


There have been attempts to get back to that type of "fair and balanced play". Capcom unfortunately doesn't seem to be the most appropriate for this anymore (looking at you SF5 and MvCI[RIP]) for its franchises, but at least, SNK has had a lot of good resurgence lately. KoF14 is really and i mean _really_ nice, and gets closer to the old vibe of arcade fighting games from them, but it's still far from it.
I'd like the companies to take more risks, as they did before. Also, to finish off some unconclusive stories, like Garou (Fatal Fury).
Part of that style used for the AoF series was because they risked to be different by making more "realistic" sprites, or so they tried to sell the game (I still hold AoF 2's sprites as one of the most impressive looking ones for its time)



FAST6191 said:


> Pokemon clones.
> The GB/GBC and GBA provided severally really nice alternatives, especially as I find pokemon itself to be quite samey and boring. Today I have... Yo-Kai Watch. No thanks.


The problem with them is exactly that: Having to compete with pokemon. Many tried to do it, and had excellent concepts, but the fact that they didn't have the reception or the impact that pokemon had, they just dwindled down until they disapperared. I do miss a couple of them. Azure Dreams was one of the greater ones, but if there's a serie that i loved on that matter, was Keitai Denjuu Telefang. Cellphone Monsters Telefang was really funny, and the mechanic they used with the phone numbers was a great fad for the game. I was crushed when they only managed to get a sort of sequel in the likes of a GBA game.
Plus, the music was really good!


Spoiler








I guess that some of the Megaten series games _could_ be considered as well, but i'd like to see another take of this genre, just to see how different can they approach the idea, in contrast to Pokemon. Monster hunter Stories was a really good attempt. Too bad Capcom, once again, seems to ignore the fact that they did that game, and is just concentrating on MHW and managing to preserve SF5.


There's a genre that i see being laid dormant since a long, long time ago, and the fact that no one even mentioned it makes me worry all the time: Dog Fight simulators.
I'm one of those guys that grew up with flying simulator games even on Atari2600 (boy if we advanced against those controls with just a stick and a button! Damn you Tomcat F-14!); a lot of them were extraordinarily good when it came to controls and story, as well as some with simple, yet arcade-y feels that fulfilled my desires to get on a plane and fight in the air.
I'm shattered to see that the last(good) one we saw these days was Ace Combat Assault: Horizon Legacy+. I really loved the idea of remaking the old Ace Combat games like this one (which was AC2). Man, i would kill for a remake of Ace Combat 4 or Zero for this matter...but sadly, after the fiasco with AC Online and the little success they've had recently, Project Aces and Bamco seem to have left it to fade away, once more.
There were also a lot of these on PC back in the 2000's. I've got a lot of theories about why they have disappeared, but nothing certain.
I miss Sturmovik as well...


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## FAST6191 (Apr 22, 2018)

On telefang I assume you saw https://gbatemp.net/threads/telefang-2-full-translation-patch.346322/

A few of them did stick around in Japan -- medabots RPG (medarot in Japan) did stay for the DS and even 3ds as well.

As for combat flight sims I never quite got into them. Got a pack of whole bunch of them once (remember those?) when I first got a half reasonable PC capable of doing things. Think I even tripped over one of the remaining ones the other day but never quite got into them like I have for other game styles. I don't know quite why as I really enjoy combat space sims.
I imagine it probably faced the same problem as horror games (popular enough to take note, not quite enough to sustain a massive dev budget), and then we got HAWX. I was going to say something about the stuff we saw on the 360 towards the end, but then I remembered a previous thread in this series https://gbatemp.net/threads/the-games-you-will-keep-for-your-ps4-and-xbox-one.499105/


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## Geezerdorf (Apr 22, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> On telefang I assume you saw https://gbatemp.net/threads/telefang-2-full-translation-patch.346322/
> 
> A few of them did stick around in Japan -- medabots RPG (medarot in Japan) did stay for the DS and even 3ds as well.



Oh, certainly! I saw the translation for the game a played it for a while, but after i played it in japanese and saw certain "inconsistencies" with context, decided to play it unpatched for that matter.

I was a huge fan of Medarot on the DS era; the problem with that is that i was the _only one_ which had the game, so i couldn't play with anybody else (locally)
Don't know what happened to Medarot after Girls or whatever it was called. Maybe i should retry that series.



FAST6191 said:


> As for combat flight sims I never quite got into them. Got a pack of whole bunch of them once (remember those?) when I first got a half reasonable PC capable of doing things. Think I even tripped over one of the remaining ones the other day but never quite got into them like I have for other game styles. I don't know quite why as I really enjoy combat space sims.
> I imagine it probably faced the same problem as horror games (popular enough to take note, not quite enough to sustain a massive dev budget), and then we got HAWX. I was going to say something about the stuff we saw on the 360 towards the end, but then I remembered a previous thread in this series https://gbatemp.net/threads/the-games-you-will-keep-for-your-ps4-and-xbox-one.499105/



Could that pack be the one with Flight Combat Simulators and the IL-Sturmovik series? It was a quite popular one on its time.
And i don't think that those two reasons are the only ones, i'm thinking that they also faced the problem of "not being popular enough as their projected expectations".
A lot of companies seem to be making _*that *_move, even if the fanbase of a game is near of getting the numbers they desire to see.
(I'm still in shock with the AC franchise about this; same goes with HAWX[but i guess that had to do with the fact that they wanted to advance the story and thus push it to a huge what if?])


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## FAST6191 (Apr 22, 2018)

This would have been late 90s/early 2000s, the discs themselves being silver topped but with black text on them. One of the games was F22 Raptor.


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## Geezerdorf (Apr 22, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> This would have been late 90s/early 2000s, the discs themselves being silver topped but with black text on them. One of the games was F22 Raptor.



Thinking about it, there were many discs with demos and games. I remember some EGM ones that could match that description, as well as some...MacGames i think it was called? I remember some from other magazines, but i can't recall their names. But yeah, Dogfight Simulators wer prominent on that time


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## |<roni&g (Apr 23, 2018)

Vehicle combat/destruction games, vigilante 8, twisted metal etc

And generally buying games once only, no dlc or poison loot boxes etc just buy the game and done.
Nintendo wants to take your money on a yearly basis from September to play Mario kart online and the other small selection of games they have, that should be prevented from becoming reality by you the I community, but instead you're probably going to do or say nothing and pay for something that is and has always been free.


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## xs4all (Apr 23, 2018)

Not sure what the demographic of members here, but I started way back in the Amiga 1000 era, and RPG's, specially the very early Sierra point and click/typing games like Larry/Kings Quest/Police Quest/Space Quest/etc...
It's sad we wont see any of these games anymore and they will stay has true classics, yeah the graphics was VGA and pixelated but they were great. If only the kiddies these days appreciate what was like to play RPG's back in the day.
Also games like Operation Stealth and Future Wars to name a few, heck I think it's time for me to boot up the Amiga emu's to have another round.


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## elBenyo (Apr 23, 2018)

Since the Advent of online I simply been waiting for large PVP, like Battle Royale but with respawning. I can imagine the team work for CTF, or the command structure that could make TDM a real battle.


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## pasc (Apr 23, 2018)

*Ctrl + F*

Wait... Megaman Battlenetwork is not here... *sob*


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## FAST6191 (Apr 23, 2018)

pasc said:


> *Ctrl + F*
> 
> Wait... Megaman Battlenetwork is not here... *sob*


https://gbatemp.net/threads/a-favou...ght-have-gone-away.501597/page-2#post-7927489

With how samey they got I am not that bothered by the lack of battle network these days.

That said real time/action and all the other mechanics that go with it... would not mind seeing more games like it.


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## DS1 (Apr 24, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> Now that I think about it they are far rarer than they used to be but I would not say they were gone. Did trackmania not do it for you?
> 
> ...
> 
> Japanese games about Japan... there do seem to be rather fewer historical ones of late if I ignore the ? warriors series (which I do intend to continue to do). I don't know if it is modern, or at least 80s, that caught on over there. Somewhat amusingly it seems we have a whole slew of European history based ones of late.



I'll give Trackmania its due because it is a fantastic game, but in terms of personal taste, I always felt the cars lacked weight. It works a lot better as a 'what-if San Francisco rush was still around' and encouraged user-created content.

I too ignore the Warriors series (and the vastly superior Basara series) in this assessment, because these fit more into the category of new-age beat-em-up. I always felt that they were more akin to 2-player arcade beat-em-ups than anything else, if only in 3D.


One more genre that seems forgotten, or maybe I just haven't been paying attention, is Japanese-style 'Fantasy War Strategy' games. For example, series like Dragon Force, Generation of Chaos, or Spectral Force Genesis (all somewhat less ambitious clones of each other), or for that matter the Ogre Battle series and one-offs like Brigandine. Not that I was ever any good at those, but the concept of a Koei-style strategy game that was not bound by the rules (or length) of history was always an interesting concept.


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## FAST6191 (Apr 24, 2018)

I think I know what you are heading for on the car game thing*, and yeah I can see trackmania falling short there.

*something like what you go when it is was not mario kart/diddy kong/street racer, not a rally/touring cars game (think simulation racing but without the budget of a gran turismo to really get too stuck in), not anything that would eventually become or want to be gran turismo. Sort of thing where it pays to take a racing line but you don't necessarily have to come off the accelerator (and the gran turismo speed suggestion thing would be an utterly alien notion) and if you clip the curb/barrier it only lightly slows you (enough that doing the next corner or two right will get you back in it) rather than several places and the race.

I didn't dislike them but I had carmageddon which was basically that but with all else that carmageddon has.

As for the others it is not one I really looked at, though several of those appear to have got sequels on android and speaking of that most of the "freemium" strategy games ape a lot of their style. Of course they are freemium so meh.


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