>>1765127 >the AI is wildly inconsistent and hard to predict. While I wouldn't want C47's AI specific back, I've found that I hate the newest games' "AI" retardation. They NEVER move outside their scheduled paths. I want NPCs to behave more like humans. I don't want to be able to leave a body just lying in a random bathroom (without throwing it in a closet) because, whoops, SOMEONE in the 400 NPC population at this banquet has to pee in the two hours I've spent dicking around on this level…

>>1765127 It's not that it's that bad, it's just that Ace Combat 2 improves on it in almost every conceivable manner. The graphics look better, the missions are more varied, the presentation is better, it adds cool game mechanics on top of regular gameplay, enemies are more fun to fight against, the third person view doesn't almost completely eliminate all UI elements anymore, and overall things are more polished. Even the music makes better use of the PS1's sound engine, it's a night and day difference. Air Combat feels like a poor attempt to adapt an arcade game into home consoles, and considering the game's predecessor it absolutely is. While I do like it, I could easily see someone being turned off from the rest of the series if they started playing through it with this game.

My favorite thing about Arena is the shield spell that acts like a second health bar. You craft it to have 1 hit point that increases +99 per level, so by the end of the game you're going around facetanking everything because you have 2000+ health. My second favorite thing is the damage spell that can be crafted to do 1 point of touch damage, +99 per level. By the end of the game you're this immortal fucking death machine killing everything instantly by touch alone. The dungeons suck though.

There is something to be admired for series that start off with a not so great game, since it means if you start from the beginning of the series you'll get to watch the quality (typically) steadily increase, rather than starting with the best entry in a series that just keeps getting worse and worse.

Assassin's Creed if you consider the series stopped being AC after IV. AC1 wasn't terrible but it wasn't great either.

>>1765127 A lot of Capcom series >Street Fighter >Mega Man >Resident Evil (not the remake, not the director's cut, but the original game) >Dino Crisis >Breath of Fire >Monster Hunter

I have some easy ones for this thread. I don't think I need to explain why these are all terrible games - or at the very least, very clunky and hard to see the appeal in. I feel like this scenario of an "iffy first entry" just isn't possible anymore, since video games are much less of a passion project now and are instead about pleasing shareholders or making a commercial success (selling just a few hundred copies isn't enough anymore and there is a much wider selection meaning you didn't have to just play whatever is available even if it's shit) so you won't get some devs who make a game that ends up failing or not selling well and then that same dev trying AGAIN in the same series. They will either abandon the IP for something else or give up entirely.

Just Cause 1 is better than every single one of it's sequels outside the core gameplay. >Factions that aren't copypasted and with well defined identities >A setting with a uniform culture full of detail >Shittons of vehicle and weapon variety tied to progression >Top tier music <Buggy You're playing the half assed PC port without locking the framerate at 60 you stupid cunt OP as always sucks massive cock

>>1765224 I was going to bring up AC1 but it really doesn't count imo. The game was a commercial success and a cultural success. The gameplay wasn't very fun and it was extremely repetitive, but the story, characters, and atmosphere/world-building was great, and ironically it got worse as early as with ACII. ACII improved in every area that ACI was weak in, but suffered in basically every other way.

>>1765240 fuck, wrong file

>>1765240 >>1765251 Of the games I posted, Just Cause was not the one I expected to see keyboard warriors for.

Weird to say since this was a smash hit game, a system seller that put Sega on the path to market dominance for a generation, but most people these days seem to say that Sonic 1 is much less fun than later entries, and I have to agree. It's hard to recommend this to people, but it's much easier to recommend Sonic 2, Sonic 3D, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Mania, and basically any of the Boost games since they're all casual shit in the first place. I'm a big fan, and my friends see how much I like it, so they try the first game, and it never hooks them. Sometimes I tell them just to skip to one of the games I just mentioned, depending on what types of games they like, and they usually enjoy whichever one I recommend. But the first game never hooks anybody I can find these days. And I seem to hear similar thoughts from everyone on the internet. Some people say it's because the first game has more slow sections, notably in the second zone, so very early in the game. I suppose. The level design just isn't quite as much fun. While you can speed through most levels when you're good at the game, it still doesn't feel as fun as the later games. Plus Labyrinth Zone sucks balls compared to all later water levels. And Spring Yard Zone, while clearly a spiritual predecessor to things like Casino Night Zone, obviously lacks the appeal of later Casino/Carnival/etc. stages. The Special Stages are much less fun than later games, too. Also, I think the game is also just harder, and that turns off modern audiences. But I also think modern audiences are bitches, and Sonic isn't terribly hard for a game from 1991. Harder than Mario World, I suppose, but it's still nothing crazy. Sonic 1 and 2 also lack save functions, and modern audiences tend to hate that, but for some reason the people I get to try the series never have as much of a problem with that in Sonic 2. I have to chalk it up to either Sonic 2 being easier, at least until you get closer to the end. At least if you run out of Continues at Metropolis Zone you feel like you experienced a lot already, you had a lot of fun with the game. I'm willing to bet most new players, at least these days, don't make it past Labyrinth Zone. And I suppose even if they do, and then they die at Star Light Zone or something, you might have a bit of a bad taste in your mouth from Labyrinth. And oh yeah, making you go back for a fourth act of Labyrinth Zone right at the end of the game sucks. Fuck Labyrinth Zone. It's not the only reason Sonic 1 pales in comparison to the later games, but I keep finding that many of my complaints relate to it.

>>1765253 1 was the only one I finished for a reason 2 was mediocre and 3 was ass, I didn't even try 4 The core gameplay was way better but everything else was complete ass. 2 at least had an excuse considering it was rushed out the ass and almost tanked the company. 3 was just generic Hollywood movie number 9000 without even a hint of influence from Rico Rodriguez movies and it's two new gimmicks were trash and broke the game unlike the 2nd where it completely changed the gameplay but still made vehicles useful. Everyone who shittalks Just Cause 1 has not played it beyond 15 minutes.

>>1765226 >Monster Hunter Oof, no kidding. I tried getting into the series back on the Wii and then went back to start with the first game on PS2 and it was painfully rough around the edges compared to later titles.

>>1765295 >oof

>>1765226 >MegaMan >Resident Evil >Dino Crisis This has to be bait

>>1765291 >I didn't even try 4 >2 at least had an excuse considering it was rushed out the ass Apparently it was the sequel to 2 but with denuvo added on top of being rushed to damnation. Think it was one of the few games Squeenix kept when they sold off Eidos. You best hope they don't start shoving other IPs into Kingdom Hearts whenever they get around to crapping out more.

>>1765262 Maybe it's because Sonic 1 had a really good first stage but the rest of the game was ass. That and they weren't confident that the hardware could handle it so they probably played it safe for 99% of the game.

>>1765262 Sonic 1 being so meh lead to that period where every hack journo said "SONIC WAS NEVER GOOD" during Sonic's dark age, which is obviously fucking nonsense to anybody who played the series pre-2002. It's just that Sonic 1 is no fun at all unless you already know the levels and know how to zoom around them. >>1765437 As much as Sonic fans make fun of it, there's a reason they focus on Green Hill Zone so much. Sonic 1 is just a really fucking awkward platformer. On that note, Super Mario Bros also feels a little awkward, those controls are not the direction the genre went, but the levels are designed around it so it's not a big hassle.

Less iffy and more so unrefined but the first Megaman zero would probably fit. The basic gameplay is solid and the bosses are good but it still does strange things, like forgoing stage selection in favor of an interconnected map. Even the in game portraits have a really sketchy like feel no other MMZ game had since >>1765262 >And oh yeah, making you go back for a fourth act of Labyrinth Zone right at the end of the game sucks. Fuck Labyrinth Zone. It's not the only reason Sonic 1 pales in comparison to the later games, but I keep finding that many of my complaints relate to it. Never forget Sonic 1 devs originally wanted Labyrinth Zone to be the second zone after green hill at first, yeah that would been fucked if they went through it.

>>1765535 Mega Man Zero also had grindan to relearn and expand Zero's moveset, which thematically made sense, but was such a turnoff for most it was gone by Z3.

Age of Empires 1. It was downright primitive (heh) compared to AoE2. Still interesting and worth trying, but the difference is night and day imo. Also, I can't really speak to them personally, but at least from an aesthetic perspective, Homm1 and Warcraft 1 were very rudimentary compared to their sequels and that turns me off from playing them to begin with.

>Rayman The game looks and sounds great, but it's held back by how shockingly unforgiving it can be at times. Combine this with excessive backtracking & long, boring levels (such as all of Picture City) and you end up with a game you likely won't finish unless you're a real Rayman fan. Most people tend to pick on the fact that the game was never properly tested and all, but almost as bad are the file naming system (why do you only get 3 letters?), drip-feeding of powers, Rayman's poor attack options, and having to wait a trillion years before you can attack bosses whom have very high health, the latter two problems making the game way harder than it should be. >Metroid There are only two good things about the first Metroid: 1. The music; 2. It lead to Super Metroid. >>1765535 >Even the in game portraits have a really sketchy feel like no other MMZ game had since One of my favorite things about the game, I must say. Despite its unfair difficulty at least the game has some top-notch artwork to go along with it.

>>1767349 >>1765236 >Highly Responsive to Prayers >NEStroid YOU TAKE THAT BACK!! ...To be fair, though, those two are really great games when you take the moment to give them a chance and learn to move around their setbacks. Sure, they are weaker compared to most in their series, but at least you can have a blast with them.

>>1765172 I still remember cheesing Tharn with Chrysamere.

>>1767349 >Rayman To be fair, Rayman didn't even get a real sequel until decades later. The 3D ones play incredibly differently. The 2D revival games are good, I think I'd say better, but they're so long after they almost don't count. But yeah, Rayman 1 is very hard as far as games of its era go, and insanely hard compared to your average PS1 game. >Metroid Did the game originally come with a map in the manual? I've never played it with one but I feel like it would make a very big difference.

>>1765319 Avalanche Studios is completely fucked, they've lost all their goodwill by constantly shutting down and delisting Early Access games and providing no refunds. Square Enix owns their biggest franchise and is sitting on it, and they have around 450 employees 5 divisions and haven't launched a game in 2 years. They haven't made a profitable game in 6 years and they even abandoned that one (Generation Zero), then again all the stuff they added was trash and didn't fix any issues with the game, just Live Service shit ala Techlands Dying Light. Pretty much everyone who used to work at the company back then is gone anyway and the CEO is some nepobaby whore from Iceland, likely handpicked by Nordisk Film (the company that owns them since 2018 and fucked their terrible management even harder) themselves. They also cancelled like 3 games including that Xbox published game, Contraband. They are absolutely fucked, expect a shitton of layoffs soon, at least a quarter of the company is getting the boot for sure. Fun fact, Just Cause 3 and 4 were developed by their New York Studio instead of the main branch in Stockholm, so it's no wonder they were completely different in terms of presentation and gameplay from Just Cause 1 and 2.

>>1765303 I thought the same of your defence of JC1, to be fair.

>>1768737 Those are all much better games than any Just Cause game, and they're not iffy at all. -Megaman 1 has worse level design than 2 but that's about all. -Resident Evil 2 is just copypasted 1 with more content -Dino Crisis 1 is Resident Evil with fully 3D levels and dinos and it's great, the sequel isn't even the same genre even if also good Outside of Breath of Fire (which I never played), you're right about Monster Hunter and Street Fighter those games are a skeleton of a good game.

Probably a hot take but I found Combat Evolved to be quite outdated and felt badly aged. I've had way more fun with much older games than CE, and the later entries in the series are much better as well. Played the series in 2023.

>>1768758 >Liked Halo 2 over CE

>>1768765 >>Liked Halo 2 over CE For sure, I really liked 2, the story with the Prophets, and the Arbiter sections were really refreshing and fun. Chief and Cortana were more badass and sick in 2 as well. It's what salvaged the series for me as CE didn't leave the best impression when I first finished it. Half the game is literally just repeated sections, it felt really drawn out at times. The only really cool part of CE for me was the Flood level. The game was probably cooler when it first came out. ODST is my favourite entry in the series. I stopped after Reach (release date order).

>>1768786 >The story that completely kills the Covenant as an implacable alien force into retarded humans was refreshing and fun >Chief and Cortana with barely any banter or emotional reaction to anything were "sick" >Half the game was repeated sections but 100 elevators, gondolas, tunnels, ruins and the whole of the High Charity copypasted 300 times is fine >The only cool part about CE was when you fight the horde enemies in linear fashion and not when exploring the ring world freeform >ODST is my favourite entry in the series No fucking shit, I can tell >The game was probably cooler when it first came out. No, actually it's cooler now, it was pretty gay back then

>>1765127 the first just cause was a lot more fun than the games later in the series. 2 was just very boring and physically nauseating because of how much they fucking stretched the depth of field. which seems like it has carry on at the later entries

>>1768727 I wasn't even aware Avalanche Studios HAD franchises besides Just Cause.

>>1765253 >I am not a keyboard warrior

>>1767686 I wish Rayman had more games but I'll settle for what we've got at present. >mfw Edith Up isn't coming back any time soon >Did the game originally come with a map in the manual? No, or at least not when it first came out. Your three options with the first game are to have a photographic memory, make a map yourself, or play a ROMhack that uses a map system like the later entries in the franchise. >>1767631 >YOU TAKE THAT BACK!! It's hard to forgive Rayman 1 for the Space Mama boss fight and Eat at Joe's. Also, R.I.P Remi Gazel.

>>1771876 >It's hard to forgive Rayman 1 I was talking about NEStroid, but okay...

>>1765303 I didn't say they were bad, just iffy.

>>1772300 But they're not iffy they're top tier games

>>1772262 >I was talking about NEStroid You sure were. I need to get my eyes checked.