Is God of War 1 the best classic (old) game to play today?

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DMC3 is substantially better than any of the classic GOW games.

But I will say, GOW holds up real well, even though the combat is simplistic. Feels more like a classic beat-em-up.
 
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Punished Miku said:
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This also came out in 2005.

Almost all Nintendo games still hold up and have a timeless quality to them.

I enjoy a lot of older games still, which is why I appreciate BC. It's easy to forget how similar most larger games are today until you look to the past.
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The camera in this game is so bad. Same for Devil May Cry games.

God of War 1-2 aged way better than Ninja Gaiden and DMC1-3.
 
Maybe gow2… but the first one is one of most annoying and tedious to play. The design is ancient and it doesn't come through well nowadays. Gow3 plays great in comparison
 
I think when it comes to the question how games have aged, a line should be drawn between 2d and 3d games, mostly because the more simple (and often grid-based) movement of 2d games makes it much less likely for them to be plagued by messed up or overcomplicated control schemes, as well as the fact that, due to technical limitations, early 3d graphics have aged horribly, something that 2d games rarely have to deal with.

With that out of the way, I'd say Mario 64 is probably the oldest 3d game that is not only playable, but can actually still be considered a really good game today. There are other 3d platformers from that era that have aged equally well imo: Banjo-Kazooie, Spyro, Crash 2 and 3. On the other hand, action games from that era are mostly terrible by today's standards. Gen 6 is a bit better, though I would say gen 7 is the first gen where the majority of games are still playable.
 
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DOOM is still fun to play, and the same goes for Quake. Timeless games.
 
God of war is such a wild pick for something like this lol. I suspect this is a game you have an inordinate amount of nostalgia for. So many old games have aged impeccably.
 
Punished Miku said:
51N0J3M6GBL.jpg


This also came out in 2005.

Almost all Nintendo games still hold up and have a timeless quality to them.

I enjoy a lot of older games still, which is why I appreciate BC. It's easy to forget how similar most larger games are today until you look to the past.
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Very good game, but terrible camera.

God of War has that fixed, literally.
 
Prince of Persia (all games), God of War (all games in the original style) are all classics. I played the first game several times and don't recall it being "buggy," and I had no problems with Ares as the last boss, and I was somewhat casual then, kind of. I stuck to specific series and didn't branch out until playing POP and then GOW. I have also played Ninja Gaiden and finished it.

The key thing that stood out to me about GoW 1 was Kratos as a character. Not rescuing the man in jail and grabbing another to get his necklace (I believe) and then throwing him back in... was shocking and made me laugh. Gameplay is fantastic!

EDIT
Funny to see some people downplay the game simply because it released on Playstation but heh, what can ya do!

EDIT
To answer the thread title, I wouldn't say GOW is the only title that is fun to play today but it is definitely among the many.
 
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Rudius said:
Very good game, but terrible camera.

God of War has that fixed, literally.
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Yeah, I think on the original Xbox the camera control took a little getting use to... I don't remember all that well now but do remember having to get use to it but could be confusing it with something else. Tempted to fetch the Xbox with the original controller....

As for God of War, yeah, it is fixed but luckily that did not hurt the game.
 
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Hold up - "best classic game to play today?"
My man - is you serious?!?

The GOWs got stale a year after release. No depth - no replay value - no challenge.
If were talking the action genre - games like DMC3 or Ninja Gaiden run complete circles around that trash.
 
Fbh said:
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IMO Chrono Trigger doesn't just hold up, it's better than most modern JRPGs. The cast is great, the combat is fun, the world is interesting and the setting over multiple time periods is still unique, the music is great, the art direction is great. It has "modern" features like no random encounters and NG+. And, most importantly, unlike 99% of modern JRPG it actually has good pacing and isn't some 90 hours game with 60 hours worth of bloat.
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Played it for the first time last year and enjoyed it a lot.
 
Schmick said:
God of War was released in 2005, so its a 18 year old game and is why I consider it an classic (old) game. I'm actually playing it for the first time. Started in the later half of 2022. Admittedly its taking me longer than it should (just to got to the underwater sections of the game), as I play through not just GoW1 but other games in my backlog. But what strikes me about this game is how well it plays today despite its age. The fighting is soo satisfying that when hitting those combo's it just causes me to smile all through the combat segments although some encounters can be frustrating as hell. The tension you feel when enemies spawn over and over again can be relentless especially when you find yourself against a group of Ceberus Pups. You definitely have to be smart when you fight since button mashing wont always work in your favour (and I try not to button mash anyway). There's definitely a lot to learn in the fighting with all the different control combinations to pull of a variety of moves.

I think its still a good looking game too.

Its a challenging game. I've had some frustrating moments. Like when I had to push a caged enemy up an incline but with every encounter with a spawned enemy it would mean I wasn't able to prop up the cage so it would slide back down the slope. It took me ages and many attempts pushing that damn cage up the hill, positioning it front of rocks whilst destroying the bad guys only to constantly die.

I suppose my only annoyance with the game is the camera.

Overall my impression of this game, playing it today in 2023, is that its at least a 9 out of 10 game from what I have played so far. This has a lot to do with the mechanics of the game and the gameplay. They both have aged so well.
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God of War 2 > God of War 1
 
Supreme Commander obviously. Still holds up to this day.
Half Life 2 VR. Alyx looks better and takes better advantage of the VR, but Half Life 2 is Half Life 2.
 
It's probably partially because that's what I grew up with, but there are shitloads of GC/Xbox/PS2/GBA games I replay, and some I even never played and finally discover.

The more games increase in price/micro transactions, the more I find myself just replaying my favorite older games, whether they're ported, emulated, remastered, or occasionally remade.
 
I love the game but I tried playing streaming games on PS+ and it's horrible, at least for me. I stick with PS4 and up on my PS5.
 
Are we deliberately skipping the 2D era or what's the deal here?

Super Metroid, Zelda ALTTP, Shinobi 3, Turrican, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Dungeon Master and it's genre offsprings, all 16-bit/arcade shmups and beat'em ups. They all still play amazingly well.
 
OZ9000 said:
Halo 1 was good for it's time but it has such frustrating level design. Everything looks the same. No clear sense of direction.
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Agreed. Halo's Library level is one of the single worst moments of my gaming life. If there's a purgatory in the afterlife I am certain that it will be somewhat more tolerable than that garbage-tier experience.
 
Fredrik said:
Are we deliberately skipping the 2D era or what's the deal here?

Super Metroid, Zelda ALTTP, Shinobi 3, Turrican, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Dungeon Master and it's genre offsprings, all 16-bit/arcade shmups and beat'em ups. They all still play amazingly well.
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Oh man I haven't thought about Turrican in forever.

 
Like...not even remotely, when remote is equal to the distance to Alpha Centauri. It's not even the best game of its own genre and general era of release in terms of "holding up"

Devil May Cry 3 exists...
 
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I went ahead and played through the game in RPCS3 after seeing this thread. I had only played through it once back in 2011 when I got my PS3 and I wasn't a big fan of it then. But it's honestly much better than I remembered and I finished it in just two sittings. I only intended to play a level or two to see how it looked at 4k but I ended up plowing through the entire thing.

I don't know about it being 'the best' though. The platforming sections are awful and it's not the deepest combat I've seen. But the whole package is still damn great today. I sorta lost interest after GoW 2018 but I'll probably replay the entire series now.
 
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