What games got better over time?

[Bleck]

yeah there's a difference between "this game is artsy" and "this game requires me to collect warthog testicles for forty hours before I'm allowed to do the good stuff"

[zircon]

Not exactly what was asked, but Earthbound is a game that became much more appreciated over time. When it came out and for some years afterward, it was viewed as just a mediocre Dragon Quest-type game with obsolete gameplay and graphics. But gradually people began to really appreciate the game's very unique story, art style, and humor. I think the Internet helped a great deal with that.

[eggsngaming]

I don't know if it's a case of 'getting better over time' or just 'aged well', but I still play classic Doom and Doom 2 today. The high speed of the action combined with the best bestiary outside of an RPG make in an all time favorite for me. And the CHEAT CODES! Like I could just type in a code and show somebody a level if I wanted...so user friendly and convenient. And that sound of the Arch Vile spawning/noticing you still freaks me out 20 years later.

[Sir_NutS]

Final Fantasy XIV was a disaster at launch.  S-E changed it and over time became one of the top 3 mmos.

[Chernabogue]

Does sex count?

 

More seriously, games like Europa Universalis get better and better the more you play them. At first, I was really bad but learned a lot and got to appreciate all the aspects the game has to offer. And now I'm just okay at it.

[Thin Crust]

I've got one.  The Curse of Monkey Island.  I am almost finished with Tales from Monkey Island and going back to that one, it was one of the first games I ever played on PC way back in 1995.  I couldn't appreciate it for what it was when it came out - with me being less than 10 and all, but the game is so humorous and has so much charm.  I think if I were to pick it up again, there is no doubt that I would like it better now than then.

[Final Kingdom]

Heavy Rain started off super slow, and I was disinterested in most of the characters until their stories intertwined and the mystery developed.

[MindWanderer]

Playing through Final Fantasy Type-0 HD right now.  It starts off the most confusing clusterfuck of a game I've ever played, both plot and gameplay.  It starts you off with 3 "introductory" characters, two of which have abilities that aren't straightforward and aren't documented at all, then promptly gives you a 14-character party, each of which behaves completely differently.  But my wife wanted me to play it, so I stuck with it.

It's no longer confusing, but there are still dozens of gameplay decisions that boggle the mind.  Invisible skill trees, suicidal AI, Eidolons that have to be leveled but that you have to commit suicide to summon, a completely opaque system for determining the "special" spell you get (which ranges from the most useful spell in the game, to one you'll never use), unclear goals that literally result in instant death if you don't figure them out fast enough, difficulty levels that are all over the place (with some things you're not intended to be able to achieve on the first playthrough), etc., etc.  But even with all that, it's still a vast improvement over where it started.

Diablo II was interesting.  I got into it late, and one of the patches that came out right then (1.11 I think?) completely rebalanced the game and changed a lot of the leveling strategy to be more... well, strategic.  Splatoon has had some nice balance patches already; I didn't buy it right at launch, but I did get it early enough to appreciate how much has been added to make it much more entertaining.  Mario Maker, too (checkpoints, most notably).

I think I've played more games that went the other way, though: Games that start off really well but quickly get repetitive, or ones where the developers clearly lost their sense of direction halfway through, or ones that change abruptly in the endgame to try to "open things up."  The Deponia trilogy just stabbed me in the back, dropping constantly in quality the further I got.  Never finished FFIII, FFXIII, Breath of Fire 2, or Xenogears, because of a huge and painful end dungeon.

[MES Records]

On 25.4.2016 at 1:49 AM, MindWanderer said:

It's no longer confusing, but there are still dozens of gameplay decisions that boggle the mind.  Invisible skill trees, suicidal AI, Eidolons that have to be leveled but that you have to commit suicide to summon, a completely opaque system for determining the "special" spell you get (which ranges from the most useful spell in the game, to one you'll never use), unclear goals that literally result in instant death if you don't figure them out fast enough, difficulty levels that are all over the place (with some things you're not intended to be able to achieve on the first playthrough), etc., etc.  But even with all that, it's still a vast improvement over where it started.

I can't bring myself to start that one since I have so much else to play, but seeing as you couldn't finish FF3 and 13 - would you say this one is better?

[MindWanderer]

19 hours ago, MES Records said:

I can't bring myself to start that one since I have so much else to play, but seeing as you couldn't finish FF3 and 13 - would you say this one is better?

I'm not far enough through to say, I'm only on chapter 4 of 8.  Certainly the corresponding parts of both FFIII and FFXIII were vastly better, but those fell apart at the end.  In fact, comparing the first 40% or so of all the FF games I've played (which is nearly all of them), it's the worst.  Even FFII, with its horribly flawed core advancement mechanics, was less messed up than Type-0.