Post underrated retro games that could be great if fixed...

[ProfessorFrog]

Post underrated retro games that did not get the attention they deserved because it had bugs or design issues that were holding it back.


I'll start with a rather beefy example: Spawn for Snes

The big problems
- If you hit an enemy, he can not be hit again until after his stun state is over. This means you can not do combos in this game. (Weirdly, the block+down+kick special's hit does allow a hit)
- Most enemies die in 1 or 2 light punches. This means you can not do combos in this game.

The medium problems
- An early section wants you to walljump up a shaft, while a cannon attacks you at a high rate. Requiring extremely precise inputs. This will make players quit.
- Bosses have a high attack rate. This forces you to find the correct special move to win the fight. Then you have to practice to be able to execute the special move consistently.
- Enemies have a high attack rate, resulting in you getting stuck between enemies while blocking with no way out besides taking damage.

The small problems
- The run input (double tap right) only works if you input it with very exact timing.
- Occasionally specials do not work because you started holding block while getting hit or during another unexpected state.
- Specials don't come out unless you hold the last direction while pressing the attack button. It's less of a problem when you know, but if you don't, it seems like specials are finnicky.

Would benefit from a fix because:
- The game already has tons of attacks, and being able to combo them would increase gameplay depth. Having enemies with more HP would increase the difficulty to compensate and facilitate combos. This would make it possibly the deepest action games on the snes.
- Fixing the attack rate for cannon and bosses would make people actually not want to strangle themselves, and give them enough time to learn the arguably technical controls.

 

[ColonelKurtz]

Aidyn Chronicles for the N64 is an RPG with a LOT of cool ideas but it's incredibly buggy and has many game breaking glitches. Its incredibly easy to ruin your save file permanently.

With that said it's still a pretty cool game. It has a semi real time combat system with movement and positioning, a surprisingly indepth skill system, lots of unique spells, many different potential party members and a huge open world. The inventory system is pretty cool too.

I love the way encounters work. Once an enemy sees you and initiates combat, the overworld is sectioned off to a small area where the fight takes place. Sort of like Quest 64 but this game is much more complicated.

 

[Graw]

Its incredibly easy to ruin your save file permanently.

That game ruined every single save file on my controller pak back in the day. I didn't find out until years later it was known bug in the game that occasionally just wiped the entire controller pak. I lost every single save for every game I owned or rented that didn't save to a cartridge.

 

[ShinnAsukaYESTaylorSwiftNO]

Yu-Gi-Oh: Dungeon Dice Monsters for the GBA

 

[PhrawzT]

Plenty of old Genesis/SNES/Turbo Grafx games would benefit from a save system.

Too many games had no save or password system, so if you stopped playing you had no choice but to start over at the beginning.

Toejam and Earl is my favorite Genesis game, but I wish you could save your progress.

 

[Bakuma1997]

Quest 64, has lots of potentian to be a game thet could put to shame PSX RPG's but what the console spat was the RPG equivalent to a baked potato

The game has an interesting SaGa esque progression where doing something beefs the related stat, but there is not much use on it when Brian can simply whack his way into the final boss
THE FIX: Give you a incentive to use magic more, like giving enemies resistances or invulnerability to physical magic

The Magic itself, rather than power it via leveling it or buying it, you have to find stones and assign it to a specific class, however the power ups are limited
THE FIX: Spice the stat leveling by allowing speels to also be powered by use

Magic Levels every blue moon and HP only increases after each boss battle in a consistent rate (Getting hit in battle raises it, but i went two digits of battle without raising it)
THE FIX: Pull a Saga 2/3 and make each stat guaranteed to eventually raise, with the use of its assigned stat increasing the odds

The game has a uniquely neat "Can move when attacked to dodge" but the enemies has too fast attacks to bother doing so
THE FIX: Make attacks not that fast peraphs? how about a DODGE OR PARRY BUTTON?

Finally: Game can be broken easly since Agility is raised by walking, not in battle, but in eneral, so fi you somehow can make your character run in circles (And risk fucking your stick/controller) every attack will miss, making an already brain dead RPG easier
THE FIX: Mixed with the problem above, make dodging and/or parrying attacks be the ones that raise Agility

 

[Zerohour2k12]

Nothing comes to mind off the bat but as for an example, there's Simon's Quest with the Redaction hack.

 

[Musixim]

The Ikki Tousen PSP title.

It would be a really solid beat 'em up had they fixed the attack range. If you're not on the enemy's nearly precise axis, your attacks would not hit at all.

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

The arcade version of Gradius 3 would probably be more remembered if it allowed for continues. Normally I'm all for 1CCing an arcade game, but Gradius 3 is so infamously brutal that adding no continuing on top of it pretty much dooms it to be unpalatable to all but the most hardcore Shmup diehards.

That the SNES port retools the game to be more fair and is generally remembered more fondly I feel is proof of this.

 

[redux007]

With proper analog controls it would be a much better game. As is, it's hard to play.

 

[bjork]

There was a save bug in the Scarface game (I forget if it was the PS2 or Xbox version) that... I don't think it wiped your save, but made it where you'd basically need to start over anyway.

Phantasy Star Collection on GBA also had a save bug, maybe just in the first game but I don't remember which.

In any case, a save bug being fixed is always an improvement.

 

[Isegrim]

Does it have to be real old and retro?

I'll just post it anyway.

Dead Rising 4: Frank's Big Package on PS4 will die on you or at least the save file will eventually. I really enjoyed it inspite of it's many shortcomings but the worst part is that you'll eventually need to start from scratch at some point. Dead Rising games usually lets you retain levels and certain unlockable bonuses when restarting but that point is moot because the above game's save file is a ticking time bomb and it might even happen before you've even cleared the game.

The developer, Capcom Vancouver was dissolved before they could fix it assuming they intended to do so.

 

[Tonberry]

My vote goes to Gothic 3.

The legends say that the game was like 30% finished when it released and it shows.
Mind-bogglingly horribly optimized, empty, unbalanced, riddled with bugs, you name it.
It was my first foray into the Gothic series as a kid so I thought it was really pretty and immersive even though it was impossibly difficult and janky.

Risen 1, while its own thing, is a perfectly fine replacement if you don't mind it having its own story and setting, but seeing as Gothic 3 was so janky and unfinished, I think most fans of G1 and 2 are fine with pretending 3 doesn't exist. But Risen 1 plays and feels a lot more like Gothic 2 did in general, what with its factions and the way it progressed.

 

[Bakuma1997]

The arcade version of Gradius 3 would probably be more remembered if it allowed for continues. Normally I'm all for 1CCing an arcade game, but Gradius 3 is so infamously brutal that adding no continuing on top of it pretty much dooms it to be unpalatable to all but the most hardcore Shmup diehards.

That the SNES port retools the game to be more fair and is generally remembered more fondly I feel is proof of this.

Confirm, played the Arcade one in a local pharmacy's arcade machine, i could swear the store owner made it hard to milk Pesos, later when i played the SNES version i could swear they were different games, still hard but the game was far less cheap

 

[redux007]

Confirm, played the Arcade one in a local pharmacy's arcade machine, i could swear the store owner made it hard to milk Pesos, later when i played the SNES version i could swear they were different games, still hard but the game was far less cheap

Most arcade games had difficulty sliders for revenue generation. It's the number one demanded feature. Arcade owners would have it dialed down for moving food, local businesses had it dialed up for people waiting around ten or fifteen minutes.

 

[ProfessorFrog]

With proper analog controls it would be a much better game. As is, it's hard to play.
View attachment 136392

I recently tried this. I'm very comfortable with tank controls, but it's just not really fun. It doesn't really help that the combat isn't all that interesting to really motivate you to try some stuff.

I think some small changes to combat would also help it, but i'm not sure which changes would help it, from the top of my head.

 

[Moreno909]

In Splatter House 3 you should have way more life, the enemies, specially in the latter stages, can kill you with full health with only 2 hits.
It should have status upgrades hidden in the chambers to incentivize exploration. You don't really have a reason to do it because besides no rewarding, the enemies will kill you as fast as possible

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Discworld on PC & PS1.

It has all the makings of a great game, but the line of logic required to beat it rivals the worse offenders of the Sierra catalog.

 

[ProfessorFrog]

Discworld on PC & PS1.

It has all the makings of a great game, but the line of logic required to beat it rivals the worse offenders of the Sierra catalog.

Oh i can confirm. It's my favorite point n click adventure, because i enjoy listening to the conversations, but it doesn't make sense nah. I guess the challenge would be thinking about how to solve the logic issues. You'd have to either change the voice lines, which should be possible with AI voice generation, or you'd have to actually change the logic.