Younger gamers here (early 20s or less), have you gone back and tried older titles?

[Arsene no Kiseki]

19.

Started with N64. Played the shit out of it. Mario 64, Mario Kart, Kirby, Turok, Star Fox, Mario Party 1 + 2, Glover. I had a ton of N64 games. The gamecube was out at the time and I also had one of those, so it was fun to jump back and forth between generations.

Also Bought an SNES (and a Gameboy + Tetris) with Mario World and Super Metroid when I was 10 at a school yard sale for $2 and played the shit out of those too, ive picked up a SNES game here and there at the game store in my town, and Virtual Console helped me reach games that were too rare or expensive for me to get on the SNES. (And gave me a place to play NES games)

From PS2 onwards I played Nintendo and Playstation, but missed out on the PS1. There are games on it I'd like to play some day. But my backlog is massive and college/work sure as hell doesnt help me clear time to dive in. Maybe one day.

I primarily play PC now (though I own all consoles) and I have been doing so since I started playing ROBLOX on 2008 after seeing a shitty ad for it on Newgrounds, I have a ton of older 90/early 2000 titles on Steam as well, Ive played through many but there a lot more I need to get to.

 

[gcwy]

20. I grew up playing a lot of the Sega classics and a lot of SNES games. I still play them today sometimes if I feel like it. Haven't played any Atari games because I don't think I'd like them very much. Like a lot of people, NES is the farthest I can go back before I feel like I'm not enjoying the game at all.

 

[Deleted member 48813]

I'm 20 and I do it all the time. I've played games like Pokémon Gold, Grim Fandango, Ocarina of Time, Day of the Tentacle, Super Mario World, etc, etc and I enjoyed those games just as much as any modern game (If not more in some cases =P).

It's funny in Pokémon's case because the Gameboy Color was my first handheld, but the DS was already out for a good while at that point (I got an XL a year later so I could play even more Pokémon, and then a Wii as my first home console). That Gameboy was the sole responsible for getting me into Nintendo, and I haven't missed a single console from them ever since.

Edit: I could never get into Atari games though, NES is the oldest I'm willing to play.

 

[Asbsand]

I'm 25.

I believe A Link to the Past released the year I was born and I wasn't conscious enough to become a video-game addict until I was 8.

I remember my grandma had a disc with 100 games on it from a magazine. It was all DOS games like Descent and Jazz Jackrabbit, an Alien clone called "Abuse" and a demo of DOOM. I played DOOM a lot. It was kind of scary but also kind of fun. I didn't think too much about this, but again, when I turned 6 I saw the Rayman 2 demo on my cousin's computer, and I think its production and tone pulled me in. I was immersed and I wanted the game for christmas, which I did get. My first real video game I felt. My friend had Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. We played those a lot but I didn't beat it until I was 10 which was when I felt fully initiated into video games.

As for older games, I knew of Atari due to a local danish TV show we have of a man who is 60 or something that speaks to the camera and shows snippets of gameplay, movie scenes and comics. It's practically a tradition to watch, even for non-gamers, and that was my source of game news before we had broadband internet.

Then, they made the NES-classics lineup for Gameboy Advance and I was a Zelda geek, so I finally got "The Legend of Zelda". I honestly didn't understand what it was though. It was like I was in denial that this was the original Zelda, and I didn't believe it was the real original. After a while I opened my eyes up to the NES and SNES era though. As a kid we had our PS1 vs N64 discussions and that was what gaming was to me. SNES was "not a real console" I remember saying when a friend from school showed me Super Mario World. I was very disappointed that "you can't move around in this one!".

Now though, replaying Zelda NES on Switch is rather addictive. I wish I could get this game with achievements in it, because it's so simple and pure and very addicting because of its challenge. Basically, it's the "Dark Souls" of that era, and a lot of NES games were. The appeal of Dark Souls as it turns out, imo, is the same as the appeal of video games in the NES era, that it's all up to the player and dying is honestly a part of the experience and not something the developers tried to avoid from happening.

 

[Scarecrow]

All the time! I'm 21 years old and being in a 3rd world country meant playing plenty of stuff late when growing up. I was still playing SNES stuff when the PS2 was out, GBA stuff around the PS3 release and it wasn't till recently with more globalisation and better internet that we've been able to play newer games day and date.

Click to shrink...

21 here, first game was donkey kong country. Living in Honduras has given me this weird time capsule of having older consoles still be relevant during my childhood, so i played tons of old shit in addition to gamecube/ps2/dreamcast stuff. I thought it'd be more common to see people my age actively seeking out older stuff, but after a while of meeting people and reading stuff here it seems it's rarer than i thought, so i guess it's something im quite proud of. Never really had the problem of a game being "too old" either, it's quite fun to put yourself in the time period they came out; i fuckin love seeing how particular genres and shit grew from there.

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I seem to remember hearing that lots of Central and South American countries had a time bubble effect where they were releasing 16 and 32bit games while North America, Europe, and Japan were getting the latest and greatest. It must have been an interesting experience. I'm glad this hobby has since evened out and everyone everywhere has modern access to stuff like Fortnite, Steam, Battlenet, etc.

 

[Deleted member 48434]

22 here.
Constantly, I play a ton of retro games, and have always been interested in them since I was a youngling.

 

[Kizuna]

23, my first systems were PS1 and GBA. Spent most of my younger years playing PS2 and PSP. I do tend to play a bit of older classics as of late, mostly out of a desire to broaden my knowledge about the industry.

Games older than 15 years don't hold up for me for the most part, unfortunately, with experiences ranging from "yeah, that was alright, pretty fun at times, but I still have no idea why would anyone say that those are better than their modern successors" (classic 2d Sonic, NES and SNES-era Mario, Mega Man titles) to "God knows I wish I spared myself the suffering and just watched a let's play on YouTube" (MGS1, DMC1).

The only ones I genuinely loved are the older Pokemon gens - they are still incredibly fun and perfectly playable. Crystal is my favorite, and I would probably put the infamous "genwun" above S&M after playing through Yellow for the first time last year.

 

[Tali'Zorah]

21, PS2 was my first console but it wasn't until a couple years back that I started playing the older classics (barring a handful of PS1 games like Metal Gear Solid, that I played previously).

I find NES titles kiiinda rough to go back to to be honest. They're at times prohibitively difficult, and the lack of a real save system or checkpoint system in a lot of them hinder the games for me, I don't wanna be sent all the way back to the start of the game to try all over again if I die more than a few times (thank god for save states). SNES on the other hand I can fully appreciate, I mean Super Metroid holds up incredibly well today, and obviously the classic JRPGs like Chrono Trigger are timeless.

Early 3D I find a biiit more difficult to go to than SNES, actually. They're unbelievably ugly games and the controls are often pretty poor - obviously a natural byproduct of the first moves into the 3D space but it does mean those games haven't aged incredibly well.

 

[Necron]

By the way, anyone here feel like time is going faster? Like I was still 20 just a few month ago and now I'm suddenly 23 😱😱😱 wtf

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This will only feel like it's getting faster... 25 felt like yesterday and now I'm approaching 30.

Probably time of reference. But as soon as you start working, days and weeks turn into a blur. I think the only way to combat this sense of "time acceleration" is continuously change things in life (to a substantial degree). To go out of your way to challenge yourself (new language classes, start a new hobby, new/different job etc.) but not many truly do that.

Back on-topic, I can now really recommend the PS Classic. It's turning into a great PSX emulator via Bleemsync and it's cheap too. Happened fast - just over a month ago I wouldn't have said the same. Anyone fond, curious or nostalgic for that era should get one. Going to see if Grandia and The Legend of Dragoon still hold up.

 

[CarlSagan94]

Absolutely!

I'm 24 and my first console was the N64. As a historian, I love the history of games and go back to classics such as Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Super Metroid, and even NES games like Metroid and
Super Mario 3. Not sure if that counts but last year I played an all time classic, Deus Ex the original.
Still lots of classics to go too.

 

[Pyro]

I'm about to turn 24 and my first system was an N64, but I'm realizing more and more how little I played before this current gen in terms of the variety and types of games.

Around 2014 after I was feeling burnt out on games (largely because of Destiny/I felt all games were the same because of my playing habits) I picked up the Ico/SotC Collection for $20 as a Christmas gift to myself and was blown away. Since then I've gone back and discovered so many great games that still hold up.

MGS2/3, RE4, REmake, Bushido Blade, DOOM (1993), Ninja Gaiden (OG), and just this past week Katamari Damacy.

Old games can still be fun and shouldn't be forgotten as they can often contain powerful lessons in game design that for whatever reason the industry at large ignored at the time or has forgotten.

 

[Shiranui93]

I'm 25 and my earliest console was the SNES. Also went back and played a couple of NES games, but not that many.