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Videogames you missed the boat on

Come On Tars

Come On Tars

Member
What are some games you know you probably would have loved but you just never got around to it and you think it's probably too late.

I got a few.

1. A link to the past.

a link to the past nintendo GIF by El Primer Mando

I gave this another shot recently and barely got past the initial castle. Once it opened up to the main zone I just don't care. I might be done with 2d Zelda they just don't hold my interest. Maybe if it was remade like Links Awakenkng which I did play through but I don't think I had the best time playing it.

2. WOW


stabbing video game GIF by South Park


I know missed the craze. When the South Park episode dropped I downloaded it and killed a couple pigs, got bored. Uninstalled. I think I dodged a time sink bullet but I also know if I went balls deep I sure would have had some great times.

3. FF7

final fantasy GIF

Never had a PlayStation, always hated JRPGS growing up. Only to slowly like some here and there. Kotor was my first turn based game that clicked. And more recently E 33. I tried playing this a little in the handheld and it's just so dated I can't do it. There's not enough for me. At the same time if I did have a PS1 as a kid I could see myself getting obsessed with it back in the 90's
 
I don't believe that you can "Miss the boat" on a singleplayer game, unless it's story was spoiled to you, or someone sabotaged you by wrongfully building a bad impression of said game.

Yes, there are some games with some might say cumbersome graphics and QoL features, but if really wanted to, you'll push through them regardless.

For me Xenogears is a mountain I've yet to climb because the graphics put me off terribly the first time I tried it many years a go, but still I have yet to give up on it entirely.
 
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- Runescape
Didn't care about it when I was younger. Then WoW showed up and the WoW gameplay is unmatched in the MMO genre. Still, after 19 - 20 years, I was done with WoW and never looked back.

- Counter-Strike
Simply liked other shooters way more and got used to those. Recoil pattern learning is not for me and I don't like how slow it is for the majority of a round.

Star Wars Galaxies
- Simply didn't know about it until it was too late (servers were about to close). Probably would've loved this game.
 
Funnily enough, I feel the same way about A Link to the Past. But it's not too late. I started it over the weekend. Still an amazing game that's a lot of fun.

Even if you missed the full WoW hype back in the day and retail has been a pile of crap for years now, you can still give it a try without investing much time. The private WOTLK server Icecrown has 7x XP and the Dungeon Finder. You can level up really fast and run a few dungeons and if it clicks, you can even raid or start pvp.
 
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As long as you keep an open mind, it's never too late :] .

That said, a lot of games from before I started playing games are unplayable to me. like most NES games.
 
Zelda for me too. Never played a single game.
Even tho I owned the first as a kid on the NES. Just graviated towards other games.

One series I wouldn't mind getting into.... starting with the first I would assume?
 
I played the first Zelda for the first time last year. I was surprised how well it holds up. It's fun! Give it a shot imo. It's also quite short, which makes a nice change.
 
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Final Fantasy 14 for sure.

I was so ingrained in WoW that I didn't give it a chance and by the time I was done with WoW I was also sick of MMOs. I did eventually give it a chance (a couple of times) and it was incredibly obvious I would've loved the game but my distaste for MMOs was too strong to be overcome at that point.
 
Minecraft.
By the time it launched and caught the world by storm, I was in uni thoroughly enjoying the insane releases of the second half of the 2000's.
Fallout, Mass Effect, Bioshock, NFS: Most Wanted, and sinking hundreds of hours into C.S 1.6.
 
Phantasy Star Online for the Dreamcast. I had the option of get Phantasy Star or Majora's Mask. I opted for MM. Though I do absolutely love MM, I wish I went with PSO.
 
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Fallout 1 and 2. Saw the game in stores back when it came out but never picked them up. Maybe I'd be a bigger fan of Fallout today if I had.
 
GamesDontSuck said:
Zelda for me too. Never played a single game.
Even tho I owned the first as a kid on the NES. Just graviated towards other games.

One series I wouldn't mind getting into.... starting with the first I would assume?
Click to expand...
Nah most aren't directly connected to each other in any meaningful way.
 
Probably FF14.
I've been curious in recent years since so many people claim the story is actually great and it's one of the best FF experiences. But it seems like such a massive time commitment.
The time to jump in was probably back when a Real Reborn launched and several of my friends where playing it.

Also afer playing XVI, which had many key people from 14 involved, I've started to doubt if 14 is actually as good as people claim.
 
Sand Dan Glokta said:
I don't believe that you can "Miss the boat" on a singleplayer game, unless it's story was spoiled to you, or someone sabotaged you by wrongfully building a bad impression of said game.

Yes, there are some games with some might say cumbersome graphics and QoL features, but if really wanted to, you'll push through them regardless.

For me Xenogears is a mountain I've yet to climb because the graphics put me off terribly the first time I tried it many years a go, but still I have yet to give up on it entirely.
Click to expand...
Really? almost all games beyond the 2000 has aged a lot. If you didn't get nostalgia glasses installed, it's not the same.

Playing Halo and Halo 2 today is a completely different experience, and they are relatively modern.
 
Come On Tars said:
What are some games you know you probably would have loved but you just never got around to it and you think it's probably too late
Click to expand...
This only makes sense for multiplayer games. If you want to play Zelda, then go and play Zelda dude.
 
The Witcher 3. I played 2 but I never picked up 3 and I should have.


FF Tactics. Should have played it, and never did.
 
Come On Tars said:
I gave this another shot recently and barely got past the initial castle. Once it opened up to the main zone I just don't care.
Click to expand...
I have rarely been so bored playing an adventure game than when I played Zelda III. It is so unbelievably bland. Give a shot at Link's Awakening, it is much more fun.

Come On Tars said:
I tried playing this a little in the handheld and it's just so dated I can't do it.
Click to expand...
FF VII is awful anyway, so if you weren't there back then, I don't really see how it could click now. The game was in a long list of old RPGs I replayed during the last years, and it stood out as one of the worst of the bunch. Currently replaying FF V, and I am having a total blast. This is probably the best FF game, and it aged wonderfully.

There are games that just don't age well.
 
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ALttP as well.

Half Life and some other old RPGs.

More for time and place than anything. But I plan to play a couple of them before long.
 
It would probably just generally be something Playstation related.

I went Sega Genesis -> N64 -> Xbox -> Xbox 360 and then just never really played as much video games.

So I look back on older Playstation stuff as something I "missed out" on in a way. Not that I ever really been cared about any particular PS exclusives or stuff like JRPG's....but more the hardware/ecosystem itself back went that stuff still felt different.
 
Come On Tars said:
3. FF7

final fantasy GIF

Never had a PlayStation, always hated JRPGS growing up. Only to slowly like some here and there. Kotor was my first turn based game that clicked. And more recently E 33. I tried playing this a little in the handheld and it's just so dated I can't do it. There's not enough for me. At the same time if I did have a PS1 as a kid I could see myself getting obsessed with it back in the 90's
Click to expand...
Played it last year on the PS5 pro on a 77" OLED for the first time in my life and it was one of the best games I ever played on that thing. Stop being a graphics whore or you'll miss out a lot of great games.

Fbh said:
Probably FF14.
I've been curious in recent years since so many people claim the story is actually great and it's one of the best FF experiences. But it seems like such a massive time commitment.
The time to jump in was probably back when a Real Reborn launched and several of my friends where playing it.

Also afer playing XVI, which had many key people from 14 involved, I've started to doubt if 14 is actually as good as people claim.
Click to expand...
Started playing it last year, it's not as good as people claim, it's way better. Imagine a best of of all the Final Fantasy worlds combined into one game with a great story, deep customizations, incredible good gameplay mechanics and tons (literally) of content. It'll take you between 500-1000 hours to just finish the free trial, and then there's iirc 3 more expansions of which each one could count as its own game.

Anyway, I missed out all the old Final Fantasies, but in the past couple of months I finished all of them up until FFX and a I'm currently playing through FFX-2. My brother and I never got into playing good games on the PS1 back in the day, we were mostly N64 Kids, the best game we had was THPS2. But we never played any great JRPGs from that time (and PS2 era as well).
 
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Pro evolution soccer and fifa games on ps2 and ps3,
It was a big thing back then (perhaps still is for fifa), and a lot of my classmates played them regularly with friends.

Now the newest games in full of micro transactions and online multiplayer is not the same with multi-player in the same room with your friends.

Also animal crossing switch, back then so many people playing and talking about it; I want to join but it was the covid era and I tried to be frugal economically, even though I already have switch, I don't want to pay for online features, also the physical game was very expensive because of the popularity.
Perhaps if Nintendo release a new animal crossing one day, I will be on it on day one.
 
OP did you like BotW and/or TotK 3D Zeldas? Specifically the aspect of solving problems in your own way by combining the systems and items?

If you did then try LoZ: Echoes of Wisdom. It tries to break the mold of a 2D LoZs a bit by allowing you to move in ways you could never in previous 2D games.

You dont need to fight directly (you can eventually through a separate system but I rarely use it) and you summon creatures/objects/mechanisms to fight for you/aid you.

I found it very fun and it rewards you in going out of your way to do side content by giving you the most powerful summons and useful mechanisms/objects.
 
You had to be there at the right time of your life for WoW. I started near the end of Vanilla, while working at a remote site eight hours away from home in my mid twenties. I spent all my evenings with friends and family from back home, started raiding in TBC and raided in WOTLK which was peak as far as I'm concerned.

I tried WoW classic a year ago when it was in the WOTLK phase, as an adult with a wife, house (and soon to come baby) it just wasn't worth my time.
 
Hard to really miss single player games.

WoW was definitely a time and place thing, that shit consumed me from 2004-2007 or so.

PSO is one I think of sometimes as wishing I'd been there. Earlier MMOs would have been cool too, like EQ or Ultima.
 
I got a 32X with the Star Wars game instead of a Super Nintendo with Chrono trigger. I have since played Chrono trigger, but I can't help but think how much it would've blown my mind had I played it when it was current.
 
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Come On Tars said:
What are some games you know you probably would have loved but you just never got around to it and you think it's probably too late.

I got a few.

1. A link to the past.

a link to the past nintendo GIF by El Primer Mando

I gave this another shot recently and barely got past the initial castle. Once it opened up to the main zone I just don't care. I might be done with 2d Zelda they just don't hold my interest. Maybe if it was remade like Links Awakenkng which I did play through but I don't think I had the best time playing it.

2. WOW


stabbing video game GIF by South Park


I know missed the craze. When the South Park episode dropped I downloaded it and killed a couple pigs, got bored. Uninstalled. I think I dodged a time sink bullet but I also know if I went balls deep I sure would have had some great times.

3. FF7

final fantasy GIF

Never had a PlayStation, always hated JRPGS growing up. Only to slowly like some here and there. Kotor was my first turn based game that clicked. And more recently E 33. I tried playing this a little in the handheld and it's just so dated I can't do it. There's not enough for me. At the same time if I did have a PS1 as a kid I could see myself getting obsessed with it back in the 90's
Click to expand...


It's never too late for single player games. If you want to play Zelda or FF7, you can play them right now.
 
Anything Pokemon related and I'm oddly bummed about it. The franchise blew up in the US when I was 16 so I saw all of it as "kids stuff" and was way too focused on getting ass, driving around and Playstation. Had I been just a few years younger I know I would've been hooked on the games at the very least.

I still think about giving Arceus a shot because it seems like a cool entry point and I like it's art style.
 
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I'll be honest you can miss the boat and you can never go back.

It's just part of life.

That doesn't mean you can't go back and see what all the fuss was about.

...but it will never be the same as it was playing during a game's heyday and the years of nostalgia and community afterwards. Like you can go back and play Planescape Torment today and it will be great but also it won't be like playing it when it first came out. We live in a world. We have a shared consciousness and expectations. A zeitgeist. The content itself is only part of the puzzle.

Even moreso for WoW which the OP mentioned. Vanilla WoW was a unique and crazy experience as was the relaunch of vanilla servers, and again they are much different today. I could tell you something pretty but here's the truth. Way leads to way and we can never go back. Choose wisely and enjoy your decisions. Cheers! Edit: On that note, honestly, everyone should probably play Dispatch before season 2.
 
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Sega Dream Cast - never got it but seen some great games on it from youtube over the years.

Playstation 1 since I went for the N64 so I miss out on all the PS1 legends during their primes like Metal Gear, FFVII, Twisted Metal etc etc.
 
My biggest lament is FFXIV. But I can't stomach monthly subs.

Otherwise? Two come to mind that I will remedy this year: Sleeping Dogs and Hollow Knight.
 
Can't really miss the boat on single-player games. It's all multiplayer for me. I'm the opposite of a lot of gamers out there. Wasn't that into online multiplayer when I was younger, but these days I spend more time online than with single-player games. I wish I played more online Halo, UT, CoD, Battlefield etc. back in the day. Some of them still have communities but it's not the same.

Same applies to live service games that have been going a long time and seen impenetrable now. Destiny is the prime example. Want to get into it but I've bounced off so many times. Then there are others that are still going but only have a small, hardcore community. Tough to get into. These days I try to check out multiplayer/GAAS at launch so I can better decide if it's something I want to stick with.
 
I would have liked to play Battlefield 1 and its successive expansions. Unfortunately it didn't work well on my previous system.
 
Half Life. I played the sequel and stuff like Fear, Far Cry, Crysis, Doom 3, etc before I eventually tried HL1. At that point it had been left behind the newer gen of shooters and I just couldn't get into it. I've done a few playthroughs and thought Black Mesa might change my mind but I just don't like it. Might have been different if I bought it when I got my first PC but too late now.

Of all the games that ruined it, Half Life 2 was the biggest offender. It's light years ahead of HL1 which was both a good and bad thing.
 
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It's all multiplayer regret for me.

I regret missing out on early Star Wars Galaxies. When the path to becoming a jedi was still a mystery. Reading forum threads where people were trying to figure it out was amazing and I didn't even have a subscription to the game. I'm still fascinated by that game and those early days, and I'd love to see another game attempt something like that now.

I also somewhat regret not being more "all-in" on competitive Age of Empires 2 in my early to mid-teens. I was a very good player but never committed to becoming great. I wish I had. It was so much fun, but higher-level play is stressful. I wish I had pushed through that just to see how far I could go.

And finally, I wish I had joined my college buddies in playing the original Modern Warfare through Black Ops or so. I was already phasing out of multiplayer gaming by 2007-2008, but I enjoyed CoD when I did play it. However, they leapfrogged me in skill quite quickly and I couldn't bring myself to suck for a while in order to catch up with them, so I dropped the genre entirely. Now, there's a lot of nostalgia and references to that time/those games in our friend group and I'm just not part of it because I never really played with them.
 
Sand Dan Glokta said:
I don't believe that you can "Miss the boat" on a singleplayer game, unless it's story was spoiled to you, or someone sabotaged you by wrongfully building a bad impression of said game.

Yes, there are some games with some might say cumbersome graphics and QoL features, but if really wanted to, you'll push through them regardless.

For me Xenogears is a mountain I've yet to climb because the graphics put me off terribly the first time I tried it many years a go, but still I have yet to give up on it entirely.
Click to expand...

Some games just don't age well, which you alluded to.

In which case, I'm sure some people can get over it, but imo sometimes it's just not worth it.
 
I have some...

1) Yakuza: too many of them and too many spin-off. I know they are good, but nowadays there are too many of them for me to play it.
2) Far Cry: the same as above, but I think playing the 3rd installment is enough.
3) Call of Duty campaigns: the last I played is MW3, the original.
 
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Pokemon. The original. This was pretty much my vintage (maybe a bit younger), and I have never played one second of any of them.

A host of other online multiplayer games.
 
Paasei said:
- Runescape
Didn't care about it when I was younger. Then WoW showed up and the WoW gameplay is unmatched in the MMO genre. Still, after 19 - 20 years, I was done with WoW and never looked back.
Click to expand...
I revisited Runescape recently. The writing is very amateur and childish, but the gameplay is very technical.

The artstyle and music has a lot of soul. Overall a very unique game.
 
It would be have been Trails game but thank god for the 1st Chapter but its gonna take me a while to catch on.
 
Sand Dan Glokta said:
I don't believe that you can "Miss the boat" on a singleplayer game, unless it's story was spoiled to you, or someone sabotaged you by wrongfully building a bad impression of said game.

Yes, there are some games with some might say cumbersome graphics and QoL features, but if really wanted to, you'll push through them regardless.

For me Xenogears is a mountain I've yet to climb because the graphics put me off terribly the first time I tried it many years a go, but still I have yet to give up on it entirely.
Click to expand...
More so that while yes they are classics, they are also a product of their time. Like playing WOW in 2025 is a very different experience than playing it when it came out fresh and that excitement was there. If my parents bought me A Link To the Past when I was a wee lad and I didn't have a million other options i'm sure I would have been enamored with it. But OOT exsists, Windwaker exists and I just like 3d zelda much more and It's hard to play the truly OG stuff today. Another pic I just realized is.

4. Overwatch

Overwatch GIF


Thought about getting into this because Apex has taken over my life. Adding another hero shooter seemed like a chore. All the hype and excitement is gone even with the diehards. Just don't care, I know it would have been awesome in the early days tho.
 
Raven117 said:
Pokemon. The original. This was pretty much my vintage (maybe a bit younger), and I have never played one second of any of them.

A host of other online multiplayer games.
Click to expand...


I got a Miyoo Mini just for games like this.

miyoo-mini-plus-impressions-as-a-first-time-owner-of-a-v0-vuwrum67nkxe1.jpg

So I have been playing Fire Red the remake of my OG toilet game. I have beat a couple gyms but I think I will just drop it. The gameplay is just so monotonous and I have lost interest in finishing it.
 
Radical_3d said:
I'm very sorry for you. Now feel very sorry for me. I never played this and I loved pre-FFX Square and Akira Toriyama (and my SNES):

s-l1200.jpg
Click to expand...

I am afraid to try to start this. Like If I was on a desert island or in prison and this was the only option it would be peak. I hope when I finally start Chrono Trigger it grabs me. My failure rate is pretty high trying to play these gen (2?) games in 2026.
 
Missed Half Life :(( only played the beginning for 1 minute as a kid the only thing i remember that i was scared but was still interested, idk

Banjo-Kazooie saw it in the mall other kids playing looked interesting, I don't know why but its one of the most nostalgic memories even tho i never played it 😂

Shenmue

Kingdom Hearts

Earthbound
 
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