Re-buying retro consoles & games you're already familiar with

[Kubrick]

What's the concensous about this?

I'm of the opinion that it's not really worth it. At least, not from an actual gamesplaying perspective.

Sure, it's fun to collect all those games you remember from years ago, but it's never the same 2nd time around, and more often than not, the games won't be touched, or will only be given a brief whirl now & again.

That's how it's been for me anyway, with a number of consoles.

N64 - Had a PAL console during it's life cycle and loved it to bits. I owned/played most, if not all, of the must-have games for it before selling up due to lack of interest whilst the Dreamcast ruled the roost.
However, when I started to re-buy them all back about about 18 months ago (this time in NTSC-J format), the incentive to play them just wasn't there...I was too familiar with them, and had completed most of them already. The only ones that did get a reasonable amount of playtime, were the ones I never had in the past like Sin & Punishment or Bangaioh which were new to me.

And that's a similar story to what has happened with nearly every console I've previously had, sold, then bought back again. The only one that has bucked the trend was the Sega Saturn since there were literally dozens of Japanese games that were new to me. It was almost like having a "new" console, and took up most of my time during 2001/02 when things were pretty quiet on the DC/PS2 front.

My advice: Just keep your memories and don't go back unless there's LOADS you missed out on the last time. Invest in a console you never previously owned instead.

[gingerj]

Yeap thats why I only keep my DC for my shooters.

I'll probably finish my GC games before I even consider a move to the next gen.

I found when my mate bought a ton of SNES games that were great back in the day, I sat down and thought err this is crap (Striker for example was awful when I'm not lcuky enough to play pes)

[VR46]

My advice: Just keep your memories and don't go back unless there's LOADS you missed out on the last time. Invest in a console you never previously owned instead.

Spot on mate, I rebought a ZX Spectrum, SNES and quite a few games for each last year, didn't appreciate either as much as I thought/hoped I would, bought a DC couple months ago and loving it due to not having had one before.

[butchcvc]

it depends on the individual games themselves, and how much they have aged.


one example is goldeneye for the n64, the last time i played it was about 4 years ago, but i still play no mercy for the n64 every week!

i can still play the snes with pleasure, but the mega drive, philips cd-i, master system, amiga, etc.... are crap now! (actually the cd-i was always crap!)

[Leon Retro]

There aren't many games that stand the test of time for me- and provide the same thrills I had when I first owned them.

Mario games still grip me and provide me with lots of fun.

WaveRace64 is still a game I can pick-up and play and totally enjoy the experience still.

Most of the AAA snes games I loved are still as playable as ever. F-Zero/Pilotwings/MarioKart/Contra3/CV4/Axelay etc...

All the good shooters I have fond memories of are still a joy to play- such as Parodius/Super Aleste etc...


Most games don't stand the test of time though. 3D Platformers don't age well- except for Mario64. Adventure games seem too basic to play now- and lots of fighters are too simplistic or badly designed to appeal to me these days.

At the end of the day there aren't many games that are timeless. Just look at GoldenEye N64- it now looks and moves like so bad that I think my eyes have gone wrong

Stick to games you love more than life itself!

[Duddyroar]

I'm of the opinion that it's not really worth it. At least, not from an actual gamesplaying perspective.

Sure, it's fun to collect all those games you remember from years ago, but it's never the same 2nd time around, and more often than not, the games won't be touched, or will only be given a brief whirl now & again.

Hmmm. It depends, really.

I sold my Megadrive in the mid-90's, only to buy another one a few years later. In the early 90's I'd gotten through a fair few MD games, but this was mainly thanks to trading them in against new ones. Therefore I never had more than a handful of MD games at any one time. However when I re-bought the system MD games were dirt cheap so I decided to re-collect all the classics I'd owned and parted with during the early 90's. That was 1997...and I'm still filling my collection even today.

If there's a game you really adore, buying it again is a good thing in my eyes. I've played all my MD stuff just as much as I did back in the day. Same goes for some SNES titles I've re-bought, too. Some titles are just so damn playable (Golden Axe, Sonic, Mario, Shinobi, etc).

However, I've also noticed that I've been buying games that I maybe only played for a few days when I originally had them, and they're usually the ones that get left on the shelf nowadays.

[Ostrog]

Don't know about consoles as I've kept all mine, but I can still go back to the old games every once in a while. I booted up Turrican 2 a few months back, and played it straight through. Loads of fun that was, just like when I first played it.
I picked up the special edition Doom 3 a few weeks back, and tried the old games out. To my surprise, I didn't find them dated and crap but really enjoyable - as good as they were when I first played 'em. They sucked me back in again, and rekindled my interest in first-person shooters.(I have to admit Doom 3 itself had a hand in this too ) I'm playing the original Serious Sam as well, though that one isn't quite so old.
I try to put a few years between playing some games - it'll be a good while before I go through Super Metroid again. The same goes for Prime as well. Chances are I'll forget most of the details, and the games will still seem somewhat new to me.
There are some games I never get tired of - stuff like Altered Beast, Alien Storm, Mazin Wars, Volfied and Space Invaders. I keep going back to those ones.
Right now I really want to play Duke Nukem 3D again. I have an N64 version knocking about somewhere, so I'll probably give that a go.

[nekroxide]

Yep, know what you mean, Kubrick. I sold on most consoles I've had over the past 15 years when the next generations on came out (the Saturn and n64 being the exceptions), and it's only over the past year or so I've started re-collecting everything. Most of the games I loved I have re-bought and played a bit, but nothing like I used to. And in the case of the n64 I've just flogged it all and replaed it with NTSC J/USA versions

It's only when I started hunting out games I'd never heard of before that I started investing proper time in the games rather than quick 10 minutes here and there.

The good thing with Saturn, too, is that I always played it but after properly getting into importing a whole new world opens up!

[Wools]

I think thats untrue.

I agree it can stamp on your memories but sometimes it re-iginites you and makes you intrested in games again!