My title of choice would probably be Daggerfall because it’s just so ambitious and truly offers an experience none of the other elder scrolls games offer. That being said it is kinda an example of a sequel eclipsing it’s predecessors as well given it is more or less a straight improvement over Arena in every way.
The original Deus Ex is still amazing and has definitely held up better than the immediate sequel, Invisible War. The Eidos Montreal sequels have their charms and are definitely more accessible to modern gamers, but lacks the flexibility for emergent solutions that you could come up with in the original game.
Likely controversially, I’d say Portal.
Yes - the sense of exploration and discovery in Portal 2 is a good thing, but the puzzles, which are necessarily a central part of the game, are IMO much less engaging than the ones in the original.
The thing to me is that the Portal 2 puzzles are more complex and involve more tools, which actually makes them much less of a challenge and thus more of just a pointless chore.
In the first one, I had to think creatively. I just had a room and a small set of tools and had to figure things out. There were some hints - ledges to jump off of and such - but the solutions were still complex, and complex through the creative combination of a handful of simple elements, which is exactly what makes a good puzzle
In the second one though, there were many more and more specialized elements to the puzzles, and that meant that most of the time I could do it without even having to think much. I’d just go into a room, take this new item that’s obviously meant to be used in some particular way and use it in the spot that was obviously set aside for it’s use, then take the next item that can only be used in one particular way and use it in the place obviously set aside for it’s use, and keep moving around the room that way until it was all assembled, then just trigger it and be done with it and go on to the next one. And that was disappointing.
Portal 2 is a good game. I just think that, all in all, the first one was better.
Doom 1 and 2. The 2016 reboot and Eternal just don’t do it for me. And I just pretend 3 never happened.
I was on the same track when I read this - Morrowind was the first one that came to mind for me. It just had so much in it. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed oblivion and skyrim, but there’s something special about Morrowind to me. Never tried daggerfall, your post inspires me to try to find it again :)
For me, I think the nostalgia of the first iteration is part of what holds me. Halo 1, for example, is my fav of the Halo games as a whole. Sure, I enjoyed many of the others, but there’s just something about that first game and the experiences I had in it that have been hard to top.
