History OnceOriginalNowCommon / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/AoOni'' looks barebones by today's standards with its ExcusePlot and fairly cheap graphics, especially when compared to other games of its ilk such as ''VideoGame/MadFather'' and ''VideoGame/{{Ib}}''. But back in 2007, ''Ao Oni'' was considered revolutionary for using UsefulNotes/RPGMaker to create a horror game, enough to spawn a multi-media franchise and popularize the ExplorerHorror genre.

* ''VideoGame/FridayThe13th'' (NES): The GameOver screen, which informs the player that "YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD." Doesn't seem like a huge deal now, but the time of its release in 1989, [[NeverSayDie it was taboo for video games in the United States to make references to death]], due to games still being seen as children's toys. Player characters were never "dead", just "knocked out", "defeated", "finished", or similar euphemisms. So for this game to explicitly inform the player that they were '''dead''' was a big deal in its heyday. Nowadays, it's pretty normal for video games to tell a defeated player that their characters are dead (although some games avoid using "dead" to refer to a character with no hit points left to distinguish from a permanent PlotlineDeath).

* Back in 1995, ''VideoGame/{{Bug}}'' was considered an impressive 3D platformer as it was one of the very first platformers with 3D effects, movements, and environments and the first 3D platformer on the Sega Saturn. Thanks to the advent of many ''far more'' impressive 3D platformers, the game and its sequel ''Bug Too!'' haven't aged well at all especially with its repetitious, clunky gameplay and annoying MascotWithAttitude.

** Older mods which were acclaimed back in the day may seem downright primitive by today's standards, in part due to evolving mapper skill, but also due to the introduction of increasingly user-friendly level editors which make it a lot easier to add fine detailing, to say nothing of source ports that add support for more modern features, everything from custom monsters and weapons that work entirely differently from the classic arsenal to simple sloped surfaces and bridges you can pass over and under. Today's players are also a lot less forgiving of mazelike layouts and [[GuideDangIt confusing puzzles and switch hunts]], and as maps get more and more recent it's rarer to find ones that don't make use of at least a couple custom textures, to the point that nowadays a mod using nothing but the default textures is either a first effort or advertising that as its primary gimmick. Megawads such as ''Icarus: Alien Vanguard'' and ''Requiem'' were considered some of the best back in the late nineties, but today they seem at best like a mixed bag.

* Certain [[VideoGame/MinecraftAdventureMaps custom adventure maps]] for ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' can fall under this trope, since updates are constantly adding new features that make it possible to craft more in-depth adventures. Well-known maps like Herobrine's Mansion and Wrath of the Fallen may seem a bit clunky and simplistic by modern ''Minecraft'' standards, but they were the first maps to exploit tools like [=MCEdit=] and command blocks to their full potential to create custom enemies, bosses, and armor sets.

* When ''VideoGame/BattleGaregga'' was first released, it was infamous amongst arcade gamers at the time for its unusually high difficulty that's partly due to its infamous [[DynamicDifficulty "rank"]] system that punishes players for collecting too many resources or firing too much and [[ViolationOfCommonSense encouraging the player to die on purpose]] to keep the game relatively winnable; as a result, it took an unusally long time for someone to get the first publicized no-continue clear. However, [[PopCultureIsolation outside of the shmup community where it remains a well-known and frequently talked-about game]], anyone who picks this game up today will scratch their heads as to why this game has that iconic status and why it has such a [[PolishedPort "pull out all the stops" port]] on [=PS4=] and Xbox One, due to its RealIsBrown visuals that fail to make the game stand out for casual shmup enjoyer, and the "rank" system seems like it's overhyped and derivative ("Didn't ''VideoGame/{{Zanac}}'' do this ten years prior?") in a genre that's already known for being NintendoHard, plus the proliferation of BulletHell games that have thicker and more intricate patterns of bullets and have more colorful visuals further diminish this game's status as a high-challenge shmup amongst the general audience.

* When ''VideoGame/BattleGaregga'' was first released, it was infamous amongst arcade gamers at the time for its unusually high difficulty that's partly due to its infamous [[DynamicDifficulty "rank"]] system that punishes players for collecting too many resources or firing too much and [[ViolationOfCommonSense encouraging the player to die on purpose]] to keep the game relatively winnable; as a result, it took an unusally long time for someone to get the first 1CC. However, [[PopCultureIsolation outside of the shmup community where it remains a well-known and frequently talked-about game]], anyone who picks this game up today will scratch their heads as to why this game has that iconic status and why it has such a [[PolishedPort "pull out all the stops" port]] on [=PS4=] and Xbox One, due to its RealIsBrown visuals that fail to make the game stand out for casual shmup enjoyer, and the "rank" system seems like it's overhyped and derivative ("Didn't ''VideoGame/{{Zanac}}'' do this ten years prior?") in a genre that's already known for being NintendoHard, plus the proliferation of BulletHell games that have thicker and more intricate patterns of bullets and have more colorful visuals further diminish this game's status as a high-challenge shmup amongst the general audience.

When ''Battle Garegga'' was first released, it was infamous amongst arcade gamers at the time for its unusually high difficulty that's partly due to its infamous [[DynamicDifficulty "rank"]] system that punishes players for collecting too many resources or firing too much and [[ViolationOfCommonSense encouraging the player to die on purpose]] to keep the game relatively winnable; as a result, it took an unusally long time for someone to get the first 1CC. However, [[PopCultureIsolation outside of the shmup community where it remains a well-known and frequently talked-about game]], anyone who picks this game up today will scratch their heads as to why this game has that iconic status and why it has such a [[PolishedPort "pull out all the stops" port]] on [=PS4=] and Xbox One, due to its RealIsBrown visuals that fail to make the game stand out for casual shmup enjoyer, and the "rank" system seems like it's overhyped and derivative ("Didn't ''VideoGame/{{Zanac}}'' do this ten years prior?") in a genre that's already known for being NintendoHard, plus the proliferation of BulletHell games that have thicker and more intricate patterns of bullets and have more colorful visuals further diminish this game's status as a high-challenge shmup amongst the general audience.

** This is very common in early mods designed to make use of [=ZDoom=]-specific features because many of them were made specifically to experiment with them and ended up overindulging, to the point it's common advice for new mappers to start working under vanilla limits before eventually moving on to [=ZDoom=] modding, and even some specific features showing up ''at all'' can date a map. ''[[Franchise/JamesBond 007]]: Licence to Spell [=DooM=]'' is a good example - at the time of its release, it was regarded so highly for trying new things (and being more successful at it than some of the author's previous attempts) that it made it into the "Top 100 [=WADs=] of All Time" list that was the predecessor of the annual Cacowards, but now with almost twenty years of hindsight it just ''feels'' like less of a full map set and more of an experiment in messing around with as many [=ZDoom=]-specific features as possible, even when they end up hindering the gameplay - including floors which push the player in a direction to simulate heavy winds (making navigation a chore), adding a new variety of the Pinky with more health and boosting the health of the Lost Soul while also reducing the player's total ammo count (making fights more difficult in [[FakeDifficulty the worst way possible]]), frequent use of enemies that are outright invisible except when attacking or being hit, and several timed sequences which can only be completed through [[GuideDangIt outright trial-and-error]].

** As hinted above, ''Duke Nukem Forever'' suffered heavily from this. George Broussard wanted the game to be a collection of every awesome new gameplay mechanic he could find, but due to the constant delays in its development almost every one of them had ended up already becoming old hat by the time the game actually came out. The joke about keycard puzzles is a particularly stark instance, as it tries to present itself as a unique subversion of a common gaming cliché - the problem is that its idea of a "common cliché" (opening doors with keycards) [[DiscreditedTrope had long since fallen off]], while its idea of a "unique and clever subversion" ([[PressXToNotDie quicktime event]] to perform a mundane action) had since become '''''the''''' gaming cliché.

* The ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' series is a microcosm of this trope. When the Marine player character in [[VideoGame/CallOfDuty4ModernWarfare the first game]] [[spoiler:is permanently killed by the nuke]] about halfway through the game in "Aftermath", it was a huge break from other FPS games of the era. The fact that you [[spoiler:controlled a dying character in the middle of a nuclear blast zone (and had no say over whether he lived or died), and that all your efforts in the American campaign were for naught]] was a ''huge'' deal then, and flew in the face of conventional video game tropes. The two sequels, however, do the same thing [[spoiler:5]] times combined, not to mention the slew of ''other'' post-''[=CoD4=]'' FPS games that also do it at least once, and for players who played ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2 MW2]]'' or ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare3 3]]'' before the original, the effect of the "Aftermath" level is lost.
** Connected with the previous one is, well... the WWII era of ''Call of Duty''. While there certainly had been FPS games before where you fought alongside groups (including the Omaha Beach level of the aforementioned ''Allied Assault''), the idea that you could ''constantly'' be having a squad (or larger!) of men fighting alongside you for basically the entire game, with at least a few of them having something of a personality, was such a leap forward that the marketing slogan for the first game was "Nobody Fights Alone." Nowadays, that's standard operating procedure in basically every military FPS. Ironically, while the WWII ''Call of Duty'' games were among the best-selling FPS of their day, they are now more of a footnote compared to the more modern setting games.
** ''Call of Duty 4'''s multiplayer was viewed as pretty advanced for the time, with class customization, smooth multiplayer and reasonably good graphics. However, the problem seems to be that the series has become too formulaic, with a lack of general change until the announcement of ''Black Ops 2'', and then another lack of general change after that combined with the engine becoming visibly dated in the visuals until the 2019 ''Modern Warfare''. Even then, the class customization of ''[=CoD4=]'' comes off as completely anemic today, with weapons only allowed one attachment, a very small amount of attachments on top of it (GrenadeLauncher, foregrip, red dot sight, ACOG, or suppressor, with every weapon class restricted from at least one attachment), and a fixed set of KillStreak rewards ([[EnemyDetectingRadar UAV]], [[DeathFromAbove Airstrike]] and [[GunshipRescue Helicopter]]), compared to even ''Modern Warfare 2'' with its greatly expanded available killstreaks (among others, there are ''four'' different airstrike options, two different helicopter options, two more helicopter or other gunship options that you can control the guns of, and, for a player who can make 25 kills without dying, a nuke which [[InstantWinCondition automatically wins the match]] for their team) and ability to use two attachments on your weapons combined with a veritable explosion of options for those attachments, from the returning grenade launcher and red dot sight to ammo that pierces objects better, underbarrel shotguns as a close-range backup, extended magazines to shoot more before reloading, and a [[EnemyDetectingRadar heartbeat sensor]] to spot enemies before they spot you.

* ''VideoGame/DuneII'' was one of the very first RealTimeStrategy games and the TropeCodifier whose design scheme would be used by both Blizzard and Westwood to define the entire genre for years to come. Faction differences boiled down to limiting certain units from a faction and giving them one or two typically impractical high-tier units. Considering that ''[[VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} Warcraft: Orcs and Humans]]'' didn't even have ''that'' and ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianDawn'' largely did the same, it was ground-breaking. Meanwhile, compared to today's RTS games, where different factions could have entirely unique tech trees, structures, and entirely different unit lists, it comes off as lazy.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' was the first ''Zelda'' game to [[GrowingTheBeard add more intricate lore and characters for the series]], and also introduced what would become the series' classic formula for the next twenty years (get three {{MacGuffin}}s, major plot twist, collect some more {{MacGuffin}}s, then defeat the final boss). It was one of the most epic gaming adventures ever at the time of its release. Nonetheless, because its innovations became the standard for the franchise, and its "First Act-Master Sword-Plot Twist-Second Act" plot structure has been repeated time and again for later games, newcomers may have a hard time understanding why ALTTP was a big deal.

** From a technical standpoint, ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaCDiGames'' were actually rather impressive for the time they were released, being one of the first games in 1993 on a console to feature animated cutscenes ''with'' voice acting. However, most of these technical achievements were lost on players due to the fact that most people weren't aware of their existence until the mid-2000s, which by that point, people were already used to more professional cutscenes in games, causing the cutscenes here to be judged as [[SoBadItsGood ridiculous]].

** And then there's the character of Duke himself. In the mid-'90s, he seemed like a perfect embodiment of masculine pride. And, while he wasn't the first FPS protagonist to deviate from the generic ASpaceMarineIsYou character[[note]]''VideoGame/DarkForces'', released almost a year prior, also had a protagonist with a personality that went beyond "generic space marine"[[/note]], he was probably the first to gain significant mainstream attention. When you consider the major leaps in narrative the FPS genre has made ever since (protagonists now have [[DarkAndTroubledPast complex backstories]] and fully developed personalities) and the way recent video games have depicted "manly" characters who are reasonably [[VideoGame/GodOfWar fleshed out]] and [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto developed]] (or, at least, [[VideoGame/{{Blood}} infused with a healthy amount of self deprecating humor, with a genuinely fun personality besides being "macho"]]), Duke's rather un-ironic depiction of the stereotypical "manly man" seems extremely goofy at best and mildly unsettling or cringeworthy at worst.

** Additionally, Sim City was essentially the TropeMaker and the TropeCodifier for the Simulation game - many simulation games would not have been a thing were it not for Sim City's success back in the day. It can be hard to look at the original and how primitive they were after playing more complex Simulation titles.

* While ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' (''MOTHER 2'') is universally regarded as a major improvement from its predecessor, some people find the game's battle system to be clunky and the game's inventory system to be limited and counter-intuitive (a problem that carried over from the previous game). ''VideoGame/MOTHER3'', in comparison, improves on these aspects immensely by streamlining the battle system and giving the player more inventory space, and it has an extra unlimited space exclusive for key items whereas in ''Earthbound'' and ''Earthbound Beginnings'' the key items take up inventory slots. The "clunky" battle system was actually unique for the time because it introduced a rolling counter HP system that gave players a chance to heal before their HP drops to zero if they take a fatal hit. While the game's quirky sense of humor was groundbreaking, it has been copied by other games like ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' causing many people to wonder what made ''[=EarthBound=]'' so special in the first place.

** The twist of the original ''VideoGame/DragonQuestI'' was that once you defeated the BigBad FinalBoss, the Dragon Lord, suddenly he [[OneWingedAngel reveals his true form]] and you get another, more powerful opponent to face before victory. While {{sequential|Boss}} final bosses are nothing new in games these days, at the time this was actually seen as a pretty big twist.

* ''VideoGame/AoOni'' looks barebones by today's standards with its ExcusePlot and fairly cheap graphics, especially when compared to other games of its ilk such as ''VideoGame/MadFather'' and ''VideoGame/{{Ib}}''. But back in 2007, ''Ao Oni'' was considered revolutionary for using UsefulNotes/RPGMaker to create a horror game, enough to spawn a multi-media franchise and kickstart the ExplorerHorror genre.

** While a few recent games have gotten some pretty good remakes, going back to the original ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVII'' can be a bit hard. Even at the time it was released in UsefulNotes/NorthAmerica (2001) it looked a bit dated. The game was originally made for the 64DD in 1996, moved to the UsefulNotes/PlayStation in 1997, and spent a few years in DevelopmentHell. It showed, especially with successor systems within a few months or even ''weeks''.

** One of the criticisms levied at ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden'''s remake, ''Echoes: Shadows of Valentia'' was that the map design is a little ''too'' "NES-Era", featuring larger maps but with enemies that are sometimes even ''less'' in number than your playable characters available. (And with only two or three types, sometimes.) Coming fresh off of ''Fates'', which featured plenty of maps that left you outnumbered and outgunned and some truly unique gimmicks, it felt a little simplistic. The game is still much more polished of a remake than ''Shadow Dragon'' was.

* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' was and still is a very unique game in its own ways. However, its animations and the graphics have ''not'' aged well at ''all'', especially when compared to ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' which followed it . They look ''very'' janky and slow in comparison, and the work of the different illustrators doesn't really translate that well to the small sprite size. The concept itself was also quite unique for an RPG, it comes off as almost like a crossover with people from seven ''completely'' unrelated plotlines all with different illustration styles coming together to fight a GreaterScopeVillain. These days, it isn't anything special, especially after other crossovers entered the mainstream.

* ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'' is a cutesy indie platformer utilizing [[DisguisedHorrorStory its hidden macabre nature]] and InterfaceScrew to mess with the player. When it was released in 2008, this was fairly novel, and it executed the tropes solidly. Now, so many games have attempted this twist that it's become a {{cliche}} more often met with groans than surprise.