Why are old school RPGs held in such high esteem?

In a thread that posted not too long ago, some were showering praise upon RPGs that are over a decade old. Sure, games I agree that games like Phantasy Star 2 were amazing 14 years ago, but to look upon them as classics is ridiculous. Nostalgia might be telling us that these games have some certain charm or beauty that is exclusive to the 8 bit era, but anyone who would juxtapose something like KOTOR and some early 8 bit game can tell you that…. Not only is the former a billion times better in every aspect, but PS2 is a terrible game that can’t even hold a candle to Beyond the Beyond and its ilk.

Likewise, KOTOR might be an incredible game today, but chances are the evolutionary nature of the genre will make it obsolete within the next 15 years or so.

How do you feel about this matter?

Rpgs aren't highly renowned for gameplay, now are they? It's all about the graphics and story. That's why I play rpgs, anyways. A friend just today lent me Kingdom Hearts, and while the gameplay so far seems middling, the presentation is incredible, so I'll keep playing it. I think those people you mentioned exalting such old rpgs still have fond memories of them, and that's why they wouldn't mind playing them again, or talking about them with high regard. As for myself, the same friend also recently lent me FF Chronicles, the one with FF2 and Chrono Trigger. I tried getting into FF2, but ten minutes in I died and just gave up. I loved CT back in the day, but just peaking at the game made me realize I'll never play it again. Advances in presentation (Kingdom Hearts, Xenosaga) and storytelling (KOTOR) are what keep me interested in the genre at all these days.

While I play RPGs mainly for the gameplay, which is why I've been sticking mainly to SRPGs recently since the gameplay in most RPGs seems downright lazy at times, KOTOR included (it's NWN with a few Star Wars bumper stickers slapped on). KOTOR is one of the few expections where the story and characters let me overlook it's gameplay flaws, though it wasn't too flawed to begin with.

Different people have different tastes. I never played the original Final Fantasy in 8-bit -- in fact, my only playing of any FF game was FF 2 (or was it 3?) on the SNES many years ago, which I didn't like at the time and stopped playing -- but I really loved FF Origins. So it's not nostalgia.

You may also have a different view of "classic." The Model T is a classic, but not something most of us would want to drive on a daily basis.

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Originally Posted by xS

PS2 is a terrible game that can’t even hold a candle to Beyond the Beyond and its ilk.

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PS2 is widely viewed as a classic, and Beyond the Beyond junk, by just about everyone.

I havent played kotor..

Besides that the console rpg genre isnt exactly known to be progressive. The advancements it has made is more or less visual only.

I don't even know what KOTOR stands for, but Phantasy Star 2 is a good game. Sure, the graphics nowadays look poor, the animation looks limited (at the time it was one of the only RPGs with battle animation), the musics aren't 8 voices with CD quality, but man, is that game addictive. Plus honestly I don't think 10% of the people who played that game didn't use the walkthrough.
Take Y's for example or Xanadu. Sure, those look bad by today's standarts, and are pretty simple, but they are ten times more fun than, say, FF9. FF9 is a good game, but it's not fun.
At least that's my take on it.

If it has a good story I'll play through it once. If it has a good story and good/fun gameplay, multiple times. If I just find that it's plot, the characters, gameplay, and everything about it is just unbelievably well done, then I'll play it like I do Tactics, once every few months. RPGs are supposed to be about story, this is my opinion of course. Not sure why, but a lot of the "classic" RPGs had really fucking good storys. Phantasy Star IV is really fucking good to this day, I agree that 2 was... well it was great then, but now it's just ass.

Well some games are truly classics. Like Lunar on Sega CD or the newer Arc the Lad collection -- these games will still be good to me 20 years from now for the story etc. The graphics in older 2-D games are just as good IMO as new 3-D stuff, actually I prefer 2-D stuff and feel that stuff done during the Saturn era is most likely the pinnacle of 2-D gaming. Viewing these older games through RGB makes you realize how good they really are. It's the same with Genesis games that still surpass most of today's efforts.

I mean if you use this mentality, then old black and white movies with poorly done effects are no good compared to today's efforts...which isn't true at all. It all comes down to what you prefer. To me, classic games never age, especially well done 2-D style RPGs, I will always prefer these over newer 3-D ones for the most part...PS2 on the other hand was never considered a classic by me, but the Shining Force series is, Lunar, Final Fantasy 3, and a few other classics that I don't think have been surpassed by newer games...

When I play a new RPG on a PS2 today, the games usually shower me with great graphics and a tremendous amount of cinema scenes....... This in my opinion is being forcfully fed an environment that the creator wants you to see.

When I play an RPG on SNES, the graphics for the most part are very primitive, and the cinema scenes are reduced to only reading dialogue. Thus the creator lets YOU the player use his or her imagination to take the words and graphics and make it to what YOU interpret the game to be saying. AKA reading a good book.

Thus one of the reasons why I dont play RPGs on PS2.

It is the same as in any genre. People (like me), love Contra, but if you weren't there when it first came out and play it today (and juxtaposition it next to say, Metal Slug), you wouldn't care about the nostalgic value since there isn't any (for you).

As far as classic RPG, I know I could never sit down and play something like Dragon Warrior I again. I remember liking the game and finishing it, but I also remember that you fight battles every 2 step and there was very little strategy to the battles. The one RPG that really stood out for me and still enjoyable after all these years is Phantasy Star 1. That game is amazing. Other than the fact that you have to bring graphing paper to map out the First Person View dungeons (which I don't mind, but an automapping function would have been cool), PS1 is one of the best RPG experience you can have (if you like twists and turns in your story). It still does some things alot better than most other RPGs (you actually have to do some work to gain additional party members, etc).