The first game that comes to mind for me is Civilizations 4. I’ve probably spent hundreds of hours playing but after getting used to 5 and 6 I have a really hard time going back. Going back and forth between 5 and 6 I need to rethink some strategies but with 4 I feel like I need to rethink everything. I don’t know if it’s because of the tech tree layout in combination with the civics system, things like unit stacking, or maybe just a bunch of little things but it takes me a while to readjust.
I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t revisit that still exists.
So things like Diablo 3 vanilla. man, fuck whoever thought of balance patching single player games.
or WoW BC, it’s the people and excess free time of youth that made it good so it will never exist again.
Maybe Shenmue 2 import. I finished that game without knowing a word of Japanese, that’s a lot of time investment I’m glade I made but wouldn’t want to repeat …
One of my hottest takes is I liked vanilla D3 better than what it became. Taking out trade and economy made all items feel worthless. Getting a primal ancient legendary just didn’t hit like finding a high end weapon in vanilla, or a high rune in D2.
the real money auction house was a mistake that ruined drops but I’m right there with you, I’d play day 1 D3 over the current mess if I could.
Yahhhh RMAH was a good idea in theory. In practice, having RMT harder to access and shadier works much better than building your game and its drop rates around an actual auction house. When I was young I hated RMT so it feels weird saying that.