Sometimes you can recall a fondness for old things. Things you remember from your childhood with warmth and a sense of nostalgia. How it felt to watch that film for the first time, to play that game, to follow that character’s journey. A sense of nostalgia can change your perception of a piece of media entirely.

How I wish some games I’ve played could stay the way they were in my brain.

Recently I replayed Fable for the original Xbox, remembering the large-scale epic fantasy adventure, with its story of growth in the face of a tragic past. The fame system, where your actions in the world impacted the way the various NPCs saw you and interacted with you. The world-traveling quests to save town from hoards of monsters, and showing off the monsters’ heads to villagers to be met with praise and admiration. You were a hero and a celebrity, honing your abilities to bring joy or terror wherever you tread.

I recalled the countless hours sunk into this game when I was younger. The swordplay, the archery, the huge talking doors with faces, and the designated button just for farting. (Yeah, that was a real mechanic.) Revisiting this game, however, changed everything I remembered.

This game is ugly. Like, really ugly.

Characters are hard to look at, animations are clunky, and the world is just a bore to move around. Nothing felt right, and the worst of all… nothing felt how I remembered. All of the joy this game brought me was somehow missing, despite it being the same game I remember playing. All of the color and wonder from trouncing around this vast world was replaced with gray and brown empty maps that occasionally spawned a dozen enemies you can easily just spam your attack button at. The story suffered quite the same fate, as now it just felt like a slog to get through. One story beat after another feeling tedious and tactless, to the point I didn’t really care to be saving my sibling at that point.

For the first time in a long time, I felt the need to just put the game down and disengage. I couldn’t stand to have my current feelings taint the experience I remember so fondly anymore. So, I’ve put down Fable and I likely will not be touching it again any time soon. A sad fate for a game to just be hung up, shelved and rotting away where I won’t be touching it again. Yet, I’d rather that than bear destroying the entire experience like I had for the first few hours.

Unlike another game that I recently replayed where I sat through the whole experience just wondering when it would let up. When it would be as good as I remembered again. When I’d experience that childlike wonder again. Super Paper Mario.

Super Paper Mario was a classic for me, though I only played it the one time right when it came out, I remember even then feeling so much love for the world and the story and the characters, but still something disturbed me. This is the sequel to my favorite video game ever made, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and yet it couldn’t be further separated. I always remember being quite disappointed that the game felt so different from the ones that came before it, and yet I also remember being quite forgiving as I played it more, because the story that was unfolding was so unique and full of charm.

Upon replaying this game for recent livestreams with Robin Hearts (shoutout), I found myself feeling these ways again. As the series shifted from an RPG to a 2-D platformer, the physics changed to match, but never felt polished. Yes, despite being a spin-off to a series that defined what 2-D platformers should be, Super Paper Mario didn’t nail that feeling at all. Instead it feels floaty as hell, nothing seems to have any weight to it, and the combat probably took the worst beating in the transition. Without any weight or impact to your movements, having to jump on enemies feels awful, and considering this is a 20 hour long game, you’ll really have to get used to being dissatisfied with the physics of it all.

Aside from this, the world that has so much charm and identity only really shows that at face-value. Once you look deeper, you realize you’re looking at big empty rooms that have nothing in them, over and over and over again as you search for solutions to puzzles that can be surmised as, “push a button to open the door”. And if you can’t find the button, flip to 3D or point your controller at the screen for the button to appear. Simple as that.

It feels like they decided that Paper Mario was going to be a series mainly for children at this point, so why do we have to dig deeper than the surface level for gameplay? And that just sucks. Especially when this story and these characters are filled with so much love and passion. This game’s story has made me cry, but this game’s gameplay has made me just want to stop playing. To turn it off and forget it even exists.

I wish these titles could just be locked in the past, where I can always just remember them fondly for what they were; what they meant to me in the period of my life when I first encountered them. Nostalgia can’t always fix things. You can’t always use nostalgia as a way to put on some blinders and pretend things were just amazing. Sadly I proved my nostalgia wrong and have tainted some good experiences by trying to revisit them with good intentions. I can’t get those good feelings back now and that just kinda sucks.

Luckily this doesn’t apply to every experience, as I can always go back to the original two Paper Mario games and enjoy those to their full extent each time. There’s plenty of childhood games that I do remember fondly that I think really still hold up. It’s just a sad experience when it doesn’t pan out that way.

To end this on a lighter note, what’s a game you love from your childhood that still holds up every time you play it? Sound off in the comments below! I know I already mentioned Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door here for myself, but I also love to revisit Sonic Adventure 2 and Hitman: Blood Money. Those games are always a joy for me.

-Kady