5 Video Games From 1995 That Aged Worse Than Anyone Expected

While the ’90s saw huge advances for the gaming industry, from its growing size to the jumps in technology, many games in the decade didn’t age all that well. Whether it’s differences in cultural sensibilities or games that initially seemed revolutionary but quickly became noticeably outdated, many titles just don’t stand the test of time. There are games from the ’90s that would never be made today for a variety of reasons. This includes titles released in 1995, a pivotal time as the Sega Saturn and original PlayStation both launched in North America.

With the industry rapidly changing, that meant many major games from 1995 felt dated by the end of the year. Even the biggest contemporary franchises and publishers weren’t immune to this distinction as they struggled to keep up with the competition. We’re highlighting titles that, looking back over 30 years later, have suffered from the passage of time worse than many of their contemporaries. These are five video games from 1995 that aged worse than anyone expected, and they are very much products of their era.

As one of the biggest fighting game franchises around, plenty of video games from the ’90s tried to copy “Mortal Kombat,” but few could match its success. This winning streak continued into 1995 with “Mortal Kombat 3,” one of the most played arcade conversion kits of the year. In keeping with the series’ formula, the game involved players choosing from a variety of fighters to advance in a lethal martial arts tournament. This culminates in a showdown with the otherworldly tyrant Shao Kahn to thwart his attempted conquest of Earth.

Though a commercial hit, reviewers were less than impressed with “Mortal Kombat 3,” criticizing its clunkier controls, uninspired new fighters, and the omission of fan-favorite characters like Scorpion and Raiden.

Seven months later, Midway Games released “Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3,” which rebalanced and refined the gameplay while adding to the game’s playable roster, including the return of Scorpion. 11 months after that, Midway released “Mortal Kombat Trilogy” for home consoles, further improving the gameplay while restoring even more characters to the roster, including Raiden and Johnny Cage. In light of these two updated titles, the original “Mortal Kombat 3,” while still widely available both in arcades and through home ports, stands as the clearly inferior experience.

In 1993, Konami released “Castlevania: Rondo of Blood” as an exclusive title for the Japanese PC Engine, breaking from the franchise’s tradition of being available on Nintendo platforms. Taking place in 1792 in the wider “Castlevania” timeline, the game has Richter Belmont face Dracula to rescue a group of women kidnapped by the vampire, including his girlfriend Annette. The game was heavily retooled for the 1995 Super Nintendo release “Castlevania: Dracula X,” retaining the broader narrative premise and enemy design but with original and redesigned levels. This was done to accommodate the SNES’ cartridge format, though Konami rushed production on this version, which is reflected by the final product.

The butchering of “Rondo of Blood” to make “Dracula X” is one of the worst crimes committed against “Castlevania.” The graphical presentation is visibly worse than its PC Engine counterpart while many of the features present in “Rondo of Blood,” including branching paths and its second playable character, are removed. Worse yet, the gameplay feels stiffer than it did on the PC Engine, highlighted by the more frustrating level design. After “Rondo of Blood” finally received a North American release in 2007 and wasre-released on several other modern platforms, “Dracula X” and its comparative flaws are more apparent than ever.

The comic book industry was booming in the early ’90s and Sega tried to capitalize on this with its Genesis title “Comix Zone.” The game follows comic book creator Sketch Turner, with the supervillain that he created, Mortus, escaping from its pages to confront him. Mortus traps Sketch in his own comic, along with his pet rat, in an effort to kill his creator and steal his flesh-and-blood existence. Sketch navigates the post-apocalyptic world from his comic book story to find a way to defeat Mortus and return to the real world.

While “Comix Zone” is actually worth playing, there are several elements of it that make it feel too dated for modern audiences. The game has a particularly unforgivable difficulty level, even by the industry’s standards at the time, which is likely off-putting to current gamers. Sketch’s design, the in-game references and jokes, and overall aesthetics feel more like a ’90s parody than organically representing the era. While the concept and gameplay itself are solid, “Comix Zone” feels like it tries too hard to appeal to its target market. It’s a choice that’s even more painfully obvious now.

As Sega shifted its focus to the Saturn, one of the last games released for the Sega CD peripheral on the Genesis was “Wild Woody.” A side-scrolling platformer, the game’s titular protagonist is a sentient pencil who searches for the totem pole pieces that brought him to life. Woody can erase enemies and certain elements of the environment with his eraser-tipped head, and draw allies and other features to help him. Progressing across five levels, each based on a different reality, Woody tries to stop the out-of-control magic from destroying the universe.

Thanks to “Wild Woody,” the Sega CD went out with a whimper instead of bang, which is fitting for the divisive peripheral. Woody has a cocky attitude (common in a lot of rude ’90s protagonists) in a failed effort to be cool, backed by a laughable soundtrack trying to sound hip. This makes the game’s cutscenes particularly cringeworthy while the gameplay itself was nothing all that special. When the Sega CD died, it took “Wild Woody” with it and, looking back, that’s probably for the best.

Though the ’80s classic “Dragon’s Lair” was an arcade game that changed gaming forever, quick-time event-driven animated games were not top shelf menu fare in the ’90s. That didn’t stop the Canadian studio ReadySoft from releasing the similar title “Brain Dead 13,” a horror-themed twist on the genre. The game’s protagonist is Lance Galahad, who is called in to provide tech support to a mad scientist at his castle hideout only to learn his client is planning to conquer the world. As Lance tries to derail the scientist’s plans, he has to contend with the death traps and monsters scattered around the castle.

Lance is another protagonist, like Sketch Turner or Wild Woody, who comes off as trying too hard to seem cool to ’90s gamers. That means the gags frequently fall flat on their face and there is little to no emotional investment in Lance’s adventure. The gameplay, which revolves around quick-time events with little margin for error, had long overstayed its welcome by the end of the ’80s, much less by 1995. Over 30 years later, “Brain Dead 13” feels like even more of a relic. It’s one without the nostalgic charm or quality of “Dragon’s Lair,” underlining what it takes to keep games feeling fresh years later.