Not a series but I tried playing Witcher 3 because of the meme about how much redditors loved it. I played for about 10 hours and got bored and never bothered playing again. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad game but I didn’t understand the hype. Also, despite playing it years late with a decent graphics card, I had regular issues with frames. That is not a performant game.
You mean you didn’t spend a month playing gwent?
I will say Witcher 3 kind of forced AA/AAA games to up the quality of their writing. It still stands up as some of the best writing in games, but maybe a little less obviously so after a decade of other competent game stories.
What’s really exceptional is how pretty much every sidequest is also very well written, with believable characters and compelling situations. Many games, again especially before W3, might have pretty good main plots, but the sidequests would just be endless dross with maybe one or two standouts.
As for performance, you probably enabled some silly options. Both Witcher 2 and 3 pushed the envelope in crazy ways for PC graphics; there’s an ultra setting on W2 that was still bringing GPUs to their knees a decade later as well. The game still looks great if you turn it down a little.
Final Fantasy.
Music is good, but the story seems drawn out and repetitive, and a little too “edgy”, mainly with Cloud’s story.
Try the old ones. I played III in 2016 and still felt it was a great game.
Edgy was the style at the time. That might be a case of needing to adjust expectations to the time it was created in.
Final fantasy 7 came out 2 years before the matrix movie for example. Edgy was huge.
Final fantasy 8 starts out similarly, but turns into a much better romance story with all the same zaniness.
Final fantasy 9 is a more classical fantasy from that era. After final fantasy 9 it gets more modern, but that one at least loses the edge that you didn’t like in seven.
Pretty much anything really plot driven or with prescribed paths to victory. I like a bit of room for creativity and decision making.
Don’t really have one of those I suppose :3… even with games that are very much not my cup of tea I can see what aspects may be enjoyable to other people
Yeah, it’s actually the concept of not understanding the popularity that is alien to me. Even with something like QWOP I can imagine someone liking the extreme challenge along with the ridiculous animations.
Balatro.
The first one was good though.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
It was my first Zelda game, and I did not know anything about the characters or the world. Any story bits that give the characters any personality are collectibles that you find out of order.
The game just could not make me care about the world or the characters.
By the time I finished the game, I was just glad it was over. Though I did finish it.
Yeah… TotK is better, but I felt like I already burned out on how repetitive BotW was so I stopped after a couple hours. If I had only played the second game I bet I would have a more favorable opinion.
FIFA, NBA, Madden or any popular sports game, really. Just to start off, I don’t like sports games in general, but that’s on me. The part I don’t understand is the level of hype for each new iteration when for the last decade it’s been the same game with the same engine, same effects, slightly different roster and sometimes even missing features. Like, what are people excited for exactly? More of the same?
I can’t speak for the other games, but as a former player, FIFA did change a lot each year, usually its changes to physics, game speed, skill moves, mini games, and ofc graphics. Not $60 worth of game changes, but I’d argue it’s similar with things like call of duty. Best value was always to skip every other year.
Also gambling. Doesn’t get talked about enough but FIFA YouTubers are more or less payed by EA to shill packs and get people (usually teens) addicted to opening them. I probably bought $200 a year on packs from 2016-2020, usually money I didnt have too. Mostly why I stopped buying the games. (Stopped playing CounterStrike for the same reason)
These days, I just casually play mods of older games and get football manager every other game.
Also gambling.
I can’t believe I completely forgot about the gambling aspect, good call. The trailer for NBA 2k20 was especially disgusting in this regard.
I had an aggressive gambling problem as a teen. 2016 would have been my worst because I was still gambling on counter strike skin sites. I’d save up every dollar mom would give me to run to the store or whatever (I’d lie and say things were more expensive than they were), throw it onto prepaid visas and just waste it.
I can’t even begin to describe the amount that I spent.
Hollow Knight. I know the new game is coming out tomorrow (?) but I just couldn’t get into the way the game feels. I love Metroidvanias but something about Hollow Knight and it’s gameplay just didn’t make me come back for more.
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That’s crazy… The only complaint I ever hear about the game that I have to begrudgingly accept and move on is from people who just detest any amount of backtracking, i.e. people who hate metroidvanias.
Everything about the game’s feel, from the controls and movement to the art and atmosphere, I would rate as best-in-class. Unless you get creeped out by bugs or cannot stand anything animated, I cannot fathom what your complaint is.
I’m curious how much you played – I will say that the game does bury the lead a bit, both artistically and mechanically. The first area seems almost monochrome and until you get the dash your prime form of locomotion is walking. But once you’ve been to a few different areas you start to realize how much bigger the game world is than you initially thought.
I think one issue with the game is that you should probably play largely unguided. Most gamers today can’t play games without a guide up though. Yeah, the game is going to suck if you aren’t engaging with the main premise of exploration and discovery.
I put about 10 hours into the game. I think the way hits and getting hit feels. It’s been a while but doesn’t the screen pause slightly when it happens?
I know people complain about the difficulty but I was fine with what I experienced in it. I grew up in the 80s playing the original Mega Man games hahaha.
Mmm, there is a bit of knockback. There’s a trinket you can equip that basically eliminates that, but learning to deal with it is just part of the combat flow.
This is what I’m talking about. There’s a pause when you take hits. It reminds me of how Zelda games makes combat feel in the 3D titles.
It seems like more reddit indie shit. It would make sense there are people who can’t comprehend how others wouldn’t like it.
Reddit is a bubble.
It’s the walking and movement for me. Getting to places takes ages. Compared it most other metroidvanias, which have denser fast travel and/or more movement options, HK is lacking, the dash is marginally faster and the ultra dash is situational, basically only for dedicated spots. This isn’t as much of an issue in most Soulsborne games, which HK was going for, but you don’t go back to old areas as much there. Even Elden Ring’s open world throws a shitton of fast travel spots and has everything you need in a small hub.
I will admit the combat didn’t gel with me too much either, despite being a FromSoft fan. Not sure about that one, maybe it’s the precision of movement required.
Maybe Silksong will do better with Hornet’s faster movement, but I won’t be buying it now.
For fast travel, part of the design is about shortcuts, which I prefer. It’s closer to the Dark Souls 1 philosophy instead of the later games. One cohesive world that makes sense that you exist within and learn, instead of fast traveling every 10 meters.
I agree with the dash though. Spamming it to move a little faster was so annoying. I’m playing Silksong and the new dash you can hold to sprint, and it’s much nicer.
The thing is that even Dark Souls 1 had the decency to put the main blacksmith near a warp bonfire (and still decently close to the hub before you get warp, Blighttown being the only stretch far from one. You can reinforce anywhere, mind you, but Andre’s the main source of Titanite shards anyway), and letting you redeem your currency items at any moment.
Hollow Knight has you dragging your feet to both for what felt like 5 minutes, and then another 5 minutes to get back to the fast travel point, and then maybe some 5 more to get to wherever you might want to spend that currency on, because few of them are in what’s supposed to be the hub of the game. Actually, just fuck the currency items in particular. Technically it makes currency more precious than Souls’, where you can pull 30k at any moment if you want, but it’s just a pain the ass in practice.
I remember the merchant in the brown toxic place taking time in particular. Maybe there was some skill issue there where I should have ignored them and went on shopping sprees only every 5 hours or so, rather than trying to make things easier regularly, but in either case I didn’t like it.
Call of Duty. I had fun for the first few and Modern Warfare, but then it just kept going.
I really liked World at War but that was the last one where it felt like they had an actual story to tell.
Same! I could just never get into it even though I enjoy first person shooters
Dark souls and the like. It just feels tedious and boring. Monster Hunter is the same for me
Are you too skilled for Dark Souls, sir? The process of killing enemies and being afraid of dying thus losing 20 minutes of progress is the game itself.
Yet unmentioned: Halo. I remember being introduced to the first one and being completely unimpressed. It just wasn’t that much technically better than the competition, and the world as far as I could see was super boring.
Halos multiplayer was revolutionary. I’m not defending it though. I never liked it either but you have to admit it was a game changer.
Having never owned an Xbox, I never really played any Halo besides when I had a go with my brothers. But I have to say, the co-op multiplayer on Halo 2 (I think it was) was incredible.
Going into a room, he’d go left, I’d go right, and together we’d clear it out before moving to the next. It was great.
What was revolutionary about it? It was just a mid arena shooter.
For the average person, it was the first experience with a multiplayer shooter. Yeah, there were many available on PC for much longer, but most people had no contact with them. Halo was the one to bring the internet to mainstream gaming.
Other than that, yeah, it didn’t change that much. It did revolutionize controller shooter controls though, more than any game since Goldeneye probably. Gameplay is just standard arena shooter though —maybe a little (or a lot if you’re looking at the likes of Quake) slower to accommodate controllers.
Literally everything about it was revolutionary. One of the first games to have primary/secondary weapons. One of the first games to have vehicles and special weapons in an “open world” map. Regenerative shields.
A lot of games had these elements but no one had all of them in an online multiplayer game for console. Console gaming was still growing and Halo set a standard for literally every fps shooter after it.
Yeah the “for console” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
I’ve always liked that in Halo games you survive long enough to react, unlike in most FPS games where it’s basically whoever sees the other first wins.
You were probably a PC player. Halo was designed for the console experience, which is why (on top of massive marketing) it did so well. It really dragged shooter design into the mud for years, arguably we’ve never recovered.
Anything with PvP.
Final fantasy and everything Hideo Kojima. I don’t get it.
I haven’t played a FF game in years, but grew up playing them. At least up through FF10, the stories were compelling. The turn based game play is slow, and I get not enjoying that, but I liked the writing the most.
Having just finished the first Death Stranding, I agree with you re: Kojima.
Don’t get me wrong, the game is great; I ended up enjoying the delivery aspect more and more as it went on. But man, the story is…tough. The broad strokes of it are interesting, but I feel like the inertia of it got lost in the attempt to make it a multiple-hour open world.
As a whole, the game is undeniably an incredible piece of work. While you’re immersed in it it’s wonderful. But when you stop to think about it for even a few seconds, it flakes away.
And, like I said, while you’re playing, you’re really into it, you get to the end game, you ‘defeat’ the final boss. Then there’s the best part of 90 minutes worth of exposition to explain the parts of the story that weren’t explained DURING THE STORY. Never before have I played a game that had to put so much effort into explaining itself.
But somehow it all works. The experience of playing it is excellent. Or maybe Kojima just has his own reality distortion field.
“Everything Hideo Kojima,” do you mean Metal Gear Solid 5 and Death Stranding?
I find it hard to believe that you’ve played his other games and still have this opinion. It’s much more believable that you’re kind of young and only played what was released when you were around.
No I never got those because I don’t like Hideo Kojima, watching about a hour of each on twitch was good enough to tell it’s not gonna be significantly more my taste than the other MGS games, nice try at patronizing an opinion simply because you don’t share it though, real cute.
It’s okay if I was right about my assumption.
You’re inexperienced, and it makes sense you would be insecure about that.
Dense and patronizing, classic Kojima fanboy, just adorable.
If you don’t like him, that’s fine. You’re just basing your opinion off of what I assumed you were.
Now you’re insecure and attacking me instead of learning. I can’t say I expected more from the next generation.
Persona 5 and disco Elysium.
Gameplay akin to pulling your own teeth out but you don’t even get to choose which tooth you want to pull
In terms of difficulty or emotional/mental load? Disco Elysium is pretty fucked up but kinda awesome when you get into it IMO.
In terms of funness and having agency. I tired to put a tie on and failed a rng check for that. Then I tried to get a guy out of a tree and failed a rng check for that. And then the game said “sniff bath salts and you won’t vomit when getting the guy out of the tree.” So I went and scoured the area for bath salts for like 15mins, finally got them. Then went back to get the guy out of the tree and failed anyway because it doesn’t always work. Not to worry though. I just have to wait another 6hrs before I can try again to presumably fail again.
Believe it or not I actually like to make decisions and deal with the consequences of those decisions rather than just fail arbitrarily at objectives the game tells me I should be doing.
Disco Elysium was aesthetically pleasing and I loved the vibes but the game sucked.
Think of it as a dice rolling tabletop RPG
Nat 1’s only
Definitely wasn’t my experience. The way you solve puzzles largely depends on how you set up your character, and each problem had different ways you could approach it. There’s also no single ‘correct’ path through the game. Failure is just part of the story. Kind of weird to complain that a role playing game has RPG mechanics in it if you ask me.
I picked the default recommended character. How was I supposed to know the optimal build to complete the first objective on my first run. Why should I even assume that the recommended characters are incapable of doing things? I’m fine with rpg mechanics, the problem I had was I tried to do the first objective 3 different ways, failed all three times due to no fault of my own and then got progress locked. The game actually said “you have to wait 6 hours before you can try again.”
Genuinely what is the point of continuing after that. I wasn’t able to do anything and didn’t find the gameplay satisfying up to that point. The next thing to do was go afk and wait it out. I don’t want to do that, so why should I keep playing.
I didn’t do anything special with my character build, and ran through the game just fine. Maybe you just got supremely unlucky, but doesn’t seem to be representative of the experience most people have had. 🤷
I got about as far as you… Might go at it again because the FOMO on the hype is big. The writing felt like reading a thesaurus…
I didn’t mind the writing. Thought the hyper stylised nature of it clashed with the “you can’t do anything and always fail” type gameplay though.
It’s an RPG… You have stats and those stats dictate how good of a chance you have at achieving something. That’s why you can play this game in so many ways. Just go with it when you fail something. Most times it doesn’t matter, it just changes the way you play the game.
Sure, but how about how good you are is determined not by arbitrarily stats but by how good you are. Also having a stat spread that makes you literally incapable of doing the very first tasks the game gives you is not my idea of good design.
Your inability to deal with extremely minor setbacks is pretty funny given the content of the game. You got filtered by being too much like the protagonist, RIP
That’s just not the point of a role playing game. You’d need some action game instead. It’s completely cool that you don’t like the game but it just sounds like you were expecting something not-rpg from an rpg.
It’s hands down one of the best games I’ve played. The story was incredible, the world building was top notch, the characters were really well written, and the narrator was brilliant.
Persona 5 is one of my least favorite games of all time and I regularly rant about how much I hate the UI/UX.
Wdym (genuine), persona 5 gameplay is the best turn based system with shin megami tensei v
It’s an anime with a “press a to view next scene” feature
This brushes aside the superb combat and dungeon design it offers. But that’s unfortunate you don’t like visual novels
GTA. I’m a SciFi and fantasy guy so it just doesn’t do anything for me.
What about Cyberpunk?
Have you tried No Man’s Sky? I’ve just recently picked it up and its got me absolutely hooked.
NMS came out on macOS around the same time I got my M2 Air. Being a huge 65daysofstatic fan, I played it for a bit when it first came out, but I didn’t have my own PC, so it was on my wife’s, meaning I couldn’t play that much.
Anyway, I was stoked to finally be able to play it on my own computer and put hours and hours into it. But the thing I could never really shake is just how lonely it feels. I get that that’s part of the point, but after a while it begins to feel really quite oppressive.
Honestly I think the loneliness is what really got me into it. Recently I’ve lost touch with my usual gaming group due to scheduling conflicts and it makes it hard to play a multiplayer game knowing what could have been. Nms feels like it gets that and the whole story basically centers around that feeling. It’s kind of cathartic.
I hate NMS. I got gaslit into playing it again after people clamoring for years that they “fixed the game”. Big surprise, it’s still the same miles wide but micrometer-deep puddle that is was on launch.
Everything aspect of the game is clunky and frustrating and unsatisfying. Exploration is literally the only reason to play the game and even that manages to be stale and minimally exciting, which is truly impressive given the numbers on display. Within 45 seconds of landing on most planets you’ve seen everything there is to see on them, and the exceptions usually just mean another chore.
Sure, you can build a base, you can build up a fleet of ships, you can play with your friends… But to what end? All the ships handle the same, they just have more space or slightly better numbers. Combat is hilariously boring, and the ostensible goal of reaching the center of the universe becomes old far before you get even close. The story that exists is very “I’m 14 and this is sci-fi”, and they stretch it so hard that each crumb you’re given just feels insulting.
I’ve actually taken to it the same way I do Minecraft. I expect I’ll run out of game to do eventually as everyone keeps saying there isn’t any depth, but I’ve spent the last few days smuggling gravatino orbs off sentinal planets and building a hookah lounge in the portside barracks of my ship. I just wish I could type logs up ingame like I journal in Minecraft.
I’ve tried to get into it periodically. I like aspects of it, but it’s also very bland in some ways I find. Like there are infinite cool planets to discover, but the resources are more or less the same on each and across the whole thing. There’s so much to see, but so little meat on the bones I guess?
I need a bit more pulling me forward than what that game gives you I think. The phrase “wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle” has been my experience with it unfortunately. I know a lot of people like it these days, though.
Would building your own medium size space ship that you can cook food in while autopilot takes you to the next planet help? Because that’s the current update.
Is there much depth to that? I’ve found in the past they keep adding new systems, and each new one has exactly the same issue of being another thing that’s not super deep. And by deep I mean full of surprises and things to learn, not you can technically do it for a long time.
It’s mostly aesthetic as far as I’ve seen, though it basically removes the need for houses and you don’t have to go to the Anomaly to start missions.
