Planetside 2, for me.
It was never perfect, yet it’s basically dying of old age. I think that’s quite an achievement for an MMOFPS.
And I’m pretty sure there will never be another game like it, at its scale (and Foxhole doesn’t count IMO).
100% agree. I was a Briggs veteran for a long time after the peak. My username (not this one) is in the RecordSmash official post recognising the 1158-player world record. The Daybreak takeover was concerning, but we pushed through.
But realistically I just “accomplished” everything I reasonably could have, and then they took my server away from me. My time with the game ended, but I have no regrets. What a phenomenal experience it was at the time.
I miss the days of Briggs’ undefeated Server Smash streak. I led a squad in the first three-way smash (not this username) and I still remember what a rush it was. I eventually got to a point where I had reached BR100 (before they increased the cap), the server population was dwindling, and I just wasn’t having fun any more so I drifted away from the game. I don’t regret the time I spent with it.
Ah man now I’m curious. What faction? We maybe crossed paths. I was dominantly NC in D1RE/SHOK, VS in CIVZ back in my early days.
TR in BOTM, we probably did cross paths since the server wasn’t that big
Planetside 2 at its peak was such a cool and unique experience. Shame it’s withering and dying
Halo since 2
This is bait.
Reach was (and still is) the best one. ODST is over hyped and I will fucking armor lock on that hill.
Ace Attorney (a.k.a. Phoenix Wright)
It peaked in the first trilogy. Each game built on what was good about the previous game while adding a new mechanism that flashed out another part of the game.
The second trilogy of games collapsed trying to follow it up. Both the writing and gameplay show the same issue. The games are trying to be a clean break with new characters and powers but the game designers were afraid that they might scare away fans of previous games, so the old characters and gameplay all come back to make an appearance. None of it works. The returning characters and gameplay are all very brief and shallow without the progression they got in their original games, but they take up so much space that the new characters and mechanics don’t have room to build up over the course of 4-5 cases in a game.
I am now trudging through the two prequel games. The game designers finally had the determination to make a clean break, but it seems that they lost the magic of the initial games. There are new characters and new gameplay. There is too much plot, not enough game. There is too much (bad) writing between player interactions and when they happen, the game is more hand holdy to make sure the player is given a bucket of clues about what to do next. And there is no reason to make the game easier, since there is a new easy mode that plays the game for a player if they ever get stuck.
Yeah, so often I want Capcom to process that Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is my least favorite of the whole series, not because of the new protagonist, but because Phoenix is way too present in it.
I can start to see some indie games following through on the formula, which to me is a great evolution though. Very little has the creative inventiveness of the original trilogy though. So hard to alleviate from brain drain.
Assassin’s Creed
Diablo
There’s more, but those two hurt the worst.
Don’t you guys have phones? will live rent free in my head as one of the funniest on stage failures ever.
You can tell they were so far up their own asses by not being able to forsee that. Any gamer would have told you “fine announce the mobile game. But you better be fucking ready to also announce the next actual installment too”
It does annoy me a lot that diablo immoral made “LOL, WHAT WERE YOU SAYING, HATERS???” amounts of money
I kind of enjoyed Valhalla … but maybe that’s because I’d never played any other AC games in the past, so I didn’t have any expectations to disappoint.
Overall, on the better side of mid. General gameplay and exploration was pretty fun, world was very detailed and beautiful. The AC parts seemed a bit shoehorned in. Hated the arbitrary parkour challenges, and really really hated the modern-day meta storyline. Kind of wish they’d just have let all the AC stuff go and just made a fun Viking game without any of that other bullshit. Still, I enjoyed playing it for quite a while. Maybe I’ll play it again someday, but it’s definitely not on my shortlist of replayable games I keep coming back to.
I haven’t even played it the first time but it seems like they’ve made them so long that replay would be a burden.
Yeah, that’s how people started to feel around ACIV: Black Flag.
But during AC1-3, we were all excited to learn more about the modern day mysteries and have more assassin stuff. We all wanted more!
Then Ubisoft decided to make it a yearly thing and kill off any characters with plot points that might hinder their multiplayer battle pass, yearly release dreams. Then it all fell apart and they had to scale back… But the damage was done.
Command & Conquer. I don’t think I’ll ever touch 4. Tempest Rising is great so there’s that. I guess I’ll just keep playing Tiberium Wars until time stops.
Tiberium Wars is definitely peak and pinnacle…even tho I suck at it. :)
Franchises are like bubble gum. If you try to make them last too much they lose all taste.
I’ll miss you, dragon age!
Borderlands.
I will miss those lighthearted adventures…
Word.
Borderlands 2 had my best game memories beating Vermivorous the Invincible with 3 friends, me playing as Maya. First of all getting it to spawn is tense.
I so desperately want to like BL2 because it has Gaige, my favorite Vault Hunter of all time, but I can’t replay it because the story is so infuriating to me. It’s like the writers are punishing me for thinking the Vault Hunters from the first game were cool.
First time I’ve seen this take. BL2’s story is my favorite of the series, and the best feature of the game IMO. Then 3 happened…
For me it was Pokemon.
Started in order and got the games new as they came out since DPP. The core of the game to me was exploration, Pokemon, then battles. However over time Battling got more and more popular to the point where the game just became boring. This was Black and White for me.
I hoped it would get better with each release, but it was Sun and Moon where I just couldn’t care any more. After that I tried a game here and there. But nothing ever went back to that core of Exploration, new Pokemon the battling.
In my opinion, Pokemon peaked in gen 2. Why? Because every game after added new gimmicks that distract from the core gameplay instead of adding to it. What is the core gameplay? As the motto goes “Gotta Catch 'Em All”. Gen 1 had 150 monsters for the player to find and catch. Gen 2 added time of day specific spawn rates and Pokemon that you could only get by breeding. And that is it. None of the further games made the monster collection any more interesting until Legends Arceus, a spinoff title. The future games added fashion shows and secret tunnels (at least, I don’t think so. I have not played all of them).
Pokemon Home is, obviously, a game changer, but it is something outside the game and too little, too late for someone like me who fell off the franchise.
Pokémon here, too. I used to be more attentive to the franchise as a fanwork creative, but the franchise went into decline starting with G6 (X and Y) in my opinion. It got so bad to the point that I basically left the games back in Gen 7 (Sun and Moon) and go by mostly by the side games and fanwork by this point. For my contemporary work I mostly ignore everything from the games that is not the Pokémon themselves, and for when that’s not enough I create my own Pokémon and also am working on adapting a few concepts from Palworld (Palworld will always be a nice, stingy reminder of what Pokémon can get back to).
Speaking of sidegames, the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games are real gems that Nintendon’t seem to remember anymore past getting us a “Kanto remake” of, and Pokken is a fun fighting game but rather restricted in roster and sad in retrospective in a “look at what we could have had if the franchise spun more in this direction” moment. Today Pokémon Close Combat exists which is a decent fangame in more or less the same direction.
They made it into in A button simulator lol.
I only ever played DPP and BW/2 a long time ago, but I then happend to jump to SwSh when it came out and it literally became a live joke between my sibling watching me play to see how far we could go through the battles by only mashing the A button.
I think we made it to like between the 7th and 8th gym before I had to actually change my attack/pokemon using the c-stick.
I am ashamed to say that Pokopia (on my sibling’s Switch 2) is pretty great. It’s a sublime, cozy exploration game, basically absent of battling so far.
Pokopia is a subcategory of Pokemon. What kills it for me is that the game is Switch 2 exclusive. So I might get to try it in a decade.
Mystery Dungeon is still my goto favourite Pokemon game. Combat is back set, exploration top priority
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon my beloved 👀💜
Pokemon lost its way once they got rid of the shithead rival character. The “rivals” they have now are too plucky and lacking in antagonistic traits. I don’t even think they choose a type-advantage starter anymore.
Halo. Still holding out a sliver of hope that something cool in the universe will be made one day.
343 hasn’t come close to knowing what the fuck they’re doing
Halo was DoA for me after growing up with twitchy PC shooters like Unreal Tournament, Quake and Starsiege Tribes. The gameplay was glacially slow compared to what I was used to, but it did usher in online multiplayer to the console masses.
Those are fundamentally different kinds of games. Sure, they’re all first person shooters, but there are more differences than similarities.
I feel like it’s the equivalent of saying something like: “Poker was DoA for me after growing up with fast paced card games like Uno, Slap Jack, and 52 card pick up.”
That’s fair. It’s not to say that I didn’t try the multiplayer in college. I was the only guy doing work-study with the network admin team so everyone needed me to configure their Xboxes for the campus LAN.
My favorite thing to do was to find a warthog and barrel around the map like a maniac trying to run people over. Still better than a dirty camper!
The Warthog physics made diving around like a maniac so much fun. Some of my fondest memories are of LAN parties, and Halo was always a staple.
I know you meant Dead on Arrival, but Dead or Alive is 100% on my list. It was so much fun during DOA 2/3. Now it’s just a micro-transaction dress-up store.
I really loved that about halo. The slower TTK makes for more chess like engagements, well with the exception of eating a shorty or a rocket to the face. Still, bouncing a perfect grenade or pulling off a ninja jump just fells so satisfying
It did before they turned it into call of duty with halo skins
The Bungie Halo era games had problems, sure, but overall were a masterpiece of a series. Everything since then has been ok at best, and borderline insulting at worst.
So much retconning, characters with zero arc, contempt towards the fandom, and build up with no onscreen payoff.
From what Halo Studios has announced regarding Campaign Evolved, and how they’ve dug in their heels in response to fan feedback, I wish I were as hopeful as you.
In my opinion, Halo should have always remained a Bungie property with connections to the Marathon universe, and neither series should have ever been a live service game.
I found some of 343’s multiplayer fun, but yeah their storytelling has been dog water
Halo
The games? Yeah, eh, one of these days I’d consider Infinite single player if it’s like $10.
The series? I can’t remember if people said Season 2 was…watchable…but that makes me sad…
I remember liking the books, though. The books were rad.
I didn’t even make it through more than a handful of episodes in season one. The books are solid, yeah. I did fall off after the Forerunner trilogy, though.
GTA when I watched how GTA:V shifted from a single player game to a multiplayer online service.
Gay Tony died for this
But he’ll be burried in a solid gold coffin covered in diamonds because holy fuck are players stupid and giving rockstar so much money with that online service bullshit.
It’s such a venn diagram between potheads and literal children…likely with lots of overlap. Lol
It’s going to get worse. Getting the people behind Fivem means it’s going to go to the next level with VI. It’s going to be Roblox meets the current GTA streaming RP stuff.
I bought a PS5 a few years ago specifically for GTA VI. I’ve already decided between price hikes, and general trends, that I’m NOT buying that game. Not even just for single player.
Because I’ve already been told that single player will be a non-profitable after thought that barely exists.
Welp. Fuck that shit.
This happened for me with Destiny.
RIP Call of Duty, The Sims, Sim City, RCT, Super Smash Bros, Dragon Age, Halo, and GTA
Wait, what’s wrong with Super Smash Bros? Is it just the DLC characters?
Ultimate is the best entry since melee, and both are still loved and played today. Nothing is wrong with smash bros.
Yes, the dlc chars are usually too strong, but same goes for some base characters and I don’t feel like it’s much if a problem. We get good actual content for the money.
If Nintendo releases a good smash for switch 2, they got me by the balls.
I agree with you 100%. Smash is basically my favorite couch multiplayer game.
I like Ultimate, but it’s not doing it any favors.
Yeah, that and they just haven’t really had the same feel/balance.
Final Fantasy has been dead for a while. XI was the first major warning that things were no longer the same as an MMO was the last thing I expected from a mainline entry. XII was okay but it got rid of the overworld map and kept an MMO style of gameplay that felt like a slog to get through. Everything after that has been a disappointment heralded by extremely long dev times.
I bought FFXVI and both VII remake games on PS5 because I was still holding out hope that they could reignite the magic of the previous games. I mostly enjoyed them, but they didn’t feel remotely like the Final Fantasy games of the past. XVI was more Game of Thrones than Final Fantasy, and the VII remake games were more XV/Kingdom Hearts than Final Fantasy.
I feel like the writing was on the wall as far back as X. There is very little variety in the combat, it’s very much a hallway like XIII, the “world map” is a list of locations in the order you visited them, and there are multiple long stretches where you can’t backtrack.
I’ve also tried playing Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey in the hopes that they would scratch that same itch, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to commit to finishing them. I haven’t played Fantasian, but I’ve heard mostly positive things about it.
It’s no wonder the VII remakes feel like KH since they are being done by Nomura.
Yeah, he’s unfortunately had way too much influence over the Final Fantasy series since Sakaguchi left. I also feel like Kitase has been creatively stuck making the same game over and over.
I didn’t get to finish Lost Odyssey due to my 360 red-ringing. It’s a shame too because the story was one of the saddest since FF IX. It really explores the idea that immortality isn’t all that great when everyone you know and love will eventually die and leave you with just memories, but then end up losing those memories too which ends up being half blessing and curse. The industrial setting a la FF VI was just gorgeous with one of Uematsu’s best ever scores going off in the background. The character designs were pretty great overall too with Jansen being one of my favorite JRPG characters because of his dry witty remarks no matter what the situation is.
Everything about the game hit just right and felt like it was a proper FF title in all but name. It hurt to know Mistwalker Studios barely did anything worthwhile after that for a long while until Fantasian.
Oof, I was fortunate to never have a 360 RRoD, but I knew people who did. Were you ever able to get it repaired or exchanged through Microsoft’s extended warranty program?
I didn’t finish Lost Odyssey because I eventually lost interest. The premise was certainly interesting, the music was very good (Uematsu is a genius), the dialog was well done, and the gameplay was fun. What slowly drove me away was how depressing everything in the story was. It felt like every single story beat was trying to be devoid of any hope or joy.
It was already way past its warranty so not much could’ve been done. Yeah the depressing story can be a bit much too but it also felt very real and relatable. We all have loved ones who’ve passed away and I swear that game made me feel that moment it happened all over again. There are glitters of light throughout the story though and that’s what made me keep going because it also does a pretty great job of emulating hope to the player. It’s been so many years since it came out but I’d be willing to pay top dollar for even a basic port of it on Steam.
You know, Lost Odyssey wasn’t on the radar for me but you may have put it on the map. Will have to look into it.
I actually liked XVI and the VII remakes better than anything they have made since FF XII, but I suppose that isn’t a tremendous bar to reach. The SNES era of Final Fantasy is still my favorite.
Yeah I agree. The SNES era was definitely a golden time for the series, they just kept getting better with each entry and peaked with the masterpiece that was VI. IX will always be my favorite entry though.
IX is my favorite of the PS1 era for sure.
Agreed in general, Square has turned to shit - but XI and XII were not where it happened, those games are great and XII in particular was peak Square. Part of the problem was Tetsuya Nomura and the slew of spinoff shovelware games with half-baked Kingdom Hearts style stories they started shitting out. The other part was a combo of their embrace of mobile gacha-style bullshit, and the apparent lack of skill and experience that go into their games as they shifted from maintaining their own engines and in-house tools in favor of joining the Unreal and Unity bandwagons.
But don’t worry, another “going back to their roots!” phase is just around the corner.
13-2 is still, even now, my personal favorite Final Fantasy.
I’m thrilled to learn that one person liked it. /s
Destiny 2. It really only had a few banger DLCs, but those alongside, the beautiful gunplay, is what kept me on copium till The Final Shape. Dropped it after that.
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That is rough, Anarchy meta was so fun.
