Years / Decades:
70s , 80s , 90s , 00s , 10s , 8th Generation, 2020
Genres:
2D Platformers, 3D Platformers, 4X, Adventure, Board Games, Bullet Hell / 2D Shooters, Card, Casual, City/Attraction Builders, Dungeon Crawlers, Fighting, Flash, Handheld, Horror, Indie, Metroidvania, MMOs, MOBA, Point and Click , Puzzle, Racing, Real Time Strategy, Real Time Tactics, Rhythm, Roguelikes, RPGs (Action), RPGs (Turn Based), Shooters (1st Person), Shooters (3rd Person), Simulation, Souls-Bourne, Sports, Stealth, Survival, Tabletop RPGs, Tower Defense, Visual Novels, Walking Simulators
Welcome back. This part of the series will be primarily focusing on genres. So far I have [Arcade Game, Action, Text dungeon, Sandbox, Shoot/beat 'em up, Grand Strategy, and Miscellaneous] as available genres. Let me know if I missed something, and I will try to get it added.
This is eventually all going to get compiled into one megathread for people who want gaming recommendations from Chapos specifically. Other consoles and genres will come in sporadic subsequent threads. Please contribute to previous threads if you missed them. This is meant to be an exhaustive list.
I go back to the original Xcom regularly. Its geoscape design is waaaay better than the newer games. It doesn't feel like a board game, it feels like a sim, this is very important to the overall feel of defending the planet.
The new game's geoscape feels like a boardgame with clear bonuses and very clear mechanics rather than the unclear radar mechanics of the original and uncertainty of coverage of zones/areas. It makes it much much worse by comparison.
Xenonauts isn't bad but I still feel like the geoscape of the original just FEELS better. Xenonauts combat gameplay tends to get repetitive for me too, the enemies could really use some types that do insane stuff forcing the player into unusual combat problems they need to solve in ways that are different to their usual rinse repeat strategy of overlapping cover fire.
The issue with xenonauts imo is that it's made by fans of xcom who have come to almost fetishise the difficulty and grind. So you spend ages just slowly moving from one end of the map to another and occasionally getting murdered from off-screen, and by the time it starts to pick up and you've got new guns and shit you're too terminally bored to care.
I agree, I don't really mind very high difficulty though, what I do mind is a lack of intriguing problem solving within that difficulty. I find that the original Xcom's difficulty was more because of random map generation (and time of day) than the opponents. Getting landed directly in the middle of the map with an exit facing 5 enemies was "xcom".
That was fine, it was interesting and brutal. If you got a landing at the edge of the map in the day time you'd be able to do what you do in Xenonauts and carefully move across the map covering everyone safely.
Put players in the middle of the map, or create more interesting aliens who do interesting things that force the player to do some crazy strats from time to time. Let's see some sacrifices made by marines that pull the pin on a grenade and go down fighting, or landmine usage, or other weird things.
You can't get the really really interesting stuff to happen without truly random maps. Xcom's terror missions shined at that. Xenonauts doesn't. I'd argue newer xcom gets it a bit better, although it too suffers from chronic "play safe" mentality and only covers this up by giving the player time-based objectives to pressure them. A far better way to push the player would be to put more interesting aliens in the game that do things that are non-traditional in combat expectations.
I agree with everything you said. But I think the new xcom should get some credit for trying to shake up the formula for enemies with enemies that ignore light cover, enemies that are likely to dodge overwatch, melee enemies that destroy the environment and grenades. I do t think its entirely succesful, but it does make the effort.
Yes!!!
XCOM 2 with the WoTC expansion is also an incredible game, IMO worth of "successorship" if you will
Worms Armageddon: it's your team of worms vs the opponent's, fighting with grenades, banana bombs, exploding sheep, etc. Recent stream of a league game:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1145566967?t=00h17m09s
It has endless customizability, and the maps you play on can be any 2D image. It's fun for casuals, but also the gameplay is deep and you can spend years getting really good at specific schemes. There are strategic schemes like Intermediate where you have 8 worms vs your opponents' 8 worms, Rope Races where you're just using the ninja rope, and tons more.
Me and my housemates in college played worms all the time after parties. Only thing better than landing a tricky shot was watching someone fumble theirs, good times
I was really into Liero, but Liero is not turn based.
I got civ 5 with all the expansions and everything for like 10 bucks. The thing is always on sale.
I've been getting back into in to the breech lately. Fun little game about mechs beating up giant bugs by the same people that made ftl.
100% the best turn-based strategy game I've ever played, bar none
Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (though 2 is my favorite for nostalgia reasons)
HOMM1 is my fave for nostalgia reasons. I love those derpy cartoon designs.
But yes, 3 is the good one.
Final Fantasy Tactics is a great one. Even with the wonky translations, the story is really good, the first half especially. It helped that you could name the characters as you saw fit.
Another one that's a personal favorite is Fire Emblem (7 in Japan). I thought a lot of the story was pretty cool and a good introduction to the series.
Then there's Fire Emblem Awakening that allowed more customization. My only wish was for more inclusion of LGBT characters and people of color.
Then there's XCOM 2 where I was able to form the Bara Battalion to stop the extraterrestrial threats. The strategy learning curve was super rewarding and you got to see how well you handled situations. Getting Flawless ratings is so satisfying.
You can mod awakening and Fates to allow same sex marriage, though the quality of the new supports varies
I haven't played a ton of TBS's, but Shadowrun Dragonfall is pretty fun.
Agreed Shadowrun Dragonfall is great. I personally think it has the best story of the 3. I'd also recommend the calfree trilogy of mods, which has the Antumbra Saga (on Dragonfall), Caldecott Caper (on Hong Kong), and Calfree in Chains (Hong Kong). Great writing and difficult maps.
I love shadowrun and was so excited for that game but it just didn't do it for me. The game play was ok but nothing special. The popcorn shadowrun novels had more memorable story's. And the worst crime of all? No bio mods!
The divide and conqueror submod for third age total war, a total conversion lord of the rings mod for midieval 2 total war.
The level of variety, the depth of mechanics, and the passion for lotr is held back only by the clunkiness of an old game.
Oh shit. Yes absolutely. How they never ported this for mobile phones for asynchronous online play will always be a mystery to me
Tactics Ogre (LUCT or the remake, not the GBA entry which has a very mediocre story). The whole Ogre Battle franchise is pretty interesting but the other games are more RTS I think? Sucks that the series will never be properly finished. (I haven't finished the N64 one though -- my impression is that the story is worse than the Matsuno games but still fairly solid.)
I also liked the original Front Mission a lot (enjoyed the extra content in the DS version too), but I do wonder how the politics holds up since it's been years since I played. If nothing else the music is fantastic.
(Tactics Ogre > FFT imo.)
The Banner Saga - it's got awesome Disney-style animation with a really cool system where your health determines your ability to do damage. It's kind of linear but it's also very fun to re-play given its varied roster of units.
Heros of might and magic 3. More then twenty years later and I still play it on occasion.
It had a cool magic system with the way you could merge spells but other then that it sucked hard. Five is barely any better.
they were making the game as the repo men were hauling the office furniture from under them and had to use their lunch money as the development budget
Not necessarily the best, but you gotta appreciate the interesting mechanics in Twilight Struggle politics aside
