I've always found the Uncharted 4/The Last Of Us/God of War 2018 to all be decent, but all those games are kinda lacking in imteresting gameplay and are basically the video game equivalents of "Oscar bait"
Dark Souls. Just the whole series.
:so-true: I can't wait to learn yet another attack pattern and press the dodge key at the exact right time!
I love From Soft games so much, but I can totally understand where you're coming from OP. Fanbase is extremely gatekeepy and toxic as well.
Man me too. I used to spend so many hours tinkering with the mech builder and then painstakingly painting each component.
Maybe the next game is another armored core? I have heard rumor of that
The fanbase of that one also leaves me wary
"lol git gud lrn2play scrub, this is a REAL GAME for REAL GAMERS, yes I am way too proud of having mastered an arbitrary and useless skill"
I mean is it even really developing a skill? That's the part of the Souls fanbase that drives me up the fucking wall. The AI in those games is the most barebones script, once you learn the patterns you're golden. The timing windows you have to react and avoid attacks are gigantic once you know them, deaths come from "I didn't know this was gonna be here" as apposed to clearly telegraphed but strict attacks. The combat doesn't really have room for expression outside of what you equipped prior to a fight, and even a lot of that comes down to "I'll make the game more difficult on purpose for the sake of doing so." The crux of fashionsouls is that, outside of your main weapon, the gear you've picked up in your playthrough and the choices between them doesn't matter. They might as well be color pallets.
Compare it to any decent shmup like Deathsmiles or Crimzon Clover, where a lot of your deaths will also come down to "oh fuck, I didn't know the boss could do that!" and bullet patterns tend to be static, or follow simple rules (like having to move horizontally to "stream" tracking bullets across the stream). Dealing with positioning, reacting to attacks and changing tactics is more interesting because of the score mechanic and intensity of the encounters. Do you choose to bomb because it's safer, or hold onto them for end of run bonuses? Do you edge closer to the boss to rush it down faster and get out of an annoying phase, or do you milk it for more points despite it being dangerous? Do you not give a shit about going for the perfect run and just wanna turn off your brain for 30 min? And what you develop in one of these games transfers to others in the genre. As a fighting game player, I don't think there's a ton that meaningfully transfers into that genre. You're certainly not circle strafing and healing constantly in Tekken.
And yeah, the fanbase doesn't even really want you to get into their games. You ask a Melty Blood player how to scratch your ass and they'll send you a small dissertation. You ask a Souls player what gear is good for PVP and they'll mail you anthrax. Good on them too, I wouldn't want people I care about playing these dogshit games.
FWIW, I'm pretty lukewarm on Darksouls, though I did like Sekiro.
I do like the feeling of going from getting demolished by a boss, to improving but still dying a lot, to clowning on them.
Now, the fanbase is hot garbage, their multiplayer elements are trash, and the games have some issues besides, but the feel of learning a pattern and finally '''gettin gud''' is pretty nice.
Sounds like shmups have a similar feel; that gameplay cycle certainly isn't unique to Souls-likes. Its also what I like about what I'd consider some of my favorite games, like Enter the Gungeon. Though I haven't really been able to get into shmups or fighting games really.
I guess the main complaint I'm trying to convey is after you get to "clowning them", that's kinda it as apposed to other games that can give that feeling and allow you to go further.
Though I haven’t really been able to get into shmups or fighting games really.
Acquired taste, I didn't grow up with either and it wasn't until I was in my early 20's where I even understood the appeal. It hit me when I was playing DJ Max Portable 3 on a work break, and I would "go through" rhythm games by like, clearing every song once and then just moving on. I got stuck on a version of this song for like, days and I kept trying to get through it, and once it "clicked" it felt magic. It wasn't like I just beat an arbitrarily hard boss, not only did it feel great to get the flow of that song down, but other songs were easier to clear "for some reason" after. It's what showed me the reward of "getting gud" beyond just coping with the mechanics of an individual fight in a souls game, for example. My view of the entire medium changed over the course of a lunch break, I'll never forget it.
But that's a lot to ask for and takes time that not a ton of people have. I don't think everyone has to enjoy games like that. I think that Dark Souls is a 1/5 game for a ton of reasons, but that "get gud" mentality is one of the reasons I despise it the most. It's the fucking demiurge of video game accomplishments. There's a world beyond what those games offer and associating the process of growth, personal development, and the social relationships required to progress both with "have you considered not getting strafed by the dragon on the bridge lel" is putrid.
Ah okay, that makes sense. And I'd agree, that the 'getting good' process is pretty overemphasized by people, but I also haven't had any other 3D game that gives the same vibe. The only games that give me that same 'in the zone, conquering the timing' feel are 2D games.
I guess I don't really get the same 'feel' from rhythm games (probably partially because I'm very picky about music). And funnily enough, I enjoyed shmups when I was young, but I find them very repetitive today, probably just because I don't have the time or focus for them these days.
Sounds like a skill issue to me. But "git gud" is mostly directed against people who say dark souls is too hard, and should be made easier. Its a reaction to hearing people say the thing you like should have the reason you like it changed.
Yeah I was gonna say this. It's annoying, almost every modern game is so easy now. You can pick up any Ubisoft/EA open world game and stomp through it on the hardest setting, if you come to a series famous for being difficult and complain about how it should be changed of course people are going to dismiss you pretty flippantly.
You're not wrong, I honestly wish the most toxic part of the fanbase wasn't the loudest but I also think they're a vocal minority and are greatly outnumbered by casual fans and sunbros who are happy to help anyone with the game via co-op
I don't consider myself good, let alone gud, I'm just a big dummy who likes hitting things with a big sword and it's fine if people don't like the games but what's not fine is the worst people who play the games ruining it for new players
The devs clearly aren't on their side given that solo invasions haven't been a thing since Dark Souls 2 but they do remain the loudest part of the fanbase
I've had far more positive interactions with other players in game than negative but far more negative interactions than positive with other players on the internet but most of the playerbase doesn't talk about the games, I'm more terminally online than most and I've never been on the :reddit-logo: for any Souls game so if I had to guess most players don't even read youtube comments let alone reply
The point I'm trying to make is that you can see the best of the playerbase in random co-op, helping people feels good and that's infinitely better than "gitting gud" in my book, whether I'm representative of the fanbase or not
:so-true: I can't wait to learn yet another attack pattern and press the dodge key at the exact right time!
Me but unironically
I mean if you don’t like that gameplay loop I respect it but that is the exact reason why I like dark souls. It’s the same reason I like Kingdom Hearts.
I love how all criticism of Dark Souls machinics boils down to "wow I actually have to remember stuff and PRESS BUTTONS!? So much for cinematic gameplay"
MFs go watch a movie then lmao
For me the gameplay just feels really binary and uninteresting. Every boss is exactly the same - dodge, attack during the opening, repeat. There's no combos to learn like in a Devil May Cry, there aren't environmental puzzles like in Zelda, there aren't a bunch of gadgets to experiment with like in Sekiro. Just dodge and hit, dodge and hit, dodge and hit.
I mean, you have to play past the tutorial, experimentation is in weapon selection and the magic system, if you don't want to dodge learn how to parry or invest in tank builds
And level design alone surpasses anything found in Zelda
I've beaten DS 3. The weapon selections giving you different power attacks pale in comparison to games that actually focus on having a meaty combat system, magic is slightly more interesting - at its best it just lets you skip stuff by pressing the "I win" button but most of the time it's just useless.
Parrying in Dark Souls is the weakest mechanic by far, because the games are incredibly inconsistent about telling you what can and can't be parried - like a lot of those games' bullshit, you end up having to use a guide because if you fail a parry it's impossible to tell if you failed it because your timing was off or if you failed it because that particular attack can't be parried.
Then there's the fact that the game's design is antithetical to actually practicing parries and dodges and testing different magic spells in the first place. If walking back to the boss takes several minutes every time you die, practicing becomes a massive test of patience because fuck that. There's a few bosses right by bonfires but it should be every boss.
Also: boy I sure can't wait to walk through poison swamp #357 this game sure is more well designed than fucking Zelda! Imagine playing a game where you know which direction to go in order to progress the story won't catch me doing that cringe shit LOL
There's more to weapon selections then power attacks, using magic requires critical thinking not just spamming, parries are easy to practice just walk two feet past most bonfires, there's literally only three swamps in the whole trilogy, and I'd stack Anor Lando and the Boreal Valley against the best Zelda can come up with
Devil may cry hasn't been good in decades and it's a bummer because I loved that game
Same. I want to love it so much, just let me explore the world, but I just don't have the patience for all the frustration.
I played Severance: Blade of Darkness in like 2001. It was pretty amazing for the time in many ways (realtime physics, shadows, water reflections, dismemberment, 3D blood physics). It took a lot of ideas from Zelda gameplay like 'z targeting' and put that into a medieval fantasy setting with some realistic gore. It even had a mod scene spring up when only the demo was released because the main game code was in python and could be edited directly (in the demo!). It was a niche game with a niche community that made some cool stuff like new campaigns and features such as using the torch to cook dismembered body parts so you could eat them for health.
So when I finally got around to checking out DS1 on PC I was a bit underwhelmed. I had heard so many good things about it, the innovation and the hardcore gameplay, the unique multiplayer interaction, etc. I tried to get into it and 'be cool' since it was all the rage. I did enjoy exploring the world, but it was such a chore to do so. I eventually made it through most of the locations before I just got tired of it. I crafted a nice sword, but everything in the game just began to feel like such a chore. The lack of fast travel (I was probably getting close to unlocking it) combined with all the location knowledge needed to avoid a quick death when going between locations just kinda ruined the exploration vibe that had kept me somewhat interested. I felt like it was enough for me.
The most upsetting aspect of the gameplay was the lack of interesting move-sets. There's some variety, but it's entirely weapon dependent so it just feels really limiting. Compared to Severance which had at minumum 3-4 base combos (depending on character) for a weapon type plus unique power combos for almost every weapon, DS just seemed very weak. Like if you're gonna make a game that's mostly about melee combat, then don't have like only 2-3 moves you can do with a weapon. It's so repetitive after a certain point.
GTA has never been all that interesting to me. It’s the textbook “mile wide, inch deep”. There’s a lot of missions to complete, cars to collect but the gameplay is just bland. You drive stolen cars, murder pedestrians, run from the police, and listen to lib political satire on the radio. It’s just not enough of a break from real-life for me to feel engaged with it. RDR is guilty of the same, but that series is set in a different environment that has its own charm. RDR2’s writing is better than GTA V’s, whose commentary is much more blatant and crass.
RDR2 is also the most blatant example of how Rockstar has absolutely no idea how to design a story for an open world game, its like they make a storyand then an open world game and they just happen to be cojoined through repetitive mission design.
I'm really not sure, but in RDR2 its particularly extreme cause it feels like barely anything interacts inbetween the two, it feels like dogshit going from story to open world and back again.
yeah you just go from town to town and the story is individually contained within each location lol
Time machine time but shadow of the colossus? Not the deepest story but the first thought that came up about a game that really blends the game and the story, instead of being a bad movie broken up by periods of interactivity.
My dumbest friend LOVES GTA online, it's basically the only thing he plays. That's how I know it's not very good
Same here. GTA 5 was one of the most disappointing games I've played in a long while. I didn't dislike it so much as it felt like a ton of wasted potential. Huge world, rich re-creation of LA, fuck-all to do other than story missions and a handful of random side-missions.
The GTA series is the gaming equivalent of a buffet. None of the individual components of the games (racing minigames, stealth missions, flying missions, and so on) are that great when compared with games belonging to the corresponding genre, but combined together in one package, it's honestly not that bad.
in general the game design philosophy of just giving the player as many play hours as possible so they don't feel like an idiot for paying $60 for a video game is offputting to me. like i'll definitely fall into that play pattern with some games (usually with some kind of competitive multiplayer), but a big open world where i have to go fetch 10 rat pelts over and over just to check off a quest list is super unappealing. The only recent exception was Breathe of the Wild because it was pleasant to just exist and explore in that game and not worry about completing objectives.
That last caller was so full of crap! Everyone knows women are made from sand
I liked playing through the story of GTA V, but also I was a child so idk if I’d still like it as much now
Any game praised for its story.
The gamer idea of a good story is simply having a story.
i honestly just could never get into any of the bioshock games because the physics and movements/shooting felt clumsy. it was this weird blend of gogogogog Quake type movements but then with super particulate aiming a la PUBG.
Okay Disco Elysium has a good story though. That being said, I think its the only game I would really consider to have a good story.
When I would tell my friends about that game, I would literally describe the writing as 'actually good writing, not just good for a video game writing'
I think its the only game I would really consider to have a good story
There are others; like Planescape: Torment, Sunless Sea, Sunless Skies.
So many games with 'good stories' don't work as both games and stories and it makes both bad. People go on about how Red Dead has a great story, the story being ? Trying to save up and go to Tijuana? But the in game reality is you have more money than you'd ever need in a couple of hours. In ghost of Tsushima you have to build power to defeat the mongol army, but in game as soon as you learn to parry you can easily kill hundreds of people at a time.
anything Blizzard does. Their games might be technically competent but I don't see the appeal of anything they make. Their games, except maybe overwatch, has this kind of bazinga miasma around them. Specially don't get Warcraft, that one seems to be mostly propped up by nostalgia.
Also Gears of War fucking sucks and Cliffy B can fuck off forever for tainting a whole console generation with that series stink.
I've felt very vindicated in the last year or so as everyone's started shitting on Blizzard, because I've always shitted on them. They have literally never made an original game in their entire existence. Their whole schtick is taking an already popular game/setting/mechanic/etc and just redoing it with a fresh coat of varnish (and often a bunch of waifus too) and then getting drowned in acclaim for... Copying TF2? Copying C&C and Warhammer Fantasy at the same time? Doing a 40k ripoff of their own Fantasy ripoff?
Also WoW all but killed MMOs because it's popularity made everyone else copy its theme park style content, and they all suck. Stop calling your game massively multiplayer if it's just a single player RPG with strangers yelling slurs at you while you do quests.
Blizzard peaked with BW/D2 and it's all downhill from there. Even WC3 had some of the bullshit that would come up in subsequent games.
Pretty sure it was Cliffy B that shut down whole vanity projects of his and left whole teams unemployed because he just lost interest. I remember Patrick Boivin (formerly SuperBestFriends) having a twitter spat with him over it.
Fighting games. None of them are good and I can't stand them. I've tried so many different games over the years and each and every one of them makes me never want to play games again. They're just so insufferable
i mean they take time to learn. that's the fun part. they're not fun when you don't know what you're doing.
FighterZ is like the closest I've gotten to interest and it's purely for the dedication to making it look like the anime.
I enjoyed some parts of LoL, specifically because it was basically what I liked about RTSs, with most of what I didn't like stripped out.
Now, that's not to say LoL good; it certainly sucks in a lot of ways. But I did like being able to chill with friends and play a game where I only need to focus on micro-ing a single character and not stress about controlling 200 different things all across the map as well as managing like 10 resources and their respective buildings all simultaneously.
Honestly, I'd love a game that was a turn based strategy game on the resources level, but with simple one-player real time combat. Almost like Total War, but the combat is MOBA-like.
I was huge fan of Natural Selection 1 and 2 which is probably the only successful attempt at RTS/FPS hybrid. It's definitely not for everyone, but it was really satisfying after getting burnt out on TFC/TF2/CS back in the day. There's just so many fun tactics you can employ as a squad or alone that impact the overall flow of a match. I never really got into playing the commander role though (the main RTS-like player role). In NS1 the aliens don't have a comm, just a weaker builder/healer class. I did enjoy taking that role when it was tactically advantageous to the team.
Something I look for now in competitive action games is this balance between tactics/strategy and twitch. I think twitch got too strong in the design of many competitive games after CS was successful, but 'outsmarting' your opponents via things like feints and such is really fun if the design makes space for it, which NS1 & 2 do really well.
Hadn't heard of Natural Selection, but did play some Tremulous back in the day, which looks like basically the same game idea. It's pretty cool, and a really great idea for a game system, though I'm not that into FPSs.
Yes, I always forget about Tremulous since I never got around to playing it. Very similar conceptually in many ways.
I'll die on the hill that dota (and Dota 2) are the greatest multiplayer games ever made. It's not stripped down, it just distributes the tension and challenge across 5 people. It's beautiful, it's complex, it's extremely rewarding for both solo and team play, there is soon much space for expressing yourself, every game is different and all of that for free.
Sitting at 2 am with 4 friends clutching a victory from 5 other dudes after 60 minutes of struggle is about as emotionally invested as I will ever be in any game.
So with a heavy heart I have to mostly agree. The toxicity in most solo queue games is unbearable. The fetishisation of esports hurt the game in many ways, even though the resulting competition is very beautiful. The culture around it deep garbage and it brings out the worst in people.
I do wonder how much of it is due to the underlying stresses and atomisation of capitalism. And if a better culture could be shaped if the people who run it actually cared.
Vanilla Minecraft is so boring and dull to me. The world is just so empty and there's barely anything to do. Even playing on a server with friends it gets stale in like... four days of casual gameplay.
Yes I'm someone with 300 hours in modded minecraft shut up it's not the same!! Modded Minecraft is fun because it actually adds content and opens up a bunch of avenues to actually follow and complete goals.
- You like automation? Install a bunch of interconnected tech mods
- You like exploration? Install a bunch of biome mods and go looking for cool terrain or structures.
- You like dungeon crawling and fighting bosses? Dungeon crawling mods! RPG mechanics and skills! Magic systems!
- You like collecting animals? Oh we have so many of these mods
- You like building? Here's furniture mods, new blocks, new types of walls, etc etc
You like any of these things while playing vanilla Minecraft? Well unless you're into redstone contraptions or building the Sistine Chapel in creative mode you're basically shit out of luck lol
I have maintained for years that Microsoft has ruined Minecraft and that its unplayable because they have added too much stuff to it. Like a soup that the chef keeps adding more and more ingredients into it until it becomes a deluge of flavors that don't mix
Ehhh they have made some additions that are genuinely good. The new height additions and new cave generation is really impressive
as a foundation for mods to build onand the improved swimming and water mechanics was a great engine improvement. My real problem with Microsoft's Minecraft is that they take months to a year to add additions to the game that would be a footnote in an average content mod. Like thanks for the goats that do nothing and the frogs that produce a redundant decorative light source in a way that's almost impossible to automate I guess.Yeah I think that's the real issue. Once a year you get, maybe, a single new biome? None of that would be particularly impressive in a mod context.
I feel the same way. I'm way more into complicated tech builds than I am vanilla.
The last 10 years of pokemon.
Don't get me wrong. I love pokemon. but they aren't good games anymore at this point.
Okami. The graphics and audio are literally painful.
Most fighting games: combo inputs are fuckin stupid
Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3.
Deus Ex Human Revolution
GTA 5. <--- yeah, that's definitely my biggest one. held up as arguably the best game ever made, I was so confused playing it. It was kinda just shit. And the cars handle so. badly. which was weird for a game that places so much emphasis on cars.
Undertale. yeah, I said it. easily the most overrated game.
That said, I've mostly found that I tend to like the critically acclaimed games. For most of them, even if I don't like it immediately, I've found that after playing for a bit, it'll click and I'll go "ohhh. this is why people love it." That happened with breath of the wild.
Edit: Monster Hunter. I don't get it at all. The premise seems very appealing. But the gameplay is sooooo clunky.
Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3.
:100-com:
GTA 5. <— yeah, that’s definitely my biggest one. held up as arguably the best game ever made, I was so confused playing it. It was kinda just shit. And the cars handle so. badly. which was weird for a game that places so much emphasis on cars.
:10000-com: A lot of nonsensical downgrades from Gta 4 in that game. Didn't have any of the charm either. The little bit of the multiplayer I played wasn't fun either.
If 6 is anything like RDR2 in terms of execution I think it will be fair if people gush about it. RDR2 isn't necessarily my thing but the execution of it is very obviously above anything else. If they do that in the GTA format what they come out with will be pretty great.
Yeah, it felt like they dropped a lot of the fun simulation effects like NPCs reacting realistically to different injuries and soft body deformation on the cars
People hated it when it came out no? I remember all sorts of complaints about how floaty it felt, I liked it at the time.
Okami. The graphics and audio are literally painful.
Genuinely don't understand how it's possible to feel this way
yeah the PS2 and Wii versions do have a bit of that bloomitis going on. I'd recommend at least checking out the HD remaster.
Pokemon
Have you played Legend of Arceus? I would agree with you wrt the mainline Pokemon games, but that game in particular was such a breath of fresh air. I like not having to do random battles, and I like having tasks that feel like actually researching the pokemon driving the gameplay.
Undertale
:knife-threat:
Do you like Undertale or do you like the full length indie game based on a fandom of a fandom of a fandom of Undertale?
I think Undertale is such an easy 10/10 if you even kinda like JRPGs. The artstyle clearly has retro inspirations which I usually find insufferable, but the character and environmental design behind it rules. The soundtrack is consistently great, the jokes land, the combat is inventive and learning how to deal with the mechanics of each fight is wonderful. It also has the "murdering everything over and over is bad actually" message which, while done better in MOON, was done well. The worst part of it is the genocide route, and even that feels like a purposeful punishment for being a dick.
Definitely with you on the car handling and physics in GTA5. It was too easy to drive and took no skill at all. GTA4 had way much harder physics where the cars felt very different
:wut: i like me some easy driving, GTA 4 cars are so hard to turn. took me 100 tries to complete the Brucie race mission, used this mod and completed it first try.
The last 10 years of pokemon. Don’t get me wrong. I love pokemon. but they aren’t good games anymore at this point.
You just got older, they're games for children and still accomplish their goal very well imo edit: within the context of the gaming hell we currently live in
Okami. The graphics and audio are literally painful.
bait
Most fighting games: combo inputs are fuckin stupid
look if we're talking SNK pretzel inputs, sure, but KI still exists if you just can't stand them whatsoever
Dark Souls 1, 2 and 3.
I know this was probably posted just to get someone's goat but unironically agree
Deus Ex Human Revolution
I don't think the game has had a kind image past the year it was released. It's pretty common to admit it's unfinished and kinda shit.
GTA 5.
"best game of all time" to people that engage with the medium on the same level as people who say The Avengers is their favorite film. I don't think even most fans of the series would say its their favorite.
Undertale
bait
Monster Hunter
Its a game you play with a group of friends who aren't really great at other video games, and within that context the series is really fun. It's not my favorite but I totally get the appeal.
Monster Hunter
By gameplay, I assume you mean combat. It's designed to be a slow, high commit combat system where you kinda have to learn the monster's mannerisms and when to strike or retreat. It felt strange to me at first when I started World, but I'm all about it now.
yeah, that is what I mean. like, ok, lemme slowly sheath my weapon to dodge, etc etc.
Also the combat really fucking sucks.
The highlight of that game for me was when you pick up a quest to clear the mystery creature from a place and you can figure out what it is and prep poisons and abilities to deal with that. I wish the game focused more on those bits, cause even though I liked them they’re a bit weak because of the game mechanics.
I guess I just want Monster Hunter but I also hate it’s combat for the same reason
having dogshit combat and level building is revolutionary actually
Combat is only "dogshit" if you fail to heed the lessons the game teaches you
Also lmao the anti-Souls poggers really show their hand when they trash the level design, the game is famous for combining linear progress with non-linear exploration thru the use of discreet shortcuts and elevated platforming, this strategy depending on skill and knowledge allows for multiple versions of the game to exist depending on player builds and choices, so yeah pretty revolutionary
Combat is only “dogshit” if you fail to heed the lessons the game teaches you
No, it's dogshit because animations take approximately three days and feel like I'm moving around a full shopping cart. If there are changes between weapon types, they're limited to exclusive weapons like the Memelight Greatsword. A swing is a swing among 90 percent of the weapons and once you get that down, the decision when to swing is limited to the stamina bar and the individual mechanics of an encounter as apposed to what you want to do. For a RPG that (supposedly, I think it falls flat on its face) encourages experimentation, you don't swing a club differently than anyone else.
And don't give me that "oh you just didn't get good shit". It's not about getting good, it's about how it's closer to an abstraction of traditional RPG combat with the accuracy stat replaced with the ability to press square within a 90 frame window. It's closer to Morrowind or Kings Field (ha ha) than like, a fighting game like Tekken, or a DMC, or a Platinum game, or even other ARPG peers like Kingdom Hearts II. And that'd be OK if the gear mattered and it was similar to western ARPGs like Path of Exile or Diablo where most of the combat comes down to "avoid mechanics and use 1-3 attacks you have spent the entire game building up to be billy badass", but again, you can't augment clubbing people, your +5 Chaos club is still doing the exact same Fred Flintstone shit you were doing 15 hours ago.
And that's not to mention how PvP is a fucking nightmare in terms of balance and infrastructure (that netcode is fuuuucking garbage), how backstabs take a full three seconds so you either back the fuck off and maneuver around the hitbox that would give you a backstab, or get slapped by the three other skeletons that are in a given encounter, or how your spells and weapons don't even really impact the environment in a meaningful way. Evergrace, a game they made for the PS2's launch, would open up other treasures and paths based off of what skills your character had access to (based off of your equipment, which made picking up new gear interesting!) There is no sword that lets me cut down a tree in DS in a specific way that opens up another encounter.
Also, the individual fight mechanics do not change, and because they do have to accommodate the bad netcode, laggy attacks and a variety of playstyles, they're not very engaging once you get the gimmicks down. They're really not hard and it feels fine once you stop getting knowledge checked, but once that learning process is done, you're going to approach the same fights in similar way unless it's "I'm gonna blast it with magic" or "I'm gonna fuck up the mechanics on purpose" (which for the later, why would you do that?). Once you know to run away from the boss, get a weapon and jump off the platform, why would you poke Asylum Demon to death other than to say "I did it!" once.
is famous for combining linear progress with non-linear exploration thru the use of discreet shortcuts and elevated platforming, this strategy depending on skill and knowledge allows for multiple versions of the game to exist depending on player builds and choices
This game released in 2012. Like, even if you just want to talk about games where that was the given intention, this has been a concept since at least Dragon Slayer 4.
My first thought on reading this was "oh wow, you've got some overly strong opinions here, maybe log out, no one cares."
But then I remembered how many times I've posted similarly long rants about Ori. I'm fighting the urge right now to break into a multiple paragraph rant about how fucking shit Ori and the Blind Forest is and how there's nothing good in that shit-ass game and I don't understand why anyone plays or likes it.
So yeah, I can hardly blame you, just because you hate a game series I actually enjoy quite a bit. Not every game is for every person.
It should come as no shock that I fundamentally disagree with just about everything you've said here about Dark Souls, but that's ok. We can disagree here.
well you could post it, this is the thread for it
also sorry you're wrong about DS, go ahead buddy
That is fair. If no one else has, I may rant about Ori for awhile.
And sorry friend, but you're the one wrong about Dark Souls. But it's cool, you can be wrong!
You're not my friend and you don't seem to have any actual argument
I'm joking around on a shit posting website, not trying to debate bro dark souls. I'm not going to try to change your mind. You know what you like, and it's different from what I like, and that's ok.
Who complains about player characters having actual weight and haptic response instead of just floating around the screen like some boring ass abstract ghost, give me a shopping cart over a wonky paper plane any day
Also yes meter management, welcome to video games circa 1975-2022, sorry you don't have an unlimited button mashing ability, turns out thinking about combat actaully makes it more engaging instead of shooting infinite ammo at polygons. Honestly what a bizarre critique its like complaining about any game not having automatic cheat codes, sorry most people find that inherently boring, MANAGEMANT CREATES STAKES which is a core concept in any successful game design
And yes it's not takken, its not a fighting game, you dont get to just button mash until you clip your opponents iframes which is why all fighting games are trash, and gear matters after +5 upgrades and even average stat gear becomes beast at +10, again if you don't experiment how would you know
Also bringing up bad netcode while bringing up fighting games is ironic since every single fighter has garbage net code, sorry youre gonna get lag, adapt and anticipate which unlike popular fighters Souls gives you the option to do
And despite all the "trash netcode" people loved the fuck outta of multiplayer and created a pvp community bigger than most fighters , which is again ironic. Learning curves do not equal bad game design
Also intention doesn't matter, other games before 2012 may have attempted the linear/non-linear progression strategy, but Dark Souls was the first to successfully execute the concept across the games design and layout
Who complains about player characters having actual weight and haptic response instead of just floating around the screen like some boring ass abstract ghost, give me a shopping cart over a wonky paper plane any day
It's clunky, that's why. Swings feel unwieldy and slow in a way that doesn't take long to accommodate to, but never feels like you have the control over the character you'd like.
Also yes meter management, welcome to video games circa 1975-2022, sorry you don’t have an unlimited button mashing ability, turns out thinking about combat actaully makes it more engaging instead of shooting infinite ammo at polygons. Honestly what a bizarre critique its like complaining about any game not having automatic cheat codes, sorry most people find that inherently boring, MANAGEMANT CREATES STAKES which is a core concept in any successful game design
What management? What moron is gonna try to keep swinging after their bar is done after the first couple of fights? You get your swings in, you back off for two seconds while the bar refills itself, the fights are balanced around the idea that you will need this interruption. That's not interesting decision making, and that sure as hell isn't "creating stakes".
And yes it’s not takken, its not a fighting game, you dont get to just button mash until you clip your opponents iframes which is why all fighting games are trash, and gear matters after +5 upgrades and even average stat gear becomes beast at +10, again if you don’t experiment how would you know
- You have no idea what that entire genre is about, not even a pedestrian understanding.
- How does it change the way you approach fights other than raw stats. How does it fundamentally change what buttons you are pressing on a regular basis during an encounter.
Also bringing up bad netcode while bringing up fighting games is ironic since every single fighter has garbage net code, sorry youre gonna get lag, adapt and anticipate which unlike popular fighters Souls gives you the option to do
see post above, also "a lot of people played this game", a ton of people played League of Legends but that game is a blight
Also intention doesn’t matter, other games before 2012 may have attempted the linear/non-linear progression strategy, but Dark Souls was the first to successfully execute the concept across the games design and layout
play more than four video games
It's only "clunky" if you neglect the weight/ratio stats, and even then, plenty of dex builds have your character zipping across the screen hitting with pinpoint accuracy with precise control feedback
If you play as a tank things are gonna get clunky, and you know some folks like that, but let's not pretend there's no accelerated option, dex builds do go fast
What management? What moron is gonna try to keep swinging after their bar is done after the first couple of fights? You get your swings in, you back off for two seconds while the bar refills itself, the fights are balanced around the idea that you will need this interruption
Ok no, fights are not balanced around backing off and waiting, some enemies sure, but large swathes of the game are designed around tipping over that established rubric and pressing you out of your comfort zone play style wise, many enemies will not allow you time to "back off", some switch into ranged move sets and others rush you, this requires a keen eye for management and anticipation, patience is only rewarded when those first two criteria are met. Not meeting them punishes you, which is where the stake arise, you can play cocky, loose and fast and maybe get lucky for a while, but the 'management/anticipation = patience' philosophy is always in the background acting as a torsion for the unwary and impatient, and when paired with TIME management (Souls/Humanities) and the risk of losing it forever, that is literally casino ass stakes
You have no idea what that entire genre is about, not even a pedestrian understanding.
I don't have a pedestrian understanding, I have an experienced understanding, because I'm good at those games, too good the shit is boring, I'm one of those mutants who can move my thumb up and down real fricking fast, as a result I always clip my opponents and then one or two memorized combos (does that sound familiar) and boom I win....and if I don't want that to happen I have to limit myself to one or two specific character types where quirks and gimmicks can offset my twitchy thumb
Souls-like games, that doesn't happen, in fact my quick thumb more often than not gets in the way, I love games that punishes overeager trigger fingers
How does it change the way you approach fights other than raw stats. How does it fundamentally change what buttons you are pressing on a regular basis during an encounter.
Raw stats changes your strategy, gives you more openings, offsets the punishments, nullifies ranged and elemental attacks in many cases, you become a high roller at that casino I mentioned, you can double your bets and when you still eat shit you can't help but laugh because at that point you have no excuse, it builds confidence in a game that loves to means test confidence, shit feels good
see post above, also “a lot of people played this game”, a ton of people played League of Legends but that game is a blight
But unlike Legends, shitty netcode in Souls incentivized skill formation towards anticipation, one of the game's core gameplay aspects, the concept of mind games was introduced, dueling, management, timing, and of course etiquette
In an ironic twist the core gameplay aspects were heightened DESPITE and because of the lag and something developed that many games struggle forever to create, NOVELTY
All the ones you said for the exact same reason, actually.
I don't like it when games try to be gritty movies
I hate the idea that for a video game to be "serious" it has to be a movie basically. And a "gritty" movie at that. Who actually likes those games?
On the upside, I laughed like hell when I was watching a friend play one of the Uncharted games, and the game had a segment at the start where the main character played Crash Bandicoot with his wife.
I don't know why, but I found it unintentionally hilarious.
everything on the n64. they're mostly fine, but it used to be that more or less every single 'greatest game ever' was on it or the psx. and at least the playstation had metal gear and final fantasy.
the zelda games are borderline unplayable, goldeneye is one of the worst aged games i've ever seen, and the platformers are just not fun
I recently downloaded an N64 emulator because some joker on youtube made a video like "Castlevania 64 is actually way better than you remember!"
Biggest lie I ever heard. It was exactly as awful as I remembered. Even with a modern controller I couldn't stand more than like a half hour of it.
Wait really? I remember seeing the AVGN review it and it looked very slow and tedious.
Why Everyone Was Wrong About Castlevania 64
Title is worse than I remembered
I know thumbsticks didn't exist at the time, so they maybe couldn't have known ahead of time how bad the single thumbstick design would be, but I think the controller design is singularly responsible for goldeneye and the n64 zeldas aging poorly.
Oh my god trying to play things on the ocarina in OoT on Switch is fucking impossible because it was 4 buttons on the N64 and it’s mapped to the fucking right thumb stick
The single thumbstick itself was the N64's huge innovation. Previous controllers that had joysticks had a big arcade-style one that dominated the whole controller, Nintendo was the first company to say "hey maybe you can use one of these with just one finger" and boom. The strange shape of the N64 controller was because they weren't sure if people were going to like it or not, so you could either hold the controller by the center grip or the left grip with the traditional D-pad.
I’m actually playing through Ocarina of Time for the first time right now and it’s not awful but it is ridiculously obtuse and impossible to know where to go next. It holds up just well enough to be interesting almost from a historical perspective, but it’s definitely not good.
it is ridiculously obtuse and impossible to know where to go next
I have never understood how people don't know what to do in Ocarina. I was ten when I beat it the first time, it's not that complex.
Now, Majora's Mask on the other hand...
If we're going to go with the two extremes of handholding quest log that tells you where to go versus hope to run into the one npc you need to talk to to progress (and remember where he told you to go), I'd definitely prefer the former most of the time. Though granted the latter was more fun back when I'd get home from school and play zelda for hours at my friend's place.
I think Pokémon Legends Arceus did a pretty good balance of that. If you track your quest it’ll give you a marker but for a lot of them the marker is just the quest giver and the description just tells you to go figure something out
Importantly you can check the quest log to read back over them, instead of having to remember what the random guy told you.
Edit: This is also the only good thing about PLA’s UI. Every button and menu in that game is in the wrong place. Nothing does what it should.
yeah, that's about where i'm at. it is playable, it's just frustrating having heard for years it was the greatest game ever
Also in its small defense, scrolling down a list of games that came out in the same year, 1998, the only one I feel like would play better than OoT is Half-Life. But again, that just makes it interesting to see the history, it doesn’t make it good today.
it's super important historically, and should definitely be played by anyone interested in the history of 3d games. but good games had come out before. previous zelda games, for example. admittedly not many 3d games, and even less if you aren't a fan of turn based gameplay, but even then there are some examples. i personally think metal gear solid from the same year has aged better because of the twin advantages of being built for the playstation controller and being stealth based, which means the imperfect controls are just added challenge. even if it's jankier from a pure gameplay perspective, i'd still rather play it today.
Nintendo release Twilight Princess and Wind Waker on Switch you cowards
Name one character in BOTW that’s anywhere near as awesome as Midna
Not BOTW, but Fi from SS.
Yeah, that's right. I swear to god, once you understand that all her dialogue is deeply sarcastic, she becomes so much better. Maybe still not quite to Midna levels, but hey, we're commiting LoZ heresy here so I wanted my turn
Fi was the spirit of the sword and your companion character, you definitely met her
Counterpoint: F-Zero X counts as at least 20 great games.
No, I will not explain this.
Bethesda games in general, I don't hate them but I think they're terribly overrated
Not only do they always launch broken and buggy games before fans make patches to fix the base game which Bethesda then steals and turns into an official patch but then they have the gall to always re-release their games as a "Game of the Year" edition which is two different kinds of bullshit
Say what you want about the toxic parts of the Dark Souls fanbase, they don't :bootlicker: From software so hard they work on the games for free nor do they add creepy incel sex mods, well not yet anyway (oh god no)
You can claim no Souls game deserved to be called game of the year any more or even as much as any of the Bethesda games with GotY editions but at least neither Miyazaki or Tanimura were ever arrogant enough to call their games GotY and that kind of humility and maturity is the exact opposite of the frat bro culture at Activision
Edit: but I'm also conflicted because even if the games have massive flaws I still love the worlds they create, I gotta give them credit for that
I think that Morrowind and Skyrim were legitimately groundbreaking games when they came out, but whoever was writing the good stuff back in the Morrowind days left and Skyrim was so successful it kind of broke the company.
nor do they add creepy incel sex mods, well not yet anyway (oh god no)
I don't think you need to worry about this. There's no roleplaying element to these games which makes them entirely unsuitable for that kind of addition.
God I have such a weird relationship with the Pokemon series. Like I think the gameplay is all very well and good, easy to pick up, it's possible to implement tricky battle strategies that force you to approach a situation differently, collecting the critters you like and battling with them is all very fun. So there's a solid foundation there, surely all that's left to do is add in new features that enhance the gameplay of collecting cute creatures and battling with them, right? And Game Freak does do that! And then they take away the same features in the next game.
And it's not even like a new thing either, I remember being so mad about them removing the following pokemon feature in Gen 5, to the point it soured me on the generation for a long while. And it's like... Gen 5 is considered by a lot to be the pinnacle of the series. And it is really good wrt story and presentation and features. But they still removed following pokemon as a feature. It only returned in the fucking DLC three generations later. And pokemon amie/refresh, that was a great feature. It's great to be able to pet your cute critters. No idea if they'll ever bring it back!
But collecting the cute critters still makes the brainmeats happy so I guess I'm stuck still turning my head at the mention of new pokemon news.
I just installed the fan made game Insurgence yesterday. Seems solid and the story has a more mature bent, people get straight up murdered and there's Pokemon cultists instead of Team Rocket variants.
There's a bunch of fan stuff for pokemon that's great to get into. You got romhacks (the gen 3 romhack scene is so advanced that what people come out with these days is completely bananas), you got RPG Maker fangames like Insurgence (iirc), you have illicit MMOs people are running, you even have two different Minecraft mods with two completely different gameplay styles to choose from.
Gen 1 was great, and every other gen was a slowly degenerating, creeping into monotony capitalistic cash grab
Gen 4 is the last gen that is likeable in any way
Gen 1 was great, and every other gen was a slowly degenerating, creeping into monotony capitalistic cash grab
People say that, but honestly I think they forget how much of a buggy unbalanced unplayable mess Gen 1 was. I've spoken to multiple people who realized they were projecting their Gen 2 nostalgia onto Gen 1
People say that, but honestly I think they forget how much of a buggy unbalanced unplayable mess Gen 1 was
Pokes were still objectively more naturalistic and less cash-grabby. The patterns that made gen 6 trash were visible even in gen 2, except at such a mild level that they were even amusing. Namely, more trivial polka dots and stuff to make 'mons look different
Gen 2 was the best gameplay experience IMO.
Gen 2 Crystal version also had the objectively best pokemon animations until 2013 (And I still think they're subjectively better than the ones after 2013)
The thing is, a lot of Gen 1 designs were subtly redone in Gen 2 (and somewhat in Yellow IIRC), and the Gen 2 redesigns are the ones people really remember as classics. A lot of the sprites in Gen 1 look really weird, and probably not how you remember them
Those animations were good, but I have a soft spot for the animations in Gen 5.
Really, just Scrafty pulling up its...pants? Skin? Idk, that one idle animation is what I'm thinking about in particular, I love it lmao
The thing is, a lot of Gen 1 designs were subtly redone in Gen 2 (and somewhat in Yellow IIRC), and the Gen 2 redesigns are the ones people really remember as classics
Yeah I know but even the subtle redesign was still based off of the original gen 1 design.
Also I legit liked the gen 1 GameBoy ones better in many cases, especially with Bulbasaur, and most other forms of the starting 3, it looked cuteReally, just Scrafty pulling up its…pants? Skin?
You're thinking of XY, he doesn't pull up his pants in Gen 5
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Scrafty_(Pok%C3%A9mon)#Sprites
All animations during the 13 years between Crystal version and Gen 6 are just distortions/translations/rotations. No actual animation in most cases. Though Scrafty actually has a tiny bit of animation where he closes his mouth and grumbles for a second.
Oh okay, scraggy not scrafty
Yea that's a funny animation. I still stand by all of them having awful unnecessary distortions for "filler" though
I mean, you're objectively right about the animations in general. I just have a soft spot for that one in particular, I have no idea why
Pokemon was a series that billed itself on being friend with your pokemon. Then utterly failed on that premise when your pokemon are literally just a collection of stats and nothing more. No personality despite their 'personality', which is literally only affects their numbers and nothing else.
The stats and moves do help you feel like they're your unique Pokemon that you have to spend a very long time with to level up. You can spend basically the entire game with some of the same Pokemon, even though you can catch any Pokemon in the game, and it creates a stronger mental "story" than a lot of actual story based games have because it feels less superficial than if you could just swap Pokemon out or they were always the same. Because of the way the stats are calculated, people generally won't have the same exact stats for the same Pokemon.
God yes. I feel like the first couple were decent for the time (even with the OG being a buggy mess), but they aren't great, and also really haven't improved much over more that two and a half decades. I have no idea how they aren't lambasted for being staler than CoD, or sports games.
Also, I feel like Dragon Warrior Monster was pretty much a superior game (albeit did release two years later), and am surprised in hindsight it didn't catch on. Like, yeah, didn't have the virality of pokemania, but Dragon Warriors was already big in Japan.
It is, but also if you gave some nerds the keys to the property they could make something amazong out of the parts thst exist. The parts are all there to makw something great. Just not all assembled in the right order
You barely even have to look far for an example. Pokemon Wilds is a fucking adorable open world survival game built in the Gen 2 art style and it's cool as hell and more creative than almost all the decisions Game Freak has been making lately, and it's a goddamn open world survival crafting game.
Thats why romhacks and fan games are great. The switch diamond pearl remakes are apparently coded in unity so whenever modders fully figure out how to mod them we will get some good content
Half-Life is the most overrated series IMO. I could rant about it but people tend to get pretty salty.
The first game is legit good and praiseworthy but that was over 20 years ago. I don't think very highly of Valve in general except for what they're doing with Linux.
Half-Life 2 seemed to open the floodgates for rusty abandoned ruins being used as the vanilla flavor for most games that followed after and it’s aesthetically bland and tiresome to me.
There's another universe out there where Valve went for the dieselpunk aesthetic HL2 had in some of its beta stages. I wonder if that would have spread throughout the industry in the same way.
The only part of HL2 that I really enjoyed was Ravenholm. I literally don't remember anything else about that game.
