i miss when gta v sent like one preview to game informer, had like three trailers and then was out. now we got this game that had this cool trailer that hooked everybody, but is now showing off keanu reeves, all the celebrity musical guests, hanging out with elon musk on twitter, has the office references in it. it's like its been redditfied or something.
Like it still could be good, but man, what a terrible direction the marketing went in
did this ever happen? i was always disappointed with dark souls 2 and ive never seen any large group of people saying it was good actually
In the case of DS2 I'm mostly speaking from personal experience. It took me a good while to recognise the game for what it is because I had bought into the hype, and I can imagine a lot of people doing the same.
IRC the g*mer backlash during the launch was more about the downgrade than about poor level design, shitty worldbuilding and weird game feel.
Also, there are a significant number of contrarian weirdos like hbomb that think the game is actually genius.
I mostly agree with respect to dark souls 2. I was definitely on the dark souls 2 is trash team for a while, and I still have huge problems with it. Fundamentally the feel of the game is imprecise and floaty, and the enemy and level design philosophy is just confusing and incoherent at times.
That being said I’ve definitely come around on it slightly - it tried some new concepts that I wish the series stuck with. The multiplayer arenas and covenants were way better, there were more varied weapons and play styles in MP, and power stancing weapons made it so not everybody hid behind a shield at all times. It’s probably still their worst game but it’s not irredeemable IMO. In conclusion Ds2 is a land of contrasts
It's imprecise and floaty until you get a high AGL, then it's basically fine. Which, like, it's still a flaw that you need to pump a certain stat for the game to feel alright, don't get me wrong. And that's compounded by the fact that they pulled a reverse-DS1 and put the worst areas at the beginning of the game, so the game feels floaty right when you're also in the worst areas.
I personally like DS2 quite a bit- I put it at roughly equal standing with DS3 (for very different reasons). I love the feel of the world, and the idea of cycles was a great direction to take the lore in (which DS3 continued but also weakened with incessant DS1 references).
Also, DS2 is yet another example of a From game where the DLC is leaps and bounds better than the base game- the DLC for DS1 and Bloodborne was also incredible, but I honestly feel like the DS2 DLC is even better. Great environmental and level design, great bosses (though not as great as Artorias or Lady Maria)