This is a followup to @[email protected] ‘s recent thread for completeness’ sake.
I’ll state an old classic that is seen as a genre defining game because it is: Myst. Yes, it redefined the genre… in ways I fucking hated and that the adventure game genre took decades to fully recover from. It was a pompous mess in its presentation and was the worst kind of “doing action does vague thing or nothing at all, where is your hint book” puzzle gameplay wrapped in graphical hype which ages pretty poorly as far as appeal qualities go.
So many adventure games tried to be Myst afterward that the sheer budgetary costs and redundancy of the also-rans crashed the adventure game genre for years.
Tears of the Kingdom took like 3 years of dev time to add a mechanic that fits a zelda game horribly, while fixing none of the flaws of Breath of The Wild… and the mechanic they added is extremely frustrating and takes forever to use even if it’s interesting
Why do you have to jiggle the control stick in order to detach parts from constructs. Why not just have a dedicated button. Why include an intentionally unpleasant and sadistic game mechanic like that. Why
Why do you have to jiggle the control stick in order to detach parts from constructs.
Because
deleted by creator
TBH, BoTW is probably the first Zelda game I didn’t finish just because I got bored of it, more than because of getting stuck on something & not wanting to look up a guide.
I appreciate the desire to want to replicate the experience of exploring your local town/countryside as a kid in a videogame, but maybe that’s something kids should just be allowed to do IRL, and you should instead make interesting videogames as videogames.
but maybe that’s something kids should just be allowed to do IRL
Yeah but what are we supposed to do if cars still exist?
Dig tunnels under the pavement.
Honestly the more I learned about that game the less interested I was in it, the idea of a sequel to BOTW was so cool and it looked like a kinda spooky new direction, but then it turned out to be pretty boilerplate with a weird game mechanic that was misplaced when Banjo Kazooie tried it back in like 2007.
TotK is weird for me because I enjoyed it while playing, but once I finished it I soured on it a lot. I burned out on it way quicker than BotW. Didn’t even bother getting all the shrines. It was really not worth the six year wait.
Also reusing the overworld was insane. The Sky and Depths are way too empty and repetitive to make up for it.
Bioshock Infinite is one of the worst games I’ve ever played in comparison to how well it was received. The gameplay was shit. The enemies are all bullet sponges. The plot is about how Ken Levine doesn’t understand the sci-fi concept of parallel universes at all and when slaves violently rebel they are as bad as the people who enslaved them. You can upgrade your weapons but you will use whichever one happens to be nearby since ammo is so scarce except when Elizabeth magically manifests some to throw to you. Songbird is a creature that screams WE WILL HAVE A BIG BOSS FIGHT and it never comes. It’s awful.
Bioshock Infinite is one of the worst games I’ve ever played in comparison to how well it was received.
I thought it was notably disliked by most fans of the previous games.
It was super popular and many flaws overlooked for as long as the theorycrafting went on but eventually people figured out it’s just a nonsensical mess and the opinion reversed
I think it was only popular because of the porn
As I recall there were several huge breakthroughs in animation pipelining in SFM or something directly related to Elizabeth SFM porn
That entire game was such a huge disappointment, the gameplay trailers completely misrepresented what they were able to finally put out
I’ll go you one further and say that it started back in Bioshock 1, which was a shit successor to the legacy of Looking Glass. Infinite was just the final insult.
At least the system shock remake is good.
i don’t like any of the soulsbourne series
the controls felt godawful on both mouse and keyboard and controller
and i like hard games too, so it’s a shameAgreed. I like my controls to be snappy and responsive, and Dark Souls… was not that.
I agree, and I’m sure you can relate to this but I’m afraid to say so around other game devs.
A counter example to the series I always give is that I really love pretty much all Mega Man games, almost all of which are considered very difficult like Souls games are, but the controls are snappy, the UI is clean, and you always know what you’re doing, or at least trying to do
except for Battle Network holy shit the backtracking is brutalHave your tried bloodborne?
Nope! I don’t really like the aesthetic very much, but I think I owe it to myself to try it out anyway.
I do like some games which are similar in style, Like Monster Hunter and Furi for example, so it’s not like I hate the whole concept of a challenging game with big animation-lock and tough boss fights. I do wanna try Sekiro also.
If you can’t get into it, you can’t get into it
I never could get into Bloodbourne and I hit a wall in Sekiro that I just can’t get past, sometimes a game just doesn’t feel right to you and I completely get that
My main issue with that series is that it made not respecting a player’s time a game mechanic. Make a hard boss? Cool, no problem. Make it so if I die against said boss I have to go farm healing materials? Go fuck yourself.
I find myself enjoying Armored Core 6 way more because it follows the conventional mission structure and if you die in a boss you just reload at a checkpoint with all your shit.
But even then, the game won’t let you save and quit at a checkpoint on PC, so fuck me if I’m at the boss check point and need to switch off the PC to run an errand.
Yeah I tried Elden Ring for a good 20 hours, but I see absolutely no reason for the mechanic of having to go back to your body to get the XP, and if you die along the way it’s all gone. What gameplay purpose does that serve?
If you’re actually curious: the purpose it serves is to instill a weight in and fear of death for the player. The goal is to make you more tense when pushing farther from your last checkpoint.
That’s the idea, at least.
Removed by mod
Not trying to rage at you but if I am it’s because you have a history of implying everyone who likes those games is part of the toxic part of the fandom, which you’re also doing now almost like you prepared for this and the whole thread was
that I fell forRemoved by mod
You’re just kind of a dick about this stuff.
deleted by creator
Do you mean the input queuing? I like them but alw found the aggressive input queueing made the game feel shit sometimes.
mostly yeah, it felt pretty heavy compared to other games
That’s cos it is heavy, the game will queue inputs for over an entire second it’s crazy. I think I would have enjoyed dark souls 3 more if it didn’t have the aggressive input queueing
I mean, my understanding is that that’s deliberate. You’re not really supposed to be able to just sweep bad inputs under the rug with cancels & stuff. Sometimes, you just make the wrong call & get your ass kicked because of it.
The input queuing is by design, it’s supposed to make you pay more attention to attack telegraphs and the move sets of bosses since you can’t just cancel an attack into a dodge.
Yeah, I understand the design intent, I just don’t like it. To me it makes the game feel unresponsive and clunky.
Ok, I get that.
Imho I feel it helps to add weight to attacks that a lot of RPGs are missing but I can see why you wouldn’t like it.
Borderlands. It’s just peak Reddit brain writing tacked onto a looter shooter (yay, thousands of completely identical guns with varying amounts of + 5% crit dmg) and bullet sponge enemies.
I think it really was a product of the times. The looter shooter was fairly novel and you can see how that affect of banter w/e you wanna call it really aged badly in bl2 and 3
I agree that pairing Diablo with fps was novel, I just don’t think it was well executed. Honestly, the first one was fine especially in light of being a new combination of game elements.
I think I was letting my distaste for the cringe Reddit humor of the second one override actually kinda enjoying the first one when it was new.
I stand by the jab at the minuscule and meaningless differences they use to pad out the “loot variation” numbers though.
They even manage to make guns with wild differences and gimmicks in the legendary tier but then those are divided into “dumb gimmick that makes the gun suck” and “gun whos gimmick is that it shoots 10 shots at once and does more damage than god”
Yeah i enjoyed the novelty of the first one. As bad as the “humor” was they really ramped it up in 2
Scoped shotgun loaded w/ birdshot
I kinda liked the loot and shoots but the setting was drab and I could not suffer the dialogue.
Preach
Horizon Zero Dawn. Might be a good game series but It didnt catch me. Im also sure I enjoyed the Last of Us more as a show then as a game. Then again I have to admit these arent the kinds of games I really enjoy anyways.
I got reasonably far in Horizon and then couldn’t do it when I realized it was just Far Cry with robot dinosaurs.
Interestingly, The Last Of Us was one that never hooked me. Tried it on two occasions and it just felt weird to me. Ended up watching someone else play it on Twitch/YouTube. I can get why the story is so good, but the gameplay just didn’t suit me.
TLOU is most fun when you play combat psychotically hyper-aggressive, but that does clash a bit with the narrative. Joel going out of his way to set six people on fire affects the mood a bit.
Good story, but it’s a story that was meant to be a tv-show. It doesn’t at all make use of being a game
What killed HZD for me was the god-awful writing. Every character is a cardboard cut-out and the plot was painfully predictable. Add the shallow gameplay on top of that and I regret every one of those ten dollars I spent on it.
I absolutely love that game and the sound effects coming off the controller tickle me pink. But honestly, it’s just not a good enough game to justify the time commitment with what little time I actually have.
I loved the first last of us, haven’t played the second yet. But I agree with you on horizon zero dawn. Couldn’t get into it no matter how much I tried.
Baldur’s Gate 3. It’s just not a fun game: D&D is mechanically bad and doesn’t work at all for a video game that doesn’t have a GM on hand to paper over all the serious problems with it, the controls and interface are janky as hell and the camera aggressively fights you, and however much detail they put into it I just couldn’t care at all because it’s all just bland forgotten realms slop.
deleted by creator
What do you have against mind flayers?
Is it all the mind flaying? It’s the mind flaying, isn’t it.
deleted by creator
I know you’re speaking of clichés in games, but the way it’s phrases makes it sound like a real-world issue to you, which is funny to me.
Like as you arrive at your home you hear ominous chanting coming from the storm drain. You go to look and spot someone in the middle of summoning a demon, all you can think is “for fucks sake, we just had pest control stop by. I can’t afford another drain-cleaning”deleted by creator
What about “no it’s bhaal”
deleted by creator
spoiler
Oh hay, it’s Sarevok, again, and a handful of the scrubs from Throne of Bhaal
honestly I don’t really know why I adore it - thing crashes every half hour on my rig, on top of what you’ve said. guess I do enjoy fantasy slop somewhat and also the dragonborns are soooo pretty
The fights can be pretty good, when they’re not janked to fuck
I’m having a lot of fun playing a shadow monk with a 3 level dip into rogue for that sweet extra bonus action from thief. Just cleared a duel with an important plot boss in, like, two turns because I’m whirlwind of fists.
Having the same fun at the high levels with a gloomstalker ranger/thief rogue.
I’m clearing out rooms dualwielding some kickass handcrossbows. There’s apparently a tavernbrawler monk build that regularly gives 200 dmgI had the same level layout with my first playthrough and I can’t get over how well it sold the ninja character fantasy so well.
spoiler
Stealing all of Raphael’s shit and then punching him a million times in 30 seconds
opening this thread to find my favorite games and getting mad that I found them
RDR 2 is like 3 or 4 great games rolled into one and all negating each other. The story is enjoyable enough with some depth and it’s ruined by half of it being told through interactive cutscenes where you have to press W but if you don’t magically follow the perfect path it fucks up the pacing.
It has a beautilly crafted open world with mechanics and side-activities, none of which do anything useful for the rest of it or have enough depth to stand on their own and a mission design that straight up fails you if you don’t take the 1 path the developers want you to take.
It is a survival game, except set in the big rock candy mountains considering how much loot and money is just laying around.
It’s basically The Homer, as a videogame
It is so easy stumbling into money in RDR 2 that I had fully upgraded the camp before we moved to the second one, and I wasn’t even grinding or anything, just hunting, fishing, looting, etc. like normal.
It was also frustrating to me just how cheap the guns are. It’s trivial to get a fully upgraded set of weapons long before the end of the game, and the differences between them are minimal. You’re given all of these options on how to deal with threats. You can sneak, you have throwing knives, a bow, you can lasso guys, you can make a sniper rifle. You have a wide toolbox. But honestly, you’re given the most effective means of dealing with enemies very early in the game. Hide behind something, go into slow motion, and use a revolver. All the other stuff is just there to play around with and none of it ever seemed more effective than the basic revolvers. This is largely because of the lack of enemy variety. You have guys with pistols and guys with rifles who are further away, and that’s really it. You’re fighting the same exact enemies at the start of the game as by the end. I understand they were going for something grounded and realistic, but it made everything stale. The only time I remember being surprised by an enemy were the ones in the Epilogue who hide up in the branches of trees.
The differences between the horses seemed minimal as well.
At a certain point the only thing left to do was buying all the hats. With all that said, RDR 2 is a massive accomplishment. It’s one of the very rare examples of good writing in a video game and it’s surprisingly class conscious. The soundtrack is gorgeous too.
I’ve just don’t care for Rockstar combat. Tried RDR and GTAV but like you said, boring combat.
deleted by creator
The PvP part is the only part that is literally the worst gameplay ever created
It has a beautilly crafted open world with mechanics
it does this astoundingly well though, and i like the shiny fancy graphics. you’re not wrong though
any part of RDR 2 is impressive on all fronts but it absolutely does not come together, it is so much less than the sum of it parts
Really any David Cage game. The dues a hack, but he gets hyped to hell and back and everybody is so impressed by his games. They always get high scores initially and then just get relegated to mockery after a month or two
deleted by creator
I hate how he always breaks thru to the mainstream and then some hack journo that hasn’t ever done an honest day’s work in their life has to talk about this revolutionary game that has different endings and voice acting and dynamic environments and a good story for the first time in gaming history ever, despite the game never actually having the things they claim it does, and those things not actually being revolutionairy.
It highlights how bad our journalists are, because it just shows how little research they do on a story.“Game overs are a failure of the game designer” THEN WHY AM I GETTING SO MANY GAME OVERS IN YOUR GAME DAVID CAEGE? AND WHY ARENT YOU CALLED OUT FOR IT?
Dude got fucking Willem Dafoe and Elliot Page in a game, and all he could think of was some hack bullshit.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Is de gruttola his real name or something? Anyway yeah I agree, it’s pretty obvious he wanted to make movies, but was too untalented
deleted by creator
I remember watching Best Friends Play go through uhh Beyond Two Souls I think and one of them brought up that he approached Elliot Page and like creepily presented him with old photos of him as a child without asking permission first when they first started production lmaaooo
Having watched some of the slop currently making its way to theaters, I think he’s plenty talented to make movies. Problem is he didn’t have the connections to actually make the kinds of movies he wanted to make, and so instead he makes video games that are as close to movies as he can get away with making them.
David Cage’s best work is the soundtrack for the SNES Timecop game.
David Cage’s best work is the soundtrack for the SNES Timecop game.
I think you meant Omicron, the Nomad Soul
God of War. The one where has a son. Boring corridor game with too many upgrades
deleted by creator
I played through most of the original PS2 God of War on the strong recommendation of internet gamers before finally realizing that I found the whole genre extremely boring. I think it was good for me to realize that I wasn’t going to vibe with every critically acclaimed game.
I didn’t much care for Hollow Knight. I don’t think it’s bad by any stretch, in fact I can see how it’s probably amazing when you like the genre, but I got bored very quickly.
I’m just in this thread to fistfight anyone who dares say Undertale or, god forbid, Outer Wilds.
I’m gonna say Undertale. Toriel is an abuser who abducts a child and beats them when they try to leave. The moral of the game is also children who are beaten shouldn’t fight back. No fucking wonder the fandom is full of pedophiles
So true, honey
I’m just in this thread to fistfight anyone who dares say Undertale
You got your wish
Hollow Knight is cool but it has a very slow start and is only really fun once you’re zooming, imo
I’m sorry, I got bored playing Outer Wilds. I roam around, find some ancient texts, but fail to see how it leads anywhere. Yet the start is excellent, it hints at some great mystery…
Stick with it. I nearly gave up on it a few hours in but I’m so glad I didn’t. The game doesn’t tell you where to go, you have to figure it out yourself, but the clues are all there if you look.
I love metroidvania games and I see so much great in Hollow Knight. My big issue is that it’s way too fucking long. Not every game needs to be so big, it’s okay to be a tight, concise experience.
Doom Eternal. I guess I was expecting more of Doom 2016 but instead it was an abundance of arcade mechanics and parkour.
I also feel like the soundtrack was slightly worse than 2016.
It felt like it was railroading basic playstyle. You HAD to do a specific cycle of all the different moves that dropped ammo for the other moves and if you didn’t run around in circles doing that you starved and died. In 2016 you could have a favorite weapon for instance.
Same with me. I really enjoyed Doom 2016 but Eternal was in no way what I would have wanted from a new Doom.
Same. I love Doom 1, 2, 3 and 2016, I still play them all every so often. I didn’t like the artificial gameyness of the the Doom Eternal combat puzzles and maps. Doom is at it’s worse when you’re artificially locked in an arena with monsters, those should instead be an organic part of the level.
I still think Doom 3 putting the torch as a separate tool from all the weapons was good game design, I will forever be salty that they changed that for BFG edition because of the nerds that complained about it.
I agree, in areas where Doom 3 turns into more of an arena shooter, there’s enough lighting that you don’t need it. The light and weapon management is part of the survival horror aspect of maze section. Obvs its okay to not like Doom 3, it’s the most different of these games, but having the light always on is just making the game easier and less scary.
Oh nooo lol. Eternal is probably in my top 3 favorite games. Especially with all the mods you can do on PC. It definitely has a niche though, but I think it’s excels in that niche so well that I say it’s the best feeling FPS mechanics, in my opinion of course.
What mods are you referring to? I only really played it shortly after release.
I’m mostly referring to master level/randomizer mods. These don’t change the game in a major way, so if you don’t like the gameplay you probably won’t enjoy the mods. Really, all it does is up the difficulty. I love it, but it can be hard.
If you want another try at that almost arcade like, fast FPS gameplay, I’d recommend Turbo Overkill. Indie game, goofy yet fun story.
I was actually thinking about playing that not too long ago. Maybe I’ll give it a go
It’s very worth playing! One of my favorites of the year for sure.
The Witcherino 3
Dark Souls is too hard for my tastes, as much as I want to just walk around the worlds and see them.
I have 0 interest in BotW, crafting stuff isnt for me. Just lemme find/earn the item.
Street Fighter isn’t in my top tier fighting series.
Most point and click/old timey adventure games (like the aforementioned Myst) were boring to me.
I wish FromSoft games had a story mode or something so people could still experience the world without dealing with the bullshit. Now, I love the bullshit (mostly) and I think it’s a really good, clever game that rewards you for paying attention, but I won’t deny that losing a bunch of souls because you died to something stupid is extremely demoralizing. I have no doubt there’s a bunch of people who would really enjoy the world of Dark Souls if they could just experience it in a more friendly way.
I won’t deny that losing a bunch of souls because you died to something stupid is extremely demoralizing
I think this is exactly where people differ in relation to Fromsoft games, and it’s really a coin toss… you either find this kind of bullshit all-my-souls-gone moment demoralizing and frustrating, or you go “ahh fuck! well, let’s try again” and carry on… I’m happy that I happen to be in the latter category, as it turns out, and find it immensely enjoyable even when I get fucked over by the game lol
deleted by creator
They’re basically the same games made by the same devs using the exact same design philosophy
Does any Armored Core game have difficulty levels or accessibility options? Why do they get a pass? Is it because this isn’t about people with disabilities but actually about your weird hate boner for the Souls series?
Being mad about the “prepare to die” shit is just dumb, that was marketing and you can blame Bandai for that (plus it was still significantly less cringe than Bethesda calling every one of their glitch fests “game of the year” when it’s time to package the game with the 3 DLCs that had less than half the content of one Souls DLC for twice the price)
deleted by creator
I don’t give them as much of a pass as you say. I want Armored Core games to have difficulty sliders and accessibility options.
Hmm, sounds a lot like what a lib says when called out about how they didn’t criticize
after they said something about Russia or China 
All I’m doing is calling out your hypocrisy here because I’ve never seen a single comment of yours saying a single negative thing about Armored Core but you never shut up about Souls or Elden Ring, even if you don’t mention it by name it’s always obvious what you’re talking about
I’m not defending any of the Souls games or Elden Ring’s lack of accessibility options but I’d argue that literally every Souls game already has more accessibility options than any Armored Core game just by the virtue of being playable co-op, you can literally just have someone else carry you through the whole series if you really wanted to and have a friend who’s into it (I’m genuinely willing to do this for anyone)
I suppose the aesthetic difference is grimdark quasi medieval schlock is tiresome to me and big flying robot go brrrrr.
On the one hand I agree that sci fi, cyberpunk and giant mechs are better than midieval fantasy but if you think all the Souls series has is grimdark then you don’t know what you’re talking about
Hell the main reason 99% of all soulslikes not made by From suck so much is because they’re grimdark for the sake of grimdark instead of interesting lore
I am not mad about it. It’s just eye rolling marketing I poked mild fun at, and poking fun at the game’s marketing clearly upset you so you reacted to that with directed hostility toward me for most of your reply.
I don’t mean to be hostile but maybe I can’t help it when I’ve seen you hating on the Souls games for months now in a way that’s honestly kind of weird
I’m not saying everyone has to like the games but you went out of your way to bring up Elden Ring in a discussion about predatory practices in gaming specifically microtransactions, something no Fromsoft game has or does. Why do this? I followed the link you provided then and am I the only one who finds it kinda funny that the same site criticizing Elden Ring as not being accessible enough also praises the TERF wizard game for its accessibility options and defends their position by saying that they’re “here to serve people with disabilities first and foremost” or some bullshit as if trans peo people with disabilities don’t exist? Am I the only one?
I don’t want to be a dick about this, I agree with and like 90% of your posts. You’re objectively a better poster than most on Hexbear that 90% the time, which makes all the hate posting about Gambo and Souls all the more cringe
Seriously question, how much of your dislike of Souls or Elden Ring is from the actual games? You don’t have to like them but it seems clear to me that you don’t know enough about the series to hate it, just enough to hate an idea you’ve formed about it based on some of the most vocal and toxic parts of the fanbase (which I’m sure you’ll assume I’m part of even though I hate those guys) and honestly I think since Elden Ring your hate for Gambo has just bled into this
I get that you hate
but defining yourself in opposition to and the things redditers like can just lead to a different kind of cringedeleted by creator
Have you tried Synthetik? It’s full of difficulty sliders.
So I mostly don’t want to reply to the vitriol beyond what I already have, but by most reasonable understandings of grimdark, I would contend that the Soulsborne games aren’t particularly grimdark. They are a little tonally and very aesthetically dark most of the time, but that’s not what grimdark is. Grimdark is Guts dragging himself over broken glass for months trying to protect Casca from the demons that they both attract and not even being able to sleep more often than like once a week because there’s always some fucking phantom sneaking up trying to eat their souls or something. Grimdark is oriented around animosity and squalor as much as powerlessness and morbidness.
Yes, I did use Berserk as a contrasting example.
Dark Souls is extremely gothic in its writing in the sense that it’s perpetually mournful of basically everything in the world because the world is already mostly dead and the rest of it is dying. You can say that’s tedious or tacky or whatever and that’s fine, I’m not telling you to like it, but it has a very different tone from what “grimdark” suggests. If most of Dark Souls was like Blight Town, you’d have a good case, but most of the time you’re in ruins or natural environments fighting off echoes of the past while reading epitaphs. On a story level, the struggle isn’t dedicated opponents or even really your own weakness nearly so much as it is the entropy of the universe.
Yes, the intro cutscene to DS2 is in many respects grimdark. Go look at another one, literally any of the other ones.
Okay Bloodborne is, well, ironically less gothic in the sense I described but it’s oriented around cosmic horror, the “grimdark” is mostly a veneer that you get baited on before the werewolves start having 4 mouths and tentacles. It is very blood blood nightmare blood though, but the “nightmare” part is pretty cool
deleted by creator
You claim to hate
yet you edit your post after the fact and claim I’m the one who’s mad
deleted by creator
Your sneaky edit doesn’t change the fact that I pointed out to you it was just a marketing gimmick, you were the one acting like it was a core part of the series while mocking the games, care to explain what you meant by that? Did it have something to do with marketing?
I really don’t understand, this just feels like debate bro shit to me and I genuinely thought you were better than that (I still think you are, which really makes this sad)
Then stop living up to the stereotypes of a toxic fan
Fine but first you have to tell me, what that stereotype is and how I live up to it?
Also I find it really funny that you’re basing who you think I am on stereotypes, my analogy was right you really are being a lib
deleted by creator
I think that’s just watching lore videos on YouTube
BOTW only has a crafting mechanic for food. There is 0 other crafting in the game.
The first Dark Souls game felt like torture. I remember running around in the underground poison swamp to farm upgrade material then running up to Andre to upgrade my weapon and it felt like such a chore. In Anor Londo, after fighting a gargoyle, the way forward was so unintuitive I gave up because the game was not for me. I ended up watching some YouTuber play the game after that.
