Minecraft / Minetest - I'm used to games with active quests etc. so the openness threw me off but now I host a server for the kiddos and we have all sorts of adventures and random builds
I played Celeste, thought it was kinda easy and the hotel level kinda lame which is where I dropped it. A few years later I broke my leg, being a pc gamer before the steamdeck my switch was the only portable console I had and celeste the only unfinished game i had for it. I played the entire game in a week of 12 hour sessions while high as a mother fucking kite. It was amazingly good fun.
I wouldn't really call it a favorite, but I definitely ended up liking Nier: Automata pretty well after bouncing off it really hard when trying it at a friend's house. That's because we were trying from the start, and it starts with a section that's about half an hour long, with only two checkpoints, vastly harder than anything else in the game, and in which the first half isn't even the same genre as the rest of the game. It's seriously one of the worst intros I can think of in a video game. The rest of the game is, y'know, a pretty good third-person action RPG.
Yessss! This is the game that caused me to have the idea to do this post.
I first played it about a year ago. I used the two hour Steam refund period, which in retrospect probably caused me to rush or not give it enough of a chance.
Fast forward to now, when I’m dealing with a nasty chronic health condition and lots of time on my hands. And I’m between games - basically waiting for stuff to come out, like the Factorio DLC.
So I poked around and somehow Elden Ring came up as a possibility. And then I found THIS video:
Elden Ring Is a Masterpiece — my thoughts after 60 hours
And it got me so hyped that I ended up watching a ton more videos. And finally I plunked down the $60 and gave it a shot.
Now I can’t stop thinking about it. I am in love with the jaw dropping terrain, inventive enemies, depth of play styles and options, the brilliant way it hints at things instead of spamming a map with quest markers and to do lists. I’ve had moments that felt like I was on the inside of an epic fantasy novel, living an otherworldly fever dream of awesomeness.
Same. Spent 3 hours on Gundyr in ds3 just to watch my non gamer wife beat him second try. Hated the game then came back to it with a friend who had finished it and voila, my new never ending addiction.
Same here, played a bit of DS2, but never really got into it. Started on DS3, but got tired of that pretty quick as well. But when Elden Ring came out, I got really hooked on the games. I finished Elden Ring, then I played through DS 1, 2 and 3. And then a few more playthroughs of Elden Ring with different builds. I’ve started a bit on Sekiro, but jumped over to Lies of P when it came out. The plan is to play the new Lords of the Fallen, when I’m finished with Lies of P. It’s really satisfying to beat a boss after a few hours of learning the patterns.
Oroginally I dismissed it as just being a TF2 clone, and being a very loyal TF2 player at the time I didn’t want to play it as I consodered it a blatant ripoff. However, I started going to a LAN party group at work in 2017 and Overwatch was the only FPS they played so I got it. It still does feel similar to TF2 but the variety of characters got me hooked and it became my most played game for many years until OW2 came out and ruined everything. Getting back into it now though and they’ve toned down some of the bad decisions of OW2 since launch. Now I’m dating a girl who plays Overwatch as well and we’ve been playing constantly so I’m back into it completely now.
Morrowind. I’d played it when it came out but didn’t get very far. Tried it again after watching an 8 hour video about it. Focused on speed in my build so I didn’t feel like running at a snail’s pace. Finding the dead people that failed to become Nerevar, giving some guy a book of poetry without a quest telling me to, getting used to the layout of Vivec, actually enjoying the fast travel system, and lots more all added up to such a great experience.
PatricianTV is one of the best long form video game essay writers out there. Really understands the topic they are talking about. Would recommend watching all his content if you like the format.
Oh yeah, I definitely have experience his other videos. Used to fall asleep to the oblivion one but then kept getting woken up by the 🎵 horse cock🎶 part.
Morrowind was the most immersive game I ever played. Something about it made it so I could just get really into it and focus on nothing else for hours. Not even the other elder scroll games were that way for me. I’d give anything to be able to re-live those days. I don’t think it’s even possible anymore with how much other shit I have going on in my life as an adult.
I feel that. It is still the game I have logged the most time with, which considering I’ve got about 1,300 hours in Elite Dangerous is kinda scary. Between the original Xbox, PC, and Xbox One BC, I’ve got about 1,800 hours in it. Thoroughly enjoyed breaking every aspect of Morrowind.
Yeah for sure! It’s not surprising that it’s a cult classic at all. But ugh, after figuring out key bindings and going through the tutorial I would always lose interest by the time I started liberty island. Deus Ex just feels clunky at first.
Death Stranding. As a Metal Gear fanatic, the disappointment I felt on my first attempt at playing it was immense. Only got a few hours in before writing off as just not for me. Tried again in a different frame of mind, different time in my life, and it clicked. One of my fav games of all time.
I just played it through for the first time. What an experience it was! I’ve never played a game like it before. It’s a story that will stick with me for years.
Also Dark Souls. I was confused at first as I mostly ignored the story part since it’s not given to you on a plate and just stopped. Then years later I did a proper run and I’ll never forget it.
I’m still bouncing on DS. I’ve tried about 4 or 5 times now, getting farther each time, but honestly… Hating it more each time. The last time I just full on started cheating with Cheat Engine after a lot of frustration and I… Still ended up frustrated and exhausted by the gameplay.
That’s about where I’m at with it. The way people talk about it makes it feel like a stepping stone I’m supposed to experience at least once, but it’s not enjoyable for me. It’s just unrelenting punishment for the entire game.
If you want a “lite” kind of similar game. Jedi Fallen order had a similar kind of thing going on but I was able to play all the way through it. It wasn’t quite as punishing when you died.
Sorry anyone that doesn’t appreciate my comparison, that was just my thoughts on it. I know they are very different games overall.
It was the checkpoint thing and the combat that made it seem similar to me. Where you proceed through parts of the map before it lets you save and later you can open up shortcuts. Obviously Dark souls has more options for weapons but fundamentally they felt similar to me. I did not get very deep into Dark Souls.
I bounced off Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, and it wasn’t until I played Bloodborne that I finally got it.
Don’t worry about souls (XP) and losing them when you die. Stick early XP into health for a bit to give you more chances to learn, and stamina for more rolling about. Your damage will come mostly from weapon upgrades.
Spend your first runs in a new area learning the enemy attacks and layout, and what you can block or have to roll away from. This is the main thing you’re levelling by playing. The old “gitting gud”. And it will happen, because honestly it’s not that hard for the most part. It’s just uncompromising, and will punish you when you stop paying attention.
Shortcuts are everywhere. Just about every area has something to unlock to make getting back to the boss faster.
Too much armour will be a hindrance. It’s heavy and makes it so you can’t move or roll as fast.
I totally get all of that, but like… It’s not fun? And I’m really REALLY bad. It took me way too long to get the timing down for even Undead Berg and other lower level areas. Like, it took me an embarrassing amount of time to even get out of the starting area. I just panic in games too much as soon as anything goes wrong. 😂
Yeah, I get you. I think some of the disconnect is because it looks like a standard hack and slash action game, but it kind of isn’t.
I dunno, it’s hard to explain. It’s like a lot of the difficulty is just understanding what it wants you to do. And you can hardly go look at how “good players” do it, because they’re running past everything in their underpants and parrying which is stupidly hard in DS1. The only place I needed to parry was the very last boss.
I found a good start in DS1 for most enemies was to put your shield up, walk in really close, and try and get behind them to stab. It’s kind of cheesy, and there’s a few things it won’t work for, but it served me pretty well until I got the hang of it more.
Help me understand it? The first hour or so was awful. The castle level seems boring AF, the powerups feel grindy, and the random character abilities seem more likely a handicap than a bonus. What changes? Or what could I possibly be doing wrong?
I can’t remember rogue legacy, but I loved it enough to buy Rogue Legacy 2. So my comment is based on that.
My solution was to turn on handicaps. I honestly don’t know how people play it when you die in 3-4 hits.
I also play it like a Metroidvania game, trying to get to the next power up or story quest. I also really really really love Castlevania Symphony of the Night, where i’d spend 10-20 minutes running the same rooms for loot drops.
What do you mean by the handicaps? Like the negative traits your character will roll? I thought that was on by default.
I love the old Metroid sidescrollers but never played much Castlevania. Farming loot drops over and over in the same room sounds super boring to me. I much prefer to earn my upgrades through exploration or overcoming challenges.
It’s supposed to be a bit grindy. Like a lot of rouge lites you get more powerful each iteration as you get more gold and can level up. So it becomes a game of trying to progress farther and farther as you level up through upgrading the castle.
The second one does a bit better job of adding replayability and more interesting mechanics.
Yeah I appreciate the gold system. IMO grinding against a pure RNG feels awful, but if you can accumulate resources and make progress that way it’s much better.
The problem for me was more that the first level castle and enemies seem extremely generic. It’s not interesting in the least so why would I want to play it over and over? My #1 rule for roguelikes is that the first level has to be a banger because that’s where the player spends like 80% of their time. Does it improve if you can survive more than a few minutes?
It’s been a while since I played the first one, but I do think it gets a bit better (although enemy variety I think is a weak part of the first). I would really suggest trying rouge legacy 2 as it improves on everything over the first.
If it helps other rouglites I like and found similar are skul, dead cells, undermine, hades.
Yep, that’s intentional. It’s how you get a variety of challenges from run to run.
The game is really all about rhythm and timing. Each enemy has an attack pattern and telegraphed moves, and how you progress is to learn those and how yo text to them, then how to do that with multiple enemies, then how to do that with different abilities and handicaps.
That sounds fine on paper, From Software games have taught me to appreciate learning enemy movesets. But it doesn’t feel fair here when the game rolls 4 characters in a row with some combination of blindness and paraplegia so I literally cannot dodge.
Minecraft. I tried it as a teenager and didn’t really “get it”. Much later in life I found some friends and none of us really played the game that much so we decided to try it together and got hooked.
As someone who has played Minecraft fairly consistently for the past 12 years or so, I want to ask, what is different about either yourself or the game that made you enjoy it now when you didn’t before?
Not all that time was spent in the same world, but over three different creative worlds and three survival ones, online with friends. I like designing and building, both aesthetic creations and also functional ones. The game to me is all about imagination and so from that perspective it’s just a sandbox that never runs out of content.
I did the same thing. Bought it many years ago, it didn’t click with me. Tried again in 2020 and I’ve so far done all achievements and played through it about 5 times. Absolutely love it!
I still can’t get that game to click with me. I love an RPG but I just can’t get into it. I even love the characters etc and Netflix show (the first season anyway). Don’t know why, and at this point I can’t bear the thought of starting over again.
It didn’t click with me with either, I tried it for a few hours then put it down and forgot about it. A couple of Christmases ago I went back into it with a mindset of “just focus on the story missions rather than exploring every nook and cranny” and I got far enough that it really started to click and I was hooked.
The story is incredible, pretty much the whole way through. The progression and combat is delightful. The world is beautiful so you end up exploring it whilst naturally following your quest markers. To top it all the expansions are amazing and have really incredible moments.
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