Not sure if it’s my absolute favorite, but Pathologic has fascinated me for years.
There are so many strange and unique aspects to the world (especially the Polyhedron, an impossible tower floating above the town) that already make for excellent world building, but when they come together it creates a feeling I haven’t felt from any other world.
You know how Lovecraftian horror has a very distinct feeling? The world of Pathologic makes me feel something vaguely similar, but completely unique - no horror or aliens, but the feeling of powers existing far beyond our understanding combined with people who somehow do understand small parts, and the consequences of their choices affecting everyone… it’s really hard to put into words, but it feels like it created its own genre.
Apart from Mass Effect, Pillars of Eternity, and Deus Ex as others have already mentioned, I’d like to also add:
Grim Dawn.
The conflicts in its Universe feels reasonable, all the factions have their history and reasons of existence, there are beneficial and selfish, but no clear black and white, and everything interacts. The Lore is very good for an ARPG that focuses on combat, loots and built.
Still playing Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, I’m in Master Rank 5* missions now and slowly grinding through, not sure how much farther I’ll keep playing, but it’s still kind of fun.
I’ve also been dipping into the original Hades, I bounced off this game before because it was so grindy, buy I’m following some build guides now and I’ve managed to defeat Hades once, so I’ll stick with it some more.
If we’re including fan games for preexisting games, I so far absolutely love Pokemon Empire, the Reborn style difficult fan game set in a region that basically just finished a full-on civil war and you and a friend are finally able to return to the region. Not really spoilers since you are basically told that in the first part of the game.
I am not gonna give away spoilers if possible, but the region feels like it’s divided after the war, which gives it a more real feeling than any official game or basically any fan game. Various NPCs question whether things were better before the war, some want the old monarchy back in power, some are more in favor of the new government, etcetera. It feels less like a typical run through the gyms, defeat evil team, beat elite 4 and champion style game so far with what I have played and how far they are in development.
I like how the writers didn’t just decide to make everyone into a hivemind of “villain team bad!” ( or more than likely just ignore them, like in majority of the official games ) and have people who support them and people who start to question whether or not the villains are in the wrong or not.
I also like how in the tilesets they used, some parts of the region look like they are wartorn to a degree and are a region that is starting the rebuilding process.
I wanna say more things, but then I’d be spoiling stuff and I really don’t wanna spoil things for this game.
The fuck. I’ve never heard of this. Haven’t heard anything that interesting in pokemon since years ago back when I was using smogon university to dig into the meta and play on some online simulator where everyone just locked their pokemon at lv50 and could choose all their IV/EV distribution, natures, and move loadouts for the ultimate meta experiance.
The fun part about this is I didn’t know it existed until maybe a few years back when someone I watch on yt who plays pokemon fan games and ROM hacks ( HeroVoltsy ) played it. And even then, I think I only found out by scrolling through his playlists.
Will say, just like a lot of fan projects like this, the game requires you to join their discord server if you don’t already have the download link. Sadly probably one of the best and worst ways to try and keep the project going while also keeping the corpo lawyers off their back and also being accessible to the majority of people.
Can’t say I know what simulator you are talking about, though. I think the only one I know of is Showdown.
I finished Resident Evil: Village. I was a bit skeptical at first since I don’t really care for the more action RE games from 4 onward, but I ended up really enjoying it.
Other than that, I’m playing Project Diva. I’m trying to get past 8* extremes but I’m struggling with reading, especially when chords appear.
I spent a lot of time trying to set up Sound Voltex with wine and could only get it to work in Bottles using wine-ge, as otherwise gstreamer wouldn’t load the proper codecs. I ended up getting a spare drive and installing windows on it which I’ll keep around for situations like these.
This doesn’t make me super want to play 5, the only game in the main series I haven’t played, but it does make me appreciate the rest, sometimes in ways I’ve recognized, and others not so much. Halo was somewhat unique in the Halo 3 2007 era, where every game was shades of grey and brown, because enemies were still colorful, with distinct designs and silhouettes, and the game at least started in a lush jungle. While certainly waypoints made a difference, I want to say most interactive items were either brightly lit forerunner panels in blue, covenant panels in bright green, or human ones that were just a huge green button. Clearly that design was well thought out and done for good reason, even if it would be reasonable to consider them a little silly in their dramatic design. They stood out, even in halo 3s large setpiece battle areas
Halo 5, ultimately feels like more 4 to me, so I’d say you’re not missing much besides the lore. But yeah, the design is really the worst part here.
Now that you mention the bright colors and standout interactive pieces of the earlier games, that’s definitely the difference I’m noticing between these. Like with the shutter door I mentioned. It really does not look like you can smash through it or interact with it in anyway.
Yeah, and that’s okay, as long as you’ve taught your players to be looking for that. If it’s the fifth game in the series and suddenly shifts to a couple of small, subtle interactibles and occasional pieces of important destructible environment, where those never existed prior, you better be using them all over, and from the start teaching players that they exist. It’s so important to teach players what the game expects of them. Going “what do I do!?” Is such a horrible experience every time, even in otherwise good games
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Aktywne