This is an oldie, but Lords of the Realm II. I loved the first two, but had trouble with the third and ended up giving up, assuming it was a me problem.
Nope, the community pretty much unanimously hates it. It’s not a terrible game per se, it’s just very different from the first two, throwing out everything most people liked about the predecessors and not exactly succeeding at the new mechanics.
I’ve decided to build my own take on the best parts of all three, we’ll see if I ever finish it.
I never played the others. I play with my friend overseas every Monday. He chooses the games. He may have chosen it because it is cooperative, online and not PvP. IDK.
But we also play, Aliens, Grimm Dawn, all of the borderlands games, like literally ALL of them including Tiny Tina’s Wonderland. Two is my favorite.
Started playing the first game day one but stopped for several years. Picked up 2 when I found out it was ftp right after beyond light came out and bought all the dlcs available until after lightfall. I was at work and a customer asked what games I play. Said D2 and someone else said “why would you do that to yourself?” I thought hard about that for awhile and realized all I do is grind and don’t really have that much fun with it. It was more like a second job. And lightfall was a garbage dlc. That was also a major contributer to me quitting.
My biggest issue with Destiny 2 is that I paid $60 for it and then it soon went free to play and I had absolutely nothing to show for that $60 I paid.
Edit: oh yeah and that original $60 campaign was removed from the game by the time I went back to check out what was new. There was straight up less content available for me after not playing for a year. I felt so ripped off that I wrote the game off.
I was excited to start again right as beyond light dropped, but it was confusing as hell as a new player because they sunset the starting campaign. Weird to have to research how to play a game.
Even TF2 gave special cosmetics and stuff to existing players when it went F2P ages ago. It’s a standard practice at this point. I sunk 12k hours into D2 until I quit it for good this past fall, and looking back I swear I just notice more and more red flags like this that I hadn’t thought too much about.
I started with Shadowkeep and I got sucked in hard for 5 years. The first year or two I heard these sorts of negative comments here and there, mostly from long-term players, but didn’t think much of it.
Fast forward to this past year, and Revenant is what made me say fuck it and drop the game entirely. I was already sick of the state of the game, powercreep to hell and back, pvp in the dumpster, nonexistent loot, etc etc. But jesus that season was eye-opening. I uninstalled a day after Tomb of Elders launched.
I was also a major completionist - near max triumph score, never missed a day 1 raid from DSC onwards til unfortunate scheduling fucked our SE run, every GM soloed to that point, shit like that. Missing that one single season and a couple shitty little time-limited events was enough to feel like I’d fallen behind, and that was it. Booted up the game once since to check out Heresy, activity was the same shit as always, loot was dogshit, so I checked out right away.
And that’s just the gameplay gripes. Bungie as a studio is toxic as fuck in so many ways and I can never in good conscience support them again.
It took a few years but I finally understand what people were telling me way back when I started.
User name checks out, I really enjoy your writing. Do you keep a blog?
Games, as much as anything else, is a hobby and are something that people have to have a passion for to stay up with it. Just like the hobby of your coworker, who hits up the car show circuit every summer weekend, can cite every part number for the general Lee dodge charger out of the Dodge parts catalog, might be intimidating to someone who isn’t a car person. Our hobby has time and financial commitments that gatekeep others out too. We love it anyway.
Chasing an authentic or definitive experience, is like going for tops at a car show. A goal worth striving for but not required to enjoy the hobby.
Just like we can talk about how Donkey Kong, or Super Mario Bros. or Doom impacted gaming forever. So could your car guy about thunderbirds, corvettes, or some other third thing.
Equally sad is cars today, like games, are engineered to make as much money as possible and not for repair or longevity. Meanwhile the classics will always have a community dedicated to preserving them even as the stock of parts grow thin and less accessible.
In 30 years no one is going to be able to drive a car from the near future even if they wanted to as they get reduced to required apps to start and LTE connectivity for the on board computer functionality, the same way Fortnite won’t exist even though Super Mario Bros still plays fine on OG hardware
Final fantasy 13. Rented it as a kid for the 360 for a week and loved it. Didn’t get to finish it, but as soon as it released for PC shortly after I built my first PC I played it and loved it. I now have over 300 hours in the game on steam and have beaten it 4 times. One of my favourite FF games despite how much the fanbase shits on the game.
I also don’t care for the 2nd game in the trilogy despite that being the fanbase’s “preferred” game of the trilogy. Did not like the “monster as a 3rd party member” thing at all. Lightning returns is also amazing and I’ve put a couple hundred hours into that game and beaten it 3 times as well.
Love the FF 13 games even if they get shit on a lot by FF fans. 13 will always be one of my favourite games.
Online is a good place to share all the games you liked. It is where I talk about singleplayer experiences with others. In all honesty if they really are that niche you might not find people with similar experiences on Lemmy, just because we’re not a massive user base. Or you might!
You also might want to look into video game preservation.
King’s Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity. Even as a kid, I felt like it was a very strange gore-and-action focus shift for the King’s Quest series. Only as an adult did I hear the story of executive meddling that lead to the complete tone and gameplay shift.
Tears of the Kingdom is $115 ($130 with tax) in Canada. To go to bat for Nintendo over the Switch 2 pricing is some sort of Stockholm Syndrome. For reference, the Switch 1 version can currently be bought brand new for $70.
I’m not a big fan how the “enhanced” versions offer nothing more than just unlocking the frames. Nintendo didn’t remaster these games, they didn’t up the graphics or crank up better lighting. It’s literally just an fps unlock. It only seems better because you from 720p to 1080p making the pixels smaller.
How old were you when you played Sonic Unleashed? I thoroughly played and enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2 for the Gamecube when I was in middle school, but revisiting it as an adult, it was so hard to envision how I ever enjoyed the way that game controls. However, even though my muscle memory was totally gone, since all the levels I knew from SA2 were remixed, Sonic Generations was good even as an adult.
I already knew some of the writing was bad, and the cutscenes/animations were fever dream-esque. Despite that I really enjoyed the feel of the combat, and how destructible enemies’ bodies are in the game.
I’ll be honest. I was curious and looked up reviews of the game, and saw mostly negative-looking videos. But I chose not to watch them because I didn’t want to ruin my enjoyment of the game. I know the game is bad. But I still like it. I will say though that it’s mostly because of nostalgia.
There are some objectively bad things about SOF Payback though: regular human bosses that are bullet sponges for whatever reason and the pc port of the game being unplayable.
I’m sure there are lots of examples for me, but I guess one that comes to mind is 007: The World Is Not Enough for PS1.
Reading/hearing about it as an adult, not only is it seen as a poor follow up to Goldeneye, but also the PS1 version is the worse of the two releases, with the general consensus being that the N64 version is better.
Back in the day, though, I didn’t know any better and I loved it. I expect most people have games like that.
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Aktywne