Yes! I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I didn’t like the way the NPC AI worked. That specific aspect felt less like a “horror” experience and more like a “will the jank fuck me this time?” fest. Everything else was excellent, though.
Main game was a 10/10 without question DLC was a 9.5/10 and would have been a 10 if not for that.
I still got a lot of “Outer Wilds moments” in the DLC. Very few games have given me that kind of “oh, you’re kidding, that’s awesome” feeling when you figure something out.
Outer Wilds. Will probably stick with me for the rest of my life.
Death Stranding also had some moments that I remember fondly.
Slay the Spire still got an immense amount of attention from me, even though I started playing it longer ago than 365 days. I discovered how fun this game can be with a friend / a group. Building the deck together and making decisions really amplifies the emotions :D.
Demon Souls, first souls like I finished, on PS5. Just an incredibly polished experience.
I reckon it’s gotta be Disco Elysium ; that game changed my life. I just came to it at a particular point in time where some of the messages of the game hit especially hard.
A friend was recently telling me that it seems like it’s exactly their kind of game in many respects, but that their impression is that they would find it too depressing to play. Whilst it is true that the setting is pretty grim, I also found it to be one of the most hopeful games I’ve ever played.
If anyone isn’t familiar with Disco Elysium (DE), it’s a RPG where you play as an amnesia cop trying to solve a murder. It’s very introspective and quite heavy on the text, which I personally loved. It’s a very grey world where there isn’t a clear right answer in anything and it’s so well executed that it made things feel real.
As an example, one of the things DE is known for is its creators thanking Marx and Engels when receiving an award for the game, leading many to view DE as “that communist game”. However, although you can play as a communist, the game pulls no punches for any of the ideaologies, especially communism. It was made by an Estonian game studio, and it never feels overly idealistic - this particular kind of sad wistfulness towards history is something that only a post-Soviet country could pull off, I reckon.
Mass Effect as a series had so many heartbreaking moments. I’ll never forget the horror of finishing 2 without doing enough loyalty quests and seeing that final mission play out. For me, it was Legion and Tali that got me. I always sided with the quarians over the geth, but Legion’s death was always just so hard
I went through that whole thing waiting for -- apparently -- a Paragon option that never showed up, that would've managed to save them both. It kinda put me off the series.
HOW DARE YOU PUT ME THROUGH THIS RIGHT NOW. I was just sitting here, enjoying some coffee, truly having a great day. I can’t handle this right now,@Xariphon
As an RTS player who only ever plays for the story and does not care about multiplayer at all, new RTS games with a decent story and gameplay are kind of thin on the ground these days.
I can’t even play C&C RA2 anymore because I can’t get it to run on my PC. Tried several guides, but it refuses to run properly.
Love: When mystery games actively draw attention to the idea that you need to draw your own conclusions about what you find in the game, and make your own truth, instead of just following a track
Hate: when the above is expressed as a formalized “Mind Palace” mechanic à la the more recent Sherlock Holmes games. That’s just covering the track with a tarp instead of letting you build your own theories. Either let people accuse who they want with the evidence they have (once again I plug Paradise Killer) or acknowledge that there’s only one acceptable answer
I’ve played a little. It’s okay. The one I was playing didn’t do anything approximating the Mind Palace and was very, very linear-- which I think is better than the Sherlock Holmes style games. It was the everything else about it that annoyed me into turning it off!
I love Dragon Age: Origins. One of the best “modern” RPGs for sure. Great replayability. Great characters. Great “rpgness”.
I also love Dragon Age 2. It’s not a great game… but I actually like the story more. I like how more “focused” it feels narrative-wise. The characters are also great. The “rpgness” is less good… and development issues makes for a lot of reused assets.
I kinda like Dragon Age: Inquisition. I’ve been replaying it recently. The story is decent. The characters are also good. Maybe even better tbh. I like the main plot points and the ideas etc. But the game mechanics kinda suck… I hate the pointless missions that take time like mobile games. The way the story progresses, with meta-points blocking things also sucks. But it’s ok…
All in all, I would recommend playing them all. But kinda like watching all the Godfather movies. One is great, another is pretty good, and one kinda sucks but it’s ok. But if you just watch the one that’s great, you kinda miss the whole thing.
This might sound weird, but are you actually engaged with what you’re playing? Maybe you need to find some higher intensity games to keep your attention.
Well that’s the thing, it happens when I play games I find exciting, no matter the genre. Even when I pumped hundreds of hours into it. I put like 88 hours in cyberpunk 2077 but I found myself drifting away every time I’d start up the game.
Was it like that when the game was fresh and you were getting into it in the beginning, or just after youd put the hours into it, and the novelty wore off?
I won’t call it pacifist mode exactly, but I prefer to play games like Tears of the Kingdom or even GTA by just walking around slowly and taking photos, observing the scenery. GTA San Andreas (the old ps2 version) is weirdly great for this because it has so many hazy colors and jaggy lines.
I love just cruising around San Andreas’ map, stopping at roadside restaurants, clothing shops, betting shops etc., just kind of going on a little roadtrip with K-Dust in my ear
Finding alternate ways of playing a game, whether by doing a self-imposed challenge, or just playing a game differently than it was intended, are a good way of spicing up games you’ve played hundreds of times.
Or in some cases, playing the game how it’s meant to be played. Like in a lot of RPGs, you’re not really supposed to grind.
I played Final Fantasy VIII without grinding cards, draws, items, or anything until end game content. It was relieving to not have to worry about any of it.
I had the opposite FF8 experience. I got lost like 3 times, and between over leveling and limit breaks, none of the bag guys ever got through their dialog trees during a fight. It was funny, but I don’t recommend it.
I’ve finished Kingmaker and WotR is in my backlog.
Pathfinder is a really decent RPG system with tons of choice, but the game Kingmaker comes out as quite linear, you don’t really have much choice in how you play the game apart from being good or evil.
The game is split between being a typical adventure explorer RPG and being a kingdom management game, the former is interesting and has good quests, the latter is opaque, difficult to get to grips with and inflexible.
The worse part is no matter your best intentions, it you don’t do exactly the right things with your kingdom you can find yourself in a dire losing position by the late game.
I don’t mind games that have failure conditions, but losing the Kingmaker game after 30+hrs of playtime because your kingdom starts rioting and you can’t complete any events seems too harsh to me.
Personally I had to turnoff all the failure conditions in the options so that I could grind through the game to get through the final quests, it ended up leaving a bitter taste for the game which started off as promising.
I hear most of these issues have been addressed in WotR though so I’m looking forward to picking up that.
Yeah, the more people mention, the more that kingdom management part is not looking good. Thankfully, as someone already mentioned, there are mods to handle both that and the crusade management part in WotR. But turning off all failure conditions is also a good option to keep in mind, so thanks.
I had a bug where I didnt get a treasurer until late in the game. So I kept losing to stupid bullshit over and over because my guy was underleveeled and I had a huge backlog of things for him to do. I just ended up using cheat engine and giving myself a hundreds of the +% success tokens to make it playable late game.
Man, I haven’t played through Myst since… the original Myst. I heard that Firmament was a bit of a letdown, but I really should go back and play Myst in VR. Thanks for the reminder!
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