Pretty much all of those are characters from franchises that quickly jumped to consoles, or had the intention of multiplatform releases from the very start. I’m not sure any of them are very fitting.
So on that note, the least nonsensical mascot for PC gaming in particular I can think of is that dwarf, whoever he is, from the box art of World of Warcraft. Or possibly the orc from the alternate version. WoW is earth-shatteringly popular and has basically defined the entire private lives of a depressing number of people, not to mention it’s the sole and singular thing even non-gamers think of when you mention MMORPGs. And it has only appeared on home computers. Never consoles. Other Warcraft properties have, but not WoW.
I think Halo Infinite qualifies, I played the multiplayer waaay back when it released so things may have drastically changed (haven’t heard of it being the case);
it didn’t / doesn’t do anything that no other game does, nor did / does it do anything particularly well nor better than its competitors (including every Halo from Bungie).
I did watch a walkthrough of the campaign, and it doesn’t look particularly engaging either.
The thing that gets me the most is they dont push the story forward. It felt like they said “lets slap some shit together so we can focus on competitive multiplayer”
I wouldn’t know what the thing that gets me the most is, there is so much that Cyberpunk 2077 corpo ass studio has done to ram the franchise into the ground after digging it up from its sacred resting place.
Other than brand loyalty (which at this point shouldn’t even exist anymore), I wonder how H:I ended up lasting years more than Concord.
Sonic Adventure 1. I love the hub worlds and how the stories of the different characters intertwine in the shared areas. And I love the variety of characters and being able to freely choose which one to advance (unlike Sonic Adventure 2…)
and off topic, but why the hell do the SA2 treasure hunting stages only do radar for the “next piece”?? SA1 has the radar active for all 3 pieces, so there’s way less back and forth
I bet it was to artificially increase the difficulty of those levels, if not, I can’t explain why. It is the single detail that makes the Knuckles/Rouge levels less enjoyable.
I didn’t know this one wasn’t well received until just now. To me it’s one of the few good 3D sonics. The plot, stage design, intersecting stories with varied play styles. All of that made it feel like playing in a full world.
That being said, I’m hit or miss on sonic in general, so maybe I like it for not being a traditional sonic game.
I do think it’s interesting you find video games have an entry barrier that’s higher than, say, music, even though the vast majority of people don’t have a way to listen to vinyl, as per your own example.
Nowadays people need phones, so depending on the game they can indeed experience them is some form.
It sells itself on cool aesthetics, but the moment you get past that you realise it’s just a very, very generic open world shooter with incredibly bland and boring shooting layered over an impressively faithful recreation of Shinjuku. And even the aesthetics wear thin very quickly, being largely just a whole lot of “Hey I know that anime” level stuff cribbed from Japanese culture. The game is mostly just running around a map collecting stuff.
I mean, that’s exactly what makes it so “mid” to my mind. It’s not an atrocious disaster like Gollum. It’s not appalling bad, or even moderately bad. It’s just mid. The shooting isn’t dreadful, just dull. The map, the movement, the exploration… None of it is exactly bad, but none of it left any kind of impression on me. Like you said, it scratches that “running around and collecting stuff” itch, the numbers go up, you unlock new powers, etc. But it all just kind of passes straight through you and at the end you’re left with “Well, that sure did kill a few hours.”
Horizon: Zero Dawn suffers from all the usual modern open world hallmarks, the map littered with things to collect, the towers, the grinding to level up abilities, etc, etc. But the story is an absolute banger, and even a lot of the random collectible junk is full of little moments of deeply moving storytelling. I remember collecting every single one of the vantage points because I absolutely needed to hear all of the short story you unlock by doing it. It has zero relevance to the plot, but it’s just a great piece of writing. In comparison Ghost Wire is just, sort of… There.
I have a lot of childhood nostalgia for Donkey Kong 64. If you were a kid who could only get a new game every few months or so, this giant behemoth of a game will last a long time.
But it undeniably is a bloated clusterfuck, the internet is not wrong in hindsight.
Next thing that comes to mind for me is the GBA port of Tales of Phantasia. Symphonia was a huge part of my adolescent years, and as soon as I heard this was getting a GBA remake I was all over it. Loved it, and didn't hear until much later that GBA is apparently considered the worst version of the game. If PSP ever gets translated, I'd love to see what I missed out on...
Honestly the collectathon genre as a whole doesn’t hold up much these days. A few modern games pull it off here and there, but going back and trying to play any of the classic Rare titles feels like a slog.
Loved all those games as a kid, and they did a ton to shape the industry, but they don’t really hold up.
hbomberguy did a 50+ hour 101% nightmare stream for trans charity a while back and I watched the whole thing. I would not subject myself to playing that game but damn it was interesting to see.
I wonder if a fan mod of DK64 where the bananas aren’t colored would fix many of the problems. I feel like that one small change might fix a lot of complaints. I haven’t played it though.
There’s a ROM hack that let’s you swap characters with a button press rather than trek through the level to find a swap barrel and then trek back again, and do that again and again for coins, bananas, etc.
Small change that has a big impact on the replayability.
Mine was final fantasy 12. I played that game so hard, really enjoyed it and if was released in the time of trophies I would have platinumed it. Even did the grinding for Gilgamesh to spawn for a sword or something. But I was hated at the time.
Now everyone is saying it was one of the best and I was proved right all along.
Sure the story was star wars and the main character wasn’t, but the combat system was really fun, way better than 13.
I hated the game at first too. But I actually gave it a replay a while back and ended up loving it. Ironically, my love of FFX was holding me back from enjoying XII. Once I replayed it with a more open mind, I thoroughly enjoyed it. There are certain things I dislike about it, sure. But that’s true for any Final Fantasy game.
I think replaying it when I was older also helped. I didn’t have the patience for the politicking when I played it the first time. And the game’s story is very political. So I think the added maturity meant I was able to appreciate the story more.
Truly some of the worst FF decisions all in the same game.
Why is the key to the postgame dungeon a piece of undifferentiated loot? Why did the game allow me to accidentally lock myself out of the postgame by selling it?
Why is the story is a low effort clone of Star Wars?
Why set FF12 in the world of FF:Tactics but make no reference to it?
Why, oh why, an all-women-race of playboy bunny girls in lingerie and heels?
That being said, programming your own teams’ AI is peak jrpg wish there was more of that. This baby got thrown out with all that dirty bath water unfortunately
Interesting I don’t think I’ve seen anyone call it the best before. I loved the shit out of ff7/9/10 and was so excited for 12 and it was one of the first big gaming letdowns I can remember. Ive still had the heart to pick it back up.
I liked a lot about the original. I thought the real-time, turn-based fighting system was going to take over as the new fighting system going forward to replace the ATB as the go-to, and I was happy about it (XIII and XV would have been better for it).
The remaster raised the game to its full potential imo. Having jobs is so much better than free-for-all. And getting rid of the Zodiac Spear disqualification treasure chests is just good on my psyche.
FF12 is definitely my favorite FF. The combat system is the most interesting to me - programming your party to act how you want without spending the time of selecting combat options every single round. It’s also why I love the first Dragon Age and hated the sequels. I wish more games used that type of combat.
Dual nominations for Paper Mario: Sticker Star & Paper Mario: Color Splash. The only thing I really remember about them is that I played them and they left me without any feelings about them whatsoever.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne