I bought Hollow Knight for €7,50 long while ago and it was such an amazing game. Loved every second of it. The characters, story, world-building, it’s all immensely well done and you can notice it’s done with their hearts-content.
Another game that I bought on sale, that was below the €10 were the Ori games. The story was incredibly good (especially of the first game), got me teared up at the end lol. and liked the platforming too. Preferred the combat of the second game though.
Quantum Break is another one I bought on sale below €10; The story was decent but got me thinking ‘‘imagine people found an actual way to do this’’.
I played Morrowind multiple times in past, mostly aimlessly, only recently I decided to give it another go and actually focus on main questline. This way I beat Morrowind + Tribunal + Bloodmoon (TES III GOTY edition in Steam) in 96.4 hours. I don’t remember the price but IIRC I got it on sale very cheap. All those hours were very rich and enjoyable. I played with few dozens of visuals improving mods though, used this guide: wiki.nexusmods.com/…/Morrowind_graphics_guide
I tend to play without expansions and mods the first time. The second time, with expansions. Later, with any mod I specifically want.
The exception was Daggerfall because Arena was pretty bad with a few bugs. However with Daggerfall Unity I didn’t install additional mods. I did look for additional bug fix mods, didn’t find any. That makes sense since if an external modder makes fixes, the Daggerfall Unity maintainers would make those fixes too eventually. I need to look again though.
I’ve managed to get a few deals over the years that sort of fit the bill.
Hollow Knight when it was on sale, for example. But I abandoned at 98% (it goes to 113%, right?). There are a decent number of other Metroidvania-style games that are frequently discounted and are wholly enjoyable (the Shantae series, Iconoclasts, etc.).
Stardew Valley I found new, in box, for PS4 with audio CD for €8.50 and bought it based on the description without any knowledge of what it was.
Many shmups are meant to be overplayed and remain enjoyable. Radiant Silvergun comes to mind, and there is a bit of a story to that one as well.
I’ve not played vampire survivors or survivor likes. I could try it to see myself. Dwarf Fortress too I have had an eye on but it shows many situations which would be obviously frustrating (I enjoy some permanent death games which label themselves as roguelike/roguelite, without frustrating elements). I’d had a look at the ASCII version of Dwarf Fortress a while ago, I find those visuals more appealing in comparison to the steam version. I’ll add these to the list of games to play.
I read this and all I can think of is that voice line from the first area (outside visima) where the little girl asks “can girls become witche’s too?”
I guess it doesn’t really fit within the story of the original, but if they make a new story with new themes I don’t see much of a problem. But no one really likes ret-cons
The canonical answer to “can girls become witchers” is no one properly knows. Citi was raised and trained by them but they didn’t do the other stuff (the mutagens, trial of grasses or special diet) because they both didn’t know what it would do to a girl because it had never been done to a girl and because even if it worked exactly like it would for a boy it causes sterility and she’s the last member of the royal line of Cintra.
But the time of The Witcher 3, she’s already older than it’s normally done, so any attempt to do it would additionally have unknown results because presumably they usually start changing them from childhood for a reason, rather than taking in adult trainees.
The order that they appear in MCC, which is pretty much release order. I would 1000% get the ODST and Reach campaigns as well, as those are top notch too.
CE, 2, 3, ODST, Reach. You can play 4 if you want so you can see how it started going downhill, and it has its moments.
Just play 1, 2 & 3 chronologically and if you want more play odst. I, personally, wouldn’t recommend halo 4. They’re also great games for co op if you have a friend you can convince
Spoiler-free TL;DW: Halo 4 was controversial because this was the first new mainline Halo game by 343 Industries, who changed things up from previous Halo titles.
But aside from questionable changes to the franchise in order to appeal to the CoD audience, there were a few genuine issues with the campaign (in my opinion, as a player who never finished Halo 4’s campaign).
In terms of gameplay:
The sandbox was absolutely destroyed through many changes to older weapons, to encourage you to use the new 343 weapons. The weapons were either nerfed into the ground to make them unviable, greatly reduced in ammo/availability, or outright removed. This meant that you would constantly be forced to replace your weapons, or you’d have to use the newer weapons, which still ran out of ammo. This greatly limited your options when playing the game.
The enemies would act in a way that greatly limited your options when fighting them. The most common weapons (plasma pistols and needlers) were both were used in a way that forces you to methodically take them out from a distance. Melee attacks were undodgeable instant deaths, forcing you to take them out from a distance. Then, the Promethian knights have stupid health, shields that recharge almost instantly, and the ability to fucking teleport to recover their shields (or hit you with an undodgeable melee attacks).
The result is that you are basically limited to only using long-range weapons to take out enemies. Hope you enjoy hours of Light Rifle gameplay!
In terms of other parts of the game, this is more subjective but:
The story felt incoherent, especially considering that it is a sequel to Halo 3
The sound design completely changed the iconic sound effects, and the music felt off
The characters were bland and forgettable, only Master Chief and Cortana were anywhere near fleshed-out
Overall just a poor experience compared to older Halo titles.
Fallout 4. The amount of world exploration and itty bitty stuffs almost makes me lost myself in exploration, even though the story can be really short depending how you progress the content. On my first playthrough, I clocked at ~90hrs of play time and only just passed the 1/4 of story progression just because I sucked in sidequest and exploration.
Never thought I enjoyed the base building and assisting settlements aspects, Bethesda did great job on Visual storytelling speaking as Interplay/Obsidian Fallout fan.
Another case is STALKER Anomaly mod which can gives you theoritical endless playtime as long as you creative to build your own CYOA Stalker story. Though I don’t recommend Anomaly if you’re looking for the STALKER lore (as they’re fan project) and should be treated as post-vanilla playthrough.
Developers are demonstrably not getting more efficient with their content. More content means more assets, and that’s why development timelines have only gotten longer over the years.
I do, and I miss it. I’m far more likely to feel these days like they made too much game to its own detriment than to make it a length that felt better for the game’s pacing. Baldur’s Gate 3 was phenomenal from start to finish, but games frequently come in at a third of its length and feel like they were longer than they should have been. Lots of games transitioned to open world that used to be linear, and the open world is little more than a menu that makes it take longer to select your mission, because you have to travel there. They create checklists of busy work to keep you playing worse content between the moments that you actually want to do, like the side missions that litter modern Assassin’s Creed games with progression gates. I didn’t know how good we had it when we got FPS campaigns between 8 and 12 hours in the years following Half-Life 1, because they’ve been so rare since Titanfall 2 came out 8 years ago. Games being longer now is not solving a problem that I had, and I’d argue it’s often creating problems.
Maybe you prefer your games longer, and good on you if you do, but it’s most definitely not due to developers getting more efficient with their content. For one reason or another, because you’re demanding it as the customer or because modern asset pipelines make it make the most fiscal sense, they’re just spending more time making the content.
You can still get short games, you just won’t find them from AAA developers anymore because publishers want big games with bigger profits. Titanfall 2 was a great campaign even if short, but Halo 5 was the last short game we had and people threw a shit storm (rightly, it wasn’t near the quality of TF2 and had other issues).
If you want short games, the indie space has you covered. Always small games out there releasing.
And game devs have certainly not become inefficient, it’s just the standards of quality are higher. People still want more complex, better looking games. And I don’t mean just graphics; unique art styles are all the rage. Games like Balatro and Cruelty Squad prove graphics aren’t everything as long as you keep a cohesive style and have good gameplay to back it up.
Personally though I avoid small games. I’ve had my fill of them growing up, I’d rather play big games with open worlds and all that jazz. I want to be invested in these worlds not play and forget.
I agree that AAA developers are the ones typically not making short games, and I agree that I am well-covered by indies. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. FPS games are about the only genre I feel like I used to be well-served in that indies haven’t quite picked up yet, so I can’t really just “go elsewhere” these days to scratch that itch (but games like Mouse: P.I. for Hire may be the start). But I was really just arguing against the efficiency part. I don’t think they’ve become less efficient at making content, but they’ve seemingly stayed exactly as efficient and just spent much longer doing it. I don’t find that a big open world makes a game any more memorable, especially when it exhibits the negative trends of filler and bloat I mentioned already.
I knew it was a jrpg from the beginning, but the way the stories unfolded and piled up had me confused. There was a new question every chapter and it just bwcqme bigge and bigger. Awesome game
bin.pol.social
Aktywne