Like Genshin Impact, Star Rail has a decent base game that does well with its characters and combat. Notice I didn’t say “great”.
However, after you get through the intro and the first world, they start adding on to the game. There’s a whole bunch of 1-off mini-games that are fun in their own right and have nothing to do with the Gacha.
The first one is a museum administration mini game where you’re responsible for “hiring” people that have 3 stats, and then balancing those stats to make money for the museum, then using the money to upgrade the museum, run mini-quests to restore the museum, and hire more staff. And expand the museum.
Each of these little mini-games is a few days of fun, and I think I’ve found 4 so far IIRC in Star Rail. Genshin Impact has had similar things, but tend to not be permanent, and to be less involved than Star Rail’s.
The gacha is generous enough that you can generally play without paying anything. I don’t think I’ve given any money to Star Rail, though I have paid the monthly $5 to Genshin Impact for a few months now. And I’ll admit, I started thinking about paying it to Star Rail, too. It’s definitely a gacha game, but on the actually-playable side if you’re playing free.
That said, if gacha games are something that just stick in your craw, it’s unlikely that any game will change that, and I’d argue that you’re better off never finding out.
In the end, I’d say you’re best just accepting that for what it is, it’s one of the best, and letting it go. There’s no point in being upset that people enjoy a game that you can’t. Let them have their fun, and go have your own instead.
if gacha games are something that just stick in your craw, it’s unlikely that any game will change that
Like I said to the other guy, I find it FASCINATING that we’re having this discussion on Lemmy.
The people in this community left Reddit for reasons of principle. We didn’t like the way they treated the moderators. We also didn’t like the way some moderators treated the users. We didn’t like the way Reddit’s corporate masters were placing advertising dollars above the user experience, and cutting off third-party tools and methods of using the site.
/r/Gaming has 39 MILLION users. This community, the one we’re posting in right now, has A MERE 27 THOUSAND USERS.
Here you are, willing to go out here to the fringes of the internet, cut off from the larger community, made an outcast by your own principles. Buuuuuuut you’ll also give money to fucking F2P GACHA GAME GHOULS.
Make. That. Make. Sense.
Really, don’t even bother. That cannot make sense. At the very least, please go back to Reddit. Stop torturing yourself with exile. If you’ll support the massive, ludicrous, unbounded evil that mobile pay-to-pay-more games represent, there is NOTHING Reddit has ever done that should really make you stay away.
Beacon Pines – a charming mystery story with anthropomorphic animals. Has an interesting take on the visual novel formula by having you unlock new dialogue choices as you progress through the story; that way, you naturally explore different paths the story might take. Night in the Woods and (possibly) OneShot fans might like this one.
Oolite – a solid FOSS remake of 1984’s Elite. Has a bunch of mods for it; some expand the gameplay quite substantially.
Orbiter Space Flight Simulator – imagine a Microsoft Flight Simulator game, but you’re going to space instead. Or Kerbal Space Program, but without the rocket building mechanic. That being said, KSP fans (and fans of space in general) should enjoy it.
Transcendence – Star Control II meets Rogue. A cult classic in the space sim genre that’s been in development since 1995. Space dogfighting, trading, mining, smuggling etc, but also traditional roguelike stuff like unlabeled barrels and containers (= undiscovered potions) and permadeath (optional). Highly moddable, uses XML as the modding language. Has a free version (see link) and a Steam release, which includes the paid expansions.
I was playing Orbiter long before KSP came along. It taught me all I know about orbital mechanics. It helped ease the learning curve in KSP a lot. But after KSP came along I completely lost interest. KSP is a lot more fun and there’s a lot more to do.
Still had a laugh when my friend who made fun of me for playing orbiter ended up buying KSP, getting frustrated, rage quit and asked for a refund.
For some time, I considered Orbiter to be better at providing an arcade experience of “choose ship/scenario and fly away”. But now that KSP also has scenarios, maybe this argument doesn’t really stand now. But I still think that Orbiter’s MFDs are better than KSP’s manoeuvre planner (at least for precise manoeuvres)
I think it’s difficult to know where we really are in the release cycle for this console, as it’s been disrupted so much by initial unavailability and COVID. Normally, we’d be due a Pro version this year, but it could be this year, it could be next year, it could be never.
Last generation I was happy with a standard PS4 until I played Control, and could see that it was struggling. I’m not sure there’s any PS5 games that are known to stress the hardware, and would do anything with the extra resources.
I’d buy one now if I were you. Worse case scenario: you’ll want to trade it in for an upgrade in a year or two.
almost 50 hours at this point. Its perfect game for having music or videos playing in the other window. Played both Single and Multiplayer. I’m a bit burnt out with whats available, but considering I played Ark back when it first was released, and that game makes me feel like having to go to a job I absolutely hate, Palworld so far has been enjoyable, looking forward to seeing updates.
I’d recommend dabbling in the tcg live app on mobile/pc, i believe you can enter your deck codes if you still have them & practice with the current legal standard
Brothers in Arms is fantastic and squad management is not a very intrusive part of it at all.
As for the saturation it wasn’t just FPS, it was that every genre (well, baring racing I guess, but there every game was heavily “Fast & Furious” inspired) had more than one WWII game, it was ridiculous…
Rouge likes. I just can’t get into them. The only one I was able to sink any kind of time into was Hades. I actually enjoyed it a decent amount, but I find the gameplay loop for roguelikes just wears me out pretty quickly
You're going to need a better eye for asset flips. It's too easy to dilute the meaning of the term if you're going to start including the likes of Palworld.
Cuphead.The art is very beautiful, but I think the gameplay uses just plain repetition to achieve the difficulty, and I’m not a fan of doing the same thing again, again and again.
I love Japan. I love Samurai, and old times. Fired up the game and found out it has some dark souls mechanic bullshit, that makes it a grinder.
I am an adult. With very limited time for games. I have to have quick saves I can’t be grinding shit. I simply don’t have the time nor the desire waste time grinding.
Really sucks because the game looks gorgeous and I liked the start of the story…
Final Fantasy 7. I’ve tried to play it multiple times, but the game’s story never pulled me in. And with how long of a trek it is between story moments and the slog of combat encounters I usually put the game down.
Were you older than 12 when you first tried to play it? Because that’d do it.
I was 12 when I played it and I loved it so much that I wrote a convincing essay on why it was the greatest game ever. I then freehand drew the logo as a cover to the essay. I attach a copy on my resume.
I’ll pile on and say there’s no way I’d enjoy it now but my younger self totally agrees.
I think the thing to remember about games from that era is that we had so fewer options and so much more time on our hands. Feels like I ditch games much quicker now if they’re a slog or repetitive.
I would really consider it a deckbuilder first and anything else second. Obviously yes it has the roguelike elements, but the gameplay is so different from almost any other roguelike. If you like the idea but couldn’t go for the totally card based gameplay, maybe try Inscryption or Hand of Fate.
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