I’ve been enjoying the flow state I get into while playing Space Marine II. It is a mix of melee and shooting, but the melee aspect is very simple - no memorizing combos and the timing of parries is fairly forgiving. It’s all very satisfying once you get the feel for it. Cinematics are skippable, you can change the difficulty level to your liking, and you can set your lobbies to private if you don’t wanna play with others
There’s always the classics: Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a spritual sequel to Symphony, made by a good chunk of the people who made Symphony now that Konami has effectively stopped making games.
The Castlevania GBA and DS games are great as well.
I also really enjoyed Blaster Master Zero. It has a few distinct gameplay styles within the overarching metroidvania style overworld progression. Side scrolling platformer in a tank, on foot, and isometric on foot shooter.
I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played of Xeodrifter, but I didn’t get too far into it.
Funny thing is, I’ve enjoyed a lot of Metroidvanias, but…never enjoyed Symphony of the Night. There’s so much forceful encounter repetition, so many dead end items that don’t actually help you “unlock any doors”, and it’s so easy to get into a rut of wandering the castle unsure where you can go next.
I’m not trying to tell you you have to like it, or how to play your games, but there is no shame in using a guide if it helps you enjoy it more. I’ve had to come to terms with that personally
That’s the thing. I even remember trying to use a guide, but it’s difficult to work past all the “Here are 18 secrets that don’t do anything you can get from the beginning” as well as all the bits you can do out of order. Locating the part of the guide that gives you just enough to keep playing on your own is really difficult.
Many other Metroidvanias are sort of more clearly delineated between story beats, or major powerups you’re meant to get in order, all of which allow you to go places you couldn’t before.
“Blaster Master?” takes long drag on cigarette “I haven’t heard that name game in years.”
Man, I remember playing the OG on NES. Didn’t know they remade it… And made it all anime lookin’? Neat. If you’ll excuse me, I must go and tidy my crypt now.
I recently picked up the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. For all the Metroidvanias I’ve played as an adult, I never really got too into them as a kid. Gotta make up for that at some point, lol. Symphony of the Night isn’t on there, but I don’t want to start mid storyline (I’m kidding). My biggest fear is playing Castlevania will just make me more impatient for the next season of Castlevania Nocturne.
We all are, but people keep paying them money. It won’t stop until people get their heads out of their asses and stop doing that. Kind of like how microtransactions won’t go away because whales won’t stop shoveling dump trucks of money at mobile games.
You should check out The Finals if you're looking for something that's a bit more OW-like. Heavy focus on objectives instead of kills, like OW. There's also lots of abilities and weapons to mix and match, so it's less of a hero shooter and more of a build-your-own-hero shooter. Made by a bunch of ex-DICE devs, so the gunplay and environment destruction are very satisfying. Completely free to play, too.
Have you played OverWatch recently? That game is a disaster. So damn boring and monetized to hell. They barely put any effort into it anymore. I’m pretty sure they have abandoned it or are about to because they realize that the community is done with them. At least with League, they have a lot of buy-in with the community and very loyal community that generally approves of what they’re doing
It’s quite easy, actually. I usually play everything years after release, however, if I’m really into a certain series, I’ll buy it right away. If I don’t care for the wait, I probably don’t care enough about whether or not a sequel is being made.
Of course that only works if you don’t get hyped easily. I play a lot of games, but usually only 1-2 per year are released within said year.
Personally I am very willing to pay full price and even occasionally buy pointless extras I don’t care about if it helps reward their passion for a project I see as a valuable contribution. I’ll even pre-order or provide them some free advertising in some cases. Especially if its the sort of dev where it seems like their long-term survival might be in question.
I feel like you can usually tell when the dev needs money or doesn’t.
Try Wakfu. There are a lot of chill trades to grind casually and the economy is completely player driven. There are no NPCs to buy or sell your loot to.
The PvE gameplay loop is really fun. The game has an adjustable level system that encourages players to replay lower level dungeons. Battles are turn based and have a surprising amount of strategy.
The only real problem with the game is that the devs seem to not care about player growth at all. They do zero marketing and sometimes the registration system is broken and won’t get fixed for awhile. It’s like the opposite problem to RuneScape.
Minimal. There’s a unique captcha system in harvesting that makes it difficult to bot. The closest thing to bad bots are people running multiple accounts on single account servers to run dungeons. It’s a bannable offense and people do get banned for doing it.
Not really. It isn’t as good as Far Harbor aeven though the world building is better and more interesting. Of course it’s way worse than Dragonborn. But it’s definitely better than Nuka World and Automaton. And also better than the Pitt and Mothership Zeta even though it’s difficult to make comparisons with Fallout 3
You could stand by and hope for great things with Brighter Shores, from one of the original makers of RuneScape. I’m hoping it gives me that seem feel rs did decades ago.
I’m done bro. I have no hope left in me after Back 4 Blood. The original creators of Left 4 Dead, totally failed to deliver a fun and interesting game. I can’t believe the whole “original creator” bait anymore
The sheer joy of MGS2 the first time. The mix of shock and shlock at Ocelot’s possession by Liquid’s arm. Being totally stumped by “Fission Mailed” the first time it came up. Getting annoyed at the swimming section with Emma.
With MGS3, slowly realising the wide ranging freedom in how one interacted with the game world. Watching my brother get slaughtered by crocodiles. The bizzareness of the pain and his bees.
They’re both well made engrossing games with a serious point but don’t let that get in the way of fun experiences.
If I think about the first time playing mgs, it just blew my mind what you can do there. Even the simple things, like when the soldiers saw your footsteps in the snow. What they did with that game back then was extraordinary in many ways.
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