There’s a scene like this in one of the Telltale Sam and Max games that really deserves a better reenactment. Went something like this:
Sam: “So, Bosco, how much do you want for this…’Deadly virus’ that’s really just a tissue you sneezed into?”
Bosco: “A hundred trillion dollars.”
Max: “WHAT? That’s insane!!”
Sam: “How crazy can you get to think we’re going to pay something like that?”
Bosco: “All I know is, I keep finding the dumbest junk around my store, and think up the most ridiculous price I can imagine for them! And you two keep paying it! So who’s crazy now, fool?”
I’m not far enough in Silksong to give an opinion, but: Had this happen with Stellar Blade. I was playing through, actually started to enjoy the story, and it has a series of about 3 bosses at the end, interspersed with cutscenes (not fought in a row, just progressively harder). And they were awesome - challenging, but awesome. I felt rewarded for recognizing the full combo strings and parrying, as well as recognizing opportunities to get attacks in.
I get to the final boss (the “Take hand” one), and it’s a brick wall. Epic and all, but feels like a leap in difficulty for an already-tough game. I keep at it, trying my best, but it gets no easier. It’s also an unsatisfying runback after often barely getting far into the fight. Finally, having not needed it all game, I switch to the game’s built-in easy mode. Even then, it’s a challenge, and I lose if I’m not paying attention to the attacks! But, I can at least recover from those failures, and try to learn more in one go. From then, I’m eventually able to get through and see the conclusion to the story. I recognize I do not hold bragging rights to that final boss, and I’m fine with that. I liked getting to see the ending cutscene, I exhibited as much patience as I could give with the bosses…but any more than that, and I would’ve started to hate the game.
Half-Life 2. It brought me into PC gaming, as well as introducing me to Garry’s Mod, a relatively simple sandbox tool for creativity, complete with a wide array of assets to use.
I also really appreciate its moody world design that doesn’t often explain things directly to you.
I’ve always really loved mechanics that encourage players to manage risk, especially where it relates to HP systems.
One that I enjoyed, in Cosmic Star Heroine; when your characters’ HP reaches 0, they remain on their feet for their next turn. If their HP is healed to a positive number that turn, they can continue, but their healing is halved to make that difficult. On the other hand, while in negative HP, they can also perform an attack that deals double damage - after which they’ll be KO’d.
Fatal Frame has an item that will automatically revive and full-heal you one time when you would otherwise die. However, you can only hold one of these at a time. So, if you’re playing with heavy use of healing items, burning through all your film (ammo), you might find a second one, which will make you wish you’d leaned on the first one a bit more by not bothering to heal quite so often.
Another random example: You’re in a JRPG, and going against a boss enemy that has a brutal spell that reduces people’s HP by 3/4ths. However, they have pretty limited options for actually finishing you off. At some point, players will realize their advantage, and stop spending so much time healing people to full. A similar example is a boss in Final Fantasy X. It habitually casts Zombie on your party members, meaning healing spells will damage them, and revival spells will kill them. She then frequently casts “Revive-All” on your party. If everyone’s a zombie, that means you die in one turn. However, if you stop healing, and let party members die to basic attacks, she may accidentally bring them back to life for you - and no longer zombified.
The unfortunate fact is, the conceit of most action games relies on some pretty dumb ideas.
Every opponent is committed to ending your life, even to the point of fighting on when 80% of their unit is dead.
Your hero is skilled enough at combat to win hundreds of fights without any permanent injuries
The “light, casual” quests you’re put on like retrieving a child’s missing doll are important enough to for enemies to relentlessly guard with their life.
People have pointed this out for everyone from Mario to Nathan Drake, etc. Some games even try to base a “moment of introspection” around it, and it sort of falls flat.
It’s definitely not just indie games. I was looking forward to the Trails in the Sky remake, checked on its discussion forums, and it’s polluted with overblown “censorship” claims, sprinkled with “Guess the game FAILED cause it went WOKE” cringe.
If only Steam had something like BlueSky’s crowdsourced blocklists. That would be a freeform way of handling the issue.
Before the poster makes any other posts, they must answer the prompt: “Apologies! We’ve been dealing with an influx of hate speech and bigotry, so to clarify your concerns, could you please provide the intended meaning of the word “Woke” in this post?”
The excuse doesn’t work well when “retro 3D” games are actively being made by indie devs today.
As long as it’s a uniform aesthetic aimed for and achieved by the devs, it can survive a long time. I’d say just as much of GTA: SA and a lot of Nintendo games.
It also goes to show that a lot of tactical/modern Xbox / 360 games never really had any stylistic imitators in the modern era, and for good reason.
Unfortunately, there are some very celebrated games that commit to this approach. Final Fantasy XIV and WoW keep getting away with it, and there are others.
Of course, they had to work for a long time to earn that pedigree and price tag. This certainly has not.
I’m sure it’s a good time to mention Portal though. Many gamers have said they want tighter, more focused experiences that are really worth the price tag. I guess question being, is this game all that amazing, and are gamers honest about that thinking towards prices.