Oh, I'm positive yours is by far the more common experience - I haven't met anyone who agreed with me about it, haha. (But starting with "unpopular opinion, but..." is so tainted by popular opinions seeking attention that I couldn't bring myself to say it)
And yeah, the puzzles were simple, but the world was cool enough (until the ending loljk'd it all) that I enjoyed spending time in it even doing the simple stuff.
This is a hard question to answer, because the really unfun ones either get dropped so fast I forget I ever played them unless someone jogs my memory by naming them directly, or I'm willing to just shrug and say "this is probably great to some people, but it's not a genre I like." I guess for this category, I would point to The Witness. I heard so many recommendations for it, but aside from the occasional "oh, neat" when I saw how a puzzle was placed in the world instead of on a board, I couldn't tolerate it for nearly as long as it wanted me to keep doing the thing.
The game I memorably should have enjoyed - that I had the highest hopes for (and the biggest subsequent disappointment for) was Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.
At first, I loved the deeply disturbed main character and grim Norse fantasy world being crafted around me, but the combat felt so disjointed from the story (on purpose) that it felt like there was one guy on the dev team who liked combat who everyone was afraid to piss off, so they had to make concessions and put one token immersion-wrecking battle in every so often. And it's mad that Senua has two entire character traits - "psychotic" and "warrior" - and one of them managed to feel immersion breaking.
Then the ending destroyed the bits of the game I DID like and made me feel like a tool for ever having bought into the grim fantasy world to begin with. That shit is everyone's most hated ending trope, and I walked away from the game feeling like I'd wasted my time.
I didn't say they don't make good games. I said they drink the koolaid.
Context matters, and in the context of this thread (whether or not Bethesda games often have Denuvo) that means the anti-piracy "DRM is neat" koolaid (vs them avoiding DRM for self-developed games so they can be modded extensively).
Bethesda the publisher does things differently than Bethesda the developer.
As a dev, they know their modding communities keep their games alive long, long past their expiration dates and will fuck with them as little as they possibly can - this takes them from games to household names to legends that everyone knows.
As a publisher pushing products that aren't intended to be modded, they drink the koolaid.
That's a pity. Still, the setting (time period/tech levels/world population composition etc) is worth taking away as something good that people can learn from, I hope, even if they messed it up so badly.
Oh, you might be right. That's even odder to me then; I haven't played any of the Horizon games myself, but I find their setting premise fascinating. Is it so poorly executed?
If I misunderstood, my bad, but I'll leave it since there are people who rant about BG3 in a similar direction.
Calling DnD bland always strikes me as funny. It's bland compared to most modern fantasy for the same reason Seinfeld is bland compared to most modern sitcoms: it's one of the the foundations upon which most of the rest of what we've consumed since its inception is built. We've seen all the innovations upon its formula, so going back to the original can feel lacking if you don't bother to think critically about why it feels that way.
The important thing is that even without all those innovations, they nailed the source material and created the richest experience they could within its boundaries. If it's not for you, it's not for you, and that's fine - no game is for everyone. But it's a pity you dismiss it so flippantly, and I hope one day you can grow to see what's executed well in a project even when its end goal isn't to your tastes. Or just grow out of trolling, whichever applies. I'm not going to pick that apart.
Astarion's mocap in particular is just excellent. He's so deeply weird and it's completely appropriate. I love how during most normal gameplay, his whole body is constantly on the edge between breaking into raucous laughter or total exasperation. Kudos to the actor(s) and techs that put the whole package together.
Wow, that's a kind of dismissal that only those who have no idea how bad it gets can wield. Reading glasses help with clarity, but clarity is not the only issue with old eyes and other visual impairment. Sometimes you just plain need things bigger.
One day you'll look back on this exchange and cringe at the kind of person you used to be. Be better. Accessibility is important.
Signed, someone who's needed full-time prescription glasses for 35+ years and only recently started having to read small print on food and medicine containers with the zoom on my phone camera.
I agree removing the character entirely seems too far. The characters are designed differently enough that you would be leaving a reasonable number of people without their favorite playstyle entirely without a suitable replacement.
I get people not being able to look past the history, but I'm not sure there's any more reasonable course of action that can be taken. The name was the homage, not the kit, art, or lines. And now that name is gone.
I think those who are still upset about it would have to accept they fall under "Don't like? Don't engage" rather than calling for further action.
Because they don't want to be held to the new standard, obviously. They're comfortable and are preemptively taking offense at the idea of having to do more in the future. Like the normal kids who want to punch down the one overachiever who reminds the teacher to assign homework.
But this isn't a homework assignment; these are businesses competing for consumer dollars, and Larian is winning with their investment into a happy team and good product.
You're not wrong, but a lot of people aren't willing to invest the subscription fee and the hundreds of hours they'd need to see that for themselves. And even as someone who's all caught up on 14, I honestly can't blame them. Time is precious, and it's asking for a lot.
The brand suffers because people care about it. If no one cared, the brand would just wither and die, forgotten, like so many others have. This seems obvious enough that I really have to wonder, did you ask this question because you're actually surprised, or because you want to portray some weird image of being above all this?
Good luck with your game! However, if I can make a suggestion:
Think of a way to describe your creation without referencing another game. This might be the only time you're going to get it in front of my eyes, and I know nothing because I've never played the two games you used to compare it to (never even heard of one of them in fact), so I'm not going be hyped or follow it. (While it's true there's a trailer, I'm not in a spot where I can watch it.)
Marketing is important to success, use your limited eyeball time well!