I hate Steam’s review system, though. Binary yes or no is not useful to me. I want to know if a game is good (maybe a play eventually) vs absolutely amazing (where I might prioritize playing it right away). Such granularity is also useful because a 10/10 might be worth it even if it’s not my favourite type of game, but a 7/10 can be very worthwhile if it is the type of game I adore.
It’s a shame that user reviews on sites like Metacritic are just consistent trash. Too many users only know 0 or 10 and the user reviews are often review bombed. I wish regular users could at least give numbers like critics. No professional critic is gonna give a game a 0 because of a handful of problems, for example, but average people will totally give a game a zero for that. Only problem with critics is that they often have a perspective that makes them detached from the average person, since they spend all their time reviewing. Ideally user reviews would fill that gap, but users are incredibly fickle.
I don’t agree at all. SR3 and 4 were peak for me. I don’t want a game that feels like it lives in the shadow of GTA. SR4 really had it’s own personality and it was a ton of fun for me.
Honestly, with how long it’s been in development, I can totally believe it. And sure hope so. I mean, it’s been so long and I’ve also been constantly thinking about how long it’s been since Skyrim came out (since it’s been publicly stated that TES6 was blocked behind Starfield). All that time has gotta mean something. And it’s not like Bethesda doesn’t have great talent. I’ve always got the impression it was all a matter of lack of time for the size of the game.
I also love space RPGs. SWTOR was pretty great. It’s an MMO, but it has good single player. The Knights of the Fallen Empire/Eternal Throne DLCs are basically single player games and they’re really good quality. The KOTOR games are also really great, if a bit older and KOTOR2 was basically unfinished and requires mods to make it even feel 80% finished.
Outer Worlds was okay. It certainly does in some ways feel similar to Fallout in space. But not quite as good and I don’t recall being aware of any serious modding scene.
But huh, I thought there’d be more, but I’m struggling to think of space RPGs with a feel like Mass Effect or Elder Scrolls. I’m really looking forward to this, too, cause despite being a buggy mess, I love Bethesda games and I also love sci fi (especially in space).
Not an RPG, but I also love Stellaris. It’s a strategy game, but really scratched that hyper advanced sci fi and space exploration itch.
You know, I realize I dunno who uploads their details to these kinda sites, but I’m glad people do. I consult HLTB a lot and it’s always been really useful for judging the time investment a game will take, how worthwhile DLCs will be, and for understanding what kind of game something is (longer is often better in my book, but not always, since games like AC Valhalla have actually gone too long, since I can’t help myself but to play mostly completionist).
Story is really what I care about the most from RPGs, though I’m also a sucker for old school RPG battle systems. I’ve never heard of this or the studio, but reviews liken it to Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy, which is a very good look in my book.
It seems like an especially great year for gaming. I can’t remember the last time there was so many highly rated games coming out (and there’s still more to come – I’m most excited for Starfield).
Personally, I sometimes like when a game feels like just a new storyline (and map) for the same game. Sometimes I just want more of a good thing and don’t want to have to learn new mechanics or risk the game making things worse.
And since dev time is limited, I think in theory, this could mean more time could be spent on making the story missions perfect. But in practice, I don’t think that usually happens. Publishers would rather cheap out.
Going in blind is the best. Unfortunately, it’s probably pretty difficult to do, since spoilers are extremely rampant. I don’t even know how I managed to do it. But it really is magical if you go in blind.
I agree with you on those special weapons. I dunno why the heck they made those so rare or expensive while also not being that durable. I don’t find it an issue for most normal weapons, though, especially with the fuse mechanic in TotK. I like how it forces me to vary things up and allows for regular treasure chests or drops to actually give you something you can use (even if it’s basically like a short lasting consumable).
I usually dislike weapon durability (eg, in Fallout), but Zelda is the one game where I actually liked it. Perhaps because in Zelda, it was a central mechanic that the game was designed and balanced around.
For most games, durability is something that the game isn’t really designed around and feels more forced in. When you can repair your gear (as you usually can), durability just means every now and then you gotta deal with the annoyance of repairing.
I really dislike being set back far when I die or mess up. I can handle a fair bit of repetition, but replaying the exact same thing over and over because I died is frustrating and boring.
Which means that I particularly dislike when games have lousy checkpointing or save systems. I also dislike when games are too difficult and I can’t turn the difficulty down to at least get past whatever is giving me a hard time. And of course, unskippable cut scenes right after a checkpoint are a classic pain in the ass.
Examples:
I just finished Outer Wilds and found that game’s checkpointing to be pretty frustrating. So many boring trips to Brittle Hollow because I lost my footing. I almost gave up because it was so bad.
I never finished GTA 4. I got stuck in some mission where there was like a 5 minute drive and then some difficult combat. I kept dying and having to redo the very boring drive over and over killed my motivation. I don’t even know why it was so hard. I played GTA 5 twice with no issues.
I tried Dark Souls once. Lol, lasted maybe an hour before giving up. Now I’m very wary of any game that doesn’t have configurable difficulty levels. Thankfully, most games these days are actually progressing to more granular or meaningful difficulty levels.
I enjoy the scale of large games, but Odyssey and Valhalla was too much even for me. I’d like maybe half that (which would still be at least 50 hours I suspect).
I wonder what they got from Sony. Ideally it’d be some promises about Sony reducing exclusives themselves. Exclusives suck for everyone but the company that owns the exclusive console. I don’t personally own an Xbox, but I still want Sony to cut it out with their exclusives.
Dishonored was the first thing that came to mind when I read the title, too. OP, if you haven’t played it, check it out!
As for others…
Skyrim and Fallout aren’t exactly deep stealth games, but stealth is hands down the most popular and arguably most fun way to play. Sneaky archer is a freaking meme.
Far Cry games all favour stealth as well. While you’re totally allowed to go in guns a blazing and it’s frankly more effective sometimes, the game does reward stealth and is clearly designed with it in mind. Silencers are magic, you can distract enemies, can lure wildlife to attack, smoke bombs, knife combos, “death from above”, etc.
The Metro series isn’t entirely stealth, but a lot of human enemy sections are meant to be done with stealth and I recall it being actually very difficult if you’re not stealthy (you die fast). I also recall the stealth feeling more realistic in terms of detection time. Finally, there’s something extra fun about being stealthy in a very dark post apocalyptic subway tunnel. Much better atmosphere for it!
As a final side note, the way OP described assassin’s Creed sounds like the older games. They might like some of the “middle” games like Unity more. The games that came just before Origins (Origins and later are very fun games, but the stealth is no longer the focus).