Thanks for checking! I’ll keep an eye on it and may give it a try with the option enabled. I honestly never even checked whether or not Hades I has something like this, maybe I should do that do - I’m still a bit bothered I had to stop after only 4 successful runs.
Would love to play it, but the first one caused a major tendonitis flare up - I shouldn’t risk it. The Poseidon dash boon was just too good, but that always meant a full 30 minute run of just hammering one button.
You’re right, nothing stops them from becoming shitty. However, unlike public companies, a private company isn’t encouraged to prioritize short term profit over long term profit. Doing something blatantly stupid to bolster your short term profit only makes sense for your shareholders or if you want to extract as much money before jumping ship - neither should happen anytime soon with steam.
Your pain points from the developer side all seems valid, and they should absolutely be improved. They probably treat unknown indie devs like dirt because for every good game they get thousands of submissions with blatant lies in them. E.g. your typical asset flips. Of course, that’s no excuse, but at least I can kinda get where that could be coming from. Have you experienced the old system? I simply cannot tell whether they have truly become worse for indie devs or just traded some problems for others.
Regarding the sales, I have mixed feelings. Sales were a lot more exciting, that’s just true. However, because of flash sales, I mostly never bought anything but those, at least until the very end of the sale. While it is boring in comparison, as a consumer, I also quite enjoy the ability to only check the sale once, get what I want, and be done with it. Seems way more convenient.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but enshitification seems like a problem entirely contained to publicly traded companies. Valve is a privately owned company and doesn’t need to grow, thus they can just enjoy the millions if not billions of dollar revenue.
It’s a really well done RPG in the spirit of the original Paper Mario games. Charming and fun to play. Got some depth to the build choices using a similar badge system as Paper Mario or even Hollow Knight.
Awfully presumptuous of you, I’ve played most major releases within the genres I like. Let me tell you, the Xenoblade series is among the best RPGs I’ve played - up there with Persona and everything Fromsoftware among others.
Also, what’s up with the 30h comment? A good chunk of their games are longer than that. But it doesn’t matter anyway, or you’re also arguing against the quality of every God of War, every The Last of Us, Bloodborne, every Portal, Hades, every BioShock, every Resident Evil - you get it. A good chunk of these is also below 20h, and all of them are beloved and once sold at full price. All of them worth it, if you like the genre.
Many of the most fun games I’ve played the past 5 years are made by Nintendo. You might not like them and that is okay, but tgey are by no means garbage.
The next take is probably more controversial, but I don’t think they are overcharging. Why drop the price after a year or two? Games don’t get magically less fun and their games are usually polished enough to last for the entire gen without being overshadowed by later releases (expect for Pokemon, they are hot garbage - at least on the technical side). I’d even argue that not dropping their prices is one of the reasons Nintendo doesn’t need the mtx bullshit most other developers pull with their games. Just look at how well Mario Kart sells despite being something like a decade old at this point.
I disagree. I love both of them, but I gotta say P5 is only fun once. It is way too dialogue heavy for a 80h game to replay and literally every side activity is boring on a repeated playthrough, hence I’d never have gotten to the actual Royal story content if I had played all of P5 initially. Yes, I could skip through most of it, but at that point I’m only playing a worse SMT with way too many interruptions and would potentially skip some changed stuff. SMT V on the other hand I see myself replaying anyways, should there be enough new stuff I’ll go for VV. It’s just pure gameplay goodness.
You absolutely can! There are classes, subclasses and equipable skills depending on the game. All with different builds. You can win with all of them and swapping around can be fun. However, you can also do this within a single playthrough. At least in my opinion, the dungeon is the main draw here - but of course, as with all games here, there are certainly people who like to replay them.
They don’t exactly fit with your theme of short mystery and puzzle games, but based on your initial question most JRPGs and most story-focused games came to mind. Let’s go over a few of them I’d recommend to everyone interested in those games:
Persona 5 Royal: It’s about a 100h and very story-heavy. There are some twists and turns which keep you engaged and you build relationships with a wide cast of characters. Besides the story and actual combat, there’s a ton of side activities, all of which you only do a few times. It’s probably my favorite game I’ll never replay, because all these things are an absolute slog to play again. The same goes for Persona 4 and maybe 3, haven’t played that one.
every Etrian Odyssey: They are old-school dungeon crawlers originally released on the 3/DS and got remakes on steam and the Switch. You draw your own maps of every layer the dungeon has, which is a large puzzle in itself. However, once you know the dungeon, there is literally no point in exploring it again. You know every trap, every worthwhile detour and of course the path to take.
Like a dragon 7/8: They combine an open world with lots of mini-games, funny and/or touching side stories and an epic overarching main story to follow. There are tons of interactions with your companions, all of them interesting. It’s just, similarly to Persona 5, all these mini-games and interactions only carry themselves for the short burst you get them in and while they are fresh. Replaying them? It’s an absolute slog. You know every punchline, you have optimized most mini-games and probably remember most of the great backstories each character has - you’d be skipping most of the content and the non-optional combat system isn’t fun enough to carry itself on its own.
I loved it too! Until I learned you can attack your own party to essentially powerlevel. Couldn’t stop myself from abusing it instead of doing some proper leveling.
I’m about 45h in. So far I’ve completed most side stories, the Pokemon League and I’m now doing Dodonka Island. Still have most of the main story before me, didn’t even had a fourth party member for close to 35h. It’s still great.
The hardware is more than ready, there is no way in hell that 3D Pokemon would need more hardware power than Monster Hunter Rise or any Xenoblade game did. Monster Hunter Rise even had a horde mode of all things, using models that are way more complex than any Pokemon.