Yeah. I think there’s a problem with the modern development cycle that a fuckton of the budget goes into marketing and marketable assets (i.e. all them graphics that look great in the trailers but nobody’s computer can actually handle, and then the rest of the team’s on the hook to make a game on a shoestring that can actually use all of that content - The only way you can possibly accomplish that with a fraction of a fraction of the budget is if it’s super simplistic and repetitive gameplay that’s stretched over 40+ hours like a peasant on a torture rack.
Think about how many games you’ve played over the last decade, and how many of them were still fun to play after the first five hours, either because the primary gameplay loops were satisfying enough to keep you engaged, or because the game was keeping it fresh with new mechanics that didn’t bungle clumsily atop one another like a raspberry and beef trifle. Making great games is difficult and expensive, and most studios would rather put out something with a guaranteed return than anything that’s fun to play.
To be fair, that is exactly what I do some days after work because this shit is needlessly exhausting. I think I need like a year of sickly Victorian style bedrest because I have been so burned out for so long that I don’t really have much of a sense of self at this point.
People could avoid paying $70 for bad games by not preordering. Like seriously, it takes maybe two hours after release for the criticism to start pouring in.
Yeah, the silver lining of the whole gaming industry fallout is that the indie game scene has never been better. I was lamenting the fact that we hadn’t had a good top-down zeldalike in a long time, echoes of wisdom notwithstanding even though the formula is pretty altered. Someone pointed me in the direction of Master Key and it was an incredibly satisfying time. Almost like it would have fit in perfectly between LoZ 1 and Link’s Awakening.
I kind of feel that - I think the issue for me is that there’s a lot going on in each of these games that is tangential to the primary gameplay loop that on the surface isn’t obligatory, so if you find it not to your liking you can choose not to engage, but avoiding the secondary activities locks you out of some rewards for the PGL often and severely enough that you do feel obligated to engage to the point you can get these rewards. Especially in the gambling minigames, I often feel relieved when the points you buy end up being the same points you exchange for said rewards because it means I can just engage in the fighting a little more instead of having to gamble.
Case in point, I’m playing Infinite wealth right now and it feels like a big step up from the first Like a Dragon, but I’m still finding myself pulled into the Sujimon quests even though I personally don’t like monster tamer games. I don’t even know what the rewards are but half of the map icons are raids and trainers, so I feel like I should at least be putting time into maintaining a team with the ones I can catch just from grinding out fights for Job XP.
Any of the fallout/elder scrolls series. I remember whiling so many hours away in them as a kid and having a great time, and now any time I pick them up it just feels like a second job, looting and managing inventory ad nauseum.
It’s funny, I own a switch and I would have bought the game (and I probably will still if the technical and QoL issues get resolved) but I’m emulating it better than the hardware can run it right now.
I like it more, but I’m a fan of the more classic Zeldas. It’s good, but it’s marred by the same technical issues that plagued the LA remake, and the lack of some basic QoL features like a Quick Select or Favorites wheel is bringing it from ‘great’ to ‘good.’
I actually really like the SNES game, it is objectively not great though. You can’t even save, so emulation is a must unless you can dedicate an 8-10 hour sitting to it.
Particularly that it switches between top-down outdoors and a pseudo-FPS indoors, and the claustrophobic interiors and darker music give it a lot of charm.