nfreak

nfreak, 6 days ago

It feels like so many devs and studios have been trying to bring back the magic of that era but L4D was such a product of the times. Hard to imagine any similar games in that vein succeeding today.

nfreak, 11 days ago (edited 11 days ago)

Everything is cosmetic last I checked aside from stash tabs, which granted should be earnable in-game, but it’s nothing like an entirely MTX-only class. I do wish the game had a transmog system though at least, even Diablo 4 does, and we all know how Blizzard is.

Could be better, could be worse.

nfreak, 11 days ago

As soon as Krafton bought them out it wasn’t just downhill from there, it was a steep drop off a cliff. The game had so much promise but got royally fucked.

nfreak, 11 days ago

After ditching D2 last year well past the 10k hour mark, I’ve been bouncing around a bunch of different games, mostly working through the backlog but also looking for a long-term grind to scratch that same itch. Out of everything I’ve tried, PoE2 and Warframe feel like the only ones doing live service “right”, especially the latter. Between both games, the only MTX gripe I have is PoE2’s stash tabs.

Last Epoch had a ton of potential but the team were in way over their heads and forced to start cashing in, and the Krafton buyout was the nail in the coffin. It feels like they just flat out didn’t have the budget to keep it going.

nfreak, 15 days ago (edited 15 days ago)

For a bit it was Destiny Rising, I quit D2 over a year ago but DR does genuinely do a lot of things much better than the base game and directly addresses a lot of my core complaints that made me quit after 10k hours in the first place. Stupid mobile gacha game with predatory monetization out the ass, and I was shrugging aside the handful of AI NPC voicelines.

Needless to say I came to my senses and dropped it entirely on a whim. Can’t support the AI bullshit, I found I’d spent much more than I thought on the game already, and the endgame is entirely just p2w or get a handful of mats you need every 2 weeks. The core of the game and a lot of the systems are legitimately really good, but the gacha core really brings it way down.

That entire franchise is just a warehouse full of monkey paws.

I recently picked up Warframe which I’ve shrugged off for a long time because TPS almost never clicks for me, but it pulled me in hard, and it’s wild going from FOMO-ridden powercrept anti-player D2 and gacha hell DR to a game that actually treats the players with respect.

nfreak, 19 days ago

You know at first I didn’t really think it would be considered one, but looking back you’re absolutely right. I really need to replay those games.

nfreak, 22 days ago (edited 22 days ago)

I love how so many of these old games has custom servers up and running. Metroid Prime Hunters apparently has a thriving community too (though I left the biggest discord as soon as I joined because it looks the lead admin is literally a DHS nazi 💀)

The bigger hurdle really is the DS’s wifi compatibility since WEP is so outdated and insecure. I haven’t actually messed with it in ages, but seems like hotspots are the way to go and are super easy to set up on linux, so maybe I’ll dust mine off and give that a try.

nfreak, 25 days ago

Considering how much Bungie has fucked over their one game and its playerbase for years and seem to keep finding ways to double down on it, I never had any faith in Marathon from the beginning.

What’s wild is this is far from the first time that studio’s been caught for art theft too.

nfreak, 26 days ago

Tbh the marketing and price tag are what killed it. The game itself was actually pretty fun, played a lot like Destiny 1 pvp and really didn’t feel like a hero shooter at all (which is a good thing). The abilities complemented the gunplay, not the other way around, and movement was crisp.

Firewalk had a great core, but Sony fucked it up.

nfreak, 26 days ago

I’ve started playing it and it hooked me for a bit but once it really opens up I’ve been struggling to stick with it. Very interesting premise and characters so far though, I have no idea who can actually be trusted and that feels intentional.

nfreak, 26 days ago

A bit of a tangent, but tbh I feel like Half-Life Alyx was a perfect example of where they can take the franchise, but being a PC VR title (and one that really leans heavily into the tech and loses a ton if played with non-VR mods), it didn’t have nearly the same impact as the rest of the franchise. It was definitely innovative but not in a way to appeal to the mass market. Not to mention it sets the stage for HL3 even more than Ep 2 did.

nfreak, 28 days ago

Huge shame to see Last Epoch get bought out by these assholes just before all this too

nfreak, 28 days ago

God I forgot about that one too. I feel so bad for that team, they put out a banger out of nowhere and keep getting thrown to the wolves.

nfreak, 1 month ago

I bought it ages ago but finally decided go give it a go. From the first day I could tell it wasn’t gonna be a game for me. Note-taking is basically mandatory, and it seems so easy just to get fucked out of a run by RNG.

Narrative seemed interesting but I feel like the whole “ability to decide what room you’re going into” thing should be weaved into the story off the bat.

Neat concept but not for me, but I think since I’ve owned it for so long I’m outside of the refund window.

nfreak, 1 month ago

I echoed this in another thread. I honestly feel like ER is the weakest “Soulsborne” game they’ve put out. It feels like a lot of conflicting design philosophies at once.

The lore and worldbuilding are phenomenal but gameplay-wise it falls short of what made their past games shine.

nfreak, 1 month ago

This is something that gets completely lost in the translation to an open world game. The DS trilogy, Bloodborne, and even the original Demon’s Souls feel hand-crafted and carefully structured without being completely linear. ER loses a lot by leaving that formula behind.

On top of that, the boss/enemy design is imo some of the worst they’ve ever done. The past games (with DS2 being the one with the most exceptions) typically give you very fair but challenging fights. Telegraphs are clear without being slow and obvious. Particle effects and such are generally kept to a minimum to prevent visual clutter from taking over the screen. Bosses hit hard, but very few hits or combos, if any, would one-shot most builds outside of challenge runs. ER throws all of that out the window - bosses tend to hit like trucks, are visual clusterfucks (either enormous models with a terrible camera, tons of particle effects blasting out the ass, or both). I feel like the final boss of the DLC as an example is the most egregious example of this sort of design philosophy. Hell, Nightreign works so much better with the exact same designs because it’s such a faster-paced game where getting knocked down once or twice isn’t usually the end of a run.

nfreak, 1 month ago

Nine Sols. Played it right after finishing Silksong to keep the metroidvania kick going.

The parrying was some of the worst feeling parrying I’ve ever felt in any game, the world felt tiny and extremely linear, the narrative was predictable and felt extremely flat, and the final boss is the only time I’ve ever switched to a story mode difficulty in any game just to get it over with, I love difficult games but that difficulty spike is absurd and the game never remotely prepares you for that.

They advertise this game as a Sekiro-like metroidvania, while it feels like they completely miss what made Sekiro work or what a metroidvania is.

nfreak, 1 month ago

If it were more linear akin to their older games and dramatically reduced the visual clutter of most bosses, it would’ve been perfect, but those two things brought it way down imo. These sorts of games excel in smaller, more linear but interconnected environments.

nfreak, 1 month ago

It’s a huge part of why I quit Destiny 2 entirely. A game that doesn’t respect the player’s time and pads it with RNG on top of RNG to extend playtime feels awful.

nfreak, 1 month ago

I’m in the camp of Soulsborne vets whose first AC game was AC6. Took me like 3 tries for it to click but it finally did, then I binged the hell out of it and platinumed it in a week. Phenomenal game and really got me interested in picking up the rest.

nfreak, 1 month ago

Yeah honestly. Fuck Microsoft and all that but this sounds like there’s a strong reason behind it, and the owner’s post about “free speech” and “totalitarian China” is a MAJOR red flag.

nfreak, 1 month ago

Microsoft declining to comment may as well be a confession that they gave this shit the go-ahead

nfreak, 1 month ago

Equally disgusting tbh. Boycott for life for sure.

nfreak, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

The original Yakuza 1 and 2, though I’d recommend the Restored mods for each because the localizations (especially Y1’s dub) were notoriously awful. Hilarious at first, but that wears off fast. (Though it is so funny to me how Y7 dub Kiryu’s VA is the original VA from Y1, you’d think they would’ve wanted to forget that ever happened LOL)

When I first played the series I played the remakes first, and after going back and playing the originals I understood why so many series vets weren’t happy with the remakes. Y2 especially has some of the best feeling combat in the franchise.

nfreak, 2 months ago

Absolutely. Still holds up extremely well in every aspect.

nfreak, 2 months ago

Nazis deserve no sympathy.

nfreak, 2 months ago

I sunk 90 hours into Silksong since launch, and now I’m going through Nine Sols and playing PoE2 on and off. I won’t lie I’m hearing good things about BL4 minus the performance, but I’m not giving Randy a single cent and I’m far happier not engaging in AAA dogshit.

nfreak, 2 months ago

$40 per game apparently LOL

nfreak, 2 months ago

Really don’t think the boss nerfs were warranted at all but the environmental damage change is very welcome.

nfreak, 2 months ago

Not sure yet. They did say they were small so probably nothing too egregious, I’d imagine a contact damage nerf if anything.

Splinter is an odd choice to update at all but w/e, Moorwing I felt was tough but fair and really forces the player to learn the fundamentals.

nfreak, 3 months ago

And tbh since OP said they’re generally more into Soulslikes and such, Silksong comes out in 2 days for $20

nfreak, 3 months ago

This is what happened to me too when it came out. Tried like 3 times, couldn’t get it into it. Next thing I knew I was doing any% speedruns, earned all achievements, and cleared all radiant bosses. The only thing I haven’t done in that game was the pantheons with all bindings, those are insane lmao

nfreak, 3 months ago

It’s nuts LOL. I’m not sure how I clutched out the radiant boss clears but couldn’t handle the binding pantheons, I tried dusting it off this week and I’m definitely way too rusty now. Maybe I’ll revisit it after Silksong

nfreak, 3 months ago

His replacement’s not much better. Lots of mixed sentiment from past employees, and even though he did acknowledge it with a joke, the “overdelivery” thing is such a red flag to carry.

I quit the game this past fall after literally 12k hours on steam. Huge number of growing reasons, but the top reason has always been the way bungie c-suite treats their devs and their players. One of the most toxic in the industry by a mile.

nfreak, 4 months ago

Same LOL, I just wanted to snag Postal 2 DRM-free. Oh well

nfreak, 4 months ago

I didn’t even know there was a switch version

nfreak, 5 months ago

Same here. The thing was neat and innovative, but missing the dpad and right stick really brought it down significantly imo. The steam deck got it right - the trackpads are incredibly useful when used as a supplementary feature, but rarely as a full replacement for traditional inputs. Plus the form factor. Dear god the thing was MASSIVE. Incredibly uncomfortable to use and such an awkward shape.

Here’s hoping the leaks come to fruition, because a 2.0 version based on the Deck would be 10/10.

nfreak, 5 months ago

What a way with words LOL

I respect it but it’s not for me. It feels very defined for one hand size in particular, thing gives me cramps.

nfreak, 5 months ago

I’m actually almost surprised they didn’t just pull it entirely after this. It’s not like it’s just one or two assets, the entire goddamn art style ripped off that artist.

nfreak, 5 months ago

Oh for sure, I get that. It’s not exactly something you can copyright. But when the entire art style heavily leverages stolen assets, that’s not a good look - I imagine they’re stuck redoing nearly everything from scratch just so they can be sure to remove anything that was stolen.

I have zero faith in anything Bungie does though until Pete Parsons bites the curb and the studio becomes developer-owned though so I’m sure something will slip through the cracks

nfreak, 5 months ago

Even TF2 gave special cosmetics and stuff to existing players when it went F2P ages ago. It’s a standard practice at this point. I sunk 12k hours into D2 until I quit it for good this past fall, and looking back I swear I just notice more and more red flags like this that I hadn’t thought too much about.

nfreak, 5 months ago

I started with Shadowkeep and I got sucked in hard for 5 years. The first year or two I heard these sorts of negative comments here and there, mostly from long-term players, but didn’t think much of it.

Fast forward to this past year, and Revenant is what made me say fuck it and drop the game entirely. I was already sick of the state of the game, powercreep to hell and back, pvp in the dumpster, nonexistent loot, etc etc. But jesus that season was eye-opening. I uninstalled a day after Tomb of Elders launched.

I was also a major completionist - near max triumph score, never missed a day 1 raid from DSC onwards til unfortunate scheduling fucked our SE run, every GM soloed to that point, shit like that. Missing that one single season and a couple shitty little time-limited events was enough to feel like I’d fallen behind, and that was it. Booted up the game once since to check out Heresy, activity was the same shit as always, loot was dogshit, so I checked out right away.

And that’s just the gameplay gripes. Bungie as a studio is toxic as fuck in so many ways and I can never in good conscience support them again.

It took a few years but I finally understand what people were telling me way back when I started.

nfreak, 5 months ago

Honestly the collectathon genre as a whole doesn’t hold up much these days. A few modern games pull it off here and there, but going back and trying to play any of the classic Rare titles feels like a slog.

Loved all those games as a kid, and they did a ton to shape the industry, but they don’t really hold up.

nfreak, 5 months ago

I wouldn’t day D4 is a good game but I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. I stopped playing right after VoH came out, and the direction that expansion was taking the game didn’t interest me, but it was a fun time overall. Not a very deep game though and endgame was basically non-existent since everything falls over at that point.

nfreak, 6 months ago

Juggling a lot at once right now.

• Been working on platinums/100% for every single RGG game since Feb last year. Currently on Yakuza 2 (HD PS3 port since it actually has trophies but is entirely in Japanese lmao) and Kurohyou 1. Kurohyou 2 and Kenzan are the last games left after these.
• Deltarune Ch 3 and 4 are gonna eat up a LOT of time this week and next
• Sunk 20 hours into Nightreign, still haven’t beaten the first big boss because matchmaking is a nightmare. Might revisit this when some friends actually want to run it for once idk. Fun game but one bad teammate can fuck the whole run.

nfreak, 6 months ago

After trying Code Vein because of similar hype and dropping it 2 hours in, I expected the same from this game, but goddamn it’s phenomenal. Absolutely worth playing through. It feels like a love letter to Fromsoft, rather than trying to just do what they do - the inspiration is obvious, but it still feels like its own unique thing.

nfreak, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

That’s where I stand on it. Unless Pete Parsons and the rest of c-suite bite the curb and put the actual devs in charge, I’m not touching anything by that studio.

It took 12k hours but I finally stopped clinging on to some sliver of hope that they’d fix the major issues with D2. Quit last November, logged in one time since to check out the new season after hearing good things, logged out as soon as it was glaringly obvious the core issues haven’t changed.

Every single time I check in on friends still playing I just see more slot machines, more power creep, more dogshit ruining pvp, and more bugs. The core changes coming up in their next year look atrocious. Why would I trust them to handle a new game when they’ve been consistently fucking up their only title for years?

What sucks with the entire situation is that the devs themselves are great people who can make some cool shit when given the reigns to do so. But they’re almost never given that chance. Hoping that team branched off to Sony to continue that “gummy bears” thing is given more freedom to cook.

EDIT: I’ll also add on here for anyone feeling the sunk cost fallacy like I did and has put a ton of time into D2 but isn’t happy with the state of things and disappointment after disappointment. Like I said I had 12k hours at the time I quit. Solo GMs, solo Nez, bunch of lowman raids, every weapon that mattered in my vault, 200+ trials cards, etc. I was a small content creator in this space too. I legitimately feel like that game becomes an addiction so fast, I continued to play through both waves of layoffs despite my issues with the studio execs. I wasn’t happy with the state of the game either but kept telling myself “next season will be better” “next dlc will be better” etc. It’s never true. If you’re not happy with the game, take ONE season off, and if you’re the kind of player I was, missing the seasonal offerings and various events will be enough to make you feel like you’ve fallen too far behind to catch back up, and from there the rest of the facade falls apart. Just gotta let it go cold turkey.

nfreak, 6 months ago

The entire visual style is also blatantly stolen from an artist who’s been doing it for a decade or more, right down to their artwork and their logo being used in-game.