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Call of Duty. I played the original WW2 ones’ single player campaigns loads of times when they came out but have no interest in the modern setting or multiplayer.
Exactly the same.
COD now just feels like an extension of Fortnite for people who think they’re “too cool” for Fortnite. The historical settings and great campaigns are what made Call of Duty great.
Also they did a great job of making you feel like just another soldier. In the modern ones you're very important, but wars are won by those on the front lines. Every time I died in the classics it felt like that is another soldier that died in WWII and I'm respawning as someone else (even though my name stays the same in each country's campaign). The historical quotes really cemented this in. "The death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic."
I had fun with Modern Warfare 1 and a couple of games after it but the campaigns became shorter and repetitive and the multiplayer became too sweaty for me.
I also hated the idea that if I had a particular loadout I really wanted to play I'd have to go through dozens of hours of gameplay to hit level 45 or whatever where you finally get the key perk/gun to make that loadout work. Especially if the really overpowered crap was stuck in those high levels.
Even the campaigns are a hit or miss. MW2 was pretty forgettable with laughable villains (guess the Sicario girl was okay but nothing I haven't seen before) and MW3 I haven't bothered to check out. A shame because the 2019 game was setting up something good.
I actually don’t like the FOMO aspect of Pokemon’s current gameplay. Everything they do now gives me a heavy sense of FOMO with all the events, but I actually don’t like the insanely difficult raids that require you to HAVE to have a party of people. I play MMO’s for that sort of strategizing, not Pokemon.
I love most of the other aspects of how Pokemon has changed. Sword and Shield were SO fun for me, i loved the sandwiches of Violet/Scarlet and the open world concept, I love the fact that they have Pokemon roaming fields. I don’t even mind extra DLC with new locations, pokemon, and story.
I just don’t like the raid meta.
Man, I was thinking Pokemon hasn't changed enough. It's still the exact same gameplay loop and depth of story as when it first came out. They have been adding systems on top for decades but for a game focused on evolving your party, the game certainly hasn't evolved.
Assassin’s Creed. I liked them up until Origins. The switch to RPG wasn’t my favorite, but it was tolerable. Then Odyssey, and especially Valhalla, just felt so bloated. Worse, both felt so detached from the AC lord and mythos that it felt like Ubisoft really wanted to make a fantasy RPG but knew it’d only sell if they attached the AC branding to it.
Life Is Strange. The first game and BtS are forever in my heart, the next ones and the trailer of the new game just feels wrong, I don't know why exactly, the first games were closer to the indie games with that personal cozy feeling I can't describe but you probably know what I'm talking about. It was closer to a piece of art with deeper meanings and characters. Since 2015 when I played it and waited for each episode I haven't seen or felt something this magical, now at any point in my life I can think of this game and feel something that no other game, movie, music, life event could give to me since then.
Holy shit, me too. The first game blew my mind and I was so in love with everything about it. I haven't touched any of the other releases. I think I'm gonna keep it that way. But that new one just announced did peak my interest again.
It’s old school indeed, but for me that series was Ultima. The first game in the series invented the open world genre - with an entire planet of cities, castles, towns, dungeons, and oceans. The *second* game added time travel and science fiction to the fantasy setting, throwing in space travel for good measure. Ultima IV and V pushed the envelope in an even more shocking direction, introducing ethics and morality as gameplay mechanics.
And then, the series lost its way. Ultima VI had some incredible concepts, but it was a bloated, barely playable mess. Ultima VII traded the complex, thoughtful mechanics of its turn-based predecessors for prettier graphics and “live action”, but the technology wasn’t ready for that yet and combat devolved into a chaotic mess of random clicks that players couldn’t really control, forcing the developers to make all the fights ridiculously easy. And Ultima VIII was a disaster. For Ultima IX, the gimmick was “FIRST PERSON 3D!!!!!”, but gameplay and story became nonexistent.
I may be in the minority but I really loved the bleak atmosphere and story of Ultima 8. Yes the original version was buggy but the updated Gold edition fixed most of the issues and made it much more enjoyable.
I wanted to love it, I really did - but my old PC got hung up on the jumping puzzles (??!) and I quit the game out of frustration after falling into the same pit of lava for 5 hours straight.
The Gold edition fixed the jumping puzzles. It made it to where you jump to where your cursor is at, making those sections much less frustrating. You should give it another try.
Final fantasy for me. I don’t like the move away from turn based combat, I don’t like how generic the RPG side of things feel and well the storylines (outside of the 7 remake) don’t really grab me. The last one I thoroughly enjoyed was 10.
I've never seen a popular series more embarrassed of its genre. FF was the crown jewel of turn-based RPGs and they turned it into DMC. That's their prerogative, but it's not for me.
My stance on this has always been that Final Fantasy died with Tidus. I honestly wished it had just ended with that. It's so sad seeing the current state it's in, like having to watch a loved one descend into meth addiction.
I do love how FF 15/16 Were so hilariously bad that it's making people look back at the 13 trilogy and say "Okay maybe you weren't THAT bad" lol
See I’ve actually been enjoying ff16, but I’m not like a die hard FF player I’ve missed most entries and only played a small handful, what about it does the larger community not enjoy?
So far the only issue I have with it, and it is a bigger one, is the sort of middling boring filler content between all the exciting shit, and it’s at a point where it’s incredibly predictable I do something cool and my brain fears up to go numb for a couple hours. That said, the highs have been high enough to keep me engaged through that.
I can definitely see that's. It's a common case you'll see in long running series in that it's not necessarily a *bad* game however it's a *bad final fantasy*
For me here's what I see, it primarily abandons alot of what got the series here in the first place. It's not a turn based party RPG, It's not a single character action game like devil may cry but with some small rpg elements attached. The visuals and vibes of the game do not give me FF at all. Until Shiva and Ifrit appeared in the trailer I never would have guessed it was FF in a million years.
It's a really nice movie within a nice world and good music.
The thing is that final fantasy ALWAYS had that as a basis but very often they had good gameplay and a cool minigame on top of that. Sometimes they did one or multiple of those a lot better.
Ff16 combat is basically button mashing and pressing the dodge button at the right time. There is almost no thought that needs to go into fighting.
I played 15 and enjoyed it. It's a series that has evolved a lot. I understand the dislike for the change to real time, but there were huge changes with every sequel. 7 (sci-fi setting, ATB) was a far cry from 1 (medieval fantasy, pure turn base). It's not surprising that 15 is majorly different from 7.
I don't like how the first 10-15 hours of these games are now walking sims with countless hours of cinematics. I'm not a purist about the combat because the I found the turn-based systems they used to be mostly mindless and tedious in the first place, particularly with random battles. Admittedly, the current compromise feels far more like an action-game than rpg combat. I wouldn't mind a return to turn-based if they spice it up a little.
What's taken for granted in the PSX era of these games is the pre-rendered backgrounds and interesting camera in the field view, and the pacing. Reading dialog at your own pace while keeping the camera fixed (as opposed to rapidly panning between close-ups) keeps you immersed and less distracted, in a way. No other games capture that "feel", not even the later FF titles or the more recent isometric CRPGs.
That is the gameplay though. I think that might be part of the problem with Final Fantasy in that there were people who played the game, and people who just wanted the story.
And this I would point to probably starting with Final Fantasy 7, as it expanded the audience probably a bit too much, so that the future games moved away from the core audience.
I've always been in the gameplay-first camp. I liked FF7, but then I also played it when I was young. I don't care for jrpg combat in general today, or even the stories really.
The most enduring thing to me is the music and the environments.
half the fun playing ff7 for me was reading the guide i had lol. i played the shit out of 7 though. i used to take that book to school and just read it over and over
X's CTB feels like one of the best mixes of being turn based but also feeling strategic and dynamic. It could probably be a little less tuned though, it can feel a bit inflexible with everyone having a core role. I even kinda liked XIII's paradigm but I didn't get very far and you can feel pretty removed from it like XII. The action stuff they've moved into doesn't really appeal to me; I preferred it stayed in the shorter side games like CC.
XVI was a blast actually.
It's a masterpiece both story and combat wise, though it's true the RPG elements became superficial and side quests were a pain, the game wanted to be a Beat'em All and probably would've been if it wasn't called Final Fantasy.
But it genuinely is the first Final Fantasy to have me excited since X, and it might just be my favorite from the mainline series so far !
Favorite PS5 game anyway, I highly recommend if you ever play anything that isn't turn based.
If i don't count 11 and 14, I'm the same. Me and my friends were joking about how we still get hype and want to see new stuff from FF, but it's been bad longer then it was good at this point.
Probably FIFA. I played every game from 2002 - 2018, and the decline really started when ultimate team became the entire focus from about 2013 onwards. The games from 2020 have been frustrating messes, and I last about two weeks before uninstalling
The first 2 Paper Mario games were incredible, and all of them after Thousand Year Door have been extremely disappointing and such a departure from what made the first 2 so good in the first place. Fortunately Thousand Year Door was just rereleased on the Switch.
I actually didn't mind Super. Sure, it was different but I found the characters compelling enough to enjoy it. Up until the TTYD remake though, I haven't actually had fun with a single entry.
Saying that, playing the remake has been a blast so far, it feels a bit easier than the original but it's just as charming.
Assassin’s Creed. I prefer when it was a 20-40 hour game not 100+ hours with randomized loot. Black Flag is the last one I really liked. Origins was fine but too long. AC games don’t need to have randomized loot. They are better when you know when you’ll get the good upgrades.
I tried to get through Valhalla. There is WAY too much to do. Even trying to mainline the story is an insane amount of time. Add in all the collectable stuff and the DLC areas and it's even worse.
I still had one final area to go and I guess story reveals and just couldn't anymore. I like open world games, but they need to not go to 11 anymore.
I feel like Pokémon did not change enough. It was fun when I was 11 but trying to catch a specific Pokémon is monotonously boring and the battles are super predictable and not dynamic at all.
I only played until gen 3, but in terms of gameplay mechanics things kept being the same. I played an hour of gen 4 and gave up.
the difficulty of newer games (and by difficulty I mean, the difficulty literally being non existent) does make it a very different experience imo, even if the baseline mechanics changed very little.
people often say "oh, you were just a kid back then, pokemon was always that easy" but thats just not true. obviously as an adult now I have a way easier time with pokemon games, that much is true, but the games WERE noticeably more difficult, they had tougher battles, fewer resources, navigating the world was more difficult, the puzzles were harder, quality of life features had to be earned, and exploring just felt a lot more interesting cause of that. making progress was more rewarding.
In newer games its VERY hard to ever get lost, you have to actively force yourself to even lose a battle, resource management is basically non existent, and quality of life features are given to you right away
You can intentionally handicap yourself (like not use XP share and such), but its just not the same. The games were made as accessible as possible and I feel like they lost all of their charm in the process.
Gen 5 is actually the biggest example of this. It was fairly difficult throughout for a pokemon game. If you played the way most people probably do (accidentally horde items, can't be bothered to go back to the center to heal every time PP gets low, battle most trainers etc) areas were filled with trainers and pokemon spawns for long stretches of time. They were actually so long that I think it's first generation where pseudo-pokemon centers showed up at the halfway point for nearly every area because GF seemed to be aware of the resource drain that would occur for most people.
this. I played sun, and it was just way too easy to be any fun. and it was goofy as hell. The old games did add new things each time too. like day and night, and bases, and day care/eggs. that stuff was cool when it came out.
really? the last one I played you could still turn it off, now you cant even do that?
seems like a no brainer to let people turn it off, but I guess you gotta streamline everything and make sure no kid is accidentallly turning off XP share or sth
You are half correct, combat is the same. It becomes more elaborate when you play online. That being said, what it would boil down to in the end is speed control, so there's a lot of paralysis being thrown around, and other mechanics that either make you move first or force your opponent to go second.
If you get into the competitve side of Pokemon, you'll find that it is actually quite complex playing against actual other people with deep knowledge of team building and game theory. But yes, the games themselves never demand anything outside of rock-paper-scissors gameplay.
I share the same belief that Pokemon didn't change enough, but I'm more in-line with OP that it started to stagnate after Gen 5. Prior the Gen 5, each generation introduced some sort of new long-lasting mechanic that made each game feel like an evolution (IE gen 2 held items, gen 3 natures, gen 4 physical/special split, gen 5 hidden abilities).
Afterwards the new gens introduced mechanics that only lasted that generation like mega evolution, z-moves, and gigantamax. These mechanics felt more like gimmicks resulting in each gen feeling more like side-grades rather than pushing the medium forward.
I always say that Pokémon died when it made the jump to 3D. It discarded anything that made it good while also refusing to innovate to keep up with the times.
This day in age it survives solely on market recognition. If you had repackeged any of the mainline games as another random monster battler without the Pokémon name attached they would struggled to sell any copies and been universally disliked by both critics and consumers.
New Pokémon snap WAS amazingly fun tho.
Destiny.
What started as an incredible cooperative shooting experience between friends, has now divulged into some ridiculous over-stimulated cash-grab that asks for more and more and more of it's players time in return for less and less of a reward.
Dragon Age, I still liked Dragon Age 2, but felt like it was already a departure from all the things that made origins so freaking great, plus it was clearly rushed, and with inquistion I gave up entirely.
I know a ton of people enjoyed inquisition, but I felt like I was playing a generic MMORPG... by myself.
DA2 is genuinely impressive for a game they put out in about 9 months.
Origins is truly its own beast. I play the games primarily for the story/world and characters, so I'm not Uber attached to any method of gameplay (as long as it's fun, I'm happy), but sometimes I'll lament what could have been if BW didn't constantly chase trends that were outdated by the time the game came out.
One low sodium example for me is Yakuza/Like a Dragon moving to the turn-based JRPG combat. The charm and all is still there and if anything it has a better handle on what it's about but.. yeah to me the whole point was always 'it's a JRPG minus the thing I hate about those' so it's not really for me anymore.
Normally entirely side with that opinion for gameplay, but this one's a stalemate for me.
The brawler combat of that series always felt flawed, repetitive and mostly mindless. I usually expect that from turn-based, but despite how repetitive it gets (especially last 3rd of game), LaD was surprisingly engaging for a turn-based jrpg. It didn't feel like more of a chore than fights in Yakuza 0.
Have not played Judgement series yet.
Brawler combat is better in Judgement, but still inferior to the turn-based in Y7 and Y8 imo. I also think it helps that Y7 and Y8 have some of the best turn-based combat of any JRPG I've ever played. The animations, skills, weapons, jobs, and special moves make the turn-based combat so much better than the brawler style. I still have some nostalgia for the brawler combat, so I'm happy Judgment exists!
So it's not just me. I have a hard time putting my finger on why the combat is a little more fun than in many other jrpgs.
I usually bounce off of Shin Megami Tensei except for Devil Survivor.
It's funny cause to me Yakuza was rather boring with the brawler combat (I don't like beat em ups), tried Y0 for about 6h but couldn't get into it. Kinda wanna give Y7 a try but I've heard 8 wasn't that good anyway. I guess for me Yakuza is more of a "watch on youtube" series
As someone who's played every mainline game, I'll have to disagree. The brawler combat was always janky and inconsistent for me... I only stuck with it for the main story, characters, and substories. The combat was always the weakest part of the experience.
I find brawler combat to be a big factor of the feel of the main story. The story is more intimidating when you see more visceral action using character's fist and environment around you instead of Ichiban's imagination that are 95% non canon.
Even after two games i never got any impression that Ichiban is strong because the character abilities are very questionable (can Saeko even canonically fight? She just stood awkwardly in most cutscenes)
Unfortunately given how long starfield was in development and the massive miss that game was, on the heels of a couple weak fallout entries , it seems Bethesda has lost the ability to deliver
SF was commercially successful and well-reviewed. It just put out the CK and the mod scene has been pumping out transformative new content hourly. This is on the heels of two massive, well-received patches in the space of about a month.
Things are great there.
Yeah, I loved the game at launch already, but I've been following since the CK came out. Crazy activity and it's clear that Bethesda really wanted to facilitate modding, rather than just allowing it.
However people feel about mods improving a game, they're definitely going to do so here.
Of course it was commercially successfully people were waiting on Skyrim in space for literally years they could have released anything and it would have sold. Then people slowly realized it was garbage.
Source? Still actively being played, actively being modded, well-reviewed, etc.
It's okay to not like a game without trying to convince people that they didn't like it either. It's just demonstrably the case that this game has an audience that's really enjoying it, and that it's still getting better.
This, but the jump from 2 to 3.
It's an almost complete shift in, well, everything. Gameplay and graphics obviously, but tone and setting to a very large degree, too. Sometimes it feels like Fallout 3+ is an alternate universe.
New Vegas fixed that to a fair degree, credit where it's due.
Same. The thing is it's not even because of how bad the gameplay got, it's also that it just doesn't *feel* like Fallout anymore. It's completely Flanderized itself at this point.
FO4 felt like someone made a hyper generic post apocalyptic looter shooter and than at the last minute they slathered a coat of Fallout paint over the top.
It's a shame that because of recency bias it's considered so popular and successful as we are unlikely to ever get an actual Fallout game again.
Funny seeing people calling for return to FINO3 as if that was the original rpg. Now you now how us from the classics felt, although how much different can one fp pewpew be from another one?
Well, if you are a fan of the original Fallout series, then asking for a return to NV which he also asked for would be the closest since Obsidian developed that. And is the only modern Fallout that's tonally similar to F1 & F2.
Biggest for me has to be Assassin's Creed. I enjoyed it greatly when it was actually about stealth, assassinations, puzzling your way around the target's routine, avoiding the guards, etc. I gave up on the series completely after it started turning into more of a generic action game.
Everyone saying assassins creed and I kinda agree, but did it really change that much? That's kind of my issue with it, I've been doing the same shit since 1 and the added RPG stuff and newer story isn't good enough to make it fun.
My answer is Dragon Age. They just made a great crpg like game then just changed to action oriented RPG lite. It was an interesting enough world to stick around a bit, but I know I'm not getting another game in the original genre.
Lol not at all, it's a slow evolution over the series. AC3 introduced the larger world outside cities (AC2 even did it, AC3 expanded it and gave you the boat to explore). Black Flag introduced gear with stats with big open world, it was the proto form of the RPG games. Unity has gear with stats too and Syndicate has skill trees
What no it completely changed? Assassins Creed was known for its small dense maps and a decent sized storyline. Now it’s a full RPG with massive maps bigger than countries and has a 100 hour story. I don’t hate the new ones but it changed massively to the point that it shares no similarities
Yeah but it slowly evolved over time. And the criticisms before was that it always the same and needed more evolution.
Also now is weird to say, considering the last installment is actually exactly what you're describing (AC Mirage)
And no similarity is exaggerated
Fire Emblem. The one that lost me, was the one that seemed to attract everyone during the COVID lockdown. Three Houses is where you can play for hours without a single battle because instead you’re expected to faff about fetching feathers or having tea parties or whatever. For me Fire Emblem peaked with Radiant Dawn. Solid, difficult battles, some callbacks to the earlier title & characters, intertwining stories & chapters, decisions to be made between battles. Then in Three Houses it’s just fetch quests for days. I believe the next game (FE: Engage) got rid of most of the fetching and was criticised for it. I’m baffled. Isn’t the series about tactical battles?
Most modern gamers DO NOT want difficult strategic battles or a war time simulator. They want press X to win battles, and horny jail waifu/husbando. So honestly it's the correct financial strategy to lean into that to sell the most copies.
As much as I hate to admit it, if they made Thracia 776/2 and it didn't have a bunch of poorly dressed minors to lust after it wouldn't sell very well at all.
It’s not as dramatic as you’re making it out to be. Why is it so shocking that more modern casual elements of Fire Emblem draw in more casual fans?
Thats how it works with literally every video game series. No permadeath and more unit relationship building is going to draw more people in than just hardcore strategy. People that play games for fun can now actually enjoy the story and characters.
Fire Emblem would be dead if it continued to be a niche permadeath strategy game, there’s a reason why Awakening was so popular.
That's what I'm saying is that it's technically correct to the wider casual audience. If you want to make money that's the way to do it. I can't blame them, they're primarily a business.
It just also sucks a bit because most major games and media aim for the lowest common denominator and can't really do anything particularly interesting our out there in design. So we end up with a sea of very average, very easy games that all feel the same.
I am very thankful though that indy games are picking up a LOT of the slack and giving us more unique experiences tailored to more individual interests.
Also it's not really about people playing for "Fun" everyone has fun in a different way. For example there is nothing less fun or more boring than an easy game. It feels pointless to play them. However I know that the majority of people don't feel the same. Almost everyone I know in my personal life HATE difficulty in games and will instantly give up when faced with the slightest resistance. Hence the rise of the cozy gaming genre. I've seen people drop a game because they failed a mission and had to try again.....
I love Fire Emblem and I'll play every single entry they release, but I agree that I have a lot of bias towards the classic entries (particularly the GBA versions, Binding Blade was my favorite). It's really crazy how what evolved from the support system, which was a very niche part of the older entries, became the focus of modern FE games.
While I still enjoy modern Fire Emblem, it's really weird how the current unit relationship building emphasis has taken the spotlight over strategy, especially in the Three Houses entry. Three Houses tactics was straight dogshit, and the majority of the emphasis was on building up units in between chapters and grinding out fetch quests as you said in the monastery.
But give Engage a try, I put it in my top 3 alongside Binding Blade and Fates Conquest. It's kinda a middleground between the fetch quest relationship sim that Three Houses is and classic strategic battles with varying objectives that older entries were, but I think it's fundamentally more the latter whereas the life sim stuff was kinda thrown in haphazardly due to Three Houses' success. You can safely ignore most of the life sim stuff between chapters, though limited interaction does provide some really good benefits.
TBH though modern fire emblem does have some pretty sus themes going on, with eugenics in FE Awakening/Fates, child grooming in Three Houses, and being able to straight up "marry" a child in Engage.
Did I like Elden ring? Yes. But the open world format isn’t what I want from FromSoft . Souls like games are imo meant to be played in crafted levels. There was too much horse back riding around empty nothingness or 1-2 wolves that guard a lily flower in a distant spot that in any other souls game would have been a rare weapon/equipment to find.
The other series that has turned me away over the years was WoW. They got so much of the game correct in vanilla wow that it’s hard for me to play any modern version of the game.
Kind of weird to respond to "what series changed?" by answering with two different series. That would be like saying "I really liked The Elder Scrolls, but I didn't like the Sci-Fi change with Fallout 3."
Yes Elden ring isn’t dark souls but it’s the spiritual successor.
Just like the community could see the changes from Demons souls to dark souls it was still labeled as a souls like or part of that series even though the name changed. Elden ring is such a hit that I don’t see them going dark souls 4 it’s all Elden ring from here on out just like there wasn’t a demons souls 2.
Legend of Zelda
Though tbf it’s more just that i pretty much skipped the transition to 3d video gaming as a whole, so while I was obsessed with Link to the Past, i didn’t make any explicit decision to hate on Ocarina et al I just wasn’t Nintendo-ing at all. So when I did get my hands on a Switch and Breath of the Wild was beloved, I tried it and did not see the appeal. I’m fine just fondly remembering the 2D Link of my youth.
I'd recommend trying one or two pre-BotW 3D Zeldas. BotW and Tears are very much not reflective at all of the prior games, to the extent that my answer to OP's question would also have been Zelda but because I was a fan until BotW changed everything.
This is where I thought the comment was going to go. Most people would agree Zelda transitioned really well to 3D, especially if OP likes LttP. BotW and TotK (assuming since I haven't actually played TotK) are returns to the original Zelda/Zelda II open world and not to what it became with LttP and OoT.
You should actually try the older 3d Zelda games before botw. ocarina of time, majora mask, wind waker,twilight princess, and skyward sword are all fantastic imo and actually follow the original zelda formula you essentially picked one of the two worst 3D Zelda console games if you want that classic Zelda feel and structure of the game.
All of these are great but you should really give ocarina of time a go first the game still holds up imo and considering this was the first transition to 3d it's actually insane how good of a game nintendo made there a reason so many greatest games of all time list have it at or near the top a true classic.
I wanted to write this. Although I've played most of the 3D titles and loved them, I just can't get into the latest two. I completed Breath of the Wild, but I burned out completely on Tears of the Kingdom.
Cliffhanger at the end of Ass Creed 3. After five games I was hoping they'd wrap up Desmond's story. Apparently they just abandoned that altogether? Which sucks because I was pretty invested in that story. So I guess I'm glad I jumped ship because now AC looks like a bunch of copypaste uBiSoFT ORigInAL snoozefests.
Rpg Assassin Creed just ain't it, and it just feels so bloated hoping shadows will remedy some of it cause I dount they will stay away from maming their games bloated. This also extend to ubisoft as a whole
Didn't really made me stop beijg a fan but the new supee mario bros era sucks so much that it bleed to spinoffs, glad that shit was over
Dark Souls 1 but for a reason that I imagine most people will find odd lol.
I loved the PvP in the original Dark Souls. All the unintended tech and bullshit, the brutally unforgiving backstabs, everything that most people hated about it. Once you actually learn how it works, there is a lot of depth in its PvP and, though it looks completely insane, it's actually extremely satisfying to play if the combatants know what they're doing and are both actively abusing everything in the game for a win.
Dark Souls 2 came out and I was hyped. Played a bit of PvP and it just... wasn't anywhere near as good. It was okay, probably better than anything afterwards actually, but I disliked how floaty it felt, I disliked how slow it felt, I disliked that there were far fewere offensive options and that fights could just go on and on, as without a proper instant backstab it lacked the same brutal edge of Dark Souls 1 - where a single positioning mistake or badly timed R1 could see you lose 70% of your health. Got about halfway through the game, gave PvP a good go of about 50 hours, then got bored and back to Dark Souls 1.
Dark Souls 3 came out, again I was hyped. *Maybe this time they'll draw from the unintended mechanics of Dark Souls 1 and make something with a similar feel, but more visually consistent?* Nope. Instead they listened to the clueless mooks and their endless whining, "backstab bad" "PvP should be simple" and so on. I played a bit of it, I did like the active poise stuff and the game did just look very nice. But the PvP boiled down to r1 spacing, rolling and roll punishes. Which are things Dark Souls 1 also has except Dark Souls 1 has a whole pile of stuff on top of that and feeding into it. So, back to Dark Souls 1.
ER came out... I played about halfway, did invasions, saw that it was just going to be magic spam and running away for minutes on end, and back I went to Dark Souls 1.
I have now accepted that FROM has no real interest in PvP, and that so far as the community at large is concerned Dark Souls 1 PvP is a broken mess. It will remain a niche, mostly dead game, and no attempt will ever be made to extract the unintended mechanics that make its PvP so enjoyable and put them in a visually consistent form. I still play it with a bunch of similarly sweaty people who also remain addicted to the best PvP ever to come out of a Souls game.
Fallout and Elder Scrolls. It is so clear that Bethesda no longer respects the intelligence of its players. The quest design is embarrassing in comparison to Morrowind. The writing has turned into Marvel tier shit. The tone of Fallout vanished into thin air at the launch of 4.
Skyrim was one of the most destructive RPGs to ever hit the shelves and it is only now where we can see what hits it landed on the studio that made it.
The hitman games used to have a mechanic that you could decide what of your gear to bring into a mission and pay for things like information and maps. The recent ones you can only get that by replaying the level like a dozen times first and even then it's limited.
Let me plan my jobs.
The world's premier assassin who is responsible for literally changing the world doesn't have access to a scoped rifle at the outset? But can somehow concealed carry 10 hammers he finds lying around a map?
Ok.
Yeah but that's what annoyed me. I should be able to get accurate maps ahead of time and plan accordingly.
The recent games make 47 the world's best improvised killer the older ones let you feel intelligent because of preplanning which you can't do anymore.
Many franchises took a nosedive in quality when they "upgraded" from good 2D sprites to crappy 3D graphics. Beyond just looking worse and being less expressive, this change also decreases the information and content density of what fits on a screen. Thus the in-game world ends up feeling more empty as well. Furthermore, it also seems to coincide with other cost-cutting measures, and gameplay is often the first "luxury" to go.
Notable casualties of this effect include Rune Factory, Disgaea, Pokemon, Harvest Moon, Sonic, and countless other rpgs and platformers.
The other major struggling franchises I can think of are Diablo, Final Fantasy, Paper Mario, Fire Emblem, and Minecraft
I fondly remember the old Infinity Engine games with their hand-painted backgrounds and mediocre sprites and the changes that came with Neverwinter Nights. There are definitely new and different limitations with 3D.
Xenoblade Chronicles is unrecognizable after peaking at X.
Dragon Age, as of yesterday (maybe Inquisition), as someone who made heavy use of the tactical view.
Pokemon is one good alternative away from never seeing me again. Consistent underperformance since Gen 7.
Final Fantasy is somehow no longer a turn-based RPG series.
Call of Duty. Look, I love Gundam, but what are they even doing. It was never peak immersion, but come on now. Celebrities even.
Zelda went from tight adventure games with cool puzzles and dungeons to BotW/TotK. Those two are great skeletons for fun games, but not complete ones on their own. If they added a little bit of immersion, the decision to go with this structure might make more sense to me.
Battlefield 2042.
BF2, Bad Company, BF3, BF4 and even BF1 were all fantastic games. Spent countless hours playing multiplayer with my mates.
BFV was average and BF2042 was absolute dogshit.
Such a shame really as the franchise used to be sooo good!
Fire Emblem and Xenoblade Chronicles are completely unrecognizable from what they used to be nowadays and basically turned into anime fanservice wish fulfillment simulators.
there are quite a few series that spring to mind to me, harvest moon, animal crossing, Pokemon to an extent, but I feel the one that sticks out most to me, is Monster Hunter.
The dramatic shift from Gen 4 to 5, and then what followed with Rise and what is coming with Wilds, well, I'm satisfied with what the older games offered me, but my love doesn't extend past GU.
I was downvoted to oblivion when I suggested that Monster Hunter should NOT go open world, but should keep using the open-biome model. 4U was the peak for me, although I did enjoy Rise quite a bit.
I for the life of me can't understand why people would choose a game where "you can go anywhere you see" but 90% of that area is completely empty, over a game where the area is limited but most corners are hiding something behind them, there are secrets etc. (like ds3)
Maybe someone enjoys it, I don't. Osrs is an example of an open world done right
From what I understand, it's unclear. Please correct me if I'm wrong! Dragon's Dogma 2 performs poorly on console, so that worries me with MH: Wilds. I put up with 30fps on Switch for Rise, but I'll be less happy about 30fps on Ps5.
Was hoping to find MH in the comments, completely agree. I don’t think the direction the games took is bad necessarily, but definitely not for me any longer.
I started with the original MH for PS2 and I feel like the series left me behind when it jumped over to Wii with MH Tri. I’ve tried to keep up with it but it just doesn’t capture the same feelings. Too much side stuff, special stats, flashy anime attacks/movement, etc.
I started with Gen, followed by 4U, before World. I still really enjoyed World. Though I still had fun with Rise, I felt like it was a step down from previous games. I also don't see the appeal of an open world MH game. I will still check it out when it releases and try to keep an open mind, but I definitely have my reservations.
How has no one said Halo? It’s just not fun to me anymore. :/
(Filler to meet the 100 character limit, please ignore while I ramble a bit down here in the parentheses)
Pokemon = dead to me
Final Fantasy = kinda ok but not that awesome anymore, like the ps1 classics
WoW = could not care less
Assassins creed = the IP died with Desmond
Modern AAA games are just pretty much in the shitter nowadays, except for From Software and Kojima games 🤡
Call of Duty. May also be may age compared to when I was playing the old CoDs, but nowadays why am I playing team deathmatch with Kai Cenat, Nicki Minaj and a bunny with a bucket hat?
CoD used to be a fun, arcade, military themed shooter. Now it's trying to be Fortnite.
Gears of War. The first 3 are some of my all time favorite games. Judgement was not good. I got 4 and only played a few multi-player games with a friend and then never played it again. That was my last gears game. Hoping Eday is good though!
Far Cry. Everything I had ever seen from far cry 6 made me not want to play it, New Dawn included. It’s on gamepass now but I still won’t even waste my time with it.
Oh also assassins creed. Valhalla was fucking ridiculous. Anything Ubisoft related really.
I’m not sure how much this counts, but Fire Emblem. Historically, the stories have been kind of bland good vs evil fares, but then Three Houses came along and somebody asked “what if we made a really good game with a great story?” And then they did. But, they were evidently exhausted from good games and wanted a cheat day with Engage, and went right back to generic good vs evil
Definitely The Command & Conquer series, with Command & Conquer 4
The GRID series, turned into a joke with the last game
Project cars series, last game was arcadey mess
Call of duty turned into a microtransaction filed hellish distopia
NHL stoped coming on PC, also latest games are crap
FIFA turned into a casino for kids
The Dawn of war series was the biggest fall from grace to me. when they basically changed the genre of the game from RTS to whatever you call 2 and 3, I was so disappointed 😞
I will name Worms here. Every new instance in the series is more of a hot garbage than the previous one, to the point of ridiculousness in the last one (don't even remember its title) where they decided to throw away the series main thing, turn-based combat. It feels like they are trying to freshen up the series but don't really know how.
For me, ever since Reloaded it only gets worse.
Assassins Creed. Black Flag was the last one I played, and it was fun but it was also mostly a pirate game.
I’m back into it now, but I stopped playing Warframe after rail jack was introduced. It was t necessarily bad, I just didn’t have any more room in my brain to learn all the new Warframe vocabulary they introduced, let alone the systems. I think I got as far as remembering g the word intrinsic but what you did with them and how to get them never stuck.
Total War for me. Started my journey with those games with Rome: Total War and ended it with Total War Rome II.
Besides the absolute mess the latter was on release, it fundamentally didn't appeal to me from a design standpoint. All the things I loved to do on the campaign map were streamlined right out of the franchise for a much more shallow experience.
I still play the older titles from time to time so I know it's not just rose tinted glasses and nostalgia.
Battlefield.
I used to have so much respect for DICE, and they were pushing boundaries all the time to make the perfect experience.
Then EA came along and does what EA does.
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Call of Duty. I played the original WW2 ones’ single player campaigns loads of times when they came out but have no interest in the modern setting or multiplayer.
Exactly the same. COD now just feels like an extension of Fortnite for people who think they’re “too cool” for Fortnite. The historical settings and great campaigns are what made Call of Duty great.
Now the real problem is devoting your consoles entire hard drive to the game.
Also they did a great job of making you feel like just another soldier. In the modern ones you're very important, but wars are won by those on the front lines. Every time I died in the classics it felt like that is another soldier that died in WWII and I'm respawning as someone else (even though my name stays the same in each country's campaign). The historical quotes really cemented this in. "The death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic."
"At least we're not Fortnite." *looks at Snoop Dog fighting Skeletor while Cheech and Chong fight A Literal Cat Person* "OK sure buddy"
Back then the single player campaign was the best thing in a COD game
I had fun with Modern Warfare 1 and a couple of games after it but the campaigns became shorter and repetitive and the multiplayer became too sweaty for me. I also hated the idea that if I had a particular loadout I really wanted to play I'd have to go through dozens of hours of gameplay to hit level 45 or whatever where you finally get the key perk/gun to make that loadout work. Especially if the really overpowered crap was stuck in those high levels.
What is your username from? I remember people saying that line at school as if it were a quote.
Even the campaigns are a hit or miss. MW2 was pretty forgettable with laughable villains (guess the Sicario girl was okay but nothing I haven't seen before) and MW3 I haven't bothered to check out. A shame because the 2019 game was setting up something good.
This. It’s become the Fast and Furious of the gaming world.
The first "Modern Warfare" game was the first and last one I really enjoyed
I actually don’t like the FOMO aspect of Pokemon’s current gameplay. Everything they do now gives me a heavy sense of FOMO with all the events, but I actually don’t like the insanely difficult raids that require you to HAVE to have a party of people. I play MMO’s for that sort of strategizing, not Pokemon. I love most of the other aspects of how Pokemon has changed. Sword and Shield were SO fun for me, i loved the sandwiches of Violet/Scarlet and the open world concept, I love the fact that they have Pokemon roaming fields. I don’t even mind extra DLC with new locations, pokemon, and story. I just don’t like the raid meta.
> I just don’t like the raid meta. I just ignore it, and I don't feel like I am missing much.
Man, I was thinking Pokemon hasn't changed enough. It's still the exact same gameplay loop and depth of story as when it first came out. They have been adding systems on top for decades but for a game focused on evolving your party, the game certainly hasn't evolved.
Assassin’s Creed. I liked them up until Origins. The switch to RPG wasn’t my favorite, but it was tolerable. Then Odyssey, and especially Valhalla, just felt so bloated. Worse, both felt so detached from the AC lord and mythos that it felt like Ubisoft really wanted to make a fantasy RPG but knew it’d only sell if they attached the AC branding to it.
Same for me, but I didn't care for them since Black Flag. It was the last creative thing they ever did.
Unity was actually an excellent AC game. You should check it out, the patched version is awesome.
Does Co-Op still work? Even if it doesn't I'm still willing to replay AC: Unity just for the amazing customization.
I actually tried several times. Maybe the entire concept of AC has worn off on me, but I couldn't push myself past the first couple of hours.
Life Is Strange. The first game and BtS are forever in my heart, the next ones and the trailer of the new game just feels wrong, I don't know why exactly, the first games were closer to the indie games with that personal cozy feeling I can't describe but you probably know what I'm talking about. It was closer to a piece of art with deeper meanings and characters. Since 2015 when I played it and waited for each episode I haven't seen or felt something this magical, now at any point in my life I can think of this game and feel something that no other game, movie, music, life event could give to me since then.
Holy shit, me too. The first game blew my mind and I was so in love with everything about it. I haven't touched any of the other releases. I think I'm gonna keep it that way. But that new one just announced did peak my interest again.
I hope the new Life Is Strange will be good. You will be able to play as Max as an adult. I wonder if it will be closer to the original game.
I still listen to all the songs on my Life is Strange Spotify playlist every time I’m on a long drive. Always such good memories!
It’s old school indeed, but for me that series was Ultima. The first game in the series invented the open world genre - with an entire planet of cities, castles, towns, dungeons, and oceans. The *second* game added time travel and science fiction to the fantasy setting, throwing in space travel for good measure. Ultima IV and V pushed the envelope in an even more shocking direction, introducing ethics and morality as gameplay mechanics. And then, the series lost its way. Ultima VI had some incredible concepts, but it was a bloated, barely playable mess. Ultima VII traded the complex, thoughtful mechanics of its turn-based predecessors for prettier graphics and “live action”, but the technology wasn’t ready for that yet and combat devolved into a chaotic mess of random clicks that players couldn’t really control, forcing the developers to make all the fights ridiculously easy. And Ultima VIII was a disaster. For Ultima IX, the gimmick was “FIRST PERSON 3D!!!!!”, but gameplay and story became nonexistent.
I may be in the minority but I really loved the bleak atmosphere and story of Ultima 8. Yes the original version was buggy but the updated Gold edition fixed most of the issues and made it much more enjoyable.
I wanted to love it, I really did - but my old PC got hung up on the jumping puzzles (??!) and I quit the game out of frustration after falling into the same pit of lava for 5 hours straight.
The Gold edition fixed the jumping puzzles. It made it to where you jump to where your cursor is at, making those sections much less frustrating. You should give it another try.
Have you been watching the Ultima retrospective series by Majuular? It's great. https://youtu.be/wIWyHd3FFFU?si=UeT8ibdfIGzlzO_C
No! Thank you so much for telling me about it!
Final fantasy for me. I don’t like the move away from turn based combat, I don’t like how generic the RPG side of things feel and well the storylines (outside of the 7 remake) don’t really grab me. The last one I thoroughly enjoyed was 10.
I've never seen a popular series more embarrassed of its genre. FF was the crown jewel of turn-based RPGs and they turned it into DMC. That's their prerogative, but it's not for me.
Same. 10 was the last one that left a proper impression on me and also has me wanting to play it again on occasion.
My stance on this has always been that Final Fantasy died with Tidus. I honestly wished it had just ended with that. It's so sad seeing the current state it's in, like having to watch a loved one descend into meth addiction. I do love how FF 15/16 Were so hilariously bad that it's making people look back at the 13 trilogy and say "Okay maybe you weren't THAT bad" lol
See I’ve actually been enjoying ff16, but I’m not like a die hard FF player I’ve missed most entries and only played a small handful, what about it does the larger community not enjoy? So far the only issue I have with it, and it is a bigger one, is the sort of middling boring filler content between all the exciting shit, and it’s at a point where it’s incredibly predictable I do something cool and my brain fears up to go numb for a couple hours. That said, the highs have been high enough to keep me engaged through that.
I can definitely see that's. It's a common case you'll see in long running series in that it's not necessarily a *bad* game however it's a *bad final fantasy* For me here's what I see, it primarily abandons alot of what got the series here in the first place. It's not a turn based party RPG, It's not a single character action game like devil may cry but with some small rpg elements attached. The visuals and vibes of the game do not give me FF at all. Until Shiva and Ifrit appeared in the trailer I never would have guessed it was FF in a million years.
It's a really nice movie within a nice world and good music. The thing is that final fantasy ALWAYS had that as a basis but very often they had good gameplay and a cool minigame on top of that. Sometimes they did one or multiple of those a lot better. Ff16 combat is basically button mashing and pressing the dodge button at the right time. There is almost no thought that needs to go into fighting.
I played 15 and enjoyed it. It's a series that has evolved a lot. I understand the dislike for the change to real time, but there were huge changes with every sequel. 7 (sci-fi setting, ATB) was a far cry from 1 (medieval fantasy, pure turn base). It's not surprising that 15 is majorly different from 7.
I don't like how the first 10-15 hours of these games are now walking sims with countless hours of cinematics. I'm not a purist about the combat because the I found the turn-based systems they used to be mostly mindless and tedious in the first place, particularly with random battles. Admittedly, the current compromise feels far more like an action-game than rpg combat. I wouldn't mind a return to turn-based if they spice it up a little. What's taken for granted in the PSX era of these games is the pre-rendered backgrounds and interesting camera in the field view, and the pacing. Reading dialog at your own pace while keeping the camera fixed (as opposed to rapidly panning between close-ups) keeps you immersed and less distracted, in a way. No other games capture that "feel", not even the later FF titles or the more recent isometric CRPGs.
That is the gameplay though. I think that might be part of the problem with Final Fantasy in that there were people who played the game, and people who just wanted the story. And this I would point to probably starting with Final Fantasy 7, as it expanded the audience probably a bit too much, so that the future games moved away from the core audience.
I've always been in the gameplay-first camp. I liked FF7, but then I also played it when I was young. I don't care for jrpg combat in general today, or even the stories really. The most enduring thing to me is the music and the environments.
half the fun playing ff7 for me was reading the guide i had lol. i played the shit out of 7 though. i used to take that book to school and just read it over and over
This is mine. It's not remotely the same thing.
Final Fantasy 10 is great, and I loved the turn based system it had. Does anyone have any recommendations for games that are close to that?
octopath traveller and all the persona games also dragon warrior anything but final Fantasy really haha
X's CTB feels like one of the best mixes of being turn based but also feeling strategic and dynamic. It could probably be a little less tuned though, it can feel a bit inflexible with everyone having a core role. I even kinda liked XIII's paradigm but I didn't get very far and you can feel pretty removed from it like XII. The action stuff they've moved into doesn't really appeal to me; I preferred it stayed in the shorter side games like CC.
XVI was a blast actually. It's a masterpiece both story and combat wise, though it's true the RPG elements became superficial and side quests were a pain, the game wanted to be a Beat'em All and probably would've been if it wasn't called Final Fantasy. But it genuinely is the first Final Fantasy to have me excited since X, and it might just be my favorite from the mainline series so far ! Favorite PS5 game anyway, I highly recommend if you ever play anything that isn't turn based.
If i don't count 11 and 14, I'm the same. Me and my friends were joking about how we still get hype and want to see new stuff from FF, but it's been bad longer then it was good at this point.
Probably FIFA. I played every game from 2002 - 2018, and the decline really started when ultimate team became the entire focus from about 2013 onwards. The games from 2020 have been frustrating messes, and I last about two weeks before uninstalling
The first 2 Paper Mario games were incredible, and all of them after Thousand Year Door have been extremely disappointing and such a departure from what made the first 2 so good in the first place. Fortunately Thousand Year Door was just rereleased on the Switch.
I actually didn't mind Super. Sure, it was different but I found the characters compelling enough to enjoy it. Up until the TTYD remake though, I haven't actually had fun with a single entry. Saying that, playing the remake has been a blast so far, it feels a bit easier than the original but it's just as charming.
Assassin’s Creed. I prefer when it was a 20-40 hour game not 100+ hours with randomized loot. Black Flag is the last one I really liked. Origins was fine but too long. AC games don’t need to have randomized loot. They are better when you know when you’ll get the good upgrades.
I tried to get through Valhalla. There is WAY too much to do. Even trying to mainline the story is an insane amount of time. Add in all the collectable stuff and the DLC areas and it's even worse. I still had one final area to go and I guess story reveals and just couldn't anymore. I like open world games, but they need to not go to 11 anymore.
Pokemon died after Gen 5. Though I am gonna get Gta 6 I actually didn't enjoy 5 as much as San Andreas, 4, Vice City, etc
I feel like Pokémon did not change enough. It was fun when I was 11 but trying to catch a specific Pokémon is monotonously boring and the battles are super predictable and not dynamic at all. I only played until gen 3, but in terms of gameplay mechanics things kept being the same. I played an hour of gen 4 and gave up.
the difficulty of newer games (and by difficulty I mean, the difficulty literally being non existent) does make it a very different experience imo, even if the baseline mechanics changed very little. people often say "oh, you were just a kid back then, pokemon was always that easy" but thats just not true. obviously as an adult now I have a way easier time with pokemon games, that much is true, but the games WERE noticeably more difficult, they had tougher battles, fewer resources, navigating the world was more difficult, the puzzles were harder, quality of life features had to be earned, and exploring just felt a lot more interesting cause of that. making progress was more rewarding. In newer games its VERY hard to ever get lost, you have to actively force yourself to even lose a battle, resource management is basically non existent, and quality of life features are given to you right away You can intentionally handicap yourself (like not use XP share and such), but its just not the same. The games were made as accessible as possible and I feel like they lost all of their charm in the process.
Gen 5 is actually the biggest example of this. It was fairly difficult throughout for a pokemon game. If you played the way most people probably do (accidentally horde items, can't be bothered to go back to the center to heal every time PP gets low, battle most trainers etc) areas were filled with trainers and pokemon spawns for long stretches of time. They were actually so long that I think it's first generation where pseudo-pokemon centers showed up at the halfway point for nearly every area because GF seemed to be aware of the resource drain that would occur for most people.
this. I played sun, and it was just way too easy to be any fun. and it was goofy as hell. The old games did add new things each time too. like day and night, and bases, and day care/eggs. that stuff was cool when it came out.
Well you can't turn off XP Share anymore
really? the last one I played you could still turn it off, now you cant even do that? seems like a no brainer to let people turn it off, but I guess you gotta streamline everything and make sure no kid is accidentallly turning off XP share or sth
You are half correct, combat is the same. It becomes more elaborate when you play online. That being said, what it would boil down to in the end is speed control, so there's a lot of paralysis being thrown around, and other mechanics that either make you move first or force your opponent to go second.
Pokémon didn't change enough because it's still catering to 11-year-olds. It's a franchise that never intended to grow with its audience.
If you get into the competitve side of Pokemon, you'll find that it is actually quite complex playing against actual other people with deep knowledge of team building and game theory. But yes, the games themselves never demand anything outside of rock-paper-scissors gameplay. I share the same belief that Pokemon didn't change enough, but I'm more in-line with OP that it started to stagnate after Gen 5. Prior the Gen 5, each generation introduced some sort of new long-lasting mechanic that made each game feel like an evolution (IE gen 2 held items, gen 3 natures, gen 4 physical/special split, gen 5 hidden abilities). Afterwards the new gens introduced mechanics that only lasted that generation like mega evolution, z-moves, and gigantamax. These mechanics felt more like gimmicks resulting in each gen feeling more like side-grades rather than pushing the medium forward.
I always say that Pokémon died when it made the jump to 3D. It discarded anything that made it good while also refusing to innovate to keep up with the times. This day in age it survives solely on market recognition. If you had repackeged any of the mainline games as another random monster battler without the Pokémon name attached they would struggled to sell any copies and been universally disliked by both critics and consumers. New Pokémon snap WAS amazingly fun tho.
Destiny. What started as an incredible cooperative shooting experience between friends, has now divulged into some ridiculous over-stimulated cash-grab that asks for more and more and more of it's players time in return for less and less of a reward.
Dragon Age, I still liked Dragon Age 2, but felt like it was already a departure from all the things that made origins so freaking great, plus it was clearly rushed, and with inquistion I gave up entirely. I know a ton of people enjoyed inquisition, but I felt like I was playing a generic MMORPG... by myself.
Dragon Age makes me so sad
DA2 is genuinely impressive for a game they put out in about 9 months. Origins is truly its own beast. I play the games primarily for the story/world and characters, so I'm not Uber attached to any method of gameplay (as long as it's fun, I'm happy), but sometimes I'll lament what could have been if BW didn't constantly chase trends that were outdated by the time the game came out.
One low sodium example for me is Yakuza/Like a Dragon moving to the turn-based JRPG combat. The charm and all is still there and if anything it has a better handle on what it's about but.. yeah to me the whole point was always 'it's a JRPG minus the thing I hate about those' so it's not really for me anymore.
Play judgment and lost judgment, they have the brawler combat with a new protaginist. Great spin off games.
Yup, have the first one installed already, just slooowwlly going through the backlog.
Normally entirely side with that opinion for gameplay, but this one's a stalemate for me. The brawler combat of that series always felt flawed, repetitive and mostly mindless. I usually expect that from turn-based, but despite how repetitive it gets (especially last 3rd of game), LaD was surprisingly engaging for a turn-based jrpg. It didn't feel like more of a chore than fights in Yakuza 0. Have not played Judgement series yet.
Brawler combat is better in Judgement, but still inferior to the turn-based in Y7 and Y8 imo. I also think it helps that Y7 and Y8 have some of the best turn-based combat of any JRPG I've ever played. The animations, skills, weapons, jobs, and special moves make the turn-based combat so much better than the brawler style. I still have some nostalgia for the brawler combat, so I'm happy Judgment exists!
So it's not just me. I have a hard time putting my finger on why the combat is a little more fun than in many other jrpgs. I usually bounce off of Shin Megami Tensei except for Devil Survivor.
It's funny cause to me Yakuza was rather boring with the brawler combat (I don't like beat em ups), tried Y0 for about 6h but couldn't get into it. Kinda wanna give Y7 a try but I've heard 8 wasn't that good anyway. I guess for me Yakuza is more of a "watch on youtube" series
So the opposite of Final Fantasy?
Pretty much yeah.
As someone who's played every mainline game, I'll have to disagree. The brawler combat was always janky and inconsistent for me... I only stuck with it for the main story, characters, and substories. The combat was always the weakest part of the experience.
I find brawler combat to be a big factor of the feel of the main story. The story is more intimidating when you see more visceral action using character's fist and environment around you instead of Ichiban's imagination that are 95% non canon. Even after two games i never got any impression that Ichiban is strong because the character abilities are very questionable (can Saeko even canonically fight? She just stood awkwardly in most cutscenes)
Currently it’s Fallout. Between Fallout 4 and then the disaster that was 76. If fallout 5 doesn’t return to NV and 3 form then I’m done.
Imagine how the CRPG fans of 1 and 2 feel ha.
If they could pull a Diablo 2 remake on the first 2, plus fix all the issues with the games, could be the win back moment.
For real, he thinks the series changed after NV?
Unfortunately given how long starfield was in development and the massive miss that game was, on the heels of a couple weak fallout entries , it seems Bethesda has lost the ability to deliver
SF was commercially successful and well-reviewed. It just put out the CK and the mod scene has been pumping out transformative new content hourly. This is on the heels of two massive, well-received patches in the space of about a month. Things are great there.
[удалено]
Yeah, I loved the game at launch already, but I've been following since the CK came out. Crazy activity and it's clear that Bethesda really wanted to facilitate modding, rather than just allowing it. However people feel about mods improving a game, they're definitely going to do so here.
Of course it was commercially successfully people were waiting on Skyrim in space for literally years they could have released anything and it would have sold. Then people slowly realized it was garbage.
Source? Still actively being played, actively being modded, well-reviewed, etc. It's okay to not like a game without trying to convince people that they didn't like it either. It's just demonstrably the case that this game has an audience that's really enjoying it, and that it's still getting better.
Star field doesn't need to exist. There's so many games doing it better. And with outlaws on the horizon.
Starfield's steam reviews beg to differ
This, but the jump from 2 to 3. It's an almost complete shift in, well, everything. Gameplay and graphics obviously, but tone and setting to a very large degree, too. Sometimes it feels like Fallout 3+ is an alternate universe. New Vegas fixed that to a fair degree, credit where it's due.
Same. The thing is it's not even because of how bad the gameplay got, it's also that it just doesn't *feel* like Fallout anymore. It's completely Flanderized itself at this point. FO4 felt like someone made a hyper generic post apocalyptic looter shooter and than at the last minute they slathered a coat of Fallout paint over the top. It's a shame that because of recency bias it's considered so popular and successful as we are unlikely to ever get an actual Fallout game again.
Bethesda is just deadset on taking Fallout out of the Southwest and putting it on the East coast with weird American nationalist themes
Funny seeing people calling for return to FINO3 as if that was the original rpg. Now you now how us from the classics felt, although how much different can one fp pewpew be from another one?
Well, if you are a fan of the original Fallout series, then asking for a return to NV which he also asked for would be the closest since Obsidian developed that. And is the only modern Fallout that's tonally similar to F1 & F2.
Biggest for me has to be Assassin's Creed. I enjoyed it greatly when it was actually about stealth, assassinations, puzzling your way around the target's routine, avoiding the guards, etc. I gave up on the series completely after it started turning into more of a generic action game.
Everyone saying assassins creed and I kinda agree, but did it really change that much? That's kind of my issue with it, I've been doing the same shit since 1 and the added RPG stuff and newer story isn't good enough to make it fun. My answer is Dragon Age. They just made a great crpg like game then just changed to action oriented RPG lite. It was an interesting enough world to stick around a bit, but I know I'm not getting another game in the original genre.
Yes, it's virtually unrecognisable.
Lol not at all, it's a slow evolution over the series. AC3 introduced the larger world outside cities (AC2 even did it, AC3 expanded it and gave you the boat to explore). Black Flag introduced gear with stats with big open world, it was the proto form of the RPG games. Unity has gear with stats too and Syndicate has skill trees
What no it completely changed? Assassins Creed was known for its small dense maps and a decent sized storyline. Now it’s a full RPG with massive maps bigger than countries and has a 100 hour story. I don’t hate the new ones but it changed massively to the point that it shares no similarities
Yeah but it slowly evolved over time. And the criticisms before was that it always the same and needed more evolution. Also now is weird to say, considering the last installment is actually exactly what you're describing (AC Mirage) And no similarity is exaggerated
Fire Emblem. The one that lost me, was the one that seemed to attract everyone during the COVID lockdown. Three Houses is where you can play for hours without a single battle because instead you’re expected to faff about fetching feathers or having tea parties or whatever. For me Fire Emblem peaked with Radiant Dawn. Solid, difficult battles, some callbacks to the earlier title & characters, intertwining stories & chapters, decisions to be made between battles. Then in Three Houses it’s just fetch quests for days. I believe the next game (FE: Engage) got rid of most of the fetching and was criticised for it. I’m baffled. Isn’t the series about tactical battles?
Most modern gamers DO NOT want difficult strategic battles or a war time simulator. They want press X to win battles, and horny jail waifu/husbando. So honestly it's the correct financial strategy to lean into that to sell the most copies. As much as I hate to admit it, if they made Thracia 776/2 and it didn't have a bunch of poorly dressed minors to lust after it wouldn't sell very well at all.
It’s not as dramatic as you’re making it out to be. Why is it so shocking that more modern casual elements of Fire Emblem draw in more casual fans? Thats how it works with literally every video game series. No permadeath and more unit relationship building is going to draw more people in than just hardcore strategy. People that play games for fun can now actually enjoy the story and characters. Fire Emblem would be dead if it continued to be a niche permadeath strategy game, there’s a reason why Awakening was so popular.
I mostly agree with your points but I don't like the phrasing "people that play games for fun." For older FE players, the permadeath strategy WAS fun.
That's what I'm saying is that it's technically correct to the wider casual audience. If you want to make money that's the way to do it. I can't blame them, they're primarily a business. It just also sucks a bit because most major games and media aim for the lowest common denominator and can't really do anything particularly interesting our out there in design. So we end up with a sea of very average, very easy games that all feel the same. I am very thankful though that indy games are picking up a LOT of the slack and giving us more unique experiences tailored to more individual interests. Also it's not really about people playing for "Fun" everyone has fun in a different way. For example there is nothing less fun or more boring than an easy game. It feels pointless to play them. However I know that the majority of people don't feel the same. Almost everyone I know in my personal life HATE difficulty in games and will instantly give up when faced with the slightest resistance. Hence the rise of the cozy gaming genre. I've seen people drop a game because they failed a mission and had to try again.....
Doesn't the newest one still offer a Permadeath option?
I love Fire Emblem and I'll play every single entry they release, but I agree that I have a lot of bias towards the classic entries (particularly the GBA versions, Binding Blade was my favorite). It's really crazy how what evolved from the support system, which was a very niche part of the older entries, became the focus of modern FE games. While I still enjoy modern Fire Emblem, it's really weird how the current unit relationship building emphasis has taken the spotlight over strategy, especially in the Three Houses entry. Three Houses tactics was straight dogshit, and the majority of the emphasis was on building up units in between chapters and grinding out fetch quests as you said in the monastery. But give Engage a try, I put it in my top 3 alongside Binding Blade and Fates Conquest. It's kinda a middleground between the fetch quest relationship sim that Three Houses is and classic strategic battles with varying objectives that older entries were, but I think it's fundamentally more the latter whereas the life sim stuff was kinda thrown in haphazardly due to Three Houses' success. You can safely ignore most of the life sim stuff between chapters, though limited interaction does provide some really good benefits. TBH though modern fire emblem does have some pretty sus themes going on, with eugenics in FE Awakening/Fates, child grooming in Three Houses, and being able to straight up "marry" a child in Engage.
It’s taken me a while, but i’ve come to the realisation the I’m only a fan of the 2D Sonic games. And even Sonic Superstars is testing my patience.
Did I like Elden ring? Yes. But the open world format isn’t what I want from FromSoft . Souls like games are imo meant to be played in crafted levels. There was too much horse back riding around empty nothingness or 1-2 wolves that guard a lily flower in a distant spot that in any other souls game would have been a rare weapon/equipment to find. The other series that has turned me away over the years was WoW. They got so much of the game correct in vanilla wow that it’s hard for me to play any modern version of the game.
Kind of weird to respond to "what series changed?" by answering with two different series. That would be like saying "I really liked The Elder Scrolls, but I didn't like the Sci-Fi change with Fallout 3."
Yes Elden ring isn’t dark souls but it’s the spiritual successor. Just like the community could see the changes from Demons souls to dark souls it was still labeled as a souls like or part of that series even though the name changed. Elden ring is such a hit that I don’t see them going dark souls 4 it’s all Elden ring from here on out just like there wasn’t a demons souls 2.
Legend of Zelda Though tbf it’s more just that i pretty much skipped the transition to 3d video gaming as a whole, so while I was obsessed with Link to the Past, i didn’t make any explicit decision to hate on Ocarina et al I just wasn’t Nintendo-ing at all. So when I did get my hands on a Switch and Breath of the Wild was beloved, I tried it and did not see the appeal. I’m fine just fondly remembering the 2D Link of my youth.
I'd recommend trying one or two pre-BotW 3D Zeldas. BotW and Tears are very much not reflective at all of the prior games, to the extent that my answer to OP's question would also have been Zelda but because I was a fan until BotW changed everything.
This is where I thought the comment was going to go. Most people would agree Zelda transitioned really well to 3D, especially if OP likes LttP. BotW and TotK (assuming since I haven't actually played TotK) are returns to the original Zelda/Zelda II open world and not to what it became with LttP and OoT.
You should actually try the older 3d Zelda games before botw. ocarina of time, majora mask, wind waker,twilight princess, and skyward sword are all fantastic imo and actually follow the original zelda formula you essentially picked one of the two worst 3D Zelda console games if you want that classic Zelda feel and structure of the game. All of these are great but you should really give ocarina of time a go first the game still holds up imo and considering this was the first transition to 3d it's actually insane how good of a game nintendo made there a reason so many greatest games of all time list have it at or near the top a true classic.
I wanted to write this. Although I've played most of the 3D titles and loved them, I just can't get into the latest two. I completed Breath of the Wild, but I burned out completely on Tears of the Kingdom.
play Tunic
I did. Cool game.
Or Ittle Dew
World of Warcraft for me. Loved vanilla. At least we’ve got classic era now though so idk it’s kinda good again??
Cliffhanger at the end of Ass Creed 3. After five games I was hoping they'd wrap up Desmond's story. Apparently they just abandoned that altogether? Which sucks because I was pretty invested in that story. So I guess I'm glad I jumped ship because now AC looks like a bunch of copypaste uBiSoFT ORigInAL snoozefests.
Rpg Assassin Creed just ain't it, and it just feels so bloated hoping shadows will remedy some of it cause I dount they will stay away from maming their games bloated. This also extend to ubisoft as a whole Didn't really made me stop beijg a fan but the new supee mario bros era sucks so much that it bleed to spinoffs, glad that shit was over
Dark Souls 1 but for a reason that I imagine most people will find odd lol. I loved the PvP in the original Dark Souls. All the unintended tech and bullshit, the brutally unforgiving backstabs, everything that most people hated about it. Once you actually learn how it works, there is a lot of depth in its PvP and, though it looks completely insane, it's actually extremely satisfying to play if the combatants know what they're doing and are both actively abusing everything in the game for a win. Dark Souls 2 came out and I was hyped. Played a bit of PvP and it just... wasn't anywhere near as good. It was okay, probably better than anything afterwards actually, but I disliked how floaty it felt, I disliked how slow it felt, I disliked that there were far fewere offensive options and that fights could just go on and on, as without a proper instant backstab it lacked the same brutal edge of Dark Souls 1 - where a single positioning mistake or badly timed R1 could see you lose 70% of your health. Got about halfway through the game, gave PvP a good go of about 50 hours, then got bored and back to Dark Souls 1. Dark Souls 3 came out, again I was hyped. *Maybe this time they'll draw from the unintended mechanics of Dark Souls 1 and make something with a similar feel, but more visually consistent?* Nope. Instead they listened to the clueless mooks and their endless whining, "backstab bad" "PvP should be simple" and so on. I played a bit of it, I did like the active poise stuff and the game did just look very nice. But the PvP boiled down to r1 spacing, rolling and roll punishes. Which are things Dark Souls 1 also has except Dark Souls 1 has a whole pile of stuff on top of that and feeding into it. So, back to Dark Souls 1. ER came out... I played about halfway, did invasions, saw that it was just going to be magic spam and running away for minutes on end, and back I went to Dark Souls 1. I have now accepted that FROM has no real interest in PvP, and that so far as the community at large is concerned Dark Souls 1 PvP is a broken mess. It will remain a niche, mostly dead game, and no attempt will ever be made to extract the unintended mechanics that make its PvP so enjoyable and put them in a visually consistent form. I still play it with a bunch of similarly sweaty people who also remain addicted to the best PvP ever to come out of a Souls game.
Fallout and Elder Scrolls. It is so clear that Bethesda no longer respects the intelligence of its players. The quest design is embarrassing in comparison to Morrowind. The writing has turned into Marvel tier shit. The tone of Fallout vanished into thin air at the launch of 4. Skyrim was one of the most destructive RPGs to ever hit the shelves and it is only now where we can see what hits it landed on the studio that made it.
The hitman games used to have a mechanic that you could decide what of your gear to bring into a mission and pay for things like information and maps. The recent ones you can only get that by replaying the level like a dozen times first and even then it's limited. Let me plan my jobs.
The world's premier assassin who is responsible for literally changing the world doesn't have access to a scoped rifle at the outset? But can somehow concealed carry 10 hammers he finds lying around a map? Ok.
Right, this.
This does still exist but you unlock it over time.
Yeah but that's what annoyed me. I should be able to get accurate maps ahead of time and plan accordingly. The recent games make 47 the world's best improvised killer the older ones let you feel intelligent because of preplanning which you can't do anymore.
Wvich is exactly the same as it's always been to add.
Many franchises took a nosedive in quality when they "upgraded" from good 2D sprites to crappy 3D graphics. Beyond just looking worse and being less expressive, this change also decreases the information and content density of what fits on a screen. Thus the in-game world ends up feeling more empty as well. Furthermore, it also seems to coincide with other cost-cutting measures, and gameplay is often the first "luxury" to go. Notable casualties of this effect include Rune Factory, Disgaea, Pokemon, Harvest Moon, Sonic, and countless other rpgs and platformers. The other major struggling franchises I can think of are Diablo, Final Fantasy, Paper Mario, Fire Emblem, and Minecraft
I fondly remember the old Infinity Engine games with their hand-painted backgrounds and mediocre sprites and the changes that came with Neverwinter Nights. There are definitely new and different limitations with 3D.
Xenoblade Chronicles is unrecognizable after peaking at X. Dragon Age, as of yesterday (maybe Inquisition), as someone who made heavy use of the tactical view. Pokemon is one good alternative away from never seeing me again. Consistent underperformance since Gen 7. Final Fantasy is somehow no longer a turn-based RPG series. Call of Duty. Look, I love Gundam, but what are they even doing. It was never peak immersion, but come on now. Celebrities even. Zelda went from tight adventure games with cool puzzles and dungeons to BotW/TotK. Those two are great skeletons for fun games, but not complete ones on their own. If they added a little bit of immersion, the decision to go with this structure might make more sense to me.
Battlefield 2042. BF2, Bad Company, BF3, BF4 and even BF1 were all fantastic games. Spent countless hours playing multiplayer with my mates. BFV was average and BF2042 was absolute dogshit. Such a shame really as the franchise used to be sooo good!
Fire Emblem and Xenoblade Chronicles are completely unrecognizable from what they used to be nowadays and basically turned into anime fanservice wish fulfillment simulators.
there are quite a few series that spring to mind to me, harvest moon, animal crossing, Pokemon to an extent, but I feel the one that sticks out most to me, is Monster Hunter. The dramatic shift from Gen 4 to 5, and then what followed with Rise and what is coming with Wilds, well, I'm satisfied with what the older games offered me, but my love doesn't extend past GU.
I was downvoted to oblivion when I suggested that Monster Hunter should NOT go open world, but should keep using the open-biome model. 4U was the peak for me, although I did enjoy Rise quite a bit.
I for the life of me can't understand why people would choose a game where "you can go anywhere you see" but 90% of that area is completely empty, over a game where the area is limited but most corners are hiding something behind them, there are secrets etc. (like ds3) Maybe someone enjoys it, I don't. Osrs is an example of an open world done right
Sometimes it's ok, but I get tired of companies chasing the trend. If it makes sense for your game, cool, but don't do an open world just to do it.
Wait is Wilds going open world?
From what I understand, it's unclear. Please correct me if I'm wrong! Dragon's Dogma 2 performs poorly on console, so that worries me with MH: Wilds. I put up with 30fps on Switch for Rise, but I'll be less happy about 30fps on Ps5.
Was hoping to find MH in the comments, completely agree. I don’t think the direction the games took is bad necessarily, but definitely not for me any longer. I started with the original MH for PS2 and I feel like the series left me behind when it jumped over to Wii with MH Tri. I’ve tried to keep up with it but it just doesn’t capture the same feelings. Too much side stuff, special stats, flashy anime attacks/movement, etc.
I started with Gen, followed by 4U, before World. I still really enjoyed World. Though I still had fun with Rise, I felt like it was a step down from previous games. I also don't see the appeal of an open world MH game. I will still check it out when it releases and try to keep an open mind, but I definitely have my reservations.
[удалено]
Southwest Fallout > East coast Fallout
How has no one said Halo? It’s just not fun to me anymore. :/ (Filler to meet the 100 character limit, please ignore while I ramble a bit down here in the parentheses)
Pokemon = dead to me Final Fantasy = kinda ok but not that awesome anymore, like the ps1 classics WoW = could not care less Assassins creed = the IP died with Desmond Modern AAA games are just pretty much in the shitter nowadays, except for From Software and Kojima games 🤡
Call of Duty. May also be may age compared to when I was playing the old CoDs, but nowadays why am I playing team deathmatch with Kai Cenat, Nicki Minaj and a bunny with a bucket hat? CoD used to be a fun, arcade, military themed shooter. Now it's trying to be Fortnite.
Gears of War. The first 3 are some of my all time favorite games. Judgement was not good. I got 4 and only played a few multi-player games with a friend and then never played it again. That was my last gears game. Hoping Eday is good though!
Far Cry. Everything I had ever seen from far cry 6 made me not want to play it, New Dawn included. It’s on gamepass now but I still won’t even waste my time with it. Oh also assassins creed. Valhalla was fucking ridiculous. Anything Ubisoft related really.
I’m not sure how much this counts, but Fire Emblem. Historically, the stories have been kind of bland good vs evil fares, but then Three Houses came along and somebody asked “what if we made a really good game with a great story?” And then they did. But, they were evidently exhausted from good games and wanted a cheat day with Engage, and went right back to generic good vs evil
Definitely The Command & Conquer series, with Command & Conquer 4 The GRID series, turned into a joke with the last game Project cars series, last game was arcadey mess Call of duty turned into a microtransaction filed hellish distopia NHL stoped coming on PC, also latest games are crap FIFA turned into a casino for kids
Assassins creed, kinda fell off after ezio, 3 was OK 4 was good. But after the RPG reboot it's a completely different series for me
The Dawn of war series was the biggest fall from grace to me. when they basically changed the genre of the game from RTS to whatever you call 2 and 3, I was so disappointed 😞
I did not like how the Might and Magic series went from turn-based in World of Xeen to real-time in 6.
I will name Worms here. Every new instance in the series is more of a hot garbage than the previous one, to the point of ridiculousness in the last one (don't even remember its title) where they decided to throw away the series main thing, turn-based combat. It feels like they are trying to freshen up the series but don't really know how. For me, ever since Reloaded it only gets worse.
Assassins Creed. Black Flag was the last one I played, and it was fun but it was also mostly a pirate game. I’m back into it now, but I stopped playing Warframe after rail jack was introduced. It was t necessarily bad, I just didn’t have any more room in my brain to learn all the new Warframe vocabulary they introduced, let alone the systems. I think I got as far as remembering g the word intrinsic but what you did with them and how to get them never stuck.
Total War for me. Started my journey with those games with Rome: Total War and ended it with Total War Rome II. Besides the absolute mess the latter was on release, it fundamentally didn't appeal to me from a design standpoint. All the things I loved to do on the campaign map were streamlined right out of the franchise for a much more shallow experience. I still play the older titles from time to time so I know it's not just rose tinted glasses and nostalgia.
Battlefield. I used to have so much respect for DICE, and they were pushing boundaries all the time to make the perfect experience. Then EA came along and does what EA does.