cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/57413346
I played Nine Sols recently and it had a transformative effect on my gaming experience. I’ve found myself no longer getting mad at fairly structured games and deeply enjoying the personal refinement of my skill set in pursuit of a goal. Suddenly this shift in perspective has allowed me to see difficulty in a new light and truly savor the victory that comes after significant effort. With this new perspective, I decided to try the game that had made me hesitate the most with its reputation for difficulty: Sekiro
Its been truly eye opening to realize that my nervousness has only kept me from a good time. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready for it…
Following that trend, I started Celeste for the first time even though I never play pure platformers, and it has blown my socks off. Do I suck? You bet your ass I do. But I know it’s from a lack of detailed platforming, and developing that skill has been very fun and satisfying.
Now, I’d love to hear from others. What games made you regret waiting so long to try them?
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From Software Souls-like games.
In fact, I’m still technically sleeping on them as I don’t know where to start. Assuming I can only play on a PS3 or Steam Deck - where would be the best jumping in point?
I have fell asleep playing Civilization a few times :) Just…one…more…turn.
Hollow knight.
I had a bunch of soulslike phases but hollow knight I couldn’t get into because “there is not even dodging mechanic”
Then the mantis lords fight made the game kinda “click” and I did find “dash” ability too so it was fun.
Then it kept becoming more fun through the story. Pretty much only soulslike I got into the lore of.
This is me as well. I only actually got around to playing Hollow Knight about a year ago and it was amazing. I won’t be waiting as long to play Silksong, that’s for sure.
Didn’t play The Last of Us until a few months before Part 2 came out. I went into them pretty much blind, and I’m really glad I got to experience them like that. Real masterpieces these games.
undertale and deltarune. i kinda always dismissed those games as youtuber fandom shit, if that makes sense… stuff made to appeal to fandoms who love to pull nonsense out of their asses to make the games deeper than they really are. game theory bait. and i’ve heard so many horrors about the utdr fandom, it made me want to steer clear of the games. and i figured, since i already got spoiled a ton of stuff from undertale through cultural osmosis, what would be the point of playing it?
but they still interested me somewhat, since i heard from more people that they were actually really good… and i got spoiled one more thing i didn’t know, and i figured if i want to play these games someday, i have to do it now so my enjoyment of them isn’t ruined more by just existing on the internet
so i did! i played undertale twice in a row (i didn’t do everything needed to get the pacifist ending the first time), and the first 2 chapters of deltarune right after that (only those were released then). and oh my, i’m glad i did because these are some of my favourite games now. tho i still think I would’ve enjoyed undertale so much more if i hadn’t been spoiled a bunch about it…
don’t judge games by their fandoms. things are often popular for a reason, and fans of something often lack the creative experience of the original creators (which is not to say that there isn’t good utdr fan content, there is, a ton! but there’s also a lot of crap)
i still dislike the gaster theorists tho
I tried starting Undertale but it doesn’t work well (or at all I can’t remember) with a controller, maybe I should try using good ol AntiMicroX to translate controller inputs to mouse and keyboard. The first few images left me with an impression of very low effort so with that and the hardware issue I didn’t push further. You’re saying I should ? 😁
yea undertale’s graphics are pretty bad lol, in many cases literally on purpose! thankfully deltarune (especially the later chapters) looks much better. but imo, where the game really shines is its characters and battles, they’re really fun! that’s where you’ll feel the effort that went into the game. the music too is excellent imo
for the controller, if it’s not a problem you can just play with the keyboard, it works very well.
Cheers, I’ll give it another go ! yea keyboard should be fine I’ll make the effort heh
Based on what you’ve described that you liked about Nine Sols, you should check out Sekiro.
Best game I have ever played in my life. My only complaint is that it has made other games less enjoyable by comparison.
I mention it briefly in the post, but Sekiro is currently in my rotation. It’s everything I hoped it would be after Nine Sols.
Kingdom come: Deliverance.
I’m pretty far into my first playthrough. I had barely even heard of this game, but once I got past the initial frustration of realizing that I’m just a blacksmith’s son, I’m having a blast!
I wasn’t sure how a lack of fantasy (monsters/magic) would turn out, but I don’t miss it at all.
i couldnt figure out the lockpicking system
It took me some getting used to. I’m a pro at the Fallout/Skyrim system, but this took some getting used to.
Besides that though, I’ve noticed that, like combat, it gets easier as you level it up. A low level trying to pick anything other than very easy is going to be REALLY shaky. But at higher levels, I have a lot more control even on hard locks.
Mass Effect Andromeda. It’s fun as hell and I’m so glad I didn’t listen to those who had nothing but bad things to say about it.
its unpolished, sure. but unpolished diamonds are still diamonds. the characters are wonderful, the planets are amazing, the combattttt oh my goodness. and some of the choices are quite interesting.
currently on my… 6th? 7th playthrough? and I love it so much I’m planning personal challenge runs for future plays. it’s my favorite mass effect to reach for now when I have the mass effect itch.
What do you think about the story?
I really enjoyed the Mass Effect trilogy and would be interested if the game is cheap and runs well on a Steam Deck
i actually love it. and I love the races they add as well. the enemy is fairly generic, but what sci-fi villain isn’t?
i love the trilogy as well, I just have some issues when they start inserting story regardless of if you’re ready or not. so Andromeda is fairly good at not pushing you too far too fast. and its easy to go at your own pace.
which I love cause I love 100%ing all areas cause I’m a weirdo. and I love completion.
If you are doing metroidvanias you should try Ghost Song
Will check it out! I love a good Metroidvania
It’s my favorite in recentish years. It’s more exploration and hidden interaction and story than challenge. I’ve enjoyed that formula a lot though.
I just made it to Act 2 of Baldurs Gate 3. I’m obsessed.
I gotta be honest I couldn’t get very far in cause the game was just too difficult. And I’m not a stranger to crpgs. I dunno if it’s just the d&d system or what. And the more people I knew who were getting into it and talking about how some later sections felt almost impossible, it just killed my interest entirely. Like is there something I’m missing or is it just that punishing and that’s what people like about it?
I started and stopped playing it a couple of times before I really got hooked. What worked for me was watching the YouTube channel Many a True Nerd start his playthrough. Watching somebody else use the controls and navigate the UI and stuff really helped me get over the “fire hose of information” you’re bombarded with at the start. But that’s just me.
I’ve just made it to the city! I’m at about 250 hours so far, but TBF I am a very slow gamer. Yeah, it just keeps getting better and better as you go.
I actually feel like I might be missing out on a lot, because I pretty much stick with the same party. I could see myself finishing and wanting to start a completely new playthrough with different companions and making different choices.
i have a couple playthroughs and they have all been different. i have hundreds of hours and I still keep finding new things that I had no idea were there.
its kind of nice to know there’s other things I might find out in more playthroughs to come.
I’m not gonna say I slept on it, but I’ve had Alan Wake in my library for over 5 years. Picked it up on sale around the time I got Control which I really wanted to play but never got around to. Decided since that whole universe seems more interconnected and with more games than it did when I bought them (Alan Wake 2, the upcoming sequel to Control, etc.), I should just do a playthrough of Alan Wake before I finally get around to getting Control off my backlog.
Played through Alan Wake (the original, not the remake) this past weekend, and while it certainly shows its age in some areas, I had a lot more fun than I expected to. If you’re into narrative third person “shooter” games like Uncharted, Tomb Raider, or similar, Alan Wake is worth checking out.
I’m looking forward to finally getting to Control this weekend.
Man I could just not finish the first Alan Wake. The story and setting is ok, the Stephen King-like tropes are pretty heavy handed at times but in a good way. But the controls are god awful and the game does absolutely nothing to change anything about its gameplay of “shine light at monsters and run” for the whole game. It really shows its age playing it 15 years later, just feels clunky and bad. I couldn’t care enough about the story and gave up about 3/4 of the way through. Alan Wake 2 is very good however
Good to know Alan Wake 2 is better. The gameplay loop of the original is definitely a bit repetitive, I intentionally played on “easy” because I knew that going in, and wanted it to feel like less of a slog.
The first 3 Uncharted games also feel like a bit of a slog in many of the same ways for me. There are too many “waves” of enemies in most of the areas and while the stealth mechanics in those games help make things a bit more interesting, the second wave of enemies always finds you immediately and forces you back into guns blazing at enemies going for first-time headshots on the NPCs because it’s the fastest way through, and if you miss the headshot and hit the body at all they become bullet sponges even if you follow it up with headshots.
I don’t really play a lot of new games anymore, so I guess the last time I slept on a game for too long was The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. This was many years ago, I’ve got 1,200 hours in the game now and 100%'d it multiple times. Butt I can’t stand potty humor, so seeing literal giant piles of crap all over the map and dozens of fart related items always immediately turned me away from the game any time I looked at it, despite knowing I’d love playing it. Eventually I gave in and bought it, and surprisingly, the poop didn’t bother me much because they don’t really make it look especially gross (except for tainted blue baby… fuck you, tainted blue baby). The farts were still bad, but most of those items suck so I can gladly ignore them.
For a while I was desensitized to the potty humor, but then they released the Repentance DLC with the character tainted blue baby, and… ugh. If you don’t know what he looks or plays like, feast your eyes on this wonderful wiki page and see how many results show up when you Ctrl+F “poop”. He’s a character based around the released bowels of a corpse who attacks by defecating. As much as I love the game, the potty humor remains my least favorite part of it by far, and I wish Edmund McMillen wasn’t such a freak sometimes.
Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. It was on my wishlist for awhile, but some of the negative reviews had me thinking it wasn’t something I would enjoy. Then I kept seeing comments that it was a good game to play if you like Skyrim. I disagree with that, it’s not so much Skyrim vibes than as if Oblivion and Elden Ring had a baby that was into weird creepy shit and obsessed with the Knights of the Round table.
It’s cool AF and I was absolutely obsessed from the very beginning. I am glad I waited a bit to play it because there’s 3rd person mode now and I don’t think it initially shipped with 3rd person mode. I get insanely sick playing a lot of 1st person games. Some games I’m fine with and other games I’m puking my guts out and going to bed within 15 minutes of booting up the game, so having 3rd person mode (even if it’s officially unsupported and a little glitchy) means I can play for hours and actually enjoy the game.
Just started playing this and blown away by it. Combat feels better than skyrim, and while it nerfs my “stealth Archer” approach it makes you actually utilize multiple mechanics while fighting.
If you havent tried it, I would suggest “Dread Delusion”. It’s ps1 like graphics, and definitely has parred down mechanics, but the world building, exploration, missions, and story are really enjoyable.
I’ll be honest, I’m playing on story mode because I hate the slog of combat being so insanely difficult in most video games and I hate having to grind to level up in early games. As my one coworker so excellently put it, “if I want to punish myself I’ll pick up overtime”. I’m very sad that I can’t sneak around shooting everyone in the back like in Skyrim but I am enjoying the mechanics of Tainted Grail and I love the world and the lore and the whole idea of the Wyrdness and the fact that nighttime and daytime are actually different is delightful.
I’ll have to look at Dread Delusion, I’ve never heard of it.
No shame in story mode, the combat is definitely harder than skyrim. That being said, I do like that since there isn’t level scaling, combat difficulty lets me know if I should actually be picking a fight (like finding an orge in early game and realizing I can barely damage it).
Completely agree on the lore and wyrdness too. It’s been a bit refreshing to play something that, while pulling from other fantasy, seems to really build and flesh out its own lore.
Several years ago now I played witcher 3. It was released in 2015. I enjoyed this game way more than I thought I would and couldn’t believe I slept on it for 7 years or so before finally playing it
A friend tried to talk me to into playing this one for years before I finally went for it. I should have listened sooner!
I’ve not got to it yet, but ppl here have told me it’s still great in spite of its age. Just gotta finish baldur’s gate and control, then it’s next on my list.
Both those games I started and never finished 🤣
I got it shortly after it came out because everyone was saying how great it was, and I immediately bounced off of it. Every few years, I’ll go back and try again hoping I can find what people loved about it, but it’s just not my taste. I forced myself as far as Skellige one time, but only because I kept reminding myself, “If you get to a new area, you might get to play more Gwent.”
Nobody told me about Gwent when I started playing. I wish the standalone game was just that 🤣. I enjoyed the hell out of that game.
Too bad the games not your taste. The graphics, environments, the story, all really drew me in. The one DLC was in particular really good on the plot.
Goddamn man, who’s going through and downvoting almost literally every comment?
That’s exactly what I made this post for – to inject more life into my game queue
Edit: d’oh, I read this as downloading
Down voting things like this is ridiculous
