Are there games that you tried but just couldn’t get into because they feel outdated? Games that, in theory, you would enjoy, but don’t because the controls, graphics, writing, or mechanics just don’t feel good anymore. Games that, compared to today, just don’t hold up to your standards.
I recently tried playing Heroes of Might and Magic III, and I realized that a lot of the invisible language used through game design from that era, I do not understand. There are many things that the game didn’t explain, and I assume they were just understood by players. Not only that, but I imagine there was a lot of crossover between video games and board games back then, so maybe that language was used as well. I ended up downloading a manual and putting it on my second screen and I get it and played it, but it just wasn’t for me.
I also dropped Mirror’s Edge, but this time it was because of the graphics. It looks and feels great, but the graphics give me a headache. There is way too much bloom, and for some reason, there are some parts that look like the imaginary lens has been covered in Vaseline. This didn’t bother me before, but my eyes are not used to it anymore.
There are also games like the first two Tony Hawk Pro Skater games that I can’t fully get into because they’re missing mechanics from the later games. The levels and controls feel great, but they don’t feel complete without those mechanics. It keeps me from enjoying the games as much as the others.
Gta 5. Story progression is just awful. You play a mission, it ends and you’re forced to do open world activities instead of continuing the story. Then just when you’re getting into the groove in the open world you get a call to do a story mission and it turns out to be shooting imaginary aliens. The missions are too linear and short. Gunplay is weak. Also the characters feel like they were written for 10 year olds who think swear words are funny.
Well yeah, GTA IV was all about the immigrant story, which is basically a series of people screwing you over because they can get away with it. I liked Niko and felt bad when he got screwed over, and enjoyed seeing good things happen to him.
GTA V, on the other hand, was essentially a criminal Moby Dick, but way worse because I hated all of the characters. Michael’s problems started because he has anger management issues (should’ve just divorced his wife), and compounded when he couldn’t give up the dream of a massive heist. Trevor is just evil, though he is almost interesting in the epilogue. Franklin is who I’m supposed to like, but when he gets money, he ditches all of his dreams (every time I switched to him, he’s swimming is his pool mid to late game). And then the entire focus of the game is heists, but there’s like 5? It should be something I can do whenever I want, like the gang wars in GTA SA, vigilante/ambulance side content in GTA III, etc. I wanted to play as Franklin and steal cars to start a dealership or something, but instead he just does whatever Michael wants him to do.
I’m a big Guild Wars 2 fan, though I don’t play that much anymore. Often in the game, Guild Wars 1 references, and stories told by players of how great it was, made me want to try it.
It still fully works, and can be played. But for me, it was a no-go. I could live with the graphics, and the environments were fine. Good music and sounds.
The interface killed it for me. Dozens of windows, shortcuts, clunky ways of doing things, the inventory. I couldn’t take it anymore after a few hours.
It’s not about disliking old interfaces. I basically live on the Linux-shell, and I still play xcom: ufo-defense. But the gw1 one is all over the place, like it hasn’t been planned but just happened by random people dropping into the studio and adding some stuff for the fun of it.
Come to think about it, it isn’t even about old games. I couldn’t play Xenonauts for the same reason. I suppose I just don’t enjoy clunky interfaces…
It bothers me how fucking monumental of an achievement Xenogears could have been, how incredible it still is, and how unbearably painful it is to try and play today.
It’s still one of the most wild sci-fi stories I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing, [and I read a LOT], but even at the time it was a really clunky combat system and the controls can be absolutely maddening.
I feel the same way about the modern games in the series. The combat feels like an MMO in the worst way, but the stories are interesting enough that I keep on trying to play them.
I remember playing the first game and getting stuck on the tutorial because I was mashing the left click button trying to swing my sword only to have Geralt hip thrust at the enemies.
But once you figure out how to swing the sword, the game’s actually pretty fun. One thing I particularly liked is that there’s an investigative storyline where you actually have to go and investigate and figure out the answer with the clues provided, and you can fail. I went into it thinking it would be like most modern games where you only get obviously correct or incorrect dialog options and angered everyone in the process.
People didn’t like its mechanics even back when it launched. Personally, it’s still somehow my favorite even tho objectively it’s less fun to play and less polished than the other two. Something about its story and the atmosphere makes it more unique and genuine.
Yeah, I don’t know how unpopular the opinion is, but the original Witcher didn’t strike me as a particularly good game. It was a… fine… I guess game, but with mature elements and tone that other games in the genre lacked. I slogged through it in preparation of playing Witcher 3.
I bought a bundle with all the 3 witcher games and tried both 1 and 2. I could jot even get through the tutorial in 1 and could jot beat the first boss of 2. Each game controls completely differently from one another.
That Kayran fight is one of the most unfortunate things about Witcher 2. It’s far too difficult a fight for a first boss, and almost all of that chapter is a drag to boot. The game is so much better after that point.
My favorite moment in that game is a serious case of understatement in dialogue prompt. You have an option to help one of two diametrically opposed people and if you choose “Help person A” you draw your sword on person B. If you choose “Help person B” you immediately throat punch person A.
The typical advice for people looking to get into the Witcher games is to watch a cutscene compilation of the first game, then start with the second. Don’t bother with too many side quests in the second; Just make it through the story so you know the broad strokes and major decisions. Then take that save to the Witcher 3, and just play that one from now on.
Because going backwards is so incredibly difficult; Each game adds a ton of quality of life improvements, so going back to older games feels horribly sluggish and clunky.
These days, for me the absolute minimum is full controller support due to the wife acceptance factor. She loved Dragon Age Inquisition so we tried to play Origins a couple years ago, and even though I’d cloned the displays, me sitting behind her at my computer instead of next to her on the couch was a deal breaker.
There are other plusses in terms of WAF, full voice narration and a good story being chief among them. There’s a reason the only soulslike I’ve ever really played is Fallen Order. 😆
For me playing alone (which I almost never do anymore), one example I can think of is trying to go back to Dark Age of Camelot after playing WoW for a while. That was…painful.
I’m curious how your wife might enjoy the Xbox 360 version of Dragon Age Origins. It’s a shame they didn’t patch the PC version so that you could use that interface.
Thanks to the modding community we were able to play Mass Effect as if it were running on console many years before the Legendary Edition was available.
Yeah oblivion ruined games for me i played skyrim after but just couldnt get into it as much but then going back to oblivion feels bad especially since pc didnt get controller support I cant just sit on the couch and play and if im going to sit at my desk i feel i need to get through new game backlog since desk time is a commodity now for me
Yeah I get that there are many that feel that way. And I love RPGs, though my first was probably Diablo, which I played the hell out of.
I just wasn’t even aware of Elder Scrolls until Oblivion so it wasn’t until later that I tried to go back and play it and it’s just tough.
My two are Morrowind, where I loved the quest design and lack of handholding, but the random hit chance and BS difficulty distribution were just… too much to handle.
And also, KOTOR, which I expected to love as a huge Star Wars fan, but the “stand around while dice are rolled” combat was just… exceptionally boring and tedious.
My issue with Morrowind is the level up system where you gotta metagame it to get +5s for 3 stats per level if you want to be most efficient. And you gotta max endurance ASAP to gain the maximum potential health by end game. I simply can not handle it. It sucks the fun right out of the game for me.
Me: I don’t like the level up system of an ancient RPG because I invariably feel drawn to minmax based on the design. It just sucks the fun out of the game for me every time I try.
You: Maybe relax and pretend not to have that issue.
Pretty much all of the iconic games from my early teens. (I was a teen in the late 80s and 90s). The games that I grew up with, that I fell in love with, are unplayable now.
Dragonstrike, a flight sim where you fly a dragon in the D&D Dragonlance world was mind blowing when I first played it. Now, it’s so bad that replaying it spoiled my memory of the original experience!
Pretty much all of the iconic games from my early teens. (I was a teen in the late 80s and 90s). The games that I grew up with, that I fell in love with, are unplayable now.
I’m generally with you, but I’d go back and play some of them (and have).
Technology didn’t really permit for a lot of improvement on side-scrolling platform games after that era, and I don’t feel like gameplay advanced a lot either; I think that the Super Mario Brothers series is still playable. I like Super Metroid, would still say that it competes with modern Metroidvanias (though the limited screen size is a bit painful).
There are certainly more-realistic racing games, but games like Outrun are IMHO still playable.
Tetris has advanced from a visual and audio standpoint, but the game hasn’t really changed that much. I’d probably default to playing a modern variant, but the 1980s versions are fine, IMHO.
Pac-Man is still playable, IMHO. Not much that really superseded that.
Vertically-scrolling shmups like 1943 have seen more graphical glitz, but I don’t feel like the genre has really deeply benefited much from technical improvements.
Damn, that game sounds amazing as a concept though. I’ve been really looking for something that’s a decent dragon-based game which doesn’t involve the dragons being relentlessly shat on by the story/all being dead or super rare.
There are a couple of dragon flight games out there, but the ones I’ve played take too many pages from flight sims, and not enough from riding horses. You can’t get a horse to try to jump the Grand Canyon, but in the sims I played, the dragons would let you fly them into a mountainside.
It’s a flight combat sim. You’re on the back of a dragon instead of in a cockpit. You can either blast enemies with your breath, or get close and rake them with your claws. I was on PC at the time, and this runs on DOS, so don’t expect any marvel of technology.
Pokémon, actually. Just a month ago I wanted to play Soul Silver. But man, it is tedious. There’s so much slow dialog, long animations, and little inconveniences everywhere (even in the menus). And I feel like you also have to grind to progress, which I absolutely hate in games (but maybe I also just didn’t play well enough, whatever). So yeah, quite disappointed with it since I remember the 3DS games being quite fun.
I think this is a greater problem with games that are technically aimed at children. There is so little respect for your time generally, but I think it’s especially egregious when it comes to menus, dialog, and animations. Additionally, there are many things that are in sequence (with large unneeded gaps between) that could happen more or less simultaneously.
Conspiratorially, I think this is to pad play time, and for kids the animations and what not are jingling keys that keep then occupied enough they don’t care or notice.
I was just thinking this exact same thing… but about Red Dead Redemption 2. I had to stop playing it because it had no respect for my time.
I’m used to driving to places to start a mission like in all the other GTA games, but in RDR2, it would be about 10 minutes of riding a horse before the real mission started.
The animations take way too long sometimes, and cutscenes and a lot of dialogue are unnecessary and feel like padding. Those 1-2 second animations add up when it’s a 50+hr game
I really enjoyed those tbh. One of my favourite things to do in RDR2 is just riding around and enjoying the scenery, or chilling in Saint-Denis at night time. Gaming time is chill time. There’s no rush to finish a story.
Yeah, I was going to say the same. RDR2 is one of those weird games where I’m okay with wasting time. Because the entire game is so fucking scenic that I can just wander around doing whatever catches my eye. The mission pacing in the beginning of the game could benefit from some tweaking, (the snowy sections are just so slow,) but the rest of the game feels like a nice scenic drive; Even if you have an eventual destination, you’re just enjoying the journey.
Pokemon is better with game shark style cheats. It’s way more fun to have the option to get 100x more xp, and force Pokemon to appear rather than grind a 1% appearance rate. Pokémon even made TMs reusable eventually, but you need cheats for that in the early games.
Hm I’ll think about it. Seems like this is really the way to go. I was playing on a modded DSi though, so I will probably have to switch to an emulator to use these kinds of cheats. Still, sounds like a good idea.
You know how in default when you are in a battle and knock out an opponent’s pokemon, it tells you what they’re going to put out next and asks you if you’d like to switch pokemon? That’s ‘switch’ mode, in ‘set’ mode you aren’t asked that and have to use a turn to switch pokemon if you’re at a type disadvantage, meaning they get a turn of damage or set up. Really makes you think about strategy a lot more, and is integral to challenge runs like nuzlockes.
Although the original commenter’s mileage may vary considering they complained about too much grinding, so I don’t think their issue is with the game being too easy.
Quit holding my fucking hand and let me play the damn game already.
“This is a Pokémon and this is how you battle…”
Motherfucker, I’ve been playing these games since I was 7.
It took me so long to keep sticking with Sword and I just couldn’t. I just wanted to hop into the world and catch some Pokémon, battle, and discover the world.
I haven’t played since ORAS, but I think they’ll always have those tutorials cause they’re targeted at kids. Like I was playing the original at 10 and now my kids starting to get into Pokémon at 6.
I feel like they should allow an “adult” version though. Like no hand holding and harder.
It’s wild how little the most financially successful franchise of all time has innovated.
Oh yeah most definitely. Not even just for kids, but I’m sure there are adults who are just getting into the games too and need a tutorial.
I just am sick of forced tutorials where you can’t skip them and they want you to know the story and no way to skip all the dialogue that most seasoned players already know. It seems like every Pokémon game does this and is one of the worst offenders of this.
By all means, do continue to make tutorials and incorporate the story elements, but make them skippable if the player so desires.
I’ve always wanted there to be an option when you start a new Pokemon game that just lets you say “I’ve played Pokemon before let me get into it”, it really is a pain in the ass as an adult.
The games really need an option to just turn off tutorials. I imagine it’s a little bit trickier than that because they need to be designed in a way a small child won’t accidentally turn it on without realizing. But there must be a way to do it.
I guess it’s the graphics and the weird keyboard combo? Because otherwise I don’t really see what’s the issue. It was so influential and good when it came out that you can get into actual arguments if any successor games are actually better than the original series (disregard the remake).
It’s basically still top tier stealth game, but the keyboard interface is weird as fuck initially. But you get used to it within hours, if you want to.
The graphics might be insurmountable for many people.
I tried to play fallout 3 and new vegas after falling in love with fallout 4 but I just could not stomach it. The games looked ugly and controlled strangely. I had more fun and enjoyment playing the original fallout from the 90s.
Man are those a good ride on PC though. A handful of mods and the graphics are solid enough. Unofficial fixes and other key mods for QOL update many mechanics and make the game more playable. Nowadays modding has largely evolved so folders and sub-folders are properly constructed with Mod Organizer 2 doing a lot of the footwork for you.
Did you play on PC? Aside from the graphics I thought it handled pretty much like any typical fps game, so the gameplay didn’t feel aged to me. But then again I used so many mods in my play through that I don’t really know what the vanilla game is like.
The aiming on guns in those Fallout games always felt odd, even on my first playthroughs when the game first came out and it makes gameplay a chore sometimes, relying more on VATS than actually aiming like you would a FPS.
Even by comparison of using bow and arrow in Oblivion which came out a year or two before Fallout 3, it’s just…off.
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Gta 5. Story progression is just awful. You play a mission, it ends and you’re forced to do open world activities instead of continuing the story. Then just when you’re getting into the groove in the open world you get a call to do a story mission and it turns out to be shooting imaginary aliens. The missions are too linear and short. Gunplay is weak. Also the characters feel like they were written for 10 year olds who think swear words are funny.
I’m hoping rdr2 is better
Gta 5 has such a bad story.
You’re basically just a bitch boy that’s in debt to someone and then you do a mission but then you’re indebted to someone else. Rinse and repeat.
Even gta4 did better.
Well yeah, GTA IV was all about the immigrant story, which is basically a series of people screwing you over because they can get away with it. I liked Niko and felt bad when he got screwed over, and enjoyed seeing good things happen to him.
GTA V, on the other hand, was essentially a criminal Moby Dick, but way worse because I hated all of the characters. Michael’s problems started because he has anger management issues (should’ve just divorced his wife), and compounded when he couldn’t give up the dream of a massive heist. Trevor is just evil, though he is almost interesting in the epilogue. Franklin is who I’m supposed to like, but when he gets money, he ditches all of his dreams (every time I switched to him, he’s swimming is his pool mid to late game). And then the entire focus of the game is heists, but there’s like 5? It should be something I can do whenever I want, like the gang wars in GTA SA, vigilante/ambulance side content in GTA III, etc. I wanted to play as Franklin and steal cars to start a dealership or something, but instead he just does whatever Michael wants him to do.
So yeah, GTA V kinda sucks.
I had to take a look at the date, because this feels like a 2018 comment…
Watch Dogs 2. It was going cheap on steam, but it feels so outdated, the most generic game-themed game with all the game elements you’ve seen before.
Bro what the fuck? There are so many mechanics in WD2 and so much whacky shit you can do, the story is also somewhat good
By your definition GTA is a garbage game
I’m a big Guild Wars 2 fan, though I don’t play that much anymore. Often in the game, Guild Wars 1 references, and stories told by players of how great it was, made me want to try it.
It still fully works, and can be played. But for me, it was a no-go. I could live with the graphics, and the environments were fine. Good music and sounds.
The interface killed it for me. Dozens of windows, shortcuts, clunky ways of doing things, the inventory. I couldn’t take it anymore after a few hours.
It’s not about disliking old interfaces. I basically live on the Linux-shell, and I still play xcom: ufo-defense. But the gw1 one is all over the place, like it hasn’t been planned but just happened by random people dropping into the studio and adding some stuff for the fun of it.
Come to think about it, it isn’t even about old games. I couldn’t play Xenonauts for the same reason. I suppose I just don’t enjoy clunky interfaces…
It bothers me how fucking monumental of an achievement Xenogears could have been, how incredible it still is, and how unbearably painful it is to try and play today.
It’s still one of the most wild sci-fi stories I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing, [and I read a LOT], but even at the time it was a really clunky combat system and the controls can be absolutely maddening.
I feel the same way about the modern games in the series. The combat feels like an MMO in the worst way, but the stories are interesting enough that I keep on trying to play them.
When Witcher 3 was winning all those awards, I wanted to give the original game a go.
Don’t. I imagine it’s nothing like Witcher 3. It aged terribly poorly.
I remember playing the first game and getting stuck on the tutorial because I was mashing the left click button trying to swing my sword only to have Geralt hip thrust at the enemies.
But once you figure out how to swing the sword, the game’s actually pretty fun. One thing I particularly liked is that there’s an investigative storyline where you actually have to go and investigate and figure out the answer with the clues provided, and you can fail. I went into it thinking it would be like most modern games where you only get obviously correct or incorrect dialog options and angered everyone in the process.
It did have some positive traits, but the gameplay just didn’t do it for me at all.
I did make it through the whole game, so I feel like I can hold that opinion, haha
People didn’t like its mechanics even back when it launched. Personally, it’s still somehow my favorite even tho objectively it’s less fun to play and less polished than the other two. Something about its story and the atmosphere makes it more unique and genuine.
It does have a great story!
Yeah, I don’t know how unpopular the opinion is, but the original Witcher didn’t strike me as a particularly good game. It was a… fine… I guess game, but with mature elements and tone that other games in the genre lacked. I slogged through it in preparation of playing Witcher 3.
I bought a bundle with all the 3 witcher games and tried both 1 and 2. I could jot even get through the tutorial in 1 and could jot beat the first boss of 2. Each game controls completely differently from one another.
I really liked Witcher 2 though. It’s a good game.
Yea, I don’t know. I disagree with the others. They’re definitely not modern games, but I think they’re both still quite good games individually.
That Kayran fight is one of the most unfortunate things about Witcher 2. It’s far too difficult a fight for a first boss, and almost all of that chapter is a drag to boot. The game is so much better after that point.
My favorite moment in that game is a serious case of understatement in dialogue prompt. You have an option to help one of two diametrically opposed people and if you choose “Help person A” you draw your sword on person B. If you choose “Help person B” you immediately throat punch person A.
Similar to how “push dijkstra aside” leads to Geralt breaking his ankle in a really violent matter.
Yeah, Witcher 2 felt like something completely new when I started it up right after finishing the first game.
I imagine going from 2 to 3 will feel the same.
Not so much to be honest. The 3rd one is just way more open world and the combat is so much smoother and more responsive.
The typical advice for people looking to get into the Witcher games is to watch a cutscene compilation of the first game, then start with the second. Don’t bother with too many side quests in the second; Just make it through the story so you know the broad strokes and major decisions. Then take that save to the Witcher 3, and just play that one from now on.
Because going backwards is so incredibly difficult; Each game adds a ton of quality of life improvements, so going back to older games feels horribly sluggish and clunky.
Yeah, I actually enjoyed the plot. But the gameplay kept getting in the way of that…lol
These days, for me the absolute minimum is full controller support due to the wife acceptance factor. She loved Dragon Age Inquisition so we tried to play Origins a couple years ago, and even though I’d cloned the displays, me sitting behind her at my computer instead of next to her on the couch was a deal breaker.
There are other plusses in terms of WAF, full voice narration and a good story being chief among them. There’s a reason the only soulslike I’ve ever really played is Fallen Order. 😆
For me playing alone (which I almost never do anymore), one example I can think of is trying to go back to Dark Age of Camelot after playing WoW for a while. That was…painful.
I’m curious how your wife might enjoy the Xbox 360 version of Dragon Age Origins. It’s a shame they didn’t patch the PC version so that you could use that interface.
Thanks to the modding community we were able to play Mass Effect as if it were running on console many years before the Legendary Edition was available.
Starcraft 1.
2 is still bearable but 1 looks like actual dogshit, especially the cutscenes
Did the remaster fix that? I couldn’t finish it for similar reasons
Morrowind.
Great characters, setting, dialog, and lore, but clunky af, even compared to Oblivion
I really want to like it too. My first Elder Scrolls game was Oblivion which I loved and then of course Skyrim happened (multiple times).
I even tried going back to Oblivion, which I’ll still play a bit out of nostalgia, but if I picked it up today I don’t know if I would like it.
Yeah oblivion ruined games for me i played skyrim after but just couldnt get into it as much but then going back to oblivion feels bad especially since pc didnt get controller support I cant just sit on the couch and play and if im going to sit at my desk i feel i need to get through new game backlog since desk time is a commodity now for me
You’ll get used to it
That’s such a shame, it was the first RPG I ever played and I absolutely loved it.
Yeah I get that there are many that feel that way. And I love RPGs, though my first was probably Diablo, which I played the hell out of. I just wasn’t even aware of Elder Scrolls until Oblivion so it wasn’t until later that I tried to go back and play it and it’s just tough.
I heard good things about some of the earlier Star Wars games like Knights of the Old Republic and others… maybe Jedi Academy?
Struggled to get into them due to overall clunkiness and outdated menu stuff.
If someone could recommend a remake on Switch or Steam maybe with decent controller support? I might be convinced to give them another try…
My two are Morrowind, where I loved the quest design and lack of handholding, but the random hit chance and BS difficulty distribution were just… too much to handle.
And also, KOTOR, which I expected to love as a huge Star Wars fan, but the “stand around while dice are rolled” combat was just… exceptionally boring and tedious.
My issue with Morrowind is the level up system where you gotta metagame it to get +5s for 3 stats per level if you want to be most efficient. And you gotta max endurance ASAP to gain the maximum potential health by end game. I simply can not handle it. It sucks the fun right out of the game for me.
Maybe relax on the “you gotta max this stat” and it may be more fun for you.
Lol, who is this comment for?
Me: I don’t like the level up system of an ancient RPG because I invariably feel drawn to minmax based on the design. It just sucks the fun out of the game for me every time I try.
You: Maybe relax and pretend not to have that issue.
Back up, he’s a hero.
Pretty much all of the iconic games from my early teens. (I was a teen in the late 80s and 90s). The games that I grew up with, that I fell in love with, are unplayable now.
Dragonstrike, a flight sim where you fly a dragon in the D&D Dragonlance world was mind blowing when I first played it. Now, it’s so bad that replaying it spoiled my memory of the original experience!
Yeah I get that. Sometimes I wish I didn’t revisit games and instead kept the nostalgia glasses on haha
Exactly! I’m much more inclined to not revisit things these days. The original Fallout games fall in this category for me
I’m generally with you, but I’d go back and play some of them (and have).
Technology didn’t really permit for a lot of improvement on side-scrolling platform games after that era, and I don’t feel like gameplay advanced a lot either; I think that the Super Mario Brothers series is still playable. I like Super Metroid, would still say that it competes with modern Metroidvanias (though the limited screen size is a bit painful).
There are certainly more-realistic racing games, but games like Outrun are IMHO still playable.
Tetris has advanced from a visual and audio standpoint, but the game hasn’t really changed that much. I’d probably default to playing a modern variant, but the 1980s versions are fine, IMHO.
Pac-Man is still playable, IMHO. Not much that really superseded that.
Vertically-scrolling shmups like 1943 have seen more graphical glitz, but I don’t feel like the genre has really deeply benefited much from technical improvements.
Damn, that game sounds amazing as a concept though. I’ve been really looking for something that’s a decent dragon-based game which doesn’t involve the dragons being relentlessly shat on by the story/all being dead or super rare.
How bad are we talking, exactly…?
Like a scientifically accurate dragon MMO?
I’m listening. What’ve you got?
It’s a meme. A glorious one.
There are a couple of dragon flight games out there, but the ones I’ve played take too many pages from flight sims, and not enough from riding horses. You can’t get a horse to try to jump the Grand Canyon, but in the sims I played, the dragons would let you fly them into a mountainside.
Someday, though.
It’s a flight combat sim. You’re on the back of a dragon instead of in a cockpit. You can either blast enemies with your breath, or get close and rake them with your claws. I was on PC at the time, and this runs on DOS, so don’t expect any marvel of technology.
Shovel Knight. I like 90s platformers, I own an SNES. It was just boring.
Pokémon, actually. Just a month ago I wanted to play Soul Silver. But man, it is tedious. There’s so much slow dialog, long animations, and little inconveniences everywhere (even in the menus). And I feel like you also have to grind to progress, which I absolutely hate in games (but maybe I also just didn’t play well enough, whatever). So yeah, quite disappointed with it since I remember the 3DS games being quite fun.
I think this is a greater problem with games that are technically aimed at children. There is so little respect for your time generally, but I think it’s especially egregious when it comes to menus, dialog, and animations. Additionally, there are many things that are in sequence (with large unneeded gaps between) that could happen more or less simultaneously.
Conspiratorially, I think this is to pad play time, and for kids the animations and what not are jingling keys that keep then occupied enough they don’t care or notice.
I was just thinking this exact same thing… but about Red Dead Redemption 2. I had to stop playing it because it had no respect for my time.
I’m used to driving to places to start a mission like in all the other GTA games, but in RDR2, it would be about 10 minutes of riding a horse before the real mission started.
The animations take way too long sometimes, and cutscenes and a lot of dialogue are unnecessary and feel like padding. Those 1-2 second animations add up when it’s a 50+hr game
I was very disappointed that one of the animations they didn’t bother with was shaving and hair cuts. I wanted to see that.
I really enjoyed those tbh. One of my favourite things to do in RDR2 is just riding around and enjoying the scenery, or chilling in Saint-Denis at night time. Gaming time is chill time. There’s no rush to finish a story.
Yeah, I was going to say the same. RDR2 is one of those weird games where I’m okay with wasting time. Because the entire game is so fucking scenic that I can just wander around doing whatever catches my eye. The mission pacing in the beginning of the game could benefit from some tweaking, (the snowy sections are just so slow,) but the rest of the game feels like a nice scenic drive; Even if you have an eventual destination, you’re just enjoying the journey.
Check out the myriad of rom hacks out there. So many of them improve on the original games in virtually any way you can think of.
pokeharbor.com
This is the way. I stopped playing the originals after X/Y, but some ROM hacks and fan games are so much fun.
I was thinking about that. Thank you for the suggestion and also the link :)
Pokemon is better with game shark style cheats. It’s way more fun to have the option to get 100x more xp, and force Pokemon to appear rather than grind a 1% appearance rate. Pokémon even made TMs reusable eventually, but you need cheats for that in the early games.
Or just a speedup button! Red and Blue are some of my favorite games ever, but I haven’t played them without a speedup button in like 20 years.
Hm I’ll think about it. Seems like this is really the way to go. I was playing on a modded DSi though, so I will probably have to switch to an emulator to use these kinds of cheats. Still, sounds like a good idea.
You can change options to remove animations and speed up dialogue.
Trust me, first things I do in Pokémon games. Didn’t help.
Also, switch from “Shift” to “Set”.
Shift is little kids’ mode. Set is normal mode. Too bad it’s set to easy by default
I always thought about the differences of these 2 modes, but never tried it out. What exactly does it change?
In “set” mode, the game doesn’t ask you if you want to switch every time an opposing trainer sends out a new pokemon.
Alright, thanks for the info.
You know how in default when you are in a battle and knock out an opponent’s pokemon, it tells you what they’re going to put out next and asks you if you’d like to switch pokemon? That’s ‘switch’ mode, in ‘set’ mode you aren’t asked that and have to use a turn to switch pokemon if you’re at a type disadvantage, meaning they get a turn of damage or set up. Really makes you think about strategy a lot more, and is integral to challenge runs like nuzlockes.
Oh I see, thank you.
Although the original commenter’s mileage may vary considering they complained about too much grinding, so I don’t think their issue is with the game being too easy.
Fair point, but this forces the player to get better! Haha
The new games are still the same way.
Quit holding my fucking hand and let me play the damn game already.
“This is a Pokémon and this is how you battle…”
Motherfucker, I’ve been playing these games since I was 7.
It took me so long to keep sticking with Sword and I just couldn’t. I just wanted to hop into the world and catch some Pokémon, battle, and discover the world.
I haven’t played since ORAS, but I think they’ll always have those tutorials cause they’re targeted at kids. Like I was playing the original at 10 and now my kids starting to get into Pokémon at 6.
I feel like they should allow an “adult” version though. Like no hand holding and harder.
It’s wild how little the most financially successful franchise of all time has innovated.
Oh yeah most definitely. Not even just for kids, but I’m sure there are adults who are just getting into the games too and need a tutorial.
I just am sick of forced tutorials where you can’t skip them and they want you to know the story and no way to skip all the dialogue that most seasoned players already know. It seems like every Pokémon game does this and is one of the worst offenders of this.
By all means, do continue to make tutorials and incorporate the story elements, but make them skippable if the player so desires.
I’ve always wanted there to be an option when you start a new Pokemon game that just lets you say “I’ve played Pokemon before let me get into it”, it really is a pain in the ass as an adult.
Ironically another draw y for emulators over the two thing. Just speed up the boring bits 8x
The games really need an option to just turn off tutorials. I imagine it’s a little bit trickier than that because they need to be designed in a way a small child won’t accidentally turn it on without realizing. But there must be a way to do it.
Civilization has settings buried in the menu like
New to Civilization (default)
New to Civilization VI
New to Civilization [Expansion 1]
New to Civilization [Expansion 2]
Disabled
Something like these options could go a long way -
New to Pokémon (all tutorials)
New to Pokémon on [Console] (tutorials specific to controls on that console)
New to Pokémon [Generation] (tutorials specific to new mechanics in that generation)
Disabled (no tutorials)
Thief.
But I HAVE to try again! I want to write my bachelors about game design of stealth games and not analyzing Thief would be a crime against humanity
I guess it’s the graphics and the weird keyboard combo? Because otherwise I don’t really see what’s the issue. It was so influential and good when it came out that you can get into actual arguments if any successor games are actually better than the original series (disregard the remake).
It’s basically still top tier stealth game, but the keyboard interface is weird as fuck initially. But you get used to it within hours, if you want to.
The graphics might be insurmountable for many people.
I let civvie11 play it and I lived thru him vicariously
I tried to play fallout 3 and new vegas after falling in love with fallout 4 but I just could not stomach it. The games looked ugly and controlled strangely. I had more fun and enjoyment playing the original fallout from the 90s.
Man are those a good ride on PC though. A handful of mods and the graphics are solid enough. Unofficial fixes and other key mods for QOL update many mechanics and make the game more playable. Nowadays modding has largely evolved so folders and sub-folders are properly constructed with Mod Organizer 2 doing a lot of the footwork for you.
Did you play on PC? Aside from the graphics I thought it handled pretty much like any typical fps game, so the gameplay didn’t feel aged to me. But then again I used so many mods in my play through that I don’t really know what the vanilla game is like.
I was on pc yes
The aiming on guns in those Fallout games always felt odd, even on my first playthroughs when the game first came out and it makes gameplay a chore sometimes, relying more on VATS than actually aiming like you would a FPS.
Even by comparison of using bow and arrow in Oblivion which came out a year or two before Fallout 3, it’s just…off.