Asklemmy

Anything Soulslike

I had to work all through COVID-19 because of my job status. So while I understand people had time to sit around and play video games and "git gud"... I ain't got the time.

I much more appreciate Animal Crossing. Also a pandemic game (the one on Switch) but it respects your time. Sort of. I mean you can just pick it up for an hour and run around catching bugs or fishing (I'd only do this in handheld mode, the lag with any controller and the HDMI connection make it impossible to catch 3/4/5-star rarity fish), so it's a fun little chill game. And it's not like you have to start over if you miss a fish on your lure. Or even if you get jumped by a scorpion or tarantula or wasp (yes you can "die" in Animal Crossing, but really, you just get knocked out and you return to your house and lose nothing except the chance to catch the bug and sell it to the little raccoons in the shop).

Do I "suck at games"? Eh, maybe. I got no excuse, I've been gaming since the 80s. I played NES games. I played computer and Atari games before that (and many computer games since). I've really got no excuse for sucking at hard games except I have a full time job, but the truth is... I just don't care. I can beat Bethesda games. I can beat Cyberpunk. There are games I can play and I enjoy them. I haven't beaten Blue Prince yet (that one is also very hard, but not punishing... you just aren't advancing without a lot of luck and/or a very specific strategy... but a "losing" run is still fun and can still teach you something... a thing I think Soulslike games could learn from. They don't have to be easy if a losing run is still fun. The difference is, the Soulslike is repetitive because you have to do repetitive things very well (blind QTEs to parry and dodge, for example), whereas Blue Prince is a highly randomised puzzle game you're not going to win unless a very specific order of cards (blueprints) are drawn for you. You CAN manipulate the pool, but not enough to guarantee a win.

Opportunity to promote !askgaming@piefed.social

Baldurs Gate 3: people hype it up as the best CRPG ever. When in fact it's not even close. It loses in every category that matters to several dozen contenders (including Baldurs Gate 1 & 2): build diversity, story, writing, the UI.

Assassin's Creed. I was done after Unity. I don't care for anything later than that. It's all the same.

Balatro.

After I finished the first run, I was like "cool, now the number I need to beat is higher. So what?". Which is strange, because I love deck builders, I like beating higher numbers like e.g. Brotato. But for some reason I could not be bothered with Balatro ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sadly a lot of popular indie games, I really like a game where I can feel like I'm living another life in it, get to be someone else for a while, and that just isn't a thing in most indie games because of the limited scope that comes with a small development team. There's games like MotorTown or Stardew Valley, that have what I'm looking for, but those are unfortunately rare so I often have to turn to AAA games and damn it's hard finding a good one of those.

Firewatch. I liked the visual style but everyone raved about the writing specifically and I thought it wasn't great. I don't want to shit on them too hard because they did try, and you can't control how other people hype your work, but I found the characters really flat.

Control. It felt like being lost in an office building. Dull.

The Witcher 3. Tried many times, it's okayish I guess. I liked 2 more.

Assassin's Creed

Most modern video games. I don't have the ability to, not only buy games from most digital storefronts, but also buy a device that actually has the specs to run them. And when you take into consideration the fact that most modern games are live service games, that means that I probably wont even be able to play them by the time that I do manage to get a device that could have ran them. It's difficult to get hyped over a game I know I probably wont be able to play.

GTA. All of them, but especially 5.