I Tried To Play:

[air_show]

Recently I tried to play Vampyr. I liked the idea of it on paper. Story based vampire game where you pose as the town doctor, where any of the NPCs can be killed and you have to be careful not to reveal yourself. Sounds pretty awesome really.

But like, it's got this really generic third person action game with powers combat forced in there, just really crammed in. It's dominated most of the playtime in the first couple hours or so. It sucks because like, the streets and various buildings are full of vampire hunters or lesser ghouls to fight everywhere and it makes the idea that you're trying to stay discreet and hidden absurd. Like anyone who looks out their window will see me throwing blood spears and biting a bunch of murderous psychos.

Also the game like, starts at the beginning right after you've been turned so it then has to speed run you killing a loved one, being hunted as a monster, and finding a way to hide in plain sight like, crazy fast. And that creates stupid contrivances like having a hospital administrator be like, super fucking friendly to vampires for some reason and offering you a job within 20 minutes. It should have started months or even years after turning so that you can just start the game as a Dr. Acula and have the dramatic details of said turning be revealed as story details down the line.

So yeah at the point where I thought maybe I'd get to just go out into the world and play the game the way I'd hoped it would be it sent me to a "morgue" which is more of a "combat dungeon" with a boss fight at the end that is really difficult and keeps destroying me and I worry that's the only incentive to feed on people. So yeah. I don't know if I want to keep playing it.

 

[Ixo]

If it helps you feel better, I attempted Shadow of the Colossus (PS3 version) and got absolutely nowhere in it because I could only manage to turn the horse in circles instead of properly steering him. So I mean, you at least got the mechanics figured out.

 

[lincolnic]

I tried to play Cuphead and found it surprisingly unengaging. Absolutely gorgeous art, but not all that fun.

 

[MetManMas]

Hades. Excellent writing, lovely aesthetics, in general great use of relationships being defined as you do run after run after run.

But when it comes to roguelikes I'm just not into what looks like a pretty strict focus on a random selection of individual combat/trial rooms. "Here's another room, kill all the shit to go choose the next room" doesn't really speak to me.

 

[Aleryn]

Final Fantasy VII Remake
The combat. I didn't like it on active because it felt mashy, and didn't like it on wait because it felt BROKEN somehow. It's gonna stay on ACTIVE next chance I give it, once I stop comparing it to say Devil May Cry. Reason I bounced off it...

 

[4-So]

Final Fantasy 9. I've tried playing it about half a dozen times, the most successful attempt being at release. Outside of Vivi and Freya, I find the characters boring; the art direction uninspired; the music fairly mid for a FF game; the moment-to-moment gameplay trite; the overall storyline vapid and tiresome. I'm kinda hoping the remake rumors are true so I can give it another shot. As it stands, the one mainline FF game I haven't finished. Absolutely bottom tier.

 

[zonetrope]

I tried to play Deathloop because I loved Dishonored and Dishonored 2, but its gameplay system is complicated to a fault, and the designers overcorrect for this by throwing an absolutely overwhelming amount of information at you at all times. The combination scrambled my brain, and just the idea of turning the game on again stresses me out.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I tried to play Cuphead and found it surprisingly unengaging. Absolutely gorgeous art, but not all that fun.

I enjoyed Cuphead, but the game's priority is squarely on the animation, and that makes everything less reactive to the player than in your typical action game. Sometimes it feels like the character is running around in front of a projection, rather than actually being in the same world as the enemies. I still think the game is fun and very creative, but I can see how it wouldn't click with some people, since there's a bit of distance from the action.

 

[Pajaro Pete]

um, actually, either you played it or you didn't, there is no try. i think jesus said that.

 

[Issun]

um, actually, either you played it or you didn't, there is no try. i think jesus said that.

Congratulations, you tried to play yourself.

 

[Voncaster]

SSI D&D, Ultima, and basically all old CRPGs. I played a few SSI D&D games and Ultima games when I was younger. They seemed needlessly complex. I recall Champions of Krynn having 3 currencies and the money would not adequately equip your party of six (I felt). Randomly rolling stats for characters over and over felt tedious. Cool this character has adequate strength, but no constitution, better re-roll. Spell memorization is also tedious. I cast spells in this battle with my mage, better rest and re-memorize my spells so next battle I can do something. I watched a friend play Ultima 6 and it had miles of text and a pile of random items he was juggling. It felt like half of that game was inventory management and not the fun RE4 kind.

I got into Final Fantasy comparatively late with FF Mystic Quest. It was a much simpler RPG than the CRPGs I had played previously, but it also cut out a lot of the complexity that I feel was unnecessary. It felt like a breath of fresh air. FFVII was the next FF RPG I played and I don't think I ever was tempted to play a traditional and old CRPG again.

FPS games. I started playing FPS games with what I assume is the beginning: Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. I found those titles pretty novel at the time, but the glut of FPS games that followed in the 90s turned me off the genre almost completely. I recall my friend group and I playing Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Quake, Dark Forces, Rise of the Triad, Duke Nuke Em and others in the 90s.

I missed Half-Life, I'm sure at the time it felt like just another FPS game to me. But its a genre that I generally still don't care for. Left 4 Dead and Portal are the two exceptions to my general disinterest in the FPS genre.

Twilight Princess. I believe I bought this game as a Wii launch title (Is that right?). Game starts off very slow with mandatory fishing segments and spirit bug hunts. I think I quit playing after 2-4 hours. That is pretty unprecedented for me playing a Nintendo game. Additionally, the art style is, to me, one of the least inspired directions for a series that generally has stellar art direction.

Maybe I'm not a Zelda fan. I loved Skyward Sword, and a lot of fans seem to hate that one.

 

[Issun]

I think the general consensus on Skyward Sword has shifted over the last decade, and especially with the Switch re-release.

I've played through Twilight Princess a couple of times and I like it okay, but it is incredibly bloated. Great dungeons and boss fights, but there's just too much of everything else.

 

[Exposition Owl]

Bloodborne. I admit I only played for an hour or so, but Yharnam just seemed like a bunch of hallways with monsters in them; it didn’t seem like you could interact with the environment in an interesting way. Meanwhile, the combat was unforgiving from the jump. The result was that the world of the game never became a place I wanted to come back to.

 

[Voncaster]

I understand why From Software sets there game after a society is ruined. Its atmospheric and a saves on budget (designing a handful of characters is much easier than designing a city full of people). It does start to feel like a design trope when everyone of their Souls games is set in a ruined society.

The game play and atmosphere of Bloodborne, for me, was excellent. I think its my second favorite From game after Demon's Souls.

But I don't fault anyone for not connecting with a game. I soured on Elden Ring in the last quarter of the game, just because it felt too long to me. I wanted to move onto something else, but also wanted to finish what I started. I did finish the game, but Elden Ring is not a game I see myself returning to.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Chicory. I made it through two chapters, but it just really wasn't grabbing me. It was cute, I guess, but felt...insubstantial, somehow, and I wasn't particularly engaged.

 

[air_show]

Bloodborne. I admit I only played for an hour or so, but Yharnam just seemed like a bunch of hallways with monsters in them; it didn’t seem like you could interact with the environment in an interesting way. Meanwhile, the combat was unforgiving from the jump. The result was that the world of the game never became a place I wanted to come back to.

Pretty much all Soulsborne games are... spaces with monsters in them. Hallways is a bit much. I would dare say you do interact with the environment quite a lot, but it's on a rather large scale. Learning the layout of the game, figuring out how to progress, finding secrets and shortcuts and clues with genuine observation and reasoning skills, as well as managing a whole bunch of very dangerous entities that want to murder you on sight, is all what I would call interacting with the environment in an interesting way. And realizing that you're doing it without ever having a map is an incredibly rewarding feeling and a testament to how brilliantly intuitive the game design is once you start to see it.

But yeah, the combat will ruthlessly kick your ass. I can't really say anything more on that other than it is really amazing and rewarding to discover the flow of combat and realize just how much you are capable of legitimately without any forced grinding or farming (no not even for vials). It's not about having perfect timing and reflexes either. It's about understanding how you character moves and how your weapons of choice strike, as well as some degree of knowing what the monsters are going to do, which does require some trial and error. Not going to pretend that's not a thing. But failure is actually worked into these games in a really compelling way as a teaching tool.

It wasn't my intention necessarily for this thread to be a "try to convince someone to give a thing they didn't like another chance because you really loved it" thing, but this just kind of spilled out. I won't like, make it my mission to change your mind or nothin.

 

[YangusKhan]

Phantasy Star 4: I tried playing this after going through 1 and 2, but it just didn't grab me in the same way as those entries. I might feel differently if I tried it now. The big thing was how brisk and frictionless the game felt in comparison to the first two games; those two are very much dungeon crawlers before anything else, and PSIV is not that. It'd be like playing FF1/2/3 and then jumping straight to FF6.

 

[Regulus]

For me it is also Bloodborne, but it has nothing to do with the gameplay or anything and everything to do with the eye strain caused by some combination of:

1. inconsistent, often sub 20 FPS
2. chromatic aberration
3. the busy, relatively dark visuals

Something about trying to focus on this game dries my eyes out. Tears and stinging. It just kills my ability to play it for more than like 10-15 minutes at a time, so I eventually gave up and never went back. I originally played Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls 2 on the PS3 before moving to PC, so I doubt it's just the performance. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's the only From Soulslike that I haven't been through even once.

 

[Purple]

Phantasy Star 4: I tried playing this after going through 1 and 2, but it just didn't grab me in the same way as those entries. I might feel differently if I tried it now. The big thing was how brisk and frictionless the game felt in comparison to the first two games; those two are very much dungeon crawlers before anything else, and PSIV is not that. It'd be like playing FF1/2/3 and then jumping straight to FF6.

Those are, to be fair, their respective contemporaries. 2 was a Genesis launch title, predating the SNES, 4 was one of the last releases for the Genesis and was originally planned as a CD game.

I do get you there though. For what it's worth I vaguely recall it getting a little less easy-mode around the halfway point, and it's only like a 20 hour game?

 

[Lakupo]

Chicory. I made it through two chapters, but it just really wasn't grabbing me. It was cute, I guess, but felt...insubstantial, somehow, and I wasn't particularly engaged.

I just got back into playing Chicory this weekend on my Steam Deck, since I stopped playing it when my old laptop went out of commission. I'm now about halfway through? 9 hours, according to the steam count. Time to complete depends on how much you color.

Re: insubstantial, I think it's definitely going for a chill coloring vibe, but there's some game there. But the coloring kinda binds it together (also they don't tell you about or give you the best techniques right away). Story so far might be riffing on a lot of Celeste themes too. The puzzle elements get a little more involved, but nothing too heavy.

At the same time, the end of chapter one was a major holy shit moment for me based on my expectations (and instantly became one of my favorite Lena Raine songs), but if that doesn't grab you, I don't think the rest will (although each boss fight since has been upping the game in terms of design and music)

Speaking of games I backed on Kickstarter, might be too early to tell if I'll give up on it, but I started Firmament, the latest from Cyan, and it sure is disappointing. Considering my reaction to one puzzle was "this feels boring and I want out", things aren't looking good, but I might power through for the sake of it. I can certainly understand the decisions that might lead to making every puzzle interaction use the same janky multi-tool plugged into a socket, especially for how people designed VR games five years ago, but Cyan themselves also figured out how to pull off a variety of interesting affordances in VR with their Myst remake! Oh well, hopefully those lessons help with Riven.

 

[Sarge]

I will echo the SSI D&D games. They're something that I want to love, but I tend to just bounce right off every time. There are tools to make the experience smoother (Gold Box Companion), but even that probably isn't quite enough. Strangely enough, I did somehow get through Ultima - that was a smoother experience than I was expecting, although I'm not sure I'd recommend it outside of historical purposes. I want to play through Ultima IV on NES, but, well, it keeps not happening.

I also don't know why I keep falling off the Infinity Engine games. Those I really should love, and yet. Heck, I even beat Pillars of Eternity, so you'd think that I'd burn right through Baldur's Gate. But the most time I've put in is around six hours before I stopped wanting to play it.

Also, I'm pretty terrible at any RTS game. Just not my thing.

 

[Voncaster]

I have not played any infinity engine game? Do they have real time combat with pausing/time slow or is it turn based?

I'm of the opinion that the combat of RPGs should be either:
A. Turn based with a party of characters (Final Fantasy ATB, Dragon Quest, Phatasy Star, etc.) or
B. Single player action games (Souls games, Neir, Crisis Core, etc.)

Anything real time party RPG game that I've played I end up hating. Mainly I'm thinking of Dragon Age (the first one), but for some reason I thought the Baldurs Gates were also real time party RPGs.

Valkyria Chronicles does some interesting stuff with turns that I enjoy.

 

[Violentvixen]

At the same time, the end of chapter one was a major holy shit moment for me based on my expectations (and instantly became one of my favorite Lena Raine songs), but if that doesn't grab you, I don't think the rest will (although each boss fight since has been upping the game in terms of design and music)

Yeah, Chicory is one of my favourites but you need to get to the first boss to see the writing really take off. I do absolutely get it not being enough engagement for someone though.

 

[jpfriction]

Baldur’s Gate plays like you think it does. Dragon Age if you have it set to zoom out and pause when your character’s turn comes up.

I’ve also never made it an appreciable amount into an infinity engine game despite assuming I’d love them. Too much talky talky and the learning curves are rough on the battles. I did get a solid ways into Pillars, but never finished it.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Yeah, Chicory is one of my favourites but you need to get to the first boss to see the writing really take off. I do absolutely get it not being enough engagement for someone though.

I did get through the second boss. The puzzles nearer that boss were getting a bit more interesting, but overall it just wasn't catching my interest. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it; I could come back to it later and see if the whim strikes me.

 

[Sarge]

And maybe it's some of the modern sensibilities that smoothed out the curve for me in Pillars. I loved KOTOR, I really liked Dragon Age: Origins, so it just still puzzles me how I can't quite stay invested in BG and the like.

But yeah, combat is all real-time but you can pause and issue orders at any time. Pillars does the same thing.

 

[Aleryn]

Never liked any of those pause system Infinity Engine style games. Oh I finished a handful of them, but relieved upon a lookalike being turn based. One or the other for me, please.

 

[Poster]

I was never of much of a fan of RTwP, despite otherwise liking the IE games. Give me stuff like Divinity Original Sin 2 any day. At least Pillars 2 has a turn-based mode.

For the topic, Bravely Default was this for me. Everything about the game seemed like something I really should have enjoyed, but the battles themselves just weren't clicking for me. Regular enemies took far too long to kill for my taste (I guess because of the battle system, it's been a minute). I remember getting to some fire area the first time, then putting it down for several months. I then restarted from the beginning, and gave up again at the same place, it just wasn't happening.

 

[Aleryn]

Count me in being flabbergasted that I bounced off Bravely Default for entirely the same reasons.

 

[Sarge]

I'm not sure what's happened with me and Bravely Default - I enjoyed the mess out of it, but only after spending a little time grinding up classes to break the game open. But I've not felt any urge to play the sequels, even though I have them. Same for Octopath Traveler - I loved the game, but have had no real desire to start up the sequel yet.