The Elder Scrolls
Bethesda is dead.
Halo. We’re never getting another real one.
RIP Call of Duty, The Sims, Sim City, RCT, Super Smash Bros, Dragon Age, Halo, and GTA
Wait, what’s wrong with Super Smash Bros? Is it just the DLC characters?
Yeah, that and they just haven’t really had the same feel/balance.
I like Ultimate, but it’s not doing it any favors.
Borderlands.
I will miss those lighthearted adventures…
Word.
Borderlands 2 had my best game memories beating Vermivorous the Invincible with 3 friends, me playing as Maya. First of all getting it to spawn is tense.
I so desperately want to like BL2 because it has Gaige, my favorite Vault Hunter of all time, but I can’t replay it because the story is so infuriating to me. It’s like the writers are punishing me for thinking the Vault Hunters from the first game were cool.
Final Fantasy has been dead for a while. XI was the first major warning that things were no longer the same as an MMO was the last thing I expected from a mainline entry. XII was okay but it got rid of the overworld map and kept an MMO style of gameplay that felt like a slog to get through. Everything after that has been a disappointment heralded by extremely long dev times.
I bought FFXVI and both VII remake games on PS5 because I was still holding out hope that they could reignite the magic of the previous games. I mostly enjoyed them, but they didn’t feel remotely like the Final Fantasy games of the past. XVI was more Game of Thrones than Final Fantasy, and the VII remake games were more XV/Kingdom Hearts than Final Fantasy.
I feel like the writing was on the wall as far back as X. There is very little variety in the combat, it’s very much a hallway like XIII, the “world map” is a list of locations in the order you visited them, and there are multiple long stretches where you can’t backtrack.
I’ve also tried playing Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey in the hopes that they would scratch that same itch, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to commit to finishing them. I haven’t played Fantasian, but I’ve heard mostly positive things about it.
13-2 is still, even now, my personal favorite Final Fantasy.
I’m thrilled to learn that one person liked it. /s
I feel that slope is happening with Borderlands
Happening?
For me it was Pokemon.
Started in order and got the games new as they came out since DPP. The core of the game to me was exploration, Pokemon, then battles. However over time Battling got more and more popular to the point where the game just became boring. This was Black and White for me.
I hoped it would get better with each release, but it was Sun and Moon where I just couldn’t care any more. After that I tried a game here and there. But nothing ever went back to that core of Exploration, new Pokemon the battling.
I am ashamed to say that Pokopia (on my sibling’s Switch 2) is pretty great. It’s a sublime, cozy exploration game, basically absent of battling so far.
Pokopia is a subcategory of Pokemon. What kills it for me is that the game is Switch 2 exclusive. So I might get to try it in a decade.
Mystery Dungeon is still my goto favourite Pokemon game. Combat is back set, exploration top priority
Pokémon is starting to get there I think.
Mass Effect is still on the ropes for me. Andromeda was okay. I’m personally a bit over all the open world games.
Pokopia is great, though it was made by the dragon quest builders team, not game freak.
Otherwise, can’t argue
I liked what I played of Pokopia, and I loved Pokemon Legends Arceus.
Other than those, the last time I really loved a Pokemon game was likely Black 2.
I’ve been enjoying some of the quality ROMhacks that have come out in recent years like Lazarus, Odyssey, Emerald Seaglass, and Scorched Silver. I also started casually playing Platinum Kaizo (a difficulty hack), but haven’t played it much at all.
But I’ve had a better time in Odyssey and Lazarus than I have had in a mainline game in a long time.
I’m sure some of it comes from the graphics being inspired by the GSC (Lazarus) or using RSE graphics (Odyssey) and those are the most nostalgic ones for me.
Infinite fusion is fantastic, even if it didn’t have the merge gimmick. My favorite pokemon game since b/w2
Assassin’s Creed
Diablo
There’s more, but those two hurt the worst.
I kind of enjoyed Valhalla … but maybe that’s because I’d never played any other AC games in the past, so I didn’t have any expectations to disappoint.
Overall, on the better side of mid. General gameplay and exploration was pretty fun, world was very detailed and beautiful. The AC parts seemed a bit shoehorned in. Hated the arbitrary parkour challenges, and really really hated the modern-day meta storyline. Kind of wish they’d just have let all the AC stuff go and just made a fun Viking game without any of that other bullshit. Still, I enjoyed playing it for quite a while. Maybe I’ll play it again someday, but it’s definitely not on my shortlist of replayable games I keep coming back to.
Yeah, that’s how people started to feel around ACIV: Black Flag.
But during AC1-3, we were all excited to learn more about the modern day mysteries and have more assassin stuff. We all wanted more!
Then Ubisoft decided to make it a yearly thing and kill off any characters with plot points that might hinder their multiplayer battle pass, yearly release dreams. Then it all fell apart and they had to scale back… But the damage was done.
Don’t you guys have phones? will live rent free in my head as one of the funniest on stage failures ever.
GTA when I watched how GTA:V shifted from a single player game to a multiplayer online service.
Gay Tony died for this
But he’ll be burried in a solid gold coffin covered in diamonds because holy fuck are players stupid and giving rockstar so much money with that online service bullshit.
It’s going to get worse. Getting the people behind Fivem means it’s going to go to the next level with VI. It’s going to be Roblox meets the current GTA streaming RP stuff.
I bought a PS5 a few years ago specifically for GTA VI. I’ve already decided between price hikes, and general trends, that I’m NOT buying that game. Not even just for single player.
Because I’ve already been told that single player will be a non-profitable after thought that barely exists.
Welp. Fuck that shit.
everything blizzard made.
Good bye Mario Kart… we’ll always have not giving 1st place coins as an item in Wii.
Halo. Still holding out a sliver of hope that something cool in the universe will be made one day.
Halo was DoA for me after growing up with twitchy PC shooters like Unreal Tournament, Quake and Starsiege Tribes. The gameplay was glacially slow compared to what I was used to, but it did usher in online multiplayer to the console masses.
I really loved that about halo. The slower TTK makes for more chess like engagements, well with the exception of eating a shotty or a rocket to the face. Still, bouncing a perfect grenade or pulling off a ninja jump just feels so satisfying
It did before they turned it into call of duty with halo skins
I know you meant Dead on Arrival, but Dead or Alive is 100% on my list. It was so much fun during DOA 2/3. Now it’s just a micro-transaction dress-up store.
Those are fundamentally different kinds of games. Sure, they’re all first person shooters, but there are more differences than similarities.
I feel like it’s the equivalent of saying something like: “Poker was DoA for me after growing up with fast paced card games like Uno, Slap Jack, and 52 card pick up.”
The Bungie Halo era games had problems, sure, but overall were a masterpiece of a series. Everything since then has been ok at best, and borderline insulting at worst.
So much retconning, characters with zero arc, contempt towards the fandom, and build up with no onscreen payoff.
From what Halo Studios has announced regarding Campaign Evolved, and how they’ve dug in their heels in response to fan feedback, I wish I were as hopeful as you.
In my opinion, Halo should have always remained a Bungie property with connections to the Marathon universe, and neither series should have ever been a live service game.
343 hasn’t come close to knowing what the fuck they’re doing
Franchises are like bubble gum. If you try to make them last too much they lose all taste.
Command & Conquer. I don’t think I’ll ever touch 4. Tempest Rising is great so there’s that. I guess I’ll just keep playing Tiberium Wars until time stops.
Planetside 2, for me.
It was never perfect, yet it’s basically dying of old age. I think that’s quite an achievement for an MMOFPS.
And I’m pretty sure there will never be another game like it, at its scale (and Foxhole doesn’t count IMO).
