Games you've changed your mind about

[United Nations]

I thought Diablo IV was good during my first playthrough of the campaign. Looking back, it's a boring piece of junk that is never going to be saved by the upcoming Kurast expansion.

 

[Ash]

Souls' has seen a lot of influence in the Metroidvania genre, supplanting Symphony with more fundamental skill-intensive mechanics and resource balancing.

This is not at all true. First of all, go play Circle of the Moon (2001) or Order of Ecclesia (2006). Metroidvania was already ditching the RPG elements and going hardcore on the skill demand and overall difficulty. Second, it really is just standard game design, not unique to Souls. Dark Souls is largely how action console games (Japanese especially) used to be across the entire board pre-decline, just...not often as grimdark and serious. Even that sometimes yes (Brahma Force, Shadow Tower Abyss etc). So any influence wouldn't come from Souls, just action gaming history (if it doesn't, then those devs are ignorant of history). It's kind of astounding this is not common knowledge. PC-only tards latch on to souls and think it is conceptually new. Hell, just go play the original Castlevania if you want to trace all the way back. Japanese games used to be typically brutal as fuck until, as usual, the decline era (mid-late 2000s). Though even then they were still hanging on with the likes of Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry 3, Order of Ecclesia and many more. Genuinely good games while the west were already completely worthless decline almost entirely.

Souls had some innovations. They're mostly small. 1. Leaving messages for other players (different from multiplayer chat). 2. Invasions of other singleplayer games. Both online multiplayer shit so far. 3. Persistent world combined with checkpoints and leaving behind souls to recover. This is pretty good, though less punishing; less hardcore than already completely fair older conventions (just straight checkpoints with full loss of progress).

None of this might even be new in other genres, but they were new to action to my knowledge.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I too hated NWN:EE with the searing light of a thousand games that abuse bloom but only for technical reasons specific to my rig. I could never get it to run smoothly, assuming it was an unoptimized mess, but then when I got a VRR/G-Sync display, it suddenly became smooth and I ended up liking it. Can't see myself going back to Diamond if only because now Diamond runs like shit on my computer so it's unplayable. The God of RPGs is screwing with me.

 

[randir14]

I initially hated Helldivers 2, since my first experience was getting team killed by some guy talking on the mic about how many Instagram followers he had. I refunded the game but later bought it again when my friend wanted me to play. Now I enjoy it after giving it a chance and having non-retards to play with.

On the opposite side of the coin is Ready or Not. I liked it in early access and played a ton. I forgave the jankiness since I expected the final release to be a huge upgrade. Instead it feels like a half assed budget version of Swat 4. Nearly all the problems people complained about were never fixed or improved, and we got some shitty tacked on features like a meaningless "campaign".
A lot of features they promised are missing, for example they once put out a video showing new NPC behaviors such as smoking, sitting in chairs, taking a piss, etc. In the actual game they never do any of that, they just stand around until they detect you. The gameplay is only enjoyable with mods, without them the AI feels like a bunch of fearless aimbots and you're forced to play like special forces gunning everyone down rather than cops.

 

[Lemming42]

I thought Diablo IV was good during my first playthrough of the campaign. Looking back, it's a boring piece of junk that is never going to be saved by the upcoming Kurast expansion.

I still don't get the hate for it. It's not great by any means but it's a competent enough ARPG, I enjoyed it about as much as Torchlight. The randomly generated dungeons do get boring as fuck and the actual plot is mind-numbing but if you just run around grabbing shit and killing waves of enemies then it's decent fun.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS SEKIRO

THE GAME USED TO BE RAGE INDUCING AND MISERABLE WITH LIKE THIRTY TREIS PER BOSS AND I WAS FRUSTRATED

NOW SHIT FINALLY CLICKED AND I MASTER FUCKIBG NINJA AND I AM BEATING BOSSES I ONE TRY AND I AM ALMOST ADDICTED TO THE GAME

 

[RaggleFraggle]

This:


Initially I was offput because I thought it would just be another mediocre dating sim, but after watching a Let’s Play of the demo by chance I found it interesting.

Sure, it’s a 2D adventure game with some rpg elements and a relationship sim mechanic, but it takes place in Victorian Not!Russia and lets you turn into a bat. It has choices that can result in characters living or dying based on seemingly innocuous dialogue choices you made a few scenes prior.

No, it doesn’t have combat or the colorful characters Troika spoiled us with, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Since Paradox has been consistently sucking ass with their shitty licensed games, it’s only this and Nighthawks that have caught my interest.

 

[United Nations]

I thought Diablo IV was good during my first playthrough of the campaign. Looking back, it's a boring piece of junk that is never going to be saved by the upcoming Kurast expansion.

I still don't get the hate for it. It's not great by any means but it's a competent enough ARPG, I enjoyed it about as much as Torchlight. The randomly generated dungeons do get boring as fuck and the actual plot is mind-numbing but if you just run around grabbing shit and killing waves of enemies then it's decent fun.

The first 1/3 of the game seemed very unfinished, i.e. empty areas without mobs/loot, etc.

The voice acting, soundtrack, and plot are all extremely mediocre too.

 

[AfterVirtue]

Pillars of Eternity - thought it was terrible when it came out. I have since revised this opinion, and now think that it's extremely fucking terrible.

Well, my take is: from "i wanted a game like this but it looks like it is both dull and a waste despite some ideas that could be better implemented" to "nihilist bullshit with some ideas that could be better implemented".

Though I see nothing wrong with algorithms.

Of course you wouldn't.

I used to think Dark Souls is a mediocre game that got popular due to mass hypnosis.
Now I think its straight up a bad game, and produced many tropes that reduced the quality of other games after it.

Nah, it's worse. It could have some good things between explorations, athmosphere and part of how the fights work, abandoning the nihilist tone, the git gud memes, the everything is "fightable" (why, something is mentioned of the past and you can't fight it? Unconceivable), "narrative" style (yes, allusions and ambiguity can be good but make it became a parody of itself and an end into itself, like

)
also said:

• Focus on only telling half the story, and letting YouTubers make up the rest

and have really come around on Blood Omen, to the point that I absolutely love it. Sure, it is still incredibly easy, but it has top-notch atmosphere, tons of charm and is generally an incredibly comfy and enjoyable experience. That alone makes it better than 90% of the games out there.

Oh yes; i like soul reaver but to think what the following story would have been with the same "gothic vibe"... ah well.

Ah yes, things i changed my mind about... Max Payne, saw someone play it when i was adolescent, refused to play it becouse i thought of it as a senseless gritty Matrix-clone. Now i played it, it is a fun senseless gritty "Matrix"-clone.

 

[sser]

Souls' has seen a lot of influence in the Metroidvania genre, supplanting Symphony with more fundamental skill-intensive mechanics and resource balancing.

This is not at all true. First of all, go play Circle of the Moon (2001) or Order of Ecclesia (2006). Metroidvania was already ditching the RPG elements and going hardcore on the skill demand and overall difficulty. Second, it really is just standard game design, not unique to Souls. Dark Souls is largely how action console games (Japanese especially) used to be across the entire board pre-decline, just...not often as grimdark and serious. Even that sometimes yes (Brahma Force, Shadow Tower Abyss etc). So any influence wouldn't come from Souls, just action gaming history (if it doesn't, then those devs are ignorant of history). It's kind of astounding this is not common knowledge. PC-only tards latch on to souls and think it is conceptually new. Hell, just go play the original Castlevania if you want to trace all the way back. Japanese games used to be typically brutal as fuck until, as usual, the decline era (mid-late 2000s). Though even then they were still hanging on with the likes of Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry 3, Order of Ecclesia and many more. Genuinely good games while the west were already completely worthless decline almost entirely.

Souls had some innovations. They're mostly small. 1. Leaving messages for other players (different from multiplayer chat). 2. Invasions of other singleplayer games. Both online multiplayer shit so far. 3. Persistent world combined with checkpoints and leaving behind souls to recover. This is pretty good, though less punishing; less hardcore than already completely fair older conventions (just straight checkpoints with full loss of progress).

None of this might even be new in other genres, but they were new to action to my knowledge.

I actually just played through CotM just this past year via the Switch and watched a lady friend beat OoE on my old ass 3DS.

My point still stands. Difference of opinion, I suppose.

 

[RetardedChimp]

Fallout 1 being lesser than Fallout 2

As a child played much more Fallout 2 than 1, always thought FO2 was just better. Played FO1 recently and realized the story and atmosphere were better than I remembered and better than FO2.

Playing with Et tu mod to get FO2 improvements makes it so FO1 isn't lacking anything.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

As a child played much more Fallout 2 than 1, always thought FO2 was just better. Played FO1 recently and realized the story and atmosphere were better than I remembered and better than FO2.

I can understand the "Bigger is Better" mentality that seems to drive people thinking Fallout 2 is better than Fallout. You finish Fallout at level 10-15 depending on how much grinding and side quests you do. I remember the first time playing Fallout, looking for the Water Chip, and it was almost like a "Mystery Game". You're going around, doing things which you think might lead to the answer. You do odd jobs, trying to figure out which one leads to a Water Chip. You take jobs with caravans hoping that they'll lead you to a city where the Water Chip is. I never really got that feeling playing Fallout 2, probably because the lack of urgency in the main quest.

Fallout 2, you finish the game around the mid20s in terms of level, but the ending just kind of seems to come out of no where. At least, it did for me. There's a few blips of the Enclave during the game like in New Reno and Matt telling you to get the Vertibird. Mariposa is just Supermutant Central at that point, but you do get some clues if you search around. Also, the crashed Vertibird. But those things are almost diluted by the size of Fallout 2. You don't really find out about the whole genocide thing until you get to the rig.