rpgs that lost their magic on you

[Angriph]

All.

I take them slowly but once I have finished one game there is just not enough narrative tension for me to play through it all again, because I remember the encounters and the story points pretty accurately and it just bores me to replay them once I have this overall detailed picture of the inner workings of the game in my head.

Edit: so maybe it's faster if I say what allows games to keep the magic over time for me: that is, at least some depth of universal symbolic meaning in the story or the characters, and a ruleset that is not contrived for that specific game so it allows me to recreate the pnp experience to some extent.

 

[Naraya]

Not an RPG but HoMM3. Mostly connected to how exploitable and unbalanced the whole thing is, which is something you don't realise when you're younger. Maybe I should try one of those slav megamods.

Hm, I guess it depends - to me Heroes of Might and Magic series was always about beautiful graphics, music and that hard to describe fairy-tale atmosphere. I never felt there's much strategy in there but that was perfectly fine since it wasn't why I played these games in the first place.

 

[Sigourn]

I think what drew me in the most with Morrowind, and what I will always love most about it, is the worldbuilding is so well done that it feels very much like a real place. I get that you can poke holes in this... the static NPCs, the generic text dispenser conversations, the similar feel of certain dungeons, etc. But to this day I have never seen a world so large and detailed, with so much content, that seemed so believable as the world of Morrowind does.

That's the big thing, though.

Morrowind's lore feels alive in how fleshed out it is. However, Morrowind's gameworld is the exact opposite.
Whereas Morrowind's lore feels like it is real, the gameworld is as gamey as it can get in how static, boring, and by-the-numbers it is.

I get people liking Morrowind because of its lore, but at the same time... I don't. Why not just spend your time on UESP reading about the lore? The game itself is nothing to write home about because Gothic puts it to absolute shame. And I say Gothic because it's an open Action RPG like Morrowind is; even if I don't enjoy cRPG combat as much I had much more fun fighting monsters in Icewind Dale than I ever did in Morrowind. Morrowind never gave me that "a-ha!" feel that many encounters in Icewind Dale did.

 

[Riel]

Arcanum. My first full play through is something I'll remember all my life, I deliberately failed the Caladan-Tarant negotiations quest in hopes it would start a war between the two so humans would kill each other and I was rewarded with an end game slide fulfilling my expectations. It's just a secondary quest, I didn't expect it would be taken into account but it was.

 

[Zanzoken]

I think what drew me in the most with Morrowind, and what I will always love most about it, is the worldbuilding is so well done that it feels very much like a real place. I get that you can poke holes in this... the static NPCs, the generic text dispenser conversations, the similar feel of certain dungeons, etc. But to this day I have never seen a world so large and detailed, with so much content, that seemed so believable as the world of Morrowind does.

That's the big thing, though.

Morrowind's lore feels alive in how fleshed out it is. However, Morrowind's gameworld is the exact opposite.
Whereas Morrowind's lore feels like it is real, the gameworld is as gamey as it can get in how static, boring, and by-the-numbers it is.

I get people liking Morrowind because of its lore, but at the same time... I don't. Why not just spend your time on UESP reading about the lore? The game itself is nothing to write home about because Gothic puts it to absolute shame. And I say Gothic because it's an open Action RPG like Morrowind is; even if I don't enjoy cRPG combat as much I had much more fun fighting monsters in Icewind Dale than I ever did in Morrowind. Morrowind never gave me that "a-ha!" feel that many encounters in Icewind Dale did.

I think the game presents itself well enough that you sense how much depth there is to the worldbuilding. It really builds that sense of immersion and when you're hooked like that the flaws are less apparent.

I also recognize that the love I have for it is heavily influenced by nostalgia. If you were a kid playing console games in the late 90s and early 00s, you simply never experienced something like Morrowind before. I'm sure the game doesn't seem nearly as impressive to an adult in 2022 as it did to a child in 2002.

 

[ironmask]

Deus Ex Human Revolution. Used to think that was one of the best first person rpgs ever, but now I see how mediocre it is compared to its predecessor. Shallow writing. Shallow characters. Unbelievable world building. Augs this. Augs that. Shitty hacking mini game. The level design is very hand holding. There's always a convient vent in almost every room that lets you easily bypass enemies. I could just go on.

 

[Starwars]

Daggerfall. As a little kid, it was the most beautiful, wonderful, impenetrable world of fantasy wonder. I was too young to really get it but I just loved being in that world.
Replaying it as an adult, you realize it's a pretty shitty game. Good ideas but terrible execution and broken as fuck.

 

[Artyoan]

A lot of people mentioning Diablo and I'd agree with that. Isometric arpg combat lost its appeal to me.

I rarely revisit games that I played to completion already as well. My mind has a hard time wanting to retread an already walked path no matter how good the game was.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Morrowind wasn't very good but one thing that can be said about it is at least it's better than the Gothic games.

I see you have been filtered by the controls yet again.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

pooped out at the beginning of Blood & Wine and never wanted to see, taste, or smell anything witcher ever again.

Not overtly grimdark enough for you? Since as far as quality goes, B&W is on par with HoS (and much more expansive in scope than the latter).

 

[ERYFKRAD]

pooped out at the beginning of Blood & Wine and never wanted to see, taste, or smell anything witcher ever again.

Not overtly grimdark enough for you? Since as far as quality goes, B&W is on par with HoS (and much more expansive in scope than the latter).

Probably got saturated with the red Polish sky at that point. And the rest of the game too.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

pooped out at the beginning of Blood & Wine and never wanted to see, taste, or smell anything witcher ever again.

Not overtly grimdark enough for you? Since as far as quality goes, B&W is on par with HoS (and much more expansive in scope than the latter).

I just got burned out on it, I think, playing the original campaign of the main game then HoS back to back, then I immediately started B&W and that was probably a bad idea. Shoulda taken a break maybe. I don't fault the games. I fault my approach to playing them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Morrowind wasn't very good but one thing that can be said about it is at least it's better than the Gothic games.

I see you have been filtered by the controls yet again.

games with bad controls are just bad games, any other interpretation is major cope
like a movie with bad visuals or a book with unreadable text

 

[koyota]

• Constricted set-piece world design where levels are now created around quests rather the other way around

Interesting, essentially the exact same problems I had with Kotor and Mass Effect 1 except directed at BG2.
Curisous how did you feel about Kotor and later Bioware Games?

 

[Rincewind]

And while the main quest is quite literally a stereotypical Chosen One type story, the lore surrounding the game is certainly not. When you dig into the backstory of Nerevar, the Chimer-Dwemer war, the conclusion of said war that resulted in the emergence of the Tribunal, along with its ensuing cult which maintains the official narrative while disputing accounts are suppressed... everything about that is so incredibly well done. You see so much nonsensical shit in most fantasy stories, so many cliches... all I could think as I was exploring the lore of Morrowind was that this is exactly how people would behave if those circumstances were real.

Yeah, it really has a sense of belonging, a sense of "being there" in the world that very few other games have (Gothic has it too btw, and for me Witcher 1 as well). That's the only reason why I'll give it another try in a year or two once my memories of it have faded enough, and I will put aside my general distaste for the franky quite bad actual gameplay. I find the best mindset is to treat it as a walking-sim with really nice worldbuilding (and a lot of talking statues ).

 

[Dux]

Interesting, essentially the exact same problems I had with Kotor and Mass Effect 1 except directed at BG2.
Curisous how did you feel about Kotor and later Bioware Games?

I have a fondness for KotOR but that fondness stems mainly from the fact that the game managed to tap into the true spirit of Star Wars, in my opinion. That's a feat which hasn't really been achieved since then. It felt classic, exotic and appropriately nostalgic without going overboard. The game design, however, did have some annoying aspects which were difficult to digest: mandatory party members, expository dialogue dumps, the feeling of running down corridors from one script trigger to the next and also the nagging impression of playing in the shadow of the storyline. KotOR - despite its faults - is the last BioWare game that I actually enjoyed on some level. Dragon Age: Origins was the last straw that made me give up on BioWare entirely. I never played the Mass Effect games.

My theory is that the more game designers try to "steer" the flow of the gameplay through various draconian methods, the more likely it is for that game to be plagued by plot holes, inconsistences and plot devices. If the game has a more relaxed approach to storytelling and world-building, however, which allows the player to roam the world on their own accord and discover things on their own time - the less likely it is for the game's story to feel contrived or rushed.

There is the juxtaposition of Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II. Only two years separates these games but they feel quite different in their overall philosophy. Baldur's Gate feels like visiting a large park that you are allowed to explore in any way you want. There are hints and recommendations of where to go but it's all voluntary in the end. You might end up somewhere that's potentially hazardous but that's completely up to you. Meanwhile, Baldur's Gate II feels like going to a zoo. You wander around on fixed paths and see all of the exotic displays. All of the things the creators want you to see - and nothing else. Because there is nothing else.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Can't really say there's any specific RPG that lost its magic over time. I'm pretty bored when I replay Morrowind these days but that's because I played it for so many times. But it's not like I boot the game and feel like it's crappy now, I still feel the same tinge of magic that I did the first time I got off the boat and saw a Silt Strider. But looter ARPGs like Diablo 2 and Grim Dawn have almost entirely lost their appeal for me. The gameplay and hyper focus on character builds still appeal to me a lot, but the dumb casino mechanics for loot is just an aggressive waste of time and to be honest it isn't satisfying to me on any level. Static loot placements are more interesting to me because you can hide items behind something fun like a cool quest or tough boss. I still play Diablo 1 a lot and it still is the best of its kind for me. It has some RNG concerning the quests, but items and rewards that you get are always predetermined based on the quests you roll and this is a lot more fun for me. Unfortunately all the big boy ARPGs model themselves after D2: LoD. Think Shadows Awakening is the closest I've gotten to a modern top down ARPG that appeals to me.