Dark souls
Demons souls through Dark Souls 3 I bought, tried, and quickly ended up on my shelf.
Knew they were amazing games, but I just couldn’t figure it out. Always played with a shield, was slow and methodical, and just didn’t get anywhere.
Then I read a post about someone who was having trouble so summoned another player. The summon showed up “Naked with a katana and charged in like a Jedi”.
So I said screw it, and tried a light no shield build. Didnt care how far I got, I just started grinding the early enemies and leveling up. Then it all just sort of clicked.
Got my girlfriend into the games, and we’ve played through them all together, just now finishing on bloodborne.
Same. It took me months to give it another shot and after that I couldn’t stop
Same. I still suck. I haven’t finished a single one of them games. It took me months of playing on and off to get past Vordt in DS3. But once I beat him and reached the undead settlement, that was it. I was hooked. I also just rarely finish RPGs in general lol. The art direction and general ambiance, the combat hitboxes, the music, the learning curve, the variety of builds… Fromsoft just knows something about games that most other companies don’t.
Not gonna try that again until I’m retired. I don’t need my play to feel like work.
Outer Wilds. I went to the hollow planet early and got very frustrated with the platforming and falling rocks.
I returned to it almost a year later and gave it a chance based on everyone’s praise. Very glad I did.
This is one that I have to come back to.
You should. Make sure you pick it up when you have time to really wrap your head around it. When I finally played through it, it was over a Christmas holiday. I don’t think it’s the sort of game that would lend itself well to being played in 1-2 hour chunks after work every night for a week when you’re feeling burned out. You gotta be able to sink your teeth into it
It’s like a big tangle of wool. As soon as you find the end and start pulling, it all starts to make sense.
Factorio. I tried it years ago and it just never clicked. I just started playing it again and suffice it to say I have gotten very little sleep over the past couple weeks.
The factory must grow
The factory must expand to meet the ever expanding needs of the factory.
I refuse to play that game knowing that I have an addictive personality and an unhealthy obsession with maximizing efficiency. It just doesn’t seem like a good idea to give a person with my type of personality the equivalent of heroin.
Cyberpunk 2077
Got it on console first, and it was … rough. Got it as a gift on PC and finally got to experience the glorious story and wonderful characters.
Control.
The beginning of the game is really slow, hard to understand what’s happening, and you literally have only minimal throwing ability. The manual navigation with overlay fullscreen map also doesn’t do justice to the game. Combining with the fact that I wasn’t used to playing these types of games, this was an easy pass for me after like 1 hour of the game.
But boy it’s awesome as you actually get more abilities and understand more of the story. Currently it’s one of the games I usually come back to.
I didn’t realize it was in the Alan Wake universe. I still need to play Control.
Yeah there’s only a couple subtle hints in the regular game and I think more in the dlc. I’m guessing they’ll lean into it more with control 2 now that AW2 is out as well.
Interesting, I had a similar experience at the start and couldn’t work out why everyone was praising it so much. Maybe I’ll give it another go
Please do. Control was such a hidden gem. I picked it up in a humble bundle and it absolutely blew me away.
Subnautica. I didn’t really get it at first. Swam around the life pod a bit; didn’t see the point.
Was travelling some time (months?) Later and stuck at an airport with my laptop and a Power outlet but super patchy wifi. So I fired it up again and really, really got into it. Kept playing on the plane and all through that trip. By the time I got back, I had a Cyclops and a Prawn suit and was about to find the lost river.
I also came to say Subnautica. I got it for free prom PlayStation, messed around a little bit, didn’t have any clue where to go, and stopped playing.
Years later I started a new game and it clicked with me. I bought the sequel before I rolled credits so I’d be able to go right into it.
Love that game. Love, love, love it.
Baldur’s Gate. I’ve never played DnD so there was a bit of a learning curve. I rage quit after two hours, almost returned it. Three days later I fired it up again and haven’t really stopped playing since.
Baldur’s Gate was a special game. It’s the only game my wife liked to play, and we couch-coopted it. We played the rest in the series together, full play through all of them, a couple of times. Never found that magic combo again, sadly, and to this day she laments that there are so few 3d isometric couch coop games.
Well, there’s Baldur’s Gate 3 now… should keep you entertained for the next 5 years 😃
I’m excited to try that. No couch co-op :-( Nobody makes those anymore.
Maybe not on console but you can couch co-op on PC.
The BG3 website doesn’t mention couch coop; only online multiplayer. The Steam page for it says it’s a single player game, with online/LAN coop. Where do you see that it has couch coop? It’s frustrating that you have to buy it to find out it has that.
Hey mate, both PC and PS5 have couch-coop (I own it on both). For the former, you need to plug in two controllers, and it’ll just kinda work, and the latter has it in the “session settings”.
Speaking from experience is all. Plug in another controller and the screen splits and you can make a new character or choose a premade.
That’s great! Thanks for letting me know; it’s crazy that it’s not easily discoverable.
Pretty sure it isn’t out on Xbox yet because they are struggling with couch co-op on series s
It’s a phenomenal game, probably the best I’ve played since Red Dead 2
If you liked the first two, have you tried Planescape Torment? Basically the same engine
I didn’t know about that one - it looks great! no couch co-op, sadly, so my wife won’t be interested, but I think it looks great!
Thanks for the recommendation.
It has a great story, you’re in for a ride!
I also realised that the Shadowrun games (Returns, Dragonfall, and Hong Kong) might scratch that itch - the setting is a cyberpunk/fantasy mashup, and the game play is similar isometric point and click until you get into combat when it becomes isometric turn based tactical. I was recommended to start with Dragonfall
And now I’m 158 hours in and can’t bear the thought of finishing it now that combat has become sooooo monotonous.
Monster Hunter. When I was a kid with a PSP I bought Freedom Unite since the box art was cool. Had not a fucking clue what was happening or how to even understand the weapons.
Years later I bought a 3DS, 3 Ultimate, and even a circle pad pro for it. Nope, still just didn’t even crack an hour of playtime because everything was just so strange. Finally, in probably 2019 or so I decided that there was too much cool word of mouth about the series for me to not try and figure out how it worked.
I got Generations Ultimate, and decided that if I could figure out how to play Monster Hunter that I wouldnt be a complete failure in life. I just played, found that nothing made sense, but just… kept going anyway. I started researching what the different weapons were for, realized that they’re basically just different fighting game character-type movesets, and from there I slowly explored the game until id ended up burning 240 hours or so on MHGU.
I discovered Monster Hunter World after that, and it was all over for me. I never get to g rank, but I’ve put probably a combined over 1k hours into the series, which is much more than I usually would for other games. Just fucking fantastic games in almost every way, except for tutorialization.
Monster Hunter for me as well! Tried 3 Ultimate on the 3ds and it just did not click for me. Tried it again with Rise and World and loved them
That’s because Rise and World are WAY better than the old games. Less clunky inventory, better movement, better everything. Trying to play MH3 or earlier is like pulling teeth now after Rise. It’s so much better in every way
I got the monster hunter on 3ds (MH 3 Ultimate), and I liked playing it, got pretty good at it, but man…the graphics on that system just isn’t right for that game. They tried making it look to non pixilated on a system that was too pixilated for it.
I’ve planned for quite a while to get it as a rom for my PC or steam deck and use some filters to smooth the jaggedness out of it and see how it does, but still haven’t gotten around to it yet. Really need to get on that. I played like 30 hours worth and stopped.
Diablo III. First time I played it was at the urging of my friend, who told me unironically, “don’t worry about the plot, the plot doesn’t matter.” Unsurprisingly my experience wasn’t particularly engaging and I lost interest, not seeing much reason to play it over any number of other games that didn’t have an always-online requirement.
Flash forward several years later. My then-girlfriend (now spouse) asked me if I’d ever played a Diablo game, and I related my experience. After she was done sputtering and emitting various noises of extreme outrage she insisted that I set things up so we could play through Diablo 1, 2, and then 3 together. I went in to D1 expecting to be similarly disappointed and instead found an incredibly dark, atmospheric, and compelling story. Oh and we did get The Butcher so I also shat myself. After that I was way hyped for 2, and by the time we hit 3 I was far more interested in playing. Loved the hell out of it, found myself not only enjoying the game but completing through the last stages of a season journey to score extra stash space and all that. Not out of obligation either, I was legitimately enjoying the grind.
I gotta ask - given all that, what’d you think of 4?
Played the Beta, thought it was… good. Better than 3 in some ways, but not up to that oppressive, almost claustrophobic ambiance in D1 that made it so damn good. That said, I loved rolling around as a Shaman Werewolf tanking everything. Was it the most effective? Nope, but I tanked Butcher twice and the World Boss and survived. Felt great.
Haven’t played the game proper on release though. Got drawn into other things actually. Am looking forward to it.
Hollow Knight. Bought it and played a few hours, died and got very annoyed that I couldn’t find my shade so lost motivation.
Picked it up again 2 years later and it’s arguably my favourite game ever now.
Almost exactly the same story here
I bounced off Dwarf Fortress a lot over the years, even with the packs to help. Eventually I got the hang of Adventurer Mode and quite enjoyed it! Now I’m just waiting for that mode on the steam version!
I bought the Steam version of Dwarf Fortress. I did not realise it was actually a time machine.
Every time I started it, I would instantly jump 4 hours into the future.
When the Steam version was announced, I decided to dive in to the game blind. In the months before the release, I ended up seeing some interviews of Tarn and fell in love with their vision and quiet dedication.
Steam version came out and I dumped easily 200+ hours into the game. I’m waiting for adventure mode to dive back in. Can’t wait.
The game is definitely not for everyone. But it is very special.
Do you know if there’s a noob friendly Lemmy community for Dwarf Fortress. I want to get into the game
I don’t know, I’m sorry!
Terraria. At first I compared it to Minecraft before I started to like it on it’s own. Thanks to pre-Fandom wiki I broke through not getting it’s gameplay at all to enjoying it.
This one for me. The controls were hard to get used to and I died a whole lot and lost my stuff the first dozen nights. But once it clicked it got better and better, and holy cow the game has a lot going on inside of it.
Same for me. But then a friend played like an hour together with me, showed me the ropes and I haven’t stopped playing since. Not all the time, but like one playthrough a month or so.
I played Celeste, thought it was kinda easy and the hotel level kinda lame which is where I dropped it. A few years later I broke my leg, being a pc gamer before the steamdeck my switch was the only portable console I had and celeste the only unfinished game i had for it. I played the entire game in a week of 12 hour sessions while high as a mother fucking kite. It was amazingly good fun.
BioShock 1. I found the first level to be frustrating. Left it for a year and came back; it was easier, somehow, or I was more patient.
I’m so glad I gave it a second chance. Easily in my top 5 GOAT.
God yes what a classic. 2 is amazing too
Minecraft / Minetest - I’m used to games with active quests etc. so the openness threw me off but now I host a server for the kiddos and we have all sorts of adventures and random builds
play quest based modpacks
