Skellige Island and the two expansions were actually great. Blood & Wine had an amazing flow. Otherwise I agree. It was a rehash of The Witcher 1, but not as charming.

Unpopular opinion: Many hyped up games fail immensely at some parts. But due to the social group effect criticism gets drowned out. Currently playing Elden Ring and while it makes a massively great impression all around it shows really bad game design cracks after more intense looking, especially in the boss and arena encounter design as if they were inexperienced. Cluttered, glitchy arenas impeding gameplay, just annoyingly specific roll tells, bad hitbox choices and the requirement to memorize full boss combo routes like a multiplayer fighter add to that 1-2 kill combos and it is terrible at times to me not we the effort. I am at Leyndell with almost all available side content/areas done. Waiting for the obligatory git gud chads storming in.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Many hyped up games fail immensely at some parts

Well, yeah... that is so vague that it cannot help but be true. Almost all games fail in some way (especially more complex ones), they can all be improved by making some changes somewhere especially when everyone has different preferences for how things should work and what annoys them.

And by definition almost any hyped up game is going to fall short of expectations. Hype is born by imagination and has no limits, but games are delivered in reality where compromises need to be made, especially when time pressure is involved. And by nature the more hype a game is the more likely it is going to be over-hyped and fall far shorter of the expectations.

I am wary of any hyped up game. Hell, I would be wary of any AAA game on release day these days. Wait for real reviews to come in and not what the prerelease hype says about it. And even after remember that what games one person enjoys a lot another might absolutely hate.

[–] Aurix 1 points 1 year ago

I would not say it is as broadly self defined and I tried to give specific reasons. Elden Ring itself at its very core is about the core difficulty and yet I had way too many deaths caused by jank (the difference on how much better my experience with the same bosses in a cleaner arena speaks volumes, or the terrible twin fights) , not just some side nitpicking on minor mechanics. And so many reviews giving it excellence and yet there is apparently quite a bunch of people rating it below many of their other titles as at the last part of the game the problems pile up to an even worse degree.

I do enjoy it for most of the other aspects and I understand and agree what it is why people rave about it so much , but I would have loved to see scaled down boss damage, especially combos and twin fights to bridge the fun-defying issues, although a different design philosophy would be the better solution.