I've played the game around seven years ago for the first time on my laptop and enjoyed my time a lot. Back when I got my first PS4 around a year later (2017ish), I got the game on there too but ended up not playing the game at all because I couldn't get used to the controller gameplay.
A couple of days ago, I started the game up again for lack of other games to play right now and have, as many probably, started a low-chaos ghost run. For the uninitiated, "ghost" means that you go through the entire game without being detected once. To achieve this, you're either cracked at the game and know what you're doing, or you resort to save scumming, which I also did.
However, I seem to have fucked up in the last mission (saving Emily, getting rid of the two Pendleton twins) and have been detected somewhere without noticing it and loading a previous save. When I ended the mission and was shown the statistics, I contemplated starting the mission over because I didn't ghost through to mission but opted not to.
While I do feel kinda bummed about "messing up" the achievement, I feel like this'll prove to be beneficial for my overall experience with the game since I won't have to keep reloading the same passages for 15 times just to get some arbitrary achievement that doesn't even bear any meaning.
I'll still go for a low-chaos run (not killing anyone), but I won't be bothered to keep reloading saves now: If I'm detected, I run away and hide and take the game on naturally.
How have your experiences with the game been? Which playstyle do you prefer? What games did you ruin for yourself in hindsight because of save scumming?
I feel the same way, but part of that might be because back when we started gaming (that's 35+ years ago for me), "achievements" meant finishing a game or getting a high score. Sure there were sometimes games with multiple endings or extra secrets to discover, but there was no laundry list of accomplishments for any game like there are now with achievements.
To me, trying to get achievements feels like homework, and my brothers and sisters, I played video games to avoid homework not do more of it!
BUT, as I've grown older I've realized that the human experience means that there is no lack of preferences out there that will be foreign to my own. People should just play how they want so they're having fun. I don't have to understand why getting 100% of the available achievements is fun to some, just that it is. I won't be doing it, but the option being there doesn't take away from anything for me. I don't feel anxious about ignoring them.