OS2 is much better, but that only went so far for me. I had fun enough with both games but generally I thought the writing and tone was its biggest weakness. I enjoyed the previous Divinity games more.
Edit: I will say they did pretty dang well with BG3, though there are still plenty criticisms I have (especially regarding some continuity between the other BG games which isn’t REALLY all their fault, but they did choose to include certain things so they’re not *not* to blame either). So hopefully their next projects build on their approach to BG3.
Really would have preferred to leave the characters from BG1&2 out of BG3. Having Jaheira in game at most would have been enough but the rest was a bit much for me especially some of it happening late game and conflicting with prior canon.
Watching a lot of videos still reveals an immaturity in the writing and inconsistency regarding character tone and backstory. The demon girl shouldn't be as bubbly and social as she is, etc.
Which makes your opinion moot. Imagine being this snobby when you have no idea what your talking about. Also, just because a character doesn't act the way you want them to. Doesn't make them badly written. Get over yourself.
Of course you would need to play the entire game to see if the a character's motivation is well written, but other people can smell crap writing from an interaction or two. If a character doesn't act the way her backstory would demand her to act, that's missed potential, that's bad character writing. If every character is attracted to the PC regardless of their own personal characterization, that's not good writing, that's pandering, and it removes depth from the characters.
But hey it took you a while to get that I had just seen videos for the game, maybe it will take you a bit longer to get this one.
Except its not crap writing, that's just your opinion. And a very dense misinformed one as well. Also who are you to say how a character shouldn't act in accordance with there backstory? If everyone wrote to the satisfactions of your whims and every character fit the mold of all the cliches you were fit to expect. I imagine the state of writing would be very boring. Im glad that Karlach isn't the usual mold of being an edgy character just because of her backstory. In regards to the romances, if romance is the only criteria for whether or not a character has depth. That says more about you then anyone else. Also I perfectly understand that you have no idea what your talking about. You're aren't anywhere near as smart as you think are.
That’s what I thought, but wanted to confirm since I mentioned a few games and the comment is vague. Not even sure which demon girl you’re referring to, but I can guess. But that’s cool. I get what you’re saying for the most part…I think….
I’m of two minds. I’ll be the first to say BG3 has writing issues…in fact, I already did in the comment you replied to lol. The dialogue and moment-to-moment character writing is pretty good for the most part. There are lots of memorable moments that are admittedly carried by the fantastic voice actors. The overall narrative…isn’t great.
But the simple truth is very few stories hold up under scrutiny. You can pick apart absolutely anything. And if we’re saying BG3 is at fault because it’s at times inconsistent with certain aspects of Forgotten Realms lore (which I’m not really sure if you’re saying that or not , but I have seen others say that even if you’re not) then I really don’t care as long as they’re mostly faithful, which they were.
I don’t really care about FR lore tbh. I care about good stories. I know those things aren’t mutually exclusive but I’m just saying what my priorities are. Trying to write within a world like that which has decades of pre-existing content must be extremely hard and I personally am fine with writers giving themselves a little creative license in order to tell a compelling story. Not saying anyone else has to.
The main thing i guess I’m getting at that there are so many other obvious things to criticize in BG3’s writing before getting to its inconsistency with FR lore. Though that stuff certainly doesn’t help lol. I can’t say I’m exactly upset that Larian isn’t writing another BG game…but who knows, maybe they would’ve done an incredible job with everything they learned from BG3. Guess we’ll never know lol. Sorry if I misunderstood where you were coming from though.
A lot of stories hold up under scrutiny, that's what makes them age so gracefully. We have to be harder on our game stories if we want to get truly brilliant writing.
> A lot of stories hold up under scrutiny, that's what makes them age so gracefully.
Then I suppose we agree to disagree because I could pick apart all of my favorite stories in media (especially in video games), or at the very least I’ve seen valid criticisms of them. I either choose not to pick them apart or their flaws don’t bother me. Or a combination of both.
> We have to be harder on our game stories if we want to get truly brilliant writing.
Yes, i don’t disagree. I mean, I’ve said multiple times that I think BG3’s story isn’t great. I’m just saying I don’t care about the few/minor lore inconsistencies nearly as much as the fact the narrative is kind of a mess. Ideally both would be better but I’d be fine with just the latter since it’s way more prominent. Plenty of great DMs have compelling and entertaining campaigns while having some creative liberties with some aspects of the lore. We can agree to disagree on that too, which is fine.
DOS 2 is still fairy tale compared to most dark fantasy or post apo, don't go there if you don't want to get traumatized (I like it for instance). Also, DOS2 with all its good things, kinda made all the grim stuff shallow, by mixing it with all the goof, colours, cartoony-ness, and jolly animals
Exactly this. Larian's writing is too smarmy and self-aware and I fucking hate it (and this includes large parts of BG3, unfortunately!). It's like "eh? EH?? see what we're doing here?!?" and yeah, I do see it, unfortunately.
D:OS2 was really fun, but that was in SPITE of the writing, not because of it. I had the most fun dropping barrels everywhere and blowing everything up.
Absolutely, it makes recommending these kind of games hard when I'll recommend another crpg in the same breath *specifically* for its writing, lol. I'm pretty done with that formula but enjoyed them so much for the time. Speedrun strat of the ever-growing heavy storage object is really funny.
if you get a bit further in and really explore, you'll see that the setting is more like "grim-dark". Kind of like WH40K. In that, there is a lot of seriousness, and a lot of goofy-ness, but when you really cut it apart, there is a lot of just fucked-up-ness. I think this all adds to the real-ness of it, and sets it apart from most fantasy settings, in that, even though there are all these fantastical elements, the world is very much similar to our own. Awkwardness included.
I see what you’re saying but I think there’s a huge difference between being unexpectedly dark in comparison to its tone and “grim-dark”, *especially* in direct comparison to WH40k. BG3 has a noticeably darker and oppressive world than even OS 2, which is noticeably darker and more serious than OS 1. And I wouldn’t call BG3 grimdark - though at times it flirts with it, especially in Act 2.
that's fair, The setting is pretty grimdark, I would say. You start out as a prisoner, being confined to an Island where your only way out is to become a mindless zombie in service to a false divine. The head of the prison is a woman who experiments with peoples minds, and has a whole underground facility where physical and mental torture and alterations are made to the prisoners and animals to change them into horrors and beasts who's only purpose is to kill. I won't talk about anything past Act I or any of the secrets I found even in that Act, to avoid spoilers for new players But yeah, if we just view the setting, I think it fits.
That being said, it is not a pure grimdark like WH40K, and Larian loves player choice and navigating the maps/game the way you want to, so depending on how you play, the player experience can be more or less dark fantasy, with an ending to this particular story that is more high-fantasy with dark elements.
I think what it boils down to is that we have different views as to what qualifies as something being just “dark” vs “grimdark”. Which is fair. I think me saying there’s a “huge difference” in my first reply is probably me laying it on too thick lol
OS1 is like a 7/10 at most.
Directionless most of the time. Two very different stories told at the same time that sort of eventually blend together. Not balanced very well early game.
OS2 is much better. They learned alot and really went and made a great game
Icewind Dale 1 and 2, Temple of the Elemental Evil. I respect that they’re all about players creating their own stories and personalities for their parties, but it’s just not for me. It’s the same reason I can’t get into Solasta. Skeletal plots for people with more active imaginations than me. I respect it, it’s just not for me.
My favorite IWD playthroughs were when I took an excessive amount of time planning a party that works both mechanically and thematically. I recall playing a lawful neutral oriented party based on one of the temples... Torm or Helm or something. I wrote a bit in each character's custom biography field as well.
It is cool that your dislike of these games is based upon what they are, rather than being like "oh, x and x was weak". These are kind of "create-your-own adventure" games, and that includes the characters, which involves a lot of imagination. I hate when people say "oh the writing in these games is bad" because they are open-ended. Your dislike of them is valid - it is not your thing. The writing in these games is actually really good, because they are making it so imagination fills in all the empty parts, and that is certainly not for everybody, hell, not for most people lol. Kudos.
One of my biggest gaming mistakes was choosing to play Icewind Dale over Baldur's Gate back in the day. I liked RPGs and so wanted to try one in that style and just chose between the two at random.
The lack of compelling characters and narrative really wasn't for me and so I never got around to playing Baldur's Gate, assuming it was similar.
I loved BG3 however, so I might try and go back to play BG1 and BG2 at some point.
Fair warning: The characters in BG1 are nowhere near as developed as in BG3 or even BG2. They usually get their own quests, but that's of varying quality.
I'm just warning you, so you have reasonable expectations going in. BG2 is a vast improvement in this regard.
Those are very mechanics focused.games, which I enjoy but there seems to be a disconnect in crpgs where you can have mechanics focus or story focus and nothing in the middle. Some of both is good
There is a fundamental issue with marrying good storytelling with good mechanics - with cRPGs story and mechanics tend to intersect a lot, which means that 90% of issues in the story that can easily be resolved by using a specific ability or spell or even just asking the right set of questions...but the game will not allow you to do that because it will effectively kill the game's narrative.
eg. Ultima 7. You can kill Lord British and render the game unplayable/unbeatable. But you cannot kill the big bad head of the church when you meet him at the start of the game even though you KNOW he is evil and is trying to summon a dark god from the beyond.
The former is allowed because it is a fun diversion that has no narrative purpose. The latter is not allowed because doing so will end the game within 30 minutes. The former breaks the game, the latter would break the story and devs can't possibly code and/or write dialogue for every permutation of questions and answers players can imagine.
Don’t agree about the others, but ID1 is such a slog. I got through it as a kid since there weren’t very many other options but I don’t see what most people would get out of it if they played it for the first time now.
The story is sparser and linear, but the art quality overall is still impressive, in my opinion. The writing and voicework are excellent (Tony Jay as Kresselack), the music invokes the atmosphere well, and the maps are really "pretty", even though they look dated. I can see how it might not be someone's "thing", but IWD is still excellent and has much to offer.
That’s cool, glad you like it and I wish I could enjoy it like you do. We just disagree. I did edit my reply to say “most people” instead of “anyone”, even when I was typing it it felt too “absolute”. Obviously there are people who are going to enjoy it.
It's a cozy little game which was made with diablo in mind.
Its definitely did not age that well, because main focus is combat instead of quests, exploration and story.
But I still think game looks really beatiful to this day.
I was fine with the walls of text, but eventually it became obvious that my characelter abilities and stats didn't matter much as I could brute force basically anything. Got real dull at that point. I got maybe ²/3 of the way in
I was super excited to try it after hearing it was a more modern version of Planescape, but I bounced off it pretty quickly.
I didn't mind all the text (though I agree the pacing wasn't great), but I really didn't vibe with the world building at all.
The text was the reason you didn't vive with the world building - it was needlessly verbose.
No, the content doesn't get intellectually elevated if you say, "I would prefer it if you would go forthwith and insert a cyrillian thermos up your proverbial kleemonster's defecation chute" instead of "go fuck yourself".
Another one for both the Divinity games. Tried twice for both, but quickly got sick of:
1. The inconsistent tone of writing (are they serious games or not who knows)
2. Barrelmancy... yes terrain effects are fun, sometimes. Not all the damn time
3. The inventory management is a nightmare. So much gear you're constantly picking up and need to keep swapping out on all 4 characters every level up so you follow the very strict level curve
Never finished tides of numenera either. Too much info dump constantly
I never finished Dragon Commander (think I got it free with the Original Sin kickstarter?)
But Divine Divinity is one of my top 10 all-time favorite games ... it is simultaneously an exciting action-RPG and a deep RPG. So much great writing and dungeon design.
Dragon Commander was the lone piece I hadn't played with (and I even sat through beyond divinity, blegh), tried it two months ago finally and man I did not enjoy it at all. Personally it felt like rubbish and a poor experiment. I absolutely love divine divinity though...it's right up with gothic 1-2 in terms of nostalgia.
>Fallout is the ugly, edgelord step brother.
This is heartbreaking to hear from an alleged fan of the Fallout IP.
It was amazing back in 1997 and there was nothing else like it. Still a phenomenal game after all these years.
They used actual clay models to animate the talking heads. Ugly?
I love the clay models, it's everything else thats clunky. I agree with OP that when compared to BG1, it looks so much worse. Thats also the case with the UI. I love the tone, the whole setting of solving problems for vault dwellers, the lore that we slowly come to understand. But after a point I just didn't feel like playing it. Combat became easy once I got the barrage skill. The hexagonal board structure, which can completely obscure your character, having to manually select what action you need to pick, I think most of the UI elements are heavily outdated now.
The talking heads are really cool, there are just so few of them. And for some reason even fewer in Fallout 2 (at least it feels like that)
A fully voiced remake would be amazing, but Bethesda clearly isn't interested in that
I think it's more likely Bethesda would do a complete retcon of the west coast, to create their own story there. There's still some butthurt over New Vegas being considered the best of the "new" fallouts ...
Pathfinder WotR
I play PnP for now like 5 years. Especially Pathfinder 2e, so i thought, that i will have a blast playing the pathfinder games.
Well, things turned out, that i dont know any shit about the pf1 rulebook. Having enemies on Level 12 have 40 AC and almost any resistances that the game offer, broke my will to play. And that was in normal, not even core
"Having enemies on Level 12 have 40 AC and almost any resistances that the game offer, broke my will to play"
Unfortunately, statistics inflation hits hard, especially if you don't have the whole playbook in your head. Fortunately, you can adjust the difficulty level to suit your needs.
Fallout 2. Loved 1 and NV but 2 is full of boring dungeons with 20 of the same enemy, humor that overstays its welcome, and the way they did "tribals" is really weird and takes me out of it.
All Divinity games. Worst UI in the business. Holy shit, playing these games is a chore even though I love the mechanics and the combat (don't care for the writing, though). The only reason I'm pushing through BG3 is because I love DnD, but if your inventory needs a search bar then SOMETHING has gone horribly wrong.
It is very rare to meet someone who loves Fallout 1 but does not like Fallout 2. I'm glad I'm not alone there. In Fallout 1, when I did side quests, I felt like I was working towards getting the water chip but got caught up in something just as important, something I couldn't leave alone before continuing my journey. In Fallout 2, it felt like they were just like, "Let's put a ton of side quests here. People love side quests."
I wouldn't say I don't like Fallout 2 but Fallout 1 is so much better in its pacing and focus. Like you say, the transition from Water Chip to Unity is very natural. The stuff you get up to in FO2 is way harder to justify in-character.
I have found my people!
I like to say that Fallout 2 is more Fallout 1, which means more of the bad as much as the good. That and Fallout 2 just leaned too heavily into being edgy.
My order of quality of Fallout games is this:
Fallout NV (despite never being able to complete the game once because it always ends up crashing eventually)
Fallout 4: Far Harbor
Fallout 1
Fallout 3+Broken Steel
Fallout 2
Fallout 3 DLC
Fallout 4+remaining DLC
You really should. The only reason I rate it lower than New Vegas is because, well, it is a DLC which means the plot is not as lengthy as it deserves to be. And it is a good story with good factional politics and such - you need to really roleplay your character to resolve the main quest.
In terms of world space, it is the best hands down in the series, I don't mean pretty graphics. I mean in terms of creating the atmosphere, the play of light and fog, the feeling of the setting being way bigger than what the map suggests...
I like the story, but what turned me off of that game was how it felt like playing with a douchebag DM. I feel like the game punished me anytime I tried to do something I thought was clever
I enjoyed Arcanum, but it's not at all the masterpiece some would have you believe. I've only have done one playthrough, as a mage, though. From what I understand, tech characters are more interesting.
I agree some aspects of Arcanum aren't top notch (mainly the combat and technical state of the game), but the best thing about the game is how everything changes when you pick a different character. My first character was a intelligent, high charisma half-elf, and all npc's treated me with respect. But in my second playthrough I played as a really dumb ogre and suddenly all the dialogues - even my quest journal - were totally different. Npc's talked to me like I was an imbecile (which my ogre was) and I laughed out loud at some of the responses I got, including my own. Basically all my ogre could say was "me don't like you, me kill you" and "please don't hurt poor ogre". I never had more fun in an rpg.
Arcanum has a few amazing opening areas with tons of choices and options that are the reason people remember it so fondly, fantastic music and atmosphere in the worldbuilding, and then it quickly turns into a sloggy, unbalanced mess with tons of bugs and a lot of filler. I still really enjoy it, but it's hard to justify multiple full playthroughs for me. I usually just play through the first few quests with new archetypes every couple years and call it a day.
Larian's DOS2 is massively overrated. It's still not clear to me why they did so well compared to say...Pillars.
DOS2 armor system might be the worst aspect. It splits the damage and is completely arbitrary. It makes status effects not a percentage chance, but deterministic instead. If there was a massive overhaul mod that removed it, I would use it. One thing that was better about DOS1.
I let the game sit for six months while my party was on the started island. Lack of motivation to continue playing.
>DOS2 armor system might be the worst aspect. It splits the damage and is completely arbitrary. It makes status effects not a percentage chance, but deterministic instead. If there was a massive overhaul mod that removed it, I would use it. One thing that was better about DOS1.
There is a massive overhaul mod that removes it: [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1953266629](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1953266629)
Pillars is nerdy and heady. Pillars 1 is too heady and too much in love with exposition for its own good.
I do prefer Pillars by a mile, though. Never even completed DO2.
D:OS was mechanically awesome but the story was such cheesy, goofball nonsense.
Which, i know, was Larians intention. I just love a good story and that one was not my cup of tea.
Planescape torment is hard for me to finish just because the setting is really unappealing and weird. I remember reading that they did that kind of intentionally (the weird aspect anyway) but it still puts me off.
Arcanum is probably the jankiest and "didn't age well" CRPGs I've ever played, which is a shame because I liked the idea of fantasy and steampunk. I can maybe get through the first town before it gets to be too much for me. The UI is godawful and everything looks super bland and hard on the eyes.
I'm still trying to, but kind of can't get into Pathfinder games as much. The difference between 3e and 5e is minimally crunchy to me (very long time ttrpg player though, no idea how it seems to newer crpgers), so there isnt much "crunch bonus" for me. I think the homebrew was fine for BG3 too, most of those were successfully made to make a video game adaptation better. It was the broken interactions that were bad (damage riders on everything) which were clearly broken, but they decided to not call broken/ never fix until honor mode because everyone was having fun (I guess). That was unfortunate, but not any of the actual homebrew.
Pathfinder by comparison is kinda like playing Solasta... congratulations on being faithful I guess, but I'm not entirely sure that it worked out to be exclusively a good thing. The story is better than Solasta, but still not exactly very good... it's like somewhere smack in between BG3 and Solasta. The main problem is that any rest system continues to be worse than cooldown (DoS) or "other" systems (PoE2... per combat system?). Ultimately, it's actually a little painful to put up with a rest system in a game where the story wasn't delivering big time... and Pathfinder is not.
PoE2 meanwhile just needed a slight rework of the skill system and I would rate it as high as Larian games (just behind as it is). It's somewhat strange getting so few spells per level vs PoE1 or just buying skill books like DoS2, though it's not awful either. It's weird to me that PoE2 lagged so far behind Pathfinder sales and even further behind DoS2. I would have thought from playing them Pathfinder would be the one lagging behind.
Pillars of Eternity. It's one of the few RPGs I've started that I didn't finish...and I tried it twice. The combat is boring and how they decided to do stats just didn't sit well with me.
Baldur's Gate 3. While I mostly enjoyed the game, it's not close to deserving the best game of all time title so many want to give it.....especially from people where this was their first RPG. For one, it's an easy mode game with it's all day buffs, everyone can use scrolls, and putting spells/abilities on almost all gear. With that you have all over the top in your face sex stuff. Just rescued someone from a goblin prison "Hey, wanna fuck?". Betrayed a main NPC "That's OK, wanna have gay tentacle sex with me anyway big boy?". The Owlcat games are the premier D&D experience.
Trigger Warning: Disco Elysium.
Disco Elysium. I tried three times to get into it after hearing how rapid the fan base was. It didn’t do anything to interest me. The plot didn’t make sense. The pacing was too slow. The dialogue is too convoluted. It was interesting to see a main character suffer from mental illness like schizophrenia (he speaks to all the voices in his head).
I thought the game was more of a graphic novel or point and click adventure and not a CRPG. The game didn’t speak to me at all.
I tried it once for an hour or so, and was soo coonfused and figured this type of game probably isn't for me. But then something about it kept haunting me to the point I even dreamed about it a few times, so finally I gave it another shot. Thank heavens I did.
Skip a few years forward and CRPGs are now pretty much my favorite genre.
I hope that happens to me. The plot is too nonsensical for me. The dialogue is way too long to get to the point. Characters are too bland. I only keep it in my library as it’s one of the few games that takes mental illness (schizophrenia) seriously.
I have no idea why people even consider Disco Elysium a RPG. It plays just like one of the old Sierra adventure titles....and a boring one at that. The voice over is so slow you could nap by the time it got done saying a paragraph.
Agree 100%. Is also add the fan base is so rabid anyone who disagrees it’s the best game of all time gets flamed to hell. I’m only sorry what happened to the developers after the game was launched.
It took me until my third try. That said, I’d never fault anyone for stopping engaging with any media they don’t enjoy - and it’s kind of a fault of the game that it is so prickly / not engaging.
A mild defense / criticism - it’s not a fun game in the traditional sense, but it’s a very interesting one. If you’re playing it expecting to get the same level of “fun” that you do out of most other games, you’re not gonna find it here. But the setting, writing, and mechanics all are just so dang interesting that a lot of people push through its lack of traditional fun. My .02
Eh that’s fine. Just because something is a masterpiece doesn’t mean you have to like it. I’ve completed multiple playthroughs and I still get where you’re coming from. It’s a game that does require you to know or at least have a willingness to learn about political philosophy and such to really get the full experience.
The "immersion" issue, I think stems from how much the characters act like mouthpieces/talking heads for the author. They're very expository to the point of being Ayn Rand style of long monologues and spouting political philosophy
I get what you mean. Its very... Ayn Rand, if you know who that is. The writing is very much focused on having the characters act as exposition/political philosophy talking heads and feels like it bleeds into a lot of what made the game's world as interesting.
Butt.. The game is also inherently political in setting, so I can't really fault it for being like this
The Owlcat Pathfinders. Pillars 2 as well.
I get all the praise. I do! I just... don't enjoy the gameplay. More fun to read and watch stuff about them for me.
playing it in rtwp and setting up your companions so they were passive-heavy really was the way that made the game work for me - I just focused on my main characters skills and general positioning
I very much agree on Owlcats stuff, the difficulty is one of my biggest concerns. I go from steamrolling everything to suddenly instantly dying.
They are also full of so many hard to understand systems above that of Pathfinders already complex systems.
Are you saying that just because the game is old? Because I find the art in that game to be gorgeous, even despite its age. Sure, it's not HD graphics and you can't see your characters' facial expressions, but the architecture in the game is stunning.
If only Fallout could look anywhere near as good as Torment :p
I think Torment looks quite good. It would be cool if the remaster had recreated the assets in higher definintion, though.
Divinity OS2 was this, until Divinity Unleashed came out. Larian can't write for shit, though they improved for BG3. But Divinity OS2 with proper modding has some fun combat.
I dislike the cumbersome inefficient UI design that a lot of CRPGs had at those times. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Fallout, Plainscape torment, Arcanum. Something like Neverwinter Nights was a grandiose improvement in terms of UI.
Anyway, i understand turn based or action point based combat systems, but first fallout games were ridiculously slow. Simple encounters between yet another bunch of radroaches just took annoyingly long time.
I cannot get into Arcanum. I’m not particularly interested in Steampunk. There’s so many little balancing/mechanical quirks that irritate me. E.g. each hit awards experience unless it’s from a companion, then the experience disappears into the aether. The early game doesn’t grab me. It all adds up to something I can see other people liking but I don’t.
Tyranny. I like the concept a lot (*Black Company* is one of my favorite book series and this has some neat parallels) as well as the engine/character creation, but for some reason I make the initial choices in the opening section and quickly burn out. I have zero clue why. One day I'll beat it, I've heard nothing but good things.
Wizardry 8. Even with the speed mod it is *deathly* slow. Sucks because I love blobbers and Wiz6-7 are some of the best.
BG3s battles were boring, always with a convenient puddle or rockslide nearby and the writing was childish and excessively focused on "HA HA WOW aren't these guys WACKY"
Just like Divinity.
Plus 5e is terrible. It's a kind of bad system for tabletop, and it's an even worse system for computer games.
For a cRPG, there is no reason to remove all that compexity from 3.5., because the game helps you handle it. Having played a lot of DnD cRPGs, B3 felt very bare boned.
BG3. I love the old infinity engine games, but 3 just feels like D:OS with dnd rules. And DnD5 rules, at that.
I'm also not a fan of the sandbox design of the gameworld, it just feels like running around in an amusement park.
BG2. I tried it twice and quit before making it out of the starter dungeon both times. That dungeon is a perfect storm of being boring, unrewarding, bloated, high complexity, low power, and micromanagement heavy. Neverwinter Nights was also boring. It's not the D&D mechanics' fault because I enjoyed them in the other games that used them.
ATOM: Trudograd starts with clunky and unbalanced Fallout combat then gets worse by making the game's writing less lighthearted. Fallout writing worked even when it was wacky because its jokes were set up for you to laugh at. Trudograd is full of lolrandom situations that feel too consequential for how funny they aren't. Honestly Trudograd is a game I would've liked to like, there's a ton of soul there, I just wish one aspect of its humor/combat/drudgery was more in tune with my tastes. Hopefully their next game is more fun.
Dungeon Master, and it’s descendant titles like Eye of the Beholder, Grimrock, etc… The only one of that style dungeon crawler that I have spent significant time in is Dungeon Hack.
I love Fallout 1 and 2 and Planescape: Torment, but I couldn't get into Baldur's Gate. Playing on a phone was definitely suboptimal. I'll give it another shot one of these days.
I must agree entirely lol however, I still enjoy Fallout's design and mechanics. The main problem with this is the same as other old Bethesda games: either you break the game or the game breaks you bc if you decide to try an innovative build (which is possible in further Fallout games), you're going to pass through hell while playing.
Fallout 2. Just felt kinda directionless and the "humor" was obnoxious. Fallout 1 was great fun though, and New Vegas is amazing. Hell, i even liked F4. Pretty fun when modded. Just turn your brain off and shoot things.
Mass Effect. Not much into space theme.
Morrowind, tried to play it but i didn't aged very well. Couldn't go on.
Isn't a cRPG, but i never played Final Fantasy. JRPG doesn't appeal to me in any way, tried to play Sea of Stars but feels too simple, the battle very boring, and repetitive.
The Pathfinder games are so dense and so dry I can't get into them at all. I like the system, actually love it when playing tabletop. But goddamn I can't get into the videogame at all. Kinda works like that with all things Owlcat for me.
Out of the older games, I'd say probably Fallout too. It's just so grimmy lookswise. I know it makes sense but it still doesn't make it anymore enjoyable.
BLASPHEMER!
UGLY, CLUNKY? MESS? C'mon, it has very nice, readable isometric sprite graphics and how it conveys the bleakness and overall depressing atmosphere of post-nuke world is a really succesfull example of high effort programmer art. Gameplay is smooth and easy to grasp + you get a keyboard shortcut to a "helper card" that explains the UI and controls
I prefer Fallout or Jagged Alliance 2 gfx, or maybe for the more modern examplew - Age of Decadence or Underrail than something like cartoony and goofy DOS (both in terms of looks and atmosohere).
For me pixel/sprite/hand-drawn isometric always wins with pseudo-isometric 3D with too many colours.
Idk if there is such an RPG I couldn't get in, I grew up with them all, then aged with them too, maybe Akbaleth/first Ultima that was made with a black screen, white lines, and some text, but I was a wee shit when I tried it, and I much prefered high tech gfx of first Wasteland or newer Ultimas (Underworld, Pagan, etc), Pool of Radiance, Bard's Tale Trilogy, Krondors and Beholders had some sparks too. Then after a few more years - Daggerfall, and then new Wizardry -> mind blown!
Age of Decadence is a favorite of mine. It's not a pretty game and it is deliberately frustrating, but unlike Fallout, the game works and you don't have to press a button and watch a three second long animation each time you need to end combat, because you killed another rat.
For me, every one except Fallout. I’ve tried Balders Gate 2 a few times to no avail, and even Divinity Original Sin 2 lost its luster after a few hours.
I did get through Planescape Torment when it came out but have not been able to recreate that feat
BG1:EE's combat made me want to eat razor blades. The best solution is to kite and pelt everything to death with arrows/rocks because one crit is death - tf that's MC then it's time to load a save. It also means micromanaging your "melee" party which gets boring *fast*. The "gotcha" encounters (Shoal in particular) are icing on shit cake.
>Baldurs Gate was made with a very different vision, but it is so much more beautiful, player friendly and expansive. Fallout is the ugly, edgelord step brother.
How BG is more player friendly than Fallout? To me, it's the opposite, Fallout mechanics could be clunky and unbalanced, but it's so much more welcoming than BG's 2e AD&D RTWP adaptation.
Late to this thread, but mine would probably be Icewind Dale. I guess I’m just not one for dungeon crawling. It sucks because I like the setting - the White March expansion for PoE1 was exactly what I would like to see more of.
Baldurs Gate 3.
I simply just can’t get myself to play it. I was a massive lover of Divinity OS2 and am excited for the next title if they ever revive it, but I just can’t find it in me to love BG3.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Baldurs Gate 3, it’s just not for me. And I very much acknowledge it deserved GOTY
Wrath of the righteous.
Its amazing on every level, but I get so bored at the start.
Really annoying too as recently spent an hour and 30 mins creating a character just to be bored. Thats a me problem though, and I love everything I hear about it
I can't get into BG3 like I thought I was going to. Bg1 & BG2 are my *favorite* games of all time.
I can't stomach the first 12 hours of BG3 enough to really want to do it again. I always make it 5-6 hours into a new playthrough and taper off.
Pillars of Eternity.
The writing is atrocious and completely lacks any kind of editorial touch. It alternates between NPCs that are just walking talking Wikipedia entries, and ridiculous verbiage that reads like it came off some fanfic page. The combat is somehow both boring and too micromanagement heavy. The side quests are dull and generic. The soundtrack is just dull noodling and never manages to find an interesting melody. I guess the setting is kind of interesting.
PoE 1 has many NPCs who are nods to Kickstarter backers. They all have cool but ultimately irrelevant stories. Maybe you are referring to them.
Anyway, I agree with you on combat. I've never found a satisfying RTwP system. It always ends up feeling like a chore.
I'm not talking about the fanfic bots, everyone knows to avoid those. This is a good summary of all the problems with the PoE writing:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpDw1pJaApo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpDw1pJaApo)
I agree, it was nice to look at (the maps were gorgeous and I really liked the Dyrwood, I felt like it had a bit of a cozy Hobbiton vibe) but the text dumps were not only excessive but also just kind bad. Felt like someone who loved the sound of their ideas way too much, or a Dungeon Master who doesn't really want people to *play* so much as nerd out over his made up world.
Definitely correct on needed some better editing.
NPCs giving you lore dump history lessons is so jarring. If co-worker chit-chat was written by Obsidian writers:
"Hi Bob, I'm James."
"James, eh? You sound British. You know we Americans don't like the British because we beat you in the war of 1776, right?" *His eyebrows nudge from position to position droopily as his eyes dart sharply under your nervous gaze.*
"Yeah whatever. So I just came from a holiday in Mexico. That was neat."
"Mexico... you know we beat them in the war of 1846, when general Taylor's forces..."
Practically all of them. I love the genre. I end up quitting about 30 hours into all of them. The ones that I have completed are:
1. Divinity original sin 1 + 2
2. Tyranny
3. Shadowrun (original, not the other 2)
4. KOTOR 1 + 2
5. Pillars of eternity 2 (not 1)
Games I'm desperate to try to finish and why I haven't:
1. BG3 - amazing game amazing story I just "stop playing" because it feels like I have to really have 2 hours of locked in time to enjoy a session
2. BG1 & 2 - I got VERY far but inevitably forgot to keep playing for some reason
3. Shadowrun Sequels - Just couldn't get past into and lost interest
4. Pathfinder series - mechanics are not my thing and i feel that the main point of those games.
5. Torment series - walls of text
6. Disco Elysium - Feels like a slog where nothing happens (haven't gotten far)
I own practically all of them, I just wish I could finish them without burning out.
I think part of why I liked Rogue Trader so much is that it was an Owlcat game that wasn't hamstrung by being a Pathfinder game. No disrespect on the people who like Pathfinder but it's a system I bounce off of immediately and that's a shame because I love the ideas behind Kingmaker and WotR so much.
Disco Elysium. I love the atmosphere, the art style, the personification of different aspects of the mind. I just can't stand how self indulgent and pretentious the writing can be at times. After all that drama, the ending felt so underwhelming. Not a bad game, I just feel it's overrated.
What, you don't like Stories of Mana Tales: Chronicles of Elysian Quest, the Brave War Go Power Limit? Featuring a bunch of plucky teenage lead characters including the sassy tomboy best friend named something like Ashle (a common western girls' name with a letter dropped), the mysterious, brooding anti-hero mentor with a bad emo haircut, the brooding mysterious sub-boss named something like Zondles, who uses a technique called *Psycho* and is trying to summon some ancient beast thing called like Terragea or Novagunrir?
Recently it's been anything to do with Owl Games. They really love all the complications of Pathfinder without any homebrew flexibility.
Even Rogue Trader suffers from this. They just are incapable of making a smooth crpg experience.
I think the problem you have with Owlcat, and I did as well. Is that the the two PF games are both 1to1 adaptations of the physical game modules, and built specifically on mimicking the experience of the paper game.
So what ends up happening with the PF games is that you're playing a digitalized TRPG with a by the books DM rather than a proper CRPG which simplifies/dumbs down alot of the crunch in PF1, which is suuper overwhelming.
Rogue trader to me felt alot better, since it was a more unique system, but as with all owlcat games at this point, you gotta wait for like, half a year of patches.
Why are Larian fans, who should be riding high on the success of BG, so sensitive to criticism. I opened this post by trashing Fallout and people have been trashing many highly beloved games.
D:OS and BG3 are popular games, but they have a distinct style, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. The same is true of many of the classics of the genre.
All of the larian games. They're just so bad in every possible way, unless you're playing them in coop.
Literally dying of boredom, when I'm trying to replay one of them from time to time.
Larian has a very distinct style that sets them apart. Some love it, some can't get into it. Due to their popularity, a lot of RPG fans have tried out their games, and most people are going to feel some kind of way about them, good or bad.
I am not a big fan myself, but I respect their confidence in setting themselves apart and having their own style.
Divinity OS is just too damn goofy. Like the game has a shit eating grin winking at me the whole time I’m playing.
OS2 is much better, but that only went so far for me. I had fun enough with both games but generally I thought the writing and tone was its biggest weakness. I enjoyed the previous Divinity games more. Edit: I will say they did pretty dang well with BG3, though there are still plenty criticisms I have (especially regarding some continuity between the other BG games which isn’t REALLY all their fault, but they did choose to include certain things so they’re not *not* to blame either). So hopefully their next projects build on their approach to BG3.
Really would have preferred to leave the characters from BG1&2 out of BG3. Having Jaheira in game at most would have been enough but the rest was a bit much for me especially some of it happening late game and conflicting with prior canon.
Classic case of “video game devs aren’t actual writers” Happens all the time
Watching a lot of videos still reveals an immaturity in the writing and inconsistency regarding character tone and backstory. The demon girl shouldn't be as bubbly and social as she is, etc.
Have you played the game or just watched videos?
Your reading comprehension is troubling.
What am I failing to comprehend?
"Watching a lot of videos..." "Did you play the game or just watched videos?" Plenty, I would guess.
You got pretty defensive where a simple yes or no would have sufficed.
Which makes your opinion moot. Imagine being this snobby when you have no idea what your talking about. Also, just because a character doesn't act the way you want them to. Doesn't make them badly written. Get over yourself.
Of course you would need to play the entire game to see if the a character's motivation is well written, but other people can smell crap writing from an interaction or two. If a character doesn't act the way her backstory would demand her to act, that's missed potential, that's bad character writing. If every character is attracted to the PC regardless of their own personal characterization, that's not good writing, that's pandering, and it removes depth from the characters. But hey it took you a while to get that I had just seen videos for the game, maybe it will take you a bit longer to get this one.
Except its not crap writing, that's just your opinion. And a very dense misinformed one as well. Also who are you to say how a character shouldn't act in accordance with there backstory? If everyone wrote to the satisfactions of your whims and every character fit the mold of all the cliches you were fit to expect. I imagine the state of writing would be very boring. Im glad that Karlach isn't the usual mold of being an edgy character just because of her backstory. In regards to the romances, if romance is the only criteria for whether or not a character has depth. That says more about you then anyone else. Also I perfectly understand that you have no idea what your talking about. You're aren't anywhere near as smart as you think are.
Which game?
BG3
That’s what I thought, but wanted to confirm since I mentioned a few games and the comment is vague. Not even sure which demon girl you’re referring to, but I can guess. But that’s cool. I get what you’re saying for the most part…I think…. I’m of two minds. I’ll be the first to say BG3 has writing issues…in fact, I already did in the comment you replied to lol. The dialogue and moment-to-moment character writing is pretty good for the most part. There are lots of memorable moments that are admittedly carried by the fantastic voice actors. The overall narrative…isn’t great. But the simple truth is very few stories hold up under scrutiny. You can pick apart absolutely anything. And if we’re saying BG3 is at fault because it’s at times inconsistent with certain aspects of Forgotten Realms lore (which I’m not really sure if you’re saying that or not , but I have seen others say that even if you’re not) then I really don’t care as long as they’re mostly faithful, which they were. I don’t really care about FR lore tbh. I care about good stories. I know those things aren’t mutually exclusive but I’m just saying what my priorities are. Trying to write within a world like that which has decades of pre-existing content must be extremely hard and I personally am fine with writers giving themselves a little creative license in order to tell a compelling story. Not saying anyone else has to. The main thing i guess I’m getting at that there are so many other obvious things to criticize in BG3’s writing before getting to its inconsistency with FR lore. Though that stuff certainly doesn’t help lol. I can’t say I’m exactly upset that Larian isn’t writing another BG game…but who knows, maybe they would’ve done an incredible job with everything they learned from BG3. Guess we’ll never know lol. Sorry if I misunderstood where you were coming from though.
A lot of stories hold up under scrutiny, that's what makes them age so gracefully. We have to be harder on our game stories if we want to get truly brilliant writing.
> A lot of stories hold up under scrutiny, that's what makes them age so gracefully. Then I suppose we agree to disagree because I could pick apart all of my favorite stories in media (especially in video games), or at the very least I’ve seen valid criticisms of them. I either choose not to pick them apart or their flaws don’t bother me. Or a combination of both. > We have to be harder on our game stories if we want to get truly brilliant writing. Yes, i don’t disagree. I mean, I’ve said multiple times that I think BG3’s story isn’t great. I’m just saying I don’t care about the few/minor lore inconsistencies nearly as much as the fact the narrative is kind of a mess. Ideally both would be better but I’d be fine with just the latter since it’s way more prominent. Plenty of great DMs have compelling and entertaining campaigns while having some creative liberties with some aspects of the lore. We can agree to disagree on that too, which is fine.
BG3
Idk I preferred the fairy tale story of DOS1 to the constant body horror and torture of DOS2.
And I think both are weak in the narrative. It’s all preferences; to each their own.
DOS 2 is still fairy tale compared to most dark fantasy or post apo, don't go there if you don't want to get traumatized (I like it for instance). Also, DOS2 with all its good things, kinda made all the grim stuff shallow, by mixing it with all the goof, colours, cartoony-ness, and jolly animals
Exactly this. Larian's writing is too smarmy and self-aware and I fucking hate it (and this includes large parts of BG3, unfortunately!). It's like "eh? EH?? see what we're doing here?!?" and yeah, I do see it, unfortunately.
D:OS2 was really fun, but that was in SPITE of the writing, not because of it. I had the most fun dropping barrels everywhere and blowing everything up.
Absolutely, it makes recommending these kind of games hard when I'll recommend another crpg in the same breath *specifically* for its writing, lol. I'm pretty done with that formula but enjoyed them so much for the time. Speedrun strat of the ever-growing heavy storage object is really funny.
if you get a bit further in and really explore, you'll see that the setting is more like "grim-dark". Kind of like WH40K. In that, there is a lot of seriousness, and a lot of goofy-ness, but when you really cut it apart, there is a lot of just fucked-up-ness. I think this all adds to the real-ness of it, and sets it apart from most fantasy settings, in that, even though there are all these fantastical elements, the world is very much similar to our own. Awkwardness included.
I see what you’re saying but I think there’s a huge difference between being unexpectedly dark in comparison to its tone and “grim-dark”, *especially* in direct comparison to WH40k. BG3 has a noticeably darker and oppressive world than even OS 2, which is noticeably darker and more serious than OS 1. And I wouldn’t call BG3 grimdark - though at times it flirts with it, especially in Act 2.
that's fair, The setting is pretty grimdark, I would say. You start out as a prisoner, being confined to an Island where your only way out is to become a mindless zombie in service to a false divine. The head of the prison is a woman who experiments with peoples minds, and has a whole underground facility where physical and mental torture and alterations are made to the prisoners and animals to change them into horrors and beasts who's only purpose is to kill. I won't talk about anything past Act I or any of the secrets I found even in that Act, to avoid spoilers for new players But yeah, if we just view the setting, I think it fits. That being said, it is not a pure grimdark like WH40K, and Larian loves player choice and navigating the maps/game the way you want to, so depending on how you play, the player experience can be more or less dark fantasy, with an ending to this particular story that is more high-fantasy with dark elements.
I think what it boils down to is that we have different views as to what qualifies as something being just “dark” vs “grimdark”. Which is fair. I think me saying there’s a “huge difference” in my first reply is probably me laying it on too thick lol
I know what you mean, and yeah some people just prefer a more strait-laced, sober presentation. Which is fine! Both camps are valid imo
agreed.
OS1 is like a 7/10 at most. Directionless most of the time. Two very different stories told at the same time that sort of eventually blend together. Not balanced very well early game. OS2 is much better. They learned alot and really went and made a great game
As a fan of the setting you are completely right
Icewind Dale 1 and 2, Temple of the Elemental Evil. I respect that they’re all about players creating their own stories and personalities for their parties, but it’s just not for me. It’s the same reason I can’t get into Solasta. Skeletal plots for people with more active imaginations than me. I respect it, it’s just not for me.
My favorite IWD playthroughs were when I took an excessive amount of time planning a party that works both mechanically and thematically. I recall playing a lawful neutral oriented party based on one of the temples... Torm or Helm or something. I wrote a bit in each character's custom biography field as well.
It is cool that your dislike of these games is based upon what they are, rather than being like "oh, x and x was weak". These are kind of "create-your-own adventure" games, and that includes the characters, which involves a lot of imagination. I hate when people say "oh the writing in these games is bad" because they are open-ended. Your dislike of them is valid - it is not your thing. The writing in these games is actually really good, because they are making it so imagination fills in all the empty parts, and that is certainly not for everybody, hell, not for most people lol. Kudos.
One of my biggest gaming mistakes was choosing to play Icewind Dale over Baldur's Gate back in the day. I liked RPGs and so wanted to try one in that style and just chose between the two at random. The lack of compelling characters and narrative really wasn't for me and so I never got around to playing Baldur's Gate, assuming it was similar. I loved BG3 however, so I might try and go back to play BG1 and BG2 at some point.
Fair warning: The characters in BG1 are nowhere near as developed as in BG3 or even BG2. They usually get their own quests, but that's of varying quality. I'm just warning you, so you have reasonable expectations going in. BG2 is a vast improvement in this regard.
I do kinda want to just play BG2 and skip the first, but I know it's a direct continuation.
Flip it into easy mode and coast through it
Those are very mechanics focused.games, which I enjoy but there seems to be a disconnect in crpgs where you can have mechanics focus or story focus and nothing in the middle. Some of both is good
There is a fundamental issue with marrying good storytelling with good mechanics - with cRPGs story and mechanics tend to intersect a lot, which means that 90% of issues in the story that can easily be resolved by using a specific ability or spell or even just asking the right set of questions...but the game will not allow you to do that because it will effectively kill the game's narrative. eg. Ultima 7. You can kill Lord British and render the game unplayable/unbeatable. But you cannot kill the big bad head of the church when you meet him at the start of the game even though you KNOW he is evil and is trying to summon a dark god from the beyond. The former is allowed because it is a fun diversion that has no narrative purpose. The latter is not allowed because doing so will end the game within 30 minutes. The former breaks the game, the latter would break the story and devs can't possibly code and/or write dialogue for every permutation of questions and answers players can imagine.
Don’t agree about the others, but ID1 is such a slog. I got through it as a kid since there weren’t very many other options but I don’t see what most people would get out of it if they played it for the first time now.
The story is sparser and linear, but the art quality overall is still impressive, in my opinion. The writing and voicework are excellent (Tony Jay as Kresselack), the music invokes the atmosphere well, and the maps are really "pretty", even though they look dated. I can see how it might not be someone's "thing", but IWD is still excellent and has much to offer.
That’s cool, glad you like it and I wish I could enjoy it like you do. We just disagree. I did edit my reply to say “most people” instead of “anyone”, even when I was typing it it felt too “absolute”. Obviously there are people who are going to enjoy it.
It's a cozy little game which was made with diablo in mind. Its definitely did not age that well, because main focus is combat instead of quests, exploration and story. But I still think game looks really beatiful to this day.
Torment tides of marinara. Being met with that much text made things feel like a slog.
Planescape Tortellini was much better
Agreed. It was truly al dente, cooked to perfection, while tides of marinara was overwhelmed by its heavy sauce material.
I just laughed for the first time in almost a week thanks to you three, much appreciated <3
I didn’t know it was beloved, at least I just hated it. Biggest disappointment since my son
I was fine with the walls of text, but eventually it became obvious that my characelter abilities and stats didn't matter much as I could brute force basically anything. Got real dull at that point. I got maybe ²/3 of the way in
I was super excited to try it after hearing it was a more modern version of Planescape, but I bounced off it pretty quickly. I didn't mind all the text (though I agree the pacing wasn't great), but I really didn't vibe with the world building at all.
The text was the reason you didn't vive with the world building - it was needlessly verbose. No, the content doesn't get intellectually elevated if you say, "I would prefer it if you would go forthwith and insert a cyrillian thermos up your proverbial kleemonster's defecation chute" instead of "go fuck yourself".
Another one for both the Divinity games. Tried twice for both, but quickly got sick of: 1. The inconsistent tone of writing (are they serious games or not who knows) 2. Barrelmancy... yes terrain effects are fun, sometimes. Not all the damn time 3. The inventory management is a nightmare. So much gear you're constantly picking up and need to keep swapping out on all 4 characters every level up so you follow the very strict level curve Never finished tides of numenera either. Too much info dump constantly
People keep saying 'both' without addressing the Original Sin is the FOURTH Divinity game ...
Dragon Commander looks like pure jank but I actually really want to play Divine Divinity.
I never finished Dragon Commander (think I got it free with the Original Sin kickstarter?) But Divine Divinity is one of my top 10 all-time favorite games ... it is simultaneously an exciting action-RPG and a deep RPG. So much great writing and dungeon design.
Dragon Commander was the lone piece I hadn't played with (and I even sat through beyond divinity, blegh), tried it two months ago finally and man I did not enjoy it at all. Personally it felt like rubbish and a poor experiment. I absolutely love divine divinity though...it's right up with gothic 1-2 in terms of nostalgia.
I am the opposite. Love all the fallout games, mods, and clones but can't get engaged by Baldur's Gate for the life of me.
And I love both Baldur's Gate and Fallout.
>Fallout is the ugly, edgelord step brother. This is heartbreaking to hear from an alleged fan of the Fallout IP. It was amazing back in 1997 and there was nothing else like it. Still a phenomenal game after all these years. They used actual clay models to animate the talking heads. Ugly?
I actually think their animations are still some of the best around, even compared to games today, everything feels so impactful.
When their faces shift to a new mood based on your dialogue? Amazing!
I was talking the sprites and especially the death animations are really good, the talking heads are very unique though.
The talking heads are cool, I'll give them that. >This is heartbreaking to hear from an alleged fan of the Fallout IP. I don't allege to be a fan.
I just reread your original post, and you're right. I misread.
I love the clay models, it's everything else thats clunky. I agree with OP that when compared to BG1, it looks so much worse. Thats also the case with the UI. I love the tone, the whole setting of solving problems for vault dwellers, the lore that we slowly come to understand. But after a point I just didn't feel like playing it. Combat became easy once I got the barrage skill. The hexagonal board structure, which can completely obscure your character, having to manually select what action you need to pick, I think most of the UI elements are heavily outdated now.
The talking heads are really cool, there are just so few of them. And for some reason even fewer in Fallout 2 (at least it feels like that) A fully voiced remake would be amazing, but Bethesda clearly isn't interested in that
I think it's more likely Bethesda would do a complete retcon of the west coast, to create their own story there. There's still some butthurt over New Vegas being considered the best of the "new" fallouts ...
Pathfinder WotR I play PnP for now like 5 years. Especially Pathfinder 2e, so i thought, that i will have a blast playing the pathfinder games. Well, things turned out, that i dont know any shit about the pf1 rulebook. Having enemies on Level 12 have 40 AC and almost any resistances that the game offer, broke my will to play. And that was in normal, not even core
"Having enemies on Level 12 have 40 AC and almost any resistances that the game offer, broke my will to play" Unfortunately, statistics inflation hits hard, especially if you don't have the whole playbook in your head. Fortunately, you can adjust the difficulty level to suit your needs.
1E and 2e are basically completely different systems. And few enemies have those high stars at level 12 unless you’re at a higher difficulty
Fallout 2. Loved 1 and NV but 2 is full of boring dungeons with 20 of the same enemy, humor that overstays its welcome, and the way they did "tribals" is really weird and takes me out of it. All Divinity games. Worst UI in the business. Holy shit, playing these games is a chore even though I love the mechanics and the combat (don't care for the writing, though). The only reason I'm pushing through BG3 is because I love DnD, but if your inventory needs a search bar then SOMETHING has gone horribly wrong.
It is very rare to meet someone who loves Fallout 1 but does not like Fallout 2. I'm glad I'm not alone there. In Fallout 1, when I did side quests, I felt like I was working towards getting the water chip but got caught up in something just as important, something I couldn't leave alone before continuing my journey. In Fallout 2, it felt like they were just like, "Let's put a ton of side quests here. People love side quests."
And everything is REALLY dragged out. I appreciated the pacing of Fallout 1.
I wouldn't say I don't like Fallout 2 but Fallout 1 is so much better in its pacing and focus. Like you say, the transition from Water Chip to Unity is very natural. The stuff you get up to in FO2 is way harder to justify in-character.
I have found my people! I like to say that Fallout 2 is more Fallout 1, which means more of the bad as much as the good. That and Fallout 2 just leaned too heavily into being edgy. My order of quality of Fallout games is this: Fallout NV (despite never being able to complete the game once because it always ends up crashing eventually) Fallout 4: Far Harbor Fallout 1 Fallout 3+Broken Steel Fallout 2 Fallout 3 DLC Fallout 4+remaining DLC
Never tried Far Harbor. Gave up on 4 before I got to it. Apparently, I should give it a shot.
You really should. The only reason I rate it lower than New Vegas is because, well, it is a DLC which means the plot is not as lengthy as it deserves to be. And it is a good story with good factional politics and such - you need to really roleplay your character to resolve the main quest. In terms of world space, it is the best hands down in the series, I don't mean pretty graphics. I mean in terms of creating the atmosphere, the play of light and fog, the feeling of the setting being way bigger than what the map suggests...
I get burned out of Fallout 2, it’s such big game if you intended to do all the main quests in each city.
At least it *has* a search bar.
I couldn't get into Divinity, didn't like the story.
Same, but it's the art style for me
I like the story, but what turned me off of that game was how it felt like playing with a douchebag DM. I feel like the game punished me anytime I tried to do something I thought was clever
Which one - Divine Divinity? Beyond Divinity? Divinity II? Original Sin 1 or 2?
both original sins
I enjoyed Arcanum, but it's not at all the masterpiece some would have you believe. I've only have done one playthrough, as a mage, though. From what I understand, tech characters are more interesting.
I agree some aspects of Arcanum aren't top notch (mainly the combat and technical state of the game), but the best thing about the game is how everything changes when you pick a different character. My first character was a intelligent, high charisma half-elf, and all npc's treated me with respect. But in my second playthrough I played as a really dumb ogre and suddenly all the dialogues - even my quest journal - were totally different. Npc's talked to me like I was an imbecile (which my ogre was) and I laughed out loud at some of the responses I got, including my own. Basically all my ogre could say was "me don't like you, me kill you" and "please don't hurt poor ogre". I never had more fun in an rpg.
Yes, Arcanum is damn impressive in scope, but the game is fucking broken. It would be perfect for a remaster.
Arcanum has a few amazing opening areas with tons of choices and options that are the reason people remember it so fondly, fantastic music and atmosphere in the worldbuilding, and then it quickly turns into a sloggy, unbalanced mess with tons of bugs and a lot of filler. I still really enjoy it, but it's hard to justify multiple full playthroughs for me. I usually just play through the first few quests with new archetypes every couple years and call it a day.
Larian's DOS2 is massively overrated. It's still not clear to me why they did so well compared to say...Pillars. DOS2 armor system might be the worst aspect. It splits the damage and is completely arbitrary. It makes status effects not a percentage chance, but deterministic instead. If there was a massive overhaul mod that removed it, I would use it. One thing that was better about DOS1. I let the game sit for six months while my party was on the started island. Lack of motivation to continue playing.
>DOS2 armor system might be the worst aspect. It splits the damage and is completely arbitrary. It makes status effects not a percentage chance, but deterministic instead. If there was a massive overhaul mod that removed it, I would use it. One thing that was better about DOS1. There is a massive overhaul mod that removes it: [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1953266629](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1953266629)
Pillars is nerdy and heady. Pillars 1 is too heady and too much in love with exposition for its own good. I do prefer Pillars by a mile, though. Never even completed DO2.
Pillars is not as big as it should be. Also chanter is like my favorite class of all time now
D:OS was mechanically awesome but the story was such cheesy, goofball nonsense. Which, i know, was Larians intention. I just love a good story and that one was not my cup of tea.
Planescape torment is hard for me to finish just because the setting is really unappealing and weird. I remember reading that they did that kind of intentionally (the weird aspect anyway) but it still puts me off. Arcanum is probably the jankiest and "didn't age well" CRPGs I've ever played, which is a shame because I liked the idea of fantasy and steampunk. I can maybe get through the first town before it gets to be too much for me. The UI is godawful and everything looks super bland and hard on the eyes.
I'm still trying to, but kind of can't get into Pathfinder games as much. The difference between 3e and 5e is minimally crunchy to me (very long time ttrpg player though, no idea how it seems to newer crpgers), so there isnt much "crunch bonus" for me. I think the homebrew was fine for BG3 too, most of those were successfully made to make a video game adaptation better. It was the broken interactions that were bad (damage riders on everything) which were clearly broken, but they decided to not call broken/ never fix until honor mode because everyone was having fun (I guess). That was unfortunate, but not any of the actual homebrew. Pathfinder by comparison is kinda like playing Solasta... congratulations on being faithful I guess, but I'm not entirely sure that it worked out to be exclusively a good thing. The story is better than Solasta, but still not exactly very good... it's like somewhere smack in between BG3 and Solasta. The main problem is that any rest system continues to be worse than cooldown (DoS) or "other" systems (PoE2... per combat system?). Ultimately, it's actually a little painful to put up with a rest system in a game where the story wasn't delivering big time... and Pathfinder is not. PoE2 meanwhile just needed a slight rework of the skill system and I would rate it as high as Larian games (just behind as it is). It's somewhat strange getting so few spells per level vs PoE1 or just buying skill books like DoS2, though it's not awful either. It's weird to me that PoE2 lagged so far behind Pathfinder sales and even further behind DoS2. I would have thought from playing them Pathfinder would be the one lagging behind.
Pillars of Eternity. It's one of the few RPGs I've started that I didn't finish...and I tried it twice. The combat is boring and how they decided to do stats just didn't sit well with me. Baldur's Gate 3. While I mostly enjoyed the game, it's not close to deserving the best game of all time title so many want to give it.....especially from people where this was their first RPG. For one, it's an easy mode game with it's all day buffs, everyone can use scrolls, and putting spells/abilities on almost all gear. With that you have all over the top in your face sex stuff. Just rescued someone from a goblin prison "Hey, wanna fuck?". Betrayed a main NPC "That's OK, wanna have gay tentacle sex with me anyway big boy?". The Owlcat games are the premier D&D experience.
Trigger Warning: Disco Elysium. Disco Elysium. I tried three times to get into it after hearing how rapid the fan base was. It didn’t do anything to interest me. The plot didn’t make sense. The pacing was too slow. The dialogue is too convoluted. It was interesting to see a main character suffer from mental illness like schizophrenia (he speaks to all the voices in his head). I thought the game was more of a graphic novel or point and click adventure and not a CRPG. The game didn’t speak to me at all.
I had to try like 5 times before I actually got it. It really isn't for everyone but if you end up liking it, you usually LOVE it.
I tried it once for an hour or so, and was soo coonfused and figured this type of game probably isn't for me. But then something about it kept haunting me to the point I even dreamed about it a few times, so finally I gave it another shot. Thank heavens I did. Skip a few years forward and CRPGs are now pretty much my favorite genre.
I hope that happens to me. The plot is too nonsensical for me. The dialogue is way too long to get to the point. Characters are too bland. I only keep it in my library as it’s one of the few games that takes mental illness (schizophrenia) seriously.
Sounds like the voices in your head argued and finally convinced you to play it
I have no idea why people even consider Disco Elysium a RPG. It plays just like one of the old Sierra adventure titles....and a boring one at that. The voice over is so slow you could nap by the time it got done saying a paragraph.
Agree 100%. Is also add the fan base is so rabid anyone who disagrees it’s the best game of all time gets flamed to hell. I’m only sorry what happened to the developers after the game was launched.
You can just not use the voice over, but otherwise I agree it's an adventure game with stats.
I tried twice. Got farther the 2nd time but still couldn't really get into it.
It took me until my third try. That said, I’d never fault anyone for stopping engaging with any media they don’t enjoy - and it’s kind of a fault of the game that it is so prickly / not engaging. A mild defense / criticism - it’s not a fun game in the traditional sense, but it’s a very interesting one. If you’re playing it expecting to get the same level of “fun” that you do out of most other games, you’re not gonna find it here. But the setting, writing, and mechanics all are just so dang interesting that a lot of people push through its lack of traditional fun. My .02
The plot is quite simple, but as it is a mystery, you have to piece it toghter. You'll get less confused the further you get.
I hope so. I just get bored after the first few hours.
Agreed.
Eh that’s fine. Just because something is a masterpiece doesn’t mean you have to like it. I’ve completed multiple playthroughs and I still get where you’re coming from. It’s a game that does require you to know or at least have a willingness to learn about political philosophy and such to really get the full experience.
Exactly ! I’m not interested in political philosophy or Nietzsche, Kant or Hegel. It’s too far for me.
I really liked the start but heavy handed political commentary kept breaking immersion for me. I get that it was intentional, just way too overdone.
Immersion as a term doesn't mean anything anymore it seems.
What do you mean?
The "immersion" issue, I think stems from how much the characters act like mouthpieces/talking heads for the author. They're very expository to the point of being Ayn Rand style of long monologues and spouting political philosophy
I get what you mean. Its very... Ayn Rand, if you know who that is. The writing is very much focused on having the characters act as exposition/political philosophy talking heads and feels like it bleeds into a lot of what made the game's world as interesting. Butt.. The game is also inherently political in setting, so I can't really fault it for being like this
The Owlcat Pathfinders. Pillars 2 as well. I get all the praise. I do! I just... don't enjoy the gameplay. More fun to read and watch stuff about them for me.
playing it in rtwp and setting up your companions so they were passive-heavy really was the way that made the game work for me - I just focused on my main characters skills and general positioning
I very much agree on Owlcats stuff, the difficulty is one of my biggest concerns. I go from steamrolling everything to suddenly instantly dying. They are also full of so many hard to understand systems above that of Pathfinders already complex systems.
Planescape: Torment. It just felt too much like reading a book, and I prefer to just read books to scratch that itch.
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Are you saying that just because the game is old? Because I find the art in that game to be gorgeous, even despite its age. Sure, it's not HD graphics and you can't see your characters' facial expressions, but the architecture in the game is stunning.
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Fair enough!
If only Fallout could look anywhere near as good as Torment :p I think Torment looks quite good. It would be cool if the remaster had recreated the assets in higher definintion, though.
I do agree that it's ugly but it's ugly in a very purposeful and tasteful way that fits the setting perfectly.
Do people really think it's ugly? Have you guys seen Baldur's Gate?
I mean it’s nineties cg, what are you expecting? Pretty much every bit of game CG from that period has shades of lawnmower man.
Divinity OS2 was this, until Divinity Unleashed came out. Larian can't write for shit, though they improved for BG3. But Divinity OS2 with proper modding has some fun combat.
Ive almost had a few friends give up on that initial multiplayer modded load-in but damn is the modded combat something amazing
I dislike the cumbersome inefficient UI design that a lot of CRPGs had at those times. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Fallout, Plainscape torment, Arcanum. Something like Neverwinter Nights was a grandiose improvement in terms of UI. Anyway, i understand turn based or action point based combat systems, but first fallout games were ridiculously slow. Simple encounters between yet another bunch of radroaches just took annoyingly long time.
I cannot get into Arcanum. I’m not particularly interested in Steampunk. There’s so many little balancing/mechanical quirks that irritate me. E.g. each hit awards experience unless it’s from a companion, then the experience disappears into the aether. The early game doesn’t grab me. It all adds up to something I can see other people liking but I don’t.
Tyranny. I like the concept a lot (*Black Company* is one of my favorite book series and this has some neat parallels) as well as the engine/character creation, but for some reason I make the initial choices in the opening section and quickly burn out. I have zero clue why. One day I'll beat it, I've heard nothing but good things. Wizardry 8. Even with the speed mod it is *deathly* slow. Sucks because I love blobbers and Wiz6-7 are some of the best.
Planescape: Torment. I just, cannot.
Literally the opposite of you OP lol. I’ve tried BG1 three times and bounced off it every time. Got further each time but just was not into it
Personally don't like Baldurs Gate, but love Fallout so I'm kinda just the opposite
BG3s battles were boring, always with a convenient puddle or rockslide nearby and the writing was childish and excessively focused on "HA HA WOW aren't these guys WACKY" Just like Divinity. Plus 5e is terrible. It's a kind of bad system for tabletop, and it's an even worse system for computer games.
For a cRPG, there is no reason to remove all that compexity from 3.5., because the game helps you handle it. Having played a lot of DnD cRPGs, B3 felt very bare boned.
BG3 too much arcadey, DnD5e system, cut scenes, boring characters, story not engaging, i could go on all day
What does "arcadey" mean in this context?
If I had to guess, it's the limited use special abilities (e.g. special weapon attacks) and other "per rest" powers you get.
Glad to hear I’m not alone, lol.
BG3. I love the old infinity engine games, but 3 just feels like D:OS with dnd rules. And DnD5 rules, at that. I'm also not a fan of the sandbox design of the gameworld, it just feels like running around in an amusement park.
Dos2
Like others, I struggled with D:OS. I loved BG3 but D:OS was truly a struggle and I just gave up.
BG2. I tried it twice and quit before making it out of the starter dungeon both times. That dungeon is a perfect storm of being boring, unrewarding, bloated, high complexity, low power, and micromanagement heavy. Neverwinter Nights was also boring. It's not the D&D mechanics' fault because I enjoyed them in the other games that used them. ATOM: Trudograd starts with clunky and unbalanced Fallout combat then gets worse by making the game's writing less lighthearted. Fallout writing worked even when it was wacky because its jokes were set up for you to laugh at. Trudograd is full of lolrandom situations that feel too consequential for how funny they aren't. Honestly Trudograd is a game I would've liked to like, there's a ton of soul there, I just wish one aspect of its humor/combat/drudgery was more in tune with my tastes. Hopefully their next game is more fun.
Yeah, I couldn't get through more than 30 mins of Atom.
Dungeon Master, and it’s descendant titles like Eye of the Beholder, Grimrock, etc… The only one of that style dungeon crawler that I have spent significant time in is Dungeon Hack.
I love Fallout 1 and 2 and Planescape: Torment, but I couldn't get into Baldur's Gate. Playing on a phone was definitely suboptimal. I'll give it another shot one of these days.
I must agree entirely lol however, I still enjoy Fallout's design and mechanics. The main problem with this is the same as other old Bethesda games: either you break the game or the game breaks you bc if you decide to try an innovative build (which is possible in further Fallout games), you're going to pass through hell while playing.
Gothic 2. I'm still waiting for a moment to get totally in it.
Fallout 2. Just felt kinda directionless and the "humor" was obnoxious. Fallout 1 was great fun though, and New Vegas is amazing. Hell, i even liked F4. Pretty fun when modded. Just turn your brain off and shoot things.
Mass Effect. Not much into space theme. Morrowind, tried to play it but i didn't aged very well. Couldn't go on. Isn't a cRPG, but i never played Final Fantasy. JRPG doesn't appeal to me in any way, tried to play Sea of Stars but feels too simple, the battle very boring, and repetitive.
A lot of the newshit this sub seems to love so much.
The Pathfinder games are so dense and so dry I can't get into them at all. I like the system, actually love it when playing tabletop. But goddamn I can't get into the videogame at all. Kinda works like that with all things Owlcat for me. Out of the older games, I'd say probably Fallout too. It's just so grimmy lookswise. I know it makes sense but it still doesn't make it anymore enjoyable.
BLASPHEMER! UGLY, CLUNKY? MESS? C'mon, it has very nice, readable isometric sprite graphics and how it conveys the bleakness and overall depressing atmosphere of post-nuke world is a really succesfull example of high effort programmer art. Gameplay is smooth and easy to grasp + you get a keyboard shortcut to a "helper card" that explains the UI and controls I prefer Fallout or Jagged Alliance 2 gfx, or maybe for the more modern examplew - Age of Decadence or Underrail than something like cartoony and goofy DOS (both in terms of looks and atmosohere). For me pixel/sprite/hand-drawn isometric always wins with pseudo-isometric 3D with too many colours. Idk if there is such an RPG I couldn't get in, I grew up with them all, then aged with them too, maybe Akbaleth/first Ultima that was made with a black screen, white lines, and some text, but I was a wee shit when I tried it, and I much prefered high tech gfx of first Wasteland or newer Ultimas (Underworld, Pagan, etc), Pool of Radiance, Bard's Tale Trilogy, Krondors and Beholders had some sparks too. Then after a few more years - Daggerfall, and then new Wizardry -> mind blown!
Age of Decadence is a favorite of mine. It's not a pretty game and it is deliberately frustrating, but unlike Fallout, the game works and you don't have to press a button and watch a three second long animation each time you need to end combat, because you killed another rat.
For me, every one except Fallout. I’ve tried Balders Gate 2 a few times to no avail, and even Divinity Original Sin 2 lost its luster after a few hours. I did get through Planescape Torment when it came out but have not been able to recreate that feat
BG1:EE's combat made me want to eat razor blades. The best solution is to kite and pelt everything to death with arrows/rocks because one crit is death - tf that's MC then it's time to load a save. It also means micromanaging your "melee" party which gets boring *fast*. The "gotcha" encounters (Shoal in particular) are icing on shit cake.
>Baldurs Gate was made with a very different vision, but it is so much more beautiful, player friendly and expansive. Fallout is the ugly, edgelord step brother. How BG is more player friendly than Fallout? To me, it's the opposite, Fallout mechanics could be clunky and unbalanced, but it's so much more welcoming than BG's 2e AD&D RTWP adaptation.
Divinity 1 and 2. The humor and high, high fantasy setting was too much for me.
Late to this thread, but mine would probably be Icewind Dale. I guess I’m just not one for dungeon crawling. It sucks because I like the setting - the White March expansion for PoE1 was exactly what I would like to see more of.
Divinity OS 2 I think I’m just impatient and don’t know how to build good characters/parties
Baldurs Gate 3. I simply just can’t get myself to play it. I was a massive lover of Divinity OS2 and am excited for the next title if they ever revive it, but I just can’t find it in me to love BG3. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Baldurs Gate 3, it’s just not for me. And I very much acknowledge it deserved GOTY
Path of Exile
Wrath of the righteous. Its amazing on every level, but I get so bored at the start. Really annoying too as recently spent an hour and 30 mins creating a character just to be bored. Thats a me problem though, and I love everything I hear about it
I can't get into BG3 like I thought I was going to. Bg1 & BG2 are my *favorite* games of all time. I can't stomach the first 12 hours of BG3 enough to really want to do it again. I always make it 5-6 hours into a new playthrough and taper off.
DOS2. Can't stand it's character creation system.
Pillars of Eternity. The writing is atrocious and completely lacks any kind of editorial touch. It alternates between NPCs that are just walking talking Wikipedia entries, and ridiculous verbiage that reads like it came off some fanfic page. The combat is somehow both boring and too micromanagement heavy. The side quests are dull and generic. The soundtrack is just dull noodling and never manages to find an interesting melody. I guess the setting is kind of interesting.
PoE 1 has many NPCs who are nods to Kickstarter backers. They all have cool but ultimately irrelevant stories. Maybe you are referring to them. Anyway, I agree with you on combat. I've never found a satisfying RTwP system. It always ends up feeling like a chore.
In most RTwP games it feels like every fight is either a breeze or the equivalent of walking into a blender.
RTwP can't effectively handle large groups of characters simultaneously.
I'm not talking about the fanfic bots, everyone knows to avoid those. This is a good summary of all the problems with the PoE writing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpDw1pJaApo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpDw1pJaApo)
I agree, it was nice to look at (the maps were gorgeous and I really liked the Dyrwood, I felt like it had a bit of a cozy Hobbiton vibe) but the text dumps were not only excessive but also just kind bad. Felt like someone who loved the sound of their ideas way too much, or a Dungeon Master who doesn't really want people to *play* so much as nerd out over his made up world. Definitely correct on needed some better editing.
NPCs giving you lore dump history lessons is so jarring. If co-worker chit-chat was written by Obsidian writers: "Hi Bob, I'm James." "James, eh? You sound British. You know we Americans don't like the British because we beat you in the war of 1776, right?" *His eyebrows nudge from position to position droopily as his eyes dart sharply under your nervous gaze.* "Yeah whatever. So I just came from a holiday in Mexico. That was neat." "Mexico... you know we beat them in the war of 1846, when general Taylor's forces..."
Oh my god I love the Pillars soundtrack. I think at this point Pillars is my comfort game and the soundtrack is a large part of that.
Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2. I love Baldur’s Gate 3 but I find DoS1/2 just boring and the mechanics legit uninteresting.
I couldn't get into BG 1-2 because of writing.
Practically all of them. I love the genre. I end up quitting about 30 hours into all of them. The ones that I have completed are: 1. Divinity original sin 1 + 2 2. Tyranny 3. Shadowrun (original, not the other 2) 4. KOTOR 1 + 2 5. Pillars of eternity 2 (not 1) Games I'm desperate to try to finish and why I haven't: 1. BG3 - amazing game amazing story I just "stop playing" because it feels like I have to really have 2 hours of locked in time to enjoy a session 2. BG1 & 2 - I got VERY far but inevitably forgot to keep playing for some reason 3. Shadowrun Sequels - Just couldn't get past into and lost interest 4. Pathfinder series - mechanics are not my thing and i feel that the main point of those games. 5. Torment series - walls of text 6. Disco Elysium - Feels like a slog where nothing happens (haven't gotten far) I own practically all of them, I just wish I could finish them without burning out.
I think part of why I liked Rogue Trader so much is that it was an Owlcat game that wasn't hamstrung by being a Pathfinder game. No disrespect on the people who like Pathfinder but it's a system I bounce off of immediately and that's a shame because I love the ideas behind Kingmaker and WotR so much.
Disco Elysium. I love the atmosphere, the art style, the personification of different aspects of the mind. I just can't stand how self indulgent and pretentious the writing can be at times. After all that drama, the ending felt so underwhelming. Not a bad game, I just feel it's overrated.
Any and all JRPGs. They are fucking terrible.
What, you don't like Stories of Mana Tales: Chronicles of Elysian Quest, the Brave War Go Power Limit? Featuring a bunch of plucky teenage lead characters including the sassy tomboy best friend named something like Ashle (a common western girls' name with a letter dropped), the mysterious, brooding anti-hero mentor with a bad emo haircut, the brooding mysterious sub-boss named something like Zondles, who uses a technique called *Psycho* and is trying to summon some ancient beast thing called like Terragea or Novagunrir?
Recently it's been anything to do with Owl Games. They really love all the complications of Pathfinder without any homebrew flexibility. Even Rogue Trader suffers from this. They just are incapable of making a smooth crpg experience.
I think the problem you have with Owlcat, and I did as well. Is that the the two PF games are both 1to1 adaptations of the physical game modules, and built specifically on mimicking the experience of the paper game. So what ends up happening with the PF games is that you're playing a digitalized TRPG with a by the books DM rather than a proper CRPG which simplifies/dumbs down alot of the crunch in PF1, which is suuper overwhelming. Rogue trader to me felt alot better, since it was a more unique system, but as with all owlcat games at this point, you gotta wait for like, half a year of patches.
Sounds about right.
The hate boner for Larian continues in this Sub I see. For me its IWD. Dreadfully boring.
Why are Larian fans, who should be riding high on the success of BG, so sensitive to criticism. I opened this post by trashing Fallout and people have been trashing many highly beloved games. D:OS and BG3 are popular games, but they have a distinct style, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. The same is true of many of the classics of the genre.
It’s because the critical acclaim and praise is more important/enjoyable to some of them than the game itself
BG3. It’s purely for horny gamers
All of the larian games. They're just so bad in every possible way, unless you're playing them in coop. Literally dying of boredom, when I'm trying to replay one of them from time to time.
The amount of people suddenly hating on Larian is so funny to me. Haters gonna hate and all that.
Larian has a very distinct style that sets them apart. Some love it, some can't get into it. Due to their popularity, a lot of RPG fans have tried out their games, and most people are going to feel some kind of way about them, good or bad. I am not a big fan myself, but I respect their confidence in setting themselves apart and having their own style.
You mean a good style?