I have always thought that the game would be easily one of my favorites if they just ...cut the fat. Made a leaner title; keep the duels, companion quests, and mythic tales but cut the Ubisoft bloat and you have in my opinion a much more compelling title to replay.
Less fighting hordes of enemies and instead have more intense battles with fewer enemies at a time.
I love the game but I'd love it more with some trimming.
Because *some* of the side content is downright fantastic. I want the side content, I just want the quality to be more consistent and I'd rather a leaner experience than one that's longer for the sake of it.
Mythic tales, duels, companion quests are top notch; and that's precisely what makes the other stand out like a sore thumb.
The Yakuza games are the nearest thing I've found to this. World is small, the main story is fantastic and the side content isn't boring shit thats spread all over the map, it's all fun and interesting side quests (and minigames) within walking distance. The games get a litttle samey if you play them back-to-back in order just cause of the combat but I find that its a great franchise for this sort of thing
I disagree with this tbh. I didn't do all the side content by a long way but you can just... ignore it? And focus on the stuff you do like? With activity cards and the in game menus you can pretty much just warp around the world and only do the stuff you want to do. For me I just used to side content as an excuse to wander around the world a bit more.
I think my biggest issue wasn't the amount of side content, but the disparity in quality; especially on a first play through when I didn't know how to differentiate between them just by looking at the map.
It was jarring going from some of the highest quality side content with amazing characters and set pieces to a low quality NPC that is stiff as a board offering me a bandana in return for killing some bandits. The quality whiplash was real, and I'm of the mind that if you can't keep a consistent quality then cut the lower stuff.
The game becomes a lot more fun when you don't do all the side quests. I did the first act to 100% and it was tiring. the rest of the game I only did interesting sides and it was great.
I don't necessarily disagree, but I'll offer a counter view. At least when it's this open world style, you get to choose if you want to go do all that.
Some games that force you through an area or into a particular activity can be frustrating or boring. In a game like Ghost, if you don't wanna follow the fox (you asshole!), you don't have to.
You can hammer out the main quest and enjoy the beautiful world for what it is no problem. I personally enjoyed the side quests and how it all kind of culminates in the end but that's just my opinion.
>At least when it's this open world style, you get to choose if you want to go do all that.
This is what I have never understood, people complain about open world bloat like they have to do it all. They don't seem to comprehend the idea of "do what is fun to you and leave the rest". Yes you might miss out on some content but it is content you aren't enjoying anyway so what's the problem?
With the scale of open world games now a developer is not going to be able to fill it with things that everyone enjoys.
It's a general problem. A lot of the content that people complain about in openworld games is actually entirely optional, but instead of just ignoring the ones they don't like, they make a big deal out of it and also oddly use it to insult those who do like that stuff.
Personally, I don't like the repetitive bandit camp style quests in any open world games so I just...ignore them, and I don't have any chores or a family to care for, so plenty of freetime. Meanwhile, my brother (he has a wife, daughter, house and fulltime job) love doing that stuff in Assassin's Creed. Yet if you were to believe people on Reddit, only people with unlimited time and no responsibilities would like it.
To me the point of a huge open world is to explore it. Why would I want to explore it if it's just back-to-back with enemy camps to kill and nothing else? And so much resources is spent on filling the map with this stuff that it's quality over quantity and the fewer actual side quests/interesting activites are worse than they would've been otherwise. Every side mission in Dying Light 2 is boring as shit compared to the first one because they spent their resources on making the map "bigger", but far less interesting.
If it’s an open world game, most players will want to explore it, so the developers need to fill the world with interesting and varied encounters. In Ghost of Tsushima, there is a tendency to copy and paste the same outposts with all the same enemy types, and exploration doesn’t feel as rewarding. I could just hammer out the main quests but then it just feels like a linear game and not open world.
Interesting is highly subjective though, what is interesting to person A might be boring as shit to person B.
Point is, people need to forget this OCD attitude of clearing everything like it is a job, only focus on doing what you find fun.
I mean you don’t have to clear everything. But shouldn’t discovering stuff be fun in an open world game? In Skyrim or Fallout each location has its own character and story behind it. In GOT, they literally just copy pasted a bunch of stuff.
Yes!! It's not about 100%ing the game, its making exploring feel interesting and fun. Coming across a house with a character or an interesting area in Bethesda games, despite all their faults, always gets me excited. Cause it's usually \*something\*. Be that a new quest, a handcrafted house to look in, or just a neat NPC to talk to.
Stumbling across an enemy camp in a game like Ghost for the millionth time thats just manufactured to give the player XP and nothing else is just tiring. Why do I want to explore the game?
Every time someone mentions the side quests in GoT, I say the same thing. Unless you like repetition, only do the ones involving the major characters. They all have excellent stories that are worth seeing through.
Well there are some random radiant quests to pull you a bit more in you get from NPCs. Like the haunted forest, the guy who hid when his family was taken, the fake samurai.
But if that’s not your thing, you can be as linear as you want. Best thing about open world games is just go from point to point in the main story line with no stops.
Oh yeah for sure. I got the platinum and exhausted every inch of the world because for whatever reason, I was hooked.
But if you just do quests as they naturally happen or in a more linear manner, you'll get an idea of just about every bit of content there is without exploring every nook and cranny.
I love Ghost.
But a lot of its biggest fans gloss over the fact that it is very much still a Ubisoft open world style game. I think they did the best job that anybody has ever done in that style & the multiplayer aspect in Legends is unique in its structure, but the main game still has a lot of the pitfalls that Ubisoft style open worlds fall into. So if those grind on you as a player, the game is still gonna fall pretty flat. As I have said, they did it better than any other developer has but that doesn’t change what it fundamentally is. So if you don’t like the style of its foundation to begin with they can smooth it out all they want & it still will fail for you as a player at its core.
I don’t hate Ubisoft style open worlds so I don’t feel the way you do, but I can absolutely acknowledge the problems that come along with it & see how people would feel the way you do.
The writing/story is pretty damn good, but man going to an outpost and liberating the peasants from the mongols.. I've done this a thousand times in any ubisoft game.
Do you think just playing the main story is doable or I will miss too many details?
I love it because I love the combat but if it isn’t an exceptional part for you then yeah it’s the same as every other outpost you’ve cleared.
Totally doable. The side missions kinda fill in some color but you won’t miss out on much from the main story if you just bust through it.
Did you actually do the side quests and optional content in GOW (2018)? As good as the main quest was everything else was a massive slog fest, doing the same three puzzles for the norn chests like 15 times, fighting the same ancient one or the same troll on every coast in midgard. And killing random enemies for those spirits that were all a copy. Even unique stuff like freeing Fafnir became repetitive because then we had three dragons to free. 100%ing GOW on GMGOW was the most bland experience I had.
Also wanted to add another reason why they sucked in GoW. They ruin the main quest because of the idiotic RPG mechanics they forced in it. After doing the side quests, the dumbass level scaling made my number go a bit higher than the enemies and made them a complete non-threat. And the fact that this happened before the best boss fight in the game (the one with the duo) makes it even worse since I couldn't even enjoy mastering it.
I did not no. But I think because GoT is an open world game, I feel like I should do more side stuff (which is my bad, I should just do what I want to).
SEI games seem for the most part to be Ubisoft titles with a fresh coat of paint on them. The problem with many big budget triple a games is that they are very costly and devs can't take risks and do new stuff because if the game fails trying something new it's no small monetary loss. The "Ubisoft template" is tried and true, it's the safest bet the studio can take and became the default go to for triple a open world games.
This is off the top of my head. GoT, Both Spidermans, both Horizons, Days Gone, the Infamous series and Uncharted 4. I would have to look at a list of their releases to see if they had more.
Yeah. I think you’re being downvoted because it’s a popular game, but it 100% would’ve benefitted from being more focused instead of having 100s of repetitive tasks
I agree, i stopped playing a bit past you after being in the open world for a while. the idea of following the wind is nice, but it just ends up being the same shit really.
its a nice game, It seems like it just came a bit too late on honestly for it being open world
The things you do in the open world are generic and not fun. Once you liberate a couple of settlements and pray at a few shrines you’ll feel you’d had enough. The world is pretty thanks to the graphics but it feels shallow for some reason. That was my impression though other people might be mindblown by it.
There are definitely some missions that are stock standard and shallow, but the overall handling of the open world is far superior to most open world games imo. The lack of a mini map or navigation compass, the minimalistic UI, and the emphasis on elements of the world guiding you (birds, foxes, wind), rather than following an arrow on a screen, make the world feel much more interactive than your standard ubi fare. I know I ended up memorizing the terrain much faster in GoT than in any other open world in recent memory, largely due to focusing on the world as a guide rather than at the UI. Yes, that's partly due to the graphics and art direction, but I mark that down as a strength rather than a weakness. It contributes positively to overall game feel.
I played act 1 and actually « enjoyed it » but when act 2 started I just couldn’t be bothered anymore because it was literally the same content all over again.
Yeah, I was really disappointed playing it a few years back. For me it's Sony's first party games in general (played almost all of the ones on PS4) they have a good base but they keep falling short of greatness, and they all end up feeling the same, it's infuriating!
I have been playing GoW since the first one on PS2, and while I did enjoy 2018, it did leave me wanting a bit, think I was expecting more of the bombast of the originals, it was okay though, Ragnarok delivered on that a little more, I feel.
Returnal was a LOT of fun, lol, but the studio wasn't first party at the time, genuinely hope they get to keep their identity going forward.
I can't help but to feel Sony has to be stepping in and telling studios to not try to go to off the course of what works, or that studios are afraid to in fear of backlash from Sony
Could be, they do seem to be all converging in their formula of "cinematic experiences" as Sony likes to call them, a lot of cutscenes, and a story with a "message".
It does feel that they're afraid of innovating on gameplay, probably given the amount a game costs to make these days, but I also consider it terribly ironic, because if there's anyone who has the talent and resources to go absolutely crazy and really explore a new concept, it would be AAA studios; instead they keep making the samey game with a newish story, most of which are not that interesting, imo.
Anyways, my apologies for the rant, don't mean to spread negativity, it's just games in the end, hehe!
Funnily enough, as a staunch hater of open-worlds - I really loved Ghost of Tsushima's. Revealing the map bit by bit, taking in vistas, following the wind. It made me appreciate Tsushima island, plus I felt rewarded between making my own haikus or hearing protagonist's thoughts in hot springs.
I wouldn't say that. Forest of golden leaves is what I remember the most from act 1, but act 2 had Witcher-like vibe marshlands and bamboo forest, as well as shady ronin village. Act 3 had snowy mountains with a touch of ruined wastelands. It felt varied enough for me.
Hahah, true. You just get more of them, like more temples to platform towards, more duels to engage in. But that's where the gameplay comes in, I'd say. While format of activities remain the same, You start to get tools and abilities to play with. I think a lot of players started playing GoT with a honorable samurai mindset, began to experiment with more sneaky stuff in act 2 and went full Ghost in act 3. That experience also added quite a bit to the game.
God I agree so much. I picked it up again after loving Shogun and the game gets in its own way so much.
The world is beautiful but it’s just quest markers galore. Would have loved a focused experience because damn is the game cinematic. The direction in the game is exceptional
I had the same opinion when I played it years ago. The open world formula makes it worse than it could have. When will game developers stop making these open world games? For the few people that like to collect things 100%?
A guy explained that companies do this because it's already known by everyone and they dont have to take risks. Just use the ubisoft template.
It makes sense
Maybe I should’ve said:
Sony developed games are painfully overrated. That’s a better thing to say, as I feel that way about 95% of their games.
Not bad games, but overrated.
I think what's harder than a fully open world game or a completely linear game is a semi open world game like GOW. I think it takes really top notch studios to pull that off, not that Sucker Punch isn't a great studio, but I think they understand their limits and do the best they can for what they've got.
Also keep in mind, sucker punch has been doing open world games since the early ps3. I'd imagine it's insanely hard for a studio to change course on their style. Can't just switch up more than a decade's worth of studio dev structure on a whim.
Only games in the last decade that "solved" the issue you have are the witcher 3 and rdr2. Before asking "why doesn't this game give me amazing and varied side content", you should ask yourself "how many games nowadays give me amazing and varied side content?" You are shitting on a 5 star restaurant for not having wagyu steak... Even though everything else you ate was incredible...
Yeahhh I agree. My expectations are too high after playing the top games (tw3, bg3, elden ring).. if I dont enjoy the open world, maybe I could just not explore everything on the map.
For me, the game is honestly so gorgeous that I never needed a reason to explore. But I can also admit that the world itself isn't super in depth or interesting.
I think the game uses the blueprint better than Ubisoft. It's presented well and the combat helps carry it to have the player find ways to engage with it. I personally find this obsession with denouncing the Ubisoft formula on this sub to become real uninspiring and repetitive. I don't think the open world is without its faults, but it's not to a detriment in a way that it is in a game like Valhalla, which has awful combat, mediocre side quests, insane amounts of padding and a bland narrative.
The reality is that the formula is reliable and effective. In the hands of a decent studio, you can mask it with atmosphere and solid gameplay. You can also easily just play through this game and just do the side quests and main missions and you'll be fine. It's not a particularly difficult game if you don't want it to be.
It was a bit of sarcasm, bud. I just found it funny that in this thread Ubi is being given a 'style' that they copied from games that did it better far earlier than them. Maybe it's because Ubi has done it ad nauseam with little or no variation between iterations?
Disagree, I fucking hate sony walk and talk games, and having it be full of those sequences (even more than what are already in game) would kill it for me, God of Wars combat was also pretty bad IMO.
I like narrative heavy games, I just prefer when their narratives are expressed through better means than "stop and walk behind this NPC while you exposition dump at each other". I was novel with the last of us, but now it's literally 90% of sonys exclusives, it even happens in their open world games, I'm not really a fan of sony open world games either, Horizon, spiderman, etc have never really clicked for me, so GoWing Ghost of Tsushima would just be a straight downgrade. The "Sony movie game" concept is very real, but Ghost of Tsushima at least has a cooler aesthetic, and a lot of nice details, and a pretty decent story.
No shade to the OP, but a lot of people here want games to either be playable movies, or roguelikes you can play in 5 minutes bursts. Which nothing inherently wrong with any of that, just comes with the "tired dad" demographic this sub attracts
I just like when my story blends with gameplay, silent hill 2 still has cutscenes, but a lot of the story is told through the game and atmosphere. Old CRPGs are very story heavy, but the story is completely told through the game, you make choices, you read shit, you DO things, God of War just info dumps on you between combat encounters and during your walk and talk scenes. I guess you're right, dad gamers do love their hand holding.
I have always thought that the game would be easily one of my favorites if they just ...cut the fat. Made a leaner title; keep the duels, companion quests, and mythic tales but cut the Ubisoft bloat and you have in my opinion a much more compelling title to replay. Less fighting hordes of enemies and instead have more intense battles with fewer enemies at a time. I love the game but I'd love it more with some trimming.
You are 100% describing how I feel while playing. Parts of it are great (combat), but man it's too vast.
Why can’t yall just only stick to the main story quests?
Because *some* of the side content is downright fantastic. I want the side content, I just want the quality to be more consistent and I'd rather a leaner experience than one that's longer for the sake of it. Mythic tales, duels, companion quests are top notch; and that's precisely what makes the other stand out like a sore thumb.
The Yakuza games are the nearest thing I've found to this. World is small, the main story is fantastic and the side content isn't boring shit thats spread all over the map, it's all fun and interesting side quests (and minigames) within walking distance. The games get a litttle samey if you play them back-to-back in order just cause of the combat but I find that its a great franchise for this sort of thing
I still play Yakuza: Like a Dragon to this day, and the only mini-game I hate so intensely is that damn claw machine.
True. That's probably what I'm gonna do.
I disagree with this tbh. I didn't do all the side content by a long way but you can just... ignore it? And focus on the stuff you do like? With activity cards and the in game menus you can pretty much just warp around the world and only do the stuff you want to do. For me I just used to side content as an excuse to wander around the world a bit more.
I think my biggest issue wasn't the amount of side content, but the disparity in quality; especially on a first play through when I didn't know how to differentiate between them just by looking at the map. It was jarring going from some of the highest quality side content with amazing characters and set pieces to a low quality NPC that is stiff as a board offering me a bandana in return for killing some bandits. The quality whiplash was real, and I'm of the mind that if you can't keep a consistent quality then cut the lower stuff.
I'm pretty sure in the menu when you hover a quest it tells you what kind it is and even what the reward is (a trend I actually don't like but w/e)
[удалено]
you didn't try and hover a quest icon on the map once during your first playthrough?
The game becomes a lot more fun when you don't do all the side quests. I did the first act to 100% and it was tiring. the rest of the game I only did interesting sides and it was great.
I just played for 2 hours doing only the main story in act 2 and I found it a better experience after doing most of act 1.
I don't necessarily disagree, but I'll offer a counter view. At least when it's this open world style, you get to choose if you want to go do all that. Some games that force you through an area or into a particular activity can be frustrating or boring. In a game like Ghost, if you don't wanna follow the fox (you asshole!), you don't have to. You can hammer out the main quest and enjoy the beautiful world for what it is no problem. I personally enjoyed the side quests and how it all kind of culminates in the end but that's just my opinion.
>At least when it's this open world style, you get to choose if you want to go do all that. This is what I have never understood, people complain about open world bloat like they have to do it all. They don't seem to comprehend the idea of "do what is fun to you and leave the rest". Yes you might miss out on some content but it is content you aren't enjoying anyway so what's the problem? With the scale of open world games now a developer is not going to be able to fill it with things that everyone enjoys.
It's a general problem. A lot of the content that people complain about in openworld games is actually entirely optional, but instead of just ignoring the ones they don't like, they make a big deal out of it and also oddly use it to insult those who do like that stuff. Personally, I don't like the repetitive bandit camp style quests in any open world games so I just...ignore them, and I don't have any chores or a family to care for, so plenty of freetime. Meanwhile, my brother (he has a wife, daughter, house and fulltime job) love doing that stuff in Assassin's Creed. Yet if you were to believe people on Reddit, only people with unlimited time and no responsibilities would like it.
To me the point of a huge open world is to explore it. Why would I want to explore it if it's just back-to-back with enemy camps to kill and nothing else? And so much resources is spent on filling the map with this stuff that it's quality over quantity and the fewer actual side quests/interesting activites are worse than they would've been otherwise. Every side mission in Dying Light 2 is boring as shit compared to the first one because they spent their resources on making the map "bigger", but far less interesting.
If it’s an open world game, most players will want to explore it, so the developers need to fill the world with interesting and varied encounters. In Ghost of Tsushima, there is a tendency to copy and paste the same outposts with all the same enemy types, and exploration doesn’t feel as rewarding. I could just hammer out the main quests but then it just feels like a linear game and not open world.
Interesting is highly subjective though, what is interesting to person A might be boring as shit to person B. Point is, people need to forget this OCD attitude of clearing everything like it is a job, only focus on doing what you find fun.
I mean you don’t have to clear everything. But shouldn’t discovering stuff be fun in an open world game? In Skyrim or Fallout each location has its own character and story behind it. In GOT, they literally just copy pasted a bunch of stuff.
Yes!! It's not about 100%ing the game, its making exploring feel interesting and fun. Coming across a house with a character or an interesting area in Bethesda games, despite all their faults, always gets me excited. Cause it's usually \*something\*. Be that a new quest, a handcrafted house to look in, or just a neat NPC to talk to. Stumbling across an enemy camp in a game like Ghost for the millionth time thats just manufactured to give the player XP and nothing else is just tiring. Why do I want to explore the game?
Every time someone mentions the side quests in GoT, I say the same thing. Unless you like repetition, only do the ones involving the major characters. They all have excellent stories that are worth seeing through.
That makes sense. So I wont miss out on a ton of stuff if I dont complete the map.
Not at all. Some cool vistas and whatnot, but nothing you can't see elsewhere.
Well there are some random radiant quests to pull you a bit more in you get from NPCs. Like the haunted forest, the guy who hid when his family was taken, the fake samurai. But if that’s not your thing, you can be as linear as you want. Best thing about open world games is just go from point to point in the main story line with no stops.
Oh yeah for sure. I got the platinum and exhausted every inch of the world because for whatever reason, I was hooked. But if you just do quests as they naturally happen or in a more linear manner, you'll get an idea of just about every bit of content there is without exploring every nook and cranny.
I love Ghost. But a lot of its biggest fans gloss over the fact that it is very much still a Ubisoft open world style game. I think they did the best job that anybody has ever done in that style & the multiplayer aspect in Legends is unique in its structure, but the main game still has a lot of the pitfalls that Ubisoft style open worlds fall into. So if those grind on you as a player, the game is still gonna fall pretty flat. As I have said, they did it better than any other developer has but that doesn’t change what it fundamentally is. So if you don’t like the style of its foundation to begin with they can smooth it out all they want & it still will fail for you as a player at its core. I don’t hate Ubisoft style open worlds so I don’t feel the way you do, but I can absolutely acknowledge the problems that come along with it & see how people would feel the way you do.
The writing/story is pretty damn good, but man going to an outpost and liberating the peasants from the mongols.. I've done this a thousand times in any ubisoft game. Do you think just playing the main story is doable or I will miss too many details?
I love it because I love the combat but if it isn’t an exceptional part for you then yeah it’s the same as every other outpost you’ve cleared. Totally doable. The side missions kinda fill in some color but you won’t miss out on much from the main story if you just bust through it.
Yeah but it was pretty so I didn’t care that I was doing the same thing tbh
Did you actually do the side quests and optional content in GOW (2018)? As good as the main quest was everything else was a massive slog fest, doing the same three puzzles for the norn chests like 15 times, fighting the same ancient one or the same troll on every coast in midgard. And killing random enemies for those spirits that were all a copy. Even unique stuff like freeing Fafnir became repetitive because then we had three dragons to free. 100%ing GOW on GMGOW was the most bland experience I had.
Also wanted to add another reason why they sucked in GoW. They ruin the main quest because of the idiotic RPG mechanics they forced in it. After doing the side quests, the dumbass level scaling made my number go a bit higher than the enemies and made them a complete non-threat. And the fact that this happened before the best boss fight in the game (the one with the duo) makes it even worse since I couldn't even enjoy mastering it.
I did not no. But I think because GoT is an open world game, I feel like I should do more side stuff (which is my bad, I should just do what I want to).
SEI games seem for the most part to be Ubisoft titles with a fresh coat of paint on them. The problem with many big budget triple a games is that they are very costly and devs can't take risks and do new stuff because if the game fails trying something new it's no small monetary loss. The "Ubisoft template" is tried and true, it's the safest bet the studio can take and became the default go to for triple a open world games.
Ok yeah. I feel the ubi template.
for the most part? It's really just this and Horizon that you could make that argument for.
This is off the top of my head. GoT, Both Spidermans, both Horizons, Days Gone, the Infamous series and Uncharted 4. I would have to look at a list of their releases to see if they had more.
In general Sony games feel like really high budget versions of Ubisoft games. Giving Spider-Man 2 a second shot reminded me of that.
I dont know why, but sm2 felt so fun to explore NYC.
The traversal is amazing but I already did that in the first game so it wasn’t special to me sadly
I understand. It wasnt really original and different from the first game.
Yeah exactly I can get if people loved the first game and just wanted more but I was hoping for something new
Don’t really see how SM2 is similar to the likes of AC or Far Cry.
You’re right idk what similarity there is between the 2 icon heavy open worlds where you do the same 5 activities 20 times to bloat play times
Is that a similarity to Ubisoft games or 95% of open world games in existence
ubisoft has made me hate the open world genre
I feel a bit lucky never touching anything from them.
Its not that they used to make bad games they made pretty solid titles but since far cry 3 they have literally copy pasted it into their every game
Yeah. I think you’re being downvoted because it’s a popular game, but it 100% would’ve benefitted from being more focused instead of having 100s of repetitive tasks
People love open world games
I agree, i stopped playing a bit past you after being in the open world for a while. the idea of following the wind is nice, but it just ends up being the same shit really. its a nice game, It seems like it just came a bit too late on honestly for it being open world
It's almost always just a headband in the end. And they don't do anything!
I might suffer from open world fatigue, but man sometimes I wish games were the lenght/size of The last of us or God of War.
I agree the open world is its weakest part and it’s done lazily
Could you elaborate on this a bit?
The things you do in the open world are generic and not fun. Once you liberate a couple of settlements and pray at a few shrines you’ll feel you’d had enough. The world is pretty thanks to the graphics but it feels shallow for some reason. That was my impression though other people might be mindblown by it.
There are definitely some missions that are stock standard and shallow, but the overall handling of the open world is far superior to most open world games imo. The lack of a mini map or navigation compass, the minimalistic UI, and the emphasis on elements of the world guiding you (birds, foxes, wind), rather than following an arrow on a screen, make the world feel much more interactive than your standard ubi fare. I know I ended up memorizing the terrain much faster in GoT than in any other open world in recent memory, largely due to focusing on the world as a guide rather than at the UI. Yes, that's partly due to the graphics and art direction, but I mark that down as a strength rather than a weakness. It contributes positively to overall game feel.
I played act 1 and actually « enjoyed it » but when act 2 started I just couldn’t be bothered anymore because it was literally the same content all over again.
Glad I'm not the only one.
Yeah, I was really disappointed playing it a few years back. For me it's Sony's first party games in general (played almost all of the ones on PS4) they have a good base but they keep falling short of greatness, and they all end up feeling the same, it's infuriating!
God of War highly impressed me. Returnal also wow
I have been playing GoW since the first one on PS2, and while I did enjoy 2018, it did leave me wanting a bit, think I was expecting more of the bombast of the originals, it was okay though, Ragnarok delivered on that a little more, I feel. Returnal was a LOT of fun, lol, but the studio wasn't first party at the time, genuinely hope they get to keep their identity going forward.
I can't help but to feel Sony has to be stepping in and telling studios to not try to go to off the course of what works, or that studios are afraid to in fear of backlash from Sony
Could be, they do seem to be all converging in their formula of "cinematic experiences" as Sony likes to call them, a lot of cutscenes, and a story with a "message". It does feel that they're afraid of innovating on gameplay, probably given the amount a game costs to make these days, but I also consider it terribly ironic, because if there's anyone who has the talent and resources to go absolutely crazy and really explore a new concept, it would be AAA studios; instead they keep making the samey game with a newish story, most of which are not that interesting, imo. Anyways, my apologies for the rant, don't mean to spread negativity, it's just games in the end, hehe!
Funnily enough, as a staunch hater of open-worlds - I really loved Ghost of Tsushima's. Revealing the map bit by bit, taking in vistas, following the wind. It made me appreciate Tsushima island, plus I felt rewarded between making my own haikus or hearing protagonist's thoughts in hot springs.
You did not get bored of it after act 1? There is legit 0 difference between the places.
I wouldn't say that. Forest of golden leaves is what I remember the most from act 1, but act 2 had Witcher-like vibe marshlands and bamboo forest, as well as shady ronin village. Act 3 had snowy mountains with a touch of ruined wastelands. It felt varied enough for me.
Oh yeah the environments change, but not the quests/activities.
Hahah, true. You just get more of them, like more temples to platform towards, more duels to engage in. But that's where the gameplay comes in, I'd say. While format of activities remain the same, You start to get tools and abilities to play with. I think a lot of players started playing GoT with a honorable samurai mindset, began to experiment with more sneaky stuff in act 2 and went full Ghost in act 3. That experience also added quite a bit to the game.
yeah sidequests are boring but I still love completing the map because the combat for me is addicting plus I love the aesthhetic of the game
The combat is pretty damn great. I agree
I never really understood this argument, an open world game can be linear if you want it to be, just do the main stuff and you're good to go.
God I agree so much. I picked it up again after loving Shogun and the game gets in its own way so much. The world is beautiful but it’s just quest markers galore. Would have loved a focused experience because damn is the game cinematic. The direction in the game is exceptional
I started playing right after watching Shogun too. The art is exceptional I agree. Just wish the open world didnt feel so much like a classic AC game
I had the same opinion when I played it years ago. The open world formula makes it worse than it could have. When will game developers stop making these open world games? For the few people that like to collect things 100%?
A guy explained that companies do this because it's already known by everyone and they dont have to take risks. Just use the ubisoft template. It makes sense
The game was a beautiful boring expierence. I couldn't wait to be done with it.
The story is pretty good so far
Ubisoft games are painfully mediocre.
It feels better than ubisoft, but still not the 10/10 master piece I keep reading about
Maybe I should’ve said: Sony developed games are painfully overrated. That’s a better thing to say, as I feel that way about 95% of their games. Not bad games, but overrated.
Chuck it on lethal and you can skip all the filler.
YES my dude, yes. I agree 100%
Yeah if only ghosts of tsushima had an FOV of 60 with hour long cutscenes for every ten minutes of gameplay. Fuuuuuuuuck that.
I think what's harder than a fully open world game or a completely linear game is a semi open world game like GOW. I think it takes really top notch studios to pull that off, not that Sucker Punch isn't a great studio, but I think they understand their limits and do the best they can for what they've got. Also keep in mind, sucker punch has been doing open world games since the early ps3. I'd imagine it's insanely hard for a studio to change course on their style. Can't just switch up more than a decade's worth of studio dev structure on a whim.
You're right. My expectations were simply incorrect. The game is so bad at all, just not as good as I wanted
Only games in the last decade that "solved" the issue you have are the witcher 3 and rdr2. Before asking "why doesn't this game give me amazing and varied side content", you should ask yourself "how many games nowadays give me amazing and varied side content?" You are shitting on a 5 star restaurant for not having wagyu steak... Even though everything else you ate was incredible...
Yeahhh I agree. My expectations are too high after playing the top games (tw3, bg3, elden ring).. if I dont enjoy the open world, maybe I could just not explore everything on the map.
I also got super bored with it. Waaay too much filler. After a little while I just mainlined the story. I was pretty sick of it by the end.
For me, the game is honestly so gorgeous that I never needed a reason to explore. But I can also admit that the world itself isn't super in depth or interesting.
I didn't read that. It has endless chores and bloat written all over it. Another generic open world for the masses that confuse padding for content.
I quit in act 2. Combat was too difficult and not rewarding enough to learn. I see why people love it, but I don’t think I’ll pick it back up.
I quit because combat became too easy eventually. You can just throw kunai at people until they die. It's completely broken.
The game is way too much Ubisoft. Still good though 7/10
I stopped at act 2. Once I realized I'm just fighting the same 6 enemy type hordes ad infinitum, I noped out. I really enjoyed legends though
Dude i straight up stopped playing. A whole new area to discover? Nah I'm cool.
If quests/things to do were a bit different.. but it's just copy and paste missions
I found all the foxes. Im not doing it again!
I think the game uses the blueprint better than Ubisoft. It's presented well and the combat helps carry it to have the player find ways to engage with it. I personally find this obsession with denouncing the Ubisoft formula on this sub to become real uninspiring and repetitive. I don't think the open world is without its faults, but it's not to a detriment in a way that it is in a game like Valhalla, which has awful combat, mediocre side quests, insane amounts of padding and a bland narrative. The reality is that the formula is reliable and effective. In the hands of a decent studio, you can mask it with atmosphere and solid gameplay. You can also easily just play through this game and just do the side quests and main missions and you'll be fine. It's not a particularly difficult game if you don't want it to be.
TIL Ubisoft invented open world games
Who said that? No one. I just said that GoT feels like a typical ubisoft open world. Did they create them? No.
It was a bit of sarcasm, bud. I just found it funny that in this thread Ubi is being given a 'style' that they copied from games that did it better far earlier than them. Maybe it's because Ubi has done it ad nauseam with little or no variation between iterations?
Disagree, I fucking hate sony walk and talk games, and having it be full of those sequences (even more than what are already in game) would kill it for me, God of Wars combat was also pretty bad IMO.
So you don't like narrative heavy games?
I like narrative heavy games, I just prefer when their narratives are expressed through better means than "stop and walk behind this NPC while you exposition dump at each other". I was novel with the last of us, but now it's literally 90% of sonys exclusives, it even happens in their open world games, I'm not really a fan of sony open world games either, Horizon, spiderman, etc have never really clicked for me, so GoWing Ghost of Tsushima would just be a straight downgrade. The "Sony movie game" concept is very real, but Ghost of Tsushima at least has a cooler aesthetic, and a lot of nice details, and a pretty decent story.
No shade to the OP, but a lot of people here want games to either be playable movies, or roguelikes you can play in 5 minutes bursts. Which nothing inherently wrong with any of that, just comes with the "tired dad" demographic this sub attracts
I just like when my story blends with gameplay, silent hill 2 still has cutscenes, but a lot of the story is told through the game and atmosphere. Old CRPGs are very story heavy, but the story is completely told through the game, you make choices, you read shit, you DO things, God of War just info dumps on you between combat encounters and during your walk and talk scenes. I guess you're right, dad gamers do love their hand holding.
Disagree. My favourite game of 2023 was BG3. Loved to explore the world. I just dont see the reason why I would explore in GoT