So I got a bug in my butt to install Mortal Kombat 11 last night and was doing the story mode which is basically like a movie with intermittent fights and it occurred to me that I love Mortal Kombat but just the characters, the worldbuilding, and the lore. I’ve never been big on fighting games and as I age, I am finding it harder and harder to pull off special combos quick enough to even do much other than slapping buttons and hoping for the best.
My favorite MK game was one of the ones on PS2 where the story mode was basically God of War gameplay turning it from a fighter into an action adventure game.
If Midway were to make a Mortal Kombat title that was like Dark Souls but set on Outworld or something, that would definitely be my jam.
Another would be Warhammer 40k. I am not at all interested in the PnP gameplay nor a lot of the video games. But I love the lore and the game Rogue Trader is fucking dope, playing more like a traditional CRPG in that setting and not an RTS or straight up shooter.
Do y’a have any games like that? Where you like everything about them except the actual gameplay?
Someone remade Portal as a browser-based side scroller, and I fucking loved that game.
I played through Horizon: Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, and with how hard every NPC was flirting with Aloy, I wondered “Why isn’t this a post-apocalyptic dating sim?”
In Divinity: Original Sin II, there’s a game-breaking mechanic where you can plant tea plants in pots, grow new tea plants, harvest them, and then use the buffs from drinking tea to get infinite moves during fights. I actually got into the whole management of the tea farm, and I don’t want to totally throw out the RPG combat, but I might like it if farming and then using your crops to win fights was an entire game unto itself, rather than just a broken exploit.
I played through Horizon: Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, and with how hard every NPC was flirting with Aloy, I wondered “Why isn’t this a post-apocalyptic dating sim?”
I mean, Aloy is super cool, badass and hot as fuck, if you’re single, the only reason not to flirt with her would be fear.
I thought that with how things ended in HFW, the next game ought to be an RTS.
EVE online
I loved the lore, the feel of danger in low/nullsec. But I just don’t have time for a second job.
X4 doesn’t have quite as good lore imo, but for me it really scratches my eve itch without having to go back to that mmo. I think it’s the interconnected economy of the sandbox.
I wasn’t familiar so I looked it up. I absolutely love the visuals of X4, I might give it a go some day
If you pick it up, know that it has a huge modding scene that makes an already great game even better. I can recommend a few basic QoL mods if you want, though the 9.0 update is coming soon and will probably break most of them for a while.
Also, the base game has some arbitrary mechanics meant purely to punish the player so veterans can’t steamroll the NPC factions too quickly, at the expense of making the new player experience harder. There’s a list of these mechanics (and links to mods that reduce/remove them) here.
Everytime I read about some insane awesome event in Eve I think, “I should totally play that.” Then I get bummed for a moment that I won’t be able to. Then I remember what you said, it’s a second job, and I smile and get on with my life.
Maybe I’d just like to be an Eve battlefield reporter.
I’d love to see Doom as an Assassin’s Creed style game, where instead of it being wall to wall high-intensity violence there is a slower-pace open world story and every once in a while you’re dropped into a kind of death match arena to face a boss, but you can also run into them in the wild and have to scramble to take them out before they get ya.
You might like Strife
Does wishing that Final Fantasy would return to its roots and be a turn-based JRPG again count?
Similarly, what about wishing for another linear and stoey-focused 3D Zelda?
I want a top down Mana game again. I liked the Trials remake and Visions, but I miss the original style.
“I like FF7 but I wish instead of a JRPG, it was a generic ARPG” said an SE exec at some point, apparently.
I’m one of these weird people that actually prefer it as an ARPG.
I just wish it was a good one.
Crisis core worked surprisingly well!.
did you give bravely default a shot?
Yup, and I’d even say that the best FF is the one that SE was too afraid to put the FF name on. I just wish it wasn’t relegated to being a lower budget B-list project, imagine if SE put the same kinds of full AAA resources behind this that they put on the FF7 ‘remake’.
This might be too pointed a memory, but I remember trying a demo for that game, and somehow having the basic attacks involve cat-like repetitive swatting from the chibi characters put me way off.
I also want to feel really intrigued and connected with a story to play a JRPG. “Generic lore” doesn’t do it for me.
When I played Trails in the Sky, I felt a lot of my FF7 nostalgia coming back. It got a remake which has been very faithful to the original; while you start combat with some dodges/swings in the overworld, most fights inevitably come back to turn-based.
If you want something echoing back to the og, I found the 4 heros of light very fun. I replay it once every few years or so. Also, it is the scaffolding that bravely default was built with
yeah i remember bd’s nemesis battle theme coming from 4hol
That’s what I was here to post.
I wish something would happen with Lost Odyssey, i loved that game.
I just wish No Mans Sky had some point.
Sometimes I feel similarly about Elite: Dangerous. Disclaimer: I haven’t played NMS because E:D gets all my spacetime tokens and I’m fine with that. “Community goals” (high payout limited time events) get me to play because it gives me purpose for a week. For the most part though, I like coming to it for an hour or two when I want to take a break from story-laden games. Hunt pirates for an hour, fly out of inhabited space and explore for an hour (well, an hour out, an hour there per session, an hour back next time), or just chill with music and asteroid mining.
So I do wish there was a plot at times, but I do appreciate it for mixing up the routine with simple cruising
The point is to learn 3+ alien languages word by word
The point is to get super high and hang out on toxic planets for the trippy colors.
Based and “I hope this place has ancient bones…”-pilled
The point is to spend hours travelling across the universe looking for an Earth-like planet, with green grass, blue skies and relatively safe temperatures, instead of just going outside in real life.
I just wish they’d dedicate one or two of their major updates to integrating all the random features they added into a cohesive whole. Right now there are dozens of systems that are almost all pointless shallow grinds as well as completely isolated from every other system. It’d give the game some real depth if these mechanics interacted with each other in any way.
That, and fix their damn inventory system. It’s been a decade and multiple overhauls and basic crafting and inventory management is still unpleasant and tedious.
Starcraft. RTS is not for me; I played the campaigns with cheats on so I could see the story unfold.
Then again, that was back when I was still willing to give money to ActiBlizzard. Not so since Blitzchung.
We almost had an OTS shooter set in StarCraft’s universe… I wonder what life would have been like if Ghost actually came out in 2005. 🤔
I’ve seen this image so often, but just now it occurred to me: Living the best life in the year 3000 and cars still park on the sidewalk.
Nun uh, they park OVER the sidewalk.
Starcraft 2 is super fun as a randomizer in the RTS format, but I do want to see more done with that IP. The problem is, like you, I will never give Blizzard a single penny ever again.
Yup. I love the lore and atmosphere, fun in archipelago for randomizing, i like the campaign and co-op modes a lot. But since I won’t give blizzard any money it’s nice that they just gave up on the IP for whatever reason
This doesn’t apply to a specific franchise, but I sometimes think about how fun it would be for game franchises with a lot of characters to have games designed around replaying them with the different characters. Some examples would be:
A game with every Final Fantasy character that plays like Vampire Survivors. Each character would have their own sets of equipment and attacks they can obtain.
A game that is basically Sonic and the Black Knight be re-imagined to be more like either Monster Hunter or Kingdom Hearts. Each character could either have their own sets of equipment or have access to most of the equipment but use them differently.
A Touhou game that’s some form of an RPG, whether it be turn-based, action, or something similar to FF12. I know that there already are some RPGs featuring these characters but (on top of mostly being adult games for some reason) they all only have a few of the characters and they are very short and the RPG elements are usually quite limited.
Also, not really a specific franchise and it’s technically the same genre but I’d like to see more fighting games play like Dissidia Final Fantasy. I want to play more fighting games but Dissidia is the one of the only fighting games that I’ve ever been good at.
Probably all gacha games, like Genshin Impact or FGO. There’s a lot about those games I like, but the fact that they’re gacha actively gets in the way. If they were just regular games, most of the problems, which boil down to maximising play time like tedious grinding or filler in the main quests, would disappear.
Yeah, same here honestly
I would enjoy the hell out of XCOM if it played more like Mass Effect.
I would enjoy the hell out of a Mass Effect themed turn based strategy.
They kind of tried that, but unfortunately it wasn’t very good.
Unironically played this entire game start to finish and enjoyed it despite it being a massive mess
That seems to be the general consensus of the user reviews, too - that it’s one of those 6/10 games that’s somehow greater than the sum of its parts. Some of my fondest gaming memories are of that sort of game, so I might have to give it a second chance.
I feel like a lot of third person action adventure games would be better off as turn based RPGs since the action gameplay usually sucks and smashing the action button 100,000 times is not fun after an hour or so.
Witcher 3 needs a turn based mode more than anything.
I feel exactly the opposite.
There are plenty of turn-based RPGs and JRPGs that I fell asleep playing that I probably wouldn’t have if I didn’t have to mostly stare at a static screen and menus most of the game. And dont even get me started on random battles.
Turn-based RPGs have repetitive combat loops to me. Same intro, same enemy lineup, same strategy, same music, same victory jingle. Over and over and over. It least in an action oriented game, I can choose where my character is, how I engage with combat, what terrain features I use, etc.
This is why I like Strategic Turn Based games like Fire Emblem and XCOM way more than standard turn based games.
JRPGs often don’t have good enough stories for me to continue playing and many have grind as part of their design.
My issue with the better JRPGs like Persona is that there are simply too many battles. If they cut 50-70% of the battles the games would have much better pacing and become less monotonous.
FF7 is a good 30-40 hour game. Games going for 80 hours and up are way too long.
Turn base probably won’t save the shallowness of Witcher 3 combat, it need an overhaul for more in depth system. Witcher is introduced in the first one as a methodological monster hunter where he learn, prepare, and hunt the monster, while also deal with politics(which is probably the strongest part of the series). In Witcher 3 Geralt is a ballerina dancing with his blade.
The best witcher combat is in Monster Hunter World.
CDPR gambled for the masses and won with Witcher 3. I agree with you and would prefer the combat to be more methodical, require more preparation and be more visceral. I wish you’d have to actually manually brew the correct potions and oils in preparation, and then see those have a huge impact on whether you win or lose the fight.
At the same time, the super lightweight combat they went with allowed the game to be so approachable by the causal market that it sold millions and millions of copies and singlehandedly catapulted CDPR into a AAA studio. So it’s hard to argue they made a mistake not catering to players like us.
I feels like it’s about time we stop making excuse for how company able to make bank by watering down their product, it actually sound pretty sad, and it kills some of my favorite studio because they thought about doing the same.
At the same time From Soft make bank by making Elden Ring better without having to watering down their product, same stuff happened to Capcom with their Monster Hunter World. It’s about streamlining the clunky gameplay while retaining the identity of what making the predecessor great.
Also we’re in a thread talking about how the game we want could be better if they’re different, so maybe don’t.
I’m the exact opposite, in a different, but similar way that the other commenter is.
I will fall asleep trying to play almost any turn-based/tactical RPG you give me. It’s just too slow for me, and I can’t focus on stats or stacking effects that much. That’s why I like real-time action games. I’ve been playing the hell out of Fallout 4 lately and that is probably the fastest-paced game out of the entire series. There’s snappy gunplay in first- and third-person with a dedicated bash/grenade button, and you can pop out from behind cover when you aim. Also the whole customizing and modification system with the workshop and settlements.
I’d take it a step further, ditch the combat gameplay entirely. Make Witcher 3 in the style of Disco Elysium. Put the emphasis on storytelling and actual RPG stats. Combat will be less common but can be solved through play by play decision trees making each encounter more memorable.
I feel similar about the games, but opposite to the solution.
I think the problem is those games (Witcher 3, Skyrim, etc) build complex RPG stats systems and storylines and forget to actually make good combat.
You’d rather they fix this by going all in on the RPG and leaving the combat behind, but for me, I’d rather they’d forsake RPG elements and build an actual competent and fun combat system.
This is why I’d rather play any Zelda over any western action adventure RPG bc Nintendo actually makes a good game first, not a story
Turns out: Pokemon.
I tend to only play a Pokemon game every decade or so because the formula has been basically the same since the original: you catch pokemans and then cock fight them. And I just only have so much bandwidth for that.
But over here in Pokopia I’m building habitats for them and we are all hanging out, and it’s awesome. Yes, I will build you a little house, Bulbasaur.
Warcraft
I love the lore and story, especially Warcraft 3, but a story-driven RTS makes no sense to me. I like both separately, but not mixed together. Probably same thing with Starcraft, but I’ve never tried it.
Probably same thing with Starcraft, but I’ve never tried it.
Oof. Yes. I recall Starcraft II’s tutorial requiring what felt like South Korean world champion commands-per-minute play to get through maybe the third level of the tutorial.
I love the setting of Control but would prefer if it were more of a tactical FPS with less spongy enemies. The way I play it now is basically on super easy because I just hate the mobs and bosses.
That would be dope. And it’s not like they couldn’t pull it off either; this is the same dev that gave us Max Payne. Now I am imagining Jesse diving and slowing down time while kicking Hiss ass. 🤣
I love Control and the Remedyverse, but I’m with you. Turning up the setting to replenish your energy faster helps it flow better imo, especially on additional playthroughs.
I mostly play with god mode enabled. Like i used to play OG doom in fourth grade.
Without me looking it up, I’m going to guess “IDDQD”? I only remember that one and “IDKFA” which I thiiiink was guns and ammo.
Nailed it
Heyo yeeee! I used to get them mixed up a lot. I swear there was a noclip one I knew, but it’s lost to the void of my mind hahaha
IDCLIP in Doom II, IDSPISPOPD in Doom I (glad they changed that one!)
Yeah, the combat is the least interesting part of the Control universe IMO. It was a shame they went the bullet sponge route with Firebreak. I felt they could have gone the friend-slop route and made a Repo-like set in the oldest house. The weirdness is the fun part, and I think the shooter aspect feels obligatory. AW2 was a better balance I thought. Felt like the game was 1/3 interesting cutscenes and story development, 1/3 exploration, 1/3 combat.
It’s not exactly what you’re asking for but SCP 5K is a hardcore tactical shooter set in a very well realized version of the SCP lore. Genuinely one of the scariest games I’ve ever played. 173 will have you shitting bricks.
Yes, this is more my speed but I bounced off of it because lore knowledge/wiki seems to be mandatory. Willing to give it another shot though.
I actually know basically nothing about SCP, and I think I enjoyed it more because of that. My wife instantly recognised most of the stuff in the game (they added a few of their own apparently) whereas I got the full “What the fuck is that?!!” experience.
The thing is that a lot of the SCPs are puzzles. You’re supposed to try and fail until you figure out their mechanics. So if you’re confused, that’s the point.
Did you not adjust the settings of the game to make it cater to what you want?
Did you not read my post where I said i “basically put it on super easy”?
Some games that I like thematically, but don’t enjoy the gameplay on:
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Elden Ring. If it was more RPG-like, avoided respawning enemies and reliance on learning patterns, I think I’d like it more.
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Sunless Sea. Neat setting and writing. I don’t like the gameplay — simple combat, not very interesting choices, hunt-the-item stuff.
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Cyberpunk 2077. This isn’t bad, but I wanted something like a Bethesda game, and I got something like a Grand Theft Auto game. I think that it’d be much better as a Bethesda-like game. Oh, though I never really liked Johnny Silverhand as a character much.
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Fallout 76 — well, I don’t have a problem with the franchise — but on that particular game, I’d rather it wasn’t an online game, were a single-player open-world RPG. It’s more like that than when it launched, but…
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To expand on that: a whole slew of games that are really intended to be played multiplayer, but where I only want to play against the computer. I don’t like playing games multiplayer. I would buy an expansion for these that went back and put in some major single-player improvements and good game AI. Carrier Command 2 can be played single-player, but it’s kinda repetitive and not balanced well for single-player teams. Wargame: Red Dragon. I like the game and the setting, but the AI is very difficult to enjoy playing against; just too primitive. Steel Division 2, later in Eugen’s series, really improved on the AI. Defense of the Ancients 2; the whole MOBA genre is really oriented towards playing with real humans.
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Scanner Sombre. This is a mostly-psychological horror game, where the gimmick is that you can only see something that you’ve scanned with this LIDAR-type gizmo. You’re walking through a cave complex, and the mechanic of things slowly emerging and having to manage your visibility really works in a horror environment. But…the game isn’t really very replayable, and I like replayable games. I wish that someone would basically take the stumbling-around-in-a-cave-with-a-scanner thing and make a different sort of game out of it. (Note: If you play this, I played the Windows version in Proton. The Linux-native build was extremely unstable for me.)
And just for the hell of it, the opposite — some where I like the gameplay, but not the theme:
- The Binding of Isaac. I love the action roguelike gameplay. I don’t like the gore/fetus/abuse/scatological stuff all that much. I’ll deal with it, but I’d have liked the game more if it had a different theme.
Wanting anything to be more Bethesda is wild to me.
Out of curiosity: What would a more Bethesda-Like CP77 look like to you?
Horses and more bugs /s
I hate how well writen Cyberpunk is :(
I wish it had more boring fetch quests, given by soulles characters
Sunless Sea mentioned! Most of its value is in setting, writing and atmosphere, which are all really well executed. The gameplay was fun enough, but combat is tedious and I tried to avoid it, like you’d do in a horror game. I see it more as a visual novel with some exploration and resource management. Focus on the story, the characters, the locations. Fetch a macguffin only because it makes the story progress or because it makes you go beyond the explored world, not because you’re so interested in the act of fetching.
Fortunately Isaac influenced a lot of similar action roguelikes, my recommendation would be Enter the Gungeon, which in a line I’d describe as “Isaac with guns”
Sunless Sea. Neat setting and writing. I don’t like the gameplay — simple combat, not very interesting choices, hunt-the-item stuff.
Oh I forgot about Sunless Sea. I played the hell out of Fallen London, but the switch to real-time gameplay was stressful enough that not even the worldbuilding and writing could make up for it.
Isn’t Binding of Isaac by the guy(s) that did Castle Crashers, which got their start on Newgrounds?
I haven’t played Isaac, but I’ve played enough Castle Crashers to know that it’s pretty gorey/scatty with all the weird poop “jokes” and whatnot.
I feel the same way about CC as you do about Isaac. It’s fun to play, but some of the themes either haven’t aged well or were already for a particular audience.
No, Castle Crashers was by Tom Fulp (creator of Newgrounds) & crew at The Behemoth as well as Alien Hominid.
Binding of Isaac was Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl.
TBoI is from the guys that made Super Meat Boy, not CC. TBoI is like CC’s poop jokes on steroids, at least in terms of frequency. There’s an entire character who’s based around eating poop and throwing it at enemies.
Though, TBoI is perhaps more likely to desensitize you. Save for the aforementioned character (not-so-coincidentally my least favorite out of all 34), most of the poop stuff in the game is just a simple sprite that you shoot and break, and it becomes something you don’t really need to think about. There’s no gross sound related to it and it isn’t designed to look particularly disgusting. Especially since its something you see just about the whole time you’re playing, it’s easy enough to get used to. I can’t think of any other game that manages to make me think something like “yay, golden poop!” without a second thought.
Compare that to Castle Crashers where everything’s good and then there’s suddenly a giant bat throwing gross looking and sounding crap at you during a fight, it really stands out more.
Elden Ring was more RPG-like by avoiding respawning enemies? What RPG are you talking about? Most RPGs respawn enemies right in front of your face, while you are still in their spawn area.
I’m assuming they mean western RPGs. For most there is no enemy respawn. You can only kill each enemy once. Or there’s respawn but at a set time like end of a chapter or when you’re in town or whatever.
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I don’t know if this counts. But I want a Kenshi like game set in Morrowind. And I want a Morrowind like game set in the Kenshi universe.
Love them both as they are though.
But I want a Kenshi like game set in Morrowind.
Honestly, I’d like a Kenshi-like game set in damn near any setting.
Like, the Kenshi setting is interesting, but in terms of gameplay…it’s essentially unique from a gameplay standpoint. I’m still a bit amazed that nobody has made other games in the genre.
There is a sequel that is being worked on and will come out someday…
Kenshi Scrolls, Kenshi/Fallout, Kenshi Wars, Kenshi Effect, Halo: Kenshi, Kenshilands, Kenshi-Life…
There are so many awesome settings you could make a Kenshi game in.
Oh I’d pay so much for Halo: Kenshi. Didn’t even know it was something I wanted until I read this lol.
I tried getting into Kenshi twice and failed. I don’t like hand holdy games, but that felt like being pushed of a cliff with no supports. What’s the pull for everyone here? I want to take another shot at it
Personally, I like games where you start as a relative nobody and have to claw your way to success. I enjoy how in Kenshi you start having the snot beaten out of you by absolutely everything, but can eventually have the skills and equipment to be taking out whole factions.
You are right about the lack of support though. I think the intention is to play to fail and learn from mistakes, but it’s a harsh lesson when you wander into a new area only to be knocked out and imprisoned by cannibals. I don’t have the fortitude to keep failing, so end up just using the wiki at times.
I mean just save and reload a bunch. That’s what I do lol
I would probably damn near never leave the house if that game were to exist.
I hadn’t heard of this game somehow, thanks!
Prepare to either bounce off a game harder than anything before, or lose the next three years of your life. Or, possibly, somehow, both.
I bounced after 10 minutes. It just wasn’t for me.
That would be on-brand for me lol
I only skimmed a couple reviews because I like going into games blind. My favorite game experience I’ve ever played was *Ragnarok Online”, which had basically no quests or goals other than “be in the world and make a name for yourself amongst all the other godly player characters who sit around and chat wearing hats.”
No direction or NPCs telling you what to do. Move one map over to explore a new place and get one-shotted by a flower from across the map doing 5x as much damage per hit as your max health. Then come back after you’ve explored for 40 hours and kick fuckin flower ass for eight hours and lose a day of your life grinding and chatting.
I think Kenshi might be my kinda game.
If you like self-directed fun, yeah, you’ll probably jam with it pretty hard. Just be prepared to lose a lot of fights; collecting scar tissue is basically how you level up.
You should definitely watch the General Sam videos of Kenshi. He makes it fun but also doesn’t hide how much of a bitch this game can be. He’s also probably why I got pulled into the game so hard.
