First hour of the game I googled “Aloy Talks too much”
I just finished the Elden Ring DLC and the Tomb Raider remastered trilogy. These games are 30 years apart but share the same mostly quiet protagonists.
Lara is alone, doesn’t try to solve the puzzle for the player in the first 5 seconds, let’s the player explore and figure things out and soak in the atmosphere. Aloy is as chatty as Nathan Drake but she’s just muttering to herself in the wild, she even narrates her actions like an audiobook
The constant hud and text over every in world item also ruins the immersion. Yes I get that you don’t see items in Fromsoft games, you get that streak of light. But Horizon firstly hides the item in their busy environment design then forces you to press a button to prompt that streak of light, for immersion!
Zelda and ER open world does feel like a separate genre from the Ubisoft style open world we see even in non Ubisoft games like Horizon. That said, I enjoyed my time in Days Gone even if it’s similar to the formula. Facing your first horde in the game was truly spectacular. Also it being connected to Syphon Filter helps too lol.
Just bought Forza Horizons 4 on Steam, which meant none of my 100+ hours of progress on the Windows Store version carried over. Apparently in those many hours I forgot how absolutely grueling the beginning of the game is.
I’m two hours in, and after basically everything I do, down to even opening the menu, I get the controls yanked away from me, and a plucky zoomer talks at me for 30 seconds about shit I absolutely don’t need explained. One of those was literally, not even joking, to explain to me how to buy items, and that adding multiple items to my cart would equal a higher total price.
It’s like they expect their players to have absolutely no agency or intuition. All I want is to boot a game up, customize a car, and chuck it around. At most I’d be fine with a quick blurb saying “here are the different types of events, here’s your home base. Now go explore.”
I may be in the minority, but I kinda enjoy hearing Aloy muttering to herself throughout the game. Partly because I catch myself doing it all the time, so I don’t feel alone in the practice.
But also because I know the voice actress for Aloy (Ashly Burch) as Ash in the YouTube series, Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’? and to this day, it’s still amazing to me to hear her speaking so deadpan seriously. I’m used to her Ash character basically being an animated, loudmouthed wildcard, not this dramatic, serious character. And I kind of enjoy knowing that Ashly has a bit of range to her acting; she’s not some kid who repeats the same YouTube personality she became famous for; she can actually act.
Omg same. I talk to myself constantly when I need to plan something or do whatever. Might be because I have undiagnosed ADHD/ADD.
I quite enjoyed the game, I did not feel irritated by it.
They made Aloy worse in the sequel. She literally gives away puzzles and ruins things and won’t shut up. I swear she wasn’t as bad in the first game. I lost interest quickly in the sequel.
I had exactly the same experience. I played Ghosts of Tsushima after Elden Ring and Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, I was surprised how shallow the mainstream open world games are. I don’t hate them, but the gameplay really boils down to:
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Walk slowly while characters talk to eachother for 5 minutes
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Open the map, click on where you need to go, then walk in a straight line to your objective
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Trail an enemy without being seen
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Liberate an enemy camp (kill the same 3 enemies and collect the 5000 twinkly useless items in the area)
The Elden Ring withdrawal is really hitting me. Most AAA games are trying so hard to be cinematic and movie-like that it’s boring me to tears.
Im so glad the minimap genre is dying. Fucking killed gaming there for a moment.
If you want good exploration, I would recommend:
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witcher 3: good exploration and incredible quests
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hollow Knight: 2d metroidvania so very different genre, but great exploration with no hints. Souls like fights, so similar there to some games you’ve played and liked. Metroidvanias in general are good at exploration.
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genshin impact: most varied biomes I’ve ever seen. Will hold your hand first time you see a mechanic, but won’t tell you anything subsequent times. Cons: starting areas have the blandest exploration and quests. You need good willpower to not swipe. Combat is often very easy.
Also, Witcher has some heart-punch right-in-the-feels moments in side quests, FFS. 😶 Even when you’re purposely avoiding what you know is gonna be an emotional wringer in a prominent quest line, they cut ya while you’re wandering around? Genius. Damn. 🤌🏾🙇🏽♂️
I think Witcher 3 falls into the same problems listed.
- Witcher Sense
- Busy HUD
- Fetch Quests
- Given direction to go w/ mini-map
- Talks to self
I mean, I loved the game, but it’s not minimalist. It’s like playing a movie.
You’re right. The witcher 3 never grabbed me because of these reasons. It’s got such phenomenal quests and storytelling but in between feels like a chore since im just staring at the minimap the whole time. I installed mods to remove HUD elements to help fix it but I still needed a toggle for them to show me direction occasionally since the games design relies on those HUD elements to drive the player.
It’s such lazy design in an otherwise rich experience. It boggles my mind.
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I haven’t played Forbidden West yet, but I had a very different experience from most with Zero Dawn. I think a lot of people view these games as Ubisoft style open world checklists, but if you turn the difficulty up a few notches, it really forces you to engage with the mechanics. A game where you used to just charge headlong into a fight you were surely going to win changes into one where you need to pay attention to weaknesses, lay traps, and pick off their deadliest weapons. Plus, you end up actively hunting certain machines for their upgrade parts, because those upgrades become more crucial to your own success.
Speaking of this, I hate the fact that farcry just stuck with the farcry 3 format.
Farcry 2 had none of this “tag an enemy to make them always visible” bullshit. But then they did 3, and that was just their settled format from there on out.
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