Last game that impressed you?

[Tanooki | 4,930]

Truly impressed me to the point of losing all sense of time playing, and still wanting to do more even after I saw the boss eat it, no doubt it would be Zelda Breath of the Wild.  That was just so finely crafted it blew me away and I know it's dumb, but I want to replay it, but I hate they oddly axed multiple saves, and don't want to lose what I did.

Others have really amused and kind of impressed me since, but not where I'd commit that many hours and finish it.

[themisfit138 | 523]

Breath of the Wild. 

[AstralSoul | 502]

Probably Hollow Knight when I played it last year. I heard it was good but I didn't realize it was a masterpiece. I don't say this often...ever, actually. But I could not find a single flaw with the game. The art style,music, atmosphere, gameplay,level design, boss design... literally everything about it just blew me away.

 

Aside from that, Breath of the Wild, Resident Evil 2 Remake and Bloodborne.

Also special mention for Terranigma, an old game I only played for the first time a few years ago but completely blew me away.

Edited November 16, 2020 by AstralSoul

[Sumez | 2,933]

Final Fantasy 7 Remake was incredible.

It was incredible that the Square Enix of today was even able to make it coherent.

[spacepup | 2,404]

On 11/14/2020 at 10:09 PM, Bearcat-Doug said:

Mario 64 was probably the last game that I really was impressed by. I spent a good hour just running around outside the castle exploring when I first played it.

Not a single game released in the last 24 years of gaming has impressed you?

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

2 hours ago, spacepup said:

Not a single game released in the last 24 years of gaming has impressed you?

I haven't played any new games since the PS3/Wii era. The last new game I played was Metal Gear Solid 4 and it felt more like an interactive movie than a game. I went back to retro games after that.

[Tanooki | 4,930]

2 hours ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I haven't played any new games since the PS3/Wii era. The last new game I played was Metal Gear Solid 4 and it felt more like an interactive movie than a game. I went back to retro games after that.

I can respect that if you stopped at that point.  In that era probably for me it would have been like Mario Galaxy 1/2 and then Uncharted on the PS3.  I can't think of a whole lot else that really blew me away.  I mean there were some stunningly well done games, even the God of War Trilogy as the story really sucked me in but the game play was monotonous and flat with blood spraying everywhere like some cheap D grade horror movie going heavy on the ketchup.

[TDIRunner | 2,725]

3 hours ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I haven't played any new games since the PS3/Wii era. The last new game I played was Metal Gear Solid 4 and it felt more like an interactive movie than a game. I went back to retro games after that.

If you had said MGS4 was a long movie with bits of gameplay thrown in every once and a while, I would have agreed with you, but they way you worded it makes no sense to me.  All cut scenes are fully skippable and then you get straight back to gameplay.  I've played through that game probably a dozen times.  The first time through I watched the cutscenes, but ever since then I've always skipped them.  As per just about any Kojima game, the story itself is pretty "meh" to me, but the gameplay is truly amazing.  I completely understand that Kojima cutscenes are too much for many people (myself included), but I don't see a reason to enjoy the game any less since you can just skip them.

Interesting note.  The cutscenes in MGS4 can also be paused (first MGS game to do this that I know of), which is really nice if you actually want to watch the cutscenes, but also need a bathroom break halfway through. )

[DefaultGen | 5,400]

Metal Gear Solid's gameplay has always impressed me with how good it is because I feel like the main attraction is the crazy story, and there is so much effort put into relatively small/short gameplay sections sometimes. I guess that's flipped on its head with MGS5 which is absolutely massive.

The last game to impress me was Divinity Original Sin II, not with any real novel new thing, just how it gets absolutely everything about being a video game right. BOTW is up there. Her Story is probably the last game to make me mad that big budget games are stuck in the same old boring genres, while there are amazing, unexplored ideas still out there.

[TDIRunner | 2,725]

Since I commented earlier without answering the OP, I'll do that here.

I'm not sure it was the LAST game that impressed me, but I'll mention Horizon Zero Dawn for one major reason: the story.  This was the first game I ever played where the story was so interesting, I was actually looking forward to the next cutscene.  There were a few times that I actually wanted to skip past the gameplay in order to see the next cutscene, and that's never happened to me before.  But even with that, the gameplay was still amazing.  

[Lincoln | 230]

My friends finally convinced me to play gta V (online) with them. While the game play is kind of lackluster, the scale and presentation of the map is impressive. The first time flying south over the mountains at night and seeing the city lit up was pretty stunning.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

1 hour ago, TDIRunner said:

If you had said MGS4 was a long movie with bits of gameplay thrown in every once and a while, I would have agreed with you, but they way you worded it makes no sense to me.  All cut scenes are fully skippable and then you get straight back to gameplay.  I've played through that game probably a dozen times.  The first time through I watched the cutscenes, but ever since then I've always skipped them.  As per just about any Kojima game, the story itself is pretty "meh" to me, but the gameplay is truly amazing.  I completely understand that Kojima cutscenes are too much for many people (myself included), but I don't see a reason to enjoy the game any less since you can just skip them.

Interesting note.  The cutscenes in MGS4 can also be paused (first MGS game to do this that I know of), which is really nice if you actually want to watch the cutscenes, but also need a bathroom break halfway through. )

That's what I meant by interactive movie. It was entertaining to watch, but there wasn't that much gameplay involved. The gameplay was good, but I just wish there had been more of it.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I can respect that if you stopped at that point.  In that era probably for me it would have been like Mario Galaxy 1/2 and then Uncharted on the PS3.  I can't think of a whole lot else that really blew me away.  I mean there were some stunningly well done games, even the God of War Trilogy as the story really sucked me in but the game play was monotonous and flat with blood spraying everywhere like some cheap D grade horror movie going heavy on the ketchup.

I'm sure there have been some impressive games recently, but I guess that I just prefer arcade style games to the newer open world or cinematic games. The last Wii game I bought was the Punch Out remake and I really liked that.

[Tanooki | 4,930]

2 hours ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I'm sure there have been some impressive games recently, but I guess that I just prefer arcade style games to the newer open world or cinematic games. The last Wii game I bought was the Punch Out remake and I really liked that.

Oh I get it, I own a Neo Geo arcade cabinet.  I find it easier to fire that up when I'm motivated than other stuff.  Drop a few free play quarters in and all is good.  And I may have like a dozen Wii games, and yet one is just that, Punch-Out as it's easy to pick up and enjoy as it was just so well done.

[joshdose | 56]

One game that really impressed the crap out of me was Nier Automata. I wasn't expecting it to be so amazing from beginning to end. It's like they figured out every little nuance that could annoy me in a video game and made sure not to include that. A true joy and one of my new favorites of all time.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,510]

3 hours ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I'm sure there have been some impressive games recently, but I guess that I just prefer arcade style games to the newer open world or cinematic games. The last Wii game I bought was the Punch Out remake and I really liked that.

Someone get this man Enter the Gungeon or Blazing Chrome or Hollow Knight or Dead Cells or Flinthook or...

[Gloves | 11,761]

3 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Someone get this man Enter the Gungeon or Blazing Chrome or Hollow Knight or Dead Cells or Flinthook or...

It seriously takes some effort to just flat out IGNORE all the great arcade style games that so regularly come out.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

3 hours ago, Gloves said:

It seriously takes some effort to just flat out IGNORE all the great arcade style games that so regularly come out.

It's pretty easy when I haven't owned a current gen console since then. I honestly don't pay much attention to the new releases since I couldn't play them anyway.

[Sumez | 2,933]

17 hours ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I haven't played any new games since the PS3/Wii era. The last new game I played was Metal Gear Solid 4 and it felt more like an interactive movie than a game. I went back to retro games after that.

What an unfortunate representative of modern video games. MGS4 is a real dumpster fire.

Play Dark Souls.
Seriously, play Dark Souls as if your life depends on it.

It's the perfect marriage of classic arcade style cognitive tactical and reaction based action gameplay, with modern visuals and incredible world building that never tries to hit you over the head with it (the series has absolutely zero exposition, no cinematics outside of brief boss intros, and everything that's going on story-wise is in the background of the game).

It's not the last game to truly impress me, but no game has impressed me this much since.

Edited November 18, 2020 by Sumez

[Sumez | 2,933]

9 hours ago, Gloves said:

all the great arcade style games that so regularly come out.

That's an overexaggeration, sadly  Modern releases that manage to recreate genuine arcade experiences are incredibly rare. They almost always have to satisfy the "see the numbers go up" crowd by sogging them in RPG elements, checkpoints, infinite lives and such.

On top of that, genuinely exciting and challenging arcade gameplay is surprisingly hard to design. Very few devs seem to be up to the task.

Blazing Chrome and Cuphead are some of the few good examples, alongside a tiny handful of shooters, such as Devil Engine or ZeroRanger.
They are out there... but "regularly"?  

Edited November 18, 2020 by Sumez

[Webhead123 | 675]

4 hours ago, Sumez said:

Play Dark Souls.
Seriously, play Dark Souls as if your life depends on it.

I have a quick question for the Souls aficionados. So, I tried my hand at Sekiro because I wanted to try a Souls-type game and I personally found the "Eastern Fantasy" setting much more appealing than that of Souls or Bloodbourne. I also liked the idea of the hero being more nimble/agile. Ultimately, however, I had to cut my losses with Sekiro after only a couple of hours because I found some of the design elements overly frustrating. The way enemies swarm was one problem. It felt like you almost have to game the AI and abuse pathing to get enemies away from each other before you could attempt to fight them without getting completely bullied. My favorite moments in Sekiro were the one-on-one battles with big, tough opponents. Fighting the cheap, aggressive hordes of rabble (or worse, a big, surly boss flanked by hordes of cheap, aggressive rabble) sucked all enthusiasm from me.

Another personal irritation was the idea of loss of progress. I mean, I know that's at the core of the Souls genre (or, at least, I seem to get the impression that it is) but the notion that not only were you required to play the same section at least a dozen times before you would hone enough experience and awareness to continue, every time you go through this process, you are punished for the very core loop the game demands of you.

So, I suppose my question is: Is it possible that I would like any of the other Souls or Souls-like games knowing that I basically lost all will to continue with Sekiro after only a couple hours based on these conventions? If so, which one(s)?

Edited November 18, 2020 by Webhead123

[Nintegageo | 582]

@Webhead123not entirely the same genre however you may enjoy Ghost o Tsushima. Awesome game.

[Webhead123 | 675]

23 minutes ago, Nintegageo said:

@Webhead123not entirely the same genre however you may enjoy Ghost o Tsushima. Awesome game.

Oh yes, of course. I've had my eye on that game for a while. I'll be picking it up before long. Not really a Souls-like game, though.

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

2 hours ago, Webhead123 said:

I have a quick question for the Souls aficionados. So, I tried my hand at Sekiro because I wanted to try a Souls-type game and I personally found the "Eastern Fantasy" setting much more appealing than that of Souls or Bloodbourne. I also liked the idea of the hero being more nimble/agile. Ultimately, however, I had to cut my losses with Sekiro after only a couple of hours because I found some of the design elements overly frustrating. The way enemies swarm was one problem. It felt like you almost have to game the AI and abuse pathing to get enemies away from each other before you could attempt to fight them without getting completely bullied. My favorite moments in Sekiro were the one-on-one battles with big, tough opponents. Fighting the cheap, aggressive hordes of rabble (or worse, a big, surly boss flanked by hordes of cheap, aggressive rabble) sucked all enthusiasm from me.

Another personal irritation was the idea of loss of progress. I mean, I know that's at the core of the Souls genre (or, at least, I seem to get the impression that it is) but the notion that not only were you required to play the same section at least a dozen times before you would hone enough experience and awareness to continue, every time you go through this process, you are punished for the very core loop the game demands of you.

So, I suppose my question is: Is it possible that I would like any of the other Souls or Souls-like games knowing that I basically lost all will to continue with Sekiro after only a couple hours based on these conventions? If so, which one(s)?

I never played any of the Dark Souls games, but I am playing Demon's Souls PS5 right now and... it plays exactly like you're describing. The fighting can be fun, but I often find myself needing to kite certain enemies so they don't smoke me. I've also lost a significant portion of progress/souls on multiple occasions. It's a bit harsh, although I've heard it's both easier and harder than the Dark Souls games. Someone else will have to weigh in on that.

Also, can we all agree that bosses with mobs are overdone, annoying, and represent lazy game design? Seriously one of my pet peeves.

[MegaMan52 | 2,440]

Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

I've been playing the original Animal Crossing since 2006 (still have my original copy) and it was and still is one of my favorite games of all time, but I decided last year that it was time to start playing a newer Animal Crossing game. I've seen several videos of Wild World and City Folk over the years, and noticed that several characters and features were either changed or removed altogether. Kapp'n is a Cab/Bus Driver? Gulliver rides in UFO's? Booker and Copper open and close gates? Only eight villagers per town in Wild World? I decided to hold off on buying a newer Animal Crossing game until late 2019.

Without watching any videos of it, I decided to buy New Leaf. I went with the Welcome Amiibo edition, not knowing what was different about it other than compatibility with Amiibo's. I started up the game and to my surprise it brought back quite a few things from the original Animal Crossing. It starts on a train with Rover the Cat greeting you, and he even references the original Animal Crossing ("Haven't done this much travelling by train since 2002 or so..."). I met Isabelle, who quickly became my favorite of the game's new characters. I walked over to the Beach one day, and noticed Kapp'n sitting a boat. I enjoyed hearing him sing like in the original Animal Crossing as he gave me a ride to the Island. After playing the game a while, I checked the list of Public Works Projects and noticed one of them was a Police Station that looked very similar to the one in the original game. After completing it, I was happy to see Copper back on duty. I eventually found Gulliver, not as an Astronaut, but as a Sailor lying down on the Beach, and was more than happy to wake him up and talk to him like in the good old days. I later found out that the Welcome Amiibo edition includes several characters from the original game that were missing in Wild World and City Folk, such as Gonzo (who's actually been in my original Animal Crossing town since I started playing it in 2006).

Anyway, aside from returning characters and features, I like the addition of a secret storage and I'm glad that the game allows up to ten villagers per town (which is just enough, in my opinion).

Note: I don't hate Wild World and City Folk, and will most likely buy them someday. But, I feel like I made the right choice buying New Leaf last year instead of those games.

Edited November 18, 2020 by MegaMan52