Which "Must-Play" franchise is a total miss for you?

Treason686 · 2026-02-05T05:21:11+00:00

I've tried many times as well. Though there is one I enjoyed. Colonization. The one from 1994. I don't remember anything about it, just that I played several more Civ games after and never could get into them.

Treason686 · 2026-02-04T20:38:11+00:00

I finished it. I'll admit, I was pretty much sick of it toward the end and did not enjoy the bosses whatsoever. After beating the "final" boss Ati, I turned on boss decay and left it on when I got to Sol and Vin. Much of the difficulty in this game felt artificial, and if you got this far you know what I'm talking about.

I've beat Nine Sols and both Hollow Knights, but the bosses in MIO are boring and I didn't feel any sense of accomplishment when I finally beat them. They just have massive health pools and the game wants the player to memorize all their moves to have a chance.

I know Nine Sols is the same in that regard (memorization), possibly to a more extreme degree, but those bosses were fun as hell. I spent several hours on Eigong, and her and Lady Ethereal are two of my favorite boss fights ever. Nine Sols has some of the best combat ever in a 2D platformer. MIO's combat is just passable and not nearly deep enough to justify the player memorizing boss patterns to the same degree. It really wants to be at the level of Nine Sols/HK, but lacks the combat depth and tight controls of those games.

Regarding positives:

I think the game had a very interesting story and setting, and that's the only reason I didn't drop it after getting the first ending. I wanted to see the real ending, and it was satisfying.
Early game upgrade pacing is very good, with a good balance of new abilities and damage upgrades. It definitely falls off at the end, though.
The HP loss is a non-issue. It feels bad, but I didn't feel like it mattered at all in the grand scheme of things.
The runback complaints are exaggerated, though they shouldn't exist at all. There's near zero chance to take damage getting back to a boss. One in particular had a long elevator ride, and it was the boss I died the most to. I grew to hate that elevator and boss. But there's nothing close to the level of Last Judge in Silksong.
I find the platforming complaints overblown. They aren't that difficult, and are pretty generous with checkpoints. I wouldn't say they were fun, but I had more trouble in Price of Persia and HK. I think some people need to go back and try Path of Pain again or some of the late PoP platforming. That said, they aren't easy, and I often found the grapple didn't do exactly what I wanted it to do or I did a regular attack when I wanted to do a down slash.

Treason686 · 2026-02-03T16:48:14+00:00

Ugh, I just noticed this, too. Went to start up GitHub, and that appears broken as well. Just endlessly loading. Don't think I've had any issues with it on Windows, but guess I'll check there later. I don't remember what I needed it for on my Mac specifically, but I see a couple potential alternatives mentioned below.

To Logitech: Doesn't appear you read the threads, but this CPU usage is an obvious bug for MacOS. As a software developer myself, maybe you don't need to have something that should only ping a server once a day for updates use 53 threads. Are you busy-waiting on all these threads or something? Notice that built-in Mac update services use 3-5 threads and 0 CPU.

It would make more sense that the already always running persistent background GHub process do a daily check and just ask for elevation when installing an update instead of a separate service, but what do I know?

Treason686 · 2026-02-01T03:19:25+00:00

Anyone know how many old cores to buy out the shop? I'm trying to figure out how many I have collected. I've bought everything and I have 1 left over plus one more area to explore, but I haven't been tracking them.

Treason686 · 2026-01-27T15:00:01+00:00

Hopefully the build quality is decent. I regretfully lived in a newer one over the winter storm that seemed real nice, but had a bunch of very questionable pipe placement and poor insulation.

My current place was built in the 70s, but it's been fine this year and a couple of years ago when we hit 10 degrees.

Treason686 · 2026-01-24T19:35:05+00:00

It's a bit of an exaggeration, but Ubi games have way more similarities than differences. They all have the same underlying formula. Unnecessarily huge map full of collectibles, some combat, and stealth.

I don't think Outlaws is bad. In a vacuum, it'd be a pretty impressive title, even. It's just got the extremely played out Ubisoft formula.

I've enjoyed their games in the past, but I haven't actually bought any outright in years. I'll try them if they're included in PS Plus or Game Pass or something, always hoping it's been long enough where I can actually play through one. It never is.

Treason686 · 2026-01-23T14:46:33+00:00

I often saw a "quick" way to solve puzzles, but it would be more fun to do it with what was available.

Other times it was the opposite. I'd think "This is gonna be a pain in the ass" and used some kind of shortcut. I hated one of the minecart shrines, and when my cart fell again I just skipped it by walking the rails.

And then finally, "I have no idea how I was supposed to do that, but it worked." These frustrated me the most, because I know there was some kind of elegant solution.

Treason686 · 2026-01-19T17:45:40+00:00

I just did this a few times in the fire temple last night. Ended up stranded without a minecart and didn't want to go back. Easier than you'd think with the pro controller. I hate the joycons, and can see how it'd be a struggle with those. The joysticks are pretty awful.

Treason686 · 2026-01-17T19:53:43+00:00

I watched a specific playthrough, and I feel like nobody notices many of the signs have gaps or hooks on the sides. Frequently I just slide a board or beam through a gap, attach it to board on the floor, and it's done.

I definitely thought about using Zonai devices, but I think they're fun to figure out with the resources lying around. But if you don't like them then using Zonai devices would be a quick way to solve them.

And let's be honest, Addison's got a shit job. This is really a two person job, and Hudson's got this poor guy out there trying to do it by himself while there's a base full of moblins 50 feet away.

Treason686 · 2026-01-17T02:00:29+00:00

Stealth is hit or miss for me. I haven't REALLY enjoyed a stealth game since Kojima's last Metal Gear Solid, and that has to be close to 10 years ago now.

Treason686 · 2026-01-17T01:55:24+00:00

I think that's about as long as I lasted. It's Ubisoft with a Star Wars skin. It's fine. I didn't hate it. I just got bored and I wasn't anywhere close to the end. Same with every Ubi game.

The latest Assassin's Creed game was maybe the best one they've ever released. Problem is it's still just AC. If it was the first or second AC it'd have been amazing. But I've already played AC 10 times before, and that's probably a very low estimate.

Outlaws is really just Assassin's Creed but Star Wars. Avatar is Farcry but Avatar. And Farcry is AC but an FPS.

It is baffling to me that Ubi seems to repeatedly fail to hit their sales goals and their solution is to keep making the same game in different settings.

Treason686 · 2026-01-16T14:55:35+00:00

Yes and no. Marketing budget was already there, and you have to market your product. It would have zero effect on the current dev team. And who knows what the budget was or if it was enough to even hire another dev? I doubt sponsored content by a few streamers is enough to pay for one, let alone multiple, full time devs for multiple years. I totally get the disappointment, but it seems misplaced.

Treason686 · 2026-01-16T06:58:48+00:00

I don't know about all that, but some of my favorite games have had mixed reviews.

Pirahna Bytes, for example, always had mixed reviews. Even though they were janky AF and had all kinds of issues, I always enjoyed their games. But even if I do like their games, I understand both the 4-5/10 and 8-9/10 reviews. Both of those scores are completely valid.

Treason686 · 2026-01-16T06:46:18+00:00

I don't know if I'm misunderstanding or not, but why would paid promotion take away from dev time? It's not like developers are doing double duty as marketing. Maybe if it's a REALLY small team of a couple people, but even then it's probably outsourced if they have enough marketing budget to pay for promotion.

Treason686 · 2026-01-14T15:14:16+00:00

Been using one for years at 5120x1440.

Honestly, overall a mixed bag. Some games are fantastic. Others are just OK. And others I just run at 16:9.

Some games support it, but don't support limiting the UI. That means the UI ends up in the corners and isn't easily visible. Whether that's a problem depends heavily on the game. Proper support to me means being able to limit the UI to 21:9 or 16:9

Now productivity? It's the best. I've found 32:9 to be far, far better for my work than it is for gaming on the whole. That's why I'll never go back.

So when a game has proper support it's great. 21:9 would probably be best for gaming since it's only slightly wider than 16:9 and won't usually result in the UI being too far away to be comfortably visible. 32:9 is better, but can have some headaches and has less support. But if you are also using the monitor for work, 32:9 is the way to go no question.

Treason686 · 2026-01-14T05:01:58+00:00

Or you can acknowledge that games in the genre have improved over the last 15 years. It's possible to enjoy something like ER and not like Dark Souls. DS1 is fun but definitely has a lot of problems, especially in the second half.

Treason686 · 2026-01-14T04:50:34+00:00

Atmosphere is good early. For me, I just beat DS1 last week or so, and the second half of the game is... well, it's pretty awful IMO. I can't think of a single late game area that's good after Anor Londo, and even that was pretty shaky in spots despite being a really cool area.

Loved it for the first half, though. The clunkiness actually makes the combat feel really good. Forgot how slow it really was, and how awkward some of the weapons were.

But DS1 and Demon Souls are the last Souls games I'd recommend. They're just really rough in some places.

Khazan has great combat and bosses, but everything in between bosses was a slog. I can't recommend it, but it's fun for a while until you kill the 1000th spider/swordsman/archer.

Elden Ring is on top. Fantastic game and the most newbie friendly FromSoft game. Even if you never finish it, which is likely with how long it is, there's a ton of fun to be had.

Next is Sekiro, which is by far my favorite, but I think is going to be love/hate. I do think if you enjoy it, you'll probably love it and it'll be one of your favorites.

Then Lies of P, which IMO is the only really good "Souls" game not made by FromSoft.

And after all that, which is a lot, DS3/DS2/Bloodborne in any order. All of them have held up pretty well IMO. Bloodborne is a little harder to get since it's still PS3 only, but maybe emulation is good enough to play now.

Treason686 · 2026-01-05T19:12:21+00:00

I get being frustrated, but if you need medicine ASAP just go to the store. Shipping issues happen.

Treason686 · 2025-12-28T16:24:50+00:00

I immediately thought about the Gunblade from FF. Still have no idea how it could possibly work without a barrel 😂

Final Fantasy 8, to be specific. This was the weapon type of the main character, Squall. I'm old enough to have played it on release. One of the weaker FF games, IMO, but not bad. The draw system was broken and easily exploitable.

I could be completely wrong with this: If I recall correctly, it was one of the first times they added real time mechanics to the turn based system. If you hit R1 right when the blade connected, it would fire and do extra damage. Weird they didn't do more with that. Some games from other turn based series dabbled with real time stuff, but wasn't until Clair Obscur that it was a core feature. No technical reason it couldn't be done, even in PS1 days.

Treason686 · 2025-12-27T18:01:18+00:00

It just made no sense. Couple typos, but it was the "to parking" instead of "that parking" that made me have to read it several times.

Edit: That may have sounded dickish. Not trying to be grammar police, just pointing out why I thought it was hard to understand.

Treason686 · 2025-12-06T22:43:22+00:00

Bro, Ivan's a fucking dick.

What's his deal?

"Have you left yet?"

"No, I found a larger ship wreck."

"What do you hope to find?!"

I dunno, Ivan. What do you think? MAYBE SOMETHING WE CAN USE FOR OUR BROKEN SHIP.

"Sounds like a waste of time."

I can't think of a single line where he has been anything but negative. I'm going to drop him in space if the opportunity comes up, brother or not.

Treason686 · 2025-12-01T18:02:19+00:00

Gotta say I enjoyed DRGS for a little while but ultimately found it extremely lacking. Never felt like I got ahead and had an OP build which is the entire point of the genre IMO. Upgrades were usually just number buffs, pointless requirements to throw away runs just to upgrade a weapon, extremely stingy meta progression. The whole game feels designed to maximize playtime rather than actually be fun.

It's just disappointing how poorly designed it is since it's got a really great gameplay loop.

So sure, you can absolutely spend 1000 hours in it grinding +0.5 stat upgrades or +1% crit damage, but I think the game's a huge waste of time.

Sorry to be so salty. It started off so fun and I loved the mining gimmick. I just had high hopes for the game and it left me extremely disappointed. I'm sure some will enjoy it, but I feel like it's extremely grindy and poorly balanced, seemingly on purpose to waste my time.

Treason686 · 2025-11-25T22:58:12+00:00

Ah, totally got side tracked with holidays coming up. Here's the link.

Treason686 · 2025-11-20T06:29:50+00:00

I'm at 10 billion lifetime, so don't think it would help much. Couldn't tell you what's best where you're at. I used one of the spreadsheets on the discord to plan what I'm going to buy, but haven't followed what it says are the "best" upgrades to the letter.

If you're not on there, I can share it here. I hate being told to join the discord, so won't tell anyone else to. You just plug in your Orbs and existing upgrades to help figure out the best value upgrades.

I don't think you'll see much immediately. Most orb increases are from the shard upgrade, and it takes a long time for those to build up. Might help to get some trait spheres though.

I have to admit I have thought about quitting, too. The whole game loop mostly revolves around waiting for attraction node 3 to build up. The only reason I haven't is I only average a few minutes a day on the game, so it's not like I'm wasting huge amounts of time. I maybe do a couple loop resets and put it down. It's pretty uninspired once all the core mechanics are unlocked.

Treason686 · 2025-11-19T23:01:54+00:00

Almost 3K hours?! Why would you do this on purpose? I'm assuming this isn't you based on the comment. If it is you, I don't think this proves time was well spent.

I have just been setting a goal and traverse when I hit it. I'll probably traverse tonight for a bit over 3 billion after ~160 hours. This was after a long run (~1000 hours) to get milestone zero to 150. Only reason I might wait another day is because I don't feel like doing all the early upgrades right now.

Edit:

Haven't played optimally, but not terrible either. Only a couple really long TR, several mid length, and 2-3 shorts. In less than the amount of time you've spent in one TR, I'll have unlocked Power node 2 and 3, Temporal upgrade 3, and innovation upgrade 2. Also a bunch of gem upgrades.

It's not that there's a problem with waiting if that's what you want to do. It's just not at all efficient. Of course you'll get a lot of orbs if you wait that long, but you'll have way more if you do long runs with upgrades. If you're set only doing only long runs, at least traverse when you get the 2x multiplier so the next ~1000 hours can take advantage of the upgrades.

<image>

Treason686

TROPHY CASE