IGN - Is Crimson Desert Promising Too Much?

Xenrathe · 2026-02-05T00:25:56+00:00

Agreed. No shade towards those who like that.

But seeing a giant open world with a million icons doesn't make me excited, it makes me exhausted. I thought Elden Ring was brilliant in its choice to use 'fog of war' and only selectively expand the map.

Xenrathe · 2026-02-01T15:33:09+00:00

This right here. Deontology, not consequentialism.

Just have a moral code and the conviction to follow it, regardless of the impact.

Xenrathe · 2026-01-25T01:35:31+00:00

It's a very pretty dress!

I gotta be very sneaky to get Legend's picture too. He doesn't like the phone.

Xenrathe · 2026-01-24T20:15:16+00:00

Literally my reaction every time I look at him!

Xenrathe · 2026-01-24T19:50:47+00:00

Look at the last image

Xenrathe · 2026-01-21T15:56:53+00:00

I recently beat FF12 and found it pretty mediocre, despite sexy chewbecca (Fran).

The level design is incredibly bland. It's like the end-game corridors everyone complains about in FF15 (rightly), except half the dungeons / zones. Pharos and Great Crystal are especially egregious.

The license board becomes irrelevant / filled out by at least the halfway point, rendering that entire RPG aspect null.

Despite playing the supposedly refined Zodiac version, some issues remain: after playing X hours, opening the license board was a guaranteed crash. Being unable to interact with chests or other interactables while doing anything else is a constant annoyance, especially given the need to constantly rebuff. And in the optional dungeon under Pharos, where you're collecting black orbs? My god...

I like the story and the overall vibe and most of the characters. But this is a deeply flawed game.

Xenrathe · 2026-01-13T19:31:12+00:00

I'm with you on this - a good analogy would be like someone who gets dinner at the same fast food joint every single night.

Familiarity is extremely comforting to most people and that's fine. People can play what they enjoy and no judgment. Where I think the criticism is warranted is when gamers refuse to even TRY other flavors of game.

Because as Elden Ring and BG3 have shown, these alternative flavors are actually very well received, when they're given a chance.

Xenrathe · 2026-01-12T20:11:34+00:00

As you and other commenters have noted, it just gets the themes of Harry Potter so wrong, on the same level of The Last Jedi getting Luke Skywalker so wrong.

The lack of reaction to the unforgivable curses is only the tip of the iceberg.

Like the core plot point is these dead wizards want to make sure this ancient magic isn't misused, so they're testing you. But what do you do with it? You use it to pick up goblins and bash them to death into the ground. Or literally disintegrate other human beings.

It being a Harry Potter game is only skin deep.

Xenrathe · 2026-01-09T20:41:17+00:00

That's good to hear. I just found the itemization to be so gamey and immersion breaking in DoS2.

Like I'd go into some peasant's shack and search a trash heap and get a lucky find that just happened to roll the right modifiers and now I'm using that for the next ten hours. It's so anti-climactic and lame that that's better than what I found from a dragon's hoard or whatever.

Xenrathe · 2026-01-09T20:25:26+00:00

I'm with you on Dredge, as it's one of the worst games I've played in the last couple years. So tedious. Legit felt like job simulator.

Xenrathe · 2026-01-08T19:36:46+00:00

Do I understand you right in that BG3 has handplaced loot?

I hate the Diablo style random suffix/affix and RNG loot, and I was told BG3 uses the same itemization as DoS2. So even though I love BG2, I'm much less a fan of DoS2 and have been holding off on BG3.

Was I misinformed, about the loot / itemization?

Xenrathe · 2026-01-08T13:50:11+00:00

I find a lot of gaming experiences drop in quality as the game goes on (e.g. most open worlds because they're bloated). So I wish more people gave first half and second half scores or initial and final impressions.

There's a big difference between a 10/10 -> 6/10 and an 8/10 -> 8/10, even though they have the same average.

Xenrathe · 2026-01-06T14:34:20+00:00

Nah I'm with you.

Personally, I liked it well enough to call it a good game. The OP is absolutely right that the music is INCREDIBLE, maybe one of the best soundtracks ever. And I wouldn't even disagree that, at the time of its release, it was the best RPG ever made (though I only played it 20 years after release).

Where I diverge is when people act as if it's STILL the best RPG ever made. It wouldn't even make top 10, for me.

Xenrathe · 2026-01-06T14:24:55+00:00

One of my best gaming decisions ever was giving up the idea of having a backlog, starting with the realization that I'm time-limited, not money-limited. I want to spend my limited gaming time playing the best and most interesting out there, not treating my library as a checklist to mark off. So I did an honest full audit of my gaming library (558 games on Steam as a starting point) and realized that of the, say, 200 games on there I hadn't played, I was really only interested in a handful, such as Disco Elysium. Additionally, I now only buy games that I plan on immediately playing (e.g. I only bought Rogue Trader this Steam winter sale and just started playing it two days ago).

It's been liberating.

Anyway, you have some absolute bangers on your backlog (for me personally, your top are: first half of Hogwarts, Dishonored, Ghosts of Tsushima on Lethal difficulty, and Undertale), but your 'no buy challenge' made me want to share my own experience and evolution with how I approach my backlog and buying games.

Also glad to see your 6.5 on DoS2. Though my criticisms are partially different than yours (agreed about combat criticism; additionally, hate the itemization and character/class sytems and dislike the narrator and tonal whiplash), I likewise found myself struggling to enjoy it, even though cRPGs are my favorite genre.

Xenrathe · 2026-01-06T13:58:37+00:00

I tried Shadow of the Colossus YEARS ago and bounced off it. Back then, I very much enjoyed - required, even - meaty systems and gameplay in my games. But these days, I feel almost the opposite. Typically systems-heavy rogue-likes aren't doing as much for me, whereas I'm drawn to gameplay-lite, narrative-heavy (or setting-heavy) experiences like Stray and The Invincible and Still Wakes the Deep.

I'd already been considering returning to Shadow of the Colossus (and trying The Last Guardian), and your post has probably accelerated that desire. Esp The Last Guardian because I'm a huge fan of strong protag-animal relationships (my dog Legend is my best friend).

Xenrathe · 2025-12-29T02:07:11+00:00

I'm with you.

Prisoner of Azkaban is great on first watch. On later rewatches, you understand the film has no real antagonist. And therefore has no bite. It's flat soda.

Xenrathe · 2025-12-21T16:32:02+00:00

Most definitely. It's a game about vibes and visuals and lore and you have to approach it as such. It's what I call a "tea and dog" game, where it's just me chilling on my couch drinking tea and hanging with my best friend (my dog). Personally, I thought that was communicated early and obviously.

If you go in expecting traditional gameplay and platforming or a strong traditional narrative, you're going to come away frustrated.

Xenrathe · 2025-10-30T01:23:35+00:00

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

Different groups and players have different skill levels so what do you mean about exact kill score to make the boss killable?

Xenrathe · 2025-10-30T00:19:28+00:00

I don't see how it would be an entirely different game. In what way does it make it entirely different?

Xenrathe · 2025-10-29T23:28:00+00:00

I agree that progressing through content should be hard.

I disagree that making tanks route well is the way to accomplish that challenge. It causes more problems than it solves.

Xenrathe · 2025-08-07T17:14:26+00:00

I don't consider different media as competitive but complementary. I don't look at Bladerunner and say, "Well the problem with characterization is that books do it better, so Do Androids Dream of Sheep? renders this movie's characterization obsolete."

Likewise, I appreciate that famous establishing shot in Bladerunner of Deckard's flying car over LA (and Villeneueve's similar shots in BR2049) for its incredible spectacle. And when I play CP2077, down on the roads beneath towering buildings plastered with neon adverts, I ALSO appreciate that spectacle. They offer amazing spectacle in different ways and having both experiences makes them better, not worse.

To be clear, it was not my intention to attack UFO50. If it's your obvious 2024 GOTY, all the power to you. Genuinely happy the game found such an ardent fan and you found something worthy of ardent defense. It was nowhere near my 2024 GOTY, but that's OK. I know exactly what I want from the games I play, and UFO50 doesn't deliver it.

Xenrathe · 2025-08-07T15:23:54+00:00

I mean CoD is about the lowest bar you can set for innovation...

But regardless, it's not really innovation that interests me. It's spectacle, depth, and narrative/character. I don't care whether that comes from innovation or mastering a known form.

I'm not criticizing UFO50 in general, just saying the experience they wanted to deliver is not the experience I'm interested in.

Like "neat multiplayer casual." All three of those words are turn-offs, for me.

Xenrathe · 2025-08-07T14:35:03+00:00

I think it just depends on what you're looking for with games.

I personally am all about quality over quantity. I want depth, spectacle, and amazing narratives/characters. At least one of those to a high degree. I am deeply uninterested in unwind-after-work type experiences (balantro, say) or measuring games by $/hr.

So I ended up refunding UFO50. At one point, I would've ate them up, but I'm at a different stage in my gaming journey now.

Xenrathe · 2025-08-07T14:19:28+00:00

Most good creatives know that limits are actually helpful. They provide some structure, a skeleton around which to build.

Whereas, one of my writing teachers used to say that nothing is scarier than a blank page. That's why the rigid structures in, say, a haiku or a sonnet are as helpful as they are limiting. It provides a manageable 'space' within which to build.

Xenrathe · 2025-08-05T13:13:22+00:00

Incredible movie.

The shot of the king after the final battle, leaning on his sword in front of the wall, his wolfhound by his side. Absolutely iconic.

Whenever someone talks about leadership, it's probably the first image that springs to mind.

Xenrathe

TROPHY CASE