Popular Post realm722 Posted May 25, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 25, 2023 Game: Dogurai Analysis: I bought Dogurai when it was on sale for the disgustingly low price of $0.49 way back in June 2021. That's nearly 2 whole years ago! Why Dogurai? If you're a game that's on sale for under $1 and the trophies even seem somewhat obtainable, I'm probably going to end up purchasing you eventually. For one, the name is amazing. A dog... with a samurai sword? Fantastic concept. I remember scouting out the trophies ages ago and being satisfied with the platinum rarity hovering just over 10%. It was just a game that checked off all the boxes for me to make the purchase. Why the long wait? Quite simply, it didn't feel right until just now. You see, I'm going to be absolutely swamped come the final days of May, and in order to keep pace with my 4 completed games a month, I needed another quickie to follow up Drawngeon after the marathon march that was Invisble, Inc. Everything clicked together for me to finally check it out and boy was it surprisingly pleasant! Gameboy Goodness - Did y'all own a Gameboy? I did. My memory of playing games on it is incredibly vague. I remember Shrek and Donkey Kong... and not much else. Dogurai seeks to bring back that old template by making you play on a relatively confined rectangular screen during your playthrough. There is no crafting. There are no skill upgrades. Your objective is to take out enemies, platform, avoid damage, and beat the final boss of each level in order to advance. Having played some rather complex or odd games for the last few weeks... this was just... so refreshing. I don't have to micromanage anything. Tackle the challenge in front of you and turn your brain off. But don't turn it all the way off. Because this game is NOT easy. It's not insanely difficult either. I know those sound like incredibly conflicting statements but allow me to explain. In Dogurai, you essentially play through 8 levels (1 tutorial, 4 normal levels, 2 final levels, 1 last section with just boss fights) You will likely spend much of your first playthrough getting your ass handed to you. This is the Gameboy era, remember. You have a limited amount of lives if you're playing on Hard Mode. Die too much at a certain tough section? Start from the beginning again. You're likely to get frustrated. I know I sure was while getting my ass handed to me by the lava flood in the volcano level. To make matters worse, the game isn't very forgiving on platforming errors. Fall into a pit? Instant loss of an entire life. While this may be quite a trying ordeal at first... the thing you need to realize (and I realized myself after practicing so many times) is these levels are SUPER short. Dare I say not even 3-4 minutes in length if you get really good at them. Once you know the course, nailing the execution for 1-2 tricky bits each level is your only real barrier. With Bones (default, melee character) this will still likely take you quite some time to master but if you're persistent, I fully believe anyone, even the most platforming-challenged of you, could conquer it. The Trophy Journey - I have to pause everything I'm doing in this review to give some love to a trophy guide walkthrough creator. @greenzsaber. If every trophy guide can be like yours, I'd want it to become reality. Not only do they earn the platinum and show step-by-step every maneuver they make with zero cuts (which is actually helpful, because nothing is more annoying than following the only collectibles YouTube video for a specific game only to have the neanderthal creator make a harsh cut so that you don't even know where to be when getting the collectible or how to navigate there) They also managed to do it in SPEEDRUN fashion achieving the 2nd fastest completion on the leaderboard. You don't even need to read this paragraph to learn the trophy path necessary. Just follow that video like I did, it's all you need. In all seriousness, the game's miscellaneous trophies are quite straightforward. Getting through the lava flood section without any damage took me longer than I'd like to admit. With Rider (an enemy you unlock after getting the true ending w/ Bones) it is 100x easy as he does range damage and his shurikens can take out rockets from a distance. You have to find a few hidden NPCs but again, nothing that a guide can't easily help you with. In reality, this game only has one stopper for the platinum and it's time I detail my battle with it. My Deathless Playthrough Experience - You read correctly. You know that pit you kept falling into 30 times in a row while first learning the game? You now need to execute it perfectly during a single run or else you need to start the level from the very beginning! I initially thought this was going to be impossible for me. Thankfully, there are some helpful tricks. 1) If you die or fall into a pit, dashboard, close application, and open Dogurai back up. The death will not be counted, you just start from the beginning of that same level and try again. 2) Rider cheapens almost all the bosses and can hit enemies through walls. He is amazing. Use this to your advantage to take out foes from a distance and preserve your health. 3) Play slow and steady but don't hyper analyze every maneuver. I personally found when playing that if I kept pausing every time I was reaching a new section to watch the YouTube video example, I'd goof up and jump too early or double jump at the wrong time. Maybe do it once or twice when going back to a level for the first time but the best thing you can do is learn the layout by your own memory to the point that you can go into autopilot through most of it until reaching those 1-2 sections that are the trickiest (typically endless pits where the slightest miscalculation is game over). Oddly enough, I found the early half of the game with the first 4 levels (fire lava, stupid ice, that damn sand bike) to be the trickiest and took me the longest to get through flawlessly. The backend while longer, only has a section or two that gave me a headache. But perhaps I just came in with renewed energy after stopping play for the day which helped my reaction time. The final boss is a joke with Rider who can shoot upwards with ease. I earned the 10.93% rarity platinum in 1 day and 20 hours, making me the 28th fastest achiever to date! Would I recommend Dogurai? If you're into retro games, 100%. If you're someone who is not a fan of platforming, let alone games that require you to be quite precise, I'd say it's a hard pass to save yourself from mental insanity. I really grew to appreciate the game the more I played it. Once you really get familiar with a level, it becomes a bit of a rhythmic dance what you need to execute and when and since the levels are so short, it's one of the rare few games where I can actually mentally juggle and keep up with all that's going on. It's likely not going to be taking any awards when I do my wrap-up post for the year but I enjoyed my time with it. I was also quite happy to discover that the developers, Hungry Bear Games, are a small indie studio based out of Brazil! That's my 2nd game this year that I've platinumed that was created by a Brazillian developer (with the other being Dandara) Shoutout to them for leading the pack when it comes to game development in South America! Now that I've got May all wrapped up and my 225th platinum around the corner, I've got some dream games I've had on the backburner that should make for one hell of a June. Can't wait to share and review them with y'all! Panda Score: 6.88 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 4.73 / 10 P.S. - Video games have taken a backseat for me these last few weeks as I think right now, and I'm trying not to be hyperbolic when I say this, but I'm living in a once-in-a-lifetime moment when it comes to my sports fandom. Let me explain for those who don't follow sports (though I imagine those who don't won't even get this far). I am a South Florida sports dork. Dolphins, Heat, Marlins, & Panthers. (I'm not going to lie to you and say I follow Inter Miami... I do watch every Real Madrid UCL match I can) At the time that I wrote this review, the Panthers, for only the second time in franchise history, have clinched a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals. But it's not just the fact they're in the SCF. It's the way they've done it. As the equivalent of a #8 seed in the conference, they trailed the Boston Bruins (the team that BROKE THE RECORD FOR MOST WINS EVER IN A NHL HISTORY) 3-1 in a series and won 3 straight to stun the world. They then proceeded to beat the league's most popular team in Toronto (after they FINALLY got out of the 1st Round) and just defeated a great Carolina squad in the closest 4-game sweep of my life. (4 OT, OT, 1-0 Game 3, 4-3 last second victory Game 4). They've done all this being led by Matthew Tkachuk, a player they acquired from Calgary this past offseason for a fan favorite and team legend Jonathan Huberdeau. Huebrdeau proceeded to have a career-worst year while Tkachuk has had one of the best debut seasons in NHL History. Sergei Bobrovsky (a goalie signed from Columbus) a few years ago for $10 million per year was viewed as a colossal failure these first 3 years has returned to form overnight. Our vets in Barkov & Ekblad who have been with the team through thick and thin are finally getting their moment. It's genuinely moving. That in and of itself would be one of the Top 5 South Florida sports fan-favorite runs of the last decade. BUT SOMEHOW, SIMULTANEOUSLY, SOMETHING EVEN CRAZIER IS HAPPENING WITH THE MIAMI HEAT. So, I won't lie, while I love all 4 teams, the Dolphins & Heat hit a little bit differently. The Heat are a historically amazingly well-run franchise. They made it to the Eastern Conference Finals of Game 7 last year vs Boston. They made the NBA Finals in 2020. They've won the two most recent championships down here in the back-to-back of 2012 and 2013 with LeBron, Wade, & Bosh. So what's so surprising? This year, they finished as the #8 seed in the conference. Falling off hard from a #1 seed the year prior. There's a number of reasons for that, I won't get into it. In basketball, #8 seeds do not win. Since 1984, only 5 had won their series over #1 seeds. So what do the Heat decide to do when I'm fully expecting Milwaukee to shove us in a locker as the team with the best record in the NBA and the 2x MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo? JUST BEAT THEM IN 5 GAMES (fewest ever for a #1 seed to lose) and for our superstar, Jimmy Butler, to score 56pts in a Game 4 at home where he had ZERO help. We were down 15 & 16pts in the 4th quarters of both Games 4 & 5, as well, as if that weren't enough. We then proceeded to beat up the Knicks (4-2) in the 2nd Round who serve as a great equivalent to Toronto if we're comparing the NHL/NBA runs, and now, in the Eastern Conference Finals, against a team people gave them a 3% chance to beat (as they are admittedly undermanned talent-wise), they won 3 straight games and currently lead the ECF 3-1. We still have to clinch, it won't be easy, Boston is incredible, but if they pull it off, the Heat will become only the second #8 seed in NBA History to make the NBA Finals. TL;DR - I am rolling the sports equivalent of achieving both the Super Meat Boy platinum AND Crypt of the Necrodancer platinum at the SAME time. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted June 3, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 3, 2023 The 'Rona Finally Got Me Y'all After over 3 years of diligent preventative measures and good fortune, on May 29th, 2023, I too finally succumbed to the contagious disease that sent the world topsy-turvy back in 2020. It freaking sucked. Is there any more unpleasant sensation in the human body than throwing up? I had not thrown up in over 3 years (since the last time I got sick in February 2020) and lemme tell ya buddy, the straining of the testicles sensation as your gut tightens and you just unleash that unholy fury from your mouth-hole is downright disgusting. Bonus points for the sensation occurring to me at 4:45AM which added to the ambiance. That was on Monday. The next 3 days or so was a mix of the usual misery associated with sickness. A sore throat that I find to be insufferable. An unceasingly runny nose that had me plow through 3 tissue boxes like it was nothing. I say this as someone who tries to maximize the entire square footage of a tissue before throwing it away and man even then my efficiency was not making up for the amount of snot pouring out like I was a faucet. You also have a general fatigue and tiredness and lack of desire to do anything at all that just slowly encroaches on every aspect of your life. Is there anything more awful than trying to go to sleep when you're SICK? I already have a bad enough time every evening trying to go to bed. Now you're telling me I have to do it when I'm coughing and my nose is runny and I have this atrocious headache with a nasty pressure point of pain on the back right-hand side of my neck? The headaches are miserable. You'll also eventually reach a point when you're coughing so much that your body is so tired over you coughing that your throat and head will hurt just from doing so and it just incentivizes your desire to cough that much less than you already wanted to. To top things off, on THURSDAY (yes, a good few days after the initial wave of sickness overwhelmed me), I finally got the dreaded loss of taste and smell. It happened to me MID-MEAL during Game 1 of the Heat vs. Nuggets NBA Finals. I gotta be honest... it's not too terrible. Maybe this will have long-term ramifications I loathe but at least you can't smell anything. Maybe I'll hang out by my garbage bin more often knowing it holds no power over me anymore. Maybe I should go all in and eat super healthily with vegetables and broccoli for as long as this lasts since taste makes no difference to me at the moment. I read online how long it should take for your senses to return and it boggled my mind that the real actual response is: "80% of people who lose their sense of smell or taste because of COVID-19 recover it within six months, with adults younger than 40 specifically more likely to regain function." OHHHH JUST 6 MONTHS??? There goes any desire I had to eat at any restaurants for the remainder of the year. I was up to 30 thus far! In all seriousness, I am in a good enough mood and health to have taken the time to write this so that should be an indication for y'all that I'm finally turning the corner. Still not 100% obviously but today was the first day I woke up and didn't think to myself: "I could just die" which is par for the course given how melodramatic I get every time I'm sick. I wish I could report that I got some serious progress done in any form when it comes to video games or even movies but nah y'all... I had zero desire to do ANYTHING. Do you know what I did all those droning hours I was awake? I watched a bunch of crappy YouTube videos. They're not any good. I watched 45 of that guy's videos. It's all crappy surface-level relationship jokes and you'll read the YouTube comments section and you'll think the dude and his crew and making modern-day Shakespeare. We'll see if I'm able to catch up for the remainder of June. I know that this is profoundly atypical of a post of mine as I try to always incorporate a video game angle but I think I can make an exception for everything now and then. Aside from that, two of my teams are in the Finals & Stanley Cup. Let's hope we don't pull a 2016 Bay Area... 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YaManSmevz Posted June 3, 2023 Share Posted June 3, 2023 55 minutes ago, realm722 said: The 'Rona Finally Got Me Y'all Ouch. I feel ya man, hope you're feeling better soon. Also, for some reason I never end up rooting for the Heat in the finals. Usually it's out of west coast loyalty (how many times did we see THAT repeat), but this time it's because I have in-laws in Denver. Normally I got best wishes for you but... sorry, go Nuggets? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slicknick3822 Posted June 6, 2023 Share Posted June 6, 2023 On 6/3/2023 at 11:34 AM, realm722 said: The 'Rona Finally Got Me Y'all Sorry to hear that you've had a bad experience. Luckily when I finally got it September of last year I was mostly fine outside of one day where I had bad body aches. I set up my PS5 in my room and my fiancee slept on the couch and I was just gaming and working in my room for 10 days it was like a vacation for me lol. That said I definitely don't want it again it gets boring separating yourself from society. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted June 12, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 12, 2023 Game: Dicey Dungeons Analysis: I bought the game when it was on sale for $7.49 towards the back end of April 2023. This one has been on my radar for quite some time! Why Dicey Dungeons? Back in late May of 2021, I included Dicey Dungeons as one of the seven games I'd be willing to commit a minor crime in order to have it ported over to PlayStation consoles. Geez, with Hades & Persona 4 Golden also having arrived in the last few years, I've been on quite the spree as of late! In all seriousness, my entire connection with the game ties back to all of the details included in that post. I was intrigued my the game from simply hearing that it was a well-made roguelite. You know I love me my roguelites. But on top of that, seeing this clip of Jonathan Blow turn the game off in a fit of rage over some unlucky RNG had me extra intrigued. This dude created The Witness and he's letting a couple unlucky 1's get under his skin? Honestly, the minor controversy probably ended up being beneficial for Terry Cavanagh (Irish game creator) & Dicey Dungeons. Do you remember when IGN had that whole scandal over one of their reviewers shamelessly plagiarizing a YouTube review of Dead Cells? What that quarrel inadvertently created was a bit of a spotlight on Dead Cells itself. While it may not have been the focal point, I 100% remember hearing people say: "yo this game is really freaking good" and I imagine I wasn't the only one who first heard about the game from that event. Is It All Random? I can happily report that having played Dicey Dungeons for nearly 25 hours, this is not some RNG-fest that will leave you bashing your head against the world in complete frustration. While you do roll dice every turn and it is by and large better to roll higher than it is to roll lower (with a few exceptions), most runs will not be entirely won or lost by this factor. Why do I say this? DD has a very fun game-within-a-game system when it comes to leveling up. You have to traverse 5 levels in order to take on the final boss of an episode. On Level 1, there will be two enemies. If you beat these two, you will automatically level-up, gain some health, perhaps another dice, AND achieve a 100% health restore. This happens again on Level 2, Level 3, Level 4, & Level 5. With the hardest of these being Level 5 where you must get through 4 pretty tough fights before achieving the next level-up. In essence, you don't need to play perfect for a whole run. You just need to play well enough as your character for each level of each run before your health is returned to you in its entirety. You're also not forced to face every enemy (I mean, I personally think you SHOULD since the level-ups are too nice to pass up but I guess you could opt to skip some fights if you'd like) Will there by times when the game feels like it's screwing you? Maybe a little bit. But there's another work-around for that. The creators have generously included a "Relaxed Mode" which gives all enemies 25% less health. It does not impede any progress gained in episodes or challenges. I used it and flicked it on after about halfway through and you will normally cruise from henceforward with some minor exceptions. Essentially, what I'm trying to convey in this paragraph is that DD is VERY generous and you shouldn't be scared of from its perhaps intimidating first-glance appearance. Remarkably Memorable Enemies - One of the areas I have to most give the game credit is its enemy designs. Talk about a fun bunch! A full list can be found here but allow me to ramble a bit to try and do them some justice. Enemies are not randomly tossed about with no sense of purpose and are these lifeless husks you're meant to just beat down every run. Each and every one of them will have a little bit of banter with the player after encounters. This can be seen in the apathetic teenage witch sorceress who's too cool to fight you and is on her phone all of the time. But even more impressively, the game manages to create a familiar relationship with these enemies to the point where after enough time fighting them, you will begin to memorize their skills and plan accordingly when given the layout of a level. I personally knew that the gargoyle would be a pain in the ass locking up my dice. OR that I better make sure I have enough firepower in my deck to kill Cornelius before he kills me. OR that the Rat King is going to lay it on thick with a lot of poison. The game teaches you their habits due to the sheer amount of frequency you'll be facing these foes each episode. They provide enough variety and are distinct enough from one another that they become memorable. You'll undoubtedly have a few runs lost to certain foes and keep it in the back of your mind for your next run so you can probably avenge your fallen die. A Light Narrative, Great for Movies - Something I have to respect the game creators for is while they knew the gameplay was going to be front and center, they still dedicated a decent amount of resources to the flavoring that makes up the "narrative" of DD. The game treats itself as a game show. You have a wheel, contestants, challenges, and an evil host! Your cast and crew of dice are trying to escape no matter the odds and Lady Luck is constantly putting y'all down. (SPOILER) There's a nice twist where the jester who spins the wheel after every one of your wins will eventually join your side and will become an eligible player with his own unique skills and deck which I thought was pretty fun. The game keeps these interactions brief and I appreciate that as it actually makes me pay attention the times they DO appear as opposed to me eventually tuning them out if they were too frequent. As much of the game is gameplay-focused with zero voiced dialogue, I also managed to watch a CRAZY amount of movies while watching episodes which is something I haven't done with a video game in a long time. Back to the Future Trilogy, Rocky I - Rocky IV, & A Star is Born. Talk about a comfy good time, I enjoyed all of them! The game has a wheel you spin at the end of every episode. The wheel will 100% without fail land on death every single time. I'm embarrassed to admit I really thought even like 8 hours in at some point it'd land on the car. The Core Classes - One thing that I think is completely understandable and something I myself thought when I first started playing was: "how the heck are they going to make rolling dice interesting for 25+ hours" based on the limited completion time guides out there. I realized that they pulled it off by making a diverse amount of classes with entirely different rulesets that change how you interact with the dice, let's discuss them! Warrior & Thief - The two easiest classes are the very first ones you'll unlock that will serve as a great aid for teaching you the fundamentals of Dicey Dungeons. Warrior is the most basic boy of the entire bunch as he wants to hurt and do the most damage possible with high dice rolls. You have the powerful ability to reroll dice (up to 3 times) in a single turn and your limit break (straight outta Final Fantasy) allows you to double the effect of your next action. Let's say you roll a 4 and have a card that lets you do damage equivalent o the dice roll. If you pop the limit break, you'll do 4 damage, two times, for 8 total. It's the easiest class in the game and you should stomp your way to victory quite easily. Thief is one of my personal favorites. Thief is amazing because he is the character that will likely most help you get familiar with the memorable enemies I cited earlier in this review. This is because his special trait is he's constantly able to copy the same action of an enemy card in any given battle. Let's say you're fighting a Yeti that can freeze dice with odd numbers, all of a sudden, you can do the same to the Yeti! Practice with this character will aid in your knowledge in all future runs as you'll become increasingly familiar with the sort of damage each foe can deal out in latter runs. He'll also be incredibly useful to you for completing many of the game's challenges required for trophies which I'll cover a little bit further down. Robot & Inventor - The Robot is another class I greatly enjoyed. It's probably because he's a bit like a slot machine. As opposed to rolling dice like every other character, the Robot achieves his dice in a case a bit like a slot machine. You'll have 9 CPU available at the start of a turn. If you roll a 3, all of a sudden you'll have 6 CPU left. You can play your 3 in an action or hold off. If now, let's see you roll a 2, you have 4 CPU left. You now have a decision to make. Do you roll again as the odds of you getting a 1, 2, 3, or 4 are higher than rolling a 5 or 6 or do you hold off? If you roll a 5 or 6, all of your action cards will disappear and you'll be "bankrupt" this turn for going over. On the other hand, if you roll a perfect 4, you land a jackpot, and can do extra potshot damage towards the enemy. It's a great deal of fun, one of my favorite classes, and my personal favorite counter to ever getting unlucky and going bankrupt was having an action card that allowed me to always do damage as scrap even if I go over the CPU limit. Sadly, I did not enjoy the Inventor as much and it's probably because of my myopic style of playing. Basically, his gimmick is that at the end of every turn, NO MATTER WHAT, he will turn one of your action cards into a gadget. (This is a free potshot item you can do to nick damage or gain a small buff for free at the start of every turn). After every single battle, you will have to convert at least one of your action cards into a gadget. This is annoying because it's the one character where you can't just get a set of equipment you're happy with and coast the rest of a run. I had to constantly make sure I was looting chests after every battle for fear of not having enough action cards to replenish whenever I'd have to convert one of them into a dumb gadget and all of a sudden I don't like the sort of damage my deck is capable of anymore. It forces you to be creative and think on your feet and goo-goo-gah-gah I'm a baby gamer and I'd rather not do that! Wizard & Jester - The Wizard is rated as the hardest character to play according to the game creators themselves at 5 stars of difficulty. I don't think they're that much harder than any of the other latter classes just.. a bit more annoying to play as. This is because the wizard unlike every other character has to waste dice at the start of every encounter "setting up" their board with equipment. Let's see you have a card that lets you do 5 damage with any even number. First, you may have to roll a 3 to unlock that card from your hand in the first place, place it, and hope you have another even die in your deck so you can actually do damage that turn. It's bit too slow for my preferences but it's not terrible. Goofily enough, I accidentally choose the Wizard for the final run to beat Lady Luck. I won, 1st try. Finally we have the Jester! They're the one that most reminded me of Slay the Spire. This is because you are incentivized to have doubles in your deck and are encouraged to keep it as small as possible to make it as repeatable as possible! Their special gimmick limit break allows them to use duplicates of cards without any dice! This is game-breaking if you're able to keep your deck small as they have cards that increase in power the more you use them on a single turn. With a healthy deck, you're able to stomp your way to many victories and it can be so satisfying when you're on the brink of death, get a fortunate order of the cards, and come all the way back as a longshot against an enemy to bring them down before they take your last drop of health! My Trophy Experience - I'm a bit stunned at how shockingly few owners Dicey Dungeons has across the 4 possible regions/versions. 287 at the time of this review. The game was released back in 2019 for PC and has been available for Xbox & Switch users for a fair bit of time. This means that the formula for unlocking the platinum is quite straightforward for us. First of all, I'd recommend you play through all 36 episodes (6 per each character) in order to get familiar with the game and learn the basics. I'd say, play the first 2 episodes of each until you win them. I say this because the challenges (or miscellaneous trophies essentially) aren't THAT tricky once you know what the hell you're during. Once you know the fundamentals, you can probably even start aiming for them as you're trying to get your normal episode victories as many of them can go hand-in-hand with a strategy you'd like to lean in towards. Such as my earning "64 Max HP" by finding a "Dramatic Exit" card naturally super early in a run as the Warrior. If you're ever in doubt, google the trophy name and you'll find an Xbox Achievements post that has the solution. Truthfully, none of these are that hard. Even the "Hard Mode" episodes. Here's me kicking the final boss's ass as the Thief. If I can do it, you can do it! I earned the 15.60% rarity platinum in 2 weeks and 22 hours, making me the 10th fastest achiever to date! Would I recommend Dicey Dungeons? Absolutely! I'm a very simple man. I play a competently made rogue-lite, I'm probably going to love it! I appreciated the game's gimmick, overall simplicity, unique mechanics, and it's a game that I was able to "zone out" so to speak, and enjoy for several hours without getting bored. Can't ask for much more of a title than that! I am also quite chuffed to announce that as the principal game creator, Terry Cavanagh, is Irish... I'm fairly certain this checks off the Gaelics off my European map of completion! Panda Score: 8.38 / 10 Panda Score: 3.43 / 10 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrBloodmoney Posted June 12, 2023 Share Posted June 12, 2023 (edited) Cheers for this one - a good write up... and a timely reminder that I'm part of this problem... 19 minutes ago, realm722 said: I'm a bit stunned at how shockingly few owners Dicey Dungeons has across the 4 possible regions/versions. 287 at the time of this review. ...since I bought it when it came out, and haven't got to it yet ? Also - hope you're feeling better! Edited June 12, 2023 by DrBloodmoney 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted June 12, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 12, 2023 Game: Inside Analysis: I bought Inside when it went on sale for $4.99 back in late April 2023. We're all about the timely game reviews for the latest over here on the Realm Trophy Cabinet™. Why Inside? In case the sarcasm wasn't laid on thick enough for you in the opener, Inside is an indie game that has received A LOT of praise over the years. Almost... too much praise. Let me explain. As per usual, this starts with a Joseph Anderson video. (Random note - I have now played 10 of the 42 games he has reviewed on his channel. Stardew Valley, The Witness, Inside, Furi, What Remains of Edith Finch, Hollow Knight, Subnautica, Minit, Forager, & Return of the Obra Dinn) While I will avoid rewatching the review to avoid contaminating my thoughts until this review is complete, I distinctly remember being completely baffled by the overwhelming praise the title had received. He criticized the story as being vague and noted how this has become a common issue with games. You don't actually put a story, make things obtuse, hope fans eat it up, and all of a sudden you have an unending defense for your game where any slight critique can be dismissed with: "YOU JUST DIDN'T GET IT" to handwave away any criticism. I'll be honest. I was an Inside hater. I liked dunking on this game even though I hadn't played it. I say this because I too was tired of the nonstop acclaim it was receiving. I distinctly remember Alanah Pearce (ex-games journalist, now a writer at Santa Monica Studio) having a Twitch stream where she ranked all of the best games from the 8th generation of consoles. Inside was in her Top 5. That just boggled my mind. It's also listed on Wikipedia's "Video Games Considered the Best" pantheon. With a need for 100%'s at the start of each month, I decided to finally give the game a fair shake and see what all the hoopla was about. Here are my findings. Why I Think This Game Is So Loved - More than any other game I've played in recent memory, I entered Inside with a curious mindset to ask myself the question: "what got so many people to fall in love with this?" I am happy to report that I don't have to snarkily type here that people are stupid. There's a lot of good here and I think I'll lay out the order in which certain elements stood out to me. 1) The animations are spectacular. Even while conceding the game takes place moving simply left to right, the way the boy maneuvers obstacles whether it be lifting himself up or moving boxes around is just phenomenal. You feel the weight of the character, and it looks fantastic which makes a world of difference in a game where you're only ever moving horizontally. 2) There are some dynamite setpieces. Players love video game set pieces. Why the hell do you think Uncharted got so popular? Even though the mechanics are extremely simple, that sequence where you're in line and simply trying to copy the movements of the mind-controlled humans is a sequence I've seen in countless video game critique videos over the last several years. Inside has like 5-6 of these memorable sections. Manuerving the water submachine, getting away from the underwater girl, getting help from the little chicks, getting help from the mindless humans, escaping the dogs. The game has very little that totally escapes your memory upon completion. 3) People love horror, and there are some gruesome deaths. I think it's undeniable that the morbidity of the game is a draw for many. I think it also can't be understated how much more impactful it is to be playing as a small young boy as opposed to a grown-up man. You constantly feel like you're the underdog and under attack. As opposed to being able to opt for strength for defense, you must flee and outwit your foes to survive. It puts the player in a very specific "survive at all costs" mentality making the tense chase sequences have that much more impact. I Was a Hater, Now I'm Not - Having actually played and experienced the game for myself, I will henceforth no longer be a complete joke when I hear the game discussed as someone's favorite. I enjoyed my time with it. Do I think it's one of the best of All-Time? No, not in the slightest. Of my Top 50 highest-rated games that I've completed since owning a PlayStation 4/5, only two of those games have I managed to complete in under 10 hours. They are The Forgotten City & Undertale. It appears as though something in my brain chemistry strongly correlates "the best games" with being "some of the longest games". A game has to be REALLY special for me to rate it highly if its especially short in length. That being said, just because others view the game in another light than I do doesn't mean it's bad or "overrated" (ok maybe its still a bit overrated but not nearly as unwarranted as I felt previously). I think this game is GOOD. It looks great. The puzzles are simple and yet have just enough complexity that I don't feel insulted. I was always curious about what I was going to encounter next. I got a rush of adrenaline when those dogs were chasing me. While I still find the ending unstoppable blob to be nonsensical... I get why some could have fun theorizing what it all means even if that sort of creative writing interpretation isn't for me. Praise For A Trophy Guide Creator - All of the trophies in Inside are tied to collectibles in secret sections found throughout the world. I played through the game in its entirety without finding a single one. I then went on YouTube and found this collectibles guide from @Optinooby and instantly recognized the username. This beautiful man is one of the greatest trophy guide creators of our generation, and I wanted to heap some praise on him briefly. This is my 3RD time using one of his guides for trophies. He helped me meticulously plan out every moment of Joker's waking life in Persona 5 to ensure I could max out all of my social links on one playthrough. He held my hand in Hollow Knight with a marvelously crafted step-by-step video collection that made the daunting world of Hallownest do-able. My mind is broken at thinking about the amount of research that needed to be done to plan out these paths and then to create such lovely, comprehensible guides for us peasants... I just wanted to let them know that and I think we all deserve to tip a cap in the direction of any local guide/tip helpers who assist us on our journey. Thanks to the way they also did their collectible video (by putting the furthest out collectible first), I managed to achieve an absolutely asinine 18 minute and 58 second 100% completion (39.23% rarity 100%) making me the 7th fastest achiever of All-Time on PSNProfiles! That's pretty damn swanky for a game with over 65,000+ owners. Shoutout to the developers over at Playdead for making such a convenient load-and-checkpoint system to make all of that possible! Would I recommend Inside? 100%. I think even if puzzle games typically aren't your jam and you don't care for vague narratives, you can find something to enjoy here with Inside. It's a game that I could honestly see myself recommending to my mom or sister and find them having an even better time than I did due to the crisp animations and the desperation and memorability of some of the panic sequences. Having completed the game, I decided to do some digging into what Playdead (a studio from Denmark, already on the board for me thanks to A Hat in Time, Forgotton Anne, & Stikbold!) has been doing since. Sadly, despite it being over 6 years since Inside's release, news on their 3rd game has been vague. IGN article from 2021 talks about a 3rd-person science fiction adventure. The Playdead twitter says the same thing though its been fairly dead in recent years. I have no doubt it'll capture many eyeballs given the success of Limbo & Inside and I hope it's worth the wait! That's two reviews in a single day from me after weeks of silence. Time to go on another hiatus as I got a special one for my 225th platinum in the books! Panda Score: 7.17 / 10 Panda Difficulty: 2.22 / 10 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted June 16, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 16, 2023 (edited) So, what the heck is the actual difference between a rogueLITE and a rogueLIKE? I love the rogue[REDCATED] genre of video games. I can prove this mathematically. In the timespan that I've run this curious little thread of mine, I have had the privilege to enjoy 14 games that I would classify in the rogue[REDCATED] genre. I will confess that while categorizing games into a single genre is a futile effort and does not singularly encapsulate the experience of all these titles into a single bag, it was the best way I could define them in my head when organizing my spreadsheet. The games I've played from this genre from the oldest to the most recent include Risk of Rain, Wizard of Legend, Slay the Spire, Children of Morta, Risk of Rain 2, Enter the Gungeon, Going Under, Rogue Legacy, Dead Cells, Hades, Neon Abyss, Inscryption, Tunche, & Dicey Dungeons. Mathematically, it has been proven over a large enough sample size that this IS my favorite genre baring out a 8.51 average rating, over 2.9k words per review, & an AVERAGE of 44 hours of play-time per title. There's just one small problem y'all. I don't really know the difference between a roguelike and a roguelite Shhhhh don't tell anybody. I've kept this secret for quite some time. It's not because of a lack of trying. I remember watching a video of a YouTuber explaining it ages ago, remembering the distinction, and yet over time, having lost all recollection of what I had learned. I guess I wasn't pedantic enough in calling other people out on their video game genre-defining blindspots. Still, as this genre is kind of my thing, it's about time that I put the issue to bed and write an article about it so it permanently registers in my database. Take notes y'all. I do all the time. Keep a meticulous archived system of how-to's on basic activities that you do on an infrequent enough basis that they don't become second nature. You'll thank your former self more often than you'd think. My attainment of this knowledge comes from the following sources. The two top YouTube videos and top three Articles that I found after searching the title of this post into Google. I'll do you the favor in ranking them in the order that I found most useful to least useful. Realm's Top 5 Sources for This Post: #1. Roguelikes, Peresistency, and Progression (Game Maker's Toolkit) (YouTube) (Jan. 28th, 2019) #2. Rogue-like. vs. Rogue-lite: The Ultimate Explanation (Best Indie Games) (YouTube) (Aug. 29th, 2021) #3. The Difference Between Roguelite and Roguelike Games Explained (Andrea Trama) (GameRant) (May 3rd, 2021) #4. Roguelike vs Roguelite: What's the difference between the two? (Eric Van Allen) (Destructoid) (Nov. 4th, 2022) #5. Roguelike vs roguelite - what's the difference? (Kayleigh Partleton) (Pocket Tactics) (May 25th, 2023) ORIGIN OF THE TERM "ROGUE" - Rogue was a game from 1980 that pioneered elements that form the pillars of the genre. What are these core elements? 1) Permadeath. 2) Procedurally generated levels or maps. 3) High difficulty. 4) RPG elements. There are several other "high-value" and "low-value" factors mentioned by the rogue community, but I believe these are the features that stand out the most. ROGUE*LIKE* DEFINITION - The core meaning is games that are LIKE rogue, the original 1980 dungeon crawler. A very key factor in this distinction is that in the original, items or progress did NOT carry over between runs. There is heavy debate between many parties about whether or not the TYPE of gameplay (grid and turn-based VS. action, hack 'n slash, platforming, etc..) should automatically disqualify any of the latter categories from qualifying as roguelikes. ROGUE*LITE* DEFINITION - The core meaning of this term dates back to the release of Rogue Legacy. The developer of the game coined the term which suggests to only borrow some elements from the original Rogue. A very common distinguisher between the two is the addition of unlockable items and permanent meta progression that carries between different runs. My Take On The Definitions - I think the hardliner definition suggested in "Best Indie Games" video by those who are fans of the original Rogue and think that any game that isn't a grid-based dungeon crawler should be distinguished as "roguelite" is quite frankly ludicrous. I understand why those who love that original game would want the definitions to remain stringent as they may not care for action gameplay, and the types seen in the form of Nuclear Throne OR Spelunky seem like a far cry from the name the genre is based on but man... EVERYTHING would be a "roguelite" then because guess what, I know A LOT of indie games y'all, and yet all those modern examples of the hardliner definition that he mentioned are games I've never heard of in my entire life. Thus, I have come to the the conclusion that GMT's distinction between the two is the best. Roguelikes do not allow meta-progression. Roguelites DO allow meta progression. That's it. That's the key distinguisher between the two. I will not be hearing any counterarguments. With this discovery, let me recategorize the initial 14 games I mentioned from the outset. I believe the correct categorization would be that I have played 6 rogueLIKES (Risk of Rain, Wizard of Legend, Slay the Spire, Risk of Rain 2, Enter the Gungeon, & Dicey Dungeons) and 8 rogueLITES (Children of Morta, Going Under, Rogue Legacy, Dead Cells, Hades, Neon Abyss, Inscryption, & Tunche). WOW! Why the hell did I include Tunche when I did my initial categorization? It's way more like Streets of Rage. I just had never played a 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up before. I need to revamp everything when it comes to genre definitions in my spreadsheet because this is becoming a bit of a disaster. In all honesty, it appears as though I love both types for distinct reasons, with a slight favoritism for roguelites due to some of the pure euphoria I've had while playing Hades & Dead Cells. I sure hope this article helped somebody besides myself. Ta ta! Edited June 16, 2023 by realm722 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 10 hours ago, realm722 said: There's just one small problem y'all. I don't really know the difference between a roguelike and a roguelite Yooooooooo same. My husband would constantly correct me on the difference between the two, and every once in a while I would do a quick Google to try to remember the difference between the two genres. I've always struggled to remember the "-like" versus "-lite" (especially since they have only one different letter). Not sure why "Rogue-like is like Rogue (the game)" never came to mind as a memory device before, but that is fantastic - thank you! I recently platinumed Inscryption and have been making my way through Hades for a while now. I hadn't really played a rogue-anything before, and gosh those two games are absolute perfection. The meta-progression aspect of those two games absolutely sunk their claws into me, and it's made me a lot more excited for when I get around to the intimidatingly large (and likely difficult) Dead Cells. I never thought that some of my favorite games would be rogue-lites, and I'm aware that I started out with two of the most highly-regarded games in that subgenre, but it's still exciting to discover that there are new genres that click with me! Hardliners who want "Rogue-like" to be games that are exactly in the vein of the game Rogue are missing the mark, in my opinion. The difference between games that feature meta-progression and those that don't is huge (even though I've not played a Rogue-like yet, personally). Making "Rogue-like" a much more narrow definition would make the label "Rogue-lite" a lot less helpful. Admittedly, I don't know what percentage of Rogue-like games would still fall under its label if the definition were changed, but it still seems like something that would mostly benefit fans of Rogue and not the videogame community at large. The whole point of genre labels is that they are supposed to give a general idea of a videogame's gameplay, not faithfully follow every single item on a checklist. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted June 16, 2023 Share Posted June 16, 2023 (edited) Or you can be like me and just make a meme that they're essentially the same thing. It gets really difficult once you start trying to organize every game into a single genre. For example, you classified Tunche as a rogue-lite, but I put it under beat 'em up, as that's where I put Foul Play. You also did NOT include Frost as a rogue-anything, despite it being very similar to Slay the Spire. And what about Darkest Dungeon? That's probably the game I struggle with the most to categorize. I called it a rogue-something, but it's hard NOT to put it in the same group as XCOM or Grand Kingdom (which might not even be in the same genre). And what is Minecraft? It's procedurally generated and you can lose all your progress when you die. Is it a farming sim? A survival game? An open world sandbox? This stuff makes my head hurt. For eight years, I've struggled with this. Edited June 16, 2023 by Cassylvania 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted June 17, 2023 Author Share Posted June 17, 2023 11 hours ago, pelagia14 said: I recently platinumed Inscryption and have been making my way through Hades for a while now. I hadn't really played a rogue-anything before, and gosh those two games are absolute perfection. The meta-progression aspect of those two games absolutely sunk their claws into me, and it's made me a lot more excited for when I get around to the intimidatingly large (and likely difficult) Dead Cells. I never thought that some of my favorite games would be rogue-lites, and I'm aware that I started out with two of the most highly-regarded games in that subgenre, but it's still exciting to discover that there are new genres that click with me! Hah, if I had to pick any two games to get people into the genre those two would probably be my pick! I realize that one of the reasons I love them so much is because in a very weird way... roguelites are some of the most sports-like genre of video games we have. Once you know the rules and are familiar with the game, it's all about execution above all else. Sometimes you'll have good players (good items, fortunate luck, strong play) and other runs you'll have a bad "season" where it was just never meant to be. It makes that special moment when everything comes together OR you finally get over the hump all that more special! 11 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Admittedly, I don't know what percentage of Rogue-like games would still fall under its label if the definition were changed, but it still seems like something that would mostly benefit fans of Rogue and not the videogame community at large. The whole point of genre labels is that they are supposed to give a general idea of a videogame's gameplay, not faithfully follow every single item on a checklist. Yup, 100% agree. I decided to search up a few of the games he mentioned and they include ADOM (1k steam reviews), Cataclysm (196 reviews), Cogmind (1k reviews), & Tales of Maj'Eyal (4.8k reviews). I'll admit I'm stunned they have as many as they do. I thought none of them would have more than 500 and instead it seems the super niche core fanbase really does support any games that are decent and come along of its ilk. But in terms of the mainstream, a roguelite like Neon Abyss has 17k reviews and isn't one of the... 15 most popular in the last 10 years? I think it's fair to say the more stringent definition has lost its battle. 7 hours ago, Cassylvania said: It gets really difficult once you start trying to organize every game into a single genre. For example, you classified Tunche as a rogue-lite, but I put it under beat 'em up, as that's where I put Foul Play. You also did NOT include Frost as a rogue-anything, despite it being very similar to Slay the Spire. And what about Darkest Dungeon? That's probably the game I struggle with the most to categorize. I called it a rogue-something, but it's hard NOT to put it in the same group as XCOM or Grand Kingdom (which might not even be in the same genre). And what is Minecraft? It's procedurally generated and you can lose all your progress when you die. Is it a farming sim? A survival game? An open world sandbox? This stuff makes my head hurt. For eight years, I've struggled with this. You know what Cassy... you just inspired me. New article idea in the cooker. I'm gonna try and revolutionize some archaic terminology. Wish me luck. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briste Posted June 17, 2023 Share Posted June 17, 2023 Quick wellness check. Was a rough couple of days in the Realm of sports for Florida...see what I did there? I was rooting for you after your guys knocked out both of my teams. Jimmy Buckets just didn't have enough help. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted June 17, 2023 Author Share Posted June 17, 2023 3 minutes ago, Briste said: Quick wellness check. Was a rough couple of days in the Realm of sports for Florida...see what I did there? I was rooting for you after your guys knocked out both of my teams. Jimmy Buckets just didn't have enough help. In all seriousness, I was in a very miserable mood after witnessing the 3rd quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals and I realized: "oh wow they're just straight up way better than us". Was thrilled about being the first team to beat Denver at home. Then they just came down here and reminded everyone why they spanked everybody out West (minus Phoenix cuz Devin Booker played like Michael Jordan for a few games). Now that some days have passed, I think it's going to go down as one of my favorite times alive ever as a sports fan. Even with no hardware, witnessing TWO of my teams as #8 seeds simultaneously make it all the way to the Championship is something that I don't think will ever happen again. Maybe it could. But it sure as hell is never gonna be frequent lol. As for the Panthers, I enjoyed the entire run. I was so happy I got to see us FINALLY win a Stanley Cup game (after getting swept in '96) that the spanking in G5 didn't hurt so bad. Our entire team is dead (Tkachuk, Ekblad) and after an insane ECF the magic finally ran out for ol' Bob. Only wish the Vegas fans online weren't such jerks about their victory... y'all literally started existing less than 6 years ago where is all this pent-up rage from? Probably the best time I've ever been alive for all 4 of my times simultaneously. I can't freaking wait for football season. This is quite easily the most talented Dolphins teams of my lifetime. I don't wanna say Super Bowl (let's win a playoff game for the first time in 20 years pls), but with Fangio as DC managing the D, a monster corner duo in X/Ramsey, Tua with a 2nd year making chemistry with Tyreek/Waddle, I expect us to challenge Buffalo for the division even if we may not win it. The bloody Marlins are even having the best start to a season since 1997! Luis Arraez is one of my favorite trade acquisitions of All-Time. Saw him go 5/5 tonight! If only Sandy could get out of... whatever godforsaken funk he's been in this entire year. Just seeing more playoff baseball would be a blast. I've had one small snort of it since 2003 (the 2020 60-game shortened year where we ended the Cubbies 2016 core and then got ass blasted by Atlanta) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post realm722 Posted June 19, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 19, 2023 (edited) The Gamer’s Guide to Defining Video Games Genres in the 21st Century Video game genre definitions and terminology have been bad for a very long time. The situation has gotten worse in recent years due to the number of genres mixing and matching known formulas which only further complicates matters. I know I'm not the only one with this struggle. @Cassylvania has been fighting the good fight for nearly a decade. Categorization and grouping in general can feel like a futile task given the amount of nuance typically involved in most matters. Despite the absurdity of this assignment, I have decided to take this burden upon myself and try to at the very least move the needle in the smallest possible fashion towards a better future of defining video game genres. I may fail. I may succeed. There are going to be some wildly radical ideas I'm going to propose but if you'd just hear out my arguments, I think I could sway you over to my side. Buckle up because we're going on a journey! The Goal of This Endeavor - Why am I doing this? Because I am sick of the atrocious, generic terminology we use to describe video games. Some have stood the test of time. If I say "platformer" you automatically think "Super Mario". This is good. You know what it means. Typically a challenge involving getting from one place to another where you'll be jumping to progress and these stages or levels will get progressively harder the further you go. Congratulations! We know what a developer means when they say their game is a platformer! Sadly, this clear-cut categorization has fallen to the wayside for MANY terms that have become far too commonplace when labeling games. They have overstayed their welcome and the rent has come due. It's time we kick them out. The GOAL of the new and borrowed terms I'm going to introduce in this article aims to better define groups of games together. That's it. That's all I'm trying to do. You see one term for one game and see it used for another game and can easily correlate "oh hey I guess this game is a bit like that game in this specific aspect". The Rule of Three - In 1980, you probably were capable of defining different types of video games with a single word. In 2023, the world isn't so simple anymore. Thus, rather than participate in the Sisyphean task of trying to encapsulate a single game in a single genre, I propose the Rule of 3. I am of the belief that you can by and large categorize and summarize the majority of even the most complex video games with three genres. Of course, this may not always be necessary. If you can succinctly define a game in two or even one terms, go for it. I believe that giving ourselves this broader scope increases our chances of better achieving our end goal. Putting Out to Pasture Useless Terms - You can't bring in the new without getting rid of some of the old. Here are some of my extremist views that I believe we should adopt. "Role-playing game" - Hands down the worst offender of a term that has become so watered down, so frequently used, and so beaten to death, that it no longer holds ANY significant meaning. What is the first game you think of when you think of an "RPG"? Maybe Final Fantasy? OR would that be a JRPG? Guess what, Disco Elysium is labeled as an RPG on Wikipedia. So is Bloodborne. So is Persona 5. I could list a hundred more examples and that isn't even hyperbole. "You play a role in a fictional setting". Guess what buddy? That's damn near every video game. It is for this reason that I am putting the term to death and will no longer be using it for any descriptiveness of a game going forward. "Adventure" - I loathe this term. What the hell is an adventure game? Am I not going on an adventure in any of the above-labeled games? Of course I am, yet it seems the term has largely been reserved for all those pansy titles where you don't actually kill anything and instead explore environments and solve puzzles or some jazz. Even. with that preconceived definition, I don't think it has really stuck in the public conscioueness. Why else is Marvel's Spider-Man labeled as an "action-adventure" game? If a video game isn't taking me on an adventure, I probably don't want to play it. The term has become redundant and doesn't actually describe anything meaningful and thus, it too will be expelled from the discourse. By dropping these two terms alone, we've left an enormous vacuum with regard to the categorization of game genres. To fill this void, I am now prepared to share the 48 genres that I have personally defined and included examples of. Some of these genres you've known since you were a child. Some are ones I've invented. The ones I've created include a distinguishing "(NEW)" beside them. I hope they serve somebody aside from myself and if you have a helpful suggestion or catchier title, be my guest to pitch in and offer the recommendation. "Action (Complex)" (see: Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Dead Cells, & Furi) - Action (Complex) games are ones in which the player actively engages in combat with enemies or foes with a highly diverse skillset. The best thing about the action title is that it makes clear to players that the gameplay is ACTIVE. You must REACT. Your thumbs must TWITCH. Complex games may not actually be that high in difficulty in order to actually survive (see: Batman: Arkham series where keeping up your combo is trickier than actually avoiding dying) but due to the amount of various inputs available, it falls into the complex category. Devil May Cry 5 is another example of a complex action game in which the challenge is more focused on raising your score rank as opposed to merely surviving. (UPDATED: 6/19/23) "Action (Simple)" (see: Kamiko, Neverlast, & Chasm) - Action (Simple) games are ones in which the player actively engages in combat with enemies or foes with a limited skillset. The key distinguisher between complex & simple action games are the amount of options available to the player while engaged in combat. Relatively simple action games can still make a player die a lot (such as in Chasm), but with a limited melee attack option with square and one ranged attack option with triangle, the action is undoubtedly simplified and deserves to be noted as such. Any Dynasty Warriors game is also considered (Simple) despite a larger moveset due to the lack of difficulty of ever actually dying. (UPDATED: 6/19/23) (NEW) "Action Runner" (see: Mirror's Edge Catalyst, No Thing, & Infinity Runner) - Action Runners are games in which the player is in a first-person perspective and must react instinctively and decisively in order to avoid failure. This is a genre that is ridiculously niche but I've played enough of them amongst the 3 listed to feel comfortable creating it. You aren't fighting anything and as the level gets progressively faster and faster you must have the reflexes and reactiveness to avoid ending your run prematurely. "Arcade" (see: Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, & Libble Rabble) - Arcade games are ones in which the game was formally played in a classic arcade system OR seeks to emulate that era of video game. We know a Pac-Man arcade machine when we see one. We also know that a game such as Pacific Wings directly tries to recapture that same formula. "Brawler" (see: Tunche) - Brawler games are ones in which the player engages in hand-to-hand combat with enemies typically across a variety of 2D side-scrolling levels (though 3D Brawlers have emerged in the past decades). This is a term I wrestled with tossing out (I mean c'mon, in what action game are you not beating them up) but ultimately kept around due to the instantaneous recognizability of the genre. When you see Streets of Rage 4, River City Girls, or Scott Pilgrim vs the World, you automatically know what I'm talking about. Thus the term still remains useful and deserves to be kept around. (UPDATED: 6/19/23) "Board Game" (see: Scrabble, Battleship & Mahjong) - Board games are ones in which the player plays a game that already exists in real-life in a tabletop form with pieces. Typically these games will have their own form of strategy but as these video games typically replicate all elements to simulate the real-life experience, this is a neat and tidy category to file them away in. Other examples include Chess & Monopoly. (NEW) "Boss Rush" (see: Furi & Jotun) - Boss Rush games are ones in which the main gameplay loop focus on combat against bosses. This does NOT include games where boss fights form a mere main component of the game (such as Elden Ring or Hollow Knight). If you've played the two games I've featured here, you'll know what I'm talking about. In Furi, there are these lengthy walking segments between fights, but you are here above all else for the lengthy action-sequenced boss fights. In Jotun, there are some brief levels of puzzles and navigation before the final foe of the area, but the boss fights are WHY you're here. On the other hand, Hollow Knight has a vast world with platforming and minor combat enemies and the same can be said for Elden Ring in the form of exploration. (UPDATED: 6/19/23) "Bullet Hell" (see: Enter the Gungeon & Undertale) - Bullet Hell games are ones in which the player needs to dodge a large amount of projectiles. These games typically require the player to have exceptional reflexes and pattern recognition in order for one to achieve any amount of consistent success. Undertale is a lowkey bullet hell given what you're forced to evade when on the defensive and avoiding enemy attacks. Ikaruga is another stellar example. "City Builder" (see: Tropico 5, Aven Colony, & Islanders) - City Builder games are ones in which the player acts as the overall planner of a city or town and are responsible for its growth and management. These games are known for having a specific formula that can be quite enticing if it tickles your fancy and much the innovation of the genre has come from building cities in unique settings or increasing the amount of complexity with features such as traffic and ensuring citizens morale remains high. "Co-op" (see: Stikbold! & Chambara) - Co-op games are ones in which you work alongside another player on your couch to complete an objective as teammates or face each other in a competition. Some prominent examples of this include It Takes Two & Overcooked. "Deckbuilder" (see: Slay the Spire, Dicey Dungeons, & Inscryption) - Deckbuilders are games in which the construction of a deck of cards is a core element of gameplay. "Experimental" (see: Wattam, Desert Child & Beholder 2) - Experimental games are ones in which the developers have chosen mechanics that... I can't quite describe with any meaningful purpose or categorization seen up until now. Desert Child is a really freaking weird game and classifying it under racing just feels wrong. Beholder 2 is also bloody bizarre. I have it labeled under "simulation" but that doesn't even feel right. This is where you put the games that don't fit into any other genre and if you play another like it, I guess you've gotta come up witha. new word for it! "Farming" (see: Slime Rancher, Graveyard Keeper, & Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life) - Farming games are ones in which the game's core gameplay loop revolves around the maintenance and incremental progression of agriculture, creatures, or some other type of item. This is a genre best defined by feel as once you see it, you almost automatically know what it is. Stardew Valley is the king of the genre in the modern era as it borrowed almost all of the core features from the Harvest Moon series. Yet, the definition isn't too stringent. Slime Rancher is all about maintaining your different types of slimes and combining them on your ranch, I think that qualifies. Graveyard Keeper is a grim take on the genre where you farm and manage corpses rather than crops. "FPS" (see: Superhot & DOOM 64) - FPS games are first-person shooters in which the player controls a character and navigates a three-dimensional space while firing at enemies with a gun. It is the most commercially viable video game genre with it comprising over 27% of game sales in the medium. (NEW) "Fantasy Sports" (see: Pyre & Rocket League) - Fantasy sports games are ones in which the spirit of sport is emulated in a fantasy or fictional game or setting. I felt the need to create this term due to the terms "action" not sufficiently describing the gameplay loop found in these game. Pyre's core gameplay deals with "rites" in which the player must manage a 3 v. 3 matchup and score enough points to extinguish the opposing team's pyre. Rocket League is a vehicular soccer game and is a magical blend in how combining two known ideas (cars & soccer) can create a magnificent mashup. We need more fantasy sports games. I'd like to create some. Get on it devs. "Fighting" (see: Kiai Resonance & The Last Blade 2) - Fighting games are ones in which the player will engage in combat against another foe and typically includes detailed mechanics such as combos, blocking, grappling, & chaining. Despite the generic name, the genre description has stood the test of time and is still useful today for succinctly describing what a game plays like such as with Street Fighter or Tekken. (NEW) "Grand Level" (see: Shadow Tactics & Desperados III) - Grand Level games are ones in which the player must navigate an enormous and complex series of levels or missions in order to complete the game. These levels upon your first playthrough may take up to over an hour to complete, and can typically be solved or completed in a variety of different ways. I LOVE this genre and hope it grows in popularity in the games to come. When I played Shadow Tactics, it all clicked. "Holy crap... this huge mammoth level kinda reminds me of the Hitman games where you have a variety of ways to tackle your objective". The modern Hitman games are 10000% Grand Level games. PLEASE recommend some if you get the vibe I'm going for. "Grid-Based" (see: The Banner Saga 3 & Ash of Gods: Redemption) - Grid-based games are typically turn-based and rather than active, free movement, the player must control their characters on a tile-based surface creating a grid. These games tend to be focused on tactics or strategy and engage the player mentally more so than with dexterity. "Idle" (see: Forager) - Idle games are ones in which the player will make progress with very limited or no interaction whatsoever. These games are also known as clicker games, and "grinding" can be done by leaving your device idle so as to accumulate whatever currency or resource is needed in the game. Rapid growth is a core element of these titles and there is some warning about their potential addictiveness. (NEW) "Limited World" (see: Gravity Rush 2, CrossCode, & A Short Hike) - Limited World games embody many of the same traits and qualities of "Open World Big Boy" games (seen below) but are done on a much smaller scale. They may have a story, cutscenes, side quests, items, gear, and crafting but the runtime is much shorter compared to OWBB's. I really felt the need to create this distinction as simply saying "open world" doesn't do a good job of distinguishing between the scope of say, Batman: Arkham Knight compared to inFamous First Light. "Limited" may sound like a negative term, but in an increasingly common society where gamers want SHORTER games with LESS bloat, I think the term could end up quite flattering. "Metroidvania" (see: Hollow Knight, Guacamelee 2, & Shantae and the Pirate's Curse) - Metroidvanias are games in which the player explores a large interconnected world map and gain access to different parts that were previously unaccessible via new items or abilities. The name is derived from two franchises that pioneered the genre, Metroid & Castlevania. (NEW) "Mosey Adventure" (see: Dear Esther, Shape of the World, & Journey) - Mosey Adventure games are ones in which the player casually advances through environments in a leisurely manner without any imminent threat or active game mechanics. This is my counter to the dreaded term "walking simulator". I find that term to be a bit insulting. Looking around at stuff and exploring while walking around has its merits. They're not for everybody of course, but I believe the term "mosey" properly encapsulates the tone of these games. Some other famous examples would be a game such as Abzu, What Remains of Edith Finch & Gone Home. "Multiplayer" (see: Rocket League & FIFA 22) - Multiplayer games are ones in which the player engages with other random players in either a solo, competition, or team-oriented fashion. You could toss all sports games into this class, many FPS games like Call of Duty, Fall Guys, etc... The key distinguisher here from co-op is that the other players you're playing with are strangers and randomized. "Mystery" (see: Paradise Killer, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders, & Telling Lies) - Mystery games are ones in which the player is actively trying to uncover details that are otherwise obscured in a detective case-like format. It's a subgenre of narrative or puzzle games. I believe you could also put The Forgotten City and Return of the Obra Dinn into this category. (NEW) "Narrative" (see: The Forgotten City, Heavy Rain, & Afterparty) - Narrative games are ones in which the story forms a fundamental pillar of the appeal of the game and without it, there is very little else remaining for the player to engage with. Allow me to explain. Narrative is a dumb, generic term when trying to describe a genre of video games. Damn near every single game nowadays has some form of narrative. Aren't FF7 Remake & Persona 5 narrative games? Huge amounts are dedicated to the story. Ugh, you're right, but if you removed the entire story from those games, you still have tens of hours of GAMEPLAY that you could chew on and have fun with. For me, when somebody suggests a title is a NARRATIVE game, it is essential to the experience. You don't really have a game without it. I struggle with this definition greatly but I hope in practice it makes some sense. (NEW) "Open World Big Boy" (see: Horizon Forbidden West, Persona 5, & Bully) - Open World Big Boy games are ones that are mammoth in scope. They contain a heavy story, cutscenes, side quests, items, gear, crafting, and a lengthy runtime. These are almost entirely created SOLELY by AAA developers. The reason why I've created this category is because this game has become increasingly popular in the 2010s. God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Marvel's Spider-Man, Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy, etc... are all encapsulated here. One game where I may see some pushback is a title such as Persona 5. But I really think the game fits the definition beautifully. The scope is GIGANTIC. You have gear, humongous dungeons, an overworld during the daytime where you can go to shops and explore Japan, social links, etc... Given the heavy trend we've seen in this direction, I think it's worthy of finally being properly defined and an abbreviation to OWBB could be in order. "Point-and-click" (see: Lair of the Clockwork God & Grim Fandango) - Point-and-click games are ones in which the player moves, investigates environments, and uses their inventory by clicking. This is considered a dying genre by many given their once high popularity back in the LucasFilm & Sierra Entertainment days of the 1990s. "Puzzle" (see: Return of the Obra Dinn, The Witness, & In Between) - Puzzle games are ones in which the core gameplay loop revolves around the player solving a series of challenges using an array of problem-solving skills. Pattern recognition, logic, sequence solving, & tile matching make up just a few of the possible elements found in a puzzle game. This is an understandably broad term for a wide array of games but in the same way "action" helps encompass active gameplay for players, "puzzle" lets players know a slow and more methodical approach will be needed to adequately progress. "Racing" (see: Need for Speed: Heat, Team Sonic Racing, & The Crew 2) - Racing games are ones in which the player engages in a racing competition, typically within a vehicle. Kart racing is a famous subgenre of racing and yet not so common that I feel the need to separate it into a separate category. It's a very easy to understand term. "Resource Management" (see: Kingdom: New Lands, Moonlighter, & Beholder) - Resource management games are ones in which the player is challenged to establish values for various types of resources and by doing so well within the context of the game, achieve the desired outcome. Good lord. That's a crap definition. I'm sorry. I beat my head against a wall trying to make it somewhat comprehensible and I believe I've failed. LOTS of games have some level of resource management. Basically all city builders and farming games. But I think this is a compromise for games that don't fall into any of those clear-cut categories. "Rhythm" (see: Sayonara Wild Hearts, PaRappa the Rapper, Patapon Remastered) - Rhythm games are ones in which the player's rhythm is challenged, typically in the form of clicking buttons on beat with a song. Other famous rhythm games include the Guitar Hero franchise, Beat Saber, & Just Dance. "Roguelike" (see: Risk of Rain 2 & Wizard of Legend) - Roguelikes are games in which the player engages in "runs" as a character through procedurally generated levels. If they die, their progress is wiped and they must start from the beginning. These games tend to be high in difficulty and meta-progression IS NOT a core aspect of the gameplay loop. "Roguelite" (see: Hades, Children of Morta, & Rogue Legacy) - Roguelites are games in which the player engages in "runs" as a character through procedurally generated levels. If they die, their progress is wiped and they must start from the beginning. These games tend to be high in difficulty and meta-progression IS a core aspect of the gameplay loop. "Sandbox" (Dragon Quest Builders 2 & The Sims 4) - Sandbox games are ones in which the player has a great degree of freedom and creativity to do whatever is possible within the limits of the game, without a specific goal or objective in mind. @Cassylvania I believe you can say that Minecraft is a "sandbox survival action" game and perfectly encapsulate the majority of features in the game. Sandbox is found in the building with blocks as you please, survival covers hunger and trying to avoid death, and action deals with combat against monsters. In terms of games I've played, DQB2 is HEAVY on letting the player do whatever they desire to their heart's content and The Sims 4 is a perfect blend of a slice-of-life sandbox game! "Shoot 'Em Up" (Rez Infinite & Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime) - Shoot 'Em Ups are games in which the player fires projectiles at opposing enemies. This is a very broad definition for a genre but many of these games tend to take place in space and are known as shmups. (NEW) "Slice-of-Life" (see: Stardew Valley, Spiritfarer, & Haven) - Slice-of-life games are games in which the player engages in relationships with other characters and has a heightened focus on the more mundane aspects of day-to-day life. I have decided to steal this definition as it is commonly associated with anime. Yet I feel like there is a gaping hole for this description in games. How so? Well, I freaking love Stardew Valley, and one of the reasons I like that game is not because there's always high-stakes mining exploration or farming to cultivate my crops... it's because I can gift an egg to Haley a hundred times over the course of a month and by doing so, I'll get her 6th heart scene interaction. The same is done in a different fashion in Spiritfarer. OR engaging in couple activities in Haven. Hell, Persona 5 is absolutely a slice-of-life game given the amount of time you'll spend in the world getting up your stats going to the cafe to study for exams OR trying to raise your social links. We need more slice-of-life games that ALSO have action in them. OR vice versa. "Sports" (see: FIFA 20, MLB The Show 20, & Madden 22) - Sports games are ones in which they aim to replicate accurately a real-life known sport. Basketball, football, baseball, soccer, cricket, tennis, etc.. They differ from the fantasy sports genre in the sense that they are real and played in real life. "Strategy" (see: Sid Meier's Civilization VI) - Strategy games are ones in which the player takes turns while playing and typically must manage a wide array of systems from combat units, to cities, to resources. A key distinguisher between strategy games and tactic games is this additional responsibility on the player, along with the fact that "grand strategy" games focus more on a series of decisions across a long period of time whereas tactics games focus on decisions made in a single encounter. My ability to accurately describe the genre is limited due to the fact I've only played one of them. These games tend to stick exclusively to PC. Europa Universalis & Age of Empires also fit this description. "Stealth" (see: Invisible, Inc, Mark of the Ninja, & Desperados III) - Stealth games are ones in which the player seeks to complete objectives by either actively avoiding or sneakily eliminating enemy foes. Engaging head-on with enemies is frowned upon either due to alarms being set off and automatically ending the mission or the player character lacking the firepower necessary to deal with challenges directly. (NEW) "Story Alterator" (see: Oxenfree, Detroit: Become Human, & Road 96) - Story Alterator games are ones in which the player has the ability to significantly alter the story due to decisions and choices made throughout their playthrough. Forgive the lumpishness of that genre title. I didn't want to put "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" as 1) It's too long and 2) I've already covered why I hate the word adventure. The main appeal of these games is the ability to alter the story in a slight fashion depending on how deep the developers have made branching paths possible. Some of this can be quite superficial flavoring (see: saving a character in The Walking Dead, only for them to be irrelevant for 3 episodes, and then die anyway). Some are better about it. Say what you want about David Cage, Detroit has A LOT of choices. These games tend to have minimal gameplay loops and the foundation sits upon the narrative. "Survival" (see: Frost, Kona, & This War of Mine) - Survival games are ones in which the player is placed in an actively hostile environment and must maintain the character alive while managing a variety of factors from hunger, thirst, morale, and so forth. In these games, the simple act of gathering resources and making it from one day to the next is considered a success. The Long Dark, Subnautica, & Don't Starve are some other famous examples in the genre. "Tactical" (see: The Banner Saga 2, Desperados III, & John Wick Hex) - Tactical games are ones in which the player manages units in small-scale confrontations, typically simulating operational warfare. The key distinguisher between tactic games and strategy games is that the former does not include the additional burden of managing resources on a micro or macro scale. I think the games I've included here are a good mix to show how much the genre can vary. Banner Saga is a quintessential tactics game. Desperados is an example of real-time tactics which deals less with direct combat and more so with logistics to achieve an end goal. John Wick Hex is a tactics game in which the player controls only one character and yet must balance resources such as ammo and health while eliminating enemies to complete their objective. "Tower Defense" (see: Defense Grid 2 & Pixel Gladiator) - Tower Defense games are ones in which the player must defend their territory from enemy attackers by placing defensive structures along their path of attack. Super simple definition that easily describes what the game is about. Bloons Tower Defense is by far the most famous in the genre. "Turn-Based" (see: Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of An Elusive Age, Ara Fell, & Cris Tales) - Turn-based games are ones in which the player takes turns in combat with enemies or foes. In other words, if you're in the middle of a battle, and you get up to use the bathroom and don't even bother to pause the menu when you're attacking, and you return, and nothing has changed, congratulations, you're playing a turn-based game. The game is NOT reflex-based. I highlight the importance of facing foes in combat as while Chess is turn-based, I believe it falls much more strongly into the category of board game or strategy. The same could be said for grid-based games which were covered earlier. This genre has generally gone down in popularity in favor of action gameplay but there are still fans of the retro formula. "Visual Novel" (see: VA-11 HALL-A & Hatoful Boyfriend) - Visual Novels aren't games. (that's a joke) Visual Novels are games in which the player almost exclusively reads dialogue and there is minimal interactive function in the sense of gameplay. Visual Novels typically stick exclusively to PC, but on occasion, they will come over to consoles, such as with Steins;Gate. There may be some minor choices in the sense of dialogue options but many stories are meant to be experienced merely by reading. I've included VA-11 HALL-A on this list despite some minimal bartender interactions given the overwhelming amount of time dedicated exclusively to conversations with patrons. (NEW) "Wacky Controls" (see: Snake Pass, Manual Samuel, & Octodad) - Wacky Control games are ones in which the core gameplay loop revolves around the complexity or obtrusiveness of attempting to maneuver the character between points in an environment. These games are quite famous for going viral on YouTube or Twitch. Some other famous examples include Getting Over It & Jump King. "2D Platformer" (see: Unravel, Celeste, & Typoman) - 2D Platformers are games in which the player core gameplay loop revolves around moving the character between points in an environment, normally through running and jumping. It is a terrific definition that is useful to this day for briefly summarizing the main elements of a game. 2D games simply involve movement from left to right. "3D Platformer" (see: Astro's Playroom, A Hat in Time, & Knack 2) - 3D Platformers are games in which the player core gameplay loop revolves around moving the character between points in an environment, normally through running and jumping. 3D platformers are generally slightly more complex than 2D due to their ability to move in all four directions. IN CONCLUSION - I'm tired, Robbie. Good lord. I'm exhausted. I knew the task felt a bit absurd when first starting it but it somehow exceeded all expectations. I believe that while not perfect, you can summarize about 95% of video game by using some mix of any 3 terms I've included in this post. I don't have any meaningful statistical data to prove that but just take my word for it. You'll notice that there are a handful of genres that are obvious that are NOT included here (Battle Royale, MMORPG, MOBA, & Gacha) just to name a few. This is because I have not played any games of that ilk. If I do, I'll add them to the above list. Offer feedback if you see an obvious error on my end. OR don't. It's your life! Edited June 19, 2023 by realm722 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted June 19, 2023 Share Posted June 19, 2023 That was an exhausting read. I could feel your soul leaving your body as you tried to navigate your way through all those definitions because you were typing what we've both been experiencing for years. (I'm actually in the midst of updating my game categories right now.) I think you're right. Games are so diverse now that most of them probably can't be adequately described by a single genre. Two or three sounds about right. I tend to think of "generic" categories (i.e. the ones you hate, like "role-playing game" and "adventure") as a higher order of classification, like in taxonomy. Most games would fall into one of those categories, but some have additional specifications. The more niche a game is, the lower the order and thus the smaller number of games that belong to that group. So, when I classify games, I try to consider the lowest taxonomic order for each game. That's where I would place it. To give you an example, let's take Hollow Knight. It's an action game, but so are a lot of games. It's also a platformer, but so are a lot of games. It's also a Metroidvania. I would consider that to be the lowest taxonomic order in which it could be placed, so if I HAD to place it under a single genre, that's where it would go. Yes, we could probably further divide up "Metroidvania", but I also find that to be problematic. The more genres you're willing to accept, the more that line between genres gets blurred. You, for example, suggested separate genres for Oxenfree and Afterparty. I know your argument is that they could fall under multiple categories, but eventually it gets to a point where you're coming up with genres that only have one or two entries. Like... Pinball. You have Arcade as a genre. Pinball is an arcade game. Why can't Tetris be a genre too? There are a lot more games based off Tetris than pinball. I think it's a losing battle for us. I tried making Souls-like a genre, but then what do I do with Hollow Knight when I also have Metroidvania? I have Stealth as a category, as you do, and that's where I put Shadow Tactics, but then I'm leaving it out of Strategy... Little Nightmares is a stealth game, I guess, but it's conceptually the same thing as Unravel. In any case, I think having less categories is an easier way to maintain your sanity. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mori Posted June 19, 2023 Share Posted June 19, 2023 (edited) That was a good read! I always chuckle when "big" game trailers get announced and the game itself is presented as the next RPG-Action-Adventure.. and I think to myself, cool.. then all you see is a cinematic trailer and I learned nothing what the actual game is going to be about. A small suggestion. Boss-Killers are also known as Boss-Rush(es). I dont know if this term is established but personally I immediately know what is meant when someone says Boss-Rush. Boss-Killers isnt confusing though, so it's not a big deal. Edited June 19, 2023 by Mori 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrBloodmoney Posted June 19, 2023 Share Posted June 19, 2023 (edited) 6 hours ago, realm722 said: "Adventure" - I loathe this term. What the hell is an adventure game? It's a point-n-click game, like the old Lucas Arts and Sierra games. Generally puzzle-solving, via use of actions/ specific verbs, or specific items found (or combined). A "modern adventure game" would also encompass something like Telltale's The Walking Dead, which maintains the point-n-click narrative elements, but largely gets rid of the puzzle aspects, and even the Quantic Dream / Supermassive games, which allow direct control of characters, but still maintain the largely "go here, interact here, talk here, go there" structure. Quote "Beat 'Em Up" (see: Tunche) - Beat 'Em Up games are ones in which the player engages in hand-to-hand combat with enemies typically across a variety of 2D side-scrolling levels. This is a term I wrestled with tossing out (I mean c'mon, in what action game are you not beating them up) but ultimately kept around due to the instantaneous recognizability of the genre. When you see Streets of Rage 4, River City Girls, or Scott Pilgrim vs the World, you automatically know what I'm talking about. Thus the term still remains useful and deserves to be kept around. I think this one has largely been retired, in favour of "Brawler" - because of the evolution of 3D games. Stuff like the Greek God of War games is clearly a 3D evolution of the likes of Streets of Rage, and gets the term "brawler" usually, so the games they came from - Streets of Rage / Turtles / Golden Axe etc. sort of get "2D Brawler" retrofitted to them. Quote (NEW) "Boss Killer" (see: Furi & Jotun) - Boss Killer games are ones in which the main gameplay loop focus on combat against bosses. This does NOT include games where boss fights form a mere main component of the game (such as Elden Ring or Hollow Knight). If you've played the two games I've featured here, you'll know what I'm talking about. In Furi, there are these lengthy walking segments between fights, but you are here above all else for the lengthy action-sequenced boss fights. In Jotun, there are some brief levels of puzzles and navigation before the final foe of the area, but the boss fights are WHY you're here. On the other hand, Hollow Knight has a vast world with platforming and minor combat enemies and the same can be said for Elden Ring in the form of exploration. I'm with @Mori on this one - I'd probably say "boss Rush". Technically, Boss Rush implies a specific mode within a game, excising the main game for purely the bosses - but like Mori says, I would probably know what you meant more readily with the term "a boss rush game" than a "boss killer game" Quote Grid-Based" (see: The Banner Saga 3 & Ash of Gods: Redemption) - Grid-based games are typically turn-based and rather than active, free movement, the player must control their characters on a tile-based surface creating a grid. These games tend to be focused on tactics or strategy and engage the player mentally more so than with dexterity. Personally, I'd probably say "TRPG" for that one, but I know what you mean. Quote "Roguelike" (see: Risk of Rain 2 & Wizard of Legend) - Roguelikes are games in which the player engages in "runs" as a character through procedurally generated levels. If they die, their progress is wiped and they must start from the beginning. These games tend to be high in difficulty and meta-progression IS NOT a core aspect of the gameplay loop. "Roguelite" (see: Hades, Children of Morta, & Rogue Legacy) - Roguelites are games in which the player engages in "runs" as a character through procedurally generated levels. If they die, their progress is wiped and they must start from the beginning. These games tend to be high in difficulty and meta-progression IS a core aspect of the gameplay loop. Am I the only one that thinks this distinction is silly? Both "Rogue-lites" and "rogue-likes" tend to have about as much in common with the original "Rogue" than each other - seems like folks are always trying to find little wedges to separate the two in terms of distinction, but as soon as they come up with one, it gets broken by another ? Quote (NEW) "Mosey Adventure" (see: Dear Esther, Shape of the World, & Journey) - Mosey Adventure games are ones in which the player casually advances through environments in a leisurely manner without any imminent threat or active game mechanics. This is my counter to the dreaded term "walking simulator". I find that term to be a bit insulting. Looking around at stuff and exploring while walking around has its merits. They're not for everybody of course, but I believe the term "mosey" properly encapsulates the tone of these games. Some other famous examples would be a game such as Abzu, What Remains of Edith Finch & Gone Home. I actually like this one! Walking Sims do seem to have some genesis in true "adventure games" in the same way Telltale'spost-TWD stuff does, but are distinct, so a variant of "adventure" seems fitting! Quote (NEW) "Narrative" (see: The Forgotten City, Heavy Rain, & Afterparty) - Narrative games are ones in which the story forms a fundamental pillar of the appeal of the game and without it, there is very little else remaining for the player to engage with. Allow me to explain. Narrative is a dumb, generic term when trying to describe a genre of video games. Damn near every single game nowadays has some form of narrative. Aren't FF7 Remake & Persona 5 narrative games? Huge amounts are dedicated to the story. Ugh, you're right, but if you removed the entire story from those games, you still have tens of hours of GAMEPLAY that you could chew on and have fun with. For me, when somebody suggests a title is a NARRATIVE game, it is essential to the experience. You don't really have a game without it. I struggle with this definition greatly but I hope in practice it makes some sense. I think "Narrative" works as a sub-genre - "it's a "narrative adventure game" or a "narrative brawler" or a "narrative action" game, but not really on it's own (since a "pure narrative" game is basically a visual novel. Interestingly though, every example you give there, I'd class as an "adventure game" variant! Edited June 19, 2023 by DrBloodmoney 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breakingthegreen Posted June 19, 2023 Share Posted June 19, 2023 My brother has massive harddrives and gets me to put every single game on his PS4 in folders so I am intimately aware of genres that and be discussed. Spoiler (But I do disagree with some of his demands, like Soulsbourne being used for every Souls-Like and not as a means of discussing FromSoft games exclusively, as well there only being a RogueLite section, bro either we separate this out or we're considering every game in a section roguelike since roguelite is derived from roguelike.) Anyway I think you missed out Third Person Shooters, yes you have FPS but the umbrella term in my eyes is shooter, so you should cover your bases. Additionally you could add the Boomer Shooter label which applies the original Doom and games like it like Fashion Police Squad. My final sub shooter is the Looter Shooter, like Borderlands or Destiny Another in the subgenre that's in our folders is the the Collectathon Platformer, games like Yooka Laylee and Spongebob Rehydrated, where the goal is to collect stuff and not necessarily get to the end of the level if you've managed to collect enough. We also have Run 'n' gun, a subgenre that's typically a fusion of shoot 'em ups and 2D platformers, an example would be Contra Anoher fusion we have is Survival Resource Management, which you could guess is a resource management that you can actively lose, like Beholder Complete Edition There's Battle Royale too, like Fall Guys and Fortnite The final subgenre I'd like to suggest is the Brawler, most famous example being Super Smash Bros, but on PS there's Multiversus and PSASBR Now to discuss where I agree or disagree with your chosen terms 6 hours ago, realm722 said: Putting Out to Pasture Useless Terms - You can't bring in the new without getting rid of some of the old. Here are some of my extremist views that I believe we should adopt. "Role-playing game" "Adventure" I'll be honest and say that I think Action should go in this, in my eye's all it says is that you could get a game over screen if you aren't good at the real time encounters, which is way too vague for me. I also think that RPG is still an okay term, yes games only RPG elements (customised gear and skill trees) perhaps shouldn't be referred as RPGs but it's still specific enough to have it's uses, in our folders we have "Western RPGs," "JRPGs," "Indie RPGs," and "Open World Busy Work" (these would include most Ubisoft games like Farcry and Assassin's creed) are these perfect? Definitely not, (We have Child of Light in the Indie section and it was published by Ubisoft) but I think that their still okay. 7 hours ago, realm722 said: NEW) "Action Runner" (see: Mirror's Edge Catalyst, No Thing, & Infinity Runner) - Action Runners are games in which the player is in a first-person perspective and must react instinctively and decisively in order to avoid failure. This is a genre that is ridiculously niche but I've played enough of them amongst the 3 listed to feel comfortable creating it. You aren't fighting anything and as the level gets progressively faster and faster you must have the reflexes and reactiveness to avoid ending your run prematurely. In our lists, it's broken down into Parkour and Infinite Runner, but we never really had a fusion name sorted out (parkour being mirror's edge and super cloudbelt, and infinte runner being No Thing and Tron Run.) Action runner is as good as any. 7 hours ago, realm722 said: NEW) "Fantasy Sports" (see: Pyre & Rocket League) - Fantasy sports games are ones in which the spirit of sport is emulated in a fantasy or fictional game or setting. I felt the need to create this term due to the terms "action" not sufficiently describing the gameplay loop found in these game. Pyre's core gameplay deals with "rites" in which the player must manage a 3 v. 3 matchup and score enough points to extinguish the opposing team's pyre. Rocket League is a vehicular soccer game and is a magical blend in how combining two known ideas (cars & soccer) can create a magnificent mashup. We need more fantasy sports games. I'd like to create some. Get on it devs. I like this one, may get added to our folders in fact, it currently is divided between normal and extreme sports. 7 hours ago, realm722 said: (NEW) "Narrative" (see: The Forgotten City, Heavy Rain, & Afterparty) - Narrative games are ones in which the story forms a fundamental pillar of the appeal of the game and without it, there is very little else remaining for the player to engage with. Allow me to explain. Narrative is a dumb, generic term when trying to describe a genre of video games. Damn near every single game nowadays has some form of narrative. Aren't FF7 Remake & Persona 5 narrative games? Huge amounts are dedicated to the story. Ugh, you're right, but if you removed the entire story from those games, you still have tens of hours of GAMEPLAY that you could chew on and have fun with. For me, when somebody suggests a title is a NARRATIVE game, it is essential to the experience. You don't really have a game without it. I struggle with this definition greatly but I hope in practice it makes some sense. Narrative is like action for me, too vague and you'd guess by the other genres that narrative a part of the game, a mystery game would be pretty crap if I didn't care about the story. 7 hours ago, realm722 said: (NEW) "Story Alterator" (see: Oxenfree, Detroit: Become Human, & Road 96) - Story Alterator games are ones in which the player has the ability to significantly alter the story due to decisions and choices made throughout their playthrough. Forgive the lumpishness of that genre title. I didn't want to put "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" as 1) It's too long and 2) I've already covered why I hate the word adventure. The main appeal of these games is the ability to alter the story in a slight fashion depending on how deep the developers have made branching paths possible. Some of this can be quite superficial flavoring (see: saving a character in The Walking Dead, only for them to be irrelevant for 3 episodes, and then die anyway). Some are better about it. Say what you want about David Cage, Detroit has A LOT of choices. These games tend to have minimal gameplay loops and the foundation sits upon the narrative. When the term "Interactive Experiences" was handed around, I jumped on that. Yes it's pretentious, but it describes being part of a story and being able to only influence it. You could argue these are the the true Role Playing Games, it's not about how the story changes, it's how you react to the story. 7 hours ago, realm722 said: (NEW) "Wacky Controls" (see: Snake Pass, Manual Samuel, & Octodad) - Wacky Control games are ones in which the core gameplay loop revolves around the complexity or obtrusiveness of attempting to maneuver the character between points in an environment. These games are quite famous for going viral on YouTube or Twitch. Some other famous examples include Getting Over It & Jump King. We call these Rage games, (although I don't think snake pass fits, I always considered that a platformer without the jumping) 7 hours ago, realm722 said: (NEW) "Grand Level" (see: Shadow Tactics & Desperados III) - Grand Level games are ones in which the player must navigate an enormous and complex series of levels or missions in order to complete the game. These levels upon your first playthrough may take up to over an hour to complete, and can typically be solved or completed in a variety of different ways. I LOVE this genre and hope it grows in popularity in the games to come. When I played Shadow Tactics, it all clicked. "Holy crap... this huge mammoth level kinda reminds me of the Hitman games where you have a variety of ways to tackle your objective". The modern Hitman games are 10000% Grand Level games. PLEASE recommend some if you get the vibe I'm going for. I believe this would be an Immersive Sim like Deus Ex 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrBloodmoney Posted June 19, 2023 Share Posted June 19, 2023 (edited) 45 minutes ago, breakingthegreen said: I believe this would be an Immersive Sim like Deus Ex The two I was kinda surprised weren't covered were Immersive Sim, and Soulslike. granted, in both cases, one could argue that by strict definition, all games that fall under those, would also fall under other genres... ...but since the only real reason to apply genre's in the first place, is to have a "short-hand" way of conveying exactly what a game is like to someone, I think both "Immersive Sim" and "Soulslike" conjure such specific, known quantities to virtually all gamers, that describing games that would fall into those categories by other genres is almost wilfully inviting confusion. Like it or not "Soulslike" and "Immersive Sim" are the most useful terms for them, as those ones tell a person exactly what they need to know to expect! Edited June 19, 2023 by DrBloodmoney 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted June 19, 2023 Author Share Posted June 19, 2023 Wow! Thank you guys, for all the wonderful replies. I did not expect to find so many when I checked back in on the thread the next morning. I don't make or write anything in this thread for external validation (I feel like that's how you get burned out) but midway thru tryna to categorize everything I kept thinking: "Is this the stupidest post I've ever done? Does anybody else care about this stuff?" And I'm glad I got the constructive criticism to hopefully make it better! 11 hours ago, Cassylvania said: That was an exhausting read. I could feel your soul leaving your body as you tried to navigate your way through all those definitions because you were typing what we've both been experiencing for years. (I'm actually in the midst of updating my game categories right now.) 11 hours ago, Cassylvania said: I think you're right. Games are so diverse now that most of them probably can't be adequately described by a single genre. Two or three sounds about right. I tend to think of "generic" categories (i.e. the ones you hate, like "role-playing game" and "adventure") as a higher order of classification, like in taxonomy. Most games would fall into one of those categories, but some have additional specifications. The more niche a game is, the lower the order and thus the smaller number of games that belong to that group. So, when I classify games, I try to consider the lowest taxonomic order for each game. That's where I would place it. The taxonomy simile is a pretty good way to explain it, I hadn't thought about it that way. Honestly, Wikipedia's gargantuan "List of video game genres" has it divided up that way with a heavy number of subgenres. The largest ones are "Action, Action-Adventure, Puzzle, Role-playing, Simulation, Strategy, Sports, & MMO". 11 hours ago, Cassylvania said: The more genres you're willing to accept, the more that line between genres gets blurred. You, for example, suggested separate genres for Oxenfree and Afterparty. I know your argument is that they could fall under multiple categories, but eventually it gets to a point where you're coming up with genres that only have one or two entries. Like... Pinball. You have Arcade as a genre. Pinball is an arcade game. Why can't Tetris be a genre too? There are a lot more games based off Tetris than pinball. This is my fault for not making it more clear. BOTH Oxenfree & Afterparty as I have them listed are labeled as (Narrative), (Story Alterator) games. I just only listed one in each as I was trying to show a diverse mix of games rather than using the same game multiple times (funnily enough, I used Desperados III as an example 3 different times so I didn't achieve that goal). It's hilarious to me that you mentioned the pinball genre. As I was typing it up I kept thinking to myself "this is so stupid. If I hadn't played Yoku's Island Express, I'd just put Soccer Pinball under Arcade games". Your calling me out made me realize how doubly stupid it was. We're removing the category and filing Yoku under Metroidvania. As for why Tetris ain't a genre, it's cuz I ain't got no Tetris games in my catalog! 8 hours ago, Mori said: A small suggestion. Boss-Killers are also known as Boss-Rush(es). I dont know if this term is established but personally I immediately know what is meant when someone says Boss-Rush. Boss-Killers isnt confusing though, so it's not a big deal. This is the sort of help I was looking for! Boss Rush is a much better and already well-known term. Can't believe it slipped by me during curation. When I search "Boss Rush games" into Google both Furi & Jotun show up as wellso it's perfect! 7 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said: It's a point-n-click game, like the old Lucas Arts and Sierra games. Generally puzzle-solving, via use of actions/ specific verbs, or specific items found (or combined). A "modern adventure game" would also encompass something like Telltale's The Walking Dead, which maintains the point-n-click narrative elements, but largely gets rid of the puzzle aspects, and even the Quantic Dream / Supermassive games, which allow direct control of characters, but still maintain the largely "go here, interact here, talk here, go there" structure. That makes some sense. I actually did a bit more digging and quite like this definition. Quote Unlike adventure films, adventure games are not defined by story or content. Rather, adventure describes a manner of gameplay without reflex challenges or action. They normally require the player to solve various puzzles by interacting with people or the environment, most often in a non-confrontational way. It is considered a "purist" genre and tends to exclude anything which includes action elements beyond a mini game. Even with that clear definition, I still dislike the general term. "Action-Adventure' has muddied the waters as seen below... Quote "Action-adventure" has become a label which is sometimes attached to games which do not fit neatly into another well known genre. Because of their prevalence on video game consoles and the absence of typical adventure games, action-adventure games are often called "adventure games" by modern gamers. 7 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said: I think this one has largely been retired, in favour of "Brawler" - because of the evolution of 3D games. Stuff like the Greek God of War games is clearly a 3D evolution of the likes of Streets of Rage, and gets the term "brawler" usually, so the games they came from - Streets of Rage / Turtles / Golden Axe etc. sort of get "2D Brawler" retrofitted to them. This is why they pay you the big bucks Doc! I'm very ignorant of the genre in general as Tunche was my first real dip into the genre but the way you explained it makes a lot of sense. If I were ever to stack the games up, I may divide them into 2D & 3D as I've done with platformers but for now we'll keep it as all encompassing! 7 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said: Am I the only one that thinks this distinction is silly? Both "Rogue-lites" and "rogue-likes" tend to have about as much in common with the original "Rogue" than each other - seems like folks are always trying to find little wedges to separate the two in terms of distinction, but as soon as they come up with one, it gets broken by another If it were any other genre, I'd probably say yea you're right there's no need to be so pedantic given the incredibly minor difference compared to the distinctions I'm trying to make amongst all the other types of genres. But given I am a pretty dedicated rogue(lite/like) enjoyer, I actually don't mind being a bit more finicky in this regard. 7 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said: I actually like this one! Walking Sims do seem to have some genesis in true "adventure games" in the same way Telltale'spost-TWD stuff does, but are distinct, so a variant of "adventure" seems fitting! Thank you! The more I kept thinking about it the more I actually liked it. I strolled through my catalog and found a handful more such as Firewatch that I think fit the general vibe I'm going for. 6 hours ago, breakingthegreen said: Anyway I think you missed out Third Person Shooters, yes you have FPS but the umbrella term in my eyes is shooter, so you should cover your bases. Additionally you could add the Boomer Shooter label which applies the original Doom and games like it like Fashion Police Squad. My final sub shooter is the Looter Shooter, like Borderlands or Destiny Another in the subgenre that's in our folders is the the Collectathon Platformer, games like Yooka Laylee and Spongebob Rehydrated, where the goal is to collect stuff and not necessarily get to the end of the level if you've managed to collect enough. We also have Run 'n' gun, a subgenre that's typically a fusion of shoot 'em ups and 2D platformers, an example would be Contra Anoher fusion we have is Survival Resource Management, which you could guess is a resource management that you can actively lose, like Beholder Complete Edition There's Battle Royale too, like Fall Guys and Fortnite The final subgenre I'd like to suggest is the Brawler, most famous example being Super Smash Bros, but on PS there's Multiversus and PSASBR Thank you for this! Very ignorant on shooters but a lot of your descriptions make sense. You've had the scales fall from my eyes with two key mentions. When you described "Run 'n Gun" I was like "that sounds exactly like Super Time Force Ultra" and lo and behold it shows on that list of games. When I finally get around to playing Broforce, I'll make it into a separate category. Secondarily, thank you for finally help me realize what the hell to call Beholder 1. My memory of the game is incredibly foggy and I know you managed an apartment so I put it under resource management but the missing piece was your mention of "Survival". Makes so much more sense with that small addition. 6 hours ago, breakingthegreen said: I'll be honest and say that I think Action should go in this, in my eye's all it says is that you could get a game over screen if you aren't good at the real time encounters, which is way too vague for me. I also think that RPG is still an okay term, yes games only RPG elements (customised gear and skill trees) perhaps shouldn't be referred as RPGs but it's still specific enough to have it's uses, in our folders we have "Western RPGs," "JRPGs," "Indie RPGs," and "Open World Busy Work" (these would include most Ubisoft games like Farcry and Assassin's creed) are these perfect? Definitely not, (We have Child of Light in the Indie section and it was published by Ubisoft) but I think that their still okay. After I finished typing the post, I kept thinking to myself "There has to be a better way to describe Action games or real-time combat" as I just refuse to live in a world where you can end up with Sekiro and Persona 5 Strikers in the same category. I've reached a compromise. I am going to divide up Action games into two branching paths. Action (Complex) and Action (Simple). Why do this for this specific category when essentially every genre has simple and complex versions? (Islanders is a Simple City Builder, Cities Skylines is a Complex City Builder). 1) Action games make up a huge portion of the list. A more specific definition is needed. A game such as Neverlast (super crappy barely 1-hour game) is mind-numbingly simple action and needs to be separated from the likes of Dead Cells, for example. 2) I would personally like to stand on the minefield that is declaring what is simple and what is complex. That just seems like a fun time. As for your points on RPGs, they do have merits, I just feel like I'd need way too many subgenre categories that my "OWBB" and "Limited World" encompass a bit more sucinctly. 6 hours ago, breakingthegreen said: In our lists, it's broken down into Parkour and Infinite Runner, but we never really had a fusion name sorted out (parkour being mirror's edge and super cloudbelt, and infinte runner being No Thing and Tron Run.) Action runner is as good as any. Hah thank you. When I made the name I was like: 'wait a sec.. what genre was that super famous Temple runner game called" and it said endless/infinite runner yet I felt like Mirror's Edge gives me the same energy despite it dealing more with parkour. 6 hours ago, breakingthegreen said: Narrative is like action for me, too vague and you'd guess by the other genres that narrative a part of the game, a mystery game would be pretty crap if I didn't care about the story. Agreed. It's probably the term I dislike the most on the entire list. We'll keep workshopping. 6 hours ago, breakingthegreen said: When the term "Interactive Experiences" was handed around, I jumped on that. Yes it's pretentious, but it describes being part of a story and being able to only influence it. You could argue these are the the true Role Playing Games, it's not about how the story changes, it's how you react to the story. Hahah I actually thought about that exact term but left it off for the exact reason you listed, thinking "nah this reads like I'm blowing smoke up my ass". 5 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said: Like it or not "Soulslike" and "Immersive Sim" are the most useful terms for them, as those ones tell a person exactly what they need to know to expect! The reason why I didn't list those is I don't think I've ever played a "Soulslike" OR "Immersive Sim. I mentioned at the end a handful that I didn't include as I hadn't been able to dip my toes into any of those genres and I think the two you've mentioned are two more blindspots I have in my catalog. I'll have to try and rectify that. This was very helpful, thanks y'all! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted June 19, 2023 Author Share Posted June 19, 2023 RealM722 Reviews Summer Game Fest 2023 Welcome back, boys and girls! It's ya boy Realm and for the 3rd year in a row, I am going to go ahead and give my takes on the games to come out in the coming years before they're even released. I've done it with E3 in 2021, I did it with Summer Game Fest in 2022, and I'm here to do it yet again in 2023. There's a reason why they pay me the big bucks around here. Now, as I distinctly recall, I found myself getting quite fatigued by the end of SGF 2022 as there was just an absolutely mind-numbing amount of games I tried to cover by including every stream. I am not going to make the same mistake this year. Instead, we're going to focus on the 3 biggest showcases seen over the Summer of 2023. Sony, the main Summer Game Fest show, & Xbox. They were the games somebody somewhere felt were strong enough to show on the big time and its time I put them to the test. As a treat, I'm also going to pull off the preposterous act of including my guess of the game's Metacritic score on its most-reviewed console when it eventually releases. Think that's stupid? I predicted Wo Long would score an 81 in February 2023. Guess what it scored when it was released in March 2023? Green - Super Interested, 100% Want To Play Blue - Intrigued, May Went To Play on Sale Purple - Wait and See, Want to Know More Red - Not Interested At All, 0% Basically PlayStation Showcase 2023 (May 24th, 2023) (LINK) (0:50) FairGame$ (RED) - Absolutely zero interest in an online multiplayer shooter. Sony dipping its toe into online games. Meh. (72) (3:30) HellDivers 2 (RED) - Another shooter. Not a genre I fancy if the 650+ replies in this thread aren't obvious enough. (75) (6:00) Immortals of Aveum (RED) - Yikes that looked brutal. Looks like a Forspoke-esque cuff game. (64) (8:08) Ghostrunner 2 (PURPLE) - Actually somewhat intrigued by this. Have the original from PS+ and still haven't played it. (82) (9:15) Phantom Blade: Executioners (RED) - DAMN that looked fascinating. Tremendous style. Love the rural Japan look. I expected it to do well. (85) (12:55) Sword of the Sea (BLUE) - Hell yea! I quite like this studio. Still gotta get around to The Pathless but it's delightfully colorful. (81) (14:20) The Talos Principle 2 (PURPLE) - Ehhhh, visuals looked outstanding but I'm just meh on puzzle games. I expect it'll score well tho (84) (15:50) Neva (PURPLE) - From the Creators of Gris you say? Interesting. Still gotta play that, but I adore the colors in this one. Gotta see gameplay tho. (77) (17:48) Cat Quest: Pirates of the Purribean (RED) - I know people say these games are pretty good for being such easy platinums but meh. (73) (18:32) Foamstars (RED) - Getting big "Destruction All-Stars" energy. Stunned if it ever really gets popular given the amount of Splatoon rip-off jokes it'll get lambasted with. (71) (20:45) The Plucky Squire (PURPLE) - Okay I wasn't totally on-board until I saw the lil guy move into a REAL LIFE environment seamlessly. That could be quite good. (82) (22:00) Teardown (GREEN) - That was an AMAZING trailer showing all the incredible things you can do with the physics. Super intrigued and hope it has good trophies! (84) (24:00) Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater (BLUE) - Another great trailer. Had me thoroughly in suspense. Never played a Metal Gear game but I'd like to one day! (88) (26:07) Towers of Aghasba (PURPLE) - I'd have to see more of what you do but it feels like a game that will get delayed into eternity. (73) (27:45) Final Fantasy XVI (PURPLE) - lmao c'mon dawg how many more Final Fantasy XVI trailers do we need. This one is gonna do gangbusters. (91) (31:00) Alan Wake 2 (RED) - Alan Wake has never interested me in the slightest and this trailer did nothing to sway me. (76) (32:50) Assassin's Creed Mirage (RED) - Valhalla scored in the 80's. But got backlash for fatigue and bloat. Did Ubisoft learn their lesson? I doubt it. (78) (34:45) Revenant Hill (PURPLE) - Ayyy I know Night in the Woods is a favorite of many. Wait... that's not Night in the Woods 2? (70) (35:55) Granblue Fantasy Relink (RED) - I have no doubt the weebs will be all over it. Just not for me. (76) (39:05) Ultros (PURPLE) - I am a total sucker for color. Game looks gorgeous. Afraid gameplay won't match the style. (74) (40:45) Tower of Fantasy (RED) - Damn there was a lot going on in the trailer. Anime aesthetic. Find it hard to believe we'll see it any time soon. (79) (42:20) Dragon's Dogma II (RED) - Happy that those who loved the original are finally getting the sequel. Can't say it has ever tickled my fancy. (86) (43:55) Five Nights at Freddy: Helped Wanted 2 (RED) - I will perish before anybody ever makes me sample anything from the FNAF franchise. (71) (46:45) Arizona Sunshine II (RED) - Don't really have any interest in VR but hope those that do enjoy it. (73) In fact since these next few games are exclusively VR I'm just going to go ahead and skip past all of these games... (51:55) Marathon (RED) - AMAZING trailer with great music. No gameplay so no hype. Good ways away. It's Bungie tho, should do well. (84) (54:40) Concord (RED) - Damn I learned so much from that teaser. I can already tell it's not going to hit over 80. (74) (58:20) Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (GREEN) - Still got play Miles Morales but yea, I'm not that much of a hipster that I say I'm not gonna play the new Spider-Man. It'll sell insane. (89) In Conclusion: 2 greens, 3 blues, 8 purples, and 15 reds. That feels about right with the way I typically receive a showcase. I've gotta say that the inclusion of the Gran Turismo movie was a... choice. It's fine. I get it. Sony Games supporting Sony Studios and it's an actual game franchise but I don't expect it to review very well either. Summer Game Fest 2023 Showcase (June 8th, 2023) (LINK) (30:40) Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (RED) - Never played any of the Prince of Persia games. Looks like it could be a decent side scroller though? (78) (33:50) Mortal Kombat 1 (RED) - I wonder how much diehard modern day Mortal Kombat fans care about the fatalities. (81) (44:05) Path of Exile 2 (RED) - I thought they were showing original Path of Exile footage at the start. Whoops. Something tells me this is gonna flop. (74) Hahahah I'm not including it here because it's already out but credit to Geoff for getting Nic Cage to show up live. Con Air is one of my favorite moves ever. (55:55) Witchfire (RED) - That did... not look good. Maybe I've gotta a bias against first-person action. (66) (1:00:45) Sonic Superstars (PURPLE) - Last Sonic game I played was Sonic Mania and it kicked my ass. Hope the diehard Sonic fans eat with this one tho. (85) (1:02:50) Honkai Star Rail (RED) - I literally made an article about why I'd never play Genshin Impact. Honky Rail ain't breaking that. (82) (1:04:40) Life of P (RED) - Stellar trailer. Showed off the unique style of the game excellently. I think it'll be a sleeper hit. (87) (1:07:10) SandLand (PURPLE) - I thought it was gonna be My Times at Sandrock... instead.. that. Didn't look bad but I'll have to see the reviews. (77) (1:27:06) Yes Your Grace Snowfall (PURPLE) - Thought it was from the Kingdom: New Lands developers.. I'd like to know more! (78) (1:28:30) Toxic Commando (RED) - That trailer was boomer as hell and I smell a flop. (65) (1:31:00) Baldur's Gate 3 (RED) - If I was ever going to play one of these games, it'd be Divinity Original Sin II. (84) (1:37:03) Palworld (BLUE) - I remember when the game first debuted and everybody screamed how much it looked like Pokemon. We'll see if it lands. (79) (1:39:00) The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria (RED) - If the latest Gollum game wasn't enough for you, we've got more Tolkein crap on the way. (63) (1:42:57) Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden (RED) - Hahaha I think this game is going to get DESTROYED upon release. DONTNOD doing action? Good luck. (71) (1:44:30) Like A Dragon: The Man Who Erased His Name (BLUE) - If I ever jumped on the Kiryu wagon, it'd have to be for Yakuza 0. But... maybe. (88) (1:46:05) Under the Waves (PURPLE) - I know a mosey adventure game when I see one! Big Jacques Costeau vibes. (81) (1:50:58) Faefarm (RED) - Here's the issue with far too many farming/slice-of-life games. The art has to be GOOD. I think this looks BAD. (76) (2:11:20) Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (GREEN) - DAMMIT GEOFF. Aight you got me. That's probably my most anticipated game right now. SUPER HYPED! (92) In Conclusion: 1 green, 2 blues, 4 purples, and 11 reds. Well, at least I finally got to experience a showcase where the big reveal at the end was a game I'm ACTUALLY super hyped and pumped for. Everything else I could honestly take or leave. Dammit Geoff. There's also so much bloat in these shows. I guess I'm just being a baby. Xbox Games Showcase Extended 2023 (June 13th, 2023) (LINK) (2:25) South of Midnight (RED) - It's a world premiere but a teaser trailer at best... I don't think it'll even be out by 2025, hot take. (75) (5:05) Star Wars: Outlaws (RED) - I know during the Ubisoft showcase everybody said the shooting looked like ass. Ruh roh. (73) (9:17) 33 Immortals (BLUE) - Awww. Thunder Lotus Games. Played every one of their games. That style is so THEM. They're trying an action roguelike and it'll be good. (83) (11:07) PayDay 3 (RED) - Never been a PayDay guy but I know they have a very dedicated fanbase. Something tells me it'll get crushed. (72) (13:00) Persona 3: Reload (GREEN) - Could you imagine the insanity if this hadn't leaked days before? Hell yea I'll play a remastered Persona. It's gonna do NUMBERS! (87) (14:10) Avowed (RED) - Yikes that looked rough. Not for me in the slightest. I think that's a future bust. (68) (22:38) Senua's Saga: Hellblade II (RED) - Oh yea I had forgotten about this game. Original did very well. I think this one will too. (84) (26:50) Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth (RED) - Bizarre name. I know people generally liked the latest game with the new protag. More of the same. (82) (30:30) Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (PURPLE) - Holy crap that looked fancy as all hell. Doesn't even feel like a real game. Sleeper potential. (86) (39:50) Persona 5 Tactica (BLUE) - A grid-based tactics game with a cast and crew I already love... aight Atlus, you got me even if it ain't THAT good. (78) (44:30) Jusant (PURPLE) - Is it mindless climbing where you aren't actually at risk or is there skill involved? I think it's sadly the former. (74) (46:45) Still Wakes the Deep (RED) - Absolutely nothing shown. Like a horror ship game? Says early 2024, that won't even release in 2024 IMO. (71) (47:45) Dungeons of Hinterburg (BLUE) - LOVE the art style. Good chaotic trailer. I think that honestly looks pretty damn great. (85) (49:00) Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (RED) - I won't play it, but I expect this to be a big hit. Idris Elba's in it. CD Projekt on DLC tends to hit it outta the park. (88) (52:45) Cities Skylines 2 (RED) - It is actually illegal for me to look at any Cities: Skylines footage until I earn the platinum for the original. Sorry. (87) (54:50) Metaphor: ReFantazio (BLUE) - The Persona vibes are OFF THE CHARTS. Fancy as hell UI. The weebs are gonna gobble this one up and I don't blame them. (89) (56:45) Towerborne (BLUE) - I saw BANNER SAGA CREATORS AND GOT MAD. WHY DID XBOX HAVE TO BUY THEM? Salty af even if co-op games aren't for me. (82) (58:30) Clockwork Revolution (RED) - Big Bioshock energy. "Coming in Due Time". That may not even release by 2026. I'm not even joking. (77) (1:05:10) Starfield (BLUE) - You know what? I'm going to give Todd some credit. That is one of the greatest extended showcases for a single game I've ever seen. If you were skeptical about the game before, I think this may be the trailer that pushes people over the edge into a purchase. So may details and customization. I still have serious doubts about the gunplay, the game WILL be buggy as all hell, it's Bethesda, can't change your DNA, but I think the game is going to be so unique and only Bethesda make Bethesda games that it'll recapture the spark for many after so much trust was lost with Fallout 76's release. I'm going to go big here and predict a (90) and will admit I'm just a tad salty I'll never be able to play it. In Conclusion: 1 green, 6 blues, 2 purples, and 10 reds. Oh my god y'all... I'm pretty sure Xbox just kicked the other two presentation's asses... I don't know how to feel about that. They've made the transition over to forging a relationship with Atlus and it's paying dividends. They have formed good relationships with multiple studios that I enjoy from Thunder Lotus to Stoic. For as much as you can critique their bully ball approach fo just buying up and not having bared fruit with results in-house from their own studios, they may finally be turning a corner. Final Thoughts: Overall, not the worst bundle of showcases I've ever seen. Out of the 65 games featured here, there are 4 greens, 11 blues, 14 purples, and 36 reds. I personally judge the overall hit rate by the amount of green's and blue's. Purple's are slight intrigue but I'm still highly skeptical if the game will ever be for me. This is of course not a perfect formula though as back during my review of E3 in 2021, I rated Inscryption as a game in the red that I thought wouldn't be for me and its ended up as one of my Top 20 games. Nonetheless, let's compare how much this hits % wise compared to past game announcement events. The Hit % Of Past Showcases (Green & Blue) Summer 2022 Showcases: 27.77% (15 out of 54) Summer 2023 Showcases: 23.07% (14 out of 65) E3 2021: 16.53% (21 out of 127) The Game Awards 2022: 16.00% (4 out of 25) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted June 19, 2023 Share Posted June 19, 2023 17 hours ago, realm722 said: The Rule of Three - In 1980, you probably were capable of defining different types of video games with a single word. In 2023, the world isn't so simple anymore. Thus, rather than participate in the Sisyphean task of trying to encapsulate a single game in a single genre, I propose the Rule of 3. I am of the belief that you can by and large categorize and summarize the majority of even the most complex video games with three genres. Of course, this may not always be necessary. If you can succinctly define a game in two or even one terms, go for it. I believe that giving ourselves this broader scope increases our chances of better achieving our end goal. Putting Out to Pasture Useless Terms - You can't bring in the new without getting rid of some of the old. Here are some of my extremist views that I believe we should adopt. By dropping these two terms alone, we've left an enormous vacuum with regard to the categorization of game genres. To fill this void, I am now prepared to share the 48 genres that I have personally defined and included examples of. Some of these genres you've known since you were a child. Some are ones I've invented. The ones I've created include a distinguishing "(NEW)" beside them. I hope they serve somebody aside from myself and if you have a helpful suggestion or catchier title, be my guest to pitch in and offer the recommendation. I 1000% agree with The Rule of Three. Sometimes a game fits great with just one genre label. Sometimes a game borrows from a few different ones, and you need to be able to describe that without creating rarely-used special hybrid labels. Gamers already do this with things like Turn-Based Strategy versus Real-Time Strategy. I laughed hard at "extremist views". 17 hours ago, realm722 said: By dropping these two terms alone, we've left an enormous vacuum with regard to the categorization of game genres. To fill this void, I am now prepared to share the 48 genres that I have personally defined and included examples of. Some of these genres you've known since you were a child. Some are ones I've invented. The ones I've created include a distinguishing "(NEW)" beside them. I hope they serve somebody aside from myself and if you have a helpful suggestion or catchier title, be my guest to pitch in and offer the recommendation. Not gonna lie, at first I thought your 48 genres were meant to be the 48 genres to rule them all, aka the only 48 genres that would be needed to describe games made today. As I read through, I came to realize that you are only defining genres that you've had experience playing - which totally makes sense! 17 hours ago, realm722 said: "Role-playing game" - Hands down the worst offender of a term that has become so watered down, so frequently used, and so beaten to death, that it no longer holds ANY significant meaning. What is the first game you think of when you think of an "RPG"? Maybe Final Fantasy? OR would that be a JRPG? Guess what, Disco Elysium is labeled as an RPG on Wikipedia. So is Bloodborne. So is Persona 5. I could list a hundred more examples and that isn't even hyperbole. "You play a role in a fictional setting". Guess what buddy? That's damn near every video game. It is for this reason that I am putting the term to death and will no longer be using it for any descriptiveness of a game going forward. I agree that the term "RPG" has become too broad in its current state, but there are a few elements typically associated with the genre that I didn't see addressed elsewhere in your categories. Worldbuilding/Lore - This is a huge draw for me with RPG games. It can't be fully replaced with the "Fantasy theme" because Fantasy typically implies magic and thus does not cover scifi and other non-magical settings that contain worldbuilding. Skill & Gear Progression - Unlocking abilities (passive and/or active) within skill trees, acquiring better gear and weapons as the game progresses. I also think there is a difference between playing a general role in a game (such as Bandit/Astrologer/Warrior/Wretch/etc. in Elden Rings, where your character might be important to the story but they are usually a 'blank slate') and playing a specific, defined character in a game (such as Geralt in Witcher 3, Commander Shepard in Mass Effect, etc). Unfortunately, I don't have a great suggestion for how to incorporate this into your system of genres. 17 hours ago, realm722 said: "Action (Complex)" (see: Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Dead Cells, & Furi) - Action (Complex) games are ones in which the player actively engages in combat with enemies or foes with a highly diverse skillset. The best thing about the action title is that it makes clear to players that the gameplay is ACTIVE. You must REACT. Your thumbs must TWITCH. Complex games may not actually be that high in difficulty in order to actually survive (see: Batman: Arkham series where keeping up your combo is trickier than actually avoiding dying) but due to the amount of various inputs available, it falls into the complex category. Devil May Cry 5 is another example of a complex action game in which the challenge is more focused on raising your score rank as opposed to merely surviving. (UPDATED: 6/19/23) "Action (Simple)" (see: Kamiko, Neverlast, & Chasm) - Action (Simple) games are ones in which the player actively engages in combat with enemies or foes with a limited skillset. The key distinguisher between complex & simple action games are the amount of options available to the player while engaged in combat. Relatively simple action games can still make a player die a lot (such as in Chasm), but with a limited melee attack option with square and one ranged attack option with triangle, the action is undoubtedly simplified and deserves to be noted as such. Any Dynasty Warriors game is also considered (Simple) despite a larger moveset due to the lack of difficulty of ever actually dying. (UPDATED: 6/19/23) (NEW) "Action Runner" (see: Mirror's Edge Catalyst, No Thing, & Infinity Runner) - Action Runners are games in which the player is in a first-person perspective and must react instinctively and decisively in order to avoid failure. This is a genre that is ridiculously niche but I've played enough of them amongst the 3 listed to feel comfortable creating it. You aren't fighting anything and as the level gets progressively faster and faster you must have the reflexes and reactiveness to avoid ending your run prematurely. I like the delineation between "Action (Complex)" and "Action (Simple)", because there are times I want to play a game that is more 'intense' with its action and there are times where I want things to be less intense. My only problem with the three above genres is that they all have "Action" as the prefix. My first thought was to suggest "Reactive" for "Action (Complex)", but people might think that describes a "Story Alternator" game. "Action Runner" I would just simplify to "Runner", though. 17 hours ago, realm722 said: "Brawler" (see: Tunche) - Brawler games are ones in which the player engages in hand-to-hand combat with enemies typically across a variety of 2D side-scrolling levels (though 3D Brawlers have emerged in the past decades). This is a term I wrestled with tossing out (I mean c'mon, in what action game are you not beating them up) but ultimately kept around due to the instantaneous recognizability of the genre. When you see Streets of Rage 4, River City Girls, or Scott Pilgrim vs the World, you automatically know what I'm talking about. Thus the term still remains useful and deserves to be kept around. (UPDATED: 6/19/23) (NEW) "Boss Rush" (see: Furi & Jotun) - Boss Rush games are ones in which the main gameplay loop focus on combat against bosses. This does NOT include games where boss fights form a mere main component of the game (such as Elden Ring or Hollow Knight). If you've played the two games I've featured here, you'll know what I'm talking about. In Furi, there are these lengthy walking segments between fights, but you are here above all else for the lengthy action-sequenced boss fights. In Jotun, there are some brief levels of puzzles and navigation before the final foe of the area, but the boss fights are WHY you're here. On the other hand, Hollow Knight has a vast world with platforming and minor combat enemies and the same can be said for Elden Ring in the form of exploration. (UPDATED: 6/19/23) Shout-out to @DrBloodmoney and @Mori for these name suggestions! I hate how "Beat 'Em Up" is clunky to type out, with its punctuation and multiple short words requiring capitalization. "Brawler" is much nicer, and apparently already used in the community! "Boss Killer" makes me think specifically of Shadow of the Colossus, whereas "Boss Rush" covers games where you just defeat bosses, not necessarily kill them. DrB's point of it already being used for specific game modes means that there is already a lot of name-to-concept recognition there as well. 17 hours ago, realm722 said: "Co-op" (see: Stikbold! & Chambara) - Co-op games are ones in which you work alongside another player on your couch to complete an objective as teammates or face each other in a competition. Some prominent examples of this include It Takes Two & Overcooked. "Multiplayer" (see: Rocket League & FIFA 22) - Multiplayer games are ones in which the player engages with other random players in either a solo, competition, or team-oriented fashion. You could toss all sports games into this class, many FPS games like Call of Duty, Fall Guys, etc... The key distinguisher here from co-op is that the other players you're playing with are strangers and randomized. Your definition of "Co-op" is interesting to me, in terms of grouping games where you play cooperatively with others towards a common goal and games where you play competitively against each other into the same label. "Along another player" also made me initially think that you were trying to limit the genre to a single additional player at first, but that's mostly me being fixated on semantics. ? If both "Co-op" and "Multiplayer" each cover games that are team-oriented and games that are competitive, this creates a grey area for games that allow you to play with both friends and random players. In Destiny 2, I can specifically load into 2- or 3-man activities with some friends, or even do a 6-man raid with my clan. At the same time, I can load into PVP game modes where my team is made entirely of strangers, or my team is made of a few friends and a few strangers. Finally, I think distinguishing between cooperative gameplay objectives and competitive gameplay objectives is actually an important objective to include within genres. We have the term PVP for competitive play (though that is mostly used within Shooter games, to my knowledge). We can say competitive multiplayer (and also asynchronous multiplayer, for 4v1 games). "Competitive Co-op" is workable, but "Cooperative Co-op" would be saying the same word twice... ? I have several friends who love to play games with friends, but absolutely avoid anything that is built around player-player conflict or winner/loser systems. Though, after some further reflection, I feel like co-op and multiplayer are more gameplay modes than genres, necessarily. This is all just some food for thought - I haven't sat down and worked on the herculean task of creating my own genre system (though my ADHD brain is really wanting to hyperfocus into that ?), and I hope this comes across as constructive/curious rather than negative. 17 hours ago, realm722 said: (NEW) "Fantasy Sports" (see: Pyre & Rocket League) - Fantasy sports games are ones in which the spirit of sport is emulated in a fantasy or fictional game or setting. I felt the need to create this term due to the terms "action" not sufficiently describing the gameplay loop found in these game. Pyre's core gameplay deals with "rites" in which the player must manage a 3 v. 3 matchup and score enough points to extinguish the opposing team's pyre. Rocket League is a vehicular soccer game and is a magical blend in how combining two known ideas (cars & soccer) can create a magnificent mashup. We need more fantasy sports games. I'd like to create some. Get on it devs. I definitely see your personality in the creation of this genre - it's not something I ever would have thought to create! ? 17 hours ago, realm722 said: "Fighting" (see: Kiai Resonance & The Last Blade 2) - Fighting games are ones in which the player will engage in combat against another foe and typically includes detailed mechanics such as combos, blocking, grappling, & chaining. Despite the generic name, the genre description has stood the test of time and is still useful today for succinctly describing what a game plays like such as with Street Fighter or Tekken. Query for everyone in this thread - what is the difference between a Brawler(/Beat 'Em Up) and a Fighting game? Is it that "Brawler" has more simple combat mechanics (such as one or two punches, one or two kicks, maybe a grapple), whereas "Fighting" focuses on multi-button moves and/or combo systems? 17 hours ago, realm722 said: "FPS" (see: Superhot & DOOM 64) - FPS games are first-person shooters in which the player controls a character and navigates a three-dimensional space while firing at enemies with a gun. It is the most commercially viable video game genre with it comprising over 27% of game sales in the medium. "Shoot 'Em Up" (Rez Infinite & Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime) - Shoot 'Em Ups are games in which the player fires projectiles at opposing enemies. This is a very broad definition for a genre but many of these games tend to take place in space and are known as shmups. Right now the only difference between these two genres is that FPS requires a first-person POV and "Shoot 'Em Up" does not - giving the impression that FPS is a subgenre of "Shoot 'Em Up". I also dislike "Shoot 'Em Up" because of the aforementioned punctuation and multiple short-word capitalizations that hinder my typing speed. ? Do you consider "Shooter" to be a separate genre that you just haven't played yet? (If so, what makes it different?) 17 hours ago, realm722 said: (NEW) "Grand Level" (see: Shadow Tactics & Desperados III) - Grand Level games are ones in which the player must navigate an enormous and complex series of levels or missions in order to complete the game. These levels upon your first playthrough may take up to over an hour to complete, and can typically be solved or completed in a variety of different ways. I LOVE this genre and hope it grows in popularity in the games to come. When I played Shadow Tactics, it all clicked. "Holy crap... this huge mammoth level kinda reminds me of the Hitman games where you have a variety of ways to tackle your objective". The modern Hitman games are 10000% Grand Level games. PLEASE recommend some if you get the vibe I'm going for. Okay, this genre sounds really cool! The Hitman series has been in my backlog for a long while, and after a brief skim through your Shadow Tactics article, I've bookmarked it and Desperados III to read more closely later. (Plus a note to check out other Cabinet Thread reviews of them!) 17 hours ago, realm722 said: "Grid-Based" (see: The Banner Saga 3 & Ash of Gods: Redemption) - Grid-based games are typically turn-based and rather than active, free movement, the player must control their characters on a tile-based surface creating a grid. These games tend to be focused on tactics or strategy and engage the player mentally more so than with dexterity. As someone who's only experience with Grid-Based games is probably the Fire Emblem series, I'm curious what there is within this genre label that is not covered by the Tactics and Strategy labels. Obviously, the environment is grid-based versus being not-grid-based... but to my uneducated eye it just sounds like a niche of Tactics/Strategy, instead of its own category. 17 hours ago, realm722 said: (NEW) "Limited World" (see: Gravity Rush 2, CrossCode, & A Short Hike) - Limited World games embody many of the same traits and qualities of "Open World Big Boy" games (seen below) but are done on a much smaller scale. They may have a story, cutscenes, side quests, items, gear, and crafting but the runtime is much shorter compared to OWBB's. I really felt the need to create this distinction as simply saying "open world" doesn't do a good job of distinguishing between the scope of say, Batman: Arkham Knight compared to inFamous First Light. "Limited" may sound like a negative term, but in an increasingly common society where gamers want SHORTER games with LESS bloat, I think the term could end up quite flattering. (NEW) "Open World Big Boy" (see: Horizon Forbidden West, Persona 5, & Bully) - Open World Big Boy games are ones that are mammoth in scope. They contain a heavy story, cutscenes, side quests, items, gear, crafting, and a lengthy runtime. These are almost entirely created SOLELY by AAA developers. The reason why I've created this category is because this game has become increasingly popular in the 2010s. God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Marvel's Spider-Man, Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy, etc... are all encapsulated here. One game where I may see some pushback is a title such as Persona 5. But I really think the game fits the definition beautifully. The scope is GIGANTIC. You have gear, humongous dungeons, an overworld during the daytime where you can go to shops and explore Japan, social links, etc... Given the heavy trend we've seen in this direction, I think it's worthy of finally being properly defined and an abbreviation to OWBB could be in order. I definitely agree with "Limited World" being an important distinction from "OWBB"! A label that might have less negative connotation could be "Compact World". I do find it amusing that the existing "Open World" label was not bombastic enough for you. ? And while a concise definition of the main elements of OWBB is underlined in the "Limited World" section, I think it is a fantastic definition to distinguish from games that just have open environments without most or all of those elements. 17 hours ago, realm722 said: (NEW) "Mosey Adventure" (see: Dear Esther, Shape of the World, & Journey) - Mosey Adventure games are ones in which the player casually advances through environments in a leisurely manner without any imminent threat or active game mechanics. This is my counter to the dreaded term "walking simulator". I find that term to be a bit insulting. Looking around at stuff and exploring while walking around has its merits. They're not for everybody of course, but I believe the term "mosey" properly encapsulates the tone of these games. Some other famous examples would be a game such as Abzu, What Remains of Edith Finch & Gone Home. I really enjoy some "walking simulator" games, but also really dislike how that term is often used pejoratively. I love your use of the word "Mosey" for this! Considering you nixed the genre "Adventure" for how open-ended it was, in case that word's inclusion here bothers you I would suggest something like "Mosey Jaunt". 17 hours ago, realm722 said: (NEW) "Narrative" (see: The Forgotten City, Heavy Rain, & Afterparty) - Narrative games are ones in which the story forms a fundamental pillar of the appeal of the game and without it, there is very little else remaining for the player to engage with. Allow me to explain. Narrative is a dumb, generic term when trying to describe a genre of video games. Damn near every single game nowadays has some form of narrative. Aren't FF7 Remake & Persona 5 narrative games? Huge amounts are dedicated to the story. Ugh, you're right, but if you removed the entire story from those games, you still have tens of hours of GAMEPLAY that you could chew on and have fun with. For me, when somebody suggests a title is a NARRATIVE game, it is essential to the experience. You don't really have a game without it. I struggle with this definition greatly but I hope in practice it makes some sense. (NEW) "Story Alterator" (see: Oxenfree, Detroit: Become Human, & Road 96) - Story Alterator games are ones in which the player has the ability to significantly alter the story due to decisions and choices made throughout their playthrough. Forgive the lumpishness of that genre title. I didn't want to put "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" as 1) It's too long and 2) I've already covered why I hate the word adventure. The main appeal of these games is the ability to alter the story in a slight fashion depending on how deep the developers have made branching paths possible. Some of this can be quite superficial flavoring (see: saving a character in The Walking Dead, only for them to be irrelevant for 3 episodes, and then die anyway). Some are better about it. Say what you want about David Cage, Detroit has A LOT of choices. These games tend to have minimal gameplay loops and the foundation sits upon the narrative. "Visual Novel" (see: VA-11 HALL-A & Hatoful Boyfriend) - Visual Novels aren't games. (that's a joke) Visual Novels are games in which the player almost exclusively reads dialogue and there is minimal interactive function in the sense of gameplay. Visual Novels typically stick exclusively to PC, but on occasion, they will come over to consoles, such as with Steins;Gate. There may be some minor choices in the sense of dialogue options but many stories are meant to be experienced merely by reading. I've included VA-11 HALL-A on this list despite some minimal bartender interactions given the overwhelming amount of time dedicated exclusively to conversations with patrons. I wish I had a suggestion for a better genre name for "Narrative". As for its definition, I think what distinguishes this genre from Visual Novel is that most of its story is communicated through cutscenes (as opposed to clicking through blocks of dialogue) and that you are able to interact with the environment in some fashion. As for Story Alternator being "lumpish", one suggestion is "Branching Narrative Story". I also thought of the "Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions" meme, which could be summarized as "Actions (Have? Meet?) Consequences". ? There's also the infamous "Butterfly Effect" that could be used. 17 hours ago, realm722 said: "City Builder" (see: Tropico 5, Aven Colony, & Islanders) - City Builder games are ones in which the player acts as the overall planner of a city or town and are responsible for its growth and management. These games are known for having a specific formula that can be quite enticing if it tickles your fancy and much the innovation of the genre has come from building cities in unique settings or increasing the amount of complexity with features such as traffic and ensuring citizens morale remains high. "Farming" (see: Slime Rancher, Graveyard Keeper, & Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life) - Farming games are ones in which the game's core gameplay loop revolves around the maintenance and incremental progression of agriculture, creatures, or some other type of item. This is a genre best defined by feel as once you see it, you almost automatically know what it is. Stardew Valley is the king of the genre in the modern era as it borrowed almost all of the core features from the Harvest Moon series. Yet, the definition isn't too stringent. Slime Rancher is all about maintaining your different types of slimes and combining them on your ranch, I think that qualifies. Graveyard Keeper is a grim take on the genre where you farm and manage corpses rather than crops. "Resource Management" (see: Kingdom: New Lands, Moonlighter, & Beholder) - Resource management games are ones in which the player is challenged to establish values for various types of resources and by doing so well within the context of the game, achieve the desired outcome. Good lord. That's a crap definition. I'm sorry. I beat my head against a wall trying to make it somewhat comprehensible and I believe I've failed. LOTS of games have some level of resource management. Basically all city builders and farming games. But I think this is a compromise for games that don't fall into any of those clear-cut categories. I think a good way to distinguish "Resource Management" from "City Builder" is the latter's primary focus is on the building/creation element. The primary difference between "Resource Management" and "Farming" is that the former is focused on resources in a more numeric and hoardable approach, whereas the latter is focused on a more nurturing and cultivating approach (and there are often tiers/grades of quality for the resource). 17 hours ago, realm722 said: "Roguelike" (see: Risk of Rain 2 & Wizard of Legend) - Roguelikes are games in which the player engages in "runs" as a character through procedurally generated levels. If they die, their progress is wiped and they must start from the beginning. These games tend to be high in difficulty and meta-progression IS NOT a core aspect of the gameplay loop. "Roguelite" (see: Hades, Children of Morta, & Rogue Legacy) - Roguelites are games in which the player engages in "runs" as a character through procedurally generated levels. If they die, their progress is wiped and they must start from the beginning. These games tend to be high in difficulty and meta-progression IS a core aspect of the gameplay loop. Per my previous comment in this thread, I absolutely adore the meta-progression aspects of the Roguelite games that I have thus far experienced. However, seeing these two genres listed amongst so many others does highlight how small the difference is between the two labels. Perhaps instead of "Roguelite", there should be a "Meta Progression" genre? It could then be applied to a game like Inscryption as well. At the same time, if your "extremist views" ? do not allow for compromise on "Roguelite", I have enough bias towards it that I wouldn't complain. ? 17 hours ago, realm722 said: "Strategy" (see: Sid Meier's Civilization VI) - Strategy games are ones in which the player takes turns while playing and typically must manage a wide array of systems from combat units, to cities, to resources. A key distinguisher between strategy games and tactic games is this additional responsibility on the player, along with the fact that "grand strategy" games focus more on a series of decisions across a long period of time whereas tactics games focus on decisions made in a single encounter. My ability to accurately describe the genre is limited due to the fact I've only played one of them. These games tend to stick exclusively to PC. Europa Universalis & Age of Empires also fit this description. "Tactical" (see: The Banner Saga 2, Desperados III, & John Wick Hex) - Tactical games are ones in which the player manages units in small-scale confrontations, typically simulating operational warfare. The key distinguisher between tactic games and strategy games is that the former does not include the additional burden of managing resources on a micro or macro scale. I think the games I've included here are a good mix to show how much the genre can vary. Banner Saga is a quintessential tactics game. Desperados is an example of real-time tactics which deals less with direct combat and more so with logistics to achieve an end goal. John Wick Hex is a tactics game in which the player controls only one character and yet must balance resources such as ammo and health while eliminating enemies to complete their objective. OMG, thank you for once again helping me to distinguish between two genres! It seems like in Tactical games, most consequences of your decision-making stay within the combat encounter. Obviously, there might be elements like unit permadeath, but most factors are encounter-based. And then big-S Strategy games are more systems-based and macroscopic in nature. Is "Grand strategy" a sub-genre of "Strategy"? If so, I assume it's main distinction from "Grand Level" is that "Grand Strategy" decisions/consequences last the entire playthrough of the game, whereas "Grand Level" decisions/consequences are scoped to the level itself. 17 hours ago, realm722 said: IN CONCLUSION - I'm tired, Robbie. Good lord. I'm exhausted. I knew the task felt a bit absurd when first starting it but it somehow exceeded all expectations. I believe that while not perfect, you can summarize about 95% of video game by using some mix of any 3 terms I've included in this post. I don't have any meaningful statistical data to prove that but just take my word for it. You'll notice that there are a handful of genres that are obvious that are NOT included here (Battle Royale, MMORPG, MOBA, & Gacha) just to name a few. This is because I have not played any games of that ilk. If I do, I'll add them to the above list. Offer feedback if you see an obvious error on my end. OR don't. It's your life! And it seems you don't play Horror games either, noted! 16 hours ago, Cassylvania said: I think you're right. Games are so diverse now that most of them probably can't be adequately described by a single genre. Two or three sounds about right. I tend to think of "generic" categories (i.e. the ones you hate, like "role-playing game" and "adventure") as a higher order of classification, like in taxonomy. Most games would fall into one of those categories, but some have additional specifications. The more niche a game is, the lower the order and thus the smaller number of games that belong to that group. So, when I classify games, I try to consider the lowest taxonomic order for each game. That's where I would place it. To give you an example, let's take Hollow Knight. It's an action game, but so are a lot of games. It's also a platformer, but so are a lot of games. It's also a Metroidvania. I would consider that to be the lowest taxonomic order in which it could be placed, so if I HAD to place it under a single genre, that's where it would go. Yes, we could probably further divide up "Metroidvania", but I also find that to be problematic. The more genres you're willing to accept, the more that line between genres gets blurred. You, for example, suggested separate genres for Oxenfree and Afterparty. I know your argument is that they could fall under multiple categories, but eventually it gets to a point where you're coming up with genres that only have one or two entries. Like... Pinball. You have Arcade as a genre. Pinball is an arcade game. Why can't Tetris be a genre too? There are a lot more games based off Tetris than pinball. @Cassylvania! My brain is really wanting to latch onto your fabulous idea of a taxonomic system. I think I'll go spiral down a rabbit hole of reading about various taxonomic systems, and maybe I'll have a new hyperfocus by the time I finish that. ? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassylvania Posted June 20, 2023 Share Posted June 20, 2023 5 hours ago, pelagia14 said: @Cassylvania! My brain is really wanting to latch onto your fabulous idea of a taxonomic system. I think I'll go spiral down a rabbit hole of reading about various taxonomic systems, andmaybe I'll have a new hyperfocus by the time I finish that. It's the marine biologist in me. ? I didn't watch the Summer Game Fest. I didn't even know it was a thing. But the games that caught my attention were: Dragon's Dogma II, Senua II, Not Night in the Woods II, anything with Persona in the title, Metaphor, Honky Rail (because I love to torture myself), and...actually, Faefarm. I mean, that's one I've sorta been following because it's kinda my jam. Yeah, I dunno about the art style. It really does have to be good for the genre. I've seen worse, though. Cities: Skylines 2 should be amazing. I might have to wait for a Complete Edition. There comes a point where DLC packs should just be a separate game. I try not to look up trailers for games that won't be out for at least a year. I have enough on my plate already. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pelagia14 Posted June 20, 2023 Share Posted June 20, 2023 6 hours ago, realm722 said: PlayStation Showcase 2023 (May 24th, 2023) (LINK) In Conclusion: 2 greens, 3 blues, 8 purples, and 15 reds. That feels about right with the way I typically receive a showcase. I've gotta say that the inclusion of the Gran Turismo movie was a... choice. It's fine. I get it. Sony Games supporting Sony Studios and it's an actual game franchise but I don't expect it to review very well either. If I were to use your color system, my (mostly) non-red games would be: Sword of the Sea ["How about Journey, but surfing?" I'm SOLD. Plus Abzû was a delight.] Final Fantasy XVI [but only because of everything I've watched/read outside of trailers... The trailers make it seem very generic.] Marvel's Spider-Man 2 [MS-M and MS-M:MM both crushed it, and looks like we are going to get more excellence here based on the extended gameplay that was shown] Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater [It seems like they are being faithful to Kojima's game and not trying to modernize it too much. But I have zero trust in Konami nowadays, so I will be waiting to see the game's reception on launch.] Assassin's Creed Mirage [If Ubisoft actually delivers on their promises, I'll be excited to play the game within a few months of release. If it is a bunch of open-world bloat like Valhalla or has other critical issues, then I will be waiting at least a year for when it is heavily on sale to play.] Neva / The Plucky Squire / Towers of Aghasba / Alan Wake 2 / Revenant Hill / Ultros / Concord Marathon [Goddamn but Bungie knows how to make a good trailer. I absolutely love the gameplay aesthetic, and I wasn't aware that this was their first IP. However, I doubt that I will find an extraction looter game to be fun to play. There's also the issue of how Bungie has really monetized Destiny 2 in the past few years and features we've been requesting for years are not being implemented in D2 but are being hyped and touted for Marathon... using funds earned from D2. I'll spare everyone the extended rant, though.] I know that hype is a big part of the videogame marketing cycle, but I was disappointed at how little gameplay we saw with most of these trailers. Sony also seems to really be pivoting towards live service games, and I hope that isn't to the detriment of their amazing single-player games like God of War. 6 hours ago, realm722 said: Summer Game Fest 2023 Showcase (June 8th, 2023) (LINK) In Conclusion: 1 green, 2 blues, 4 purples, and 11 reds. Well, at least I finally got to experience a showcase where the big reveal at the end was a game I'm ACTUALLY super hyped and pumped for. Everything else I could honestly take or leave. Dammit Geoff. There's also so much bloat in these shows. I guess I'm just being a baby. Yes Your Grace Snowfall Under the Waves Final Fantasy VII Rebirth I flipped out when we finally got the FF7 trailer! I'm so excited for the game to come out, but with how excited I am for the game I'm not sure if the trailer itself is actually a good trailer. It was great to see snippets of Red XIII's combat. I wished that we could have seen Cid's combat style, but I don't blame them for wanting to wait for much closer to the game's release for that. And I have so many questions! For example, are we going to get Vincent and Cait Sith as playable characters as well? (Not that I would be devastated if Cait Sith was more of a 'guest NPC' akin to Red XIII in Remake...). I also seriously laughed when Geoff did the fake-out with the Final Fantasy cross-over with DoorDash or whatever, since we were all hoping to see Rebirth during the showcase! 6 hours ago, realm722 said: Xbox Games Showcase Extended 2023 (June 13th, 2023) (LINK) (9:17) 33 Immortals (BLUE) - Awww. Thunder Lotus Games. Played every one of their games. That style is so THEM. They're trying an action roguelike and it'll be good. (83) (13:00) Persona 3: Reload (GREEN) - Could you imagine the insanity if this hadn't leaked days before? Hell yea I'll play a remastered Persona. It's gonna do NUMBERS! (87) (22:38) Senua's Saga: Hellblade II (RED) - Oh yea I had forgotten about this game. Original did very well. I think this one will too. (84) (30:30) Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (PURPLE) - Holy crap that looked fancy as all hell. Doesn't even feel like a real game. Sleeper potential. (86) (47:45) Dungeons of Hinterburg (BLUE) - LOVE the art style. Good chaotic trailer. I think that honestly looks pretty damn great. (85) (56:45) Towerborne (BLUE) - I saw BANNER SAGA CREATORS AND GOT MAD. WHY DID XBOX HAVE TO BUY THEM? Salty af even if co-op games aren't for me. (82) (1:05:10) Starfield (BLUE) - You know what? I'm going to give Todd some credit. That is one of the greatest extended showcases for a single game I've ever seen. If you were skeptical In Conclusion: 1 green, 6 blues, 2 purples, and 10 reds. Oh my god y'all... I'm pretty sure Xbox just kicked the other two presentation's asses... I don't know how to feel about that. They've made the transition over to forging a relationship with Atlus and it's paying dividends. They have formed good relationships with multiple studios that I enjoy from Thunder Lotus to Stoic. For as much as you can critique their bully ball approach fo just buying up and not having bared fruit with results in-house from their own studios, they may finally be turning a corner. I wasn't able to watch the Xbox showcase last week, so I really appreciated your breakdown! Persona 3: Reload [Though I read that it won't include important DLC-esque content? I still need to get to the Persona games in my backlog, so I'll admit I'm not at all clear on the difference between things like Person 4/Persona 4 Golden, Persona 5/Persona 5 Royal, except that the latter ones have more content and are thus presumably superior.] 33 Immortals / Senua's Saga: Hellblade II / Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess / Dungeons of Hinterburg / Towerborne There is the caveat that any of the above games not coming to Playstation will need to be really incredible for me to buy them, since I much prefer console gaming to PC gaming. 6 hours ago, realm722 said: Nonetheless, let's compare how much this hits % wise compared to past game announcement events. The Hit % Of Past Showcases (Green & Blue) Summer 2022 Showcases: 27.77% (15 out of 54) Summer 2023 Showcases: 23.07% (14 out of 65) E3 2021: 16.53% (21 out of 127) The Game Awards 2022: 16.00% (4 out of 25) Statistics! ? 10 minutes ago, Cassylvania said: It's the marine biologist in me. ? I didn't watch the Summer Game Fest. I didn't even know it was a thing. But the games that caught my attention were: Dragon's Dogma II, Senua II, Not Night in the Woods II, anything with Persona in the title, Metaphor, Honky Rail (because I love to torture myself), and...actually, Faefarm. I mean, that's one I've sorta been following because it's kinda my jam. Yeah, I dunno about the art style. It really does have to be good for the genre. I've seen worse, though. Cities: Skylines 2 should be amazing. I might have to wait for a Complete Edition. There comes a point where DLC packs should just be a separate game. I try not to look up trailers for games that won't be out for at least a year. I have enough on my plate already. Wait - Cassy, are you legitimately a marine biologist?! If so, that's awesome! I was the kid in elementary school who would answer the "What do you want to be when you grow up" question with "Either an oceanographer or marine biologist". ? Then by the time I reached college, I had made peace with the fact that while science (and especially biology) are incredible, being a scientific researcher would not be a fulfilling career for me. So I will be sad if I missed that the comment was made in jest. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realm722 Posted June 20, 2023 Author Share Posted June 20, 2023 So before I say anything, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this is one of the best replies to a post I've ever received on this thead. 5 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Not gonna lie, at first I thought your 48 genres were meant to be the 48 genres to rule them all, aka the only 48 genres that would be needed to describe games made today. As I read through, I came to realize that you are only defining genres that you've had experience playing - which totally makes sense! Originally, I considered making that my goal but then as soon as I was barely even halfway to describing just my own I thought: "hell nah" lmao. I'm going to update that post every time though as I'm going to link it from here onward when describing a game I've just played. If I ever get to genres that I haven't touched quite yet, they'll be added to the list! 5 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Unfortunately, I don't have a great suggestion for how to incorporate this into your system of genres. Yea, I thought about that myself. I debated whether to include genres such as "Anime", "Fantasy", "Sci-Fi" but felt that had more to do with theme than with genre. 5 hours ago, pelagia14 said: I like the delineation between "Action (Complex)" and "Action (Simple)", because there are times I want to play a game that is more 'intense' with its action and there are times where I want things to be less intense. My only problem with the three above genres is that they all have "Action" as the prefix. My first thought was to suggest "Reactive" for "Action (Complex)", but people might think that describes a "Story Alternator" game. "Action Runner" I would just simplify to "Runner", though. Yooooo for whatever reason reading your comment I had the epiphany for "Reflex Runner" and I love how that sounds given how fast-twitched you have to be for the input commands on the games listed. Thank you for inadvertently helping me out with that! 5 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Your definition of "Co-op" is interesting to me, in terms of grouping games where you play cooperatively with others towards a common goal and games where you play competitively against each other into the same label. "Along another player" also made me initially think that you were trying to limit the genre to a single additional player at first, but that's mostly me being fixated on semantics. If both "Co-op" and "Multiplayer" each cover games that are team-oriented and games that are competitive, this creates a grey area for games that allow you to play with both friends and random players. In Destiny 2, I can specifically load into 2- or 3-man activities with some friends, or even do a 6-man raid with my clan. At the same time, I can load into PVP game modes where my team is made entirely of strangers, or my team is made of a few friends and a few strangers. Finally, I think distinguishing between cooperative gameplay objectives and competitive gameplay objectives is actually an important objective to include within genres. We have the term PVP for competitive play (though that is mostly used within Shooter games, to my knowledge). We can say competitive multiplayer (and also asynchronous multiplayer, for 4v1 games). "Competitive Co-op" is workable, but "Cooperative Co-op" would be saying the same word twice... I have several friends who love to play games with friends, but absolutely avoid anything that is built around player-player conflict or winner/loser systems. Though, after some further reflection, I feel like co-op and multiplayer are more gameplay modes than genres, necessarily. This is all just some food for thought - I haven't sat down and worked on the herculean task of creating my own genre system (though my ADHD brain is really wanting to hyperfocus into that ), and I hope this comes across as constructive/curious rather than negative. Not at all! Honestly, I appreciated your detailed analysis. I'll be 100% honest with you and I flew through those genres while creating them since they're not really relevant to the vast majority of my gaming catalog lol. Like, I have listed 3 multiplayer games for me and I made them Rocket League (since I do play the game still exclusively online), as well as FIFA 22 since I got a lot of trophies online in that game as well as Journey thanks to my 1st playthrough experience with a random player. If I played an Overwatch OR Rainbow Six Siege or some other type of game actively I probably would have paid it more thought but I like playing games on my time which makes both online and co-op games incredibly rare for me. 5 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Query for everyone in this thread - what is the difference between a Brawler(/Beat 'Em Up) and a Fighting game? For me at least, the distinction comes less from the button inputs as much as the competition. In a Braweler, you're usually taking on tens of weak foes at a time and doing everything from launching them into the air and juggling to ground slams and so forth. In a Fighter, minus some quirky ones, you're almost always taking on just ONE opponent and while those games do sometimes have stories and single-player, their longevity and fame come from the online community and taking your skills up against another player. 6 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Right now the only difference between these two genres is that FPS requires a first-person POV and "Shoot 'Em Up" does not - giving the impression that FPS is a subgenre of "Shoot 'Em Up". I also dislike "Shoot 'Em Up" because of the aforementioned punctuation and multiple short-word capitalizations that hinder my typing speed. Do you consider "Shooter" to be a separate genre that you just haven't played yet? (If so, what makes it different?) I dislike the term too. ? The truth is it just felt goofy to call them Action (Simple) games and I didn't know what else to toss those handful of titles into and I came up with that. Shooter Games sounds... goofy? I guess if I were ever to play a modern game like one of the Tomb Raider games, I may have to broaden the definition to fit it in there as it'd be a waste to have "Third-Person Shooter" be its entirely own entity. 6 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Okay, this genre sounds really cool! The Hitman series has been in my backlog for a long while, and after a brief skim through your Shadow Tactics article, I've bookmarked it and Desperados III to read more closely later. (Plus a note to check out other Cabinet Thread reviews of them!) IT IS SO COOL!!! The more time that passes, the more my appreciation for those games grows. The developers are also releasing their 3rd game, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew which dropped a release date trailer during the PC Gaming Show. I am HYPED! Even if it's largely more of the same, those games scratch an itch I didn't even know I had. Though Desperados is the latest release, I reflect on Shadow Tactics a bit more fondly due to the feudal Japan setting and loving the cast just a bit more. 6 hours ago, pelagia14 said: I definitely agree with "Limited World" being an important distinction from "OWBB"! A label that might have less negative connotation could be "Compact World". I do find it amusing that the existing "Open World" label was not bombastic enough for you. And while a concise definition of the main elements of OWBB is underlined in the "Limited World" section, I think it is a fantastic definition to distinguish from games that just have open environments without most or all of those elements. THANK YOU!!!! Compact World encompasses much better what I was trying to convey. "Hey, we're still Open, but we're not totally unfurled". I will be changing those titles in my spreadsheet and on the post. 6 hours ago, pelagia14 said: I wish I had a suggestion for a better genre name for "Narrative". As for its definition, I think what distinguishes this genre from Visual Novel is that most of its story is communicated through cutscenes (as opposed to clicking through blocks of dialogue) and that you are able to interact with the environment in some fashion. As for Story Alternator being "lumpish", one suggestion is "Branching Narrative Story". I also thought of the "Well, well, well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions" meme, which could be summarized as "Actions (Have? Meet?) Consequences". There's also the infamous "Butterfly Effect" that could be used. It seems like Narrative is the term that gives everyone, myself included fits. Ultimately, I've decided on a very conservative usage of the word in my collection. The Forgotten City, Oxenfree, Detroit, Paradise Killer, Road 96, Heavy Rain, Afterparty, South of the Circle, Life is Strange, & Telling Lies. All games that I feel would struggle to be described WITHOUT mentioning the narrative. I like your demarcation from Visual Novels though! "Branching Story" is a decent alternative. I'd say it feels too long but it's 14 letters compared to Story Alternator's 15 letters and when I hit the point when I'm counting individual letters on my genre labels I feel like I've gone too deep and need to occupy my mind with other things before I end up a shell of a man. Butterfly Effect just makes me think of Until Dawn lmao 6 hours ago, pelagia14 said: Is "Grand strategy" a sub-genre of "Strategy"? If so, I assume it's main distinction from "Grand Level" is that "Grand Strategy" decisions/consequences last the entire playthrough of the game, whereas "Grand Level" decisions/consequences are scoped to the level itself. Bingo! In Civ 6, the decisions you make at the start of a playthrough (where to build your cities, what government or policies you want to focus on, etc..) have consequences later in the game. Poor early game play can cost you in the late game. While that may sound stressful, I appreciate the gravitas decisions have in those games because EVERYTHING feels important. Grand Level games meanwhile are limited and even if you play super poorly in a level and barely make it out alive, next mission, you're back to 100%. 6 hours ago, pelagia14 said: And it seems you don't play Horror games either, noted! Technically there are a few games in my catalog you could label as horror (Inside, Inscryption, Oxenfree, Beholder 2, Simulacra) but there's enough elsewhere going on in those games that I didn't feel like dedicating an extra name to them. You are correct though that I don't seek them. I am a complete and utter pansy when it comes to that stuff. I don't watch horror movies either. 1 hour ago, Cassylvania said: Honky Rail (because I love to torture myself), and...actually, Faefarm. I mean, that's one I've sorta been following because it's kinda my jam. Yeah, I dunno about the art style. It really does have to be good for the genre. I've seen worse, though. Cities: Skylines 2 should be amazing. I might have to wait for a Complete Edition. There comes a point where DLC packs should just be a separate game. If Honky's GREAT (like... a 90+ on Metacritic) I may just join you. My only fear is that game is gonna get DLC'd to death. As for Faefarm, You tend to be the sacrificial lamb for me when it comes to new farming games so lemme know. I also saw the brand new Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life trophy list dropped so yanno... I played My Time at Portia despite loathing the plastic looking aesthetic and despite not loving it, I saw why the game had so much broad appeal. 18 minutes ago, pelagia14 said: I know that hype is a big part of the videogame marketing cycle, but I was disappointed at how little gameplay we saw with most of these trailers. Sony also seems to really be pivoting towards live service games, and I hope that isn't to the detriment of their amazing single-player games like God of War. I'll be honest and say that the Final Fantasy XVI hype train is chugging at 150MPH and I'm damn near tempted to jump on board. I listened to the Friends Per Second podcast featuring a bunch of creators I enjoy and the lead voice actor for the game is a HUGE trophy hunter. He talked about going for the platinum in The Witness & FF13. Instantly made me love him and while I may not play it (at least not at release), I'll probably be glued to some playthrough of it that I find from one of my many streamers. 21 minutes ago, pelagia14 said: I also seriously laughed when Geoff did the fake-out with the Final Fantasy cross-over with DoorDash or whatever, since we were all hoping to see Rebirth during the showcase! lmao that had me in stitches. He probably thought to himself: "dammit y'all hold on pull it back" and at the very least could be relieved knowing he had that in his back pocket for the finale. As for the actual trailer itself, I'll confess to you... I saw the first few seconds and closed out! I KNOW NOTHING about the original FF7. Cait Sith and Vincent and Cid? All I know about Cid is from Kingdom Hearts lmao. I've played the FF7 Remake, ADORED IT (seriously, that's my first INSANELY long review of 8k+ words and kinda marks a turning point in this thread) but have so many bloody questions about flashbacks from the original because I genuinely don't know any of the lore. Don't feel bad for mentioning any of those names either, I legit got no idea who you're referencing so it doesn't even qualify as a spoiler lmao Damn, it's crazy how fast a page flies by when you interact with people who reply to your thread ?. Still, we got a new review to start up Page #28! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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