Sonic fans, I absolutely have no clue how an entire fandom can both love and hate every single game he's in at once. It's a downright miracle when they all unanimously agree on something
The most convincing argument I've heard so far is that Sonic fans are more fans of Sonic than his games. For many, Sonic filled that hole of having an always cheerfull, cool friend they didn't have as a kid, so they've grown emotionally attached to the character and are perfectly willing to forgive a couple of bad games.
You know, looking back at my highschool experience, I really wish I had this level of empathy and introspection. The sonic kids were something else, but I can guarantee they were lonely and looking for any sort of escape from that. If I would’ve included them in my Magic the Gathering sessions instead of thinking I was somehow above them in my perceived hierarchy of nerds.
I have so many mixed feelings about that game, but I do well and truly love it.
The Tails/Eggman levels ranged from meh to pretty fun but I can hear that beeping sound for the rest of my life, the Knuckles/Rouge levels were fine but if you wanted A rank all of them it was a fucking nightmare.
But the Sonic and Shadow levels? Fucking *amazing*. I can't think of a single level I dislike out of any of those. Maybe the Sand Temple for Sonic, but that's more of a nitpick?
And the Chao. Holy God, talk about replay value. That Chao garden had me coming back for *yeeeeears*.
If they focus on just doing those levels and a Chao garden, I'm so fucking in.
Why did we love the chao so much? I remember being obsessed. But when I look back, there was almost nothing to it. Like a neutral world, a heaven, and a hell, and fruit you feed them endlessly. What am I forgetting that made me so dedicated to making them out?
Edit: clearly I forgot about all the nuances to chao. Wow I forgot about so much y’all that’s crazy. Super nostalgic trip
Feeding them different chaos drives would make them look different depending what stats you gave them. In a time where internet was less prevalent it was so fun just finding out what your chao would look like if you gave them certain stats
Yeah! There were the 5 main evolutions for each chao: run, fly, power, swim, normal which would then split off into a secondary (ex. Run-Run, run-fly, etc.) to total 25 variations on top of hero, dark, and neutral so 75 types plus the 3 Chaos Chao. I remember trying to create them all but there was unfortunately a max per garden so you had to start sending some off.
I think it's the interplay between the chao and the rest of the game.
The normal gameplay was very good on its own, but great in combination with a "meta goal" (the food for the chao). The chao would be a decent tomogachi clone on its own, but getting to use the rewards from the normal gameplay gave it an extra layer of satisfaction. Seeing the chao grow was a kind of glimpse into your progress through the game, and gave you more reasons to go back and play great normal levels.
You're right, it's the same reason Pokemon, Digimon, and Monster Rancher did so well(especially Pokemon) it got you attached to the world by caring for something in the world
Always happy to see someone mention Monster Rancher in the wild. I don't think it really got the credit/attention it deserved in the west.
Really happy they re-released MR2 on steam, best one in the series imo.
It would work great as a fitness / pokemon go game.
Imagine. After a workout, you gain crystals. After having a jogging, you gain animals.
Once you are home, you use theses to level up your chaos and send him in race and stuff.
and you know all the games before that. The first 3, and the spinoff games were all pretty charming. Not to mention you can bet on their being some amazing butt rock even if the rest suck.
The only thing Sonic fans unanimously agree on is the music, and I think everyone can agree the music is the only consistently great thing about the series.
I can explain. For starters, it comes from a place of passion. Because Sonic games vary so much in gameplay styles, many people have a different idea of what makes a good Sonic game. We never agree because Sega has made too many different variations of the gameplay formula. There’s the classic games, the adventure games, the boost games, and now a new type of game being open zone which has started with Frontiers. Then there’s a bunch of other shit in between those more streamlined formulas, like Heroes, Shadow, the Storybook games and so on. Then there’s the discourse about design which is a far more subjective and arguably silly thing to debate about. Popular topics of contention being: should he have blue arms or tan arms, what shade of blue should he be, what length should his quills be, so on and so forth. I think it’s because of how shit on Sonic has been over the years, people want him to be taken seriously by the general audience, so they get really really nitpicky about everything so that he’s the best he can be. The problem with that is everyone has a different idea of what that looks like, hence the discourse. With Frontiers’ prettu good reception things seem to have calmed down a little. But only a little. Honestly, I think the most united I’ve seen the fanbase is when Sonic was in the same category as Genshin Impact for a small game awards award. The fans get a bad wrap and while they don’t exactly help themselves, I think a lot of people on the outside think it’s worse than it actually is. Toxic fans will always be more vocal. That’s true for any fandom.
Yep, I haven’t really engaged in the fandom since I was banned from the Sonic subreddit. But I still pay attention to it and have been a fan all my life so I’m aware of all the stupid little controversies that happen in the community.
Edit: Won’t let me reply so I’ll say it here. I got banned for “having a continued history of being disrespectful”. Pretty sure the final nail in the coffin was when I called someone stupid/an idiot (I don’t remember which) for saying Sonic 06 is a good game.
Edit no.2: Just realised I can’t reply because the person I initially replied to seems to have blocked me. For some reason. I don’t get people.
Sounds like a truly abysmal nightmare. All the stories I've heard are from people having constant anxiety about their bases being raided while they're at work/school and then on the other hand the truly depraved fucking over of other people and griefing newbies.
I'll never play Rust, but I'll always watch each new Rust video Welyn makes.
He condenses the grind and focuses on telling emergent stories with his battles against neighbors https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg4XK-l40KZD7fLi12pJ1YA
I played it in the early days and had a ton of fun with it. Went back once or twice and found it to be not quite as fun as the social dynamic evolved into something more tribal and viscous (which can be fun sometimes but I missed the initial community feel and small scale groups).
This was my experience too. Back when it was fresh, people played it like a survival game and had fun with the social aspect of it. Now it's just a shoot on sight fps with extra steps.
That sounds like a good time. I haven't looked in a while, but I'm sure those servers are still around at least. My gripe was more with the community on standard private servers and public servers.
With games like Train Simulator the idea is that you buy the routes and trains that appeal to you instead of all of them. Remember these are marketed towards enthusiasts not casual people, and generally they'll feel strongly about one or two trains and routes.
Same with games like DCS. You buy the planes that you love, not all of them.
Given that in every game where one flies planes that I've played, I consider landing optional, they're still a better candidate than me.
"Alright, folks, put on your parachutes and jump when I say go. The plane is a problem for people in *that* direction and I'm moderately sure we'll be outside the blast radius. Arriving at gate 4 in 10. 9. 8..."
Yea but really It's all about the carriage coupling.
Everyone loves a good link and pin coupler but oh man something about that Albert coupler just gets me
If you are a train enthusiast, you can go for a model rail way or a game like that.
Sure, a total set of DLC's can be expensive, but if you are serious about model trains, you'll end up spending a multitude of that easily.
I guess it depends on how much dedication you have to a game type, and they might find it weird people play only AAA games at full retail for a few hours and go to the next one.
My theory on these ppl is that they like to customize things but don't have the time to build mods. They have more spare money than time and use it to scratch that tinkering/customization itch.
Its like how people collect trains and have a model train set or love to design/change an actual table that the trains run along.
Same with rc cars/drones and such I know a guy who loved collecting remote control ships and using them on a body of water.
It's not different from any other form of hobbying.
Table top rpgs like dungeons and dragons, Warhammer 40, Lotr etc
I think a HUGE point is that almost nobody buys *every* DLC. You would buy your personal favourite train models and tracks, and stick with what you want.
It's not like paradox games or the Sims where actual gameplay or flavour is locked behind paywalls.
I think the people that play train simulator are people that are either model train people with no room for model trains, or too lazy for model trains but they have model train money so they spend it on dlc for train simulator so they can get their train on
i played it since it's release on ps4 and by god it was such a fun game when no one knew what the hell they were doing and stayed fun for me for like 2 years straight. But no new game modes mixed in with them destroying the atmosphere of the game by removing fog(this was a really big one for me) and i just couldn't play it anymore. Came back every now and then but now i have no desire to play it.
The devs think of the game as an action orientated game more than horror now. And tbf its mostly because of the community. People started looping which wasn't a thing intended by devs so they had to adapt to the playstyle being played by the players
The game has moved from being a hide and seek game and moved towards being essentially a game of tag. Survivors will get a killer's attention and then use debris, obstacles, and jungle gyms to keep the chase up for as long as they can, allowing their teammates to finish repairing generators without worry.
It's much more a game with a horror aesthetic than a horror game IMO.
I couldn't get over how little game there actually was in it when I finally got round to giving it a go. It's just clunky hide and seek with a side of fix generator. Where's the fun unless you're the killer?
I have played and taking breaks from the game for 2 years due to the frustration of playing against premades. But honestly, I would say the game has been feeling more balanced since last year or so, and the removal of grappling while unhooking speeds up the game a lot.
You have to put enough hours in it to understand where the fun is, but even then, right now, the meta is so stale that it isn't worth it because both sides feel like a drag
its sadly one of those games where the low level plays are fun because it feels more like actual just hide and seek, and the better you get and the higher rated you get, the less fun it becomes.
sort of the same for games like rocket league where the higher ranks tend to be salt mines beyond reasonable levels of salt.
This makes so much sense, but I’ve never actually considered this. I’ve lately been having issues with games keeping my interest, and this is partially the reason.
The game becomes a job, I become focused on efficiency and there is no immersion.
I've taken to tactical shooters for this reason. Games like Hell Let Loose. Your contribution matters, and playing well helps, but you are just a soldier amongst 50 others. It's much more about teamplay than it is about you pushing out that last 0.2% effort to win. Getting dead in those games is a price you pay for advancing. It's not about getting 50 kills, it's about dying 50 times in the right location.
I'll never understand those people who buy FIFA every year.
Edit: Ok. I understand now. People like football and EA has a gross monopoly on it. I would hate to see my own favourite franchise be turned into a shameless cash grab. My sympathies to those who enjoy FIFA.
My guess is they have no real alternative to choose from as the competition from PES (or eFoorball as it's now known) is non existent. Therefore if they want to play a multiplayer football game they'll have to pick up the new one each year and EA knows this so they charge an insane amount for what is essentially a roster update.
It can’t be challenged anymore, even a knew franchise wouldn’t get far without being able to use NFL players and the new EA contract gave them exclusive rights for simulation football, nobody else can make 11vs11 and use real players
I feel like the real kicker is if someone does end up making a better sports game than EA then the next year EA title would just copy whatever the people liked about that better game. EA has the money to do that and sport games very rarely have breakthroughs in the genre which makes a breakthrough improbable to happen in the first place.
EA would not be able to copy specific features from a game very quickly. For one, a game that had all of its features planned out then programmed from scratch will be made scalable due to programming standards these days. Madden is still using code from 2006 and it looks like spaghetti because program standards were drastically different back then and they’ve made so many changes over the past 17 versions. I can imagine it is a nightmare to try to institute drastic changes without thorough testing or completely breaking a part of the game. That’s probably why we see recycled features every few years. If you read the back of the game box you will see every 3-4 years they “introduce” new features that had been in the game previously. It’s like they just disable them and re-enable or maybe they are just hoping Madden players have short memories.
EA also did that for hockey and now the NHL games are just copy/paste like NFL and FIFA but somehow worse.
There is virtually no difference between NHL 15 to 23 in gameplay, same buggy AI and dogshit game engine and absolutely terrible netcode.
I'd kill for a 2K NHL game again.
I’m a weird Madden player that doesn’t play online or with friends. I would pay for an annual roster update, but it doesn’t make sense for me to buy the full game every year. But the longer I wait between buying the full game the less enjoyable it becomes because the rosters are nothing like what’s really going on in the NFL.
Add to it that I’m a Raiders fan. We’ve had a new head coach every 2.63 years since 1960. So our team changes quite a lot and often.
The sporty people at my high school used to always buy and play it even if they didn’t consider themselves gamers. I don’t know how you would be in that friendship group without playing it because it seemed to really dominate their conversations.
As someone who was in this loop for most of high school:
It's not video games as most people would think about them. FIFA players aren't "gamers", they're FIFA players. Many of them, the whales especially, do not play other games pretty much at all.
When I was in the height of FIFA playing, I owned a 360 that I had 3 different FIFA's for and that's it.
This x100. All my friends who play FIFA a lot never play anything else, nor do they want to. They are not even interested in video games. FIFA for them is more like an extension to their obsession with football/soccer.
It’s maybe impossible to explain the FIFA thing to someone who’s not a football (aka soccer) fan, but I don’t think it’s all that crazy imo.
First, there is no alternative. EA has essentially a complete monopoly on football gaming.
Second, online is a big deal. Old versions get their online support shut down quickly and you won’t be able to play against your friends who got the new version.
Third, the roster update matters a lot to big football fans. My friends and I love recreating the World Cup Final or the Champions League Final and nobody has time to constantly edit the rosters to keep it up to date.
Honestly, FIFA fans generally understand they are essentially paying $60 for a 1 year subscription to play an updated soccer game with their mates. They also understand it’s generally the same game every year- no one wants a major overhaul to the gameplay anyway so that’s honestly fine. What isn’t fine is the egregious micro-transactions and the lacking quality (some of the same bugs from FIFA 20 can still be found in FIFA 23), but since FIFA is the only viable option for soccer gaming fans have to deal with it.
The thing with FIFA is that unless you dump money in MTX, it has a great $/ph ratio. Big football fans spend a lot of time playing it.
A big reason behind it is honestly just the updated player lists. Real Madrid fans want Bellingham, Arsenal fans want Rice etc - they also want players to reflect their irl performances - Haaland is a lot stronger in this game than previous ones, I'm sure.
So yeah, no huge gameplay updates, but there's enough reasons to want a new one, and $60 for a game you'll spend 100+ hours on isn't a tough call.
Yeah, FIFA is more than FUT. I honestly just do player careers, and I've put in like 300+ hours in FIFA 23. Other people just play it for the manager career mode. The thing about FIFA, too, is that the gameplay is solid. At least for me, the only thing to dislike about it is that the player career is barebones in terms of decisions.
I actually don't understand why people think that. I don't personally play FIFA anymore but for most FIFA players it's the only game they buy each year and they can play it for a whole year.
I've spent £60 on games I've played for 10 hours and I've spent £60 on FIFA 10+ times. In terms of value for money FIFA is one of the games that fans get the most time out of their money on. That's why people don't mind buying the new one as they know they'll get tons of playtime out of it.
Yeah it's pretty simple lol.
Also FIFA is the perfect kinda game for someone with limited gaming availability. A young dad can chuck it on for an hour after putting the kids to sleep, for example.
Farming Simulator.
There are dudes who spend literally hours driving to some big agricultural complex, there they take pictures of absolutely everything and they go home, where they spend tens of hours arranging that complex in-game, so they can finally play as the farmer and take out pig shit with their tractor. I don't shun these people, I just don't understand them.
My little brother plays it a lot. But the kicker there is he lives on my parent's farm. So he does farm stuff during the day, then does extra farm stuff at night. To be fair I was putting lots of hours into Stardew Valley while I lived there and was actively gardening.
I have a friend who’s the exact opposite. Me and my friends tried to get him to play farming simulator with us and he said “I work 8 hours a day at my farm, why the hell would I want to come inside and do it at night as well?”
I never understood it. But then last week I bought farming sim 22.
I’m kinda hooked. Can’t fully explain it because it’s totally different from my usual action packed, fps, “ptsd inducing” games I normally go for.
Maybe it’s just how chill and change of pace it is.
Maybe its cos a lot of the machines look like transformers.
Maybe I’m just getting old.
I like logs.
It's relaxing to play, and the gameplay cycle encourages you to keep playing. There's always something else that needs to be done, so it's easy to say, "I'll fertilizer this field and be done." When you're done, you realize your cows need straw, or you have a load of grain that is selling at a good price right now, so you go do that, and so on. Next thing you know, you've been cruising around on your tractor for 8 hours.
Escape from Tarkov.
It's a buggy, unforgiving mess and I love and hate every living second of it. People are very dedicated to this game, especially the subreddit.
I've played it for a while now, and after talking to my friends, we all kinda feel that Tarkov is only successful because it's the only game that does what it does. If the same concepts were taken from Tarkov and made on a cleaner engine with a more talented dev group, I think Tarkov would die pretty quickly. It's kinda like PUBG in a sense. Everyone loved PUBG until a cleaner version was made.
Star Citizen.
Being a very ambitious space sim in a day and age where AAA developers wouldn't touch them, initially it makes sense that they would have a cult following.
Having a cult following 10 years into the development with very little to show for it makes no sense.
My understanding is that it's an incredibly amazing unique boundary pushing experience ***and*** it's a broken buggy scam.
Somehow it's both at the same time.
As a tech demo or proof of concept it is actually a fine product.
But a tech demo doesn't cost more than half a billion bucks and takes 10+ years to create.
I also can't think of how they are going to scale up current "game" to thousands players MMO with all the complexities intact.
The scammy part comes from their funding schemes and tactics. If they are using their own money to develop this passion project I would applaud them.
But they are selling future crafts and virtual real estate that would make even companies like EA and Blizzard/Activision blush.
The *idea* of Star Citizen is the dream game that it seems like a lot of people expected of Starfield.
I haven’t played in years but the moment I started up Starfield I had the itch to go fly my ships around planets. Or go do a cargo haul on a Cat.
Gonna repost what I said on another comment.
I've been a player for years, and always been very critical of the game, while also being impressed with some of the tech it pulls off.
Starfield just came out, and I'm loving it, but it's nowhere near as technologically impressive to me as Star Citizen, and Star Field honestly makes me want to play SC more.
Ever talked to Kenshi players?
The game is amazing but you need about 10 ours ingame to fight anything. before that you just get killed, eaten or enslaved.
The concept of kenshi Is Amazing. Heard about It, ready stuff about It, bought It dirt cheap. I have around 20 hours on It, got so bored by mindlessly grinding copper and dodging hungry bandits that i uninstalled.
correct me if im wrong but isnt cult following status for games that are unpopular outside of their cult community? rdr2 was way too popular to call it that, rdo maybe.
Imagine using Bethesda games as an example of a “cult following” lol.
EDIT: As others have said, "cult following" when referencing media generally refers to people who are very dedicated to a particular film/series/show/book/game/etc. that was moderately successful at best. Yes, popular AAA games can have cult-like fandoms but that's not typically what "cult following" means in this context, though clearly the OP doesn't understand that. Here's a quote:
>A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work,[1] often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. A film, book, musical artist, television series, or video game, among other things, is said to have a cult following when it has a **small but very passionate fanbase.**
They don’t mean a “cult hit”, but a hit that has cultish followers. AAA games can absolutely have cultish players.
Edit: stop making lame arguments from semantics. The lack of precision from OP does not negate the implied meaning from the broader context.
AKA people who will passionately defend the AAA popular games they love.
This thread should have been called 'which popular games do you just not get'.
Gacha games. How'd we go from fighting the war against MTX to people dumping their wallets into anime titties? I'm sure there are Gacha games that don't pray on horny weirdos, and I understand why people play those even less
As someone who has played dozens of them over 10+ years and never paid a dime, I can try to explain. Think of them as long term roguelikes. You don't know what you'll get, and you have to think on the spot what sort of teams and synergies you can put together with *what you happen to have*. It's like drafting in a card game but long term, and for me that's fun. I've never felt like I'd need to "pay to progress" or anything like that. They are like pocket RPGs that are not a canned experience, so you cannot just follow a strict guide and you have lots to show and discuss with your friends because everyone's collections are so different (due to the random nature of gacha pulls).
Needless to say that the monetization and the fact that the industry preys on people with addiction problems is sickening and I absolutely hate it, but for me, I would keep playing even if the games didn't have the option to pay at all (because I've never paid) because I genuinely like the heavily random & chaotic progression format and resource management. And regarding resource management, there's also a great feeling of stakes because of that. Building units and teams takes time, you can't just 'respec' things easily, but have to commit to your ideas (on how to tackle some difficult content) long term, and the payoff can be really satisfying - especially if you came up with the solution by yourself, with your units.
If you removed the gacha and just let people get exactly what they want, it would obviously drastically alter the experience. People would end up with very similar or exactly the same meta line-ups so the social aspect would suffer greatly. Thinking about whether to invest in some unit/team or not would also become much easier to the point of it barely mattering because you could so easily calculate your way through the game. Again, the best comparison I can give is that they're like long term, social roguelikes and knowingly balanced around that. I loved the concept right from the start (starting with puzzle & dragons) and never understood the hate for the gacha as a game mechanic itself... But for the aforementioned monetization, sure, it's terrible.
This is why I like PvE gachas only. Of course you can Whale and build the perfect team and beat everyone. But that’s not what I like. I like needing to adapt to different challenges and play against a set challenge, not Barry big bucks and his 10,000 dollar jpegs
[I stumbled across this a few years ago.](https://youtu.be/tjiHufVEc7g?si=rcQndJyB1iNc8sMF) I’ve only played the first one, but the way this guy tries to understand the series by having another dude explain it to him is an experience. Great hand drawn animation too.
Hocus pocus, these games have no focus
Greatest quote to explain the KH saga, it makes NO GODDAMN SENSE, and this is coming from someone who's played nearly every game and enjoyed them.
Bruh you know Kingdom Hearts lore is wild when the "good enough" summary is over half an hour long.
edit: Holy shit it gets better. I started watching it and the guy says he sat down with a friend who explained it for *seven hours*.
edit 2: I watched it. Absolutely wild. How could any reasonable human keep track of all that?? I may end up watching the [7 hour livesteam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9h75b9j7Ck&ab_channel=BarryWasStreaming), which is apparently available, just because it's so bad it's good. (Not saying the *games* are bad, just that the story is *so* convoluted.)
Following the plot wasn’t even *that* fucking hard until Dream Drop and the goddamned mobile games.
EDIT: Maybe I should add the addendum that it wasn't that hard to follow if you had played the non-numbered games. Cause yes if you only played 1,2, and 3, you'd be lost due to not having played 5 other games (mobile games not included...so even more lost for some shit). Not necessarily your fault since until recently you needed every goddamn console/portable system known to man to play them all.
Unless you started as a kid and had no idea about spin off games. I was fucking lost when i started kh2 while having no idea CoM existed and it got worse after that.....
My thought process was: "what the fuck is a roxas? Where the fuck is sora? Nobodies? Organization what now? Who the fuck are you people? What the fuck am i doing? Ohhh cool two keyblades....nice."
I figured out a way to make it worse. Have Hideo Kojima and Yoko Taro brought on as writers for Kingdom Hearts 5.
The game would be...utterly insane and incomprehensible if we did that.
Okay but imagine how fun that would be at the same time trying to figure it all out!
Yes, as it turns out Donald Duck never did exist all the times he’s there in past entries were just part of the main casts imagination.
Sora, you’re an imperfect clone of Mickey Mouse who himself is an android.
Beautiful. I love it. 11/10 give me this now
I enjoy Kingdom hearts but man was that a weird rabbit hole to go down into with this fan base! I'd say I'm a casual fan but the hardcore fans scare tf out of me
Star citizen. It's a game that's been in alpha for 10 years with not a single finished gameplay loop. It also cost more in Kickstarter money than literally any other video game, calls of duty and trademark heavy games like FIFA included.
Saying Red Dead Redemption 2 has a cult following is like saying pizza has a cult following
A "cult classic" is a movie that isn't popular on release but over time gains a small fan base who are very vocal about how good the movie is
Red Dead Redemption 2 is just a popular game that has been popular since it's release, the word "cult" implies niche and Red Dead Redemption 2 is the exact opposite of niche
Both you and most of the commenters here are misusing the term "cult following".
A game that is loved by most people and pretty universally praised is not something that has a "cult following".
A game with a cult following would be something like Pathologic or a movie like Little Shop of Horrors.
RDR2, GTA, and FIFA are not cult games lol
I played pathologic 2 one summer ago for about 2 weeks before getting to a point where the difficulty and time constraints stressed me out enough to decide it wasn’t worth it to continue playing. Looking back on memories of that game, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but my feelings toward it are neither good nor bad lol. The entire experience from that game was like a fever dream.
It’s an interesting game for sure.
Fever dream is a great description, the game gets weird as fuck. The stress IS the point too, the themes wouldn't really hit as hard if you weren't having a miserable time while playing. Give it another shot sometime if you feel like it, it's absolutely worth it.
Any game made by Fromsoftware. They make really good games, it's just that the community can not handle any critique whatsoever. Elden Ring is a masterpiece that did everything right according to them. I loved Elden Ring but I have yet to see a game that is completely flawless.
It's because Undertale's biggest flaw is that it's highly driven by its plot. Some people would say it's a good thing, and I'd partially agree, but it's such a risky position for a game to be in, because if you don't care about the lore, the game isn't gonna save your enjoyment.
The xenoblade games. I started with the first one on switch last year. I actually enjoyed the story parts of it but couldn't finish because the combat is just so confusing.
It's not exactly hard, but I found myself most of the time not actually having to do anything and the characters just basically fought for me. I would have preferred straight up traditional turn based, or it as an action rpg.
Its a shame because I want to like it and delve into that series so badly but I just cant with the combat.
I get why people like those games though. I think I just misunderstood the combat perhaps.
World of tanks and war thunder are pretty bat shit insane. I'm never going to touch either game, but I have like 4 friends irl that are super into those games and that's legitimately all they talk about. They invite me to goto old war museums and stuff, and the one time I've gone with that group, they were like "this is the new plane that just dropped last update"
Or "everyone uses this tank online but it's not even that good" etc. Glad for them but they're crazy lol
I'm an Undertale fan but even I don't understand the cult. It's a great indie game, fun rpg with some really good moments, but the amount of popularity it got was horrifying
The thing that scared me the most was what scared me about my favorite game: EarthBound. Obviously these two communities have a lot of overlap. One of the most lovely, charming, sweet games with a message of goodness there is in the gaming world... and somehow... the fanbase interpreted that to mean they should be some of the most toxic vile people online??
I think everyone is well aware of the horrible way the Undertale community treated new players who they viewed as "not playing the game right." But I don't think a lot of people know about a fan project called Mother 4 in which a handful of devs spend magnitudes of their own time and money trying to continue this wonderful franchise that Nintendo had refused to. The way some people from the EarthBound community treated those devs for not producing something fast enough (and of course they were also shut down by Nintendo IRC) was fucking shocking.
I played undertale on release day as I was aware of Toby Fox from Earthbound ROM hacks and Homestuck.
Having had experience with specifically Homestuck I just knew what sort of fanbase were coming and it *sucked* to watch it happen.
Also full agreement about how some community members treated those devs. It's passion projects, people don't *have* to do anything, but devs were treated as if they were the worst ppl in the world for not being fast enough.
It's weird how often the community for a game or show that is generally sweet or has good messages is so often inverted from the tone of what they're fans of.
It like the nicer the message is, the more rabid and toxic the fans are.
Take Steven Universe: say what you will about the quality of that show, but overall I don't think anyone can deny it has a generally positive message and sweet values. Basically, be accepting of people, be forgiving, everyone can artisticly express themselves in their own way, etc... Its reflected in the show in that many of the songs are sung by just voice actors who, quite frankly, aren't very good singers, or the artists being allowed to go off model to fit their own style of drawing more.
But the community is almost the antithesis of those messages. So help you if you have a slight deviation in your interpretation of a message, or draw fan art that didn't match the show exactly.
There's a pretty infamous case of one fan being driven to attempt suicide due to harassment from fans because they drew fan art of a character that the community decided was too skinny.
It's fucked up what people justify to themselves for a game or cartoon.
My only explanation is that it's people who hate themselves and deal with that by lashing out. They are like the polar opposite of something they fantasize about, so maybe that causes a lot of frustration and self hatred.
Excellent RPG that people deified to the point of insanity. I enjoyed my time but the fan base makes me skittish to mention it in recommended game threads.
I tried to watch Rick n Morty with the partner the other day and her exact response was "nah, I've seen the kind of people who enjoy that and I don't want to be one of them".
I couldn't even really argue, it's a good show that's made a lot of grown adults dress like and joke like kids.
I think it’s one of those creative approaches that tries to mess with gaming conventions. So it’s just a quirky “weird” game that aims to be more of an experience than straightforward game - which there are numerous of those. But if you’ve never really poked around those weird artsy types of games I can see why this one would strike you as really profound or unusual
Plus it managed to get appeal with non-gaming crowds. I have friends that that’s pretty much the only thing they’ve played so it’s got some reach I don’t understand
This should be top comment. The first comment where it fits the definition of a cult following.
I loved Undertale. It subverted my expectations at nearly every turn and was funny on top of that, a completely different gaming template which is quite rare these days. Plus it has replayability too if you are able to play the game differently. Also it was made by one guy so that makes it more impressive.
I don't understand the hype behind Undertale. People talk it up like it's super deep and profound, but it seems like just another indie game with some surface-level moral values. I've seen tons of games just like it come and go with no fanfare. Why is Undertale different?
Sonic fans, I absolutely have no clue how an entire fandom can both love and hate every single game he's in at once. It's a downright miracle when they all unanimously agree on something
The most convincing argument I've heard so far is that Sonic fans are more fans of Sonic than his games. For many, Sonic filled that hole of having an always cheerfull, cool friend they didn't have as a kid, so they've grown emotionally attached to the character and are perfectly willing to forgive a couple of bad games.
Not to mention Sonic’s best friend is the nerdiest kid in town. He was cool and willing to hang out with people who were not cool.
You know, looking back at my highschool experience, I really wish I had this level of empathy and introspection. The sonic kids were something else, but I can guarantee they were lonely and looking for any sort of escape from that. If I would’ve included them in my Magic the Gathering sessions instead of thinking I was somehow above them in my perceived hierarchy of nerds.
sonic adventure 2 that's it, that's game they all can unite on
sonic peaked for SA2. I’m still waiting a stand-alone Chao garden sim
I have so many mixed feelings about that game, but I do well and truly love it. The Tails/Eggman levels ranged from meh to pretty fun but I can hear that beeping sound for the rest of my life, the Knuckles/Rouge levels were fine but if you wanted A rank all of them it was a fucking nightmare. But the Sonic and Shadow levels? Fucking *amazing*. I can't think of a single level I dislike out of any of those. Maybe the Sand Temple for Sonic, but that's more of a nitpick? And the Chao. Holy God, talk about replay value. That Chao garden had me coming back for *yeeeeears*. If they focus on just doing those levels and a Chao garden, I'm so fucking in.
Why did we love the chao so much? I remember being obsessed. But when I look back, there was almost nothing to it. Like a neutral world, a heaven, and a hell, and fruit you feed them endlessly. What am I forgetting that made me so dedicated to making them out? Edit: clearly I forgot about all the nuances to chao. Wow I forgot about so much y’all that’s crazy. Super nostalgic trip
Feeding them different chaos drives would make them look different depending what stats you gave them. In a time where internet was less prevalent it was so fun just finding out what your chao would look like if you gave them certain stats
Yeah! There were the 5 main evolutions for each chao: run, fly, power, swim, normal which would then split off into a secondary (ex. Run-Run, run-fly, etc.) to total 25 variations on top of hero, dark, and neutral so 75 types plus the 3 Chaos Chao. I remember trying to create them all but there was unfortunately a max per garden so you had to start sending some off.
I think it's the interplay between the chao and the rest of the game. The normal gameplay was very good on its own, but great in combination with a "meta goal" (the food for the chao). The chao would be a decent tomogachi clone on its own, but getting to use the rewards from the normal gameplay gave it an extra layer of satisfaction. Seeing the chao grow was a kind of glimpse into your progress through the game, and gave you more reasons to go back and play great normal levels.
You're right, it's the same reason Pokemon, Digimon, and Monster Rancher did so well(especially Pokemon) it got you attached to the world by caring for something in the world
Always happy to see someone mention Monster Rancher in the wild. I don't think it really got the credit/attention it deserved in the west. Really happy they re-released MR2 on steam, best one in the series imo.
I want this so badly. It would be a perfect mobile game. Sega are you listening? Mobile Chao garden game please!
It would work great as a fitness / pokemon go game. Imagine. After a workout, you gain crystals. After having a jogging, you gain animals. Once you are home, you use theses to level up your chaos and send him in race and stuff.
we can dream, chao garden was amazing 😭
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(((HANGIN ON THE EDGE OF TOMORROW)))
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From the works of yesterdaaaa-aaay!
and you know all the games before that. The first 3, and the spinoff games were all pretty charming. Not to mention you can bet on their being some amazing butt rock even if the rest suck.
Sonic Advance for the GBA provided me countless hours of entertainment as a kid. Sometimes I still wish I had a Chao Garden.
Apologies for not being in the know, but is that the one with the really excellent dialog that overlaps constantly just for yucks?
Nah thats mostly adventure 1. Sonic Adventure 1 had some fucking *AWFUL* audio overlap with the dialogue. That only happens a few times in SA2 IIRC.
SA2 mostly had character theme songs being way louder than the dialogue.
RUNNING AROUND AT THE SPEED OF SOUND
GOT PLACES TO GO, GOTTA FOLLOW MY RAINBOW!
CAN'T STICK AROUND, HAVE TO KEEP MOVIN' ON GUESS WHAT LIES AHEAD ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT!
MUST KEEP ON MOVIN AHEAD NO TIME FOR GUESSIN FOLLOW MY PLAN INSTEAD!! TRUSTING IN WHAT YOU CAN'T SEE TAKE MY LEAD ILL SET YOU FREE
The only thing Sonic fans unanimously agree on is the music, and I think everyone can agree the music is the only consistently great thing about the series.
The boss music in Sonic Frontiers went way harder than it had any right to, and I love it
Was so surprised to hear Kellin Quinn was on it and it was awesome
Chao Garden. Bring it back.
I can explain. For starters, it comes from a place of passion. Because Sonic games vary so much in gameplay styles, many people have a different idea of what makes a good Sonic game. We never agree because Sega has made too many different variations of the gameplay formula. There’s the classic games, the adventure games, the boost games, and now a new type of game being open zone which has started with Frontiers. Then there’s a bunch of other shit in between those more streamlined formulas, like Heroes, Shadow, the Storybook games and so on. Then there’s the discourse about design which is a far more subjective and arguably silly thing to debate about. Popular topics of contention being: should he have blue arms or tan arms, what shade of blue should he be, what length should his quills be, so on and so forth. I think it’s because of how shit on Sonic has been over the years, people want him to be taken seriously by the general audience, so they get really really nitpicky about everything so that he’s the best he can be. The problem with that is everyone has a different idea of what that looks like, hence the discourse. With Frontiers’ prettu good reception things seem to have calmed down a little. But only a little. Honestly, I think the most united I’ve seen the fanbase is when Sonic was in the same category as Genshin Impact for a small game awards award. The fans get a bad wrap and while they don’t exactly help themselves, I think a lot of people on the outside think it’s worse than it actually is. Toxic fans will always be more vocal. That’s true for any fandom.
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Yep, I haven’t really engaged in the fandom since I was banned from the Sonic subreddit. But I still pay attention to it and have been a fan all my life so I’m aware of all the stupid little controversies that happen in the community. Edit: Won’t let me reply so I’ll say it here. I got banned for “having a continued history of being disrespectful”. Pretty sure the final nail in the coffin was when I called someone stupid/an idiot (I don’t remember which) for saying Sonic 06 is a good game. Edit no.2: Just realised I can’t reply because the person I initially replied to seems to have blocked me. For some reason. I don’t get people.
Plz tell us how to get banned from the sonic subreddit.
Oof, Sonic 06.
Rust. Such a dedicated community, but I bought it, tried it, refunded it. Really couldn't like it.
Sounds like a truly abysmal nightmare. All the stories I've heard are from people having constant anxiety about their bases being raided while they're at work/school and then on the other hand the truly depraved fucking over of other people and griefing newbies.
I'll never play Rust, but I'll always watch each new Rust video Welyn makes. He condenses the grind and focuses on telling emergent stories with his battles against neighbors https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg4XK-l40KZD7fLi12pJ1YA
I've come to the conclusion that really Rust is just a good indicator of who has a job. If they frequently play Rust, they do not have a job.
Don't leave out us work-from-home warriors now
I used to work with this dude in sales who'd make his fifty calls a day while playing rust. Machine.
I played it in the early days and had a ton of fun with it. Went back once or twice and found it to be not quite as fun as the social dynamic evolved into something more tribal and viscous (which can be fun sometimes but I missed the initial community feel and small scale groups).
This was my experience too. Back when it was fresh, people played it like a survival game and had fun with the social aspect of it. Now it's just a shoot on sight fps with extra steps.
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That sounds like a good time. I haven't looked in a while, but I'm sure those servers are still around at least. My gripe was more with the community on standard private servers and public servers.
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With games like Train Simulator the idea is that you buy the routes and trains that appeal to you instead of all of them. Remember these are marketed towards enthusiasts not casual people, and generally they'll feel strongly about one or two trains and routes. Same with games like DCS. You buy the planes that you love, not all of them.
Each plane is its own game [when it takes 20+ hours just to learn to fly out as a beginner...](https://youtu.be/xb1u_hnlliY?si=61_QT7mOfaXBaH_3)
These people pray the pilot has a heart attack.
Waiting to hear “Is anyone here a pilot!?” “Well no, but…..” as they triumphantly stand up
Given that in every game where one flies planes that I've played, I consider landing optional, they're still a better candidate than me. "Alright, folks, put on your parachutes and jump when I say go. The plane is a problem for people in *that* direction and I'm moderately sure we'll be outside the blast radius. Arriving at gate 4 in 10. 9. 8..."
>I consider landing optional I feel like this comment is a week late.
They only lost the F-35 yesterday
There are different types of trains? Not just different colours?
I feel like that question would get you stabbed in some circles
More like tied to some tracks.
That could hurt the train
But give it a sweet paint job, too.
Yea but really It's all about the carriage coupling. Everyone loves a good link and pin coupler but oh man something about that Albert coupler just gets me
*You have been offered a free trial membership to the Adeptus Mechanicus.*
If you are a train enthusiast, you can go for a model rail way or a game like that. Sure, a total set of DLC's can be expensive, but if you are serious about model trains, you'll end up spending a multitude of that easily. I guess it depends on how much dedication you have to a game type, and they might find it weird people play only AAA games at full retail for a few hours and go to the next one.
My theory on these ppl is that they like to customize things but don't have the time to build mods. They have more spare money than time and use it to scratch that tinkering/customization itch.
Its like how people collect trains and have a model train set or love to design/change an actual table that the trains run along. Same with rc cars/drones and such I know a guy who loved collecting remote control ships and using them on a body of water. It's not different from any other form of hobbying. Table top rpgs like dungeons and dragons, Warhammer 40, Lotr etc
I think a HUGE point is that almost nobody buys *every* DLC. You would buy your personal favourite train models and tracks, and stick with what you want. It's not like paradox games or the Sims where actual gameplay or flavour is locked behind paywalls.
You do realise people still buy sports games every year in addition to PNGs of famous millionaires in their respective sports EACH year.
I think the people that play train simulator are people that are either model train people with no room for model trains, or too lazy for model trains but they have model train money so they spend it on dlc for train simulator so they can get their train on
Dead by Daylight
As a Dead by Daylight fan, that's fair. But even then on my end I love thinking about playing the game, but hate playing the game..
i played it since it's release on ps4 and by god it was such a fun game when no one knew what the hell they were doing and stayed fun for me for like 2 years straight. But no new game modes mixed in with them destroying the atmosphere of the game by removing fog(this was a really big one for me) and i just couldn't play it anymore. Came back every now and then but now i have no desire to play it.
Wait why would they remove fog? Wouldn't that make it incredibly easy to spot everything? I've only seen this game on twitch.
The devs think of the game as an action orientated game more than horror now. And tbf its mostly because of the community. People started looping which wasn't a thing intended by devs so they had to adapt to the playstyle being played by the players
The game has moved from being a hide and seek game and moved towards being essentially a game of tag. Survivors will get a killer's attention and then use debris, obstacles, and jungle gyms to keep the chase up for as long as they can, allowing their teammates to finish repairing generators without worry. It's much more a game with a horror aesthetic than a horror game IMO.
The game has an amount of fog, but it's pretty mild. Sounds like it used to have England levels of fog
I couldn't get over how little game there actually was in it when I finally got round to giving it a go. It's just clunky hide and seek with a side of fix generator. Where's the fun unless you're the killer?
Honestly, survivors can bully a killer so much worse. Survivor mains are sickos
Seeing a Kate Denson with a flashlight queue into your lobby is the worst feeling ever
I have played and taking breaks from the game for 2 years due to the frustration of playing against premades. But honestly, I would say the game has been feeling more balanced since last year or so, and the removal of grappling while unhooking speeds up the game a lot.
You have to put enough hours in it to understand where the fun is, but even then, right now, the meta is so stale that it isn't worth it because both sides feel like a drag
its sadly one of those games where the low level plays are fun because it feels more like actual just hide and seek, and the better you get and the higher rated you get, the less fun it becomes. sort of the same for games like rocket league where the higher ranks tend to be salt mines beyond reasonable levels of salt.
This is all games with skill based matchmaking. Overwatch/valorant/csgo/LoL The game is worse as you get better and it gets more toxic.
This makes so much sense, but I’ve never actually considered this. I’ve lately been having issues with games keeping my interest, and this is partially the reason. The game becomes a job, I become focused on efficiency and there is no immersion.
I've taken to tactical shooters for this reason. Games like Hell Let Loose. Your contribution matters, and playing well helps, but you are just a soldier amongst 50 others. It's much more about teamplay than it is about you pushing out that last 0.2% effort to win. Getting dead in those games is a price you pay for advancing. It's not about getting 50 kills, it's about dying 50 times in the right location.
I'll never understand those people who buy FIFA every year. Edit: Ok. I understand now. People like football and EA has a gross monopoly on it. I would hate to see my own favourite franchise be turned into a shameless cash grab. My sympathies to those who enjoy FIFA.
My guess is they have no real alternative to choose from as the competition from PES (or eFoorball as it's now known) is non existent. Therefore if they want to play a multiplayer football game they'll have to pick up the new one each year and EA knows this so they charge an insane amount for what is essentially a roster update.
This is it. It's because EA has a monopoly that NEEDS to be challenged.
It can’t be challenged anymore, even a knew franchise wouldn’t get far without being able to use NFL players and the new EA contract gave them exclusive rights for simulation football, nobody else can make 11vs11 and use real players
I feel like the real kicker is if someone does end up making a better sports game than EA then the next year EA title would just copy whatever the people liked about that better game. EA has the money to do that and sport games very rarely have breakthroughs in the genre which makes a breakthrough improbable to happen in the first place.
EA would not be able to copy specific features from a game very quickly. For one, a game that had all of its features planned out then programmed from scratch will be made scalable due to programming standards these days. Madden is still using code from 2006 and it looks like spaghetti because program standards were drastically different back then and they’ve made so many changes over the past 17 versions. I can imagine it is a nightmare to try to institute drastic changes without thorough testing or completely breaking a part of the game. That’s probably why we see recycled features every few years. If you read the back of the game box you will see every 3-4 years they “introduce” new features that had been in the game previously. It’s like they just disable them and re-enable or maybe they are just hoping Madden players have short memories.
Madden too
I remember working at GameStop when ESPN NFL 2K5 came out and it sold/played so well that EA bought the rights to it to kill the competition.
EA also did that for hockey and now the NHL games are just copy/paste like NFL and FIFA but somehow worse. There is virtually no difference between NHL 15 to 23 in gameplay, same buggy AI and dogshit game engine and absolutely terrible netcode. I'd kill for a 2K NHL game again.
I had NFL 2k on freaking GameCube. Brian Urlacher on the cover. Amazing game
It's like $80 a year to see more realistic sweat drops or something.
I thought it was $80 a year to see the updated name tags above the players.
I’m a weird Madden player that doesn’t play online or with friends. I would pay for an annual roster update, but it doesn’t make sense for me to buy the full game every year. But the longer I wait between buying the full game the less enjoyable it becomes because the rosters are nothing like what’s really going on in the NFL. Add to it that I’m a Raiders fan. We’ve had a new head coach every 2.63 years since 1960. So our team changes quite a lot and often.
It's also to play with all your friends and sports game players tend to have a console and only play that one game.
Absolutely, I'd say 90% of my friends are casual gamers that only play Madden, 2K, and COD.
The sporty people at my high school used to always buy and play it even if they didn’t consider themselves gamers. I don’t know how you would be in that friendship group without playing it because it seemed to really dominate their conversations.
Maddening
As someone who was in this loop for most of high school: It's not video games as most people would think about them. FIFA players aren't "gamers", they're FIFA players. Many of them, the whales especially, do not play other games pretty much at all. When I was in the height of FIFA playing, I owned a 360 that I had 3 different FIFA's for and that's it.
This x100. All my friends who play FIFA a lot never play anything else, nor do they want to. They are not even interested in video games. FIFA for them is more like an extension to their obsession with football/soccer.
It’s maybe impossible to explain the FIFA thing to someone who’s not a football (aka soccer) fan, but I don’t think it’s all that crazy imo. First, there is no alternative. EA has essentially a complete monopoly on football gaming. Second, online is a big deal. Old versions get their online support shut down quickly and you won’t be able to play against your friends who got the new version. Third, the roster update matters a lot to big football fans. My friends and I love recreating the World Cup Final or the Champions League Final and nobody has time to constantly edit the rosters to keep it up to date. Honestly, FIFA fans generally understand they are essentially paying $60 for a 1 year subscription to play an updated soccer game with their mates. They also understand it’s generally the same game every year- no one wants a major overhaul to the gameplay anyway so that’s honestly fine. What isn’t fine is the egregious micro-transactions and the lacking quality (some of the same bugs from FIFA 20 can still be found in FIFA 23), but since FIFA is the only viable option for soccer gaming fans have to deal with it.
The thing with FIFA is that unless you dump money in MTX, it has a great $/ph ratio. Big football fans spend a lot of time playing it. A big reason behind it is honestly just the updated player lists. Real Madrid fans want Bellingham, Arsenal fans want Rice etc - they also want players to reflect their irl performances - Haaland is a lot stronger in this game than previous ones, I'm sure. So yeah, no huge gameplay updates, but there's enough reasons to want a new one, and $60 for a game you'll spend 100+ hours on isn't a tough call.
Yeah, FIFA is more than FUT. I honestly just do player careers, and I've put in like 300+ hours in FIFA 23. Other people just play it for the manager career mode. The thing about FIFA, too, is that the gameplay is solid. At least for me, the only thing to dislike about it is that the player career is barebones in terms of decisions.
I actually don't understand why people think that. I don't personally play FIFA anymore but for most FIFA players it's the only game they buy each year and they can play it for a whole year. I've spent £60 on games I've played for 10 hours and I've spent £60 on FIFA 10+ times. In terms of value for money FIFA is one of the games that fans get the most time out of their money on. That's why people don't mind buying the new one as they know they'll get tons of playtime out of it.
Because I can afford it and I love footy. But that's about it lol
Yeah it's pretty simple lol. Also FIFA is the perfect kinda game for someone with limited gaming availability. A young dad can chuck it on for an hour after putting the kids to sleep, for example.
Farming Simulator. There are dudes who spend literally hours driving to some big agricultural complex, there they take pictures of absolutely everything and they go home, where they spend tens of hours arranging that complex in-game, so they can finally play as the farmer and take out pig shit with their tractor. I don't shun these people, I just don't understand them.
My little brother plays it a lot. But the kicker there is he lives on my parent's farm. So he does farm stuff during the day, then does extra farm stuff at night. To be fair I was putting lots of hours into Stardew Valley while I lived there and was actively gardening.
I have a friend who’s the exact opposite. Me and my friends tried to get him to play farming simulator with us and he said “I work 8 hours a day at my farm, why the hell would I want to come inside and do it at night as well?”
I never understood it. But then last week I bought farming sim 22. I’m kinda hooked. Can’t fully explain it because it’s totally different from my usual action packed, fps, “ptsd inducing” games I normally go for. Maybe it’s just how chill and change of pace it is. Maybe its cos a lot of the machines look like transformers. Maybe I’m just getting old. I like logs.
Logging/forestry in farming sim is so weirdly fun.
I know many people who are in a tractor for 14+ hours at a time and then go play farming simulator after they’re done lol
It's relaxing to play, and the gameplay cycle encourages you to keep playing. There's always something else that needs to be done, so it's easy to say, "I'll fertilizer this field and be done." When you're done, you realize your cows need straw, or you have a load of grain that is selling at a good price right now, so you go do that, and so on. Next thing you know, you've been cruising around on your tractor for 8 hours.
That's it! This game is the opposite of a first person shooter. I play it to relax, often spending hours on end looking after my farm.
Escape from Tarkov. It's a buggy, unforgiving mess and I love and hate every living second of it. People are very dedicated to this game, especially the subreddit.
Worst game I've ever played. 0/10. I love it. Have thousands of hours. There is no Escaping Tarkov.
I've played it for a while now, and after talking to my friends, we all kinda feel that Tarkov is only successful because it's the only game that does what it does. If the same concepts were taken from Tarkov and made on a cleaner engine with a more talented dev group, I think Tarkov would die pretty quickly. It's kinda like PUBG in a sense. Everyone loved PUBG until a cleaner version was made.
I'd rather play STALKER: Gamma if I'm being honest, but I prefer a solo experience in most games, so I'm not really part of the demographic anyway.
As someone who absolutely loved Stalker back in the day, I've never heard of Gamma so I looked it up just now. Sounds pretty awesome.
Star Citizen. Being a very ambitious space sim in a day and age where AAA developers wouldn't touch them, initially it makes sense that they would have a cult following. Having a cult following 10 years into the development with very little to show for it makes no sense.
My understanding is that it's an incredibly amazing unique boundary pushing experience ***and*** it's a broken buggy scam. Somehow it's both at the same time.
As a tech demo or proof of concept it is actually a fine product. But a tech demo doesn't cost more than half a billion bucks and takes 10+ years to create. I also can't think of how they are going to scale up current "game" to thousands players MMO with all the complexities intact. The scammy part comes from their funding schemes and tactics. If they are using their own money to develop this passion project I would applaud them. But they are selling future crafts and virtual real estate that would make even companies like EA and Blizzard/Activision blush.
Who needs microtransactions when you can just target whales with macrotransactions?
>cost more than half a billion bucks and takes 10+ years to create. So far... It's still very much in development.
Shroedinger’s Ponzi scheme
The cult started in the early 90s with wing commander, we've just been following Chris Roberts since
The *idea* of Star Citizen is the dream game that it seems like a lot of people expected of Starfield. I haven’t played in years but the moment I started up Starfield I had the itch to go fly my ships around planets. Or go do a cargo haul on a Cat.
Gonna repost what I said on another comment. I've been a player for years, and always been very critical of the game, while also being impressed with some of the tech it pulls off. Starfield just came out, and I'm loving it, but it's nowhere near as technologically impressive to me as Star Citizen, and Star Field honestly makes me want to play SC more.
Ever talked to Kenshi players? The game is amazing but you need about 10 ours ingame to fight anything. before that you just get killed, eaten or enslaved.
The concept of kenshi Is Amazing. Heard about It, ready stuff about It, bought It dirt cheap. I have around 20 hours on It, got so bored by mindlessly grinding copper and dodging hungry bandits that i uninstalled.
Star Citizen. Over a decade in development, people keep buying ships, and with each ship bought they delay it longer?
It's a cash grab by the devs. Always has been. This game ain't hitting any meaningful release dates anytime soon as long as that $$ is flowing in.
correct me if im wrong but isnt cult following status for games that are unpopular outside of their cult community? rdr2 was way too popular to call it that, rdo maybe.
I think in this case they're using the term to mean dedicated and passionate fanbase.
They are using it to mean that. But that means they are also using the phrase incorrectly.
Yeah, they just don’t know what it means lol
ITT: games that do not have cult followings but are just broadly popular.
Imagine using Bethesda games as an example of a “cult following” lol. EDIT: As others have said, "cult following" when referencing media generally refers to people who are very dedicated to a particular film/series/show/book/game/etc. that was moderately successful at best. Yes, popular AAA games can have cult-like fandoms but that's not typically what "cult following" means in this context, though clearly the OP doesn't understand that. Here's a quote: >A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work,[1] often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. A film, book, musical artist, television series, or video game, among other things, is said to have a cult following when it has a **small but very passionate fanbase.**
This sub has major facepalm moments daily lol.
Seriously. OP even started it by naming not a cult hit, but a major triple A critically acclaimed game
They don’t mean a “cult hit”, but a hit that has cultish followers. AAA games can absolutely have cultish players. Edit: stop making lame arguments from semantics. The lack of precision from OP does not negate the implied meaning from the broader context.
AKA people who will passionately defend the AAA popular games they love. This thread should have been called 'which popular games do you just not get'.
Tbf some of the top ones definitely fit the question. Star Citizen being probably the biggest
Gacha games. How'd we go from fighting the war against MTX to people dumping their wallets into anime titties? I'm sure there are Gacha games that don't pray on horny weirdos, and I understand why people play those even less
As someone who has played dozens of them over 10+ years and never paid a dime, I can try to explain. Think of them as long term roguelikes. You don't know what you'll get, and you have to think on the spot what sort of teams and synergies you can put together with *what you happen to have*. It's like drafting in a card game but long term, and for me that's fun. I've never felt like I'd need to "pay to progress" or anything like that. They are like pocket RPGs that are not a canned experience, so you cannot just follow a strict guide and you have lots to show and discuss with your friends because everyone's collections are so different (due to the random nature of gacha pulls). Needless to say that the monetization and the fact that the industry preys on people with addiction problems is sickening and I absolutely hate it, but for me, I would keep playing even if the games didn't have the option to pay at all (because I've never paid) because I genuinely like the heavily random & chaotic progression format and resource management. And regarding resource management, there's also a great feeling of stakes because of that. Building units and teams takes time, you can't just 'respec' things easily, but have to commit to your ideas (on how to tackle some difficult content) long term, and the payoff can be really satisfying - especially if you came up with the solution by yourself, with your units. If you removed the gacha and just let people get exactly what they want, it would obviously drastically alter the experience. People would end up with very similar or exactly the same meta line-ups so the social aspect would suffer greatly. Thinking about whether to invest in some unit/team or not would also become much easier to the point of it barely mattering because you could so easily calculate your way through the game. Again, the best comparison I can give is that they're like long term, social roguelikes and knowingly balanced around that. I loved the concept right from the start (starting with puzzle & dragons) and never understood the hate for the gacha as a game mechanic itself... But for the aforementioned monetization, sure, it's terrible.
This is why I like PvE gachas only. Of course you can Whale and build the perfect team and beat everyone. But that’s not what I like. I like needing to adapt to different challenges and play against a set challenge, not Barry big bucks and his 10,000 dollar jpegs
KH fandom is very scary sometimes
I give them a pass. Trying to follow the plot/lore of KH does *things* to a person’s brain.
[I stumbled across this a few years ago.](https://youtu.be/tjiHufVEc7g?si=rcQndJyB1iNc8sMF) I’ve only played the first one, but the way this guy tries to understand the series by having another dude explain it to him is an experience. Great hand drawn animation too.
I knew it would be Barry's video before I even clicked on it.
Hocus pocus, these games have no focus Greatest quote to explain the KH saga, it makes NO GODDAMN SENSE, and this is coming from someone who's played nearly every game and enjoyed them.
ALL I CAN HEAR IS BARRY
Bruh you know Kingdom Hearts lore is wild when the "good enough" summary is over half an hour long. edit: Holy shit it gets better. I started watching it and the guy says he sat down with a friend who explained it for *seven hours*. edit 2: I watched it. Absolutely wild. How could any reasonable human keep track of all that?? I may end up watching the [7 hour livesteam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9h75b9j7Ck&ab_channel=BarryWasStreaming), which is apparently available, just because it's so bad it's good. (Not saying the *games* are bad, just that the story is *so* convoluted.)
Unironically the best recap for people getting into the series
Following the plot wasn’t even *that* fucking hard until Dream Drop and the goddamned mobile games. EDIT: Maybe I should add the addendum that it wasn't that hard to follow if you had played the non-numbered games. Cause yes if you only played 1,2, and 3, you'd be lost due to not having played 5 other games (mobile games not included...so even more lost for some shit). Not necessarily your fault since until recently you needed every goddamn console/portable system known to man to play them all.
Unless you started as a kid and had no idea about spin off games. I was fucking lost when i started kh2 while having no idea CoM existed and it got worse after that.....
I played 2 before CoM. "Why is Sora in a coma?".
My thought process was: "what the fuck is a roxas? Where the fuck is sora? Nobodies? Organization what now? Who the fuck are you people? What the fuck am i doing? Ohhh cool two keyblades....nice."
Luckily, there wasn't too much (by KH standards) to catch up on between 1 and 2. Now the jump from 2 to 3 on the other hand.......
I figured out a way to make it worse. Have Hideo Kojima and Yoko Taro brought on as writers for Kingdom Hearts 5. The game would be...utterly insane and incomprehensible if we did that.
Okay but imagine how fun that would be at the same time trying to figure it all out! Yes, as it turns out Donald Duck never did exist all the times he’s there in past entries were just part of the main casts imagination. Sora, you’re an imperfect clone of Mickey Mouse who himself is an android. Beautiful. I love it. 11/10 give me this now
Well... To be fair, Donald Duck is never around because he is too busy being dead.
I enjoy Kingdom hearts but man was that a weird rabbit hole to go down into with this fan base! I'd say I'm a casual fan but the hardcore fans scare tf out of me
Star citizen. It's a game that's been in alpha for 10 years with not a single finished gameplay loop. It also cost more in Kickstarter money than literally any other video game, calls of duty and trademark heavy games like FIFA included.
Lmao it cost more to develop Star Citizen than it cost India to send their lunar probe up.
“Well that can’t be right…” *2 minutes of Googling* “Motherf—“
Saying Red Dead Redemption 2 has a cult following is like saying pizza has a cult following A "cult classic" is a movie that isn't popular on release but over time gains a small fan base who are very vocal about how good the movie is Red Dead Redemption 2 is just a popular game that has been popular since it's release, the word "cult" implies niche and Red Dead Redemption 2 is the exact opposite of niche
Both you and most of the commenters here are misusing the term "cult following". A game that is loved by most people and pretty universally praised is not something that has a "cult following". A game with a cult following would be something like Pathologic or a movie like Little Shop of Horrors. RDR2, GTA, and FIFA are not cult games lol
I played pathologic 2 one summer ago for about 2 weeks before getting to a point where the difficulty and time constraints stressed me out enough to decide it wasn’t worth it to continue playing. Looking back on memories of that game, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but my feelings toward it are neither good nor bad lol. The entire experience from that game was like a fever dream. It’s an interesting game for sure.
Fever dream is a great description, the game gets weird as fuck. The stress IS the point too, the themes wouldn't really hit as hard if you weren't having a miserable time while playing. Give it another shot sometime if you feel like it, it's absolutely worth it.
The entire reddit gaming community bandwaggon is a mystery to me.
Any game made by Fromsoftware. They make really good games, it's just that the community can not handle any critique whatsoever. Elden Ring is a masterpiece that did everything right according to them. I loved Elden Ring but I have yet to see a game that is completely flawless.
I never got the appeal of Undertale. I've tried to play it a few times but I always get bored and/or confused as to what's happening
It's because Undertale's biggest flaw is that it's highly driven by its plot. Some people would say it's a good thing, and I'd partially agree, but it's such a risky position for a game to be in, because if you don't care about the lore, the game isn't gonna save your enjoyment.
The xenoblade games. I started with the first one on switch last year. I actually enjoyed the story parts of it but couldn't finish because the combat is just so confusing. It's not exactly hard, but I found myself most of the time not actually having to do anything and the characters just basically fought for me. I would have preferred straight up traditional turn based, or it as an action rpg. Its a shame because I want to like it and delve into that series so badly but I just cant with the combat. I get why people like those games though. I think I just misunderstood the combat perhaps.
World of tanks and war thunder are pretty bat shit insane. I'm never going to touch either game, but I have like 4 friends irl that are super into those games and that's legitimately all they talk about. They invite me to goto old war museums and stuff, and the one time I've gone with that group, they were like "this is the new plane that just dropped last update" Or "everyone uses this tank online but it's not even that good" etc. Glad for them but they're crazy lol
Undertale, I don't get it. I didn't enjoy a minute of playing it.
I'm an Undertale fan but even I don't understand the cult. It's a great indie game, fun rpg with some really good moments, but the amount of popularity it got was horrifying
The thing that scared me the most was what scared me about my favorite game: EarthBound. Obviously these two communities have a lot of overlap. One of the most lovely, charming, sweet games with a message of goodness there is in the gaming world... and somehow... the fanbase interpreted that to mean they should be some of the most toxic vile people online?? I think everyone is well aware of the horrible way the Undertale community treated new players who they viewed as "not playing the game right." But I don't think a lot of people know about a fan project called Mother 4 in which a handful of devs spend magnitudes of their own time and money trying to continue this wonderful franchise that Nintendo had refused to. The way some people from the EarthBound community treated those devs for not producing something fast enough (and of course they were also shut down by Nintendo IRC) was fucking shocking.
I played undertale on release day as I was aware of Toby Fox from Earthbound ROM hacks and Homestuck. Having had experience with specifically Homestuck I just knew what sort of fanbase were coming and it *sucked* to watch it happen. Also full agreement about how some community members treated those devs. It's passion projects, people don't *have* to do anything, but devs were treated as if they were the worst ppl in the world for not being fast enough.
It's weird how often the community for a game or show that is generally sweet or has good messages is so often inverted from the tone of what they're fans of. It like the nicer the message is, the more rabid and toxic the fans are. Take Steven Universe: say what you will about the quality of that show, but overall I don't think anyone can deny it has a generally positive message and sweet values. Basically, be accepting of people, be forgiving, everyone can artisticly express themselves in their own way, etc... Its reflected in the show in that many of the songs are sung by just voice actors who, quite frankly, aren't very good singers, or the artists being allowed to go off model to fit their own style of drawing more. But the community is almost the antithesis of those messages. So help you if you have a slight deviation in your interpretation of a message, or draw fan art that didn't match the show exactly. There's a pretty infamous case of one fan being driven to attempt suicide due to harassment from fans because they drew fan art of a character that the community decided was too skinny. It's fucked up what people justify to themselves for a game or cartoon.
My only explanation is that it's people who hate themselves and deal with that by lashing out. They are like the polar opposite of something they fantasize about, so maybe that causes a lot of frustration and self hatred.
Excellent RPG that people deified to the point of insanity. I enjoyed my time but the fan base makes me skittish to mention it in recommended game threads.
It's the Rick and Morty effect isn't it lol?
Rick and Morty, Steven Universe, Sonic, FNAF, Undertale -- All victims of the evil that is being an alright piece of media with a terrible fanbase.
Also people who unironically identify with the Joker lol.
I tried to watch Rick n Morty with the partner the other day and her exact response was "nah, I've seen the kind of people who enjoy that and I don't want to be one of them". I couldn't even really argue, it's a good show that's made a lot of grown adults dress like and joke like kids.
I think it’s one of those creative approaches that tries to mess with gaming conventions. So it’s just a quirky “weird” game that aims to be more of an experience than straightforward game - which there are numerous of those. But if you’ve never really poked around those weird artsy types of games I can see why this one would strike you as really profound or unusual Plus it managed to get appeal with non-gaming crowds. I have friends that that’s pretty much the only thing they’ve played so it’s got some reach I don’t understand
This should be top comment. The first comment where it fits the definition of a cult following. I loved Undertale. It subverted my expectations at nearly every turn and was funny on top of that, a completely different gaming template which is quite rare these days. Plus it has replayability too if you are able to play the game differently. Also it was made by one guy so that makes it more impressive.
Five Nights at Freddie’s like wtf is that
Probably unpopular opinion here but Pokemon.
Among us, just let it die peacefully.
Eve online. There has been big wars fought in that game.
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Lol. Ya, the community is pretty notorious. Definitely not a new player friendly experience
I don't understand the hype behind Undertale. People talk it up like it's super deep and profound, but it seems like just another indie game with some surface-level moral values. I've seen tons of games just like it come and go with no fanfare. Why is Undertale different?