So I got a bug in my butt to install Mortal Kombat 11 last night and was doing the story mode which is basically like a movie with intermittent fights and it occurred to me that I love Mortal Kombat but just the characters, the worldbuilding, and the lore. I’ve never been big on fighting games and as I age, I am finding it harder and harder to pull off special combos quick enough to even do much other than slapping buttons and hoping for the best.
My favorite MK game was one of the ones on PS2 where the story mode was basically God of War gameplay turning it from a fighter into an action adventure game.
If Midway were to make a Mortal Kombat title that was like Dark Souls but set on Outworld or something, that would definitely be my jam.
Another would be Warhammer 40k. I am not at all interested in the PnP gameplay nor a lot of the video games. But I love the lore and the game Rogue Trader is fucking dope, playing more like a traditional CRPG in that setting and not an RTS or straight up shooter.
Do y’a have any games like that? Where you like everything about them except the actual gameplay?
Some games that I like thematically, but don’t enjoy the gameplay on:
Elden Ring. If it was more RPG-like, avoided respawning enemies and reliance on learning patterns, I think I’d like it more.
Sunless Sea. Neat setting and writing. I don’t like the gameplay — simple combat, not very interesting choices, hunt-the-item stuff.
Cyberpunk 2077. This isn’t bad, but I wanted something like a Bethesda game, and I got something like a Grand Theft Auto game. I think that it’d be much better as a Bethesda-like game. Oh, though I never really liked Johnny Silverhand as a character much.
Fallout 76 — well, I don’t have a problem with the franchise — but on that particular game, I’d rather it wasn’t an online game, were a single-player open-world RPG. It’s more like that than when it launched, but…
To expand on that: a whole slew of games that are really intended to be played multiplayer, but where I only want to play against the computer. I don’t like playing games multiplayer. I would buy an expansion for these that went back and put in some major single-player improvements and good game AI. Carrier Command 2 can be played single-player, but it’s kinda repetitive and not balanced well for single-player teams. Wargame: Red Dragon. I like the game and the setting, but the AI is very difficult to enjoy playing against; just too primitive. Steel Division 2, later in Eugen’s series, really improved on the AI. Defense of the Ancients 2; the whole MOBA genre is really oriented towards playing with real humans.
Scanner Sombre. This is a mostly-psychological horror game, where the gimmick is that you can only see something that you’ve scanned with this LIDAR-type gizmo. You’re walking through a cave complex, and the mechanic of things slowly emerging and having to manage your visibility really works in a horror environment. But…the game isn’t really very replayable, and I like replayable games. I wish that someone would basically take the stumbling-around-in-a-cave-with-a-scanner thing and make a different sort of game out of it. (Note: If you play this, I played the Windows version in Proton. The Linux-native build was extremely unstable for me.)
And just for the hell of it, the opposite — some where I like the gameplay, but not the theme:
Wanting anything to be more Bethesda is wild to me.
Out of curiosity: What would a more Bethesda-Like CP77 look like to you?
Horses and more bugs /s
I hate how well writen Cyberpunk is :(
I wish it had more boring fetch quests, given by soulles characters
Sunless Sea mentioned! Most of its value is in setting, writing and atmosphere, which are all really well executed. The gameplay was fun enough, but combat is tedious and I tried to avoid it, like you’d do in a horror game. I see it more as a visual novel with some exploration and resource management. Focus on the story, the characters, the locations. Fetch a macguffin only because it makes the story progress or because it makes you go beyond the explored world, not because you’re so interested in the act of fetching.
Fortunately Isaac influenced a lot of similar action roguelikes, my recommendation would be Enter the Gungeon, which in a line I’d describe as “Isaac with guns”