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Retro Gaming in 2026 (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/gaming@lemmy.world
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[–] 4 points 4 months ago (7 children)

Just saying, the 360 had a lot of great games. BioWare's golden age (Mass Effect and Dragon Age for example). The first Mass Effect sucked if you were trying to play it on easy (long story short the Mako (tank) missions did not scale down in difficulty), but the second and third ones were awesome. Dragon Age Origins was pretty good, too. (If you're on XB1/PS4 or newer, just get Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, it's all three games, all the DLC, none of the loot boxes that plagued ME3, better graphics, and they fixed the difficulty when playing in the tank. You can still play Hard, but if you put it on Easy, it'll stay Easy in the tank. Sort of. Some parts couldn't be made much easier, like the asteroid DLC and a couple other parts. But you get XP in the tank, which was another problem with the OG.

On Arcade, there was Shadow Complex which was a shameless rip off of Super Metroid.

Lots of good options.

Oh, and I've been gaming since Pong. It kinda hurts to hear 360 regarded as "retro," but also kinda not.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    At least ME1 was still a CRPG. Took me a while to forgive them for turning the series into upjumped cover shooters, but once I did, 2 and 90% of 3 were still great rides.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Thanks. I saw the other guy's reply first (due to newest = first) but your comment makes more sense. Honestly I didn't notice. You're right though, the stat points mattered a lot less in ME2/3. I remember being advised to crank the nice/rude charisma stats (I forget their names) way up to unlock more options. I went paragon, and used the exploit with the frogs or lizards or whatever they were on that one planet to maximise my charisma so I could unlock options later.

    I came in later, having enjoyed Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, so I was used to the line between RPG and action being blurred. I can't imagine I would have liked ME2 when it was new. Or maybe I would have, I don't know. I do know it forced me to rely on powers, where I was just a pure soldier in ME1, and I didn't like that. ME2 forced me to play a way I did not want to, but it met me halfway and became my favourite, not because it is or isn't a CRPG, but because it played the best for me. ME3 lost the plot when my characters went on a vacation. I realise this was DLC and was not part of the original game, but in Legendary it was all integrated and I felt like the game was pushing me to check out that apartment, and something I did locked me into the DLC. It was a fun DLC (and a good one) but it made NO sense.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    I like the Bethesda games a lot, but “cover shooter” is a pretty specific genre where melee is deemphasized and each stage has this kind of linear progression where the use of cover is mandatory and is a very developed gameplay mechanic. In looking it up, it seems to have originated in its modern form in a 2003 game called Kill.Switch.

    ME2 leaned into it heavily for combat, and also simplified the RPG stats development and the rest of the equipment system. It just made it feel a lot less like Kotor or Dragon Age Origins, which was jarring but not bad once I accepted it was continuing this story I really liked with a rather different style of game.

    I suppose someday I’ll play Andromeda.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Looking back, I realised I was about to be in a fight when I came to a bunch of spots to take cover. I remember thinking it was pretty lazy game design.

    Andromeda was hot garbage, but I enjoyed it. It's even less of an RPG than ME2/3. There are a couple times when they imply a choice will matter, but then it won't. There was a lot wrong with that game. Not gonna go into it every time. I will say I enjoyed the terraforming stuff, but that's only the first half of the game. The second half is fetch quests, if you care about doing everything. You could just go for the other ark ships (which advances the main quest) but I was trying to get into blue girl's pants, same as I did in ME1/3. Different blue girl, but kinda the same look. Andromeda is PG, with no real romance options that I could see. You could flirt but halfway through the game those options just went away. Like they didn't even bother to finish them. Or maybe I somehow broke it flirting with all the girls in the game, even the turian. Like they all found out and that was that, but they never said to pick like you get in ME1 if you push it with both Ashley/Kaiden and Liara, the human or the asari you talk to next at a certain point will demand you choose. Andromeda just dropped the whole thing, like it dropped the terraforming stuff and just went to fetch quests. It's like that meme with the horse where the back half is poorly drawn. The ending of the game was decent, but it teased a sequel or DLC that never came.

    If you do get Andromeda, don't spring for any bonus editions. They just include online stuff, and the servers are no longer up. Xbox happily sold me the special edition for $4, but the extras that weren't in the $3 base version were unavailable because the servers were no longer up. I'm not mad I paid an extra dollar, but if I'd paid like $5 or more extra for something they couldn't deliver, I might be mad. But I absolutely got $4 worth of game. Legendary only set me back $6, so that's $10 for all four games. Not bad.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    It was my favorite series growing up.

    It's crazy the ending was so bad I haven't felt the slightest motivation to play it a single time since finishing it all those years ago.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    I loved ME and never had the faintest interest in ME2/3 due to the genre change

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