Games That Should Be Played "The right way" - Real or imagined

[Jaimas]

Actually, that segues into a very good question.

What are your specific ways to play a game? The weird quirks and tricks that only you would do to enjoy the experience more.

I'll get ya started with a sampling of mine:

Spoiler: Jaimas' Self-Imposed Rules

1. When playing Final Fantasy 1, you will do a level 11 challenge (Sourceport versions), or 13 challenge (Pixel Remaster). Class change challenge. This is being done because it's the only way to challenge yourself that's still ostensibly fun. While you have completed both a Level 9 challenge in the NES version, and a 22 challenge in the sourceport versions, neither is remotely fun due to the sheer amount of encounter manipulation, resetting, and mechanic exploitation needed.

2. When playing Dragon Quest 1, the first time through you will do a Not The Hero run. Once again, this is due to experience, you've played this game hundreds of times and this is a fun way to challenge yourself compared to the undiluted suffering that is a Tyson run or Ascetic run.

3. When playing Elden Ring, do not fight any mandatory bosses until you have access to spirit ashes. Choose an appropriate ash for a thematic build and then summon your buddies for every boss fight. You do this because you sometimes find cool shit this way and new utility in summons that other people sleep on. Also it's good practice for learning how to facetank for your friends in co-op if you use ranged ashes. The practice helps!

4. When playing Bloodborne, see if you can beat the first bosses without ever going to the Hunter's Dream, just to show you can do it.

5. When playing the campaign in MechCommander, see if you can capture the Mad Cat in the second mission.

6. In Iron Brigade, unironically run lasers.

 

[Colon capital V]

If you're playing TBoI: Repentance, it is an outright requirement for you to install the pog and specialist dance mod everytime you get a Quality 3 or 4 item. Oh and you should get the Item Description mod as well.

Oh and this too:

Steam Workshop::Ultra Sneed

steamcommunity.com

 

[CuzinEd]

Metal Gear Solid. Every game pre MGS5 requires you to play using stealth. If you don't you are going to have a hard time. It's clearly a stealth game.

The only game in the series that doesn't require stealth as much is MGSV. Yeah there are parts of the game that require stealth but not all the time. Especially when playing the side ops. You can tear shit up and be loud as you want in the side ops. In free roam you can do the same.

The same goes for the Splinter Cell games. I only played 2 of them on the PS2. I don't know what they were like after that.

 

[Kheapathic]

Metal Gear Solid. Every game pre MGS5 requires you to play using stealth. If you don't you are going to have a hard time. It's clearly a stealth game.

The only game in the series that doesn't require stealth as much is MGSV. Yeah there are parts of the game that require stealth but not all the time. Especially when playing the side ops. You can tear shit up and be loud as you want in the side ops. In free roam you can do the same.

The same goes for the Splinter Cell games. I only played 2 of them on the PS2. I don't know what they were like after that.

One of my favorite side missions is... I think it's destroy a radar dish or something. Normally there's AA in the area which stops your helicopter from coming in, but in free roam you can sneak in and disable the AA and it'll stay down for a while. So from there you return to base, accept the mission, then just fly in with the helicopter and use its mounted gun to just shred everything and fly away... for an S-Rank... because MGS is a stealth game.

 

[Focken Kiwi]

Actually, that segues into a very good question.

What are your specific ways to play a game? The weird quirks and tricks that only you would do to enjoy the experience more.

In Far Cry 4, Primal and Far Cry 5, I forced myself to play without the HUD, the scouting feature that lets you see enemies through the walls and on the hardest difficulty. For Primal, this was before the update that added a harder permadeath difficulty. It was frustrating at first but dropping the extra screen clutter made the experience more immersive for me. I had to manually keep track of my ammo and consumable consumption. Audio became significantly more important as it was my only way to track my enemies without seeing them and when animals could kill you in a couple attacks or enemies can kill you in a few bullets, that auditory information you'd normally take for granted could save your life.

I had fun playing these games in this way and I'd recommend it. I don't think I'll touch Far Cry 6 though...

 

[Jaimas]

In Far Cry 4, Primal and Far Cry 5, I forced myself to play without the HUD, the scouting feature that lets you see enemies through the walls and on the hardest difficulty. For Primal, this was before the update that added a harder permadeath difficulty. It was frustrating at first but dropping the extra screen clutter made the experience more immersive for me. I had to manually keep track of my ammo and consumable consumption. Audio became significantly more important as it was my only way to track my enemies without seeing them and when animals could kill you in a couple attacks or enemies can kill you in a few bullets, that auditory information you'd normally take for granted could save your life.

I had fun playing these games in this way and I'd recommend it. I don't think I'll touch Far Cry 6 though...

That's a really cool way to play, akin to the survivor difficulty they added to Metro 2033.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

The advice I got when I started the series was to put the difficulty on Master, but that's because the jank causes it to make the enemies and you deal more damage. So, if you're stuck with the shittiest, most inaccurate pistol on earth, at least you aren't shooting spitballs, too. Maybe that's where this whole "STALKER is the most hardcore of FPS games and you gotta make it super hard!" mentality came from.

The right way to play Deus Ex 1 is to play it on Realistic Mode. It can be slightly brutal(get caught, you will probably die, so don't get caught) but it is also by far the easiest and most fun if you play the game the right way!

 

[Judge Dredd]

That German sperg deserved every bit of "bullying" he got.

Yeah, he needed to go outside and get some fresh air and sunshine.

You two still being mad about it a decade later is exactly what I was talking about.

What are your specific ways to play a game? The weird quirks and tricks that only you would do to enjoy the experience more.

I don't play JRPGs often, but when I do I play on easy and ignore grinding. The early sections are easy (as they are on any difficulty) but eventually I hit an equilibrium where I'm so underleveled that playing on easy is like playing on normal. By the time I need to grind, I'm so "underleveled" that it takes minutes instead of hours.

I take a similar approach to loot games like Torchlight. Put it on easy, beeline the story quest. Loot doesn't matter until you reach the level cap, and side quest dungeons are randomly generated filler. As with JRPGs, being chronically under leveled and under geared balances out by the mid game and means the levels keep rolling in.

Fallout 4? Same again. I play on Easy much of the time because I want to take the interesting perks instead of putting all my points into weapon damage, ammo find, and crafting.


Any game with moral choice, I try to make the decisions I would make instead of choosing all paragon options.


For strategy games, I try to avoid friendly casualties (provided they're living) and don't use cheese strats. eg. In Xcom EW and Xcom 2, the cheese strats are to spam grenades and overwatch, but that's boring. I won't use human units to make obviously suicidal moves, but robots are fair game.

In Iron Brigade, unironically run lasers.

It's been a while since I played. What do lasers do?

 

[ShitLurker]

Don't know if it was mentioned already, but Sekiro. A buddy of mine never got the hang of parrying, so he beat the game purely on hit and run. And well, he did so it's not like it wasn't a valid tactic, but I honestly think he made things a lot harder from himself by going with that approach and make things last longer as well.

 

[Book Thief]

The objectively correct way to play Homefront: The Revolution is to download this mod and just play TimeSplitters 2 instead.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

The objectively correct way to play Homefront: The Revolution is to download this mod and just play TimeSplitters 2 instead.

this is a thing? this was just something in the game i completely missed?

 

[Book Thief]

this is a thing? this was just something in the game i completely missed?

Yeah, turns out whoever made this game hid TimeSplitters 2 inside of it as some sort of Easter Egg. You can find an arcade machine somewhere in the game's campaign, which allows you to play two levels of the game's story mode. However, the game still technically has the entirety of TS2 onboard, so fans just created a mod that allows them to just play TS2, to the point that the installer optionally allows you to remove as much of HFR as necessary to reduce the filesize on your computer.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

Grim Dawn: Respecs are cheap and easy, play like it. Also: invest in the Mastery bar. Veteran mode plays much differently from base, you absolutely need standoff abilities to supplement melee. Component powers should not be neglected, they can absolutely carry you in some situations (I recently completed "I Wasn't Expecting You, Human" basically on the strength of Searing Ember.)

 

[God of Nothing]

If you're not playing Underrail on DOMINATING, you are cheating yourself out of one hell of an experience. I can't even play on normal or hard anymore. Game is just way too easy. One of the few games with stat bloat difficulty that works by having a dozen different ways around it. Ran builds with damn near every weapon save swords, knives, gloves (your bare fists are an entirely separate thing), SMGs, ARs, Pistols, and energy (laser and plasma) pistols on it.

 

[BrunoMattei]

The objectively correct way to play Homefront: The Revolution is to download this mod and just play TimeSplitters 2 instead.

This is neat.

 

[Lone Wandering Courier]

The objectively correct way to play Homefront: The Revolution is to download this mod and just play TimeSplitters 2 instead.

Seems like a neat project to explore. I guess I got to play the first timesplitters before even considering playing the second.

 

[Male Idiot]

Kick the Autistic. To play it properly, one must sing and wear papercut medallions and not shove crayola fucking model magic up a tard's ass.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Seems like a neat project to explore. I guess I got to play the first timesplitters before even considering playing the second.

The first timesplitters was basically a split screen FPS with some tacked on single player challenges. There's no story to speak of until 2.

 

[Problematic User Forever]

Metal Gear Solid. Every game pre MGS5 requires you to play using stealth. If you don't you are going to have a hard time. It's clearly a stealth game.

The only game in the series that doesn't require stealth as much is MGSV. Yeah there are parts of the game that require stealth but not all the time. Especially when playing the side ops. You can tear shit up and be loud as you want in the side ops. In free roam you can do the same.

People would get mad when I would say it, but I pushed for playing MGS3 without using the tranq guns.

I'd push for it in MGS 2 as well but I'm like 95% sure the game was designed around the tranq gun for a lot of areas in the plant.

 

[CuzinEd]

People would get mad when I would say it, but I pushed for playing MGS3 without using the tranq guns.

I'd push for it in MGS 2 as well but I'm like 95% sure the game was designed around the tranq gun for a lot of areas in the plant.

I have heard people say the trang guns make the games easier. Even some saying use the tranq guns is like cheating or using an exploit. I find this to be pretty stupid since the developers put them in the game to be used. There are missions in MGSV that strip you of all equipment. They are optional though.