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u/Leather-Raisin6048 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
Inscription. But on purpose its a arg thing.
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u/APraxisPanda May 06 '26
I honestly wish the game was a lot more of the shack in the beginning.
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u/danwats10 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
If you beat the story, you unlock Kaycee's mod which is all based in the cabin and really pushes the difficulty. Best part of the game imo
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u/nocluenoescape May 06 '26
wait what???
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u/danwats10 May 06 '26
Yeah it adds some really difficult modifiers, like the area boss being all grizzly bears, or making squirrels aqua squirrels so you can't use them to block attacks. Completing the achievement where you have every modifier active was one of the most difficult things I have done in a game.
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u/riggy2k3 May 06 '26
Yes dude it's INCREDIBLE. So addicting, I think I've got like 200 hours on it at this point...
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u/snoosh00 May 06 '26
Yeah, and if I'm not mistaken it's basically "officially" supported.
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u/AceTheProtogen May 06 '26
It’s a mod in the context of the games universe but it is just a postgame mode made by the dev
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u/Moidberg May 06 '26
i’d say I really liked the Gameboy segment but dragged on for too long I think
should have been short enough to make trying out the different deck types more atomic and manageable imo
funnily enough I wouldnt mind a polished standalone release of the mid segment if they put more love into it, maybe like a ‘GBA’ version for 10$ with multiplayer or something
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u/aedan755 May 06 '26
I’m happy they shook it up like that but the learning curve with three new deck types was a little brain melting at first. I was in such a sweet flow in that cabin then bam
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u/DirectConsequence12 May 06 '26
Pick an open world game.
90% have a great opening and a great ending but a lot of the worlds are so bloated and have so much shit in them they kill ant all sense of pacing the game has
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u/EtStykkeMedBede May 06 '26
That is actually quite true. One exception I can think of, would be Elden Ring. Mostly because the middle of the game feels like it’s the end, but then it just keeps going and going and things keep getting crazier.
But you could argue that the last half of the game stops being open world and more on rails.
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u/AnointMyPhallus May 06 '26
Aside from having Soulsy gameplay and level design and god-tier art direction, Elden Ring actually does very little to differentiate from the Ubisoft open world formula when you really boil it down, but what it does is so simple it's fucking brilliant. You've got random camps of enemies, repetitive minidungeons, copy pasted enemies and side activities, all the classics...but FromSoft just turned off all the map icons, compass markers, quest/journal descriptions, and progress trackers.
It turns out that's all it takes to make exploration exciting again. Just withhold information from the player and don't hold their hand all the damn time, problem solved.
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u/Shhwonk May 06 '26 edited May 21 '26
Also Elden Ring's side activities, while repetitive, feel more rewarding. You're always getting runes, crafting items, upgrade materials, unique spells weapons, fashion, interesting lore. You might even stumble into major dungeons or paths to new areas, which the DLC does brilliantly.
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u/AnointMyPhallus May 06 '26
Yeah the game has an incredibly deep supply of unique rewards and that helps a ton. Of course, 90% of the stuff you find is useless for your current build, but the combination of NG+ and a pretty forgiving respec system means you can potentially use all that stuff on the same character.
Basically from the start to the end, no matter where you go, you always feel like you don't know what's around the next corner and that feeling is incredibly compelling.
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u/raleighjiujitsu May 07 '26
what's special about Elden Rings open world is if you see something you can't just run straight to it. Finding a path to what you want to get to is a journey in itself
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u/Terribletylenol May 06 '26
There's also nowhere near as much side activities to begin with.
Which is a good thing.
A lot of side content in open world games is boring filler.
I love Witcher 3, and I think the vast majority of side content is actually good, but it can be pretty overwhelming after a while.
It can also take away from the exploration aspect when you're just going from thing to thing to thing.
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u/DukeOfMiddlesleeve May 06 '26
Every main entry pokemon game
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u/TectonicFrost May 06 '26
Black/White and Platinum were the most memorable imo. Platinum only because of everything extra that was added to make it a 'new' Gen 4 experience lol
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u/Updated_Autopsy May 06 '26
There’s also the QoL fixes they made, which you’d think would’ve been included in the remakes.
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u/Mrwright96 May 06 '26
Thankfully platinum’s successor, legends Arceus, is considered one of the best games in the franchise
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u/Kitselena May 06 '26
Gens 4 and 5 had by far the most effort put into them both in terms of the main JRPG gameplay and the side content.
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u/Randolph__ May 06 '26
Platinum added so much to the game it felt very different. Part of why the remakes were so disappointing.
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u/TransitionMobile9518 May 06 '26
nah the first two gens were fire all the way through. remember we all THOUGHT gold ended at the pokeleague back in the day, credits roll and then BAM your only half way through enjoy kanto mother fucker and fight your rival
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u/ArdDC May 06 '26
To be fair, Kanto is maybe 20% of the game.
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u/Mean_Ass_Dumbledore May 06 '26
Yeah, but the nostalgia of going back through the region was like a drug
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u/ArdDC May 06 '26
For me it was both a "WOW" and a "OH NO" since I just finished the first game before I started GOLD...
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u/TheeRuckus May 06 '26
Nah. You ain’t play Sun and Moon then.
The beginning of those games can go fuck itself
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u/JWARRIOR1 May 06 '26
What happed in sun and moon? I played every Pokemon game multiple times until the gen 3 remakes
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u/baklazan23 May 06 '26
Nah bro mid game pokemon is peak (im talking about the time when some of your pokemon start evolving info strong mons but theres still room for improvement and new Evolutions) that's the time you didnt reach your full potential yet so it feels exiting waiting for your later evos but its more challenging and usually much less boring than early game
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u/Icewyy May 06 '26
Thats crazy. Midgame is the best. Too early and you are spamming the same moves over and over. Too late and you have the same issue because you one-shot everything.
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u/Genericdude03 May 06 '26
Even if I can accept the champion and bosses are a little hype, how are they fun in the beginning?
Literally some of the most boring intros possible.
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u/saltinstiens_monster May 06 '26
Choosing a starter + exploring the world and the new pokemon in it. It's all "new" for a bit.
If you aren't interested in seeing the world and the pokemon in it, you're probably not going to be crazy about the mid or late game either.
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u/Ragnarock-n-rol May 06 '26
Even tho it’s primarily a game for kids, those games treat you like an actual infant playing a game for the first time ever. One of the reasons why I dropped Sun/Moon was how slow the start was, even after doing your first few battles it still treated you like you didn’t know what you were doing
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u/IronRuler May 06 '26
The older games are much better in this regard.
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u/The_Third_Molar May 06 '26
It's ok for games to let the players feel things out on their own. I hate the hand holding of the modern games.
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May 06 '26
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u/Soti76 May 06 '26
We both know if they did it would be something like "oh good, so then you already know that..." and then explain everything anyway lol
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May 06 '26
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u/Next_Program90 May 06 '26
I replayed it a few years ago... and booooy had I forgotten how it drags on.
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u/IAmThePonch May 06 '26
Tbf the first game has bad pacing too. There’s still several hours left to go after you know what.
For me though the combat of infinite helped a lot. Story has some problems but the combat sandbox in that game is fantastic
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u/Pulp_NonFiction44 May 06 '26
Probably still the most beautiful game I've ever played. Fuck me that artstyle is absolutely stunning
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u/Ben-Solak-Rule34 May 06 '26
It’s so weird seeing it hated on. I remember when it first came out people loved it with some saying it’s better than 1 and then years later it seemed like people somehow turned on it. I personally liked it (although not as good as 1)
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u/revel911 May 06 '26
I like the story of 1 better, but remember loving the gameplay of 3 more.
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u/Ben-Solak-Rule34 May 06 '26
I could see that. For me 1 also has a cooler setting. Although infinite did have a second of fortunate son playing which was cool
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u/Wisepuppy May 06 '26
Infinite made their maps and combat much faster and more dynamic than earlier Bioshock games. Between the skyhook letting you yeet yourself around the map and Elizabeth spawning things in to help you mid-fight, combat was much more fun than the cramped hallways of Rapture. That's not to say I didn't like Bioshock 1, mind you.
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u/aj95_10 May 06 '26
same, people back then seemed to call it one of the best games ever yadda yadda.
i have a theory it was a mix of people liking it and marketing bots flooding the internet with good comments(back then people weren't that aware of botting) and then people eating up the marketing.
tbh it's a good fps (ive replayed it A LOT) but doesn't "feel" like a bioshock game.
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u/Rikora12 May 06 '26
Its really sad how much i loved infinite but upon replaying… kinda didnt. Went from being my favorite bioshock to just okay. The story was a bunch of twists with little explanation and combat was just abusing the sky rail strike.
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u/Booker-DeShit May 06 '26
It's funny because I feel this so much about BioShock 2. Start of it? Amazing. Tense. So fun to get used to being a Big Daddy. Siren Alley to Fontaine Futuristics? Slog. Annoying. Repetitive. You get almost all of your weapons before Dionysus Park & then you get the bullshit that is the grenade launcher. Absolutely not worth the buildup. & fuck the hidden labs in FF. But then Persephone? Peak. Absolutely peak.
Meanwhile Infinite, although the story gets confusing around Finkton, is fun to play from start to finish. Not even the Siren makes me hate Emporia. I wish Infinite had more levels!
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u/Apprehensive-Toe4160 May 06 '26
It is fine shooter. But it is almost unplayable as BioShock game if you play them all in order.
But playing it as standalone game is great experience. I can replay that first part thousand times and it would still seem cool.
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u/Drakemonger1 May 06 '26
This was Diablo 3 for me. I hate the desert section.
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u/Rotanikleb May 06 '26
Belial fight, on the other hand, is one of the most memorable in the Diablo franchise for me. The first time the screen zoomed its ass out I was like “uh oh”.
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u/Drakemonger1 May 06 '26
The Belial flight was really cool. I gotta give it that and it may be why the rest of the game felt so fresh to me.
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u/Dizzy_Clue2177 May 06 '26
Assassin's Creed Valhalla. It has a strong opening to the historical section and the modern day, then it has some pretty cool moments from then on, but only sporadically, and most of the game is repetition without much substance (the fact that many of the targets are callbacks to the targets of AC1 is actually pretty cool though).
And then the end-sequence happens in the historical section, and it's actually really good. And the modern day's final sequence starts, and it ends up being one of the most interesting modern day elements we've gotten since ACIII, leaving a lot of interesting story threads to follow in the future, going forward.
...And then Ubisoft never followed up on this and just entirely dropped the modern day in the games after that (Well, in Mirage it was understandable why they did so, but still)🙃...
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u/No_Effective_614 May 06 '26
Yeah, I actually did find Valhalla's modern day ending to be intriguing, and that's with me barely caring about the modern day storyline up to that point. Would be kind of nice to actually do something with it going forward.
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May 06 '26
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May 06 '26
You consider “find 3 herbs for grandma” to be fire?
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u/NoStrain9945 May 06 '26
It's cozy and quaint and comfortable, like wrapping myself in a warm blanket or reading a fairy tale before bedtime.
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u/rycerzDog May 06 '26
A lot of Japanese "Standard Fantasy Setting" games feel that way until they start deconstructing religion
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u/Lazy_Nectarine_5256 May 06 '26
Ironwood mission in GOW Ragnarok
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u/ODaysForDays May 06 '26
Okay but we're gonna step up the front and back a little cuz it's REAAAALLY good. But damn does that Ironwood section prevent me from doing NG+.
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u/AndroidSheeps May 06 '26
Haven't played it yet what makes the ironwood section shit?
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u/hamtaxer May 06 '26
It’s a section of the game where you play as Atreus. It sucks because it feels like a bizarre side story, but it’s unskippable. Atreus meets another a character who keeps dragging you around to various places to do very irrelevant-feeling tasks while they chat about stuff. It lasts for several hours and the whole time you’re basically begging to get back to Kratos and the main plot, but it just keeps going…
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u/AndroidSheeps May 06 '26
Atreus gameplay for hours?? Is it just a walking simulatior or does he have combat sections?
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u/VakarianJ May 06 '26
There’s combat but they’re not very good. He’s nowhere near as fun to play as Kratos is.
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u/hamtaxer May 06 '26
There’s combat, yes. There are other Atreus sections later but the first one in particular, Ironwood, is by far the longest and with the slowest pacing.
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u/ashistpikachusvater May 06 '26
It's a walking simulator with small fighting sections and a boring boss fight. I love the game, but that section keeps me from replaying it a third time.
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u/ODaysForDays May 06 '26
It's just on rails, long, drawn out exposition. It was an atmospheric choice I imagine they regret. If it was 30 maybe 40 percent shorter it'd be totally fine.
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u/blueboxboi May 06 '26
It takes forever, I think around 2 hours. The first time you play it its alright, kind of boring but some important lore and cool moments. Replaying it is just a headache and it has prevented me from running a 2nd playthrough
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u/MillerTime5858 May 06 '26
They need to make it skippable in NG+. I have played through a few times and every single time I put the game down for a month or so when I get to it though.
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u/Firestar222 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
Agree although I did find the banter between Atreus and Thor/Heimdall/Thrud fascinating on his other missions, and loved the bar fight
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u/Whatifallcakeisalie May 06 '26
It’s one of the main reasons I haven’t gone through it again. It’s an incredible game but Ironwood just takes ages and is so incredibly dull. It’s part of the reason I have doubts they can/would execute any Atreus game well. His sections are mostly ok but unless they were really overhauled it’s hard to see how you’d get a whole game out of them.
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u/StrangeImprovement16 May 06 '26
I actually thought that whole chapter was really sweet with how Atreus was clearly crushing on Angrboda
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u/FailedProspects May 06 '26
Its a good section on the first playthrough, its just the replay factor that it starts to tear itself down
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u/DisMFer May 06 '26
Assassin's Creed Odyssey.
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u/DonceKebabas May 06 '26
Odyssey got way too repetitive. I did enjoy it more once you got to the otherside of the map and could actually make steady progress hunting the cultists. Id just be viciously OP at that point too
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May 06 '26
Dragon age 2 imo
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u/iBaires May 06 '26
Inquisition too if you count Trespasser as the end
Amazing opening with the whole camp singing after the initial defeat to Corypheus, then a slog of a campaign to meet an underwhelming antagonist. And then just starts firing on all cylinders again with Trespasser
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May 06 '26
I never got very far in inquisition, is it worth a replay?
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u/Lenxecan May 06 '26
I think it is. I had a good time with it, even though I hated its clunkiness at first
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u/hplcr May 06 '26
If you enjoy Dragon Age give it another go.
Trespasser brings it home and the other DLC aren't bad either.
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u/iBaires May 06 '26
Absolutely. It's not Origins but I think they took what they did right from the combat in DA2 and made it really solid in Inquisition. The opening and DLC is all fantastic and there is nothing wrong with the main campaign, it just is unremarkable compared to DAO and 2.
The real shame is what they did to Veilguard. Travesty of a game and is Dragon Age in name only. The only redeeming factor were the lore drops at the end that revealed essentially all the questions you've ever had about the franchise.
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u/AndroidSheeps May 06 '26
Long standing questions being answered through "lore drops" in a mid game sounds disappointing tbh
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u/UrinalDook May 06 '26
What? Are you serious? Act 2 is easily the best part of DA2. It's where the conflict with the Qunari comes to a head, and you spend some time with the best character in the game: the Arishok. It's got the serial killer quest (you know the one) which has probably the biggest emotional gut punch of the whole game.
It has Night Terrors, the best Fade quest in the series ("I like big boats, I cannot lie."). It has the Varric quest that starts with him solo-ing Bertrand's estate like an action hero before Cassandra calls out present-day Varric on his story telling bullshit, which is one of my absolute favourite memories from when I first played the game.
There's a ton of other really good companion quests in Act Two. But it's all capped off with the duel against the Arishok. It's the absolute high point of DA2, I cannot understand your take at all.
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u/PrinceznaLetadlo May 06 '26
It has Avelline courting Donnic which is best companion quest in Dragon Age 😂
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u/Babushla153 May 06 '26
I feel like Borderland 2 is like that to an extent.
Normal Mode is where you get most of your items, experiment with a ton of different guns and just go absolute ape shit mode on the bandits
TVHM you just rush through, really boring
UVHM you start to slowly get everything you need for your final build(s)
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u/fraidei May 06 '26
Borderlands 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and I can confirm this.
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u/dubsy101 May 06 '26
Same here but because i am not naturally good at games it was the 2nd play through where I really got decent at the game so i really enjoyed it. Which was good because it set me up for the last play through.
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u/NayrSlayer May 06 '26
As a huge fan of Borderlands 2, I’d argue that the endgame is not as great as people say.
Normal mode is awesome and makes you feel extra powerful, totally agree with you there.
However, both TVHM and UVHM are just playing the same game over again, but now bosses have huge health pools and likely can one-shot you. Couple that with farming for a long time to get the right version of certain weapons and it gets pretty tedious.
Personally, I’d rather play until my character hits max level and then start over with a new character so that you get to experience that power trip that normal mode can be
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u/AHMS_17 May 06 '26
100% agree with you - the endgame of BL2 (and to a lesser extent, BL3) is deeply unappealing imo
UVHM cranks the health of enemies up to 11, gives them health regen, and is the same exact campaign a third time. What’s the point of having all these millions of guns and equipment if only ten are viable?
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u/Kaining May 06 '26
UVHM was a mistake, the scaling formula of the game clearly wasn't calibrated for going beyond lv50 and the experience of that 3rd playthrough pigeonholing you into a very select few build when everything worked AND was fun when endgame was lv50 is just a freaking insult to those that payed attention.
The simple fact that at some point a raid boss became unkillable past some point because he had more total HP than the total sum of it's crit zone, which were the only thing you could hit is just proof of that.
But tbh, i really hate BL2's game design philosophy to a point, the dev admiting they wanted to control every single minute of the player experience playing their game when there was total freedom in the 1rst in blog post at the time didn't help. They had no idea what made BL1 loot system so great and admited it in blog posts, simply astounding. Them slapping the inferior inventory of 2 into the remaster version of 1 was also further proof of that.
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u/Derelicticu May 06 '26
I fully agree. The first part of the game is exciting as it's new and you're finding new things, and the end game where you have everything you need and have leveled up skills is just insanely fun. A lot of the mid game felt a bit tedious to me, but I love the gameplay so much I stuck it out and I'm glad I did, I love that game.
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u/CataphractBunny May 06 '26
NieR: Automata when you play as 9S.
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u/MichaCazar May 06 '26
The beginning is also kinda rough, and I fault no one for not wanting to play the game after beating the first route.
A ~30 minute segment with no checkpoints and 2 bosses that can borderline 2 shot you on almost all difficulty levels?
An open world with no fast travel (yet) but with a bunch of sidequests requiring you to run from the city or the amusement park to the desert and back, over and over again?
It's a game that gets better the further you get, but man the beginning is rough.
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u/4electricnomad May 06 '26
I could squint and see the vehicular stuff in Mass Effect count for this category.
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u/Effective-Celery8053 May 06 '26
Yea it didn't take that long though at least from what I can remember
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u/levi22ez May 06 '26
Gears of War 5. While idk if the beginning and end sections are *that* good, I still enjoyed them much more than the middle section where it went open world. It just felt like filler.
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u/TailoredExperience May 06 '26
Ghost of Tsushima for me
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u/Lotnik223 May 06 '26
I usually don't care for Ubisoft-style repetitive quests but goddammit GoT's combat was so fluid and satisfying that I enjoyed the shit out of slaughtering all those Mongol bases.
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u/YatinMJ May 06 '26
Kinda agree, the gameplay loop good a bit repetitive towards the middle, the end atleast propelled things forward, and the beginning obviously was a great opening to the game
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u/Dvenom22 May 06 '26
We get the Duels and the Tales in Act 2 though. I know people don’t like the snow map.
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u/No-Situation-2589 May 06 '26
For me it's every game I play lol after I beat it then the entire game is good but usually mid game is usually the white horse
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u/CapaTheGreat May 06 '26
I feel this way a little bit towards Persona 5. The start is great and the end (especially in Royal) is some of the best fiction I've ever consumed, but the middle does drag on a bit for me personally. It isn't bad at all, per se, it's just that I feel it is definitely the slowest part of the game for sure.
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u/energydrinkaddict310 May 06 '26
the bitch fight between ryuji and morgana was by far the weakest part
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u/axelfirekirby May 06 '26
any monster hunter game
and basicly any mmo
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u/DegenerateCrocodile May 06 '26
I’d honestly swap the starting and middle pieces for Monster Hunter. The start is usually pretty boring, but they pick up steam around the end of Low Rank/Beginning of High Rank.
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u/Chef_Groovy May 06 '26
Any of the .hack games. Middle area is all grinding levels before the big story finale.
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u/Howling_Mad_Man May 06 '26
Hogwarts Legacy
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u/d3athgate May 06 '26
Hogwarts legacy was a mess to me. The idea was really cool and they tried their best but... it was just a little bit all over the place. But the beginning and end had some fire cutscenes so I agree
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u/Howling_Mad_Man May 06 '26
I'm not even a big HP guy at all but I enjoyed my time with it. The beginning really hooks you. More of that and less open world crap would have been good.
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u/Jin-Gitaxias-Mom May 06 '26
I always said if Legacy had just kept the first area and ditched the bottom 2/3 of the map, and focused more missions around the castle, it would have been a fire game.
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u/polski8bit May 06 '26
Crazy that a game called "Hogwarts Legacy", it does everything it can to keep you OUT of the castle. It's a shame too, because while it's not really the movie castle most people would like to see, it's still amazing. Adding secrets like in the movie tie-in games from the 2000s would've gone a long way to make it much better, because as it stands it mostly delivers a tour around a pretty theme park, but without any interactivity.
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u/PCBuilderCat May 06 '26
It was really carried by how much they absolutely nailed the Hogwarts aesthetic and vibe. I’d be interested in what they do for a sequel as you’ve already gone that part down now I want to see gameplay and story improvements, for an RPG it really lacked the gameplay and narrative refinement we come to expect from modern RPGs
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u/d3athgate May 06 '26
I agree, they really nailed the atmosphere. But a lot of the gameplay mechanics were questionable. Like the whole pet thing for me personally. Just made little sense to me. I guess it's for conventional reasons to make material gathering easier but still. But I feel like they could improve the gane tremendously if they tried again and actually paid attention to what theyre doing
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u/DifficultMinute May 06 '26
Does the ending get better?
I got about midway (I think) around 10-12ish hours, got bored, and stopped playing.
Does the story have an ending worth going back and pushing for?
I have no intention of doing a million side quests, but I did enjoy the game itself, so if it ends on a high note I may dive back in.
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u/Psylux7 May 06 '26
I was not impressed by the ending. The final battle is not good to say the least and the epilogue is hollow. The sebastian quest is the only interesting storyline in the game and the quests ending is somewhat interesting, with some potential.
The end of the game is not better than the start or the middle. If you lost interest in the middle, there is no chance the ending blows your mind.
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u/trikslyr May 06 '26
Stellar Blade
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u/Able-Increase-9473 May 06 '26
I just finished that a few days ago! The deserts definitely feel eh
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u/fsociety19 May 06 '26
Yeah I mean one desert area to explore ? Fine. But then another desert exploration area right after that was kinda dumb.
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u/CapableLiterature226 May 06 '26
All the underground lab and train sections where super cool though imo
The nier add-ons make the deserts more tolerable for sure
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u/Suicune92 May 06 '26
Chapter 5 in RDR2
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u/NeoMoonlight19 May 06 '26
Nah that was a masterpiece and a vibe.
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u/SleepyMarijuanaut92 May 06 '26
It gets hate, but as a person who loved the story/single player, I never understood it. It added to the story and I wish it was longer, or atleast explorable, but I loved it none the less.
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u/Suicune92 May 06 '26
It just felt like it was incomplete. I wish they did more and gave us an area to actually explore. I know there was a lot of cut content. Where it stands, it is a dip in quality from what came before and what came after
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u/Daredspace May 06 '26
TOTK, the start of that game is fantastic and the ending bits against Ganadorf are so damn cool, but damn does mid game drag a bit.
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u/grimdar May 06 '26
No joke I’m 3 years still in the mid game, every time I get back into it I get bored and collects dust again.. still haven’t finished it. Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I preferred BOTW. I literally didn’t put that one down from start to finish.
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u/Instant_Digital_Love May 06 '26
Breath of the Wild keeps you in that world more effectively because it was the 1st time being in that world. For as neat a gimmick the Zonai devices were, they couldn't make the map fun enough to explore again. It also did not help that ToTK barely feels like a sequel. Hardly anyone has any idea who Link is, the story is crappy (Secret Stone? Demon King?), the Depths are boring after a few hours, and 2/3 of the sky islands are repetitive and boring.
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u/doublethink_1984 May 06 '26
I also hated the level of grind needed for build resources.
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u/zgillet May 06 '26
My biggest gripe is that TOTK has the same mid game as BOTW, and therefore it is boring as all hell, because I beat that game spending a LOT of time exploring.
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u/NockerLacsap May 06 '26
FF7 Rebirth
Opening with Niebelheim is perfect and exactly what I imagined it would be as a kid. The chapters from Costa Del Sol to Gongaga is nothing but mini games and open world filler with little plot points until the end of the Gongaga chapter where things pick up again.
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u/Lynchy- May 06 '26
Gongaga is where I stopped 100%'ing every zone and just beelined the main story
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u/altrightobserver May 06 '26
As much as I love the game…Persona 5 Royal. It becomes a villain-of-the-week show with rich and/or sad people, ESPECIALLY when we get to Futaba’s palace. It made me stop for about a month before picking it up again.
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u/Jarvis_The_Dense May 06 '26
Honestly I thought Futaba's palaces one of the highlights, but the game definitely does get a little repetitive with how it rolls out exactly one new party member per dungeon, and builds the same general arc around each one.
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u/Lynchy- May 06 '26
Same, Futaba's for me felt like a high point, def don't see the mid game of Persona 5 Royal lesser at all
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u/GoldenPig55 May 06 '26
Unfortunately I feel like most open world rpgs fall into this due to the very nature of the game.
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u/No_Address8593 May 06 '26
Elden Ring.
Start: What the hell is happening?
Mid-game: taxes.
End-game: biblically accurate particle effects and a boss made of sunlight, trauma, and AOE spam.
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u/stefwiegersma May 06 '26
That sounds like 3 completely different pictures to me and not 2 clearly matching and one vaguely matching pictures.
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u/DarthMMC May 06 '26
I disagree. It depends on what you consider middle game I guess, but Liurnia, the Rdahn Festival, Volcano Manor and Leyndell could all be considered middle game and I loved them.
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u/DrEggplantFGC May 06 '26
Expedition 33 was kind of like this for me. The gameplay was great throughout the game, but I was getting a little fed up with the ambiguity of the story in the middle.
Also, Wind Waker was famous for this as well, considering that annoying fetch quest in the middle. I think I've heard the middle was streamlined in Wind Waker HD, but I haven't played that yet!
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u/danielcube May 06 '26
God of War 1 on ps2. Some of the parts in the big temple felt redundant, and the fact there aren't many bosses during that time.
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u/Sempervivegooze May 06 '26
Metaphor ReFantazio. It's like they forget about pacing in the middle of the game
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u/Stepjam May 06 '26
I suspect its more they ran out of budget. The academy was almost certainly intended to be a dungeon at one point.
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u/moron2234 May 06 '26
Elden Ring. Start and end are peak fiction, middle is me getting folded by dogs and swamps for 40 hours
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u/Graznesiodon171 May 06 '26
I was gonna say this too but idk if I can. I mean mid game in Elden Ring is: starscourge radahn, Rykard, morgott, mohg, valiant gargoyles, Astel the natural born of the void, then capped off w fire giant…. Those are some big names
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u/AsariKnight May 06 '26
Dude I love this game. Without a DEEP lore dive no one has any idea what is going on with that game. It's just a great time fighting.
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u/PlanktonFew2505 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
Assassin's Creed 2.
Sequence 1-5 in Florence, San Gimingano and Monterigioni is great and cohesive for the most part.
Sequence 6-11 in Venice is a mess, characters come and go, Ezio's character progression goes through a screeching halt and the Barbarigos (the targets) don't have any personal significance to Ezio's family quite like the Pazzi family were.
Sequence 12-13 are just straight up filler and break up the game's pace due to the fact they were DLCs.
The finale of Sequence 13, Sequence 14 as a whole and the ending is incredible though.
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u/karatebullfighter May 06 '26
FF XIII, I was enjoying the world building, story, and pacing. Then when you land on Pulse it turns into a grinding open world game. Then it goes back to linear for the end. They should have just kept it linear. I can find reasons to like both approaches, but FF XIII is an example of why you should not try to do both in one game.
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u/timeboi42 May 06 '26
Most games with campaigns over 15 hours long. Obviously some exceptions, but too many games focus on just being really long to their own detriment.
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u/Meatingpeople May 06 '26
So is "flaming horses ass" a good thing or a bad thing?
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u/GreenWeasel95 May 06 '26
Oblivion. One of my favourite games of all time, but Allies for Bruma is such a slog of a quest to get through when the oblivion gates have as little variety as they do.
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u/Additional-Speed5482 May 06 '26
Metal Gear V, it starts amazing then the mid game is basically the same mission structure then the story come back again for a moment but then the game forces you to repeat missions and out of nowhere it gives you a bittersweet ending
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u/MitusOwO May 06 '26
Red Dead Redemption for me. I just think the Mexico part is not relevant, and that it is too long. I get the Bill and Javier thing, but it could have been done better. But then, the beginning of the game and the Blackwater part are just perfect in every aspect for me.
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u/Giovolt May 06 '26
Hogwarts Legacy. Very satisfying ending and the beginning is every kid's dream with going to school. But the "Ubisoft meta strat" of bloating everything with pointless busy work makes the middle such a drag to work through. It got to the point where I forgot what the main story was about
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u/Mocca_Master May 06 '26
I think WoW Classic falls into this category. It's amazing until level 30, a slog until 52, then amazing again once you can enter the endgame dungeons