PixlBit

Some of those environments are Bloodborne's. I call shenanigans.

The first game is my favorite because it's the most grounded, visually. Divinity 2 and OS are good games, maybe better mechanically, but they have somewhat over the top armor designs and don't have the same homey, pastoral feel. Hard to explain, DD feels more real I guess, not as "epic."

I think if the games themselves had been more popular, he'd be spoken of in the same respect as Jeremy Soule and Hitoshi Sakamoto. But it is what it is.

Divine Divinity is one of the best surprises I've ever had in video games.  I had played the demo before and thought it had potential and a nice, interesting look to it, but had no idea how good it really is.s The first dungeon is fairly grueling and a few people have bounced off of it, bit I think it's worth sticking with.

Can't argue with someone who puts Portrait of Ruin/Igavania bosses in their list. That Dracula fight is maybe the best Dracula fight in the series. And it looks awesome when he spreads his wings.  For being the "worst" DS Castlevania, it sure is a fantastic game.

Some of the Ys game bosses rank pretty high to me, like the ones in Oath of Felghana or Ys Origin.  And the Vanillaware games, Muramasa and Dragon's Crown.

Sadly Devil May Cry 4 didn't really deliver in this department. A shame.

It's easy to get depressed when you're living a lie, and that lie doesn't even provide purpose. Our whole social, political, economic and cultural construct is artificial, and some, no many, people can't adapt to it on a subconscious level. The generations who have followed the the baby booomers have been coddled, lied to, weakened,  distracted, indulged, sexually confused, etc. It started before the internet age, which is just another distraction, another toy to be played with. A child in elementary school today is simply the end result of processes that started 50 years ago.

But see, we laughed at the older generations and their values and ways. Values similar to those which sustained cultures around the globe for millenia, mind you.  We thought we were so much smarter than these people, because "enlightentment" or some such delusional garbage. But, to paraphrase Fight Club, they lived through the Great Depression, which was an economic phenomenon. Our Great Depression is our own lives.

Actually, you are part of Louis C.K.s "generation" when it comes to this. Everyone born after the 60s, basically. You've come up in the same consumerist maelstrom. You've been programmed with the same PC and social theory bullshit, and where is it getting us, really? As a white male, you've been taught that you are the devil, responsible for other's misery, the subjugator of women  and children, bringers of war and tragedy, colonizers, slavers, rapists; in pop culture, you are depicted as incompetent husbands next to your wise wives, secretly homosexual, out of touch, unhip, etc. etc. This started from the moment you could understand words and images, and it's only ramped up since then.  Your leaders and your educators and your entertainers have lead you on this road to cultural, emotional and spiritual ruin.

But whatever, that's enough lecturing from me.  I've just scratched the surface, but no one listens anyways.  I'm moving to Texas and voting for Putin in the next election.

Adventure of Link was the shit, son. Guardian Legend was a more refined package though.

Poor fundamentals is my main problem with most open world games. Time and resources go towards geography and "sidequests" (i.e. filler) rather than core mechanics.  And the world keep getting larger and emptier, or more full of lightweight content. How many damn bandit caves and collectible widgets do we need over the span of 15 years? Just to fill the gaps between substantial goals. While combat, movement, hit detection, etc are under developed and poorly executed.  And being large is no excuse anymore, after Dragon's Dogma and soon to be MGSV and probably Legend of Zelda. These games have solid fundamentals on par with the tighter action games. Blood Dragon played pretty nicely too.

Anyway, I prefer the semi-open world games like Deus Ex, Darksiders, Crysis, Metroid. Best compromise between space,forward momentum, non linear play, and polish, imo.

The movement is all sorts of fussy. It's like they want to apply realism and physics to increase the immersion, but it just reminds me I don't like that approach, one I think is misguided. It's aggravating when you have to deal with inertia and a wide turn radius when you just want to get somewhere.

The strengths are in the world building and social interaction, so my friend (who owns the game) and I try to take a minimal combat approach to the game.

Remember, you can rotate the 3D models of your items in Skyrim....

There is a guy I watch on Youtube who is a fan of the Uncharted series and records walkthroughs on the highest difficulty, so he knows the games very well. Even he says the gunplay is not that great, with the weapons being too inaccurate.