Games that are so good they've ruined every other game in their genre for you

[SlumlordThanatos]

Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance have ruined turn-based strategy for me. I grew up playing that game and its sequel, sinking hundreds of hours into both games. It's slightly vexing, because everyone tells me that the original Tactics was brilliant...but it is nothing like its successors and I never could wrap my head around how to play it.

The only other game in the genre that I'll play is the Fire Emblem series.

 

[Javetts Eall Raksha]

On that note Strange Journey killed mainline for me. It was that great of a game.

this, i still think nocturne is the best of the series, but there really was something about strange journey that all the other SMT games lacked.

 

[FirebirdXR]

I wouldn't say ruined cuz I have a solid list of favourite VNs (Comyu, Devil on the G-String etc etc) but Grisaia no Kaijitsu raised my expectations of what a good Visual Novel looks like greatly, i'm sure i've dropped a few of them because they were nowhere near as good as Grisaia. I recommend everyone to buy it on Steam right the fuck now, it's amazing. Step aside for our lord Juicy Yuuji, motherfuckers.

Persona 4 did kinda ruin every single other Persona/SMT game for me cuz it's just leaps and bounds better than all the rest. As cool as it is that Persona 5 is going to be a next gen masterpiece making the PS4 worth actually buying I have a gut feeling that I will not like it as much as Persona 4.

Everything positive about Persona 5 will be silently accompanied by the words "but Persona 4 was better" in my mind.

Though Persona 4 did get me interested in the JRPG genre so that's good.

Eh~ I enjoyed P4, but the characters and plot fell into too many standard anime tropes for my particular tastes, of which is why I enjoyed P3: FES a lot more. Plus, it had a Dark Souls level of difficulty from the standard JRPGs at the time, which made me proud once I managed to finish the game as it required keen thinking from its lack of 'manual' party controls.

I am NOT proud to say of the shallow resentment I have for Atlus beating it to death with all the unneeded spin-offs of P4, either.
Is it because they [and fans] ignore other parts of the SMT franchise? Is it fan-base envy? I am really unsure...

-
On topic... I have some that are close, mostly because games tend to introduce plenty of variety so set them apart.

Though Dark Souls certainly has ruined the medieval game genre for me. So much imagination!
Of course, it helped that it was inspired by freaking Berserk!! The reason I view Game of Thrones as the pansy man's version of it.

 

[Tilly]

Racing: Mario Kart 8
FPS: Half-life 2
3D Platforming: Mario Galaxy
SRPG: Fire Emblem Awakening

Shoddy hit detection with a horrible lock on camera system. Then again it's not surprising to see people constantly fanwank that series to death.

Kitana tried fanwanking once. She never tried again.

 

[Dizchu]

The latest two Rayman games have ruined 2D platformers for me (apart from the Oddworld games and things like Cave Story).

It pretty much trashes any Mario or Sonic game. It has more varied and interesting worlds than Mario and speedrunning sections that are infinitely better than anything in Sonic. Also, the wacky European aesthetic is much more appealing to me than the more "traditional" Japanese aesthetics of Mario, Sonic and Megaman.

Also it throws away outdated mechanics like lives systems while still remaining very challenging. It feels a lot more "fair" than most other 2D platformers while still being hella difficult.

 

[lassiie]

I love how everyone is saying the Souls games have the best third person combat. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it but it's so far from the best I'd argue to even call it great. Shoddy hit detection with a horrible lock on camera system. Then again it's not surprising to see people constantly fanwank that series to death.

OT: I feel like no other game has gotten hand to hand combat as well has The Warriors. It's realistic enough without having to try and come up with some over the top moves that break the immersion. I was disheartened that they never followed up on it after.

Name a better game that is similar to the Souls style with better combat. Bayonetta/2 is probably the peak of fast paced third person combat, but it is a completely different style and game from Dark Souls so they aren't comparable. It's not surprising to see people constantly hate this series to death. See what I did there?

 

[Zaeseled]

World of Warcraft for the MMORPG genre. I can't play GW2 because I keep comparing it to WoW, I couldn't get into RaiderZ or TERA because I kept comparing it to WoW. I couldn't get into FFXIVARR because of WoW. Sure I've had a lot of good moments and fond memories from WoW, but if I could remove it from my memory I just might do it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The Last of Us has kind of ruined stealth for me. Not that I'll go on record saying it has the best stealth of any game, but the way it handles it just fits me like glove. No instant fail, no on-and-off switch, no evasion timer, just very malleable hide and seek, guerilla action (This is minus the use of Listen mode ofcourse).

Also, no game has had melee action as satisfyingly viceral and... well, punchy. That I will go on record about.

 

[Dango]

I'd say it's not because it was good, but ARMA 3 ruined FPS's, probably because I played with people who know a ton about military hardware. Practicality and adherence to reality became far more important than anything else for me, so whenever I see some fool carrying a marksman's rifle without a scope I just get ticked off.

 

[zumbledum]

Sometimes, a game comes along that's so good that you can't bring yourself to play any other game in its genre. They all just feel lacking in comparison to that one game. What are some such games for you?

My choices:

MMO - World of Warcraft. This should need no explanation.

Open World - GTA V. The sheer amount of detail to the game world (barely any recycled assets!)
and all the things you can do make it very difficult to top.

First Person Shooter (Single Player) - Half Life 2. Valve's masterpiece still holds up incredibly well.

First Person Shooter (Multiplayer) - Battlefield 4. Now that most of the bugs have been fixed, no other online FPS gives me so much fun.

Third Person Shooter - Gears of War 3. Resident Evil 4 was a close second, but GoW3's multiplayer is what pushed it ahead for me.

JRPG - Chrono Trigger. Yup, a 16bit game from 1995 is still better than any JRPG I've played since.

WRPG - The Witcher 3. This game has sidequests with more detailed stories than the entire main quests of other RPGs.

Everquest for me every other MMO since has been a pale reflection, though i blame wow for the state of the genre mostly. i mean some blame has to lay at the feet of all the other MMO's that followed wows path.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

I won't say Witcher 3 ruined me for future CRPGs, because I love the genre too much, but it sure re-shuffled my list of favorites and set the bar at an extremely high level for new games. Most particularly it had me re-evaluating Dragon Age Inquisition from "disappointment" to "embarrassment".

I genuinely couldn't believe some of the lies printed about DA:I from gaming sites. It was dull and awful in so many ways that when all the reviewers heaped mountains of praise on it I was gobsmacked.

How can these folk even still be in a job? DA:I is a 6/10 game at best and felt exactly like that from the get go.

"Subjective", "opinion"? No way. Not from that many reviewers heaping THAT much praise on it. I'm glad TW3 has made people realize just how bad DA:I is, but I do have to question why some people who are paid to tell us about games didn't relay this to us from the off.

Many tried to cover themselves by saying "it's not as good as Origins". No shit. It's not as good as 50% of WRPG's, never mind Origins.

/end rant

 

[LordLundar]

This is going to sound pretentious but none. To say that there is means that you can't play, enjoy or critique a game on it's own merits and it MUST be compared to others in the genre. It's not a concept I ascribe to. Are there games that rank higher on my preferences? Certainly but it's not a zero sum concept. Just because one performs better does not mean that it diminished the other that don't rank as high.

 

[Ishal]

In a souls games you're knee deep in combat pretty much the whole time. I think that's why so many come out of those games finding it harder to play other games that don't focus on it as much.

It's funny, because I came into Dark Souls after many hours playing Mount and Blade, and kept comparing the combat negatively to M&B. No positional blocking? Damage isn't based on momentum? What am I even playing?! Rargh!

Fortunately even if Dark Souls was comparatively a bit rubbish on the combat side of things, it more than made up for it with absolutely superb atmospherics.

Yeah, I can see that. I've often heard it compared to M&B and even a little to Gothic. Though I know absolutely nothing about the latter, I've seen the former played quite a bit.

I was on GOG the other day checking out their sale and saw what seemed like six M&B games while scrolling through. I'm thinkin' that maybe I try it out this steam sale, but I have no idea which one to get.

For me, Souls combat, and Souls games in general are kinda like a river. All the aspects of that game are like little streams flowing downhill, and they all start coming together the more you play. And by the end you're just in one river where everything feeds into the whole. And you don't even notice. At least, that was my experience. Mr. Btongue called it a Gesamptkunstwerk in his video about it. That's basically what I'm getting at.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

In a souls games you're knee deep in combat pretty much the whole time. I think that's why so many come out of those games finding it harder to play other games that don't focus on it as much.

It's funny, because I came into Dark Souls after many hours playing Mount and Blade, and kept comparing the combat negatively to M&B. No positional blocking? Damage isn't based on momentum? What am I even playing?! Rargh!

Fortunately even if Dark Souls was comparatively a bit rubbish on the combat side of things, it more than made up for it with absolutely superb atmospherics.

Yeah, I can see that. I've often heard it compared to M&B and even a little to Gothic. Though I know absolutely nothing about the latter, I've seen the former played quite a bit.

I was on GOG the other day checking out their sale and saw what seemed like six M&B games while scrolling through. I'm thinkin' that maybe I try it out this steam sale, but I have no idea which one to get.

For me, Souls combat, and Souls games in general are kinda like a river. All the aspects of that game are like little streams flowing downhill, and they all start coming together the more you play. And by the end you're just in one river where everything feeds into the whole. And you don't even notice. At least, that was my experience. Mr. Btongue called it a Gesamptkunstwerk in his video about it. That's basically what I'm getting at.

warband is the one you want to get, any "other" ones are either the original (warband should just be the original and have the original destroyed) or are DLC's for warband.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I was on GOG the other day checking out their sale and saw what seemed like six M&B games while scrolling through. I'm thinkin' that maybe I try it out this steam sale, but I have no idea which one to get.

You want Warband, and you probably want to mod it. And you want to be a patient man, because Mount and Blade doesn't have cracks in its presentation, it has FISSURES. It doesn't play like a last gen game, it plays like a last century game. But what it does well, it does so very, very well. A game like SoM has much more balletic combat, but M&B has much more tactical combat.

For me, Souls combat, and Souls games in general are kinda like a river. All the aspects of that game are like little streams flowing downhill, and they all start coming together the more you play. And by the end you're just in one river where everything feeds into the whole. And you don't even notice. At least, that was my experience. Mr. Btongue called it a Gesamptkunstwerk in his video about it. That's basically what I'm getting at.

Ah, I do love Mr. Btongue. I'm sure I watched that video too, and have forgotten it. For me, Dark Souls was a peculiar oddity. It was a triumph of atmosphere, indirect storytelling, and world building from an aesthetic (if not practical) sense. The closest analogue I have for it (oddly) is STALKER. I consider them both to be peerless at atmosphere and immersion, and both kind of pants at traditional storytelling, narrative delivery, complex world-building, UI management and player comfort, etc. Because they are so excellent at what they do well, they are classic games (IMO) and easy recommendations, but I also find them very easy to criticize on a number of fronts.

 

[renegade7]

EVE Online ruined space sims for me. This is already a very small genre, and now not only have I been spoiled to expect that monumental level of complexity and depth, now I'm also too used to playing with other people. I used to be a fan of the X3 games, now I simply cannot play them because I don't like playing on my own.

 

[FPLOON]

I remember when I was playing Rayman Origins for the first time and it made me basically hate going back into playing any of the New Super Mario Bros. games... I think it was mainly because it made me realized how BS the "lives" system is in a platformer... (Ah, good times...)

To add on to what I was saying in the past right there is that when I was playing Rayman Legends for the first time, it almost made me not want to play Rayman Origins again... The key word being "almost" since, at the time, I was still playing co-op with my mother in Rayman Origins...

Other than that, I can't think of any specific examples that can't be countered with "But, it didn't last long" at this point...

 

[IOwnTheSpire]

I won't say Witcher 3 ruined me for future CRPGs, because I love the genre too much, but it sure re-shuffled my list of favorites and set the bar at an extremely high level for new games. Most particularly it had me re-evaluating Dragon Age Inquisition from "disappointment" to "embarrassment".

I genuinely couldn't believe some of the lies printed about DA:I from gaming sites. It was dull and awful in so many ways that when all the reviewers heaped mountains of praise on it I was gobsmacked.

How can these folk even still be in a job? DA:I is a 6/10 game at best and felt exactly like that from the get go.

"Subjective", "opinion"? No way. Not from that many reviewers heaping THAT much praise on it. I'm glad TW3 has made people realize just how bad DA:I is, but I do have to question why some people who are paid to tell us about games didn't relay this to us from the off.

Many tried to cover themselves by saying "it's not as good as Origins". No shit. It's not as good as 50% of WRPG's, never mind Origins.

/end rant

So what you're really saying is this: