Your biggest gaming surprise so far this year

[Ravenbom]

"Biggest" gaming surprise...

Have you played with the dick slider on Conan Exiles? It's like an airport windsock.


Actually, I was going to say the Switch. I can't believe there's finally a Zelda that doesn't hold your hand (besides A Link Between Worlds) and a Zelda where I actually die all the time.
Also, who would have thought Snipper Clips would be such great fun? And Blaster Master Zero blows me away!

Also, Horizon Zero Dawn. I've never gotten a platinum before now. I never cared to. Maybe the best 3PS controls I've ever played.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Spoiler: I just beat Breath of the Wild (no, not 100%)...

There were a couple of factors about the LoZ endgame that caught me off-guard: For one thing, they stuck with Ganon being a somewhat formless force of nature. The Calamity Ganon fight has been my favorite Ganon fight in the series right after the 1v1 duel in Twilight Princess just because of the size, the number of attacks it has at its disposal, etc. I thought it felt a bit Gohma-ish but Gohma never launched a fireball at me that exploded when I instinctively tried to swat it back with my Master Sword. A part of me wants to call Calamity Ganon a Dark Souls-like boss fight but since it couldn't kill me I guess I shouldn't.

The other big surprise for me with Breath of the Wild is how much I hated the fight against Dark Beast Ganon. I guess I didn't technically need to use the Horse because of how many wind-gusts there were but I plodded along with the damn thing and used the most powerful bow in the game to shot an unlimited number of arrows at spots of light that only periodically came about...Then I shot Gohma-Ganon's eyeball once. The fight against Dark Beast Ganon felt tacked on and unnecessary...A part of me wants to liken it to the fight against King Allant from Demon's Souls but at least in the lore of that game, it makes sense and there's some payoff to see what became of the King. Dark Beast Ganon is only here for the same reason Zelda and Link are here: Gotta shoe-horn in that Pig.

I guess the really surprising thing about the Breath of the Wild end-game for me is that they didn't give Ganon a human form or a monologue or anything like that.

 

[darkcalling]

I know it came out mid last year but I didn't get The Technomancer til a couple months ago so it's my biggest surprise.

Not that big a surprise since I really liked Mars:War Logs and Bound by Flame but it's still a really solid (if not particularly innovative) sci-fi rpg. Haven't finished it yet cuz I got distracted by Mass Effect: Andromeda but definitely going back to it soon.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Wait! I changed my mind.

Spoiler: This is the biggest gaming surprise I had so far this year

Playing Night Trap in 2017 on a PS4... WTF!

25 years later, yet still so scandalous!

 

[Orga777]

Look, I knew Persona 5 was going to be great anyway since Persona is always great... But Persona 5 blew my expectations out of the water so much that it became not only my favorite game of the year, but my favorite game in general, which I didn't expect since my favorite game was Final Fantasy VI and I never expected another JRPG to topple it. The whole game is just oozing with style, and the characters are the best in the series, and the story is the best, and everything is just... the best for the series. I loved 4 so much, but this took it down hard and fast. Just. Too. Good. XD

 

[CritialGaming]

I had two surprised this year so far.

1. I was surprised that Persona 5 lived up to all the Persona Hype for me. I've been hearing from friends and just around the internet that Persona was an amazing series, but I was still a little nervous about trying it out as the premise didn't seem interesting to me. Boy was I wrong. Persona 5 had it's hooks in me very early and kept them there for 100 hours. It was a fantastic surprise. Never have I had more fun studying for a test, or watering a plant.

2. On the other side of the surprise list. Zelda being a load of limp dicks was a surprise. I figured there had to be something about Zelda games, as they are way more popular that Persona and there's also a lot more of them than Persona games so I figure the latest entry, Breath of the Wild, would be a good jumping off point. After all I needed a new handheld to play anyway. Imagine my surprise when I load into Breath of the Wild and instant have one of the most frustratingly bad experiences in a game I have ever had in my life. The controls stink, the combat stinks, the shrines are only interesting the first 20 or so until you realize they are all extremely basic, every mechanic in the game is there to interrupt your game play. Weapons are made out of tissue paper, you need to eat a special meal to do anything properly, Armor can flat out break the game. You could argue that Zelda is a exploration game more than anything else, but even that isn't interesting. There isn't enough enemy variety to find, the shrines all get samey after a while, any good gear you find is mostly just a strong piece of throw-away equipment, and even the master sword isn't satifying to use.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

I'm gonna add another Zelda to the chorus, but that game really was a surprise. And not just that it was good, from the pre-release E3 stuff I was reasonably sure the game would at least be better than the shitshow that was Skyward Sword

What I was suprised about is that I've spent about 2 hours playing the game on my sister's Wii U and it just may be my favorite game of all time, no exaggeration.

I never expected how fun it would be to just explore the world and fight the enemies. Every combat encounter seemed different depending on what weapon I happened to have and what environment I was fighting in.

Another surprise was how the equipment degradation is my favorite part. I'm usually the kind of player who saves all their consumables for just the right moment, and I end up finishing the game with a thousand health potions and rockets in my inventory

But since each sword broke in such a rediculoisly small amount of hits, I actually used them more because I knew I would be able to find more weapons easily

Fuck the game is just so damn good

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Well, i guess Rain World, because i didn't know about it till just before it released and it was right up my alley-hole in ways you probably shouldn't imagine. So it surprised quite nicely.

For some reason no other release surprises me, not sure if it's because i don't care that much, or I'm really good at assuming or if i live in an eternal state of quantum uncertainty probably due to a special kind of learning difficulty. There are games i think look good, then get a few bad reviews, so i leave off playing them till much later, but when i do i am surprised that they are actually kinda as good as i first assumed. So...I dunno. End this misery please?