Do FF XIV Players Keep Up With AAA Releases?

[Caurcas]

Hmm, time to try to guess these...

No idea on that first one. Way too vague. I don't remember any strong story launch titles on PS2 though, so that's on me, maybe.

Thief for the stealth game, I think?

Halo: Combat Evolved?

Hoo boy... hmm... hah... hmm... Golden Sun the Lost Age? No? Uhh... how about... .hack?

Once gaming hit the mainstream corporate took over in nearly every company. They went from being companies centered around the game developers to the game developers just being wings of the company.

Transitioning to 3-D and the ever more realistic graphics and audio options also stifled creativity. When you have more constraints you're forced to become more creative and work with what you have.

Silent Hill 2, is the best story although I was slightly off on the date. It was a little under a year into the ps2. Thief is correct for the best stealth game as the depth of sneaking hasn't been touched to that level since. Return To Castle Wolfenstein for the shooter as it's great both as a class based shooter and an arena shooter. Best rpg is Morrowind in all its obtuse, broken and janky glory. That whole era of mid 90s- mid 00s hasn't been topped in the gaming sphere. Most games these days lack character and feel soulless.

[Vyrerus]

Silent Hill 2, is the best story although I was slightly off on the date. It was a little under a year into the ps2. Thief is correct for the best stealth game as the depth of sneaking hasn't been touched to that level since. Return To Castle Wolfenstein for the shooter as it's great both as a class based shooter and an arena shooter. Best rpg is Morrowind in all its obtuse, broken and janky glory. That whole era of mid 90s- mid 00s hasn't been topped in the gaming sphere. Most games these days lack character and feel soulless.

I never got to play Silent Hill 2, but maybe I'll emulate it at some point when I'm in the mood for horror. :Oc so highly thought of, guess I can't ignore it anymore.

Wracking my brain trying to think of a game that'd I'd be confident to say, it's the best story in all of video games, but my brain only generates titles that I'm nostalgic for which is far too many. Some of my favorite stories for games I guess though would be Xenogears, Terranigma, KOTOR 2, Lufia II(SNES), and Ogre Battle 64.

It's hard to beat Morrowind jank for raw fun. Not too mention all that juicy lore and the Telvanni. "I'm a god, how can you kill a god? What a grand and intoxicating innocence, heh." "Oh please, Nerevar, spare me."

[Artemiz]

Both KOTOR one and two as well as their offspring the Mass Effect series all had a great story, its was the high watermark of Bioware history. I never played Silent Hill two so I can't compare unfortunately.

I couldn't get into Morrowind so to me it obviously wasn't the best rpg, I was more of a Baldurs Gate and Neverwinter kinda guy.

Edit: can't believe I forgot Dragon Age, the sequels sucked but Origins was epic

[Ayer2015]

Once you are up to date on current content, this game offers players a lot of opportunity to step away from the game and play other titles between patches. Not hard to play other games unless busy with other aspects of life.

[Kozh]

Eh, I don't know how you can think older games have better writing or creativity. Western games all up to PS3 generation have been made for one and only audience - middle-aged masculine cisgender men... and sometimes feminine cis-women, if the developers were feeling generous. Though, even that would need to be inserted very carefully. You can look at The Last of Us 2 as an example. The game's main event isn't just there to shock the player, it's to have a symbolic meaning - not everything exists for that middle-aged cis man, and that's precisely why people who want to be them eventually, people who are them or want to be around them are being mad over TLOU2. It showed that you can sell and be successfull without catering to the rich middle-class audienc, and that is why they're mad. A character they relate to died, and they act like the "snowflakes" they complain about: breaking video game discs on camera and making rude memes, complementing "fat Geralt" for beating up a problematic child (Lev)...

What a wrong and shitty take. I guess every other "non-cis" women who play those games you just described, doesn't exist for you huh.

Imagine thinking tlou2 isn't about shocking the fans when they go extra lengths to make events happen at the cost of dumbing the characters. And "fat geralt" meme is funny because how ridiculous the scene was XD (and because lev is trash).

[Faafetai]

I usually gravitate to horror games, but have played a tons of stuffs besides ff14. I kind of feel like taking a break sometimes, so leave for another game for a few days. Recently I found out about Disco Elysium, which was super melancholy, like one of those old detective noir like movies or books of old. The only part that was kind of strange and out of place it felt was random politics of that world similar to our own. I was role playing my main character as someone who could fake it till he made it when interacting with the characters. I figured a good detective would be able to speak with anyone with any political views in order to make them feel comfortable divulging more personal information due to the characters personalities/identities being heavily tied to their political views.

I highly doubt I would have gotten as much information from some of the witnesses and suspects if I didn't lie and say 'I am definitely (insert political identity here). I know where you are coming from'. Unfortunately, I think this may have broken the hidden system that was 'profiling' what type of character I was attempting to make similar to Silent Hill Shattered Memories. That game was suppose to 'profile you' and those always seem to bug out on me. In the end the game gave me a super conflicting political view when playing a character who really didn't have any views. They were just a jaded older cop, who was kind of giving up on the world, but was finding a reason to go one through the case he was solving and his new detective partner who made him feel there may be a reason to continue living. Though the gimmick of the game for replayablility is the player can come back and make a new type of Harry. You can make them whatever type of detective you want, so you could see how things would turn out if you never decided to quite drinking, or chose to fall down the pit to oblivion via losing oneself within copious amounts of mind altering narcotics. It was a pretty good game despite some of its flaws/bugs.

To keep this post somewhat shorter, because I am well aware when I get going about something enjoyable, I can ramble a bit >.<

Hmmm...I have played a bunch of things not ff14, but many new titles except for maybe Elden Ring have caught my interest. I do not keep up with many of the news on upcoming games, so when I discover something I would take a break from ff14 to test it out. Anything really from Wasteland 2, Kotor, Xcom, Starcraft, Silent Hill, Deadly Premonitions, Mass effect, Dragon Age, Visage, Observer, Soma, Bioshock, Cs;go(for a long while I played)as well as other Valve games) Left 4 Dead(I put too many hours within that game I am afraid to admit especially with all of the player made maps to go through), Dark Souls series, Overwatch, Star Wars Mmo, Star Trek Online, Eve Online, Scratches, Resident Evil, Factorio, Little Nightmares, Pulsar Lost colony, Even Minecraft modded for a time, and just a ton of random stuffs within a ton of different genres.

[ReynTime]

Capcom, Nintendo, Platinum Games, Sega (Sonic aside), Atlus, Bandai-Namco (anime licenses aside), all still make solid games. There are plenty of good indie developers putting out good stuff, including some that used to work with big publishers.
I've seen some rabid jRPG/japanese game bashing here but I'll take their games over the numerous first-person same-looking or interactive movies or barely-a-game-at-all ("it's an experience!!!!") work that AAA western studios put out lately when they're not just releasing freemium or paid games with predatory microtransactions.
I don't care how creative the writing or visuals are if it feels like I'm just walking around reading or watching stuff and not much else.
There are plenty of good japanese games, and even jRPGs, post-2000. They're just not being released by Square-Enix.

Even Konami went back to releasing games instead of pachinko machines.