Gaming honeymoon periods

[Spirit]

Honeymoon periods in the gaming medium are those wonderful times when a game comes out and for the first few weeks everyone is in love with it and gushing over it.

Then after those weeks people look back over their time with the game and start to realise it wasnt all that great, negative opinions start to surface, and sometimes it even becomes 'cool' to dislike said game a month or so later.

This happens all the time, to varying degrees, but its constantly a thing.

For example i've seen a lot of negativity and more critical comments being aimed at Horizon Zero Dawn that werent there a couple of weeks ago.

It happened with Skyward Sword quite hard too.


So, have there been any games you've had the honeymoon period for? A game you loved then after a few weeks realised it wasnt all that great and levelled some criticism towards it? Perhaps without malice, but more of an honest opinion without the hype and thrill of the game being new.

 

[Jamie]

Skyward Sword is a big example of this for me. Especially after playing other Zelda games.

 

[Kylo Ken]

Gears of War, the games were great and the multiplayer was super fun, but then I realized that you either use shotgun or sniper, or you lose. No other weapon is good enough. That makes for very boring and 1 dimensional gameplay.

 

[Dio]

Well I was always underwhelmed with SS from the beginning but I wasn't so vocal about it. The more I thought about the game and what it could have been, the more I disliked it.

 

[Dizzi]

i think I agree with Deus SS wasn't that good and also those GTA series

 

[Mido]

In my experience, I often had this feeling when I played the beta to a specific game where the hype builds itself up only to be eventually grounded when the honeymoon is over. Vanilla Destiny being one of the largest offenders of this. The hype going into this reached No Man's Sky levels more or less (although I my personal hype wasn't that large, but large enough); but upon launch and the following weeks, many were left unsatisfied. The story was beyond weak despite its potential and the gameplay, while fun with others, was becoming stale. Eventually, by Year 2, Destiny's potential was getting there, but was still not quite at the levels many hoped. I stuck around more or less for years 1 and 2 because I already bought into it, but looking back, I probably would have made a different choice.

Then we have games like Gears: Judgment where I was excited to experience a new story, but while playing the beta, a huge red flag came up in the form of the new, more "conventional" controls which did not work the best with the gears formula. Why change what works? Coupling that with a bunch of odd changes to the presentation made this game not so great from my perspective. Some of the new stuff was cool, but most were unnecessary changes. I've ranted about this game long enough for how many years now.

As far as most recently goes, I recently replayed Dynasty Warriors 4 after buying it a few months ago after a number of years passed since I last played it. While I still think it's the best in the series, it does show its age (i.e. somewhat stiff controls). While I notice more of its flaws, I still hold the game in high esteem nevertheless.

Gears of War, the games were great and the multiplayer was super fun, but then I realized that you either use shotgun or sniper, or you lose. No other weapon is good enough. That makes for very boring and 1 dimensional gameplay.

This is personally one of the reasons why while I defend this series to the death, I do stand by the fact that the multiplayer isn't the best due to the balancing you mention with the shotguns especiall. I still think Gears has a strong lore and good couch coop with modes like Horde. The multiplayer I only play local or in private lobbies if I can help it. Part of the reason Gears 3 got me a tad sad was that it's unlockables were heavily rooted in online play.

 

[Spirit]

Shadow of Mordor is one for me.

I got the Game of the Year edition (because screw paying extra for dlc). And being a LOTR fan i was happy to be playing a game with the title that didnt wholly suck.

I loved it for the first week or so. I really enjoyed the stealth machanic and silent kills (for the first time in a video game ever) and it felt LOTR-ish enough to keep me playing...

Then after one stealth kill too many, after a little too much wonky lore that started to show through the cracks, and after another defeat by a B-grade named Orc i started to feel a little sour towards the game.

It began not to feel like a competant extension to LOTR but a wonky add on with meh fan service, and if i wasnt stealth killing or running up a tower i wasnt having fun and even that had worn thin quite quick.

I still say its a game worth playing, but the appeal for me wore off very quickly and the more i then played of it just made me feel sour towards the game with the liberties it took with the IP and the repetitive (but fun) gameplay.

Now i cant bring myself to play it all and the sequel doesnt interest me at all.

 

[Djinn]

With a MMO this could be something like 3-6 months. Especially when it comes to looking back and wondering why one ever wanted to play that at all. In more extreme cases it could be years. But online co-op games definitely last longer than the typical console game.

Console games there is maybe 2 weeks before I start getting bored with it and stop caring as much. But I am not so sure about looking back and being disappointed with wasting my time on it. I guess because I do not feel bad playing console games like that.

 

[the8thark]

Hyrule Warriors is totally like this. For the first 40 or so hours the game is great then all it's flaws start to show and the game then quickly loses all of it's shine.