KoA:R... Coyote ugly?

All right. I woke up and popped in KoA:R to give it a quick spin before I start my day.
Allow me this bit of musing please:

It is pretty much understood that this game has a bland story. That's a given. I totally agree that the story is very bland indeed. Story is a HUGE part of why I play RPGs. But other factors can possibly keep me going.

Combat is fun... for a while. When I fired it up this morning and started to play, I realized that I was pummeling everything with very little effort. Even the "hard" enemies were nothing and I don't use potions (or the Fate attack that I have forgotten the name of). At all. Combat is only fun in action RPGs when it is challenging. I feel like I have a cheat activated when I play this and it really hit me this morning that I just don't find the combat as interesting as I did when it was fresh to me yesterday. It's still fast and flashy but it's a stale button masher once you look past that.

That leaves the loot. I'm biased here, since I am not particularly fond of loot based games so keep that in mind while reading this part. I'm underwhelmed with the drops and the gear. Arguably, I might just be too early in the game to really have anything superb drop so I guess I'll leave my opinion on loot in this game to that.

I have no qualms with the art style. I really like the art direction they took. I have mentioned my hate for the layout and implementation of the menus that they chose in other threads so I will leave that alone.

The game, to me, only had two things going for it: The combat system, and the loot game angle that a lot of people seem to love. Take the combat out of that equation, and compound it with the story being poor quality... there isn't much in it for me. Maybe I make it through the game once, maybe not. Feel sort of obligated to finish it after shelling out the money for it. That and... what else am I going to do until ME3's release?

I never listen to "first day" opinions of games because a new game usually instills this euphoria in the gamer that slants their opinion on the game drastically. So I'm curious how those of you that have this game feel after a day or two of playing it. Did you wake up and realize that after buying it you were in a "coyote ugly" situation?

I still love it, especially now that I'm starting to level up more and get more abilities (Magic/Finesse for the fucking win.) The story's generic fare, but it's still done better than most fantasy games nowadays that haven't been based on highly established IPs.

The combat really does rein supreme in this game, though. Now that I have a slew of magic, traps, and Blink (omg I love Blink) I'm really getting into the game. I actually want to fight in this, whereas in games like Skyrim, enemies were just annoying obstacles in the way of quest item/chest #4325. The loot aspect is awesome too, imo. All the gear, minus your standard normal quality drops are pretty unique. I just got a pair of daggers called "Shine and Shadow." They do fire damage during the day and ice damage at night, and they change appearance to reflect it. Awesome.

How far are you into the game? The first few levels are extremely easy, but once you get further in you start to see enemies that really need some good strategy and reflexes to not get destroyed.

i like it so far, it's nothing completely different, but I still like it

I still wanna check it out......

I bought Rage today...was only 20 bucks brand new so I guess that'll keep me busy till Raccoon City comes out in March

So I pretty much am missing out on the better aspects of the combat because I am a pure melee character? Gotcha. I just got rather bored with the combat because I haven't seen anything that requires too much in the way of strategy. I do know that I COULD switch up the combat a little bit and throw in some other moves and traps, but when just mashing X works so well... why bother? It felt like Fable 3 all over again. Something I could occasionally have fun with in small doses but became a yawn-fest after more than 20 minutes of gaming. Unfortunately for me, once I start a game I WILL finish the damned thing no matter what. I have OCD like that.

Thanks for the post Ante. If you say it gets better later then I have some hope. I just wasn't that enthused by fact that I was just pumping X 100% of the time at this point. All I have been doing is side quests and such after I got out of the starting tower so it is possible the "combat flaw" is partially my fault. I just kind of had this feeling that I wasted my money and that didn't help the issue either.

I still wish it had a better story though.

JrTapia: I had a lot of fun with Rage. Phenomenal shooting action. I still have yet to touch the MP on it. I still can't believe they didn't put in a deathmatch mode. Racing??? WTF?!?!?

sounds good man,I've heard some compare Rage to Bioshock,which I thought was cool....I'm installing the 1st disc now...

I couldn't turn it down,brand new for 19.99 and it was the anarchy edition with the extra armor and weapons and sewers dlc

The armor that comes with the Anarchy Edition feels like cheating. "Gee. Pick one of these armors that only have one augmentation on them, or pick this armor that has all of them in one... damn. Tough choice."

The driving was pretty solid in Rage as well. If you ever give the MP a try and I am on hit me up and I will give it a shot with ya.

for some reason i can never get into games like RAGE, only played a few hours of fallout 3 as well.

Rage has some solid action. The ending will irritate you but the ride is phenomenal. All you need to know about Rage is this: Wing Sticks are awesome.
You can't get into post-apocalyptic games? Is it the atmosphere or something else?

i think its because feel like i need to do EVERYTHING, but then i t burnt out before i even initiate the main quest.

There is some side stuff to do but not the ginormous amount that Fallout 3 has.

I've been getting burned out on alot of games too man but I like Rage because it's pretty straight forward,but if you wanna do some looking around or side quests you have the option to....I got overwhelmed in stuff like New Vegas and Skyrim honestly.There was like TOO much stuff to do in those games...

I really like the combat,the enemies are pretty smart always using cover and dancing around.I like it so far,I'm like 4 hours in on the hardest mode,Nightmare

feel bad for wasting so much money upgrading the AK.I should of upgraded shotgun capacity and bought that laser machine gun,which I just did,but it took all my money :'(

Well, I just got to Ysa and the story is definitely starting to pick up. No spoilers, but it seems like I'm going to have to help build an army for a huge battle. Epic.

Encounters are getting quite a bit tougher, too. Just fought a troll boss that could hit me for 80% of my health in one swing. Brought back memories of Dark Souls! This is on normal, btw.


Edit: And here's some screens for anyone falling for the "this game looks like crap" trolls.

<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="https://imgur.com/a/kFmBW/embed"></iframe>

I wandered into a cave last night with some Kobolds what had dark red lettering for their names. Took me a while to beat them. Picked them off one at a time with that... shock(?) spell that you start out with. Occasional fights like that are too far between though. The loot is getting good though. Really enjoying that despite the combat getting old. Reckoning mode is still bad ass as well.