It already looks very fun to play! The possibilities for platforming with the combination of grapple hook from Ori and pogo from Hollow Knight.... 👀👀👀 And the player animations are really smooth and fluid!
As a Celeste player, I found that while the additional content to the main story was incredibly welcome and expanded on the game's challenges, the creation of modding tools provided significantly more longevity and users tend to create content that pushes the boundaries of challenge to a point the game never really ends, nor do we as individuals or a community reach a point of having completely mastered what the game can offer. Not to mention, making content is in itself is a whole other method to experience and explore depths of a game. I would personally suggest that enabling of user-created content is a great approach to endgame content; a sort of endgame but without the end.
Yeah. You have the most bizzare shitpost level where the a-side is a cutscene, the b-side is incredibly difficult because you cant use dashes, and a borderline impossible c-side.
Terraria's Calamity Mod does this perfectly: Supreme Calamitas and the Exo Mechs are the logical end of the mod, but the Terminus that triggers the Boss Rush event gives you nothing but a single rock is the TRUE end that you can use all your crazy dev equipment on, and gives you nothing that you're never gonna use in return, leaving you exactly how you started, endgame weapons used.
I wouldn't say perfectly as you end up melting 90% of the bosses, but it does a decent job And it lets you see the funny dev weapons in all their glory
Once you beat the boss rush, the game states, "Hmm? You expected a reward beyond this mere pebble? Patience, the true reward will come apparent in time..." I get the feeling that beating the boss rush/obtaining the rock is necessary in order to fight Xeroc in one of the future updates, once he is added.
My favorite game with optional content that seemed to be more endgame focused is Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. The areas in Kingdom Hearts 1 I loved because the arena transformed a little each cup and the bosses were amazing including the secret bosses in some of the worlds. I didn't love the arena in Kingdom Hearts 2 even though I liked the bosses but every other optional boss was amazing (Data Organization 13, Lingering Will).
KH2 still has one of my favorite end games. Normally i don't do bonus bosses in games because i always find them more annoying then fun, but the data fights are so fun that I actually grinding to get to level 99 for them. I even only have the games on the PS3 so I get extra long loading times each time i die, but it's still worth the time
Seeing my two favourite games of all time in a video thumbnail, on an surprisingly recent video considering how both games are a good few years old, this must be a blessing from the game gods themselves!
As long as it's optional I don't have a problem with it. It's normally not my thing but sometimes I'll engage in some. My concern is that we'll see this thing bleed over into the base game and even culturally you know "if you don't do endgame your opinion on the game doesn't matter" as we've seen a lot. I remember distinctly a review on steam I read once, person had played metroidvania since the beginning but he couldn't play the game because the difficulty was too high. So while I wouldn't mind some extra content to keep challenging me (Will of the Wisps final "flame toss" ability was really great but yeah you're done after) I am concerned this could become a barrier for people who aren't playing these for the challenge, but may for the environmental challenge. Speaking as an autistic person I can also add that metroidvania/action-platformer developers are often rather piss-poor at developing later challenges in ways that doesn't totally screw with neurodiverse folkis.
oh 100% like I said in the video, it should always be optional. You should at least be able to get the base ending without having to dabble into stuff like that.
@@Pogobro that also leads to like. What is a good reward? Ive heard a lot of gripes about having to do unfun 100% runs in games to get the "true" endings. Ive seen Hollow Knights Godslayer endings and Arkham Knight as games that get derided for this (for better or worse)
@@colmecolwag its optional stuff put in the game for people that can get it. If someone isnt having a good time doing something but does it anyways thats on them for being stubborn
@@Pogobro yeah, its when you add Extra Endings to the end of that is when it feels less "optional" to people and you get those sorts of things. Ive seen a lot of gripes about that Endgame Reward being TOO good that it makes it feel less optional at least
@@colmecolwag A good example of that is "Yoku's Island Express" a fantastic metroidvania/pinball hybrid but the "true ending" requires gathering a shitton of collectibles, I don't know if it's even possible to get them all without a guide, and it is SO not worth it.
This is actually something I've been thinking about a lot for Lone Fungus. The planned Boss Rush mode is definitively something that will play a part since I plan on essentially having super versions of every boss in that mode.
my only complaint about the Ori series is precisely the lack of endgame content, kinda wish there was some really crazy and hard optional challenges other than just the achievements for beating the games without dying also that Nara game looks great, thanks for pointing it out
This right there is the reason why final fantasy Tactics advance and the combo Zelda oracle of time/seasons were my favorite titles for both licenses for a long time! FF tactics had a whole additional chapter that let you recruit all the secondary characters you meet through the main story, and Zelda oot/oos had that crazy concept of continuing your game into the second one, importing items between the two games through codes, a whole additional dongeons and secret boss ending!
Wow, you perfectly explained why I love HK and Celeste. Those game became one of my favorites when I reached the endgame and felt the most enjoyment of my whole playthrough. I spent countless hours beating bosses without getting hit on HK and beating Celeste C9 and even it was hard as hell, it was really fun cause I have learned the movement and skills of the character so well that even if I lost I knew what it was and how to do it better. Also, I didn't know Doom Eternal had good endgame content and Nara looks really cool
One thing that should be said about Hollow Knight is that it's one of the rare Kickstarter games that was a runaway success story. A lot of the endgame content was originally proposed in stretch goals, where it made sense to finish the whole game and then have little optional modules they could add but weren't exactly crucial. Not to dismiss their success or anything - even vanilla, the game is masterpiece through and through - but that's probably a reason why postgame emerged as a focus. Shovel Knight is another good example of this.
In single player games the game itself should be the endgame, like devil may cry for instant mastering the game and it's mechanics is the endgame for those who wants to + Ender lillies is the same as hollow knight in endgame because it literally has the God home dlc in it's base game
@@Pogobro I disagree, I think ender lillies went with quality over quantity in there boss design there is literally no boss in the game that I can call bad and everyone is memorable and have a very deep lore and connection to the world + For a guy who will play the game just one time more then half of the hollow knight bosses are forgettable and as you said "very mechanically bland " even for people who wants to master the game
My favorite thing about the Hollow Knight post game is the plot relevance of the new content. You get the tiniest little new story sliver for doing the Path of Pain, but it's incredibly rewarding. Then, if you complete Godhome, you get expertly crafted new bosses, like the nail sages, the pure version of the Hollow Knight itself, and a version of Radiance that is so expertly crafted, it feels incredible to play against. It's not just a boss rush; it represents a whole new experience and level of challenge rather than just throwing bosses at you back to back with no new material.
Yeah lol I think I spent more time on endgame content than I did in the base game. I did all of it except poh with all bindings because I got way too dependent on my charms so I’m saving it for when I replay the game
Replay ability is also really important, the reason I play Dark Soul, Skyrim, Borderlands, and many other rpg is the different ways and play style you can experiment with.
I remember playing the shit out of Megaman BN 3's post game. So many extra bosses, that whole growing the pet or whatever it was. Agreed, post-game is sick.
Having endgame content be (free) dlc is a pretty good way of going about it- the main demographic for dlc expansions are people who want to play more, new content of the game after they have already most/all of it, which happens to be exactly the people who want endgame content.
I got the platinum for Ghostrunner and then I realized there was a hardcore mode and some other challenges. All of this besides the death ranking that gives it absurd replayability. Can't ever put the game to rest.
When it comes to Ori and the Will of Wisps, one could argue that performing a no-death run might constitute exactly what you're describing. It isn't really an “endgame” per se, but it does truly push the player's skill to the limit and the game actively encourages doing so by having an achievement dedicated to that challenge.
Death's door was indeed fantastic for 1 playthrough (2 if you did an umbrella run) and then yeah... that was it. absolutely adored the game but once you finished that first playthrough that was it. It left me wanting a lot more. The avarice were really cool mob rush fights and I would have love to seen an endless wave clear or a boss rush type thing to really push my limits once you fully upgrade the character and get all the abilities/weapons. Having that option to do that in Hollow Knight really is what makes it the GOAT.
@@Pogobro my favorite game series megaman is kind of wired because the wily/castle steges at the end always exist with that "endgame" version of the player in mind.
Super metroid has ridley's hedeout which is a big difficulty spike and the only new item you find there is the screw attack and it's a really good endgame challenge ending with you defeating the hardest boss in the game - Ridley
Another game that has good endgame content (albeit this is an jrpg) is kingdom hearts II. It has the mushroom XII members, which test your combat skills in unique ways that isn’t hit and dodge enemies. There’s also the cavern of remembrance, which tests your parkour, something that isn’t really seen anywhere else for the most part. At the end of it is an enemy gauntlet filled with sorcerers, dragoons, dancers, and Samurai nobodies (some of the hardest enemies in the game), and if you can get past that, you unlock the data Organization XII fights. Consisting of rematches against the game’s villains, who are now incredibly fast, strong, and brutal, these are among the hardest fights this series gas to offer. There’s also the other two super bosses, Sephiroth and The Lingering Will, who are incredibly brutal fights as well (with the Lingering Will being considered by many veteran players as the hardest boss in the series)
dunno if anyone else feels like this but def getting this feel with the recent release cult of the lamb. the game was so fun me friend and i no lifed it on discord with eachother, streaming our games to one another while discussing possible builds and what we thought of the added difficulties with the side effects implemented from each bishop after the first, but after roughly 16 hours over the span of 3 days we were left thirsty for more
You really used Hyper Light Drifter, Celeste, Hollow Knight, and Doom Eternal, easily four of my favorite games, as your positive examples here. I like this channel lol
2:50 I remember this game I think, but looking for the name. I remember it being used as an example of some mechanics being used for more than one thing, like combat but also movement
As a puzzle game enthusiast I must say, they do endgame content like no other genre. For the most part it’s just a way to make a puzzle game beatable by anyone while still giving enough of a challenge for those who feel up to it. It’s not necessary of course, my favourite game of all time is Stephen’s Sausage Roll and that game has 0 optional content.
Endgame content isn't meant to be in every game just because you want it. It's mainly the online games that want players to just keep playing the same game for years on end. Single player games are meant to experienced and the move on if its a really good game you play it again with a different build or a higher difficulty or you try to get all achievements. That's how it should be in my opinion and to expect a quality game to be able to just keep going I think is maybe expecting to much, it takes alot of time and effort to make a good self contained single player experience and to always want more is I think greedy, just appreciate it for what it is and stop always expecting more because you will get games that are not as good but just through more crappy content at for the sake of saying we have more.
Even in games without a lot of endgame content, speedrunning can be a really fun way to prove the skills learned while playing. another option (in case of Ori WOTW for example) is replaying the game on a harder difficulty. Having no replayability AND no endgame content for sure caps the game at "ok" at best.
Monster Hunter's endgame is very well thought out, most times. I really love how they make us go fight earlier monsters that might be forgotten if not for endgame
Short Answer: Totally No Somewhat longer answer: it depends on the gameplay loop and the game itself. If you can grind, having an "endgame" can be good to get bester stuff or just have a challenge mode that lets you fight all previous bosses. Like: Destiny, Warframe, Hollow Knight and so on. Games that tell a story and can grind, can have an "endgame" but it depends if the game gives you after finishing the story away to get new content. Like Xenoblade Chronicles 2, after beating the story you get acces to NG+ and in it you get new and exclusive merchants and special bosses. Games that only have a Story don't need a "endgame", since after reaching and finishing the last mission/quest the game already showed you all it had. Like Bioshock 1+2, Even infinite and some other games
Bloodborne has those random dungeons that you can visit to min-max even more and with curses the bosses there get crazy, I would love too see something like that in DS 3, Elden Ring etc
Copy Kitty probably qualify. You have the main story mode with the main character but there's an alternate story mode with another character with alternate gameplay. Then, when you clear the main story, you unlock the extra stage with its own challenges and hard mode which if you want more, continue the story, remixes the level, give you new enemies and new powers to use. Old bosses get new movesets and new ones appears because you kinda thrashed some of them in normal mode. :P There's also a boss rush mode after you clear the game and an endless mode with its own environments and bosses. There also a level editor if you want to create your own challenges. Perhaps you might want to look into it? :D It's a platformer where you can copy the opponents powers and mix them together to blew everything up and it has some epic boss fights and in hard mode, it even get a bit bullet hell-y.
As someone who plays games, I've wanted more endgame content in quite a few games. As someone who makes games, I do understand how it can be very hard to do so, under the constraints of time/money and needing to feed people with money from sales. I think the compromise is to make the game without enough endgame, and if it sells well make a DLC to reward hardcore fans with. When you're already sure you've got a game fans like, say with a sequel to a success, it's a lot less risky to put all of that in up front. Especially people like me, indiedevs who haven't had a successful game yet, seem to fare better first looking for something that resonates with people before putting too many hours into a single game. (He said in his second year of preproduction)
I like that Sekiro gives you a chance to play the game charmless in ng+ which imo feels completely different to playing the game normally. It also has a boss rush dlc with new moves for bosses and new moves to unlock.
If you want a game with TONS of endgame content, check out Environmental Station Alpha. It's got so much endgame content, you just have to look for it. The final boss does end the game immediately, but if you go looking, you'll find a few guys around the map spouting an alien language which you'll have to decipher. Past that, i won't spoil anything, but i ABSOLUTELY recommend checking it out if you want a metroidvania with an endgame which seems completely out of left field. You may need a guide or two for the endgame, because it is incredibly complex and puzzling, but i think it's really cool that they expanded upon the game so much past the final boss.
my favorite endgame was with naruto ultimate ninja 5, when after you collected everything and got all the secondary missions done, you get a whole new level playable with sasuke and some hints of the future plot that was coming for the anime
I love how Death's Gambit: Afterlife did its endgame. You beat the game, you beat the final boss that was hyped up for the rest of the game, get a cool plot twist, but then... (scroll down for spoilers) The game reveals a new antagonist who was behind everything. There are multiple other bosses and a plot-crucial decision after that pseudo-final boss, and this is the best part of the game.
I have 30+ hours on The Witcher 3, all with just sidequests and about 10% of the main quest, it gets a little bit overwhelming to be stopped every 10 steps to help a farmer to retreive his goat tbh
i was expecting a whiny video about games not having enough content but you gave a lot of good reasons to include end game content besides just giving players more to do.
As a Monster Hunter fan, yes, the games have always been around the idea of endgame. The last rank introduces new monsters, upgrade old ones, new quests, features, armor, weapons, maps, and is nuch harder. Although to be fair the latest games have gotten easier and easier, the ultimate example of great endgame content would be the Fatalis fight from Monster Hunter World Iceborne. Also watching this video made me realized WHERE IS KATANA ZERO DLC?
I don’t get why it happens in my brain, but when I finish a game with no other content other than a campaign I just feel I’ve fully completed it and I barely ever come back, but when there are other modes and things which mix up the regular gameplay or give you cooler upgrades I keep coming back. Even in games like pvz garden warfare shooters where obtaining max rank takes ages and ages, it still played it was more than if there was no rank system. I don’t really get why I crave long goals in games but I find the idea of something I can keep playing and almost never reach appealing
When pokemon basically cut its endgame content (looking at you battle frontier and plentiful postgame events/legendaries) was when I pretty much dropped the series
What I found very genius about the godmaster dlc is that this is the one factor that turned hollow knight into one of the games that I regularly came back to. Normally I would have played through the game, called it a masterpiece and then left it for what it is, but with the implement of godhome, the game got relevant again and again while trying to complete all of the bindings, radiant difficulty bosses etc.
Don't Starve Together is a great example of a game that really benefits from Endgame content. The game is really difficult and it doesn't help you at all so the early game is meant to be simple for new players, simple yet still very fun bosses with simple attack patterns. But then you get to bosses like Celestial Champion who can literally roll to you at the speed of light. You gotta make full use of your speed capabilities like a Magiluminescence on top of a Walking Cane to run or else you're gonna get demolished by the Champion.
About this topic I would like to mention Blasphemous like a great example of endgame or extra content. The free dlc a side for polish the game give a lot of new content like extra boses a boss rush mode and the possibility of new game + with a new set of rules that change a lot how you have to play the game. Another good examples for me are the games Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, Origins doesnt have a lot of content but there is an extra level "Land of the Liveng Death" that is extremely difficult, to the point that its near imposible to do a no death run of that level. Legends for the other part had a lot of extra challenges with extra rules like time limit of a shadow following you.
Kind of like Death's Gambit: Afterlife where you only get most of movement and special abilities like Airdash and Fast Travel towards the end of the game and after NG+ those upgrades are gone again
One of my favorite games is persona 5 Royal, and yeah it has ng+ but it has nothing that really tests all your broken abilities you can have at that point. But in persona 5 strikers, you can only do the highest difficulty in ng+, and it changes the first, most basic enemies, to be like level 70, and this difficulty also makes it way easier to get the skills and stat ups you want, so it's a new game plus that's harder than the original playthrough but more rewarding, I think the traditional persona games and even other turn based RPGs could do that more
Hollow Knight is my favorite game of all time. I enjoyed the Ori series but always wished there was more to it. This video pretty much encapsulates exactly why I feel this way! Also, Nara looks like a really cool mix of Hollow Knight and Ori (Don't worry, I don't feel like it's a copy, although I hope they add in some other stuff into it as well), and I am interested to give it a playthrough and see what it has in store!
the thing is, hollowknight may have had only two guys and a limited budget, but what they didnt have was a deadline, they could have continues making the game and adding even more than whats in it now. but for a large company with shareholders and licensing deals it becomes more difficult to add optional content
It doesn't have to be "endgame." You could unlock everything and reach full power at like half-point of the game. Then spend the rest of the game perfecting your skills with the given toolkit.
I agree with you but I want to add another perspective. One problem that I came across playing Hollow Knight and Elden Ring was that if you actually take time to explore everything then you risk making the game trivial by mistake. For instance in Hollow Knight I've seen a lot of people agree that the final nail upgrade is too much damage. You can get this upgrade during normal gameplay so it's not like you're minmaxing, the game just isn't tuned for it until the dlcs. I had a similar expirience in Elden Ring where in my first playthrough I ended up overpowered and overleveled for my next content without ever farming runes or gear or anything. Endgame should be tuned so that you can't overprepare by accident during normal gameplay.
3d mario games past galaxy come to mind, every 3d mario game starting at galaxy 2 has a secret final level that is hard as balls, testing youre platforming to the max with different themes youve seen across the game, with the one most people know the most being the perfect run lol
The superboss/secret area is often the peak of the game’s gameplay, where it’s allowed to push its challenge to the max, because it can assume/force the player to master the whole moveset of its game.
Yeah I think more games should have endgame stuff. I do remember going through the whole of Resident Evil 7 with a friend, getting all the cool weapons and then having only the disappointing final boss to use them, which really dragged it down for me. Can you imagine if minecraft ended the game after you beat the ender dragon, nobody would like it anywhere near as much. But it is there, there is all the stuff in the end to do, more gear, netherite expanding the tech tree. They aren’t needed to get to the ‘final boss’ of the game, but they exist and expand it so much more. Like you said, they don’t need it but it would be nice to have it as an option.
Botw doesn’t need any endgame content because there are so many things to finish of after you beat the game. There are also so many thinks that you don’t know about
(Minor spoilers for Omori): One of my favorite games, Omori, is split up into two different "routes" through the game (similar to Undertale's pacifist and genocide routes for example). One route focuses more on the game story, and the RPG gameplay does kind of end abruptly with not much of an endgame or final challenge to test your skills on. (The game does keep going after this, it just doesn't use the RPG mechanics much after this). Honestly this is ideal for the game, it really works well to contribute to the game as a work of art. However, the game does have an endgame for the players who wanted one. The alternate route is focused way more on the RPG gameplay and introduces some new quests, bosses, and a boss rush challenge. This way of handling things is very unique, and gives the option to play more of the game to the most dedicated players (although it would be nice if there was less repeated content in the alt route, or at least an option to skip through some of the dialogue and stuff)
Oh, absolutely. The fact that Ruined King didn't have any endgame whatsoever for me to use those ultimate weapons on made me so fucking salty i actually felt like a LoL player.
Unsure if the latest in the mainline Mario series (SMG2, SM3DW, SMO) does have that endgame you're looking for, but I think that can be also a great example of testing everything learned on an optional level but rewards and "final story" are great.
I think the big question with how to do endgames is how to fit them into the story. Endgames that feel like major parts of the story can feel necessary and make the original ending feel unsatisfactory, which is a problem for players who were ready to call it quits once they saw the credits. On the other hand, endgames that don't have any bearing on the story at all can feel tacked on and artificial.
Each game in the Dark souls series has a few dlc bosses that really just are endgame. They test all of your skills. Also try these dlc bosses on ng and ng+ they are incredibly hard bosses.
@@Pogobro Easy and short compared to the DLC fights from DS3 or Bloodborne perhaps; but Artorias, Kalameet, and Manus are all handily the hardest fights in DS1. The only battles that come close in the main game only do so because when you reach them on the first playthrough you don't know what you're doing yet and are still learning the game.
huge agree, though personally i wasnt a huge fan of Hyperlight Drifter's boss rushes because theyre difficult just by stripping the player of abilities and weapons, and challenge via making the player weaker rather than the enemies stronger is generally way less interesting and fun. moreso chipping away at spongier enemies while feeling weak and slow than having to master every element of your toolkit to defeat something that tests everything youve learned up to that point and more
Celeste doom eternal and hollow knight are the games that I’ve put the most effort into learning and excelling at (besides dead cells) and they all have that chance to really learn the game’s mechanics like you said I think I really have that drive to completely master any game I pick up and I really enjoy when it gives me that option to rest my skills refine them and eventually conquer its toughest challenges
@@Pogobro i think it’s design philosophy the way they go about their genres and how they make you interact with their mechanics so well that pulls some kinds of players in so much
the endgame for dark souls is seeking out the means to become a darkwrathe and invade other players. the true test of your ability to make (or google) a build
This is very true. One of my favorite games for atmosphere and gameplay is metro exodus, but so many of the cool weapons (rail gun, auto crossbow) you can only use on the final few linier levels and there is no use in using scopes or anything like that because all the environments are CQB. The crossbow is probably the most egregious example, you get it in the 2nd to last mission where in order to get a good ending you have to play as a stealth pacifist with a total of 3 areas of actual unrestricted combat (1 of which you only need to use throwing weapons). The game would be a million times better if there was a second half where you repeated all the chapters in reverse order when returning to Moscow, minus maybe the ones which don’t make sense, where enemies are harder and more numerous and you have endgame gear. Perhaps revisiting all the places you went to and seeing the consequences of your actions
I would say that the End Game for DS is either NG+ or you do PVP, which.. sure, seems boring, but that's basically what all there is when it comes to completing the game. Just upgrade everything before you kill the last boss, move on to NG+ and keep doing it for upgrades. Then, you can take your fine tuned build and demolish people by kicking your router, going up behind people and pressing mouse 1.
I would definitely like to see more games embrace an optional but hardcore endgame. It's always my favorite part of almost any game. My favorite being the KH3 DLC, which its main selling point is the addition of 14 new superbosses, all with their own unique theme. I and many others would agree they are among the best traditional action game bosses of all time. You can push yourself even further though. There are multiple difficulties, the ability to remain at LV1 for the entire game (where most things are 1-hit KOs), and with the DLC, they even added a special mode similar to HK Bindings in which you place restrictions on yourself, and you earn points when defeating bosses. The more restrictions, the more points. Reach a high enough threshold for an A rank and a gold trophy. All this amazing optional challenge, both present in the main game and in the endgame DLC. All of this, in a Disney x Square Enix title, where Donald and Goofy are your party members and you can go visit Whinnie the Pooh. Why Kingdom Hearts of all games can potentially be one the hardest action games out there is beyond me, but it is and I love it. I wish more games would follow suit! As a side note, I wish games would stop locking higher difficulties behind game completion, There are so many downsides to this that I couldn't possibly name them all. And sadly this is utterly *rampant* in games.
As someone who plays games for the story, I don't really like optional content in general. It just makes me feel like I'm missing out on something if I don't do it and bored if I do. It feels more like grinding than enjoying a game to me, so for the upcoming Xenoblade 3 I've decided to ignore all sidequests, unless I need to grind.
Cough noita cough, though noita has some uniqueness in its skill progression so most players don’t even beat it once and saying it’s a roguelike that makes wizard of legend feel like vampire survivor’s meta progression wise, it becomes hell when you lose your god run
By far the best endgame I’ve played through is monster hunter world. Like it’s to the point that I spent most of my time in the endgame grinding, and it never really got boring until 1000 hours
This is literally exactly what bugged me most about classic RPG's and the FF series. Which is why I included a new game plus in my own game, with scalable difficulty. That way, you can keep building your characters, even with great equipment, while still facing a new challenge.
With Hollow Knight when you 107% out of 112% you've done everything. You got all the charms and masks and such. The white palace and hive were needed to get items. The colleseum and godhome gave the other 5% but didn't give any upgrades. And they are just enemies or boss rushes. There are no room or puzzles that don't give anything or any percents except for the hunter's journal which is still just Killing Monsters(TM) from Witcher 3. It is over 100% because the DLC's added stuff, including charms and such.
Thank you so much for featuring Nara! You don't know how much this means to us :)
Did you guys take inspiration from Hollow Knight? No hate, just saw some similarities.
@@valenliu6458 Of course! Our main inspirations were Hollow Knight, Ori and Celeste.
It already looks very fun to play! The possibilities for platforming with the combination of grapple hook from Ori and pogo from Hollow Knight.... 👀👀👀 And the player animations are really smooth and fluid!
@@glowinggladestudio5470 Already 3 of of the games I had the most fun playing!
looks very very cool!!
You have been killing these videos. Very well said and hyped about Nara. It looks like it could be a great game
Ayoooo
Wow Relyea is here too!
favorite hk youtuber!
As a Celeste player, I found that while the additional content to the main story was incredibly welcome and expanded on the game's challenges, the creation of modding tools provided significantly more longevity and users tend to create content that pushes the boundaries of challenge to a point the game never really ends, nor do we as individuals or a community reach a point of having completely mastered what the game can offer. Not to mention, making content is in itself is a whole other method to experience and explore depths of a game. I would personally suggest that enabling of user-created content is a great approach to endgame content; a sort of endgame but without the end.
Yeah. You have the most bizzare shitpost level where the a-side is a cutscene, the b-side is incredibly difficult because you cant use dashes, and a borderline impossible c-side.
@@rainwaiv Madeline votes in the 2020 US presidential election?
@@toxoids correct
@@rainwaiv there is also a d side by the same person, its a different mod
@@toxoids damn
5:42 ah yes, my favourite Monster Hunter game
Terraria's Calamity Mod does this perfectly: Supreme Calamitas and the Exo Mechs are the logical end of the mod, but the Terminus that triggers the Boss Rush event gives you nothing but a single rock is the TRUE end that you can use all your crazy dev equipment on, and gives you nothing that you're never gonna use in return, leaving you exactly how you started, endgame weapons used.
yeah the rock is just bragging rights
I wouldn't say perfectly as you end up melting 90% of the bosses, but it does a decent job
And it lets you see the funny dev weapons in all their glory
@@musicexams5258 so what you want to beat the game and now ur weapons are shit?
And cant beat any bosses
@@crazyfriend50 What I mean by "melting" is "killing a boss in like 10 seconds"
Once you beat the boss rush, the game states, "Hmm? You expected a reward beyond this mere pebble? Patience, the true reward will come apparent in time..."
I get the feeling that beating the boss rush/obtaining the rock is necessary in order to fight Xeroc in one of the future updates, once he is added.
My favorite game with optional content that seemed to be more endgame focused is Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. The areas in Kingdom Hearts 1 I loved because the arena transformed a little each cup and the bosses were amazing including the secret bosses in some of the worlds. I didn't love the arena in Kingdom Hearts 2 even though I liked the bosses but every other optional boss was amazing (Data Organization 13, Lingering Will).
Thank you for mentioning the Kingdom Hearts series. I fucking love those games
KH2 still has one of my favorite end games. Normally i don't do bonus bosses in games because i always find them more annoying then fun, but the data fights are so fun that I actually grinding to get to level 99 for them. I even only have the games on the PS3 so I get extra long loading times each time i die, but it's still worth the time
I'd also add Kh3's DLC to that, those limitcut bosses are great postgame content.
Seeing my two favourite games of all time in a video thumbnail, on an surprisingly recent video considering how both games are a good few years old, this must be a blessing from the game gods themselves!
you have great taste in games :)
As long as it's optional I don't have a problem with it. It's normally not my thing but sometimes I'll engage in some. My concern is that we'll see this thing bleed over into the base game and even culturally you know "if you don't do endgame your opinion on the game doesn't matter" as we've seen a lot. I remember distinctly a review on steam I read once, person had played metroidvania since the beginning but he couldn't play the game because the difficulty was too high. So while I wouldn't mind some extra content to keep challenging me (Will of the Wisps final "flame toss" ability was really great but yeah you're done after) I am concerned this could become a barrier for people who aren't playing these for the challenge, but may for the environmental challenge. Speaking as an autistic person I can also add that metroidvania/action-platformer developers are often rather piss-poor at developing later challenges in ways that doesn't totally screw with neurodiverse folkis.
oh 100% like I said in the video, it should always be optional. You should at least be able to get the base ending without having to dabble into stuff like that.
@@Pogobro that also leads to like. What is a good reward? Ive heard a lot of gripes about having to do unfun 100% runs in games to get the "true" endings. Ive seen Hollow Knights Godslayer endings and Arkham Knight as games that get derided for this (for better or worse)
@@colmecolwag its optional stuff put in the game for people that can get it. If someone isnt having a good time doing something but does it anyways thats on them for being stubborn
@@Pogobro yeah, its when you add Extra Endings to the end of that is when it feels less "optional" to people and you get those sorts of things.
Ive seen a lot of gripes about that Endgame Reward being TOO good that it makes it feel less optional at least
@@colmecolwag A good example of that is "Yoku's Island Express" a fantastic metroidvania/pinball hybrid but the "true ending" requires gathering a shitton of collectibles, I don't know if it's even possible to get them all without a guide, and it is SO not worth it.
1:50 HIVE KNIGHT HIVE KNIGHT HIVE KNIGHT
This is actually something I've been thinking about a lot for Lone Fungus. The planned Boss Rush mode is definitively something that will play a part since I plan on essentially having super versions of every boss in that mode.
5:47 Monster Hunter 🤨
Obviously
i mean, it's not wrong XD
lol
I love Celeste’s endgame so I think other games having that would be really cool.
“Inspired” might be an understatement for that last game
my only complaint about the Ori series is precisely the lack of endgame content, kinda wish there was some really crazy and hard optional challenges other than just the achievements for beating the games without dying
also that Nara game looks great, thanks for pointing it out
This right there is the reason why final fantasy Tactics advance and the combo Zelda oracle of time/seasons were my favorite titles for both licenses for a long time!
FF tactics had a whole additional chapter that let you recruit all the secondary characters you meet through the main story, and Zelda oot/oos had that crazy concept of continuing your game into the second one, importing items between the two games through codes, a whole additional dongeons and secret boss ending!
Wow, you perfectly explained why I love HK and Celeste. Those game became one of my favorites when I reached the endgame and felt the most enjoyment of my whole playthrough. I spent countless hours beating bosses without getting hit on HK and beating Celeste C9 and even it was hard as hell, it was really fun cause I have learned the movement and skills of the character so well that even if I lost I knew what it was and how to do it better. Also, I didn't know Doom Eternal had good endgame content and Nara looks really cool
One thing that should be said about Hollow Knight is that it's one of the rare Kickstarter games that was a runaway success story. A lot of the endgame content was originally proposed in stretch goals, where it made sense to finish the whole game and then have little optional modules they could add but weren't exactly crucial. Not to dismiss their success or anything - even vanilla, the game is masterpiece through and through - but that's probably a reason why postgame emerged as a focus. Shovel Knight is another good example of this.
In single player games the game itself should be the endgame, like devil may cry for instant mastering the game and it's mechanics is the endgame for those who wants to
+ Ender lillies is the same as hollow knight in endgame because it literally has the God home dlc in it's base game
the difference being that ender lillies has like 8 total bosses and to ME at least they were all very mechanically bland.
@@Pogobro
I disagree, I think ender lillies went with quality over quantity in there boss design there is literally no boss in the game that I can call bad and everyone is memorable and have a very deep lore and connection to the world
+ For a guy who will play the game just one time more then half of the hollow knight bosses are forgettable and as you said "very mechanically bland " even for people who wants to master the game
@@Nello_angelo just goes to show everyone views things differently!
My favorite thing about the Hollow Knight post game is the plot relevance of the new content. You get the tiniest little new story sliver for doing the Path of Pain, but it's incredibly rewarding. Then, if you complete Godhome, you get expertly crafted new bosses, like the nail sages, the pure version of the Hollow Knight itself, and a version of Radiance that is so expertly crafted, it feels incredible to play against. It's not just a boss rush; it represents a whole new experience and level of challenge rather than just throwing bosses at you back to back with no new material.
This is very accurate in my opinion (hollow knight is one of my favorite games)
Yeah lol I think I spent more time on endgame content than I did in the base game. I did all of it except poh with all bindings because I got way too dependent on my charms so I’m saving it for when I replay the game
Replay ability is also really important, the reason I play Dark Soul, Skyrim, Borderlands, and many other rpg is the different ways and play style you can experiment with.
I remember playing the shit out of Megaman BN 3's post game. So many extra bosses, that whole growing the pet or whatever it was.
Agreed, post-game is sick.
Having endgame content be (free) dlc is a pretty good way of going about it- the main demographic for dlc expansions are people who want to play more, new content of the game after they have already most/all of it, which happens to be exactly the people who want endgame content.
I got the platinum for Ghostrunner and then I realized there was a hardcore mode and some other challenges. All of this besides the death ranking that gives it absurd replayability. Can't ever put the game to rest.
This is a great video, i totally agree!
When it comes to Ori and the Will of Wisps, one could argue that performing a no-death run might constitute exactly what you're describing. It isn't really an “endgame” per se, but it does truly push the player's skill to the limit and the game actively encourages doing so by having an achievement dedicated to that challenge.
Death's door was indeed fantastic for 1 playthrough (2 if you did an umbrella run) and then yeah... that was it.
absolutely adored the game but once you finished that first playthrough that was it. It left me wanting a lot more. The avarice were really cool mob rush fights and I would have love to seen an endless wave clear or a boss rush type thing to really push my limits once you fully upgrade the character and get all the abilities/weapons. Having that option to do that in Hollow Knight really is what makes it the GOAT.
It is also interesting how certain genres don’t have this problem because of their replayability, I am mainly talking about Enter the Gungeon.
Showing metroid dread was a great example i wish so badly for more gameplay
one of the main inspirations for this video!
@@Pogobro my favorite game series megaman is kind of wired because the wily/castle steges at the end always exist with that "endgame" version of the player in mind.
I also recommend dust an elysian tail
Super metroid has ridley's hedeout which is a big difficulty spike and the only new item you find there is the screw attack and it's a really good endgame challenge ending with you defeating the hardest boss in the game - Ridley
Another game that has good endgame content (albeit this is an jrpg) is kingdom hearts II. It has the mushroom XII members, which test your combat skills in unique ways that isn’t hit and dodge enemies. There’s also the cavern of remembrance, which tests your parkour, something that isn’t really seen anywhere else for the most part. At the end of it is an enemy gauntlet filled with sorcerers, dragoons, dancers, and Samurai nobodies (some of the hardest enemies in the game), and if you can get past that, you unlock the data Organization XII fights. Consisting of rematches against the game’s villains, who are now incredibly fast, strong, and brutal, these are among the hardest fights this series gas to offer.
There’s also the other two super bosses, Sephiroth and The Lingering Will, who are incredibly brutal fights as well (with the Lingering Will being considered by many veteran players as the hardest boss in the series)
7:28 ain't no way they did it so well that i was able to tell exactly with 3 games it's inspired from.
dunno if anyone else feels like this but def getting this feel with the recent release cult of the lamb. the game was so fun me friend and i no lifed it on discord with eachother, streaming our games to one another while discussing possible builds and what we thought of the added difficulties with the side effects implemented from each bishop after the first, but after roughly 16 hours over the span of 3 days we were left thirsty for more
Rougelikes does not even have this piece of lovley stuff known as "endgames" wich just really shows what i like about videogames, just variety
You really used Hyper Light Drifter, Celeste, Hollow Knight, and Doom Eternal, easily four of my favorite games, as your positive examples here. I like this channel lol
Oh yeah, all of those are in my top 10 all tome
2:50 I remember this game I think, but looking for the name. I remember it being used as an example of some mechanics being used for more than one thing, like combat but also movement
2:10 what game is this?
Chicory
Lmao haven't realised that this is what most games that feel lacklusting are missing. Good video and thanks for giving me this epiphany xd
As a puzzle game enthusiast I must say, they do endgame content like no other genre. For the most part it’s just a way to make a puzzle game beatable by anyone while still giving enough of a challenge for those who feel up to it. It’s not necessary of course, my favourite game of all time is Stephen’s Sausage Roll and that game has 0 optional content.
Endgame content isn't meant to be in every game just because you want it. It's mainly the online games that want players to just keep playing the same game for years on end. Single player games are meant to experienced and the move on if its a really good game you play it again with a different build or a higher difficulty or you try to get all achievements. That's how it should be in my opinion and to expect a quality game to be able to just keep going I think is maybe expecting to much, it takes alot of time and effort to make a good self contained single player experience and to always want more is I think greedy, just appreciate it for what it is and stop always expecting more because you will get games that are not as good but just through more crappy content at for the sake of saying we have more.
Even in games without a lot of endgame content, speedrunning can be a really fun way to prove the skills learned while playing. another option (in case of Ori WOTW for example) is replaying the game on a harder difficulty. Having no replayability AND no endgame content for sure caps the game at "ok" at best.
Monster Hunter's endgame is very well thought out, most times. I really love how they make us go fight earlier monsters that might be forgotten if not for endgame
Short Answer: Totally No
Somewhat longer answer: it depends on the gameplay loop and the game itself.
If you can grind, having an "endgame" can be good to get bester stuff or just have a challenge mode that lets you fight all previous bosses.
Like: Destiny, Warframe, Hollow Knight and so on.
Games that tell a story and can grind, can have an "endgame" but it depends if the game gives you after finishing the story away to get new content.
Like Xenoblade Chronicles 2, after beating the story you get acces to NG+ and in it you get new and exclusive merchants and special bosses.
Games that only have a Story don't need a "endgame", since after reaching and finishing the last mission/quest the game already showed you all it had.
Like Bioshock 1+2, Even infinite and some other games
but if you love a game, wouldn’t you want to play it more?
yeah this is kind of what I said in my video isnt it?
Bloodborne has those random dungeons that you can visit to min-max even more and with curses the bosses there get crazy, I would love too see something like that in DS 3, Elden Ring etc
That Nara combat looks bad ass
Copy Kitty probably qualify. You have the main story mode with the main character but there's an alternate story mode with another character with alternate gameplay.
Then, when you clear the main story, you unlock the extra stage with its own challenges and hard mode which if you want more, continue the story, remixes the level,
give you new enemies and new powers to use. Old bosses get new movesets and new ones appears because you kinda thrashed some of them in normal mode. :P
There's also a boss rush mode after you clear the game and an endless mode with its own environments and bosses.
There also a level editor if you want to create your own challenges.
Perhaps you might want to look into it? :D
It's a platformer where you can copy the opponents powers and mix them together to blew everything up and it has some epic boss fights and in hard mode, it even get a bit bullet hell-y.
As someone who plays games, I've wanted more endgame content in quite a few games. As someone who makes games, I do understand how it can be very hard to do so, under the constraints of time/money and needing to feed people with money from sales. I think the compromise is to make the game without enough endgame, and if it sells well make a DLC to reward hardcore fans with. When you're already sure you've got a game fans like, say with a sequel to a success, it's a lot less risky to put all of that in up front. Especially people like me, indiedevs who haven't had a successful game yet, seem to fare better first looking for something that resonates with people before putting too many hours into a single game. (He said in his second year of preproduction)
I like that Sekiro gives you a chance to play the game charmless in ng+ which imo feels completely different to playing the game normally. It also has a boss rush dlc with new moves for bosses and new moves to unlock.
went through when I first started video editing, now it's taking a whole new switch and learning soft will only boost my courage for the
If you want a game with TONS of endgame content, check out Environmental Station Alpha. It's got so much endgame content, you just have to look for it. The final boss does end the game immediately, but if you go looking, you'll find a few guys around the map spouting an alien language which you'll have to decipher. Past that, i won't spoil anything, but i ABSOLUTELY recommend checking it out if you want a metroidvania with an endgame which seems completely out of left field. You may need a guide or two for the endgame, because it is incredibly complex and puzzling, but i think it's really cool that they expanded upon the game so much past the final boss.
I have been stuck on the pantheon of hallownest for three years.
Its not for everyone thats for sure
4 views? Man pogobro you really fell off.
bro its been like 3 minutes be patient lmao
sickening really, how easy it is for a quality video to get lost in the algorithm
bro for me it’s showing this comment is older than the video itselt
the fame got to my head
@@Victini7472 That's the joke.
my favorite endgame was with naruto ultimate ninja 5, when after you collected everything and got all the secondary missions done, you get a whole new level playable with sasuke and some hints of the future plot that was coming for the anime
I love how Death's Gambit: Afterlife did its endgame. You beat the game, you beat the final boss that was hyped up for the rest of the game, get a cool plot twist, but then... (scroll down for spoilers)
The game reveals a new antagonist who was behind everything. There are multiple other bosses and a plot-crucial decision after that pseudo-final boss, and this is the best part of the game.
Hollow Knight: Pantheon of Hallownest, no hit with all bindings.
Celeste: Farewell chapter, speedrun with the Golden Berry.
Real Life: Existing.
I have 30+ hours on The Witcher 3, all with just sidequests and about 10% of the main quest, it gets a little bit overwhelming to be stopped every 10 steps to help a farmer to retreive his goat tbh
i was expecting a whiny video about games not having enough content but you gave a lot of good reasons to include end game content besides just giving players more to do.
Holy, thanks a ton for mentioning Hyper Light Drifter. Never seen a creator talk about how amazing it is!
As a Monster Hunter fan, yes, the games have always been around the idea of endgame. The last rank introduces new monsters, upgrade old ones, new quests, features, armor, weapons, maps, and is nuch harder. Although to be fair the latest games have gotten easier and easier, the ultimate example of great endgame content would be the Fatalis fight from Monster Hunter World Iceborne.
Also watching this video made me realized WHERE IS KATANA ZERO DLC?
This is so true! So many games lack good endgame content and it just gets boring near the end
Is 3:36 a reference to "VVVVVV" having a secret room containing a giant elephant sprite that spans an entire 2*2 room occupacy and flashes colors?
I don’t get why it happens in my brain, but when I finish a game with no other content other than a campaign I just feel I’ve fully completed it and I barely ever come back, but when there are other modes and things which mix up the regular gameplay or give you cooler upgrades I keep coming back. Even in games like pvz garden warfare shooters where obtaining max rank takes ages and ages, it still played it was more than if there was no rank system. I don’t really get why I crave long goals in games but I find the idea of something I can keep playing and almost never reach appealing
When pokemon basically cut its endgame content (looking at you battle frontier and plentiful postgame events/legendaries) was when I pretty much dropped the series
What I found very genius about the godmaster dlc is that this is the one factor that turned hollow knight into one of the games that I regularly came back to. Normally I would have played through the game, called it a masterpiece and then left it for what it is, but with the implement of godhome, the game got relevant again and again while trying to complete all of the bindings, radiant difficulty bosses etc.
I practically assumed that Death's Door would have an endurance battle mode unlock. 100% felt sad.
Don't Starve Together is a great example of a game that really benefits from Endgame content. The game is really difficult and it doesn't help you at all so the early game is meant to be simple for new players, simple yet still very fun bosses with simple attack patterns.
But then you get to bosses like Celestial Champion who can literally roll to you at the speed of light. You gotta make full use of your speed capabilities like a Magiluminescence on top of a Walking Cane to run or else you're gonna get demolished by the Champion.
About this topic I would like to mention Blasphemous like a great example of endgame or extra content. The free dlc a side for polish the game give a lot of new content like extra boses a boss rush mode and the possibility of new game + with a new set of rules that change a lot how you have to play the game.
Another good examples for me are the games Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, Origins doesnt have a lot of content but there is an extra level "Land of the Liveng Death" that is extremely difficult, to the point that its near imposible to do a no death run of that level. Legends for the other part had a lot of extra challenges with extra rules like time limit of a shadow following you.
Kind of like Death's Gambit: Afterlife where you only get most of movement and special abilities like Airdash and Fast Travel towards the end of the game and after NG+ those upgrades are gone again
One of my favorite games is persona 5 Royal, and yeah it has ng+ but it has nothing that really tests all your broken abilities you can have at that point.
But in persona 5 strikers, you can only do the highest difficulty in ng+, and it changes the first, most basic enemies, to be like level 70, and this difficulty also makes it way easier to get the skills and stat ups you want, so it's a new game plus that's harder than the original playthrough but more rewarding, I think the traditional persona games and even other turn based RPGs could do that more
Hollow Knight is my favorite game of all time. I enjoyed the Ori series but always wished there was more to it. This video pretty much encapsulates exactly why I feel this way!
Also, Nara looks like a really cool mix of Hollow Knight and Ori (Don't worry, I don't feel like it's a copy, although I hope they add in some other stuff into it as well), and I am interested to give it a playthrough and see what it has in store!
the thing is, hollowknight may have had only two guys and a limited budget, but what they didnt have was a deadline, they could have continues making the game and adding even more than whats in it now. but for a large company with shareholders and licensing deals it becomes more difficult to add optional content
It doesn't have to be "endgame." You could unlock everything and reach full power at like half-point of the game. Then spend the rest of the game perfecting your skills with the given toolkit.
I agree with you but I want to add another perspective. One problem that I came across playing Hollow Knight and Elden Ring was that if you actually take time to explore everything then you risk making the game trivial by mistake. For instance in Hollow Knight I've seen a lot of people agree that the final nail upgrade is too much damage. You can get this upgrade during normal gameplay so it's not like you're minmaxing, the game just isn't tuned for it until the dlcs. I had a similar expirience in Elden Ring where in my first playthrough I ended up overpowered and overleveled for my next content without ever farming runes or gear or anything. Endgame should be tuned so that you can't overprepare by accident during normal gameplay.
3d mario games past galaxy come to mind, every 3d mario game starting at galaxy 2 has a secret final level that is hard as balls, testing youre platforming to the max with different themes youve seen across the game, with the one most people know the most being the perfect run lol
The superboss/secret area is often the peak of the game’s gameplay, where it’s allowed to push its challenge to the max, because it can assume/force the player to master the whole moveset of its game.
Yeah I think more games should have endgame stuff. I do remember going through the whole of Resident Evil 7 with a friend, getting all the cool weapons and then having only the disappointing final boss to use them, which really dragged it down for me. Can you imagine if minecraft ended the game after you beat the ender dragon, nobody would like it anywhere near as much. But it is there, there is all the stuff in the end to do, more gear, netherite expanding the tech tree. They aren’t needed to get to the ‘final boss’ of the game, but they exist and expand it so much more. Like you said, they don’t need it but it would be nice to have it as an option.
Botw doesn’t need any endgame content because there are so many things to finish of after you beat the game. There are also so many thinks that you don’t know about
(Minor spoilers for Omori):
One of my favorite games, Omori, is split up into two different "routes" through the game (similar to Undertale's pacifist and genocide routes for example). One route focuses more on the game story, and the RPG gameplay does kind of end abruptly with not much of an endgame or final challenge to test your skills on. (The game does keep going after this, it just doesn't use the RPG mechanics much after this). Honestly this is ideal for the game, it really works well to contribute to the game as a work of art. However, the game does have an endgame for the players who wanted one. The alternate route is focused way more on the RPG gameplay and introduces some new quests, bosses, and a boss rush challenge. This way of handling things is very unique, and gives the option to play more of the game to the most dedicated players (although it would be nice if there was less repeated content in the alt route, or at least an option to skip through some of the dialogue and stuff)
I have 100 hours in hollow knight and the majority of that was spent doing endgame stuff and I still haven't done everything
Oh, absolutely. The fact that Ruined King didn't have any endgame whatsoever for me to use those ultimate weapons on made me so fucking salty i actually felt like a LoL player.
Unsure if the latest in the mainline Mario series (SMG2, SM3DW, SMO) does have that endgame you're looking for, but I think that can be also a great example of testing everything learned on an optional level but rewards and "final story" are great.
I think the big question with how to do endgames is how to fit them into the story. Endgames that feel like major parts of the story can feel necessary and make the original ending feel unsatisfactory, which is a problem for players who were ready to call it quits once they saw the credits. On the other hand, endgames that don't have any bearing on the story at all can feel tacked on and artificial.
Each game in the Dark souls series has a few dlc bosses that really just are endgame. They test all of your skills. Also try these dlc bosses on ng and ng+ they are incredibly hard bosses.
dark souls 2 and 3 have that. The Ds1 DLC is short and the bosses are really easy and short fights
@@Pogobro Easy and short compared to the DLC fights from DS3 or Bloodborne perhaps; but Artorias, Kalameet, and Manus are all handily the hardest fights in DS1. The only battles that come close in the main game only do so because when you reach them on the first playthrough you don't know what you're doing yet and are still learning the game.
huge agree, though personally i wasnt a huge fan of Hyperlight Drifter's boss rushes because theyre difficult just by stripping the player of abilities and weapons, and challenge via making the player weaker rather than the enemies stronger is generally way less interesting and fun. moreso chipping away at spongier enemies while feeling weak and slow than having to master every element of your toolkit to defeat something that tests everything youve learned up to that point and more
Celeste doom eternal and hollow knight are the games that I’ve put the most effort into learning and excelling at (besides dead cells) and they all have that chance to really learn the game’s mechanics like you said I think I really have that drive to completely master any game I pick up and I really enjoy when it gives me that option to rest my skills refine them and eventually conquer its toughest challenges
its so strange, cause those 3 games arnt in the same genre at all, but at the same time are in my top 10 games for the same reasons!
@@Pogobro i think it’s design philosophy the way they go about their genres and how they make you interact with their mechanics so well that pulls some kinds of players in so much
The witness put it really well by making the reward for content be more content
the endgame for dark souls is seeking out the means to become a darkwrathe and invade other players. the true test of your ability to make (or google) a build
Dark souls pvp is very meta and boring to me
@@Pogobro well so is the entirety of hollow knight but in both cases im sure we're playing it wrong
This is very true. One of my favorite games for atmosphere and gameplay is metro exodus, but so many of the cool weapons (rail gun, auto crossbow) you can only use on the final few linier levels and there is no use in using scopes or anything like that because all the environments are CQB. The crossbow is probably the most egregious example, you get it in the 2nd to last mission where in order to get a good ending you have to play as a stealth pacifist with a total of 3 areas of actual unrestricted combat (1 of which you only need to use throwing weapons). The game would be a million times better if there was a second half where you repeated all the chapters in reverse order when returning to Moscow, minus maybe the ones which don’t make sense, where enemies are harder and more numerous and you have endgame gear. Perhaps revisiting all the places you went to and seeing the consequences of your actions
This was my main problem with psychonauts 2, the final upgrade makes you a god with nothing to use your limitless power on.
I would say that the End Game for DS is either NG+ or you do PVP, which.. sure, seems boring, but that's basically what all there is when it comes to completing the game. Just upgrade everything before you kill the last boss, move on to NG+ and keep doing it for upgrades. Then, you can take your fine tuned build and demolish people by kicking your router, going up behind people and pressing mouse 1.
I would definitely like to see more games embrace an optional but hardcore endgame. It's always my favorite part of almost any game.
My favorite being the KH3 DLC, which its main selling point is the addition of 14 new superbosses, all with their own unique theme. I and many others would agree they are among the best traditional action game bosses of all time.
You can push yourself even further though. There are multiple difficulties, the ability to remain at LV1 for the entire game (where most things are 1-hit KOs), and with the DLC, they even added a special mode similar to HK Bindings in which you place restrictions on yourself, and you earn points when defeating bosses. The more restrictions, the more points. Reach a high enough threshold for an A rank and a gold trophy.
All this amazing optional challenge, both present in the main game and in the endgame DLC. All of this, in a Disney x Square Enix title, where Donald and Goofy are your party members and you can go visit Whinnie the Pooh. Why Kingdom Hearts of all games can potentially be one the hardest action games out there is beyond me, but it is and I love it. I wish more games would follow suit!
As a side note, I wish games would stop locking higher difficulties behind game completion, There are so many downsides to this that I couldn't possibly name them all. And sadly this is utterly *rampant* in games.
As someone who plays games for the story, I don't really like optional content in general. It just makes me feel like I'm missing out on something if I don't do it and bored if I do. It feels more like grinding than enjoying a game to me, so for the upcoming Xenoblade 3 I've decided to ignore all sidequests, unless I need to grind.
1:48 Seing images of Hyperlight Drifter while hearing the Hive Knight battle music from Hollow Knight is confusing
Cough noita cough, though noita has some uniqueness in its skill progression so most players don’t even beat it once and saying it’s a roguelike that makes wizard of legend feel like vampire survivor’s meta progression wise, it becomes hell when you lose your god run
Man you can't just bring up Celeste, that game was a massive obsession for minute, phenomenal game
Remember Mad Max? Such a cool open world RPG. You get back your V8 engine, and the game ends...
By far the best endgame I’ve played through is monster hunter world. Like it’s to the point that I spent most of my time in the endgame grinding, and it never really got boring until 1000 hours
This is literally exactly what bugged me most about classic RPG's and the FF series. Which is why I included a new game plus in my own game, with scalable difficulty. That way, you can keep building your characters, even with great equipment, while still facing a new challenge.
With Hollow Knight when you 107% out of 112% you've done everything.
You got all the charms and masks and such.
The white palace and hive were needed to get items.
The colleseum and godhome gave the other 5% but didn't give any upgrades.
And they are just enemies or boss rushes.
There are no room or puzzles that don't give anything or any percents except for the hunter's journal which is still just Killing Monsters(TM) from Witcher 3.
It is over 100% because the DLC's added stuff, including charms and such.