I've played FTL for quite awhile, I've tried many different builds with many different luck variables and I can say with authority that beating the last boss is impossible, don't even bother. It's a little known fact that you aren't actually meant to win, you just keep replaying forever, picking a new ship, assembling a superstar crew and growing attached to them and welling with pride when their skills or race unlock the "blue option" to solve problems, then watching them and their hopes and dreams get reduced to bits floating in open space, splattered against shredded metal and that crappy gun I forgot to sell at the last trade station. It doesn't matter how well you're doing, how prepared you are, fighting the rebel flagship is like a toddler throwing mashed peas at the Terminator, you're going to die and restart and die ad nauseam like you're manning a Star Trek voyage consisting exclusively of red shirts, you're in limbo, this is your life. I love it
The initial experience I got from Dying Light was that it was actually really good, I'll never forget my first time leaving the Tower and emerging into a destroyed city with gruesome zombies wandering around with nothing to defend myself but a rusty pipe more fragile than a wet saltine and the supernatural ability to climb up things, it was such a well made and immersive zombie survival sim that I was captivated regardless of the terrible story and mediocre voice acting (mild spoilers ahead) But the as I progressed more and completed more quests, it introduced the 'special zombies' which I hated, the normal shamblers, speedy virals, and even the hazmat suit zombies with exploding oxygen tanks felt perfectly fine for daytime threat and fit neatly into the narrative, the night time big scary zombies also felt appropriate to make night more threatening. The big armored tank zombies, the acid spitting frog zombies, and exploding zombies all took me right out of the experience, not only being horribly cliche and possibly just stolen directly from other zombie games, also had only one appearance, and for me just ripped away the 'zombie sim' aspect and plunged me into 'video game' territory. I could forgive these grievous sins and still push onward and enjoy myself until I ran into another problem, the 'special weapons', I started finding more and more crafting recipies for holiday weapons, event weapons, easter egg weapons, and others that weren't particularly difficult to obtain and I quickly found out were far, FAR stronger than anything else I had and costed basically nothing to craft, it made combat so trivial that it became unfun very quickly. I tried to avoid using them to spare myself the problem but the damage was already done. That being said I did still finish the game, and the DLC, it was still an overall good experience and even better with friends. It has problems but it's still the best zombie game I've played.
I love playing, I love building up my base and armies and collecting items and buffs on my heroes, and the music and graphics are memorable and classic That being said, I hate this game, it's hard, it's incredibly difficult and time consuming and unforgiving and my brain cannot seem to grasp it well enough to win any medium+ difficulty map, so why do I keep playing? I want so bad to win, I've tried replaying the same maps hundreds of times, tried using guides, my wife left me, the kids have stopped calling, bills are piling up, I have a strange rash working its way up my leg, I'm worried that if I neglect it too long it might reach my heart and kill me, but I'm still trading blows with a max CPU Necropolis and I won't move until one of us dies.
I like many aspects of it, it's a great game if you're into something like Gauntlet, and it has a lot of ways to spice up the same gameplay and add or reduce challenge in direct or indirect ways and the multiplayer works in its favor That being said, it has a lot of issues, the game can be extremely difficult for how simple it is, and while you can grind to make it easier, it will still continue to escalate as you progress, so you will keep grinding, for more ore, more gold, more tavern drinks, more crafting recipies, leveling more characters for guild bonuses, it's nonstop grinding with the intention that you will die a lot and keep replaying In the end once you've mostly finished grinding, you'll realize there really isn't *that* much to the game, even with the DLC there's no open world or story, you're just doing the same dungeon or DLC dungeon over and over. Fun while it lasts and killed a decent amount of time enjoying it but not for everyone.
