Ways you’ve unconventionally changed a game to make it more enjoyable

[Alandrus Sun]

So, I've come to thinking with my current Breath of the Wild play (I'll get to the specific later) how other players have manipulated a game's options or mechanics to make it more enjoyable in a way the developers wouldn't typically expect by either adding constraints on yourself or simple tweaks in the options. I'm not talking so much as doing a choice the developers gave you like playing Dishonored as a power murder machine that kills everyone in sight as much as- for instance in Watch_Dogs, I only played with a pistol because I felt a hacker shouldn't be carrying an Assault Rifles or grenades. The difference being Dishonored keeps track of your killings with its chaotic meter, nods at it as a valid playstyle and awards you for it. While Watch_Dogs gave me a plethora of guns hoping I'd use it but didn't. I thought it was a nice way to make the game difficult as well during combat sections and it emphasized what the game was marketing, hacking.

That's a rather light approach for a playthrough but requires self-discipline. As for my new BOTW playthrough, I've played a lot of the game to death and explored a lot from a 100% playthrough to 3 heart Ganon rush. But for what was going to be my final fun cheat playthrough turned into a fun Master Sword only playthrough, where I've used a save editor to get the hearts needed to pull the sword immediately out, but I'm only able to use the sword which has made for a very fun unintended experience. If it breaks, I must run around for 10 minutes unable to fight other than throwing bombs at people (since it is a power not a weapon). If I need to use a bow, I must get full hearts and use the throw laser attack from the sword. For the most part, it's been working great for exploring the various dungeons and has been enjoyable. Especially for the silly moments, when my sword broke halfway into a Lynel fight and I had to kite the beast until it came off cooldown.

I'm not sure how I'll do some of the Divine Beasts yet since I'm avoiding them til last and I'm not sure how I'll do Eventide island but for now the run has been very enjoyable.

So, I'm wondering what you guys have done to a game to make it more fun to you in unconventional ways.

 

[_zoipi]

Play FFXIII without the Automatic commands. Total game changer.

 

[HardTimesFamilyPride]

Played through GTA IV only headshotting enemies with the pistol.

When I start my second BotW playthrough I'm gonna try to focus on elixirs/chu chus/runes/etc. as much as possible.

 

[Niosai]

Well, this technically counts. The first time my sister and I played through FFX, we completely ignored the sphere grid because we had no idea what it was for. We just assumed the game was difficult. We got all the way to one of the airship fights (I think after a certain wedding) before we decided that "Okay, maybe it isn't supposed to be THIS hard." Before that, though, we used lots of creative problem solving.

 

[Bumrush]

Not sure if this counts, but on replays of old school RPGs - especially as a kid when you would only get a few games a year - it was fun do do a replay emphasizing other (weaker) party members.

 

[Stilton Disco]

For Mass Effect 2, once the Insanity difficulty became too easy due to the amount of times I played it, I got rat arsed on gin to make it more of a challenge again.

This approach was often poorly received by my team mates when I later applied it to ME3's multiplayer.

 

[borges]

FIFA with friends, limiting to shoot only with GoalKeepers.

 

[foxdvd]

The Technomancer...played the first half of that game not spending any skill points as I leveled up on the hardest difficulty..so that I could knock all all three trophies tied to each tree once I got to level 22 in one play through...

The thing is it kept me on the edge of my toes because it was SO hard...but enjoyable..once I got the three trophies and spent my points the game became too easy and lost some of the fun..

 

[KillstealWolf]

Pokemon has had it's infamous Nuzlocke Runs, can only attempt to catch the first pokemon you see on the route, must nickname it, if it faints, you must release it.

I tend to not go that far extreme, but in recent games I would recommend turning the EXP Share Off by default and no Pokemon Amie bonus EXP so you don't end up overlevelling the other teams and get some fun challenging battles against them.

I also did a mono-grass team in Alpha Sapphire where I could only use Grass Type pokemon, ended up with Sceptile, Ludicolo, Breloom, Roserade, Cradily and Tropius. That was an amusing run to do.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Halo Wars and Ghost Recon on 3DS were better with some command and conquer music playing.

Aside from that I snapped YouTube on the side of games on Xbox One (back when you could) it is was a grinding quest or such.

Outside of that though. I don't think I've ever done too much else that was unconventional.

 

[NSA]

On my 3rd time through Ghost Recon Wildlands a buddy and I made our characters limited to "90s" Era gear and weapons. Took out most of the high tech perks etc and played it like an older Ghost Recon title.. It was actually a lot of fun forcing ourselves to be limited.

 

[Deleted member 388]

Gameshark made Super Man 64 a ton of fun. The cheats and glitches turn it into a Gary's Mod or Goat Simulator.

 

[Deleted member 35011]

Pokemon with the "capture trainers pokemon" cheat enabled, "Team Plasma" run. Goal was to capture and release the Pokemon of everyone I battled haha. Played this with a friend and we had a blast.

 

[Alandrus Sun]

Pokemon has had it's infamous Nuzlocke Runs, can only attempt to catch the first pokemon you see on the route, must nickname it, if it faints, you must release it.

I tend to not go that far extreme, but in recent games I would recommend turning the EXP Share Off by default and no Pokemon Amie bonus EXP so you don't end up overlevelling the other teams and get some fun challenging battles against them.

I also did a mono-grass team in Alpha Sapphire where I could only use Grass Type pokemon, ended up with Sceptile, Ludicolo, Breloom, Roserade, Cradily and Tropius. That was an amusing run to do.

Click to shrink...

That Nuzlocke challenge does look rather intense. I'll try that in the future but Mono-type seems more approachable and fun to do first.

 

[TheMadTitan]

Metal Gear Solid 4, I play without picking up weapon duplicates to avoid Drebin points and I only get ammo from ammo boxes found in the environment or from enemy shakedowns.

Once I get MGS5 on PC, I plan on doing something similar with mods so I can pick up and drop weapons at will.

Mass Effect 1-3, I mod or use console commands to get cross class powers. Mass 1, I get all of the biotic and weapon powers on a tech speciality, and ME2 and ME3, I hotkey a text script file for specific powers I want to use (you have to load them in after each screen transition, unfortunately). ME2 is modded to be more like ME3 when it comes to equipping weapons to Shepard, so I can use all weapons or bring along the ones I want regardless of class.

 

[dicetrain]

On my 3rd time through Ghost Recon Wildlands a buddy and I made our characters limited to "90s" Era gear and weapons. Took out most of the high tech perks etc and played it like an older Ghost Recon title.. It was actually a lot of fun forcing ourselves to be limited.

Click to shrink...

I turned off the minimap because it's super unrealistic. That does a lot to help the ghost-ness. I heard cranking up the difficulty to max also makes it more like past GR games, but since you have to do like 10 billion ops I decided not to bother with that.

I've actually gone mostly without stealth in the latter half of the game. It breaks the roleplay factor but the enemies do that on their own and when you have rebel camps literally across the street from cartel camps, it seems the game isn't too concerned with its own identity.

 

[Deleted member 30681]

not unlocking/using fast travel in Just Cause 3.

There was something fun and relaxing about zipping around the massive open world with a wingsuit.

 

[werezompire]

Persona 4 Golden - Never switch the main character's persona and see how powerful you can make it. Doable in Persona 4, but more entertaining in Golden since there are more ways to make a single persona strong there.

 

[AkiraAkira]

I feel like it's kind of uncreative to cite my Nuzlocke runs as an example, but they've been some of the most intense experiences in my gaming history.

One of my favorite challenges is to start a game with my starter and the first Pokemon I encounter. After that, I only allow myself to catch one Pokemon after defeating a gym. In total, you wind up only able to catch 10 Pokemon, which can be really intense while playing with Nuzlocke rules. There's been some great victories and crushing defeats. To this day, I still remember the loss of Peaches, my Furret who made it all the way to Elite Four before being felled by Lance's third Dragonite. She was a true hero and I will always love her. Rest in peace, Peaches....

 

[Revolsin]

In BotW, you can play the entire game without once looking at the map without any real issues. This is an extremely rare occurrence in open worlds. The game designers put a TON of effort into making this possible by having people give you directions, telling you to watch out for landmarks, signposts, and the fact that there's so many high places where you can visually locate interesting places you wanna go. This is a genuine world where you can get lost in but also find your way through entirely of your own accord.

Actually genuinely try to play it like this folks. Turn off the HUD, forget the map, just GO. It's a spectacular experience and one that seems widely overlooked.

 

[Mailbox]

Recently did a Level 1 no healing items run of FF15.

Damn does it make the game hard and fun. You really need to understand I-Frames, positioning, and buffs to make it all work well for you. Truly a fun (and frustrating) experience to be sure

(the recent character swap update made it easier to do this, so try it out :3)