I’ve been revisiting anno 2205, infamously the ugly duckling of the Anno series of RTS games. I don’t mind so much the fact that it’s different, lacks customisation and random map generation - I’m bothered because the game is so slow to progress through on challenge settings, and it feels like a game designed just to artificially waste your time; in other anno games, you can always pull tricks to dig yourself out of economic crisis - selling off assets and surplus goods, completing quests for other parties, or taking loans. 2205 is very very confined in terms of what you can do to financially recover in the early game and forces you into a lot of military events.


Eh, I don’t buy that you need to play an entire game before deciding it’s overrated. There’s this game criticism catch-22 among gamers that is used to invalidate all criticism… if you don’t finish it or play X hours you’ll be told you didn’t play enough. If you do, you’ll be told by someone else it can’t be that bad because you finished it or played too many hours for it to be bad.
I watched the rest on YouTube and didn’t feel like I missed much. I really don’t feel like what I missed was half the game… actual hours don’t mean much here because 5e naturally takes a lot longer to play at higher levels.
I’m not saying you need to play the entire game, but you said you enjoyed act 1. Act 3 is more open, like act 1. Act 2 is just a short interlude that plays differently than most of the game.
It’s also just a huge part of the game and feels like it’s what the game as a whole is meant to be.
You’re entitled to your opinions, but the question at hand refers to a game you sunk a lot of time into, and you didn’t even get halfway through this one.
I have a few hundred hours (481 between my wife and I… my guess is about 300-350 of that is me). That’s a lot of time. Remember, I said I tried to get through it multiple times, and each time I got bored with it near the end of Act 2, so that playtime adds up. I’m just past the point in my life where I’m willing to put up with much slog to get to good parts near the end, I’ll just watch a video with dinner and call it a day. I actually feel like I wasted too much time on it as it is, but I guess if you have lots of time on your hands some might not consider it much… I do, though.
Again, I’ve seen the rest of the game and don’t agree with the characterization that it’s just the halfway point. It might be in terms of actual time played, but again, turns tend to take quite a bit longer in 5e at higher levels.