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.
I can't even imagine playing HK with M&K!
I also think HK's slow burn beginning is too slow. I did eventually get engaged but frankly the fact that I felt kind of ambivalent for much of my gameplay is a big part of my conclusion, though not as big as the design choices made for no motivating reason beyond to annoy players. The crossroads becoming blocked by infection is forever my #1 complaint about HK's design. It serves no purpose aside from annoying the player. There's no new skill challenge, it doesn't make the game any harder or more engaging, it's just tedious and time-wasting.
I find HK to be close to an amazing game, but I think from a game design standpoint the devs seem to conflate punishing with difficult, and that's just a philosophical divide that I find myself too far the other side on to connect with fully.
Yes i hate this as well. Developers throw in things to make sure you have to spend more time playing the game. In most cases, they already have their money from you. They'd actually make more money by not wasting players' time, and instead convincing them to buy the next game that the studio releases.
I tried it years ago and got stuck on the mantis boss, managed to get back into it around September cause I bought silksong on release to support the devs. Anyway I actually got through it that time and into skong which is a much better experience and one day I'll start act 3.
Imo bosses are the best part of HK, I loved every boss fight.
If Silksong was promised to be 80% less tedious, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. But from what I've heard, that's not the case, though of course I could be wrong.