recent: tears of the kingdom, or as i like to call it botw 1.2, its the same thing all over again just with one or two added gimicks, the open world is dead, npcs are boring and nintendo just got away with it like that
not so recent: i cant stand persona 5, joker and his entourage are annoying teenagers, the time management is a horrible gameplay addition and the artstyle is just a visual overstimulation
with that being said,~~ plz dont kill me~~
I’ll probably get roasted for this but… Pokemon. It just seems like endless copy/paste and might be one of the laziest game franchises I’ve ever seen. I’ve really tried to get into them. I was there when the Pokemon cartoon started, I saw it rise to the phenomenon it is today, but damn if it isn’t the most boring grindfest ever.
it doesnt just feel like copy paste, thats quite literally what they are doing, there is plenty of evidence online to show that they do but hey, if you can make whatever low effort thing you want and people still buy it why bother trying?
There’s no problem with copy/paste, games do that all the time (look at portal, most of that game is reused half life 2 assets). I think the problem is that they’re just not doing anything interesting with the games. If the games were good it shouldn’t matter if the Pikachu model is reused or made from scratch.
Sure but they also straight up lied about making fancy new assets for switch while they just literally copied and pasted from 3ds That lie, I find not okay
I do agree that it’s the same thing recycled over and over.
If anyone does want to play them again, I highly recommend emulating them and accelerating the emulation to 2.5 or 3x speed. Makes it much more tolerable.
That’s a very common complaint for the last, hell I don’t even know, 20 games or whatever.
True, I’m not saying anything I haven’t heard before. It’s just crazy that people keep buying it thinking “Maybe this one will match the memories I had when I was 10.” I guess nostalgia is a powerful drug. Even more powerful than I thought… just looked up the Pokemon franchises worth and it’s estimated at 74 billion. Now I know how boomers feel cause I just don’t get it.
Yeah I don’t get it either. I don’t even get the nostalgia aspect, there are just so many new Pokémon that I feel they completely drown out the ones I grew up with, the first like 250 iirc, I have no desire whatsoever to play the new games.
But I suppose it’s still very popular with kids all around the world as well so there’s that.
Same here, I’ve tried to get into pokemon so many times but I just don’t get it. The games just look so lazily made too
The pokemon fan games have been way more inventive than the mainline games for a while now. I just recently have been getting into pokemon infinite fusion and it’s FANTASTIC
I so badly want to play infinite fusion but I cant seem to get it to work, it crashes everywhere I’ve tried to play :(
I’ve also had a ton of stability issues with it, but I assume that’s because I was running it through Crossover on my Mac. I just save often. If you can’t get it to open, I really don’t know how to help :(
I wanted to say the same; additionally, the games are sooo slow, and everything takes ages compared to most other games.
They get away with the copy-paste because the combat system is fundamentally extremely solid.
The good thing about this is that programming-savvy fans have been creating free fan-games based on the formula for the last decade or so. As with any fan-made content the quality is extremely variable, but I have found some of the newer releases to be genuinely good games, better than anything GameFreak has put out in the last 20 years. Pokémon Unbound is a personal favorite - if you enjoy the fundamentals of the Pokémon games but feel the lack of creativity and puzzle-solving in the official releases I would suggest giving them a look.
Every game after Black and White is copy paste garbage, but everything before that is pretty damn good.
Red Dead Redemption 2. Everyone goes on about how awesome it is, but I just found the story and gameplay really slow and dull.
RDR2 suffers heavily from the same problem as GTAV’s single player mode: it’s a movie posing as a video game and both aspects suffer for it.
RDR2 would have been great if it was just the part where you wander around tracking critters and collecting flowers and playing cowboy dress-up, but the game really doesn’t want you to do that. Not to belabor the point, but between how unpredictable the connection between “interact with item/character X” and “start mission with character Y” can be and the game’s tendency to fail missions the second you go off-script, RDR2 often felt like it was directed by someone who actively resented the concept of player agency.
You articulated my issue with it perfectly. In theory it was this amazing open world with tons of player freedom, but the minute you engage with the actual story at all you have no choice in anything. There was one quest where I HAD to rescue Micah and kill a butt load of people which really annoyed me given I was going for a white hat run.
There‘s this great video essay that basically agrees with you. Rockstar want to create these cinematic narrative experiences but that does not mash well with their concept of an open world.
Something tells me he’s already seen that particular NJ video lol
My friends love it, but two hours in, I just feel worn.
Then I just drop it and never look back.
Can’t get it to stick.
Rockstar has been moving that way in general for years. They get so focused on the immersive and sim stuff, they forget that they made their name on over-the-top chaotic fun. Everything from GTA4 onward suffers for it, other than RDR1 that struck a decent balance between the approaches.
I was really enjoying it, but I eventually got bogged down in the sidequests, and it really could’ve used a low-gore mode. The bloody deer carcasses got to me after a while.
I think I might have preferred it if it were a little smaller and more focused on the main storylines.
I do intend to go back to it sooner or later though.
Same here. It was so frustrating trying to play it.
Here’s a pretty awesome looking intricate and interesting world. No, you can go over there. Or there. Or do that
My main grip with this game is how slow ans cranky everything feels. I miss the arcade feel of RDR1.
I still mostly enjoyed it, but I do agree that it’s way overhyped. The game has a ton of great and fun moments, but it also has so much filler that causes the sense of progression to really grind to a halt.
It’s a game that IMO would have benefited from leaving some parts on the cutting room floor, but otherwise it’s not a bad game.
I‘m with you. I don‘t get why so many people praise the story and the gameplay.
The mission design is very disappointing. You have this beautiful open world with so many systems that you can interact with. It can be fun to just start some shit and watch the chaos unfold. But the second you start a mission, everything is scripted and like on rails. You have no real freedom whatsoever in how you want approach a mission. The missions are also not challenging in the least (apart from some jank here and there). It‘s mostly just one turkey shoot after another.
Story spoilers
The story is not all that great. It‘s just not believable that anyone sane would stick so long with a gang leader who does not make a single good decision and clearly goes more and more off the deep end. It is also too long and overstays its welcome by tens of hours. Especially the whole Guarma chapter is hot garbage and would not have been missed at all if it weren‘t there.
I made it through to the end. I had to see for myself where they are going with the story. But I was kind of glad when it was over.
I wish another studio could license the world that Rockstar have created and make a game that is actually good. But that is never going to happen.
I still can’t make it through any of The Witcher games. Smooth and satisfying gameplay is super important for me to enjoy a game, and The Witcher has always felt slow, clunky, unintuitive, and super menu-heavy. I’m sure the story is great! But I just can’t get past its gameplay.
I adore Witcher 3. That said I’ve always said controlling Geralt feels like driving a boat. God help you for the very few instances that you do platforming.
They added a different control style sometimes after release, didn’t they? I can’t recall the specific difference, but I think I used it for my playthroughs and it was less boat-y.
Yeah, pretty quickly. Maybe a month? I remember playing it basically at launch, and deciding I was going to return it, but stopped when they said they were working on an alternative control scheme.
It was actually worse than it is now.
Didn’t return it, but much like others in this thread, never got it to stick. Doesn’t feel good to play.
I’m not sure there. I played it several years after release, but I can’t remember one way or the other if there were alternate control options.
Even with trying that new control style I still had to go through and download a good 10-15 simple QoL mods just to put up with the game and how floaty and slippery Geralt feels to control
Boat you say?
I’ve got to catch up on his videos. It’s been months since I’ve watched, but they’re always a blast lol
Same here. I really want to like The Witcher 3, but after trying to play it for 10 hours without feeling any enjoyment, I just gave up.
I’m playing mainly western RPG’s like that, but I also couldn’t get into The Witcher. The gameplay is fine actually (I played way more clunky games with lots of enjoyment). But somehow Gerald just never clicked with me, causing me never to feel really connected to my character and to what’s happening.
It’s sad because I can notice how good the games are, but I just really cannot get into it.
I tried to play Witcher 3 and the combination of strange camera angles and very “tradional rpg” style icons put me off (the later is a really sad thing to be bugged by but whatever) - the interface for everything just seemed very outdated
However, I now have a PS5 and i believe the PS5 update has huge improvements including to camera angles etc, so I may give it another go.
It took me 3 attempts at starting The Witcher before I eventually got through it. I had just came off of Dark Souls 3 combat, so the combat in Witcher was especially clunky feeling. Eventually I moved into a new home, had nothing else to do, and proceeded to do nothing but play the game for 50 hours until I beat the game lol. I would say the story is worth it, but I agree that its kinda tough to get into.
I couldn’t get into Witcher 3 for a very silly reason. I’m a delicate white man who couldnt stand being the target of racism in a game. I played for like, 3 hours and just felt sad.
Any game that has daily login bonuses or a bonus for playing every day. Animal crossing pocket or whatever it is. Pokémon go. A bunch of afk phone games. A bunch of gacha games. It just feels so shallow to me. Like, I’m not being manipulated to play something, I just end up feeling so guilty to lose a streak I’d rather delete the game.
While not a daily login bonus, the weekly and monthly tasklist of Forza Horizon 5 killed the game for me. It triggered some sort of fomo and I would rush in every week to grind the new tasks/events. That burned me out very fast, so I could not enjoy the rest of the game.
I think this CAN work if you naturally enjoy the game, but don’t want to make decisions about your game plan when you boot up.
I like Deep Rock Galactic. When given 15 mission options, I get choice paralysis, so it’s nice to have dailies/assignments that at least push me into a particular one just to get started.
I guess I’ll take the hit for this one. Dark Souls.
The combat can be really fun and I had a great time fighting the bosses but the slow, careful crawl between boss fights is just so dull to me that it’s not worth it.
Came here to say this, from software is clearly really talented at level design and art direction, but I cannot for the life of me find enjoyment in those games because of the overall gameplay experience just being boring.
I agree on that one, but for a slightly different reason. For me it was the camera. For whatever reason I had the feeling I fought the camera more than I fought the enemies. And that kills the fun for me.
Boss rush games might be to your liking than?
Sekiro and Elden Ring have pretty much ruined any desire I had to play Dark Souls. Sekiro, in particular, seems like a distillation of everything I loved about DS gameplay with zero bloat, and still managed to take me 40 hours to beat.
Honestly, Stardew Valley for me. I’ve tried it a couple times and it just didn’t work for me. I wanted to like it, and I like the idea of it, but in practice, I hated the time management aspect and not being able to just run around and do as much as I wanted in a day (I haven’t played on PC with mods; I know there’s at least one or two that let you change that). I also hated the fishing. 🙃
Didn’t play Skyrim at the time and the two times I’ve tried to get into It didn’t really click for me. I understand why people like It, may give another try sometime
Oh thank god, I came here to say Skyrim and was afraid of being the only one.
I should have liked it. Absolutely loved Morrowind. But just never could get into Skyrim despite multiple attempts and now I’ve given up.
In all fairness, you wouldn’t like it just because you liked Morrowind. The games play entirely different from one another and the story of Skyrim is a downgrade by several margins (though some of the sidequests are awesome).
This is coming from someone who has like 200 hours in Skyrim.
Perhaps try a total conversion, skyrim is basically a mod engine anyway lel
I tried that, but in the end it turns out I found hunting for mods more fun than actually playing them.
I never managed to get far in Skyrim. And even if you like it, I don’t think it’s too controversial to say that it has one of the worst intros for an open world game.
I could never get over the fucking monotone same-voice way every NPC speaks.
Everything about that game felt monotone, to me.
I think about trying again, once in a while, but haven’t yet. They keep releasing new versions at prices I’m not willing to pay for it.
Monster Hunter. It’s just so painfully slow and boring. Combat just feels clunky.
Any MOBA really, particularly League of Legends. A number of my friends played these obsessively, but I could just never get into it. I’ve sat in on quite a few Discord calls with people playing this game and I gotta say, not once did anyone ever sound like they were having fun. I’m not sure what it is, but it just seems like the genre attracts toxicity like no other, especially when playing with strangers. On the occasions I tried them myself, the gameplay just wasn’t engaging enough for me to want to put in the tremendous amount of time necessary to become somewhat decent at the game.
Borderlands: I mean the combat is fine and all, but the story is super weak. What is my incentive to keep playing? Just to click on more heads? There are better games for that (Doom, Quake, etc)
I was enlightened about why I didn’t like borderlands when I realized it was FPS Diablo. I just don’t enjoy the gameplay loop.
I played the crap out of borderlands… until one day I asked myself why… and… I never picked it up again. After that switch was flipped, the whole series just fell apart on me.
I stuggled with it so many times. I think Borderlands games, in general, are the ones I tried the most to enjoy, because everything about it is cool to me, the eastetic, the characters, the presentation…
I restarted the first at least 4 times, alone and in coop, thinking the problem was that it doesn’t work as a solo experience. I played the sniper and then I tried the gunman because, maybe, the sniper is not that enjoyable.
Then I got the 2, because maybe the first was too raw and basic.
I just… don’t have fun.
I point the cursor toward waves of spongy healthbars, and then I get served a giant plate of paralyzing choices between 64 billion gear options that clutter me and my frail mind.
I ended up loving Tales from the Borderlands: all the good from the worldbuilding and none of the gameplay loop.
I love the Borderlands games (at least 1 and 2, I haven’t played the others yet), including just in single-player, buuuuut I do concede that they have an issue with way too much junk loot. It’s way too infrequent that you find an actual upgrade for your favorite weapons (especially in Borderlands 2).
Yeah basically. It’s a loot shooter, it’s very fun in co-op but not good enough to carry itself in singleplayer.
I was watching an escapist video about modern life service games and he said “saying a game is more fun with friends is a virtue of your friends, not the game.”
If a game needs friends to be fun, I think it’s just a garbage game.
I don’t think that always holds water, some games are just made to be played with others. Nobody is going to accuse Counter-Strike of being bad just because playing against bots isn’t the most thrilling experience. But for games like Borderlands definitely. Point being, the logic goes it’s bad and only saved by playing with friends doesn’t stop it from being a bad game, not that a game is bad just because it’s more fun with friends.
I guess I’m more specifically referring to the modern looter shooter live service bullshit that’s been taking over the industry. Not standard PvP multiplayer. Of course that’s the intended experience there, can’t blame that.
The Witcher 3.
It just feels so generic and suffers from one of the things I hate the most about rpgs. Endless sidequests that have nothing to do with the main quest.
Cyberpunk 2077. The first part was really enjoyable. Then you get to the open world part and it suffers from the same issue as the Witcher above and also has fiddly levelling up/skill tree. Also it’s overwhelming. You’re on a mission. The phone calls. Sone rando wants you for a job. Start job. The phone calls. There’s an out of control ai taxi…repeat. Just too much information at once and mostly for stuff unrelated to the fact your character has a very personal and important mission.
Survival/Builder games I find incredibly boring.
Witcher 3 felt more like “I have sex and you should know about it” the game, to me at least
It felt like a chore. All the time I felt like “am I supposed to be having fun?”
Didn’t see anyone else mention it, so I’ll say MMOs. Pretty much all of them. WoW, FFXIV, Guild Wars 2, Star Wars one (can’t remember the name). I really like the idea of MMOs, having a huge shared world that feels alive, tons of lore, epic quests, but I just find the gameplay loop so boring. They just feel like endless busywork to me.
WoW. Can’t stomach paying monthly for a game that’s a lot of grinding. It’s just not my thing.
mood
Feel the same about final fantasy 14. Actually looks like a good game but subscription based games are really off putting.
I think that’s my biggest hangup. I have limited time to play games and subscriptions are too easy to continue to pay when you aren’t using it.
Terraria - I just don’t understand what you’re meant to do or why it’s interesting.
I actually really like TOTK though, it’s a big improvement over BOTW with a slightly more alive world and the vehicle creation stuff is fun.
Idk if I’m just dumb or something but I have tried to play terraria on 5+ separate occasions and the controls and UI just DON’T make sense to me. Like how to craft?! How to equip? How to do stuff? It was just so confusing. I tried on mobile and steam deck. I even looked up the controls online and mapped it out. It just never clicked for me. I felt like an 80 year old using a smartphone for the first time.
Terraria is about exploring new biomes and fighting bosses to get gear upgrades. Hope this helps!
I agree with you, more or less, on both. Terraria always felt like “we have minecraft at home” to me - I get the concept, but other games do it so much better, in my mind.
TOTK is great and I love it. I think… in some ways I prefer BOTW, like for BOTW’s happier overall tone and less overwhelmingly busy world, but TOTK does have a lot going for it and is everything I never thought to hope for in a sequel. My main frustration is just that your creations despawn so fast if you walk away from them, because of switch hardware limitations - I wonder if that’s something someone will ever manage to mod for emulation.
I thought I couldn’t contribute because most games I buy I really do enjoy. Maybe not finish, but there has been enjoyment. Except Terraria. It’s hyped like crazy, but I can’t find out why. Nothing makes sense to me and I don’t get what needs to be done. And I did like Minecraft quite a bit
Honestly, Animal Crossing (new & old). What’s sad is it really is a fun game if you have a good attention span and no depression. I have a hard time keeping basic routines so logging into a game regularly was really challenging for me. By the time I’m reminded of the game it’d be weeks or months since I touched it. In the old game this meant everything you worked on has been undone and you have roaches. The newer one is better about overgrowing weeds and I haven’t got roaches yet, but the neighbors notice your disappearance and have some things to say about it. Last time I logged on one of the characters was so personally slighted by my disappearance I just logged out after the conversation. I haven’t logged on since. When I can keep up with it, it’s fun and cute. When I can’t I’m made to feel guilty for hurting the feelings of an unsympathetic AI. At least my friends in real life understand depression and it’s ability to steal my motivation. I do miss Sherb tho.
