2 picks for me: Stardew Valley, most boring shit ever, I don’t see the appeal, seriously how the hell did that thing sold 20 million copies?
And Witcher 3, I own that game since 2019 and I regret buying it, funny thing is that I’ve finished Dragon Age 1 and 2, which are kinda same genre but I actually enjoyed those games. I guess the old BioWare sauce carried those games unlike Witcher where there’s nothing to enjoy in its massive pointless world.
Elden ring yawwwwn.
It’s beautiful, and it seems like an interesting world, but learning exactly how to dodgerollattack for every enemy with deliberately delayed reflexes is not my kinda fun.
I’ll go ahead and say this also includes all “Souls-like” games for me.
Combat seems clunky, buggy, and unnecessarily difficult. I don’t have a ton of time to play games, so when I do, I want it to be relaxing.
Very well said. I played with a buddy for like 50 hours before I admitted I just wasn’t having fun.
I hear the lore’s really interesting and some guy linked me a YouTube channel full of elden ring lore so I might look into that.
But playing it, not so much.
I don’t even think the lore is interesting. I played maybe 5 hours before giving up because my friend told me that the creator literally wrote the story and then had them scramble it up and remove sections so you’ll never ever get the actual full story. Then they proceed to hide it behind a bunch of meaningless drivel. Utterly stupid game to me.
That doesn’t sound like engaging plot delivery on part of the creator, and the gameplay wasn’t my style at all, although I did like the character, creature and world design and am interested to see how this guy presents the lore.
As it was introduced to me, it’s a guy who enjoyed playing but really enjoyed the main story and wen into a deep dive connecting every little scrap of lore to put together a full history.
I like that kind of stuff, so I’ll give it a whirl
Hollow Knight.
I played for probably a dozen hours or so, beat a few bosses and then just hit a boss I couldn’t beat. (Don’t recall which.) I would get to the boss and die almost immediately. Then I’d be sent back to a far away checkpoint. I’d slog back to the boss, and die. Repeat again.
I’ve played plenty of games like this. I get at some level that’s the point. The problem is that I wasn’t enjoying the game. I wasn’t making progress. Just repeating the same over and over again.
I’ve played and loved similar games. Super Meat Boy & Celeste? Excellent. Ori and the Blind Forest/Will of the Wisps? Top games.
By all accounts I feel like I should like Hollow Knight… but I just don’t feel they got it right.
I broke through the exact same situation you had and finished the game beyond what most Hollow Knight players will achieve just so I can legitimately criticise this game that so many people apparently love.
You’ve picked out the exact same mechanic that I also criticise. It wastes the players time and is anti-fun.
I’d also add that the map mechanic is also terrible.
My fun factor increased 10x when I found a hollow knight map online to use that had key locations marked. Ironically it was a very soft touch map that just gave general guidance without too many spoilers and this improved my experience of the game.
It’s a game I wanted to enjoy, and I had some amount of fun, but ultimately it just fell flat.
The Ori games were so much better while following the same basic gameplay, but Hollow Knight gets all the extra attention. I do think Hollow Knight is bad, it’s just a game that is ok, and by the next game will be enjoyable after they iron everything out.
The other possibility I assume is that there is something Souls-like about the game that I don’t get. I’ve only played DS3 and I found it boring quickly. I understood what the game wanted me to do, but I wasn’t having fun doing it. Maybe some folks do, but not for me.
I’ve just never gotten into Pokemon. The games just feel like 99% grinding. I’m sure that’s an incredibly unpopular opinion, but I still find them unspeakably dull.
They came from a different era. If you didn’t grow up taking long road trips with a Gameboy pocket/color for your only distraction then you probably don’t get the nostalgia rush that most pmon fans do.
I was born in 1977. I had a Gameboy. I just never cared for Pokemon.
A significant number of pokemon fans had to make do with emulating the original gameboy games on the family computer. I know I did
Exactly right. We spent hours and hours in a Ford van playing Pokemon red/yellow/blue in the 90s 😂
It’s weird, because Pokémon didn’t invent turn-based RPG’s, nor did they even invent the pocket monster genre because Dragon Warrior Monster arguably had a better game than Pokémon out around the same time - with more monsters, breeding, and a better storyline.
But Red/Blue and Gold/Silver were great games of their time. Very basic, but great, mostly because of the world built around them. If you didn’t appreciate Pokémon, it’s probably easy to see why you’d find it dull.
Worth mentioning, regarding Dragon Quest, the monster teaming up with the player was added in DQ5, back in 1992, something that was arguably first introduced in Megami Tensei 2 (1990). Dragon Quest Monster was released only in 1998, after the first pokemon games.
What set pokemon apart from them was the amount of pokemon you could get. That Game Freak managed to cram another 100 in Gold/Silver, a night/day cycle, berries, friendship, breeding and the entire original Kanto region in a gameboy color cart is a small miracle
I don’t even mind some turn-based RPGs. I mentioned Wasteland in another comment, which I loved. Wasteland was basically remade as Fallout 1. Fallout 1, 2 and the Wasteland games which now have their own sequels are all turn-based RPGs, but they give you so many more options than Pokemon and they are also about team building since you don’t play as a single character.
I guess Pokemon was just not the game for me. 🤷♂️
If you look at the first game from a historic perspective
The first game basically was an open world RPG with 151 unique characters with each their strengths and weaknesses, and their own attacks, and all could be customised. Running on a handheld that previously could only play Tetris.
It was a freaking coding masterpiece.
But I agree the gameplay loop hasn’t upgraded the way it should. It didn’t evolve with the medium and stuck too much to its roots.
Although the grinding in the newer games has been minimised. You can play through the games without grinding once.
I admit I haven’t played a recent Pokemon game because of my previous experiences, but I’m open to checking a new one out at some point if the grinding has been reduced. Thanks.
Animal Crossing. I have friends who became obsessed with that game. They wouldn’t stop pestering me about how much I would love it, and how I should start playing so we could trade turnips or some shit. Anyways, I bought it. What a weird thing to be obsessed with. It was boring, childish, and pointless. But it was hugely popular for a period of time.
Covid did wonders for that game. It came out right before the lockdown, and people suddenly had free time and a reason to escape to a happy place.
Fucking chore simulator. My roommates couldn’t be assed to do their actual chores, but every morning during covid they’d get up and make sure their fucking farms had whatever the shit they needed.
Overwatch and Fortnite. I feel like I’m catching ADHD just playing them. Strangely Apex Legends is quite enjoyable. Though I stick to HLL and Squad for shooty mcpewpews.
Pretty much every first party Nintendo game, especially Mario and the Zelda series. I’ve had some enjoyment from the 2D era Zelda games at least, but have yet to finish any of them as they just don’t seem to hold my attention.
I’ll reserve my judgement on the most recent Zelda game as I understand it’s quite different from the classic 3D and 2D games, but I don’t have any particular desire to give Nintendo money given their increasingly lawyer heavy behaviour.
Trust me, breath of the wild is boring as shit. Very directionless.
I agree. I cannot finish it. It shouldn’t be a Zelda game.
I really enjoyed Breath of the Wild although I haven’t tried Tears for the Kingdom. It really suited me but it’s lack of direction is how I play every open world game anyway. I actually can’t go back to other AAA open world games without getting irritated by how hand holding and limiting they are of their own medium, but it wasn’t just breath of the wild that made me realise that.
I’d you enjoyed Breath of the Wild, you’ll probably love Tears of the Kingdom. Some people felt it wasn’t different enough from Breath of the Wild, but there’s so much more to explore. And there was a part in the story that was so emotional, it made me ugly cry.
I am pretty sure I’d love tears of the kingdom, I just don’t have a switch.vi played breath of the wild on a friend’s Wii U years ago while living with him, then tried to replay it with an emulator a while later but encountered a few big bugs.
My hope is to just wait 5 years and play a stable emulation of Tears of the Kingdom, or maybe by then I’ll be able to pick that and the console up quick.
Lack of direction is fine, empty feeling world is not. There was never anything interesting to find in my opinion. No interesting quests, very few towns or other landmarks. Just a lot of space filled with the same 10 enemies.
yaaaasss. Empty world, repetitive mechanics, crappy story. I don’t understand the hype.
What about Wind waker?
Helldivers, the gameplay is fun but I just can’t do GaaS games. The constant “seasons” and shit requires.more attention than my actual children do.
Deep Rock Galactic has nailed the formula with seasons as ways of adding things with using them as FOMO. Missed skins and loot from previous seasons used to just get recycled into the RNG loot. Now they added a system to toggle and play missions as if you were a in a previous season and earn the old loot.
I never really got into the Pokémon games. Don’t find turn-based combat very fun. I mean, I guess turn-based is easy and relaxing for when you just want to put your game down and take breaks.
Factorio is a total slog to me. Which is funny, because my favorite game of all time is Satisfactory.
I haven’t been able to go back to Factorio after playing Satisfactory.
That’s funny, it’s the opposite for me. Got into Satisfactory, loved it. Buddy bought me factorio, and now Satisfactory seems like an extremely feature-neutered version of Factorio.
I will grant you, you can build much more granular things in Factorio, it’s nittier and grittier. I’m real excited to play the full release this September.
This is how I’ve always felt about satisfactory. It’s so much more limiting in every way than factorio
Super Mario Brothers. The whole thing us based on ultra-precise timing, which is both miserable for me as well as inordinately stressful.
For the love of your sanity please don’t go anywhere near the modern platformers like Super Meat Boy or Celeste.
Super Meat Boy, I forgot about that rage inducing game. That game was way harder than Mario.
Céleste wasn’t a cake walk but the unlimited lives and quick load makes it doable. Just don’t try to 100 percent it, forget about the wack story and it’s good
I have a specific opinion about the older mario games; they expected a much more narrow game literacy than new games do, so the people who played them already had a little bit of transferable ability from other games. Nowadays, not just are precise skills less required because the games are designed to be easier, but the player base is starting the games with less skill due to their previous game being totally different.
I find Smash Bros uniquely frustrating and obtuse.
Buttons go smash.
If someone hands me a controller I’ll button mash away because I’m just here to hang out, but I don’t really like the game either. Ditto Mario Cart
Minecraft and other open-ended games without much guidance toward specific goals.
While I do enjoy freely exploring a large open world I also lose track of the point of playing at all… add some quest objectives or something and it’s perfect.
There are mod packs that add a lot of content and progression. As much as I like Minecraft, vanilla gets boring fast. Check out curseforge if you want to check it out.
Checkout minetest
Minetest is actually what we play - I host a server for me and my kiddos and have tried out several different games / mods
Currently preparing to move back to Asuna with an increase in mob mods and some of our other favorites
This was me with Space Engineers.
Fucking loved that game until I got to the moon. I was doing 10-hour sessions I loved it so much.
I played a scenario where I start in a planet, and there’s a space station orbiting the planet, and whenever I’m ready I can go to the space station and hit a button and then it’s basically zombie defense except it’s robotic drones.
Well, I started on the surface and my first thing was I had no water to make hydrogen and there were mountains on the horizon with ice caps on them so the first like 50 hours of gameplay was me building a rover and finding a path around a canyon to those mountains.
Finally I had a source of ice, hence hydrogen, hence fuel to get off the surface and into space.
After a few attempts I got a flying craft into space. Bare bones basics on it: survival kit, basic refinery so I could make repairs to my ship, and I started exploring outer space.
I tried the station with the defense thing and died instantly. So I decided I’d build up my ship, get more weapons, and try again.
So I cruised around, my ship grew, got more and more features including tons of turrets. I went and did another run at the drones and got through like 10 waves instead of 2. Then I decided to go check out the moon. This was a long journey (30 minutes at max speed as the crow flies) and I stopped many times along the way to expand my ship, so it was actually days of journeying to the moon.
Then I got to the moon, and landed, and it was cool and then … flop. All my motivation and fascination died all at once.
Apparently it’s quite common with Space Engineers. I really wish there was some major sequence of goals.
The drones goal isn’t beatable, I don’t think. And it’s the only goal like that. The reason it isn’t bearable is there’s infinite waves. I think.
What would even make it cooler is a series of challenges that you have to pass. At locations, each with their own difficulty level.
I mean there’s contracts where you can get money to trade like 50 steel plates for some space bucks.
I tried multiplayer servers but none of the worlds persist. Either the servers themselves are persistent - but the world is wiped every 6 hours - or the servers themselves are just rented servers that are up for a few days then gone.
I wasn’t able to find any public servers with long-term persistent worlds using the in-game browser.
Gacha games, but surprisingly not for the gacha elements. FOMO events, where you either play during a limited period or miss the event and its rewards forever, killed my interest in every one I played.
The worst are the ones that put critical parts of character stories in them, then never rerun the events. Genshin and other MiHoYo games were especially bad about this (Albedo’s evil twin says hello).
I’ve gotten into one of those games over the past few months for the first time and I’m still not even sure why. It’s so transparent what they’re doing, trying to milk users for money with artificially ridiculous drop rates for characters and gear, and just constant grinding to get anything. I’ve stayed F2P the whole time, but it’s kinda aggravating seeing stuff essentially locked behind a paywall. And the prices are absolutely ridiculous, I can’t imagine what kind of idiots would actually buy anything at their arbitrarily inflated rates for fake, digital crap. Yet I keep playing.
The battle pass from Genshin/Star Rail boggles the mind. You have to grind like crazy or play almost every day to complete it, and the majority of the rewards are character and weapon advancement materials. You know, something you’d usually have to grind for.
Escape the grind through more grinding.
Oh, and you only get 1/6 of the battle pass rewards as a F2P player. It’s ten bucks to unlock the majority of the rewards. And the headline feature, the weapon/star cone you unlock at tier 30 (only it you pay, naturally), is easily outclassed by stuff you’ll get as a F2P player.
fuck why did you have to remind of the double albedo thing. Which one survived?! He was missing the mark for a bit!! arggg…
Most of the Soulsborne games. The only one I’ve been able to enjoy is Sekiro.
In most Soulsborne games, it seems like difficulty is artificial simply because your character is so damned clunky. I enjoyed Sekiro specifically because the character was snappy and didn’t feel like they were running through waist-deep water. If I lost a fight in Sekiro, it was never because I was animation locked or because my character was too slow; It’s because I was too slow.
It took me a long time to warm to them.
The more armour you wear in the main Souls game, the slower and clunkier you are. It’s kind of a gotcha, in that you instinctively think more armour will help, and it does the exact opposite because you get hit more often. There’s a lot of shit that isn’t really explained at all. Some people like that, but the Wiki is there if you don’t.
Parrying was all but impossible for me, I just went with sword and shield for most of it, switching to the massive zweihander for the DLC.
Dark Souls 2 is the worst of them, I’d skip that if you ever try again. Way too many enemies in every area.
I also just dint have the time to get good at them. I get maybe 2-3 hours a week to game on average these days. I’m not going to dump a year into getting my ass kicked for a single game.
I tried Dark Souls and quit pretty early because I couldn’t pause. I don’t care about doing inventory or anything like that, but I’d like to be able to just stop things if I need to go check on the door or something. The outside world doesn’t stop just because I’m gaming.
IIRC, lots of people originally used the Home button as a sort of super-pause. But that’s not as easy on the PC version, where the game just keeps running in the background.
Baldurs gate 3. Just too much going on and I can’t figure it out. Never passed the first board. Also elden ring can get fucked.
First board? Not sure what that means… the tutorial? On the nautiloid? You are missing out on so much
I think he’s thinking of Build a Gate 3, which is indeed the most confusing game ever. It helps to think in terms wood grain, and it really helps if you get the carpentry instruction from BaG 1 and 2.
The very first thing you do. Whatever that was. Never got past it.
The tutorial?
I dont know. The very first part that is gameplay. Whatever that was, was too hard for me.
Probably the Nautiloid then (the area you wake up in that’s all… Bombed and has those pods).
(Ignore the rest of my comment if you have no interest at all in the game anymore, but read on if you want to give it another chance)
BG3 has a lot of content and story, but if you’ve never played a CRPG (like D&D but digital), it’s a bit difficult to get into. If you ever consider revisiting the game, there’s no shame in picking the easiest setting and/or looking up build guides online to make the combat easier (and save scum).
There’s a lot of very well written story and characters in the game and it’s one of those games where your choices actually matter. You can also take your sweet time with almost everything that’s happening in the game if you feel overwhelmed (something that new players aren’t really told).
Signed, someone who thought this type of game wasn’t her jam at all and is now 140h deep into her first playthrough ❤️
I felt this way too, but my husband guilted me into sticking with it and I’m super glad he did, we had SO much fun playing split screen. I’m the type of person who has to look at the controller to see which one triangle is to give you some idea of my adeptness.
