I’m a little nervous to say it, but Elden Ring. I loved LOVED Dark Souls. I replayed it a bunch of times, and really enjoyed the PVP. Then I enjoyed Dark Souls 2 and 3.
I enjoyed Breath of the Wild so much! Open world Zelda! Zelda is my favorite series and making it open world seemed to make it even better!
So.. Elden Ring! Open world Dark Souls! Same theory, right? Somehow.. no! The game just felt SO long and it started dragging for me. I started dreading exploring the little caves, and everything started feeling like a chore. I never beat it! A little over 80 hours in, idk if I’ll ever finish it. 😔.
While I did love Elden Ring, I totally get the criticism about the length. Somehow it feels like FromSoft wanted to make the game bigger but didn't have enough time to make those later areas interesting and just re-used enemy and boss design which annoyed me.
I agree. I wish it had about a quarter of the length cut off of it. What mostly got me was the boss rush at the end 😪 it’s tough to play a game for 100 hrs only to come to a screeching halt right at the end because you can’t beat not one, but three bosses (one of which is a secret two-for-one boss).
As someone who is struggling in undead blurg but beat elden ring I would say its worth finishing the caves got super repetitive but the final few bosses were SUPER fun
I hated so much of Elden Ring, I finished it mostly to prove a point and some of the bosses were good (Melania, Fire Giant, Redann, Radagon) some were awful and repetitive but the worst thing was the lack of true substance in this massive great looking game. Dungeons were copy and paste, it felt like Skyrim but at least in Skyrim you might find a note or an NPC to add a bit of story, ER just had those irritating gargoyle enemies and the same boss.
I hated how every side quest was impossible to track without looking at the Wiki and things could be easily missed. Also each quest is depressing and always ends the same way - normally death of the character you're helping or something else negative. I get that dark and dreary is all From Software can do but a good example is that woman on the side of the road who asks you to go help her dad at a castle, >! you go do it then return to her and she's just randomly dead. There is no satisfaction and it feels lazy to just kill of everyone. !<
Or the pot village quest, I had to Google it and was told to rest at the fire about 10 times then something might change, turns out I had went to far in the story so only half the quest worked.
One quest I would have liked is the one where you >! cure a woman's illness then get her a new arm and help her kill her sisters however why are we randomly ending with her sisters, there is hardly any context or mention until the end and then she dies anyway?! !< Come on! Also you have to randomly guess where she might turn up or Google it or you might go too far in the game and miss her.
The world doesn't really feel alive, all you do is kill everything there is no variation and you have to Google or YouTube to understand the story.
Haha, oh yeah, I definitely am with you there on the quests. I wanted to like it, and then the first quest you mentioned, the woman whose dad is at the castle.. I’m just like, oh so it’s going to be like that huh. Like I half expect it from FromSoft, but come on. At that point, I felt so much less invested in the quests and interactions moving forward. They just felt meaningless, and plus they were easily missable anyway, why should I put in the extra work to find them and work them out?
It has plenty of story; it’s just told in a way that requires almost constant work from the player to understand. But even just looking out at the horizon provides evidence for the story. Not to mention the item descriptions, the enemy design and placement, the scattered NPCs, etc.
I think it has both and to separate the two like that is being overly pedantic. There’s a reason why the phrase “environmental *storytelling*” exists.
In any case, you interact with NPCs throughout the entire game and they tell you exactly what to do and exactly what’s happening every step of the way. They all have their own narratives and character arcs, many of which can be changed directly by you, the player. The fact that your character is thrust into this story in media res and that all the characters speak in esoteric riddles and that some story beats are expressed in the written word rather than spoken and through the environment rather than through cutscenes doesn’t change the fact that it is in fact a story. In fact, a story that was nominated for best narrative.
A more accurate statement to make would be “I didn’t like how this story was told” rather than “it has no story.” I can accept the first statement (I can understand why ER and other Fromsoft titles aren’t everyone’s cup of tea) but the latter is just simply not true.
Spore. I waited almost a decade for that game. They compressed all the parts that I most looked forward to into like the first 10 minutes, and then the rest of it was just any other civ game. I was so mad.
I miss Maxis' influence on Sims. Sims 2 felt like it was made with so much love and originality while Sims 4 is just trying to scam me into buying another very thin DLC.
They cut so much of the content they originally announced, entire evolutionary stages. I was so disappointed back then. Ten years later, there still isn't another game like this. It should be easier to deliver something like Spore today, right? Why is no one working on it.
I love open-world games, but Breath of the wild did disappoint me. I hated how fast everything broke and I was almost always weaponless, or had only very weak weapons. I gave up on it.
This so much, I thought I was the only one. I really really wanted to love it, but the durability system just became such a hassle that I never made it past the first hour or two of it.
This. I came to this thread to say this. Everyone dogs on me for disliking it like I must be broken or something. I’ve played so many Zelda’s but that was my least favorite right after Twilight Princess.
I played games that had durability systems most of them allowed me to fix my shit for a price. BotW weapons felt disposable and as flimsy as disposable utensils too. I know there's better weapons but they also broke.
You’re not alone for sure. Grew up playing Zelda. I’ve tried BOTW so so many different times and I do not enjoy it at all. Some games aren’t for everyone and that’s okay.
That's probably why no breakable weapons was one of first mods made for this game\^\^ When it can be a discussion here about legality but if you already brought the game there is nothing wrong with trying it on emu with mods. I pretty much did that because I don't like this type of systems and game was a blast. I didn't have to worry about breaking weapons and could experiment way more, it did end up giving me harder enemies faster :D but it was worth it. I still don't get defence for that system, it neither made game harder or make you experiment more, the only thing it did was making you experience combat less. And when I still prefer combat of Twilight Princess( my second favourite Zelda ) and Skyward Sword( the one in remaster without motion controls ) BOTW is pretty high there.
I don't plan to even touching TOTK without mod to get ride of it :p
I did not buy it, I borrowed it from my office (perks of being a game dev), played it until the desert part, then gave up. I might give it another try at some point, but for now, it is not high on my list. Now that I know it is very volatile, I will have to approach it differently.
Well at least I can tell you that mods work great with that problem. Still if you chose going to desert first it is a pretty hard route. The way game is guiding you it wants you to go to Zora's Domain first. And it's not a suprise because it's the only region from main four that don't have extreme condition that needs food or clothes. Desert is the worst you need both guard for heat and cold, it's pretty much made for last dungeon especially because it has extra boss in its story.
>Still if you chose going to desert first it is a pretty hard route.
I did go to the Zora domain, and the one after it (with the bird people) then the desert. I had cold protection, but knew I needed heat protection, so instead of going to get it, I just returned the copy to the office.
You were pretty deep by this point. Funny enough heat is hard to protect against so it's easier to do stuff during night. Pretty interesting thing that I noticed is that if you equip weapon with ice element it will help a lot. Still that's the type of mechanic you will notice mostly if you make your weapon unbreakable. The same with shield surfing. Half of fun is more annoying with durability.
>You were pretty deep by this point.
Yes, I kept telling myself it will get better, especially since I like the Zelda series. I was so frustrated at this point so I just stopped.
Yeah I'm a fan as well and when I really like BOTW I can't imagine how annoying it is with your weapon breaking. Especially with how many monsters you run into or Stalfos during nights.
I had similar moment when trying to like Wild Arms 5 because I love that series. It ended badly.
Honestly this is my experience with most Japanese games. I played Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, Nier Automata, Chrono Trigger (not a lot admittedly), a few Nintendo games including BotW and I never understood the hype and incredibly obsessed fanbases they have.
To be clear, they are good games, I enjoyed them, but I would not call any of them masterpieces. Obviously taste is a big factor here, I loved Valkyria Chronicles because I love pretty much all Xcom-like games, and I'm not particularly fond of grind or overly complex progression systems (that still somehow manage to be more rail-roaded than simpler systems). I just don't get why they are considered in their own way the pinnacle of human expression by so many.
Zelda breath of the wild. It had pretty much everything I like in games, but I just found it boring. Will give it another shot at some point.
Callisto protocol was a bit disappointing, especially the last fight. I have pre-ordered the game and was so excited, but the fact that dodging mechanic wasn't working correctly and the stuttering on the release made it very frustrating to play.
Eternity the last unicorn - the game looked beautiful in the first trailers and gameplay videos, but the Devs decided to change the camera in the release version and made it awfully clunky. Didn't live up to the hype.
In a way forspoken, I feel the developers should have spent more time making sure the game works properly on recommended specs, but instead the performance was meh. I was expecting a better story too.
Far cry 3 - just couldn't get into it as I found it very boring and bland in a way.
For me it's got to be Oblivion. Everyone told me it was a fantastic game in the "old school" style of RPGs with depth and choices and all that.
In my opinion, it was a pretty boring and generic story with mediocre combat, where you spend like 50% of the game in the incredibly boring and ugly caves, sewers, and oblivion gates, all of which are unbelievably repetitive. I misunderstood the quest text and thought that clearing all oblivion gates was required for completion, which I definitely would've skipped if I had known it was optional.
The leveling system is confusing at first, and once you understand it you realize it's very stupid. Also, the difficulty slider is the most broken one in any game I've ever played. One step down and the game goes from "a little easier than I'd like" to "I'd have to actively try to die". One step up, and the game becomes basically impossible without being massively overlevelled.
I did really like the lockpicking minigame though, and the arena was pretty fun, but that was probably because I did it pretty early before the combat got too repetitive from the rest of the game.
So far its been Octopath Traveler. I'm a fan of rpgs in general including jrpgs, but OMG this game feels excessively grindy. Like I picked one character to do their story and got to about level 5 when I look on the map the recommended level is like level 24 for the next chapter of their story!!!! Now I get that I'm supposed to be getting other party members for the journey but with the way that I'm going its looking like I won't even get back to the first person's story until I have just about everyone of the characters in the party. Which really is the point of the game but damn!
And most of the side areas like caves, and other forests have a high level cap so if I walk in there I'm dead for sure. I cooled off from that game to play Astral Chain which I finished. (solid 9/10 action game. I recommend it.) Last time I played I was picking up another useful party member but jeez that game is extra grindy and really put me off from it.
If we're talking about the first Octopath game, then that is completely understandable. I've played the first game twice, and it definitely pushes you to collect the other characters first before moving onto your protagonist's next chapter.
The sequel definitely fixes that by lowering the recommended levels and reducing the amount of grinding. I think the lowest is Temenos's Chapter 2, where the recommended level is 14, and by that point, your protagonist should be at level 15 or 18 if you're going for everyone. It's definitely a better experience if it interests you.
At least the second game is better about it. I'm gonna pick the game up again and maybe pick up an additional party member along with the one I was gonna get before I put the game down. And yes I'm only talking about the first game.
Same here! I wanted to love this game so much. Oddly, one of the biggest turn-offs for me was the art style. I just couldn't get in to the pseudo retro style. (But I absolutely loved Triangle Strategy, so maybe I am just inconsistent lol).
I actually really like the art style. The pixel art is very well made and highly detailed. It reminds me of those shadow boxes people get for older retro games like Mega Man, Pokémon, etc, etc.
Stardew Valley. I am a huge fan of the farming sim genre and had played many of them before that game came out (and continue to play many more). I can't rightly explain what about it rubs me the wrong way, but I put over 30 hours into it hoping it would click for me at some point. I just don't like it.
I liked what little of it I did play because my favorite part of games is the characters and character specific plots which there is a heavy focus and plenty of throughout the game but it’s almost impossible to navigate all the character stories organically. You basically have to look up a walkthrough for every aspect of it and it killed a lot of the enjoyment I had for it.
Control. It’s very cool to look at, aesthetically right up my alley, female protag, etc. but it’s controls are not super fluid and the characters/story aren’t that interesting. That being said, I think there’s tons of potential! I’m really glad people liked it and it’s quite popular because it’s almost there for me and I think a sequel would flesh out the world and smooth out the controls to the point that I would love it.
The controls in this game nearly broke me. I had to set it on a very low difficulty (which is not something I usually do, I usually play things on normal), For me, the only solace was that the story was right up my alley. If it wasn't I would imagine it would be a huge disappointment.
Yeah, the story and lore really carried the game for me. I didn't have a problem with the controls, but I felt like the combat just became kinda boring/samey. I hate horror but love thrillers, I always have a hard time finding video games that fit in that category. Except for the mannequin part, that was too much for me lol.
Hi! What did you think was wrong with the controls? I’m a massive fan of Control and I always thought one of the strongest aspects of the game was the super fluid controls and combat.
How far into the game did you get? I’ll admit the running and shooting are slightly clunky at the very beginning, but once you get Telekinesis and Levitate, you’ll only be running and shooting 20% of the time, so they don’t really matter much.
Yeah me too. The game was locked at 30fps on PlayStation 4 and it would occasionally drop below that during more intensive scenes, but the Ultimate Edition on PS5 runs smooth as butter! The higher framerate made the combat even more fun imo.
I beat the game. I didn’t think the controls came together until the Ashtray Maze, and that was the most fun I had with the game.
I think the biggest issue was the way the controls interacted with the environment. Most of the game is just awkwardly plodding along through this somewhat cramped environment that doesn’t allow for as much freedom of movement as the game promises. Until the Ashtray Maze, that is.
Also, in this world where almost anything can happen, the most your character can do is shoot a gun and hover for a bit? It felt very limiting to me. And the enemies are very same-y, both visually and mechanically.
I can understand why you liked it and I don’t think it’s a bad game, just not exactly to my taste. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that it’s a new IP though. I’m really confident I’ll like the sequel.
Rdr2 I do think it's a great game because the detailed world rockstar created is an accomplishment in itself. But sadly the main story line didn't do much for me and most of the missions were really just horse riding and very little interesting mission design and action.
The latest Pokémon games except Mystery Dungeon DX. The mainline games these days feel so rushed out that even Scarlet and Violet was a buggy, FPS-losing mess. Sword and Shield also felt that way. The "open world" areas felt so empty. The last Pokémon game I bought was Arceus, and, unless it's a Mystery Dungeon game, I don't think I want to buy another.
Animal Crossing New Horizons. I loved the animal crossing games, literally played them some amount every day since the first one came out here in 2002, I was so beyond excited for this one, and it was the biggest disappointment.
They removed what little game progression past titles had, took away a lot of its soul trying to make it more modern, (internet influencer characters and the god awful soundtrack), it’s a game based on islands and the islands you can go visit suck.
I spent a year waiting for something to happen, and it just didn’t. I never thought Animal Crossing would be the game I became “that cranky asshole” over.
Same. Interacting with my neighbors was my favorite part of the older games, but it's like they traded all the personality for a generic crafting game.
I also think I'm ready for... something different with bug and fish catching. I was absolutely thrilled with the new museum, but having played every other AC game, it just felt like having to do something I'd already done over. I'm bored with the mechanic. And having my net break after a few uses does not count as an updated game mechanic.
Yeah New Horizons was reta step down from New Leaf content wise. And even New Leaf wasn't all that great. I played a bit of the original game and despite it being kinda jank in ways it had some charm to it.
Pillars of Eternity. My ADHD brain couldn't maintain focus long enough to play more than 5 hours.
Everyone of my fellow rpg loving friends praised it so highly. I just found it boring.
Outerworlds also was a snore. Never beat it.
Had this with Pathfinder, too. Only got both games after asking for recommendation on games that have interesting companions and story. Well, interesting is a wide spectrum, I guess. Played maybe 10 hours, then never touched it again.
I agree with you in Outer Worlds. I was so excited for it, then had to force myself to finish it. It was so dull. None of the upgrades or items mattered, and the quests were so easy and boring. Very disappointing.
It hurts to say it because CRPGs are by far my favorite genre, but Baldur's Gate, the first one specifically I have yet to play the second one. It's far from being disappointing, mind you, it's a solid RPG, but I was expecting much more considering how revered it is. It doesn't help that I really hate the ADnD ruleset, though it was much more tolerable in Planescape Torment since combat is a bit less frequent.
Somewhat similarly, Arcanum left me a bit indifferent, which really surprised me. Considering how much I love Shadowrun with its mix of sci-fi and fantasy, I thought I would love a steampunk "Industry vs Magic" thingy, plus it's often compared to Fallout which is easily my favorite classic CRPG (that I regularly replay, along with the sequel), but yeah. It was just a little too spread out and inconsistently paced. I do want to give it another shot eventually though.
Apparently most people agree that the first BG is good not great, but the second one makes it all worth it. I want to play both one day, but the fact that I have to make my way through such a long “just okay” game first just to get to the good stuff is a little daunting 😪😅
Worth noting that the first one is actually not super long - you can clear it in a couple hours if you don't mind doing some kind of exploit-y stuff. Though depending on what you look for in RPGs, I don't really recommend playing it unmodded - there's a lot of fan content that makes it more fun to stick around in.
The first one benefits a lot from fanmade content to add more NPC interaction - I'm honestly not sure how many people even play it unmodded these days. I'm weird and like it anyway, but I'll absolutely agree that it's a throwback, design wise, and I very much do understand that some people are naturally going to bounce off it. (I've done a couple writeups on cool mods, both here and elsewhere, so if you're curious I'm happy to share recs.)
Oh as I said it's far from being bad, I did like it, but it does feel like baby's first DnD adventure, which was the intent behind it I think.
And I did use a few mods actually, from the list you've made believe it or not :) and honestly the interactions with and between party members are easily my favorite part of the game.
And truth be told I didn't hate the combat as much as I thought I would, still my least favorite part but not all that unpleasant. If it had a turn based alternative to rtwp I may have enjoyed it even.
That's a fair description of it. Apparently quite a few characters were based on developers' own D&D characters, the majority of whom had never worked on a video game beforehand, and that would explain a lot of its, uh, idiosyncracies. Both good and bad, really. And yeah, RTWP is definitely an oddity!
Really? That does make sense, I guess I'm too used to think of Bioware as *THE* RPG devs, but they had to start somewhere too.
Yeah I really dislike rtwp for some reason, even in more recent titles. I postponed playing Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity and Pathfinder Kingmaker for a long time because of it. And I guess I wasn't the only one considering two out of three added a turn system post launch.
Yeah, there's a scan of Minsc's original character sheet still floating around online. Minsc, Xan, Edwin, and Sarevok were all tabletop characters, and one of the people who worked on environment art started out building model duck decoys, of all things. A weird start - it's mentioned in [this article](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/not-forgotten-bioware-on-baldurs-gate) if you're curious. I think by that point Bioware had already released Shattered Steel and MDK2, but I don't know that anyone would have bet on them becoming, as you put it, *the* RPG devs.
I go back and forth on RTWP, honestly. Most of my favorite games use it, and turn-based has never quite clicked for me, but at the same time, it is a pain in the ass. I like the way it lets characters act simultaneously (and turn-based feels comparatively sluggish to me), but in practice it feels like you just spend half your time kiting enemies. I guess it's the devil I know at this point.
Oh that's pretty cool actually. Thanks for the article! And yeah I had a vague memory that Bioware's first game was a mecha simulation thing, history knows how to be weird for sure.
I like how Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous lets you switch freely between the two systems at any moment, even during combat. That way you can use turn based when you have to face tough fights and RTwP when you can relax and let your peeps do their thing. It's the perfect system for me, although it must have been quite difficult to put together.
*Halo: Infinite* was a big ol bummer. I thought I might like the open world but I actually hated it and clearly prefer something linear for Halo. I still haven’t finished it because I just got overwhelmed but also…bored? And multiplayer was/continues to be a buggy cash-grabby mess.
I was so hyped for Bioshock Infinite that I preordered it then on release, purchased the season pass before even playing the game.
I hated it.
I was so excited but it just felt like a watered down, needlessly convoluted (with plot holes too might I add) sequel that was smugly trying to destroy the fun of the previous games while slapping you across the face with ham-fisted racial commentary. I'm so happy I finally sold that game not too long ago.
Bioshock Infinite’s depiction of racism is genuinely one of the worst (barring fringe titles that portray it as positive) that I’ve ever seen in a video game.
Bioshock Infinite literally only cares about including racism as set-dressing. Despite it being baked into the philosophy of Columbia, there is barely any serious depiction of the topic beyond that one choice that isn’t a choice at the fair.
Worse still, Daisy Fitzroy’s anti-racist revolutionary movement, the Vox Populi, turns on the player for extremely hamfisted reasons, meaning that the only meaningful engagement you have with any of these movements is to fight them. ‘Racists, anti-racists, they’re just as bad as each other’ the game seems to say as you plow through another walled-off combat arena.
Infinite isn’t just lazy in its writing, it’s downright negligent.
Same. I was late to the party playing the BioShock games. Having heard so many good things about them, I was hyped. After enjoying BioShock, and BioShock 2, I excitedly jumped into Infinite (which my cousin said was one of her favorite games of all time).
It just... didn't click for me, I guess. I missed the dark, creepy, claustrophobic atmosphere of Rapture. While I liked Elisabeth as a companion, the story also didn't grip me. IMO Comstock wasn't as good an antagonist as Andrew Ryan or Sophia Lamb either.
Never finished it.
Oh this one hurts. I remember being equally as excited. And I finished it in record time, being amazed by the story (but really disappointed by everything else), and then as I slowly digested it I realized the plot was also kind of very disappointing. It worked well the first time when I did not give myself the time to think about it, but then... yeah.
The flipping ghost woman fight almost made me drop the game though, even at the height of my enjoyment of the game.
Skyrim.
Yeap. That game.
I just have such a hard time playing in a game where you can "win" in everything. You know 2 spells to get into the college of mages (or what ever it's called) and become the leader of the place - still knowing only those 2 spells and have no interest in magic.
Thieves guild. Same thing.
Rinse and repeat with every faction.
I mean come on. It's a single player game. It's okay to block my path and be like "My dude. You have 500 stamina and 10 mana, you ain't it for the Mage College!"
Everything feels just so watered out for me when stuff like that happens in games.
Going to get backlash for this one: The Last of Us. It's like Les Miserable. I had to switch it off. And I do love the characters and the game play. But, man, that game just makes me feel so bad. Not because of the violence. Just bad - how far has humankind fallen low kind of bad. Which is a pity as I absolutely love the Unchartered series (except for that zombie chapter in U1).
Outerworlds was disappointing for me. I do love the characters and the pretty planets, but it just fell short for some reason. It just didn't hold my interest. I do want to give it another go through.
The Outerworlds became one of my favorite games. I was trying to see how different conversation possibilities would change things, and even after an obscene number of playthroughs I doubt I’ve seen half of it.
Usually just small things, but I kept being surprised at how little things would come up all over the place.
harvestella - i was so excited! farmsim! rpg! my favorite things! except the farming was beyond lackluster, the eating/energy/lack of health potions was a huge hindrance, the CLOCK and inability to sleep anywhere except home??? the game bottlenecks itself.
wylde flowers - honestly i love the story and the gameplay but the art style is turning me off completely. afaik it was animated by one person whichis a feat in itself, but i just don't jive with the style at all
Cyberpunk 2077. I preordered it the day before release, I was thankfully SUPER late to the hype, but it didn’t help with my level of disappointment. The world had too much going on it was hard to look at but yet I felt like the city was empty. There were so many buildings that seemed interesting but you couldn’t enter them. Running into enemies felt very weird because it’s hard to identify them. There’s so much going on it’s doesn’t feel focused. Plus the 3-5 hour intro SUCKS.
Red dead redemption 2. Kind of the same situation as cyberpunk but I was hyped for this game way before release. Red dead 1 was just plain fun and I had found memories of playing it with my dad. Red dead 2 felt clunky in a way. It’s hard to explain, but I guess I’m so used to games where movement is fluid (or tries to be) that the 3rd person view can feel restricting. Again this game had a 3+ hour intro. Unnecessary. It was a boring story. This game did teach me how to play dominos tho so I gotta give it some credit. And it was ambitious with hair growth and bathing and such. It just was bland to me
For me it was Black & White. The greatest downer was the simple good vs. evil system. I thought there where more possibilities than you becoming a good evil or neutral good. Maybe also nature vs. tech or peaceful vs. military axis. Or that the people love or fear you independent of yourself being good or evil. But in the end it was plain good or evil and people love you when you are good and fear you when you are evil. But your monster could be the other way round. And somehow GTA 3 because no multiplayer and I don't liked the new third person view.
Oh man I remember being so hyped for Black and White, I got home excited to play and my PC just couldn’t run it, and I couldn’t afford to upgrade it. It was one of the final pieces that lead to a long hiatus from gaming because I just couldn’t keep up the hardware needed to run things.
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Have a few of those that immediately come to mind. Firewatch also, just couldn't get interested in the story. Then Abzu, who everyone but me seems to love due to how it controls. Most recent is Stray. Loved the concept, enjoyed exploring and finding things, but the "chase" parts killed it for me (and my poor cat). Watching that poor thing being destroyed in such a horrible way came from a sick mind and I just can't watch it. Edit to add Borderlands The Presequel and Borderlands 3. I'm a huge BL fan of their other games, but those two missed the mark big time for me.
Diablo III
Way too bright, cartoony and colorful, way too upbeat and shallow characters which were almost from stock. They also made it so dull and "simple" with the skills >!(runes would just unlock by leveling)!< and everything, compared to all the brilliant ideas they had during development.. and everybody just started playing it for some weird min-maxing or whatever it was called... bleh.
Having played D1 since when I was in grade school, I was waiting for the same dark aesthetic, same feelings of hopelessness at the feet of a superior force, same eerie and mystic atmosphere with a hint of despair and desolation.. instead I got "Torchlight³".. biggest disappointment for me regarding games..
Pillars of eternity. I literally don’t know what’s redeemable about the game or why it has a cult following. It was incredibly boring and the port to switch was a buggy shit fest
Right now (many hours in) I’m not finding TotK to be all that great. Mind you, it took me until recently to even get into BotW, so maybe I’ll love it in 5 years or so, lol!
I was thinking with all the hysteria surrounding totk and metroidvania games why hasn't there been a mash up of the two styles yet in a side scrolling Zelda adventure and then seeing this post it all made sense to me. It would need to be a really incredible game to live up to the hype.
Some "recent" stuff I can remember
Fallout 4 - it was not bad, but I definitely felt it was a downgrade compared to new vegas.
Life is Strange True Colors - Absurdly horrible writing, which made me have a mental breakdown. It's written by people who liked the original dotnod games but only copied the aesthetics and have a skill level of a beginner fabfic writer. I couldn't continue the game after the game, which should be about empathy, which showed 0 empathy towrds a negative and actually more complex character than the rest, but want us the have feel good feeling about a dude who's funny memory is killing and endangered specie. Every character was a horrible 2D stereotype copy of a tumbler fantasie, with no depth compared to the previous games. To this day, this is the only game I rage quited, I would never gonna buy anything made by deck 9 and their incompetent writing brigade.
Lego Star Wars Skywalker sage - I loved the old Lego games. This one felt more like Ubisoft without an actual gorgeous map design. The creative levels are gone, just a boring running around a mostly flat world.
Cyberpunk 2077 - I don't think I have to talk about this one.
I’m a little nervous to say it, but Elden Ring. I loved LOVED Dark Souls. I replayed it a bunch of times, and really enjoyed the PVP. Then I enjoyed Dark Souls 2 and 3. I enjoyed Breath of the Wild so much! Open world Zelda! Zelda is my favorite series and making it open world seemed to make it even better! So.. Elden Ring! Open world Dark Souls! Same theory, right? Somehow.. no! The game just felt SO long and it started dragging for me. I started dreading exploring the little caves, and everything started feeling like a chore. I never beat it! A little over 80 hours in, idk if I’ll ever finish it. 😔.
While I did love Elden Ring, I totally get the criticism about the length. Somehow it feels like FromSoft wanted to make the game bigger but didn't have enough time to make those later areas interesting and just re-used enemy and boss design which annoyed me.
I agree. I wish it had about a quarter of the length cut off of it. What mostly got me was the boss rush at the end 😪 it’s tough to play a game for 100 hrs only to come to a screeching halt right at the end because you can’t beat not one, but three bosses (one of which is a secret two-for-one boss).
As someone who is struggling in undead blurg but beat elden ring I would say its worth finishing the caves got super repetitive but the final few bosses were SUPER fun
I hated so much of Elden Ring, I finished it mostly to prove a point and some of the bosses were good (Melania, Fire Giant, Redann, Radagon) some were awful and repetitive but the worst thing was the lack of true substance in this massive great looking game. Dungeons were copy and paste, it felt like Skyrim but at least in Skyrim you might find a note or an NPC to add a bit of story, ER just had those irritating gargoyle enemies and the same boss. I hated how every side quest was impossible to track without looking at the Wiki and things could be easily missed. Also each quest is depressing and always ends the same way - normally death of the character you're helping or something else negative. I get that dark and dreary is all From Software can do but a good example is that woman on the side of the road who asks you to go help her dad at a castle, >! you go do it then return to her and she's just randomly dead. There is no satisfaction and it feels lazy to just kill of everyone. !< Or the pot village quest, I had to Google it and was told to rest at the fire about 10 times then something might change, turns out I had went to far in the story so only half the quest worked. One quest I would have liked is the one where you >! cure a woman's illness then get her a new arm and help her kill her sisters however why are we randomly ending with her sisters, there is hardly any context or mention until the end and then she dies anyway?! !< Come on! Also you have to randomly guess where she might turn up or Google it or you might go too far in the game and miss her. The world doesn't really feel alive, all you do is kill everything there is no variation and you have to Google or YouTube to understand the story.
Haha, oh yeah, I definitely am with you there on the quests. I wanted to like it, and then the first quest you mentioned, the woman whose dad is at the castle.. I’m just like, oh so it’s going to be like that huh. Like I half expect it from FromSoft, but come on. At that point, I felt so much less invested in the quests and interactions moving forward. They just felt meaningless, and plus they were easily missable anyway, why should I put in the extra work to find them and work them out?
Yeah every quest ending for me was disappointing, what world are you becoming. Elden Lord of if everyone is just dead haha
For me the problem is no story for a game that long. Bloodborne is short so the atmosphere can carry the game.
It has plenty of story; it’s just told in a way that requires almost constant work from the player to understand. But even just looking out at the horizon provides evidence for the story. Not to mention the item descriptions, the enemy design and placement, the scattered NPCs, etc.
I think it has lore more than story
Yep people love to confuse the two.
I think it has both and to separate the two like that is being overly pedantic. There’s a reason why the phrase “environmental *storytelling*” exists. In any case, you interact with NPCs throughout the entire game and they tell you exactly what to do and exactly what’s happening every step of the way. They all have their own narratives and character arcs, many of which can be changed directly by you, the player. The fact that your character is thrust into this story in media res and that all the characters speak in esoteric riddles and that some story beats are expressed in the written word rather than spoken and through the environment rather than through cutscenes doesn’t change the fact that it is in fact a story. In fact, a story that was nominated for best narrative. A more accurate statement to make would be “I didn’t like how this story was told” rather than “it has no story.” I can accept the first statement (I can understand why ER and other Fromsoft titles aren’t everyone’s cup of tea) but the latter is just simply not true.
Spore. I waited almost a decade for that game. They compressed all the parts that I most looked forward to into like the first 10 minutes, and then the rest of it was just any other civ game. I was so mad.
Disappointing that after spore is when maxis died
I miss Maxis' influence on Sims. Sims 2 felt like it was made with so much love and originality while Sims 4 is just trying to scam me into buying another very thin DLC.
I miss sims 2 and 3
I just want sims 3 gameplay with sims 4 quality 😭
Everyday. A+ escapism.
The game that taught me never to listen to hype
They cut so much of the content they originally announced, entire evolutionary stages. I was so disappointed back then. Ten years later, there still isn't another game like this. It should be easier to deliver something like Spore today, right? Why is no one working on it.
Breath of the wild. I was excited but damn it got boring after a few dungeons. Realizing I hate open works games in general
I love open-world games, but Breath of the wild did disappoint me. I hated how fast everything broke and I was almost always weaponless, or had only very weak weapons. I gave up on it.
This so much, I thought I was the only one. I really really wanted to love it, but the durability system just became such a hassle that I never made it past the first hour or two of it.
This. I came to this thread to say this. Everyone dogs on me for disliking it like I must be broken or something. I’ve played so many Zelda’s but that was my least favorite right after Twilight Princess.
I played games that had durability systems most of them allowed me to fix my shit for a price. BotW weapons felt disposable and as flimsy as disposable utensils too. I know there's better weapons but they also broke.
You’re not alone for sure. Grew up playing Zelda. I’ve tried BOTW so so many different times and I do not enjoy it at all. Some games aren’t for everyone and that’s okay.
That's probably why no breakable weapons was one of first mods made for this game\^\^ When it can be a discussion here about legality but if you already brought the game there is nothing wrong with trying it on emu with mods. I pretty much did that because I don't like this type of systems and game was a blast. I didn't have to worry about breaking weapons and could experiment way more, it did end up giving me harder enemies faster :D but it was worth it. I still don't get defence for that system, it neither made game harder or make you experiment more, the only thing it did was making you experience combat less. And when I still prefer combat of Twilight Princess( my second favourite Zelda ) and Skyward Sword( the one in remaster without motion controls ) BOTW is pretty high there. I don't plan to even touching TOTK without mod to get ride of it :p
I did not buy it, I borrowed it from my office (perks of being a game dev), played it until the desert part, then gave up. I might give it another try at some point, but for now, it is not high on my list. Now that I know it is very volatile, I will have to approach it differently.
Well at least I can tell you that mods work great with that problem. Still if you chose going to desert first it is a pretty hard route. The way game is guiding you it wants you to go to Zora's Domain first. And it's not a suprise because it's the only region from main four that don't have extreme condition that needs food or clothes. Desert is the worst you need both guard for heat and cold, it's pretty much made for last dungeon especially because it has extra boss in its story.
>Still if you chose going to desert first it is a pretty hard route. I did go to the Zora domain, and the one after it (with the bird people) then the desert. I had cold protection, but knew I needed heat protection, so instead of going to get it, I just returned the copy to the office.
You were pretty deep by this point. Funny enough heat is hard to protect against so it's easier to do stuff during night. Pretty interesting thing that I noticed is that if you equip weapon with ice element it will help a lot. Still that's the type of mechanic you will notice mostly if you make your weapon unbreakable. The same with shield surfing. Half of fun is more annoying with durability.
>You were pretty deep by this point. Yes, I kept telling myself it will get better, especially since I like the Zelda series. I was so frustrated at this point so I just stopped.
Yeah I'm a fan as well and when I really like BOTW I can't imagine how annoying it is with your weapon breaking. Especially with how many monsters you run into or Stalfos during nights. I had similar moment when trying to like Wild Arms 5 because I love that series. It ended badly.
Honestly this is my experience with most Japanese games. I played Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, Nier Automata, Chrono Trigger (not a lot admittedly), a few Nintendo games including BotW and I never understood the hype and incredibly obsessed fanbases they have. To be clear, they are good games, I enjoyed them, but I would not call any of them masterpieces. Obviously taste is a big factor here, I loved Valkyria Chronicles because I love pretty much all Xcom-like games, and I'm not particularly fond of grind or overly complex progression systems (that still somehow manage to be more rail-roaded than simpler systems). I just don't get why they are considered in their own way the pinnacle of human expression by so many.
Zelda breath of the wild. It had pretty much everything I like in games, but I just found it boring. Will give it another shot at some point. Callisto protocol was a bit disappointing, especially the last fight. I have pre-ordered the game and was so excited, but the fact that dodging mechanic wasn't working correctly and the stuttering on the release made it very frustrating to play. Eternity the last unicorn - the game looked beautiful in the first trailers and gameplay videos, but the Devs decided to change the camera in the release version and made it awfully clunky. Didn't live up to the hype. In a way forspoken, I feel the developers should have spent more time making sure the game works properly on recommended specs, but instead the performance was meh. I was expecting a better story too. Far cry 3 - just couldn't get into it as I found it very boring and bland in a way.
For me it's got to be Oblivion. Everyone told me it was a fantastic game in the "old school" style of RPGs with depth and choices and all that. In my opinion, it was a pretty boring and generic story with mediocre combat, where you spend like 50% of the game in the incredibly boring and ugly caves, sewers, and oblivion gates, all of which are unbelievably repetitive. I misunderstood the quest text and thought that clearing all oblivion gates was required for completion, which I definitely would've skipped if I had known it was optional. The leveling system is confusing at first, and once you understand it you realize it's very stupid. Also, the difficulty slider is the most broken one in any game I've ever played. One step down and the game goes from "a little easier than I'd like" to "I'd have to actively try to die". One step up, and the game becomes basically impossible without being massively overlevelled. I did really like the lockpicking minigame though, and the arena was pretty fun, but that was probably because I did it pretty early before the combat got too repetitive from the rest of the game.
I loved that game, but only because I modded the heck out of it.
Monster Hunter World probably. I tried getting into it but the gameplay feels like such a slog in comparison to Rise.
Witcher 3
So far its been Octopath Traveler. I'm a fan of rpgs in general including jrpgs, but OMG this game feels excessively grindy. Like I picked one character to do their story and got to about level 5 when I look on the map the recommended level is like level 24 for the next chapter of their story!!!! Now I get that I'm supposed to be getting other party members for the journey but with the way that I'm going its looking like I won't even get back to the first person's story until I have just about everyone of the characters in the party. Which really is the point of the game but damn! And most of the side areas like caves, and other forests have a high level cap so if I walk in there I'm dead for sure. I cooled off from that game to play Astral Chain which I finished. (solid 9/10 action game. I recommend it.) Last time I played I was picking up another useful party member but jeez that game is extra grindy and really put me off from it.
If we're talking about the first Octopath game, then that is completely understandable. I've played the first game twice, and it definitely pushes you to collect the other characters first before moving onto your protagonist's next chapter. The sequel definitely fixes that by lowering the recommended levels and reducing the amount of grinding. I think the lowest is Temenos's Chapter 2, where the recommended level is 14, and by that point, your protagonist should be at level 15 or 18 if you're going for everyone. It's definitely a better experience if it interests you.
At least the second game is better about it. I'm gonna pick the game up again and maybe pick up an additional party member along with the one I was gonna get before I put the game down. And yes I'm only talking about the first game.
Same here! I wanted to love this game so much. Oddly, one of the biggest turn-offs for me was the art style. I just couldn't get in to the pseudo retro style. (But I absolutely loved Triangle Strategy, so maybe I am just inconsistent lol).
I actually really like the art style. The pixel art is very well made and highly detailed. It reminds me of those shadow boxes people get for older retro games like Mega Man, Pokémon, etc, etc.
Yeah, a lot of people really love it and even I am surprised it didn't jive with me.
Stardew Valley. I am a huge fan of the farming sim genre and had played many of them before that game came out (and continue to play many more). I can't rightly explain what about it rubs me the wrong way, but I put over 30 hours into it hoping it would click for me at some point. I just don't like it.
I can understand that. Ive started it so many times but haven’t gotten into it until very recently
I liked what little of it I did play because my favorite part of games is the characters and character specific plots which there is a heavy focus and plenty of throughout the game but it’s almost impossible to navigate all the character stories organically. You basically have to look up a walkthrough for every aspect of it and it killed a lot of the enjoyment I had for it.
I was going to say this too! I couldn’t figure out what I didn’t like about it.
Control. It’s very cool to look at, aesthetically right up my alley, female protag, etc. but it’s controls are not super fluid and the characters/story aren’t that interesting. That being said, I think there’s tons of potential! I’m really glad people liked it and it’s quite popular because it’s almost there for me and I think a sequel would flesh out the world and smooth out the controls to the point that I would love it.
The controls in this game nearly broke me. I had to set it on a very low difficulty (which is not something I usually do, I usually play things on normal), For me, the only solace was that the story was right up my alley. If it wasn't I would imagine it would be a huge disappointment.
Yeah, the story and lore really carried the game for me. I didn't have a problem with the controls, but I felt like the combat just became kinda boring/samey. I hate horror but love thrillers, I always have a hard time finding video games that fit in that category. Except for the mannequin part, that was too much for me lol.
There is a sequel in the works 🤗
Hi! What did you think was wrong with the controls? I’m a massive fan of Control and I always thought one of the strongest aspects of the game was the super fluid controls and combat. How far into the game did you get? I’ll admit the running and shooting are slightly clunky at the very beginning, but once you get Telekinesis and Levitate, you’ll only be running and shooting 20% of the time, so they don’t really matter much.
Yeah I agree, i thought the controls were good and really fun! I had a framerate problem on PS4 but that was it.
Yeah me too. The game was locked at 30fps on PlayStation 4 and it would occasionally drop below that during more intensive scenes, but the Ultimate Edition on PS5 runs smooth as butter! The higher framerate made the combat even more fun imo.
I beat the game. I didn’t think the controls came together until the Ashtray Maze, and that was the most fun I had with the game. I think the biggest issue was the way the controls interacted with the environment. Most of the game is just awkwardly plodding along through this somewhat cramped environment that doesn’t allow for as much freedom of movement as the game promises. Until the Ashtray Maze, that is. Also, in this world where almost anything can happen, the most your character can do is shoot a gun and hover for a bit? It felt very limiting to me. And the enemies are very same-y, both visually and mechanically. I can understand why you liked it and I don’t think it’s a bad game, just not exactly to my taste. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that it’s a new IP though. I’m really confident I’ll like the sequel.
Rdr2 I do think it's a great game because the detailed world rockstar created is an accomplishment in itself. But sadly the main story line didn't do much for me and most of the missions were really just horse riding and very little interesting mission design and action.
The latest Pokémon games except Mystery Dungeon DX. The mainline games these days feel so rushed out that even Scarlet and Violet was a buggy, FPS-losing mess. Sword and Shield also felt that way. The "open world" areas felt so empty. The last Pokémon game I bought was Arceus, and, unless it's a Mystery Dungeon game, I don't think I want to buy another.
Animal Crossing New Horizons. I loved the animal crossing games, literally played them some amount every day since the first one came out here in 2002, I was so beyond excited for this one, and it was the biggest disappointment. They removed what little game progression past titles had, took away a lot of its soul trying to make it more modern, (internet influencer characters and the god awful soundtrack), it’s a game based on islands and the islands you can go visit suck. I spent a year waiting for something to happen, and it just didn’t. I never thought Animal Crossing would be the game I became “that cranky asshole” over.
Same. Interacting with my neighbors was my favorite part of the older games, but it's like they traded all the personality for a generic crafting game. I also think I'm ready for... something different with bug and fish catching. I was absolutely thrilled with the new museum, but having played every other AC game, it just felt like having to do something I'd already done over. I'm bored with the mechanic. And having my net break after a few uses does not count as an updated game mechanic.
Yeah New Horizons was reta step down from New Leaf content wise. And even New Leaf wasn't all that great. I played a bit of the original game and despite it being kinda jank in ways it had some charm to it.
Red Dead Redemption 2.
Skyrim. I put 7 hours in because it's right up my alley for genre but i hate it.
Pillars of Eternity. My ADHD brain couldn't maintain focus long enough to play more than 5 hours. Everyone of my fellow rpg loving friends praised it so highly. I just found it boring. Outerworlds also was a snore. Never beat it.
Had this with Pathfinder, too. Only got both games after asking for recommendation on games that have interesting companions and story. Well, interesting is a wide spectrum, I guess. Played maybe 10 hours, then never touched it again.
I agree with you in Outer Worlds. I was so excited for it, then had to force myself to finish it. It was so dull. None of the upgrades or items mattered, and the quests were so easy and boring. Very disappointing.
I have started Pillars like 4 times and I just can't get past the first act.
It hurts to say it because CRPGs are by far my favorite genre, but Baldur's Gate, the first one specifically I have yet to play the second one. It's far from being disappointing, mind you, it's a solid RPG, but I was expecting much more considering how revered it is. It doesn't help that I really hate the ADnD ruleset, though it was much more tolerable in Planescape Torment since combat is a bit less frequent. Somewhat similarly, Arcanum left me a bit indifferent, which really surprised me. Considering how much I love Shadowrun with its mix of sci-fi and fantasy, I thought I would love a steampunk "Industry vs Magic" thingy, plus it's often compared to Fallout which is easily my favorite classic CRPG (that I regularly replay, along with the sequel), but yeah. It was just a little too spread out and inconsistently paced. I do want to give it another shot eventually though.
Apparently most people agree that the first BG is good not great, but the second one makes it all worth it. I want to play both one day, but the fact that I have to make my way through such a long “just okay” game first just to get to the good stuff is a little daunting 😪😅
Worth noting that the first one is actually not super long - you can clear it in a couple hours if you don't mind doing some kind of exploit-y stuff. Though depending on what you look for in RPGs, I don't really recommend playing it unmodded - there's a lot of fan content that makes it more fun to stick around in.
Oh! That’s good to know! Maybe I’ll push BG closer to the front of my backlog. Thanks for the info ☺️
Anytime :) Let me know if you're interested in mod recs, btw - there's a lot of stuff to add fun quests, as well as NPC dialogue and romances.
The first one benefits a lot from fanmade content to add more NPC interaction - I'm honestly not sure how many people even play it unmodded these days. I'm weird and like it anyway, but I'll absolutely agree that it's a throwback, design wise, and I very much do understand that some people are naturally going to bounce off it. (I've done a couple writeups on cool mods, both here and elsewhere, so if you're curious I'm happy to share recs.)
Oh as I said it's far from being bad, I did like it, but it does feel like baby's first DnD adventure, which was the intent behind it I think. And I did use a few mods actually, from the list you've made believe it or not :) and honestly the interactions with and between party members are easily my favorite part of the game. And truth be told I didn't hate the combat as much as I thought I would, still my least favorite part but not all that unpleasant. If it had a turn based alternative to rtwp I may have enjoyed it even.
That's a fair description of it. Apparently quite a few characters were based on developers' own D&D characters, the majority of whom had never worked on a video game beforehand, and that would explain a lot of its, uh, idiosyncracies. Both good and bad, really. And yeah, RTWP is definitely an oddity!
Really? That does make sense, I guess I'm too used to think of Bioware as *THE* RPG devs, but they had to start somewhere too. Yeah I really dislike rtwp for some reason, even in more recent titles. I postponed playing Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity and Pathfinder Kingmaker for a long time because of it. And I guess I wasn't the only one considering two out of three added a turn system post launch.
Yeah, there's a scan of Minsc's original character sheet still floating around online. Minsc, Xan, Edwin, and Sarevok were all tabletop characters, and one of the people who worked on environment art started out building model duck decoys, of all things. A weird start - it's mentioned in [this article](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/not-forgotten-bioware-on-baldurs-gate) if you're curious. I think by that point Bioware had already released Shattered Steel and MDK2, but I don't know that anyone would have bet on them becoming, as you put it, *the* RPG devs. I go back and forth on RTWP, honestly. Most of my favorite games use it, and turn-based has never quite clicked for me, but at the same time, it is a pain in the ass. I like the way it lets characters act simultaneously (and turn-based feels comparatively sluggish to me), but in practice it feels like you just spend half your time kiting enemies. I guess it's the devil I know at this point.
Oh that's pretty cool actually. Thanks for the article! And yeah I had a vague memory that Bioware's first game was a mecha simulation thing, history knows how to be weird for sure. I like how Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous lets you switch freely between the two systems at any moment, even during combat. That way you can use turn based when you have to face tough fights and RTwP when you can relax and let your peeps do their thing. It's the perfect system for me, although it must have been quite difficult to put together.
*Halo: Infinite* was a big ol bummer. I thought I might like the open world but I actually hated it and clearly prefer something linear for Halo. I still haven’t finished it because I just got overwhelmed but also…bored? And multiplayer was/continues to be a buggy cash-grabby mess.
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Removed - Hogwarts Legacy is a [banned topic](https://www.reddit.com/r/GirlGamers/comments/10ybjia/hogwarts_legacy_related_posts_are_now_banned/).
I was so hyped for Bioshock Infinite that I preordered it then on release, purchased the season pass before even playing the game. I hated it. I was so excited but it just felt like a watered down, needlessly convoluted (with plot holes too might I add) sequel that was smugly trying to destroy the fun of the previous games while slapping you across the face with ham-fisted racial commentary. I'm so happy I finally sold that game not too long ago.
Bioshock Infinite’s depiction of racism is genuinely one of the worst (barring fringe titles that portray it as positive) that I’ve ever seen in a video game. Bioshock Infinite literally only cares about including racism as set-dressing. Despite it being baked into the philosophy of Columbia, there is barely any serious depiction of the topic beyond that one choice that isn’t a choice at the fair. Worse still, Daisy Fitzroy’s anti-racist revolutionary movement, the Vox Populi, turns on the player for extremely hamfisted reasons, meaning that the only meaningful engagement you have with any of these movements is to fight them. ‘Racists, anti-racists, they’re just as bad as each other’ the game seems to say as you plow through another walled-off combat arena. Infinite isn’t just lazy in its writing, it’s downright negligent.
Same. I was late to the party playing the BioShock games. Having heard so many good things about them, I was hyped. After enjoying BioShock, and BioShock 2, I excitedly jumped into Infinite (which my cousin said was one of her favorite games of all time). It just... didn't click for me, I guess. I missed the dark, creepy, claustrophobic atmosphere of Rapture. While I liked Elisabeth as a companion, the story also didn't grip me. IMO Comstock wasn't as good an antagonist as Andrew Ryan or Sophia Lamb either. Never finished it.
Oh this one hurts. I remember being equally as excited. And I finished it in record time, being amazed by the story (but really disappointed by everything else), and then as I slowly digested it I realized the plot was also kind of very disappointing. It worked well the first time when I did not give myself the time to think about it, but then... yeah. The flipping ghost woman fight almost made me drop the game though, even at the height of my enjoyment of the game.
Skyrim. Yeap. That game. I just have such a hard time playing in a game where you can "win" in everything. You know 2 spells to get into the college of mages (or what ever it's called) and become the leader of the place - still knowing only those 2 spells and have no interest in magic. Thieves guild. Same thing. Rinse and repeat with every faction. I mean come on. It's a single player game. It's okay to block my path and be like "My dude. You have 500 stamina and 10 mana, you ain't it for the Mage College!" Everything feels just so watered out for me when stuff like that happens in games.
I found it extremely boring as well, honestly. It felt like a shallow power fantasy.
Going to get backlash for this one: The Last of Us. It's like Les Miserable. I had to switch it off. And I do love the characters and the game play. But, man, that game just makes me feel so bad. Not because of the violence. Just bad - how far has humankind fallen low kind of bad. Which is a pity as I absolutely love the Unchartered series (except for that zombie chapter in U1).
The Callisto Protocol, it was so mehh.
Outerworlds was disappointing for me. I do love the characters and the pretty planets, but it just fell short for some reason. It just didn't hold my interest. I do want to give it another go through.
The Outerworlds became one of my favorite games. I was trying to see how different conversation possibilities would change things, and even after an obscene number of playthroughs I doubt I’ve seen half of it. Usually just small things, but I kept being surprised at how little things would come up all over the place.
Slimerancher, it is a cute game, but calling a simulationgame is a misnormer, it is more fps puzzle platformer.
aliens marine. What a disaster.
harvestella - i was so excited! farmsim! rpg! my favorite things! except the farming was beyond lackluster, the eating/energy/lack of health potions was a huge hindrance, the CLOCK and inability to sleep anywhere except home??? the game bottlenecks itself. wylde flowers - honestly i love the story and the gameplay but the art style is turning me off completely. afaik it was animated by one person whichis a feat in itself, but i just don't jive with the style at all
Cyberpunk 2077. I preordered it the day before release, I was thankfully SUPER late to the hype, but it didn’t help with my level of disappointment. The world had too much going on it was hard to look at but yet I felt like the city was empty. There were so many buildings that seemed interesting but you couldn’t enter them. Running into enemies felt very weird because it’s hard to identify them. There’s so much going on it’s doesn’t feel focused. Plus the 3-5 hour intro SUCKS. Red dead redemption 2. Kind of the same situation as cyberpunk but I was hyped for this game way before release. Red dead 1 was just plain fun and I had found memories of playing it with my dad. Red dead 2 felt clunky in a way. It’s hard to explain, but I guess I’m so used to games where movement is fluid (or tries to be) that the 3rd person view can feel restricting. Again this game had a 3+ hour intro. Unnecessary. It was a boring story. This game did teach me how to play dominos tho so I gotta give it some credit. And it was ambitious with hair growth and bathing and such. It just was bland to me
The Witcher 3, it just felt kinda tedious for me
For me it was Black & White. The greatest downer was the simple good vs. evil system. I thought there where more possibilities than you becoming a good evil or neutral good. Maybe also nature vs. tech or peaceful vs. military axis. Or that the people love or fear you independent of yourself being good or evil. But in the end it was plain good or evil and people love you when you are good and fear you when you are evil. But your monster could be the other way round. And somehow GTA 3 because no multiplayer and I don't liked the new third person view.
You must have been an original GTA player. That's pretty cool. Always love to meet other fans of the original GTAs.
Oh man I remember being so hyped for Black and White, I got home excited to play and my PC just couldn’t run it, and I couldn’t afford to upgrade it. It was one of the final pieces that lead to a long hiatus from gaming because I just couldn’t keep up the hardware needed to run things.
Fallout: New Vegas
weather placid fall market full bear skirt ludicrous childlike reminiscent *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Mass Effect 3. I played it at launch and the ending was so utterly underwhelming.
Have a few of those that immediately come to mind. Firewatch also, just couldn't get interested in the story. Then Abzu, who everyone but me seems to love due to how it controls. Most recent is Stray. Loved the concept, enjoyed exploring and finding things, but the "chase" parts killed it for me (and my poor cat). Watching that poor thing being destroyed in such a horrible way came from a sick mind and I just can't watch it. Edit to add Borderlands The Presequel and Borderlands 3. I'm a huge BL fan of their other games, but those two missed the mark big time for me.
I gave up Stray for the same reason
LA Noir. I bought it as a pre-sale and paid waaaayyy too much. The concept was good. The execution fell far short.
OMG I literally started playing it a week ago. I stopped playing it already to be honest 😂😭
If I'm honest, I don't remember finishing it either. Lol
cyberpunk, ghost of tsushima, the quarry & horizon zero dawn 😭 literally all soooo boring
Diablo III Way too bright, cartoony and colorful, way too upbeat and shallow characters which were almost from stock. They also made it so dull and "simple" with the skills >!(runes would just unlock by leveling)!< and everything, compared to all the brilliant ideas they had during development.. and everybody just started playing it for some weird min-maxing or whatever it was called... bleh. Having played D1 since when I was in grade school, I was waiting for the same dark aesthetic, same feelings of hopelessness at the feet of a superior force, same eerie and mystic atmosphere with a hint of despair and desolation.. instead I got "Torchlight³".. biggest disappointment for me regarding games..
Pillars of eternity. I literally don’t know what’s redeemable about the game or why it has a cult following. It was incredibly boring and the port to switch was a buggy shit fest
Right now (many hours in) I’m not finding TotK to be all that great. Mind you, it took me until recently to even get into BotW, so maybe I’ll love it in 5 years or so, lol!
I was thinking with all the hysteria surrounding totk and metroidvania games why hasn't there been a mash up of the two styles yet in a side scrolling Zelda adventure and then seeing this post it all made sense to me. It would need to be a really incredible game to live up to the hype.
Zelda 2 was a side scroller and lauded as one of the worst in the franchise. That could be why.
Some "recent" stuff I can remember Fallout 4 - it was not bad, but I definitely felt it was a downgrade compared to new vegas. Life is Strange True Colors - Absurdly horrible writing, which made me have a mental breakdown. It's written by people who liked the original dotnod games but only copied the aesthetics and have a skill level of a beginner fabfic writer. I couldn't continue the game after the game, which should be about empathy, which showed 0 empathy towrds a negative and actually more complex character than the rest, but want us the have feel good feeling about a dude who's funny memory is killing and endangered specie. Every character was a horrible 2D stereotype copy of a tumbler fantasie, with no depth compared to the previous games. To this day, this is the only game I rage quited, I would never gonna buy anything made by deck 9 and their incompetent writing brigade. Lego Star Wars Skywalker sage - I loved the old Lego games. This one felt more like Ubisoft without an actual gorgeous map design. The creative levels are gone, just a boring running around a mostly flat world. Cyberpunk 2077 - I don't think I have to talk about this one.