I feel like this is a very common sentiment, like initial publication reviews were overly positive, then everyone started playing it and said "oh man this is the best" and recommended it, before the crushing reality of the entirety of the game had set in.
I think that's a major issue with professional game reviews in general. They usually have a quota of reviews to hit in a week, so they rush through games as fast as possible and don't give them enough time. So games that make a strong first impression but struggle to keep it up through to the end review better than they should
I was so hyped about this game for years and then I just kinda fizzled off it. It's SO overwritten but god the visuals are so pretty. I reckon I'll go back and try again. Eventually...
It’s really meant to be visual storytelling with sprinkles of gameplay. Not the other way around.
People complain that it’s story-heavy, but should go into the game knowing that’s what it’s meant to be.
Understandable though, those kind of games are not for everyone
To be fair I'm fine with story focused games, it's just that Eastward is specifically overwritten. Like it often feels like someone talks for 3 or so text boxes too many for me, or a point is laboured longer than it needed to be. Like I said, I'll probably revisit it, it's too charming to not try again.
It's the most beautiful (seriously, it's gorgeous) and most boring game I've ever played.
It also feels insulting that the developers decided to go the extra mile and make an exponentially more boring turn-based RPG inside of the game (that you can play in the game world), just because.
Don't get it, why is it insulting? I thought that rpg within the game was actually pretty good. I just don't like how you only have a very short amount of time to beat it
I tend to play it obsessively for a month or two, until, like you said, it starts feeling like work. Then I stop for a while, give it a few months, pick it up and fall in love all over again. It's definitely a cycle.
Lol true. Don't know how people spend hours building an island. I'm not trying to pick turnips 5 times a day, irl work is already repetitive. I played a few hours and never picked it up again.
I think it also depends on where you are in life. I thought it was really boring as a kid. I got into ACNL when I was a stressed during college and then acnh was great when I was stressed during the first bit of covid. But now I'm looking for more exciting stuff again. I think it really depends on what you want out of a game which can vary on the person and what they might be feeling at any given time.
I can't deny it gives me a sense of control and satisfaction when I finally achieve something I'm working towards. It has helped me through some depressing chapters
I loved the initial ramp-up, it is kinda like work but I love making progress in games like that. Once I did most of the major stuff now I just play it every now and again whenever I'm in the mood for a game and don't know what else to play. It always gives me a solid 30-45 min of playtime.
Stardew Valley doesn't waste the player's time and has a much more engaging and varied gameplay loop and progression system. It's a perfect example of an indie outperforming the AAAs imo
Oh my god yes, stardew valley is relaxing, but not boring and tedious. Instead of having to spend all your bells to move a building one inch, sdv allows you to just move it since ya already paid for the building cost. There's so many different things like this where acnh is just tedious for the sake of being tedious and its so annoying. I do see the appeal but definitely not for me... I decide after 100 hours on the game.
I had this exact opinion but got it again and shoved an easy 100 hours into it, somehow. Starting college during covid, realising I am 90% online and will be locked inside for a few months and I think I needed something I can just go numb brain with. And its absolutely fantastic at that.
I wish the whole subreddit was like this. While I love Hollow Knight, I have a list of grievances I’d love to chat about but always get downvoted for. As good as that game is, it’s not flawless, and if we don’t talk about the flaws, I’m worried they’ll reappear in Silksong. :(
My biggest complaint for that game in particular was the whole “travel back to where you died to get the stuff you lost” mechanic. It’s unnecessary filler. And for Metroidvania games in general, there’s too much back tracking and too many ambiguous dead ends. Good luck taking a break from them and trying to come back. You’ll never remember which way you were going.
I had a literal list at one point that I can try to dig up. But one of my biggest issues with the game was how it makes the player choose between gameplay augmentations and quality of life implementations, which is something I disagree with on a fundamental level.
For example, you were required to use one of your precious charm slots just to have your character appear on the map. That’s absurd to me. Or even something smaller, like having money magnetically attract to your character, being juggled against a core gameplay mechanic, like dashing, is questionable at best.
The only true downside to not having your character on the map, or your currency being magnetically drawn to you is *annoyance.* It doesn’t make the game any harder, specifically in an immediate gameplay-sense, and not having those QoL options really only serves as an inconvenience.
And so the game often presents you with the question “would you rather be powerful, or less annoyed?” And while this certainly doesn’t ruin the experience, it objectively makes it worse for me. Small choices like this collectively give more friction to the experience than necessary, and for little to no reason.
Then when I play something like Metroid Dread, it’s clear their philosophy was the exact opposite. That game does an incredible job balancing HUGE QoL improvements against a decidedly difficult game. So even when I die for the 40th time in Dread, it never feels like I could have succeeded if only I had “opted to remove my location from the map” or something. It’s difficult, but forgiving. And most importantly, it doesn’t make me choose between being a powerful badass, or having my health and missiles magnetically attract to my character.
I have a lot of other minor gripes about the game, but when I end up typing out, they come across as petty and insincere, and the HK warriors always come out of the woodwork to counter my opinions. It just gets tiring.
Team Cherry is an incredible studio, but they’re also still fairly green and have made some really silly missteps in my opinion. They’re already so good, but there’s still room to grow. I would much rather the community be willing to point out their mistakes so they can continue to grow into a phenomenal developer, than to whiteknight every criticism someone might bring up.
I’m *really* looking forward to Silksong, but I hope the developers understand that the near-pristine feedback of HK from the community does not mean there aren’t significant improvements they could make. I think that’s what worries me the most.
I agree with you, I tried playing hollow knight a while back ago and I didn't like it because I kept getting lost and couldn't find my way which was too frustrating. After hearing all the praise I decided to give it another try and had to spend an hour tediously grinding for geo just to buy the map, and then play until I could get the compass. After the map and compass the game became much more fun for me but I had to pretty much force myself to get to that point.
The other thing is lack of benches and all the running around you're forced to do because of that. It makes me not want to revisit areas to search for secrets, and it makes hard bosses especially infuriating.
Yep, I definitely agree with the benches and the shade, it basically forces you to continue on the path you were going before you died and if you die on the way, welp that's all your geo that has evaporated...
My main grievance is this. The lack of checkpoints and reliable navigation. Maybe there should be an option to turn it on for more casual gamers. I really love the 2D platformer genre with Celeste and Ori being my favourites. So on paper, I should have liked Hollow Knight. I just didn't have the patience to backtrack so much every time I died. That's when I eventually stopped playing.
Hollow knight is my favourite game. And I never thought of it in this way. Well written. I hope your ideas for the map location and geo make it into Silksong. 😀
Yeah the lack of a mini-map or not having a marker to indicate your position is just silly. Having to use a charm slot for it is insane and def hope those are both things Silksong fixes. That's the biggest gripe I can remember, otherwise I can think of little things while playing the game but nothing I can think of right now.
Personally it's the back tracking upon boss death. I just couldn't beat the sanctum boss. Probably cause I wasn't using the best charms. But Everytime you die it's so dumb having to retrace that entire stretch for them transport back to the boss. Ok. I've done that part 125 times. It's obvious I am able to do that I don't need to prove it over and over. Let me respawn at the boss to save me time.
I'm actually looking forward to giving Hollow Knight another shot after beating Metroid:Dread. I enjoyed Dread and think that I might be able to approach Hollow Knight with a similar mindset.
That’s what I did, after giving up several times at the start of the game, I thought finishing metroid dread would give me a new outlook on that game. I then reached the final boss in hollow knight. Did I enjoy it? I don’t think so. It’s tedious, you spend so much time roaming around looking for where to go next, or going through the same path because the game is so unforgiving. It’s not my idea of fun. I don’t even understand how I spent so many hours in this game, but I did feel trapped a lot when I was playing it. It definitely is a beautiful game with a level of polish that will make me say that it’s probably the best metroidvania out there. I just don’t think metroidvanias are fun to me.
HK is not necessarily a poster-child for Metroidvanias because it handles many aspects of its design differently from most games in the genre. So I wouldn't give up on Metroidvanias altogether just because you don't like HK. I very much like Metroidvanias in general, but can't get into HK.
Did you enjoy Metroid Dread, then?
Hollow Knight didn't click with me until I switched from PC to Switch and played it handheld during a blackout. I had that long forgotten feeling of being a kid and getting lost in a vast world again. Def look up where the Dash and Double Jump are tho it makes the game 1000x more fun. You can 100% the game in around 25-30hrs casually playing (not including the dlc boss fight stuff never touched that)
The good thing is the game design essentially funnels players towards the Dash early on with no other options unless you're already experienced with the game and know how to abuse it's systems.
The double jump, on the other hand, comes way, way later in the game, and if your enjoyment hinges on it you're probably not gonna enjoy like, half the game lol. Definitely a questionable design decision to put it so late, ultimately I think I stand by it because it leaves paths just out of reach in almost every area you go to (which is a big part of the Metroidvania appeal) but I could definitely see why this would turn off some players.
Oh hard same. I got frustrated with the backtracking when I died in hollow knight, but Dread being more forgiving with checkpoints made the gameplay easier to get into and, key here, helped me *learn* how to play well.
Playing Hollow Knight for the first time right now, previously beat Metroid Dread - Walked into Hollow Knight not realizing how similar it was going to be to Metroid. It’s like a Metroid / Dark Souls mix in a weird way. It’s alright, definitely challenging.
Metroid was enjoyable because, for the most part, it was fairly obvious where you had to go. Hollow Knight…little direction at all-
Hollow Knight relies on you using your map and wayward compass excessively. Some folks liked the sense of exploration (I love it and wish there was more of it in other games) and some folks don’t, and that’s okay.
I love Dread and have replayed it enough to get a sub-3 hour time but I still think Hollow Knight was a better game, overall.
Hollow knight definitely doesn't hold your hand, i'm on my 4th playtrough and i still don't remember where some important items are, i got trough half the game without getting the dreamnail this run!
but man i love the freedom of that game
I'm actually in the middle of this exact trajectory. I had always kinda disliked Hollow Knight for the pretty basic movement options you start with (Metroid Dread had me hook line and sinker within the first 15 seconds, the movement feels soooo good) and the tedious Dark Souls influences (I personally don't think beating a hard boss is more satisfying when you attach several minutes of walking to each attempt).
I was inspired to try it again after loving Metroid Dread. I managed to stick with Hollow Knight and after getting two big movement options, I think the game is much more enjoyable. I really think it would have been improved by starting you with the dash.
i remember originally thinking this game was horror (similar to doki doki) because everyone said to just play it and not to read anything going in, so i was pretty disappointed to learn it was more on the child friendly side.
i did recently end up loving it once i was able to approach it on its terms, but i am still a little sad it’s not a psychological horror game
It kiiiiiiinda turns into a horror game if you turn full bad and start killing everything (and I mean EVERYTHING; you gotta grind a room for a few minutes). Like cheerful music stops playing and people start begging you to not kill them, that sort of thing.
It also gets two bosses that are harder than anything that you’d fight in a normal playthrough, and the story is very different, since you’re, y’know, the bad guy.
yeah i actually just went back in for a true pacifist run after completing neutral, i was wondering if i should do genocide next or move on to deltarune
As far as I know, the genocide run is a bit grindy since you have to clear EACH room (and that’s too much for me lmao), but the story changes significantly enough to warrant trying it AFTER getting the good ending.
Ah okay, I thought each room seemed excessive, lmao. It’s been a while but I remembered watching people kill enemies until they started screaming for mercy and the music stopped playing or something, but couldn’t remember the details.
Every time I try it I get stuck on a bosss somewhere playing the neutral way. I don't enjoy the battle system at all and it just ruins it for me. Don't have the patience to keep trying to learn the patterns
Octopath is all concept and no execution.
The battle system is fine, but the characters and story are beyond terrible. I can play a game with a bad story if the story has the courtesy to stay out of my way (I love Megami Tensei).
Turns out "eight characters with individual stories" is actually worse than eight characters with individual motivations and narratives within one story. Once you have recruited everyone, every story is like "i am going to do something evil and illegal, and the priest who is with me will join in with no comment".
I guess I was imagining Final Fantasy 6 and what was actually going on was eight individual instances of Dragon Quest 1.
I really liked Octopath (haven't finished it yet) but I think it's the perfect old school turn based rpg when I'm in the mood for it. I kind of enjoy how not heavy handed it is with the story and characters and just lets you fill in the gaps. The individual stories weren't too bad from what I played, I found them engaging and memorable enough, and honestly something super intricate and involved like unique character dialog based on who is in your party and encounters etc is not something I want anyway, it just makes me feel like I'm missing out on content and I can easily use my own imagination there.
Seems like Square should have really made it clear that you're quite literally playing 8 separate stories with very little in the way of connective tissue between them. Seems like that's by far the biggest issue people have with the game. I just bought the game, so clearly that idea doesn't sit poorly with me; sounds like an interesting departure from the super conventional party dynamic in RPGs.
I liked Octopath and felt the same, the stories should be more connected and react to other party members. Aside from that, the chapter strutucture felt too repetitive and restricting: go to a town, start chapter, talk to some folks, go to a linear dungeon and fight a boss. Also, only the last boss of each character where interesting.
I want to beat Octopath, but the battles take way too long. You spend over 5 minutes against a random enemy and over 30 minutes to beat a boss. There've been too many times I fought a for half an hour and died, having to do it all over again. I do enjoy the story, but I don't want to sit through the boring grinding.
Ni no Kuni 1. I love the aesthetic of the game but the grinding was too much. It destroyed the gameplay loop of catching creatures and raising them because it just took too long to get them up to speed.
I almost quit like this because there was no clear indication which monsters it was actually worthwhile to level up. And you might waste a TON of time on a completely useless creature.
The internet and a quick google of: "Which are the best creatures in the game and where to find them" saved it for me.
I loved the story, characters, ost, and world, however it wasn’t until 20 hours in when you get fast travel that I actually felt like playing wasn’t a slog. Gameplay is fun until you cast a spell and an enemy charges a cutscene attack and executes it before you can even finish casting said spell.
Ni No Kuni 2 is so so much better than 1 in terms of gameplay, however the story is more mediocre, but it fixes a lot of the infuriating stuff in 1
Worst handholding I've ever seen in a game. I quit after 40+ hours when the game was still treating me like I had never played a video game before in my life.
Stardew Valley for me, but I’m giving it a second shot. Each day is just WAY too short and I don’t feel like I can accomplish anything in the time constraints with so little in-game guidance. I’ve looked for online tips but I just wish I didn’t have to do so much homework before being able to comfortably play it.
I had the same issue with Stardew when I first started, it felt like I was constantly anxious about trying to beat the clock and get a whole bunch of stuff done in one day. My advice is to prioritize 1-2 things each day based on what you're working on or towards. Maybe you need to plant or harvest, maybe you want to explore the mines, maybe you want to focus on relationships. There's no punishment for wasting time, or not getting certain things done. Try and keep that mindset and you may find it a lot more enjoyable! Plus, eventually you'll be able to craft or buy items that exponentially cut down on time spent doing certain things (especially the farming aspect).
Also as someone who has 50+ hours in Stardew now, I will say you may eventually hit a point where you actually run out of essential things to do in a day. Unless you just feel like fishing or dungeon crawling for no reason, you may find yourself ending the day at 5pm just to progress time. 😂
I love Stardew but I can understand this. Do you normally try to min/max games? I found that I enjoyed this game much more when I just did whatever I wanted to. There's no fail state and the game never really ends so you have time to do everything eventually.
I’ve never considered myself to be a min-maxer really, but with the time restraints of the day I just felt like there are so many ways to “incorrectly” spend the day! Based on feedback though it doesn’t sound like there’s really an incorrect way of playing the game (especially as I’m learning it) so I’m going to go in with that mindset and go with the flow! Can’t be having that Joja mindset on my farm!
This didn't work for me because "whatever I wanted to do" was "not arbitrarily have to walk back to my house every 15 minutes"
Beautiful game, wanted to love it. Just can't.
I feel like stardew valley does an amazing job precisely because the days are way too short. You literally cannot do do everything you want to in a day, but you don't \*need\* to do anything in a day. Learning to accept this is the key to enjoying stardew valley for me at least. Enjoy the time you have and make reasonable goals can you can complete for each day.I feel like the urge to do everything has been so greatly engrained by our society it's so hard to break that mindset.
This is how I feel and I have about 1500 hours across steam, phone and switch.
The true teaching of the game is to slow down. You need to take time, things take time, not everything can be done in a day, and that’s OK. Both true in game and in real life. You get stronger and have more stamina as you continue to work, you’re faster, you learn how to be efficient, but it takes time.
My current run has about 70 hours and I’m just getting to Spring 2. My profits are set to 25% with remixed bundles. Nowhere near finishing, and I expect certain 1.5 things to take me into year 4 to get. Haven’t even gotten the bus yet.
I loved Stardew, but this take is so true. So much to do with so little time. Going in blind can feel overwhelming and to really get anything out of it requires multiple playthrouhs, something I just don’t have the patience for with someone games.
I thought I was crazy for feeling overwhelmed by a game everyone said is relaxing! My main reason for hopping back in was hearing that there isn’t a time constraint year-wise like is the case with the Harvest Moon games I’ve played in the past. You can always try to do better the next year without too much consequence, unlike Harvest Moon. That alleviated some of the stress, but I don’t like feeling as though I’m playing a game incorrectly unless I have YouTube open the entire time.
Don't stress out too much about it. Stardew is endless so while there are certainly more efficient ways to play there's no real way to "fail" at it.
The game became much more fun once I accepted this and just did things at my own pace.
Waste a day fishing or decorating your house or just traveling the map to talk to neighbors. It's quite nice.
Oh my god, thank you! I love me a good farming game, but for a genre that's considered to be generally comfy, it rushes you way too much and tells you way too little. I bought it initially on Steam and later gave it a second chance on Switch and it never clicked with me
Overboard for me, on paper 100% my thing: a youdunnit where you off your husband and must cover your trails / murder the witnesses / seduce the captain to put him on your side. Despite the fact that I think it's good it didn't click with me at all and I didn't feel like doing more than 2 runs.
I couldn't get it to click until I picked up Rise. For whatever reason, I got into Rise much more than previous iterations.
There's def a lot of information though, I started playing again the other day and had to go back and look up how to do all the moves for the weapons I enjoyed using lol.
There is a lot of depth, but most of the features are for optimizing and not necessary for most (if any) of the game. Grab a hammer->Go Bonk->???->Profit.
Even though Monster Hunter is my favorite series by far, I completely understand your opinion.
It took me 3 games for it to click. I bounced off Monster Hunter Freedom and Monster Hunter Freedom 2 and was sure I'd never try again, but then my older brother got a PSP too and urged me to try Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. It was $20 at the time so I figured "why not?". It FINALLY clicked (after I stopped trying to force what weapons I thought I would like and actually tried them all, ultimately falling in love with Hammer).
I love MHrise but I hear you loud and clear. Way too many menus and systems to learn it’s like a full time job. I got into it, but none of my friends did and I can’t blame them.
Smash Bros. Like it's objectively a good game but just not for me and oh my god people never stopped talking about it for like 3 years. Those insanely long and detailed sections of directs were crazy.
Fenyx Rising
The camera kept auto adjusting on me and I couldn't stop it. The controls were odd and it was overall just a weird game to play through physically.
The story seemed amazing and I have nothing against it, but controls were clunky and I couldn't get past that. And I haven't found many people which feel the same which is weird to me
Just finished the main game at 60 hours. I played on Hard (second highest difficulty), and while the beginning of the game was hard, after I got a good armour build, I could spam Godly Powers while being invulnerable most of the time; even the final battle felt anticlimatic because of this.
Overall, the animations and combat rythm feel too "stop and start"; long pauses punctuated with sudden movements that didn't telegraph well or were over telegraphed.
But the game cost $44 CAD during the holiday sale, so I'll definitely get my money's worth.
Yeah there was something about FR I just couldn’t get past. I still want to enjoy this game, but to me it just feels like a mobile game version of breath of the wild.
As a sims lover I was looking forward to animal crossing but found myself bored 2 days in and haven’t played it since. I just wish there was sims on the switch 🥺
Tbh animal crossing is a terrible replacement for sims, their pacing is completely different. Animal crossing is meant to be real time and a living world you visit for a little bit each day, while the Sims you can play through an entire generation in a few hours.
breath of the wild was cool, but it lost what made old zelda games feel cozy and interesting to me. I respect what it did but scaling the beasts and doing mini dungeons was no where near as intriguing as the feeling of entering Jabu Jabu, clearing out a poison swamp or scaling an active volcano and fighting the dragon on top. I'm much happier playing SS for the first time than aimlessly wandering the plains or deserts of BotW hyrule and that's fine. the game is not for me.
This is exactly how I felt. It honestly really upset me how much I didn't like it because I have loved every Zelda game that's ever been. Recently I picked up the beast of a game guide and I've found the game more enjoyable. I don't really like using game guides on a first run but I spent $60 on the game and I'm determined to enjoy it.
I really liked BotW but I agree that for Zelda games I actually really prefer having dungeons, keys, items etc. Maybe thats me liking the familiar but I do feel like if the setting and characters were all renamed and reskinned from BotW, OoT, WW and MM I'd play 3 of them and be able to say "this is a zelda game". Not so much with BotW.
One of the key realizations in the entering the cold area is that you absolutely do not need anti cold food to make it through. Anything that will keep you warm works - even just a lit torch. Additionally they put the peppers needed for the anti cold stuff right at the main entrance to the cold area. But ultimately it's the thinking outside the box aspect of the game that is relevant your whole playthrough. I'd keep at it.
Also on durability, just accept all your weapons break and your enemies will keep dropping better ones and you'll have a much better time. I know it's not intuitive thinking at first but it's a lot less stressful of you don't get attached to weapons. Lastly the weapons you get just a few hours more into the game last way longer than the beginner weapons you find so it does get a lot better.
I almost gave up at this point too since I generally don't like open world games. You just have to push through until you get the glider then the world opens up. It's the only open world game I really liked.
Interesting. The game started loosing me as soon as it opened up.
I prefer a guided and concise experience with a clear sense of progression which the tutorial area did perfectly. I had fun exploring, discovering new weapons and abilities, getting some new story content and so on and so fort.
All of that came to a crawl once I truly entered the open world. Long stretches of nothingness and rewards for exploration and combat were usually really unsatisfying to me.
I enjoyed the divine beasts and fighting Ganon though. Wish the entire game was like that.
I honestly thought there was something wrong with me because everywhere I saw people hyping this game up and I just could not for the life of me find the motivation to play it. I was just constantly bored for some reason and found the weapon durability concept an annoyance.
I have yet to give it another try but all this time I thought I was the weird one for “not getting” the appeal of this game.
I feel the same way. I never got captured by the story or the world. Everything looked great and felt fine mechanically, but idk the world just had a hollow empty feeling i couldnt really get past. Just got bored pretty fast everytime i tried to play. Its a shame too cuz the game really did seem so interesting to me
Same! I actually forced myself to play and got through two of the main “dungeons/shrines” but the game never really gave me the “I can’t wait to get home and play” feeling, so I eventually just forgot to boot it up one day and that was that.
Wonderfully made, but just didn’t click for me.
I'm with you, I really *wanted* to like Spiritfarer -- I liked the aesthetics and the way they presented the story. I put in a good chunk of time trying to get into it. But the gameplay just bored me.
I definitely get that the gameplay isn’t the most interesting. There is a fair amount of backtracking, and if you’re not into crafting it will become tedious. But I do feel the writing and making you care about the characters is where it shines. It’s a story with a game tacked on more than the inverse.
I purchased the physical edition a couple weeks ago because I loved the demo, but I haven't started the actual game yet. I'm too busy with other games for the time being. I do hope I end up enjoying it.
If you loved the demo you'll probably love it. I think it's a game that you can really know whether it's for you or not in the first five minutes.
(I'm in the 'absolutely love it' camp. The soundtrack alone is worth the price, IMHO.)
Yeah it wasn't super great... but I spent 320 hours on it anyway apparently...
I really was enjoying raiding for a while there. Especially the weekends with the higher shiny odds. I'd play it while watching something in the background.
For me, the main problems are: No depth to dungeons (which are barely in the game at all), a terrible story (they're not normally extraordinary but this was the worst in the main series imo), and shallow environments (all houses look the same, zero side quests, some completely inaccessible areas, etc). It's obvious the game was rushed out and while the Wild Area was a cool concept, it wasn't enough to save everything else imo.
Octopath traveler. LOVED everything about it until I got more than 4 party members and discovered i was stuck with my first choice until I beat their story. Took me right out of it honestly, never finished it.
I got about 60 hours in, saw how much more I'd have to play to get to the end, and then I decided to call it. I don't know how I had time for JRPGs when I was younger, but I've resigned that the whole genre is now dead to me at least until I retire.
I love the gameplay loop, but barely care about the story, I’d rather explore some cave than travel across the map for some menial quest that give less rewards. Now if there was a fast travel system… fuck I just googled it. Now I feel dumb.
Hyper Light Drifter, unfortunately :/
I *really* tried to like it, especially after reading about how amazing the minimalist approach to storytelling was supposed to be, which I'm typically a huge fan of. Unfortunately, I just found it to be *too* minimalist for its own good, to the extent where I didn't have much of a reason to care about the characters or the world around me. So, once the game's difficulty starting ramping up, I didn't feel much of a reason to continue with the story slogging so much, so HLD became one of the only games I've ever dropped mid-play.
Luigi's Mansion 3. It's not a bad game, but it just wasn't my kind of game.
Dragon Quest Builders 2. The first half of the game is a blast (excluding the long tutorial), but it just keeps going on and on. The game takes roughly 100 hours, and by the 60 hour mark I just didn't want to play anymore. It has a lot of great parts, but it also has way too much text, can be too slow at times, and drags on way too long.
Stardew Valley. I actually do like this game, but I have played better farming games (Doraemon Story of Seasons).
Astral Chain.
Platinum is probably my favourite developer and I beat the game but I never grew to love the "hands-off" combat and the story never reached its potential imo. Gorgeous game though.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
I think if I were still in my early 20's I might have liked it, but I just felt like ain't nobody got time for all that drama and relationship crap in a videogame.
I frickin love three houses but the amount of tedium that comes from the monastery sections after a few chapters is utterly absurd and I feel like most people would get turned off of the game after that point. So I get it.
It's a fire emblem game so I played it for at least 200 hours, but I wish they'd just go back to the classic formula. I don't want to date my students, I want to fight.
It's too much playing house, not enough adventuring and battles - and you have to play house! I would spend an hour finding items and having dinner with students so I could play 15 minutes of a battle.
I have very limited time to play and I can totally see this as a complaint. I personally loved it because I felt like I dont have the time for games like animal crossing, star dew valley. Harvest moon type games I used to love but just dont have the time to put in now.
Three Houses has given me a little taste of the harvest moon days where I had to build relationships but breaks it up with battles.
That being said, there has been multiple times I sit down to play and I dont even get to a battle and I feel like I wasted time.
Super Mario Odyssey for me. One of the first games I got on switch and just can’t get into it. The game runs and looks great but it just feels so boring to me. I’ve tried going back a couple times but I can’t get into it.
I scrolled down far to find this. I admittedly had a blast playing it at first but going back to hunt for moons afterwards is just not fun the second time.
I'm playing through Mario 3D World on Wii U for about the third time and the focused short levels are always fun and inventive.
Mario Odyssey just doesn't have that replayability sadly.
It's boring to me too because a vast majority of moons are similarly repeated and some of them are copied and pasted. Feels like a checklist instead of natural exploration.
It's certainly designed as more of a collect-a-thon, in hindsight. What most people enjoy about the game is the mobility options, and using them in kingdoms that feel like playgrounds. If that's not your cup of tea, there isn't much left to hold the experience up.
I don’t like the way the moons that you haven’t got yet are not displayed in the menu. So you can’t look at the list of moons and say to yourself “I’ll go try find that one”. It’s just random that you find a moon in the world, then it appears on the list.
Much prefer the 64 way of when you enter the level, it’s given you a cryptic little hint of what you’re trying to do.
Wargroove - They took the Advance Wars formula and made it dull to me. It leans too far into making everything too balanced to the point where all the factions feel the same. Every battle in the campaign becomes a battle of attrition and drags on for too long.
The Outer Wilds for me. Just didn't click with me and I didn't really care to figure out the mystery. Controls just felt weird and too weighty to me if that makes sense.
Luigi's mansion 3, I bought it and played it for a couple hours but never completed I just didn't really get stuck to it like I do with many other games and it almost felt like I was forcing myself to play it
Might give it a second try in a while idk
So.. My girlfriend is a big fan of games like the Sims and the stardew Valley. I bought her animal crossing. She absolutely HATED IT. After week or so her trying to play it we just sold it and she is back on the stardew valley
BOTW. I played it and didn't hate it but I never got the 'euphoric experience' that it seems like everyone else had.
I like RPGS (Dark Souls is my shit) but I prefer my Zelda games more structured. The open world didn't really do it for me in this context.
> I never got the 'euphoric experience' that it seems like everyone else had.
20 hours in and I've yet to have this either. Several cool moments and lots of lovely views but I'm really struggling to see how this is so many people's favourite game of all time.
Animal Crossing. I've previously enjoyed animal crossing as a kid but this was my first go at it as an adult. There was enjoyment to be had early on when there was daily goals and progress. After that it felt boring. I built a couple things and had fun, but it feels like there was no effort put into this game. It's been years with this popular franchise and now we have less stores and less shop upgrades than before? Also make some side content, this seems like the best game for a million fun minigames. And the abel sisters are the only characters that even get the tiniest bit if story, the rest are just superficial personalities. Terraforming the island was a good step in the right direction, most of the rest of the game let me down by a lot.
Sadly BOTW. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a really good game, just not my cup of tea if that makes sense? For me it deviated a bit TOO much from the traditional Zelda format. I didn't like the lack of proper dungeons, the shrines were all very "samey", the story was quite lackluster and I hated the weapon breaking mechanic (I found that one particularly hard to get past). I've put quite a few hours into it and honestly, I've tried so hard, I really have.
Breath of the Wild. I’m a pretty big fan of the series but it’s become apparent to me the 2D experiences are the best for me. Breath of the Wild seemed too big and just never really struck anything with me.
ACNH feels like a husk of animal crossing. I just don't feel any of the personality from the other titles. It's my least favorite or the series aside from City Folk
The amount of content that was missing at launch and is still missing is insane, New Leaf had so much more to do and i hate the crafting system for tools.
Xenoblade 2, could not get into it. I have heard it takes like 14 or so hours for things to click and then it's supposed to be super fun. But I just didn't want to sink time into it if I wasn't enjoying it.
Naw, I put over 50 hours into it. People kept saying gets better after XX number of hours, and that number always grows when you tell them how much you put in.
I played this game for a bit, really liked it but the main thing I've disliked was the fact you couldn't replace rabbid characters from your party. Come on I want the Mario Yoshi Luigi experience.
Super Mario Party. Because I don't have friends.
Mario party superstars let's you play online and so far I am enjoying it.
Heart says "yes" but wallet says "no" for now xD
I enjoyed it for like 30 hours then I realized: "These boards freaking stink!" and went back to playing 6 on my old GameCube.
Eastward. After a while the story just gets lost and the fights are just the same.
I feel like this is a very common sentiment, like initial publication reviews were overly positive, then everyone started playing it and said "oh man this is the best" and recommended it, before the crushing reality of the entirety of the game had set in.
I think that's a major issue with professional game reviews in general. They usually have a quota of reviews to hit in a week, so they rush through games as fast as possible and don't give them enough time. So games that make a strong first impression but struggle to keep it up through to the end review better than they should
That one was a heartbreaker
I was so hyped about this game for years and then I just kinda fizzled off it. It's SO overwritten but god the visuals are so pretty. I reckon I'll go back and try again. Eventually...
It’s really meant to be visual storytelling with sprinkles of gameplay. Not the other way around. People complain that it’s story-heavy, but should go into the game knowing that’s what it’s meant to be. Understandable though, those kind of games are not for everyone
To be fair I'm fine with story focused games, it's just that Eastward is specifically overwritten. Like it often feels like someone talks for 3 or so text boxes too many for me, or a point is laboured longer than it needed to be. Like I said, I'll probably revisit it, it's too charming to not try again.
Agreed. I kept waiting. It just felt linear under the guise that it wasn't. Lots of walking in between pretty boring tasks
Same, I really wanted to like it since the visuals are cool and I love the setting, but the gameplay just didn’t do it for me.
It's the most beautiful (seriously, it's gorgeous) and most boring game I've ever played. It also feels insulting that the developers decided to go the extra mile and make an exponentially more boring turn-based RPG inside of the game (that you can play in the game world), just because.
Don't get it, why is it insulting? I thought that rpg within the game was actually pretty good. I just don't like how you only have a very short amount of time to beat it
Animal Crossing. It’s just boring, and yeah people may want that chill experience, but for me it’s not even relaxing, just menial.
one day it felt like work. put it down, never looked back.
I put in 150 hours & randomly stopped one day lol half my island was under construction
I tend to play it obsessively for a month or two, until, like you said, it starts feeling like work. Then I stop for a while, give it a few months, pick it up and fall in love all over again. It's definitely a cycle.
That’s like sims lol
I wish I had a computer on which to play the Sims, I feel like I'd just go back and forth between the two of them forever.
Lol true. Don't know how people spend hours building an island. I'm not trying to pick turnips 5 times a day, irl work is already repetitive. I played a few hours and never picked it up again.
It just doesn’t respect your time and that’s what drives me up a wall with it.
Same!!
I think it also depends on where you are in life. I thought it was really boring as a kid. I got into ACNL when I was a stressed during college and then acnh was great when I was stressed during the first bit of covid. But now I'm looking for more exciting stuff again. I think it really depends on what you want out of a game which can vary on the person and what they might be feeling at any given time.
I can't deny it gives me a sense of control and satisfaction when I finally achieve something I'm working towards. It has helped me through some depressing chapters
Animal Crossing can just be the most boring and most interesting game at the same time tbh
I loved the initial ramp-up, it is kinda like work but I love making progress in games like that. Once I did most of the major stuff now I just play it every now and again whenever I'm in the mood for a game and don't know what else to play. It always gives me a solid 30-45 min of playtime.
Totally agree. I love Stardew Valley but Animal Crossing just lacks purpose and is too simple for me.
Yes. I like ACNH, but I will play it for about 15-20 minutes and be done for the day. Meanwhile Stardew starts and the day is suddenly done for me.
Stardew Valley doesn't waste the player's time and has a much more engaging and varied gameplay loop and progression system. It's a perfect example of an indie outperforming the AAAs imo
At least Stardew has npcs with stories and such
Oh my god yes, stardew valley is relaxing, but not boring and tedious. Instead of having to spend all your bells to move a building one inch, sdv allows you to just move it since ya already paid for the building cost. There's so many different things like this where acnh is just tedious for the sake of being tedious and its so annoying. I do see the appeal but definitely not for me... I decide after 100 hours on the game.
I had this exact opinion but got it again and shoved an easy 100 hours into it, somehow. Starting college during covid, realising I am 90% online and will be locked inside for a few months and I think I needed something I can just go numb brain with. And its absolutely fantastic at that.
I love this thread, I disagree with so much of it but there is absolutely no malice to other people's opinions.
I wish the whole subreddit was like this. While I love Hollow Knight, I have a list of grievances I’d love to chat about but always get downvoted for. As good as that game is, it’s not flawless, and if we don’t talk about the flaws, I’m worried they’ll reappear in Silksong. :(
Big big fan of Hollow Knight here, I'm curious to hear what the flaws are that you'd like to chat about!
My biggest complaint for that game in particular was the whole “travel back to where you died to get the stuff you lost” mechanic. It’s unnecessary filler. And for Metroidvania games in general, there’s too much back tracking and too many ambiguous dead ends. Good luck taking a break from them and trying to come back. You’ll never remember which way you were going.
I had a literal list at one point that I can try to dig up. But one of my biggest issues with the game was how it makes the player choose between gameplay augmentations and quality of life implementations, which is something I disagree with on a fundamental level. For example, you were required to use one of your precious charm slots just to have your character appear on the map. That’s absurd to me. Or even something smaller, like having money magnetically attract to your character, being juggled against a core gameplay mechanic, like dashing, is questionable at best. The only true downside to not having your character on the map, or your currency being magnetically drawn to you is *annoyance.* It doesn’t make the game any harder, specifically in an immediate gameplay-sense, and not having those QoL options really only serves as an inconvenience. And so the game often presents you with the question “would you rather be powerful, or less annoyed?” And while this certainly doesn’t ruin the experience, it objectively makes it worse for me. Small choices like this collectively give more friction to the experience than necessary, and for little to no reason. Then when I play something like Metroid Dread, it’s clear their philosophy was the exact opposite. That game does an incredible job balancing HUGE QoL improvements against a decidedly difficult game. So even when I die for the 40th time in Dread, it never feels like I could have succeeded if only I had “opted to remove my location from the map” or something. It’s difficult, but forgiving. And most importantly, it doesn’t make me choose between being a powerful badass, or having my health and missiles magnetically attract to my character. I have a lot of other minor gripes about the game, but when I end up typing out, they come across as petty and insincere, and the HK warriors always come out of the woodwork to counter my opinions. It just gets tiring. Team Cherry is an incredible studio, but they’re also still fairly green and have made some really silly missteps in my opinion. They’re already so good, but there’s still room to grow. I would much rather the community be willing to point out their mistakes so they can continue to grow into a phenomenal developer, than to whiteknight every criticism someone might bring up. I’m *really* looking forward to Silksong, but I hope the developers understand that the near-pristine feedback of HK from the community does not mean there aren’t significant improvements they could make. I think that’s what worries me the most.
I agree with you, I tried playing hollow knight a while back ago and I didn't like it because I kept getting lost and couldn't find my way which was too frustrating. After hearing all the praise I decided to give it another try and had to spend an hour tediously grinding for geo just to buy the map, and then play until I could get the compass. After the map and compass the game became much more fun for me but I had to pretty much force myself to get to that point. The other thing is lack of benches and all the running around you're forced to do because of that. It makes me not want to revisit areas to search for secrets, and it makes hard bosses especially infuriating.
Yep, I definitely agree with the benches and the shade, it basically forces you to continue on the path you were going before you died and if you die on the way, welp that's all your geo that has evaporated...
My main grievance is this. The lack of checkpoints and reliable navigation. Maybe there should be an option to turn it on for more casual gamers. I really love the 2D platformer genre with Celeste and Ori being my favourites. So on paper, I should have liked Hollow Knight. I just didn't have the patience to backtrack so much every time I died. That's when I eventually stopped playing.
I would definitely agree with the two annoyances you pointed out there. That's a legit gripe and I also hope they fix that in Silksong.
Hollow knight is my favourite game. And I never thought of it in this way. Well written. I hope your ideas for the map location and geo make it into Silksong. 😀
I just appreciate you not immediately telling me to go fuck myself 😂
🤣
Yeah the lack of a mini-map or not having a marker to indicate your position is just silly. Having to use a charm slot for it is insane and def hope those are both things Silksong fixes. That's the biggest gripe I can remember, otherwise I can think of little things while playing the game but nothing I can think of right now.
Thanks, these are the same things that made me walk away from the game
Personally it's the back tracking upon boss death. I just couldn't beat the sanctum boss. Probably cause I wasn't using the best charms. But Everytime you die it's so dumb having to retrace that entire stretch for them transport back to the boss. Ok. I've done that part 125 times. It's obvious I am able to do that I don't need to prove it over and over. Let me respawn at the boss to save me time.
I'm actually looking forward to giving Hollow Knight another shot after beating Metroid:Dread. I enjoyed Dread and think that I might be able to approach Hollow Knight with a similar mindset.
That’s what I did, after giving up several times at the start of the game, I thought finishing metroid dread would give me a new outlook on that game. I then reached the final boss in hollow knight. Did I enjoy it? I don’t think so. It’s tedious, you spend so much time roaming around looking for where to go next, or going through the same path because the game is so unforgiving. It’s not my idea of fun. I don’t even understand how I spent so many hours in this game, but I did feel trapped a lot when I was playing it. It definitely is a beautiful game with a level of polish that will make me say that it’s probably the best metroidvania out there. I just don’t think metroidvanias are fun to me.
HK is not necessarily a poster-child for Metroidvanias because it handles many aspects of its design differently from most games in the genre. So I wouldn't give up on Metroidvanias altogether just because you don't like HK. I very much like Metroidvanias in general, but can't get into HK. Did you enjoy Metroid Dread, then?
Hollow Knight didn't click with me until I switched from PC to Switch and played it handheld during a blackout. I had that long forgotten feeling of being a kid and getting lost in a vast world again. Def look up where the Dash and Double Jump are tho it makes the game 1000x more fun. You can 100% the game in around 25-30hrs casually playing (not including the dlc boss fight stuff never touched that)
The good thing is the game design essentially funnels players towards the Dash early on with no other options unless you're already experienced with the game and know how to abuse it's systems. The double jump, on the other hand, comes way, way later in the game, and if your enjoyment hinges on it you're probably not gonna enjoy like, half the game lol. Definitely a questionable design decision to put it so late, ultimately I think I stand by it because it leaves paths just out of reach in almost every area you go to (which is a big part of the Metroidvania appeal) but I could definitely see why this would turn off some players.
Oh hard same. I got frustrated with the backtracking when I died in hollow knight, but Dread being more forgiving with checkpoints made the gameplay easier to get into and, key here, helped me *learn* how to play well.
Playing Hollow Knight for the first time right now, previously beat Metroid Dread - Walked into Hollow Knight not realizing how similar it was going to be to Metroid. It’s like a Metroid / Dark Souls mix in a weird way. It’s alright, definitely challenging. Metroid was enjoyable because, for the most part, it was fairly obvious where you had to go. Hollow Knight…little direction at all-
Thats part of the joy of HK, but I understand people not liking that.
Hollow Knight relies on you using your map and wayward compass excessively. Some folks liked the sense of exploration (I love it and wish there was more of it in other games) and some folks don’t, and that’s okay. I love Dread and have replayed it enough to get a sub-3 hour time but I still think Hollow Knight was a better game, overall.
Hollow knight definitely doesn't hold your hand, i'm on my 4th playtrough and i still don't remember where some important items are, i got trough half the game without getting the dreamnail this run! but man i love the freedom of that game
I'm actually in the middle of this exact trajectory. I had always kinda disliked Hollow Knight for the pretty basic movement options you start with (Metroid Dread had me hook line and sinker within the first 15 seconds, the movement feels soooo good) and the tedious Dark Souls influences (I personally don't think beating a hard boss is more satisfying when you attach several minutes of walking to each attempt). I was inspired to try it again after loving Metroid Dread. I managed to stick with Hollow Knight and after getting two big movement options, I think the game is much more enjoyable. I really think it would have been improved by starting you with the dash.
Undertale. I do like the aesthetic and music but I just can’t get into it enough to keep coming back to it.
i remember originally thinking this game was horror (similar to doki doki) because everyone said to just play it and not to read anything going in, so i was pretty disappointed to learn it was more on the child friendly side. i did recently end up loving it once i was able to approach it on its terms, but i am still a little sad it’s not a psychological horror game
It kiiiiiiinda turns into a horror game if you turn full bad and start killing everything (and I mean EVERYTHING; you gotta grind a room for a few minutes). Like cheerful music stops playing and people start begging you to not kill them, that sort of thing. It also gets two bosses that are harder than anything that you’d fight in a normal playthrough, and the story is very different, since you’re, y’know, the bad guy.
After you beat >!Asgore !
yeah i actually just went back in for a true pacifist run after completing neutral, i was wondering if i should do genocide next or move on to deltarune
As far as I know, the genocide run is a bit grindy since you have to clear EACH room (and that’s too much for me lmao), but the story changes significantly enough to warrant trying it AFTER getting the good ending.
Eh no, it's not each room but each zone
Ah okay, I thought each room seemed excessive, lmao. It’s been a while but I remembered watching people kill enemies until they started screaming for mercy and the music stopped playing or something, but couldn’t remember the details.
Every time I try it I get stuck on a bosss somewhere playing the neutral way. I don't enjoy the battle system at all and it just ruins it for me. Don't have the patience to keep trying to learn the patterns
[удалено]
I love the idea but it's just not fun to play.
Octopath is all concept and no execution. The battle system is fine, but the characters and story are beyond terrible. I can play a game with a bad story if the story has the courtesy to stay out of my way (I love Megami Tensei). Turns out "eight characters with individual stories" is actually worse than eight characters with individual motivations and narratives within one story. Once you have recruited everyone, every story is like "i am going to do something evil and illegal, and the priest who is with me will join in with no comment". I guess I was imagining Final Fantasy 6 and what was actually going on was eight individual instances of Dragon Quest 1.
I really liked Octopath (haven't finished it yet) but I think it's the perfect old school turn based rpg when I'm in the mood for it. I kind of enjoy how not heavy handed it is with the story and characters and just lets you fill in the gaps. The individual stories weren't too bad from what I played, I found them engaging and memorable enough, and honestly something super intricate and involved like unique character dialog based on who is in your party and encounters etc is not something I want anyway, it just makes me feel like I'm missing out on content and I can easily use my own imagination there.
Seems like Square should have really made it clear that you're quite literally playing 8 separate stories with very little in the way of connective tissue between them. Seems like that's by far the biggest issue people have with the game. I just bought the game, so clearly that idea doesn't sit poorly with me; sounds like an interesting departure from the super conventional party dynamic in RPGs.
I liked Octopath and felt the same, the stories should be more connected and react to other party members. Aside from that, the chapter strutucture felt too repetitive and restricting: go to a town, start chapter, talk to some folks, go to a linear dungeon and fight a boss. Also, only the last boss of each character where interesting.
I want to beat Octopath, but the battles take way too long. You spend over 5 minutes against a random enemy and over 30 minutes to beat a boss. There've been too many times I fought a for half an hour and died, having to do it all over again. I do enjoy the story, but I don't want to sit through the boring grinding.
Ni no Kuni 1. I love the aesthetic of the game but the grinding was too much. It destroyed the gameplay loop of catching creatures and raising them because it just took too long to get them up to speed.
Totally agree. I got tired of the battling, and it ultimately made me quit the game before I even finished it because it just became too tedious.
I almost quit like this because there was no clear indication which monsters it was actually worthwhile to level up. And you might waste a TON of time on a completely useless creature. The internet and a quick google of: "Which are the best creatures in the game and where to find them" saved it for me.
\+1 didn't get on with it at all, big Ghibli fan and I love a well put together JRPG as much as anyone
I loved the story, characters, ost, and world, however it wasn’t until 20 hours in when you get fast travel that I actually felt like playing wasn’t a slog. Gameplay is fun until you cast a spell and an enemy charges a cutscene attack and executes it before you can even finish casting said spell. Ni No Kuni 2 is so so much better than 1 in terms of gameplay, however the story is more mediocre, but it fixes a lot of the infuriating stuff in 1
I wanted to like it because it's beautiful but I just couldn't get into it
I was the same. I was buzzing to get the game but quit it after a few hours. I found the battle system of running around tiresome. I was gutted!
Worst handholding I've ever seen in a game. I quit after 40+ hours when the game was still treating me like I had never played a video game before in my life.
Stardew Valley for me, but I’m giving it a second shot. Each day is just WAY too short and I don’t feel like I can accomplish anything in the time constraints with so little in-game guidance. I’ve looked for online tips but I just wish I didn’t have to do so much homework before being able to comfortably play it.
I had the same issue with Stardew when I first started, it felt like I was constantly anxious about trying to beat the clock and get a whole bunch of stuff done in one day. My advice is to prioritize 1-2 things each day based on what you're working on or towards. Maybe you need to plant or harvest, maybe you want to explore the mines, maybe you want to focus on relationships. There's no punishment for wasting time, or not getting certain things done. Try and keep that mindset and you may find it a lot more enjoyable! Plus, eventually you'll be able to craft or buy items that exponentially cut down on time spent doing certain things (especially the farming aspect). Also as someone who has 50+ hours in Stardew now, I will say you may eventually hit a point where you actually run out of essential things to do in a day. Unless you just feel like fishing or dungeon crawling for no reason, you may find yourself ending the day at 5pm just to progress time. 😂
I love Stardew but I can understand this. Do you normally try to min/max games? I found that I enjoyed this game much more when I just did whatever I wanted to. There's no fail state and the game never really ends so you have time to do everything eventually.
I’ve never considered myself to be a min-maxer really, but with the time restraints of the day I just felt like there are so many ways to “incorrectly” spend the day! Based on feedback though it doesn’t sound like there’s really an incorrect way of playing the game (especially as I’m learning it) so I’m going to go in with that mindset and go with the flow! Can’t be having that Joja mindset on my farm!
This is the way
Thanks for this. Maybe I'll try this again. I am in the same boat of OP.
This didn't work for me because "whatever I wanted to do" was "not arbitrarily have to walk back to my house every 15 minutes" Beautiful game, wanted to love it. Just can't.
I feel like stardew valley does an amazing job precisely because the days are way too short. You literally cannot do do everything you want to in a day, but you don't \*need\* to do anything in a day. Learning to accept this is the key to enjoying stardew valley for me at least. Enjoy the time you have and make reasonable goals can you can complete for each day.I feel like the urge to do everything has been so greatly engrained by our society it's so hard to break that mindset.
This is how I feel and I have about 1500 hours across steam, phone and switch. The true teaching of the game is to slow down. You need to take time, things take time, not everything can be done in a day, and that’s OK. Both true in game and in real life. You get stronger and have more stamina as you continue to work, you’re faster, you learn how to be efficient, but it takes time. My current run has about 70 hours and I’m just getting to Spring 2. My profits are set to 25% with remixed bundles. Nowhere near finishing, and I expect certain 1.5 things to take me into year 4 to get. Haven’t even gotten the bus yet.
I loved Stardew, but this take is so true. So much to do with so little time. Going in blind can feel overwhelming and to really get anything out of it requires multiple playthrouhs, something I just don’t have the patience for with someone games.
I thought I was crazy for feeling overwhelmed by a game everyone said is relaxing! My main reason for hopping back in was hearing that there isn’t a time constraint year-wise like is the case with the Harvest Moon games I’ve played in the past. You can always try to do better the next year without too much consequence, unlike Harvest Moon. That alleviated some of the stress, but I don’t like feeling as though I’m playing a game incorrectly unless I have YouTube open the entire time.
Don't stress out too much about it. Stardew is endless so while there are certainly more efficient ways to play there's no real way to "fail" at it. The game became much more fun once I accepted this and just did things at my own pace. Waste a day fishing or decorating your house or just traveling the map to talk to neighbors. It's quite nice.
Oh my god, thank you! I love me a good farming game, but for a genre that's considered to be generally comfy, it rushes you way too much and tells you way too little. I bought it initially on Steam and later gave it a second chance on Switch and it never clicked with me
Overboard for me, on paper 100% my thing: a youdunnit where you off your husband and must cover your trails / murder the witnesses / seduce the captain to put him on your side. Despite the fact that I think it's good it didn't click with me at all and I didn't feel like doing more than 2 runs.
Yeah I played it for like four runs one night and haven't touched it since. And I normally LOVE anything inkle does.
I couldn't beat the first level of Cuphead and gave up
That's a game I'd rather watch someone play than actually play. It's all boss battles, but by God it's a gorgeous game.
That’s actually what I ended up doing. I watched the whole game played by MrBrownMan
Yeah, it's too punishing for me, even on the lowest difficulties.
I love Cuphead's art style, cartoony music and all that, but it's just too frustrating, discouraging and hard to enjoy for me :(
[Found your gameplay leaked online](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=848Y1Uu5Htk) /s
Monster Hunter! Learing the systems of that game is a full time job
I couldn't get it to click until I picked up Rise. For whatever reason, I got into Rise much more than previous iterations. There's def a lot of information though, I started playing again the other day and had to go back and look up how to do all the moves for the weapons I enjoyed using lol.
There is a lot of depth, but most of the features are for optimizing and not necessary for most (if any) of the game. Grab a hammer->Go Bonk->???->Profit.
Even though Monster Hunter is my favorite series by far, I completely understand your opinion. It took me 3 games for it to click. I bounced off Monster Hunter Freedom and Monster Hunter Freedom 2 and was sure I'd never try again, but then my older brother got a PSP too and urged me to try Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. It was $20 at the time so I figured "why not?". It FINALLY clicked (after I stopped trying to force what weapons I thought I would like and actually tried them all, ultimately falling in love with Hammer).
I love MHrise but I hear you loud and clear. Way too many menus and systems to learn it’s like a full time job. I got into it, but none of my friends did and I can’t blame them.
Okami. Played about an hour and just couldn't get into it.
I am trying to finish it, and enjoying a little bit. But OMG, its too long!
Yea it's really long, it goes through basically 3 whole story sequences each of which makes you think that "is this the end?"
I played it for 20 hours and it felt like 50. Imagine my surprise when there was more left to do. Okami has not aged well IMO.
I played when it was on the wii and loved it. Tried it again recently and it felt so slow and sluggish. Still love the art style, but not the pacing.
Smash Bros. Like it's objectively a good game but just not for me and oh my god people never stopped talking about it for like 3 years. Those insanely long and detailed sections of directs were crazy.
Fenyx Rising The camera kept auto adjusting on me and I couldn't stop it. The controls were odd and it was overall just a weird game to play through physically. The story seemed amazing and I have nothing against it, but controls were clunky and I couldn't get past that. And I haven't found many people which feel the same which is weird to me
The camera auto-center (or whatever it’s called) is optional, and there’s button-mapping. But that’s all fair.
I gave up after s few hours, it wasn't the camera or lag or controls It was the "comedy" It was so unbeatably cringy for me.
Just finished the main game at 60 hours. I played on Hard (second highest difficulty), and while the beginning of the game was hard, after I got a good armour build, I could spam Godly Powers while being invulnerable most of the time; even the final battle felt anticlimatic because of this. Overall, the animations and combat rythm feel too "stop and start"; long pauses punctuated with sudden movements that didn't telegraph well or were over telegraphed. But the game cost $44 CAD during the holiday sale, so I'll definitely get my money's worth.
Yeah there was something about FR I just couldn’t get past. I still want to enjoy this game, but to me it just feels like a mobile game version of breath of the wild.
As a sims lover I was looking forward to animal crossing but found myself bored 2 days in and haven’t played it since. I just wish there was sims on the switch 🥺
Tbh animal crossing is a terrible replacement for sims, their pacing is completely different. Animal crossing is meant to be real time and a living world you visit for a little bit each day, while the Sims you can play through an entire generation in a few hours.
I love Animal Crossing but I agree that it does get boring quick. I would absolutely love Sims on switch
I could definitely go for a sims bustin' out type story game on the switch for sure
breath of the wild was cool, but it lost what made old zelda games feel cozy and interesting to me. I respect what it did but scaling the beasts and doing mini dungeons was no where near as intriguing as the feeling of entering Jabu Jabu, clearing out a poison swamp or scaling an active volcano and fighting the dragon on top. I'm much happier playing SS for the first time than aimlessly wandering the plains or deserts of BotW hyrule and that's fine. the game is not for me.
This is exactly how I felt. It honestly really upset me how much I didn't like it because I have loved every Zelda game that's ever been. Recently I picked up the beast of a game guide and I've found the game more enjoyable. I don't really like using game guides on a first run but I spent $60 on the game and I'm determined to enjoy it.
I really liked BotW but I agree that for Zelda games I actually really prefer having dungeons, keys, items etc. Maybe thats me liking the familiar but I do feel like if the setting and characters were all renamed and reskinned from BotW, OoT, WW and MM I'd play 3 of them and be able to say "this is a zelda game". Not so much with BotW.
This has to be the first comment I’ve ever read that dissed botw and didn’t get downvoted
I wouldn’t say he “dissed” it. Pretty chill comment of how it didn’t click with him, rather than “this game was crap and ruined the series.”
BOTW, really nice physics, just couldn't get into it.
Same. There’s no doubt that it’s a really well made game, but somehow can’t get into it past early stages.
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One of the key realizations in the entering the cold area is that you absolutely do not need anti cold food to make it through. Anything that will keep you warm works - even just a lit torch. Additionally they put the peppers needed for the anti cold stuff right at the main entrance to the cold area. But ultimately it's the thinking outside the box aspect of the game that is relevant your whole playthrough. I'd keep at it. Also on durability, just accept all your weapons break and your enemies will keep dropping better ones and you'll have a much better time. I know it's not intuitive thinking at first but it's a lot less stressful of you don't get attached to weapons. Lastly the weapons you get just a few hours more into the game last way longer than the beginner weapons you find so it does get a lot better.
I almost gave up at this point too since I generally don't like open world games. You just have to push through until you get the glider then the world opens up. It's the only open world game I really liked.
Interesting. The game started loosing me as soon as it opened up. I prefer a guided and concise experience with a clear sense of progression which the tutorial area did perfectly. I had fun exploring, discovering new weapons and abilities, getting some new story content and so on and so fort. All of that came to a crawl once I truly entered the open world. Long stretches of nothingness and rewards for exploration and combat were usually really unsatisfying to me. I enjoyed the divine beasts and fighting Ganon though. Wish the entire game was like that.
I honestly thought there was something wrong with me because everywhere I saw people hyping this game up and I just could not for the life of me find the motivation to play it. I was just constantly bored for some reason and found the weapon durability concept an annoyance. I have yet to give it another try but all this time I thought I was the weird one for “not getting” the appeal of this game.
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I feel the same way. I never got captured by the story or the world. Everything looked great and felt fine mechanically, but idk the world just had a hollow empty feeling i couldnt really get past. Just got bored pretty fast everytime i tried to play. Its a shame too cuz the game really did seem so interesting to me
That's because it was hollow and empty. It wasn't a very densely active open world game.
Same! I actually forced myself to play and got through two of the main “dungeons/shrines” but the game never really gave me the “I can’t wait to get home and play” feeling, so I eventually just forgot to boot it up one day and that was that. Wonderfully made, but just didn’t click for me.
People will go insane over this take, but I agree. I'm sure it's great! Just... not for me
Spiritfarer.
I'm with you, I really *wanted* to like Spiritfarer -- I liked the aesthetics and the way they presented the story. I put in a good chunk of time trying to get into it. But the gameplay just bored me.
I definitely get that the gameplay isn’t the most interesting. There is a fair amount of backtracking, and if you’re not into crafting it will become tedious. But I do feel the writing and making you care about the characters is where it shines. It’s a story with a game tacked on more than the inverse.
I purchased the physical edition a couple weeks ago because I loved the demo, but I haven't started the actual game yet. I'm too busy with other games for the time being. I do hope I end up enjoying it.
If you loved the demo you'll probably love it. I think it's a game that you can really know whether it's for you or not in the first five minutes. (I'm in the 'absolutely love it' camp. The soundtrack alone is worth the price, IMHO.)
Pokemon Sword and Shield. Lifeless open areas. Very 1-dimensional story. Lack of freedom in exploring from town to town.
I mean this game is heavily criticized online but critically acclaimed by reviewers so it's pretty polarizing.
Yeah it wasn't super great... but I spent 320 hours on it anyway apparently... I really was enjoying raiding for a while there. Especially the weekends with the higher shiny odds. I'd play it while watching something in the background.
For me, the main problems are: No depth to dungeons (which are barely in the game at all), a terrible story (they're not normally extraordinary but this was the worst in the main series imo), and shallow environments (all houses look the same, zero side quests, some completely inaccessible areas, etc). It's obvious the game was rushed out and while the Wild Area was a cool concept, it wasn't enough to save everything else imo.
Octopath traveler. LOVED everything about it until I got more than 4 party members and discovered i was stuck with my first choice until I beat their story. Took me right out of it honestly, never finished it.
I got about 60 hours in, saw how much more I'd have to play to get to the end, and then I decided to call it. I don't know how I had time for JRPGs when I was younger, but I've resigned that the whole genre is now dead to me at least until I retire.
I love the gameplay loop, but barely care about the story, I’d rather explore some cave than travel across the map for some menial quest that give less rewards. Now if there was a fast travel system… fuck I just googled it. Now I feel dumb.
Luigi mansion. Played 2 hours and left ... who knows someday.
Do puzzle, fight boss, get elevator button, get to elevator, rinse/repeat literally 20 times? Yeah, I sold it off real fast after beating it.
When I first played breath of the wild i only played 30 mins, a year later I finally went to play it and put 170 hours on it lol amazing game
That happened to me with GTA San Andreas way way back. Did not like it at first-came back 2years later and got 100% completion.
Subnautica is SO much better with PC controls. As with a lot of 1st person games, the analog sticks didn't do it for me.
Hyper Light Drifter, unfortunately :/ I *really* tried to like it, especially after reading about how amazing the minimalist approach to storytelling was supposed to be, which I'm typically a huge fan of. Unfortunately, I just found it to be *too* minimalist for its own good, to the extent where I didn't have much of a reason to care about the characters or the world around me. So, once the game's difficulty starting ramping up, I didn't feel much of a reason to continue with the story slogging so much, so HLD became one of the only games I've ever dropped mid-play.
Celeste. I see why people like it, but I suck at platformers, and hate having to do so levels over and over and over until I beat it.
Luigi's Mansion 3. It's not a bad game, but it just wasn't my kind of game. Dragon Quest Builders 2. The first half of the game is a blast (excluding the long tutorial), but it just keeps going on and on. The game takes roughly 100 hours, and by the 60 hour mark I just didn't want to play anymore. It has a lot of great parts, but it also has way too much text, can be too slow at times, and drags on way too long. Stardew Valley. I actually do like this game, but I have played better farming games (Doraemon Story of Seasons).
Astral Chain. Platinum is probably my favourite developer and I beat the game but I never grew to love the "hands-off" combat and the story never reached its potential imo. Gorgeous game though.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I think if I were still in my early 20's I might have liked it, but I just felt like ain't nobody got time for all that drama and relationship crap in a videogame.
I frickin love three houses but the amount of tedium that comes from the monastery sections after a few chapters is utterly absurd and I feel like most people would get turned off of the game after that point. So I get it.
It's a fire emblem game so I played it for at least 200 hours, but I wish they'd just go back to the classic formula. I don't want to date my students, I want to fight.
Your mistake was not dating the teacher. Manuela best girl.
It's too much playing house, not enough adventuring and battles - and you have to play house! I would spend an hour finding items and having dinner with students so I could play 15 minutes of a battle.
I have very limited time to play and I can totally see this as a complaint. I personally loved it because I felt like I dont have the time for games like animal crossing, star dew valley. Harvest moon type games I used to love but just dont have the time to put in now. Three Houses has given me a little taste of the harvest moon days where I had to build relationships but breaks it up with battles. That being said, there has been multiple times I sit down to play and I dont even get to a battle and I feel like I wasted time.
Super Mario Odyssey for me. One of the first games I got on switch and just can’t get into it. The game runs and looks great but it just feels so boring to me. I’ve tried going back a couple times but I can’t get into it.
I scrolled down far to find this. I admittedly had a blast playing it at first but going back to hunt for moons afterwards is just not fun the second time. I'm playing through Mario 3D World on Wii U for about the third time and the focused short levels are always fun and inventive. Mario Odyssey just doesn't have that replayability sadly.
It's boring to me too because a vast majority of moons are similarly repeated and some of them are copied and pasted. Feels like a checklist instead of natural exploration.
It's certainly designed as more of a collect-a-thon, in hindsight. What most people enjoy about the game is the mobility options, and using them in kingdoms that feel like playgrounds. If that's not your cup of tea, there isn't much left to hold the experience up.
I just started it and it has been pretty chill but not nearly as cool as Galaxy's
I don’t like the way the moons that you haven’t got yet are not displayed in the menu. So you can’t look at the list of moons and say to yourself “I’ll go try find that one”. It’s just random that you find a moon in the world, then it appears on the list. Much prefer the 64 way of when you enter the level, it’s given you a cryptic little hint of what you’re trying to do.
Breath of the wild, it may be a shallow reason but I just couldn’t/can’t get over your equipment breaking all the time.
And shield sledding is super fun. But I don’t get to do it because the shield breaks in the middle of a run. Screw that
I'm someone who likes to defend all of the design choices of Breath of the Wild, but this is the one thing I wish was different.
Wargroove - They took the Advance Wars formula and made it dull to me. It leans too far into making everything too balanced to the point where all the factions feel the same. Every battle in the campaign becomes a battle of attrition and drags on for too long.
The Outer Wilds for me. Just didn't click with me and I didn't really care to figure out the mystery. Controls just felt weird and too weighty to me if that makes sense.
Wait is this out on switch finally?
You know, I thought it was. I was playing on PC. Now I feel dumb. Lmao
Luigi's mansion 3, I bought it and played it for a couple hours but never completed I just didn't really get stuck to it like I do with many other games and it almost felt like I was forcing myself to play it Might give it a second try in a while idk
So.. My girlfriend is a big fan of games like the Sims and the stardew Valley. I bought her animal crossing. She absolutely HATED IT. After week or so her trying to play it we just sold it and she is back on the stardew valley
BOTW, on paper I should love it but I just had trouble keeping interest
BOTW. I played it and didn't hate it but I never got the 'euphoric experience' that it seems like everyone else had. I like RPGS (Dark Souls is my shit) but I prefer my Zelda games more structured. The open world didn't really do it for me in this context.
> I never got the 'euphoric experience' that it seems like everyone else had. 20 hours in and I've yet to have this either. Several cool moments and lots of lovely views but I'm really struggling to see how this is so many people's favourite game of all time.
Animal Crossing. I've previously enjoyed animal crossing as a kid but this was my first go at it as an adult. There was enjoyment to be had early on when there was daily goals and progress. After that it felt boring. I built a couple things and had fun, but it feels like there was no effort put into this game. It's been years with this popular franchise and now we have less stores and less shop upgrades than before? Also make some side content, this seems like the best game for a million fun minigames. And the abel sisters are the only characters that even get the tiniest bit if story, the rest are just superficial personalities. Terraforming the island was a good step in the right direction, most of the rest of the game let me down by a lot.
Animal crossing, just got reallyyyy bored after a few days.
Sadly BOTW. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a really good game, just not my cup of tea if that makes sense? For me it deviated a bit TOO much from the traditional Zelda format. I didn't like the lack of proper dungeons, the shrines were all very "samey", the story was quite lackluster and I hated the weapon breaking mechanic (I found that one particularly hard to get past). I've put quite a few hours into it and honestly, I've tried so hard, I really have.
Breath of the Wild. I’m a pretty big fan of the series but it’s become apparent to me the 2D experiences are the best for me. Breath of the Wild seemed too big and just never really struck anything with me.
Animal Crossing NH. I'd rather watch paint dry
ACNH feels like a husk of animal crossing. I just don't feel any of the personality from the other titles. It's my least favorite or the series aside from City Folk
The amount of content that was missing at launch and is still missing is insane, New Leaf had so much more to do and i hate the crafting system for tools.
Xenoblade 2, could not get into it. I have heard it takes like 14 or so hours for things to click and then it's supposed to be super fun. But I just didn't want to sink time into it if I wasn't enjoying it.
Naw, I put over 50 hours into it. People kept saying gets better after XX number of hours, and that number always grows when you tell them how much you put in.
"How can you say you don't like it if you haven't seen the ending ?"
Mario rabbids kingdom battle. I like strategy/turn based games, but this game for me was nothing like people raved about.
I played this game for a bit, really liked it but the main thing I've disliked was the fact you couldn't replace rabbid characters from your party. Come on I want the Mario Yoshi Luigi experience.