I’ll give my example and I think I’m going to get a lot of hate for it. I DESPISE Dark Souls 3. It is such a mediocre game when it comes to the actual gameplay. There is like zero build diversity, the combat isn’t indepth and, while the other souls games have at least decent RPG mechanics and exploration can make things easier, DS3 just demands you rolly polly your way to victory. There is no weight to like anything, you feel so floaty and light, and you fold like a peice of paper when you get hit. And so many attacks don’t care about your positioning, and instead only if you mashed the dodge button at the correct time, something Elden Ring kind of does too, but it adds a jump button to retain some offense and I find that I’m able to out position bosses and enemies more often in it without actually dodging.
Dark Souls 3 is such a mindnumbingly boring game for me, I feel zero excitement playing it.
Love DS1, DS2, Bloodborne and Elden Ring though, great games all around.
And the music for DS3 is amazing and I do love the Pontiff Sullivan fight.
Half-Life 1. It’s literally the only game I’m aware of from after 1985 that I truly think “aged badly.” Doom '93, Quake, and Unreal are still stone cold classics, even Wolf3D is fun in small doses. HL1 is a mess of control oddities and obtuse game design. I dropped it at the end of the train level when it required me to do an absurdly precise jump where getting it was basically luck to finish the level.
I love Half Life 1, more than Half Life 2, infact. Until the platforming. A small amount of platforming is fine, especially if its optional and used to give you more options in a combat scenario. But when you NEED to make precision jumps with the floaty controls, its very frustrating. I usually stop after Surface Tension.
My list would be too long, so I’ll just mention the most recent one: Expedition 33.
I think it has a fantastic intro and decent ending, but I found the story to be kinda weak and it lost me at the Gestral village, and never really recovered. I still finished it as I knew it was pretty short and I was hoping for it to get better.
The gameplay tho is what I really can’t tolerate. I think both dodge and parry are overpowered, as they completely negate damage, making the rpg part weaker - healing becomes useless, turn order is less significant, there’s less stats. It ends up encouraging you to build for damage, making everyone a glass cannon. This is made worse by the fact that the equipment is focused mostly on boosting damage (often with multiplicative effects).
Pokemon Legends Arceus. I bought into the hype after it released cause my friends were playing it non-stop and assured me that anything I thought I wouldn’t like about it wasn’t actually in the game or wasn’t as bad as I thought. I got it and could only play till the Lilligant battle before dropping it. I still adore most mainline Pokemon games (although Scarlet and Violet might be my jumping off point cause I didn’t like the story or open world), but this was way too much of a departure from what I liked about Pokemon for me.
Balatro.
It is a mechanically very dense game. There is a lot of depth and complexity to its gameplay. I get why a lot of people enjoy that. But I just kind of bounce off that, I need something to motivate me to engage with game mechanics. I need a story, or like, some kind of theming that I can project a goal on to. Poker but weird just doesn’t do it for me.
Like I adore paradox games, but I can project a broad world buildy-esq self built narrative and goals on to that, even when the mechanics are as broad as an ocean but as deep as a puddle.
Red Dead Redemption 2
It’s the same old Rockstar formula of having you travel back and forth over the map just to do a normal mission and falls short of giving the cowboy fantasy everyone touts it as being. They added enough detail that your horse’s balls shrink in the cold but made it so easy to get money that whilst your merry band of outlaws are complaining about how little they have, I struggled to find more things to buy with immense hoards of cash. And the bounty system doesn’t work. And the multiplayer was total ass. And part way through the fantastical cowboy simulator, it adds goofy sidequests of time travel and robots. Rockstar couldn’t decide what to make the game so they tried to make it everything, leaving it lacklustre.
Breath of the wild.
Complete disapointment as a Zelda game, it felt just like generic ubi-slop with a coat of nintendo paint, complete with a pointless crafting system and the ridiculous “swords can ony hit a dozen times before breaking”.
Playing a modded version that removed weapon durability made it go from my least liked entry in the series to…slightly above the NES games.
Above NES games? That’s pretty high praise.
I just replied to Witcher 3 comment, and I have a completely opposite take here. It surprises me that some people put BotW in same category as other open world Ubisoft games, kinda curious to see how you all tackled the game compared to me. For me, the possibilities just seemed so endless with that game, I never felt restricted to do anything, the physics are bonkers in both BotW and TotK, it really made me flex my creative side and I appreciate the game for it. I understand if you don’t like the game because it’s not your cup of tea or because it deviates too much from a Zelda formula, but Ubi-slop?
Honestly as someone who has played a lot of Ubisoft open world games and really didn’t like BotW (haven’t played TotK cause why would I) it did feel pretty similar to those games with the only difference being the map didn’t tell you where the collectibles/challenges were at. You still have the big radio tower things you climb to get info on the surrounding area and the korok seeds/shrines would feel no different from Ubisoft slop if the map showed where they were. That’s the only difference I felt between the two.
Disagree. Exploring the world of botw was fun, combat is fun, cooking is cool.
The problem is it’s a pretty big genre shift. Nintendo clearly thought it was time after Skyward Sword and the market agreed… But I personally couldn’t stand basically everything they did beyond the base idea of going all in on an open world.
There was, quite frankly, too much meaningless filler content for me to really care, and the disconnect in tone between the main story’s genuinely emotional attempt at creating a sense of urgency and the open world “take your time bro lmao Zelda’s already been doing this for a century” drove me up a wall.
I understand why people like it though, they absolutely nailed the exploration and mechanics… If you weren’t already tired of them.
I found the game a lot more approachable once I modded the toffee-tier equipment out of the game.
Im not sure if witcher 3 was hyped but I recently played and did not get passed a few of the initial quests before I yawned out.
W3 is definitely a slow burn game, for better and worse. It might have been a bit overhyped, but for the most part I feel it deserved the praise it got.
I will also add that after completing it, I never really returned to it.
I didn’t find it boring, I loved it start to finish, but I was not blown away like others were. Idk what unique thing they were seeing that I wasn’t.
TW3, and The Witcher as a series in general, is one of those slow burn games. Its strong point is the characters and building story. That said, given the time investment required to get to that point, I can’t blame anyone for bouncing off if they weren’t already into the series.
Probably GTA V. I did enjoy it, but the story was all over the place and the multiplayer was never that fun (it wasn’t long before it became filled with cheaters and ridiculous DLC cars/weapons). Something about traversing the map just bored me in a way that GTA IV and San Andreas never did.
To me, Rockstar Games are cool as world simulators and storytelling engines. My issue is that they plop lazily-designed gameplay on top.
No one ever talks about the core gameplay loops of these games, the thing that makes you progress through the storyline.
They talk about the storyline, but they don’t talk about the mediocre gunfights you have to wade through to watch a cutscene or hear dialogue. Wave after wave of anonymous enemies, like videogames haven’t changed since shooting galleries.
They have to introduce essentially unexplained superpowers (slowing down time) to make it remotely interesting. And even then, I would argue most people are just trying to get through every single mission.
Or the terrible movement/driving/riding physics. I didn’t finish GTA4 (also a “10/10 game”) because some of the missions relied on the abysmal movement.
It’s like… a Rockstar game is like going to IKEA. You’re going to be led through a lot of stupid crap, just because they want to keep you there longer.
I do agree with your observations here, especially when it comes to GTA V.
One Rockstar game that I thought did a good job with the gameplay loop was Max Payne 3. Near-death, running low on ammo and diving to the side of an enemy’s shot in slow-motion whilst you line up that last headshot and see the animation as the final bullet hits it’s target. THAT felt satisfying. It’s not a perfect game by any means, but I loved the gameplay.
GTA V on the other hand did feel like a chore at times with its uninspiring gunfights. I think it actually shined most during the unscripted moments - being chased when a stray bullet pops a tyre, forcing you to fight your way out of a battle on the side of the road before running for your life, stealing another car and getting away. I guess that’s what you mean when you say a storytelling engine.
Omg, the helicopters especially in GTA4 controlled abysmally.
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I remember finishing the story and going “That’s it?”. Even now when I try to remember what the actual plot was I have no fucking idea. And I didn’t really get into GTA Online because by the time I got around to it sharkcards were already ruining online and I just didn’t want anything to do with that.
But I have a hard time saying it’s overrated. There’s just nothing else like it in the world. Every other game that has tried to copy GTA has ended up being noticeably inferior to GTA.
I suppose it’s overrated in the sense that there are better games in the series (in my opinion at least).
I think Rockstar did an incredible job with RDR2, so I’m hoping GTA VI is an improvement over V.
It was the first time I played a GTA game.
The dialog and social satire was what sold it for me. As a game, it’s just OK. There’s a lot of mechanics that it trains you to do for one mission, and then it never comes up again. Once you do the first big heist, money is no longer anything to worry about. Which is good, because buying a business for income is almost never worth it unless you’re going to have a very long playthrough.
The torture scene was a bit much. In-universe, even fucking Trevor thought it was a bit much.
The final mission should have been the big three-way shootout between various corrupt organizations. Have Franklin have to make his choice on who to kill during that mission, and then wrap it all up. The story clearly climaxes there, and the rest is dragging things out.
I’m surprised it got so many 10 out of 10 reviews back in the day. I guess having an open world game with draw distances like that on an Xbox360 was a big deal, but once that technical achievement is no longer noteworthy, it’s a 7 out of 10 experience. Which is fine, it’s just not amazing.
I found it very strange how unfinished parts of it seemed.
Skyrim
Heresy!!! Have my upvote for your dirty unpopular opinion
I’d argue that fallout 4 is more overrated but you can at least modify it into a semi-enjoyable state of brain rot looter shooter base building.
The most fun you can have in skyrim is doomscrolling while sitting on the title screen.
Bethesda literally answered the question of “how do you make an rpg multiplayer?” With a Rust clone. The great minds at the top of their enterprise need to be studied.
Elder Scrolls games but specifically Skyrim.
I have tried it multiple times but I just don’t understand how so many people can put so many hours into a game when an element you are going to be engaging in for a lot of your play through is one of the worst in the genre, the combat. It is floaty, imprecise and has zero feeling of impact. It is just horrible. I felt the same about Oblivion but Skyrim seems to be held in even higher regard.
Oh man, yeah the hit reg and combat physics in Bethesda games are awful. At least Morrowind had good RPG elements, I would rather have that DND style of combat than what Oblivion and Skyrim have done with theirs.
To be fair I never played the older games so I was more specifically referring to the new ones. At this point as well I think the older ones are too old to go back and try out for me having never played them and I doubt I’d get on with them without the nostalgia element.
Elder Scrolls games by and large suck out of the box. The prolific mod community is what makes them worth buying / playing. I’ve got a few hundred hours in Skyrim and I’ve never actually finished the main storyline. Don’t know how it ends, don’t care.
That’s why we all play archers!
The ragdoll physics still felt novel at the time. Nothin quite like headshotting a goblin and they go tumbling away from the force of your arrow
Skyrim does have a lot of combat overhaul mods to make it feel like you want it to. Of course ideally you shouldn’t have to, but the option is there at least.
Ghost of Tsushima is touted by some as a “game of the decade” candidate when in reality it’s just a somewhat more polished Ubisoft open world game, that’s also highly monotonous and repetitive for its very long playthrough length.
I have to agree with this. The game is gorgeous and I enjoy the general setting and plot but I absolutely loath the navigation system that just about everyone and their pet turtle says is amazing and I thought it went on for too long. By the end of the main story (and having done most of the side stuff alobg the way) I was so done with it I didn’t even bother touching the DLC.
I had been told to just play Sekiero or one of the AC remasters.
YES thats what I thought whenever someone tried to get me to play it!
So you didn’t play it at all?
So you agree, emphatically, that a game that you’ve never even played is overrated?
Huh. Ok.
I mean, I’ve watched gameplay of it, watched friends play it and it doesn’t look appealing to me. It looks like Assassins Creed with somewhat better combat.
Hmm I think most rogue likes. But that’s probably a me issue. I just don’t enjoy having to restart and play the same gameplay loop again. Hades was the closest one that I seemed to enjoy more as I liked the story bits between each run. I recently started cult of the lamb and I enjoy the base building so that might help too.
It’s interesting that you mention DS3. I quite enjoyed my time with it(once I got my bearings. I had to restart a number of times) but I’m super curious if I would enjoy it as much if I went back and played DS1 again to compare.
I can completely understand the environment complaint. I really liked sekiro for all the varied environments and themes.
Did you ever give Slay the Spire a go? I was also quite sceptical about roguelikes, but now it is by far my most played game ever at a whopping 600 hours.
The beauty of it is that it is quite easy to understand, but with an incredible amount of depth to it. You’ll start out having trouble winning your first ever run, but that’s when the fun begins. There are 4 characters, each with their play style and cards, and there are 20 ascensions to unlock, each being a more difficult version of a standard run. In the end, you’ll gain such a deep understanding of the balancing and tradeoffs at play that you can’t not be amazed at this achievement in game design. Baalorlord is a great YouTuber and Twitch streamer who is also one of the best players in the world. He was able to do a consecutive winstreak of 20 wins on the highest ascension, showing that this game is RNG based but has a tremendous amount of skill involved too.
Is there a certain tactic to winning Slay the Spire? I’ve played a decent number of hours across multiple characters but I’ve never managed to beat the final boss on the standard difficulty. I remember reading once that binning your default cards is key?
One of the things that helped me improve a lot was watching streamers play. Baalorlord as previously mentioned is great. I’ve also watched a lot of videos from Jorbs and Frost Prime.
They all have some videos specifically targeted toward newer players where they explain their thought process but I’ve also gotten a lot of value out of just watching them do normal runs. I like to figure out what I would do in each situation and if they do something different I try to analyze why they made that decision instead. There are many cards that I didn’t think were very good until I saw an expert using them.
Most certainly! I’ve been playing this game for ages so I 'm unsure what advice is beginner friendly and what not, but let’s see…
- Indeed, use any opportunity to throw away one of your starting Strikes (and to a lesser extent, the Defends). Strikes are by far the worst non-curse cards, dealing only 6 damage for 1 cost and taking up a slot in your five card draw each turn. You’ll obtain way better cards and want to increase the chance of drawing those, which is why you really want to remove bad cards as frequently as possible. (At shops and events).
- Do not avoid elites! These are the special looking enemies on the map and they are the only fights who drop Relics. Having good Relics and building your deck around them is essential to winning this game!
- Don’t pick a card at the end of every fight, only pick the cards that you really want. A small but predictable deck is way better than a massive deck full of OK cards. Seriously, this is one of the most important things I learned, the skip button is there to be used.
- Pick cards and relics that increase card draw. A big issue in Slay the Spire is drawing a bad hand and not having the necessary cards for that turn in hand. Lots of cards, relics and potions will allow you to draw extra cards during your turn, which can often make the difference between life and death in this game. Especially towards the end when you have more energy, it becomes extremely important to be able to spend it on good cards, and increasing the cards you draw per turn gives you more options to play good cards.
- Finally, keep trying. Different enemy types attack in their own pattern every time. Even when you lose, you start to learn their mechanics and how to best counteract those. There are three elite types per act, and three end boss types per act. For the end bosses, you can actually see on the map which one you will have at the end of the current act! So in total, there are “only” 9 different bosses* and 9 different elites. Once you get to know them, you’ll realize their strengths and weaknesses!
There is a tenth secret boss at the true ending, but let’s not dwell on that for now :). Suffice it to say that the pro players have win streaks of 20+ on the highest ascension difficulty (ascension 20) while always taking on this extra final boss. So this game is insanely tactical and almost any run can be salvaged to win even on the highest difficulty!
Enjoy your journey :). Oh, and start with Ironclad, he’s the most straightforward character!
I’ve heard of it and seen that people enjoy it, but outside of that, I don’t really know much about the game. I’ll have to maybe give it a try one day. I do really appreciate when games have a carefully crafted gameplay systems
This is an ideal scenario for piracy I feel. I pirated it at first, unsure if it would be for me. Now I own it on both Switch and Steam :).
OMG, I just watched a streamer do an all bosses runs of DS3 yesterday and was reminded of how much I dislike that game. I played Demon Souls and DS1 right before it(also ER), and found my prefered build(magic) heavily nerfed to the point of having to min max my most mana efficient spells to even get through areas.
Also watching the playthrough I was reminded how there is not a single area in that game I looked at fondly or found beautiful or enjoyable to be in. I understand why thematically, but everything is so dead and drab and lifeless compared to even DS1 which has plenty of lush green areas or bold alien crystal caverns. It really feels like DS3 wants you to hate your time with the game, throwing enemies in locations that are as infuriating as possible for no reason(dlc is even worse about this somehow). The runs to get back to bosses are also infuriating and such a time waste(I am so glad Elden Ring mostly removed these)
Now I want to try DS2 to see if I actually like or dislike it more than DS3. Overall, it just feels like DS3 wants to make you suffer with no payoff or reason, just because its “hardcore” or “edgy” and in 2025 I don’t really care for that mindset anymore.
I finally bought the Claire Obscure hype after seeing tons of group cosplays of it at DragonCon. I thought I had bought a turn based RPG, but it’s actually a rhythm game in disguise. I do not like the dodge or die mechanics.
I felt the same way. I turned it to easy mode and enjoyed the visuals and story. Good riddance to the combat frankly.
Fuck, I don’t like most video games so I can throw a rock and hit one, but I’m gonna go with the genres I like just to make it interesting.
Fighting games: Mortal Kombat—I’m sorry, I like the hyper violence as much as the next guy, but the gameplay doesn’t do it for me at all. Entertaining to watch, but it stops there for me.
Action games: Suda51 overall. Like, play No More Heroes but steer clear of the rest. It’s mediocre combat wrapped in nonstop nonsense.
Shmups: ZeroRanger. I can’t stand that game.
