For me it’s a couple
First is GTA. I played a LOT of Vice City and and San Andreas as a kid, but mostly because everyone else played them at the time and there wasn’t really many games quite like it where you could mess around and explore a massive city and find cool vehicles just by exploring. But by the time GTA 4 rolled around other open world games did things just as good and the edgey humor has starting to wear thin on me so I had moved on to things like Elder Scrolls by that time.
Another is Minecraft. Minecraft is the exact kind of game I should be in to, it looks so fun! But I just found the artstyle so damn ugly. It’s so rare for me to avoid something for aesthetic reasons, usually low poly art is charming but for some reason Minecrafts style just looks really unappealing to me. This is coming from someone who likes a lot of games people think are ugly.
Lastly are what I’ll call “grizzled white guy action games” Uncharted, Red Dead, The Last of Us. They just feel too much like they’re trying to be be a blockbuster for for guys that don’t want to be made fun of for liking games rather than games. I know that that probably isn’t the case, but they just seem too normal to me.
However I respect that these are all good series but they just aren’t for me. Are there any game series where this is true for you?
Don’t be afraid to say a series you know I like, I won’t be offended.
Dark Souls. I’ve tried to love those games, but I can’t get into them, I end up walking around wondering what the hell to do every time I try to play them lmao
Oh I totally get it, first time I tried playing Dark Souls I was so damn lost. If you ever want to try it again you could use a walkthrough to see if it clicks with you then. I really love FromSoftware games so I’m super biased but I always love seeing people be able to get into them and have fun.
For me I was lost on the first Dark Souls because the Crestfallen guy you meet at Firelink Shrine tells you what to do, and for some reason I just didn’t pay attention so I just got lost and had to look it up, but once you get what you have to do and understand that the game tries to tell you where you shouldn’t be going by having strong enemies there like the cemetery in Firelink, it becomes much easier to navigate.
Dark souls clicked for me when I watched a glitchless any% speedrun, because it made it seem achievable and gave some structure for how they can be played. The soulsborne games are now my hands down all-time favourites. I can definitely see why they don’t appeal to everyone, though.
It took me multiple tries to get into them, and I only retried because everyone loves them and I was surely missing something… and now they’re some of my favorite games.
Dark Souls. Partly because fantasy worlds just don’t generally do it for me, but also the split second timing and memorising attack patterns and responses. I get why people find that style of gameplay rewarding, but it feels like too much effort to me.
And Minecraft, or really any other game where the primary mechanic is resource harvesting and crafting. Satisfactory, subnautica, etc. Even No Man’s Sky. I played enough Minecraft back when it was free that I get the appeal, but to me it just feels too much like work.
And that goes double for any game where the primary mechanic isn’t crafting but it’s had a system shoehorned in because of Minecraft’s success. That’s not gameplay, that’s busywork.
but also the split second timing and memorising attack patterns and responses
To be fair that’s mostly an issue on FromSoftware games from Dark Souls 3 onward. Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls 1 and 2 are pretty slow games and you don’t need to play that way either, you could just play with a shield and defend most stuff just attacking when you feel like it or play a mage. But I totally get it, not everyone likes that style of gameplay.
Monster Hunter. It always feels like a grind fest with gorgeous makeup instead of a game focusing on hunting monsters.
Oh totally. I love Monster Hunter, but I can get why people would hate it because you have to really be in it for the grind
Yeah and I just want to track and hunt monsters and make stuff out of their parts.
Great series, but yeah, the endgame gets a bit ridiculous with the grinding. I would like to be able to fight the end bosses without having a 400 hour commitment, some of the drop rates near the end are absurd.
Lastly are what I’ll call “grizzled white guy action games” Uncharted, Red Dead, The Last of Us. They just feel too much like they’re trying to be be a blockbuster for for guys that don’t want to be made fun of for liking games rather than games.
The 7th generation was such a time and it’s only become worse. You should disrespect “grizzled white guy action games” more tbh.
For me it’s probably the Super Mario games, which on one hand probably seems like obvious contrarian bait and on the other hand Nintendo is the Disney of video games. I think it’s the way they control, I dunno what the problem is but I’ve slammed my head into mario games my entire life and it just never clicks.
also gta was never good :>
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are there any non-mario platformers you enjoy? i love platformers but mario’s always had some offputting physics, somehow feels too heavy and too slippery at the same time
I’m the world’s biggest enjoyer of Castlevania, and I’m also a casual enjoyer of many Mega Man games, Kirby’s Adventure is alright, & I have moderately-sized Sonic autism so there’d that too. Run and guns I’m split on, Intrusion 2 is so chill but Contra is super whatever.
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Dwarf fortress is one of the coolest concepts I’ve ever seen, and I cannot get into it.
Oh god, tell me about it. I max out at the city builder series on “very easy”, I ain’t getting anywhere with DF.
I love Dwarf Fortress 😍 An early hurdle is understanding you’re the manager, but you don’t control the dwarves individually. Sometimes they want to do their own thing, like crying because they’re grieving, or go to Church to pray to the god of volcanoes.
RTS Games. My cousin liked them growing up and had Starcraft and Warcraft, but I never jived with them. Something about micromanaging everything and having awareness of the map and what the enemy is doing at all times was too much for my smol brain. Now as I’m getting older I really can’t keep up with them and don’t dare try.
Something about micromanaging everything and having awareness of the map and what the enemy is doing at all times was too much for my smol brain.
My little friend group of wannabe pro gamers each had our genres and as the RTS guy i felt exactly like you describe here watching anyone play an FPS competently. Being able to not only predict minor movements but also accurately aim looks like wizardry.
I’d like an RTS game that isn’t about a trillion actions per second. Something slower and easier.
I’d recommend Dune: Spice Wars for this reason. It’s a low micro game. It also has a bunch of different paths to victory that aren’t entirely “wipe out enemy base”. It also has good faction differentiation.
starcraft has a game speed setting and you don’t need to be good to beat the campaigns. pvp will always become about apm and memorization
I much prefer RTS with production chains like Anno, Settlers, Stronghold rather than games that only have a few resources. Tend to be more relaxed but that also comes down to who you are playing with.
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It’s my favorite genre but I wish they’d try to implement quality of life changes for modern games. Like why not have an automated build order that starts as soon as the game starts you setup beforehand and can change at any time? Automated unit production? A fucking time out button so you can pause the game, queue up orders, then resume? How about options for autocasting in specific situations or prioritizing certain attacks that all go off when I A-move?
They’re so needlessly complex that it killed the genre. It’s like if you had to control each of your limbs individually in a 1st-person shooter. Can’t have WASD movement, gotta have some fucked up 12QWASZX scheme to control forwards and backwards for each arm and leg.
Beyond all Reason has made at least some moves in that direction. You can issue a series of commands to build stuff to your commander unit in a setup phase before the match proper starts, unit production buildings can be set to repeat their current queue and you can set a minimum amount of a unit you want to have, so it automatically makes them if their numbers fall under the threshold.
Unlimited destruction on StarCraft making everyone think RTS is only StarCraft. Dawn of war, company of heroes and men of war is where the cool kids hang
Many things that apply to Starcraft apply to the games you mentioned. Coming from someone who likes company of heroes and dawn of war.
I’ve never met a deck builder game I’ve liked.
And I’ve never made it further than like Day 2 of Disco Elysium. It’s just so so dense and I need to be in a novel-reading mood to enjoy it properly, and those are far between so I end up forgetting what I did in between runs and restarting.
Same on Disco Elysium. Also it makes me sad
It is a very sad game. It also wouldn’t work if it wasn’t sad. The sadness is why people care about Harry. The sadness is why people care about Revachol. If Revachol wasn’t so bleak, La Revacholiere would just be self indulgence, Cindy the skull writing a hopeful message in fuel oil wouldn’t matter, the communists telling you “In the dark times, should the stars also go out” wouldn’t hit.
And it wouldn’t be so fucking funny for Harry to do the finger guns, try to do a matrix dive, and immediately hit a woman in a wheelchair.The sadness is why people care about Revachol.
It making me sad isnt a bad thing, just a reason I never finish it
I’d read a disco Elysium book, but I can’t get far in the game.
There actually is a Disco Elysium book, called Sacred and Terrible Air. I’ve never read it but it has a reputation for being a slog to read and much less digestible than the video game
I’ve never met a deck builder game I’ve liked
I’m so sorry but we can’t be friends:(
Seriously though I totally get it. I love them but it scratches a very specific itch.
fighting games broadly, i just don’t have the competitive spirit to really enjoy them outside of fucking around in the lab
League, or mobas in general
people shit on them for having annoying fans (true) but i feel like you have to be somewhat smart to be good at those games, and part of why they got hate back then was RTS fans who were salty that you don’t need an absurdly high APS to git gud in comparison
I played League for more than a decade. It’s more persevering than smart really, it does get to a point where you don’t feel like you’re getting any better if you don’t start practicing the really boring stuff like controlling minion waves and such. It’s just that it takes so long to get used to all the systems and characters that it looks daunting.
Also yeah league players are the fucking worse, same for CS and Valorant players, some of the most hateful people I’ve ever seen. Competitive team games just brings the worse of people for some reason.
you have to be somewhat smart to be good at those games
Oh that’s definitely true, and totally not the case for a large part of the playerbase, which is why you’re spamming pings on the objectives but mr Yasuo lover 3000 prefers to be at bot lane ganking 3 people at once and dying
Intentionally hard games. I get that people like a challenge, but play games to relax.
I think it’s similar to people who like horror, it’s a way to experience stress or challenge while being perfectly safe and in control.
I absolutely love the souls games and the appeal for me isn’t so much the challenge as it is overcoming the challenge. Beating the Nameless King made me feel good (Malenia less so because I cheesed the shit out of that fight:p)
Overcoming challenge and moment-to-moment decision making is mg primary enjoyment factor in games (really getting into the flow state is). I primarily play games like Monster Hunter (Wild Hearts), the soulsbornes, and arcade racing games (heavy preference to antigrav racers) because they’re the types of games that demand your attention at all times.
I’m hopeful that Onimusha and the Dragon’s Dogma 2 expansion slot in to the MH appeal area soon if anyone else vibes with my game preferences.
I also really enjoy puzzle games because I love unwinding multifaceted problems. Among those Portal Reloaded is probably my favorite but I also really like the QUBE and Talos Principle series.
play games to relax
I play a lot of games with permadeath or would be called “grindy” which are seen as more difficult/obtuse, I find them relaxing. I think it’s differing mindsets.
I tend to find games too easy at times so I increase the difficulty. I wish more games had various options to tweak games going both ways so that people can tailor their experience because while I like being challenged I know not everyone does.
the map games, yk HOI4 EU4 Victoria those, I tried playing them before but I just don’t like them. Zelda games and top down rpgs like it, dating games and visual novels, and battle royal games.
I don’t like games that have too many choices or that have too much reading, because most games have a written in bias and illusion of choice, the political messaging and the choices of the story are all either way too vague to matter or have only 1 correct option, and it’s all libbed up, it all puts me and my struggles in the background, hell because I’m a Muslim with [mental disorder] 90% of all games have someone like me be the villain or be shot.
I like stuff that I can mostly use muscle memory to get through, especially recently as my medical conditions worsen the games I play have a role of being visual white noise, racing games do this well for me, because most of them do not need audio to be played I can finish books or listen to albums or essays/audio books while playing them.
pretty much all 1st and 3rd person shooters, i get why people like them and why are they popular but everyone i have ever played have never clicked with me
I dunno if shooters really needed to go further than Half Life tbh…
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splatoon is my only exception to this, I played a lot of the second game.
We need to invent 2nd person shooters just so you can see if that’s the missing niche for you
Game where you have to remember the attack patterns of every single different type of enemy. Expedition 33 and Hades got close to the line, but things like Cuphead and Dark Souls just feel so boring because they feel like quicktime events without the prompts. I know identifying the pattern makes some people feel good, but it just feels tedious to me.
Dark souls can also be about breaking the games mechanics and face tanking every boss. I have consistently brute forced every title including elden ring where I didn’t even dodge once. HAVELS ARMOUR YEAAHHH BABYYYYY. I defeated the elden ring dlc boss holding the fingerprint shield up the whole fight and poking him with a stick i had to evade only 1 move everything else was mitigated completely.
hypothetically they’re more free-form than a QTE but yeah. i’m kinda down on a lot of single-player combat these days because the routines don’t hold my interest and guessing what a human will tend to do is much more of game than guessing what math.random() will roll
trying to be be a blockbuster
The more games try to be movies the more I’m adverse to playing them. I really don’t like the Sony stable of modern games. When everything became over the shoulder and mostly open world (the detritus of the 7th gen) Ever chasing realism most of the games look so similar in the environments, it’s become rather stale.
Minecraft
Would be one pick that I find too unstructured to enjoy and I don’t really engage in any multiplayer.
zelda
