games

Hades. Bought it, tried to get into it multiple times. Says nothing to me. Death's Door is much, much better. I finished it.

A. Star wars knights of the old republic 2. The music and environmental color palette are so dull and drab compared to its predecessor, I despise kreia and atton for being pieces of shit but unfortunately they're important/major characters in the narrative (especially kreia, and how the game itself tries to portray this shitbag as "correct" especially with the infamous nar shadda beggar scene), it completely doesn't capture the magic of star wars that the first game did (I know it was supposed to be a deconstruction, but it's way too dark and edgy), I hate darths nihilus and sion (again, too edgy, and I think their force power gimmicks are stupid). It also basically invalidates all the player has accomplished in the story of the first kotor game, regardless of side (by the time of kotor 2 both the jedi and sith are collapsing and revan is missing).

Regarding kreia and her portrayal, IIRC chris avellone is apparently a sex pest creep who has had allegations made against him

B. Pokemon Legends Arceus. I think I've ranted about this game before. I personally think that it has a very boring and flawed gameplay loop, dull environments with music that rarely/barely plays (the music itself is good, but why the fuck is most of the game uncomfortably silent then), a botched combat system, unfun/tedious wild pokemon aggression mechanics, a horrible lack of quality of life features and an truly unbearable amount of grinding. Then there's the colonial apologia in the narrative (wholesome chungus peaceful colonizers who just want to make a home in a foreign land and live harmoniously with the natives, d the gracious colonizers' help in dealing with sacred local pokemon they've revered for generations)

Sorry Ulysses lol.

Never liked Armored Core, it's not a Mech game to me. Its an FPS arcade shooter with robot skins. Giant robots should not be zoomy-ass evengelion ballerinas engaging in sword combat. They should be unweildy tanks that casually stroll thru one-story buildings and fart artillery.

My first stompy robot game was Mechwarrior 3, and that's set my expectation of the genre ever since.

Deadcells. Loved the art style, combat looked fun. I was so excited to play a new metroidvania only to discover it's a rougelike and that killed all interest in playing it. I just really dislike that kind of game.

Hearts of iron 4 and Victoria 3 are far worse then their predecessors and deeply flawed because of the extremely boring tactics gameplay(frontlines). Victoria 3 economy is also extremely bland and feels like a auto clicker game. But, I only enjoyed vic 2 with pop demand mod which current vic 2 modders/players don't like.

Did not particularly care for Super Mario Odyssey. It was go here, throw your hat on this, complete a few objectives with the new power, then do it all again with different mechanics in the next place. The game just never built up into anything complex, so it felt boring after a while. It was also very easy so I blew through the main game really fast.

every game that requires realtime input. turn based or, at a stretch, variable speed realtime with pausing is all that can capture me

Final Fight, with its pitiful move lists and non-existent level design, regressed the beat em up genre in ways that are still felt today.

Dark Souls: I played it for like 20 minutes but the controls just felt wrong. The combat just didn't feel good.

Journey: Felt boring and empty to me. Came off as the game equivalent of a pretentious film student's sophomore project.

TUNIC: This is a very weird one to me. Theoretically, I should love it. I like retro games. I like old-school Zelda. I like the conceit that the manual is in a foreign language and you have to use the pictures and diagrams to infer what to do. But for the life of me, I just cannot get into this game, and I have no idea why. I tried to start twice, and each time, I played it for about half an hour before putting it down and never really getting back to it.

Elden ring, sure felt like the 9th demon souls just more barren land added to it, really didnt help that open world are just tacked on shit and an overused trope now.

Every Mario game. I've just never been into that series, the characters, the art style, etc.

As someone who loves RTS: Anything Age of Empires. Everything looks the same, yet there are dozens of civs to pick and they all just differ in boring-ass buffs and a few unit choices. The visual short-hand is terrible and reading what's going on in a fight or base at a glance is impossible for me.

I know most people don't agree, but I never could get into Skyrim. I'm not much of a gamer, so I don't play a ton of games. I ended up playing Skyrim for the first time in 2021.

The story seemed generic to me, the combat was clunky, and the missions were all repetitive. I stopped playing after about 50 hours.

I should add that I love Fallout though. I'm not sure why I like it and not Skyrim.