What's a really popular game franchise you just can't get into?
-
The story of GTA is pretty good most of the time.
It is not dead serious, but a satire of the time and place the respective title is set in.
And I am glad it works for all of you
My eyes just glaze over really fast.
-
I thought Fallout 4 was okay but I agree Bethesda clunk is hard to get used to
Fallout 4 is a surprisingly good colony builder though. Shame that's literally the only thing it has going for it haha
-
God of War. I played 1,2, and 3 and they were all pretty much the same. I think a lot of the hype was from marketing and edge lords who were thrilled to have so much blood and some low-poly tits on the PS2. Once you get past the spectacle, the combat is a slog of mashing the Square button until the game decides to stop spawning HP sponges for you to hit. The puzzles are tedious and annoying. The platforming they try to force in just doesn't work with the physics and controls. The music is bland and generic "epic symphony" stuff that may as well just be from a stock music library, with no Greek influence at all. The story is a generic and modern story with a thin vineer of Greek mythology. Kratos is less of a character and more of a reason to move the game along to the various locations. I know it's not a completely fair comparison, but Hades used Greek instruments to create greek-influenced and interesting music that I still find myself humming and drumming to years later. Hades also did a way better job of using actual Greek mythology to create a narrative that would actually fit in that cannon.
I remember playing Knack 1&2 and thinking "wow, this is like if the old God of War games were fun". Knack is far from perfect of course, but is largely a similar series that cares more about being fun than being mature.
I'm playing through the 2018 God of War now. Completely different, and honestly a few hours in I'm still not sure why they chose to make this a God of War game staring Kratos instead of just making it a fresh IP. Maybe more lore reasons will be revealed, but so far it seems it was just to capitalize on the brand for marketing reasons. The music is still not a strength, but it's better. The environments are better. The combat is still pretty boring with way too many boring enemies with way too much health, but it's better. This is the first game where I'm starting to get tired of the same UI and over-the-shoulder perspective that other Sony games have used lately (Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, Horizon, Spiderman). GoW, like most of those games, has an unnecessarily complicated itemization and leveling system that just bogs the game down, and feels almost inspired by MMO's or gacha mobile games.
It does a great job of characterization, with plenty of small, subtle, beautifully written moments that grant insight into personalities. The boy is annoying, but I can see that's the point so I mostly don't mind. It's really annoying how the game won't shut up- there's always someone saying something, and if you even just stop moving for a second someone pipes up to remind you of what you should be doing. It doesn't have space to breath. The puzzles are better than the prior games- they are an acceptable tool for pacing but aren't great by themselves. The story seems a lot better, with much more attention given to original Norse mythology.
With Uncharted I could push last the mediocre puzzles and bullet sponge enemies because the cutscenes were really good and the stories were fun. For Ratchet and Clank I can ignore how the humor has gotten worse and more juvenile over time because it's still fun to platform, dodge, cycle through weapons, and kill tons of enemies. For Horizon Zero Dawn... Actually I don't have many complaints, that was a solid title. For GoW (2018) there's just nothing pulling me back to it.
I'm not going to spoil anything but them making the 2018 god of war a god of war game absolutely does have story reasons. And I didn't even play the earlier games till after so it's not so much "tied" to the story of the earlier games, but it uses them as a back drop.
That's where I'll end it, but both of the new God of War games are some of my favorite games of all time. Continue playing them, they just continually get better.
-
I always thought it was because they tried for an "anatomical" perspective and it never worked. Like I think the goal was supposed to be you could look down at your own character model but it was never really inplimented, leaving a janky forward and back motion to the vertical tilt. It's just enough to make some people a little motion sick.
It’s like the controller is reacting to your inputs after they are pressed, rather than your inputs reacting as you press them. It’s a very very small difference, but it just feels clunky.
-
I'll start. pokemon. doesn't matter if the game's old or new I just can't get into how it plays. idk the gameplay just gets old to me pretty quickly, palworld is an upgrade in every way tbh
I tried factorio a while ago but couldn't get into it.
-
I'll start. pokemon. doesn't matter if the game's old or new I just can't get into how it plays. idk the gameplay just gets old to me pretty quickly, palworld is an upgrade in every way tbh
Dark Souls and any of its copycats. Grinding a boss for hours on end just to learn it's patterns is not how I like to spend my free time. Aside from that: why is that whole genre so bleak? Apart from maybe "Another Crab's Treasure" they're all dark and gray/brown and unrelentingly depressing. Does the gameplay lend itself to that particular aesthetic? Or is everyone just copying Dark Souls that hard?
-
Dark Souls and any of its copycats. Grinding a boss for hours on end just to learn it's patterns is not how I like to spend my free time. Aside from that: why is that whole genre so bleak? Apart from maybe "Another Crab's Treasure" they're all dark and gray/brown and unrelentingly depressing. Does the gameplay lend itself to that particular aesthetic? Or is everyone just copying Dark Souls that hard?
That decayed aestethic is immemsely popular and it works fine in making you feel like a survivor.
That said, i like jolly things and grimdark stories, and I tend to like the bizarre. Maybe grimdark games lack the bizarre and the occasional bit of fun. I personally say this is the byprpduct of the success of a specific subgenre of games in the 2020's.
-
I'll start. pokemon. doesn't matter if the game's old or new I just can't get into how it plays. idk the gameplay just gets old to me pretty quickly, palworld is an upgrade in every way tbh
Grand thef auto. Simply I don't get it
-
Dark Souls and any of its copycats. Grinding a boss for hours on end just to learn it's patterns is not how I like to spend my free time. Aside from that: why is that whole genre so bleak? Apart from maybe "Another Crab's Treasure" they're all dark and gray/brown and unrelentingly depressing. Does the gameplay lend itself to that particular aesthetic? Or is everyone just copying Dark Souls that hard?
Plenty of Soulslikes that don't have that bleak look to them. I think many of them do because the genre takes place in apocalyptic settings.
-
Bioshock. I tried the first game and liked the story and atmosphere, but got bored of the gameplay every time I've tried it
I love the first BioShock but couldn't get into the other two because it didn't feel like they took the gameplay anywhere new.
-
I'll start. pokemon. doesn't matter if the game's old or new I just can't get into how it plays. idk the gameplay just gets old to me pretty quickly, palworld is an upgrade in every way tbh
GTA. It just seems really boring to me, I dunno. A lot of shoot em up and not so much substance. To be honest I feel like that for a lot of open world games. It may be wide as an ocean but it's deep as a puddle. That's not ALWAYS bad but I generally would prefer a more linearly running game that's a lot deeper.
-
Pokemon. Never played one, never will. Hot take is it's a gateway into IRL hunting which is honestly just very cruel. Do not approve.
Kinda like how GTA produces violent killers right?
-
I'll start. pokemon. doesn't matter if the game's old or new I just can't get into how it plays. idk the gameplay just gets old to me pretty quickly, palworld is an upgrade in every way tbh
RDR2. Played, but didn’t beat the first one. Some other game pulled me away from it. Tried the sequel and was disappointed by the gunplay.
-
RDR2. Played, but didn’t beat the first one. Some other game pulled me away from it. Tried the sequel and was disappointed by the gunplay.
I wanted so bad to enjoy this game, but I felt like it did not return the sentiment. The biggest challenge was trying to get Arthur to do what I actually wanted him to do.
-
Anything Bethesda sadly. I want to like them, something about the control and movement is just so janky it’s not fun.
wrote last edited by [email protected]That's why they're easy to mod, and there are mods trying to fix control problems. Whether the bugs are left there deliberately or not, modding them is what keeps them saleable as other games in the genre come and go.
-
I feel similar. After having tons of people tell me for years I need to get into them, I finally played Bloodborne, which multiple people have told me is their favorite.
I pushed through it on my own first. I actually didn't die quite as much as I expected, though I definitely had to spend time watching YouTube videos and reading 3 different fan-made wiki's to figure everything out. I managed to finish it, but I didn't think it was worth it and would not have finished it if not for wanting to be able to talk about it with my friends.
Then I did another playthrough with a friend doing co-op. When it worked (ugh) it was a way better experience. Partly because of my previous experience - I had a better feel for how to build my character, I remembered most of the environments and enemy placement, and still had that muscle memory from my first run. Partly because it's better as a cooperative experience. Having an ally makes the world feel less desolate. Having another player to take aggro so you can heal is huge- some bosses almost feel like they were designed for multiplayer. And it's fun just cracking jokes and hanging out, making fun of how ridiculous some of the stuff is.
I still don't have the love for it that other people do though. I agree 100% on the aesthetic: everything in Bloodborne is just dark and wet and looks the same. FromSoft makes a LOT of game design decisions that are different from most other developers in terms of what they prioritize. Which is fine, but there are aspects of design where they clearly cut corners and the fanbae seems to laud it as a desirable artistic choice. I shouldn't need to spend hours watching YouTube and researching fan sites to learn how to play the game, and I would argue I shouldn't have to do that to appreciate the story. They simply do not respect my time.
The multiplayer barely works. It's restricted to bosses and the areas leading up to them, and costs Insight (a valuable and kind-of finite resource) to use. Simply connecting is a tedious pain. You can only play either completely online or offline, so if you want to play with a friend you have to accept your whole world cluttered with annoying and distracting messages from random players and the specters where other players died. And that also opens you up to having hostile players gank you. Like... Why can't my friend and I just pair up and play through the whole game together without inviting the rest of the internet too? Why does it cost Insight? Why are the caps for stats never communicated to the player? Why does the Hunter's Axe do primarily Blunt damage while the KirkHAMMER does almost no Blunt damage, and for that matter why aren't the damage types explained anywhere? I'm still not sure why some gems increase Attack, others increase Physical Attack, and others increase Blunt or Thrust, plus there are hidden damage types.
The game feels like it was designed to really get good on your second playthrough and beyond. Especially NG+, although even starting a fresh file again is much better than the first playthrough. Kinda reminds me of how some MMO fans like to say "it gets good after the first 100 hours". For most developers, the player onboarding experience is one of the most important parts to be developed, but FromSoft basically skills over that and outsources it to their community of hardcore fans.
wrote last edited by [email protected]The only real way to play full co op is using the Seemless Co-op Mod. Also disables other players jumping in to kill you. You would have to play on PC though.
-
The Witcher. I really want to like it. It seems like the kind of game I would love and I recognize that it’s an objectively well made game. However, I’ve bounced off it at least 4 times after getting 1-4 hours in.
wrote last edited by [email protected]i feel exactly the same about it, this seems like a thing. and i played the second one.
i wonder if it would be easier to get into it if i fixed the controls like people hinted at in this thread.
-
Dark Souls and any of its copycats. Grinding a boss for hours on end just to learn it's patterns is not how I like to spend my free time. Aside from that: why is that whole genre so bleak? Apart from maybe "Another Crab's Treasure" they're all dark and gray/brown and unrelentingly depressing. Does the gameplay lend itself to that particular aesthetic? Or is everyone just copying Dark Souls that hard?
For me, soulslikes are pretty weird. I've loved the art direction and gameplay of Dark Souls and especially Elden Ring, and I get why people like them and I appreciate what they're trying to do, but something in them doesn't click the addiction button. It's not even the core gameplay that is the problem - I get flattened by some enemy and I'm like "oh I'll get you one day". But I booted up Elden Ring last time months ago. I'll be done with the game in 10 years I guess. It'll happen though!
-
for me it feels like they don't respect me as an adult. i need to be able to pause and save games. sometimes i get phone calls. sometimes the power goes out. sometimes i spill my drink. but no, it's all just "get gud".
also i just can't handle the aesthetics .
Souls games autosave constantly, you can quit out at any time and reload to where you were. The only exception being that if you quit out during a boss fight you'll have to restart.
-
I'll start. pokemon. doesn't matter if the game's old or new I just can't get into how it plays. idk the gameplay just gets old to me pretty quickly, palworld is an upgrade in every way tbh
Final Fantasy. JRPGs just aren't my thing
