What's a really popular game franchise you just can't get into?
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Souls games.
I really want to like them too, but they seemingly aren't compatible with how I play games. I need to be able to put a game down for a couple of weeks and not feel like I'm back at square one because the specific muscle memory for that game has gone.
Just kinda kills the fun when the game is effectively telling me to get good, when I don't actually have the amount of free time IRL necessary to do that.
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.
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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.
My personal theory is that a lot of the love for The Witcher 3 in particular stems from the fact that very early on it has a sex scene with full nudity, with a female character who is supernaturally hot according to the lore. There's several women Geralt can seduce, and I suspect a lot of people who mostly play hentai games were in shock to play something with more exciting gameplay than match-3 grids or a jigsaw puzzle.
The Witcher 3 doesn't seem like a bad game, but I'm similar to you in that I've bounced off it a couple times after a few hours. There's nothing particularly bad about it, but nothing that really grabbed me and made me want to keep playing more either. I still plan on giving it another shot eventually.
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yeah let me just wade through this ocean of death so i can see a dying sun set over a dead world.
things may be beautiful in isolation but the context is what gives them meaning, and the meaning in most fromsoft worlds (and things inspired by them) is "look at how awful everything is here; it's your fault if it doesn't get better".
"haunting" is a better word than "stunning" there.Is it particularly more your fault that things don't better in Souls games than in any other game in which you are meant to save the world? I think the only difference is that in the Souls ones and others like them, the world is already horrible and needs repaired in some way rather than on the verge of becoming horrible
Interestingly Elden Ring went for quite a different direction. The world is, unquestionably, still an enormous mess that would be horrendous to live in, but they've left in far more of the beauty. I particularly like how every so often you hear hostile NPCs playing music or singing if they haven't spotted you yet, and how there's a little puzzle side quest about a painter; people are still making art in this ongoing apocalypse. One important allied NPC even actually openly makes an argument that the world is worth preserving if it looks like you're going for the "destroy everything" ending
Of course the atmosphere and gameplay are still heavy going, both in the Souls trilogy and Elden Ring. I get why that wouldn't be for everyone. It's like playable Cormac McCarthy stories, except you can punch your way out of most of the misery if you get it right
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The legend of Zelda - played Tears and the story and puzzles were a bit too kid friendly
It's actually a kid friendly franchise, all of it. The only surprisingly mature themed zelda game is Majora's Mask, it deal with death and loses and hopelessness way more than BOTW is comfortably touch, and it's made in a year.
Twilight Princess is worth mentioning too. It was rated Teen, and had this scene (no gore or sex or anything, just weird surreal horror).
Zelda is such a diverse franchise it really depends on the game. I love Twilight Princess and Majora's Mask, but didn't like BotW or Windwaker at all. It's almost like 2 or 3 different franchises crammed into one.
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I can think of lots of series that I don't like, just because I'm not into the genre. I think that everyone has genres that they don't like.
I think a more-interesting question is about popular series that I don't like within a genre that I do like.
I didn't like Frostpunk, despite liking city-builders. Felt like the decisions were largely mechanical, didn't involve a lot of analysis and tweaking levers.
I didn't like Sudden Strike 4, despite liking lots of real time tactics games, like Close Combat. It felt really simplified.
I didn't like Pacific Drive, despite liking survival games. It has time limits, and I often dislike time limits in games.
I didn't like Outer Wilds, despite liking a lot of space games. Didn't like the cartoony style, the low-tech vibe, felt like it wasn't respectful of player time.
I didn't like Elden Ring, though I like a number of swords and sorcery games. Just felt simple, repetitive and uninteresting.
EDIT: A couple of honorable mentions that I don't hate, but which were disappointing:
Borderlands. The gunplay can be all right, and the flow of new guns and having to adapt to them is interesting. But every Borderlands game I play, the always-respawning enemies are a turnoff. Feels like the world is immutable. Also don't like the mindless farming of every container with glowing green dots. And for a combat-oriented game, it doesn't make me mix up my tactics much based on whatever I'm facing. While I finish the game, I always wind up feeling like I'm not having nearly as much fun as I should be having.
Choice of Games. I like text-based games, but a lot of games published by this company, even otherwise well-written ones, have adopted a convention of making one win by playing consistently to certain characteristics of a character, so one tries to just figure out at every choice what option will maximize that characteristic. That's extremely uninteresting gameplay, even if the story is nice and the text well-written. I feel like the same authors would have done better just writing choose-your-own-adventure type games if they weren't focused on the stats. I also really dislike the lack of an undo, to the point that I've put some work into a Choicescript-to-Sugarcube converter.
Frostpunk
I get it. I like city builders too and the idea of a game that's constantly threatening your city with crisis seemed interesting, but every run seems to be the same.
Outer Wilds
Alright, you and I are gonna fight now.
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Monster Hunter. Probably tried like 4 of those games since Tri and people keep recommending them to me, saying the newest one will surely be the one to convince me. But I found them all to be a boring grind.
They are. I tried them too and was surprised they aren’t free. Boring mechanics, scripts that are too long.
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I found both Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect completely unplayable.
Curious to know why.
Mass effect for me feels like it's generic scifi, so I can't get into it and appreciate the writing but KOTR has a star wars flair at least.
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Is it particularly more your fault that things don't better in Souls games than in any other game in which you are meant to save the world? I think the only difference is that in the Souls ones and others like them, the world is already horrible and needs repaired in some way rather than on the verge of becoming horrible
Interestingly Elden Ring went for quite a different direction. The world is, unquestionably, still an enormous mess that would be horrendous to live in, but they've left in far more of the beauty. I particularly like how every so often you hear hostile NPCs playing music or singing if they haven't spotted you yet, and how there's a little puzzle side quest about a painter; people are still making art in this ongoing apocalypse. One important allied NPC even actually openly makes an argument that the world is worth preserving if it looks like you're going for the "destroy everything" ending
Of course the atmosphere and gameplay are still heavy going, both in the Souls trilogy and Elden Ring. I get why that wouldn't be for everyone. It's like playable Cormac McCarthy stories, except you can punch your way out of most of the misery if you get it right
idk i can barely look at the games without feeling awful, im just going off of the opinion of others
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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
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.
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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
Xenoblade Chronicles
The turn based but also realtime combat makes me so uncomfortable.
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Curious to know why.
Mass effect for me feels like it's generic scifi, so I can't get into it and appreciate the writing but KOTR has a star wars flair at least.
It's the gameplay, the mechanics.
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Honestly, Black Flag is the only AC game I ever come back to. I enjoyed 1 and 2, and 3 was ok, but BF was the pinnacle of the series (only partially because of the ship combat).
I'd love a game that's just the pirate ship parts, that was easily the best part. Setting up supply lines, capturing ships and sinking hunters. Good times.
I think Ubi tried to capitalize on that with Skull and Bones, because you're definitely not alone. They failed miserably, but they tied.
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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.
Thank God, I am not alone. I thought something was wrong with me for having exactly your experience.
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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
Mega Man, no matter how much time I put into trying to grasp the controls and mechanics, it just never clicks.
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Curious to know why.
Mass effect for me feels like it's generic scifi, so I can't get into it and appreciate the writing but KOTR has a star wars flair at least.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Personal opinion here obviously: Mass effect, or at least the first one, was actually surprisingly well written and internally consistent. Kind of like a star trek lite. There was interspecies tension, people expressing feelings on the state of the universe, but also enough moustache twirling to keep it interesting as well. It struck a good balance between that and a decent looter shooter/RPG combo, at least for my tastes.
The later games lost a lot of that and overly relied on what the first game setup up without expanding much on it, but that first game was just chefs kiss.
Not saying you're wrong or anything, more just this is what I personally get out of it.
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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 cannot do balders gate 3, or any rpg of that style. I suspect it's to do with trying to roleplay a character while simultaneously viewing them in that top-down third person perspective. I can do X-COM, strategy, I can do roleplay in third person, but that particular combination just kills it for me. It's bizarre.
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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
Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls and Divinity series all spring to mind. I really want to like those games, but the story just progress way too slow.
I loved Planescape: Torment though.
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Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls and Divinity series all spring to mind. I really want to like those games, but the story just progress way too slow.
I loved Planescape: Torment though.
Same, but for me it’s the turn-based combat. So tedious.
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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
Outer Worlds. The premise was so great. A criticism of restrictive hyper capitalism in space? With an art Nouveau flair? Made by people who made Fallout? Sounded right up my alley!
But it just sucks! The intro is trying to be like Rick and Morty, you don't personally have to deal with any restriction from the capitalistic society (hell at least BioShock threw in pay toilets once in a while) and the story just didn't get me at all. You're just kind of there. You don't feel like you're rebelling against the system or indulging it, you just are an observer. You don't feel like an oppressed worker you feel more like a documentary crew. But even then it doesn't really feel like the situation is really bad. And there isn't really any tutorial to speak of. Sure, if you have played games a lot you know pretty much how everything works, but the mechanics are just dumped in your lap.
I'm just some schmuck on the Internet and I could've written a way better start to this game that lets you actually feel something.
When a fan made rap video makes you feel more of the alleged theme than the actual game does, then you've kinda screwed up.
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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
Fortnite.
Just. No.
