2 picks for me: Stardew Valley, most boring shit ever, I don’t see the appeal, seriously how the hell did that thing sold 20 million copies?
And Witcher 3, I own that game since 2019 and I regret buying it, funny thing is that I’ve finished Dragon Age 1 and 2, which are kinda same genre but I actually enjoyed those games. I guess the old BioWare sauce carried those games unlike Witcher where there’s nothing to enjoy in its massive pointless world.
I’ve just never gotten into Pokemon. The games just feel like 99% grinding. I’m sure that’s an incredibly unpopular opinion, but I still find them unspeakably dull.
It’s weird, because Pokémon didn’t invent turn-based RPG’s, nor did they even invent the pocket monster genre because Dragon Warrior Monster arguably had a better game than Pokémon out around the same time - with more monsters, breeding, and a better storyline.
But Red/Blue and Gold/Silver were great games of their time. Very basic, but great, mostly because of the world built around them. If you didn’t appreciate Pokémon, it’s probably easy to see why you’d find it dull.
I don’t even mind some turn-based RPGs. I mentioned Wasteland in another comment, which I loved. Wasteland was basically remade as Fallout 1. Fallout 1, 2 and the Wasteland games which now have their own sequels are all turn-based RPGs, but they give you so many more options than Pokemon and they are also about team building since you don’t play as a single character.
I guess Pokemon was just not the game for me. 🤷♂️
Worth mentioning, regarding Dragon Quest, the monster teaming up with the player was added in DQ5, back in 1992, something that was arguably first introduced in Megami Tensei 2 (1990). Dragon Quest Monster was released only in 1998, after the first pokemon games.
What set pokemon apart from them was the amount of pokemon you could get. That Game Freak managed to cram another 100 in Gold/Silver, a night/day cycle, berries, friendship, breeding and the entire original Kanto region in a gameboy color cart is a small miracle
If you look at the first game from a historic perspective
The first game basically was an open world RPG with 151 unique characters with each their strengths and weaknesses, and their own attacks, and all could be customised. Running on a handheld that previously could only play Tetris.
It was a freaking coding masterpiece.
But I agree the gameplay loop hasn’t upgraded the way it should. It didn’t evolve with the medium and stuck too much to its roots.
Although the grinding in the newer games has been minimised. You can play through the games without grinding once.
I admit I haven’t played a recent Pokemon game because of my previous experiences, but I’m open to checking a new one out at some point if the grinding has been reduced. Thanks.
They came from a different era. If you didn’t grow up taking long road trips with a Gameboy pocket/color for your only distraction then you probably don’t get the nostalgia rush that most pmon fans do.
Exactly right. We spent hours and hours in a Ford van playing Pokemon red/yellow/blue in the 90s 😂
A significant number of pokemon fans had to make do with emulating the original gameboy games on the family computer. I know I did
I was born in 1977. I had a Gameboy. I just never cared for Pokemon.
I played Red/Blue as a kid. Enjoyed the crap out of them. And then never played any of the later games ever. I think if I tried now I’d feel the same as you.
Animal Crossing. I have friends who became obsessed with that game. They wouldn’t stop pestering me about how much I would love it, and how I should start playing so we could trade turnips or some shit. Anyways, I bought it. What a weird thing to be obsessed with. It was boring, childish, and pointless. But it was hugely popular for a period of time.
I bought it for the same reasons and also hated it. It just felt empty and boring. I then had to bite my tongue so hard when those friends would start gushing about their latest Animal Crossing thing.
Fucking chore simulator. My roommates couldn’t be assed to do their actual chores, but every morning during covid they’d get up and make sure their fucking farms had whatever the shit they needed.
Covid did wonders for that game. It came out right before the lockdown, and people suddenly had free time and a reason to escape to a happy place.
Animal Crossing.
KotoR and Mass Effect. They both just feel so stilted.
I won’t allow mass effect slander. Don’t give a fuck about star wars, you can trash it
Lol I’m the opposite. I won’t allow KOTOR slander. Don’t give a fuck about Mass Effect, you can trash it.
KOTOR had a great story and I was finally in the Star Wars universe, just flying around and exploring the universe.
I do admit the early part of the game is a bit slow, but once I was jumping from planet to planet it was awesome.
(Come to think of it I found Mass Effect equally boring when I started it. If it had been Star Wars I probably would have stuck with it, but since it wasn’t I just found it boring.)
The first Mass Effect game was mechanically clunky. Some of that was really on display with the early combat, which might have been a big barrier.
Mass Effect 2 tossed a lot of the mechanics of the old game, turning combat into a cover shooter with squad commands for special abilities. At the time there was some complaint from the hardcore RPG community that combat was dumbed down, but overall the reaction was that it was smoother and less annoying even if it lost some nuance.
The story of ME1 was a bit of a deeper and more esoteric mystery. At times it could seem meandering, even if the high level ideas were solid. ME2 was “I’m building a team” as you assemble party members towards a clear and signposted final goal.
Tell me why you love it, I’d love to be able to give it a second chance.
I’m not the person you’re responding to, but I love the story. It’s one of the best sci-fi stories in games, with tonnes of memorable characters and moments.
Gameplay gets better as you go through whilst the story suffers a bit, and they have their issues, but there isn’t anything else quite like them even now.
I just love being Shepard. He’s always can say the right thing, being cool, corny, gets the girl (this is something I’ll never get), being an asshole with little consequences, beats the galactic menace… Is so much fun as a shooter too. Plus the universe is very rich an complex if you want to explore it, I don’t, except for the mandatory stuff plus the important side missions. Yet I managed to get all the achievements.
FIFA. Every man and boy in England loves FIFA, except me. I find it totally boring and pointless.
The game is popular but isn’t universally beloved, even the fans hate it, but they got the monopoly in football games
Yeah. I buy one every few years and usually regret it. They’re terrible these days.
Sensible Soccer was the last football game I was able to get into.
On the Amiga, not the shitty remake.
Sociable Soccer isn’t that bad. But it definitely doesn’t beat SWOS
Just like any sport game, I only enjoy FIFA in small doses.
Sports games are literally the definition of “playing the same game over and over again”. I can only ever do maybe a handful of games in a “season” before I start just simming and focusing solely on the management side of things. And even that doesn’t last more than a season. I don’t think there’s any sports game where I’ve run more than one or two seasons.
PES back in the day had an amazing manager mode. And become a legend mode was so much better than fifa career. Being just one player and starting in small forgotten clubs and going all the way up to the champions league plus trying to win the “fifa” World Cup was addicting back in the day.
Anyone looking to scratch that itch on PC, consider looking up SP Football Life. Totally free and excellent.
the only sports games I ever enjoyed were snes NHL 98 and mario hoops
It’s not like I totally didn’t enjoy it, but Red Dead Redemption 2. The game was good in many ways, and I totally get why it’s so we’ll loved, but I just have nothing with the setting. I don’t like cowboys, I don’t like playing as an asshole who makes bad decision after bad decision, and I also don’t like a setting where women are basically property. Just not really my vibe. I just came from Cyberpunk 2077 and the contrast was quite big, even though Cyberpunk is supposed to be more dystopian
I find Smash Bros uniquely frustrating and obtuse.
Buttons go smash.
If someone hands me a controller I’ll button mash away because I’m just here to hang out, but I don’t really like the game either. Ditto Mario Cart
That’s… an interesting one. Uniquely frustrating from what sort of perspective? Like, do other fighting games work for you but platform fighters don’t? Or are fighting games in general just not your thing?
The control scheme, the health bar system, and the general chaos just never hit right for me. I can appreciate the game in a party setting, but maybe a little begrudgingly. In maybe similar veins, I’d prefer Towerfall or Power Stone 2, for example.
The entire Final Fantasy franchise, with the exception of Dissidia. I just don’t like that style of game play where you have to stop in the middle of fighting, pick what you wanna do, then watch them do it. I’m also not a fan of Pokémon for the same similar reason.
See, I don’t like FF games since they changed to action games and stopped being jrpgs.
See, I like that because I’m shit at action games.
Final Fantasy hasn’t been like that for a long long time. They make ARPGs now. Check out gameplay from ffxvi or the vii remake, it’s high paced action.
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I never really got into the Pokémon games. Don’t find turn-based combat very fun. I mean, I guess turn-based is easy and relaxing for when you just want to put your game down and take breaks.
Oh man I hate turn based combat. It’s the worst possible combat system. If you try to fight enemies more powerful or numerous than you, you just lose and that’s all there is to it. Anything besides turn based actually allows you to benefit from skill and strategy. Factors besides enemy numbers and level play a much larger role in how the fighting plays out.
Turn based > real time rpgs.
Why tho? You have very little control over how the combat plays out with turn based.
I am sincerely curious what kind of turn-based RPGs you have been playing where you dont have complete control over your actions and the combat. The only real difference between action and turn based is that in the latter things happen in a syncronous, lockstep manner. And the reason for that is to allow the player to think every action through. The outcome of the combat should be a product of your good and bad decisions. Hence why turn-based games tend to be more tactical.
Also, in my experience, turn-based RPGs tend to offer a much wider range of actions for the player to choose from. The same would probably not be feasable in an (pure) action RPG due to its real-time nature.
The quintessential turn-based game is chess. Are you telling me that you think chess does not require skill or that the players are not in control?
Not really, a good RPG gives you your stats and let’s your upgrade how you want, that affects speed and turns.
Your favorite color is probably white.
Is actually black.
You think they would’ve known, I mean Dracula is in your name
Low level runs are popular in many games with turn-based battle systems. There can definitely be a lot of strategy involved. Those kinds of games tend to have a lot of mechanics to play around with.
Adding to that, tactical games, like X-COM or Final Fantasy Tactics, rely a lot on player strategy and knowledge of what he’s up against and his own team.
Knights of the Old Republic and Dragon Age both have an “active/pause” system, the combat plays out in real time, but you can pause to think and react at your leisure
Anything within the MMORPG genre, the Diablo-like genre, and the Looter Shooter genre.
Played them on my own – Felt like I was grinding just so I could grind some more, the entire thing felt like an exercise in pointless skinner-boxing with no reward other than “number go up”
Played them in the company of friends – Second verse same as the first, but now less tedious because of voice-chat with people whose company I enjoyed, the micro-instant they had something else to do I’d log off immediately because the whole thing bored me.
Then I’ll see people get excited for like, Diablo 4, and it’s like – This is the same skinner box as the last three games, but now slightly prettier. And now you know you are giving your money to abusers and I’m like “???”
How do people get a kick out of clicking the same monsters until they explode like piñatas for a random chance at a helmet that gives them +.5% gullibility status?
Every video game is this on some level, but these games are so very transparent with this, I just can’t. Not only do I not enjoy them, I flat-out don’t understand how people enjoy them.
X4 is one that I couldn’t figure out. There aren’t a lot of ways to make passive income and the entry barriers to get to participate in anything cool seem extremely high. I’m not grinding quests, in the starter ship, making beans until I can buy a space station for example. $30k quests that only pop up sometimes and 1800 credit profit from trading isn’t even close to good enough for that. I ragequit when I bought an affordable cargo ship, found that I could do NOTHING with it to gain passive income, grinded manual money making methods for another few hours and then got bored of it.
I expected this to be a spaceship game where I could tell npcs what to do instead of do all the stuff myself. Perhaps it becomes a management game instead of a grind game eventually, but I don’t have the patience to play to that point. Starfield at least has fun gunplay.
What? X is all about the passive income and telling NPCs what to do. You play long enough to afford a cheap cargo runner as a second ship, put an AI pilot in it, and tell them to run trade routes in the background while you do whatever you find fun. Your income snowballs from there as you buy more and bigger ships and unlock better trading automation, then becomes ridiculous once you start building stations and producing entire supply chains yourself.
I say this as someone who also bounced off X4, because even with all that and time compression it still takes ages to get to the fun endgame stuff I actually enjoy.
Minecraft. I just couldn’t get into it and it doesn’t interest me.
I’ve never really found turn-based games to be all that fun. A few have had a good enough story or some other mechanic to make them interesting but it’s just not really my thing, for some reason. (It’s not just a video game thing. A bunch of my friends play poker or complex board games and I’d usually rather watch than play.)
So, something like the Final Fantasy series or Pokémon games would be my answer. Everyone loves Final Fantasy and Pokémon. I’m clearly the weird one. And I probably would love them if they were more action-oriented.
What was your last FF? They are action games now.
Witcher 2 with its semi-open-semi-linear gameplay has definitely been a better experience in terms of pacing and story. Witcher 3 had quite the environment to wander around in a slow pace and is a much, much larger game with a good enough polish in my opinion, but can be very overwhelming with how many hours it requires for a balanced gameplay.
I played that for a while and I hated it too lol
Super Mario Brothers. The whole thing us based on ultra-precise timing, which is both miserable for me as well as inordinately stressful.
For the love of your sanity please don’t go anywhere near the modern platformers like Super Meat Boy or Celeste.
Céleste wasn’t a cake walk but the unlimited lives and quick load makes it doable. Just don’t try to 100 percent it, forget about the wack story and it’s good
Super Meat Boy, I forgot about that rage inducing game. That game was way harder than Mario.
I have a specific opinion about the older mario games; they expected a much more narrow game literacy than new games do, so the people who played them already had a little bit of transferable ability from other games. Nowadays, not just are precise skills less required because the games are designed to be easier, but the player base is starting the games with less skill due to their previous game being totally different.
