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Any games that you really wanted to like but just couldn't?


ciphertul
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So as the title says.

For me it's gotta be Genshin Impact, I do kinda like the style and the combat (open-world aside) but I just can't. Mainly it's do to the playable cast, I just don't like any characters in it and I'm no meta player.

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Xenoblade Chronicles. I really wanted to like it: the story was really interesting, the characters are compelling, and the world is really unique and interesting, and I remembered really liking Xenoblade Chronicles X, so I wanted to see how the series began. However, I ended up growing bored of it and stopped playing at the Fallen Arm. A game being story-driven is fine, but it really shouldn't come at the expense of gameplay, and I really didn't like the gameplay.

One thing that really brought it down for me was the combat; it's MMO-like combat that revolves around auto-attack and abilities that have cooldowns, and I'm really not a fan of that kind of combat as it's very boring and uninvolving; once you figure out the best order in which to use the abilities, it basically plays itself.

But perhaps the biggest thing was that, while the world was unique and interesting, it was not fun to explore, and I realized that the reason I was able to finish Xenoblade Chronicles X, despite it having similar combat, was that the world in that game was very fun to explore, especially after the player acquires Skells. Xenoblade Chronicles' world is not at all fun to explore, and with how uniquely designed it is, it easily could've been fun to explore.

Edited by vanguard333
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1 minute ago, vanguard333 said:

One thing that really brought it down for me was the combat; it's MMO-like combat that revolves around auto-attack and abilities that have cooldowns, and I'm really not a fan of that kind of combat as it's very boring and uninvolving; once you figure out the best order in which to use the abilities, it basically plays itself.

Oh man, I get where your coming from there. I hate that combat style.

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10 minutes ago, ciphertul said:

Oh man, I get where your coming from there. I hate that combat style.

Thanks.

 

I just realized another one: Fire Emblem Fates. Up until then, the only time I learned about new Fire Emblem games was after they realized; Fates was the first time I actually got to be hyped for a new FE game. Unfortunately, I didn't like Fates; I didn't like its story or its gameplay.

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1 minute ago, vanguard333 said:

Thanks.

 

I just realized another one: Fire Emblem Fates. Up until then, the only time I learned about new Fire Emblem games was after they realized; Fates was the first time I actually got to be hyped for a new FE game. Unfortunately, I didn't like Fates; I didn't like its story or its gameplay.

I think my reason is I'm the type to never use skills in mob fights, I hoard my mana/mp/sp until boss fights so I'm so used to just using basic attacks.

I can say I've never ducked out of a FE, but Final Fantasy would be another one for me. I don't think I have beaten any FFs I have played.

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2 minutes ago, ciphertul said:

I think my reason is I'm the type to never use skills in mob fights, I hoard my mana/mp/sp until boss fights so I'm so used to just using basic attacks.

I can say I've never ducked out of a FE, but Final Fantasy would be another one for me. I don't think I have beaten any FFs I have played.

I see. For me, as I said; I just don't find it involving. I need combat in a video game to make me think about what I'm doing in each moment.

Oh; just to be clear, I finished all three versions of Fates. It was still ultimately a Fire Emblem game.

I honestly have yet to really play through a Final Fantasy game; the only one I've played would be Final Fantasy 7 Remake, I'm only halfway through it, and I'm not sure how much I want to finish it since I bought it thinking a remake of the most famous FF game would be a good way to try the series, only to find out about how the game isn't actually a remake, but some weird alternate-timeline sequel thing. Why couldn't they just make it a remake? The game's director: Tetsuya Nomura, wanted it to be a remake, but the producer: aka the director of the original FF7, pushed for this weird alternate-timeline nonsense that just makes the game only make sense to someone familiar with the plot of the original FF7.

…I kind-of got off-topic there; didn't I?

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1 minute ago, vanguard333 said:

…I kind-of got off-topic there; didn't I?

I don't think so, you have finished it yet so I think it falls in the "not good enough to finish yet" work in progress.

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On 2/27/2022 at 2:15 PM, vanguard333 said:

Thanks.

 

I just realized another one: Fire Emblem Fates. Up until then, the only time I learned about new Fire Emblem games was after they realized; Fates was the first time I actually got to be hyped for a new FE game. Unfortunately, I didn't like Fates; I didn't like its story or its gameplay.

I'm assuming you didn't like Conquest's story and Revelation's both? Just for the record, I facepalmed the former's story so much myself.

The DS Wi-Fi shutdown soured Pokemon Black 1 for me thanks to a key component of the game being effectively taken away, and effectively putting a live time limit onto my Dex completion. Didn't help that it kinda came out of nowhere at the time and the shutdown being scheduled unusually earlier than many supports and services on Nintendo device after or before the DS. The other thing about BW is that the depiction of the Unova region is either a mess or generic in its city/locale designs, unlike how Earthbound's Eagleland felt actually American. Castelia City for example could have looked like an 1900s-1920s Art Deco skyscraper district not out of place in Batman, but just looked like a generic skyscraper. Opelucid City could have looked like a contrast of Old Town Philly vs Silicon Valley instead of something that sprung out of Mesopotamia vs a Tron-looking city.

Edited by henrymidfields
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Just now, henrymidfields said:

I'm assuming you didn't like Conquest's story and Revelation's both? Just for the record, I facepalmed the former's story so much myself.

I didn't like Conquest's story or its gameplay. When I saw people saying that Conquest's gameplay was the best part of Fates, my response was a confused, "...No, it isn't; what are you talking about?"

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5 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

I didn't like Conquest's story or its gameplay. When I saw people saying that Conquest's gameplay was the best part of Fates, my response was a confused, "...No, it isn't; what are you talking about?"

Agree with the story, but what made you not like the gameplay?

Edited by henrymidfields
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5 minutes ago, henrymidfields said:

Agree with the story, but what made you not like the gameplay?

It's been a long time since I played it, so I can't remember all my criticisms of it, but I do remember that a lot of the maps relied on poorly-thought-out gimmicks; not as much as Revelation, but the kitsune map in particular stood out as just annoying and frustrating instead of being challenging.

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Just now, vanguard333 said:

It's been a long time since I played it, so I can't remember all my criticisms of it, but I do remember that a lot of the maps relied on poorly-thought-out gimmicks; not as much as Revelation, but the kitsune map in particular stood out as just annoying and frustrating instead of being challenging.

It probably didn't help that there were a lot that effectively had "horsebane", and they could get through both terrain and enemy units. I personally wasn't too annoyed by it, but I did think it was kind of cheap.

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Bayonetta. I slowly got through the first game despite never really getting into it. Played the 2nd for a few hours before calling it quits. I like the character and aesthetic a lot, but the games just never grabbed me.

Also the Atelier series. I adore the art style so I was really interested in them, but I've tried both Atelier Sophie and Atelier Lydie & Suelle and just couldn't get into either one. I might still try Ryza, though.

And, well...Fire Emblem: Three Houses. You can bet I tried my damndest to like this game, but ultimately it has my least-liked gameplay of the games that left Japan and even one of the weaker stories.

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Gravity Rush 1. I was intrigued by it's cult classic status so i bought the remastered version on PS4 and.....man that game was so much nothing. It was hard carried by it's mechanics and even then, it barely did anything with them.

It's alright tho, because Gravity Rush 2 is one of the greatest redemption arcs i've ever seen in gaming and people who say 1 is better than 2 must be from some alternative dimension because there is no other explanation. 

8 minutes ago, Florete said:

I've tried both Atelier Sophie and Atelier Lydie & Suelle and just couldn't get into either one

I do not blame you for this. Sophie 1 is one of the weakest games in the series in all aspects. Lydie & Suelle is good actually but it's also the third game in Mysterious (weird how you just skipped the second entry there, maybe you didn't realize) and you would get more out of it if you played the previous games in that subseries (or at least Firis) so it's not one i would recommend to start with anyways.

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1 minute ago, Armagon said:

I do not blame you for this. Sophie 1 is one of the weakest games in the series in all aspects. Lydie & Suelle is good actually but it's also the third game in Mysterious (weird how you just skipped the second entry there, maybe you didn't realize) and you would get more out of it if you played the previous games in that subseries (or at least Firis) so it's not one i would recommend to start with anyways.

I never really looked into any proper order. I bought Sophie on Steam and wasn't planning to play any more after that, but a friend let me borrow Lydie & Suelle on Switch so I decided to give the series another shot with that.

What would you recommend to start with?

5 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Gravity Rush 1. I was intrigued by it's cult classic status so i bought the remastered version on PS4 and.....man that game was so much nothing. It was hard carried by it's mechanics and even then, it barely did anything with them.

It's alright tho, because Gravity Rush 2 is one of the greatest redemption arcs i've ever seen in gaming and people who say 1 is better than 2 must be from some alternative dimension because there is no other explanation. 

That's interesting. I also like GR2 more, but I don't see it so much as an improvement as "more Gravity Rush."

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10 minutes ago, Florete said:

What would you recommend to start with?

Well first there's the matter of whether or not you're fine with time-limits. If you are, Atelier Rorona and Atelier Escha & Logy are good places, as they have time-limits split up in chunks, making things easy to accomplish (Atelier time-limits ain't active time-limits like Majora's Mask if that's what you're wondering). Honorable mention to Firis here because the time-limit is very long but only in the first half of the game. The second half of the game has no time-limit.

If you aren't fine with time-limits, Atelier Lulua, Sophie 2 and Ryza 1 are your best bets. Lulua and Sophie 2 are anniversary titles that came out long after their subseries concluded so it's fine to jump into those (and Sophie 2 has a recap video anyways). Ryza 1 is where most newcomers came in. Honorable mention to Ryza 2 and Shallie (Shallie is also like Lydie & Suelle in that it's a conclusion to it's subseries but it was also the first to get rid of time-limits so...)

The order generally doesn't matter too much as long as the "third game" in each subseries isn't the one you jump into to start with. But even then, you could probably get away with it.

10 minutes ago, Florete said:

That's interesting. I also like GR2 more, but I don't see it so much as an improvement as "more Gravity Rush."

Like i said, Gravity Rush 1 just felt like nothing to me. It felt so empty and by the time it finally starts to get a little interesting, the game ends for some reason.

Gravity Rush 2 on the other hand felt like a proper game. It genuinely exceeded my expectations by a significant margin. 

I wouldn't even recommend GR1 and i'd just tell people to play GR2 instead tbh.

Edited by Armagon
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Forgot a couple more. I'm just going to write one more:

Persona 4: Not so much the game itself, but one of the characters and her arc that I initially had high expectations ended up very disappointing. It's Naoto. Her SL was just lacking in the mysogyny and women career narrative. Mitsuru's had a sexist fiance that made fun of both her and FeMC. ...Haven't played P5 yet so my appointed jury is still out...but I heard Sae had to deal with institutional sexism in her workplace. Naoto lead us on a similar path in scene where Yu and Co confront Naoto's shadow, yet didn't show any of that in her narrative when she could have. Instead there's just some episodes of her doing a wild goose chase courtesy of her grandad. Not only this, but she also has fewer flaws in her character compared to others (or maybe she hides it well), and the seeming lack of struggles and flaws she exhibits in the main story feels like she's comparatively a Mary Sue. 

I know that there have been accusations from the fandom that Naoto was transphobic. Initially, I thought their accusations were preposterous (and I still think their opinions are mistaken), but seeing the thematic inconsistency of her character arc and the very little attention the arc showed (they do some tell) on workplace sexism and gender-role-motivated prejudice, I now think that Atlus is partially responsible for not showing a consistent and intellectually and socially challenging story. Naoto's Social Link actually feels almost insulting to be honest. And this is coming from a fellow Japanese.

I'm about to write up a re-telling of Persona 3-5 (also as an Mock LP-Fanfic) after I finish my Fates Conquest Mock LP-Fanfic, and one of the things I am going to change is Naoto's Social Link, in its entirety. In an effort to address both the thematic consistency and the apparent lack of continuity between 4 and 5 (which I will elabourate in a later post when I have time), I will write her as a former direct victim of Kamoshida from P5, and entirely reinterperet her desire to be a detective to ultimately bring Kamoshida to justice (for both herself and others), and to protect and empower other women. As for her being depicted as a guy, this is not only due to the sexual discrimination she faces, but also as a holdover from her past attempts to keep herself from attracting Kamoshida's attention. And opposition from sexist members of both the Inaba PD and the wider community (both in Inaba in P4 and in Tokyo in P5) will be depicted in this.

Edited by henrymidfields
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Many RPGs like (classic) Final Fantasy, Octopath Traveler or Etrian Odyssey. Either their difficulty was too hard, or other tedious game mechanics like random encounters made me want to drop it. As for Final Fantasy I enjoyed the bit of XII what I have played yet for being actionbased similar to Xenoblade Chronicles.

I was very sceptical about Fire Emblem Warriors despite loving the main franchise, but I dropped it because the hectic gameplay is too chaotic for me and I do not enjoy button smashing either. Warriors game are a big no for me.

Kirby Canvas Curse was a big disappointment compared to Rainbow Curse (which was amazing). The gameplay of CC was so lacking like a drawn line vanishes at once once a new one is drawn. Also the minigame against Paint Roller was an absolute mess since it needed like perfect precession on clicking the right button with that extremely tiny screen and hitbox. Furthermore the levels's areas were extremely tight near the end without having much room for corrections. Probably I would have a different opinion, if I had not played Rainbow Curse. On the other hand I had played CC, I might not even have played RC for disliking its gameplay too much.

 

Edited by Julizan
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Xenoblade Chronicles, despite there being aspects to the game that I did appreciate, ultimately didn't keep my interest. Gameplay overall was fairly uninteresting to me, which is unusual for me considering I typically like MMO gameplay. I tried playing it on a few different occasions. Never stuck with me.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is one that I had childhood nostalgia-fueled positive thoughts on for quite some time until I revisited it when I was much older. That changed my opinion of it quite a lot, leading to me considering it the weakest Zelda game I've played despite me wanting to enjoy it more than I did.

Tales of Vesperia was another game that I expected to really enjoy after loving Arise and Abyss, but it really didn't appeal to what I enjoy from Tales at all. The cast was as uninteresting as could be, the combat felt needlessly clunky for the portion of the game I actually bothered to complete, and the story was aimless. It was especially surprising having heard that it's one of the most popular games in the Tales fandom. Just not for me, I suppose.

Within Fire Emblem itself, I'd say Shadows of Valentia is one that I have very mixed feelings on. On one hand, the presentation and new ideas the remake introduces are great, but being such a faithful remake didn't go far in making the gameplay interesting, to say the least. I've never been able to stick with playing it to actually beat the game, tbh.

Horizon: Zero Dawn was an outright disappointment for me, ngl. The story set itself up to go in one direction, but ended up following the most predictable, bland path it could've gone for. Left such a bad taste in my mouth that I had no desire to keep playing. The world itself being kinda boring to explore didn't help.

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I find that if I go into a game wanting to like it, I will. And if it looks like I won't like it, I probably won't get it. So the only examples I can think of are from my younger (aged 10-14) years where my approach to games was a lot less mature and certainly less informed before purchasing.

  • Pokemon Diamond: The reasons why I quit pokemon in Gen 4 go beyond this particular game (no third Colosseum entry on the Wii, none of my classmates were playing pokemon at this point, etc), But man I went back to this game a couple years ago and it's awful. Requiring no less than five HMs ready to use for a mandatory dungeon. It feels like an official parody of Pokemon games. It has that Gold/Silver issue where there's not a whole lot of new pokemon, and the new pokemon that do exist are not available early or easily, so you're stuck using old reliables from previous generations. The evolution requirements and rare pokemon encounter conditions really punish you for not possessing a Player's Guide (this was a pre Google era for me, at least). Walk into your first cave and what do you find? Geodude and Zubat - that's less variety than any cave of Gen 1. There are other issues with this game, but by now they've been well documented due to their faithful preservation in those remakes.
  • Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon: I really tried to like this game on multiple occasions in the last decade. But it just won't happen. I think I like it less now that I've played the original FE1 which was so creative and pushing so many boundaries for the Famicom. Shadow Dragon's presentation lives up to none of the standards set by previous games. It doesn't have the impressive sprite animation of the GBA era, it doesn't nail the music of the original, it doesn't have the interesting characters or setting of the Tellius games, and the reclassing system gives the cardboard cast an even harder time standing out. The removal of supports was a particular deal breaker back when it came out. 
  • Sonic Heroes: Some of the first video games I remember being exposed to were the original trilogy of Sonic games, and since we didn't have any Sega systems past the Genesis, Sonic fell out of my life until he went multiplat. Sonic Heroes was my first 3D Sonic and while I think I enjoyed that first playthrough and was excited about this absurdly large cast of characters, playing the same game four times with incredibly minor alterations is a tall order. And it's a particularly buggy game that will kill you often during scripted sequences that the player has no control over. Noticing in what ways the game "doesn't work right" was probably the moment I first began looking at games critically, rather than purely as entertainment.
  • Final Fantasy 7: I don't know what my hangups are with this one. I like Final Fantasy a lot, and think 7's premise and characters are at least interesting enough to see through to the end. But no playthrough of mine has gotten very far into Disc 2. It's gotten to a point where I have played every numbered final fantasy game (except the MMOs and 7's remake), and 7 stands beside just 2 and 3 as the only ones I never beat. Even right now writing this, I'm more interested in booting up 2 or 3 instead. I do remember hating the aesthetic as a kid. Even for PS1 standards these models and pre-rendered backgrounds just weren't up to par. It was especially frustrating trying to search for the right pixel or the exit to a bitmapped screen that is so low res that you can't see anything in the environment. Resident Evil had similar issues, but Resident Evil doesn't have random encounters when you're trying to find the magic pixel. I also still don't like that the party members have no particular strengths or weaknesses to play around. That's pretty disappointing coming off of Final Fantasies 1 and 4 which I played prior to this game. 

I've also played dozens of generally agreed upon bad games, but usually it's the kind of badness that I can laugh at in retrospect, or I wanted to see for myself and thus I wasn't disappointed. The above four titles I still haven't come around on.

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5 hours ago, Florete said:

Also the Atelier series. I adore the art style so I was really interested in them, but I've tried both Atelier Sophie and Atelier Lydie & Suelle and just couldn't get into either one. I might still try Ryza, though.

I got Ryza when it was on sale a few months ago, but I couldn't get into it. For me I think it's the slow early game, and the chill atmosphere, while not bad mixed with the soft JP voices just puts me to sleep.

I had a hard time with other SRPGs I've tried on the Switch, like Disgaea 5 and the Triangle Strategy Demo. They weren't boring or too difficult, but I feel like I have to be too campy with certain things. I think I need to watch how others play those games at a higher level, but I've been pretty lazy.

This is a weird one: SMT5. The gameplay is fine, and story in videos games are pretty whatever to me, but the way the game ends rubbed me wrong. I wasn't knowledgeable on the alignment system, and apparently this game in the series doesn't touch on it as much the previous entries. I mostly picked the "nice" answers when given dialog choices, so this puts me in the Order category. However, I vibed with the characters that represent that faction the least. For some reason the game "gives" me the choice to pick which ending I want, I'll admit here that I half spoiled somethings when I was trying to do a blind playthough that led me into some bad decisions, like not using multiple save files to my advantage. I picked the ending that went with the faction that I *didn't align* with, so the game withholds certain rewards and locks you out of a side quest unless you grind a lot of money, which I wasn't going to do. Now in terms of completion and going through other endings, things are already inefficient so I'm not enthused on picking the game back up.

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Xenoblade Chronicles 2

While it improves about 10+ hours in, it's not going from okay to great. It goes from woefully subpar to aggressively average. The combat system is boring except in fights long enough to pull off those high-end combo effects. The cast is mostly unlikeable (except for Morag and Zeke), and Rex is truly the worst protagonist I think I've ever experienced. Imagine a JRPG where Carol Kapel from Tales of Vesperia is your protagonist, and that's XBC2 in a nutshell.

 

Fire Emblem Fates

Worst cast in the franchise. Bad story. Bad, gimmicky map design. Aggressively unfun enemy design. Fuck ninjas.

 

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

Gaiden is such a miserable, boring game that even a full remake that improves upon it in every conceivable way... is still a bad game. And it all comes down to map design - the most important part of a SRPG. SoV doesn't have bad map design, because it has NO map design. The whole thing feels like it's the result of a procedural generator. Then you add in all the forced side battles from map reinforcements and dungeon encounters, and you have a terribly paced piece of crap.

 

Trails of Cold Steel 3

The king of my unpopular opinions. I like the series, but its pacing issues and easily missed collectibles can exhaust me, but never so badly as with this one. Sky 1-2 are masterpieces. Sky 3 is good, easily digested fun. Cold Steel 1 immediately hooked me, and the much-maligned Cold Steel 2 was actually one of my favorites so far.

 

The much-loved 3rd Cold Steel on the other hand? I'm having trouble getting into it. Going back to the school setting after a civil war is such a huge step down, the new Class VII is so inferior to the originals, and they seem intent on turning Ouroboros into a joke.

Edited by Fabulously Olivier
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Any of the Cold Steel series barring the 1st one. Their gameplay is designed so badly, it hurts. 3 and 4's stories are really lackluster and they should have dropped Rean as an MC right at 3, would have made it way better. The soundtrack of any of them that isn't 1 is unbearable imo. 

...oh, and did i forget to mention the gameplay? Anyone looking for challenge or actual planning with setups probably will not enjoy the system they have.

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