To me right now is the first Red Dead Redemption. Finally I’m able to play it, I’ve wait for over a decade. No spoilers, zero youtube gameplay videos, zero questions about the game to my friends. It gotta be me, and the game, it happened, and I think it sucks.
Maybe you thinking in “well, you shouldn’t play the second first”. I did not. My first Red Dead game was Red Dead Revolver, I was able to play it a few years ago when I could buy a PS2, but I couldn’t get a PS3 nor a Xbox 360 to play RDR1. It grinded my gears because we got the prequel in PC. When RDR1 came to PC it was so freaking expensive, yet today, I think it is expensive. I was able to buy the game some weeks ago while there was a Steam Sale, and well, I regreat it now.
I don’t like its exploration, its missions, its characters, its world, its secondary missions. its wanted system, and nothing but less important: has a lot of bugs.
That’s my experience in a few words.
What’s the game that you wanted to play but it was a total mess?
Ys 1 & 2. I love the Ys games. But I really only play VI through X. There are remakes of some of the other older ones for the PSP and Vita, I have played through those, too. They are very well done, IMO. But I cannot get into the first two. The mechanics are just too weird. I have the remastered for the DS, I am going to give it a try again, but I’m pretty sure it is largely just visual changes and I am still going to hate it.
Witcher 3. Absolutely hated the sluggish movement, only made it a few hours
I really want to like Metal Gear Solid games, but after playing a fair way into MGS3… I kind of hate it. The controls and mechanics are so bad.
I gave up on MGS4 after 45 minutes of cutscenes interspersed with bare-ass Raiden crawling around a hospital room.
I’ve played MGS1 in Gamecube and MGS2 in PS2. The only reason I haven’t played the 3rd it’s because to me it’s one of those games that you need to be in your couch like 8 hours straight to get everything that it’s happening and learn to play properly. If you play like one or two hours it’s to alike that you forget things like CQC.
Despite my best efforts, I never got to a point where I felt like I wasn’t fighting against the controls and mechanics. As somebody who has played a fair share of other stealth games, they just are really bad.
I’ll talk about the boss fight that was the final straw for me.
spoiler
It was a character who could turn invisible, jump into the tree tops, and shoot poisonous arrows at me. I had to run around constantly to avoid being hit, try to locate him, quickly switch to first person mode to shoot at him before he would jump to another tree, rinse and repeat. Having to switch between first and third person modes so frequently was jarring and disorrienting. Having to run around so much was frustrating because there were also traps everywhere. It was frequently the case that switching to first person mode to shoot him would result in getting shot by one of his poison arrows, which meant I would have to quickly stop what I was doing to go into the start menu, to open a special medical treatment menu, to deal with a healing system that was way more convoluted than it needed to be, and which also contributed to the disorientation.
The whole thing was an exercise in annoyance and frustration. After getting past it, it made me realize how hard I had been trying to ignore the way these things had been annoying me throughout the entire game. I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Just hate it, the games are not for me.
Sekiro. I do not think its a bad game, I think it’s excellent. But it is not for me. It requires rhythm and excellent reaction time, and I have neither. I have zero timing abilities, unless its like RE4 QTEs because i just need to do it a few times in a row at most, but the reactions being so constant and fast, I can not do it, i just cant, its frustrating and makes me feel stupid when I die to normal enemies. And its not like a Souls game, where I can make a build different, or summon someone for help. Again, its just not for me, I do not think its a bad game.
Strike vector. Liked the switching from flight to hover in combat. Bought it, 2 months later the servers shut down and strike vector 2 was announced for some console no one probably cares about now.
Something similar happened to me with F.E.A.R. Online. I don’t know if are servers now, but back then I only was able to play like to weeks.
I think the closest to a disappointment is Skyrim, but it’s not the game’s fault. I was always looking forward to it. I love the non-linear role-play experience in a rich open world. I watched plenty of Let’s Plays. For some reason it took me a long time to get to it. But when I finally got to play it, I realized that the first-person 3D movement in this game made me dizzy and unwell to the point I couldn’t continue. I had this problem with some other games, too, but not to this extent. I might give it another try at some point. But maybe something like World of Anterra scratches that itch better.
An honorable mention is Planescape: Torment. I liked it, but having played Disco Elysium first, the writing and story in this game felt over-hyped.
I have the same nausea issue. Once you clear Skyrim’s tutorial level, you can switch to over the shoulder camera. But I didn’t know that on my first try. Ended up putting the game down & uninstalling it. Only came back to it years later after seeing some videos.
For what it’s worth, there are mods that let you skip the introduction entirely. “Live Another Life” used to be the go-to, but I think it’s been depreciated. Still would be a good starting point to search.
Dragon Quest Builders 2 kind of fits the bill for me here. I wanted to play it from the moment I learned about it. I had zero experience with 1, or any other dragon quest games. My biggest issue, and im still quite angry about it, is that the game I wanted to play, and the game the trailers promised actually does exist. Its all functional. The only way to play it though is the campaign, and its so frustratingly hand-holding and text-heavy it actually hurt to play.
“we need to build the BRONZE ROOM. So we’ll need some BRONZE. Theres some BRONZE in the cave nearby.” [Camera pans over to where the bronze is.] “Okay! We’ll go and get the BRONZE!” “I think 3 pieces OF BRONZE should do it.”
Head over towards the cave.
Hey! We’re near the BRONZE cave! Isn’t this where they said we could get the BRONZE that we need to complete the BRONZE ROOM? Let’s get the BRONZE!
Head towards the bronze.
Hey! It’s the BRONZE that we need to make the BRONZE ROOM! Lets mine some quick so we can make the BRONZE ROOM! You can do this! Let’s go!
Mine the bronze
[BRONZE acquired!]
Hey! Thats it! We just mined the first piece of BRONZE that we need! Didn’t the quest-giver say we needed 3 pieces? What are we waiting for? Lets mine 2 MORE!
Mine 2 more
Thats it! Weve got all the BRONZE that we need to make the BRONZE ROOM! lets Head back to the base as quickly as we can to make the BRONZE ROOM.
Head back to the base, get talked to by the quest giver for a solid minute about the importance of the bronze room. Then the concept of the silver room comes up. You think 'that was a really really really long-winded tutorial, but they’ll leave me alone to do the silver and gold now that I know what to do. No. Go back to the top of that list but replace BRONZE with SILVER. Then gold. Then do it again and again and again until the credits roll and you realise the game never actually happens and you just wasted a bunch of your life and you’ll never ever get it back and they could have made an excellent game, and they actually did, they just wouldn’t let you play it.
Im still pretty bitter about that whole experience.
Never played this game but I’m aware the same devs are involved with Pokopia in some way. Makes me worried.
It’s like they saw Minecraft’s complete and utter lack of direction and decided to overcorrect.
Control. stuck in an office with dull attack options. I played about half way through then looked up my progress and walked away. Way too dull for me. Friends were raving about it.
Like my experience with most remedy games by this point. Cool concept, interesting world, so many things I SHOULD love…but the combat got so damn repetitive and unfun. Same enemy types over and over again. Killed all enjoyment for me. At least I finished it.
God, that game was so damn boring.
Usually I get hooked immediately but Control lost me I think in around 2 hours.
The story didn’t do it any service either. I kept finding notes but never understood a damn thing in them even though I read them carefully.
I think the ray tracing drew a lot of people in. It certainly did me. I think it also rides on its reputation as a big-budget spiritual adaptation of the SCP Foundation.
Funny for me it was RDR2. I still think I probably would have liked it if I stuck with it, but 20 minutes in I was told that I would have to regularly clean my gun and hunt to feed my camp etc. and it just felt like doing a bunch of chores and I noped straight out.
Thats where I stopped. I played the prologue and was having a blast, then you get to the first camp and it shows you all the stuff youre expected to do and it just looked like hassle.
I couldn’t agree more. RDR2 has this aura of “you can do so many things, in any order, all the exploration, etc” and to me it feels like no one stopped to ask “are any of the things fun?”
OP, you should post the exact opposite of this question, too (unless it already exists and i missed it).
Someone already did. https://lemmy.world/post/43801635
Baldurs Gate 3 for me. I like the game mechanics and everything like that, but the story and characters put me off. The characters in general because of how unlikeable they all are, and the story I think my main problem is mostly that I know nothing about D&D and the game doesn’t try to introduce anything. So I can’t even follow the conversations properly because half the time I have no idea what they are talking about.
Just fyi, if you hate the main characters you can kill then if you want and just have generic NPCs as your companions.
Or you can ignore them full on it you don’t want to kill them - you don’t need them to join you.
I’m surprised you dislike Karlach though, the most normal/relatable one.
I think it took me getting to act 2 before I started liking anyone besides Gale and Wyll.
In the end I mostly stuck around Shadowheart but at first she was REAAAALLY annoying. I hated her guts lol.
Baldur’s Gate 3 for me as well. BG2 is on my top five all time favorite games. BG3 was just a tedious bore.
I really enjoyed the game with 0 knowledge about the lore
That’s promising. I want to try it but don’t want to play the two precursors
You don’t have to, they are very old games and quite hard to play if you are not used to the genre. I believe that practically the only connections are two reoccurring characters whom you don’t need to know anything about beforehand.
Really sorry to hear. Imho, it’s a strong candidate for best game of all time. I actually love the characters and I think you don’t need that much knowledge on lore to follow the story… I do know some lore, having previously played NWN 1 and 2 only…
Nier series, expected way more from the stories
I played up to the tutorial boss, died and then realized there are no checkpoints and all of the dialogue and cutscenes were unskippable and immediately turned off the game.
I only played Nier Automata after reading a lot of praise about it. I played through it once, but it didn’t really “click” for me. I didn’t play it again to get a different ending.
Hot take I only like the first Nier and playing as old man dad nier not Final Fantasy brother nier. The gameplay is bad but I love the story far more than Automata.
World of Warcraft.
I didnt get to play it when it came out because I was still in school and couldnt afford the subscription. I was a huge Warcraft fan when I was younger. Eventually I forgot about it, until about 10 years later when I found a post online talking about WoW and I learned that they had a 14 day free trial. I immediately downloaded the game and made an account.
I uninstalled the game two days later. It wasn’t even remotely close to the Warcraft that I grew up with. And sure part of that is on me. I had made the expectations that it was going to be like Runeacape but in the Warcraft universe. A top down, point and click, open world version of Warcraft 3.
The fetch quests was what really killed it for me though.
I started it way too late. Spent the first few hours having to solo while getting spammed with duel requests, like seriously every second a flag came down. I accepted a couple and got wrecked immediately while they spammed lolololoolol noooooooobbbbbbbbbb stomped rek lol doing the dance emote.
By the time I got to the “real game” and its time to party up to do dungeon runs, nobody would let me join their group because I didnt have full epic perfect-spec’d gear. Which i cant get without doing the dungeon. Which i cant do because I dont have the gear.
Just uninstalled it. Didnt even make it past the free trial. I’m still baffled, because a game like that lives or dies based on its player count, and the players make it as hostile and inaccessible as possible for new players.
WoW
Whaaaaat??? How could yo-
Warcraft fan
Oh. Yeah.
WoW
Whaaaaat??? How could yo-
Warcraft fan
Oh. Yeah.
I wanted to play Cuphead because I really liked the concept and the aesthetic. I got it not knowing its reputation for being hard as absolute fuck. Played it for several days with increasing frustration, started watching walkthroughs, those didn’t help, still tried to stubbornly stick with it, and eventually got to the point where my heart just wasn’t in it anymore.
If it helps, ive felt this way about a few games throughout my life and after beating my head against them for a while i would gice up and take a break. However, when returning later, i found things weren’t quite as hard for me, and i was able to make progress.
Don’t [permanently] give up!
…Or do. Gaming doesn’t have to be that deep. There are plenty of other experiences to enjoy, anyway!
Yeah, I loved the concept, hated the gameplay. There’s a TV show that’s way better than playing the game.
Any pokemon game after gen 2.
I started in 1999 with red. It was a childhood-defining experience. I spent all summer with my nose in that game boy. Keep in mind I had to use a loupe mounted in a glasses frame and had to hold the screen an inch from my eye, so the ergonomics weren’t ideal, but the experience was compelling enough for me to bear through it. Then I got gold in the summer of 2001, I think, and was blown away. It was an upgrade in every way. I personally think the series peaked with gen 2. To be absolutely clear I am not a “gen-wunner” or whatever the word is. I just think the combination of the game itself and the zeitgeist it created for those first few years came together to make something unrepeatable.
Gold and Silver came out while Pokemon was still everywhere, but by the time gen 3 released, the craze had ebbed. Yes it was still popular but it was no longer in everyone’s mouth. I was also in the latter half of high school, and most of my friends were no longer into it. I bought the game, so it’s not like I thought I was too old, but it just didn’t feel the same. They removed the day-night cycle and the calendar functionality. It felt like a downgrade.
I’ve tried several times since to rekindle that feeling I got in 1999. The closest was with Pokemon Go in 2016. For a few weeks it felt like the late 90s again, with everyone and their dog talking about Pokemon. I actually beat Pokemon Let’s Go, but I think the nostalgia is what kept me going. Tried with the first Legends game and just couldn’t stay interested. Ditto with Brilliant Diamond.
There has to be a word for not wanting something but wanting to want it. That’s how I feel. (Of course the nice thing about being a conlanger is I can make the word myself 😁)
spoiler
sdC CBa serial verb construction consisting of the verbs
sdC(to pine for/yearn for/be nostalgic for) andCB(to want). Perhaps “to miss wanting” is a close translation.sdC CB qGr qGrbfrp 0 sdC-0 CB-0 qGr-0 qGrbfr-p [1sg] yearn-A want-A play-A video_game-3D I miss wanting to play that video game. 1sg = 1st person singular (0 means it's dropped) -A = authoritative verbal mood (-0 means a null morpheme that isn't pronounced) -3D = 3rd person distal noun suffix ('that video game')The word you are looking for isn’t “wish”? Like “I wish that happen again”. My first experience with a Pokémon game was with Pokémon Red Fire in a GBA, back in 2006 or 2007. That game itself obfuscate the third gen games. Ruby and Saphire aren’t bad games, but something definitively felts off.
I think you just grew up. People seem to forget that these are games for children. Nostalgia can only take you so far.
Pokemon is games for babies
Any after gen 5 for me. Gen 5 is actually my favourite
I too felt like Gold and Silver was the pinnacle peak of Pokemon popularity. The games were fantastic. The closest I got to playing Pokemon similarly to how I did back then was the remakes of Gold and Silver for the DS.
Generation III, Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, really dulled the franchise as they were trying a lot of new things. Which really felt like a throw-anything-at-the-wall-see-what-sticks way to go about it, only Pokemon.
And granted that Generation IV, Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, did fire up that spark again but it only felt like things tapered off once we moved on from that generation.
I feel this one deep.
