Games that you really want to like but you just can't

[PatHeadroom]

Prey 2017. While Prey from 2006 is great, the 2017 attempt was really not what i want. Sure, the graphics are great, the aesthetics and music are up my alley. Reason why I couldn't get into it? Didn't dig the black goo enemies, and the cast was insufferable.

It was one game that the more i played, the more i hated it. I regret the 10 hours i put into the game and the $7 i spent on it.

 

[punisheddead]

Death Stranding, Kojimbos baby.

Didn't like it, the gameplay is solid but the story is just nonsensical and pretentious and with Kojimbo games you just can't ignore the story. I'm starting to think that he needed someone to keep him grounded like when he was making the Metal Gear series. I was more disappointed then Hayter enjoyers were with MGS V.

 

[Dolfin]

Tabletop RPGs that make extensive use of miniatures, cards, maps, tokens, etc., etc. I have played D&D and similar games before, and really enjoyed them, and I can absolutely nerd out on the crafty side of things. I'm even fortunate enough to have friends who are into these things enough to be on the preorder list for stuff like Frosthaven. But the set up/tear down time is often completely ridiculous and then I end up feeling like the games are complicated for the sake of being complicated, rather than because it contributes to the story or quality.

Man, Gloomhaven has a way of wearing out its welcome. My partner and I got through a good chunk of it, and when you're working together to figure out how to tackle a dungeon and everything's flowing nicely, it's great. Then there's the setup, there's putting all the pieces in tackle boxes during teardown, there's arguing over where the enemy "AI" is supposed to move Skeleton #4, there's the fatigue mechanic that punishes scenario first-timers for trying to get loot before their hypoglycemia kicks in, and there's all the accounting everything entails that just makes me wish I was playing D&D.

I was also going to say Stellaris, for very similar reasons to I said above. I've loved Civ for a long time now, so when I heard about a "more complicated Civ, but in space" I was so intrigued. But damn, it's way too time intensive just to learn the game, let alone get even reasonably good at it. I just don't have that kind of time in my life anymore, and if I did I seriously doubt "learning to play a new game, alone" would top the list of things to do.

Realizing reading this thread that Stellaris has a ton of mechanics that are only ever explained in tooltips (or maybe the tutorial covers them now, I don't know). I've botched every run with a single menu-click mistake (e.g., the Civil Service civic grants Full Citizenship rights to any species with full military rights, and the game will not warn you about this), and there's been plenty of times where I found out I could've been doing something slightly better for the past 40 years. It doesn't help that every major patch alters these mechanics—anyone remember grid planets?—or adds new stuff that'll significantly affect gameplay strategies, whereas Civ V is still Civ V.

Not that I don't still love it.

Yeah they are easy to start with of course, but then they just turn stupid. The puzzle that did it for me was this one.
View attachment 96821
I did it so many times, I think I retraced my steps through those four mazes and did it all on paper to try put it together, and then when I tried it, it failed. What is the point of this puzzle? I then decided this was a waste of my time.
However I'm looking forward to seeing the sokoban game he's been working on, which I hope will be more sane.

This exact puzzle broke me down and made me go look up the solution so I could progress. It's been so long that I don't remember the answer, only the frustration and shame.

 

[morus]

Everything that has ASCII graphics, i tried them, but the lack of any actual visuals just really doesn't do it for me, that's why i always preffered rimworld over dwarf fortress, or zomboid over CDDA, is not like i haven't played them, i just don't find them enjoyable.

 

[stonehead]

Man, Gloomhaven has a way of wearing out its welcome. My partner and I got through a good chunk of it, and when you're working together to figure out how to tackle a dungeon and everything's flowing nicely, it's great. Then there's the setup, there's putting all the pieces in tackle boxes during teardown, there's arguing over where the enemy "AI" is supposed to move Skeleton #4, there's the fatigue mechanic that punishes scenario first-timers for trying to get loot before their hypoglycemia kicks in, and there's all the accounting everything entails that just makes me wish I was playing D&D.

Cannot recommend the Steam version of Gloomhaven enough. The computer handles all the little pieces and setup and, fittingly enough, the ai. It's baffling to me that Gloomhaven was created as a board game first. The level of complexity and the number of moving parts just don't suit that medium well.

 

[morus]

Cannot recommend the Steam version of Gloomhaven enough. The computer handles all the little pieces and setup and, fittingly enough, the ai. It's baffling to me that Gloomhaven was created as a board game first. The level of complexity and the number of moving parts just don't suit that medium well.

These are my feelings towards basically every tabletop game. I previously though this thread silly, as I have no qualms about ditching games over the tiniest of nitpicks, but perhaps this is it. Because tabletop games sound cool, I can play games with my friends IRL!!, and then you do it and the game is boring busywork, and your IRL friends suck at it, and it's a pain to use a timer so it takes forever to finish.

 

[Dolfin]

Cannot recommend the Steam version of Gloomhaven enough. The computer handles all the little pieces and setup and, fittingly enough, the ai. It's baffling to me that Gloomhaven was created as a board game first. The level of complexity and the number of moving parts just don't suit that medium well.

I would speculate it was because having all those pieces and cards and stickers to permanently alter things and unlockables in envelopes is pure tabletop nerd luxury, and somewhere in there is the great(?)-on-paper idea of DM-less D&D. I've heard good things about Steam, will have to give it a look now that the board game is probably forever shelved for me. (The unlockables and scenarios getting spoiled in the vidya is what stopped me before.)

These are my feelings towards basically every tabletop game. I previously though this thread silly, as I have no qualms about ditching games over the tiniest of nitpicks, but perhaps this is it. Because tabletop games sound cool, I can play games with my friends IRL!!, and then you do it and the game is boring busywork, and your IRL friends suck at it, and it's a pain to use a timer so it takes forever to finish.

Even though I've been complaining about a game with way too many moving parts, I have to hold out hope that there's a more elegantly designed game out there that you and your IRL friends can enjoy. Gloomhaven's an extreme case, something like Hive is way on the other end, and I've found that Clank! strikes a good balance while being pretty easy to pick up.

 

[Sidewinder91]

Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door.

I remember really liking the first game as a kid, but PMTYD has a lot of bad design:

1. Backtracking. I don't really mind revisiting and exploring older areas. I'd rather play Ocarina of Time or Banjo Tooie than Final Fantasy 13 and run forward through an endless corridor all day. That being said, a lot of the chapters involve walking from Point A to Point B, then from Point B to Point A again, then back to point B and so on and so forth. It's just there to pad out the game.

2. Repetitive Encounters. You're going to be fighting the same few enemies over and over again, many of which are just palette swaps of monsters found in previous chapters. Piranha Plants seem to be the worst for this.

3. Chrono Cross Cast. Once you recruit a character and finish their chapter, they stop getting any real development, which I've always felt was a shame. I'd like to see each character interact with the others. KOTOR and Dragon Age had a system where party members would talk to one another, kind of a shame PMTYD doesn't because it could be really fun to see how Gombella gets along with Vivian, how the Yoshi and Bobbery get along, some dialogue between Flurrie and Koops, ect. I get that this game isn't really about the deep intricate plot, but I wouldn't mind if the party members had 'something' more to do.

The Glitzpit is fun tho.

 

[NeonRAt]

Survival horrors. A LOT of amazing projects, I like the stories, the art style, watching walkthrough or analysis, but I hate playing them with passion. I can't help but get bored from gameplay, and I still don't understand why. I am OK with each element of it by itself, but once they're mixed together... Nah, the game becomes my personal torture nexus
It's especially funny because I don't have any problems with other type of horrors or with stealth oriented games

 

[deepfreeze]

Loop Hero. I love the concept, the art style, and the soundtrack is banger after banger. But the game itself just does not grab me at all and I get bored almost immediately.

 

[Red]

Cruelty Squad, despite trying to like it nothing just clicks like it has with other people

 

[Pluto]

Dark Souls, or FromSoft games in general.
I don't know. I love the atmosphere, I love the minimalist presentation, I heard such great things about the depth of the lore etc. etc. etc.
But they're just too hard. I'm sure that if I'd put my mind to it, I could git gud, but I'm not 15 years old anymore and the dopamine circuits in my brain don't respond too well to digital beepboops anymore.
I don't really play a lot of video games anymore, but the ones I do I play to unwind. Mastering a high skill ceiling game like Dark Souls feels like work at this point.

 

[Svind]

I really, really wanted to like the Witcher 3. Maybe it was just over hyped for me, or maybe it just didn't click I tried so hard to get into it. In the end I'd take these week long breaks in between playing it and sooner or later just stopped all together. I never really got invested in the story or felt compelled to keep playing I just didn't care for it personally.

Similarly I tried to get into TW3 on three separate occasions, each failing miserably. I've heard so much that it's "the pinnacle of RPG design", and as a RPG lover that sounded amazing but to me the game feels more like a character action game with RPG elements than an RPG.

I have two more though; The modern XCOM games, I truly love the gameplay however both games have urgency mechanics I truly hate (timer or country support). And the major one, Oblivion. I love TES franchise, I enjoyed my time in Daggerfall, Morrowind is one of my favorite games of all time and Skyrim was honestly good as well. I just can't get into Oblivion though, the level scaling is atrocious and even if you fix that with mods you can't get away from the Tolkienized depiction of Cyrodiil. I love TES lore for the out-there and unique takes on fantasy, and Oblivion is the opposite of that.

 

[splashy]

physical pad rhythm games
i've tried pump it up and ddr a couple of times but i never really got hooked on them in the same way i got hooked on keyboard-centric games like osu!mania or Quaver. the differing playstyle just feels like a gimmick and heavily limits the kinds of charts can play. forget about chordjack, handstream or vibro. on top of that, the relative inaccessibility (my nearest arcade is over 4 kilometers away and i don't have a car or much money to burn on arcade credit) makes it harder for me to get into too and really makes me question how dedicated players can afford to practice for hours a day.

anyways play vivid/stasis or something

 

[PizzaW0lf]

I can't help but feel really let down by Ghostrunner despite it being a solid game otherwise. I thought it would be kinda like first person MGRR + Titanfall parkour. Having played through the game, it feels like a glorified puzzle/memorization game. Deaths can feel really cheap since enemies can attack very quickly and this can be frustration since the controls can be a little finnicky at times. There's just not much to the game.

 

[LostintheCycle]

i've tried pump it up and ddr a couple of times but i never really got hooked on them in the same way i got hooked on keyboard-centric games like osu!mania or Quaver. the differing playstyle just feels like a gimmick and heavily limits the kinds of charts can play. forget about chordjack, handstream or vibro. on top of that, the relative inaccessibility (my nearest arcade is over 4 kilometers away and i don't have a car or much money to burn on arcade credit) makes it harder for me to get into too and really makes me question how dedicated players can afford to practice for hours a day.

Of course you didn't see any spectacular charting, if you play it a couple of times you probably didn't go higher than a 10, and I think above that is when charts really become interesting. Before that they go easy on the concepts and note density.
You are right there are no chordjacks, handstreams, or vibros... because we have different terms. They are respectively called jumpstreams, streams, and as for vibro correct me if I'm wrong but that's where you vibrate your hands or fingers or whatever? We sort of have that in drills and trills.
In osu!mania though you technically have more possible note configurations, you have constant access to the inputs. In DDR, you have two legs and four pads, or if you are a doubles player like me, two legs and eight pads, plus the limitation that you typically alternate your legs if you don't want to look like a jackass. These limitations have fascinating consequences and give rise to many patterns, which would be no problem in osu!mania but present a challenge in DDR. There's candles, crossovers, the afronova, 270, spins, trills, jacks, drills, grace notes, gallops, double-steps... just off the top of my head. Many of these exist in osu!mania of course, but it doesn't have the same implication as it does in DDR because of the physical movement. If you don't think through your stepping properly, you can end up in an awkward spot or get all twisted up. This list doesn't accurately capture the breadth of patterns and their challenges, but they are some of the common ones. Note that in doubles, the variations of patterns that exist are exponentially more massive, you would struggle to give a name to every distinct pattern.
Check out this video of CowEye playing 'Rush E' which demonstrates a handful of patterns like drills, crossovers, a 270, afronovas, as well as 'hands' which are not in DDR but are possible nonetheless. This video doesn't come close to demonstrating what is possible in a DDR chart.
Sure, DDR charts could never reach the speed and note density of even a regular osu!mania map, but the limitations of the input medium make it a far more complex rhythm game in a different way.
In conclusion, don't talk shit about shit you don't know.

---

There's an arcade next to my university. I was making decent money last year so could go often, these days I'm saving up to buy a car and I have less time to play, but I make sure to go at least two, maybe three times a week, to keep fit. I usually play 3-4 games which is at least 9-12 songs. I always make my games intense. Dedicated players often end up buying their own pad for a few hundred to play at home, which I would rather do if I had the space.

 

[big_ping07]

storyteller!
i like simple games for the times my brain is running on fumes, so it was inevitable for a game like this to be recommended to me. it's cute, and in theory, is exactly what i want, but some of the timelines make NO SENSE to me. there were too many times i unintentionally solved the puzzle, taking away the satisfaction you're supposed to get when you play puzzle games.

 

[macrobyte]

I was really excited to try Doom (2016), and played for maybe 8 hours, but I couldn't ever really get into it. Same for Subnautica and Mirror's Edge. I just don't enjoy action games all that much (and Subnautica was lowkey terrifying when I started playing it, and then I spoiled the whole story so now it's like :/). The thing I don't get though is that while I don't really like Doom or anything, I really liked Wolfenstein (2009), even though they're almost equivalent games. I guess it's all just like a hit or miss though.

 

[The Chibi One]

It depends on the reasons behind "wanting to like" something, but I would say Diablo III. I have been a fan since the first one, II is among my most-played titles, but III was just... eh. I wanted to like it out of goodwill from the first two.

The Quantic Dream titles (particularly Beyond: Two Souls) are good narratives, but they aren't good videogames. QTE's, some investigation, and prompts to choose with a timer do not a game make. They have found their niche and they're sticking to it, so good for them. Fahrenheit is still their best game. Until Dawn is similar. Good premise, boring execution (gameplay-wise).

"Spiritual successors" in general, depending on whether you like the originator. I wanted to like The Calisto Protocol because Deep Space was amazing when it came out, but it was a piss-poor copy-and-paste job. Same goes for most "soulslikes." Mortal Shell in particular was hyped as the best out of them and was so boring and slow.

 

[RisingThumb]

I did it so many times, I think I retraced my steps through those four mazes and did it all on paper to try put it together, and then when I tried it, it failed. What is the point of this puzzle? I then decided this was a waste of my time.

Just wanted to add, the solution

Spoiler: Spoiler

is indeed all 4 of those maze solutions put together.

.
Also for the Witness, I think it's a good game, but it does get tedious later on with all the puzzles on panels. That said, I think all these puzzles is a bit of a front for a very specific moment the witness is built around. It's this moment where you realise

Spoiler: realisation

environmental puzzles exist

.
When you've had this moment already, the game pretty much falls back into being as @№56 already mentioned, an aesthetically pleasing puzzle book(which for some people is what they want).
Also if you and @№56 found The Witness frustrating or boring, you should check out The Looker as it's a perfect parody of the game. It's free and only 1-2 hours long so not that painful of a game to pick up and play either.

The game I've had the most trouble trying to get into is strategy games like Civ and Europa. Playing multiplayer in those games is like pulling teeth since they have a huge knowledge wall to actually playing it, and if anyone knows more they race miles ahead so it's very beginner unfriendly(where Quake has skill that lets you get miles ahead if you're 5% better, Civ has knowledge that lets you get miles ahead if you know 5% more about the game). Additionally the way tutorials and stuff in them work, is incredibly boring that it's like being lectured to in school except willingly and in a game. The only times I've ever fallen asleep playing a video game, is in Fallout 4's bog DLC, and in Civ 6