recent: tears of the kingdom, or as i like to call it botw 1.2, its the same thing all over again just with one or two added gimicks, the open world is dead, npcs are boring and nintendo just got away with it like that
not so recent: i cant stand persona 5, joker and his entourage are annoying teenagers, the time management is a horrible gameplay addition and the artstyle is just a visual overstimulation
with that being said,~~ plz dont kill me~~
For me it’s the GTA games since San Andreas and Red Dead Redemption 2.
I still try GTA V and RDR2 once in a while as I love the worlds in those games. But they always feel grindy really fast and just don’t manage to hold my attention. A shame, as RDR2 looks gorgeous and I love the western setting, but the gameplay just doesn’t connect with me.
Also doesn’t help that each time I want to try picking GTA V or RDR2 up again I end up starting from scratch as I have no idea what the control scheme was. Another thing that just doesn’t resonate with me I guess. Perhaps it’s better with a controller, but as an avid mouse & keyboard guy all my attempts to use one ended with utter frustration.
I liked GTA V, but I spent my whole time with rdr2 just being like “everyone loves this game, what am I missing? Maybe if I make it to the next act it’ll open up more”.
It was beautiful, the world felt alive, the mechanics were good, but it’s like instead of making a game with the wonderful foundation they built, they decided they’d rather tell a story than make a game.
I loved the hunting, the bounty quests were kind of ok, the gunfights were ok even if they were so repetitive they felt procedural, but I just couldn’t care about the story they shoved down your throat.
I wanted to build up the settlement and have to run around robbing trains to come up with money, I don’t want to do a 5 minute ride while the characters give exposition through dialogue, fight a few waves of enemies, then ride off - rinse and repeat.
I wanted to grind progression through upgrading weapons and gear, but the upgrades are minimal, new guns are linked to story progression, and while hunting was fun the legendaries were just tedious jumping through hoops
For me, GTA has always been like “I can play the story and get a car as a reward, or I can just steal a car”. So I always start to steal my way up, until the cops become too powerful. Then it turns into a senseless shootout and once I’m dead, the game is done for me.
It’s fun for an hour or so, and that’s that then.