games

Monster Sanctuary runs into the same problem too many metroidvanias run into, where a ton of secrets aren't really "hidden" it's more just "come back with the right ability" so there's relatively little actual problem solving and more "this is arbitrarily locked until you get the right monster." Also the character writing sucks and the plot is very meh, they fall into the trap of assuming "cool lore = cool story."

Baldur's Gate 3 can be too safe art direction wise. I get they are trying to do the DnD aesthetic and I'm sure WotC had a specific view on what it wanted the Forgotten Realms to look like, but it feels a bit too generic fantasy.

Final Fantasy XIV needs new quest design for the main story. Dawntrail suffered because of the quest design.

Kenshi: after hundreds of hours put into the game and going thru multiple cycles of starting a new game, struggling to make money, fighting, losing, fighting again, building and automating a base, etc, and all the emergent storytelling that comes out of that -- I feel like it was only the combat-related systems that were fully fleshed out and ultimately, the only way to interact with the world in a meaningful way is through combat. Though the visuals and worldbuilding do great of offering the promise of a lot, the dialogue system is not developed enough to allow for any dialogue mods that integrate well with and impact the world or player characters. Animations systems are similarly limited, with the system allowing for minute customization and replacement of combat animations, and very little room for any animations not combat-related.

Imma hit STALKER franchise (haven't played S2) and Project Zomboid (with great pain because it's an indie game but I have to)

STALKER: The worldbuilding of GSC is not great to be honest. A place like the Zone in real life would be an insane mess of world powers and ridiculously big and powerful corporations butchering each other to control it. To think that a place that can naturally warp reality, spawn science-shattering artefacts and control the minds of people like it's nothing is not object of contest between AT LEAST NATO and Russia is insane to me. In the game the Zone is known to relatively few people and the Ukrainian state is able to more or less "keep it under control". Everyone inside appears to be ukrainian or russian but most are freelancer weirdos who go there to be rich or hide from authorities. There is little to no foreign interference. It makes little sense that such place would go unnoticed by the world's biggest powers. In the real world a place like this would have their weak "loner", "bandit", "duty" and "freedom" factions, among others (including the mutants) be swept aside by the sheer power of entire militaries called to intervene and control the place, all of this would have immense geopolitical rammifications. It is implied in the game that outside forces know about the Zone and are interested in it's riches, but these outside forces do not intervene other than sending Mercs to do their shit and maybe finance the Monolith, but in general they leave that place alone and do not try to directly control it which is not very realistic imo. Yet despite all this I love the Zone as it is in STALKER, it's just me being insufferable, that's all.

Project Zomboid: Best zombie survival game that ever existed but it has an awful development cycle. They released one update in two years and frankly it sucks, it's broken and it added uninteresting stuff like animals and pointless crafting. Devs refuse to listen to players (who have been asking for NPCs since day ONE AND THAT WAS OVER A DECADE AGO) .Also the devs have left a lot of stuff just incomplete for years and years, from bugs to half-baked gameplay features. And tbh the game lacks a purpose and general depth, like one you get to your first month there is NOTHING ELSE to do other than finding your own way to just die or you'll just get bored and drop the game. The game is easy when you figure out the basics and surviving becomes trivial unless you push it to the absolute limit.

lost izalith is not a very good area

I wish Eastward had made more of an attempt to tie the plot together. I spent the entire game excited to see how all the details relate and then it just ended with almost no clear explanations at all.

Disco Elysium and BG3 are both incredibly well written, to the point where my first playthrough was so good, and so perfectly fit my head canon, that playing it again with different choices and playstyles just feels tedious, and an exercise in futility.

Helldivers 2 really needs some sort of end game content. The gameplay loop is fun, but i'm not even max character level, yet I have everything unlocked, all warbonds, and maxed out resources.

El Paso, Elsewhere is flawless and there is nothing to criticize, go buy it now you losers.

The player base is trash. Self included

Oh in SOTC killing the collosi made me way too sad

Valheim is broad but not deep enough and its success is mostly due to when it appeared. If it weren't in the early access cycle and the devs had made the game they wanted to make instead having the community poke and prod them it probably wouldn't be very fun.

Satisfactory is absolutely hampered by the unreal engine's limitations.

TLoZ: A Link to the Past, the enemy respawns get annoying when backtracking.

Chrono Trigger: Rewired my brain to make me like DBZ character design

TLoZ: OoT & MM: gave me nightmares which I was not expecting going into them from the previous games in the series

Super Metroid: led to me constantly waiting for MP4 but it's totally coming this year for sure. The sheer missile-sponginess of the bosses is kinda tedious I guess?

Any Tribes game: it will never be the same and I am sad.

Dwarf Fortress, Kenshi: I cannot play these anymore because I forget to eat in real life and I will die.

Red Alert series: Yuri was kind of a misstep I feel and limited the series' development.

Sim-Anything: Maxis selling to EA for a cash grab ruined one the coolest studios ever to exist.

Horizon Zero Dawn has a terrible mid game grind that can catch you out and make you never finish the game.

Battlefield 4 was terrible on release and almost unplayable for the first 3 months before it became one of the best multiplayer online shooters. Battlefield 3 multiplayer was actually quite poorly balanced and people are blinded by nostalgia. Battlefield 2 has some wonky vehicle mechanics and terrible voiceover lines, especially the Chinese voice actor was terrible.

Gran Turismo 4 has a lot of understeer by default in the handling model when using default setups, Gran Turismo 3 has a poorly structured campaign and prize/reward model. Gran Turismo 6 is basically a patch for Gran Turismo 5, with a worse campaign mode. Gran Turismo 5 took forever to release and was still unfinished upon release, the scope was just too massive for a game that came out in 2010.

The final boss race in Need For Speed Underground 2 is a massive dissapointment, it's literally the easiest race in the game, the rubber banding by the bosses in NFS Most Wanted makes certain blacklist boss races almost unplayable (I'm looking at you Earl), and NFS carbon has a mediocre open world map compared to previous installment. NFS Hot Pursuit 2010 released unfinished and the open world functionality was never implemented as intended, open world was just restricted to free roam. NFS Rivals was just Hot Pursuit 2010 with the open world functionality completed and fleshed out, honestly the games should have just been combined and released as a finished single game instead of rushing Hot Pursuit 2010.

For the Uncharted franchise, 1 is good despite it's shortcomings because without it the series would not exist. 2 was the peak, 3 only exists to set up Nathan Drake's marriage to Elana the rest of the game is just average to bad, and 4 despite being a great game, ends the way it does because Naughty Dog wanted to retire the series after the creator left. Which is sad because I would gladly play more Uncharted games.

Genshin's character quests are a hairball. Too easy to accidentally trigger once unlocked, and then you end up with other quests locked out, including dailies. There's also limited story reward-- I don't really need a deep dive into some B-plot character who you'll never see again in the main story progrrssion.

Trails is lib as hell with a focus on Good Monarchs, just like most JRPGs. There are also a bunch of anime tropes, although I think this has been exaggerated and people play Persona and Xenoblade, both of which have just as many if not more tropes. Barely anyone dies in the story even though there are multiple wars and one plot point muddles the anti-imperialist themes. Missable quests suck and the soundtracks used to be amazing, but are now mostly farmed to one composed who is mostly just okay.

Ys is usually either way too hard or way too easy with little middle ground. The same complaints I already had about the Trails soundtracks also apply.

Yakuza has too many nonsensical plot points, even though some of them have become memes because of how dumb they are.

The turn-based gameplay sucks because it makes every fight against a level 1 enemy a slog that lasts forever because you can't skip or speed up the animations. There's also nothing as satisfying as doing a heat action in that whole gameplay loop.

StarCraft is too hard to play with friends and StarCraft 2 made the wrong things easy making the big army fights take 2 seconds.

Magic the gathering not only has power creep but rules and mechanics creep making the game even more complex over time. Also the focus on printing cards specifically for EDH/commander makes the format less interesting.

Pokemon TCG none of the meta decks use guys i like and it's because the ones i like all suck.

DotA and mobas are basically entirely suffering and the games are often prolonged by people who enjoy suffering.

if anything the Jet Set Radio Future soundtrack is too good

Mai won't STFU when you're doing difficult enemy battles in FF7 Rebirth. The camera won't stay locked to the enemy you are fighting so a kot of battles are framed sideways or away from thr enemy as they charge, mow you on your ass or repeatedly strong strike you. You can't know when they are about to because the camera is not showing the enemy it's showing you.

Oh you just finished a section. Let's FATAL ERROR even though the game so still going. So hopw "fatal" was that error actually? Ok let's just wait for them to stop talking get control....menu....save and a crash. But at least the game autosaved at the transition.