ditto rdr2 - its less a video game than it is a graphic novel read by a semi-literate slow talker

the entire dark souls series is also ruined by clunky controls. give me a Doom, Quake, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Skyrim, etc . . . fps controls pls.

X4 fails because of its controls too. Imagine making a flight sim where you can't invert the Y axis, or an FPS where the shift key can't be bound to sprint.

For games that are in genres that I'd actually play:

Final Fantasy 6 (3): I grew up with the NES, and when we got a SNES I got whatever games I could from the $20 bin at Toys R Us. I had some friends who were a bit better off that loaned me some games, and I eventually managed to get my hands on a copy of Chrono Trigger (as well as other RPGs like Breath of Fire), but when I borrowed FFIII from one of them I was just... underwhelmed. I didn't really care for the characters, it felt pretty slow initially, and I remember getting to a bit with a bunch of moogles in the party and I just put it down and never went back.

I've since tried to play it a few times here and there, but it never really manages to hook me... but people sing the praises of it high and low and I just don't really get it because I can't get over the hump.

The Witcher 1/2/3: I just really don't like the combat, honestly. I've tried playing all three, and managed to get enough time into them to appreciate the good bits (voice acting, story, quest lines) but the main meat and potatoes for me in a game are exploration and combat, and only one of those really works for me in those games. I had a better time in the first game, all things considered, because I guess I was willing to allow a bit of jankiness from an older game, but I bounced off Witcher 2 pretty quickly combat-wise, and didn't manage to get more than many 1/3 to 1/2 way through Witcher 3 before I just admitted that I wasn't having fun.

Persona 3: I got into the games with P4G on my Vita, so part of this is 'going backwards is hard' in terms of QoL improvements and what not. But I also played the PSP port of Persona 2 (whichever one was actually ported in English) and had a good time (not so much with the PS1 version of the one that didn't get the English PSP port... that one was rough) so I guess its just the game didn't resonate with me as much as the other ones did... Maybe it was the characters or maybe it was the cuts that were made for the P3P version of the game, but it just didn't hit the same.

Otherwise, a lot of military-style FPS games (stuff like Halo or Destiny or Timesplitters or even Goldeneye 64 are/were fun), the more recent sports titles (up to the Dreamcast/PS2 I was fine with them, but more realism doesn't do anything for me), and stuff like MOBA or visual novels or 'walking sims' or battle royale or whatever those asynchronous horror games just don't tick the boxes for me in terms of what I want from a video game.

I don't dislike it, it's brilliant, the epitome of SupergiantGames' beautiful craft, but I just can't play Hades, it released after I had already burnt out on Dead Cells, Curse of the Dead Gods, Grime, Enter the Gungeon, Blasphemous, Gunfire Reborn, and whatnot, I can't bring myself to play it because I had already explored the genre so many times...

Skyrim, Limbo, Stardew Valley.

Don't Starve I already can't stand Tim Burton's style, and I really can't get over the similarities to try to enjoy this game, even though one of my autistic special interests is open world survival crafting games.

Fallout 4 Seems like a perfectly fine FPS, very much not a Fallout game. Leans far too heavily on action and not enough on the RPG elements.

GTA 5 If GTA were a candy, GTA 5 would be a bucket of that candy. It's fine if you really really really like that candy, but if you're just not THAT obsessed with the candy, it can get a bit tiring. Having three people with different stories and event going on felt like I never spent enough time with one character to REALLY get into their development. I'd rather see them innovate than just do MORE GTA

Outer Worlds Boring af

Neverwinter Nights.

I'm not going to say it's a bad game, but if I want to read a book, I'll read a book.

GTA5 and RDR2 are boring as shit.

All souls like games are just too much work, as are most metroidvanias. I just don’t have the energy or the time to spend on them.

Outer Wilds: too boring for me.

RDR2, Horizon series, probably many more others I don't even remember: a lot of busywork in an empty uninteresting giant open world.

Souls-like: I understand why people like them but it's not the kind of challenge I like.

Star Wars anything, Shadow of Mordor, Hogwarts Legacy: couldn't care less about the setting.

I think these are about it for "generally liked" kind of games. There's some more about less popular stuff but in general this is it.

The ones you mentioned, as well as:

• GTA V - I disliked the characters, story was uninteresting, and gameplay felt like a downgrade from GTA IV; graphics were the main attraction there, and that's not enough for me
• Borderlands - my fastest "nope, not for me" game I've played; I don't like loot in games, and that's basically the entire point of the game
• Skyrim - found it very bland coming from Morrowind; side quests weren't as interesting, which is pretty much the entire reason I liked Morrowind
• any competitive FPS (Apex Legends, COD, etc) - I play most games once the get the story, mechanics, etc

I don't actively dislike it, but for me RDR2 is also the main one. Apart from competitive shooters etc which aren't really my thing either. The thing is, I like the type of game that RDR2 is. But I just have nothing with the setting. I played it right after Cyberpunk, which I loved for multiple reasons. One major thing is that I controlled V, and thus could create my own story. In RDR 2 I was forced to play someone I have nothing in common with, who does exactly the things I wouldn't do, and who lives in a shitty time period where basically every woman basically has the same rights as cattle. That may not be inaccurate, but it just didn't vibe with me. I just got so frustrated with the main character talking shit to people who were right, or drinking a lot and getting into trouble in a very predictable way. Despite the beautiful and interesting world I just couldn't feel anything but frustration.

I do get why people like it though, I don't think it's a bad game. Its just not for me.

Third-person is objectively superior to first-person.

Final Fantasy 7. I've tried to play it multiple times, but the game's story never pulled me in. And with how long of a trek it is between story moments and the slog of combat encounters I usually put the game down.

Ocarina of Time. It's one of the few Zelda games that I just didn't enjoy. I've had a lot more fun playing Twilight Princess and Wind Waker more than Ocarina. I'd play Adventure of Link more than Ocarina.

Skyrim. Mostly all the RPGs like that. Never understood the hype. I did try to like it, but it wasn't fun for me at all.

Any of the Paper Mario or Super Mario RPG games. Maybe I'm not the target audience, but I've often felt that without the Mario name they would be considered mediocre.

Alongside this, basically every 3D Sonic game. I feel that Sonic has become a thing for furries, and that the 3D games just don't really seem to get what a Sonic game should be. Frontiers was somewhat decent in the open world aspect, but its constant reliance on the homing dash just highlights how buggy those games are.

anything with turn-based combat as a core mechanic is an instant skip, nothing else about the game matters

Fortnite. I was excited for the original game, and amused where it ended up, but it’s not for me.

• any 3d Zelda games. I didn't play OOT until I was in my late 20s and it was awful (specifically controls and camera). I tried watching people Speedrun it or do the randomizer, but the sound link makes when rolling (which most did most of the time) drove me crazy.
• goldeneye for the same reason
• anything with the N64 controller for the same reasons. It felt so unnatural and weird.
• most roguelikes (but not all). Losing to random chance is annoying. Some randomness is of course fine
• dark souls and the like. Watch boss. Die. Try again. Die. To me, that's boring. I'd rather have in-world ways of learning about the boss.
• pokemon. I was already in high school, working part time, and doing a lot of school stuff (band/theatre/sports) and just never got into it. I tried Pokemon go and didn't care for it (bud did like Dragon Quest Walk that came out later
• Final Fantasy 7 -- hated the camera and other similar things. Story and all was fine
• 3rd person shooter (with the exception of just cause). I would line up the perfect shot in Sniper Elite only to shoot the few pixels of the corner of something I couldn't see because my character's dumb body was in the ay
• starfox. I was already playing better games like that on Amiga and other platforms, so it felt like a step back to me

Dark Souls 3 and only Dark Souls 3. I love Dark Souls 1 and 2, Elden Ring, Bloodborne is my favorite game, and Sekiro. But Dark Souls 3 is just so boring and unfun. Even the ingame world feels uninterested in this game, (because it kinda is over the whole age of fire thing.) Everything is gross and brown it just makes exploring kind of icky. DS1 had a good balance of gross and majestic locations and enemies. DS2 suffered from too few monsters and too many generic armored knights, and locations felt too clean and empty.

It feel like this game does not like you to diversify your build. Armor is basically cosmetic, and offers very slight damage protection. Poise sucks, and is basically removed, so making a tank build kind of sucks. Its so damn fast and doesn't give you a ton of options like Elden Ring does. DS3 is certainly the most actiony of the action rpgs, and idk, I'd like more rpg. I remember watching a video about how playing these games at level 1 is the intended and best way to play. I can kind of see that, I think that discredits a lot of the rpg elements in these games. I always saw permadeath runs as the more fun way to play, especially in DS2, that game was like designed to be run as an arcade game.

The game also feels like it rides on nostalgia pretty hard. Anor Londo? Thats here. Andre? He's here. Firelink Shrine? Thats here, too. Artorias? There's a whole cult trying to cosplay as him. I actually think DS2 handled this sort of thing better, it being so far it the future from DS1 that most characters and places from 1 are only legend or ancient history. I think it gave 2 a sense of discovery, even if DS2 certainly has much less coherent lore lol.

There are good things in this game. The dlc is fantastic. Certain areas look downright stunning, often helped by the muted color palette. A lot of the bosses are fun when you use the correct play style for them. Pontiff Sullivan or Champion Gundyr is my favorite boss on my most recent playthrough, but I haven't gotten to Gale, the Twin Princes or Midir yet.