What universally beloved videogame you just can't enjoy?
2 picks for me: Stardew
Valley, most boring shit ever, I don't see the appeal, seriously how the hell did that thing sold 20 million copies?
And Witcher 3, I own that game since 2019 and I regret buying it, funny thing is that I've finished Dragon Age 1 and 2, which are kinda same genre but I actually enjoyed those games. I guess the old BioWare sauce carried those games unlike Witcher where there's nothing to enjoy in its massive pointless world.
Most of the Soulsborne games. The only one I’ve been able to enjoy is Sekiro.
In most Soulsborne games, it seems like difficulty is artificial simply because your character is so damned clunky. I enjoyed Sekiro specifically because the character was snappy and didn’t feel like they were running through waist-deep water. If I lost a fight in Sekiro, it was never because I was animation locked or because my character was too slow; It’s because I was too slow.
The more armour you wear in the main Souls game, the slower and clunkier you are. It's kind of a gotcha, in that you instinctively think more armour will help, and it does the exact opposite because you get hit more often. There's a lot of shit that isn't really explained at all. Some people like that, but the Wiki is there if you don't.
Parrying was all but impossible for me, I just went with sword and shield for most of it, switching to the massive zweihander for the DLC.
Dark Souls 2 is the worst of them, I'd skip that if you ever try again. Way too many enemies in every area.
I also just dint have the time to get good at them. I get maybe 2-3 hours a week to game on average these days. I'm not going to dump a year into getting my ass kicked for a single game.
I tried Dark Souls and quit pretty early because I couldn't pause. I don't care about doing inventory or anything like that, but I'd like to be able to just stop things if I need to go check on the door or something. The outside world doesn't stop just because I'm gaming.
IIRC, lots of people originally used the Home button as a sort of super-pause. But that’s not as easy on the PC version, where the game just keeps running in the background.
Don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds. I'm familiar with series in the genre. I just hadn't that term for the genre itself, because I don't play it :)
"Soulsborne" isn't a series per se, it's an umbrella covering all the Dark Souls games, and FromSoft's other games using the same formula like Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring.