What game is your white whale? One you don't enjoy but keep trying to like?

[Deleted member 46489]

After enjoying Bastion and Hades, I decided to check out Transistor and Pyre by Supergiant Games.

Transistor's gameplay never clicked for me (though I love Red's humming). So I shifted to Pyre. And holy shit that game's not for me. The mechanics of their weird fantasy football felt super unintuitive, and I couldn't even pass the tutorial battle, either with gamepad or mkb (Do note I play and enjoy a wide variety of games, so this was very unusual for me).

Transistor I have decided to let go of. But Pyre is game I just want to play and finish for some reason.

Do you have a game like that? One that you really really want to like, but just don't? And you still keep chasing after it?

 

[ghostcrew]

Crusader Kings 2.

I love the idea of playing Crusader Kings so much but every time I try I'm just left baffled. So I leave it six months and then install it again. I have hours and hours tracked on my Steam account from attempts. Still don't really know what I'm doing.

 

[shazrobot]

Witcher 3. I just can't stand the combat.

 

[Deleted member 9241]

Red Dead Redemption 2

 

[Nama]

Splatoon. I vibe with nearly everything about the game except the actual gameplay.

 

[Aki]

The Witcher 3 & Yakuza 0

I can't get into the combat at all! Believe me I tried so hard to get into it but I just can't.

 

[Spinosaurus]

Splatoon but my continued endeavor made me go from liking the whole vibe of it but not playing it to just outright disliking everything about it lol.

 

[WestEgg]

The entire Final Fantasy series. I want to like it, but I can never find motivation to play past the first few hours.

 

[An Army of Bees]

Souls games. I love them in theory, I just don't have the patience to see them through all of the way.

 

[Phoenom]

Final fantasy 12. Great visuals, brilliant music and voice acting, but it bores me to death every time I try to play it. I've yet to have a go at Zodiac Age though, so maybe that'll change.

 

[Gotchaforce]

Monster Hunter. Been trying since PSP.

 

[pikachief]

I mustve had 50 hours playing the original FF7 just restarting that game and getting a little further each time. I liked pretty much every other final fantasy but that one I couldnt get into, but kept thinking maybe I just didnt get far enough lol

Although I loved FF7R so im sure I'll end up trying the original yet again XD

 

[ngower]

The Souls games? Just tried Bloodborne again yesterday and pretty quickly was like "oh right these games frustrate me to no end."

 

[Deleted member 46489]

Crusader Kings 2.

I love the idea of playing Crusader Kings so much but every time I try I'm just left baffled. So I leave it six months and then install it again. I have hours and hours tracked on my Steam account from attempts. Still don't really know what I'm doing.

Click to shrink...

Ah, I feel ya. Grand Strategy games can be very hit or miss in that way. I do plan to try Crusader Kings 2 someday. Though probably not anyday soon. :P

 

[SigSig]

I've tried to play GTAV a dozen times now, but it's just a joyless piece of shit. I understand it took forever to make, but every single aspect of the game flat-out sucks. There is not one thing I like about it. I don't understand.

 

[viskod]

Breath of the Wild.

I kept exploring that great big beautiful world, even know I knew I wouldn't find anything but another shrine, and another orb.

 

[Mana Latte]

Red Dead Redemption 2. I think I've tried 3 times now and I get roughly to the same point and just bow out. The 3rd time was recently this week. I know it's an amazing game but it's just not for me

 

[Kent]

Astral Chain.

I love Platinum's action games - Bayonetta, Vanquish, NieR: Automata, etc. are all among my favorites.

But Astral Chain is just not fun. Nothing clicks, controlling both the main character and their Legion at the same time is awkward and disjointed, and it doesn't have that flow or responsiveness that you expect out of their games. The 30fps is also not really doing it any favors.

Every time I pick it up and try it, I expect to have some sort of revelation that makes all of the pieces fall into place, but... Nope, just a weird mess of scattershot gameplay that's entirely uncharacteristic of the experiences I've come to expect.

 

[Deleted member 679]

Darkest Dungeon, I just don't enjoy playing it. I don't actively dislike it or anything, I just don't get any enjoyment while playing, but I love the visuals and sounds so much that I keep trying every now and then, sure that this time it'll click.

Maybe some day.

 

[afreaknamedpete]

I've started Monster Hunter World like three times already and I've never progressed past like the third hunt.

 

[Deleted member 13370]

edit

 

[Lunatious]

Zelda. They're genuinely good games with great game design and aesthetics, but in general they just aren't for me. Breath of the Wild managed to grab me a bit more than the others, but even then I didn't get around to finishing it yet.

 

[ThreepQuest64]

Fallout 76.

Events are fun to play cooperative but every. thing. else. is a slog. Every thing is rough in this game. The gunplay is rough, the movement rough, the inventory management. The controls are rough and counter-intuitive. Swap weapons quickly, react quickly to anything is impossible. Frame rate on PS4 Pro is beyond anything that is acceptable these days, with drops to what feels like 20 or even 15 fps. This shit is straight from N64 era. Dialogs are rough. The cooperative gameplay is rough and almost botched. Visuals are rough. Enemy visibility and animations are rough. It's still buggy and glitchy. It feels like it was scrambled together by bunch of students who shipped only a small game before and now tried to bite something bigger they can chew.

There is only thing in which this game excels and that is its style: I love the vault dweller, the look of the interface from the little icons to the SCORE board to the perk cards and the whole sci-fi imagined in the 50s aesthetics. In every other regard the game is mediocre at best and outright shit at worst.

I still want to play this abomination regularly with my buddy because I find the basic gameplay loop quite satisfying, plus the aesthetics and atmospheric levels and overworld.

 

[Deleted member 46489]

In some ways, Slay the Spire is this for me. I really, really like the core gameplay... but it's so ungratifying I almost always come away regretting having started a session. I'm not generally a sore loser but losing due to getting a bad hand when a boss does a 50 damage attack? Feels like shit. And even winning feels fairly unspecial after doing it the first time - even if you reach the Heart.

But the core gameplay? It's so much fun. And even worse, my girlfriend plays it a lot and seeing her play makes me so tempted to start a session aaand I'm stuck again...

Click to shrink...

Have you tried playing Monster Train? This is exactly the problem I had with Slay the Spire, and Monster Train solved it for me.

Ita a beautiful game that allows you to get crazy overpowered, but also expects you to be overpowered, so is plenty difficult. I highly recommend.

 

[Dezzy]

Hollow Knight.
Threads pop up praising this game all the time, and each time I install and try it again. I also get bored and uninstall after a couple hours each time. I'm up to 8 hours total just from trying to get into it. I just never enjoy it.
I loved Ori 1+2, Bloodstained, Monster Boy, and many other "metroidvania" style games, but this one doesn't do it for me. (also didn't like Blasphemous.)

 

[erlim]

Halo 1-3. Like I understand how beloved and important they are and will definitely day one Halo Infinite. But as many times as I've played them I have not learned to properly love them yet.

 

[CielTynave]

Basically any Yakuza after 0 (sans Kiwami 2 and to a lesser extent 3) up to 5. Honestly, now that I'm up to 5 already, I kind of feel like 0 must have been the first time they ever hit as many highs as they did. Before that, 3 was probably the only story I really found engaging in spite of it's awful gameplay. The rest I just didn't really care about.

 

[J_ToSaveTheDay]

Nier Automata. Love the art style, the storytelling and characterization.

The gameplay starts off feeling interesting with its wild genre turns and being based apparently on Platinum's core character action traits, but in the long run I think it ends up just being kind of a superficial and boring gameplay facade by my own take. It's interesting in its willingness to take that risk but it never feels like it does any of those particular genres justice.

 

[gitrektali]

Yakuza games. I've tried so many times to get into these and I love everything about those games apart from actually playing them.

 

[finally]

I started to delete games that I feel like this about them, after many tries

 

[Ravelle]

Breath of the Wild for me.

I know it's all about exploring but when you do eventually walk out in a bit of a wrong direction you run in to some high level mobs that one shot you, you spent way too much time fumbling in the weapon menu when your weapon breaks. I found the controls to be frustrating and it resulted in me dying a lot.

I like exploring if it's a thing I can do as a side activity in my main adventuring, not if you drop me in to a game and say " do whatever".

 

[Not Spaceghost]

Okami, as much as I love so many things of it, the overall experience feels like it drags on and on and on.

 

[Captain_Vyse]

Witcher 3

Hollow Knight

Hades

Tried getting into these games several times. They just never clicked with me.

 

[julia crawford]

Invisible Inc.... it's so sad.....

 

[J-Spot]

The Dragon Age series. I got a little ways into the first one and while I liked the character interactions the combat was too dull for me. I tried it again on PC with a mod that let you bypass combat but it turns out removing gameplay from video games makes them very unsatisfying. Later I tried Inquisition but it's even worse than Origins. The combat is still boring but now it's accompanied by the worst open world gameplay I've ever experienced.

 

[It’s Time To Go]

Witcher 3
Any kind of racing game that isn't wipeout or Mario kart.

 

[bahorel]

I keep trying to play Majora's Mask and I get to the point where you are released from the town and out into the open world and then I bail

 

[SilverX]

Breath of the Wild. The world is nice but the controls feel stiff, the combat sluggish, and it only has a handful of different enemies running around. And the shrines feel too similar.

It feels like a game much older than it was when it released in 2017 inside a modern open world game map

 

[Trode]

Hollow Knight. I've abandoned every playthrough I've attempted. I recognise the craftsmanship but a lot of the design decisions in that game leave me cold and feel like they're better suited to another genre. Certainly not what I'm looking for in a 2D metroidvania.

 

[blackMamba1187]

Horizon: Zero Dawn. Probably started 3 or 4 times but it just hasn't clicked. I haven't given up, though. I think I'll try out the PC version at some point.

 

[Kiro]

Agreed with the Splatoon posts. Such an awesome style and idea, I just don't find it very fun.

 

[Stoney Mason]

Probably Brutal Legend. I wish it was just a platform action adventure like psychonauts instead of an rts game. But I want to experience the universe so badly I constantly try to start it but end up losing interest in the gameplay not too far in.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

Halo.

Amazing lore, wonderful world building and visually distinct.

And the games feel so, so meh to play.

 

[Chronos]

Skyrim, it seems like a perfect game for me on paper, huge open world and sandbox rpg, but every time I try I get a few hours in and the combat is so dull I can't keep playing.

 

[j3d1j4m13]

Multiplayer survival games. As a primarily single player gamer I just can't get into them for longer than a few hours without feeling like I'm playing half a game without folks to play with.

 

[Aneru]

The Trail in Cold War series. I have a deep love for rpgs and I keeping hearing all the time how great the series is but the game is too dragged out and filled with anime tropes for me. I keep trying though because I'm always reading how good it is. Maybe if I start with 3...

I can always toss in the Atelier series.

 

[TheGhost]

War frame. I've tried it 8 or 9 times now over the last 8 years and i just can't enjoy the gunplay or movement at all.

 

[Lobster Roll]

Witcher 3. I just can't stand the combat.

Click to shrink...

Red Dead Redemption 2

Click to shrink...

Back to back posts that contain my answer.

 

[Anastasis]

My mind immediately went to Sekiro. The monthly threads praising it here get me to try it again, but I just can't seem to have the game click for me.

 

[brandywine]

Splatoon, Monster Hunter, Tales, and Uncharted. I've purchased games in all of these series several times - I've never been able to enjoy them.