Topic: Games you recently DROPPED

@Potato-man that too bad they saved the best for last

Does it count if it is a Demo?
I downloaded CAPTAIN TOAD TREASURE TRACKER with a strong view to buy.
Nope. I am good. I thought I would love it because I love Mario Vs. DK, and this was a platform/puzzle type game. Did not do it for me, which is a shame. Runs beautifully, looks lovely, cute and charming, but the demo was enough for me.

@Mana_Knight Of course it counts if it is a demo, moreover, lucky you a demo showed the game isn't for you, right?

Back on topic (and, after reading through my own post, immediately of topic again, haha, sorry for the long introduction to a sort of rant...), so far I have had the privilege to be able to (mostly) pick games I am able to enjoy from the beginning to the end.

Games that (in my opinion) either have a stellar soundtrack (Octopath, I am Setsuna, Zelda, Secret of Mana et cetera), or a focus on great (also non-verbal) story-telling (The Witcher, Triangle Strategy, Half Life, The Last Door, Hellblade, The First Tree, et cetera), or have great atmosphere (Resident Evil, Limbo, Inside, Inmost, Fe, et cetera), or are easy-going or goofy or fun to play co-op (The Inner World, Paper Mario, The Adventure Pals, Ultimate Chicken Horse, Golf Story, West of Loathing, et cetera), or have something interesting to tell (Lydia, Bury me My Love, Florence, Valiant Hearts, et cetera), or challenge me (to a certain extent and in a fun way) intellectually (Professor Layton, Thronebreaker, Tangle Tower, The Bridge, et cetera), or are a real bliss to play gameplay-wise (Furi, Hollow Knight, Metroid, Hyper Light Drifter, Bayonetta, Zelda, et cetera), or completely suck me into a different world (Xenoblade, The Witcher, Dragon's Dogma, The Outer Worlds, Fall-out, Half-Life, Zelda, Divinity Original Sin, et cetera), or combine (luckily most of the games I play) above elements in all sorts of ways.

Games that overall do not tend to focus too much or preferably not at all (I know most games I have mentioned above have these elements in one way or the other in them, but as long as it is not a necessary part of the experience and preferably completely in the background or in a certain designated area in the menu or post-game related or something like that I don't mind) on collectibles and/or repetition.

In short, I prefer games that respect my time (sorry again for the long post, haha), help me colour my world, challenge me in a certain way and/or to a certain extent, but reward (be it either as a means or the ends, or both) me either sensorily, mentally and/or emotionally ...

...unlike "The Pit of 100 Trials" in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door... haha, hahahahahahahaha...(me laughing from insanity...).

I just (consciously) stumbled on this Pit (which I thought maybe was something like the trials in Zelda: The Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild)) because there was a side-quest related to it (otherwise I would have probably never entered at all) so I decided to enter half-way chapter 4 or 5 (with level 18) and found out it was a nice (be it just after 50 floors, for then I finally got more than 1 exp. per battle) way (be it a bit tedious, for the battles aren't that hard in Paper Mario, but everything else is so slow and repetitive...the text, the moves, the speed of the transitions, the music, et cetera, which isn't bad in the game itself, but starts to become a bit annoying when you fight not so hard battle after battle) to combine a few things (doing this side-quest, level-up a bit, earn some coins and trinkets here and there and learn more about my partners and enemies), only to stumble upon the last floor with the immediate realisation that it would be impossible for my current team to defeat what was lurking there in the deep, and yes, having to load a previous file before entering the Pits...all that time (mainly waiting for repetitive music, transitions and text and fairly easy battles to end) wasted, haha...hahahahaha...

I don't like it when games are designed in these kind of ways...and for me this would have been a reason to drop a game completely...be it that a friend of mine (the one that recommended and lend the game to me) keeps on telling me the end of the game is also good and I can just ignore the Pits all together (at least I hope that I do not have to come back here later for the main story, haha), so I will probably pick it up later to finish the main story.

And don't get me wrong, I like a challenge (looking specifically at you Hollow Knight, The Trials in BotW, and the post-game boss in Octopath, which I always do try for a few times just to have a taste of it, but immediately drop if I find out that I am not strong enough and only need to grind to beat it), but this was not a challenge, it was like being stuck as an adult in Kindergarten, doing easy equations which are slowly read to you by an irritating computer-voice with Dora-style questioning sprinkled in, and not being able to continu before everyone else has the correct answer to the question, and then when the test is finally over, they present you with an impossible last question, you fail and the whole test routine starts all over again...

Again, sorry for the long slightly off-topic introduction to a rant, but I dropped Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, mainly because of the "Pit of 100 Trials" which unfortunately shows Paper Mario's bad side for me, but will probably pick it up somewhere in the coming weeks to finish the main story (or else my friend will never leave me alone, haha ).

@Definitely-Not-Leon Indeed! The value of the demo
I think any game that is of a significant length or cost should have one if they can! Really helps.

Interesting, I LOVED the Pit of 100 trials. It was the last 'thing' I did after everything else was complete, so it was a fair breeze with all the best badges and super powered up. The very very last secret boss, not the first one you defeat, is a challenge though.

"In short, I prefer games that respect my time (sorry again for the long post, haha), help me colour my world, challenge me in a certain way and/or to a certain extent, but reward (be it either as a means or the ends, or both) me either sensorily, mentally and/or emotionally ..."

Yes, this makes sense to me. If it goes on and sticks with me in lessons learnt, life, colours my world, as you say, these are ones I like best. Things that stay beyond the initial playthrough. Influence my philosophy, appreciation of the music, inspire me on a creative or spiritual level. I like games that do this. I don't want to play for the sake of playing for the most part.

Secret of Mana was life changing for me, especially as an 8 year old, and everything about the game stuck with me.

Other notable examples, that also help make them some of my fav games of all time, Child of Light, Goemon 64, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Pokemon Blue, and Eternal Darkness.

@Potato-man
Agreed a million times over. I'm surprised I stuck it out, honestly. I had put too much work/time into it in terms of completion, so I decided to just stick out the last 10ish hours.

@Mana_Knight True that, demos should be standard for people to help with their research, though I must admit that I have never played a demo in my life. So far my "inner-radar" has been enough, haha.

And yeah, I should have known better to not keep on going until the very end of the Pits somewhere between chapter 4 and 5, without being properly trained and equipped and moreover without any items when I entered the Pits (so far I haven't really used much items in the main story, so mostly I walk around without any, haha), especially for the enemies after floor 50 I hadn't seen before, haha, and did hit me really hard when I didn't weaken or finish them before they could hit me . For me that was a nice puzzle-like challenge, that is, to figure out how to beat enemies that are tougher than me .

Somewhere I probably just hoped (or maybe even was convinced) that floor 100 would also be a safe zone with a chest in it and a warppipe back to the beginning, but unfortunately that wasn't the case, haha - so for that I still think it wasn't a nice experience at all and in my opinion, not a great choice by the developers, especially because you can almost leisurely (be it that it takes a lot of time due to the kind of slowness of the game itself and me challeging enemies while I was underpowered, haha) clear all the floors until the last floor without much training and items and preparations somewhere halfway throughout the game, but I think it is impossible to beat the last floor without knowing what you are up against (no puzzling skills could have saved me there, haha) , how to build your party and what to bring with you.

In a way it is just as the last (bonus) level in Super Mario 3D World (and there are a lot of other games that do this) where you do not have checkpoints, which results in having to play the first parts of the level over and over again (which become very easy and a bit tedious after a while), while you should in my opinion also be allowed to only try the last part over and over again (so without the first 2 or 3 parts of the level) and then if you really have that craving to finish the level in a single playthrough or as a speedrunner (I know that a lot of people are wired like that) or whatever than you can select that harder option (from the start or after finishing the checkpoint-option first, I don't care, haha, but it should be an option right off the bat, in my opinion).

Having said that, I will probably pick it up somewhere before Christmas to finish this little gem of a game on a much more lovely note, but I will probably not be going to the Pits again, haha .

Thanks for heartfully replying also on the part about my preferences in games (despite my rant, haha). I like to read stories like these from other peoples perspectives, it is also somthing that brings colour to the world . And yeah, Secret of Mana has been doing the same for me ever since my Brother got it for the Snes when I was four. We played it a lot back then and I still play the game every once in a while (something I barely do with games due to the size of my backlog and my love for first experiences) and listen to the music quite often (especially "The Dark Star" and "Spirit of the Night" make me zone out completely). Oohw and I think it also really helped in creating a extra strong bond with my brother that is lasting even till this day. Thanks again, good vibes, good vibes .

Outward

Not the worst game I've played recently, but there are multiple aspects about this experience I don't care for. Strike one, durability. I think it's one of the worst mechanics in video games. Strike two, the combat is stilted, not very elegant. Strike three, there's a weird compromise on voice work. If a character has voiced dialogue, only the first sentence is voiced.

The rest of what they're saying? You'll have to read that. It's very off putting. It would've been better to have zero lines of dialogue voiced.

Rhythm Heaven. While I love the franchise, I've almost 100% Tengoku (with no motivation to continue on my last three perfects), 100% DS (excluding Guitar Lessons Technical Course, it's hard to flick and press R on mobile), Fever lags horribly on emulator, and Megamix is fine except Fan Club lags horribly on Citra for some reason, making it impossible to beat Left-Hand Tower (I beat the first by sheer luck), so now I'm finding other franchises.

Gigantic Army
I don't like to race against the clock in an action/platforming game.

Hentai vs. Evil
Feels like an above-average student project.

Mortal Shell
Probably a fine soulslike...if you play it on a different platform. But the lower framerate on Switch makes this tough experience tougher.

Ugly
I need to come to terms with the fact that I am not good at puzzle games.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership

Just content to make money off of the modern audience. The battles are fun but the rest is pretty boring.

@NeonPizza animal well might be the most overrated game I've played in recent memory. I finished it, but it was annoying in many parts. The only thing keeping me pushing forward was that it was a 7-8 hr game. 2024 was an odd year for me in terms of gaming. I wasn't into some of the "bigger games" that I played last year, with animal well being one of them. Brothership was ok, nothing special. Ttyd was good, but not as good as the original or origami king imo. Crow country was just plain terrible to play because of the controls. Some other games I finished in 2024 that I didn't care for all that much either were hades, ghost trick, and ff 6 pixel remaster. I enjoyed 4 much more. Hoping 2025 is a banger though.

@NintendoByNature Interesting, I absolutely loved Crow Country. I've played through it more than once. I didn't have issue with the controls, besides the aiming being a bit janky, but a lot of the time you can just run around enemies.

I dropped Alisa though, the other RE inspired game that came out last year. I thought the controls were way worse in that one.

@NeonPizza
Pocky & Rocky Reshrined is awesome. I beat the game with every character.

@OldManHermit yea, maybe its just me. I love the RE series but I'm happy they've moved away from tank controls. A game I actually loved was heaven dust which doesn't get the attention it deserves. Haven't played Alisa yet but I will at some point.

@NintendoByNature Ah yes, I've played Heaven Dust 2. It's great. Similar to Crow Country in a lot of ways.

Urgh, I just wrote up a lengthy post about 2 beloved games from the past that I've really struggled to replay so dropped. I'll instead summarise in some bullet points.

Pokemon Crystal

• Replayed Gen 2 many times, however really feel it's lost its lustre on this occasion. Gen 1 has some quirks that I enjoy going back to, but I feel like Gen 2 is simply inferior to HGSS.
• Did power through and got to Red - although my team of ~lv46s wasn't enough for him so I gave up.

Beyond Good and Evil

• Picked this up on the Switch.
• Adored this back in 2015 when I played on XB360 - great setting, characters, music, world and collectables (photography, pearls).
• However, just didn't enjoy playing the game. Many aspects have aged poorly - janky combat, awkward platforming / camera, annoying stealth sections, and interactable objects / solutions to puzzles can be quite difficult to find.

Honestly BG&E is a prime candidate for a remake — all the core components are there to make it fantastic in 2025, just it hasn't aged very well. Not that I trust Ubisoft with a remake — that trailer for BG&E2 looked awful.

Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to drop Pikmin 4. I did at least get a good amount of treasures and rescued people, but I've gotten frustrated with the game on some occasions. Like when I have a lot of Pikmin get destroyed on me for example. I'm not a huge fan of the dandori challenges either. I don't think it's a bad game, I did have some fun with it and I do like the treasure hunting and rescuing aspects of it. But yeah... this is where I reached my limit. Maybe I'm terrible at Pikmin games, but I guess that's just how it is.

Well I can sadly say that I dropped Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Don't get me wrong it's a great game and definitely my GotY for 2024. It really hit that nostalgia vibe with me and really capture the feel of Indy to a T. It's probably the best Indy story since Last Crusade. It's just my game time is very limited and right now Avowed has taken that spot.

I just don't have time for two huge games and right now Avowed just has me hooked unlike any game I have played since WoW. Maybe cause it's a new IP to me (I haven't played Pillars of Eternity) and with Indy I pretty much know how it's going to end. Still though I plan to go back to it at some point but for now I am going to have to let it go.