I’ve never really found turn-based games to be all that fun. A few have had a good enough story or some other mechanic to make them interesting but it’s just not really my thing, for some reason. (It’s not just a video game thing. A bunch of my friends play poker or complex board games and I’d usually rather watch than play.)

So, something like the Final Fantasy series or Pokémon games would be my answer. Everyone loves Final Fantasy and Pokémon. I’m clearly the weird one. And I probably would love them if they were more action-oriented.

Grew up on retro console and then fully grew with PC gaming as it grew and matured in the 90s. Tried Halo once in 2003 and the graphics and gameplay for death match were so consummately uncreative I pitied console gamers ever since.

I'm right with you on Stardew Valley. Might be because I'm a city kid but I just can't connect with the game. I know that it's supposed to be "cosy" but my idea of cosy is a downtown apartment, not a farm. It just doesn't work for me.

It's not like I totally didn't enjoy it, but Red Dead Redemption 2. The game was good in many ways, and I totally get why it's so we'll loved, but I just have nothing with the setting. I don't like cowboys, I don't like playing as an asshole who makes bad decision after bad decision, and I also don't like a setting where women are basically property. Just not really my vibe. I just came from Cyberpunk 2077 and the contrast was quite big, even though Cyberpunk is supposed to be more dystopian

I played one Resident Evil game for 5 minutes, and gave up because of the fucking stupid controls.

Outside of that, probably Halo. I've tried several of them because I loved first-person shooters, but they just felt a little soulless to me, and unbelievably slow compared to the likes of Unreal Tournament, Quake, and Doom.

KotoR and Mass Effect. They both just feel so stilted.

Warframe. Shooty and jumpy. OK. No strategy. Just shooty big guns. Boring. Compare to helldivers 2. No jumpy allllllll strategy. This or that syrategem? Throw or hide? Which objective first?

I'm with you on Witcher 3, I've tried 4 times to play and like it. Not happening.

I agree with both of those and will add in Deep Rock Galactic.

Any of the soulsborne games.

If your game is advertised as being "extremely difficult", it just means it is lacking tons of quality of life features and goes out of its way to punish the player by making them repeat the same slog over and over. It is quite easy to make a difficult game, much harder to make a fun game.

Just imagine how much better and shorter Dark Souls would have been with a marker telling you where to go, instead of you fumbling around going through the same areas because you have no idea where to go next. It artificially lengthens the game.

But the worst part about those types of games is the community. They go insane when you even propose an easy or story mode. As if the the difficulty is the only redeeming quality those games have.

I don't have to "git gud", I can just close the game and never play it again while I enjoy actual good games.

My first Mario Game was Super Mario World, as such I don't understand why Mario 1 and 3 are so beloved. Groundbreaking they might be, fun they are not.

Any time I got the Mario All Stars Cartridge out and said to myself "I am completing Mario 3 today", after a while my mind went "or I could actually enjoy a round of Mario World" and did that instead.

All Mario games except for any Mario Kart. I didn’t even like the games as a kid, and I still don’t get their appeal because to me the platforming aspects are simplistic and not engaging enough. I can enjoy other platformers though.

You gotta mod the shit out of Stardew. I quickly find myself spending more time playing around with code pertaining to it than actually playing lol

I don't know if they're considered "universally beloved". But the Total War series of games theoretically should be directly up my alley based on every other game I play, but for some reason they've never clicked for me.

Hearthstone, even back when it was new and not excessively monetized, I just couldn't get into it.

DotA, the original Warcraft 3 custom map, and every moba afterwards. I just can't find enjoyment in how it plays.

Witcher 2 with its semi-open-semi-linear gameplay has definitely been a better experience in terms of pacing and story. Witcher 3 had quite the environment to wander around in a slow pace and is a much, much larger game with a good enough polish in my opinion, but can be very overwhelming with how many hours it requires for a balanced gameplay.

Dave the Diver. FromSoft games. All online games. Sonic anything.

Lol, the two games you listed are some of my most played games of all time, especially in the last few months.