Love - auto health or shield regen. When I first experienced that in Halo it made me instantly hate other games that didn’t have some form of that mechanic.

I hate managing health inventory items. It breaks gameplay flow with tedious bullshit that isn’t nearly as fun as focusing on the a combat mechanic.

Love:

• Base building. Fortifying against enemies and being creative is a blast.

• Exploration and big worlds. Games like Borderlands, Fallout and Far Cry with unique environments and ambiance.

Hate:

• Escort missions. After all these years they're still not fun.

• Excessive health bars. Having to carry several different kinds of potions, etc. One of my favorite games is Dark Cloud for the PS2, but I think it had health, mana, weapon health, thirst and effects like poison that never cleared until you took a certain potion. I believe I used a GameShark or similar to get rid of thirst and weapon health.

Not something I essentially hate, but I roll my eyes every time there is a running-out-of-a-crumbling-building-before-it-collapses scene in a game.

I love when games use as few invisible walls as possible, and don't stop you from exploring weird places or even out of bounds. There doesn't even have to be a reward, just the feeling of getting somewhere where you're not supposed to be is enough. Ultrakill and Anodyne 2 both do this really well.

I also love rich, responsive, low-restriction movement mechanics, which kinda ties in with the first point. I love when games let me chain all sorts of moves together for wild bullshit midair acrobatics, zipping and bouncing and flinging myself all over the place constantly. Good examples are Ultrakill, Pseudoregalia, Sally Can't Sleep, and Cruelty Squad. On the flipside, Demon Turf is a game I hated and dropped quickly because of how artificially and pointlessly limited the movement felt.

Starting with what I dislike: collectibles (or pickup upgrades). They spread these out over the levels and I find myself scouring the map to see if i didn't miss anything. It ruins the pacing of the game. Some examples of my recent plays that do this are the Last of Us games and the Mass Effect trilogy. If the game is build around exploring your surroundings, it's a different story of course.

What I really like in games is character building and i love it when a character improves depending on your playstyle. A very solid example is Skyrim's leveling system. It just feels more organic.

I strongly dislike ingame teleporting and pause menu quick travel. I'd much rather the game have more ways for me to get to where I'm going than simply materializing wherever I want to be.

Let the travel itself be part of the game instead of just a way to link the "real" parts of the game together. Make it fun and fast to move around, add unlockable shortcuts, add more in-universe traveling options. Let me get to where I'm going myself instead of doing it for me, and make it fun to do so.

Especially in open world games, not only is this the most true, but they're the worst offenders. Literally what is the point of making an open world and then letting people skip it? You see everything once and that's it. If you make an open world full of opportunities to wander and explore, and then players want to avoid it as much as possible via teleportation, you have failed as a designer.

Hate:

• Un-skippable cutscenes or tutorials. This really hampers replayability of missions/quests, or even entire games in general.
• Artificially limited customization in order to sell more via micro-transactions.
• Time-gated features. I hate it when games require a certain amount of in-game time before some things are unlocked.
• Pay-to-win in multiplayer games. Preventing or limiting progression with ability to bypass it with a purchase is just gross. If you want to go F2P, do it all the way. I'm fine with for-purchase cosmetics, but getting a leg up on fellow players if you can afford it is just bad.

Love:

• Don't have anything specific. Anything that sucks me into the game.

The junction system in Final Fantasy VIII. The magic system is based on the amount of spells you have left in an inventory and you can also equip them to your character's stats. If you don't take the time to acquaint yourself with the system your stats will take a dive because you're casting spells like in a more traditional game. The upside to this is if you hoard enough spells and equip them to the right stats you can be unstoppable since early game.

I love simple controls or an elegant way to control simply. For example using one thumb to control two buttons simultaneously or the Super Mario Run control scheme where you only press on the touch screen, doesn't matter where, and that's it.

I hate it when in co-op game the other player's actions can screw up the game e.g. moving the screen too far so the other player dies.