I enjoy GTA games mainly for the sheer spectacle on display. They are huge games with budgets to match. I don't think any of the GTA games have ever actually been fun to play, at least when it comes to the core shooting and their main mission design. For being a series that has a lot of freedom to do whatever in the open world, the missions are always extremely restrictive and sometimes frustratingly janky. I feel like every GTA has a mission that demands you do a specific jump onto a running train or something that can, and will frequently go wrong, instantly killing you. Other games would make this a scripted thing that's very difficult to fail so you can get the satisfaction of doing a cool looking setpiece, but in GTA if you don't line up your motorcycle just right or whatever you will just repeatedly eat it.

The comedy clubs you can visit in GTA IV are funny simply for how dated they are now. I love the 45 second long Ricky Gervais bit where he's just not particularly funny.

A game almost certainly made in response to the very negative reaction people had to the reveal of Wind Waker. Here you go, everyone, here's the brown, mature Zelda you were asking for. More Ocarina of Time! A very derivative Zelda game built around the reverence for OoT. It's still a fun game, but it's just not that great either. The spinner is a very cool dungeon item that does not get nearly enough use. Some of the dungeons and boss fights are pretty inventive, though.

For as much complaining there was back then that Wind Waker was a baby game for babies... Twilight Princess's difficulty sure does feel like it was tuned with babies in mind. The final boss only does a half heart of damage with every hit. The only way you are dying in this game is if you are doing a 3 heart challenge run and you happen to be wearing the Zora armor when you get shot by a Bokoblin's fire arrow.

I played this game a ton as a kid and loved it, but even back then I had a hard time playing it after Battle Network 2 came out. They already nailed the fundamentals of its battle system here, but the design of its dungeons and a lot of other little issues with the way its objectives were designed drag it down a lot. I never want to do that electric power plant dungeon again.

Battle Network has always had pretty bad dungeon design, but 2 onwards improved so many other systems (and the design of the internet itself) in a way that makes the flaws of this first game really stick out.

not even done yet but jesus christ this is so miserable, i am literally only able to do the droll sidequesting msq content by turning my brain off for an hour or two at a time and skipping every line of dialog because if i invest any more thought than that into this game i feel like i might never want to play another video game in my life. it is insane how dragon quest 10's first version bodies everything arr sets out to do effortlessly when it came out a year earlier and also wasn't a second draft like a realm reborn is. if ff14 ends up being something like xenoblade 2 where it doesn't even get nearly good enough to make up for how much time you waste to get to the "good" part i am so sincerely never playing a game on suggestion of my friends again.

my au ra is cute at least though

epic games preservation fail: secrets permanently out of stock. there was once a wonder of the ancient gaming world here. but now it is covered in stainless steel and rebar. very few people explore in hyrule anymore. now, its visitors are mostly tourists. if a game like this was released today, people would rightfully call its core design hopelessly naive.

zelda 1 was always meant to be solved with a little bit of help- whether it be homemade maps, schoolyard secret swapping, or good old Nintendo Power™. but that does not mean that the years have been kind to the game. the world map itself remains unchanged 35+ years later. it's us who have changed around it. a whole cottage industry has sprung up on teaching people how to finish video games. sure, guide magazines existed in the 80s. but the rugged, chunky open world is cut through like mist with the guided tours that clutter the first several pages of google search results. the exact amount of help you'll need in this game isn't even clear until you've already spoiled yourself, and the vast, vast majority of people Will need help to get to the end of this game.

miyamoto famously created this game to evoke the feeling from his childhood of trying to piece together surroundings he didn't understand, organically discovering surprises along the way. as a society, no matter how we try and ignore it, we always have a perfect map in our backpack.