I got Super Mario Bros. Wonder day one and it made me realize I don't like Mario nearly as much as I thought I did. And I already knew I liked Mario less than most people. It kinda made me realize the only games in the series I truly loved were Super Mario World and Bowser's Fury. If you include the alternate character spinoffs you can add Yoshi's Island to the list.

It's definitely the best 2D Mario since NSMB DS, there's nothing wrong with it and it's the most creative 2D Mario since World...but it still fails to stick in my mind the way Kirby games, Sonic games, Mega Man games, and more do. It was fun but it didn't wow me and I thought it was too easy (am I crazy or are 2D Mario games easier than Kirby games?) I'm glad I played it but I wish I picked it up sometime in the upcoming period when the Switch is completely removed from being current but not old enough to be retro.

What I've noticed about myself is that I'd pick a Sonic game that's considered "decent" or "debatable" over a comparable Mario game that people consider a GOTY candidate easily. with very few exceptions. And while Wonder vs. Superstars is an exception, it's only because of how godawful Superstars' bosses are.

D4, Starfield, Cities Skylines 2, and Mortal Combat 1. D4 and Starfield are self explanatory. CS2 is my biggest disappointment in years. Paradox killed whatever good will it had left by forcing the demise of CO. Under no circumstances should CS2 released this year. There's no mods. It doesn't function in any meaningful way. It's a performance nightmare. CS1 danced on the grave of SimCity and committed all the same sins a decade later. Don't listen to anybody that says the game has potential. They're sitting on 2000+ assets they can't release because they can't import buildings into their own city building game post release. That's how bad it is. Cities Skylines 2 was dead on arrival and it took the community 4 months to realize it.

MC1 isn't worthy of the K. It's just a slog. I don't know how much they fixed it but that doesn't break the fact that cameos are a major turnoff. Or that it has the worse progression system of recent MK games. Or that it's sitting on potentially one of the biggest rosters MK ever had but culled itself in half by reserving half the characters for cameos. Tekken 8 and SF6 have lapped MK hard this generation. Hell even Strive and DBFZ have taken steps to stay more relevant than MK1.

And you know what the kicker is? I bought all these games at the same time. I've been playing the clip of Totalbicsuit singing we don't pre-order games a lot lately.

Diablo 4. No doubt Diablo 4. Guess I never hated something as much as I hate buying Diablo 4

Recently purchased? Fallout 76. God, it could’ve been great.

Elden Ring. The game is just too obnoxiously hard. I don't mind difficulty, I finished Doom Eternal and all its DLC on nightmare. But Elden Ring seemingly makes very little effort to teach me its mechanics, whereas Doom Eternal's mechanics felt pretty intuitive after just a little bit of trial and error.

As far as FromSoft games go, I had a much better time with Sekrio. That game had a good tutorial, and that ghost dude who would help you practice the more difficult aspects of the combat.

Everything AAA not on sale.

The last time I had video game buyer’s remorse was getting RAGE on launch day.

What a technically interesting, but utterly underwhelming game.

Recent? None right now, but I also rarely buy games nowadays.

If we’re able to go outside of recent times, I’m still pretty salty about buying fuckin RPG Maker 2 & 3 on the PS2 without having a way to connect my PS2 to the internet.

Jedi Survivor. It's not a bad game, I just suck at it. Can't get past the first boss on easy mode. Getting old is annoying. I struggle with a lot of PC games now.

Warhammer 40k: Mechanicus

I thought it was gonna be like an XCom or Divinity Original Sin kinda combat game.

Maybe it is? I don’t think so, but the UI and controls are so bad that I never really figured out how to play, and there’s no tutorial, so I can’t say for sure what kind of game it actually is.

All I figured out in my 2ish hours is that it’s not a game for me.

Squad. Looking for a more serious FPS game other than the popular shooters like CoD or Battlefield. Got a rec for it, so why not. Went to buy it and it’s $50. Well, the reviews looked mostly ok, and so did the screenshots… so I bit.

Man, the game plays like it’s 10-15 years old. Slow, clunky and the graphics leave room for improvement. Very dated. I don’t think I’d mind this game for the $15-25 range, but not $50. I returned it. I think probably the second game ever I returned.

Mafia. The story is good, but you are basically watching a movie with driving and shooting in-between cut scenes. The player has zero choice or influence over the game.

Idk if this counts as recent but breath of the wild. Idk the last time I spent $60 on a game, let alone the $100 I spent on botw + DLC, because "how can literally everyone be wrong about this game".

The combat was fun for a decent amount of time but at a certain point I asked myself "wtf am I doing". I didn't care about the story because it was awful and the voice acting was embarrassing. Exploring the world felt incredibly shallow, with the most exciting thing to randomly run into being recycled mini bosses that rewarded me with weapons that I didn't need. Any challenge the combat or exploration presented could be bypassed by grinding for potions.

By far the most bafflingly over hyped game I've ever played.

Not just the games, but the whole of the PSVR2.

I really liked the Horizon games, so I bit thinking it’d be more like the others but in VR.

Gameplay is much different. It looks cool, but if the gameplay is balls it doesn’t matter how good it looks.

All the other games I got make me sick to my stomach. VR is a niche and an acquired taste.

Hogwarts Legacy on Switch. I should have known better, but my local Walmart had it on sale for $29.99 a few weeks ago and I bought on impulse after reading a few posts about how it's gotten better after updates. I've had glitches galore. Mad pop-in, falling through geometry, crashes, and two save game corruptions, all in the most up-to-date version available. If this is better, I can't imagine how broken it was at launch. I feel like I got $5 of content out of this. If the glitches were at least amusing, I might be ok with it, but the save corruption is just unacceptable.

Ready or not Gameplay is pretty fun with the homies But for a $40USD game some maps are powerpoint slide shows on high in hardware 20-30fps on the house map.

For refrence Pc specs I5-10400 6700xt 32gb of ddr4 Game makes if feel like im playing on a toaster oven

Red Dead Redemption 2 only because I bought it for full price a month ago.

Recent? None so far.

Somewhat old? Civilization III. I ordered it like 5 years ago and was trying to scratch the itch left by Call to Power II, but the multiplayer is flaky at best on LAN and the tech tree just isn't interesting to me. Later entries also have the "tech tree doesn't interest me" thing and also don't scratch the Call to Power itch (they don't have the wacky future tech like hover tanks and eco-warfare) but they also look a lot more visually interesting at least.

I miss when stacking was a thing in Civ. Sure it was relatively unbalanced, but that's part of the fun in my experience.

/end grandpa rant