Popular Game Series I Could Never Get Into

I love playing video games and discovering more games to play, but there will always be standalone or series that are just not for me. I may look at them and not see the appeal at all. Some players who are my friends can tell me how great those games are but nothing persuades me to give them a chance.

You all know by now that I don’t have any interest in playing MMOs or MMORPGs, Battle Royales, or any heavily multiplayer-focused games of any kind, but there are also other games out there that are not entirely just that, some of them are single-player or a combination of both, and they are just not my cup of tea. In this article, I will be talking about some popular game franchises that I just can never get into, starting with:

The Legend of Zelda

It’s been around forever and I even saw my brother play Wind Waker once. Some of the games in this series have been regarded as some of the greatest games ever but it’s just not for me. I’m sure the adventure, story, and characters may seem great but I just couldn’t get into it because it just feels misleading to me.

Think about it, the titular character, Princess Zelda herself, is actually not the playable protagonist, unfortunately. It seems to me that each and every game that has been released in this series, is about Link on a different quest each time with different challenges that all lead to rescuing her from the antagonist, and you know how much I hate the damsel in distress cliche. It baffles me because Zelda seems more than capable of taking care of herself, like, she knows how to wield powerful magic and she is my second-best character for me in the Smash Bros. games. But no, in these games you are always Link regardless of how much potential Zelda has to be a protagonist. The developers simply refuse to give her a stronger role, even a game of her own, for the dumbest reasons ever and that is just a complete turnoff for me. So yeah, it’s a pass.

Minecraft

Everyone knows this popular sandbox game and I never understood what’s so great about it. Some people call themselves gamers and play nothing but this. I have friends who are into it, but I just have no interest in ever playing it. I do love games that involve crafting and building, but not this one. Maybe it’s the graphics, or its popularity, I just think I would rather spend my time doing something else.

The Last of Us

There are many games with a post-apocalyptic setting and enemies that have come from that apocalypse, and I enjoy those games very much for their rich characters and emotional storytelling that is very cinematic. But TLOU, no, I didn’t know why but I couldn’t understand why this series was extremely popular when I first heard of it. Was it something about the way the characters were written or was the gameplay outstanding or something? I just couldn’t see it no matter how hard I tried.

Then when the second game was out three years ago, I had a reason to just disregard this series even more when it won tons of awards that I felt should have gone to games that I thought were even better. I felt like critics, who were, unfortunately, the majority of voters, only praised the game for its increased number of LGBTQ characters. But a game shouldn’t become, in my mind, an award-winning title for political correctness and diversity, because sometimes devs focus on that too much that it results in the expense of good writing of characters and plot. If you’re going to add a lesbian or trans character to your story, at least make an effort to write a good arc for them that makes them interesting so they are more than just their gender identity or sexual orientation. One of my friends said she doesn’t want to play the second game because of Joel being killed off, but she loves the first game.

The first game is being remastered, along with a PC port but I don’t have any interest in playing it because even after all the controversy with part II, I just still never got what makes this series so special compared to so many other games with a similar theme that I just found more enjoyable.

Grand Theft Auto

I’m not really into games about crime, drugs, gangs, and all that shit so it’s no wonder I never had any interest in playing GTA. Not to mention what really turns me off about it is not just the culture, but the sexism too. A lot of times they put women, half-naked sometimes, on the covers of their games but do you ever play as a woman in any of these games? No, never. In fact you can even go to fucking strip clubs in these games and even get private sessions with one of those girls if you like. I remember I once walked in on my brother doing just that in the fifth game and I immediately grimaced and left the room.

I also found out that the cofounder of these games stated that there are no female protagonists because in his disgustingly sexist mind, the games are all about the concept of masculinity. I may be good at separating creation from the creator, but even I have my limits on how much I can do that. So yeah, if the games’ themes just aren’t my thing, then that’s fine, but stating a message like that as to why you won’t broaden your horizons with who are the protagonists, then no, you won’t be getting a dime from me. There’s nothing wrong with good male protagonists but still, my point still stands.

I will be getting into RDR2 but GTA is an easy pass for me.

Final Fantasy

I never was into JRPGs, and while I do love some manga series and a couple of animes when it comes to Japanese media, I mean, Pokemon technically counts as a JRPG but that’s as far as I go. This series is so vast and if I was genuinely interested, I wouldn’t know where to begin, so I just stay out of it. Or maybe what it really is, is that I’m not into games with characters that are anime-ish and would prefer to stick to watching or reading that stuff from time to time.

The gameplay is not for me either, most of it is turn-based combat to my knowledge. I will acknowledge that some of the remasters of these games look really well done, I’m probably just pissed that the remake of the seventh game’s OST won over DOOM Eternal in the 2020 Game Awards. The lore doesn’t seem to appeal to me either, it just feels like a bunch of things thrown together that are too confusing so yeah I’ll just let my friends enjoy this franchise instead.

Kingdom Hearts

Another SquareEnix game? I’m starting to sound biased, aren’t I? I love Disney, I do, but this series was just one of those that I thought was a really weird concept for me, mixing Disney characters with anime. Therefore, I just couldn’t get into it. One thing that actually made me cringe with these games was Sora’s creepy smile when he takes selfies with any of the characters in their respective realms.

I know that’s small feature in the game but other than that, the theme just never appealed to me so I will just stick to Dreamlight Valley thank you very much.

Call Of Duty

One time I thought about playing a couple of COD games, but only for the story. My brother mentioned that the only COD games that had a solid story, in his opinion, were MWII and the first Black Ops. But when a new MWII dropped recently, I had trouble distinguishing it from the MWII my brother was talking about, whether it was a remake or a completely different game.

Other than that, I never was into FPS games that are just all military-based. I mean, Halo is one thing, but COD just seems too mainstream for me and its multiplayer is pretty toxic. Plus with the devs releasing a new game every year, I just don’t think I’d ever be able to keep up so yeah, not for me.

And those are the games that just aren’t my cup of tea. Sometimes there is a deeper reason and sometimes there isn’t, no matter how hard I try, I cannot fathom why they are loved so much but I am not going to hate on these games, even if some of my words sounded like hate for some of them, I will assure you that it isn’t hate.

Different strokes for different folks right? I mean, I was inspired by fellow blogger Hannie to finally put up my own version of this topic.

What are some big games that you’re not into?

👽Emily