It’s great that modern games include so many realistic elements because it shows how far technology has come and blurs the line between real life and virtual worlds. But being realistic doesn’t always win points with gamers.
Some realistic features feel satisfying, while others get downright weird and annoying. In part one, we covered 5 games that were so realistic they actually lost their fun factor. Now, let’s dive back in.
Weapon Durability – The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild
The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild received tons of praise when it launched in 2017. But one feature almost no one liked was weapon durability. Swords, clubs, axes, and more all have limited uses, and once they break, they’re completely destroyed if you keep using them.
This system was added to make the game feel more realistic compared to most others on the market. The developers didn’t want players hacking away endlessly without weapons taking damage. But this durability mechanic caused plenty of headaches for players.
Some argue this encourages players to experiment with new weapons and adds realism. But if the weapon selection in Breath Of The Wild was truly exciting, players would have explored it long before their sword broke. Plus, there are still plenty of unrealistic elements in the game, yet the devs insisted on keeping weapon durability. It’s a puzzling choice.
Item Weight – Skyrim
Skyrim is set in a fantasy world with incredibly detailed environments. But one feature backfired. Every item has a weight, which starts off feeling unimportant. But as you collect more stuff, your inventory gets heavier until you hit a limit.
When overloaded, you can’t run, can’t use carts, and most annoyingly, can’t fast travel. You’re forced to move at a snail’s pace until you drop some items. This frustrates players who love hoarding and hate leaving anything behind.
Blink Button – Alone In The Dark
This horror game is tough to play. It has a cool crafting system letting you combine items to make better weapons or tools.
But it also has a very annoying blinking mechanic. Early on, the game tells you to spam a button to blink so you can see clearly. Later, you have to keep blinking to wash blood and poison out of your eyes, depending on the enemies you just fought.
Having to blink while fighting is bad enough, but then spamming a button repeatedly gets old fast. This mechanic repeats so often it becomes pointless, frustrating players and ruining the experience. It was meant to add realism, but it just backfired.
Horse “Balls” Shrinking – Red Dead Redemption II
Rockstar spent a lot of time perfecting tiny details in Red Dead Redemption II to make its world feel alive and believable. This makes the game epic, but also a bit annoying.
Almost every action has its own animation, from skinning animals to grabbing items to playing dominoes. At first, these are fun, but over time players find the animations waste time. They’d rather just press a button and have the character instantly pick up items than watch unnecessary motions.
But the strangest and most pointless detail is that Rockstar made the horses’ testicles shrink when it’s cold. Most of the time you won’t notice or care about this, so creating an animation just for that feels like a bizarre and pointless use of developer time.
Real-Time Climbing – Shenmue II
Most games let you travel quickly between locations, but Shenmue II doesn’t. In fact, as the game progresses, the developers want to make you spend more time traveling. At one point, protagonist Ryo Hazuki must reach Bailu Village in Guilin, where his father’s killer is hiding.
You might expect a fade-out or cutscene showing Ryo running there. Nope. Shenmue II forces you to climb the mountain in real time, which takes about two hours. You do have a few tasks along the way, but mostly you just control Ryo walking through the forest. Just hearing that sounds exhausting. Unlike real life, where hiking builds fitness, here the graphics are mediocre, the dialogue dull, and the trek drags on for two hours. It’s hard not to yawn.
Source: What Culture, translated by gearvn
