recent: tears of the kingdom, or as i like to call it botw 1.2, its the same thing all over again just with one or two added gimicks, the open world is dead, npcs are boring and nintendo just got away with it like that
not so recent: i cant stand persona 5, joker and his entourage are annoying teenagers, the time management is a horrible gameplay addition and the artstyle is just a visual overstimulation
with that being said,~~ plz dont kill me~~
Hollow Knight. It feels gross af to die only to have to walk like 10 minutes back to the boss I die to again, and the exploration is some of the least rewarding in the metroidvania genre imo.
Same reason I hated Dark Souls 2. I felt like I spent more time walking back to the boss battles after every attempt. For such a popular game you think they would at least learn to add checkpoints before bosses.
I’m kinda in the same boat. The music and atmosphere were interesting and the exploration was okay until it wasn’t. Still haven’t beaten it :(