The fact that games today possess many realistic elements is truly commendable, as it not only marks a success in the technology field but also blurs the lines between reality and the virtual world. However, not all realism earns points in the eyes of gamers.
There are aspects of realism that can be quite enjoyable, but there are also those that bring about such absurdity that they become bothersome. In the previous part, we explored 5 games that are so hyper-realistic that they lose their charm, and 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 a lot of praise right at its launch in 2017. However, there is one element in the game that hardly anyone likes: weapon durability. Items like swords, sticks, and axes all have a limited number of uses; once that limit is reached, they break, and if you stubbornly continue to use them, they shatter completely.
This feature is merely the developers’ attempt to make the game feel more realistic compared to most other titles on the market. They didn’t want gamers to hack away freely while their weapons remained unscathed. Yet, this durability mechanism has led to numerous frustrations for players.
Some might argue that this mechanism encourages players to experiment with new weapons and increases realism… But if the weapon inventory in Breath Of The Wild were actually interesting, players would have explored it long ago without waiting for their swords to break before searching for new ones. As for realism, there are still many other absurd elements in the game, yet the developers insist on including this durability mechanism. It’s truly puzzling.
Item Weight – Skyrim
Skyrim is designed as a fantasy land with highly convincing details. However, there’s one detail that backfires. All items in the game have a certain weight, which at first doesn’t seem too important. But gradually, as you collect more items, your inventory becomes heavier, reaching a limit.
When you become “overloaded” like this, you can’t run, can’t use carts, and especially can’t use the “fast travel” feature. Essentially, you’ll have to move at a snail’s pace until you drop some items – a rather annoying situation for those who love hoarding and don’t want to discard anything from their inventory.
Button Mashing to Blink – Alone In The Dark
This is a horror game, but it’s quite a struggle to play. The game’s concept is pretty good with an item combination system that allows players to craft weapons or more useful items.
However, alongside this feature is the rather annoying blinking mechanism. At the beginning of the game, the screen displays a line instructing you to “spam” a button to blink, helping you see everything more clearly. Later on, you have to continue to blink to wash away blood and poison from your eyes, depending on the enemy you just defeated.
When fighting an opponent, you have to blink, and now you also have to continuously mash a button, which is quite bothersome. Moreover, this mechanism is repeated so often that it becomes pointless, not only frustrating gamers but also diminishing the overall experience. Clearly, this mechanism was added to make Alone In The Dark more realistic, but unfortunately, it backfires!
Horse Testicles Shrinking – Red Dead Redemption II
Rockstar has spent a lot of time perfecting the small details in Red Dead Redemption II with the aim of making the game world more vibrant and convincing. On one hand, this makes Red Dead Redemption II incredibly grand, but on the other hand, it can be somewhat bothersome for players.
Specifically, almost every action in the game has its own animation. From skinning animals to picking up an item, to playing dominoes… everything has its own animation. Initially, these animations seem interesting, but gradually, players begin to feel that this animation time is quite wasteful; it would be better to just press a button for the main character to pick up items immediately instead of sitting there watching unnecessary actions.
However, the most amusing and pointless thing in this game is that Rockstar has designed the horse’s testicles to shrink when it gets cold. Most of the time, you won’t see or pay attention to this part of the horse, so creating a shrinking animation for the horse’s testicles seems like a completely idle and puzzling effort by the developers.
Real-Time Mountain Climbing – Shenmue II
In most games, moving between locations is usually quite fast, but in Shenmue II, the developers chose not to go that route. As the game progresses, they become increasingly unwilling to save time for players. At this point, the main character Ryo Hazuki is guided to the village of Bailu in Guilin, where it is believed the enemy who killed Ryo’s father is hiding.
At this point, you would expect the game to fade out to transition to the village, or show a cutscene of Ryo running to the village. But no, my friends.
Shenmue II forces players to climb mountains in real-time, and this journey takes about 2 hours to complete. Along the way, there are a few things you need to do, but most of the time, players will have to control Ryo to walk through the entire forest, and just hearing that sounds exhausting. In real life, this helps improve fitness, but in this game, the graphics aren’t beautiful, the dialogues are dull, and it stretches on for a full 2 hours. It’s strange if gamers don’t find themselves yawning during this segment.
Source: What Culture, translated by gearvn