Games I Regretted Buying in 2020

2020 was a terrible year to be alive but a surprisingly great year to be playing games. From Hades to The Last of Us Part II, this year saw the releases of some of my favorite games of the past generation. However, glutton that I am, I was not always satisfied with the bountiful feast before me. There were times when my better instincts faltered, overtaken by some depraved part of me that enjoys spending money more than it enjoys playing good games.

1. Spelunky 2

If I were at the state fair and saw a sign that said "set your dick on fire for $20," I would pass. But Spelunky 2 doesn't just set your dick on fire; it does it over and over again. And I guess that makes it a good deal.

2. Ghost of Tsushima

Usually, after I drop $60 on a game, I at least try to make myself like it. I'll overlook obvious flaws, or even make excuses for them. But with Ghost of Tsushima, I couldn't fool myself. As soon as I got into the open world and popped up the map, my eyes rolled so far back into my skull that they never came back out and now I have to type on a braille keyboard.

3. Dicey Dungeons

I wanted to like this game, I swear. But none of the charm of the premise translates into the game, which is boring and repetitive and way too luck-based to be fun. Not even the art can save the game because 95% of the screen is taken up by the fugly UI.

4. Observer

Maybe this game's fine on other systems but on the Switch it's like staring at a cyberpunk-themed Deadly Premonition through cum-smeared glasses.

5. 198X

The only explanation for this game's writing is that it was written by a thirteen year-old rich kid who has no actual concept of nostalgia, the 1980s, or what it's like to be an "outcast." Maybe it was for a class assignment or something, in which case they probably got a C.

Observer System Redux on PS5 was great. Can't speak to the Switch version though...

Doom Eternal. Hated all the platforming and quit after a few hours.

"Maybe this game's fine on other systems but on the Switch it's like staring at a cyberpunk-themed Deadly Premonition through cum-smeared glasses"

That is very evocative ;-)

Watch Dogs Legion

Not a horrible game, but I should never have outright bought it.. Should have just bought a month of Uplay+ (or whatever they're callin it now) and had my fill!

I actually don't have any gaming regrets in 2020.
I played Cyberpunk for an hour and got it refunded, so no money lost.
I spent some time on Doom Eternal that I regret but it was on gamepass, so not sure if that counts.

That Observer description is one of my favourite sentences I've ever read on this website, so thanks for that. I enjoyed it enough that I'll overlook your distaste for my favourite game of the year... though maybe I just like getting my dick set on fire over and over again.

Doom Eternal- hated the resource management and juggling all the cooldowns

Watch dogs legion- seemed less than the sum of it's parts.

I know I should regret buying Marvel's Avengers. I mean I think I do, It's not a good game, for many reasons which have been highlighted all over the internet... but I keep going back to it when I want a mindless podcast game. Every time I boot it up I acknowledge it's a bad game. Christ I'm an idiot.

I bought Bloodstained on the Switch. I'm not good at it and I don't like it. I suspect those two things are related.

PS Now has been very useful to try games and say 'yey' or 'nay' to them without stumping up the actual purchase price.

I bought CONTROL in 2020, and I think it's a great game but it was a frustrating experience on my ps4 pro, because of the loading times.

Regretted buying it. Felt like I was tricked into buying a bad product with the idea being that I will then pay for a good version too

I regret buying the Control season pass on Xbox One, only to see them announce a month later, their ultimate edition, which for only a few bucks more then what I spent on the season pass, comes with the new gen version of the game. Especially since that game runs like horse shit on the Xbox One, so they should probably just give that away to anyone who had to put up with that anyways.

I am pretty selective on what I buy, so least I am happy about spending money on is the Masterchief collection. I never played any of the Halo games before other than multiplayer at friends houses so I decided to see what the big deal is and I have played Halo 1,2 and 3 and oh boy the campaign in those games sure aren't great. I can see the appeal with the multiplayer, but as someone who bought the collection simply for the campaigns yeah so far the first 3 games on the collections are kinda duds.

final fantasy 7 remake, totally hated the sidestuff they used to drag out the game.

What a snoozefest.

Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing. I was very much in the Jeff camp on AC, and I didn't like Doom Eternal for over muddying the very fun, old school-esque combat of DOOM. The kicker was my wife and daughter had flown to visit the grandparents, and the trip got extended due to lockdowns beginning, schools closing, an us starting to prepare for a move... so basically I was alone in a small apartment for 2 months with 2 games I had been super amped for... and realizing neither were for me.

I think I bought Indivisible early in the year. I didn't care for how specific the platforming got for the controls, which is a shame because I enjoyed the Valkyrie Profile-like combat system well enough.

Kingdoms of Amalur Re-Reckoning is proof rose-tinted glasses can kick in after 9 years.

Desperados 3 just wasn't for me.

There are a bunch of other games that I would consider to have pretty significant problems, but they're already mentioned in this thread, and the games I mentioned are the only ones I specifically dropped and didn't finish.

For me it was Animal Crossing. Absolute misfire of an AC game in everything but the graphics. The museum is A++++ but everything else falls extremely flat. For one, it's missing a lot of the NPC and item variety of previous games. The villager dialogue also reached a new low, and makes New Leaf's look like Shakespeare. Repeated dialogue is more prevalent than ever, the dialogue sounds like Mad Libs 90% of the time, and the personality types have been flattened to an absurd degree. Long gone is the "cranky" type, now you just get slightly tired, but still chipper old men.

And honestly the game could still be good if those were the only issues. My two biggest problems are the crafting system and the amount of control you have over your island. I don't need to say any more about crafting other than I don't feel like it's a welcome addition to the AC gameplay. Player control is more of a higher-concept, nebulous complaint. I get that a lot of people like love to decorate, and I'm sure this game is amazing to them, but I feel like having 100% control over every aspect of how your town looks kind of kills the magic of Animal Crossing. AC is not about being an all-powerful God that can raise mountains and carve out rivers, it's about being a normal shmuck making a living like any other townsfolk. In the old games, your town was what you got. The river was the river and most of the time you couldn't even pick where the bridges were. That may seem like a limitation at first, but I think it's key to making your town feel like a physical place. Being able to change all that makes it less of a town and more of an artist's canvas. Great if you're creative, less so if you're not. (also by being fully customizable, the island is always super angular and blocky - no curved lines anywhere. really ruins the style IMO)

Well that was kind of a long rant. Animal Crossing is kinda dead to me now. The seed of this different kind of game was planted in New Leaf and bloomed in New Horizons. I don't see how Nintendo would get away with scaling it back to the old style of games now, especially considering how well NL and NH sold. So RIP AC I guess. I think it's telling that I played way more Pocket Camp than New Horizons this year

Yeah, 198X has a great soundtrack, but it's not worth getting as there's not enough to it gameplay-wise, and the story/VO/writing is cringe-worthy. I didn't get it, but I watched it on YouTube as I discovered it is extremely short. Mine might be Red Faction: Remarstered. I also have it on Xbox 360, but I couldn't finish it there either. The game isn't bad, but I don't enjoy it enough to get through it, so I played very little of the 'remarster'.

There wasn't anything new that came out this year in which I regretted getting. It's a bit off-topic because I wouldn't say I regretted it, but a game I, unfortunately, can't muster the motivation to finish from this year is Nioh 2. It feels too much like a rehash of the first game, which was one of my favorite 2017 games. It feels like a big expansion pack rather than a full-fledged new game. I think it's well-made, but it doesn't grab me as the first one did.

I'll beat it at some point I'm sure, but I'm not sure when. Too bad that remasters a coming out now. I'm not sure if I'll get that.

@bondfish: Better on Legendary difficulty. I haven't played them in a while, but I feel like the Halo games are, even if aspects haven't aged well, are still enjoyable.

@ntm: Yes maybe I'll go back to those and do Coop with a friend on that difficulty, I think 2 and 3 are way better than 1, Halo 1 levels are extremely dated and some are just bad. Also not a fan of the flood at all in any of the games will be upset if they show up again in the others lol

Crysis Remastered for the Switch. It looks and runs like garbage, and that's when it's not freezing up. I don't know what game Digital Foundry played but it wasn't the one I got.

Spelunky 2 is the most disappointing game of the generation

"As soon as I got into the open world and popped up the map, my eyes rolled so far back into my skull that they never came back out and now I have to type on a braille keyboard."

Genuinely wondering if this is a troll post. GoT's map is empty when you first open it. It fills in as you explore so you never have that icon overwhelming-ness of a Ubisoft game etc.

Lotta edge in that OP. Probably shouldn't expect much more from that username and cum references.