itch.io

It's not always that easy to tell ahead of time if I'm going to hate a game.  Especially because I'm also trying to working my way through my big cheap bundle backlog by giving every single game in that backlog a fair chance.

For example, I played Friday Night Funkin' and I hated it.  It's a rhythm game, and I'm not a great rhythm game fan in general, but I enjoy playing Rock Band, so I decided to give Friday Night Funkin' a fair try.  I enjoy Rock Band because I can rock out to great metal tunes on a silly plastic guitar.  Friday Night Funkin' doesn't have great metal tunes or plastic guitars, but most importantly I found it too hard - as in, I wasn't able to clear the first stage.  Not sure if the problem is input lag on the part of the game or poor reaction time on my part.  I'm left with an experience that I hated, and absolutely nothing to praise about the game.  Didn't like the gameplay (which, aside from being too difficult for my taste, is basically the same as every other third-rate DDR clone), didn't like the graphics, didn't like the music, didn't like the tiny bit of story I got to see before giving.  And yet, it feels unfair to give it a 1 star rating just for not being what I wanted from it.  I don't think it's a terrible game.  It's just not for me.

I'm comfortable criticizing Friday Night Funkin' in public like this because it's one of the most popular games on itch, so I'm not exactly punching down.  I'm just using it as an example.  This experience is all too common for me on itch.