Aura

Grand strategy games! Each time I see a Civ game on sale for $5, I tend to grab it, then get frustrated that I can't upgrade every city to be the Coolest Place

Third-person, party focused RPGs. Games in the vein of Baldur's Gate or Pillars of Eternity. They absolutely should click with me - they're tabletop RPGs converted into video game format, and I love tabletop RPGs! - but the format inevitably and understandably limits the responses I can make as a player in a way that chafes. Combine with lengthy playtimes and I bounce off of any of them I try.

I love tabletop RPGs and CRPGs, but most games that feature dice as a major mechanic don't interest me. as a roguelike lover too, I should be really into Dicey Dungeons, but I'm just not! That being said my toxic trait is also that I am a grammar prescriptivist regarding singular "die" and plural "dice," which nobody but me observes, so that may be a factor

Traditional roguelikes. Closest I got to enjoying the experience of one was Pokemon Mystery Dungeon

Monster Hunter is my this!! I just can’t for the life of me stay with one. I thought World was gonna be the one to break that for me but I just did not click with it.

I am always fascinated by very systems-heavy games, like dwarf fortress where literally everything is simulated, or like Disgaea where even your stats have stats. But I can never actually really get into them. I guess I just enjoy the idea of games like that more than I actually enjoy playing them

Not quite as far as not being my jam, but 4X games like Civ and Endless Legend/Space always feel too much like board games to me when I want them to be narrative engines. Endless Legend got closest but there's always an element of "oh this system can't be interesting because it interacts with a player/ai". I get my enjoyment from them but I wish they were built around generating narrative, instead of shuffling numbers around with a narrative wrapper.

I love big, complicated machines, megastructures, and pipelines and crafting systems. You'd think that factory games like factorio and such would be my jam! But I can never seem to stick with them. I suspect part of it is the need to tear your beautiful machines apart and rebuild them when the tech tree unlocks a new toy, and probably part of it is the feeling that I'm actually the bad guy in that setting. Terra Nil was great for that, but lacked some of the complications I want from the genre...

SRPGs. every time i try one i just get bogged down in micro-optimization instead of doing what god intended and sacrificing all my units for temporary gains

Soulsbourne games and anyone inspired by that design. You might think I'd dig into them but after spending far too long waiting for Dark Souls to get to the good point I realized I just don't like this.

Ironically, grand strategy games like the one I work for.
I suspect I suffer from dyscalculia, as I easily confund numbers and can't do math in my head, so games where you need to optimize systems to make numbers go up fasters don't really click for me. I enjoy them as narrative sandboxes, and I wish I was good at them, but I just can't vibe with the number crunching.

Same with most JRPGs, dungeon crawlers, and... every other game that gives you a "+1% damage" and expects you to be excited about it. I need games where everything is deterministic, the numbers are small, and the effect of enemy actions are clearly visualised. I adore Into the Breach and Slice&Dice; I struggle to love Slay the Spire.

Wizardry style RPGs. It's not that they never click just never as much as I want. Also traditional roguelikes. Dungeons Of Dreadmore might be the only one I've really put much time into

Visual novels and otome games. I love stories and comics and stuff, but I never seem to make it far into these kinds of games.

Mystery Dungeons. I don't know why I keep bouncing off them. I love Roguelikes in general, I love dungeon crawlers. Why not both? Apparently it's not for me.

Capture/Train type RPGs. Honestly ever later pokemon games don't capture me the way that the original ones did. I feel like I should love them, but they just never seem to grab my interest.

Banjo Kazooie Nuts And Bolts-style "Build A Vehicle To Solve A Problem" genre!!!

I chase the high looking for one of em that will be everything I want, but only 2 have ever held my interest, and only one I can say I've enjoyed. Stormworks I've gotten a lot of time out of, and Mars First Logistics is the one I actually directly enjoy

Tactics RPGs. I enjoyed FFT and Advanced Wars a lot as a kid, but as I've gotten older I just can't get into em for whatever reason. In spite of, in theory, loving the lengthy stories they often have.

Logistics/automation games (factorio etc). The idea of them seems very attractive but actually playing them I bog down and lose interest so fast, I think the problem is I run up against my perfectionism, there's always a point where some new thing is introduced that is one too many for my best-laid-plans attempt to get things organized and I bounce off the idea of either (A) totally starting my plan from scratch or (B) building on in a way that feels inefficient or clunky...

I really don't do souls games. Like, I like beat em ups and action rpgs and I loved Nioh and Stranger of Paradise and I just bounce off all the fromsoft souls games.

Management sims. I love building arms in RTS and managing a whole bunch of subsystems... but Management sims just... don't click

Stealth games. I loved the idea of Thief or Commandos when they first came out, but when I finally got to play them I was so terrible at it, and that has basically followed me through to any stealth game I've tried to play. Or stealth minigame I'm forced to play, which I typically only get through via the magic of being able to fling many attempts at it.

Not so much a genre but for me Disco Elysium was super hyped and I in theory liked the ideas behind it. In practice I started to get invested then through a series of events was forced with: become a huge racist or you cant leave this area and so I dropped it.

Grand Strategy like Crusader Kings and the like. I should vibe with being able to turn little bundles of traits into characters with their own narrative arcs but the game ends up getting in the way of that and I've never found one that has the specific blend of enough game but not so much it drowns out the bit I really want to play with like Barbies.

In ttrpgs lyric games are often beautiful and conceptually elegant devices that lack a solid 'game' that my brain can latch onto.

RTS games.

I used to love them so much, played every one I could get my hands on.

That culminated the night I got my copy of Starcraft II at the midnight release event. I got home, installed it, and played through the first six missions or so, and then realized I was utterly bored by it.

I haven't been able to play an RTS since without losing interest after the first couple missions.

Aything with deck builders, probably.
Racing games.

dungeon crawlers. i love roguelikes, i love doing dungeons in action rpgs, i love jrpg shit, but somehow combined all together i've never been able to get through one

Not sure I can expand this to genres, but I'm not a fan of 2D Mario or 2D Sonic. I love both series' 3D entries, and I feel like that should extend to the 2D games, but it just doesn't. I also don't really enjoy Mega Man, so maybe it's just something about 2D platformers, but I love Hollow Knight to death, so idk.

Srpgs (fe,fft)

Dungeon-crawler RPGs. I love RPGs, I love turn-based combat, I love combat-centric games that are less focused on story.......but I can't get into stuff like Etrian Odyssey and Wizardry.

If has the first-person camera, I get a little motion sick. Aside from that I also just get really bored of mapping of the dungeon floors. I think it's because while I like combat, I'm not a big fan of "exploration."

Same for Mystery Dungeon style games.

I wanna like this subgenre soo bad, hopefully I'll find one someday that works for me. Dungeon Encounters is probably the closest.

immersive sims and rpgs (whether of the c or j variety) are absolutely genres that feel like i should like them a lot more than i do in practice

way too easy to get overwhelmed and lose track of what i should be doing or just lose interest in playing them anymore because the dread outweighs any enthusiasm

I should be a fromsoft guy because in any other media the aesthetics they pull from are 100% my jam. And yet their games have yet to click with me