⟡ I dislike games with save points. Why can’t I save whenever and wherever I want?
Not that I can't empathize, but this has traditionally been the case because the game relies on scripted sequences that break when the game loads up, so by limiting your access to the save menu only to certain points where the game can safely be loaded up without destroying the scripts or causing any number of unforeseen glitches, it can save developers and players a lot of headache. Think of it as the video game equivalent of the
"It is now safe to turn off your computer" screens from the 90's. A hassle, yes, but one that was necessary.
I'm not entirely sure how applicable this is to
modern games, mind you, particularly in the era of auto-save where the game saves whether you like it or not. And I'm sure a lot of games use this more as a level design/difficulty tool, not necessarily for ease of programming. But at least traditionally, it's been a necessary evil with noble intentions.
On that note, autosave is actually something I'm not terribly fond of. Or, I should say, if the game does autosave, I'd prefer it to be a genre, such as a platformer, where there is generally no situation where having a backed up save would ever be a negative thing. But when an adventure or RPG game decides to auto-save on a point where you're on next to zero HP and have no healing items, that's quite dreadful. I don't like it in Animal Crossing, either, really. You're still relevant to
me, Mr. Resetti!!
Speaking of opinions, it still baffles how intolerant and abrasive people are when it comes to what others enjoy, or what is a game-related issue with some people. The best example I can give is how the term "nostalgia" is liberally used within gaming forums; most of the time, it has a negative connotation behind it, as someone's nostalgia of a video game is enough to discredit how that person feels about said video game. It's so childishly reductive, harsh, and misunderstands what "nostalgia" really means just to say: "No, you're opinion's wrong". I hate the "nostalgia goggles/whatever" phrase so much because it makes it seem you can only have a certain opinion on a certain piece of media if you grew up on it. I know this might confuse some people because I don't always explain things well, but if you've seen or heard the phrase, "You're just blinded by nostalgia" before, you'll know what I'm talking about, and hopefully you find this notion as stupid as I do.
What I find fascinating about this particular discourse is that many people seem to be under the impression that there's a certain cut-off point for nostalgia, or a certain age where you're more capable of assessing the quality of games regardless of your emotional attachment to them. And it's very often ridiculously young. For example, "I was 15 when I first played these games, so I have no nostalgia bias."
Because your mid-teens are definitely not a formative period of development that will define your tastes and mental lexicon for much of your life.
I think there definitely are people who seem to only like things because they are older, or are overtly nitpicky of newer things to baffling degrees, and resistant to any kind of change. But I think in certain gaming circles, it's gotten to the point where you can't prefer an older style of anything without being dismissed entirely as an "Old man yells at cloud" style meme.
