[General Discussion] Titles you just can't get into

I'm going to hate myself for saying this, but...Phantasy Star Universe.

I used to love the PS series so much. I still consider PS4 to be the penultimate RPG (Nocturne). After the letdown that was PSO, the announcement of a next-gen single-player PS adventure had my hopes raised so so high.

And then it smashed them to shit.

I remember PS having interesting, dynamic characters who grew and matured in believable ways, who responded realistically to the events around them, who seemed goddamn HUMAN.

They have given me the most predictable and cliched anime/J-game stereotypes imaginable.

A plucky youth who vies for his unrealistically-attractive teacher's attention, amidst having his ANIME-COCKY attitude shot down by his quirky elderly martial arts instructor and being badgered by his 10-year-old sister to go shopping with her.

His teacher, who acts like a goddamn doormat for everyone for no good reason, and who goes from almost-as-tough-as-nails-except-letting-people-walk-all-over-her-tough military woman to giggling school-bitch when her "sister," who isn't even her sister and who she apparently never speaks to, shows up out of the clear fucking blue.

Don't get me started on main character's kid sister.

Annoying bandit gangs who, true to form, HAVE YET TO DIE IN A FIRE OR OTHER EXCRUCIATINGLY PAINFUL CIRCUMSTANCES. Why do irritating and pathetic villains never give me satisfyingly cathartic death scenes? Fucking seriously. At least Atlus had the decency to kill off Bat in a huge-ass fireball. Oh, shit, I spoil. But then Bat was cooler than these fucktards.

So what happened to whiny characters who get emotionally gut-punched and turn out true heroes? What happened to arrogant and powerful wizards who are hiding deeper sides to themselves not just because the manual's character synopsis says so, but because they ACTUALLY SHOW US THAT SIDE OF THEMSELVES? Or one-year-old genetic constructs whose childish-wonder worldview is brutally ripped away and who somehow manage to retain hope?

I worship PS4 for very specific reasons, and this travesty does not do my memories justice.

Oh, yeah, one other thing. Three out of the four "core" PS games had castles, swords, caverns, dungeons, dragons, magic, and other medieval themes to go along with their spaceships and lasers. The odd one out, PS2, still felt primitive compared to the amount of technobabble I'm expected to endure in PSU. And mind you, I'm a fucking IT guy, I can take a lot of technobabble. Rewriting "Technique" as "TECHNIC" with no good reason to capitalize the whole word and even less reason to shift away from a perfectly adequate term? "Techniques" were a mainstay of PS. "TECHNIC" seems plain unnecessary. Please stop messing with (near-) perfection. Hell, they even made a point to differentiate between techniques and "real" magic in PS4. It was a minor plot element. It added to the mystique of Rune, Kyra, and the Espers. It seems like they changed it just to sound more sci-fi or hi-tek (because spelling "tech" with a K is also more sci-fi).

I'm sure PSU has redeeming factors. I just didn't expect to have to endure an excruciatingly generic sci-fi anime geared toward ten-year-olds in order to get to them.

P.S. Who is this robot-winged dickweed. Can Zio please come kick his ass.

Jam it back in, in the dark.