I recently took a chance on Redacted because I saw a youtube review and it looked like sci-fi Hades. And honestly the gameplay is fine but the announcer making already dated pop culture references and being unfunnily snarky turned me off so much that I refunded it at around 90 minutes in.
It basically is Hades some minor mechanics tweaks, slightly less open environments and a "rivals" mechanic that adds another layer of both strategy and randomness to each run.
I didn't hate it but nothing was so good that I didn't uninstall after the announcer said "this isn't barney the dinosaur" after I died to the level boss.
Game link here if anyone has a stronger stomach for that stuff than I do: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2229940/REDACTED/
I'd also bet money that there's an element of "eating nothing but candy" to the mindset too.
Modern writers don't have a sense of restraint, or balance. They see things that they like in other media and then double down on them because more must be better, right? Those quiet, thoughtful, heartfelt scenes don't matter, they just drag the experience down! We need more comedy! More explosions! More violence! More sex! That's all the good stuff, so we'll make our entertainment nothing but good stuff!
It's like a kid making a cake, and deciding it will consist entirely of icing. Baking Soda? Flour? That's not sweet and tasty!
Good tv shows inevitably fall off when the fans become the writers. Futurama is a great example. The original run is among the best comedy television ever created, but later seasons consisted mostly of writers aping the best punchlines and emotional payoffs of previous episodes. The most famous was the episode starring fry’s dog, easily one of the saddest endings to a cartoon show episode ever. Probably 10+ new writers tried to replicate that gut punch in later seasons, and it was always cringe.
You can see this phenomenon within gaming as well. My go-to example being Bioware. Once people who grew up on its Black Isle games joined its ranks, the company just deteriorated overnight.
You mean you didn't cry when after half a dozen seasons suddenly Fry loves him Mom so much that he is willing to destroy the earth to see her?!
You mean it didn't reach the top alongside the dog episode?!?!?!