Most of the video games I’ve played were pretty good. The only one I can think of that I didn’t like was MySims Kingdom for the Nintendo DS. Dropped that pretty quickly. It was a long while ago, but I’ll guess it was because there were too many fetch quests and annoying controls.
Stardew valley - it sells itself as a harvest moon inspired farming Sim but as someone who grew up playing a lot of harvest moon, I really can’t help but be super disappointed in it. Harvest moon games have a complex and more importantly moving relationship system - you start to go after one marriage candidate, the others will pair themselves up and have kids alongside you. People move in and out and you need to really get to know people in order to progress the game and unlock things. Stardew valley? Super flat in comparison. All the candidates you don’t marry feel super flat once you lock yourself out of them. There’s not much locked behind friendship so there’s less reason to get out there and really work on befriending everyone.
Also fucking combat - it’s a supposedly nice and peaceful farming Sim, yet combat is an unavoidable part of the game. I didn’t sign up for combat! It’s not fun it’s just annoying.
I actually have a mod for Stardew where the other NPCs have relationship progression with each other if I don’t get in the way!
I’ve been doing a challenge run on Stardew where I never ever engage in combat or go into the mines. Going pretty well, actually, except for the part where I get stuck on acquiring any quartz. Aside from that I think I completed the rest of the Community Center and a lot of what the game has to offer. It’s possible to avoid combat and still have game to play.
Still, don’t force yourself to play if you don’t want to—this isn’t an “I addressed all your concerns about why you dislike the game, so you have to go play it now with the mods I mentioned for your dislike to be valid anymore” type comment (and I didn’t address the part about Harvest Moon requiring you to develop relationships to progress and unlock things while Stardew doesn’t absolutely require relationships to progress… although relationships will also unlock things). I’m not trying to insist that you have to try Stardew with 384828 different permutations of mods before you’re allowed to say it’s not for you.