Same. Something about the metroidvania design with the home hub of the later ones didn’t give the same feeling. It should be run, kill, find secrets, end, next level.
It's like the game industry got a fake memo saying no one wanted linear story-based games anymore. I ended up buying two more Teyon games because I was so happy with their formula and they are playable in a dozen or so hours. Tight, compact, linear, fun story and game play... No MTX or always online BS and they don't waste my time with busy work.
It's even worse in multiplayer games like COD and BF. As soon as I need to figure out combinations of 5x attachments to guns I lose all my interest in playing the game. That's why I'm still on CS I guess lol.
I'll be honest, I don't like this part. I'm a rabid collector. If the game gives a metric to an item, I must have all of the items. I end up killing the flow by scouring the level looking for secrets. This is entirely my fault of course
Especially the 'mech scale' stuff was just boring. I don't remember what they call it in-universe, but essentially the parts of the game where you're playing from a giant robot and just walking over tanks and fighting supersized demons.