This is one of the primary reasons I tend to prefer retro games, or games which are similar to retro games. They tend not to be optimized in these sorts of ways

This is one of the primary reasons I tend to prefer retro games, or games which are similar to retro games. They tend not to be optimized in these sorts of ways, and are often called "janky." But, they're more fun in a lot of cases. The player is often more free to develop their own strategies, and this often feels like you're "breaking the game," or at least not playing in the intended way. The first time I experienced this was playing the original Demon's Souls, and then later playing Dark Souls. I wasn't actually any good at playing Demon's Souls, and during my first playthrough I stumbled onto all sorts now-well-known ways of abusing the game's mechanics: - Baiting individual enemies with arrows so you can fight them one at a time. - Killing enemies from afar with arrows by standing outside of their agro range. - Physically turning off the console to avoid a death being recorded. (at the time I didn't know exiting the game would work better) There are more examples than just this, but I distinctly remember when first playing these games that I often didn't feel like I was playing the game "correctly." By 2009, most games had pretty lengthy tutorials, and would often have a "live" tutorial every time you encountered some new type of enemy. They'd tell you "proper" way to find the enemy's weak point, often of a voice-over. Demon's Souls obviously did none of this, and you were left to figure out how to make it past each enemy. Often the best solution (from a difficulty perspective) was the jankiest. Take the Ornstein and Smough fight in Dark Souls. Is there anyone who doesn't use the pillars to get cover from Smough's hammer attack? In any case, the point I'm making is that the less optimized games can be much more rewarding, and often demand much more player creativity.