#ds era

Really interesting gimmicks based around using the mouse to click and drag stuff in a small, off-to-the-side window.

Wiimote support like seriously if some random Steam game can have Kinect support at least one person can add Wiimote controls to their game.

Pet-simulators where a third of the options are texture-swaps of each-other.

3D games with graphics that are either smooth while not being too HD, or so crunchy that they make HROT look like Doom Eternal.

The return of the Look™ that late-90s and early-to-mid-2000s sci-fi animation and games had where everything was futuristic in a really cool, just barely overdesigned way that is almost never done anymore (stuff like Trickstyle*, the Half-Life 2 leak, Quake IV, and Messiah; for a modern example of this aesthetic, check out Zortch); I call it "neoretrofuturism".