This is admittedly not that big of a deal I guess but it drives me nuts how often modern games describe themselves like: a zelda-esque soulsborne roguelike metroidvania- or something equally indecipherable to anyone outside of the entrenched Gamer demographic. I am thoroughly “search action”-pilled…we really gotta use words better!
How is that a problem? If you’re interested in a subject, you learn its terms lol. It’s like saying “checkmate” is exclusionary because you have to explain to someone who’s never heard of the term or played chess what it means.
If you’ve never taken or cared about literature, how are you supposed to infer what “first person shooter” or “third person sandbox” means without reading about it or having someone explain
If you don’t explain to someone what anime is then you shouldn’t surprised when they ask if you’ve seen the new cartoon about robots fighting each other
A valid genre complaint would be something like Tyler the Creator being labeled as “urban.” It doesn’t mean anything except “the artist is black and makes music people dance to.” It’s not comparable to “country” because that has distinct features outside of “white people singing about farms”. Describing a game clearly uses mechanics inspired by or pulled from From Software without mentioning dark souls would be disingenuous - unless, like the OP said, there’s enough variety that referencing the original game doesn’t make sense. Most rock bands don’t mention the Beatles anymore despite their innovation.
If we have words to describe things then we should use them. I am willing to concede that because “metroidvania” has colloquial use enough now to let most other people know it means a 2D platformer game where you search for skill improvements and gradually get stronger to see more of the play field then we can use it, but I don’t have to think it doesn’t sound dumb as hell, and by definition if you don’t know a Metroid or a Castlevania then “metroidvania” isn’t helpful, and you can’t tell me that “then learn what those two things are” isn’t being just a little exclusionary when we have words! Words to describe the style of game! Words that I used! This is nothing like not knowing what checkmate refers to, that is absurd.