GUIs are a science of their own. Think The Last of Us, how unintrusive, but at the same time intuitive is the UI in this game? Somebody spend months designing that and fine tuning it to the gameplay. A simple selection cross mapped to the D-Pad. Crafting accessible by shoulder buttons or quickcrafting directly from cross selection. Thats the majority of your gameplay needs met.

Now think Zelda: Breath of the Wild, how dogshit is the UI? Pressing the Switches tiny + and - buttons a million times, scrolling through pages of clutter to get where you want, quests being on a completely separate menu than the map, etc. I could literally go on for hours on how bad that UI is, but thats not the point I’m trying to make.

The point is, that both examples are topshelf game devs. Being an experienced dev doesn’t protect you from bad decisions. Prioritizing, investing effort and understanding the connection between gameplay and UI is what makes it good. And some devs just skip that part and make due with something on of their designer came up with on a lazy Tuesday.

Also, not everything is always arranged in a neat grid, and one thing more infuriating than a cursor on console, is the selection never jumping to where you want it to.