Your unpopular opinions for general games/media (besides Fire Emblem)?

[saisymbolic]

Musou games(Samurai and Dynasty Warriors) are criminally underrated

Pokemon gen 4 is slow, but it's my favorite gen

Persona 4 is overrated

Do you live inside my mind, fam?

- After playing a majority of Persona games, I agree that P4 (and P3 to an extent) is overrated. And this is from someone who played both games and thought they were the zenith of video game writing before.

- FFXIII, surprisingly, isn't that bad. I agree that it is a hallway simulator and some of the characters are kind of annoying, but I felt the hate the games got was more of people jumping on the bandwagon. The battle system is pretty fun when you get the hang of paradigms and can be quite fast paced once you realize switching paradigms at a certain time fills the ATB gauge.

- FFX is one of the better FF games. Also, Tidus is a good FF protagonist. He starts off as a spoiled rich athlete, gets dumped into a new world and he asks questions. As a matter of fact, it's because he asks questions that the story line is driven forward. But, Tidus x Yuna is a terrible couple.

- FFX-2 had the best battle system out of all the games.

- The first Dot Hack games series is underrated.

- The Naruto Ultimate Ninja/Accel games on the PS2 were the best of any Naruto games.

Edited October 15, 2016 by saisymbolic

[Skfoos]

What I can think of right now:

The Pokémon series got really bland ever since it came to the 3DS and Wii U, and even more so after Generation VI was introduced. Overall, Gen VII doesn't look very interesting.

The Kingdom Hearts series is very, very overrated. Most of the side games have glaring flaws that make it very hard for me to enjoy them as games. That said, I think Chain of Memories is actually a pretty good game and rate it higher than other games like Birth by Sleep.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is competitively a better game than Smash 4 and more interesting to watch.

Mega Man 2 and Mega Man X are far from the series's best entries. Mega Man 3, 4, and 9 are better than 2, and X2, X4, X5, and X8 are better than X.

[The Draco Knight]

- FFXIII, surprisingly, isn't that bad. I agree that it is a hallway simulator and some of the characters are kind of annoying, but I felt the hate the games got was more of people jumping on the bandwagon. The battle system is pretty fun when you get the hang of paradigms and can be quite fast paced once you realize switching paradigms at a certain time fills the ATB gauge.

- FFX is one of the better FF games. Also, Tidus is a good FF protagonist. He starts off as a spoiled rich athlete, gets dumped into a new world and he asks questions. As a matter of fact, it's because he asks questions that the story line is driven forward. But, Tidus x Yuna is a terrible couple.

Bolded part: honestly, I'm not sure if we can call this "unpopular", since FFX is highly regarded as one of the best by most of the fanbase.

And I agree on FFXIII: It really isn't a bad game, even tough there was no need for it to have two sequels

[Knight Falchion]

Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne all suck.

I don't intend to debate you, but may I ask what your reasons are for disliking them? If you don't wish to answer, I understand.

As for my own unpopular opinions, I don't have that many, but the ones I could come up with are as follows:

- Dark Souls 2 was not just a good game but a good Dark Souls game

- Legend of Zelda bores me, though Majora's Mask is somewhat redeemable because of that admittedly well-crafted atmosphere

- The only other one I could think of was liking Call of Duty, but that particular opinion's popularity varies wildly with demographics so *shrug*

[ping]

- FFX is one of the better FF games. Also, Tidus is a good FF protagonist. He starts off as a spoiled rich athlete, gets dumped into a new world and he asks questions. As a matter of fact, it's because he asks questions that the story line is driven forward. But, Tidus x Yuna is a terrible couple.

- FFX-2 had the best battle system out of all the games.

I agree with that 100%. My only real grief with FFX are the godawful minigames (Blitzball, Chocobo Racing, Butterfly Catching) that you need to beat in order to get some of the ultimate weapons. I like how Tidus interacts with Spira, calling out the questionable parts of its culture and, as you said, occasionally just asking what the hell is going on. I do like how Yuna starts to question the religious dogmata after Tidus points out their flaws and i don't mind her character too much in general. But the romance is absolutely terrible and the story (as well as X-2's) would probably be better off if it was just cut completely.

X-2 has an amazing battle system, but even if I ignore the silliness, I don't like its structure with 90% sidequests and 10% plot, so I can't really enjoy it.

--

To give a unpopular opinion: I don't think there are any unpopular opinions on any main game from the FF franchise. It's just that every opinion is extremely contested because everyone (myself included) seems to have at least one game in the series that they absolutely despise. And quite a few of the fans are just so annoyingly vocal about it and can't accept that there are valid reasons to like Cloud/Squall/Zell/Steiner/Tidus/Rikku/Vaan/Lightning/Snow. [i think all of these are reasonably controversial?]

Edited October 13, 2016 by ping

[saisymbolic]

Bolded part: honestly, I'm not sure if we can call this "unpopular", since FFX is highly regarded as one of the best by most of the fanbase.

And I agree on FFXIII: It really isn't a bad game, even tough there was no need for it to have two sequels

You know, that may be true. I suppose the only real qualms I've seen people have was about Tidus, which I can respect why people would dislike him. I love James Arnold Taylor, but I can understand why he would come off as whiny and annoying. I blame it more on the lack of voice direction experience, as FFX was the first FF with VA. I have to say, though, I absolutely loved whenever Tidus spoke those introspection/hindsight lines though out the narrative.

I agree with that 100%. My only real grief with FFX are the godawful minigames (Blitzball, Chocobo Racing, Butterfly Catching) that you need to beat in order to get some of the ultimate weapons. I like how Tidus interacts with Spira, calling out the questionable parts of its culture and, as you said, occasionally just asking what the hell is going on. I do like how Yuna starts to question the religious dogmata after Tidus points out their flaws and i don't mind her character too much in general. But the romance is absolutely terrible and the story (as well as X-2's) would probably be better off if it was just cut completely.

X-2 has an amazing battle system, but even if I ignore the silliness, I don't like its structure with 90% sidequests and 10% plot, so I can't really enjoy it.

--

To give a unpopular opinion: I don't think there are any unpopular opinions on any main game from the FF franchise. It's just that every opinion is extremely contested because everyone (myself included) seems to have at least one game in the series that they absolutely despise. And quite a few of the fans are just so annoyingly vocal about it and can't accept that there are valid reasons to like Cloud/Squall/Zell/Steiner/Tidus/Rikku/Vaan/Lightning/Snow. [i think all of these are reasonably controversial?]

Lord, yes, I hated the mini games. Especially, that fucking chocobo race bullshit. I was one second off of the target time. ONE. SECOND. (Yes, I'm still pissed off about it years after playing the game). Tidus never got his celestial weapon, suffice it to say.

The second bold: I agree. And don't forget Hope as controversial character.

Also, yes, FFXIII would have worked so much better if the other two games did not exist.

[Rapier]

I don't think Sonic the Hedgehog had as bad of a decline as people thought, sure Heroes & Shadow were Mediocre (We still had the excellent Advance games going on at this point and Rush), but it wasn't really till 06 that it was a "Dark Age" before that and Secret Rings, but at least Unleashed & Colors carried us out of that.

To be honest, I think some fans exaggerate when they claim[ed] that the Sonic series is/was on a "dark age". This becomes clear when we take into account how many good "recent" games they made compared to how many bad "recent" games they made. To each Sonic '06 and Sonic Boom (we can include Heroes, Episode 1 and Shadow, although I don't really dislike them) we had a Sonic Rush (and Rush Adventure), Sonic Unleashed, Sonic and the Black Knight (which was decent), Sonic and the Secret Rings (same), Sonic Colors, Sonic Generations, the Sonic CD port and the list goes on. They've scored more points than misses.

I'm too lazy to search for how many points those games scored on reviews to prove my point though.

Also, I actually like Episode 2. While EP1 was a nostalgic throwback to Sonic 1, with recycled bosses, similar stages, bad mechanics and an horrible instrument selection for the ost (which would be good if not for said instruments), EP2 improved that mechanic a lot, made brand new bosses, improved the level design and had less blatant similarities toward the older games.

Shadow the Hedgehog had potential, imo. I like the idea of 12 endings and stages based on the allegiance you choose during the game. However, it was done horribly and Shadow's actions through the game seem almost nonsensical. I think the only storyline that I like is the True Neutral one, on which Shadow doesn't care about Black Doom's promises and follows his path to learn who he is, only to be tricked by Eggman into thinking he is actually just a copy of the former Shadow.

[secondworld]

On Skyward Sword's controls: they really are very bad in execution.

A decent concept, but there are a few reasons why I think they were poor overall:

-It detracted from combat more than it added, making everything a tedious chore. The "strategy" really wasn't anything harder to figure out than beating a Wind Waker Darknut, at best, due to the obvious positions of exposure. What made it really annoying was... point 3

-Stabbing was overly unresponsive.

-Enemy AI had a bizarre habit of changing defense the moment you swing the sword at the exposed spot, with no indication at all.

So yeah, SS combat can die in a fire somewhere.

Did you happen to read the thread title, by any chance? This is very much the popular opinion.

[EpyonElite]

I have several unpopular opinions.

-legend of Zelda is seriously nothing special.

-dragon ball z, Naruto, and basically every anime ever have yet to have a good video game adaptation. Even counting budokai tenkaichi and the ninja storm series.

-final fantasy 7 is a very poorly made game, although the remake does look promising.

-legend of dragoon is the best RPG on the psx.

-kingdom hearts 3's new graphics and ui don't look that great.

-Bravely default is bravely generic.

-Dynasty warriors games are not repetitive.

-the first front mission is the best in the series.

Those are the first ones that come to mind but I have alot more controversial opinions. To anyone who disagrees with me I respect your opinion.

Edited October 13, 2016 by EpyonElite

[Azure Sen]

-Undertale was fun and charming at points but not great. In particular, it's overarching message dragged it down.
-Related, but I don't find Sans that interesting.
-I'm kind of in the middle regarding Persona 4. I don't hate it like the old-school SMT fans do, but I don't think it's great like its more hardcore fans do. I like it, but I find its story to be less well written than Persona 2: Innocent Sin overall, and it has a lot of flaws.
-The recent Musou/Warriors games (DW 8 and 8XL, SW4 and 4-II, Hyrule Warriors, WO3, DW Gundam Reborn) are all good/fun games and deserve more credit than they get.
-FFVIII, FFX-2 and FFXIII are all good to okay games, and I enjoyed them.

-FFTA is okay, if a bit poor in the writing department.
-The Pokemon Gen 1 games have aged poorly.
-Hoenn was the best Generation.

I'm sure there's more, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

I hate how people attribute "character development" of a character based on if the character falls under the notion of being a dynamic character. Static characters can still be wonderfully developed characters that still have backgrounds, a compelling drive for their behavior, and still be just as humanized as a dynamic character. Just because a character could overall be classified as a static character doesn't mean that they are also a flat character as well.

On a technical level, that's what character development is: a character changing over the course of a story, whether for good or for bad. That's not saying static characters can't be fleshed out and have an interesting personality, but calling the process of establishing that they do "character development" is a misnomer.

- After playing a majority of Persona games, I agree that P4 (and P3 to an extent) is overrated. And this is from someone who played both games and thought they were the zenith of video game writing before. This link pretty much summarizes my views of the game and its characters.

- Shinjiro Aragaki from P3 is overrated. I've played that game over ten times and I still do not understand the popularity of this dude. If anything, he should be disliked, because if you don't know that

he dies like one month after being playable

someone is gonna be pissed that he was essentially a EXP drain.

Agreed on both counts. Actually, speaking of P3 unpopular opinions, I actually like and sympathize with Ken and did so even before P3P and P4AU, and I've never liked Shinjiro, because he's a bland "bad boy with a heart of gold" archetype with no depth unlike Kanji, who does the same character type much better.

[Magical Glace]

Did you happen to read the thread title, by any chance? This is very much the popular opinion.

It was mostly adding to previous posts stating they didn't like SS's controls.

[The Envoy of the Beginning]

• Complaining about video games is good (outside of highly trivial stuff). Making excuses just to not sound "whiny" is bad (and anti-consumer).

Consoles have little to no reason to exist anymore with PC gaming being more popular.

Edited October 14, 2016 by In The Beginning

[Zera]

Let's see how this one folds out...

Gameplay and atmosphere are more important than story.

Oh yes. I went there.

[saisymbolic]

• Consoles have little to no reason to exist anymore with PC gaming being more popular.

As much as I love my console babies, I have to agree. Exclusives is one of the only reasons consoles are still able to cling to existence, to be honest. If my game library was somehow playable on my computer, I would ditch my consoles.

That said,

- The Dreamcast was the best gaming console. (I mean it.)

[Ken Masters]

Sonic was never good. It's a franchise sold on "speed" that rarely delivers it. ANd when it does, it feels like it's on autopilot

Edited October 14, 2016 by Spinal

[Zera]

Sonic was never good. It's a franchise sold on "speed" that rarely delivers it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9TjUKISnbU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7DugeK1Gvw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4OBe-rONR4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGm2HriHul4

And your argument is destroyed.

[Ken Masters]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9TjUKISnbU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7DugeK1Gvw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4OBe-rONR4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGm2HriHul4

And your argument is destroyed.

Notice 3 things here?

1) 2 of those are speed runs. There are speedruns of absolutely everything, doesn't mean the game is inheretly built around speed.

2) In the other 2, you're showing strict stages of certain parts of certain games. Notice how I said "rarely", not never.

3) Getting out of your way to attack an unpopular opinion on an unpopular opinion thread. WIth witty line at the end and everything!

Now, why you felt compelled to try and "destroy my argument" instead of doing what everybody else does (that is, when disagreeing with something in this thread staying silent or saying in a non agressive manner "I disagree") is a mistery to me.

I'm extremely sorry if my unpopular opinion offended you in any way

Edited October 14, 2016 by Spinal

[secondworld]

Sonic was never good. It's a franchise sold on "speed" that rarely delivers it. ANd when it does, it feels like it's on autopilot

Here's a mindset I've seen more and more recently that is honestly misguided. I don't know exactly how popular or unpopular this opinion or my differing one is, but I'm going to address it anyway. Oh, and I'm looking at the classic games for this btw.

Sonic is design around using speed, and more importantly as far as game design is concerned, momentum, to traverse levels. By understanding and properly utilizing the physics and momentum of the game, you will go faster. Sonic isn't F-Zero, speed isn't just something you do, speed is the reward for playing well. Some will look at Sonic 1 as an argument against this which is valid as that game often does the opposite, which isn't exactly surprising as it was the first in the series and that was all ironed out in the sequel.

[Refa]

Making excuses just to not sound "whiny" is bad (and anti-consumer).

Who actually does this?

Gameplay and atmosphere are more important than story.

Not actually unpopular.

Sonic was never good. It's a franchise sold on "speed" that rarely delivers it. ANd when it does, it feels like it's on autopilot

I'd say that this isn't entirely true for multiple reasons.

1) You're saying the franchise (an entire franchise!) is bad because it doesn't live up to your nebulous expectation of fast. That's a bit presumptuous of you.

2) Additionally, judging a game on its marketing over the actual game is questionable as well.

3) While the 2D platformers are slower paced than the later 2D/all of the 3D installments, they get faster the better you are at them (you know, rewarding skill and all that). While some of the 3D games can feel on autopilot at times (it's a valid criticism), I don't believe the same holds true of the 2D games.

Notice 3 things here?

1) 2 of those are speed runs. There are speedruns of absolutely everything, doesn't mean the game is inheretly built around speed.

2) In the other 2, you're showing strict stages of certain parts of certain games. Notice how I said "rarely", not never.

3) Getting out of your way to attack an unpopular opinion on an unpopular opinion thread. WIth witty line at the end and everything!

Now, why you felt compelled to try and "destroy my argument" instead of doing what everybody else does (that is, when disagreeing with something in this thread staying silent or point it out in a nice, non agressive manner) is beyond me.

1) Speed runs of slower games are going to look a lot slower by comparison. Watch a Mega Man 2 speedrun, for example, and you'll see what I mean.

2) To refute your point, previously you said that "Sonic was never good", not "Sonic is rarely good" and your reasoning was that the games rarely delivered on speed. If the games sometimes delivered on speed (your main reason for saying that they're bad), then why are they never good?

3) I don't often agree with Zera either, but this is a pretty passive aggressive rebuttal that doesn't serve any purpose. If you post an opinion on this thread, you should expect to be called out for it. Just because it's a thread for unpopular opinions does not imply it's some kind of safe zone

I do agree that he could have been less aggressive, though; it's not conducive to intelligent (or as intelligent as you can get talking about unpopular opinions about video games lol) discussion.

[Ken Masters]

Sonic was never good. It's a franchise sold on "speed" that rarely delivers it. And when it does, it feels like it's on autopilot

If people read stuff, I wouldn't have to do this.

1) You're saying the franchise (an entire franchise!) is bad because it doesn't live up to your nebulous expectation of fast. That's a bit presumptuous of you.

2) Additionally, judging a game on its marketing over the actual game is questionable as well.

3) While the 2D platformers are slower paced than the later 2D/all of the 3D installments, they get faster the better you are at them (you know, rewarding skill and all that). While some of the 3D games can feel on autopilot at times (it's a valid criticism), I don't believe the same holds true of the 2D games.

1a) Speed runs of slower games are going to look a lot slower by comparison. Watch a Mega Man 2 speedrun, for example, and you'll see what I mean.

2b) To refute your point, previously you said that "Sonic was never good", not "Sonic is rarely good" and your reasoning was that the games rarely delivered on speed. If the games sometimes delivered on speed (your main reason for saying that they're bad), then why are they never good?

3c) I don't often agree with Zera either, but this is a pretty passive aggressive rebuttal that doesn't serve any purpose. If you post an opinion on this thread, you should expect to be called out for it. Just because it's a thread for unpopular opinions does not imply it's some kind of safe zone

I do agree that he could have been less aggressive, though; it's not conducive to intelligent (or as intelligent as you can get talking about unpopular opinions about video games lol) discussion.

1) I said the franchise is bad because it was SOLD on being really fast. The character's name is Sonic, in many opportunities is shown to go at lightspeed on cutscenes and various media, and the advertisment (regardless of the year) was always promising F-Zero level of speed. And that was just not true. But because it's Sonic, most people give it a pass, even when it's borderline false advertising.

2)Questionable, yes. hence an unpopular opinion.

3) The level design on 2D games is almost always punishing for gaining speed. You can't almost never react to what's coming, so the "skill" becomes basically level memorization.

1a) To refute that, speedruns of The Elder Scrolls Arena (withouth Glitches) are really fast too.

2b) I said "rarely" regarding the premis of speed, not the game being good.

3c) True. Still strange it's Sonic the one that gets discused.

Here's a mindset I've seen more and more recently that is honestly misguided. I don't know exactly how popular or unpopular this opinion or my differing one is, but I'm going to address it anyway. Oh, and I'm looking at the classic games for this btw.

Sonic is design around using speed, and more importantly as far as game design is concerned, momentum, to traverse levels. By understanding and properly utilizing the physics and momentum of the game, you will go faster. Sonic isn't F-Zero, speed isn't just something you do, speed is the reward for playing well. Some will look at Sonic 1 as an argument against this which is valid as that game often does the opposite, which isn't exactly surprising as it was the first in the series and that was all ironed out in the sequel.

The classic games are built around slow paced platforming. You can only go fast if you memorized the level, not on your first, second or third try. Not intuitively

For a series marketined on speed, it sure fails to deliver.

This takes me to the next point to adress.

Misleading marketing/false advertisment should be held against the game as much as gameplay.

People are buying that under a fake promise, which is ridiculous. People go to Dark Souls expecting it to be hard, because that was advertised, "Prepare to Die", they said. Now imagine if Dark Sould were still Dark Sould, same enemies, same lore, but with zero difficulty. It would terrible. I was sold difficulty, and I got none. The game is bad.

Edited October 14, 2016 by Spinal

[Zera]

If Sonic doesn't deliver speed, then I want you to find another platformer that, when speedrunned alongside a comparable Sonic game, is faster and not slower.

[Omegaprism]

Hooray! Time to be contentious! Here goes:

The videogames industry is sick on its own toxicity, largely because we, the consumers, just keep letting publishers get away with actions that, in any other industry, would result in legal action (rightfully) being taken. Blatant false advertising, gating off portions of games that customers have already paid full price for just to charge them again, and working conditions for low-level employees that would not be unfamiliar in third-world sweatshops are all commonplace. The only way the people on top of the industry will ever change for the better is if they are forced to, and guess what? Consumers don't care enough to force them.

I am one of the multitudes who grew to love the Sony Playstation's library of games, but it took me several years to change my mind, because I have a chip on my shoulder for what Sony's marketing machine turned the industry into. Yes, I am one of those ancient, "I liked it before it was cool and it was better before," assholes. The ever-increasing boner people got for the latest graphics has continued to grow for the last 22 years, and I hate it. Part of me always will.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Tekken is better than Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and all the other traditional fighting game series.

Graphics from games like Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Final Fantasy VII have aged just fine, and are actually quite charming.

Red XIII is one of the best FFVII characters.

Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core are all pretty good and fit well with FFVII.

I don't intend to debate you, but may I ask what your reasons are for disliking them? If you don't wish to answer, I understand.

I find a lot of the lore boring, and honestly I think it's kind of poorly-written. And they tried way, WAY too hard to make it "hidden," if that makes sense. I find the gameplay as a whole to be either too cheap, or too easy, with no good balance anywhere. The music is pretty freaking great, though.

[Augestein]

On a technical level, that's what character development is: a character changing over the course of a story, whether for good or for bad. That's not saying static characters can't be fleshed out and have an interesting personality, but calling the process of establishing that they do "character development" is a misnomer.

No.

That's something that has only been applied in modern literacy as the definition-- which is some of the reason we have such shoddy writing at moments and writers, especially video game ones struggle so much with writing characters. These are the same types of people that will also insist that your protagonist *must* change over the course of the plot.

Character development is not simply "how much your character changes over the course of a story." Character development is establishing relations with other characters, core values of the character, physical characteristics, vernacular, backgrounds... It's a myriad of things. Simply having a character change from the start of a story doesn't count as character having development, most noticeably when the change is nonsensical, causes the character to be less able to be related to, and has the character almost completely transform into another person. A character that receives all of the prior noted established is a more developed character than one that does not, dynamic or static. It's why you'll see frustrating sentences such as "X character didn't receive character development because he stayed the same." Unless you're saying that we didn't learn anything about the character, and we know very little about them-- ie, the character is a flat character, it's really silly to say the character didn't develop. The fact that the character didn't change can be seen that the character is stubborn or steadfast in their beliefs.

[Topaz Light]

No.

That's something that has only been applied in modern literacy as the definition-- which is some of the reason we have such shoddy writing at moments and writers, especially video game ones struggle so much with writing characters. These are the same types of people that will also insist that your protagonist *must* change over the course of the plot.

Character development is not simply "how much your character changes over the course of a story." Character development is establishing relations with other characters, core values of the character, physical characteristics, vernacular, backgrounds... It's a myriad of things. Simply having a character change from the start of a story doesn't count as character having development, most noticeably when the change is nonsensical, causes the character to be less able to be related to, and has the character almost completely transform into another person. A character that receives all of the prior noted established is a more developed character than one that does not, dynamic or static. It's why you'll see frustrating sentences such as "X character didn't receive character development because he stayed the same." Unless you're saying that we didn't learn anything about the character, and we know very little about them-- ie, the character is a flat character, it's really silly to say the character didn't develop. The fact that the character didn't change can be seen that the character is stubborn or steadfast in their beliefs.

I think the thing here is that character development can mean multiple different things. There's "character development" as in developing and fleshing out a character, which is the kind you're referring to, and then there's "character development" as in the character developing as a person. The latter could perhaps be more accurately (or at least more clearly) described as "character growth" but I do agree that the former is ultimately more important to having a good and interesting character, especially since it's pretty much a prerequisite to doing the latter well.

Doesn't mean I don't still love me some well-written character growth, though.

Graphics from games like Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Final Fantasy VII have aged just fine, and are actually quite charming.

Red XIII is one of the best FFVII characters.

I feel the same about these, honestly.

Some more things I came up with...

• I have a hard time getting into other fighting game series besides Super Smash Bros. because a lot of the controls feel stiff in comparison to me. Granted, I don't have a whole lot of experience with them, so I may change my opinion later. Also, I find the notion that Super Smash Bros. "isn't a real fighting game" to be nothing but unfounded whining about it doing its own thing rather than using Street Fighter as a template, comparable to saying that Metroid isn't a "real" platformer because it isn't skirting uncomfortably close to being a Mario clone.
• As much as I find Zelda II to often be frustratingly-difficult, I'm a little disappointed that its gameplay style was never revisited again afterward... by Nintendo, at least. It has a lot of potential, and I'd be interested in seeing where that gameplay style for Zelda would go if given a chance to be improved and refined.
• I think that there is actually a benefit to minimizing what the player is allowed to carry over between classes in class-change systems, that benefit being that it forces the developers to actually balance the classes themselves better instead of making classes that are basically just there to get the abilities from them and then change to something else.
• Weighing in on Undertale, since somebody brought it up; I think its story is actually pretty interesting for the most part, but it's kinda up its own ass about its deconstruction of the violent nature of most RPGs to the point that it ends up shooting itself in the foot and coming off more edgy and hamfisted than thought-provoking about that particular thing. The lore and a lot of the characters are still pretty great, though. I also agree with not really being super interested in Sans, although I don't hate him by any means.
• Someone brought up Kingdom Hearts earlier, which reminded me of a few unpopular opinions of my own regarding it... Firstly, maybe it's just personal bias since I got into the series with the "side" games, but I actually really dislike that they get called that, especially since they're often not "side" games at all, from a story perspective (except Re:Coded). Even the ones that don't star Sora specifically still cover important plot points and information, so it's not like they're somehow supplementary gaiden games; they're very much part of the main plot. To be fair, though, Square Enix's naming scheme for the series is also partly to blame for people doing this.
• Secondly, I'm actually kinda of the opposite opinion in regards to what the series should focus on in that I think it should focus more on its own original content and characters. Maybe it's because I just don't really care that much about Disney (except for things like Star Wars, or Pixar movies, but apparently Disney would have to jump through ridiculous hoops to use those in Kingdom Hearts due to the terms on which they own the original IP-holding companies), but I've never been that interested in the Disney worlds or characters, and the Final Fantasy characters aren't usually implemented in a way that's really that interesting, either; they're more cameos than anything. Besides, all those characters already have their own native stories to be the exclusive stars of. I'd probably have less of a problem with it if they wove the characters into the story more instead of having them as being mainly Characters of the Day for their respective worlds, but it's still something that hampers the experience a little bit for me.
• Mapping the Guard/Block command in an action-type game to anything other than a shoulder button is a quick and easy way to ensure that I will only very rarely use it. You can probably blame the Smash Bros. and 3D Zelda series for getting me so used to having it that way, but I personally find that guarding works better and comes more naturally when you use a different finger for it than for attacking and jumping.
• I feel like someone wanting to breathe life back into the turn-based JRPG genre should actually turn to the first two Paper Mario games, of all things, for examples of things to do to make that happen. Those games did a fantastic job of removing the frustrating luck-based components of turn-based RPGs, and allowing the player to take control over how well they do based on their own skill.
• On that note, I feel like turn-based and action-based RPGs provide fundamentally-different gameplay experiences that require different skills from the player, rather than one requiring more skill than the other. With that in mind, I think it's foolish to say that either one is "superior" to the other. To say that turn-based RPGs are obsolete because action-based RPGs exist is like saying Chess is obsolete because American Football exists; each genre aims at a different target, and it's unfair to judge a game from one genre based on how close its shot landed to the other genre's target. Which entire genre is "better" is purely a matter of your personal taste; there's no objective component to it.
• It's just as possible to make a story that's immaturely-written and hard to get invested in due to it being too dark as it is to make one that's overly-lighthearted. Writing a good story requires being able to balance light and dark elements well.
• Related, but stories where everyone is just a dick to each other constantly just annoy me, regardless of how well-plotted-out the series of events is. It's not like I have a problem with other people liking them, it's just that they are the opposite of my cup of tea.
• I find grim, stoic, and masculine lead protagonists to be very hard to relate to and get invested in in most cases. Being ferocious and strong of body doesn't appeal to me nearly as much as characters who are soft, kind, and strong of character. Characters who manage to be both, though, can end up being my favorites.
• I'm not bothered in the least by characters not knowing information that's perfectly reasonable for them to not know. Having a character be completely and utterly clueless purely for the sake of generating excuses to provide exposition, however, is clumsy writing and a very suboptimal way to deliver that information to the audience.
• It's really, really rare that I actually find a character annoying, and when I do, it's almost always due to a disconnect between how I see them and how I'm "supposed" to see them.
• I actually really appreciate Nintendo's doing their own thing instead of just joining in the technological arms race with Sony and Microsoft. To put it bluntly, I'm rather unimpressed with how accurately the PlayStation consoles' naming scheme reflects the differences between the systems.
• I actually generally prefer handhelds to home consoles, because I usually don't like feeling stuck in one place.
• Sidequests are an area where I very much prefer quality over quantity. Chrono Trigger DS's added sidequests provide a perfect foil to the original game's side content, showcasing the kind of side content I do not care for (the new sidequests) right next to the kind that I adore (the original sidequests) in the same game.
• I tend to prefer digital copies of games to physical because it's less physical objects to keep track of, and is just generally more convenient for me. I totally understand why people who prefer physical copies feel the way they do, though.
• I honestly love wacky impossible anime hair colors... as long as the specific hues/shades and overall color sets are chosen tastefully.
• While I'm certainly not against doing new things within a genre or series by any means (I actually totally encourage it), I think it's important not to rely on whatever new idea you have to make your game good and unique all by itself. Sometimes even just doing the old established stuff really damn well results in a better game than one that does some new things, but generally does the things that it does kinda clumsily and suboptimally.

Edited October 14, 2016 by Topaz Light