What is your unpopular video game opinion?

[Etrurian emperor]

He seems to be pretty well regarded in the Tales fandom but I find the main villain of abyss among the worst JRPG villains out there. In general I've got an allergy for writing being confused about how sympathetic a villain is, but the main villain of Abyss is an extreme version of that where its not even all that subjective how he comes across.

The writing claims he's a fallen hero who just has an extreme solution for a real problem. But in his behavior he acts like a complete sociopath who abandons people the moment they aren't useful to him anymore and then gloats about it. Not to mention being extremely racist. The game never quite realizing that the problem the main villain fights against only exist because the main villain insists on keeping the problem around doesn't help the writing coming off as any less confusing either. 

In contrast the main villain in Symphonia is more loony but the writing knows exactly where he stands, and the character thus becomes more pitiable as a result. 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by Etrurian emperor

[Perkilator]

If custom moves returned in Ultimate, I wouldn't even bother trying to balance them, especially considering the workload just to bring them back at all. In which case, I'd gladly emphasize that they're not to be used competitively.

[Fabulously Olivier]

In terms of platforming/collect-a-thon mascots:

 

Mario > Ratchet and Clank > Spyro > Kirby > Banjo > Crash > Jak and Daxter > Donkey Kong and Yoshi >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sonic.

 

But hey, Sonic. You're still better than Bubsy.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Fabulously Olivier

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

Yoshi tops any gaming mascot

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Let me get out in front of all the "Overrated" hot takes I see coming in the future for the remakes of Mario RPG and especially Thousand Year Door. Look, Nintendo discourse is highly nostalgia-laden. Why? Because these games are made for Children, first. It's not hard to put together why people have strong reactions for what they played at an impressionable age. Let them have their memories. There is no such thing as an unpopular, Nintendo-published game, so of course it's "Overrated", in simple terms.

These two continue to illicit such an emotional reaction because they're the last of their kind. We didn't know at the time this was the last partnership between Square and Nintendo, or that TTYD would be the last Paper Mario game. When they came out in 1996 and 2004, the response of the day was basically "yeah it's fun, but kind of outdated. 8 out of 10. Your kids will love it". You could go in expecting a 10 out of 10 game or you can be reasonable and judge a game on its own, separate from the hype. What a remake will always fail to do is put you in the shoes of someone playing the game in the environment it came out.

On 9/18/2023 at 3:21 PM, Fabulously Olivier said:

But hey, Sonic. You're still better than Bubsy.

There's an auto runner called Bubsy: Paws on Fire. With one button it does Sonic better than the average Sonic game. 

On 9/19/2023 at 5:24 AM, 𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥 said:

Yoshi tops any gaming mascot

If the Super Mario 64 developers had realized they had something on their hands with this brand new "collectathon" genre, that 3D Yoshi's Island would have been OoT levels of game changing. Instead they released Sunshine and killed all the momentum Rare wore themselves out building up. Now the modern Yoshi games can't step out of the shadow of that original Yoshi's Island. I can't even separate my memories of playing Wooly and Crafted World in my head because it's the same game.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Zapp Branniglenn

[Etrurian emperor]

Fans and devs alike hold the era in disdain but I've always liked Mortal Kombat Deception and Deadly Alliance. 

[lenticular]

13 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

There is no such thing as an unpopular, Nintendo-published game

Nintendo have put out a few clunkers. Remarkably few, given how many games they put out and how long they've been in the business, but they definitely are out there. The two that come to mind for me are Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival and the 3DS remake of Urban Champion. I'm sure that there are people out there who liked both of them, but they're pretty lonely voices. And there are a lot more games that have mixed or checquered receptions or have been somehow controversial. Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Metroid: Other M, Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE, Wii Music, pretty much their entire mobile library.

I mostly agree with your broader point, though. Mostly I think that we just need to collectively move away from discourse of "this is good" and "this is bad" and towards "I like this" and "I don't like this". There are games that I didn't enjoy that are wildly popular and games I love that are pretty unpopular. (Example: I had more fun with TMS♯FE than with Breath of the Wild.) Which doesn't mean that anyone is over- or under-rating anything. It just means that different people have different tastes. Such a shocker.

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

15 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Fans and devs alike hold the era in disdain but I've always liked Mortal Kombat Deception and Deadly Alliance. 

Literally the best era in MK history, especially compared to the era that followed starting with MKvsDC. MK hasn't been the same since the 3D games but MK1 looks promising so I'm looking forward to giving that game a chance

[Integrity]

On 9/22/2023 at 2:09 AM, lenticular said:

I mostly agree with your broader point, though. Mostly I think that we just need to collectively move away from discourse of "this is good" and "this is bad" and towards "I like this" and "I don't like this".

christ, yeah. gamers get so precious if you're caught Liking A Thing that isn't on the like list, or Dislike A Thing that's not on the dislike list. i'll absolutely cop to getting too spicy in voicing my controversial opinions and inviting that kind of reaction back sometimes, but there's such a culture built steadfastly up around "because <thing> made me like it, it is good" without any deeper inspection that it's fuckin infuriating to deal with. former brony here, ama 😢

e: this sentiment is explicitly why i try to frame my thread as much as i can (and fail sometimes, for sure) as 'this is why i liked/hated this'. except ishin.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Integrity

[henrymidfields]

Contrary to what the sales indicate, I prefer F-Zero's single player moder to Mario Kart's. Mario Kart's Grand Prix (except maybe the Nintendo 64 version) is just not fun. It's infuriating when you're knocked down from 1st to last just because of some CPU opponents got lucky items. Single player 150cc and Mirror should have just been to lower the chances of getting, or altogether ban, more powerful items from both the player and CPUs, and actually force players to get better at both drift-boosting and not messing up their driving in the first place instead of essentially grant CPUs cheat codes.

If the higher classes in single player made getting Stars, Thunderbolts, Blue Shells, or Gigantic Mushrooms only once per course (or even Cup) even in lower ranks in 100cc, in exchange for opponents only using basic items, I'm happy with that. If they ban Thunderbolts and Blue Shells in 150cc, and all powerful items in Mirror (*1) in exchange of not having to be bombarded with those in return, I'm happy with that. At least then, any time I crash and burn and fail to catch up, it's mostly on my lack of skills and not on bullshit CPUs. If that's boring for people, well, they can go play VS mode or multiplayer online. (Or maybe 200cc can be the outrageous alternative to Mirror as a bonus mode.) If that bars less experienced people from winning, well, tough luck to them.

*1) So, in 100cc, you'll have a 1-5% getting a Blue Shell or a Thunderbolt. In 150cc, you might get a Star, but only 5% chance at most. In Mirror, you might get a triple mushroom, but that's the most you'll get.

Edited September 27, 2023 by henrymidfields

[Perkilator]

You know what? In hindsight, I think it would've been better to trade Smash Ultimate’s Stage Morph for the return of every stage in the Smash series*, including skins based off previous versions of Battlefield and Final Destination.

*with the appropriate changes made to stages like Pac-Maze and Pyrosphere, of course.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Bungie is the worst mainstream developer in gaming. And I only specify mainstream because someone would bring up that random Steam asset flip number 33,482 is running a money laundering scheme and their game gave someone's computer the clap.

 

Just, imagine if EA or Activision dared to announce they were vaulting expansion content because their game became "too big to update." We'd rightly mock them and review bomb their game into oblivion. Meanwhile Warframe has far more content, for free.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Fabulously Olivier

[henrymidfields]

Not having the Kremlins with DKC Returns dampened my interest in the series for the time being. They were some of the most memorable villains that both looked goofy and scary at the same time - not to mention, pirates are cool - and surprisingly fitting when I consider them that they probably want the bananas possibly because of scurvy. And unlike Bowser who is overreliant on kidnapping the Princess, K Rool at least changed his plans when his previous one didn't work, and in relation, Rare made an effort to change the plot unlike a particular someone who I lost a good deal of respect (particularly after the release of Mario Galaxy 1).

Especially in DKC2, K. Rool had the wisdom to catch Donkey and use him as a bargaining chip against the Kong Family, and I also liked how that lead to Dixie's debut. Or installing KAOS as the apparent villain in DKC3, and decided to terrorize someone else far away from the Kongs (possibly to bide their time from their disasterous loss of Kremling Island), and kidnap DK and Diddy just to be extra sure - with the added bonus of Dixie being the star now. Or distracting the Kongs with a bunch of silly shenangians to keep them away from the real plan of using the Blast-O-Matic to blast DK Island to kingdom come. And I love how he becomes more badass with each fight - with the standard bop on the heard only working in the first game while later games require much more work defeating him - even if I hate how insanely difficult his boss battle in DKC2 is as a result. It shows how K Rool can still be a threat despite the defeats he suffer - thanks to his resourcefulness and creative thinking, and also says a lot to how badass the Kong family is.

Edited September 29, 2023 by henrymidfields

[Etrurian emperor]

1 hour ago, henrymidfields said:

Not having the Kremlins with DKC Returns dampened my interest in the series for the time being. They were some of the most memorable villains that both looked goofy and scary at the same time - not to mention, pirates are cool - and surprisingly fitting when I consider them that they probably want the bananas possibly because of scurvy. And unlike Bowser who is overreliant on kidnapping the Princess, K Rool at least changed his plans when his previous one didn't work, and in relation, Rare made an effort to change the plot unlike a particular someone who I lost a good deal of respect (particularly after the release of Mario Galaxy 1).

Especially in DKC2, K. Rool had the wisdom to catch Donkey and use him as a bargaining chip against the Kong Family, and I also liked how that lead to Dixie's debut. Or installing KAOS as the apparent villain in DKC3, and decided to terrorize someone else far away from the Kongs (possibly to bide their time from their disasterous loss of Kremling Island), and kidnap DK and Diddy just to be extra sure - with the added bonus of Dixie being the star now. Or distracting the Kongs with a bunch of silly shenangians to keep them away from the real plan of using the Blast-O-Matic to blast DK Island to kingdom come. And I love how he becomes more badass with each fight - with the standard bop on the heard only working in the first game while later games require much more work defeating him - even if I hate how insanely difficult his boss battle in DKC2 is as a result. It shows how K Rool can still be a threat despite the defeats he suffer - thanks to his resourcefulness and creative thinking, and also says a lot to how badass the Kong family is.

I kinda think that's a popular opinion. Them being replaced by Tiki's was always seen as kind of  bad thing for the original return, and even with the Snowmads being far more substantial enemies the Kremlins are still missed.

But I certainly agree about king K Rool being pretty cool!

[henrymidfields]

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I kinda think that's a popular opinion. Them being replaced by Tiki's was always seen as kind of  bad thing for the original return, and even with the Snowmads being far more substantial enemies the Kremlins are still missed.

But I certainly agree about king K Rool being pretty cool!

Really? I haven't heard much about people missing the Kremlings for some reason, whether here or on reddit. Or maybe people do miss K Rool but it's not that big of a dealbreaker/priority?

Edited September 29, 2023 by henrymidfields

[Florete]

36 minutes ago, henrymidfields said:

Really? I haven't heard much about people missing the Kremlings for some reason, whether here or on reddit. Or maybe people do miss K Rool but it's not that big of a dealbreaker/priority?

I heard it a lot when the games were new, and on more relevant sites for it than this one. K. Rool getting into Smash with help from the ballot is also a good indicator people wanted him back.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

The lack of Kremlings was a big sticking point. That and the forced motion controls. I had to convince a lot of folks to give the game a chance back then. It's quality as a 2D platformer was certainly uncommon for the Wii era. It was Miyamoto that vetoed K Rool for that game. Make sure there are no crocodiles in there. 

[henrymidfields]

On 9/8/2023 at 6:26 AM, Florete said:

...What?

...Are you one of those kids who never did your homework?

[Fabulously Olivier]

Cole was holding the Infamous franchise back. He's the human equivalent of sandpaper and his powers are boring.

 

Delsin was needed, Delsin is good, and the fandom deserves the IP being put on ice for rejecting him.

[Florete]

8 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

...Are you one of those kids who never did your homework?

Did you really wait a month to respond with this? Your post made no sense to me.

[henrymidfields]

On 9/22/2023 at 4:09 PM, lenticular said:

Nintendo have put out a few clunkers. Remarkably few, given how many games they put out and how long they've been in the business, but they definitely are out there. The two that come to mind for me are Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival and the 3DS remake of Urban Champion. I'm sure that there are people out there who liked both of them, but they're pretty lonely voices. And there are a lot more games that have mixed or checquered receptions or have been somehow controversial. Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Metroid: Other M, Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE, Wii Music, pretty much their entire mobile library.

Out of main games, I say Mario Kart GP mode is pretty close to being fucking garbage, because of how outright cheap the gameplay is for single player mode. (See my other post in this page.) I also say that Mario Sunshine was also has some of the more imbecilic narratives out there, even for a Mario game. People accuse Sunshine for the story coming out wrong, but I say the main problem is a particular someone being such a fucking coward taking risks, ignoring the opportunity to actually shake up the story, and make Wario and Waluigi as both the imposters and the acting villains for once instead of Bowser, or even do an all-star villain team-up with Bowser to take over the island, and ignore the Princess for once. But no, a this imbecile director insists on the same Bowser doing basically the same princess-napping shenangians, and have some form of obviously not-Mario doppelganger instead.

Edited October 9, 2023 by henrymidfields

[lenticular]

12 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Out of main games, I say Mario Kart GP mode is pretty close to being fucking garbage, because of how outright cheap the gameplay is for single player mode. (See my other post in this page.) I also say that Mario Sunshine was also has some of the more imbecilic narratives out there, even for a Mario game. People accuse Sunshine for the story coming out wrong, but I say the main problem is a particular someone being such a fucking coward taking risks, ignoring the opportunity to actually shake up the story, and make Wario and Waluigi as both the imposters and the acting villains for once instead of Bowser, or even do an all-star villain team-up with Bowser to take over the island, and ignore the Princess for once. But no, a this imbecile director insists on the same Bowser doing basically the same princess-napping shenangians, and have some form of obviously not-Mario doppelganger instead.

Did you just not read the posts you were replying to? Because if I take you at face value here, then this is one of the most spectacularly awful takes that I've ever seen anywhere on the Internet. And I sometimes read YouTube comments. We weren't talking about games that we don't like or games that we think are bad or anything like that. The topic at hand was unpopular games. Now do you want to go back and try again, or do you actually need me to explain to you why Mario Kart is not actually an unpopular game series?

[Noctis51]

Well I kind of have like a lot of unpopular everything, because basically I don't have any preexisting formula for games I like or dislike. I like tons of considered to be very bad games like 30 to 60 metacritic games. Recently I finished and liked a lot Batman Dark Tomorrow which is considered to be really bad. Objectively, I can see why, it has like weird unbalanced things, strange gimmicks to beat bosses, it's both too easy and too hard, it seems too absurd on so many levels, but I was engaged, I had fun, I don't care if a boss needs a gimmick versus some steady progression where you have telegraphed moves to counter and it's all more engineered.

So based on that for example, even though they're screwball, I like classic sonic more than Mario (but I like modern post DC Mario better than Sonic), but yeah the real unpopular opinion is I like the Turbografx platforming series Valis over Sonic and Mario. It's objectively not well made like Batman and yet I just had fun, I felt really satisfied playing the games that is just I don't understand why.

Like I also like how Phantasy Star I to III have like no bosses, in a sense, that makes them easy, but I like the unpredictability of it, just no formulas really just going off of whatever idea and it just works for some reason.

That said, I have conventional opinions like gameplay mattering more than high quality cinematics and stuff, which led me to get big into Nintendo over Sony in recent times. I think the gameplay addiction factor is higher across all Nintendo franchises, including FE and stuff even though they are RPGs. My favorite Nintendo franchises are probably Mother and Zelda, but Earthbound is no longer a thing and I have very mixed feelings about modern Zelda. So nowadays I got into FE because every FE I've played has been solid and interesting and consistent, so I look forward to those games probably the most.

 

Um, TLDR: The Valis series is like one of the best platformers ever.

[Perkilator]

I think Nintendo should've started putting some of their games on Steam starting in the Wii U era, whether as a multi-platform release or waiting until about a year after the home console release.

[Fabulously Olivier]

I have a great deal of contempt for video game & movie populism. Like no, I'm sorry. User reviews are not more credible than critic reviews, and the existence of review bombing makes a mockery of the whole process.