What is your unpopular video game opinion?

[Sidereal Wraith]

The Legacy of Kain series is better written and much more engaging than the Trails of series, despite the latter having several games and dozens of hours of cutscenes more than the former. 

Edited May 27 by Sidereal Wraith

[vanguard333]

I've been seeing a number of people online lately refer to Tears of the Kingdom as a "lazy" sequel. I can see why they think that, and I do think the game does have major problems in the form of things like far too much copy-paste, but I do not believe that those problems are the result of "laziness"; I believe they are the result of misplaced effort.

I recently watched the GDC presentation Nintendo did on the gameplay and sound design of Tears of the Kingdom, and they go in depth about how, for ultrahand alone to work, they had to make every object in the game a physics object with its own properties, and they also talk about how the main priorities of the dev team were to double down on the vast open world and complex physics engine that made Breath of the Wild stand out.

I genuinely believe the effort they put into those goals is on full display in the finished game, but I also believe that effort was misplaced. I like the sky islands and ultrahand, and the increased scope of the world and the physics mechanics is impressive, but I can't help but think it would've been better if their goals had been to build on top of the open world and physics engine instead of doubling down on them.

 

EDIT: I also believe that there should be more RPGs where the protagonist is a spellcaster rather than a sword wielder. The point of the game is to have the player experience a magical fantasy world; have the player character wield that magic.

Edited June 2 by vanguard333

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

EDIT: I also believe that there should be more RPGs where the protagonist is a spellcaster rather than a sword wielder. The point of the game is to have the player experience a magical fantasy world; have the player character wield that magic.

Good idea! It seems like, in most  fantasy settings where magic exists, its role is complementary to traditional weapons. But... how about a setting where magic completely supplants weaponry? Maybe they've never bothered to learn metallurgy, since magic can accomplish all their needs. Who needs a scythe, when blades of wind can cut down stalks of wheat? Who needs a hoe, when soilomancy can push root vegetables straight out of the ground? It could be really interesting to see an RPG, or other type of game, in such a magic-centric setting.

[Fabulously Olivier]

10 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

EDIT: I also believe that there should be more RPGs where the protagonist is a spellcaster rather than a sword wielder. The point of the game is to have the player experience a magical fantasy world; have the player character wield that magic.

I want more protagonists with spears, fisticuffs, or daggers.

[vanguard333]

8 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Good idea! It seems like, in most  fantasy settings where magic exists, its role is complementary to traditional weapons. But... how about a setting where magic completely supplants weaponry? Maybe they've never bothered to learn metallurgy, since magic can accomplish all their needs. Who needs a scythe, when blades of wind can cut down stalks of wheat? Who needs a hoe, when soilomancy can push root vegetables straight out of the ground? It could be really interesting to see an RPG, or other type of game, in such a magic-centric setting.

Interesting idea; the closest that I've seen to such a setting would probably be the anime Black Clover, and even then, metal tools and weapons still exist because because there's a big disparity between how much magic the royalty has vs how much magic the peasantry has.

In any case, even for games with traditional sword-&-sorcery settings, it would be nice to see more protagonists that are spellcasters rather than sword wielders.

 

25 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I want more protagonists with spears, fisticuffs, or daggers.

More spear-wielding protagonists would be cool. Most fantasy protagonists are beginners at wielding weaponry, and spears are arguably the most beginner-friendly melee weapon. Swords are actually the least beginner-friendly melee weapons; the main reason for their prominence is that they were sidearms; they could be carried anywhere (which, admittedly, is important for an adventuring hero).

[Fabulously Olivier]

Certainly a niche unpopular opinion, but I don't subscribe to the "Samurai Warriors is better than Dynasty Warriors" consensus. Hyper attacks make SW even more mindless and button mashy than DW. DW has far better overall character design.

 

And DW has 3 (4) distinct, iconic factions. This matters because it makes the story easy to follow and gives you a team to root for. SW is made up of so many distinct factions, and most of them are literal-whos. The story only really cares about the Oda, Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa factions. The game has a massive Sanada bias. And you're probably only going to care about the Date clan if you're a Sengoku Basara fan.

Edited June 2 by Fabulously Olivier

[Etrurian emperor]

1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Certainly a niche unpopular opinion, but I don't subscribe to the "Samurai Warriors is better than Dynasty Warriors" consensus. Hyper attacks make SW even more mindless and button mashy than DW. DW has far better overall character design.

 

I do subscribe to the ''Samurai Warriors is better'' consensus but I also agree with you. Hyper Attacks are stupid. In a genre where you can already slash through mooks as if they were butter there's just no reason to create a whole moveset to make it even easier. I've heard the argument that its there to make speeding across the map easier but this feature was added in a game that already introduced character switching and thus had no need to traverse the map faster. 

As for the characters. What holds back DW for me is that there's a lot of bloat. There are many character's who's gimmicks overlap. There are numerous ''way of the warrior!'' types or ''I served three generations of the sun family!'' that they become interchangeable for me. Some characters also seem to exist purely to be there in a single stage and then die. 

1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

And DW has 3 (4) distinct, iconic factions. This matters because it makes the story easy to follow and gives you a team to root for. SW is made up of so many distinct factions, and most of them are literal-whos. The story only really cares about the Oda, Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa factions. The game has a massive Sanada bias. And you're probably only going to care about the Date clan if you're a Sengoku Basara fan.

I'm the rare freak who likes SW Masamune but rather dislike SB Masamune. I think SB Masamune comes off as an obnoxious, spotlight stealing try hard and it speaks poorly of him that SW's Masamune who's characterized as a complete brat is more mature than his Basara counterpart. 

I think the Sanada bias is kinda weird. As a clan they missed about every important event in the era. I know Yukimura has a lot of folklore significance due to Osaka but aside from that he's a historical nobody. The fact that most of the series has a completely invented career for him as Shingen's right hand decades before he was born kinda signals how poor of a main character he is. 

As far as SW go its apparently an unpopular opinion that Mitsunari is an irrational, deeply unlikable and warmongering git who brings all his problems on himself and mostly get by with the fanbase because he's pretty and his rival is fat. But its also my opinion. I absolutely can't stand him. 

On 5/28/2024 at 3:44 AM, vanguard333 said:

I've been seeing a number of people online lately refer to Tears of the Kingdom as a "lazy" sequel. I can see why they think that, and I do think the game does have major problems in the form of things like far too much copy-paste, but I do not believe that those problems are the result of "laziness"; I believe they are the result of misplaced retribution.

I think Tears kinda suffers from a misplacement of resources. Some dungeons and questlines  don't seem as big as they should be, but then you have a gigantic underworld cavern under the ground that's almost exclusively there for optional side content. I like the debts as a challenging area but I also strongly feel that the resources used for it could have been used far better. 

Edited June 2 by Etrurian emperor

[vanguard333]

On 6/2/2024 at 1:26 PM, Etrurian emperor said:

I think Tears kinda suffers from a misplacement of resources. Some dungeons and questlines aren't don't seem as big as they should be, but then you have a gigantic underworld cavern under the ground that's almost exclusively there for optional side content. I like the debts as a challenging area but I also strongly feel that the resources used for it could have been used far better. 

I agree; the effort and resources for Tears of the Kingdom was misplaced. In the GDC presentation on Tears of the Kingdom, the dev team talks about how their main focus was on doubling down on the scope of the open world and the physics engine. This explains why the game has so much additional space in the form of the sky islands, the depths, and the caverns, while a lot of the stuff in that additional space is copy-paste.

Incidentally, looking back at my original statement, I wrote completely the wrong word at the end of my last sentence of Tears of the Kingdom. I meant to type "effort", and instead typed a completely different word that made no sense in the context of the paragraph. I have no idea how I did that. I fixed my original statement.

 

EDIT: Another unpopular video game opinion I have would be this: I think video games are the best form of media for prequel narratives. One fundamental question prequels usually need to answer is, "Why are we seeing past events that originally were fine as just backstory?" Prequel video games provide an answer: the player isn't just seeing or reading the past events; they're experiencing them.

Edited June 3 by vanguard333

[Etrurian emperor]

For Xenoblade I think most people liked the extra context that Future Redeemed gave to consul N. On the whole I dislike it and I think it decreases the edge which makes N such a fun villain.  I get the contrast between a recently corrupted N in this expansion, and the N who's corrupted far longer in the base game, but even with this in mind the game made him way too soft.

The very reason N is so great is because he's intensely pathetic and grotesque. This game trying to reduce his blame makes him less interesting instead of more.

Spoiler

N being such a complete scumbag that he'd gladly trade the lives of the city and his own child to get his wife, or rather his doll back is great. Its the exact sort of repulsive behavior that makes N such a compelling villain. The trade for getting his doll back not being the lives of the city, but fighting off Alpha, and the destruction of the city being a very unfortunate accident he feels bad about just removes the edge his original portrayal had.

 

[vanguard333]

I just don't get what the appeal of the Steam Deck is supposed to be. It costs around the same as a good laptop that could be used for gaming instead, and the laptop would be more powerful and more versatile while still being able to be carried anywhere. If the point is supposed to be the convenience of a portable gaming system, the Nintendo Switch, which released multiple years before the Steam Deck, offers more convenience for a lot less. Don't get me wrong; the Switch's hardware is outdated and in need of an upgrade. But a portable gaming console that's less convenient and costs as much as a good laptop is not the solution, so I just don't get what the appeal is supposed to be.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

2 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I just don't get what the appeal of the Steam Deck is supposed to be. It costs around the same as a good laptop that could be used for gaming instead, and the laptop would be more powerful and more versatile while still being able to be carried anywhere. If the point is supposed to be the convenience of a portable gaming system, the Nintendo Switch, which released multiple years before the Steam Deck, offers more convenience for a lot less. Don't get me wrong; the Switch's hardware is outdated and in need of an upgrade. But a portable gaming console that's less convenient and costs as much as a good laptop is not the solution, so I just don't get what the appeal is supposed to be.

Hi, recent Steam Deck adopter here. Let's break it down to two comparisons from your post. 

Why Steam Deck over Switch

• It runs games that Switch doesn't. 
• It runs the majority of games on your steam library, and if you're an existing PC gamer, that's a lot of stuff you don't need to rebuy. Meanwhile if I want to play Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze on Switch I have to buy it again for more money than I paid for the Wii U version. If I want to play Mario 64 on my Switch I have to pay $50 a year for the privilege. But my 2011 steam sale purchases are still here. Even the de-listed games are still playable. 
  • My point being if you've never PC Gamed in your whole life and in fact don't possess a Steam account, yeah there's not a lot of value here. But part of the appeal of the PS2 for instance was your PS1 library being compatible before you've bought a single PS2 game.
• Its controllers don't have a 1-2 year operational life
• Don't have to pay extra to play games online
• Modding your system and games? Nobody will stop you.
• Heck just turn it into your own personal emulation station and play any generation of nintendo game up to and including the Switch. 

Why Steam Deck over a Laptop

• Better form factor. I'm not bringing a whole ass laptop and a USB controller or Mouse with me onto the toilet. Or onto the couch.
• Hooks up to your TV via Dock, allowing larger resolution than your laptop's screen and better Couch Gaming experience
• Avoid the stresses that come with picking out/building the best gaming laptop for your budget, Steam Deck is just Steam Deck

Why Switch over Steam Deck 

• Has exclusive games, presuming you have issues with emulation/piracy of Switch games
• Can play games online with other switch users (at additional cost)
• The Dock is not a separate purchase.
• 99% of games offered on the Switch eshop run on the Switch. Meanwhile some of the older, no-longer-updated/supported Steam games may not run at all on steam deck. Granted this is true of PC gaming in general. But if you're using a proper PC it'll be easier to workshop solutions to older games

[vanguard333]

11 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Hi, recent Steam Deck adopter here. Let's break it down to two comparisons from your post. 

Why Steam Deck over Switch

• It runs games that Switch doesn't. 
• It runs the majority of games on your steam library, and if you're an existing PC gamer, that's a lot of stuff you don't need to rebuy. Meanwhile if I want to play Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze on Switch I have to buy it again for more money than I paid for the Wii U version. If I want to play Mario 64 on my Switch I have to pay $50 a year for the privilege. But my 2011 steam sale purchases are still here. Even the de-listed games are still playable. 
  • My point being if you've never PC Gamed in your whole life and in fact don't possess a Steam account, yeah there's not a lot of value here. But part of the appeal of the PS2 for instance was your PS1 library being compatible before you've bought a single PS2 game.
• Its controllers don't have a 1-2 year operational life
• Don't have to pay extra to play games online
• Modding your system and games? Nobody will stop you.
• Heck just turn it into your own personal emulation station and play any generation of nintendo game up to and including the Switch. 

This I can understand. I've always played games on consoles (though I have been meaning to get a Steam account), so the appeal of having the Steam library on your device is lost to me, but I can understand that appeal for longtime Steam players. I can also definitely understand not having to pay for online play; I can't think of a single Switch game where I wanted to play online (I usually play single-player games), but, several years ago, I did buy For Honor on the PS4 and I really disliked that I could only play the online modes up until the playstation plus free trial expired.

I can also definitely understand wanting to avoid the pain of rebuying games.

 

11 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

Why Steam Deck over a Laptop

• Better form factor. I'm not bringing a whole ass laptop and a USB controller or Mouse with me onto the toilet. Or onto the couch.
• Hooks up to your TV via Dock, allowing larger resolution than your laptop's screen and better Couch Gaming experience
• Avoid the stresses that come with picking out/building the best gaming laptop for your budget, Steam Deck is just Steam Deck

I can honestly say that I have never once brought a game console to the toilet. The couch I can kind-of understand, but there is usually a table in front of a couch and a laptop could be rested on that while playing.

I didn't know that the Steam Deck had a dock for connecting to the TV.

I have yet to experience trying to pick out the best gaming laptop for a budget, so I wouldn't know, but I can imagine it being a bit stressful.

 

Okay, I guess I can sort-of start to see the appeal. It still doesn't really appeal to me, but I guess I can understand it to some extent. It's still really expensive.

[lenticular]

16 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

It costs around the same as a good laptop that could be used for gaming instead

Gaming laptops are expensive. (Source: I recently bought a gaming laptop.) The exact costs are obviously going to vary from country to country, but at least here in the UK, I'd expect even the most basic entry-level gaming laptop to cost almost twice as much as the entry-level Steam Deck. You certainly can get cheaper laptops which are perfectly decent for a lot of purposes, but these will typically be a bit rubbish for gaming. They usually don't have a dedicated GPU, which means that a lot of games (even ones that don't seem graphically intensive) will either run very slowly or not at all.

[Florete]

More of a general rant here.

Anyone here played Lies of P? I've been playing it and it's just seriously frustrating me. I've played all of From Soft's souls games from Demon's Souls to Elden Ring, as well as a handful of other 2D and 3D souls-likes, and I've never felt like one of these types of games was cheating as much as I do with Lies of P. Perfect parrys feel worthless, enemies don't stagger enough, and sometimes it's hard to even get one safe hit in on a boss after a set of attacks.

I just came to this game off of Stellar Blade, which is a pretty different game overall but still a hard game, and it also has a fairly similar perfect parry system, but it feels much more intuitive and rewarding.

Inb4 skill issue.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Not played LiP, but from what I´ve seen an been told it´s more so Sekiro with tighter deflect timings.

But yeah, obviously *puts on thinking cap*, skillissue, git gud and to top it off... You cheated not only the game, but yourself. You didn't grow. You didn't improve. You took a shortcut and gained nothing. You experienced a hollow victory. Nothing was risked and nothing was gained. It's sad that you don't know the difference.

[Integrity]

skill issue, but regrettably i can't define why lies of piss clicked for me even more than fromsoft's own output. "sekiro with tighter deflect timings" scans to my own experience, but i found p's deflect timing more intuitive than sekiro's even was. it's a game that demands you play it very differently from the soulses and isn't very compromising if you don't figure it out. the best i can offer is to fuck around with the weapon-building system, particularly with the crushing-type ones (the shock and police batons were early favorites) and play more aggressively and less parry than you might think you should

 

a problematic fave, to be sure

 

e: i'll say this much: p didn't really click until like the halfway point, and even then two of the bosses around that point are complete indefensible horseshit

Edited July 11 by Integrity

[Fabulously Olivier]

So, spoilers for my monthly post on what I'm playing but... Last Epoch is well on its way to being the best Diablo-like game ever made. And the rest of the way is just bug fixing and game balance. The only thing that sucks is that there's no one to talk about it with because if the cancerous subreddit is anything to go by, I'm the odd one out.

[Perkilator]

For all of its faults, I think Mario Kart Tour had some genuinely good ideas that should be implemented into the next full console Mario Kart game.

Edited August 6 by Perkilator

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Crash Team Racing, both the PS1 original and the Nitro-Fueled remake, is better than all the Mario Kart games.

[Fabulously Olivier]

12 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Crash Team Racing, both the PS1 original and the Nitro-Fueled remake, is better than all the Mario Kart games.

Hard agree.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

13 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Crash Team Racing, both the PS1 original and the Nitro-Fueled remake, is better than all the Mario Kart games.

You're doing your profile pic proud.

I do agree that the original CTR totally beats MK64. More tracks, more characters, better graphics, and an actual story mode. Also cool modes like Relic Races and Token Quests. But comparing CTR: Nitro-Fueled to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? It feels like each has their own strengths and weaknesses, and I'd be hard-pressed to say one clears the other. Both are excellent Kart racers, and almost certainly the pinnacle of their respective series.

[lenticular]

4 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I do agree that the original CTR totally beats MK64. More tracks, more characters, better graphics, and an actual story mode. Also cool modes like Relic Races and Token Quests. But comparing CTR: Nitro-Fueled to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? It feels like each has their own strengths and weaknesses, and I'd be hard-pressed to say one clears the other. Both are excellent Kart racers, and almost certainly the pinnacle of their respective series.

Since this is the unpopular opinions thread: Mario Kart 8 is my single least favourite Mario Kart out of all the ones I've played. I find the anti-gravity sections disorienting, hard to read, and prone to induce sim sickness. I also dislike the contextless crossovers with other game franchises: to me, it just feels like they took a bunch of disparate elements, threw them in a bag and shook it up for a while with no regard for how everything fit together.

Personally, I'd rate Super as the best Mario Kart for the time it was released. I don't think it has aged well, but relative to what was going on around it in 1992, it was absolutely exemplary in graphics, gameplay, and innovation. I don't think any Mario Kart since can say that. And if we are thinking about how well the games have aged and how fun they are to play in the here and now, I'd probably put Double Dash as my personal pinnacle of the series.

[Fire Emblem Fan]

On 8/7/2024 at 9:10 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

You're doing your profile pic proud.

I guess now would be a good time to say that Dingodile is also my main in every game he's playable in, haha. Although that isn't an unpopular opinion.

For another actual unpopular opinion, God of War 2018 does nothing to redeem Kratos or anything of the sort, he's still a disgusting genocidal ********** and I can never play those games and enjoy them, specifically and entirely because of his continued existence.

[Fabulously Olivier]

11 hours ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

I guess now would be a good time to say that Dingodile is also my main in every game he's playable in, haha. Although that isn't an unpopular opinion.

For another actual unpopular opinion, God of War 2018 does nothing to redeem Kratos or anything of the sort, he's still a disgusting genocidal ********** and I can never play those games and enjoy them, specifically and entirely because of his continued existence.

To a point, I'd argue that it doesn't have to. The God of War trilogy was basically villains vs. villains and it worked on that level.

 

If we see the point of the new games as him trying to raise Atreus to be better than him, I would very much not mind a grown up Atreus becoming the new protagonist in the future. Now THAT'S an unpopular opinion.

[Etrurian emperor]

2 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

To a point, I'd argue that it doesn't have to. The God of War trilogy was basically villains vs. villains and it worked on that level.

That said I'm not sure the original trilogy ever notices that Kratos is the bigger villain. Even at his worst Zeus at least suggests thinking about fixing all the damage by looking over the ruins and stating there's much work to be done. Kratos meanwhile just destroys everything over a temper tantrum due to Zeus punishing him for his actions that one time. 

Even with Zeus supposedly always being out to get him its still Kratos who spends the start of GOW2 abusing his powers and bringing his fate entirely on himself.

Spoiler

And then of course there's Kratos being awful willingly while the Greek gods are possessed by Pandora's box. 

What I kinda like about 2018 Kratos is that the game doesn't pretend Kratos is a good dad, or even just a harsh but fair one. He's shown as pretty inept, and his rage bar filling in the prologue just for Atreus failing at hunting reflects pretty bad on him. But what I do like is that Ragnarok shows Kratos managed to grow into a flawed but much better dad. Even lightly doting at times.