Your Unpopular Video Game Opinions

[Guzma]

While the ludicrous amount of microtransactions in Middle Earth: Shadow of War are definitely a big problem, I think the biggest flaw with the game is that a core component of gameplay is enslaving sapient beings to fight and die for you. It might sound hypocritical considering I'm a Pokemon fan and all, but the bond between Pokemon and their trainersis depicted as a mutual partnership, and the games go out of their way to stress the value of friendship, which is very different from enslaving orcs against their will.

 

[TouyaShiro]

I was about to write again about how I believe some people glorify certain games for being better than they actually are, mainly in relation to the Mario RPGs before their respective fourth instalments, but I remembered that I said this exact same thing a while back. Instead, I'm going to expand on that. And probably light a virtual match while we're at it.

Sure, I close myself off to certain games and franchises as a result of this attitude. But why should I listen to the opinions of those who tell me to play it? I have an extreme problem with certain people that prove my exact point about glorifying how enjoyable the games they try to get me to play are, even after I tell them legitimate excuses for why I can't play them (lack of money and the right platforms to play the damn games on being two such factors). For those that don't have a digital rerelease, it's also difficult to find some of the older games due to them being very popular back in the day... So can these people just get off my case for once!? I've got other games on my priority list that I would rather buy and play at this very moment...

 

[Juliko]

So I'm playing Secret of Mana on my Wii U via the Wii Virtual Console, and I do like it. Buuuuuut it does have some pretty glaring flaws which I feel prevent it from being an absolute masterpiece.

1. The bright and colorful visuals are a bit TOO bright for me. It just seems like the brightness of the game is turned up to the absolute highest level, so much so that it actually hurts my eyes! I'm glad the remake is toning it down a bit.
2. The dialogue is so short, dry, and dull. Often times, I felt like I was missing something. Nobody even mentions Thanatos before the character even shows up. Then again, I'm not gonna dwell on this much, since from what I heard, circumstances involving limited text and Ted Woolsey being forced to work on translating it with only a month to spare prevented it from being more polished. Poor guy.
3. Weapon grinding. Seriously? The fact that you have to level up a character's weapon skill level from scratch if you give them a weapon they've never used before is especially stupid. I guess I can chalk up my feelings for that to simply being too used to simply upgrading weapons or buying better ones.

On a non-Mana related one, finished Tales of Symphonia and I love it!...except for one character: Zelos Wilder. Oh my God, I freaking hate this guy. Why does everybody like him so much?! I can't stand him! He's an unapologetic perv who's constantly chasing after the girls, keeps making comments at Sheena and every other girl he meets, has very little depth, his supposedly angsty backstory is one of the hardest to get if you can't get him to like you enough--which in and of itself is pretty damn hard--and in one skit in the Temple of Darkness, he even makes a VERY tasteless joke (or was it even a joke at all?!) about using the Sorcerer's Ring with the darkness beam to sexually assault girls! I am so glad Sheena and the other characters always call him out on his stupidity. Plus, I even fought him when he betrays the party, and boy, was it absolutely satisfying to hand his ass to him!

 

[Blockhead Pippi]

I really despise Simple and Clean from Kingdom Hearts.

 

[Juliko]

Oh, another thing I forgot to mention. Another thing I don't like about Secret of Mana is the complete and utter lack of storage space. I mean, you can only have four of the same item, no more! That stinks! Well, its a good thing they have many different types of healing items, so I guess there's that.

 

[TeaWest]

I didn't really like Secret of Mana when I played it with a friend. We did it co-op at the time, and it was extrememely difficult. The dialogue was really hard to follow too.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I found the final boss of Kirby: Triple Deluxe underwhelming. While the music is phenomenal, you don't directly attack her until the end, in a glorified quick time event. I would have liked to throw a projectile at her, like the final boss of Yoshi's Island.

 

[FinalArcadia]

Atelier Sophie is MUCH better than Atelier Firis. I know a lot of the Atelier fanbase considers Sophie to be one of the worst games and that Firis was an improvement, but I strongly disagree. I went in expecting to hate Sophie, but that game ended up being one of my favorites in the entire franchise, behind only Mana Khemia (the first one) and Atelier Escha & Logy.

Firis, on the other hand, I still haven't completely finished because it's a bit of a slog. Atelier isn't exactly known for riveting plots, but Firis's is even duller than usual, Firis as a character isn't very likable (actually, I could say that about the entire cast except Revy - who gets nothing to do really - and Drossel), the "open world" design is in need of some polish, and the music is some of the blandest to come out of the series (the Japanese version of the OP song is nice though).

I know Sophie was considered a step back in the battle system and alchemy, but both were leagues better than what Firis has. The Firis battles feel choppy, whereas I actually really liked Sophie's battle system with the different offense/defense stances and setting up everyone's actions at once for a turn. I mean, Mana Khemia is still the high-mark of this series battle-wise, but still. Alchemy got worse too, I think it's just too much of a pain to deal with the catalysts in Firis. Sophie's alchemy was similar, but without the catalysts, and all the better for it. Without the addition of catalysts, I really like the puzzle-type setup of Alchemy in the Mysterious games, so I hope Atelier Lydie & Suelle ditches the catalyst thing.

Also, bringing back Oskar? Really? Who wanted Oskar - of all the playable cast in Sophie - to come back? Only Monika was more boring than him, but not by much. It should've been Julio or Harol or Leon to return, with Julio making the most sense since he directly tied into Sophie being involved in the alchemist exam at all.

 

[ReturnofMCH]

I liked the gimmick maps of fire emblem fates: revelation.
SMT's difficulty is one of the things that make the series what it is, no matter how archaic is supposedly is.
forza horizon 3 hot wheels was an amazing expansion despite the ridiculous premise.

 

[TouyaShiro]

I found the final boss of Kirby: Triple Deluxe underwhelming. While the music is phenomenal, you don't directly attack her until the end, in a glorified quick time event. I would have liked to throw a projectile at her, like the final boss of Yoshi's Island.

That's where The True Arena comes in, lmao. Be prepared to spend a lot of time there, though, if you're not good at it.

Also, if you find that boss underwhelming, I'd hate to see your reaction to Planet Robobot's final boss - which is arguably overwhelming compared to every other boss in the series combined.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@TouyaShiro I've played Planet Robobot, and I like that final boss.

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

@TouyaShiro I've played Planet Robobot, and I like that final boss.

Hmm, I wonder, was it the final boss, or the True final boss? Because the true final boss is even more so.

 

[TouyaShiro]

Both of them take such a long time. I'm of the unpopular opinion that Star Dream (and Soul OS) is actually enjoyable, but like hell will I admit that without mentioning how long it takes to fight him - half your True Arena run is dedicated to it. And the Kaizo trap at the end... Yeah. The less said about it, the better.

On the note of controversial Kirby opinions (but not necessarily unpopular, per se), I find the "Dark Matter Trilogy" (Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards) to be frustrating. There's a certain few collectables in every title (or at least Kirby 64) which require you to know about a certain combination that has an ability you could spend the entire game without knowing about. The one where you have to use the Rock+Cutter transformation to turn into Rick is a particularly notable example, as it's the only time where you really need that specific transformation.

I'm also not a fan of how the above three games require you to beat the game 100% to get the true ending - I much prefer it the way that most other Kirby games do it, complete each mode and unlock new things as you go, with 100% being a goal to strive towards as you get better at the game but never required for the game's ending of endings (aside from, of course, Kirby Master). It gets more frustrating when you consider the above point about the required collectables being the Kirby series' biggest example of "Guide Dang It!"

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Hmm, I wonder, was it the final boss, or the True final boss? Because the true final boss is even more so.

I've read about the true final boss on the internet, but I'm not good at The True Arena.

@TouyaShiro While I like the heart stars from Kirby's Dream Land 3 from a story-through-gameplay perspective, and because I replayed most of the game to get them the first time around, let's playing it has made me realise that the game as a whole is not as fun as I remember. It's slow. I've resorted to using restore points in a let's play on-screen, something I initially didn't want to do because I thought it would look unprofessional.

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

I actually prefer needing to use save points over being able to do it anywhere. I know that I'll forget to save if I'm left to my own devices, and I've been burned from that more than once, but with save points, I'll see them and be constantly reminded that saving is a thing I should do. Even if I don't save every time I see a save point, I'm still always being reminded. Games that let you save whenever can achieve a similar effect by having a character to bug you about saving every now and then. Yes, I'm advocating for the character who annoys you about saving.
Naturally, games that autosave avoid this whole dilemma entirely.

 

[Juliko]

Ara Fell is a very cute RPG Maker game and it needs more love!

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@TouyaShiro Also, needing all of the collect all of the collectables to fight the final boss in the Dark Matter trilogy makes sense, because they create the weapon you use to fight the final boss.

 

[TouyaShiro]

I actually prefer needing to use save points over being able to do it anywhere. I know that I'll forget to save if I'm left to my own devices, and I've been burned from that more than once, but with save points, I'll see them and be constantly reminded that saving is a thing I should do. Even if I don't save every time I see a save point, I'm still always being reminded. Games that let you save whenever can achieve a similar effect by having a character to bug you about saving every now and then. Yes, I'm advocating for the character who annoys you about saving.
Naturally, games that autosave avoid this whole dilemma entirely.

While I don't personally mind the method of saving myself (nor am I annoyed by the NPCs that tell you to save/take a break), this is sound logic. It gets odd when a game offers both a menu and a saveblock option - generally, those games add it in for convenience, but a save block can still be a useful indicator that something big happens in the room beyond, such as a boss or major cutscene.

There are those weird few cases that I've played which wouldn't *neatly* fit into the categories above - specifically, Etrian Odyssey's save system. It's a menu option, but this menu option is limited to two places - purple Geomagnetic Poles, or the inn when you're in town. However, since the town in itself is a necessary place to return to for healing and various other important functions, you'll inevitably come across the Save option every time you go to the inn so you'll always have a constant reminder. It's to the point where later games in the series allow an autosave function or allow you to save at the same time as you rest at the inn as opposed to doing both functions separately (for the record, I disable both options because of the way I sometimes want to revert progress using multiple save files... just in case there's something I want to try, especially early game).

To add another unpopular opinion, what's wrong with wanting to find out certain spoilers? Some people would definitely chastise me for this, but I like to find out all the cool gameplay shit even before I get to it in my copy of the game. Story spoilers I typically leave alone, though.

Edit: Nitro, that may be true, but it's stupid when the game tells you bugger all about how to obtain that last lousy point needed to achieve that ending and true final boss in the first place! Again, where am I supposed to read that the Rick transformation with Stone+Cutter can reach ONE specific place that Pitch can't?

 

[Nitro Indigo]

@TouyaShiro That One Sidequest entries on TV Tropes unintentionally serve as guides to completing those sidequests. It's how I learned about the Stone Cutter thing in Aqua Star, for example.

 

[KasuMisty]

Just a few kinda generic Pokemon ones.

Chimchar is undisputed WORST starter.
Gen 2 is best Gen.
The DS Pokemon Games' aesthetics are pretty ugly