Your Unpopular Video Game Opinions

[Acrobatic Crobat]

I generally prefer friendlier rivals, but I still liked Blue, and Silver is by far my favourite. That said, jerkish rivals in anime were just... ugh. In my Pokemon anime marathon I'm currently stuck at DP and can't bring myself to watch further - specifically because it means having to go through hours upon hours of Paul's bitching, with more and more rivals like him joining in later.

Back on the topic, though...
There's a popular opinion among Dwarf Fortress fandom (heck, even the game's creator agrees with it) that the only correct (or at least most correct) way to play it is to lose in such incredibly stupid and/or awesome way that you don't even feel bad about it, while pulling off as many crazy atrocities towards your people and world in general as possible. I see the appeal of such sentiment, considering the game's sandbox nature (meaning it can't be really won) and obscenely high difficulty, but I don't necessarily agree. I always try to turn my fortress into an unconquerable stronghold, inside of which dwarves feel safe and happy, and it brings me satisfaction. If it somehow ends up turning into a wretched hellhole of rioting madmen that then blows up due to a magma plumbing accident and kills everyone inside - that's funny, in a way fine and makes for an epic story, but I generally try to avoid it - not work towards it.

 

[Phosphene]

Minecraft is overrated in my opinion. It’s a good game, but by no means the best game ever, which is what at least half the Internet seems to think right now. There’s just not enough stuff in it, which sucks considering it’s a sandbox game (though I haven’t played anything past update 1.12). I mean, the End and the ocean biome were pretty much empty for a long time, there’s only five armor sets IIRC (compare this to Terraria’s 67 unique armor sets ), only three bosses, etc. Without mods or multiplayer, it’s easy to become bored. As a whole, Terraria is just better in my opinion by virtue of having more stuff.

 

[Tactician Karina]

FFVIII deserves a remake more than VII. Though I'm still happy for VII's remake regardless and will play it when it releases.

Speaking of FFVIII, I want a prequel game involving Laguna. (I don't know if this one is that unpopular though)

Also Tidus is a great FF protagonist, he's not my top favorite in the series but I don't consider him super annoying like some do.

I'm one of the 1% of people that actually wouldn't mind seeing Genesis from Crisis Core make a re-appearance in the remake (I know he won't but still). I've always liked him anyway. (Angeal can stay in the trash though)

I actually liked Kuroshitsuji: Phantom & Ghost on the DS and it's story, it definitely should have gotten an official English translation.

I won't play a VN if the art isn't appealing to me, even if the story sounds good, it's shallow but I don't care. Usually it's mostly western VN's I ignore when it comes to art, but there are some I have enjoyed with appealing artwork.

Shin (as well as his route) is my favorite in Amnesia, and yes I like him more than Toma.

I actually liked Rumpel in Cinderella Phenomenon before playing his route, whereas it's the opposite for most others.

 

[henrymidfields]

Also Tidus is a great FF protagonist, he's not my top favorite in the series but I don't consider him super annoying like some do.

I actually think Tidus (and Yuna) are like two parts of the Jesus story. And Tidus is essentially the fiercer side of Jesus who sees the hypocrisy in the Pharisee/Yevonite priestdom.

In related to the above, I actually think Final Fantasy 10 is one of the few JRPGs that actually acknowledges (early) Christianity in its essentials, due to how much of the FF10 narrative runs parallel to some of the key points in the New Testament - most notably how both opposes religious hypocrisy.

And now that Tokyo Mirage Session is announced a Switch remaster:

I actually prefer Itsuki over the proper FE lords, due to how he doesn't hog the plotline limelight unlike so many FE Lords which supposedly share the spotlight with others. Itsuki seem to actually backs off every once in a while and let Tsubasa and Kiria shine unlike what usually seem to happens with a number of FE Lords in the cutscenes. Instead of how Alm (1), Ike (2), Corrin (3) or Roy (4) ends up hogging the spotlight, it feels (and probably is intended to be) more like Persona 3-4 where SEES and IT members contribute to the main plot in meaningful ways and major amounts, and how the game unambiguously portrays the very fact that Hamuko/Minako and Yu/Souji need their companions, if they themselves are to ultimately save the day. (Ironic, considering how FE is also supposed to be about strategy and teamwork.)

*1 - Hey, wait until Celica's done her turn!
*2 - Hey, wait until Micaiah's/Elincia's done her turn! Stop hogging the spotlight!
*3 - OMG! NOO! You failed politics forever!!!
*4 - Actually, I'll let you off. At least I know you did your homework in Sun Tzu and Clausewitz.

 

[hanecco]

I'm pretty sure this is not unpopular but whatever.

I'm fed up with the Fire Emblem fandom, to be honest. Even though the edge has been taken off it thanks to the release of Three Houses, the elitist attitudes of "if you don't play on Hard/Classic, then you shouldn't be a Fire Emblem player" persist. What's worse is that I often catch myself thinking that way, too.

Why can't we just leave people to enjoy games the way they like it?

 

[Tactician Karina]

I'm pretty sure this is not unpopular but whatever.

I'm fed up with the Fire Emblem fandom, to be honest. Even though the edge has been taken off it thanks to the release of Three Houses, the elitist attitudes of "if you don't play on Hard/Classic, then you shouldn't be a Fire Emblem player" persist. What's worse is that I often catch myself thinking that way, too.

Why can't we just leave people to enjoy games the way they like it?

While I agree, both sides of the FE fandom can be toxic, as I've seen newer fans/casuals get just as bad of an attitude as elitists. But to be honest, I haven't seen too much of this anymore on either side (even before FETH released).

But I've said it before in the Smash fanbase and I'll say it again, who cares how people play a game. There is no right or wrong way, play the game your way and don't worry about how others play a video game.

 

[Trainer Gabriel]

I like Final Fantasy I and even II more than most seem to. Unlike many others, I actually like the spells-per-day system that the first title uses for the PS remake (and original) and don't really consider it to be a dated spell system at all. It's simply how D&D is played, and I, for one, like the D&D roots that the original Final Fantasy was based on. The rather simplistic plot also worked well for the "D&D Adventure" it had going for it. It’s also the only game in the series that uses a class system instead of the jobs system (I believe?), which I personally prefer to just being able to swap a character class at any time. For FFII, while I'm not a big fan of the skill-leveling system myself - mainly for how broken and exploitable it is - I don't really mind it that much, either. I did also like the keyword system used to unlock more dialogue to advance the plot, and I wish the series had expanded on that instead of just dropping it (then again, creating a new gimmick and dropping in the following game was, and still is, typical for Nintendo games). However, I will say that the PlayStation version is a pain and am speaking strictly about the GBA port that I prefer. Oddly, the opposite is the case for FFI, in which I prefer the PS version over the GBA port, due to how brain-dead easy the port is (along with the pointlessly tedious extra dungeons). Conversely, the scaled-down difficulty of II actually works to its benefit; gone was the ability for the opposite skills of frequently used ones to decrease with neglect. They’re not among my favorite games in the FF series, let alone games in general, but I just don’t think they’re as bad as everyone else does, particularly FFII on the GBA.

In contrast, a popular FF title that I do not enjoy as much as many others do is Final Fantasy IV. I used to love this game a lot, but in more recent years the flaws in the storytelling became more apparent.

Spoiler

I can’t help but shake my head at all the times characters are allegedly killed then brought back by some cheap plot devices. It was heartwarming to see at first, but then just got overused and tiring by the time Cid and Yang throw their lives for everyone else, only to not be gone in the end, making their "sacrifices" meaningless. The writing team really could have come up with more original methods to kick off characters from the party than feigning deaths. It’s quite a shame, too, because I like the underlying central theme of the storyline, which I believe was the theme of redemption, of overcoming one’s inner darkness. The problem is that it wasn’t as well-executed as it could have been, which is another problem with the game. The scene where Cecil undergoes a trial to cleanse his darkness, transforming from a Dark Knight to a White Paladin, was a powerful scene… but it happens so early in the story, and he remains basically the same static character from that point onward. The fact that Golbez was also just mind-controlled all along by a greater evil – who wasn’t even alluded to until toward the end, as far as I’m aware – was a lame, cheap cop-out and didn’t really feel like a true redemption arc for his character, since he was never truly evil to begin with. For that matter, Cecil himself was always a Paladin at heart. Interestingly, Cecil may still be my favorite FF protagonist, because of his redemption arc. But other than Rydia, he was the only main character in the party who really developed as a character throughout the whole story, and it happened so early that it didn’t feel as consequential, or as well-developed, than if it had happened closer to the midway point.

The story may have been amazing when it was first released at a time when there wasn’t much else like it, but nowadays it just doesn’t hold up as a gold standard for storytelling in the video game medium… unlike the story in FFVI, which I firmly regard as a true timeless classic. I also want to mention that I didn't enjoy the DS remake that much, and don't really consider it to be much of an improvement over the original game. I wasn't really fond of the chibi-style character models, and hated having to backtrack to dungeons that I just cleared to pick up the new augments that were added to the remake.

I don’t know if this is really considered to be unpopular, mainly around here, but I rather like the more “standard” Tolkienesque fantasy-style settings in RPGs (or any genre) – as in, the kind with elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, and the like. Some gamers seem to be tired of seeing a similar setting for how overused it has become - and it is - but I don’t mind. Where many others see it as a trite setting nowadays, I see it as a classic setting. There happen to be a lot good to great games/series that use the style of setting (ie: TES, Dragon Age, Divinity, etc.), and I’m happy with it.

 

[BackSet]

Turnabout Big Top was a good case. Not my favorite but it was good. Except for Ben and Trilo. They can go die (well, maybe Ben can stay but not Trilo).

Case 6-4 is a good case.

 

[Acrobatic Crobat]

Okay, I've been trying for last few weeks to play all five main series TES games at once (note trying, I tend to just focus on one game for a few days and forget about the others before suddenly switching games), and there's a thing I feel like sharing here.

Morrowind has great story, epic soundtrack and put some serious work into the background lore, helping to move the series from standard tolkieneqsue fantasy mentioned in the previous post and make it into a more distinct setting... and those are about the only good things about that game. It unfortunately suffers from a serious case of sacred cowness among the fanbase and yet, as it often happens... it's not really deserved.
Okay, let's start from the beginning.

The combat system... gah. I... I just... okay, I'll be blunt: I'm pretty sure there's some ingenious and deeply thought-through reasoning behind the creators deciding to use both a hitbox based and dice roll based hit detection AT THE SAME TIME - it's just that my feble mortal mind is far to weak to understand said reasoning. Seriously, when you clearly stab the oponnent it the chest and yet game uses RNG to determine whether to actually register said hit... it's not a bad design. It's terrible design.

In general the overreliance on dice rolls when it comes to most game mechanics. Unlike Oblivion (and, in case of lockpicking, Skyrim), lockpicking and persvasion are both completely random with no input on player's part. The main advantage computer RPGs have over tabletop ones is the fact that you can replace most of random rolls with an actual, skill based minigame - why don't they take advantage of it? Why, instead of fighting with a hard, but oppenable lock I have to sit back and watch as my character breaks 15 lockpicks before oppening a door just because RNGod decided he hates me today? Why, I ask, why!? And unless your lockpicking/speechcraft skill is really high, you will almost always fail both checks (heck, even the tutorial basically tells you that trying to persuade anyone is a waste of time until you train your speechcraft to a very high level. Which is done by succesfuly persuading people. Which is unlikely to happen until you train your speechcraft to a very high level. Which is...) And it's not just those two tasks - everything, every. Single. Thing you do is determined by RNG. There are some tasks where it is justified or at least somewhat justified, like pickpocketing or repairing your equipment - but in most cases it's not at all. Bartering? If you're lucky, you can convince that merchant to give you his entire stock for a single septim. If you're not, offering a price just one septim lower or higher from what he proposed will make him hate your guts. Alchemy? You got that cool, rare ingredient and want to use it for a powerful potion? Oh, look... it just so happened that the potion making failed and you just wasted it. Enchanting? It's either asking a professional enchanter who always successfuly enchants item and takes huge amount of money for it, or trying to enchant that sword with a basic fire damage spell yourself, which however will almost certainly fail and destroy that soul gem that you worked so hard for... yeah. You get the point.

There are more joinable factions with their own questlines than in any other game in the series (three Great Houses, three Vampire Clans, Imperial Legion, Tribunal Temple, Imperial Cult, Morag Tong, Mages Guild, Fighters Guild and Thieves Guild)... but said great quantity is greatly dimnished by low quality. Seriously, while in all the other games faction questlines are their own, separate stories, here each amounts to a series of thematically connected tasks with little to no story behind them (Great Houses and Vampire Clans are trying to undermine each other, Mages and Fighters Guild have you trying to overthrow and replace the incompetent/corrupt guildmaster, Thieves Guild is trying to sabotage Cammona Tong while defending itself from their attacks. Legion, Temple, Cult and Morag Tong questlines are just a series of perfectly routine tasks for said groups). They're forgettable and uncreative.

Traveling is pain. Okay, people complaining about fast travel from later games do have a point - but if I'm forced to travel on foot most of the time and only allowed to fast travel from cities, only to some other cities and only at a price, then at least give me a character that DOESN'T walk at a snail pace. A few more dungeons would also help. There are times when I want to rest from saving the world and just go dungeon crawling... and it turn out I must walk for AGES before encountering any dungeon. And THEN it turns out it's just a tiny cave with two enemies and a small chest at the end. Seriously.

The quest journal is yet another big mistake. In this case Bethesda at least realised how terrible the design is and fixed it in the Tribunal DLC - but still, having to buy a DLC in order to have a workable quest journal is still bad. But let's start from the beginning: everything your character deems important (no matter how unimportant it is) is just written down in your journal chronologically. And that's it. Simple, chronological journal... without any way of sorting it by quest, unless you have the DLC installed. Doesn't sound bad? You can - and likely will - do dozens of quests at the same time while ingoring several other that are already active. And once you start doing that... good luck going through twenty pages of completely useless info about tasks you already forgot even doing in order to find that one piece of info you need for that quest that you were ignoring for some time and want to finish now.

And I am not even getting to how forgetable and similar to each other most NPCs are. And... let's just leave it at that, as this rant is already getting long.

Oblivion and Skyrim (especially Oblivon) was a HUGE improvement in almost every single way. I'm not gonna change my mind about it.

 

[Blaine.]

Here are my hot takes

New Super Mario Bros 2 was fun, and it was an interesting concept with coins.
Smash 4 was better than Melee and Brawl
Fortnite is actually fun, for a while. Then it becomes stressful and boring.
BOTW is a horrble Zelda game. It requires all your attention or else you miss out on what to do, and unlike other games, you get lost easily.

 

[Tood]

I don't know what the general consensus is on these two games, but I liked Bravely Second more than Bravely Default. The few discussions I've seen makes me think most people prefer it the other way around. I do think Bravely Default has several things over Second, like a better main 4 and phenomenal music, but its story is just so inconsistent for me in terms of quality.

Spoiler: spoiler maybe?

Bravely Default starts out really good, but the middle parts of the story are just so tedious and awful. You revisit the same 4 dungeons and fight the same 4 bosses over and over. The sidequests were kind of cool since you learned more about the asterisk holders, but again, it's just fighting the same 24 (ish) bosses again and again. The later chapters where they start ganging up on the player definitely lowers the amount of fights you have to do, but that's when they start getting a lot more difficult as well. If I remember correctly, there's also no real benefit to doing all the boss sidequests either aside from more lore. (Aside from the vampire one and i think there's one about Edea and Braev but I could be wrong?)

It would be so much better if they tried to diversify the types of sidequests you did, instead of every single one of them being: retread dungeon>dialogue>boss. It killed the game for me and I ended up watching the game's ending on Youtube instead. I suppose I could have just skipped the quests if I didn't want to do them, but the completionist in me didn't want to. I think I was on the final chapter before the end of the game, so I honestly could have finished the game if I really wanted.

Second's sidequests also sucked for the same reason, but at least you got a new job from every one you did (assuming you don't make the same choices you made in the previous world you were in before), so there was at least some important gameplay-related reason to do them. Aside from the Empire jobmaster rematches, you also never fought the same character twice.

With Second, I feel like the story was never good enough to match Default's best parts, but I don't think it ever reached Default's low points either. It's an okay story, not great, but I find it's at least a lot more consistent in quality. It gets a bit better after the fourth wall break. I really like the classes this game introduced as well: Wizard, Exorcist and Guardian in particular. They were fun to mess around with.

I think it also benefitted from having less jobmasters than Default, since it didn't need a stupid amount of repetitive sidequests to explore their backstories and relationships with each other. Main plot + one sidequest + a party chat, and you've got it all. The Second asterisk holders kind of came in pairs as well, so that cut down on the amount of character lore the game had to cover. The only beef I had with the characters was that we didn't see much BD/BS character interaction. Iirc, only Braev, Alternis and Kamiizumi had anything to say to the BS characters. I guess everyone else was off doing their own stuff, but it still would have been nice.

Either way, I have been thinking of replaying Bravely Second, but I haven't even considered replaying Bravely Default since I dropped it, so...

 

[Poke Dragon]

I don't know if this is counted as unpopular, but I'll share it anyways. I think the Octarians have already run their course as enemies, heck, even the Octo Canyon DJ Octavo fight didn't reach the test of skills fight of the Octo Valley DJ Octavio fight. Moreover, the Splatoon devs have proven that Splatoon can have villains other than the Octarians.

 

[Tactician Karina]

I don’t know if this is really considered to be unpopular, mainly around here, but I rather like the more “standard” Tolkienesque fantasy-style settings in RPGs (or any genre) – as in, the kind with elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, and the like. Some gamers seem to be tired of seeing a similar setting for how overused it has become - and it is - but I don’t mind. Where many others see it as a trite setting nowadays, I see it as a classic setting. There happen to be a lot good to great games/series that use the style of setting (ie: TES, Dragon Age, Divinity, etc.), and I’m happy with it.

I agree with this part especially. I know it's kind of unpopular in the FE community, but I'd love to see elves, dwarfs, orcs and the like in the series. Even a unicorn would be nice to see, though technically the Falcon Knight class counts I guess, but I'd rather see a unicorn without wings appear (and not as a mount either). The series has dragons and characters transforming into dragons, an already overused species in fantasy, I see no problem with adding other overused and common fantasy creatures as well. I especially wouldn't mind seeing vampires, centaurs, lamias, harpies, actual anthro characters etc. appear as well. (I wouldn't mind them going the FF and Shining series route tbh)

Almost forgot, FE also has zombies too (Gaiden/Echoes, Sacred Stones, Awakening, and TearRing Saga) which are also pretty damn overused. So adding in a few other common fantasy creatures wouldn't be that bad.

 

[BackSet]

Final Fantasy Adventure is better than Secrets of Mana.

 

[Blaine.]

IDK how unpopular this is, but I despise Sonic. The games just feel like they are bleh

 

[BackSet]

IDK how unpopular this is, but I despise Sonic. The games just feel like they are bleh

That's not unpopular. Every game since the dreamcast era (and maybe even those) has been terrible. Except Mania. That was okay.

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

That's not unpopular.

Then this certainly will be: I prefer the Modern Era games. Don't get me wrong, the classic stuff and Mania are still good games, but I just feel like the modern gameplay style reflects Sonic better than the older stuff, and is more enjoyable to play as well.

 

[BackSet]

To be quite honest, I could never play modern sonic games because when it comes to games like that fast characters always screw me up.

 

[FinalArcadia]

Unpopular opinion for an entire console: The Switch being able to go portable/handheld is not a selling point to me at all. In fact, I'd fine with that that ability being totally removed.

It seems like polls always show handheld as the preferred way to play on the Switch, but I could probably count on a single hand the amount of times I've played in handheld. Pretty much just during power outages. When the option is there to play on a nice, larger TV screen without having to awkwardly hold the Switch in handheld (I think it's pretty uncomfortable in that position honestly), then it's really hard for me to ever actually choose to play it non-docked.

What's more, I'm not taking the Switch out of my house, lol. I don't trust other people in public, I don't want people watching me play, the Switch is too big to even really be handheld IMO (I felt like the PSP - as much as I loved it - was too big, and this is even BIGGER)... For people who are out and about all the time, I guess I can understand, but I would rather the Switch just be a totally docked unit with a little more power in cutting the sacrifice for handheld capabilities. If I need to play a game when I'm out and about, I still just bring a 3DS with me.

Switch Lite also doesn't appeal to me (I'm jealous of the nice pastel colors it comes in, though), but I think it's a nice option for people and multi-Switch households.

 

[prog rocker]

IDK how unpopular this is, but I despise Sonic. The games just feel like they are bleh

I also dislike Sonic, but it's more thanks to his personality than for his games.