Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

Feel like this one is really going to annoy people but: I hate the Shantae series. It's overhyped and really mediocre. I just don't see the appeal, the level designs and environments are bland and very safe. It feels like it relies on the scantly dressed women to cover that up too.

I'll admit that the style and charm of the games are big appeals of the game. I don't see how any aspect of the levels are bland, though. It's more like the Monster World games, where it's sort of exploration-focused. The levels have a lot to do (especially the first game), but at the same time, they can't be too difficult to traverse because you'll be backtracking quite a bit. I thought the first game was a little too slow (mostly by the last stretch), and the second game was way too short to be satisfying (the whole game felt like a prologue), but the third game seems to have hit the right balance in pacing, interesting power-ups, and interconnectivity with the levels, on top of the usual flare and charm expected of the series.

No, you're right. It's a very mediocre platforming series. The newer games have some very beautiful pixel art, but that doesn't change the fact that the rest of the game is just dull. It being pretty much the only high budget DSiWare title brought the franchise a lot of extra fame, but to be honest comparing anything to that pile of shovelware would make it look good.

I really don't understand why you guys don't like the Shantae series, though. Just repeating the phrase "it's mediocre" doesn't tell anybody anything...mediocre compared to what? What makes it mediocre? How could it be done better?

This one is more controversial, but I think going all digital downloads isn't a bad idea, and that digital downloads are more secure than a physical game. The SD Card in my 3DS is just as physical as the stack of cartridges sitting next to it, and it can be backed up and replaced in the case of memory corruption.

If anything I'd expect mediocrity to be an opinion of something least in need of explanation. It's not bad, but equally it's not any better than the average Platformer. It's quality seems very disproportionate to the attention it gets IMO. None the less I'll try to explain it.

Now I haven't played the DSiWare version in quite a while, so I don't remember every issue I had with the game. From what I remember though the levels were not only repetitive, but time wasting and without challenge. There were little purple caves leading to places, except there was no platforming challenge involved in getting through it, it usually involved going up and then down ladders, slowly hitting away blocks in your way, or killing the line of enemies in front of you. In short, it wasn't challenging, it just wasted your time.

Following on from this, most of the enemies weren't interesting mechanically. Backtracking through areas was annoying because killing most enemies just needed you to stop for a little while and spam away with hair, unless you wanted to grind for a bit of money. It was like trying to get places in Simon's Quest. All of the little deviations from the main path were very difficult to remember because they all looked the same, and had no way to show you'd already completed them. So many times I'd try to remember which little purple cave it was that had the power up I needed that I couldn't get to before.

And my god, the map system. For a Platformer that involves jumping between layers forwards and backwards the map system was terrible. Not only was it confusing, it just wasn't helpful at all. Now a game doesn't necessarily need a complex map, but in Shantae everything looked the same, and I'd just end up trying every wooden fling block until I found the right one.

tl:dr - No real challenge, just the illusion of challenge in wasting the players time. Terrible map system in a game that really needed one considering its samey environments and layer system. Didn't ever really capture my interest, got bored and quit it many times.

Now, again, I'm not saying they are bad games, they're just mediocre, with nothing to make them stand out in my eyes (Unfortunately to many people saying a game is mediocre might as well be saying that its bad). Whatever little innovations or differences that the series has from other Platformers are shadowed by other aspects of the games that make them either an annoyance or just uninteresting.

You're not wrong, going digital is a pretty good idea to be honest. Having all your games on one card/system is a better idea than having to carry around a gigantic bag full of games. Plus if you missplace the sd card you can just redownload them again, rather than having to rebuy them. The only real downside is these games become limited when the host hosting service for the games go down, making certain digital only games really hard to get your hands on.

Understandable and like many things, each have their pros and cons. My concern is mainly based around that if the company that owns the game / digital service, etc goes under, the whole service and all your games could potentially disappear, if you are forced to format your card / hard drive. Manual back ups may help but if you need authentication from the company to play, then you are screwed.

There was that one Steam game that was not only removed from sale, but actually removed from everyone's collection. I think the T&C's allowed it.

Basically, physical allows me greater control over my games. Plus they give them a sense of value (a personal opinion of course).

Definitely agree with you there. All of my current gen systems are 100% digital now. It's one of the best things to happen to gaming since analog thumbsticks.

Game discs aren't any more secure, at least from my point of view. My launch PS3 YLoD-ed and ate a copy of GoldenEye with it. Worst case scenario, my disc becomes unreadable and I have to buy a new copy. Worst case scenario with digital games, I log back onto PSN and redownload it, or call Nintendo and have the credit refunded.

You can get it out. I can't remember the exact process, but it's easy to find on youtube.

The PS3 was under warranty, so I wasn't going to void it to get a copy of 007 back. On the brightside, the replacement system has been working fine for over a year now

I wouldn't say the game disk is gone, I think you'd be able to recover it (though you'd probably ruin the console in the process).

My worst case for digital is if years down the line Sony says "ok, its no longer economically viable to store the data on all digital PS3 games and the records of what people bought; so from this date onwards, re-downloads are no longer possible". I believe it does state in their T&C's that they can withdraw services whenever they please and are under no obligation to offer refunds.

There's also the added issue that if you didn't get round to buying a game and its removed from sale, that's basically it. You missed out. Can't buy or borrow or copy from someone else (unless you buy/borrow the entire system and potentially their account).

Digital-only consoles probably will appear at some point and probably will become more accessible over several generations. However there is no denying in that doing so we are basically forgoing any ownership we had for any of our games (even though even on discs we don't own the actual data on them). Its basically something we will be giving up for the added convenience of digital copies.

Like everything else, there's pros and cons. It all depends how much of a deal breaker they are to each person.

No, if you do something that makes the fun run it'll take the disc out. It doesn't require any disassembly. Here's a video that shows how.

As long as you have your games downloaded, there isn't really a problem. Redownloads are like returns/exchanges with physical discs, something that isn't normally offered past a given amount of time.

What happens when those servers go down, and you still haven't bought a game you wanted yet? Or you found out about it after the servers go down? The game is lost to you if you didn't already buy it.

The N64 is my least favorite post-NES home console. The graphics on almost all of the games I've played almost made my eyes bleed back when it was current gen, and it hasn't gotten any better since. The library is small and mediocre, with some of my least favorite Nintendo first-party offerings. The controller is one of Nintendo's most bizarre and uncomfortable designs to date. I can think of almost nothing good about it, aside from having a few decent exclusive games on it.

As a games console and with its library, I would call the N64 almost entirely useless. I consider it Nintendo's worst console.

But I think it gave the gaming world two gifts that changed the landscape forever, laying down the groundwork for almost every 3D action game since. Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time are two of the most important games of all time, and are what keep the N64 from being a total throwaway.

Oh, and Goldeneye for making the console FPS viable I guess, but I think Halo was the real champ in that ring.

Blasphemy!

Then that's unfortunate, but if you don't buy a game for the years that the servers are up (Steam has been around for what, 12 years now?) then the only person to blame is yourself. Luckily, with services such as the Virtual Console, PS Now, etc. there will likely be another option to acquire the game.