Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@Iconorobin Perhaps. I myself have played games with phenomenal stories. Whenever I think about games that have really good stories by their own merits, I think of Xenogears, Xenoblade 1 (2 has a great story but there are issues that I can't get behind), and Mother 3. Xenogears has an extremely complex story that also has backstory and lore spanning the course of 10,000 years. Xenoblade 1 is sorta Xenogears-lite, but condensed and compacted into an extremely well-told story with fantastic execution. Mother 3 is an emotional roller-coaster that really hits hard throughout the game, especially at the end.

BUT. In Xenoblade 1 and Mother 3's case, they all hold up extremely well in the gameplay department. Though I think Xenoblade 1 has the weakest combat of the three Xenoblade games, that doesn't mean it's bad. It's still a cut above a lot of RPGs I've played. Mother 3 also has simple turn-based combat that has the rolling HP meter way better implemented in that game than in EarthBound, and the gameplay remains engaging on its own, even if you took out the story.

In Xenogears' case, that game is extremely aged with some bad platforming/camera angles and some cryptic nonsense in terms of learning how combat actually works. Combat is still fine (it's a variant of ATB combat without the speed of one, though), but aside from that it's an extremely aged game that only exists to tell its story in today's world. Once you beat that story, that's it for Xenogears, since replaying it is a chore. And that right there is my thing: a story can't prop up a game alone without it being fantastic, and Xenogears' story was fantastic. But that comes as a double-edged sword in that after you beat the game, there's no reason to go back to it because of some bad/aged gameplay.

@Iconorobin I can appreciate a great story in a game, but I'll very rarely pick up a game to experience one. For me, video games, at their core, are about the experience of playing them. Great gameplay can redeem a game with a terrible story, but I'm not sure I can say the opposite: if I hate the gameplay, then narrative elements won't save it for me.

This is probably why I have a distaste for the sort of setpiece-driven, story-heavy experiences Sony is putting out right now. They're often not satisfying to me AS GAMES, which ruins them for me.

So, I can play a game like DKC: Tropical Freeze and enjoy it quite a bit, because, in terms of the "fundamentals" of good game design, it's fantastic.

But I'm not sure I can disagree with you, either. After all, the story, atmosphere, and music are all a big part of why Super Mario Galaxy is my favorite 3D Mario game, and I can't deny that the disappointing main story in Super Mario Odyssey detracted from the experience for me.

@Iconorobin Yup, I hope you didn't feel like I was invalidating your opinion or trying to convince you. I'll definitely like to see 2D platformers with more story and unfortunately I haven't checked any of those games but I'm definitely interested in them, specially Owl Boy

Not at all mate. Love the discussion we've been having here. That goes for @Ralizah and @EvilLucario as well.

I myself consider it pretty weird that you care about the story of owlboy which basically was your town was attacked by robotpirates which has also been done a million times while you complain about the story of Shovel Knight which was your female compannion became an evil empress. They both had pretty bad stories in my opinion and the whole story of owlboy "Your actions were basically useless and you end into a free fall" felt like a really bad ending. I also thought why do the main characters make those choices. But well everyone has their own things in a story that gets them immersed into them so I accept your opinnion.

Edit: I was actually really disappointed by Owlboy about how some levels were designed and about the forced stealth, which was done pretty badly in my opinnion. The story was the tip on the iceberg that made me not recommend the game to my friends. It felt so useless and stupid what you did in the whole game with that ending, which I saw coming halfway throught the pretty short experience in the first place. Also the fact that you don't battle Molstorm felt like a bad choice of the developer.

@Iconorobin I wholeheartedly agree. For example, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a game with very sub-par combat and is overall a little clunky, but it's still one of the best games I've ever played IMO because the story, characters, voice acting, lore, side quests, and world are all done so incredibly well.

No matter how lame the gameplay is, I can always enjoy a game if it has a good story and world-building and whatnot. And it just enhances games overall. For example, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is widely regarded as a classic and the best entry in the Paper Mario series, but it wouldn't be half the game that it is if it didn't have an incredible story, characters, world, lore etc. It feels like a living, breathing world. However, if it didn't have all that stuff and just had the gameplay, it'd still be pretty fun, but not very memorable at all.

I feel like good storytelling is a bit of a lost art for Nintendo, and that's a shame. They can write some incredible stories when they actually try. I can only hope that with the shift in Nintendo's attitude over the past year or so, we might get some more games that have a good story and aren't just trying to be simple fun.

Ultimately, Nintendo is the king at making extremely tight games with really good game mechanics, which is why they are my favorite video game developer/publisher as a whole. And when they do actively try to make a story, they either blend it with gameplay (Metroid Prime, Kid Icarus: Uprising) or complement story time with a TON of gameplay time (Fire Emblem, Xenoblade. The latter is a perfect example as in both Xenoblade 1 and 2, there are ~15 hours of cutscenes just for the main story. But gameplay time can be 30-40+ hours). I'm all for story, but not at the expense of great gameplay.

Of course, you can have both and that's where some of the best games lie, but if push comes to shove make the game fun to play.

That said there is an audience for story-driven games where gameplay takes a backseat, and that's perfectly fine. As long as I get my games with killer gameplay I'll be happy, and they're still going to be made in the coming years. Variety is the spice of life in the end.

Huh, I hadn't really thought about that. Most casual gamers, and eSports enthusiasts, I guess, don't seem to care much about story-driven games. So yes, I would say that's an unpopular opinion.

It's really just a matter of taste, though. Personally, I've spent the last year trying to focus on games don't even really have stories - Overwatch, Paladins, Smite, Battlerite, League of Legends, and the now-defunct Paragon, along with mountains of fighting games. I generally wanted to focus on experiencing characters in their purest form, while letting the gameplay itself be the narrative. It's one of those things that only video games can provide, and it's been an interesting time so far.

I've still enjoyed my occasional breaks in the forms of the Uncharted series and Ratchet & Clank, but it's still a bit of a rough transition. I think I just honestly never cared about the plots themselves in games, since I can easily write my own. Yet games that focus on player choice are even worse, since then they have variable plots, none of which are guaranteed to be enjoyable, and just makes me feel like I screwed up and wasted tons of hours if the path I'm on turns out to be boring, forcing me to do research beforehand which ruins the experience, and arguably the point. Judging from my own experience with writing, with a solid premise and the right characters, the story essentially writes itself...

It's been a fun exercise for me, at least, though I do miss having genuine level design in the games I've played. Games like Mario & whatnot, though I often find that there's not quite as much...character, there. I guess that'll be my next adventure...

...so, my potentially unpopular opinion: a fun game should also have fun characters - someone identifiable and interesting, perhaps Iconic. And done well enough, it can ultimately trump plot, as the player/character relationship ultimately allows for a type of storytelling through the gameplay itself, in ways only video games are capable of.

I can appreciate a game with a good story but often I prefer games that are not focused on this type of things, because it is possible that I dislike the story or the characters: I don't mean they are necessarily bad, I mean that even good ones can be different form my taste, so it can be a reason for me to not like a game that otherwise I could like. This is one of the main reasons why I usually like to be able to create my character in games or to be able to choose different paths and behaviours. It is not that I want to try different things and discover different outcomes, it is because that way I have more chances to avoid that my characters do something that I don't like. If the game is not focused on the story maybe I can be able to overlook things that I don't like, but if a game is focused on the story, or if the characters stand out too much, then the story itself or the characters can become a deal breaker.
For example I hate Dante and I can't stand playing Devil may cry mostly because of this reason. With the story the problem is the same, if I like the story I like it, but there's no guarantee that I like the story. If I buy Super Mario as long as the game quality is good I will like it.

@EvilLucario
I guess that's one thing I didn't make myself clear on: gameplay is of course still very important. Without good gameplay, it doesn't matter how good the story is, it's still a bad game. The ones I mentioned before incorporate great stories on top of good gameplay. So yeah...

@MajorTom
Owlboy is a story about acceptance and trying to overcome expectations. Underneath all that lies a huge backstory about a failed civilization and how faith can mislead an entire population long after that society has crumbled.
You're the first I come across to say Owlboy's story was bad... and I couldn't disagree more with your points. But then again, this is the "Unpopular Gaming Opinions" thread.

@KirbyTheVampire @CanisWolfred @LuckyLand
Absolutely LOVE all these different opinions.

For me, stories are REALLY important in the game. I don't mind less gameplay for more story, and only recently I dipped my hand into games with pretty much no plot, and it's surprisingly nice!

I understand that gameplay need to be good, but I don't mind having a kinda decent gameplay for good story For me I view video games as another medium for me to get story told, just in different ways.

@Iconorobin I have seen more that didn't like the story in owlboy. The stuff about the old owlpeople civilization was not that big. It was mostly that they messed up and that the two owlboys were their ancestors. Still the robot pirate stuff including the old civilization stuff is not exactly new to gaming. It was mostly just how the ending ended that gave me a really bad taste in my mouth. That plottwist with
Solus trying to save the world by betraying the pirates was so expected, I really saw it coming halfway through so maybe that is why I considered the story really predictable. They could atleast have given a epoligue after that weird
free fall to his sort of death? It felt like they wanted to make the ending edgy or something but failed horribly with it.
Still the style of the game is really nice but it felt lacking in every other department in my opinion, but everyone has their own so yah.

To be fair, Nintendo has gotten away with this for so long, and why fix what isn't broken?

Some of Nintendo's franchises like Mario, Kirby, and Donkey Kong only need a simple story to be enjoyable. However, other Nintendo franchises like Metroid and Zelda have a deeper narrative usually.

I can like a game without story very easily but I mostly hate when a game tries too hard to have story and it just wastes your time and sucks. That was my biggest problem with Bayonetta, especially 2, is that I genuinely feel like I got a worse experience for actually watching the cutscenes.

It depends on the genre for me. RPGs with a good story make the game quite a bit more enjoyable(like all three Xenoblade games, Persona 4, heck, SMT games in general etc.) Horror games should really have a strong story(this is part of the reason why Silent Hill 2 is such an amazing game).

Other genres such as shooters, action games, fighters, platformers, they really don't need a good story.

Alright, feel free to roast me with everything you got.

• Battle Royale games are incredibly boring and tedious, the exception to me is Fortnite but even then I play it as a time killer sort of game and nothing more.
• Overall, I don't like Sonic. There's a few Sonic games I enjoy, but there are more awful Sonic games than good ones. And even with the good games, I'm not like an ultra mega fan of them. I enjoy them and think they're good games though, and I'm glad to see that Mania was a success.
• I prefer the GameCube over the PS2. I know, probably not an unpopular opinion here, but I grew up using my GameCube more and I prefer the first party line-up there to the PS2's (even though the PS2 also had a killer 1st Party line-up). That and the PS2 breaks way too easily seemingly. I've been through like 3 or 4 PS2s and yet I've had this one GameCube since 2003.
• Gen 7 of Pokemon is the worst Pokemon Generation yet, in my opinion. Yes, even worse than Gen 1. Call me crazy, but I played Pokemon Red on an emulator months back and it's still fun to this day. Funner than any main series Pokemon games released from Gen 6 onwards. At least Red and Blue doesn't try to force all this tutorial crap down your throat for the first few hours of the game. Seriously, that's part of the reason why I never feel any motivation to continue playing a newer Pokemon game after a couple of hours. If they'd just let us play the game that would be great. I ALREADY KNOW HOW TO PLAY POKEMON DAMMIT, I'VE BEEN HERE SINCE RUBY AND SAPPHIRE. AT LEAST MAKE THE TUTORIALS OPTIONAL FOR CHRIST'S SAKE...ahem. Sorry about the tangent there. Anyways...
• ET isn't that bad. It was a mediocre tie-in that was meant to be an easy cash grab. Besides, there were many other way worse Atari games.
• Fire Emblem Awakening is really fun as a game, but it isn't a good Fire Emblem game. The gameplay is really solid, but the story and characters were really lacking compared to characters from older entries. Not to mention this is the game where they really started to go overboard with the anime waifu fanservice crap. It was tolerable at first, but FE character designs and stories have gotten so absurd in recent years to the point where I can't even take the stories or these characters seriously anymore. Not trying to sound like an elitist, the gameplay has been the best it's ever been and I won't deny that, but I want the more serious Fire Emblem back for once. Echoes was kinda that, but it was a remake of a previous game so it doesn't count.

Anyways I've gone on a tangent twice so I think I'll stop here. Feel free to tell me why my opinions are wrong and why I'm the spawn of Hitler and how I should kill myself because I have an opinion on the internet.

I believe I totally found my ideal gaming dimension in mobile phone games. Kinda baffles me how many gamers have a great mobile phone capable of running the most demanding games, yet they only play that couple of (very mediocre) games Nintendo released for it. My phone is a cheap android worth less than €100 and has become my second favourite portable gaming system ever.

On the subject of stories; I don't really like it when games have multiple alternate endings (often the result of in-games choices that you have to make, which I'm also not that keen on. I make enough bad choices in real life, I don't need it in games as well...) This only really applies to games with stories that I care about, but still, for me, if a story has multiple alternate endings then it basically has no ending (or certainly not a true or satisfying one). I feel somewhat short-changed if I've spent all this time invested in this story and wondering how it ends and they just go "And in the end....... It doesn't really matter. Everyone died. Or they didn't. Whatever". I feel I may as well have just come up with my own ending; "In the end... They all turned into unicorns and flew off". It has just as much worth as the ones the game has given me because they're all equally meaningless. If you went to see a movie and they gave you alternate endings, you'd be like "What the hell? Which one is it then? Which one is canon? Otherwise everything we just sat through was basically pointless..." I imagine developers who make a game with alternate endings think they're doing really immersive storytelling or something, but I can't really think of anything more immersion-breaking from a story than having alternate endings.

@Haywired I also dislike multiple endings, but only because I don't feel it does what's intended: add replayability. I'm usually not gonna bother playing the same game twice in any reasonable time period, so I'll either research the ending I want ahead of time, thus spoiling any impact it might've had, or I'll make my decisions and criticize the game based on the results. If I make a decision that leads to an unfavorable outcome and I can't easily go back and change it, well then everything went south, I guess I better go play something else instead. Screw that noise.

But I hear ya, there's a lot of potential problems that it leads to, and only on a few specific occasions did I ever notice that having choices worked out as a positive. Otherwise, I'd rather the writers just pick an angle and go all the way with it. Minor changes that don't impact the overall narrative I'm all for, but why spread yourself thin and potentially weaken the impact of a good scene? Or make it missable because the majority of people wind up taking a different route?

And seriously, how am I supposed to know what route I want without spoiling the story?

I'm OK with multiple endings if the game is short (like Undertale, where you can pretty much see everything in every route in under 25 hours) or if the game is designed around seeing multiple endings in a single run (like Virtue's Last Reward). For longer games, though, I vastly prefer they just opt for a strong narrative arc and focus on a single ending.