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Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

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Dusk

@BruceCM I can think of a few instances games got choices right or half-right at least so it's definitely possible, here are some:

Dragon Age Origins - What do to with the Elven Keeper? What should you do with the mages? Should you help the Elven couple get hitched even though he is weak? Should that Dwarven kid spread the Chantry's teachings amongst the Dwarves even if it may cause a civil war?
Dragon Age 2 - The entire Mages vs Templars thing in the end. You need to determine your outview: are the mages victims or terrorists? are the templars oppressors or just? Nevermind that the game actually did nothing with the dilemma it presented, but the dilemma was there none the less.
Still on Dragon age 2 - Killing or not killing Anders. Completely up to your morality and views, no wrong answer here.
Persona 5 - The entire gameplay loop itself is just a huge choice mechanic, that's why it's addictive. How do you spend your day? Who is important to you? Who do you not care about? Even though it is a JRPG, it even presents you with like 6 endings (1 of them True, 1 of them Good, so... another choice).
Tale of Wuxia - pretty much the same as Persona 5 gameplay loop, and some choices too.
Call of Cthulhu and Sinking City - Endings, you need to decide what's the best course of action due to what you know - this time, there are no RIGHT answers.
Banner Saga - does this sometimes, I specifically remember the ending of the Banner Saga 2, but won't spoil it.
Fire Emblem Three Houses - the entire secret 4th route is a conscious choice you have to make, if you manage to uncover it.

Other games that do that but I can't think of specific examples from the top of my head - Witcher III to extent, Mass Effect, etc.

Again, I'm not saying it's completely not there, I'm saying the other choices are just filler gambling. I would prefer if games had more choices that are meaningful and based on your own morality and personality.

Edited on by Dusk

Dusk

BruceCM

Oh, OK, I've hardly started Dragon Age Origins, @Dusk .... I have finished the Banner Saga Trilogy, so I know about those choices & there are some tricky ones Your idea of 'gambling' does seem to be most real-life decisions, though, so people want games to have choices like those, too....
I think it'd be impossible to do any game with choices in ways everyone liked, since there's some who'd want to have all the info & everything but others, more like me, who'd think too much of that wasn't actually good

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Steam: Bruce_CM

Dusk

@BruceCM I can get that. I just like games that make me think, really, and I think more choices should reflect that. See, 2 of my favorite games are Fire Emblem and Persona, and those are pretty linear and not rife with choices - but their narrative is deep, it presents real dilemmas and provide commentary. Besides, I'm a sucker for symbolism lol.

Edit:
Oh, and besides, sure, there is plenty of room for gamble choices, but nobody should really market them as "meaningful", more like "added replay value".

Edited on by Dusk

Dusk

BruceCM

Or 'realistic', @Dusk .... I got the 'best' ending in Witcher 3 1st time, without looking any of that up or anything, so I don't feel like any of the choices in that game was really a 'gamble', even if there wasn't always as much info available as you might like to have We'll see if they manage to do even better with Cyberpunk 2077, as that's even more suitable to grey areas, tricky decisions, back-stabbing & double-dealing, with limited actual info & all the rest of it

SW-4357-9287-0699
Steam: Bruce_CM

Dusk

@BruceCM Most games don't require you that much effort to understand their main choice points and their consequences. 'Realistic' is okay, again, not 'meaningful'.

I heard great things about Cyberpunk 2077, and also heard some good things about the new Baldur's Gate. I sure hope they can take the writing of choices up a notch.

Dusk

BruceCM

So, most real-life choices aren't meaningful? Or you feel like you usually have enough info on those? Because I certainly don't! I'm really not sure where you get your idea of 'meaningful' from, then? It doesn't make much sense to me, sadly .... It proves how it'd be impossible to do game choices in ways everyone would appreciate, though! But games do continue to develop all these themes, so I imagine they'll at least get better at them all

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Steam: Bruce_CM

Dusk

Real life choices are meaningful because they affect your life. Choices and narratives in contents are meaningful when they present you with something meaningful you can take to your life. It's simple, and it's relevant to any kind of content you consume. Video game presenting you with the option of going to dinner with family of farmers only to have your companion murdered by them? well, it might help the overall narrative of the game but I wouldn't precisely call it "meaningful". A video game calling you to act in judgement and decide who is the better man, what values are more important...
That's calling you to think. Same with literary works that provide complex and multi layered characters and conflicts. Again, not saying ALL choices should be meaningful, but games shouldn't try to market meaningful choices if they have so few of those.

Edited on by Dusk

Dusk

Krull

@Dusk I think a choice that ends up with my friend being murdered is meaningful. I mean, how much more meaningful does it need to be? Maybe you just don’t like that form of storytelling in games. I struggle to see a better reward for making choices than how The Witcher III does them. Not every move you make can be tied to the main narrative - not sure any video game has a narrative team and budget big enough to manage that - but the way The Witcher III presents these little vignettes Of story alongside the choices that affect the final ending is possibly the richest compromise I’ve seen.

I absolutely love Persona, but I don’t love the fact that content and progression can be gated behind your choices. There are character affinity storylines you simply won’t see if you haven’t picked the right options along the way - which usually means slavishly following a FAQ (ugh! why even play the game?) or doing a New Game+ (and who has time for that?). Generally speaking, I just play the game and accept that I might not see the full Sun character arc, or whatever. It’s a bit like accepting the horrible outcomes that you may get in The Witcher III. Just got to suck it up, and enjoy the ride.

Switch ID: 5948-6652-1589
3DS ID: 2492-5142-7789

Dusk

@Krull Exactly my point. I gave up on the Fortune confidante too, but I was aware of the consequences. Besides, I mentioned that Persona does not pull this off as it is basically a linear JRPG, the choices mechanic in the gameplay loop itself shows how to combine choice with gameplay in a meaningful way - and it still, doesn't promote itself on that aspect. The specific example I introduced was a minor nameless character with no relevance to anything, no even portrait or anything (from a game I don't want to spoil). If it was a character with any relevance I would argue that it is relevant to the narrative the game is trying to advance, but as it was, it was a minor irrelevant hindrance.
Games might have great and interesting plots, and might be amazing all by themselves - there's no need to push a gimmick if the game does not really handle it.

My original point was that games are just not there yet when it comes to creating compelling and meaningful choices. Some old games might still feature the prominent element of meaningful choice still, but modern ones not so much. That's not to say games do not feature these at ALL, most RPG games feature at least a few (usually around 3-4), I'm just saying that's not something that deserves this kind of 'promotion' nor should be it accepted as the pinnacle of video game writing.

Games can have great narratives without meaningful choices. Games can have great narratives with great meaningful choices, so why wouldn't they?

I believe in the writers - they can do better than that!

Dusk

BruceCM

&, if EVERY choice directly affected the main story, people would complain, too, @Krull .... Eh, when people praise a game like Witcher 3, they're saying it's better than most in whatever area & if they think it's even only a little better in some specific areas, it adds up to a lot better overall Now that game's been around awhile, we should be seeing others doing some of the parts even better!

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Steam: Bruce_CM

Dusk

Another unpopular opinion:

I don't get why people get so defensive over the Witcher. I love that game, I pointed out flawed logic in RPGs in general. XD

Dusk

Krull

@Dusk You’re in the unpopular opinions forum! You can expect to have your opinions debated - that’s why we post them here.

To explain my motivations, I just felt picking The Witcher III as an example of a poor implementation of decision mechanics within games as... off. Because I literally cannot think of a game that has made players’ choices more interesting and meaningful without disrupting the gameplay.

I’m not sure what kind of decision structure you want in games. Visual novels do branching choices extremely well, but they are also very much gated as right or wrong decisions. Mess it up and you have to go back and pick something else. Which is a different type of game - and not necessarily what I want from a typical RPG.

I want choices to affect the game world in interesting ways, maybe even the gameplay in that I can lose companions (Fire Emblem, FFVI) or end up with a different partner (every BioWare game) and even change the ultimate ending - but I don’t want it affect the linearity in such a way that I have to reload my save in order to progress.

But we don’t have to agree. I’ve enjoyed the discussion regardless.

Halo is rubbish. That’s my unpopular opinion. I’ve already stated it here before, though.

Switch ID: 5948-6652-1589
3DS ID: 2492-5142-7789

Dusk

@Krull
1. I specifically picked that as it is widely considered the epitome of video game storytelling, to point out that it even IT can do better.
2. I'm looking for the exact thing you just describe: element of meaning full in my gameplay (Fire Emblem, Persona) and preferably lots meaningful choices (like the few that are in the RPGs we mentioned). I'm pointing out that the writing can improve and deliver a game that is, let's say, basically the Witcher but with better choices, to follow up on the previous example.
3. Halo is crap.

Dusk

iKhan

https://www.ign.com/articles/the-last-of-us-part-2-is-the-new...

This article honestly pissed me off quite a bit. The current accessibility conversation in games is heavily biased towards people who have both grown up with video games and have disabilities, and IMO that's a narrow view to have. Accessibility does include gamers with disabilities, but it also includes children and the elderly. It includes people completely new to games.

The Last of Us 2 is a twin stick shooter without gyro controls. In my mind, that automatically gives it a maximum of a C for accessibility. Twin stick controls are innately inaccessible, because they require a lot of experience and practice to get good with. I honestly struggled with them until my late teens, even though I've been playing video games to some extent since I was a toddler. I still struggle to aim with them honestly. I had to play Uncharted all the way through on Easy mode, and still died a ton.

With that said, I don't think every game needs to be accessible. At some point, you have to choose between maximum accessibility or realizing your developer vision, and that's okay. Not everyone needs to be able to play every game. But don't go giving broad accessibility crowns to games that don't deserve it.

Edited on by iKhan

Currently Playing: Steamworld Heist, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Tales of Graces F

NEStalgia

@iKhan The elderly will eventually be well covered by accessibility. Eventually we'll all be 90 and still wanting to play our PS5 minis and we'll make the industry cater to us by sheer market power.

@Laoak I don't think the GCN controller is "overrated" in that I don't think it's highly rated at all with the exception of the Smash hardcore. It's an odd controller in every way, though it has the best trigger of any controller ever.....it has only one. The gimped right stick is odd as well. The only people that obsess over it are the Smash people, and to a degree, rightly so. It's more or less a controller built for that game. The button positions and shapes map to that game in an ideal way, and most importantly the octagonally gated sticks are superior sticks for that game, while massively inferior for most other genres. It brings a bit of arcade stick precision to a fighter where diagonal matters. One can debate square and octogate for fighters, but very few prefer round gates. So GCN controller really is best for Smash, primarily due to the octogate sticks. But that doesn't mean one can't be better with a round gate with enough practice.

NEStalgia

NotTelevision

@NEStalgia Yeah I agree. Perfect controller for Smash and I think it ties with the Xbox One controller for racing games. It’s all about those triggers.

Hopefully Nintendo go back to analog triggers with their next crop of official controllers.

NotTelevision

Laoak

@NEStalgia I do see quite a lot of non-smash players really like the Gamecube controller but yeah it's probably mainly the smash community

{funny quote here}

NEStalgia

@NotTelevision I think Nintendo builds controllers around what gimmicks they have in mind for their own game. They're "over" analog triggers for now....but that can always change. If they prioritize and do Sunshine 2. Or if they incorporate analogs into Kart 9....which would be awesome. And I can see some interesting Splatoon 3 uses for analog triggers as well.

@Loak I haven't seen too much from the non-Smash, or at least non-fighter world. Maybe they exist...but it's not an ideal controller for most genres. The octogated controls are perfect for all fighters and 2D platformers with diagonals (Metroid, etc.) but are dismal beyond compare for shooters, racers, action-adventure, etc. Neutral for RPGs I guess, but I wouldn't want to play Dragon's Dogma on it. The C-stick is weird (Splatoon? Arms? No thanks!) And monotrigger is of course a loss for almost everything. The button layout is kind of cool though. I do like the departure from the SNES format....it's the only controller that's actually dared to do that, and if a game has good mappings I love the big primary, moderate secondary, and 2 tertiary buttons. The face button layout is cool, I'll give it that. But OTOH, SMBW or such that involves rocking from Y to B would not be fun. It's an interesting controller that the layout could probably be half-recycled into an even better future controller. But stock, it misses a lot of genres marks. And without interchangeable gates, it'll never be one size fits all. What works for fighters sucks for shooters and racers. It's not bad for a gamepad shaped fight stick alternative though. Especially for something like Smash that needs more controls than a fightstick offers.

NEStalgia

iKhan

@Laoak The gamecube controller's button layout was pretty much perfect for the types of games that were coming out around that time.

You have to remember that when the Gamecube came out, 2D games were pretty much non-existent anymore. Shooters were JUST beginning to hit their stride, and some of them still used a face button instead of triggers to shoot. 3D Platformers had left their inception generation, and I'm sure the expectation was that they were going to take off.

So, for the time, the Gamecube was pretty close to a perfect controller. Today, not so much, though honestly I kind of prefer the way games were back then. There was less of an obsession with cinematics at the expense of gameplay. None of this stupid "Cinematic camera" crap that God of War and the Arkham games use.

Edited on by iKhan

Currently Playing: Steamworld Heist, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Tales of Graces F

NEStalgia

@iKhan In the world of Nintendo, maybe. Elsewhere, the Dualshock and was king and "The Duke" was just around the corner. PC was littered with Dualshock clones. And even 3D platformers were not going to benefit from the octogate. Which they retained on Wii for some unknown reason. It's like they only were building consoles for Smash.

Mostly I just think they weren't sure how to incorporate sticks yet at that point, the N64 controller was a weird prototype from the CDi/Philips Laserdisc era, and Gamecube decended from that as a typical Nintendo "upgrade" before Sony handed them their rear, followed by Microsoft by just using their own SNES controller design with N64 grip handles.

Agreed on cinematics, though.

NEStalgia

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