Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@dmcc0 everyone seems to love it. I thought it was, ok. Nothing too special imo.

Buying games of any type is materialism 😝 Physical games are potentially clutter, but honestly not much difference otherwise.

I think you mean put in the cartridge amd download day-1 patches for an hour. 😝 Plus, no matter how you look at it, you can get digital games faster than it takes for them to be physically delivered or for you to go to the store. Digital pre-orders even download while you're asleep a few days before the game releases. Not that this actually matters, but just another example that a lot of the distinctions between physical and digital are a little silly.

Isn't it still materialism even if you buy digital? Not trying to be a smartass, just a question. You're still buying something even if it's not physical.

I prefer physical because I know it's mine forever and it's not up to a company to say "Sike!" and take it.

@Summer235 I keep reading about some Greedy Corp that's going shut down access to all my digital games but it's not happened yet. I can still play (and re-download) my Wii games even though the store closed 5+ years ago. Same with any other stores that have closed (3DS/WiiU/Vita). I can't buy new stuff for those consoles, but I can't really do that physically either unless I buy used, which I guess is the main drawback of digital games.

I'm sure someone here will gladly point out I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of any games that you can't play once they've been delisted from digital stores if you've already paid for them (FTP/Live service stuff is different and usually don't have physical versions anyway). If they require a constant connection and the server has been shutdown etc then you're not going to be playing physically or digitally in those cases.

Full games on the cart/disc is becoming more uncommon too, especially if you consider patches and updates which most modern games seem to have now. You're physical version becomes more like a cart-/disc-shaped licence key or launcher.

Honestly, while I'll probably never go fully digital unless I have to, I'll probably start doing it more. My main reason for preferring physical has been being able to resell a game when I'm done to afford buying more games, but that has become too much of a hassle. Amazon doesn't let you anymore unless you register as a business, eBay is a hassle and after fees you don't get much anyway. I usually now just wait until Gamestop has some sort of deal like getting an extra 50% on trade-ins, but that still doesn't get anywhere near as much as I used to get from selling on Amazon. It's not worth the little bit of money you get from reselling anymore.

@Summer235 Yeah lol entirely wrong word choice. I meant clutter. Game boxes look terrible on a shelf and all of mine are just sitting in a bin, not even holding the games they came with. Me and my brother just keep all of them in the box of TotK, which has the art we find prettiest.
@dmcc0 And yeah, exactly. I play singleplayer games mostly, and the only DLC I buy is the kind Pokemon, MK8 and BotW got, no mtx for me.

Online-multiplayer games are a hell of a lot more fun if you don't search them up on social media XD

@Fizza
I never like mmo games for being online only.

I just talked about this in the Games I Recently Dropped thread, and I honestly don't know how unpopular this is but it seems like it might be, but the way Witcher 3 (and possibly other WRPGs, I don't really know or remember) handles weapon degradation is 10x worse than it is in BotW/TotK. Not being able to move when you reach too much carrying weight is horrible. And I would just be out there fighting monsters when suddenly the sword picture on my screen would turn red, meaning it's no good anymore. I still had it and could keep using it, mind you, it just wouldn't do much. And of course despite the fact that the entire time I played I only fought like 2 humans but a whole bunch of monsters, I had about a dozen steel swords (good against humans) but only the 1 silver sword (good against monsters). And could I just easily find a new one like in Zelda? Of course not. I'm in the middle of nowhere doing a quest and can't just pack up and wander who knows how far to the nearest town who may or may not have someone who can sell me one. Which would always take about half of my money for one silver sword, despite the fact that I did every quest I could find that my level was good enough to try. But at least those sharpening wheels I could find would make it better, right? Nope. Have to pay more money. Not saying this system is broken. It makes sense to not just be able to magically fix a broken sword (although if the problem is that it's blunted than those wheels probably should be able to fix that). It's just a lot worse than Zelda which everyone always complains about, and one of the reasons I finally just moved on to new games.

@Xyphon22 FaIr point, but just because it's bad in a different game doesn't mean it isn't also awful in BotW. Weapon breakage was the main reason I never finished BotW — no matter what fight I was in, every single one of my weapons seemed to instantly disintegrate and I was left with nothing but the agonizingly weak bombs. It even happened in shrines which kind of soft-locked you sometimes. Awful mechanics no matter what game they are in.

Also, I always assumed Witcher 3 was a JRPG. Apparently it's Polish? I learned something.

@FishyS Which makes it extra sad because I'm part Polish and wanted to like it more than I did.

And I didn't say Zelda's mechanics weren't bad, just that Witcher's are a lot worse. And I know Skyrim also at least has the weight mechanic, I don't remember about the weapon breaking thing because I made it even less far in that game before I grew tired of it. Although personally, I didn't mind the weapon mechanics in Zelda. If one of my weapons broke, there were always five more nearby. I never once in two full playthroughs of BotW and one of TotK found myself without a weapon, which is more than I can say with Witcher 3 even though I don't think I made it very far into the game.

Plus I forgot in my original post, I also had one point where my armor "broke" (the symbol on screen turned red and it wasn't useful anymore). At least in Zelda it is only the weapons.

@Xyphon22 I agree with you regarding the BOTW/TOTK weapon breaking. The only logical conclusion I can come to is that the people complaining simply didn't expand their weapon inventory slots enough with Hestu.

This is the only scenario where I can see people having genuine issues as, like you, the difficulty in collecting them seemed to lessen for me the longer I played. There would be far less challenge if weapons lasted longer in the latter stages, when you've mastered combat and are much stronger.

Conversely, the survival elements of the games, particularly at the beginning when you have less hearts and stamina, when it's you against the world, were a big part of the game's identity for me and what made them so much fun.

I've heard the 'this wouldn't be a problem if you played the game in the correct order' thing a lot as an excuse for weapon breaking in BotW but... it's literally an open world game. 😆 Correct order isn't even clear and playing your own way ideally is not supposed to destroy the experience. If you have something which makes the game less fun for the first 10s of hours if you 'play in the wrong order' (not easier or harder, simply less fun) then maybe that was bad game design for an open world game. And if the latter part of the game doesn't have enough difficulty unless you were artificially forced to farm weapons and weapon slots, maybe that is also bad game design. BotW has so much good game design that I feel like fans like to make excuses to cover up the few bad decisions.

I 100% agree that the heart and stamina system is great; that kind of thing is what makes Zelda Zelda. And it's fun that you can stock up on stamina early on and get almost anywhere with your 4 hearts and fight hard things. Or... it would be fun if you actually had a weapon that didn't break after 2 seconds. I would rather rely on combat skill, not inventory space...

Sorry if that came off as a little antagonistic, but it is the unpopular opinion thread. And the issue did ruin my experience with the game and make me stop playing.

Hopefully we can both agree that 'less fun' is a highly subjective term, particularly when many players enjoyed those first 10-15 hours far more than any other part of the game. Personally, the risk of running out of weapons, thereby facing imminent death made the stakes that much higher and the game that much more gripping. However, if you focused on the shrines to improve your health, keeping combat to a minimum, this was far less of an issue. The game didn't force you take this route but it was the obvious one if you wanted to survive and thrive.

You can say that open world games should allow the player to complete tasks in any order as if there is a set defined rule, when the vast majority of open world games require you to be more selective about the order if you wish to gain what's widely considered the kinder experience, whether that be Skyrim, Cyberpunk, Elden Ring or Witcher. There is always an easier and harder route.

As for making excuses, this is genuinely just my opinion. I enjoy the weapon mechanics and admit there are flaws in the game but for me this simply wasn't one of them. It was a bold strategy by Nintendo to make the mechanics much more dynamic and interesting and on the whole, I feel it paid off.

@Jalex_64 Keep in mind, I played the game in the order that 'seemed natural'; I wasn't trying to play strangely.
Some games tell you what to do which is fine, but BotW really didn't so I guessed and apparently I 'guessed wrong'. I am pretty sure I ended up fighting monsters which were very over-leveled for my status in the game. Which was fun! What is less fun is fighting an epic battle for 10 minutes where getting hit once would kill you and then.... having to walk away because you have no weapon. Having to run away because the monster is hard would have been much more satisfying.

And yes, I agree fun is very much subjective. But for a game with remarkable unanimity that most of the design decisions were good, maybe the one thing that lots of people dislike (in a game where not much is disliked) could have been improved. I suspect Nintendo could have not had weapon breakage and still had you love the game just as much. Or they could have done what many games with weapons breakage do and let you keep a low-powered weapon by default so you never run out completely (I do not count the bombs because they are not fun to use). Only having the good weapons break wouldn't have been super logical but a metal sword shattering after a couple swipes isn't logical regardless so why not.

It's a moot point since it is what it is. I didn't play TotK, but I do love Zelda as a franchise and will be curious what they decide to do in the next 3D game. I hope they go back to the Zelda roots regarding weapons; it's part of what makes Zelda different than other franchises and I thought it was a pity they threw that away.

Note that I would argue BotW didn't do anything particularly creative with weapons breakage — they copied what some other open games do. I would guess because it is unclear how to deal with the unlocking-map-portions-with-weapon-upgrades traditional Zelda formula when you want an open world game. However TotK certainly went crazily creative with weapons, no arguing there.

@Xyphon22
And that's just it, i only miss the resale factor. I don't really care about modern physical gaming media, especially when the box art typically can't compete against the crazier illustrated and outlandish more wondrous creative box art from the late 80's and early to mid 90's that spanned throughout the 8-16 bit generations.

It just feels gutting knowing that i've payed $90 CAD after taxes for something like LOZ: BOTW, fully knowing that i won't care to play it 5 years from now. I'm all about the gaming experience at this point, instead of stashing plastic and cardboard on a shelf that will forever remain as nostalgia trophies, simply because in most cases I don't really like to replay older games that i've already beaten.

knowing that I'll never be able to recapture that exciting feeling i had, or recreate those awesome memories with whichever game i played prior simply because it was a brand new first time experience decades ago. So many factors are involved. Maybe a MiSter plus a few retro styled 2.4g controllers will do the trick.

Buying digital in this day and age is something I won't be doing. I care about game preservation and replaying games I enjoy, even if I won't ever have that "first experience" ever again. Seeing how Sony, Funimation, and Ubisoft are actually ripping away people's purchases makes me firmly against buying digital anymore. I'd rather own what I've paid for- and want to be able to replay old games at any time.

Replaying media is much more than just wanting to recapture a feeling that you used to have. In a story-based RPG- it would be experiencing the narrative again, and discovering the deeper themes or where things were actually foreshadowed. I've replayed the Xenoblade games a good bit, and each time I realize something new about the narrative or world. Stuff that furthers my enjoyment of those stories. Replaying a game that isn't story based can still lead to relaxation, fun, or just completing something that you didn't even bother completing in the first place.

I just think that the whole argument of "Physical game buyers care about materialism," or "The only reason you'd buy a physical game is to resell it after being bored," is a narrow way of looking at things. Especially given that not everyone has a ton of money- and people want to actually keep what they purchased in the first place. I don't want a corporation coming in and telling me if I can or can't play a game I just purchased.

@NeonPizza Ironically, Gamestop started a 50% trade in deal like a day after I posted that, and then trade in 2 select games to get $50 off Paper Mario. So in the last 3 days I've traded in 4 games and gotten around $70 plus Paper Mario for them (I'm counting in the $10 I still owed for Paper Mario, I actually got around $80 for the first 2 games). So sometimes it's still possible to get good deals and why I'll never go fully digital. But yeah, there's too many awesome new games and too little time in my day to ever feel the desire to go back and replay games I've already beaten unless they are all-time favorites. I recently finally picked up Xenoblade 3. I know I am going to love it, and I also know there is no way on earth I am ever going to play it more than once because it is going to be far too long to bother with that no matter how much I enjoy it. Once will be enough, and I'll probably sell it when I finally finish it in about 3 years.

But the game I probably most want right now that I don't already have is AI: The Somnium Files: Nirvana Initiative. I got the original when it went on sale for $20 and have been waiting for this one to do something similar. Instead, I think it costs more on Amazon now than when it came out, and Gamestop doesn't even have it in their system as a game that exists. But it has been on sale on the eShop for like $27, so next time that happens, I'll probably just get it digitally which I never would have done before. You have to pick and choose and find what's best for you, but I would never argue with anyone who wants to go all-physical or all-digital. Whatever floats your boat.

A report in 2022 suggested that around 94% of video games sales that year were digital-only.

https://gamingbolt.com/over-94-of-all-worldwide-game-sales-in...

That should come as no surprise when you consider that mobile and PC gaming is about three quarters of the market, and you've basically got no choice buy to buy games as downloads.

However, even consoles were still 78% digital sales. I've no doubt that the Switch is the strongest remaining bastion of physical media, because cartridges still have that extra level of mystique about them that mere optical discs lack. However, even there, it's good to have a decent selection of games that you don't have to swap out one at a time.

Ultimately, what matters most to me is that - in the event that a game is enough of a keeper - I get to hang on to it and can still play it at some unspecified time in the future. Again, I'm not too worried about this on PC and mobile where I've already rolled my purchases forward to new devices multiple times. It's just that with consoles, and particularly Nintendo, there seems considerably less chance of this happening.

As much as I love Mega Man 2. It's not as amazing, nor magical, period, during it's hay day. For newcomers tackling the classic series I'm sure they'll absolutely love the soundtrack, Robot masters and some of the more creative organic stage themes and better enemy designs.

But it falters with it's crazy sprite flickering, slow ladder climbing, the controls aren't as snappy, quick and intuitive as they are in MM3-MM6, or 9&10. Boss battle patterns are lacking just a pinch in polish and can feel somewhat sloppy, and those Wily castle stages are pretty weak with the exception of the bosses themselves including Alien Wily, Gutsman-tank & the iconic INtense startling green dragon battle that nearly made our little hearts stop when it abruptly showed up on screen, while having to jump on a few teeny tiny cube platformers plus dodging his attacks was no easy feat for any 6 year old.

At the time, MM2 was magical, it was one of the greatest games of all time. It was epic, adventurous, the feeling it gave me, which was truly something else that i can no longer unfortunately recapture, cemented it as an absolute must play house hold NES staple. Pretty much every kid on the block had MM2.

Mega man 3 has better controls, fast ladder climbing, Slide mechanic, RUSH, those return-robot master remixed Wily stages were a blast, and I think overall they did a better job with Wily's Castle, minus the head bosses. But the robot masters aren't as diverse(Hard man, Top Man, seriously?) nor memorable, it's plagued with slow down, the soundtrack isn't quite as good, and thematically most of the stages are kind of blugh.

Even the main title screen is missing art work. Not one of my favorites that's for sure. Favourites would be 2, 1, 9 & 7.....Mega man & Bass for Super Famicom is also worth noting even though it's technically not part of the mainline entries.