Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

I choose Chocobo Racing PS1 over than Mario Kart SNES, N64 and GBA.

The best Mario Kart is whichever the most recent is.

SMK was amazing at the time for a few reasons - 2p simultaneous play wasn't that common on the SNES and it was genuinely fast. I think even the cheating AI was fine in the context - games were much harder and by the standards of the day SMK is really very fair to the player.

Racing games are probably the single genre that most benefitted from the move to 3d. Really every other genre lost something (even if it gained more to compensate) but racing games lost nothing and gained lots.

That said I never personally liked the first 3d Mario Kart (MK64). It's always been ugly and the weapon system isn't as balanced as some of the other entries.

@Greatluigi That's normal to like some Mario Kart iterations or mechanics better than others. Different Mario Karts require different strategies/racing styles. I imagine most people prefer the Mario Karts they started with.

Mario Karts in the order I was exposed: MK64, MK7, MK8. Got MKWii last out of curiosity, but I didn't' play it long enough to figure out the winning strategies.

Super Mario kart is still a great game. Once you get the hang of drifting you’ll be hopping all over the course.

@DarthNocturnal I've played it on and off constantly since it came out on NSO and I still can't drift to save my life. Every time I think I've got it nailed, I spin out like mad. Maybe it's just because I'm used to future games' drifting mechanics but, to me, MK64 is basically: when everything works, it's flawless. When everything doesn't work, it is without a doubt one of the worst games I have ever played. There's really no middle ground.

@NinChocolate Having played both, I'd say they felt the same to me. I would have to let off the accelerator making sharp turns, and always found drifting harder in most mode-7 racing games. Similarly I played Wacky Wheels on PC and Nicktoons Racing on GBA, they're the only two that come to mind.

@Ralizah
Agree, both 64 and world are massively overrated

@Ralizah Most 64 games felt really off to me even in their time, and Mario 64 wasn't the exception. I do see why the game was so influential and there's many great things about it, but unfortunately it's "feeling" always felt clunky and too slippery to me and returning to it nowadays was even worse.

To be honest, aside from Sunshine, I have never liked how 3D mario games felt until Odyssey. Sunshine was kind of the opposite to 64 as it felt good but it's level design was all over the place so there were many tedious/frustrating points. Then there's the Galaxy games, that are sort of a middle ground to me. Mario feels responsive, but for some reason I also feel him slow and the levels, while full of gimmicks and cool ideas, really didn't make much for me and felt too small and less enticing to explore. I can't say much about Mario Land and 3D world as I didn't play them but they kinda seem like "fake Mario 3D games" if that makes any sense. Odyssey pretty much felt just like I imagined in the trailers and the sandbox levels were just what I wanted from a Mario game. Like Mario 64, but actually tight and responsive.

As for Mario World I'm a fan haha, but I also really enjoy 3. I think that World's visuals, music, secrets, Yoshi's introduction and other things are what make it so special and iconic for many and it's one of the few games that captures that "feel good" sensation that people get frequently with Nintendo games. It's a simple platformer that just does right what it should despite of not being revolutionary. However, to me, Yoshi's Island was much superior than the main entries and the most unique out of all of them.

While it does have a few holes(tri-force heroes, four swords and four swords adventure) the Zelda timeline makes a lot of sense. Yes even the fallen timeline. In the end, for a bunch of games that originally are not meant to connect,, Nintendo did a great job connecting them.

@skywake nah man it’s ok cause I also view people dissing Kirby games to be a personal attack as well. 😉

@Greatluigi did you ever play advance wars on gameboy advance. The computer AI starts cheating in it, When you start winning. Even though I keep buying the game and will buy the re-release when it is out 🤕

@Ninfan no because I wasn’t born yet when AW1 came out. My birthday is 11/12/2001.

Considering my last experience with the game came from surprisingly enjoying it more than I remember it, before being stuck on trying to do remotely well on that obnoxious ghost level until I couldn't take it anymore, that sounds about right. (probably a reason why spooky levels felt less like the equivalent in SNES/Super Circuit in the 3d games afterwards I imagine)

Tbh, I maintain that about half of the mainline Mario Kart games are some of the more dated and less enjoyable games Nintendo has put out. I still like all the ones I've played to some extent, but compared to both better racing games (sometimes from the same system) and the general quality of Nintendo's games, I don't think they always live up to expectations.

I'm replaying Paper Mario and suddenly realized why I never finished it the first time I played it. Losing a battle and having to start from the last save point is extremely annoying in RPGs. I don't mind having to battle some enemies again, but all the story stuff I already just went through is extremely tedious to have to experience once more.

I generally don't enjoy RPGs all that much, because I seldom think the stories are more interesting than whatever series or movie I can watch on a streaming platform, but having to repeat story stuff is so annoying that I kinda don't want to continue a game once i lose a battle.

I love the Pokémon games, and they are both easier than most other RPGs I've played, but also your story progression isn't ruined by losing a battle.

@AlliMeadow That is really relateable and that safe mechanic is one of the usual Problems with RPG's (especially older ones), along with grind. When i read stuff like that, i always remember that one FFX boss where you had to watch an unskippable 10 min cutscene whenever you died, and boss was not easy for me. automatic quicksaves, the ability to safe whenever and skippable cutscenes makes gaming much more fun in general

@Ralizah I love both SMB3 and SMW, though I think I like SMW's controls and levels just a little more. It's got the best-feeling controls out of any 2D Mario to me, and while SMB3's stages are still great, they were just a tad short. I would imagine they're intentionally designed that way though, since I found it to be a more challenging game. What didn't you like about SMW if you don't mind me asking?

@WoomyNNYes I don't really fall under that category in terms of what my favorite Mario Kart game is. MK64 was the one I started out with, and it's easily my most nostalgic one, but I've always liked the newer games more, especially MK8D.

That reminds me, I've said this before in this very thread (though no one replied), but I've always liked drifting in the newer games a lot more than how it's done in the older ones. Having to continually press left and right to get mini-turbos got a bit tiresome for me. Then Mario Kart Wii came out, and when I drifted (in manual mode, anyway), I thought "man, the drifting feels so much better."

Oh, Yunalesca, @Solaine .... Yeah, she is a difficult fight! Can't really join in talk about all the previous Mario Kart games, I've only played MK8D

Lol? Gitgud, as the saying goes. In Pokemon, you have to walk back from the Pokemon Centre and go through the same dialogue again after you lose.

@Euler
I think the difference in Paper Mario is that when you game over NONE of your progress saves and you're taken back to your last save exactly as you where. Whenever that save was. With Pokemon if you black out you're taken back to the last Pokemon centre but with all the xp, all the pokemans you caught and all the trainer's you beat beaten. Just about every action you take in Pokemon is progressing you through the game

Not sure if it's an unpopular opinion but, that kinda artificial difficulty mechanic is and always was BS. Same deal with limited lives in platformers. It either gives you so many lives they might as well be infinite or they just get in the way of you playing the game

I picked up the remake of Alex Kidd for the nostalgia, one thing I'm not nostalgic about are the limited lives. I don't think I ever got past the first five or so levels as a kid. So infinite lives? Yeah, I'm shamelessly turning that on