Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

I'm sorry, I actually do agree with that complaint but its a little funny someone talking about how much story you have to skip through because he died playing Paper Mario.

also I'm pretty sure if you just press b or something you can skip through most dialogue very quickly. It's been a while but I'm pretty sure that's true.

@kkslider5552000
I think you can skip through the dialogue but it's still pretty tedious. I think it's more the having to walk through large section and re-doing puzzles that gets a bit tedious. It's not like it makes the game harder, just more tedious

To be clear, I love Paper Mario. Despite being with a bunch of people here who think N64 in general hasn't aged that well. Paper Mario is one of the huge exceptions. But I definitely abused save states when replaying on NSO

@MarioLover92 An almost complete lack of power-ups outside of the cape, whereas SMB3 was filled with new transformations.

Lacked SMB3's fun minigames, and has a less compelling overworld overall.

Worlds are less imaginative and visually distinct.

Art-style is bizarre and ugly.

I actually disliked the 'feel' of the game, in terms of how Mario moves.

Mediocre OST.

I can't think of a single aspect of the game I thought was better than its predecessor. People make a lot of noise about levels having multiple exits, but the levels themselves just weren't very interesting.

I've played through it a few times over the years trying to understand why it's regarded as such a classic, and I just... don't get it.

@MarioLover92 Yeah, MK8 & MK7 are my favorites. I love the drifting mechanic because, it's not chance/RNG related, it's skill. You have to know the track, and it's great fun trying to squeeze in a longer drift than the people you race against. And I think it's brilliant in 200cc that you can cut through grass areas if you're at full speed/boosting.

@Ralizah
I get that it's the unpopular opinions thread but I strongly disagree with your take on Super Mario World. It's clearly the best of the pre-NSMB 2D Mario games. Between Yoshi and the spin jump it's mechanically significantly more interesting than SMB3. Musically you have the Yoshi effects added to themes as well as some pretty solid tunes. I think the only thing SMB3 does better IMO are the Airship fortresses, which is one level theme SMW really misses, especially with the abundant castle stages

@skywake And I strongly disagree that it's "clearly the best" anything. The game lacks power-ups, lacks diverse world themes, lacks minigames. I'm not a fan of the spin jump, and while Yoshi is obviously an iconic addition to the franchise, he's not a significant enough addition on his own to make up for all that was lost from SMB3.

I've not played much Mario World beyond a single playthrough when Mario Advance 2 was new, but I think Mario World's SNES soundtrack (ironically the version I never played much) is one of the best soundtracks Koji Kondo ever did. The upgrade in music from NES to SNES helped a lot for Mario, which is practically as high praise for a new console as you can give. Especially since my nostalgia bias should be leaning more towards Mario 3, a game I played significantly more times.

If you put a gun to my head you could probably convince me that the compositions are way better or at least more interesting in Mario 3 (for obvious reasons if you know what half the music in Mario World is). And Mario Advance 2 does make it fairly mid. But I do love Mario World SNES's soundtrack.

Lol? You are really gonna do this crap in here? SMH.

At least it does show that not everyone sees inconvenience as a feature.

I see a common praise of Elden Ring is "the checkpoints are next to the bosses now, I no longer need to clear entire sections of levels over and over to beat the bosses anymore!" ...like this should not be praise for a 2022 game, this should just be a given.

Your arcade game was as hard as it was, because they wanted to suck up every coin you had in your pocket. Your NES games were as hard as they were, because they were like 20 minutes of game and if they didn't kill you and send you back to the beginning every thirty seconds, you'd realise how little game you have.

@Pizzamorg I disagree with you on Souls games, given they're intentionally supposed to be challenging and be unforgiving, punishing the player by making them repeat the same stretches of area in order to learn the enemy mechanics, but eh. I already know your whole speal on harder games and Souls games, so you can save me that argument, and save me the accusations that I'm gatekeeping once more.

lol

Why even reply if you are just gonna go 'save me your reply'

lol

I find it so funny too, because the criticism isn't even really consistent. I know Elden Ring gets a lot of praise for not having like map markers and being kinda obtuse in it's design. And some vocal people are like "this should be the template for all open world games going forwards!".

But then I watched a couple of reviews for Tales of Arise and they were praising like how they always clearly knew what their objective was, how they were never like aimlessly wandering around a map and I am like... so which is it then?!

It is almost like... as I've said all along... the best option is for a person to be able to enable and disable these things as they please to tailor their experience and forcing just one design view on a player and telling them to deal with it is an antiquated decision, which existed once because of technical limitations and other such things which simply no longer exist anymore.

@Pizzamorg
I enjoy some shovelwares and unpopular games with easy gameplay than I have to get frustrated with hard to play games. I'm not masochist to torture myself with hard to play games to get the pleasure.

It’s kinda ironic that I really love Super C because of the difficulty.

I have no problem with having to start from the beginning, because I enjoy learning the patterns and making it a little further each time.

My problem is having to re-do story (and also puzzles). Walking and pressing A is just not fun gameplay to repeat, whereas killing / avoiding enemies like in Super C is fun.

@Pizzamorg I mean, it could also be that Elden Ring is made for a different group of people in comparison to games like Tales of Arise, and caters to a different crowd. People who want harder games with no explanations on where to go or what to do.

Also, with Tales of Arise, I've gotten lost in the game before, despite it being linear, and there's quests that don't really explain where they are, so you're walking in circles trying to figure out where to go next at times.

Edit: Different games also offer different experiences based on the creator’s vision. They’re meant for different groups of people as well. Not every game is going to be made for every audience, or even appeal to every audience. I don’t get the appeal of Kirby games, so I just don’t play it. Doesn’t mean the game has no right to exist. Just means the experience isn’t for me.

It is funny, because you are basically agreeing with me, but for different reasons. There is often a lot of smugness for vocal people in the Souls community about how modern games are soft and 'this is how all gaming should be', but the reality is Souls games are niche, demanding games all be tailored to that one specific crowd is ridiculous. The integrity FromSoft show for sticking to their design ideals, no matter how many people they alienate along the way, is admirable in a way.

But the best thing, for everyone, is accepting that different audiences exist, with different tastes. You try and make a game for everyone, you make a game for no one. But simply taking away peoples options is bad.

I know it is an unpopular opinion, hence the thread, but it still seems crazy to me that AC Odyssey is probably one of the best open world games ever made in this regard. With it offering really granular options as to how much you want a Breath of the Wild style experience or a more Ubisoft style experience. Like I really wish more games took the time to adopt things like this, same with games with difficulty options like Control or State of Decay 2. I agree the easy mode debate is simply too reductive at this point in gaming.

Those people who reviewed Tales of Arise are living proof that not everyone wants Elden Ring to be the template for open world games moving forwards, as they praised that game for the very opposite design decisions Elden Ring chose to make. Whether your own personal experience varied from that or not, is almost exactly the point, here.

I know the rogue genre is all the rage right now, but repeating the same content over and over has just never been for me. It seemed like for a while people were really pushing for the rogue to overtake the more modern path of progression through a game and I am glad that never quite took off. I am not one for the grind.

But I am agreeing with you in a general sense, albeit for different reasons. I think failure in real life gets punished enough already, I don't come to videogames for punishment or for validation. If I fail at a boss, this is punishment enough. If I then have to replay sections of a level, going through repeated dialogue or whatever else, then I know that that game probably isn't for me.

You can suggest said player to improve, but saying getgud, is not advice, let alone remotely helpful, you could use that time to tell that how they could improve, instead of saying lol get gud, sorry if it seems like I’m budding in, just wanted to say my opinion on the matter.

Monster Hunter always keeping it real.

@Pizzamorg No way! thats a actually line? That's pretty cool!

Yeah, from Generations Ultimate lol. I keep it in my back pocket for every time someone says 'git gud' unironically.

Feel like I need to jump to the defense of Super Mario World as, not only is it my favourite 2D Mario of all time, but I consider it one the best 2D platformers of all time!

I'd argue that SMW goes for quality over quantity in this case. Tbh I dread using half of the powerups in SMB3 as they don't seem to add much to the experience, whereas the cape is a solid all-round powerup. Not to mention that Yoshi fills the role of "powerup" in this game.

Lacked SMB3's fun minigames, and has a less compelling overworld overall.

I didn't miss these at all tbh, and they wouldn't even come to mind when comparing Mario games for me.

Worlds are less imaginative and visually distinct.

Couldn't disagree more here. Whereas SMB3 had some interesting world ideas, by far one of the most things I love about Super Mario World is its cohesive world design (rather than the typical starting world -> desert world -> water world). There's also a lot to be said for the world map and all of its secrets.

Art-style is bizarre and ugly.

Again, couldn't disagree more. The game has vibrant colours and I quite like the more rounded design (compared with the much "blockier" design of the NES games).

I actually disliked the 'feel' of the game, in terms of how Mario moves.

Can't agree at all tbh. I find it to be the best feeling of any 2D Mario.

Mediocre OST.

I can understand people not liking the OST due to it basically being the same leitmotif throughout...but for me, it works. It's amazing the number of different moods they manage to catch with the same basic melody.

I can't think of a single aspect of the game I thought was better than its predecessor. People make a lot of noise about levels having multiple exits, but the levels themselves just weren't very interesting.

I've played through it a few times over the years trying to understand why it's regarded as such a classic, and I just... don't get it.

I mean, each to their own (that's sorta the point of this thread). Your opinions on this game are perfectly valid. I just wanted to share my own for a bit of contrast - it's really amazing how people can take away very different things from the same game!

If color splash had came out before sticker Star it would have been seen as a solid game. It had better locations, more interesting levels and better bosses. Also Huey is there. Although it suffers from the same problem sticker Star has in terms of characters, I do feel they are better due to better written dialogue. I think since it borrows a lot from sticker Star, people already had a skewed opinion on it before they played. Again I am not saying it is or would have been seen as one of the best in the series. I still think it is fifth place in terms of paper Mario games(objectively, my personal list is different). But I think it would have been seen as a good game that had tough competition( for example skyward sword among 3D Zelda)