Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

For me, I have the reverse opinion, but I feel that the PS3/360 era was a very "experimental" era, in which gaming was trying to find some form of footing or something going forward as gaming was evolving and different expectations and goals were being made. It was an odd era, and it is one that I have talked about with a friend where it felt the whole of entertainment (music, movies, games, etc.) during the early part of the era was reaching a "dead end" of sorts and then just picked back up. The experimental part felt like it got confirmed on some way because I later learned that many devs were frustrated with the tools that were used to create many of these games (I think specifically the Unreal Engine at that time), so I feel that going into the PS4/One and into the PS5/Series X/S was where things finally had a footing and not as much of a problem that this era had.

Phantom Hourglass may be the most underrated Zelda game. The characters are great, dungeons are solid, bosses are unique, sailing is much more engaging than the wind waker, and it has some fun side plots. Now it does have its issues. The music, for the most part, is the definition of generic. A singular dungeon theme can make dungeons seem to blend together. Most of the islands look and feel the same.
Bellum Is at best an average villain. And the temple of the ocean king. But those are my only problems with the game. On the note of the controls, Once you get used to them they actually work better than using the d-pad would have in my opinion.

I don’t think it is one of the best Zelda games, but it is around 9 or 10 for me.

@blindsquarel Sniff, finally someone who understands! I never actually finished it, but I had a blast with what I did play!

@blindsquarel You have no idea how much I want to play Phantom Hourglass. Yeah it's absolutely gimmicky but the dungeon's look really fun (save for you-know-what) and the style and music are pristine (I still listen to Linebeck's Theme constantly, it's so good).

I don't know whether or not you know about it but chuggaaconroy did an excellent let's play on it a few years back (very much the reason I'm enamoured with it in the first place). It's a great binge for the summer holidays if you ask me!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_sYhAj0WXRNkqeo_T2DJ-...

If you think Linebeck's theme is representative of the quality of the music as a whole(especially a lot of the music you'll hear the most frequently while playing it)...oh no, I'm so sorry.

@kkslider5552000 Well, that makes me concerned. I suppose it'll be a matter of listening to it for myself to see how it fares.

Phantom hourglass was great, up until the temple of the ocean king visit for the 4 or 5th time. Then I got a little frustrated. I liked spirit tracks much more.

Yeah, I also enjoyed Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks for what they were.

Lightweight portable takes on Wind Waker might not be everyone's cup of tea but they fit the bill well enough for me at the time.

@Fizza
Coincidently, I am on episode 33 of chuggaconroy’s let’s play, as I type this comment. It’s probably my favorite let’s play he has done. And yes linebeck’s theme is amazing.

If you want to play the game, it is pretty cheap on eBay ( spirit tracks is a different story), or on the Wii U virtual console.

I did like Phantom Hourglass but its also one of the worst Zelda games, which I think speaks of the level of quality Zelda tends to have that a solid 7/10 experience can be one of the low points of the series.

Anyway, I sadly finally found a problem with Xenoblade 2's soundtrack, and its one I've seen happen several times with later Nintendo games. I don't want to hear, loud, exciting, orchestral music for long periods of time, over and over and over and over again, while exploring a town or overworld. No matter how good the song is, after a while it can become really grating. It happened with the observatory in Mario Galaxy, it happened with the main areas of Skyward Sword, it happened with that daytime NLA theme in Xenoblade X, it happened with a lot of daytime town areas in 2. It's too much, too often.

That being said Xenoblade 2 was still robbed of best soundtrack, especially when it was eligible in 2018 instead of 2017.

@kkslider5552000
I don’t think phantom hourglass has a good soundtrack, but linebecks theme and the sailing theme are the two exceptions. They are just great.

@NintendoByNature
I agree to a point, but I do think the temple of the ocean king is overblown. You can get the third and fourth sea charts in one go, and each run through the temple is different, due to the different tools you can use to make your way through.

@kkslider5552000 I agree about the music part but that applies to every game/song whatever platform its on, you will get of a song no matter how good it is if it's played over and over again, especially in RPG games where you'll be hearing it a lot, thats why its important for games [Especially RPGs] to have variety in their music track.

Thats why I appreciate the xenoblade franchise and other RPGs I like having multiple battle themes throughout the same to keep things fresh.

This is also true. If you make a long game, you should probably actually have a good quantity of music to go with it. That specific issue I first noticed with Radiant Historia. An awesome game with good to very good music but it was a 40 hour game that for some reason had less songs than the SNES 20 hour JRPGs.

Unpopular gaming opinion: Breath of the Wild's cel-shaded art style doesn't look very good and Wind Waker's look's better because it suits the cartoony look of the world.

I really like NSO!

@Kermit1 You are brave, vary brave!

too vary brave, if you ask me...

Soccer games are lame.
Cartoonish Kickboxing games like K-1 should get more appreciation on modern consoles.

@Anti-Matter I'm pretty sure that's a very popular opinion. I mean, just look at the general consensus of every FIFA game.