Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

Sticker star wasn't a bad game. It just wasn't the special game everyone wanted it to be.

Sticker Star for me is kinda simultaneously a decent game with unexpectedly interesting gameplay ideas for a post-Galaxy 2 Mario title, and also a completely insulting disgrace as a Paper Mario game and an RPG in general. It's kinda weird.

I think I'm the only person who thinks Luigi's Mansion 2 is no where near as good as the original. But I really have no idea how to explain it. The atmosphere? Not sure, it may just be nostalgia. That game freaked me out with all the ghosts when I was younger, and I loved it. Now the ghosts seem very one-dimensional and... Extremely cliché. I just don't know how to explain my reasoning.

I dunno.

TLoZ: Oracle of Ages/Seasons were better than Link's Awakening

If I look at it sideways and squint, I can kinda see a more credible ghost story in the first game, whereas the sequel is straight up silly.

No,no,no your not the only one. I know the first one wasn't going for Resident Evil type horror but it definitely felt scary to me (I was 5 when I first played it) the atmosphere made me feel like I was in danger and alone. The ghosts(barring Madame Clairvoya) were all mostly hostile and acted like malevolent entities. Dark moon felt more like a comedy with ghost in it with some legitimate creepy moments, like the Doll Room in haunted towers, but with constant calls from E. gadd and with the removal of portrait ghost I felt like I was doing a routine extermination job on a bunch of derpy looking ghost. its still a good game but its not better than the original.

Skyward Sword had some of the ugliest character designs as well as focusing too much effort on the motion-control gameplay.

The Kirby franchise is rather mediocre and bland overall..

Amen, brother!

Having played the original recently, I can assure you that the ghosts aren't actually scary, thought they do get in some good jump-scares every once in a while. The ghosts were creative and interesting, though. I haven't played LM2 yet, but in that regard it definitely has some high standards to live up to.

Twilight Princess was far worse on character designs imo...

Aside from one or two (those creepy guys with the cannon), I thought Twilight Princess had the best character designs of the 3D games...or maybe all of Zelda, since the 2D game's "character designs" were mainly the promotional art...

@NavySpheal Youre definitly not alone on this Me any my GF too think, that Luigis Mansion 1 is better than its sequel. LM2 is awesome, dont get me wrong, but the original is just a tad better.
The funny thing is, even though its goofy and cartoony, it was more frightening than most other survival horror games out there The atmosphere was just brilliant.

I completely disagree, but that's probably because Link's Awakening was my first Zelda game, and one of the first video games I actually beat. If you played seasons first, I understand (sort of), because it's basicly the same engine as Link's Awakening DX. But I think awakening has a lot more charm to it.

The original Pikmin is better than Pikmin 2 or Pikmin 3.

I'm not a fan of orchestral music in videogames.
I remember seing a documentary about the making of this licenced movie game, and the guy in charge of the music was explaining how he composed the tunes with the computer and then paid this 80-piece orchestra to replicate it. The result was obviously impressive sound-wise, but the tunes themself were very uninspired and forgettable.
If companies have to spend a million dollar to produce the orchestral equivalent of cocktail music, I'm not having it.
I just don't like this approach of music being layer over layer over layer of stuff.

I think Nintendo & Co. are doing a brilliant job in this regard. I really love the usage of the acoustic guitar in Xenoblade Chronicles, and the electric guitar parts in Super Mario 3D World are memorable. I really wish they'd drop the bowed strings for the next Legend of Zelda and just overload the game with electro/acoustic instruments and a ton of brass.

I thought I was alone on this!

Do you mean full orchestra and not orchestral? If you like Xenoblade Ch. style music, try listening to the Bravely Default soundtrack. It's one of the best, recorded from a live orchestra, but doesn't rely on strings. Nearly every song has a bass and electric guitar along with some brass or high strings. It's quite possibly the best video game soundtrack ever.

yeah sorry - I meant "orchestral" (let me change that, "orchestrated" sounds sinister). Cheers for the tip about the Bravely Default OST. Xenoblade Chronicles is one game that tried very interesting things music-wise, especially the acoustic guitar in the "lonesome valley" scenes. Usually I find there's an abuse of strings, kettledrums and other "light" instruments in RPGs, especially in large fields and other environments where they try to convey a feeling of open space...of "airy". To me that sounds wrong because you end up contemplating the emptiness. You can take most of these games, put some spanish guitar pizzicato chords here and there, and they will dramatically improve.

Other times the try to go to the other end of the spectrum and fall into japanese pop which, to my ear, is overly melodic. I remember one game (the first Persona?!?) had this pop song during all the combats and it drives you insane. Nintendo is doing very good with their studio recorded music. Even the track to the Splatoon trailer sounds good (except the childish Ramones-esque vocal part...hard to digest!!).

cheers again for recommending Bravely Default. I will look into it!

I do agree that Orchestral music in video games is frequently used as a way to use an orchestra to hide mediocre composition (I think it would be composition....melody?). To be honest, I think GoodFeel's composer/s has a similar issue (controversy).

That's why Kingdoms of Amalur does this type of thing way better than most modern games, because it's made by a great composer and it would fit in perfectly in a legit big budget film. I won't say who that composer is because you will look it up and be happy.

Though I actually think vocal music and pop song-like music can be kinda awesome for games sometimes (I adore The World Ends With You's soundtrack, even if half of the singers probably do mediocre dubbed versions of anime Openings)

I agree.

Sure, the series is chalk full of cute characters and creative art directions. But most of the time there's not much to them beyond that. It seems like Kirby is built up to be something bigger and deeper than it really is; compare Kirby's 20th Anniversary Wii collection to [poor] Mario's 25th one.