Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@Aioniomios pyra is still top five though in my heart though!

@Slim_in_Blue Characters really do make a story, a story isn’t a story if it doesn’t have good characters to revolve around, luckily most good story’s include well written characters, but when that’s not the case, the good story they set up just ends up being ruined by poorly written character and dialogue.

@Slim_in_Blue Good point, it is true that people do kind of spontaneously split it into characters and story separately. I think a lot of writers would do that too, so your point made perfect sense. When a character clicks with someone, it can REALLY click, but a story is a lot less of a personal thing usually so I think in that way, characters can really lay at the heart of something while a plot/story isn’t often something anyone deeply relates to or loves in that same way. I assume that’s kind of what you meant?

Looking forward to giving P4 another spin now that I’ve read the praise here, I’ll see what I end up thinking of it. Thanks for the food for thought, haha.

@Takoda Yep! You nailed it on the head. Characters are the most easily relatable aspect of a story, so if someone's looking for something that resonates with them instead of "just" being peak fiction, they'd probably prefer good characters and a weaker plot than a good plot with weaker characters. It's not really an unpopular opinion as much as it is a debate topic, but it's not something I see discussed often so that's why I put it here first. Glad to see it's provided some good discussion!
Have fun with P4 as well! I'm admittedly biased since it left a huge impact on me and was almost instantly my favorite game ever the moment I finished it, but most people agree that every Persona game is good at a minimum and the modern games (3-5) are mostly up to personal preference on which is your favorite. If you liked P3's gameplay, you'll like P4 since it's largely an improvement in most aspects. If you don't like murder mysteries you might not be the biggest fan of the plot, but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless!

I don't like the notion that console generations are dead, and I'm not a fan of how Microsoft and Sony kind of pioneered it. This generation has been one of the weaker ones in a while, mainly because a lot of the games are hindered by the anchors that are the last gen consoles. Consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One. I get why they keep releasing their new stuff on the older gen consoles, because for a while it was hard to keep the production of this gen, and thus the games wouldn't sell if they were just confined to current gen. However, I feel like it's become more of a hinderance than anything else on the experiences of these consoles. Instead of getting proper current generation games which make use of the consoles functionality and actual power, for the most part we're getting games which have to run on 7+ year old systems, which begs the question of why should we even really own the newer consoles, aside from maybe better performance. It isn't like the features of the controllers are being actively used.

I genuinely hope that the next generation for Nintendo doesn't end up falling into this pitfall of releasing dual releases for both the Switch and the next gen console. Sure, again you have the one benefit of people still being able to play the game on the older system without having to purchase a new one, but at the same time, you come with the issue that the new games made for the new system won't be able to actually reach their full potential. I like having more unique ways to play games, and see what sort of innovations can be made on how games are handled, and so I feel like this is going to only be more of a hinderance.

Another thing I don't get about this generation is how Microsoft is trying to coin exclusive games as being "bad", when exclusives are genuinely needed in order to actually get people to purchase other consoles. Otherwise, if you could play every game on every system, why even buy the other consoles, when you could just purchase one singular one? It would sink brands which rely on being different in order to keep competing with one another. To some, I feel like this would be a dream, but I don't really want to welcome the monopolistic nightmare that'll be induced by it.

@VoidofLight I mean, 90% of Switch games could have run on Wii U hardware, either because they are literally ports of older games or just because they don't really need the power of the Switch (a lot of eShop games don't even need Wii U levels of power). It takes a lot of effort to make a game which truly requires a lot of power and most games simply don't need that. If a game doesn't need the extra power, it makes sense to cross-release at least until enough people have bought the new console. We'll see what Nintendo does, but third party games at minimum will almost certainly often keep coming out for both Switch and Switch 2 for awhile.

But games which really need power? You don't see Final Fantasy 16 or Baldur's Gate 3 coming out for PS4 and Switch 2 will similarly be exclusive for games which actually need it.

I never fully got people being butthurt about games being exclusive. There's a billion quality games on every system nowadays, are you really mad one more won't be on it? ESPECIALLY as a Nintendo fan, where outside of Gamecube it was an entirely separate world from the competition the vast majority of the time until the Switch (and not even because of the PS4 era Switch ports, but more because most popular games aren't actually even remotely AAA anymore), it feels ludicrous to complain about it now.

I always remember when that was the rumor for the sequel to the Tomb Raider reboot, that it was gonna be Xbox exclusive and everyone was so mad. Why? It's just another Uncharted now, Sony will get actual Uncharted...and a billion other games, who cares?

@kkslider5552000 I feel like most people are just greedy and want all the games. 😝 I certainly don't think it's unfair when a game is exclusively on a different system, but that doesn't stop me from shaking my fist at the world for denying me a chance to play that game.

@kkslider5552000 I hope Nintendo fanboys aren’t the one getting mad about that, Nintendo has a boat load of first party’s and exclusives. Also if they didn’t it would be stupid, litrally what reason would there be to get any other consoles, it would ruin the fun.

@kkslider5552000 The only thing I can get is if a game goes from being a long time exclusive on one console to hopping over to another, with the gameplay being something not offered on other consoles. It kind of screws people over who wish to play it, because they don't want to buy a singular console for one game. Like, (This isn't the case and we know it now) Persona 3 Reload being advertised for Xbox first, which made people feel upset that it might've been an Xbox Exclusive title, as the original Persona 3 was a PS game, and the series itself is pretty unique. Some people bought a playstation for future Persona games as well.

That’s it. The small town vibe really sells this cast because there’s a lot more character moments. The town of Inaba is meant to be a very boring and monotonous location, so more emphasis is placed on characters interacting with each other instead of interacting with certain locations (of which there’s like five in Persona 4 lol). You’re also right about the villains, they were meant to be symbols for the seven sins of humanity in Persona 5 and ended up taking some shine away from the characters (only presenting Kamoshida and Ann as foils for lust, and Yusuke and Madarame as foils for vanity, etc) and more their relationships with the villains. In Persona 4 the villains are the characters’ shadow selves, so there’s a lot less “ooooh look this villain is super duper bad!” and more “oh, I never knew that about this new character,”. Same applies to the dungeons too, they’re projections of the characters, not the villains. You could say P5’s tomb palace is well executed in the story because the palace ruler and the character recruited are the same.

What I do appreciate about Persona 5’s Royal content is how little it feels tacked on. There’s hints here and there about the upcoming third semester and we meet the new characters very early on to establish a rapport, in addition to all the new events to give them time to shine. And they do shine, Kasumi’s a top three character in the game even on a bad day. With Persona 4 Golden we just meet Marie once, get introduced to her, and then after the end of the main story we pick up with the new stuff.

My feeling about 5 is that the base game peaks during Kamoshida's palace, while Royal peaks at the Royal content. It feels like the game has way too many villains, to the point where not many actually get to showcase why you should despise them. For example, Shido. Shido is meant to be this big bad that the entire game builds up, but he only really ever has one interaction with Joker during the events of the game before his actual arc, so you're pretty much left with a subpar villain character for most of the game who doesn't really even show his face often. Compare this to a character like Kamoshida, who is constantly around, making you feel an oppressive feeling the entirety of the time you go through that whole thing. He stops you every time you walk past him, only to berate you and treat you like trash, with you being unable to really do a thing about it due to his authority. You grow to genuinely despise him and his presence, especially for the things which he does and basically gets away with at the time, so when you end up taking him down in game, it feels like genuine catharsis.

Speaking of P5, I said it before somewhere but the “dating” part of the game where Joker dates the other girls is so bad. You basically lend them an ear and they fall in love in you. I honestly do not see why some people think it’s great.

Also Anns theme is sexual abuse/being sexualised but she herself, ironically, is sexualised by the devs itself whilst being only 16. 16 year olds barely have breasts her size but even if she were the outlier that by-the-power-of-the-designers-hand has big oppai (breasts) she still does not to stand so bend over showing her curves/cleavage. Look up her ps4 theme and tell me she is not sexualized.

@TheJGG The fact that the desert/tomb Palace and the third semester Palace are two of my favorites in the whole game I think proves how well P4's character-driven structure works. In the case of the desert Palace, it's a full HALF of the character's Confidant and is a pretty great arc on its own before accounting for one of the more memorable party member Confidants and one of the better Confidants overall. Seeing how more than half of P4's dungeons follow that template, it makes sense that if you like that Palace you'd like P4. As for third semester, the fact that it's foreshadowed so much in the base game and both Kasumi and the antagonist are the main focus (and how the antagonist presents a choice you might actually have to think about) means it also falls heavily into that party member-driven style. It definitely does help that Kasumi is more fleshed out than Marie (and that I just like her character better, both arc and personality I think she's a more interesting character), but if someone doesn't like Kasumi it could really mess up third semester. But it seems like most people are at a bare minimum ok with Kasumi so most people agree third semester is great.
@VoidofLight I think the villain that definitely feels most disconnected from the main story is Kaneshiro. Shido at least with most of the Thieves has some connection to them and generally does, meaning that at least in the context of the characters they have a reason to fight him other than "corrupt politician". With Kaneshiro, Makoto just sees that students are getting taken by the mafia and then blackmails the Thieves into dealing with him because she has evidence of them being the Thieves. Even once Makoto joins the team it still feels like you're just fighting Kaneshiro out of obligation, even though Makoto kinda has to drop the blackmail now since she's part of the Thieves.
@BrintaPap Me personally, the main appeal of Confidants isn't really the whole aspect of dating your favorite character as much as it is seeing them get more character development. Haru's arc in the main game isn't that good and she gets heavily sidelined thanks to a certain cat, but her Confidant is actually really good and does a lot to help her character. The whole idea of romancing one of them is just a little extra thing for whichever character is my favorite. You think it's bad in P5, if you play P3 as the male protagonist you're FORCED into dating every female Confidant/Social Link!
As for what you said about Ann... yeah I'll agree with you there. Atlus is a very Japanese company and they make stories very grounded in anime tropes, and having one "fan-service" character like that is pretty standard for anime, at least from what I've seen since I'm the only Persona fan to ever claim to "not be a huge anime guy". I love Persona, but this stuff is just bad and hopefully Atlus gets their game together with P6.

@Slim_in_Blue never played any persona before p5, but yeah I watch anime myself and they always do that there. But in Persona 5 I just found it BS regarding Ann.
Kinda weird having that in P3.

The confidant system is great and I have nothing to complain about that. It really was only the romance options in the game with the ladies that made me go what the?

What gets me about Persona 5 is that the game makes Kamoshida out to be a villain because he is a creep towards teenage girls, and is dating them, then you later can have Joker date his teacher and other fully grown adult women. It just feels off having the main protagonist have the ability to do something which the game tries to make a point in saying is bad. It's why I hope Persona 6 has some sort of adult cast, so that dating adult characters won't be as weird.

I'd say that all the female adult confident relationships in P5 come across as highly suspect. If Joker isn't romancing his teacher's kinky side hustle, he's either playing guinea pig for a maverick rogue doctor's drug experiments, getting flat out scammed by a fortune teller or hanging out with a sozzled journalist at a seedy bar. Sae seems to be the only adult in the game who knows the meaning of the word boundaries.

Still, these are all such well worn wish-fulfillment tropes in Japanese media that they're scarcely worth batting an eyelid over, unless you're making an out-of-genre recommendation for the game.

I really hate code in box practice for some upcoming Switch games and moreover the already released games.
I mean why waste the plastic just for empty case and no cartridge at all ?
Is the cartridge cost still expensive for some developers and they cheat out by sell the games by code in box or the popularity of Nintendo Switch really turned some developers become greedy and choose code in box to minimize the expenses and gain more profit ?
Code in box is a legit scam practice in my opinion.
I hate to see when popularity really blinded peoples into greedy.
That means being popular (too much) is a bad thing.
This is the reason I started to have less interest with Switch games when code in box still swarming around.

I posted here since my unpopular opinion considered as trolling by some peoples here.
Geez...
I didn't troll.
Peoples need to chill out with my completely different opinion.
I have different opinion about Charles Martinet departure as I don't have that much attachment with him in term of his voice for Mario.
Will I miss him? Not really, I can moving on with different voice actor.
Also, I didn't grew up by N64 and GameCube games during my teenhood so I have less attachment with Mario voice by Charles Martinet and personally I'm already tired with his signature Italian accent catchphrases.
It doesn't mean his voice acting is bad, it just I have less interest with his Italian accent all the time.
It was quite cringey to say any words with that accent for a whole time in my opinion.
I prefer character who can talk in full sentences like Ratchet from Ratchet & Clank games than silent character like Mario / Link as I grew up with the voice acting standard from 3rd party games.
So when Charles Martinet departured, I didn't feel sad or happy, I just being neutral (or maybe a little bit indifferent) considering I have less attachment with him. I felt sad when the original voice actor / actress of The Sims 1 PC passed away long time ago because I grew up by their Simlish language from The Sims 1 games on PC and PS2.

@Anti-Matter I get why the do the code in a box - visibility on store shelves without the cost of the physical cart - but during a time when plastic waste and environmental issues are such a hot topic it does seem like a ridiculous concept to manufacture the case/insert and ship it halfway across the world with nothing but a code inside. Even more ridiculous when you consider that online retailers also sell code in a box games, so effectively shipping the empty box a second time.

To be fair, this isn't only an issue with Switch games - PS5 and Xbox Series games don't run from the disc either anymore as they need the data transfer rates of their internal storage - the disc isn't fast enough - so they are essentially just an installer with the disc being used as a licence key once the game has been installed. I guess with the disc you are still able to sell it on/trade/loan it to a friend etc unlike the code in a box though.