Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@CJD87 Gotcha.

I doubt the less involved mechanics would matter to me (my next game after ER was Dark Souls 1 lol), but hearing Sekiro is more linear actually appeals to me. Also, I dramatically prefer the feudal Japanese setting to the dark fantasy of the Souls games.

OH THANK GOD I'M NOT ALONE IN THINKING THIS

Mario World is a game I want to love so badly myself: it's got great spritework, an iconic OST and was the introduction of a ton of Mario mainstays like Galoombas, Spin Jumps and, of course, Yoshi. However I just cannot STAND the movement of it; feels like you're constantly wrestling with the controls in order to do anything (an issue heavily compounded by how infuriating the Cape Feather is to use) and in a game that's supposed to be as chill and de-stressing as Mario? Yeah that's a massive no-go in my eyes. I actually just started up Mario Advance 2 yesterday to see whether my thoughts on it would change on another playthrough and....nope, still don't like it XD

I couldn't disagree more tbh. In fact, I personally find Super Mario World to be one of the few (if not only) games from pre-1995 or so that still holds up as one of the best in its genre.

In particular:

• I find the controls to be some of the best in the series (far better than the sluggish SMB3 and the good-for-a-first-attempt SMB1).
• It has a great selection of powerups (feather, while taking some getting used to, controls better than the racoon in SMB3; Yoshi was an absolute gamechanger; and keeping the powerup list short works well for it - most Mario games have loads of dud powerups anyway).
• Levels have a lot more depth to them than SMB3 (that latter's levels are often centered around a single gimmick and are done before you know it).
• And finally, I think it stands out more than other 2D Mario games because of it's theming. I like how the worlds are continuous with each other and sorta make sense as different parts of a larger island. It makes it feel like a bit more of an adventure (as opposed to the typical Mario structure of Plains --> Desert --> etc.). I really appreciate Sunshine for this reason as well.

In fairness, I think Wonder does a good job of implementing these positives in a modern age (except for the last and, to some extent, point 2 - I'm not completely sold on the new powerups outside of drill). I'm tempted to say Wonder is the better game at this point.

/defending a popular opinion in the unpopular opinions thread xD

@Fizza I've actually never cared for the game's spritework (especially Mario, who looks weird), but what really does me in is the weird controls, the unimaginative courses/worlds, the lack of power-ups and minigames, and it's also the game that introduced ghost houses, my least favorite element of the series.

But so it goes with games on one of the most overrated consoles.

Genesis > SNES 4ever

TotK is a game filled with filler content. It feels like there’s a lot to do, but not much is actually meaningful. Nintendo pretty much filled the world with excessive content to make it feel as if players had a ton to actually experience.

The two new areas, skies and depths, feel incredibly underbaked. The depths feel the same through-out and feel like they weren’t as interesting as they could have been. The skies were the same few islands practically copied and pasted, with only a few unique ones actually existing through the game.

The lore is incredibly shallow in TotK and it feels like the Zelda team wanted to abandon the consistent series lore whilst also referencing it. Have their cake and eat it too. I get that lore doesn’t always come first in Zelda, but the games had a logical universe with the same consistent pieces of lore; like the triforce or like the master sword being made to slay evil. Ganondorf is somehow more powerful without the triforce than he is with it, despite the triforce being a god-like relic. Its treated like nothing more than a toddler’s toy in comparison to the secret stones.

Another issue is how it feels like Nintendo as a whole wants to make more sequels of games that ignore the game(s) that came before it. TotK ignores a lot of stuff from BotW, and Pikmin 4 ignores pikmin 1-3 in terms of events that happen (outside of references). Its aggravating that we can’t have proper sequels anymore, since its bad for business. Nintendo wants to expand series demographics, so they have to ignore any cohesion or proper linking of games in order to minimize the chances of people feeling as if they’re missing out. Even when they port the previous games, they still do this for some reason. It amazes me, and concerns me for the future Nintendo sequels.

Currently my hype on PS5 machine is started to build so my impression between PS5 , PS4 & Switch so far =
PS5 > PS4 > Switch

@VoidofLight While I understand the intent, I think it was a mistake making your Zonai device battery dependent on mining resources to expand it. Would have preferred having battery upgrades tethered to main plot progression or something. It kind of turns the game into a slog if you want to get to the point where your devices last any length of time.

@Ralizah I don’t mind it, but it feels hard to obtain everything in a run that’s without the paraglider or fast travel.

I don't disagree with some of those complaints but at the end of the day, the two open world Zeldas are some of the only games where I can have a good time doing not much of significance beyond checking an area I haven't been to before.

Probably helps that the past two games in huge worlds I played were Xenoblade 2, which somehow still didn't have enough game world for how eternal and tedious trying to do even most of the notable quests can get and Arkham Knight, which tried to expand its meaningful side content and somehow made it feel emptier than the fields north of Kakariko.

Honestly between them and Hyrule Warriors, Zelda's kinda mastered the art of finding joy in the simplest and most unendingly repetitive tasks. The fact that I also prefer Happy Home Designer to most Animal Crossings probably also fits well into that. But at the end of the day, dealing with a 3rd bank robbery using Arkham's excellent stealth mechanics felt boring in a way that "ooh what's inside here" has not in TOTK. I also have a soft spot for just chill, long term explorations in some dark place, now that I think about it, as the one weirdo who liked the whole underground section in Assassin's Creed 3 (which is a far less defendable opinion tbh).

Ehhh. Xenoblade isn't really open world though. I don't get why people keep lumping it in with Open World games. X is an open world, but that's the only open world in the series. Xenoblade Chronicles 1, 2, and 3 all have open areas, but for the most part it still goes on as a linear story-driven experience. Calling it "Open World" is like calling Ocarina of Time or Monster Hunter "Open World."

@VoidofLight It kills me to say this, but I agree with a lot of your take re.TOTK

I desperately WANTED to fall in love with this game, as I did with BOTW, but was left feeling just a bit hollow & empty after 20-30 hours and put it down. I am not disputing that 'objectively' it is a remarkable game... but I could never shake the feeling of 'been here done that'.

I support Forbidden West, Ragnarok and even SM2 fall into this camp somewhat - building on their excellent predecessors but not quite doing enough to carve their own identity.

TotK being largely standalone doesn't bother me, but I do agree regarding Pikmin. I don't get why they actively contradicted the (very basic) stories of the previous games in a numbered sequel. It wouldn't have been too alienating for new players if Olimar remembered meeting the Pikmin before, but pretending it never happened is jarring for those of us who've played the whole series.

@Dogorilla This is a completely baseless theory of mine, but I like to believe that they were originally going to give it 4 a subtitle rather than the traditional numbering the series had up until that point (maybe something like Pikmin: Search and Rescue to signify the shift in story/premise?). However, with the sheer amount of notoriety Pikmin 4 as an entity had gained in the years since THAT interview alongside Miyamoto (and presumably most if not all of Nintendo) making a large push for Pikmin to finally break into the mainstream gaming landscape, they probably thought keeping it as 'Pikmin 4' would entice more people to buy it.

Again, literally no evidence for this whatsoever but I think it makes a decent amount of sense if you think about it XD

I'm not a Monster Hunter fan. I tried getting into the series with 4 Ultimate and Rise, but I couldn't, unfortunately. I don't really like how sluggish the controls are... I'm sure they were made that way for a reason, but they just didn't click with me. I guess I like having my player characters' controls to be more snappy, lol. I also don't like how it takes so long to take down those huge monsters. Recently, I revisited 4U to see if I would like it better, but yeah... I still don't like it. Oh well... at least I tried it.

@MarioLover92 I played through rise and I couldn't wait for it to be over. I know it's a beloved franchise, but for the life of me, I can't understand why 🤷‍♂️

@NintendoByNature I love Monster Hunter, and even then I dislike Rise a bit. I hated the segments where they forced you to basically play tower defense. I also dislike how they included a lot of recolored variants of monsters, instead of having more interesting monsters like in previous games.

I also struggled to get into Monster. I tried a demo of 3 on Wii U, ad even bought 4 on 3DS, but it's so sluggish and repetitive. It just bored me. Also, I seem to recall the quest giver in 4 being excessively rude and unlikeable.

Also, I agree with @VoidofLight on TotK. The points about not connecting more to BotW really bugged me throughout the game. Like, why do I need to unlock the whole map again? Did they just bin the old Sheikah slate without at least copying the map? I loved BotW, but TotK became quite a slog towards the end. I hated the fact that building and upgrading both use the same resource, which is grindy and takes forever to get. It just killed any interest I had in trying to be creative. I played for over 120 hours, and I think I was still just over half-way to a full battery. And every time I needed to build something, if I didn't want to use up zonaite (because I was trying to save up for more battery power), I'd have to search around for wood to build the whole thing again, or at least build most of it so it would cost less zonaite for the rest. And no Nintendo, pasting Adson around the map 50 times with the exact same "puzzle" isn't interesting gameplay either.

There's just so many other niggles too, like weapon breaking and fusing being slow and annoying, and the Sages' powers all being mapped to A and you have to catch them to use them. "OMG if you blow my items away one more time I'm going to scream!!!" I did love absolutely love some parts, like reclaiming the fishing village, the runups to the temples, getting my own house, lots of really inventive shrine puzzles, the cool robot Sage, and finally saving Zelda. It felt properly amazing at these points. Incredible gaming. But these highs were dragged down by super excessive padding; a lot of which was essentially recycled content from the previous game. By the end I was so burnt out. If it had focussed more on the new parts, shortened the runtime, offered actually decent rewards for finding chests (possibly a few unbreaking weapons), and cut down on reused content, I think it would have been a far better experience. But as it was, I came away mildly disappointed with the game, which is a big shame.

Oops. That turned into a rant.

Anyway, right now I'm absolutely loving Pikmin 4, and I've almost finished. I didn't realise it disregards previous plots. It's my first Pikmin game, and I'm fully intending to play the rest of the series on Switch (and 3DS).

@VoidofLight interesting. Rise was supposed to be one of the best in the franchise correct? Kind of felt dull honestly.

@NintendoByNature

I can't get into them either, but I assume some people just like taking forever to slowly whack a monster. Kinda feels like a disatisfying boss rush to me. I really liked the world in Rise if not the actual gameplay so I snagged monster hunter stories 2 and liked that better.

Same here! I couldn't really get into the mainline monster hunter games but mhs2 was fantastic. Especially its post game!