Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@ShonenJump121 The issue is that the people who think exclusives are bad are different people from those who actually see them as good. I've always seen exclusive titles as the nature of the industry as a whole. Something that it doesn't exactly work without. This generation basically just enforces that viewpoint for me, given how lackluster it has been for Sony and Microsoft both.

The main issue with this generation is that Sony keeps backporting their games to PS4 and Microsoft seems to be abandoning the console space entirely, attempting to push people to gamepass and make the XBOX ecosystem one in the same with Windows.

Sure the PS5 has Demon Souls, Spider-Man 2, Stellar Blade, Helldivers 2, and Astro Bot- but Spider-Man 2 is probably going to be going to PC, StellarBlade is already forgotten given how lackluster it was (aping off of NieR without even understanding why people like NieR in the first place, and only selling the game due to marketing to a specific group of people), Helldivers sorta fell off a cliff due to Sony's treatment of the community- and Astro Bot isn't going to stay exclusive to PS5 for long either.

Even with these games, there's still barely any games in comparison to what the PS4 had at this point in it's lifecycle. It's telling as well given that the only Sony IP releasing this year was Astro-bot, with no other big games really being made for the console.

I'm not a fanboy, but I believe Nintendo is genuinely the only company actually doing something of quality right now. Sony has nothing going on game-wise, and neither does Microsoft. Both consoles are in a genuine drought for new games- all while Nintendo is still going strong in the last years of the Switch's lifespan. This year alone for Nintendo we've gotten a Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door remake, a new 2D Zelda game, Mario and Luigi Brothership, a sequel to a visual novel series that hasn't been touched in years outside of remakes, and Princess Peach showtime. In previous final years- Nintendo usually just put out a ton of ports or very bite sized games. Sometimes they wouldn't even release anything at all game-wise.

I don't usually mind what platforms I play games on. So long as it has games that interest me, I'll end up getting them. My main issue though is that outside of Nintendo, I have no real reason to own the other consoles. I have a gaming rig that outpaces my PS5, so I don't even use the PS5 anymore. I gave XBOX a shot with the XBOX One, but ended up selling it after I realized it just sat in my room collecting dust and nothing more. Without exclusives, I genuinely can just make do with my Switch and my PC. In the long-run, PC is cheaper anyways (given the lack of online subscription fees), and if the "All Digital Future" ever comes, PC will be the only way I'll ever feel comfortable "owning" anything digitally. Especially given how Sony has proven that you effectively can get your digital games ripped right out of your library if they deem fit.

@ShonenJump121
I don't even play the games you mentioned on PS4 & PS5, those AAA games.
I played the 3rd party kids games, underrated / unpopular games such as Epic Chef, Dodgeball Academia, Yonder the Cloud Catcher Chronicles, Story of Seasons games, kids games by Outright Games like Paw Patrol, Barbie, etc.
A lot of peoples still keep lamenting the lack of choices of the games because they only see the AAA games, ignore the non AAA games.
When peoples see the AAA as their treasure box, I see the non popular and kids games as the hidden treasure and I feel granted with my PS4 & PS5 for getting tons of kids games supply on PS4 & PS5.

@FishyS
That's why I have a lot of video game machines, from Nintendo + PlayStation + XBOX (360 only so far) to able to play their signature games.
The only machines I don't consider such as Gameboy, GBC, N64, XBOX ONE, XBOX SERIES X, PS VITA for having less interesting games I can consider.

@VoidofLight People were screaming to the heavens, wanting exclusives to go away and for Sony/Microsoft to port all their games to PC.

They did that now so I'm sure those people are very happy now with the slim amount of exclusives that were already present this generation. So many old threads of people saying how anti-consumer and awful it is for consoles to have exclusives.

Well, here we are now. Aside from Nintendo there isn't much of a reason to buy any other console because everything gets ported to PC anyway, assuming the PC version isn't terrible or something. People wanted exclusives gone so badly, so this is the result. If Nintendo's IPs were on PC in some hypothetical scenario there wouldn't be much of a reason to buy a Switch either.

Sony is just now forgoing the PS4 for the PS5 halfway into the generation. PS4 should have been let go already, years ago. Much of which damage is due to PS5s being impossible to get and development costs for their games ballooning into unreasonable territories both in cost and development time. Consoles live and die by their exclusives, third parties can only carry one so far.

@ShonenJump121
Just because the games get ported to PC, it doesn't mean every peoples will jump into the bandwagon by choosing the PC version than console version.
I personally still choose consoles over than PC for having easy to play method by insert the disc and play. Same case for handhelds, I choose handhelds like NDS / 3DS / Switch over than handphone games.
I don't care with PC power specs since I mostly played kids games with low to medium power play.

If you have the option of one within reason, someone may. It just depends on the person and what that person wants. The three perks of a console generally speaking used to be something like this.

• Exclusive games you cannot play anywhere else.
• Easy plug and play, ease of use.
• Cost, with consoles getting stuff like price cuts or lower priced models making it easy for someone to enter that ecosystem.

@ShonenJump121 Exactly. The three big things for consoles over PC were the ease of set-up, the cost, and the exclusives. The exclusives being gone only leaves the ease of play and the cost- with the cost slowly crawling to match the price of a gaming rig now. This only really leaves the ease of use, which I feel like isn't really worth the price of admission. Especially given how being tied down to a single company's ecosystem is genuinely awful. They have complete control of what games you play, or what things you own. Especially with them phasing out physical media- no longer including a disc drive unless you pay extra for it.

@ShonenJump121 @VoidofLight

Really good points, about console's ease of use being the only remaining selling point vs. a gaming pc.

If Switch 2 launches at half the price of the PS5 Pro, it is the only logical console to own. Unless you have a LOT of money to burn...like the people who say things like "I haven't touched my (enter name of next gen console here) in weeks, because I've been so busy on my (enter name of other next gen console here)".

@MontyCircus You sort of need a second device for the large surplus of third parties games whether it be a PS5, PC or just a series S or something really for game pass.

Indie games, no problem but some of these more demanding games I feel like they would be better experience on stronger hardware.
Games like Alan Wake II and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 are great, but I'm not sure if I would be feasting at Switch ports given they would need to be downgraded to run on the platform even on Switch 2. Not to mention that the quality of the port is very wide ranging, Doom runs great, but your first experience with Arkham Knight shouldn't be on Switch that port is baffling.

But maybe you don't care about any of those third party games, then that's fine.

@ShonenJump121 when you said “big three” while having the username “shonenjump”, I had a mental whiplash and thought this was gonna be a rant about One Piece, Naruto and Bleach would’ve been hilarious to read (even though I love all three)
And yeah I agree I have no strong attachment to the gaming’s “big three” either.

There was a huge controversy 9 years ago about the 2nd of the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy being potentially exclusive to Xbox. And I think a timed exclusive but I always think of how stupid that was. Like I do think it potentially sucks if were a Playstation fan who bought the previous game and wanted more (especially since Tomb Raider is basically a Playstation icon), but in every other regard...who cares? It's one game, that was very specifically like Uncharted, a Playstation exclusive you will never play on Xbox. You don't NEED Uncharted at Home when you have actual Uncharted. And you have a billion other games, just play something else.

Even funnier in hindsight considering how many people ignore this reboot trilogy by the time the third game came out. It's like when people pretended they would've bought Bayonetta 2 when Nintendo got that exclusivity, no, most you would in fact, not. And I bet a lot of those people now have a Switch and have still not bought Bayonetta 2.

anyway exclusives are good and AA exclusives should be the wave of the future (aka the thing Nintendo usually does anyway)

@kkslider5552000 I feel like first party exclusives is what I'd rather the game companies focus on. Making new IPs or using IPs that the company has owned for years, yet did nothing with. Sony recently complained about not having a ton of IPs, but there's a ton of franchises they've owned yet refuse to touch. Bloodborne, Ape Escape, etc. It just feels weird that they refuse to make new games and then complain about that exact thing.

I also think Sony choosing to release the few exclusives they do have on PS4 and PC hurts potential sales of PS5s and the main reason for buying a PS5 in the first place. It isn't like the PS5 version of games looks any better than the PS4 version.

@VoidofLight First parties can do that, sure, I think 3rd parties should do more exclusives without being paid for it by using relatively smaller budget games deliberately marketed to one core audience (with an option to port eventually, especially if the game is a smash hit). The deal with the first parties would be marketing instead for mutually beneficial reasons, much of which would be very cheap in the internet age.

So for example Square Enix having DQ and Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy on everything because they're big enough to attract every audience (well I'm not sure about DQ on Xbox, but whatever) but more things like how HD-2D games are temporarily Switch exclusives and Nintendo now has more notable games to promote, everyone wins.

...or I guess they could do the thing like Super Monkey Ball where they're multi-console games but I think only Nintendo fans noticed because a Direct was most of their marketing, I dunno what that's about

Let's gooooo!

-I like Evil West more than God of War: Ragnarok (but not more than God of War 2018).
-I like Greek-era God of War more than the Norse saga (although I still love the Norse games).
-Metroid: Samus Returns is my favorite Metroid.
-Lords of Shadow is my favorite Castlevania.
-I think Lords of Shadow 2 is a good 3D Metroidvania.
-I don't like Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom (I don't really like very open-ended games).
-The Knack games are underrated, rock-solid action platformers. Not hidden masterpieces or anything, but nice 7/10 platformers with a combat focus.

Oh yeah God of War 2018. Played it for about 2-3 hours and found it slow, clunky and boring. The UI's incredibly unattractive, the boss fights and enemy variety are repetitive and the environments look nice but you spend so long in them because of how many cutscenes pop up. It's like Uncharted but with far less actual game, and I can't understand why people say it's such a masterpiece.

@jedgamesguy There's a lot of game in GoW2018 once it opens up a bit and lets the player off the chain. Some pretty cool dungeons and side areas to explore.

I was really disappointed every time I had to veer back onto the story route, since I knew it meant more cutscenes, more forced walking, so much walking and talking. But when the developer allows it to be a game and not a cinematic masterpiece, it's pretty decent.

I genuinely never understood the hype behind Dragon Quest. I get it's meant to be a comfort game, but to me it just feels like the same game every single time. Same stale mechanics, same stale storylines. Maybe the others are better- but XI really really wasn't great. I heard it "gets better in act 3," but when the majority of the game is super stale I personally don't think I'd want to stick around to see the third act.

@VoidofLight One could say the same about Pokemon 😆

Personally I really enjoy the Dragon Quest spinoff games; they're all a bit different while still having a common core.

@FishyS When it comes to Pokemon, I think what helps them stand out to me personally is the memories I associate with each generation. Gen IV was my first, I remember my school was obsessed with the series at that time. I remember everyone bringing their Pokewalkers to school, trying all sorts of tricks to rack up their steps. I remember counting the days until Black and White released on my calendar. I even remember playing Pokemon Sword when my family was going through an extremely dark time. I can't deny that a series can get kinda same-y after playing for so many generations, but it's those memories they gave me that really solidified them in my mind. I can imagine plenty other series having a similar effect, mind you, I have yet to start my first Dragon Quest game. That's just how I see it.

Speaking of Pokémon, I think Scarlet & Violet are wonderful games. The open world experience helps a LOT with the problem of recent games feeling too easy, since you can go against opponents that are harder than intended depending on the order you tackle them. A lot of the new Pokémon are really good and memorable, Skeledirge, Pawmot, Clodsire, Lokix, Garganacl, Dachsbun, Cerulege, Bellibolt, Cetitan, Flamigo, and not to mention all the neat paradox designs. Also, the character writing was utterly excellent, especially compared to recent other recent examples like SWSH. We’re given good reason to care and invest in the supporting cast (Arven, Penny, Nemona). To be fair, my first Pokémon game was X, but Scarlet & Violet wowed me as much if not more than even my very first experience with the series.

Oh, performance issues? Hardly noticed them. Muddy textures and short draw distance? Maybe it’s because I don’t have a PC, but I don’t really care about that kind of thing. Yes, the whole experience could have been better, but none of the complaints I hear directly detracted from my experience playing the game and the great creativity that went into the characters, new Pokémon, and open world mechanics.