Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@NintendoByNature I got my deck a year ago, since I sold my PS5, and it was/is a great investment… so now I’m 100% portable between Switch/Deck. Gives me the best of both worlds, but with Switch2 supposedly around the corner it might just be worth waiting for the update

It’s funny because both devices could learn a lot from each other. If you could take the best bits of Switch/Deck you’d have an amazing piece of kit.
I hope Switch2 has fully some of the deck features like fully re-mappable controls and maybe even FPS / TDP sliders
Also, a bit frivolous, but being able to freak the UI and update images for games is pretty cool

@CJD87 the only reason I was considering it was really for some 3rd party games but now that I have a series s I really don't need it. I may just wait til they're on a really deep discount since I'll be buying the switch successor soon, I'm sure.

I'm curious to know why? I think it's interesting to hear different opinions on video games. For me, it's my favorite Zelda game with TotK and Oot following after.

Unpopular opinions, eh? Well here is mine: I do not like MarioKart 8 Deluxe. I just borrowed it from my library this weekend, and while I can see the appeal, I honestly did not like how much content there was. I know, that sounds dumb (especially from a Splatoon fan lol) but if felt like quantity over quality. Even though the game is polished, I just prefer the simplicity of MKWii more. That said, playing with Blue Shells only was stupidly fun.

I will say, I've wondered what BOTW is like if you ignore the majority of the game and just do the most important stuff. It might be worth playing it that way, or at least in a way where that level of open world exploration is secondary (in some ways that might be an improvement, since like half of the resource gathering is just for selling or to get the highest level of upgraded equipment, the latter of which is completely unnecessary). Though there are still the Koroks...

I think for all its changes, for good or bad, there is still a pretty decent Zelda game of sorts underneath the open world elements if you just focus on its most blatantly important and exciting segments. (more clearly so in TOTK tbh). For a decent chunk of those segments, they don't feel dramatically different from other Zelda games, barring a few notable difference. At least not to the same extent the long term open world experience does at least.

Yeah, I feel the same about TotK. It's a game with a lot of cool, small moments separated by hours and hours of downtime. In Breath Of The Wild, I was willing to put up with the downtime because the world was new and I wanted to explore it. When I'm already familiar with the world, it just didn't feel worth it to get to the good stuff.

@StarryCeil I actually feel the opposite! I played TotK first so it was all new to me, and when I played BotW it mostly kinda boring

I sort of did that last year with my first playthrough of Master Mode. Just focused mostly on the Divine Beasts and Towers. No shrines, no Master Sword, none of that. I got whooped hard as a result, but it was a fun challenge. Though it did end up feeling a bit shallow as a result, mostly because I'm used to just exploring the land and taking in the environment.

On the subject of launch-era Switch games, here's an opinion that gets more contentious depending on where you look:

Super Mario Odyssey is a solid Mario game and I don't get why so many people have turned on it in such a vitriolic way.

Sure, some of the criticisms are valid; the overabundance of moons is as much a detriment as it is a benefit, some of the kingdoms could've fleshed out a little more, and there could be more intersection between the focused platformer sections and main areas, but none of those take away from what I consider to be it's greatest strengths - solid controls, a great set of investible and personality-driven characters(eat your heart out Rosie), the aforementioned platforming sections, and the overall wild ideas on display in a story that actually goes out of its way to expand on the standard Mario dynamics(to an extent), resulting in one of the funniest endings in a Mario game. It walked forward what could be done for Mario from a design standpoint and a creative standpoint and that deserves to be recognized.

@N00BiSH Idk I feel the backlash against Odyssey, BotW, etc. is a vocal minority. I think with any popular game once the initial praise dies down you tend to hear more of the negative even if the game was well-received by a majority. You don't find that people tend to gush over a game, repeating it's praise, years after it's release - whereas people seem more quick to voice any opinion that differs from the "consensus", especially here in the unpopular opinions thread.

Personally? I think Mario Odyssey is far and away the best 3D Mario game, and honestly I consider it to be the best 3D platformer of all time. I don't see an issue with the moons whatsoever - to me they each feel like a fun discovery and make the worlds fun to explore. I can understand why someone might prefer other styles of Mario game though, much as I understand why BotW might not be someone's cup of tea.

@Buizel That's kind of why I said it depends on where you look. I myself keep seeing a lot - mostly on Twitter, which seems to flip-flop on liking/disliking games 6 days after they release.

I like Odyssey's controls, but for whatever reason I cannot enjoy the game for the life of me. I played through it once, but I can't bring myself to play through it more than that. I always stop around halfway into it.

My speculation is mostly the over-abundance of moons that turns me off from enjoying the game. Either that, or the fact that most kingdoms have the same few side tasks on repeat through the game, just differentiated by the fact that those tasks are easier/more difficult depending on the kingdom you access them in.

@N00BiSH oh absolutely. I don't use twitter these days but I imagine it's not a good place to gauge popular opinion on any subject - an opinion with high engagement isn't necessarily the popular one, or it may be popular but only in select crowds as you mention. And on my point I don't think being the 10,000th person to tweet that they liked BotW or similar is going to get much engagement...

@Buizel 100% this. Twitter's pointless engagement bait, amongst a slew of other issues brought about by its imbecilic leader, have made it exhausting to use. I'm jumping ship come the 31st because of that.

@VoidofLight When it comes to the side tasks, is it a thing with Odyssey specifically? I know the Galaxy games tended to reuse specific mission formats for its levels, as well as the other 3D Marios that've done that to an extent.

@N00BiSH For me, it feels worse in Odyssey. I guess it's mainly because the over-abundance of moons already feel like you're robbed of achievements, and the side missions don't exactly help that fact. The Kingdoms also have something to do with the feeling I get too. Something about them just feels completely off, and I genuinely don't understand why. It's a weird "hollow" feeling, and that's the best I can really describe that as.

Edit: I think it might be how isolated the Kingdoms feel from their backdrops. I've seen others post about that same feeling, and the more I read upon it the more I'm convinced that could be the case. This weird feeling of isolation from the rest of the game world, which makes it feel more like the game fits in this uncanny space in my mind.

Overabundance of moons is such a weird complaint to me. You'd think people never played collect-a-thon platformers. It's not like the randomly situated moons are in place on ones that reward bigger challenges. The game is drowning in bigger challenges. But the game doesn't boot you out of a level after you complete one, so I guess they don't count.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the moons in Odyssey.

Odyssey's biggest flaw is that it locks certain moves with motion gestures, which makes trying to 100% with the Pro Controller and/or in handheld mode much less convenient. And some don't have exact button and stick variants.

It's right behind Galaxy as my all-time favorite 3D platformer. Absolutely magical game.

@Ralizah Ehhh for me the amount of moons really takes the wind out of the sails. Mainly because it feels like the more of a collectable that exists, the less the collectable matters. Especially if you can buy an infinite number of them from the shops.

The stars wouldn't matter that much to me if there were hundreds of them I could collect, and if I could purchase them from the game's various shops.

This being said, that isn't the only reason I dislike Odyssey. The lack of accomplishment is one of the many reasons that contribute to me having that weird hollow feeling that I get. The feeling that stops me halfway through the game every time I try to replay it, and makes me feel off to the point where I get deeply uncomfortable and put the game down. I think a big contributor really is the whole isolated element of the levels, where it feels like the level design just stretches into an endless expanse due to the skyboxes. I often get a weird sense of liminality with the game.

One of the main valid reasons I’ve seen people turn on Odyssey is that it’s so good the first time through. The capture system is genuinely unlike anything I’ve ever played in a 3D platformer and there is enough variety when you’re just jumping from kingdom to kingdom to keep things interesting. However, once you’ve seen all the tricks on the first run through, the problems that you don’t notice kind of exacerbate themselves. The platforming is the best in the series-but only like 3/5 of the moons really utilize it in an innovative way. A lot of the captures are really one-note and don’t change up of the gameplay beyond the initial concept. The postgame moon dump, while giving some of the best challenges in the game, also gives a lot of moons that add nothing to my experience with the game other than getting you to bring captures to other random points on the map.
These are all issues that you don’t notice on your first play through, but when you realize that you have to do yet another sheep herding mission or yet another moon in the middle of the expanse where the only challenge is bringing a flying creature to the hole in the abyss, or go through yet another boring stroll through the main path so you can get to the good stuff- all the good will and fresh new ideas start to be forgotten.
I still love Odyssey, and it’s probably in my top 10 of Mario games, but the ones that are my true favorites focus on things that you can enjoy over and over again even after the novelty is gone. 3D World and Galaxy, while not as ambitious as Odyssey, have very few moments where I would say I am not having fun.
It’s the same reason that Wonder is starting to lose some of its luster for me. I’ll always remember and cherish the fun, memorable moments I got on my first playthroughs, but there are points on replay when the spectacle and novelty goes away and you just want to jump around again.
Edit: Man I need to go to sleep did I really type all that up?

@JakedaArbok Wonder is also sorta losing all of it's "wonder" for me as well. Not because I dislike the game by any means, or because I want to be "contrarian," but because it feels like the game just didn't do enough to stay in my mind. It's the shakeup that 2D Mario needed for sure, but at the same time it feels like it still didn't do enough to go "hey, remember this game? I wanna replay it!"

I find myself often forgetting the game even exists, and when I recall it I don't really have any urge to revisit it at all.

@JakedaArbok I dunno, I've heard that criticism before, but I feel that could be applied for any video game. Of course the novelty of that first playthrough will wear off and of course you notice things that could be improved upon. But at some point you have to ask yourself if you still enjoy the game in spite of those flaws, because if you do, then do those flaws actually matter?