Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@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?

I've never turned against it at all, but it is a game that I thought was an all timer for its first 15 hours and then realized it did not have that level of wildly fun, creative ideas for the parts where you aren't focused on going through its main quest. Which for some games would be a non-issue (like Xenoblade Chronicles is one of my favorite games, and most of its sidequests are really mid, and I don't care too much about that issue) but stands out more for a 3D Mario game.

But it didn't help that I decided to go through all the levels three times when attempting to do (the vast majority of) its content, which in hindsight was a giant mistake because its obviously meant for just main game and post game and not some arbitrary third time.

But the people who are overly harsh on it are very weird.

@Novamii For Wonder the fact that I beat it in one weekend kind of made me not want to replay it immediately. Granted I only played it that fast because I was addicted... When I came back a year later to play it as couch co-op it felt totally fresh and very different in that mode. In another year I plan to play it a bit speed-run-ish and I suspect it will feel fresh again because I can just skip Wonder Effects which makes the levels feel different.

I do wish they had added DLC with new modes. The badges actually add a ton of potential replayability but there is no structure which really rewards you for actually using them. If they had added modes which forces you to play normal levels with difficult badges it would have been interesting.

@Novamii What’s strange to me is that I actually want to go back and revisit Forgotten Land, given how much I enjoyed it. The amount of content and aesthetic/gameplay of that game held my interest far more than Wonder.

Also yeah, the Wonder Seeds were a cool thing when I first played Wonder, but sorta got boring towards the end when I realized a ton of them repeat in some way or another. Can’t imagine the surprise factor is really there after beating the game and replaying it again.

I feel like I’m the only person on earth that actually genuinely isn’t excited for Xenoblade X being ported. I genuinely hate that game, and I hate that there’s potential of it selling well and becoming the series future. I hate the focus on sidequests over the main story, and I genuinely dislike the music of that game aside from like 2 tracks. The setting also felt bland to me the first time I played it, and I didn’t enjoy how it’s just pure sci-fi unlike Xenogears, and mainline Xenoblade.

Everyone seems to love the game, but I just could never enjoy it- and I’ve yet to find anyone who even remotely feels the same about the topic. The game almost pushed me away from trying the mainline games, so if X is the future of the series, Xenoblade will become yet another Nintendo series I dislike I guess.

@VoidofLight
I totally understand where you're coming from and I agree with all your points.
However, I don't think the X-series will become the main focus. They might try a sequel for it, but I'm pretty sure Monolith understands characters and story are big sellers for this franchise.

@valtianeea There’s speculation that 3 ends with Mira being created, so that’s my largest fear at the current.

I also just rather them make a new IP or a mainline sequel instead of X-2.

Anything popular or widely praised usually gets the "uhm actually this game sucks and has never been good" treatment and Odyssey is only one of many games like that. I'm sure there will be people in 4 months saying that Echoes of Wisdom actually is awful and that Nintendo should be ashamed of themselves.

@ShonenJump121 I personally don’t like Echoes of Wisdom, but not because I want to be contrarian. I just didn’t enjoy it.

My GOTY 2024 is Barbie: Project Friendship PS5.

I don't even care with whichever games that won the Game Award because I will never agree with the game that won.

@Anti-Matter can you explain to me why it's so good?

I'm gonna say it, digital games, when they are DRM-free, is games preservation and ownership.

When it comes to PC games, I buy from GOG and all their games are DRM-free. As a result, every game I've bought I backed up, and can install and play them without Internet. Let's say a game gets delisted from GOG or GOG were to close down, I can still play those games as I backed them up. I also own them as in GOG can't take away my game since I have it downloaded and backed up to external memory (like a USB stick, or CD-Rs and DVD-Rs when I'm feeling old school).

I even have games GOG had to delist because of licensing, and I can still install and play them with no problem thanks to the ability to back up and play without Internet.

Unpopular because I know many don't like digital because of the lack of ownership. It is possible on PC.

wonder isnt the savior of the series. its ugly looking (the psuedo 3d look since new smb doesnt compare to classic pixel art), its corny: talking flowers to hold ur hand, the uncreative one liners ppl say: gonna have a wonderful weekend playing this! the random elephant crap doesnt feel like it belongs in the mario universe. its too easy etc... feels like nintendo had a crisis w the series being bland so any pivot to something weird would win over the masses bc they were that desperate. but it doesnt feel genuine. played for 10 min at a friends and shut it off. never would pay $60 for it, maybe $5 lol. yoshi and nabbit being handicapped also ticked me off.

@BASEDSAKRI wait... what do you mean by too easy when you only played for 10 minutes? 😆 The first 10 minutes of almost every Mario game are insanely easy. Overall I feel like the difficulty was pretty typical for Mario games — mostly pretty easy but with some semi challenging parts and a bit of true difficulty in the post-game. Neither the hardest nor easiest Mario game. I agree the talking flowers are dumb; I turned them off almost instantly.

@BASEDSAKRI The game is pretty hard later on in. This is like saying a game like persona 5 is bad just based off playing the first hour of the game.