Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

Peoples keep arguing about this style Zelda games, that style Zelda games.
I personally prefer Dragons Dawn of New Riders for classic Zelda clones and Oceanhorn 2 for botw replacement.

@VoidofLight Here's the thing about that interview: it's not the first time they've alluded to shifting to the current direction. Back when it was first revealed, Aonuma explained how they've been trying to create Breath of the Wild(or something like it) since they transitioned into 3D(citing Wind Waker as a key example).

That, to me, says it all. Open air Zelda was never meant to replace linear Zelda - it was more or less the goal the whole time and you can see a lot of BotW in a lot of previous Zeldas(OoT's optional order, WW's great sea, LBW's items, SS's collectibles, etc.). Always there, but never fully realized until the time and tech were right. I 100% get why they wouldn't want to backpedal on what they feel is their most fulfilled vision.

And I get it - not everyone is going to vibe with the changes, as others have shown. The kids crave more structure and that's totally fine. But acting like the Zelda team is just going to make BoTW over and over again until they all retire is just the wrong way to look at it. Whatever the next big Zelda is, it probably won't just be BotW 3, but rather something that might properly merge the past and future together, without having to prioritize one over the other.

To me, it's like this: Breath/Tears are Galaxy 1 and 2. What happens next is going to be Zelda's Odyssey.

_{or y'know. It could be Zelda's 3D World. Both things are equally possible.}

Anyways, that's all I'm saying about this. Until we actually see a new Zelda in action, I'm keeping to myself. If this is still going, maybe consider making a separate Zelda Opinion thread or something, I dunno. I just wanna see less derivative Zelda takes here for a while.

@N00BiSH And yet open air Zelda can't deliver a consistent story or interesting dungeons. Instead we get mini puzzle rooms that are meant to take the place of well crafted dungeons, given that everything has to have a solution that can be cheesed in the player's favor. To the point where well crafted puzzles barely even exist anymore. Especially with what they did with Tears of the Kingdom.

I don't have any hopes that the next game will bring back more traditional elements. They've made three games with the sandbox formula, and Aonuma's words makes it sound as if they aim to double down and keep pumping them out similarly to how previous 3D Zeldas were outright copying Ocarina of Time's gameplay loop.

They're dead set on total and complete freedom, so the next games are going to just be that concept but done a slight bit differently. That's all I can see them doing at this point.

@VoidofLight
Just wanted to say, it feels good to read your opinions about Zelda.

Eh, every mainline Zelda in the past 25 years has had its detractors. I don't imagine the fanbase is nearly as fractured as some online discourse might imply. I do imagine having been disappointed by BotW, TotK and then EoW probably doesn't feel great though.

I do think they're due to mix things up again — as someone who loves both the old and new 3D styles, I my ideal would be for them to combine them effectively in the next title. Personally I find EoW got the perfect balance between linearity and exploration so I'm interested to see if any of that is reflected in the next 3D title.

Yeah, online discourse is loud, but sales speak louder. Not liking the newer Zelda's is an unpopular opinion. Lots of people love them and that's why Nintendo is going to follow that formula in the future.

@VoidofLight

It's interesting.

BotW is a classic and a masterpiece. Obviously some didn't like it, but it was such an industry-shaking event.

TotK... had a really swift backlash, and while it sold incredibly initially, the sharp die off in sales compared to BotW points to that not being a loud minority that disliked it. It hit most of the metrics of success that you'd expect from a sequel to BotW, but I do think it was a move in the wrong direction for the series.

EoW had very tepid reviews, and just sort of feels like it came and went. Barely made a splash. The new direction clearly didn't resonate with players.

I still say something like Elden Ring is a better example of what TotK should have been. Not in terms of the Soulsy elements, obviously, but in terms of the density of intentional design and frequent moments of discovery and awe. It hits a lot of the same emotional beats for people that BotW did.

But I guess the team saw streamers doing silly stuff with the physics, so they turned TotK into Zelda Minecraft instead.

BotW is still my favorite Zelda game, and I still believe moving past the OoT formula was the right thing to do, but I think the Zelda team really needs to sit down and figure out their dev priorities moving forward.

Is not liking the sequel to botw really that unpopular? (Not saying that isn’t mind you) It kinda felt like it was about a 50/50 split on people liking it and not after the honeymoon phase.

Unlike botw which I feel was much more unanimously loved.

I do think its a minority online, its just that BOTW is a go to game to buy on your Switch, while TOTK was...the other one of these to buy on your Switch if you liked the first one. You're not gonna re-define a series and genre twice on the same system, there's no surprise TOTK can't really match BOTW's success.

Or at the very least, I think the vast majority liked the game and got their money's worth. Some of them might just prefer other Zeldas or BOTW a lot more. (internet is really bad at assuming that if something is "worse" then it must be "bad", so I don't trust it tbh) I can say for me personally there's plenty of TOTK that is not necessarily for me or what I would want (especially the creative aspect it wants of you), but at the end of the day I end up preferring to play TOTK over nearly any other game on Switch because its just wonderful to play and experience. I guess I just prefer fantastic games over...less than fantastic games that pander to me specifically (though those are appreciated too at times). Not all the time, you won't see me playing Gears of War or RTS games or whatever. : p

The user metacritic score for BotW and TotK are both 8.8/10. The review scores were 97/96. On NL the user scores are 9.5/9.3. So all super high for both. There was the very general complaint of TotK re-using the same type of graphics style, but clearly it is a small minority of people who really dislike the game.

@Ralizah Sales will be interesting to see after this year. TotK sold 20 million copies in 2023 and we know it has sold at least a million in 2024 but will definitely be more post-holidays. It could eventually near catch up to the BotW 32 million if it trickles on for a couple more years or it could stop... might depend on what Nintendo does post-Switch-2.

@FishyS Yeah with those high scores from users I guess it really is that unpopular of an opinion. Maybe it just feels that way to me since saying that turns less heads or just a lot of the people and YouTubers that liked the first one so much just seemed to felt let down by the sequel.

(Regardless if disliking botw was more unpopular then 2 i don’t think that stops it from being an unpopular opinion.)

Every Zelda game probably since at least Twilight Princess, maybe since Majora's Mask, seems to go through the exact same progression:

Release: 10/10! What an amazing game! One of the best games ever!
1-2 years later: This game has so many flaws. I can't believe anyone holds it in so high a regard.
5+ years after release: What a great game. Probably a top 5 Zelda game.

I'm obviously not saying this is true for every person, just as a general observation. TotK is now firmly in "so many flaws" territory, while BotW has moved past it back into great game territory. For me personally, TotK is my number 5 game ever, and I don't even like creation in games and barely used Ultrahand. Everything else is just so amazing, even if you don't like that aspect of it.

@Xyphon22 For me personally, I don't think I'll ever end up being at the point where I think Tears is an awesome game. I never actually hated Breath of the Wild either. I thought it was an alright game. Definitely not the best one that ever existed, but not the worst either. The story and dungeons fell flat for me, but the scope of the world was impressive and the gameplay loop felt good. I really didn't even hate the weapons system the game had.

Tears of the Kingdom falls apart for me. I'd take it over Breath of the Wild in some aspects, given it's a clear cut improvement in terms of dungeons and bosses. Ganondorf is also more interesting than Calamity Ganon was as a villain, so I liked that as well. Caves were a nice addition, and fusing was fun for the first few hours- but that's about it. Outside of that, the story is poorly handled and single-handedly killed the Zelda lore community. There's hardly any consistency between events in BotW and TotK, with things basically being pick and choose for what was considered a canon interaction and what wasn't. The scope of the game feels like it was spread far too thin, with the depths and the sky islands feeling copy and pasted. You've seen one cluster of Sky Islands? You've seen most. Same with the depths.

Ultra-hand falls apart as well, as the game punishes you for getting creative with it. Most people are going to be using the optimal solutions with the mechanic, given that it utilizes the least amount of resources. Why build a massive mech with parts when you could just save those rare few parts you have and use less to build a hoverbike? Materials are too rare, and building anything interesting is too expensive. The only time I really got creative and felt invested in what I was creating was when I built a bridge to get over to the Rito village.

There was barely a honeymoon period for me when I beat Tears or Echoes of Wisdom as well. The moment I rolled credits on both, I was sitting with a good few issues that sorta messed with my enjoyment of those games. So it wasn't just that I started thinking "Tears of the Kingdom bad," but rather I felt disappointment with it from the moment I beat it.

Alright, just to keep this from being Unpopular Zelda Opinions, I'm going to throw out an unpopular Mario opinion:

I don't think Kevin Afghani was the right pick for an "all-in-one" replacement to the established Mario voices. Not that getting an "all-in-one" replacement was a good choice to begin with.

Now you might think "That's kind of harsh, he's still new at this," and before, I'd have agreed. But now that we've had a year to adjust and four games to highlight his range so far, it's a bit easier to gauge where his strengths and weaknesses lie when it comes to filling Charles Martinet's shoes and it's pretty clear to me that Kevin lacks the range to handle all of these different characters. Two of them are pretty decent(Luigi and Waluigi), one is middling at best(Mario) and the other is just plain abysmal(Wario). I think Nintendo should've cast multiple actors for specific roles rather than try and force them all onto one actor. Feels like they did that mostly because it was cheaper.

And I just wanna clarify: this isn't me saying Kevin is an awful actor or that he's bad because he isn't Charles. It's not his fault he was kind of thrown into these roles and I do think he can improve and grow, but said growth probably won't apply to all of the characters.

@N00BiSH Honestly I agree. After playing Brothership I kept hearing Mickey Mouse for Mario's voice instead of Mario's actual voice. His Luigi is great, and I haven't heard his Waluigi- but I'll take your word on that. I didn't mind the Wario, but it felt a bit weaker than Charle's Wario for sure. I understand why they got one guy to do their voices, but I feel like they would benefit more for getting different actors who can do more accurate impressions rather than one guy to do characters he doesn't even do all that well.

@VoidofLight Here's how Wally sounds in Jamboree:

It's decent for what it is. The accent tends to falter, and the inflection is off in some cases, but that's true for most of Kev's voices so far.

@N00BiSH Yeah, you can tell it isn't Charles, but at least it's better than Kevin's Mario or Wario.

@Dev1024 If keeping tradition was the goal, I feel they should've done a better job of getting someone with the range required to handle 4 different distinct character voices, if they're not going to stick with Charles.

Sometimes I feel like I'm one of the only people who actually enjoyed Remake and Rebirth. So many people I've interacted with in the FF7 community seem to hate the game and act like it killed their grandpa. I get that the game being advertised as a remake set up expectations- but it's insane to me that so many people act like the game is the worst thing that was ever created. It expands on a ton of moments in the original game, and I feel like it added a ton of depth to characters who lacked in that. Made Barret less of a stereotype too.

Sure, the game can drag on- and there's a lot of weird things going on with the alternate timeline stuff.. but it isn't a remake. The only reason it keeps being seen as one is because Square isn't great at marketing. It should've been made clear that the "Remake Trilogy" was a trilogy of sequels.

@VoidofLight huh, I've mostly only heard positive things about them from people I know who are big final fantasy fans. I am looking forward to probably playing Remake on Switch 2. I suppose there is some argument about turn-based versus not, but that's a never-ending argument about jrpgs in general.