Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@Buizel For me, I can get past combat being rough so long as I jive with the setting or characters. Drakengard is a big example of games I genuinely like, even if the core gameplay is hard to enjoy. However there are some games where the gameplay breaks the game for me, even if I enjoy the story or ideas presented. I can't enjoy Ni No Kuni because of its weird combat system where you have to swap control between the familiars and the characters. Makes combat feel like a mess in the way that they do it there.

There's a degree of gameplay flaws I can deal with if the story and characters are good enough...in theory, but genuinely the only games that truly pulled that off for me were freeware RPG Maker games I played back in the day. Utterly mediocre, generic turned based RPGs, and all the limitations of old RPG Maker games, but I liked the story parts so I liked it. (Also they were free)

I know this is unlikely for me otherwise because Fragile Dreams is a top 5 video game story for me and I'd still only give it a 6/10 because the gameplay is mostly bad. If this had great gameplay, it could've possibly been one of my favorite games ever but it doesn't, oops.

@kkslider5552000 I loved rpg maker games. I can't tell if it's just because I played them as a kid and am completely nostalgic or if they were actually good.

RPG maker games depend on how good the plot is for me. Some are definitely worth the gameplay issues- just for a well written narrative imo.

@VoidofLight I feel like the fact that they are short also helps the gameplay issues a lot.

@WaveBoy I've never found it too bothersome. Different, sure, but not bad at all. All the levels in Returns and especially Freeze are designed around that sense of weight and momentum in a way that makes them easier to grasp.

Now if you want a game with heavy, unwieldly controls and levels not suited to that, I'd look to Crash Bandicoot 1.

@WaveBoy Yeah, I couldn't disagree more. The controls always just felt right to me, and the levels are pretty well designed for it. It makes the platforming very deliberate, which I enjoy.

@N00BiSH Crash 1 is so horrid it isn't even fair. I've had people say it's a good game- but I genuinely don't understand that given how horribly slow the jumping abilities are.

Yeah I can't get behind Crash 1 either - although I think I did have a slightly better time with the N-sane version than the original. Crash 2 is definitely a lot more tolerable and I've not played enough of 3 to comment. I'm honestly baffled by how the first game was as popular as it was, but I guess there weren't better alternatives at the time.

It's popularity was definitely due to being one of the PlayStation's big 3D platformers in a time where that was becoming all the rage, as well as the marketing - you probably know about the Crash mascot on Nintendo's parking lot.

On the subject of Final Fantasy systems, my favourite system is from FFIV, which has no customization. You just level up. A lot of RPGs and later FF especially focus on customization. I find that kind of thing too distracted and often too complicated. I don't know if that's an unpopular opinion but I've never heard of it.

@Purgatorium I haven't played many Final Fantasies but I do tend to get overwhelmed when there's a lot of customisation in an RPG. I think standard levelling up can be all you need as long as there's a lot of new skills (or whatever) that unlock as you level up.

I like Dragon Quest III waaaaay more than Dragon Quest 11. People say that 11 is the best, but the music and the game design is so bland to me. III's game design is so much better, and I actually prefer the customization you get over the party. The systems click really well and fit really well. Helps that the music is also genuinely well composed.

If Dragon Quest was going to stay closer to the old RPG formula, I wish they'd go back to having fully custom parties again. That adds a lot more in terms of depth and personalization, which is lacking in modern Dragon Quest titles.

Just to clarify, are you talking about the original or remake? I've heard there is a truly massive amount of quality of life improvements in the remake.

I'll actually be playing DQIII remake once I'm finished with animal well

@FishyS The remake. I don't have access to the original.

You said all this just to be proven wrong by anyone who has played Crash 1 and 2 in the same context (barring maybe the remakes). I played both emulated on PS3 and while I didn't love Crash 2 like I had hoped I would, it was still a very obvious jump in quality by most metrics.

The original on PS1 - which I played quite recently too - and regardless of how it was played, it doesn't change the fact that Crash's controls in 1 don't hold up particularly well. Not awful or unbearable, but his somewhat slippery movement and heavy jump for levels that demand precise platforming later down the line don't really mix well. That's not a hardware thing, that's a programming and design thing, which even Naughty Dog recognized was something to improve on at the time - go back and play the hardest levels of 1 and then jump right into game 2 and you'll see what I mean. Even the remake saw that and decided to improve on it - one of the few things I actually liked about the NST.

Because the originals mostly hold up really well in spite of their flaws and don't really need glossier versions that mess with the hitboxes and downgrade the visuals? Because that's pretty much what the N. Sane trilogy did.

You do know they don't own the series anymore, right? The N. Sane trilogy wasn't even developed by them.

Being one of the first 3D platformers of its kind, it's not hard to notice that the first Crash game feels like it's being held together with duck tape and glue, made by developers who were still trying to learn the hardware mid-development. It's very telling that Naughty Dog made an entirely new engine for Crash 2 that managed to look and feel infinitely better than the first game while taking up less space to boot. Crash 1 was an important step for the growth of the series and Naughty Dog as developers, but I don't blame anyone for finding it hard to go back to.

It's hard to believe that there was a time when Naughty Dog actually made video games.