Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

Allow me to save this thread from more Zelda discourse with a different take for a different franchise:

I think Donkey Kong Bananza made the right choice by not just being DKC with a Z-axis. There's nothing wrong with wanting that, but I think it's much better for 3D Donkey Kong games to have a distinct mechanical identity based on the titular character's unique traits instead of playing like a standard 3D hop n' bop. Mario I feel has that covered.

@N00BiSH Agreed. I would also say that the DKC formula of tough as nails platformers is something that works far better in 2D than in 3D. Any attempt to translate it directly would likely end up frustrating.

I’m really not liking this trend towards overly extravagant animations in turn-based RPGs (think Metaphor: Refantazio, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33).

Funnily enough Persona 5 is one of my favourite games of all time, and you can probably blame it in part for this shift. P5’s battles are sleek and snappy…but also have a somewhat minimalistic aspect to them. This in combination with the cartoonier style makes them a lot easier on the eye for me.

However I feel the more modern examples have taken things a step in the wrong direction, and just have just way too much going on. Both have taken things to another level when it comes to animation and textures, which adds to the visual clutter. Metaphor goes overboard with UI movements and particle effects, whereas Clair Obscur goes too crazy with the camera (do I really need a rapid camera shift every time I make a selection in the menu?). It’s frankly near vomit inducing.

I feel like Expedition 33 is overhyped and doesn't deserve all the awards that it got. It's not a bad game by any means, but people are acting like it's some golden standard for storytelling or some savior of the genre. It really isn't.

The story is a mess. The moment to moment writing is good, and the foreshadowing is great. That isn't the issue here. The issue is mainly to do with how they smashed two entirely different narratives onto the game at once- and how those two distinct narratives don't actually result in a good end-result. Through Developer interviews, the game initially was just going to be about the people of the world going against their God- which was pretty standard RPG fair. Eventually this ended up being combined with the writer they brought on board's short story revolving around familial drama and paintings. It made for an interesting setting, but due to the refusal to let go of the first half of the narrative or to frame it differently, it ends up with a weird conflicting message. You're made to care about the people of this world and their struggles- only to move on to focusing upon a singular family and their own conflict. The game then makes you choose between destroying the world for the sake of that family, or causing one of the main characters to rot in that world.

I just don't think I'm a fan. Especially when they also came out to say that both endings for Expedition 33 were intended to be equal, but that intent is meaningless given how they're framed. The ending where you pick Maelle and her refusal to let go of the canvas results in something that's framed like a horror movie- or a bad ending. The other ending where you pick Verso and destroy the canvas is actually painted as a bittersweet or nicer ending due to how it's framed. This weird contrast between endings has caused fandom bickering since the release of the game- and I feel like it's just a sign of conflicting messages and weaker writing in that regard.

However, in spite of this Expedition 33 is held as the golden standard. A lot of people boast about how it basically "fixed JRPGs" by making them "less Japanese." One person I talked to basically used it as a measurement for how critical acclaim is the only way to know if a game is actually good- or if a developer actually cared about the story or world they're building. It's just a mess, and I'm getting sort of tired of it now. Especially as someone who's played a lot of JRPGs through-out their life and have seen more cult-classic or smaller series that have more thought or heart put into them compared to some of the larger mainstream RPGs or series.

@VoidofLight Not gonna lie, your description of the story there has actually intrigued me. I can get behind the story of Clair Obscur - I was just completely put off by the presentation and gameplay (esp. the parry system). Maybe I just need to watch all the cutscenes or something and be done with it.

I am equally frustrated by the suggestion that it has somehow "fixed" turn-based JRPGs, or even JRPGs as a whole, as if the genre needed "fixing". If I'm being generous, anyone saying this must be an old-school JRPG fan who is disenfranchised or simply hasn't been paying attention to the plethora of great games coming out this past decade. If I'm being cynical, the people saying this aren't even JRPG fans to begin with.

My (maybe unfounded) worry is that JRPG developers will take this feedback on board and overly cater to the Exp 33 fans (many of which who may not like JRPGs to begin with!). I dread the day that every new JRPG has its own twitchy parry system and overly extravagant battle animations...

Yeah there's a certain irony in modern game development where they make it a bigger deal to make games more accessible through options but side-step one of the most universally common reasons why people struggle with games - motion sickness. E33's camera movement is a real example of that.

@ROMhaiku in fairness to Exp 33 there is an option to turn the camera movement off, so they have considered this, but I think it really doesn’t go far enough to make the battles feel less visually cluttered. Plus I hear it messes with the ability to parry/dodge.

E33 isn't a JRPG because it wasn't developed by a Japanese studio. It's an FRPG.

I haven't played yet but the person I know who loved the game most basically gave up on parry and didn't really use it. And still easily beat the game on normal difficulty. tbh, that's how I treat parry in a lot of games; parry is hard to get right.

I loved the parry system in that game, gave you a nice reward if you nailed it.

@VoidofLight It was over hyped. But thats society today. When a company over hypes something people are afraid to go against what's cool and popular, because they want to fit in. As a result it takes awards and the spotlight from much more deserving games. People at times are just mindless sheep thats all. While its sad because as I said it takes the spotlight from other games that deserve it more but thats just how society is nowadays everyone's afraid to speak the truth.

@FishyS I’ve heard there are also mods to remove the parry, or to make it far more lenient (easy mode does the latter to some extent as well).

I’d consider revisiting without the parry if I game ever grabs my attention again.

As a whole I feel like a lot of mainstream RPGs just don't click with me. Games like Metaphor Refantazio, Persona 5, or Expedition 33. Part of it is because I don't really like it when something becomes massively popular- but another part of it is the fact that it feels like a lot of these popular story-driven games tend to be weaker as a whole. Persona 5 and Metaphor both sort of cater to the "lowest common denominator" when it comes to how they frame their stories. They tend to remind people a lot of what happened a few minutes or hours prior- or they tend to outright and overtly state the main theme of the game multiple times through. Metaphor has a whole plot device where they state the themes of the game after every dungeon- rather than just allowing a person to piece it together through watching character behaviors or making observation.

I know that Xenoblade Chronicles even does this to some degree- but something about Xenoblade 3 feels different to me. I guess it's because this series as a whole has a lot to pick apart that's left unsaid, rather than plainly being stated. Especially when it comes to it's inspirations- and 3 with it's characters. I don't know.

Maybe I'm just getting too old to enjoy RPGs as much as I used to. Doesn't help that the genre is mainly focused on writing stories for people who are teenage age- rather than writing works that adults who want to read between the lines are going to be entertained with.

In my humble opinion I think games in general are getting to be a bit pricey. I don’t get why some games that came out in the beginning of the switch one are still just as much as games that are newly released.

@Atomic77 That's probably the least unpopular opinion in the unpopular opinion thread.

Though someone may come in and argue about it anyways 😆

An underrated problem with modern AAA game prices is that it feels like a lot are made for people who either have all the time for games or people who only buy a few a year so they feel obnoxiously stuffed with content for the sake of it, no matter how much it negatively affects the game.

Arkham Knight will always be my go to example of that. Because not only is the game filled with more content than it needs or is good for it, but its more necessary in order to complete the story and also was completely avoidable since the Arkham games already have extra modes if you want more content for the sake of extra content without compromising the campaign for no good reason.

Similarly, more games should have extra content be in their own separate modes. That's a much better compromise than Ubisoft slop game design and the like. Especially annoying since Rayman Legends is a go to example of how to do that. A solid, get in and get out campaign that maximizes what you could do with a platformer on Wii U, but then there's a bunch of extra challenges for those levels, and entire separate modes for the Origins levels and weekly and daily challenges. Like even for games that have a solid campaign and the side content is avoidable, you would generally wanna give the side content a chance but too often when you do you run into a bunch of mediocre nonsense, or even good side content being run into ground with repetition (Arkham Knight, again). One example that I've thought about a lot that wasn't even that bad but shows how limited large games can be is when I did this cool journey in TOTK where you go to the sky in this maze in the sky, only to unlock a way to get to the underground which involves this incredible sky dive from the top to the bottom of the entire game's world, its one of the coolest moments I've experienced in a game this decade. But then there were...more of them and it just so quickly stopped feeling special. Yeah that WAS cool until you just...do the same thing. Now its just...more content.

@kkslider5552000 Yeah, the statistics tell us that your average console gamer spends the equivalent of two full-priced games a year on games. Whether that's two actual full-priced games, one game and a lot of DLC, no games and just subscriptions and micro-transactions, or a slew of special offers and indies is going to vary. Still, putting an extra $10-20 on the price of a game probably isn't something that'll drive them out of the hobby.

The avid collectors, or just those of us figuring that we might have to buy less games on account of it, aren't the market. We're just one of its more vocal parts.

And yes, that dive from the sky to the depths in TotK was a wonderful moment. They just couldn't resist giving us another two of them in the same game, though, let alone everything else. For some things, there's a heck of a lot more than three of them, too.

For me, I would spend a lot more money on games if I just... had the money 😅. I am willing to spend quite a bit of money on stuff like that, if I have the money. Which is why I personally don't mind the average game being $70 nowadays. The slow and painful decline of physical media is what makes me way more upset.

It feels like a lot of games are too bloated for their own good now. I don't mind a game having a lot of content if that content is meaningful, but in most cases it isn't. Doesn't help that content bloat is also effecting how people see price points of games.

The other day I was talking about Pokopia- when someone was mentioning that the game wasn't worth the 70 dollar price. The game isn't out and we only have two trailers mind you, but to them- the game wasn't worth 70 dollars because of the visuals mixed with the fact that it "won't have as much content as Tears of the Kingdom." Rather than realizing that the reason why TotK was 70 USD was because of that being the industry standard, they kept deflecting by saying that it had over "150-1,000 hours of content," and how the game is worth the price. I told them I basically 100% completed the game in around 80 hours, and then they laughed in my face- accusing me of using a guide and saying that there was "no way I completed the game in 80 hours, since the Korok seeds exist."

I forgot the Korok seeds existed, because Korok seeds are meaningless content. They offer no value, and the game doesn't even need them for 100% completion from what I recall- as it only counts shrines and light-roots. The Korok seeds are pretty much bloat, and yet apparently it "offers more value" by virtue of existing.

I genuinely don't understand how people think having more hours on a game is a good thing. It's only good if that amount of time spent is actually meaningful content- which in most cases it isn't. It's just filler content, or content that exists as a way to pad out the run-time.

I'm mostly shocked it only took you 80 hours since I put in three times as much time and still didn't do 4 shrines and at least a few notable sidequests.

But yeah I don't get it unless that's your singular game for the next few months. If I had it my way I'd probably only play 2-3 games a year that get past the 30 hour mark at all.