Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@Socar Yeah, I'd love to have some narratively-driven animated Nintendo series put out. By being far more 'slow-burn' than a 1.5-hour movie, a show can have a bunch of references while also having the time needed to actually develop its stories and characters.

Phantom Hour Glass completely stomps the GCN version of Wind Waker. I frikkin loved PHG back in the late 2000's. the top down 3D hybrid style visuals, and Lineback, with an emphasis on touch based/stylus controls & Dual Screens, were such a breath of fresh air to the classic top down formula. It also used the mic in pretty unique ways, like when you had to randomly blow into the mic to blow sand off of a map(If i'm remembering correctly) to discover a hidden location or where to go next.

Wonderful and super consistent through out, it was a 9/10 for me personally, with some of the most enjoyable and satisfying boss battles to boot. Wind Waker GCN? 6 at best. Mind you, I'm not a huge 3D Zelda fan, so that's definitely going to blunder the heck out of my opinion.

Yeah that's a good point. I guess what they remind me of is those 'if x was a modern game' videos, e.g. there's a Luigi's Mansion one where E. Gadd is constantly in the background to tell Luigi where to go and make quips about the ghosts. The talking flowers are not as bad as that but to me they don't add anything worthwhile. But I know some people like them, and as you say it's not the end of the world as long as you can turn them off.

On that note, while it's fun to make fun in the form of "if x was a modern game", I do appreciate characters talking over my gameplay...when it's done well, and only in the right games.

I think such a thing has no place in Mario. And arguably in mainline Zelda, Pokemon, etc. Or at least should be used in moderation.

But when I'm playing Sonic Heroes? The banter between characters is part of the fun. Horizon, Uncharted and the modern Tomb Raider are all series where I think character talking/commentary is well-implemented.

What I really don't want is voices on characters that exist for the express purpose of feeding you tutorials and guidance. People hated Navi back in the day...but Navi with a voice? Would completely ruin the atmosphere.

I've missed out on a certain type of modern AAA game after the 7th gen, with a couple of exceptions, so I am surprised to find out that games being handholding or stating the obvious, or the horror stories I've heard about the last God of War ruining puzzles because of that, are even still a thing. It feels like the worst of that from that era (from a Nintendo perspective, peaking with Skyward Sword and Mario and Luigi Dream Team) died when everyone realized you could make money from a Dark Souls. I know that's not true, but that feels like the way things have gone, especially after BOTW's tutorial, and everyone realized that tutorializing to that obnoxious a degree shouldn't exist. (which ironically was overstated with Navi, who was never that annoying especially at the time)

@kkslider5552000 it’s interesting you dodged all that, I suppose it would depend on the game. Methinks that no-tutorial can still be better a really bad tutorial. The biggest culprit for certain tutorials are games that keep teaching you new mechanics all the way into 40 hours of its runtime as that’s when I usually tap out. It’s interesting to think about how Dark Souls 1 becomes completely intuitive after a few hours, and getting through it becomes a matter of patience and ingenuity, rather than help from the game itself.

Methinks that an ideal game would be one like old school ratchet & clank or old school gta where you got multiple solutions to the same problem and they all lead to similar outcomes, but which method you pick hangs on which tool you are more familiarized with.

Well its primarily because I didn't get an 8th gen console that wasn't Nintendo, and Nintendo mostly missed out on those games. Eventually my brother got a PS4, but I've only played a handful of games for it (one of which being the third Zero Escape game that was originally for 3DS/Vita).

And to an extent that I've just played fewer and fewer new games and much of what I was into from the 7th gen AAA side of things hasn't had either a good or any follow up (Bioshock, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, GTA, Valve releasing console games at all, etc).

@kkslider5552000 heh, the way you dodged Sony consoles is how I dodged Nintendo consoles my whole life up until now

@Yousef-

Pretty much. Playstation always had the most games I missed out on, especially PS2 where I didn't even know people who had it, everyone had Gamecube or Xbox (which is hilarious considering how much more popular Ps2 was).

And we had 360 during that generation. I eventually got a PS3 for cheap after its era was over, which originally I got more because of trying to play old Ps1/2 games, but for various reasons I only downloaded a dozen or so games and now have almost as many retail Ps3 games and I only play it sometimes and nowadays a decent amount of Playstation classics are on everything and there's a weird set up you need if you even want to download on Ps3 nowadays, its gotten very weird.

@kkslider5552000 I quite enjoy this perspective bounce, I’ve missed out on Nintendo IPs harder than most people here, not only were Nintendo consoles nonexistent but we didn’t even get the Zelda or Kirby cartoons (but we got the F-zero cartoon), even when the gba was semi popular, it only came up with third party bootleg tie-in games like the totally spies games. suffice to say, the internet is how I discovered most Nintendo IPs by watching death battle and matpat back in 2010 and random YouTube poops. 15 years or so later I got my first Nintendo console and found out I wasn’t missing much due to the IPs dependencies on nostalgia. Despite being currently a Pokémon fan, half of the games feel like shovelware and feel unplayable without romhacks. (I love kadabra but I want an alakazam without trading), doesn’t help that it kinda turned into a predatory ecosystem with Pokémon home.

The only 1st party Nintendo games I like are Kirby 64 and Wind Waker.
Which PlayStation games did you manage to sink your teeth into? I’m quite curious. Be it third or first party.

@Yousef- Crash 1 and 2 (would've bought 3 eventually if not for Activision leading the pack for most disgusting video game company), Symphony of the Night, Megaman Legends 1/2/Tron Bonne, MGS, Tomb Raider, Jumping Flash, Parasite Eve, with Xenogears and maybe one other I've yet to play. Very positive thoughts on them outside of Crash 1 and Jumping Flash (and both I have a soft spot for anyway, especially Jumping Flash which is super endearing as a baby's first 3D game attempt sort of thing, while also being genuinely unique).

But I also got Katamari and the Klonoa games and Chrono Cross on Switch, and I just bought the Gex collection and you can get FF VIII, IX and Tactics and Tomba on Switch too. And you can't get Ape Escape or DQ8 on PS3, which is a huge disappointment.

I would say personally that while Nintendo over-relies on nostalgia, Pokemon aside they usually do bring the quality for their games and that Kirby and Zelda in particular are fairly consistent with that quality over the years.

@kkslider5552000 nice! My go-to recs for any PS-newbie are definitely RC, Jak, Crash, Pac-Man World (third party but 1st game is an exclusive), inFamous, GoW, Uncharted and Ape Escape (especially 3).

I agree on Zelda at least, I’m playing a Link Between Worlds, it’s very charming.

The GTA PSP games are great but they’re not on the PS3’s PSN store last I checked.

@Yousef- I've always been unsure of that, can you actually play PSP games on Ps3? I always saw that and assumed it was just to buy them for PSP or Vita.

I do also have Infamous and the Uncharted trilogy, some of the only Ps3 exclusives that interested me. I got a handful of games my brother found for cheap at like a yard sale or something, which was cool.

Jak I'm interested in as well, Pacman World kind of but not as much since I played Pacman World 2 several times back in the day and didn't really get the hype at all, it was ok. Was a fan of Ms. Pacman Maze Madness back in the day tho.

@kkslider5552000 no, no, I misspoke. I meant the ps2 versions of those games cuz they later got a ps2 port.

Psp games cannot be played on a ps3, tragically.

I get what youre saying with PMW2, I have a ton of nostalgia for it, but it’s remake ironically exposed how shallow the game is, with me only latching onto its physics and some early levels.

Ah ok. My brother has San Andreas, and I played it when we first got a 360 but not too much and I never went back to it, and I think when we got another 360 it wasn't the type that could play regular Xbox games IIRC.

And even if they're better now apparently, I really don't trust the trilogy release of them.

@kkslider5552000 yeah, no. The DEs are the defective editions. Get the OGs if you can reliably grab them.

It sucks to see Level 5 in the state that it's in at the moment. It feels like watching a half-rotten corpse desecrate it's own creations. All of their games are being made with GenAi now- and it sucks to see that all the human elements of the things that they're producing rot away into absolutely nothing of worth. It wasn't bad enough that they kept announcing projects that they never finished, but now they're involving GenAi into the mix to make sure that the quality of these projects drop lower and lower. I've seen nothing but pure excitement for their newer games, and it kinda scares me.

I feel like this is unfortunately where the gaming industry is headed. Indies and AAA companies alike are probably going to be using GenAi for the primary chunk of the development of their games. The human artistry and touches will eventually be lost entirely and the industry will become further saturated with games that don't make you think. Games that are made specifically just to waste time or provide a sense of "entertainment," without making you question the world around you- or without having anything meaningful to say or show. This unfortunately might be the future of the industry- seeing as so many companies don't actually seem to value human artists, writers, musicians, or voice actors. Even if they do, the back end of game dev has already been using Ai assistance or Ai for the heavy lifting. The coding of a good chunk of modern releases is Ai assisted at this point.

Maybe it's time I just stop buying new games as a whole and just start playing Retro games? There's a wealth of old games and stories that were actually hand made all the way through by humans. Something better than machine generated works.

@VoidofLight That's probably not true. Even at worst case scenario, a large chunk of artists across all mediums actively ****ing hate genAI and I've already seen several examples of larger companies/games move away from it, some explicitly because they think it is a cheaper/more profitable move to do so.

@VoidofLight depending on the studio, I don't think they like genAI as far as I see, but some other forces (managers, C-suites, etc) like to push it on them.

In the end I do agree on being disappointed on level 5 though, I think fantasy life i is likely to be the last game I got from them, even though I was excited for decapolice... but considering they are going into genAI so much, I'm giving up. I have other games to enjoy that doesn't have this kind of issue haha, even when I can't get into fantasy life i anymore.