Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@Twintelarm I agree about the TLoU2 trailer, and I'm someone who rarely complains about graphic content. Just felt gross using a scene with that level of violence, devoid of almost any narrative context, to promote an upcoming game.

I won't judge anyone else for enjoying it, but I thought it was in poor taste.

@Ralizah Yes, exactly! Thank you!

See, if we don't consider the star coins in New Super Mario Bros to be enough exploration to be an adventure game, I don't know why it counts for Uncharted.

I haven't played 4 or Lost Legacy, so I can't speak to that.

@iKhan Lost Legacy had a big open map with more than a dozen objectives. I spent three hours on that level. It feels a bit like a central HUB of that game, since you spend a lot of time on that map and you return to it in later chapters. The games have improved a lot in terms of 'openness'.

I didn't have an issue with the TLOU2 trailer, not in terms of violence at least. I'm more worried about the focus on all these other characters I don't care about.

@CreamyDream The game isn't coming anytime soon. We're still in 'teaser' territory for TLOU2. Gameplay will be at E3 at its earliest.

And I did like it for its gameplay actually, and it's still my favourite ND game for that reason alone.

@CreamyDream @Octane I loved the first TLoU. The story was incredible. And yes it had a lot of violence in it as well, but when that violence happened, I understood why. Every character had a clear motivation, good or bad, and everything that was happening to the main cast had a point. I think it's one of the strongest games when it comes to storytelling. This trailer of TLoU2 however featured all new characters. We don't know who they are, what they're doing and why we should be caring for them. Yet, Naughty Dog must have thought the only way to sell their game is to show us how extreme things can get. I don't fall for that.

I really, really enjoyed ReCore.

Granted, I did only play the definitive edition so may not have experienced many of the problems that the game had at launch. But I think it did a great job of blending platforming, shooting, and RPG elements together. I’m also quite a fan of the colour-based combat and the whole corebot concept. I would certainly recommend it to others, and I hope it gets a sequel.

I've always been a fan of new technology, such as better graphics, full voice acting, bigger and more interactive worlds. For some reason this is very controversial. I enjoyed Ocarina of Time when I was younger, but when I look at, or play it, I think it's technological shortcomings are too big.

It's not just this game, but retro gaming in general. I've never been able to "go back" in technology an enjoy older games when I've become used to the latest technology. Even small gaps, such as between Fallout New Vegas & Fallout 4 is too great. The better AI, graphics and combat system of Fallout 4 is too much to give up.

The only exception to this is 8-bit sidescrollers, which are unique enough in visual style and game feel to be timeless.

Hmm...I don't remember experiencing any of these problems, to be honest. Maybe I'll pick up on this in a replay.

I do agree that it's a flawed game, but 58/63 on Metacritic seems overly harsh. I personally think it belongs in the 70s.

Edit: Here's a new one:

I don't hate the English voice acting in Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

I can completely understand the criticism, as I was overly thrown off by Rex's voice in the first few trailers. But when playing the game it does begin to feel more natural. And as a Brit I quite appreciate the diverse range of accents - especially liking Nia's Welsh-sounding one.

@Buizel The voice acting in XC2 is fine when Rex's voice actor isn't trying to roar or scream.

XC2 is a great example of good voice acting with terrible dialogue.

Even Kevin Conroy and Nolan North can't make the words "We can do it, with the power of friendship" sound normal.

@CreamyDream The level of violence didn't really shock me, but not much does anymore after watching The Walking Dead, lol. What I didn't like was the lack of context behind it. The last bit of the trailer with the new characters was intriguing, but violence without context is just lame. It's just kinda dull and pointless-feeling to see a character getting her arm smashed with a hammer when you don't know the character at all or what's even going on.

And plus, the whole cult thing is just so cheesy and overly edgy. Why does every post-apocalypse story have to have a cult in it? That genre is majorly running out of ideas.

I agree that the gameplay was pretty bad, too. It's the same way with the Uncharted games. The action and stealth sequences are a lot of fun, but pulling random objects around to climb on, walking around, moving ladders from place to place, finding wood pallets for Ellie to float across water on....yeah, that's not good game design. It's just filler. I get that Naughty Dog likes to make games that are basically just interactive movies, and I'm totally okay with that, but they need to find some way to make the quiet portions of their games interesting.

Mario Odyssey BRILLIANTLY uses motion controls to map functions that wouldn't work well in any other control scheme. Yes, it's annoying you can't use them well in handheld mode, but who said the Switch is going to allow perfect conversion between the two modes. Nintendo gave each mode exclusive aspects because they knew there were opportunities for design only possible in one or the other.

The homing attack is directional. You can home up, down, left, and right depending on what direction you shake. Want that on a standard controller? You are gonna need a 3rd directional input. Motion controls are as necessary as they are for full features in ARMS.

Part of the elegance of Mario controls is their simplicity, so mapping cap moves to something other than Y completely undermines that. Each button controls 1 action. Combining them together creates a logical combination of those actions. Mapping the up throw or down throw to X completely fails that.

People always throw good control design out the door to find ways to hate motion controls and it drives me ntus.

Like pretending dual analog is better than pointer controls for shooters.

@Buizel I also like the XC2 Engliash VA! So glad to find another one like me, I found too many people saying it's so bad xD

(Then again I understand why they like the Japanese voice better and so, it's up to them in the end, really)

For Unpopular Gaming Opinions... Well, it's probably that I find that mobile gaming is actually a very interesting platform, it's just that often riddled with bad games with TONS of microtransactions or just something devs push in without any polish. But it can be a very interesting platform in its own right (and I enjoy some gacha game without spending any, or just spend slightly when there's massive sales)

I've thought of a new one. JRPGs need to stop being so absurdly long! Other games and genres suffer from this too but I'm really sick of JRPGs that clearly have way too much filler in order to avoid backlash for "only" being 20-30 hours long, and it's stupid. I love Xenoblade, but it's NOT what I want the genre as a whole to be. Who would even have time for that? Chrono Trigger would not have been better if they just doubled the size of the game with mediocre content and needlessly long dialogue exchanges. In fact, it would clearly be the opposite.

Tales of Vesperia very much has the problem. They keep trying to make the story go, and it totally loses all steam RIGHT BEFORE THE FINAL DUNGEON. I literally stopped playing at that point, and I have no plans to start again.

I had similar problems with Symphonia to some extent, but I think that was more that the story and writing is disappointing in disc 2 than the pacing.

Like, I've not played Ni No Kuni but I have seen two separate Let's Plays of it, so I know the story fairly well. And based on that, so much of that game's story are just mediocre detours with overly long dialogue that repeatedly explains what is happening and what you need to do, so that 2 minute conversations are tripled for no reason. And it's a shame because the beginning and end of that game's story is quite good, and they spend forever in the middle of the game focusing far more on characters and stories that are just not as compelling. Whereas, despite playing them before I saw those LPs, I can tell you plenty more of what happens for FF IV/VI and Chrono Trigger in the middle of their adventures, despite playing each of them exactly once (one less time than I saw the story of Ni No Kuni)

Wow, took the words right out of my mouth. I was literally just about to agree with @kkslider5552000 using Tales of Vesperia as an example - a game I very much enjoyed, but have yet to complete because I'm completely burned out on its slow place.

These days I really find myself put off more by a game that is too long than one that is too short. At least if a game is fairly short I may want to replay it.

I wholeheartedly agree. As much as I want to play games like XC2, the amount of hours I know I'll have to invest is daunting when there are plenty of shorter RPGs and games in other genres that are just as decent. I hope to get to XCX soon, but I'm expecting that one to take up a lot of my winter gaming.