Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

My point was as much a subjective opinion as much as just stating what JRPGs are focused on most of the time. Partially because its back in an era where 98% of games had little to no story, so that made them standout. Like the best part of some JRPGs is actually the gameplay, but the story is what the genre is about.

They also tend to focus on the story enough that if you don't like it at all, its much harder to enjoy the game than most, because even if you like the gameplay, it'll be interrupted a looooot. (this is also the entire reason I don't like Bayonetta as much as everyone else)

I disagree on how it looks and I love the soundtrack, but I do think its probably the least fun mainline Kirby game. And it does definitely drag out 100% it for the sake of it.

I agree 100%!

However, I don’t think that this would count as an unpopular opinion. Most Zelda fans wants Link to remain silent, as he always has been. Right?

Outside of a handful of examples (which are, fortunately, increasing in frequency), 3D Zelda bosses kind of suck.

They are usually just style over substance. The music and scale is always great, but they so often just involve waiting or dodging trivial attacks until the weak point opens up. Until Skyward Sword and BOTW, the best 3D bosses were the ones whose central gameplay gimmick was inherently fun, like Stallord or Goht, or the ones that were usually vulnerable, but were challenging to hit, like Gohdan. But even the latter category fundamentally failed to test your skill with sword, you know, the main weapon of the game.

Skyward Sword and BOTW finally introduced boss battles that actually felt like duels with Ghirahim, Lynel, and Thunderblight Ganon. They were about quick response and punishment. You had to use all the skills you have been developing over the course of the game.

@iKhan Zelda boss battles were, except those, never about an action-game skillset though. They've always been culminations of the puzzles of the dungeons/items of that dungeon. I.E. they're a final, dangerous, moving puzzle lock to cap off the dungeon, not really "action boss fights."

I think I said this in like an FF thread but...

The Final Fantasy ATB system disappeared for the most part, and for good reason. It is not a bad battle system, but for the most part, it is a compromise between turn based and real time combat that has as many weaknesses of both as strengths. Whereas RPGs that focus on one or the other, especially nowadays, are in a better position to make something great out of it. I'm not even the biggest fan of FFX or Bravely Default, but their combat systems are really great.

The only exception is Chrono Trigger, but its abundantly clear that Chrono Trigger is a 1 in a million game that will never happen again. And I've not played it without ATB, so I don't know that it even is better with ATB.

I've never played a game with the ATB system, but I don't really see the appeal of a traditional turn-based system like DQ has.

It has to allow for relatively short grunt battles, so it can't be as strategic as a tactical RPG like Fire Emblem. At the same time, it's still dedicated to being completely turn based, so it completely loses any active effort from the player.

The result is that most battles end up being dull and boring, with only boss fights becoming interesting. I prefer if a game tries to make gameplay a little more active for the player like Paper Mario or Ni No Kuni do.

The only times I've seen a pure turn based system work is either when I'm focused on a different gameplay loop (Pokemon), or when the system is overhauled with stronger strategy elements.

The Team Rose story in Sonic Heroes is actually one of my favorite stories in any Sonic game. It even help make Amy my favorite Sonic series character, which leads to that unpopular opinion as I believe Amy isn't popular with people who play Sonic games.

Here are some of my hot takes, which I’m sure are not totally original.

RDR2: I was a fan of Rockstar and some of their sandboxes on the PS2, but GTA V and this game represent not just a refusal to progress, also a regression. Missions (particularly the main campaign) refuse to give the player any autonomy. If you don’t fail because you lost a handle on Arthur, you’ll fail because you weren’t in the exact location the mission dictated. As a result, I never felt really satisfied when completing these missions, but relieved that I did the thing the game designers wanted me to do. The game itself doesn’t seem to say much about the interactive potential of sandboxes, but rather the “reigning in” of freedom in favor of a sort of cinematic approach. I feel like I could forgive some of the control issues and the repetitive nature of the plot if the gameplay was more involving, but I felt like the player was more getting in the way during the missions than offering something creatively to it.

The Last of Us: Moments of intensity and strategic gameplay can’t save the game from feeling a bit samey. I just don’t think the game was well paced. You fight off a room of clickers and then a horde of zombies, only to be presented the same scenario in a slightly different brown and gray environment. Since the game puts so much emphasis on story, it’s also right to criticize that.

Perhaps in the medium of video games the relationship of Joel and Ellie is special, but not when considering how derivative it is of novels, TV shows, and films. Joel is just the grisly male anti-hero and Ellie is just the girl who has to learn hard lessons and “come of age” in a post-apocalyptic world. It doesn’t really add or find any new layers in these narrative cliches. There is also very little about their relationship that is communicated via the language of interactivity. Most of it is done through cutscenes in between chapters. A game like Ico makes you care about your partner through interacting with them in the game’s environment, and I think they really blew the potential of the scenario by making the Ellie into nothing more than a placeholder to complete certain task.

My intention of this post is not to ridicule these games, but rather point to how they squandered certain aspects of their design. They are both above average games, but ones that didn’t fulfill their potential for the reasons I mentioned above.

Most developers progress in the wrong areas (which too often is just graphical) while sticking to tried and tired game systems.

I still play old JRPGs because of the nostalgia, but I cannot stomach many newer JRPGs because they are pretty much the exact same games with nothing but a graphical update, which actually makes it less immersive than more in my opinion.

Then again, it could be an age thing. Maybe I just grew out of some genres.

Multiplayer focused games and open world games are better off as single games supported for several years with updates and DLC than having multiple sequels in a shorter timeframe.

I mean sure BotW 2 makes sense because BotW was a Wii U game so there's limitations but supporting BotW 2 with expansions would be better than say for example a BotW 3 happening in 2023/2024.

Nintendo should have waited to release the Switch with an older cpu, and just with a newer one, even if it would be custom made, the switch can handle/run “every” game (see the Witcher).

The games that are (mostly) third party are almost never as good as optimized as first party games.

I know the Switch is also a handheld but damn son, like almost every major third party has some really bad visual, and performance moments when its get busy.

Also that is low-key the reason why I started (again) to buy more multiplats games on my ps4 instead of the Switch.

Nintendo should have just waited till the cpu/gpu performance was atleast on the same level as the base xbox one. Or just slighty under it.

Also, every game released in 2020 and after that should run in a locked 60 fps and atleast 1600x900 (docked) and HD in handheld) or it wont be released in the eshop.

There is no reason to go back to 30fps.

@NEStalgia I actually like Zelda boss fights a lot. Even the weak bosses feel satisfying to defeat.

My main issue is that in the 3D games, the main “trick” or “weakness” of the boss always seems to be the dungeon item you just found. This is okay sometimes, but it takes away the mystery and the puzzle element away when you just run into the boss room with the dungeon’s item, find the glowy part, and spam the button.

I really liked in Link’s Awakening, how the bosses deviated from that formula.

@KoekiieWoekiie The Switch does very often target 60fps though. Certain genres like fighting games (Mortal Kombat 11, Smash Bros.), racing (MK 8 DX, Grid Autosport, Fast RMX), and platformers (Super Mario Odyssey, Dk Tropical Freeze, Hollow Knight, Dead Cells) especially seem to make that target.

The problem is 3D action adventure games prioritize visuals over FPS. This is also the case with current gen games on the PS4 and XBox.

It will be interesting to see with all the ambitious open world games coming out next gen with 4K resolutions and ray tracing, if even the PS5 will even be able to handle 60fps. My guess is that in the future developers will continue to put visuals over performance in an attempt to “wow” the general consumer base that doesn’t analyze it.

I hope they don’t (since performance is also more important to me) but my gut feeling tells me otherwise.

@KoekiieWoekiie
So what would’ve Nintendo do in the meantime between now and whenever this handheld tech (more powerful or close to XBOX ONE in power) becomes commercially viable to be sold at a reasonable price with a decent battery life (which still isn’t possible yet)?

@Toy_Link If Nintendo would do nothing they really would get behind the other platforms. Standing still in a race means that you are going backwards so I know that they should have done at least something, which they did. Thats why we have the Switch.

We do not know how much the Tegra cpu cost for Nintendo, we can make guesses but Nintendo buys in bulk, like really big bulks so they will get lower prices. They will get even lower prices if they agree to buy them for multiple years.

I think Nintendo should have gone for less profit on the Switch, or used a newer snapdragon cpu that came after the TEGRA.

However I do not know if they would be able to do that since it takes a long time for R&D and making the consoles and you need to have your teams to make games blablabla.

That is why I posted it here. To not get burned into oblivion when I speak my mind.

@NotTelevision I know that game devs most of the time put graphics above framerate but I think that it should be the other way around.

Also there are some some games that always have trouble with performance or get downgraded in both way when they are not even that big/intense/a real beauty of a game.

See overcooked that ran at 23-24 frame-ish before the update (only on switch), Team Sonic Racing that in singleplayer runs 30.
Doom with 30 fps when they already sacrificed the visuals (reviewers also said that it gets really blurry, which is a fact because I played the game at a friend, I dont know if you have played it on Switch but that game REALLY is a mess.)
Sonic forces on Switch was also a real mess.
XC2 also has problems.
Bloodstained, Breath of the wild, Link’s Awakening, Overwatch, Sexy Brutale, Little Dragons Café, Rocket League etc. Most of the time these games should have run on 60 but on Switch have framerate problems or gets dropped to 30 or gets both dropped to 30 fps and a lower resolution hit and mostly the second fact annoys me. Yes some games get updates to fix it but not all do.

Don’t worry I still play 30fps games on my Switch just wanted to have more games be 60 or atleast HD.

I hope for the time being when the PS5 or X Scarlett comes out the Switch gets a revision because graphical difference will be insane.

And we “may” end up with “legacy” editions from certain developers or ports that will come way later because of the focus on the Twin platforms.

@KoekiieWoekiie Honestly I think Nintendo's answer to the 3rd party side of power gap between Switch and PS5/Scarlett may be streaming. Something like xCloud to Switch or Microsoft helps Nintendo create their own streaming service seeing as the battle isn't Nintendo vs. Microsoft vs. Sony anymore but rather Nintendo + Microsoft + Sony vs. Google + Amazon (+ Apple?).

@Grumblevolcano Maybe that will be the future, I won’t support Nintendo if they are going full digital/streaming though.

@KoekiieWoekiie I can't see Nintendo going full streaming. For one, they are at least a decade behind in terms on online functionality as it is and really don't seem to know what people want. I think even if they did offer their own games streaming, they'd still have digital and physical purchases for them as they'd be making them for their own system.
The streaming-only would likely be a third party thing for games that just can't run on it otherwise. Whether that's a good thing or not is pretty subjective.
Even if Switch gets a successor, another portable system is still going to be behind PS5/Scarlett as getting that kind of power with proper cooling and battery consumption is going to cost more and some sacrifices are going to need to be made.