Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@FX102A

The ones that stood out to me were

Demon Souls, Journey, The Last Guardian, and Detroit.

I second Demon Souls (never played it but I’m sure I’d love it), Journey, and the Last Guardian. Bloodborne and Persona 5 are also games I got really into to this gen.

Though it’s a sort of a shame Bloodborne got locked into a PS4 exclusive deal and didn’t get a PC port. I realize Sony spent a lot of money getting the game made, but it runs pretty poorly on the platform. It’s entirely playable but there are times when the framerate really chugs. BOTW had Korok Forest, but Bloodborne has multiple sections when enemies fill the screen and it drops well below the target.

On SEGA:

Basically all their problems internally seem to come from rushed development. The fluctuating quality of Sonic games where the common trend seems to be rushed development (also wondering about, but know nothing about if they have much worker turnover). Yakuza is pretty much a well oiled machine that knows how to repackage and reuse assets between installments while seemingly adding enough new content and scenarios to make each game worth playing (wouldn't know from experience though). That said, their publishing job and PC ports have been on point for the most part. They are very dependent on regular entries in their core series at this point though.

@FX102A I'm very much of the same mind on Sony, but think that they deserve a bit more credit. Most promoted exclusives are big, safe, crowdpleasers. Naughty Dog has spent the past two generations producing or producing sequels to cover shooter series with action-adventure movie or grimy zombie apocalypse theming. The major games of this generation include a Spider-man themed open-world Arkham-esque, inFamous: Second Son (which I've never heard an opinion on and whose existence I had forgotten about for maybe 3 years until this moment), and Horizon, which, from watching my roommate play it, looks like a solid open world title with some potentially interesting/unique enemy design/mechanics. And what's the next big game to look forward to? An open world samurai movie homage. Open world has taken the mantle as the go to trend of this gen, as far as I can tell. A good chunk of their big name published exclusives, trendchasers or comfortably familiar/generic to the average gamer/consumer.

That said, some of their less prevalent/successful games were more ambitious. I've heard mixed-to-positive things on Gravity Rush, but mechanically, they're interesting games. Last gen, Sony supported From Software in designing Demon's Souls. They supported Team Ico through the development of The Last Guardian. There are experimental, risky games published by Sony. None that I can think of in the past year or two, although I don't follow what's happening on the PS4 much at all. I'd say that in the less prominent, forgotten portions of Sony's catalogue, there are some unique, ambitious games. At the same time, their emphasis on story and filmic qualities/experiences across their major games creates a lot of that sense. That said, being deeply submerged in Nintendo's mascot-oriented approach to series and heavy animation-influences probably also contributes to that perception.

Looking quickly through their games list on Wikipedia, Sony still have some interesting things. But they've clearly stuck with a format for their major titles, for better or worse.

It's a bit like how Nintendo put out plenty of quality games for Wii, but stuff like Wii Play and NSMB Wii outsold most of them. It's not quite the same, but I was SUPER defensive of how hard people railed against Wii for thinking bad casual games and Mario were the only games on it, so I'd be a hypocrite to not defend Sony at least a little on this. But that being said, Sony needs to stop being Ubisoft in terms of obsessively using the same formula.

In my humble opinion The Nintendo Switch Lite is the best handheld system ever. It’s everything the previously released systems should have ever been.

@Atomic77 But it should not be named "Switch" because it mean nothing if you can't connect it to a TV.

Right now it is Nintendo Lite.

Also the quality of the "joycons" in the Lite is quite poor and they are too fragile.

But now I see why you post that in Unpopular opinions

I don't think Switch in general is the best ever exactly, but I also see why its incredibly easy to justify it being so. Objectively, it has or will have the most amount of high quality games of any Nintendo system ever, from the widest variety of sources. And if you have the original, you can play practically all of them, on a tv or as a handheld.

In theory it also has some of both Wii and DS specific capabilities, but unfortunately in more compromised ways (especially with the limitations of touch screen controls on it).

@Atomic77 The Nintendo Switch is better than the DS, 3DS or any other handheld consoles, and the Nintendo Switch Lite is a handheld version of the Switch, so I would agree it’s the best handheld console, but I do agree with what @Zuljaras says. It’s called the Switch because it can easily switch from portable to TV, so it shouldn’t be called the Switch.

It’s called a Switch Lite because it has The Switches logo on it and it plays a lot of the games that the normal Switch can. Also switch Lite does switch you can go from one game to another in general sense of what Switch means. Did you ever think about that??

I think divorcing the library of the Switch from the form factor is valuable in discussing the quality of the Switch as a portable console. The Switch is a compromised handheld that markets itself as a compromised console. If you just need something that you can play in public places or on commutes, it's certainly can do that, and has a great library but it's nowhere near as compact or rugged as Nintendo's clamshell models were. I'm more into handhelds for short-session arcade-esque games. While long-session console-esque titles are nice on the platform and have the right to exist, they also usually feel held back (especially with retail 3DS titles, or at least the ones I bought). My 3DS remains my preference for any actual portable gaming (to the point that, aside from other factors, I still don't own a Switch). Disappointingly, the Switch Lite carries all of the compromises the standard Switch has as a portable without any of the "console" benefits. Would really like to see a clamshell-styled model introduced at some point the the Switch's lifespan, whenever it could be cheaply produced.

Gaming has gotten quite expensive lately.

@Atomic77

In what way? Are we talking accessories or games, or consoles, or online subscriptions? Or are we talking about a few or all of these together?

Not really, if you buy games or consoles day one, yeah, for sure. If you limit yourself and just stop buying everything, in all honestly, it isn't.

@Link-Hero I can see what @Atomic77 means. The max price of games on the 3DS was only $50, on the Switch it’s $80. (Those are Canadian prices) The Switch is more expensive than the Wii U (Correct me if I’m wrong about that.)

Playing a lot of games is actually pretty affordable if you have access to multiple platforms. After the initial cost of the investment in buying into a PS4 or a PC with an okay GPU, you can get a lot of stuff on Steam sales or via subscription services.

There are only certain games one should feel necessary for purchasing at launch. Every other publisher other than Nintendo decreases prices of games 2-3 months after launch. You can also find used copies of Nintendo games very quickly.

Not buying many new games has turned out to be a good idea more often than not. Have more money, have more games. Very obvious win win situation.

I like Parodius more than Gradius.
Gradius is a great shmup series of course, but Parodius is so weird, wacky and colorful. I just enjoy it more.

In regards to me saying gaming is expensive I remember average game price was 30 to 40 dollars USA. I don’t remember ever having to pay 59.99 for a game until
I got the Switch Lite.

Well if you have a gap of generations in your previous game experiences that is possible, however you then have to account for inflation. The GameCube would have titles which regularly sold for around $39.99. This was three console generations ago.

Nintendo has been charging $60 since the Wii U and gamers on other (console) platforms were used to paying those prices too. I definitely think it's prudent to wait before making purchases unless it's a title you absolutely desire on day one.

I don't like this trend of hyper-realism in the graphics of all this next-gen stuff. It painfully triggers my "uncanny valley" sense in the back of my mind. Looking at things like the new Spiderman game and it's trying so hard to look real - yet I have this screaming sense in the back of my mind yelling "impostor! fake! stay away!"

And that aside, I don't understand why this is where so many studios and devs go as technology advances. I don't play games, watch anime or read books to pretend I'm in some facsimile of the real world. But AAA game studios seem to be following the Hollywood trend of live action/as close to realism as possible for most things now.

Why does all the graphical power mean styles and variety have to fade away?

And yes, I know, there are some outliers, like Sackboy, which looks really cool and creative, but most games for the next gen stuff look like heavy pseudo-realism. And my unpopular opinion is that I do NOT like it.

Eventually, are we going to have games where it's just recreated version of real people in real settings for everything? No thank you!