Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@Heavyarms55 I feel as though all the other $59.99 games are completely worth it. I think a lot more effort was put into 1-2- Switch, as it has 26 games, in comparison to Wii Sports’ 6. So, I don’t think it should have a been a packed in game, but it definitely should have been cheaper. (around the price of Clubhouse Games) It was way overpriced, but I still think it’s a great game and it’s underrated.

@Heavyarms55 I like how Yakuza, Enslaved and Detroit do it. Where they just make the characters look like the actors

Parascientific Escape 1 is better than 3.

I love block pushing puzzles. Ice block pushing puzzles are even better.

I never understood the criticism that they are boring or lazy. A good block pushing puzzle is quite a challenge to make, and when it is good, it's honestly kind of exhilarating.

It may of been said already, but I think The Last of Us is one of the most overrated narratives in gaming. I'm talking about the first game - I haven't (and probably won't) play the sequel. The story doesn't even come close to similar post-apocalyptic fiction. If this is the best gaming can do, then it still has a long way to go.

@iKhan I enjoy them, too, when they are puzzles within a larger game. They can be fun and require thought. I thought Mario + Rabbids did them well. When they are the entire game, though (or a variant where like you are a sliding block who can't stop till you hit a wall), then it grows stale and I don't care for those games.

@Losermagnet I haven't played either of those games, but overall I feel that video game narratives are highly overrated. I believe that people that play video games, and especially critics who write about and rate them, overly praise them to try to make them seem on par with movies and books, but they simply aren't. I know a lot of people on this site and elsewhere love visual novels, but unless they have some gameplay like Ace Attorney or Zero Escape, I can't get into them. Just give me a good book which has vastly superior writing any day.

I think it stems from Ocarina of Time’s puzzles being super slow.

He was talking about Zelda? I just assumed he was talking about games like Pushmo for some reason.

Pushmo is a bit slow too, but I like them all

@Xyphon22 Agreed on all points. Playing TLoU just had me thinking it was a lousy adaptation of 'The Road'.

And 999 and the Phoenix Wright trio are fantastic. This might be an unpopular opinion too but Apollo Justice is pretty good imo.

Apollo Justice is good, but it’s one of the weaker titles (Dual is the worst)

@LzWinky Dual and Spirit both share the bottom spot for me. I like them just fine, but since Shu Takumi stopped working on the games (at least what was released in the west) it all feels kind of pointless. Like a ghost writer being in charge of your favorite book series.

Not sure if I've posted this before, but I really don't understand why Crash Bandicoot is as popular as it is.

I'll admit that the games are pretty fun, but I think the concept behind the game is quite fundamentally flawed. They're a weird mix of 2D and 3D platforming, and as such I don't think they really excel at either. Levels where Crash is running forward (i.e. the "Sonic's ass" levels) often struggle with depth perception, making jumps and judging collisions with objects quite difficult (see Toxic Waste and The High Road in Crash 1 for the worst offenders). Levels where Crash runs away from the camera...who thought this was a good idea?! They're essentially trial and error stages where you must learn the pattern of objects ahead, because you can't see them. The side-to-side levels are alright, but the added depth from the 3rd dimension often leads to depth perception problems as in the more "3D" stages (e.g. I've found myself platforming left to right...and falling off the back of a platform, or missing an enemy hit box for being too far back).

I also feel find I get hit a lot in these games when I'm not expecting to. Not sure if this is dodgy hitboxes on the enemies, or quirks in Crash's animations or responsiveness to controls.

To reiterate, I think they're fun games. But I don't see why they're heralded as such classics. At best I think they are B-tier platformers - never close to Mario in quality IMO.

@HunterLeon I get that. I haven't played the games, admittedly, but I've never felt compelled to. As a fan of platformers Crash always seemed unremarkable.

I have to kind of agree, based on playing the first 2 games a while ago anyway. Like they're fun enough, but Crash 1 has some inexcusably obnoxious problems in hindsight, and even 2 isn't exactly the best platformer, even for a 3D platformer of its time. Like its really good in some places, but it never reaches the point of feeling like it earned the hype it got. And I'm usually the guy defending that era of gaming, but maybe the hype was a bit much for these games.

I remember before the first Crash came out, how it was being promoted on game magazine covers as "Sonys Mario Killer".

@Cotillion From a marketing standpoint it's certainly advantageous to promote him that way. I think the real "Mario Killers" would've been games like Resident Evil, Tekken, and Metal Gear Solid. Games that went so far beyond what Mario and Nintendo were doing.

This take has been controversial lately so I'll just say it:

Sometimes, it would be better if games decided to be shorter. Pacing is super underappreciated in big budget gaming nowadays. Especially JRPGs, where that's been a problem for ages. Some super long games are great, but when you force people to deal with boring padding, or you don't know how to find the balance of extra content, its a big problem. While not the worst example of this at all, the one that comes to mind for me is Skyward Sword, which desperately needed small things cut throughout it until it was like...5 hours or so shorter. That's when I first noticed that pacing could be a problem.

Celeste and Mario Odyssey are my 2 favorite Switch games, and I think they have a good compromise where the main game is brilliant and there's a ton of content beyond that that's also great but not as amazing necessarily. So with both when I was done, I was at least done on my own terms. And while part of me wishes the extra content was as strong as the first dozen hours I put into them, its much better than many games, where too much is mandatory or too much extra content is just not especially fun.

I also love how Rayman Legends handled it. It had a relatively short campaign, but it had lots of various types of content beyond that that was almost all great, including daily and weekly challenges.

@kkslider5552000 the Xenoblade series is the biggest culprit for me. No JRPG needs to be 100+ hours long. I personally think between 35 and 50 is the perfect length for an RPG. As soon as I see 100+ hours of gameplay I know I'm in for two things, a badly paced story and a million copy and paste fetch quests.

@kkslider5552000 Absolutely agree. And I feel like this is becoming a more and more popular opinion as (i) the industry is expanding and there are far more great games to play, (ii) many gamers are getting older and have less time to play games.

Actually, it feels like I've heard more reviews complain that games have unnecessary padding, than complain that games are too short, these days.

Of course, it completely depends on the game. Anything narrative-heavy and light on any meaningful progression (e.g. RPG mechanics) shouldn't be longer than 10-15 hours IMO. Conversely I think games with in-depth progression systems (i.e. where you gain abilities that change the gameplay in a meaningful way, like most RPGs) can get away with 30+ hours. It also depends on what you have to show off with your content. I completely agree that Mario Odyssey is a great example - giving players a taste of the many different levels in the main game, and leaving the hard-core moon-collecting to the post-game.