Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@RainbowGazelle That's definitely unpopular...

What would you consider to be must-haves? And how does this compare to previous Nintendo consoles?

@RainbowGazelle
"The Switch has had a pitiful exclusive line-up."

The pitiful is your unpopular comments.

@Anti-Matter Well done, genius, this is a thread about unpopular gaming opinions.

@timleon The Switch'es must-have exclusives I would consider to be Xenoblade 2, Fire Emblem, and possibly Luigi's Mansion 3. Maybe Smash, and I haven't played Astral Chain yet. But for me, that's about it. The Switch and Wii U can share Zelda BotW, too. I'm a big Animal Crossing and Kirby fan, but both Switch entries were disappointing to me. After almost 4 years, it doesn't really seem good enough, especially considering the price of the console and games.

The 3DS had a really slow start, but ended up with countless good stuff, like multiple Fire Emblems, the Bravely games, 7th Dragon, Atlus rpgs, 2 great Kirby games, good Zeldas, Professor Layton games, Animal Crossing New Leaf, and probably some more.

The Wii U lacked games, but it wasn't leaching off the previous gen as much as the Switch, and I felt the games that were ports were improved with the gamepad; Zelda Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, Batman Arkham City, Darksiders 2, Terraria, Assassin's Creed, Deus Ex, Sonic Racing Transformed, etc. Plus a load of (at the time) great exclusives in the form of Captain Toad, ZombiU, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Xenoblade X, Nintendoland, The Wonderful 101, Lego City Undercover, and Splatoon.

So, yeah, I get for many people who didn't own a Wii U, or wanted ports to a handheld, the Switch is great. But for my circumstances, it's failed to deliver so far.

@RainbowGazelle It doesn't really seem fair to say Switch can't have BOTW as a must play game as it's an old gen game but the Wii U can have Twilight Princess. Also the Switch has more games to come so comparing it's incomplete library against the full library of old consoles isn't quite accurate.

At the very least Switch has more than 5 high profile games that are solely on it which cater to most people's taste even if they aren't to your own.
Mario Odyssey
Luigis Mansion 3
Fire Emblem Three Houses
Smash Bros
Mario + Rabbids
Splatoon 2
Astral Chain
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
Arms
Cadence of Hyrule
Yoshi's Crafted World
Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3
Pokemon Sword/Shield
Labo
Kirby Star Allies
1 2 Switch
Super Mario Maker 2
Ring Fit Adventure
Paper Mario: The Origami King
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit
Pokémon: Let's Go

@RainbowGazelle Thanks for elaborating.

Of course this is all down to your own tastes, so I won't change your mind on this, but it does feel like you're selling the Switch short. At the very least I'd add Mario Odyssey and Smash Bros to your "must-haves". And I think if Animal Crossing and Splatoon were "must-haves" on the 3DS and Wii U respectively, they're worth a go on the Switch as well. @jump also provided a list of many worthwhile Switch games, and I can think of several more that I would add to that.

Personally I prefer the Switch exclusives to the Wii U exclusives you mentioned, but each to their own. I also feel like ports gain more from portability than they ever did from the gamepad.

Compared with 3DS...I notice a lot of these are 3rd party exclusives, which I do agree are relatively lacking on the Switch. I think maybe we're past the days where developers make games dedicated to handheld play, unless it's specifically for phones. However, personally, I find the broader library of multiplatform games makes up for this somewhat. Still a shame that we don't have the support from Level-5 and Atlus that we saw last gen though.

@Nicolai
IIRC, I believe indieszero co-developed Sushi Striker with Nintendo. I also believe Fitness Boxing is a Nintendo title, as the September Partner Showcase showed Fitness Boxing and showed Nintendo as the publisher.
Oh okay, thanks for clarifying that. I mean I think that's Nintendo been doing fine with their post-2017 (even if 2018 was a little more "laid back" than usual), but I understand your (and Losermagnet's) points of the post-2017 Switch games being good but "safe".

@jump I'm definitely not disagreeing that the Switch has high-profile releases; it does. Just for me, most are not particularly good entries in their respective franchises, so not must-play games.

@timleon I think that's probably the main crux of the issue. Portability is enough for most people, but for me it's not worth buying the same games again. For me it's like, "It's portable, big deal. The gamepad added new gameplay possibilities."

You're right though, I'm probably being unfairly harsh, but I guess I'm realising that I just don't find the console as interesting as Nintendo's previous efforts.

I actually found the Wii U and 3DS era notably worse for me. Over-reliance on retro 2d Mario nostalgia (and arguably 2d platformers as a whole, much as I love that genre), slow sad decline of Mario RPGs, all Fire Emblem no Advance Wars (an ongoing issue), a real Metroid didn't come out until after the Switch did, 3DS' 3D was too annoying to use, the Wii U's gimmicks were underutilized in most of its big games despite all the marketing being about the Wii U's gimmicks, and 3rd parties weren't around to make up for anything, even to a degree on 3DS (and much of the ones that were often didn't live up to expectations (though I realize I'm at a table of one for saying Bravely Default wasn't that great)).

Though part of it is bad luck and my own personal tastes for 3DS in particular. What are the odds that only one of the 3DS Sonics would be good after the great Advance and Rush series? What are the odds this is when Konami would give up? What are the odds the big JRPGs are the exact ones that I wouldn't be into despite agreeing with the popular opinion for the vast majority of games I'm interested in? What are the odds that Paper Mario's sticker system being OP would cause them to go all in on bad design decisions? What are the odds Capcom wouldn't know what to do with Megaman for that amount of time? What are the odds that the mobile market would happen when it did to overshadow traditional handheld gaming? 3DS was just bad luck for me in a way. Also, I still feel light pain in my hands thinking about playing any game requiring quick reflexes on it (thank god for Joycons). And Wii U's problems are well known and obvious.

@kkslider5552000 It's interesting that people could have such different opinions on the same consoles. I loved the 3DS and Wii U eras more. Shows we're all individuals!

Although my one (unpopular?) opinion about your post; the joy-cons suck!!! XD

I only owned a 3DS during the Wii U generation. I really wanted a Wii U but my dad didn't get me one because he thought the GamePad made it look like just a Wii but portable

At first I was mad at him for some time, but looking back at it stopping me from buying that console and getting me the PS4 instead is the greatest decision he's ever made not related to my academics. Plus Wii U games were ported to 3DS anyway even prior to the Switch, and specifically the ones I actually cared about like Mario Maker and Hyrule Warriors, and I'm still of the extremely unpopular opinion that Smash 3DS was always a considerably more fun and interesting game than Smash Wii U and had a way better selection of content in terms of both single player and stuff like the stages chosen

I also got to play Tokyo Mirage Sessions on Wii U at a friend's house in like summer 2015 and...yeah I'm grateful I only had a PS4 for Persona 5 instead lol

Noooo you can't just buy a console for one game!!!! That's such a wasted purchase!!!

Hahaha Bloodborne go brrrrrr

Something that seems to be very unpopular that I’m enjoying quite a lot is Outer Worlds (on switch). I don’t have anything else to play it on and the story and characters are worth it alone, for me. I don’t really pay too much attention to the graphics when I’m in the game, and there are dropped frame rates occasionally (especially between loading zones), but when fighting or talking to someone, I haven’t noticed any issues. It looks good enough to be able to tell who I shoot at and who I don’t, the weapons feel very different from each other, and typically the frames are smooth (if not a high count). It’s my first FPS in probably 20 years and definitely the first on a console (used to play on PC in teens and early 20s). If a game looks fun to you, give it a shot (not talking about OW in particular here). I’ve definitely had way worse experiences with frame rates and graphics before.

As someone who just re-played Fallout: New Vegas on PC, I can totally get that a great game doesn't need cutting-edge modern graphics to be thoroughly enjoyable.

Mind you, with Outer Worlds there's always going to be that nagging doubt that you might enjoy the game even more if only you could play it on a machine where it played exactly the same but just looked a heck of a lot better.

Is that really an unpopular opinion though? People still play games like minecraft and indiegames. Besides, if a game is developed by a AAA developer, I don't think there is really any excuse to to have graphics that are at least moderately good. If we're talking about indie games, fair enough. Indie games having low graphics is much more forgivable.

3 of my 4 greatest games of all time have N64 or indie graphics, so that checks out.

***

Antiquated =/= bad. Games can be running within a limited framework and be blocky or blurry, but not depressing. For example, Ocarina of Time's look may not nearly as nice as Breath of the Wild, but it's framerate is more or less consistent outside of a few slowdown sections. Nobody's clothes are clipping through their body. Pop-in isn't too bad. It has this really pretty day/night cycle. There's none of that texture stuttering or excessive motion blur that I know of. Everything is more or less colorful and interesting to look at.

Compare it to the original Mario Bros, whose color pallet is gross and dull, Or Mass Effect Andromeda, with its uncanny valley robotic character movement. I remember playing a game called Armillo on the Wii U; it might be a decent game, but its framerate dips into the single digits sometimes (coming from someone who almost never notices framerate issues). These kinds of things just kinda ruin an otherwise good mood I would be having playing the game, kind of like living in a messy room, or a room with no windows, or next to a dying plant.

King of Fighters XIV is easier to learn than Street Fighter V, and more fun to play offline.

Only if you're desperate to defend your next gen console or expensive PC. Most people don't care, they at most just follow where the new games are, which are new consoles that happen to also have better graphics.

I will say it took time for people to not lazily dismiss indie games. That happened a lot, even on this forum, just a few years ago.

I largely agree with you. I don't think its the best art style, in terms of the style it inherently is and maybe even in how they pulled that art style off, but its good for what it needs to be at the very least. But I also mostly don't think about the graphics one way or the other when I think of why I love the game.

I really like Ninjala and find it to pretty fun (and chaotic). I’m honestly having more fun with it than I was with AC: New Horizons, which is surprising because I’m a big Animal Crossing fan. I would also say that I’m liking it more than Splatoon 2 currently (as I haven’t played Splatoon 2 since January 2020).
The fact that this is an unpopular opinion, to begin with, is kind of sad.

I'm curious as to how unpopular this opinion is. Well, its not an opinion so much as a preference:

I do not play video games to escape. Life is hard, and the world is scary, especially today, and there's been times when I've wanted to run away from it all. But when I turn on a video game, I'm doing it because I want to have fun, not because I'm trying to take my mind off something. If something bad did happen and I have nothing left to do but play something. I'm usually very distracted when playing, and I prefer to sit and deliberate a bit before continuing the game. I'm 29, and I've always been that way.

That leads to my second preference, that I don't care quite as much about immersion. I typically play video games with the lights on, on a handheld or with a modest-sized tv (at least modest compared to the average gamer, I think). I don't usually care about performance as long as the framerate is consistent and not choppy. I understand the appeal of a realistic game to have a continuously realistic style or cohesive theme, and I love it when programmers go the extra mile to make something behave the way you expect it too, mostly because I think its cool. But things like being booted out of levels in Mario games, or 4th wall breaks in Kid Icarus, or apple trees you can't pick, tend not to bother me as much as some others, who will usually cite that its immersion-breaking. I usually don't care about that, unless maybe immersion was the only thing they were going for, like Skyrim or something.

On a side note, VR is a cool gimmick and I love gimmicks, but I obviously don't see VR as the future for me. If I get one, I'll have fun with it for a year or so, then I'll want to go back to a regular system. I know that opinion isn't nearly as unpopular, but I thought I'd mention it because its relevant.