Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@BloodNinja 4 minutes doesn't sound too bad actually. You can also take a horse if you are feeling too slow, warp if it is about convenience and less about exploring. Granted, after a certain point there is nothing really new to discover. I still think uncovering the map slowly and just enjoying the scenery for the first time takes enough time to feel more than satisfacted with the game.

@Solaine Yeah, that’s way too long. I’m surprised that people stand for it, to be honest. Feels like they aren’t thinking about what is presented.

@BloodNinja Fair, i like just strolling around in open world games though

@BloodNinja I see it as the complete opposite. It's because people are thinking about it that it's okay to presented like that, the purpose of BOTW's is to explore it and seeing things that catches your eye then going off to investigate it. It's not an action game where you need to be given things to fight constantly or you have to get from A to B as soon as possible to complete a quest.

@BloodNinja I doubt hardware power is a real excuse for an empty world, I suspect it’ll make little difference if the world has a few more things to do or not. And yes it’s an open world so of course there’ll be stretches of empty.

Have you heard of Death Stranding. I’d imagine you’d describe that game as boring, convoluted, and a waste of time excuse of a walking simulator. Game journalists were very polarised about it back in 2019 but the community itself sees it as a masterpiece. I having never played a Kojima game ever before, thought the same.

I do agree with @VoidofLight there is a ton to do. It’s not procedurally generated per se but it stays fresh for a long time. The enemy varieties are quite poor, yes, but the enemy tier system is not the worst substitute.

And if the game had a smaller world it would defeat the purpose of having an open world to begin with. It feels like it’s the perfect size for an open world game, and for me I am still discovering new things every day. And as @Solaine says you can just warp. Horses similarly, within five minutes of leaving the Plateau you can get a horse to speed up your journey. The Master Cycle Zero adds some fresh dynamic to the world but otherwise those are your methods of transport.

And you act as if this game is restrictive and deceitful. The physics can be exploited in a number of ways, including the flying machine minecart trick.

@jump I understand what it's purpose is, and I gave two examples of games that do the same thing leagues better. It would be great if the game were more condensed, or was more strikingly beautiful so that all the long, empty stretches were justified. I'm not here to argue about it endlessly, I thought the thread was for expressing unpopular opinions. I said what I said, doesn't mean I'm interested in getting into it with every user that disagrees.

@TheJGG Death Stranding is hot garbage directed by a has-been. The point is that the empty stretches need to be justified, like the examples I gave. At least Death Stranding is gorgeous to look at, so while you are walking doing nothing you can be wowed by something.

@BloodNinja Sigh... you’ve said literally the exact thing I’d guess you’d say, whether intentional or not.

I’m on a mobile phone at the moment but kindly expect a lengthier post on why this game is a masterpiece. For now I’ll say that the game was such a novel concept, and took so many risks in game design, storytelling and mechanics.

I do have to say that the Mario and Princess Beach line is pure cringe.

Happened plenty of times to me in the past with me @Snatcher. Especially being one of the few who enjoys the Sonic Boom games, and other less popular games in the Sonic games.

This kind of also adds to why I don't really like Metacritic scores. I can give my reasons why I like a game (not just Sonic, but with any game), some just will point to the score to why it's bad, like it's a fact. Even though these people usually don't play said game.

@TheJGG Of course it's what you would expect. We are talking about gaming, not exactly the deepest topic in the universe. So if you need to pat yourself on the back for a 50/50 guess, then you do you. And we are offering unpopular opinions, at that. I guess I should have expected that fan-boys are going to jump down my throat for talking trash about their beloved, ugly walking simulator. I wasn't expecting that in a thread designed for unpopular opinions.

I think Kid Icarus Uprising has great controls. The touch screen fills in the role of a second analogue stick, but offers greater precision. I actually wonder if a Switch port would control worse, although Splatoon works quite well with analogue+gyro so I guess that would be a good option.

@BloodNinja No need to classify me as a fanboy, I’d give a much less rational argument if I was. And it depends on which demographic the creator of this thread meant when he named it. Unpopular according to whom?

If it applies to the fans then I’d surmise that you are in the minority when you say that this game is just a walking simulator by a has been developer. So there’s nothing wrong with your comment.

Of course I respectfully disagree but you know that already. Or so I think, seeing as how I’m just a fanboy.

Yeah, Botw is an exploration game. The world is built in a way where you’re going to explore it. Horses and fast travel are meant to be the way you traverse the world mainly, not just walking around. If you ride a horse, the 4 minutes in an empty place feels like nothing. And even then, the “empty” place isn’t empty. A lot of them contain secrets, like the ice area on the edge of the map which has a lot of caves.

Well, it is possible to have an 'open-world' game with more to do in each area, potentially ..... But Breath of the Wild did have a reason for being relatively 'empty', after all! Not a fan of Death Stranding to go in depth on that but it presumably does have some rationale behind being 'empty', as well
Just to help understand those choices

Here's one that'll upset more people; I don't like Haru Okumura, from Persona 5. She's very boring, has a questionable amount of forehead and her sociopathic tendencies really turn me off.

@TheJGG I don't really like how she comes in so late, and I don't like the whole Okumura foods arc either. It just felt like the weakest palace in terms of it's writing, and the events surrounding it. I heard it was better in Royal, but even then it still felt flawed.

@VoidofLight Okumura's Palace was a literal joke. All the Palaces felt like they dragged on at times but Okumura's Palace has this feeling the most. And Haru's coming in so late meant menial tasks like developing her Confidants / Social Links was such a rushed affair. After the fourth Palace, we should have stopped getting Phantom Thieves, and the game should have focused more on consolidating the base party members. Akechi's entire plot arc could have been moved up one, and the final three Palaces would have been after the new major deadline of October 20th. But that would have taken a ton of effort so it's not clear how this would have been solved.

@TheJGG Honestly, I agree. The palaces didn't really drag on for me, but I didn't really feel impressed by them either. I always felt that Akechi should've been introduced as an earlier party member, and he should've been built up more. More screen time with Joker, and hanging out as friends instead of just at the end where you get him once, then he betrays you. Not to mention I don't like how he was supposed to be your foil and ends up just dying the moment he truly reveals his true colors.

I also think that the base game peaks at Kamoshida's palace, as the Palace was one of the more cinematic ones in the game, and they really make you hate the guy, which you don't really feel like later down the line with the other villains honestly. The palace in Royal is probably where Royal peaks, and it's honestly my favorite in the entire game.

@VoidofLight Having listened to Gentle Madman recently I can very much agree that Royal's Palace was one of the best if not THE best dungeons in the whole game. It was as you say, Maruki's character was just amazing, really well executed and flawlessly voice by Ferdinand von Ae- I mean Billy Kametz. His sorrow was so human, and so horrible that it was impossible for me to truly see him as a genuinely bad person. He was the same as Joker; wronged by the world and left behind for dead, but Joker made a change whilst Maruki let his hate warp him.

Kamoshida's Palace was also yes, very cinematic. The villains become a bit less fresh as you progress, and for me the first three bosses, namely Kamoshida, Madarame and Kaneshiro, were very similar in personality, meaning there was very little change in dialogue structure for them. Kamoshida's of course hit home the most not only because it was the first, but also because it tackled the more risqué sin of the seven; lust.

@TheJGG Not to mention with Kamoshida, you get to truly see what he did, and you see the effects going on around you the entire time. You grow to hate the man because he's always in the hallways berating you for your existence, and they generally did a good job. The others never really hit for me since they were either too similar, or not actually built up. Shido is supposed to feel like this really powerful and evil character, but I felt nothing towards his defeat, unlike how I felt with Kamoshida honestly. Madarame was also apparently supposed to have a scene where it actually showed him leaving Yusuke's mom for dead, but they cut it for some reason.

As for the Royal content, it felt really refreshing that Maruki himself wasn't a straight up villain, but moreso a morally grey character, who made you question a couple of things, such as how his reality isn't inherently evil, but it's still no good since he's running from his problems. I also just really enjoyed how well written the content was, and how well integrated it was. They went as far as to put Maruki in the background of a scene where Ann, Joker, and Ryuji got back from Kamoshida's palace. Maruki felt like he could've honestly been in the base game itself, that's how seamlessly he was written.