Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@VoidofLight Very good points indeed. It became difficult to truly appreciate the levity of the situations at hand because none of the villains after Kamoshida were as omnipresent as he was. It would have been very fascinating if you could run into Shido in the street or something. Only Shido, because as a public orator (like No Good Tora) he'd spend time rallying for support. Okumura's a businessman, so no. The whole point of Kaneshiro's Palace is taking down an invisible enemy, though the Thieves' finding him was so luck of the draw..

As for Maruki I'd say he's one of the best written villains in anything I've ever seen in my life, and I've watched a good number of films and have read a lot of books. To quote Todd Howard; it just works.

@TheJGG With Maruki, it definitely hits harder, since you're required to spend time with him if you want the Royal content at all, and he's pretty present in the situation. You even pretty much become friends with the man.

I also wish that Shido was present more in general through the game, and that you got to see more of him mistreating others as well as more getting to know the character's motives. I know that hey build him up a bit with the director guy, but it wasn't as effective as Maruki or Kamoshida were.

@VoidofLight Funnily, with Shido I actually thought to myself as I encountered him in the Wilton Hotel Buffet room just after Kamoshida's Palace; I feel like we're gonna get this particular guy at one point. I'm glad to be right, he was pretty deplorable in the limited interactions we got with him.

@Sunsy Same here, its nice to know we have the same feeling about Metacritic.

Despite Metascores being a terribly bad idea, I do think Metacritic does a good job in terms of giving you a one stop shop for all the reviews. At least that way you can deliberately pick out the people whose opinions you give a damn about, or just look for the outliers.

Here's one I just thought of: I'm probably the only one who really doesn't like Dragon Quest 11. I played it up until I got to the final dungeon, and I just couldn't bring myself to get past it. I played the original ps4 release, and the music itself was just horrid. The story wasn't anything to really write home about either, as it was mainly just the generic JRPG plot, with nothing really interesting to save itself. The only thing I probably did like about the game had to be the graphics themselves, but that was pretty much all.

@VoidofLight Allow me to give my two cents. I played the Switch version, so I played the entire game with the orchestral soundtrack. I cannot stress this enough, the MIDI soundtrack is easily the worst soundtrack I have ever listened to. I’m not a fan of torture but if I was I would listen to that.

The story was admittedly quite boring but there was a bit going on. It reminded me of an anime in that there were several self contained stories that begin as soon as you walk into town. The writing and voice acting however, makes up for it massively. They obviously knew what they were doing when translating the Japanese script, and the voice acting is extremely on point.

The world design itself is very good. I like the regional dialects and the obvious reflections of real world societies and cultures, like Lonolulu (Hawaii), Sniflheim (Scandinavia), Laguna di Gondolia (Venice, Italy), Pnomh Nonh (Cambodia), Arboria (Ancient Greece), Hotto (Japan), and the Medal Academy (France). It really reinforced the idea of travelling the world, and seeing all sorts of cultures. Only things I’d criticise is how the name same background music plays for every single area. Having the Switch version was good because I could swap over to the Dragon Quest 8 Overworld Theme instead, which in my view makes the original song look like garbage.

Another thing I’d point out is the very similar character models for children, men, women, and elderly. It’s extremely easy to tell that the old woman in one area is the same as the old woman in another, just with orange hair and glasses. But the models are good, and fun to look at.

@TheJGG I guess another thing that probably hindered the experience for me had to probably be that I did literally none of the side quests for the game as well.

I always have trouble with the video games are art arguments (which is different to me than games can be artistic), mainly as the games that get cited are terrible examples especially when it's just moving to cut scene to cut scene or having multiple path endings.

However there is something which has slightly swayed me on that which are video game difficulties as a strength of argument for games as an artform. Something like Catherine Full Body where the sense of urgency to complete the stages coming from playing it on higher difficulties is a great way to convey the panic the main character is feeling who is under pressure story wise to take action but doesn't. This is something that other mediums like books or movies don't have as a story telling option, like how first person narrative works very well in books and is more often than not complete pish in movies.

So TLDR Metal Gear Solid's cut scenes are silly and Catherine being hard is actually a work of art. ;p

I think Metacritic scores are perfectly fine as long as you don't take them too seriously. It's interesting to see how the average review scores of a game compare to others, and the Metacritic site is useful for finding all the reviews in one place, as pointed out above. Just don't take them to be an objective measure of a game's quality, which should go without saying really.

Aight I've written more on DS, @BloodNinja.

Death Stranding. One of the most expressive games of our generation, yet one of the most divisive and controversial games I have ever played. Ironic for a game whose primary message is about reconnecting America and bringing people together under a unified front. But beneath the superficial flaws, the seemingly over-repetitive gameplay, and the so-called ugly coat of paint, lies a masterpiece on multiple levels, a game that almost demolishes the barriers between film and video games, and ensures it will stay in the hearts of players for the emotions.

The game is a walking simulator, is one of the most intrinsically flawed arguments to this game that I have read across the internet thus far, because it has very little depth, contrary to the various systems of the game itself. The main challenge of this game is the terrain, the journey. Encountering real enemies, like MULEs and BTs, combines a material, or immaterial, threat with the challenges of the world beneath our feet, to create a unique kind of problem.

The sense of teamwork is also a driving force in this game, and is as omnipotent as the walking itself. Playing this game without an Internet connection is objectively harder to do, compared to playing it with one. The community Kojima has designed has been incredibly helpful and efficient, due to his own designs. According to interviews he designed the Likes system to promote and mandate positivity, and increase oxytocin levels, due to the scientific implications of approval. In fact it’s this need for oxytocin, need, and approval, that leads former porters to become bandit-like MULEs. Their need to deliver pervades their very mind.

Things like climbing a mountain or traversing the landscape are harder without an Internet connection because Kojima hit home the notion that teamwork and solidarity beats all. Other constructions built by players in their worlds are transported to yours, giving a sense that you aren’t alone in the struggle to reconnect the world.

@TheJGG And if I'm not mistaken, the game isn't just about delivering packages, since there's also a story in it.

@VoidofLight The story was for me extremely engaging. Like in Kingdom Hearts the lore was placed in a dedicated section (Interviews), and really expanded the world. Of course some things are jarringly left out of story cutscenes like some character backstories. No joke, most of the supporting cast's fates are revealed in interviews which are just subjected; "Fragile's fate" or otherwise. But some of the story beats were truly amazing, and at the end of the game I nearly cried because of how powerful the ending was.

I have to say though that the pacing's very inconsistent. The game's divided into fourteen episodes (and a prologue), and they vary far too much in length and story significance. Episode 13 for example is an hour and a half of cutscenes, and that's it. Episode 3, however, took me a month to finish because of how large it was. You covered about 45% of the Central Region map in that episode and there was such a small amount of story. Plus, out of the 70 story delivery missions, orders 18-38 take place during Episode 3, which is a good third. And in many instances, like Episodes 4, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, the entire chapter can be covered with a single order. It takes three entire episodes (10-12) to travel from the Chiral Relay all the way back to Capital Knot City. I loved the whole process, it showed how much you learnt over the course of the game, but the story takes a hit.

The cinematics are top notch, and at times border photorealism. That makes the game better off. The human emotions are captured best by... well... humans. So bringing in top notch Hollywood names like Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, and a sensational voice actor in Troy Baker, (plus Tommie Earl Jenkins) was the best thing to do, and honestly I doubt it would have worked otherwise.

@TheJGG Huh. Sounds like a pretty interesting game. I remember wanting to try it out due to the odd trailers and the gameplay itself, but just never got around to it.

@jump I can't really decide if video games are art. I would if it wasn't for the financial side of it. Most games are mass produced and marketed, hoping to turn a profit. They are not the artistic image, they're the image on a poster that you can put up in your bedroom. The image may be art....but the posters not.

I guess in a way they're more like functional art, like a bridge. They have a pragmatism and form that's intended to benefit people in a direct way.

@Losermagnet Movies are "art", practically "mass produced", and the posters aren't really all that artistic either.

@Losermagnet Yeah, in theory I'd say it can be art but I've yet to have a slam dunk example where I can say it's art that can only be done as art in video games. Video games making money isn't an issue for me as movies, books, music etc all do the same and it's not that it's isolated to games, there's movies that are art and other movies that are ticket sellers and there's people who have decorated their own homes more artfully than the stuff that Damien Hirst produces. I just need a game to prove there's a technique that makes use of video games as a medium to really prove it beyond cut scenes.

There's a few that have come close towhat I’m looking for but are not 100% convincing like Pokemon with a clear message of bonds and working together is the way so you invest in building a team but too many pokes are just filler and pretty useless so it’s message is wrong or Fire Emblem with its use of permadeath making you think about how to protect your favourites after growing to like them but grinding/over levelling means you don’t have to worry about that or Bioshock with the choice of saving or killing the kids yet you get a reward either way so it doesn’t really matter.

@VoidofLight @jump i don't mean to be contrarian about the matter. It's just that, for me, video games aren't art simply because they're video games. The term "Art" shouldn't be an all access club where 'That Dragon Cancer' has to sit next to whatever the new asset flip on Steam is.

A quote I'm paraphrasing, and unable to attribute to anyone is "it's all art, but most of it is worthless". Maybe that's closer to the truth for me.

As for the reason why i disparage the monetary aspect: I don't like the idea that the popular art of our generation exists under the pressure of committee design, deadlines, and quotas.

@Losermagnet "it's all art, but most of it is worthless" is a paraprase of Oscar Wilde. He meant it more as in if you look at a flower it's very pretty but it doesn't change your life just like all art hence it's worthless.

In terms of selling out (not quite accurate but it's easier than writing pressure of committee design, deadlines, and quotas etc) this isn't a generational thing. Shakespeare was forced to write new stuff to keep his theatre going, The Beatles did like 12 albums in less than 10 years because they had a publisher eager for more etc.

Sometimes the input and pressure of a committee is helpful to keep things going and directed, Shakespeare wouldn't have wrote some of his classics if he didn't need a new play, The Beatles would be missing half of their songs and for an example of the other way Martin Scorsese the greatest living director in the world gets free of the Hollywood system and goes to Netflx to do whatever he wants with a blank cheque ends up producing 3 and half hours of rubbish in The Irishmen (or at least way below his high standards) without the committee to tell him it's rubbish, make it better or Damien Hirst who seems to not bother even trying anymore so will just glue shiny rocks to an old skull rather than back when he was trying to make a name for himself and was more original in his works.

Although nowadays it's slightly different, the art is what makes your name to then earn the money from it. Most bands can't atually live off selling albums anymore so they need to tour and sell shirts which does bring in the money for example. Working within "selling out" doesn't automatically mean there's a lack of passion or artistic expression imo.