Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@VoidofLight If it did bring people back to life it would absolutely destroy various plots involving death. It would allow people to cheat it and thus makes a significant plot hole for the whole series...

@TheJGG True. So it'd make more sense if it were more just a tool to revive someone who got knocked out or something, with the enemies able to kill if the whole party gets knocked out.

@TheJGG That sounds more like an Ironman mode. You've generally got to be pretty good at a game before playing it like that and the Fire Emblem games are especially tough that way because of all the random elements in them.

In terms of weird RPG conventions, another one is how you can often run away from a battle with all but one of your characters knocked out, yet the survivor will someone managed to gather up all their bodies, revive them and heal them back to full heath - without even necessarily having any healing skills in battle - and collect all their weapons and items into the bargain.

I can get why games play like this, because it'd be a massive inconvenience if you had to deal with those kinds of setbacks whenever you lost or ran away from a battle. Still, it doesn't half stick out like a sore thumb whenever there's a plot point about someone dying or a key item gets lost or stolen.

@timleon I haven't played Valkyria Chronicles but that sounds like a good system. In my opinion it's much more enjoyable when games let you continue when you make a mistake, so you can adapt to the situation and try to fix it. So if FE had a mechanic like that instead of just 'oh no, a character died, time to reset' I think that would be a lot better.

And as you say, characters acknowledging deaths would be good too. I think part of the reason why most of us reset when someone dies is because it feels like something that's not supposed to happen: the character is either never mentioned again or, if they're an important character, they're just there as usual in cutscenes but you're supposed to believe they're severely wounded or something. If deaths and 'injuries' were more naturally integrated into dialogue, maybe players would be more inclined to let their mistakes stand and carry on without their fallen heroes.

Keep the permadeath so you can kill off all the waifus in Fire Emblem! ;p

It's a clever mechanic which I like and as others have said it's close to pulling off the intention, it's meant to make you care about your losses from battles but it not there just yet. Thing is with the last few FEs you have to replay them with slightly different routes so masterfully ensuring you playthrough to make sure everyone gets through means less as you still got to play the game another 3 times and see those other characters you like again.

@Dogorilla Nailed it on the head. It changes almost nothing so there's little emotional weight.

I agree that, as is, permadeath requires a level of commitment from the player to have the full effect.

I've been replaying Bioshock Infinite and I think it's the best of the three. It's bold and beautiful aesthetically, and the gameplay is tense and satisfying (i like the two gun limitation). I usually go for the first Bioshock, but it's really easy and the environments are a bit too similar for my liking. It's a game I often start but rarely finish.

@Losermagnet Perhaps I'm too much of a contrarian but Bioshock 2 was the best and damn anyone who says otherwise! ;p

All three are really great but the first thing that comes to my mind about Bioshock is the Big Daddies so in a way Infinite is the worse Bioshock game out of the three.

@jump Bioshock 2 has a serious fan base. I never cared for it myself. I played it once and havent really thought about it. I think it was the notion that there were still people in Rapture 8 years after the events of the first game. I can believe in a city at the bottom of the ocean, or in the sky...but that somehow people carried on for 8 years after the ocean already began reclaiming the city was too much for me.

I enjoy how Bioshock and Infinite mix fiction with history. I was reading up on the Boxer Rebellion and the Wounded Knee Massacre and it really added another dimension (pardon the pun) to Booker. There's a reoccuring theme that these thriving cities are built on the backs of people and you witness both the glory of the cities themselves and the blood that was shed as a result. It's that sensitivity that elevates the series for me, and I think Infinite does that the best.

@Losermagnet Yeah, the theme is rich in those games and it's what stop them from becoming hokey sci-fi stuff. 2 had an intresting but not fully explored idea of having "altruism" be the baddie's motive but tbh I just like the gameplay from 2 lot more than the others.

Did you hear the latest rumours about Bioshock 4? Apparently it's open world with side quests and that sort of thing. I'm not sure if I like the idea or not, maybe if the aproach is an everyman caught up in the city (which presumably is on it's downfall) to show off the little people and the "glory" of the city it could work.

@jump I wasn't even aware that there was a 4th game in the works. Who's developing? The open world thing could work well, but only as long as they don't lose their eye for detail. Take Bioshock for example: you can take the bathysphere to any district after your initial run of the area. Instead of the elevator maybe there'd just be hallways or roads. But I would hate to be plonked down in a big area, needing to climb a tower so I can have a bunch of icons show up on my map. Forget that nonsense.

@Losermagnet Bioshock 4 was announced a year or two ago. It's literally a new developer set up just for Bioshock 4. The open world stuff has come from them looking to hire people and mentioned things like open world in the advert.

I'm hoping you're just on a boat going to lighthouse to lighthouse and nothing else. ;p To be honest it's just too abstract at the moment and I need to see things before I can get excited or judge it but the potential is there for an open world Bioshock game to work really well.

@jump I googled it and, while there's little to no info, I'm approaching this with trepidation. I guess 2k has had issues getting 4 up and running for awhile, and Ken Levine isn't involved at all. Now, much like the stories in the games, no one man is responsible for these creations....but it sounds like 2k is wanting this to happen so they can use the name. That's me being pessimistic though. I don't think Levine was involved with 2 (although the staff that made it were involved with 1....i think) and even I know 2 is a good game. So we'll see what happens. Going from lighthouse to lighthouse in a boat might be the best we can hope for.

@Losermagnet Less about Bioshock and more in general, I know the vision of the artist is important and all but sometimes letting someone else take the reins is a good thing. Video game are a collaborative effort so it's just not this one person who made it great and someone like Shigeru Miyamoto still being hands on with Zelda after all this time would be terrible.

One thing that has stuck to me was how Batman developed, Bob Kane the creator did jack for it really and what really made Batman was the efforts of others like Bill Finger adding to it plus how the mythos grew is so weirdly great. Like they introduced Robin to appeal to kids, it's really is as simple as that but then those kids grew up and wrote Batman filled with ideas from reading it to fill the blanks in they had noticed for it to make sense to them like Batman is living through Robin, a happy smiley kid to make up for his own lack of happy chilhood and writes it in, then another kid reads it and fills in the blanks like why doesn't Robin hate Batman for turning him into a kid superhero so the kid grows up and writes Batman and has Robin ditch Batman to become his own hero etc. That is how it's grown for 10 decades where the lore has become rich from others thinking about it and adding to it over and over again to the point if there was a "Mountain Rushmore" for Batman the creator woud struggle to make into the top ten or even possibly top twenty names imo.

It's why I try to give things a chance even if a reboot/prequel/remake or whatever sounds pish rather than declaring it as "raping my childhood". Of course there's exception like I can't see anyone else doing Earthbound apart from Shigesato Itoi for example.

@jump Great example with Batman. Yeah, I'm willing to say that I don't know enough about what Ken Levine's style is (or what makes something a Bioshock game y'know?). It could be exactly the kind of turning point it needs to become an actual video game series. Considering Ken Levine is still with 2k and he's not working on 4, maybe he's done with it on a personal level. Might as well give it to other passionate people.

My first thought was of Suda51. He's so idiosyncratic that you can tell when he didn't actually direct games often attributed to him (Shadows of the Damned, Killer is Dead). Itoi is very much the same.

Edit: I looked it up and, while Itoi wrote it, he didn't direct Mother 3. It may sound like I'm full of it but I can kind of feel it when I'm playing.

@Losermagnet Itoi was definitely hands on with Mother 3, with it's development so messy with it being for SNES first, then the N64, N64DD, GameCube and finally the GameBoy Advance the director credit shifted on the final version?

Maybe I just should take it back and they should have someone new like Hideo Kojima do Eathbound 4! ;p

@jump Ness is Snake! And that makes Jeff Otocon....and Raiden is Poo? I'm sure some fans would agree with that. Not sure who Paula would be though...

With Itoi I'd say the most important thing is that he's the writer. His background is in writing, not game development. Earthbound Beginnings is a bit messy and even Earthbound was rebuilt by Iwata.

This may just be me or sounds like I'm getting on the hate train but, when I was younger and in joying fez I went on the internet and looked up A man called Phil Fish, He made fez and all that, and I don't really dislike people, I don't really well hate them, But man Phil he just pushes all my buttons, Now I never watched the indie game movie on netflix, but I Read up on his twitter post, And He sounded like A pretty mean guy, But I wasn't trying to be that guy who just saw whatever People hated and started hating it to, In fact I felt like (At the time) I was like the only dude to hate him, bc I mean why would people hate a indie dev who made this amazing game,

All is good till well I saw how he treated his fans, but it wasn't just fans, this guy hates gamers and I didn't understand why at the time but now I know, I think it was bc he thought they were hard critics or somthing, but this is were my dislike for him stem'd from, But what really broke the camels back, was we he just * SNAP * Fez 2 out of existence and you know some times, stuff like that happens maybe you didn't have the money or just didn't want to work on it, But The reason why he quit was bc He didn't like what people had to say about him, yep thats it he stop'd the Whole DAMN game for that.

But the thing is It kinda felt like a middle finger to gamers when he did that, and it just showed he never gave a crap about the fans who stood up for him and supported him, nope everyone had to love him, and not only that he did do stuff to make people angry Which I can find understandable, And if he felt like people were acting like jerks fine, not going to tell the guy how to feel, every game has its issues and every dev gets hate, I think he should have been there for his fans, I was one of those people who was ready to support him, I was ready to get fez 2 but he got rid of the whole thing over critics, that right there showed me all I needed to know all the past comments he made, I could't defend any longer.

And thats how I got to my dislike for him today, not to say I don't like the game, I think Phil was really great at what he did and he almost viewed gaming like a work of art, But man the dude had some issues.

Now you guys can get mad at me and like I said i'm not to sure if anybody else feels the way I do, I For this reason of him getting rid of fez 2 I didn't think we would get it on the switch and I don't know why he did it (Maybe he said it idk). So This is why I posted this here in the unpopular gaming opinions cuz You know I can just say what I think and how I feel. (Sorry if there is poor spelling I was typing in the moment LOL, and thank you if you read though this whole rant on why I don't like this dude I just really really needed to say it to people without hopefully getting flamed)

Hunting for obscure games such as KeyboardMania PS2, Martial Beat PS1, Beatmania IIDX PS2, DDR for consoles are such a delightful experience rather than playing AAA Cookie cutter Western games.

“Cookie cutter western games” are better than dancing and rhythm games.