Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@Pizzamorg Couldn't agree more. I'm really surprised Bluepoint deliberately omitted an easy mode from their remake of Demon's Souls because "they wanted to preserve the game's feel". You can do that without killing game balance, fools!

I can appreciate the difficulty and the rewarding process of beating a level but that copy of the game's been gathering dust for a year because it just wasn't designed for people like me. It comes across very elitist and I hope this changes moving forward...

If a game’s identity can’t exist without punishing brutal difficulty, then it suggests to me the identity at the core isn’t very good in the first place.

Anti-Matter is not a troll, but is someone who likes cheap low-quailty games over M-rated ones. In fact, he hates M-rated games or games with characters from M games (including Smash). It's best that you ignore him as you're just feeding into the problem.

Usually I don't agree with your thread comments (no offense), but this one was top notch. I'm an idiot, so I need to play most games in easy mode, and I just never saw the point in extremely hard games are their whole image. Tough-as-nails platformers are exceptions as they're more than just hard games, they have good stories, characters and/or art design (like Celeste or Hollow Knight).

@HotGoomba I mean, they really aren't exceptions if you want to be as fair and objective as possible specially because the reasons you described also apply to Dark Souls as it's full of unique art design from it's music and visuals as well as lore. Truth is, it's kinda annoying how much the gaming community has inflated the series difficulty (they really aren't as hard as people make out to be) and most importantly they do what they do, not for the sake of "being hard" but because it's gameplay works that way. Sure, that doesn't exempt them from critique, but developers are free to apply it's vision and make it as accesible as they want. This complaint applies to pretty much every game on existence, people just focus on the Souls series because they get annoyed about the snob way that some gamers that completed it act and because it's used on every example but that isn't the series problem.

As an example of how this applies to every game, the people that don't complete Zelda games (which are a lot) could ask for simple dungeons and puzzle solving, calling "unfair" it's current way of doing them despite being pretty much the game's core and an important aspect that defines it as a Zelda game. Most games can always get easier and more accesible in general, but you don't see that fixation that people have with other games as with the Souls games and because when it's a series that people enjoy then they understand perfectly why it's gameplay works that way. Sometimes games simply don't connect with one and it's not that it needs to change for us, specially when it's core gameplay is pretty much what the person doesn't like or doesn't find accesible.

As a recommendation for anyone that wants to get into the Souls series and finds it "too hard":
Play Demon Souls or Dark Souls as they are the easiest.
Button smash doesn't help at all. Guard up (shield) and attacking when you have time it's all you need to do for the most part.
There's always coop. And while that also allows players that want pvp, 2 or more players working together clearly hold an advantage.
Look out for builds. There's many ways to make early strong builds that will make the game considerably easy, to the point of killing bosses in seconds.

Finally, seriously ignore that idea that has been sold constantly, look it like any other game. I can think of many games that are much more hard than them. You just need to learn how to play them, as with any other game.

As for the stuff with Anti, I think that many of you take what he says way too personally . There's no reason to insult him or his tastes. I think that at this point the people getting annoyed by him so easily are more annoying than him. This is the unpopular opinions thread, it's kinda expected for him to bash many of the people's favourite games here, and I'm aware that he can be a bit intense, but at this point I kinda excepct that people would have learned to deal with him. When you explain to him that stuff he usually even apologizes and sure, chances are he'll propaby mess up again but... geez people, it should be a bit obvious why it happens and why there's some cases in which we need to have a bit more patience. He also has managed to change and regulate himself quite a bit.

@Maximumbeans Interesting theory and like you, I've no idea whether that's the case or not. I just figure making a single Mario game, for example, has to be less resource intensive than doing a separate console and handheld game

I agree...

...in an ideal world where the game developers can reasonably have the time to put in a good, worthwhile easy mode that makes sense in the context of the game it is in.

@HotGoomba And his hatred for M rated games includes the opinion of those games being outlawed, not understanding that he just has the choice not to play them.

@Sdelintwouters
Turn based can be good if i can see the order list like FF X or Earthlock.
And yeah... I really want to see a non turn based Pokemon games, maybe with ATB style or FF XII style or Dragon Quest Heroes style.

@dmcc0 You're probably right. The Switch has sold so many units that that Mario game reaches more people than if it were one console and not the other.

Nah. Making people buy two systems instead of one is...literally all the reason I need. It was bad for Nintendo (or at least Nintendo consoles) and bad for customers. I now have more money for games because of this decision. So it was as objectively good as things get.

@kkslider5552000 That sounds more subjective than objective to me, but glad it’s worked out well for you.

I just hope you appreciate the 200-300 dollars (or your country's equivalent) you now have because Nintendo disagreed.

I mean, if you loved Dual Screen and had no interest to buy a Nintendo console again, I could see that being a negative (though you still have more access to more games this way, you'd lose out on Nintendo console games). I also miss dual screens. But that's probably about it.

I personally just wish we'd get more handheld games on switch, instead of their teams only working on big home console releases.

I actually strongly agree with this. I've honestly suggested Nintendo lean more into just having more "handheld games" that cost as much as 3DS games instead of full priced ones. Though some of their full priced games basically are handheld games let's be honest here (looking at you, Link's Awakening remake).

@kkslider5552000 True. To be fair though, they're starting to experiment with it more, making games like Warioware and Miitopia priced at 50 dollars instead of the full 60.

I just used Souls like as an example. I could use others, Monster Hunter is another great example. Those games, especially the older ones, border on being completely inaccessible creating elitist, insular, toxic, communities because people base their entire personality around beating those games. That is why I was so happy when World made attempts to streamline the experience and then Rise took that even further, to make the game even more accessible than ever before. I really hope every series makes this approach moving forwards.

I also need to stress that while being toxic is not okay, if you want to quantify self worth on the difficulties you have cleared on games, then go ahead if you are healthy. But an easy mode can exist, without those achievements being lessoned. If the only identity your game has is difficulty, then that is a bad game as far as I am concerned. Games should be for everyone and people should want games to be for everyone, not some insular boys club. You shouldn’t have to “git gud” or study reading materials to play a game. A great game is one that anyone can pick up and play, but those who truly love it, can stick around and achieve greater mastery. There should always be a choice.

And I guess technically you are right, developers can just exclude whoever they want. But in a time where accessibility has never been thought about more when it comes to gaming, I find it bizarre that so many have simply accepted that brutal difficulty is just a casualty we need to accept. We’ll include an option for the colourblind, but we’ll still make it next to impossible to play. Just bizarre to me.

And every time people bring up games from the past as justification, it is just such a complete straw man argument. Just because something happened in the past, doesn’t mean it is okay now. I think if anything, history has taught us this lesson time and time again. Back then, a game was either brutally hard to absorb all the quarters it could or brutally hard so it’s half an hour of content would stretch out over a weekend. We simply did not know any better and did not have the empowerment to stop and say that something wasn’t okay.

Now, there is simply no excuse. It is exclusionary and nothing else. There is truly no justification for it, beyond straight elitism. The kind of gamer cringe elitism that will always hold us back, until the industry stops pandering to these people.

@Pizzamorg I think that it's important to understand that the games aren't the ones creating this elitist and toxic mentality, it's the people and those are the ones you actually have a problem with, not the game. Changing difficulty wouldn't change much as people would justify this beahviour with another thing. For example, when the Souls games weren't a thing yet (Dark Souls wasn't out a Demon's Souls had a small fandom) there was an article about how dark Souls could be the next new big thing and it was compared to Skyrim, which was also coming out (or just came out?) and it was mocked and attacked by several users that assured that Elder Scrolls were much superior games, even if the people interested in the Souls games weren't attacking or mentioning those at all. Fanboyism is another example that pretty much any attribute/quality will make people get a certain mentality and personally I don't think that we should blame it on whatever thing they are fixed on. Another example being "real gamers" hating on mobile games or simply people hating on whatever they "don't get" like the Fortnite or Fall Guys hype. People simply, always will search a reason to be jerks.

I do get that gaming should be accesible as possible as it's even positive for them and that difficulty is a way of doing it, but that doesn't mean that it's as easy with every game as it is on others. It also means that not every game can work that way because of it's concept or that even if they are developers they know a way of doing it as every thing that isn't implemented properly is usually more criticized and hated on rather than being appreciated for trying. Sometimes I feel like people think that developers are just lazy and that because something is on one game they think that it works the same way on another and that it's just a matter of implementing it when it's not. Another thing is that a game really wants to manage it's difficulty as one of it's selling points then they should be able to. It's clear that there is a certain audience and that they are not trying to appeal to everyone so what's the problem with people not accepting that they won't be able to connect with every game? You are still perfectly able to play it, just not on the exact way that you want. They already accepted that it won't sell with people that don't like challenge so why can people also accept that the product isn't directed to them?

"Now, there is simply no excuse. It is exclusionary and nothing else. There is truly no justification for it, beyond straight elitism. The kind of gamer cringe elitism that will always hold us back, until the industry stops pandering to these people."

It's no excuse, it's simply their reason. Just as I believe that people that can't surpass the challenge and find it too hard and frustrating aren't excusing themselves and are genuinely giving a reason why they aren't having a fun time. I'm pretty sure that it's not like they want more money or if making games that way gives them more chest hair, it's just what they know how to do and everything, to a certain point, won't fit with a person. Since I kinda suck with racing and FPS games and people usually destroy me online or even the npcs I could say that they are veing elitist and discriminating me, but that's not it, I simply haven't been able to connect with many of those games and I find them way harder than any Souls game.

The time when people stop demanding for near perfect situations in which everything is optimal for everyone and start understanding that just affects other people (mainly the ones that are demanded to do this) that they don't even have in mind is when I think that true empathy will happen.

The thing with Soulsborne is that the difficulty is there to foster a community to share tips and leave in-game hints. It's not hard for the sake of being hard, it's to encourage participation and learning. Also to instill in the player a sense of oppression that they need to triumph over. Normally I would agree that accessability is always a good thing, but to be blunt: if you make Dark Souls easier then you're not actually playing Dark Souls.

Also, I don't recall who posted this before but I second it dramatically: Sonic has always been trash. I like the music from the Genesis games, but that's about as far as I can go.

@Losermagnet Well, I posted something similar haha. I have always thought that the Sonic 2D games are overrated and don't really work that well with the speed concept as, unless you have played stages several times, the screen size limits the reaction time. A properly done 3D game would much work much better as you have time to anticipate what's to come since your range of vision extends much more in my opinion.