Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@Sunsy Well I love to nitpick the games I love.

@Sunsy Well I love to nitpick the games I love.

True fandom (imo, of course) is the ability to love something, while also recognising the flaws it has. So much of the toxicity comes from fanboys who refuse to acknowledge the flaws and pretend everything is perfect.

@Snatcher That's fine, I more or less I was thinking people who do it for the sake of complaining. Not doing it because it's a game they love. Personally, as though I don't consider it nitpicking, I like finding little things in games like secrets, easter eggs, etc.

@Pizzamorg I can agree with this.

@Sunsy In any other community, nitpicking everything is dumb. In the Sonic community, it's an hourly occurrence.

Part of it probably has to do with the fact that indie developers or an ordinary fan can make a better Sonic game than Sega can.

Ofc not! Pissing off family and friends is a very important part of the human life!

@HotGoomba I remember spending loads of time on Island Tour, strangely enjoying it. Now I realise the whole thing was mediocre at best, especially compared to Mario Party 9, which was pretty decent. All the Nd Cube games have felt like there was something missing. I wonder if SMP is actually good...

@Zuljaras Oh dear... eh, I haven't played enough of them to justify wholeheartedly agreeing lol...

A bit late but @jump has a point though I wouldn't say it's as extreme in my view. I think there are fanbases which are insufferable in gaming and the greater pop-culture bubble, but meeting another fan of something shouldn't automatically be counted against them. I'm a fan of Star Wars and I'll joke that the last movie was awful but that's all it is, a joke.

It's just how humans work, they prefer to insult something as a fanbase instead of collectively appreciating something. Pokémon comes to mind.

@Losermagnet Radiohead? I've only heard one song from them but it did enough to earn my respect. A song that technically doesn't even exist, their not-a-Bond-theme, "Spectre".

I was about to agree with @Sunsy that this was the case but you put it better than I could. I'm the definition of this when thinking about movies I like. I'll rave about it for a week, then I'll rewatch it with a more critical eye. I rewatched Dune (2021) two days ago and while it was fantastic I noticed a few flaws in the film that couldn't be ignored. Didn't take away from the movie but was worth observing.

@TheJGG Yeah, I don’t automatically hate all the fans in the fanbase, but I’m just not happy with the state of the fanbase. Also with starwars, I personally don’t like Disney or what they did with the movies, but I can just choose to ignore the movies, and I fully respect people who like the films, while I dislike them.

@VoidofLight I can't stand the final star war movies, And people that actually say that anakin is a mary sue, So stupid.

@Snatcher To me, the prequels aren’t the best, but at least the story is consistent, and the story doesn’t do what was already done in the originals.

@VoidofLight Yes, Thank you.

100%.

And that critical conversation is so important, too. It is detrimental to the medium as a whole if we aren't having conversations about the media we consume and open to challenge it. Mindless hype circusing where you don't talk about what the property does well or bad and instead you just say everything is amazing, perfect, flawless etc Well, that is just completely useless for everyone involved in making that property, as there is nothing constructive to build on there. They have no idea what actually works, what actually doesn't work, what people want to see if they make a sequel etc

@Pizzamorg Constructive criticism would make a nice change from the endless complaining on this forum.

To be honest too many times I see "constructive criticism" it's generally just stupid people trying to be smart by picking holes mixed with a bit of arrogance of thinking they understand game development better than actual game developers.

It does go both ways I think. There are certain topics where the Nintendo fanbase will get their pitchforks out because it's the popular thing to do in that moment. Despite being completely off the mark, at least in my mind. Then for other things the hoards will blindly defend something Nintendo's doing that's pretty average. Here can be bad for it, the front page is worse, Reddit and youtube are next level

I think we've seen it pretty prominently in the last six months or so. The backlash against the NSO+ pricing probably the biggest example of the former. I mean fair enough it's not a great value if you're not into AC and you're in a solo plan. But people are reacting to it like Nintendo is publicly executing baby Yoshi's. Then on the other side, the Switch Pro rumours. I know, I know. But the number of people who tried to argue that the Switch couldn't do with a hardware upgrade at all? Come on now...

I mean to make it clear, I meant not equating that constructive criticism is the same as circusing in either direction, especially when it comes to the mindless defending of billion dollar corporations whenever they do something anti-consumer. Like to be that brainwashed is just sad.

I think the concept of "picking holes" has a lot of negative stigma around it, that is undeserved. Nothing is perfect, perfection doesn't exist. Anything can be improved and innovated on. But sometimes something is so legitimately good, all you can do is pick holes of small little things. I don't think that is inherently a bad thing, as it still feeds into that wider constructive conversation.

That isn't to say it is all useful and people aren't *****, but I just think "you are just nitpicking" is often a fanboys way of waiving away still perfectly legitimate criticisms of a property.

@Pizzamorg It's not underserved after the number of times I've seen something along the lines of this is an action game so why do I need patience to explore in Metroid, they are just cheap or the story is objectively bad as it's generic and I can write better story so I should be a game developer. I find the use of generic and objectively (as well as over-rated) as helpful signs not to take the person seriously. I ​still remember one of the most stupid comments that got a real lol from me on here was open world action games only appeal to people who watch The Fast & The Furious and mainstream stuff is bad.

I have more respect for the opinion of someone who just goes, I didn't like it so I stopped playing after 30 mins rather than someone who goes out of their way looking to criticize with laboured reasoning. Criticizing shouldn't the direct aim of trying to articulate someone's genuine thoughts and feelings on the game as a whole but something that just comes up as part of the larger discussion of it.

@TheJGG Super Mario Party isn't bad, but honestly Superstars gets rid of any reason to buy it.

@Pizzamorg
To be frank, most places for online discussion reward negative points of view. Especially those without much substance. If you're discussing anything in the comments section of an article or on social media? It's really just a tournament where only the most aggressive opinions will survive. And generally "this is the worst thing ever" is always a stronger opinion than "I don't see what the issue is"

I generally don't have much to criticise about Nintendo or really any company or product. Especially products from what is effectively a toy company. The most negative I get is usually "I guess it's not for me, oh well". Non-Nintendo example, in the early 2000s I was a super vocal "fan" of AMD to the point where I'd get into arguments with people about it. Then when Intel released their Core 2 line of CPUs I brought Intel because it was a better CPU. Then I stayed with Intel until Ryzen

The second I stop enjoying Nintendo's first party content? I stop buying Nintendo's products. But I'm not about to whine about decisions they make that don't impact the quality of their first party content. The Expansion Pack is expensive? Maybe. But as someone who's into Animal Crossing it's a reasonable value. If I didn't see it as a reasonable value my biggest criticism would be not buying it. But I do like to be the person who says "I don't see what the issue is" in the sea of people crying that the sky is falling. Even if that makes me sound like a "shill", especially given I'm the kind of person who preordered the Wii U

I mean the slant towards negativity exists everywhere, it is a human problem not exclusive to some guy on a forum talking about something they didn't enjoy. It is simply too wide of an issue to try and be tackled in these conversations.

I also think it is disappointingly reductive to say that it is just whinging to point out Nintendo's anti-consumer products, people who say that are the problem not the people criticising the practices of the corporation. If you can't see that, then I guess we'll just need to agree to disagree here.

I guess this is something we'll just have to agree to disagree on, I think saying nothing is worthless and while there can be bad/stupid takes, saying something will always yield more value. That isn't to say that you can't just not vibe with something, so you move on. But if you do have problems with a piece of media, you should feel free to air out of those feelings and not just be painted as being "negative" or "poking holes". The killing of discussion happens all the time on forums, Reddit, etc and I just think it sucks.