Unpopular Opinions - Video Game Edition

[Pooky]

Here's one that would make me unpopular in the retro crowd. Whenever people complain about game updates, saying "Remember when you just put in a cartridge or CD and played?"- oh, so you like a game that is unfinished, was released in stores anyway but can never be updated to fix the bugs? And can never have additional features added after the fact?

Yes, the bigger updates are annoying to wait for, but as far as I'm concerned, this is a very welcome change from how things used to be.

I think the argument would be that before this became standard, it was a lot rarer for AAA games to ship with very obvious bugs that seriously impacted the experience of playing the game, and you could take it home on release day and enjoy it to its fullest potential, whereas now they can release what are supposed to be major titles in a fairly shoddy form with the promise that they will fix it at some point down the line. At least that's how I feel, as someone who doesn't really buy current titles. That may be unfair when you look at the actual numbers, I don't know, I just don't like the idea of taking home the hot new title on release day and having my enjoyment held back by obvious and intrusive flaws.

 

[Classic Speedy]

^ See, I'm not so sure about that. Super Mario 64 is notoriously buggy- had it come out today, a lot of these could've been fixed in updates. Yeah some of these bugs are funny or interesting and most of them wouldn't be discovered by most players, but the point still stands.

 

[Pooky]

I don't think those bugs are quite as glaring as some of those I've seen recently, certainly didn't make the game any less compelling, and within the context of the time they were easier to accept as a trade off for a game that seemed so much more advanced than any platformer that had been released up to that time (same, to a much lesser extent, with Sonic Adventure). But I'll grant we accepted a lot more bugs in the PS1\N64 era than we did before, and perhaps since.

 

[Spacething7474]

project cars i and ii being tooken/taken/token? off steam some time ago (or sometime in the future, i forgot) made me think back to its black sheep sequel, project cars iii


was it a notable departure from its more realistic origins into being an arcade racer? yes

do i think the new format is way more fun? also yes

 

[ShadowBeast]

With Spyro Reignited, I hate the redesign of Elora. They took away the fox tail and the hair was better in the original game, now she just looks like a typical fawn. I actually like the redesign of Sheila, who just looked like an ordinary kangaroo, of which, I couldn't but think of the kangaroo from the Looney Tunes cartoons.

I don't like the redesigns for Coco and Cortex in Crash 4. Coco looks younger despite taking place after Crash's 2&3 and Cortex just doesn't look right. I'm not a fan of alternate Tawna either since it feels like she was created as a replacement for the original because she wasn't a badass female. I also liked the N.Sanity voice for N.Tropy better.

EDIT: Got another one: The Jak & Daxter series was better before it became darker and edgier in the second game. Also, I prefer a collect-a-thon over mission based objectives.

I agree with you on that.

 

[Classic Speedy]

I like Super Mario Maker 1 more than 2. Objectively, yes, 2 is the better game- it has far more options, and the story mode is welcome. But it can't recapture the magic of the first game, which was really a groundbreaking piece of software. 2 felt more like an expansion pack than a brand new experience- I kinda hate using that phrase "expansion pack" because people tend to derisively use it for any sequel that isn't 100% different, but really... in this case I feel it's justified.

Plus I easily preferred using the Wii U touchscreen over the Switch's standard gamepad to make courses- it just felt more natural (I'm talking about in TV mode- I know you can use the touchscreen in handheld mode).

And, by the time the second game came out, I was burned out on SMM in general, so I didn't have as much motivation to make another bunch of courses and try out other peoples'. Maybe it would've been different if Maker 2 was my entry into the franchise, but after suffering so many Kaizo Mario courses, automated courses, super easy courses, and courses which rely too much on those stock sound effects, my motivation to try out possibly more of the same in the sequel is limited.

I'm not a fan of alternate Tawna either since it feels like she was created as a replacement for the original because she wasn't a badass female.

She was an alternate universe Tawna so I didn't consider that version to be "replacing" anyone. Plus, she was recently presented in her Crash 1 look in Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled, and I wouldn't exactly call that version, um, "un-badass"?

 

[Classic Speedy]

Here's another: Double Dragon (NES) is fondly looked back on with nostalgia, but try playing it again. It's terrible. It's only four levels, and two of them are painfully easy, taking about 5 minutes total. The last two stages overcompensate by ramping up the difficulty too much so there isn't a gradual curve, and contain some badly-designed platforming and cheap AI. They're just not fun. The game kinda tricks you with the first two stages in that regard. Oh, and bugs? Yeah, there are two infamous ones: The "climbing the wall" bit on stage 1, and "defeat the boss just by climbing down the ladder" in stage 2.

Now Double Dragon II (NES), that one still holds up. It's also not a very long game but it's much more refined, the music is more memorable, the character designs are far better than the blocky, squashed ones from the first game, and it has cutscenes between the levels. It says it all that Double Dragon IV took its cues from that game versus the first one. It's also way better than the arcade, a reverse of the first game.

 

[Leviathan]

^ See, I'm not so sure about that. Super Mario 64 is notoriously buggy- had it come out today, a lot of these could've been fixed in updates. Yeah some of these bugs are funny or interesting and most of them wouldn't be discovered by most players, but the point still stands.

For the most part, these are minor things you have to go out of your way to trigger and don't unduly affect the actual gameplay. Most of them were only discovered years and decades after the fact, because TAS have made it fashionable to cover games' code with a fine-toothed comb.

That's very different from a game that's janky, feature-barren or just downright unplayable on day one.

 

[Classic Speedy]

The point is, I prefer nowadays when bugs can be fixed and new features can be added to the game long after release, thereby extending the life of the game.

Two of the best examples I played in recent memory: Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled, which came out in mid 2019 but kept adding new courses and characters up until March 2020; and Horizon Chase Turbo, which similarly added new content over time.

 

[[classic swim]]

While many licensed titles are considered poorly made for one valid reason or another, that late 2000s trend of critics copying AVGN caused irreversible damage to even the good games lumped in that category.

I just think with any game you should be able to judge and critique the thing on its own individual merit rather than generalizing.

Licensed games should be no different, but there’s still that negative stigma *partially* because it’s from something else.

I’ll give you an example of a licensed title that aspired to be different in more ways than one.

Scarface: The World Is Yours

1.) The film adaptation was far from hazily replicated.

Both developers and film writer David McKenna instead would brainstorm on a fun open world headcanon where Tony Montana survives.

The artistic integrity of the film wasn’t altered nor ruined from this game going by a completely different script. The movie stays as it was. The game was only meant to serve as a rewardingly entertaining spin on an icon that was still very much celebrated around this time.

Everything from the likeness/new voice of the character, to the plot and feel of the game was all calculated carefully.

2.) They actually made an attempt to set it apart from GTA.

There was no real competitive jab at Vice City or anything like that. Doesn’t even make Vice City less of a faithful adaptation.

VCS releasing the same year within a span of months was purely coincidental. I think for Rockstar it was a much larger feat to have some portable versions of their trilogy whilst building up Grand Theft Auto IV.

3.) The graphics on Scarface were also undoubtedly the best of its time.

While there was no 360 port, it already looks like an early 360 game inside your PS2. I mean this was years in the making too. - - - -

^ And that’s not to say the game was downright flawless. Rose tinted glasses aside, I’d still prefer Vice City. Vice City handles better, and a “realistic” drug trade simulator isn’t all that important to have when you just wanna play a mind numbing shooter.

But still. I could assess all that myself without judging a book by its cover.

 

[Ace]

Luigi's Mansion 3 might be my least favorite in the series. Sure the actual gameplay is fine but my cheif complaint is the loading screens (or elevator) taking too long to go from floor to floor. It also kind of ruins the immersion of the whole thing being in one building if they aren't connected in some way. It may be cool being able to walk around in it but it's just hiding a major flaw inside the game. It makes backtracking a lot more annoying than it needs to be especially close to the end when you need to revisit a few floors.

 

[Silverstar]

The Jak & Daxter series was better before it became darker and edgier in the second game. Also, I prefer a collect-a-thon over mission based objectives.

Agreed. In fact, I miss light, bouncy, fun mascot platformers in general. They were a nice break from the nonstop fighting games (though I love some aspects of fighting games, such as the characters and aesthetics) and Call of Duty/Halo clones.

 

[Pooky]

I know this is hardly a unique opinion and nowhere near as unpopular as it would have been 20 years ago, but when it comes to Zelda stuff from the last 20 years I'm much more drawn to the Wind Waker-derived "Toon Link" world and artstyle, than the less stylised Skyward Sword derivatives.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Here's another: I don't enjoy sandbox style racing games- just give me a set of isolated tracks and I'm happy.

There was only one sandbox racer that I enjoyed, and that was Burnout Paradise, simply because there was so much to explore in the city and it was fun to ferret out the numerous hidden items. Ironically, the part I liked least about that game was the actual racing.

 

[Surreal Kangaroo]

Honestly, Pokémon Legends Arceus didn’t appeal to me.

 

[Mr. Pedro]

Hot takes? Okay:

-Undertale is one of the most overrated games ever, and Omori pretty much outclasses it in every way.
-Nier: Automata is a 40-hour game with maybe 20-ish hours of actual content.
-The Final Fantasy VII Remake has a terrible combat system and is borderline unplayable.

Glad that's all cleared up. Time to go dormant for another 13 years.

 

[Pooky]

I'm not particularly excited by Super Mario Bros. Wonder. It looks fun but, cute gimmicks aside, like it will use similar settings to and play much the same as the NSMB games, which I like but don't particularly need any more of.

 

[Classic Speedy]

I'm not particularly excited by Super Mario Bros. Wonder. It looks fun but, cute gimmicks aside, like it will use similar settings to and play much the same as the NSMB games, which I like but don't particularly need any more of.

While I'm always up for more 2D Mario, I too have to admit that I'm not ecstatic about Wonder. When I saw the announcement, I just thought "Oh, cool, I'll check it out.", not "OMG I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL OCTOBER!!!"

In terms of 2D series that made comebacks on later consoles, I always liked Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tropical Freeze better than the NSMB games. I wish Retro Studios would make a third one but sadly I think they've moved on from that franchise.

 

[Light Lucario]

Honestly, I never understood the hatred for Paper Mario Sticker Star for the 3DS. That was my first Paper Mario game, so I could be biased, but I remember really liking it. The gameplay was fun, I never had a problem with the sticker mechanic and I remember enjoying it fairly well. If I was more familiar with the earlier entries in the series, especially Thousand Year Door, maybe I'd understand the backlash more, but as it is, I think it's a fun game.

Despite how incredibly successful Mario Kart 8 has been, I could never really quite get into it. I've enjoyed other racing games in the series and the first video game I ever played was Diddy Kong Racing. Maybe it just felt like there wasn't anything to really get through the races that turned me off. It isn't bad by any means, but without feeling like there was much of a point to doing the tournaments and not having anyone to race again, I haven't really done much with it since I got it years ago. I'm sure that it's perfect as a party game, which is probably a big reason for its success.

I'm not sure if this is as much of an unpopular opinion as it was a few years ago, but I never had a problem with removing the National Pokedex starting with Sword/Shield. I could understand the backlash at the time to a degree since people love being able to complete their Pokedex, potentially not being able to use some of their favorite Pokemon would be annoying and Game Freak certainly could have handled their announcement better. But personally, I think it made sense. There were over nine hundred Pokemon with Sword/Shield and now there are over a thousand with Scarlet/Violet. The game developers were already under a lot of time crunch, so having to program a thousand Pokemon into every main series games was just going to be too much to handle. If anything, the glitches in Scarlet/Violet kind of further justify reducing the number of Pokemon available. I really love Scarlet/Violet and I'll hopefully be able to finally post my review of the games in its thread in the not too distant future, but the technical problems would have been even worse if they had featured every Pokemon in the game. It also makes completing the Pokedex much less difficult. It's easier to get four hundred Pokedex entries instead of a thousand.

I also think that Mega Evolution is easily the most overrated special gimmick. It's kind of funny to see people frequently say that they should bring back Mega Evolution with every new generation since it wasn't that well received initially either. There were definitely some cool Mega Pokemon and I can understand wanting to expand on a mechanic instead of limiting it to just one generation, but having all of the other battle gimmicks being accessible to both new and older Pokemon was a much better choice. I also think fans probably would have gotten tired of Mega Pokemon if they kept that going for more than a couple of generations.

 

[KeldeoKitty]

My overall opinions on the Sonic the Hedgehog series:

The Sonic series peaked in quality with Adventure 1&2 and the Sonic X anime. I thought they had the best stories and best characterizations, Adventure 1&2 even with minor flaws, have some of the most solid gameplay of the 3D games. Sonic X even with the added supporting cast and slow start gets better as it progresses, it’s the Sonic cartoon I think best captures the spirit of the older games and Sega as a whole when they were in their prime. That and the Metarex saga was epic.

Sonic 06 was not the worst game in the series. It was flawed but I appreciate a lot of ideas that went into it. It was trying to be epic and I think had a lot of potential. Sonic Boom (Both the cartoon and it’s tie in games) I consider the series low point, because the premise strayed from the series tradition, was too gimmicky, the Wii U game is arguably worse than 06, the 3DS games were mediocre, and the cartoon was too generic and bland, I didn’t think it was funny or exciting. Prime is better than Boom because the story and writing is better, and is closer to the series core premise, but it still didn’t do it for me. The DiC Sonic cartoons from the 90’s are cheesy but I think they are more interesting and funny than the CGI Sonic cartoons.

After Sega merged with Sammy in the mid-2000’s, there are only a handful of Sonic games I thought were great. Colors was pretty good. The recent games like Forces and Frontier seem to be on the right track but probably need more polish.