Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I don't think this is unpopular as such, but it probably would be among normalfaggots that play more mass market games:
1) I prefer older actions. Bolt actions, lever actions, revolvers, and such. Given the choice I will generally use those in a game over semi-auto and auto (unless it's something with significance, like an AK-47).

2) One-shot kill is actually, in a sense, easier than games with health bars, especially when combined with older actions with slower rates of fire. I thought it would be harder because if you miss you're screwed and it takes forever to get another shot off. And, indeed, I do have a worse KDR than when i was playing games with longer times-to-kill. But, what I find is that one-shot kills are very liberating because while you don't get as much chance to follow up a shot, you don't have to land several shots, and if you could get several before, the slower gun shouldn't matter. There's no bullshit with trading gunfire back and forth, no counting health damage, it's all reduced to positioning and reflex. Battlefield now feels weird and unsatisfying to me.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Gaming is naturally interactive. Listening to someone talk is very passive while reading puts me more in control and is therefore a better fit for games.

...That's technically correct, the best kind of correct. But still, I think a degree of cinematic flair is perfectly in line with what gaming is. I mean, listening to music is very passive too, but we're not against that, right? Unless we want to really go back to Magnavox Odyssey.

I think the problem is when a game grinds to a halt with long cutscenes. Though it didn't bother me, something like MGS4 does skew the balance way too much and takes control away from the player for far too long.

 

[Super Hans v2]

I'm vaguely interested in finding out if you guys debating this are more interested in W v J RPGs. If my brain wasn't fried, I'd be writing a TEDx on why voice acting fucked WRPGs, but would good for JRPGs if they weren't cringe as all shit.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Disappointing implies you still found value in them. I've had plenty of disappointments where it undershot what I really wanted, but still was okay. Heck, even some video games that I liked have had disappointing parts or disappointing endings. I like Deus Ex, but find the endings lackluster. I like SimCity 4, but it still falls painfully short in so many areas.

I think it's just part of the bigger problem that every "top x video games" list seems super artificial; it's all the same shit. I'm not complaining about at least one Zelda game making it in the top 10 (if not top 5), it's the total lack of obscure favorites as the list continues.

Pic related is something I got from /v/ a year ago (exactly a year ago, in fact) because not just because
I think some of those choices denote excellent taste, it also is the most "real" list I've ever seen just because of the sheer diversity of it all. Some of these are definitely stuff I've heard of before and even played but NEVER see in "top X" lists.
View attachment 4396848

I'm happy to see Gorky 17 on that list. I can't imagine that many people have played but it is good. At first look it seems a bit crappy. When you start to play it seems a bit dumb(there are hard rules for how you/enemies can fire that makes it a bit like chess with guns). Then it all makes sense!
Looking at Wikipedia it's got 71% on Gamerankings which is inline with what I remember from that time, but it has a Very Positive on Steam and only costs 5 eurobucks! If anyone is interested in a turn based slav Resident Evil I can really recommend it.

 

[Nick Obre]

I'm vaguely interested in finding out if you guys debating this are more interested in W v J RPGs. If my brain wasn't fried, I'd be writing a TEDx on why voice acting fucked WRPGs, but would good for JRPGs if they weren't cringe as all shit.

It hurts both in different ways, I think.

You don't need to do the TEDx on wRPGs because it's been done. Look at any of the many analysis and retrospectives various autists have made about the evolution of the Fallout or Elder Scrolls games. In the end it comes down to RPGs with text-only or limited voice acting being able to plan the possible outcomes of interactions or quests with so much more freedom than the ones with full voice acting. You can't have the actors record lines for every contingency, so you can't write for every contingency either. And so, you lose depth.
It's often said that it's done in the name of immersion, but that immersion is gone the moment you notice, for example, that there's only a handful of voice actors in Skyrim, and that you'll hear the same voice for a dozen characters and more so for inconsequential NPCs like guards.

For jRPGs, I guess it's more of a taste thing, since the experience is already very linear and curated. But I, personally, find that a lot of the charm of jRPGs came from the layers of abstraction (which is a whole other huge topic one could write a TEDx on, but I'll be brief about it here), the distance between what's happening and how it's being portrayed, which gives you and your imagination some room to work precisely to immerse you. I find things like little sprites (or little polygonal 3D models) doing certain animations can carry more emotion than their equivalent big high res 3D model, fully voice acted and choreographed cutscenes. See FF7 vs FF7R (of course, the remake has much larger and fundamental issues, and I'm not even a fan of FF7 to begin with). Or think of things like the little theater performances in some of the Suikoden games, or the opera scene in FF6, or the fair in Chrono Trigger, or this little dance scene a couple characters do in one of the Earthbound games. You look at them objectively, and they're just sprites moving across the screen with very limited animations, but they're sweet and heartwarming, in a way a well animated cutscene wouldn't be. Maybe it's because it stays in the same perspective than the rest of the game, but a scene like that feels so grounded on the characters, while something more visually impressive would be centered on spectacle.
I meant to keep it brief but I already said a lot.

So I'll cap it with saying that when I said earlier that FFX is where it started going wrong, it's because I felt that charm that was there in the jRPGs of the era just wasn't in FFX anymore. Someone else said the voice acting took them out of it, and it's the exact same thing I felt.
Could it be nostalgia, or us just being oldhead faggots? Maybe.

But there's a reason Undertale became such a massive phenomenon and its so near and dear to so many people.

It does a lot of things right, but one of them certainly was that it gave you layers of abstraction and you put a lot of yourself into these stupid fucking punny skeletons, so they mattered to you.
If they'd been animated and voice acted, there'd be nothing of you in them.

 

[mouthnotbigenough]

I don't think there's anything wrong with having easy mode in videogames.

I play casually, my hand/eye coordination isn't the best, and my reaction time is slow. I was only able to beat modern warfare 2 on normal difficulty, with a lot of practice on easy.

Elden ring and super meat boy and even stuff like later levels of crash bandicoot are prohibitively difficult for me. I don't think that giving me more health or enemies less health in an easy mode would ruin the gaming experience for me, because I suck at videogames baseline.

 

[Overcast]

I don't think there's anything wrong with having easy mode in videogames.

I play casually, my hand/eye coordination isn't the best, and my reaction time is slow. I was only able to beat modern warfare 2 on normal difficulty, with a lot of practice on easy.

Elden ring and super meat boy and even stuff like later levels of crash bandicoot are prohibitively difficult for me. I don't think that giving me more health or enemies less health in an easy mode would ruin the gaming experience for me, because I suck at videogames baseline.

I mean, so long as there's an option for those who want more of a challenge, who cares if there's an easy mode? I know as a kid, I tended to gravitate towards easy modes.

That being said, for me there is something about a game that doesn't give you a difficulty option at all going in. Especially if it's something like the King's Field games that have a generally oppressive and foreboding atmosphere right from the get go. It's a good indicator that the game isn't going to be friendly towards you.

 

[Point Man]

With the discussion of cinematics and such in games it reminded me of MGS. I'm replaying MGS3 on the HD collection and man, I kind of don't really care for the Codec calls at all. I understand that most of them in the beginning are for tutorial purposes but I don't think my gameplay needs to be interrupted to tell me that Sokolov is in a building to the East or whatever. Same goes for saving, the interactions with Para-Medic is kind of cute, but I just want a normal save button to skip all the shit so I can get back to the stealth action. Basically I think the Codec is boring and useless in MGS3.

 

[PixarsTedKennedy]

Maybe it's because I've been playing games since the NES but I just don't see bad graphics anymore. I have a zoomer cousin who will sometimes say a game has bad graphics and I don't get it. I see noticeable quality differences between some games but there are no bad graphics anymore. All games look pretty good, even indie games that try to use the PS1/N64 aesthetic. Maybe it's because I had to live through early 3D but fucking zoomies have no idea what bad graphics are.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Maybe it's because I've been playing games since the NES but I just don't see bad graphics anymore. I have a zoomer cousin who will sometimes say a game has bad graphics and I don't get it. I see noticeable quality differences between some games but there are no bad graphics anymore. All games look pretty good, even indie games that try to use the PS1/N64 aesthetic. Maybe it's because I had to live through early 3D but fucking zoomies have no idea what bad graphics are.

For me, that was when so many people called out nu Saints Row (2022) for looking ugly and having bad graphics
Meanwhile I wasn't able to understand that at all
Sure, car models are low quality and crude, that is one thing I don't like, but the rest of the game looked good to me visually

 

[Friendly Primarina]

Maybe it's because I've been playing games since the NES but I just don't see bad graphics anymore. I have a zoomer cousin who will sometimes say a game has bad graphics and I don't get it. I see noticeable quality differences between some games but there are no bad graphics anymore. All games look pretty good, even indie games that try to use the PS1/N64 aesthetic. Maybe it's because I had to live through early 3D but fucking zoomies have no idea what bad graphics are.

I had this exact thought when people were circlejerking over the graphics in the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake. OK, the graphics weren't super-realistic, but the original game was cartoony and stylized.

 

[The Last Stand]

Goldeneye 007 on 00 Agent, its hardest difficulty, seems to be more about luck than skill, due to the trashy auto-aim that makes your damage output completely unpredictable. On easier difficulties, the messy gunplay is much more forgiving, but 00 Agent doesn't allow much room for error, and the auto-aim constantly works against you with how much it seems to love limb shots. If you're unlucky, you can magdump your PP7 into a single guard, and still not kill him. It's also one of those difficulty levels where they just kinda make everything shitty:

• more enemy health
• more enemy damage
• more enemies overall
• body armor is removed
• miniscule amounts of ammo dropped - 10 per KF7 vs. 30 on Agent (easy)

All of that, on top of more requirements to clear the level. And that's annoying, because easier difficulties don't have as many requirements, so levels often become "go get this one thing and then leave". I'd like to have more to do, but I don't want to play on such a frustrating mode. It's a classic example of bad difficulty.

The extra objectives with increasing difficulty is a great concept. But Goldeneye 007 DOES rely more on memorization and RNG than actual tactics or skill. That one level where you have to find a scientist, he spawns RANDOMLY in four locations. If you're speed running it to unlock cheats, it's an unnecessary hassle that's outside your control. The maze like layout of some levels doesn't help either.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

If anything, here comes the actual unpopular opinion: Sometimes devs want to make their style so "distinguishable" that it ends up looking fucking *awful*

XIII comes to mind. Easily the ugliest type of cel shading I've ever seen in a video game.

 

[Book Thief]

I will never understand people who say Genesis games sounded better than SNES games.

I'm sure there are some exceptions, but by and large Genesis games always sounded overly loud and super tinny and annoying.

To me it will forever be a /v/ meme, the Megaman X BGM alone shits over 95% of the Mega Drive's sound library.

This is from one of those debates years ago (if I saved a screencap, it's long gone, thankfully there's archives).
To this day, I still think this is the greatest description of Sega Genesis music ever.

Well, as a resident Genesis enthusiast, I guess... Unpopular Opinion: The Genesis' sound chip sounded fucking amazing.

Between the SNES and the Genesis, which one you think is "better" is down to subjective opinion, but if you ask me, it's impossible to compare the two because their hardware is so wildly different. The Genesis used a combination of FM synthesis and PSG to output its music.

The SNES on the other hand, was a sampler, which used pre-recorded snippets of sound and pitched them up or down to produce music. While the Genesis did have the ability to use samples, it did so in a very limited capacity, as its sixth FM channel could be set to a "Sample Mode" that composers generally used for drums or vocal samples, such as the "Go" vocals from Launch Base Zone. So really, comparing the Genesis to the SNES is one of those "apples to oranges" comparison, and the only reason the debate ensues to this day is because of the console wars from that particular generation.

The real problem is the Genesis' sound quality is that, as @Friendly Primarina pointed out in his post, new-coming American developers used GEMS as a crutch to avoid having to learn how to properly utilize FM synth in a competent manner. Japanese developers, on the other hand, had tons of past experience with FM synth on various different systems, and thus could use their experience to create absolute masterworks of music for the system.

So really, there's nothing wrong with the Genesis' audio quality. It just had its reputation soiled by lazy developers who couldn't compose for the fucking thing, and took a shortcut that resulted in bland slop that sounded like a fart orchestra.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

I mean, there's nothing wrong with it except 95% of the games sound like a buzzsaw ripping through sheet metal.

 

[The Feline Solution]

Between the SNES and the Genesis, which one you think is "better" is down to subjective opinion, but if you ask me, it's impossible to compare the two because their hardware is so wildly different.

I completly agree. I personally liked a lot more SNES soundtracks than MD ones but there's still tons of Mega Drive BGM i adore from games i played a lot, like the Shining Force series for example. The aforementioned tinnieness of MD sounds is the only real point of critique that i have that extends pure subjectivness, really.

Edit: Using the Thunder Force IV OST is cheating, by the way

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Well, as a resident Genesis enthusiast, I guess... Unpopular Opinion: The Genesis' sound chip sounded fucking amazing.

Between the SNES and the Genesis, which one you think is "better" is down to subjective opinion, but if you ask me, it's impossible to compare the two because their hardware is so wildly different. The Genesis used a combination of FM synthesis and PSG to output its music.

The SNES on the other hand, was a sampler, which used pre-recorded snippets of sound and pitched them up or down to produce music. While the Genesis did have the ability to use samples, it did so in a very limited capacity, as its sixth FM channel could be set to a "Sample Mode" that composers generally used for drums or vocal samples, such as the "Go" vocals from Launch Base Zone. So really, comparing the Genesis to the SNES is one of those "apples to oranges" comparison, and the only reason the debate ensues to this day is because of the console wars from that particular generation.

The real problem is the Genesis' sound quality is that, as @Friendly Primarina pointed out in his post, new-coming American developers used GEMS as a crutch to avoid having to learn how to properly utilize FM synth in a competent manner. Japanese developers, on the other hand, had tons of past experience with FM synth on various different systems, and thus could use their experience to create absolute masterworks of music for the system.

So really, there's nothing wrong with the Genesis' audio quality. It just had its reputation soiled by lazy developers who couldn't compose for the fucking thing, and took a shortcut that resulted in bland slop that sounded like a fart orchestra.

The post I quoted did admit that you could do some really cool stuff with Genesis' sound chip, but most developers never took advantage of that, so again--screaming robots.

On a related note, the 32X had enhanced audio (or at least enough CPU power to play better audio) but most games never used it, leading to the problem like the infamous Doom port for the 32X.

 

[Book Thief]

I mean, there's nothing wrong with it except 95% of the games sound like a buzzsaw ripping through sheet metal.

Then I guess I don't really see it, at least not with the examples I provided. What I provided is what FM synth sounds like. To illustrate this, here's an OST video of Eye of the Beholder on the NEC PC-9801, which uses a very similar sound chip, the YM2608:

So it might be less that you have a problem with the Genesis' audio, and more with FM synth in general.

On a related note, the 32X had enhanced audio (or at least enough CPU power to play better audio) but most games never used it, leading to the problem like the infamous Doom port for the 32X.

It really is a shame, too, because games like Virtua Racing Deluxe sounds fricken sweet, so it's definitely not a problem of the hardware:

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

You're posting examples of the best it has to offer and not what the general sound was.

Edit: But you are right, I might just not like FM synth although I think the examples you post are good.

 

[Jeff Boomhauer]

It sounds scrubby, but I prefer JRPGs that give all of your characters experience points after a battle, even if it's only half of the experience points that the characters that were actually in the battle received. This is especially good in games that cycle characters in and out of your party during various parts of the story, just in case they put you in a situation where you're stuck with characters you don't use.
There's a boss fight in Tales of Vesperia that immediately comes to mind, where you're only given Karol with no backup.

The only games that come to mind where this isn't a good thing are modern Pokémon games. These games are easy enough as is, and shared experience means you won't have any trouble whatsoever unless you're purposefully using bad Pokémon.