Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Matt Damon]

I wish the anti-mouse-and-keyboard-ists would shut up and mind their own business

This is an Internet forum and, in fact, an "unpopular opinions" thread.

Saying "I WISH EVERYBODY WHO DISAGREES WITH ME WOULD JUST SHUT UP AND MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS" is kinda antithetical to the spirit of the whole thing.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

This is an Internet forum and, in fact, an "unpopular opinions" thread.

Saying "I WISH EVERYBODY WHO DISAGREES WITH ME WOULD JUST SHUT UP AND MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS" is kinda antithetical to the spirit of the whole thing.

Yeah, that's why I voiced an unpopular opinion
It's similar to this whole "easy mode" shebang
If someone wants to have an easy mode in a game, and you don't want to play on easy, it's absolutely okay

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Easy mode is good, just like Hard mode. They shouldn't exist if they'll take too much time and resources from the standard game, but if they can fit it in their plans then they should both always exist.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Easy mode is good, just like Hard mode. They shouldn't exist if they'll take too much time and resources from the standard game, but if they can fit it in their plans then they should both always exist.

Difficulty settings are the wheel of game design; it ain't broke, so don't fix it. They can certainly be tweaked beyond raw stats like more advanced AI tactics. It's why I don't like Ni-oh (and probably Dark Souls), they got rid of easy and normal for hard only and it's considered revolutionary game design.

 

[Jaimas]

Easy mode is good, just like Hard mode. They shouldn't exist if they'll take too much time and resources from the standard game, but if they can fit it in their plans then they should both always exist.

I actually agree, for the most part. There's right and wrong ways to do it though.

A good way would be Etrian Odyssey with its difficulty settings in the newer titles (even the remasters).
A bad way is shit like blatant invulnerability or "skip this whole thing" options (as Extreme Meatpunks Forever did).

 

[Matt Damon]

I actually agree, for the most part. There's right and wrong ways to do it though.

A good way would be Etrian Odyssey with its difficulty settings in the newer titles (even the remasters).
A bad way is shit like blatant invulnerability or "skip this whole thing" options (as Extreme Meatpunks Forever did).

But this is precisely where it starts to become a problem. I don't mind if From Soft shits out an across the board 1/2 damage multiplier baby mode for Dark Souls or whatever, but I do mind when the people who wanted baby mode ALSO start demanding it be as tweaked and fine-tuned as the core difficult experience that was intended. Now suddenly development time and effort are being drawn away from that core experience to accommodate making baby mode better.

It's never enough.

they got rid of easy and normal for hard only and it's considered revolutionary game design.

I'd argue that that WAS revolutionary in an era of constantly making games easier and simpler to try to maximize mass appeal. It's not about proving your LE EPIC H4RDC0R3 gamer bona fides, it's about making niche experiences that won't appeal to everybody but will really, really appeal to some people.

 

[Jaimas]

But this is precisely where it starts to become a problem. I don't mind if From Soft shits out an across the board 1/2 damage multiplier baby mode for Dark Souls or whatever, but I do mind when the people who wanted baby mode ALSO start demanding it be as tweaked and fine-tuned as the core difficult experience that was intended. Now suddenly development time and effort are being drawn away from that core experience to accommodate making baby mode better.

It's never enough.

That's the biggest issue. When you can do a setting that guts the core of the game experience, you also effectively cheapen the experience as a whole.

Some games only function with a bit of system mastery. That's completely removed if you do it the wrong way.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

That's the biggest issue. When you can do a setting that guts the core of the game experience, you also effectively cheapen the experience as a whole.

Some games only function with a bit of system mastery. That's completely removed if you do it the wrong way.

I hear that a lot, that if you're not being one-shotted that somehow certain games falls apart, but I've always seen that as an rather inadvertently scathing review of a game's quality. That's the lynchpin holding everything together? The story and characters sucks, the gameplay crumbles without that, the graphics and music can't salvage it?

That's a pretty big red flag. That's why the Fromsoft games never really clicked with me, nothing was really compelling enough to make me want to endure its difficulty. They'd be entirely unremarkable if they didn't kick your ass.

 

[Matt Damon]

That's the lynchpin holding everything together? The story and characters sucks, the gameplay crumbles without that, the graphics and music can't salvage it?

Well... yes. The specifics of gameplay are typically the lynchpin that holds together a video game. Without that, it's just a bunch of audiovisual fluff. I don't see anything about that that's unique to Fromsoft games.

That's why the Fromsoft games never really clicked with me, nothing was really compelling enough to make me want to endure its difficulty. They'd be entirely unremarkable if they didn't kick your ass.

I suspect you'd change your mind if you sat down and resolved to play one, particularly the first Dark Souls with its consistent, interconnected world. There's something very compelling about a game that throws you up against absurd giant bosses armed only with the mechanics you learned in the tutorial and never cheats by resorting to quick-time events or other gameplay gimmicks. There's no sleight of hand and what you see is precisely what you get. It can be infuriating, but the game does its damnedest to play "fair" throughout.

It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it for himself, but there is something really worthwhile there. Difficulty is vital to the experience, but it's not just a masochistic novelty like, say, I Wanna Be The Guy or something.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Well... yes. The specifics of gameplay are typically the lynchpin that holds together a video game. Without that, it's just a bunch of audiovisual fluff. I don't see anything about that that's unique to Fromsoft games.

But typically difficulty isn't what holds a game together. I know some people don't like easy games, but they can be fun and don't collapse in on themselves in absence of serious challenge.

Yoshi's Wooly World is a fairly easy game but it's well liked, for example. It's just a pleasant playthrough.

I suspect you'd change your mind if you sat down and resolved to play one, particularly the first Dark Souls with its consistent, interconnected world. There's something very compelling about a game that throws you up against absurd giant bosses armed only with the mechanics you learned in the tutorial and never cheats by resorting to quick-time events or other gameplay gimmicks. There's no sleight of hand and what you see is precisely what you get. It can be infuriating, but the game does its damnedest to play "fair" throughout.

It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it for himself, but there is something really worthwhile there. Difficulty is vital to the experience, but it's not just a masochistic novelty like, say, I Wanna Be The Guy or something.

I did give Demon Souls a fair shot way back, though I hear it's not the best Souls game. It wasn't bad, but it was very dull, like unremarkable, which can be worse than being plain bad.

I think I know what you're trying to communicate, I like Ninja Gaiden Sigma which sort of reminds me of Souls in terms of difficulty (though the gameplay is different enough of course, NG is not a slow, deliberate kind of game). I didn't beat it but I got pretty far, there's something to the idea of mastering a difficult game. But NG is a lot cooler, I mean you're a damn ninja and the story is epic despite being generic, and the music is incredible, the action is visually appealing, level design is actually interesting. It makes you want to play.

Souls threatens to make me nod off, that's the real challenge.

 

[Matt Damon]

I mean you're a damn ninja and the story is epic despite being generic

I think Dark Souls' story is good, in a cryptic creation myth kind of way. It's about the long history of a inevitably dying world, rather than interpersonal drama or an epic quest to save humanity or anything like that.

level design is actually interesting.

This may actually be Dark Souls' biggest strength and the biggest letdown about the rest of the series. There are a ton of instances where you're going deeper and deeper and deeper into danger and uncharted territory and then you slide down a ladder or open a closed door and realize "OH SHIT, I'M BACK HERE!"



It's really, really well done and it's a shame the rest of the games didn't attempt that kind of interconnected coherence and primarily used warp zones to discrete levels.

 

[Thiletonomics]

I never liked how the old Gran Turismo games counted individual trims of the same model of car, as being it's own car, which also serves to bloat the car count. As an example, here's a list of Mazda MX-5s in GT3:



And while other racing games are also guilty of doing this to a certain extent, i.e. the Forza Edition cars in the Forza games, and The Crew 2 with examples such as the Magma Edition Bugatti Divo, they never got to the levels of sheer car cloning that GT did with the early games. At least that isn't as much of a thing in the newer GT games, since it takes Polyphony Digital 9 months to create a new car from scratch.

 

[George Floyd Sneed]

I never liked how the old Gran Turismo games counted individual trims of the same model of car,

It was just so they could say that they have 700 cars in this game and hoped people would assume 700 different types of cars, not 20 variants of 35 cars.

Gran Turismo is tedious for me. I don’t like racing seven times just to get a new set of tires. The padding in this series is completely ridiculous.

 

[skykiii]

It's like you're making a concerted effort to miss the point.

What "point?" Someone said Japanese devs were PC averse. I pointed out that they do in fact have a long history of PC game development--not just doujin devs like Zun, but even big names like Falcom, Hudson Soft, and Konami made PC games.

Heck the PC-98 alone had over a thousand games. Granted, some of those are ports/localizations of games by western devs, but the majority are clearly by Jaoanese. I assume you'd find similar long lists for other PC platforms (probably even the same list since, much like the European microcomputer market, Japanese PC games tended to get released on every conceivable platform).

 

[The Ugly One]

Dark Souls would play just fine if enemies took a couple extra hits to kill you. What people whining about easy mode are crying about is they want it to be easy, but still give them the same satisfaction you get from beating a hard game, which is impossible.

 

[Rick The Stick]

Dark Souls would play just fine if enemies took a couple extra hits to kill you. What people whining about easy mode are crying about is they want it to be easy, but still give them the same satisfaction you get from beating a hard game, which is impossible.

So basically they should just level health more and wear better armor/upgrade their armor.

Spoiler: In other words

GIT GUD

 

[Raging Capybara]

This idea that the Dark Souls map is all great and interconnected is the biggest lie ever told in gaming.

Only the early areas are connected, all the shitty, terrible late-game maps are entirely isolated from each world.

Dark Soul 1 is trash garbage.

 

[Pissmaster]

-I honestly never understood why people were attracted to Lara Croft. I know she's got boobs, but even in my teens the idea of being attracted to her felt like being attracted to my mom or my English teacher--IE, rather gross.

I honestly think it was just all the advertising hyping the game and making it seem a lot more popular than it actually was. Tomb Raider games just weren't very fun to play.

Of course, I didn't realize just how few people who like video games actually play them until Twitch came along. Like the concept that a person can be a fan of a game with no desire to ever even try to play it just breaks my brain, but it's super prevalent now. Like come on, a great game is the greatest fuckin' thing in the world. Everyone can play Mario 3 and everyone should play Mario 3. It is free and runs on fuckin' anything. At least try to give it a chance.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

I honestly think it was just all the advertising hyping the game and making it seem a lot more popular than it actually was. Tomb Raider games just weren't very fun to play.

I didn't play more than just demos back in the day, but returning to Tomb Raider just a few years ago, it is...unplayable. The controls haven't aged well in the least, even by 5th gen standards. Everything else seems pretty solid though from what very little I played (it has a good atmosphere). A remaster might be able to salvage it.

Of course, I didn't realize just how few people who like video games actually play them until Twitch came along. Like the concept that a person can be a fan of a game with no desire to ever even try to play it just breaks my brain, but it's super prevalent now. Like come on, a great game is the greatest fuckin' thing in the world. Everyone can play Mario 3 and everyone should play Mario 3. It is free and runs on fuckin' anything. At least try to give it a chance.

Yeah, not even trying to play a game you're a "fan" of is dumb. There are games I like but don't play after at least trying it, so I do understand that. I really gave Jet Set Radio a shot, but I was way too bad at it. I expected it to play like Tony Hawk but it's the ckunkiest shit ever and I don't think I made it past the tutorial.

It has a cool style and music, so I like it, but I guess I can't really call myself a fan.

 

[Matt Damon]

Of course, I didn't realize just how few people who like video games actually play them until Twitch came along. Like the concept that a person can be a fan of a game with no desire to ever even try to play it just breaks my brain, but it's super prevalent now.

Are you saying people claim to be fans of a game when they've only ever watched somebody play it on Twitch? How bizarre.