Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

The appeal is an immersive world where actions actually matter and thus you're actually rewarded for paying attention and thinking. So many games undermine their own design and mechanics because they don't want to actually provide adversity.
In my opinion, newer games, specifically Elden Ring and most soulslikes (Lies of P is very guilty of this, despite how much I enjoy it) that came out afterwards, completely backtrack on this design philosophy by giving enemies completely unnatural movement that's designed to punish the player. They do the opposite of what you're saying, they undermine the "hard but fair" design just to screw with the player and give themselves asspats for making a "challenging game."

Long wind-ups with instant snappy movement (or just split-second unreactable stuff in general), enemies being able to extend their combos whenever they feel like it, the camera somehow getting worse with each game and finally attacks where you need to look up a fucking guide just to avoid them (Hello Waterfowl Dance).

I'm saying this as someone who enjoys this genre: It's getting tiresome. When combat feels like a chore in an action game, you know the developers have huffed their own farts too much.
 
Persona 3 had this really unsettling creepy vibe throughout and was so dark at certain points it was almost a horror game.

Person 4 had a little bit of this but it was massively toned down and Persona 5 has almost none of it.

I was really disappointed when they decided to drop the dark atmosphere almost entirely, I get that they want the normie audience but the older games had this unique style and atmosphere that really set them apart from other RPGs.
 
Persona 3 had this really unsettling creepy vibe throughout and was so dark at certain points it was almost a horror game.

Person 4 had a little bit of this but it was massively toned down and Persona 5 has almost none of it.

I was really disappointed when they decided to drop the dark atmosphere almost entirely, I get that they want the normie audience but the older games had this unique style and atmosphere that really set them apart from other RPGs.
I’ve got to say, I feel a little cheated. Persona 3 and 4 were actually decent—they didn’t treat their audience like they were kids. But maybe that’s just me getting older. Persona’s always been emo, and now with Persona 5 stretching over 150 hours, this game is clearly for weebs with too much time on their hands. It's not for anyone who’s got a life.
 
I’ve got to say, I feel a little cheated. Persona 3 and 4 were actually decent—they didn’t treat their audience like they were kids. But maybe that’s just me getting older. Persona’s always been emo, and now with Persona 5 stretching over 150 hours, this game is clearly for weebs with too much time on their hands. It's not for anyone who’s got a life.
I would like to play Royale for the new content but I already played base P5 and Royale is allegedly between 120 and 150 hours long.

My wagie ass cannot justify spending that much time on something I already beat.
 
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"i don't get souls games"
"HAVE YOU TRIED PLAYING MORE SOULS GAMES? MAYBE THEN YOU'LL LIKE THEM! HOW DARE YOU SAYING THAT!"
For every other genre it's fine not to enjoy it, say you don't like fighting games or RTSs and no worries, it's not for everyone. Soulslike are the one genre where fans can't comprehend that it's not universally appealing.
 
I'm playing Super Mario 3d Land, New Super Mario games and Wonder and again because they're unrememberable Super Mairo games. I played Wonder a year and half ago when I was sick. Forgot everything about it.
 
In my opinion, newer games, specifically Elden Ring and most soulslikes (Lies of P is very guilty of this, despite how much I enjoy it) that came out afterwards, completely backtrack on this design philosophy by giving enemies completely unnatural movement that's designed to punish the player. They do the opposite of what you're saying, they undermine the "hard but fair" design just to screw with the player and give themselves asspats for making a "challenging game."

Long wind-ups with instant snappy movement (or just split-second unreactable stuff in general), enemies being able to extend their combos whenever they feel like it, the camera somehow getting worse with each game and finally attacks where you need to look up a fucking guide just to avoid them (Hello Waterfowl Dance).

I'm saying this as someone who enjoys this genre: It's getting tiresome. When combat feels like a chore in an action game, you know the developers have huffed their own farts too much.
As someone who's been with the Souls series since Demon's Souls first released in 2009 I wholeheartedly agree with this.
I personally blame Namco for pushing the difficulty in the marketing so much once Dark Souls released, prepare to die anyone?

Demon's Souls and to a lesser extent Dark Souls 1 were never about how difficult the bosses were.
They each had only a few fights that could be considered difficult by modern souls standards those being Maneaters and False King Allant for Demon's Souls and Ornstein and Smough, Gwyn and the DLC bosses for Dark Souls 1.

Dark Souls 2 wasn't overly difficult either but once Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne came around, that's when the series started being about huge bosses that don't care about your hits while they have infinite stamina, misleading animations that punish reacting on well...reaction... and ridiculous minutelong combos.
It just became about killing the players until he downloaded the bosses moveset and can tell that when the bosses left asscheek twitched he needs to delay his roll a bit.

And now Elden Ring came about and I, after 100 hours of play still can't be assed to beat it. Combat is not fun, the jump sucks as an evasive tool and bosses just have so much health and every boss has these shitty animations that punish you for rolling on reaction...it's tiring just like you said.
Add to that a shitty, empty open world that wastes your time with copypaste dungeons and you just completely lose me.
 
It just became about killing the players until he downloaded the bosses moveset and can tell that when the bosses left asscheek twitched he needs to delay his roll a bit.
As a non-fan, I would argue the same point but from DS1 (haven't played Demon's). Hack-n-slash like God of War were the closest in style (not substance) at the time Demon's came out, but in reality, fighting games are the closest in term of substance. Besides fighting games fan, no one had heard of i-frames and didn't trust animations. In a regular hack-n-slash, if the boss does a big animation with a huge weapon you know to evade out, only in fighting games and soulsgame do you roll towards because there's a few i-frames where you're safe in some specific angle or position. The difficulty of soulsgames comes from bringing a concept of one genre and applying it to another where it was entirely unexpected.
By your own admission, only modern soulsgames (i.e. gamers familiar with that mechanic/genre) would consider those bosses hard, therefore it was hard to newcomers back then or non-fans now.

That being said, yes the marketing team leaned on it, but it's a rewrite of history to pretend like Soulslike were never hard.
 
While we're on the topic of Persona I have an unpopular one for you: I enjoyed Persona 1
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Souls-bros are irritating, but what really cheeses me off are the effects Souls-games had on gaming as a whole. Now every fucking game's difficulty is either fluffy kittens in the park mode or instagib-prepare-to-die-super-rapedeath mode. The middle-difficulty game is completely fucking gone. I just want a reasonably challenging game I don't need seven visits to the wiki to traverse bros.
 
And now Elden Ring came about and I, after 100 hours of play still can't be assed to beat it. Combat is not fun, the jump sucks as an evasive tool and bosses just have so much health and every boss has these shitty animations that punish you for rolling on reaction...it's tiring just like you said.
Add to that a shitty, empty open world that wastes your time with copypaste dungeons and you just completely lose me.
Only recently played the Souls series within the last year or so after avoiding it for so long. Played DS 1-3 (and enjoyed them) and Elden Ring up to the point where I decided to quit.

Elden Ring definitely has some high points for me, but as times went on, I was just getting frustrated at how not-fun damn near all of the boss fights were. Most of them were either boring and forgettable, or they were so frustrating that I didn't even feel a sense of accomplishment after finally beating them. Just more frustration that I had to go through it to begin with. After over 60 hours in the game, I could probably name on one hand the bosses that I did find fun, and if I was to make a list of my favorite bosses in the games I have played (DS 1-3 and Elden Ring), a boss from ER may show up in the top 25.

After over 60 hours, I gave up. Just wasn't having fun. I won't say it's a bad game, but it's definitely not for me.
 
Super Mario Wonder was overrated, but not nearly as overrated as the most overrated game ever, Odyssey. To this day 8 years later everybody online is collectively hallucinating that it was actually good, that it wasn’t the worst 3D Mario in history. It’s so insane that it feels like something else has to be going on. People don’t even shill for BOTW this hard. Oddly-shit was so obviously rushed and had levels which were straight up left unfinished, like the stupid purple food kingdom. The way hub worlds in older 3D Marios were just barebones areas you run around in, occasionally finding secrets but mainly existing as a means to get to actual levels? That’s what the levels in Mario Oddyshit are unironically. They’re just static areas you collect moons in, with no challenge at all.
 
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