Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Quartermaster]

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.

I don't think I said that Demon's and Dark Souls 1 weren't or rather aren't hard games.
They were the trailblazers of a new genre so of course they would be hard since there was nothing like it before.

I meant to say that difficulty wasn't the main focus and selling point of the game and that instead of having 30 hard bosses they each got like 3-5.

Difficulty becoming the selling point of the series after Dark Souls 1 led to the games being made with ridiculously hard enemies going foward and is how we got to Elden Rings' level of nonsense.

Even a novice would be able to tell that the first real boss in Elden Ring is about as hard if not harder than Demon's Souls' hardest bosses.

I believe this is quite an objective fact, I don't think my experience with the game skews my view by that much.

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.

Felt largely the same way, there's a reason I stuck with it for 100 hours though most of those were spent in the co-op mod with friends.

I believe the biggest downfall of Elden Ring is that its Open World.
I cannot think of a single upside to having these larg open fields full of nothing as opposed to areas like say the Undead Burg from Dark Souls 1.

I'm aware the ER has some of that design but why not cut out all the literal actual filler content?

 

[The Ugly One]

I beat Dark Souls and Demon's Souls without ever knowing what an i-frame is. At least with those games, beating bosses was a simple matter of learning when the big attacks you needed block or roll to avoid were. You did not need to know a precise angle along which you'd be temporarily invincible for 3 frames.

 

[Jace on ice]

The biggest issue with Elden Ring and SOTE in particular is how heavily bosses punish healing.

The second the flask animation starts most bosses immediately do a high damage range or dash attack that either kills you outright or negates any healing you did forcing you to waste another charge.

I don't remember prior Souls games doing this or if they did it wasn't nearly this egregious or annoying.

 

[Quartermaster]

The biggest issue with Elden Ring and SOTE in particular is how heavily bosses punish healing.

The second the flask animation starts most bosses immediately do a high damage range or dash attack that either kills you outright or negates any healing you did forcing you to waste another charge.

I don't remember prior Souls games doing this or if they did it wasn't nearly this egregious or annoying.

Enemies reacting to you using an item has been in Demon's Souls too actually.

I discovered this by fighting Old King Doran, the moment I use grass he would jog toward me and do an attack.

Now I am not sure how many other enemies or bosses do this but in either case its not as agregious as in later games.

 

[Calandrino]

Double Dragon is shit and an overrated franchise.

As someone who likes beat-em-ups, I never got into double dragon. Every entry I've played was stiff, awkward, and absurdly difficult. Compared to basically any other beat em up of the era, Every Double Dragon I've played fails to hold up. It's remembered fondly just because of nostalgia. It's up there with Mechwarrior in my mind as a series that is supposedly classic, but every entry I play I don't like and is then held up as "the bad one". The NES games, the SNES games, the Mega Drive game, all of them are like this.

Kinda. Double Dragon has endured from the cultural memory of the original arcade game being so huge. It won on presentation, music, concept etc. but it was kind of a tech demo for 1) two-player simultaneous play and 2) huge levels with a continuously scrolling background (almost the whole game is one connected environment, with no breaks between levels, like a one-shot movie scene, which is kind of cool and unique even today). Both of those things were standard features a year later and pass completely unnoticed now.

Though, actually, it's absurdly easy. The elbow (block + punch) is absolutely retardedly broken. All the other moves completely suck and are useless. You can use weapons if you get bored. Thus ends my Double Dragon 1 strategy guide. Kunio-Kun/Renegade has better-balanced gameplay and it's like two years older. And those are 80s video game years, not your modern day years where fuck all changes for a decade at a time.

The NES games are indeed stiff, awkward, and not absurdly easy, but I think they're pretty fun. However, the actual good DD is Double Dragon Advance. If you don't like that, you can give up.

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.

Ninja Gaiden (xbox) did have an iframe roll. There are games with iframe dodges going back to the 90s at least. Though tbh I generally dislike them in 2D games and I blame Souls influence for so many indies having them now.

 

[Scout Droid]

All isn't lost. Retards just need to stop fucking banning everyone who actually shows up to work on their games.
Most of the decline in game quality is due to petty status quo shows more than anything else.

 

[Justin Igger]

Enemies reacting to you using an item has been in Demon's Souls too actually.

I discovered this by fighting Old King Doran, the moment I use grass he would jog toward me and do an attack.

Now I am not sure how many other enemies or bosses do this but in either case its not as agregious as in later games.

In Elden Ring those giant ogre archers can blind-shoot you from around the corner so you emerge the second the arrow crosses your path. Enemies react to your button presses INSTANTLY instead of when they “observe” you moving.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Every Metal Gear after the third one feels a patchwork of good "scenes" with no real connection between them.

It’s like The Godfather Part III. You’ve got all these familiar faces, but they’re completely out of their depth, playing roles that don’t fit them at all.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

Every Metal Gear after the third one feels a patchwork of good "scenes" with no real connection between them.

It’s like The Godfather Part III. You’ve got all these familiar faces, but they’re completely out of their depth, playing roles that don’t fit them at all.

It's pretty funny watching the first act of the game. You have the incredibly detailed battle scenes that were presumably overseen by Konami's military advisor for maximum believability. Then the characters start talking, and this part was overseen by Kojima, so a guy shits himself and the squad leader throws a tantrum in front of the entire unit and punches a wall.

The contrast between the rebel skirmish scenes and the talking scenes is striking, is what I'm saying.

 

[Cardinal Cardinal]

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.

Agree with wonder, hard disagree on odyssey.
Wonder was just way too easy and getting collectibles was more of a chore than fun.
If there were several levels similar to the last secret stage I'd like it more.
It's more fun to look at the visuals than actually play.

 

[Justin Igger]

Agree with wonder, hard disagree on odyssey.
Wonder was just way too easy and getting collectibles was more of a chore than fun.
If there were several levels similar to the last secret stage I'd like it more.
It's more fun to look at the visuals than actually play.

That’s funny, your description of Wonder is exactly my description of Odyssey. But I also agree on Wonder. It seemed like it had half the content of an average 2D mario but the music was quite nice

 

[LifeAlert]

Super Mario Wonder was overrated, but not nearly as overrated as the most overrated game ever, Odyssey.

Odyssey felt like such a barren, empty shell of a game. You just run around and find the moons. There is zero replayability because the only rewards are costumes and a sound test. Not new gameplay modes, not challenge modes, nothing. The co-op was a joke, who the fuck wants to play as the hat? Player 2 should've been Luigi. niggertendo has always dropped the ball for co-op in Mario games (except NSMB Wii)

On a positive note, it was nice that we got different environments and worlds. The dragon boss was pretty cool, New Donk City was cool. The snow level was neat. The Luigi balloon mode was pretty fun until niggertendo paywalled online

 

[Justin Igger]

Odyssey felt like such a barren, empty shell of a game. You just run around and find the moons. There is zero replayability because the only rewards are costumes and a sound test. Not new gameplay modes, not challenge modes, nothing. The co-op was a joke, who the fuck wants to play as the hat? Player 2 should've been Luigi. niggertendo has always dropped the ball for co-op in Mario games (except NSMB Wii)

On a positive note, it was nice that we got different environments and worlds. The dragon boss was pretty cool, New Donk City was cool. The snow level was neat. The Luigi balloon mode was pretty fun until niggertendo paywalled online

The levels are just big square rooms. It’s like a sandbox but you can’t even call it that because there’s no interactivity, no systems, nothing! Just some moons carelessly strewn about. Oh look, it’s a conspicuous bush. What might be behind it? A moon! 5 second celebration animation. That’s the whole game. I didn’t even finish it, I got to the moon area where you have to fight the same rabbit niggers but this time you’re in low gravity but they are still able to move at normal speed because fuck you, and I just gave up.

 

[LifeAlert]

I got to the moon area where you have to fight the same rabbit niggers but this time you’re in low gravity but they are still able to move at normal speed because fuck you, and I just gave up.

I got fed up with the rabbits too, same fucking recycled boss fights over and over again. Mario 64 had good boss variety. The original NSMB had the best bosses in the series IMO because except for Bowser they were all new and each fight was different. The rabbits are just the new koopalings. Total laziness

 

[Scarthew]

The biggest issue with Elden Ring and SOTE in particular is how heavily bosses punish healing.

The biggest problem is the game doesn't let you heal for free?

I don't remember prior Souls games doing this or if they did it wasn't nearly this egregious or annoying.

They've all done it since DS2. If you flask when an enemy is idle they will immediately perform a gap closer. It was in DS3 and bloodborne too.

 

[Brain Power]

REEEEEEEEEEE

Wow you really convinced me with that argument! Now I'm interested even less!

Why are soulsfags like this?

 

[Norstein Bekkler]

Skimming the thread while eating, but from the Souls communities I lurk, there is a large overlap between the people that complain about newer Soulslikes and Guts LARPers who are allergic to playing anything but Greatswords, and treat Souls games as some kind of definitive test of their manhood rather than an action RPG series that rewards trying different things when your build isn't doing well in a particular fight.

 

[LifeAlert]

Why are soulsfags like this?

Because my post was correct. Soulsfags are retards. Simple as

 

[Jace on ice]

The biggest problem is the game doesn't let you heal for free?

Oh look guy who doesn't think you should be allowed to criticize Fromsoft games in any way #10,000,000,000,000.

Do they make you niggers in a factory or something?

 

[Scarthew]

Oh look guy who doesn't think you should be allowed to criticize Fromsoft games in any way #10,000,000,000,000.

Do they make you niggers in a factory or something?

No I just think your criticism is ridiculous, healing right in front of an enemy and expecting no consequences when the heal deliberately leaves you open is your fault especially when it's consistent.

But also your statement that "I dont think any other game has done this in the series" is absurd when all but two of them do. Which just tells me you're another person who just likes to bitch and moan but doesn't actually play these games or have a memory.