What Are Your Unpopular Gaming Opinions? (Ver. 2)

[Rizen]

I started playing Horizon Forbidden West again. The first thing that crossed my mind was "god damn that game is gorgeous!" It makes Elden Ring look like crud and Elden Ring is not a bad looking game. I tend to put more value into graphics than other people and PS5 games accomplish a lot of things graphically that switch games could only dream of. Take the new astrobot game for example. The surfaces vibrate, flowers and leaves bend under your weight and vines sway in the wind. The whole game is full of eye candy.

 

[Quillion]

I started playing Horizon Forbidden West again. The first thing that crossed my mind was "god damn that game is gorgeous!" It makes Elden Ring look like crud and Elden Ring is not a bad looking game.

Elden Rings recycles a lot from the previous Soulsborne games, that's why. They probably couldn't update some of the models or animations as well as they could've.

I tend to put more value into graphics than other people and PS5 games accomplish a lot of things graphically that switch games could only dream of.

You know what? That's perfectly fine. Gameplay-first people (like Nintendo fans often are) are a bunch of pretentious hipsters with no sense of anything beyond sterile, mechanical "functions". They need to be called out more for that.

That said, I am still hoping PS5 and XSX devs will learn to dedicate the power towards nicer animations with the detailed stylings instead of making the already detailed stylings even more detailed.

 

[Lenidem]

You know what? That's perfectly fine. Gameplay-first people (like Nintendo fans often are) are a bunch of pretentious hipsters with no sense of anything beyond sterile, mechanical "functions". They need to be called out more for that.

Dude, you need to calm down with the disdain and the childish mentality of "all the people who think this are nothing but blablabla".

 

[Champion of Hyrule]

You know what? That's perfectly fine. Gameplay-first people (like Nintendo fans often are) are a bunch of pretentious hipsters with no sense of anything beyond sterile, mechanical "functions". They need to be called out more for that.

“I like gameplay more than graphics” is about the opposite of a pretentious opinion. Maybe I could understand what you’re saying if your post was about people who don’t care about visuals at all (I would still heavily disagree tho) but saying that applies to people who prefer gameplay first is a really weird thing to be so aggressive about.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

The problem with Sony and Microsoft is that far more than Nintendo they're caught far more with the graphic/engine quagmire of constant upgrades/refinement and the spiraling budgets as well as long development times reflect that.

Cutting edge graphics were always something that was chased within gaming, however when the hobby broke out into the mainstream with the sixth generation and then went HD with seventh, what had been a pricy but still practical aim of graphical improvement went into overdrive in a big way. That shift necessitated not only a general budget increase for individual titles but also strong investment in gaming engines and hardware in general which ended up creating a bit of a problem.

The term arms race has often been utilized to describe the technological competition between Playstation and Xbox. It's a relevant term because like its namesake, it only was driven by a desire to outdo the other entity, the sheer money and resources poured into it also meant that the subsequent technologies had to be utilized as much as possible to justify its overall cost. This has often meant style and occasional even performance were de-prioritized in favor of graphical sheen. Frames Per Second took a backseat to polygon count and with realism being the easiest aesthetic to demonstrate visual power, it became a go to technique to show off what new hardware could do.

All this was exacerbated by PC gaming becoming more intuitive and often stronger than consoles, thus even more effort was needed to make an Xbox Series console impressive or a Playstation system graphically worthwhile enough to buy. "Get there fastest with the mostest" still feels like a major technological philosophy with both companies despite the lack of long-term sustainability with such an approach, specifically the lack of risks one can take with such expensive hardware.

Nintendo obviously has subscribed far less to this idea, even going all the way back to the Game Boy being a less graphically impressive portable system that nonetheless still defeated its competition due to affordability and practical power performance. The Gamecube was the last significant attempt to compete graphically with the marketplace (even with the caveat of the more limited space of its discs) and the resulting third place finish conveyed to Nintendo that such efforts were ultimately a financial waste. Legacy of major IP's new ways of play and am emphasis on style to compensate for a lack of power have been their approach ever since and more often than not, it's worked.

That's not to say no Nintendo fans care about graphics or that there isn't a decent contingent of players that wished the company emphasized powerful hardware more, but a large portion of them have accepted that getting the Nintendo experience comes at the cost of inferior tech in comparison to the rest of the market. While there's nothing that can really justify the FPS hiccups in something like Xenoblade or the unimpressive attempts by TPC to make use of the Switch's specs for mainline Pokémon, most look at things like BotW, Smash, Mario Odyssey, or Mario Kart and conclude that's enough for them.

And at the end of the day, these are just useful generalities; fans of all the big four are much more nuanced than the online mudslinging would suggest.

 

[Quillion]

Dude, you need to calm down with the disdain and the childish mentality of "all the people who think this are nothing but blablabla".

“I like gameplay more than graphics” is about the opposite of a pretentious opinion. Maybe I could understand what you’re saying if your post was about people who don’t care about visuals at all (I would still heavily disagree tho) but saying that applies to people who prefer gameplay first is a really weird thing to be so aggressive about.

I admit I made that point in an overly inflammatory way.

But I still stand by the point in itself. "Gameplay-first" can be every bit as narrow-minded and reductive as "graphics-first" when both are taken to extremes.

 

[Rizen]

The problem with Sony and Microsoft is that far more than Nintendo they're caught far more with the graphic/engine quagmire of constant upgrades/refinement and the spiraling budgets as well as long development times reflect that.

Cutting edge graphics were always something that was chased within gaming, however when the hobby broke out into the mainstream with the sixth generation and then went HD with seventh, what had been a pricy but still practical aim of graphical improvement went into overdrive in a big way. That shift necessitated not only a general budget increase for individual titles but also strong investment in gaming engines and hardware in general which ended up creating a bit of a problem.

The term arms race has often been utilized to describe the technological competition between Playstation and Xbox. It's a relevant term because like its namesake, it only was driven by a desire to outdo the other entity, the sheer money and resources poured into it also meant that the subsequent technologies had to be utilized as much as possible to justify its overall cost. This has often meant style and occasional even performance were de-prioritized in favor of graphical sheen. Frames Per Second took a backseat to polygon count and with realism being the easiest aesthetic to demonstrate visual power, it became a go to technique to show off what new hardware could do.

All this was exacerbated by PC gaming becoming more intuitive and often stronger than consoles, thus even more effort was needed to make an Xbox Series console impressive or a Playstation system graphically worthwhile enough to buy. "Get there fastest with the mostest" still feels like a major technological philosophy with both companies despite the lack of long-term sustainability with such an approach, specifically the lack of risks one can take with such expensive hardware.

Nintendo obviously has subscribed far less to this idea, even going all the way back to the Game Boy being a less graphically impressive portable system that nonetheless still defeated its competition due to affordability and practical power performance. The Gamecube was the last significant attempt to compete graphically with the marketplace (even with the caveat of the more limited space of its discs) and the resulting third place finish conveyed to Nintendo that such efforts were ultimately a financial waste. Legacy of major IP's new ways of play and am emphasis on style to compensate for a lack of power have been their approach ever since and more often than not, it's worked.

That's not to say no Nintendo fans care about graphics or that there isn't a decent contingent of players that wished the company emphasized powerful hardware more, but a large portion of them have accepted that getting the Nintendo experience comes at the cost of inferior tech in comparison to the rest of the market. While there's nothing that can really justify the FPS hiccups in something like Xenoblade or the unimpressive attempts by TPC to make use of the Switch's specs for mainline Pokémon, most look at things like BotW, Smash, Mario Odyssey, or Mario Kart and conclude that's enough for them.

And at the end of the day, these are just useful generalities; fans of all the big four are much more nuanced than the online mudslinging would suggest.

I think Nintendo made a lot of calls this generation that the majority of gamers like but I personally don't care for. Going for a lower price for their console during the pandemic was a good move. A lot of people value the handheld features of the switch but, being someone who lives alone, I never use it and prefer to play on a big screen where graphics matter more. Furthermore, Nintendo is the best company for children gamers but I'm an adult. I care more about challenging games with good stories and graphics where Nintendo makes family friendly games that focus on fun gameplay most of all.

I will also say, although I do think people should be more critical of Nintendo, they've been on the right track in recent games. Mario Odyssey and Wonder being much more creative and quirky were good decisions as was releasing Paper Mario TTYD as a remake. To me Origami King was a huge middle finger to classic Paper Mario fans so it's nice to know there's hope for the series returning to its roots. They still have some areas to improve in, like overusing the same tired villains and story lines in regards to Bowser, Bowser Jr and Ganon. The boss fights in Mario Wonder were generally considered to be its weakest areas. IMO it's high time Nintendo thought up some creative new villains. One of the reasons Majora's Mask was such an amazing game was because it didn't have Ganon. But for the most part Nintendo's doing well.

 

[Quillion]

They still have some areas to improve in, like overusing the same tired villains and story lines in regards to Bowser, Bowser Jr and Ganon.

Why should they stop? You might as well ask those franchises to stop having Mario and Link as heroes and them to just be full-on Final Fantasy with nothing but recurring abilities and some recurring "cute races".

Should Assassin's Creed's villains never be Templars? I'd think a hyper-anarchist splinter faction of the Assassins would be a better villain.

 

[Janx_uwu]

I admit I made that point in an overly inflammatory way.

But I still stand by the point in itself. "Gameplay-first" can be every bit as narrow-minded and reductive as "graphics-first" when both are taken to extremes.

I am curious, do you have examples of people taking "gameplay-first" to extremes?

 

[Quillion]

I am curious, do you have examples of people taking "gameplay-first" to extremes?

It'd probably take some time to search, but so would examples of people taking "graphics-first" to extremes.

 

[Champion of Hyrule]

The game awards category for games for impact is such a joke. It's genuinely shocking and offensive they're still making "societal impact" into a competitve awards category and people are mostly okay with it. It's implicitly saying "oh sorry your game about the impacts of the iranian revolution just barely loses out to this game about cancer because it has more societal benefit." for example.

There's also the discussion about how basically just indie games get nominated, which suggests AAA games aren't able to have positive societal implications or be about politics at all.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

It's also silly to try and measure societal impact that soon anyway. Often times it takes years to truly appreciate how critical a piece of media has been politically or sociologically, games included.

 

[Rizen]

I started replaying Horizon Forbidden West again and renew my conviction: it's the best game ever made bar none and it should have gotten game of the year instead of Elden Ring.

 

[Ze Diglett]

The word "deluxe" has become the gaming equivalent of packing peanuts. It doesn't mean anything, it has no bearing on the product itself, it is quite literally just there to take up space. It's become an even more vacuous marketing buzzword than blast processing was. At this point, it might as well just be corporate speak for "please pay 60 bucks for the same game again" or "we expect you to pay extra for stuff that should be in the game already."

 

[AlRex]

Why should they stop? You might as well ask those franchises to stop having Mario and Link as heroes and them to just be full-on Final Fantasy with nothing but recurring abilities and some recurring "cute races".

Should Assassin's Creed's villains never be Templars? I'd think a hyper-anarchist splinter faction of the Assassins would be a better villain.

It’s not that they should never use them, but Bowser always kind of has the same plot/goal in mind, and the series did used to introduce other villains semi-frequently (Wart, Tatanga, Wario even, and there’s more villains in the RPGs). Zelda series itself has villains aside from Ganon/dorf as well, though usually still somewhat in relation to him. It’s not a “never” thing, it’s more a “shouldn’t always be” thing. Batman shouldn’t just fight the Joker, the Doctor shouldn’t just fight the Daleks, so on and so forth.

 

[Quillion]

It's become an even more vacuous marketing buzzword than blast processing was.

Hey, at least blast processing was a nice enough indicator of the Genesis's raw processor speed (at the time). Yes, I know it originally referred to something more complicated, but still.

It’s not that they should never use them, but Bowser always kind of has the same plot/goal in mind, and the series did used to introduce other villains semi-frequently (Wart, Tatanga, Wario even, and there’s more villains in the RPGs). Zelda series itself has villains aside from Ganon/dorf as well, though usually still somewhat in relation to him. It’s not a “never” thing, it’s more a “shouldn’t always be” thing. Batman shouldn’t just fight the Joker, the Doctor shouldn’t just fight the Daleks, so on and so forth.

But if the "new villain" also has the usual "conquer the world" goal, what's the point?

Honestly, I think there's more room to explore a personal enmity between the hero and the villain's top minion a la Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Even Xenoblade 3 did that with Noah and Consul N despite Moebius Z being the "main villain" technically.

 

[fogbadge]

Hey, at least blast processing was a nice enough indicator of the Genesis's raw processor speed (at the time). Yes, I know it originally referred to something more complicated, but still.



But if the "new villain" also has the usual "conquer the world" goal, what's the point?

Honestly, I think there's more room to explore a personal enmity between the hero and the villain's top minion a la Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Even Xenoblade 3 did that with Noah and Consul N despite Moebius Z being the "main villain" technically.

replace one trope with another

 

[Ze Diglett]

Hey, at least blast processing was a nice enough indicator of the Genesis's raw processor speed (at the time). Yes, I know it originally referred to something more complicated, but still.

Precisely, blast processing at least referred to SOMETHING. "Deluxe" is basically the company's way of openly announcing they think you're a sucker.

 

[Quillion]

replace one trope with another

But when one trope has been used a lot over a period of time, maybe it IS good to change it out for another.

Nothing is absolutely original after all.

 

[fogbadge]

But when one trope has been used a lot over a period of time, maybe it IS good to change it out for another.

Nothing is absolutely original after all.

I think they’re both pretty common

 

[Quillion]

I think they’re both pretty common

But in the context of Zelda, a series focused on grand, world-ending plots without a lot of personal interaction, a "Luke vs Vader with Emperor leading the latter" plot would be a better vehicle for more grounded interactions.

 

[fogbadge]

But in the context of Zelda, a series focused on grand, world-ending plots without a lot of personal interaction, a "Luke vs Vader with Emperor leading the latter" plot would be a better vehicle for more grounded interactions.

im not sure Zelda is the place for grounded interactions. look at the ones considered the best written they aren’t grounded

 

[Quillion]

im not sure Zelda is the place for grounded interactions. look at the ones considered the best written they aren’t grounded

Maybe not the super-elaborate interactions of Xenoblade, but just enough to show personal enmity between enemies. TP actually had a bit of this between the Link of that game and King Bulblin.

 

[Perkilator]

More DLC should consist of bringing back content that couldn't make it into the base game due to time constraints.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

With SE publicly admitting that certain recent FF games have fallen short sales wise (albeit still strong relative to other IP's) I can't help but suggest that the major issue is that Final Fantasy largely feels like it's being carried by its name and (occasionally) a sense of scale from its budget. All the major elements it pioneered in the RPG genre are generally being done and often better by other series and given the massive resources put into them, it's not really a franchise that can live off more modest numbers like Dragon Quest. Both in gameplay and storytelling the innovations they helped birth are the standard, which has left the series feeling far less novel.

By comparison, something like Zelda managed to take a concept like open world and deeply reinvent both that and itself with Breath of the Wild to major success. It seems telling that FFXIV is the exception that proves the rule, being the one semi-recent entry that actually did take on a major genre and do something better with it (and even that was after a disastrous launch that took years and a great deal of money to fix).

XV, XVI, and the games in the VII remake series are all solid, but each entry feels less and less like the major event that Final Fantasy games used to be.

 

[Perkilator]

I think if Capcom Vancouver wasn’t shackled to the Dead Rising mines, they would’ve been a great studio for developing smaller-scale titles while Capcom of Japan works on their heavy-hitter titles.

 

[Quillion]

With SE publicly admitting that certain recent FF games have fallen short sales wise (albeit still strong relative to other IP's) I can't help but suggest that the major issue is that Final Fantasy largely feels like it's being carried by its name and (occasionally) a sense of scale from its budget. All the major elements it pioneered in the RPG genre are generally being done and often better by other series and given the massive resources put into them, it's not really a franchise that can live off more modest numbers like Dragon Quest. Both in gameplay and storytelling the innovations they helped birth are the standard, which has left the series feeling far less novel.

By comparison, something like Zelda managed to take a concept like open world and deeply reinvent both that and itself with Breath of the Wild to major success. It seems telling that FFXIV is the exception that proves the rule, being the one semi-recent entry that actually did take on a major genre and do something better with it (and even that was after a disastrous launch that took years and a great deal of money to fix).

XV, XVI, and the games in the VII remake series are all solid, but each entry feels less and less like the major event that Final Fantasy games used to be.

The ironic thing is that Final Fantasy is consistently reinventing itself, which probably comes off as a lack of focus.

Meanwhile, Zelda circa the Wii/DS era was only really doing the same things as the N64-GCN games at that point, just with control gimmicks that only really changed how things were input rather than significant, fundamental changes to the game itself.

So by token of post-Wii/DS Zelda starting to shed the classic "item gating" philosophy and "two act structure" to greater success, maybe what Final Fantasy needs to do is return to simpler, more classic roots.

It's just a classic "grass is greener on the other side" situation either way.

 

[MasterCheef]

These franchises are waaaaaay overrated ( tooo highly valued ) in terms of the quality of game-play their characters bring to smash.

Street Fighter & F-Zero = all the most important moves these characters have can be put into Mii Brawler & make Mii Brawler an actual enjoyable top tier.
Fire Emblem = Swords are for cutting & should be minimally included. Hammers , maces & clubs , are for smashing & should be maximized
Earthbound = small children with massive heads relative to the rest of their body , are strangely hard to hit
Duck Hunt = very iconic , however really only has good gameplay against large characters
Star Fox = you can literally give these stats to other characters to make them just as good
Game & Watch = like a swordy without any exciting additional benefits
MGS = Nikita can be put into Mii Gunner's move-set

These fighters are waaaaaay overrated ( value tooo low to keep ) in terms of the quality of game-play their characters bring to smash.

Dr Mario = clone , shold merely be an alt
Meta Knight = clone with a sword
Kind DeDeDe = like a swordy without any of the benefits
Wario = most boring specials
Little Mac = too grounded
Wii Fit trainer = terrible specials
Olimar = too tiny
Pichu = too tiny
Sheik = does not do much of anything in her 1 origin game
Toon Link & Young Link = too many links

 

[Quillion]

After seeing that Hulu is making Mr. Crocket, a horror series styled after Sesame Street-type shows...

I want to reiterate that between the two 2014-2015 indie games, I wish the Undertale series was the one whose influence would saturate indie games and even seep into TV and movies instead of Five Nights At Freddy's.

 

[Oracle Link]

I prefer the toon and Toy Aesthetic Vastly over the semi realistic 3d Ones! And hope that we finnaly get a new cartoony 3d Zelda game!
Like how cool would an ages and seasons 3d Sequel be with the rocs Cape and switch hook being used as movement mechanics all the while all enemys and Link are Smol but you can actually see them up close!

Also i really wanna see some more games ala Cadence of hyrule that being Indie Zelda games! because zelda is lacking in fun spinoffs!? How about a dead mans Volley Tennis or vollley ball game a horse riding game or i dunno a fighter!

 

[MasterCheef]

It would be fantastic for Nintendo to sell off the ( Fire Emblem ) series & stop supporting the Bayonetta series & buy something better like the ( Tales Of ) series , especially in 2025 before the next smash game comes out . My most preferred series = ( Tales Of )

 

[fogbadge]

It would be fantastic for Nintendo to sell off the ( Fire Emblem ) series & stop supporting the Bayonetta series & buy something better like the ( Tales Of ) series , especially in 2025 before the next smash game comes out . My most preferred series = ( Tales Of )

why on earth would they ever sell FE?

 

[darkvortex]

It would be fantastic for Nintendo to sell off the ( Fire Emblem ) series & stop supporting the Bayonetta series & buy something better like the ( Tales Of ) series , especially in 2025 before the next smash game comes out . My most preferred series = ( Tales Of )

I like Tales but FE makes more money (FE heroes alone) than like any modern tales game

Also why would they buy a game that already has a publisher