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

DarkAuraful

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Really? I get that the dialogue may seem pretty hollow with overusing some of the specific vocabulary (darkness as you mentioned) but I do kinda like the idea of someone who was fighting the darkness inside him, enough though his struggle is similar to Terra's in a way.

Project Destati is a Youtube channel that does an amazing job in remixing the Kingdom Hearts soundtrack, enhancing the songs with orchestral remixes and arrangements. I definitely can't deny that the Kingdom Hearts soundtrack is good.

Now late reply but...

I don't think BB can be considered among the top 3 of difficult. Conquest, Thracia, and RD are harder than BB imo. BB and its hard mode is hilariously easy to break once you get the necessary supports and recruit some broken units.
I could definitely see Tharcia (and I still want to find a workable rom to play this game) as #1. I don't know about Radiant Dawn but I'm kinda iffy of Fates Conquest being harder than Binding Blade. I understand that some of the maps are just hell (Conquest Ch. 10 and I'm sure of much more), but the Fates mechanics gives you second generation children that if optimized right, can help you through. My older brother has Conquest and apparently the "My Castle" is broken (he actually maximized each stats of his characters somehow) so it might have to do with that.

Though Binding Blade may not be any better either. Maybe it's because I've never actually tried the supports, but it does give you an arena that you can abuse to grind your units to Lv. 20. Even still, I found the game challenging. Maybe Conquest could be harder than Binding Blade. I don't know? I won't know until I'll have to experience it for myself obviously. All I know is that +30% crit rate for sword masters and berserkers MVP FTW.
 

InsaneAlchemist

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In Team Fortress 2, I heavily prefer the Amputator over the Ubersaw for the Medic melee slots. The former provides a healing area of effect when taunting, allows higher healing rate when currently used (pretty handy when you're running away from a Pyro), and boasts slightly more speed than the Ubersaw. I'm sorry, but I'm not taking any risks fighting with the Ubersaw even though it provides Ubercharge when you land a hit. In situations where you are close enough to score a hit, more often than not you end up in respawn even if you manage to nab that hit, because usually there's at least one other person that easily overpowers you (like the Heavy) or outspeeds you (like the Scout). One possible exception is the Spy but they'll just end up Dead Ringering and backstab you thirty seconds later.
 
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Schnee117

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the Spy but they'll just end up Dead Ringering and backstab you thirty seconds later.
Or they get the trickstab because backstabs are janky.

That's the great thing about TF2 though. The weapons are all side grades. The only absolute BS is random crits.

 

FallenHero

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Ah TF2.....I haven't played that game since early November last year.....I'll definitely come back to play whenever the Pyro update happens (even though I hate the Pyro). Hopefully they fix the issues I had with casual mode, because casual mode began to change my mentality and a lot of other player's mentalities during a match of TF2 in a way that I didn't like at all. I was able to continue playing TF2 as a casual game for about 3 months after MyM, but after those three months I noticed how seriously I was taking matches and just stop playing indefinitely until they fix my issues with the mode or I just really feel like playing the game again one day.

Really? I get that the dialogue may seem pretty hollow with overusing some of the specific vocabulary (darkness as you mentioned) but I do kinda like the idea of someone who was fighting the darkness inside him, enough though his struggle is similar to Terra's in a way.
I loved his story, but I just hated hearing Riku talk about it so much in most of the cutscenes he is in. I don't see why they need him to talk about it so much anyways, because I felt like they have already showed his struggles well through KH1 and his interactions with Ansem in all the games.

Project Destati is a Youtube channel that does an amazing job in remixing the Kingdom Hearts soundtrack, enhancing the songs with orchestral remixes and arrangements. I definitely can't deny that the Kingdom Hearts soundtrack is good.
Yeah I've always loved the soundtrack in the KH games.
 
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wedl!!

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Or they get the trickstab because backstabs are janky.

That's the great thing about TF2 though. The weapons are all side grades. The only absolute BS is random crits.

Unless you're playing 6s Med like I do where the Vita-Saw is objectively better than every other option (which is why it's banned lmao)
 

FamilyTeam

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Going briefly back to the subject of Fire Emblem for a bit:
I've started playing Conquest now, since I'm on the next batch of FE games to play.
With a few exceptions here and there (see: Chapter 10), my experience with this game has been basically this:
  • Throw Effie w/ Corrin and Camilla w/ Beruka in the middle of the chaos;
  • Use the front unit until they're low on health, switch to back unit until that unit is low on health;
  • Switch to front unit, back away and have Jakob and Elise heal those teams;
  • Rinse and repeat.
If it weren't for the annoying gimmicks in some of the levels, this game wouldn't be far from Awakening/Path of Radiance/Birthright tier in difficulty. I will admit the gimmicks make the game far harder, but to be honest I don't consider this a merit.


Also, the story in Conquest is offensively bad. Oh my God.
 
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FallenHero

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60 fps is nice and all, but let's be honest here, it isn't really super important to have 60 fps in EVERY game. The only games I feel absolutely NEED 60 fps is fighting games, action games, and other games where quick reactions and smooth gameplay/animations are very important.

For example: I don't really think a game like BotW really needs to be 60 fps. Sure there is combat, but the game doesn't seem to be so focused around it compared to a game like Dark Souls.

Speaking of Dark Souls.....The Soulsborne games are examples of games that are not 60 fps on consoles when they really should have been. The fact that it isn't 60 doesn't make the games bad or anything, but the combat in those games would feel so much better if it was.
 
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finalark

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60 fps is nice and all, but let's be honest here, it isn't really super important to have 60 fps in EVERY game. The only games I feel absolutely NEED 60 fps is fighting games, action games, and other games where quick reactions and smooth gameplay/animations are very important.
On that note, I hate it when people complain a game hasn't aged well because of its frame rate. A constantly 60FPS is an incredibly modern and tech-oriented expectation that many older consoles just couldn't do with every game.

Really, if you're going to criticize a game for not holding up well the least you could do is examine the game play instead of applying unrealistic expectations.
 

Ten of Nine

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When N64 games plummet often to 12-18 FPS, it's more of a slideshow at that point. Can't really even judge game-play when you're watching a PowerPoint presentation.

Smooth high frame rates are a big reason why NES and SNES era games still hold up, it allowed the gameplay to be as precise and responsive as we remember. The other big reason having to do with pixel art and animation being timeless and still desired to this day.

I don't care how old your game is, or how impressive you think your graphics are....if it's not 24-30 frames at minimum that's a sign your hardware or programming is garbage or sup-optimal. Even a game like Breath of the Wild when it hard locks at 20 FPS, it's is very noticeable and jarring.
 
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finalark

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When N64 games plummet often to 12-18 FPS, it's more of a slideshow at that point. Can't really even judge game-play when you're watching a PowerPoint presentation.
I used to play WoW at 15 FPS on my old craptop in the mists of 2005. In cities it usually dropped lower than that. Its not unplayable, jarring yes, but not a slide show by any means.
 

FallenHero

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A stable frame rate should be necessary for any game. I just don't think 60 fps is needed for every game, but when consoles are powerful enough to have every game at 60 then it should be 60 for every game.
 

Ten of Nine

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60 FPS is not necessary for every game yes, but it is of course preferred. I've given up on expecting it as soon as the awkward transition and preference to 3D was made back in the mid 90s.

I would much rather sacrifice graphics for high frame rates. This was the mentality of almost every game system made during the 2 generations surrounding the NES. Nintendo especially would have optimally programmed games that ran at high FPS, they were designed efficiently on obsolete hardware often having safe but stylized graphics. It was pretty clear they were very strict on frame rates as a requirement to handing out their official seal to 3rd parties.

With the advent of 3D gaming a lot of that went out the window, along with the introduction to awkward controls that never felt as precise, the uncanny valley, bloated amount of inputs/buttons, and generic graphics and textures that don't hold up. It's only now getting to a point where it's almost as good as the 2D era was...

I'm very much a game play and style person over cutting edge graphics and CGI. Frame rates don't bother me that much but it should never be dipping as low as they did on the N64 and should have never been that variable.

I'm not really arguing this, it's just my opinion.
 

wedl!!

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As someone who played Dota and TF2 at sub-30 for years I can tell you that 15 fps is largely unplayable, even for a game that doesn't rely on reaction time such as an MMO.
 

CyberWolfBia

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A little break from work, I got bored and thought sharing some opinions:

- Iconic videogame characters shouldn't age; Mostly talking about mascots, but that applies for some other cases too. A franchise can have a passage of time, events, but the characters don't need to change with that.

- It's easy making fun of CD-I games; everyone already laughed enough of the twin Zelda games and Hotel Mario.. but I say they have a value in some regards. Not going much further, I'd at least say that I'd love to have a mini-game in a new Mario Party, based on Hotel Mario with revamped gameplay.

- Yoshi's New Island is not that bad; Is actually pretty fun in parts.. is just the annoying music that kills the experience.

- I really want a new Donkey Kong game made by Retro Studios; But if they're not doing that as the rumours say, I hope it's something new or a revival of an old IP.

- I don't have good expectations for Sonic Forces. It's exact the opposite I wanted of a new Sonic game after Lost World I liked so much.

- Sony didn't make anything to assure the fidelity of people who growed with PS1 franchises; That killed my interest of having their systems since then (I only evetually got them by fluke, or for collecting purposes).

- I enjoy fighting games competitively, and I think that how (and primely) they should be appreciated; The lore, story and other things are small details and really shouldn't be taken too seriously.. With that said, I pay attention to the little things happening in a stage, the music, characters animations and quotes.. and I love silly stories and characters interations.. I don't ask too much from them, and I don't expect either.. but I love what they offer.
 

finalark

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- I don't have good expectations for Sonic Forces. It's exact the opposite I wanted of a new Sonic game after Lost World I liked so much.
Lost World was a good step in the right direction that could have been made into something great had Sega chosen to expand upon it in Forces.

Unfortunately, they just went right back to Boost Sonic. I don't want to judge it until it comes out, but I am disappointed.
 

CyberWolfBia

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Lost World was a good step in the right direction that could have been made into something great had Sega chosen to expand upon it in Forces.

Unfortunately, they just went right back to Boost Sonic. I don't want to judge it until it comes out, but I am disappointed.
yep, that's how I feel.. Lost World could evolve in something much, much better.. is just a better concept of gameplay and engine to start build in, unlike Unleashed that already felt wrong since day one.

I wont, of course, judge the quality of Forces before release, but I already know I won't fully enjoy playing as I didn't with all the Boost trilogy.
 
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Kenith

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Here's my own unpopular opinion.
I don't think any of the 2D Sonic games are very fun. Boost gameplay is the most I've ever enjoyed Sonic.
That being said I do want to try Sonic Mania.
 

Schnee117

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I don't think any of the 2D Sonic games are very fun. Boost gameplay is the most I've ever enjoyed Sonic.
To use this as a springboard...
2D Sonic games get a bit too much praise. Yes they're really good (especially 3 & Knuckles) but they're not that good. They definitely show their age at times but not to the degree of Adventure 1.

Additionally, the boost games are some of the best games released in the series with Unleashed getting way too bad of a rap for the Werehog which is a beat em up on par with God of War.

 
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Personally, I think there's merit in the Boost formula; it's about the only gameplay style in the last 10 years that got a decent amount of positive reception under Sonic's belt, and after the mediocre reception of Lost World and the giant blunder that was Rise of Lyric, it's perfectly understandable that Sega would play it safe with another game that has proven successful.

To stay on-topic; I think that subscription-based gaming is an archaic design philosophy that should go the way of the Raphus culullatus, and that a F2P system like Team Fortress 2 is a perfect way to attract customers while making money.
 

Ten of Nine

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Sonic games being garbage is not an unpopular opinion. Even the 2D era....only the music is worth note

Well let me qualify that....because maybe among 8-12 year olds it's an unpopular opinion, to the point where they scream and yell at anyone that intelligently critiques them.

But I mean they are 8-12 years old kids after all, at that age pretty much everyone has really bad and cringeworthy opinions (most self-admittedly when they grow up)

I noticed the talk about Yoshi's New Island. I can't really give an opinion on it since I only made it 2 worlds in and sold it immediately. But I definitely think Yoshi Island (the original) is very overrated. Has a beautiful timeless artstyle and soundtrack, but that game is so easy it's never fun for me. I remember my first time playing it at age 11, having 59 lives at the end and beating the final bosses on the first try. This was right after I had played through SMB 1 and SMB 3....so I was expecting challenge and solid gameplay. Nope, the gameplay in YI was never fun for me. Waiting for the back and forth egg mechanic, the floaty and extremely forgiving DJ, the boring collecting, the easy bosses (even though some flashy and creative), the weird transform parts (while cute) made those parts even easier.
 
D

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Sonic games being garbage is not an unpopular opinion. Even the 2D era....only the music is worth note
Up until recently, I would have disagreed that hating on 2D Sonic wasn't unpopular. However, with statements like "Sonic was never good", I'm less sure about that now than I was before.
 
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finalark

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Sonic games being garbage is not an unpopular opinion. Even the 2D era....only the music is worth note

Well let me qualify that....because maybe among 8-12 year olds it's an unpopular opinion, to the point where they scream and yell at anyone that intelligently critiques them.

But I mean they are 8-12 years old kids after all, at that age pretty much everyone has really bad and cringeworthy opinions (most self-admittedly when they grow up)
Jesus, buddy. I know that bashing on Sonic is the thing to do in internet culture but there's a lot of enmity in this post.
 

Ten of Nine

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Well that would be a misuse of that word since there is no enmity there, those are just facts. Rational people that have grown past their adolescent phase realize that those games were never good.

Only within the past few years has it become this "jump on the bandwagon" thing, mostly because the kids that initially thought they were great games finally replayed them as adults and woke up.

I'm actually rather indifferent to the whole Sonic franchise (most aren't worth talking about), the only exceptions being the All Stars Racing spin offs since they are solid Kart racers. And as I previously mentioned from the 2D era I do like a lot of the music.
 
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FamilyTeam

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That's not a healthy mentality to have. "People that think what I think know better than people that don't think what I think, stop thinking things I don't think!"
At the end of the day, these are just opinions, it's not like "people that say that Sonic games are bad have been emancipated and are more educated than people that say that they aren't bad". I thought we had a name for that sort of thing on the internet, and that name was elitism.

I mean, a similar thing happens in FE, when I see people saying "The only people who like Awakening are waifufags or never played the earlier games XD". Nobody gains from this and it makes you look like an arse.

So, just talking about FE real quick: Not sure how unpopular this is, but the more I play earlier FE games, the more ridiculous I think the common complaints about Awakening are.
 

Ten of Nine

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Yes they are opinions, but what I said in my initial post is factual and can be observed in so many places.

People thinking the newer Sonic games are garbage is not an unpopular opinion. And people thinking the 2D games really don't hold up (maybe were never good) is also not an unpopular opinion.

I feel like my initial statement flew over your head as well as those that liked the preceding comments. Or it was horribly misinterpreted.

I'm not trying to be an elitist here, I just laid out some observations based on tons of evidence. I would hope people aren't so easily hurt and triggered by one opinion.

If you want to argue that the internet and the majority of people think sonic games are good; more specifically that the 2D games are really great and hold up....well, I would like to see evidence for that because off the top of my head I can list tons of places where the contrary is mass opinion.

And I can point you toward a lot of videos of angry 8-12 year olds on YouTube that would prove the point I made in my initial comment.

I personally don't think they are garbage, they are mediocre...pretty much every Sonic plat-former has been.
 
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FamilyTeam

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The internet is very big, wherever you go, you will find examples that can prove whatever you want and disprove whatever you want. That's not going to solve anything.
The way you are trying to prove things here is exactly like "Did you know that every single mass murderer ever drank water? You don't want to be like a mass murderer, so don't drink water".

Depending on where you hang out, you can get different experiences from different people of different communities. There are nasty people everywhere, but there are also far more nice people in the world than people think. This is why I really avoid saying "X game has bad community", because I might just be seeing the bad side of it. I try thinking like this even when the bad side is extremely vocal and rampant, like how unfortunately Undertale was for most of last year, for example.
 

Ten of Nine

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Very good point about mass murderers drinking water, I feel bested.

I was very wrong in what I had previously said, apologies to anyone offended by my unhealthy mentality. If I derailed anything, also sorry for that.
 

finalark

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So, just talking about FE real quick: Not sure how unpopular this is, but the more I play earlier FE games, the more ridiculous I think the common complaints about Awakening are.
From what I've observed, most of the game play oriented complaints about Awakening are things you wouldn't even notice unless you dumped hundreds of hours into the game. And frankly, if a game can get you to invest that much time its doing something right.

Yes they are opinions, but what I said in my initial post is factual and can be observed in so many places.
If you're trying to say that nostalgia hugely influences opinions you're entirely correct. That being said, dismissing an entire series as something that people only like because nostalgia is just unfair.
 

Ten of Nine

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No, finilark I would have to disagree I was 100% completely incorrect man. I've already admitted defeat my dude.

You're right though I completely agree with everything you say.
 
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FamilyTeam

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Since we were talking about Saturn the other day, this video has some nice insight and game suggestions for it:
I acknowledge that the Playstation was a better system, but I prefer the Saturn due to the kind of games it brings.

Anyway, unpopular opinion of the day... I've been playing Mario 64 to completion, lately. I have 57 stars currently, and... since it's the first time I have been trying to playing SM64 to completion in 6 years, a lot of my opinions on this game have changed, a few for the better, and to be honest, quite a lot for the worse. When I finish the game with 70 stars, I'll probably detail everything.
Then again, I guess I could already finish it if I wanted.
Spoilers for what I'll say when I finish is that... I don't think it's a great, stable experience.
 

Ten of Nine

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The Saga Saturn was a very interesting system, I can say the same for the Dreamcast. A shame that both of those failed in large markets.

The Saturn actually aligns with my views on how I would have liked gaming to progress at that point. The hardware was optimized for a massive increase in quality and quantity of 2D sprites, texturing, and rendering. If there is some magical parallel universe where 3D was never pursued in gaming and 2D was mastered instead the Saturn would have been on the fringe. From an aesthetics POV I always liked the system name, logo, how the games felt, and the cases the games came in as well.

I'm glad but not surprised to see pixel art-styles and 2D games still being made to this day (and in such abundance), I just regret the whole awkward phase of the first 2 generations of over-hyped 3D - really bad cameras, bad imprecise controls, derivative gameplay/story/writing, bad FMV, quick time events, and blurry messes. At the time being a young kid (the perfect age for such "exciting" changes) even then I remember just constantly being disappointed by the very mediocre quality of the supposed "AAA titles" like Mario 64, Zelda OoT, Tomb Raider, Castlevania 64, Syphon Filter, Donkey Kong 64, FF VIII, GTA 3 + a lot more PS2 games etc. All the other 11-12 year old kids were eating it up and so stoked on something brand new that they couldn't see how frustrating, imprecise, and bad a lot of it was.

I guess I just imagine a world where the SNES carried on evolving for another 20 years or the lush 2D Saturn and PS1 games continued. The hardware would become more powerful, the resolutions larger; the sound, A/V, and game memory would all increase naturally, but without ever forcing the awkward learning phase of programming for a 3rd dimension. Focusing instead on story, writing, characters, intricate 2D art/animation, super tight controls, iterating on already unique plat-former and scrolling style games, and evolving battle systems in RPGs and Tactics style games. I think staying with 2D would have definitely kept controllers from becoming as ridiculous as they are now; way too many buttons and sticks, meaning forced long tutorials and common accidental control mistakes (less intuition for new players to "pick up and play").

This all sort of ties into why I love the Smash games so much and Fighters in general (specifically Melee). Imagine if these games were forced to be in a 3D space.....no. Tekken and Virtua Fighter are awkward still, Soul Calibur sort of pulls it off. But the Smash Brother games would be a joke if they tried to make them some kind of 3D run around or side shuffling fighting games. Playing on a 2D plane is very natural and it allows for far more precision and a complete feeling of perception since you are playing on a 2D screen.

And thus ends my digressing rant about the 3rd dimension forcing it's way into my videogames on my 2D TV.
 
D

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From an aesthetics POV I always liked [...] the cases the games came in as well.
If you were referring to Japanese Saturn cases, I agree with you. I find the bronze coloring more aesthetically pleasing than the black and green labels on PS1 cases. Not really a fan of the American or European Saturn cases (both from an aesthetic viewpoint and in general), though.
 

FallenHero

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The Saga Saturn was a very interesting system, I can say the same for the Dreamcast. A shame that both of those failed in large markets.

The Saturn actually aligns with my views on how I would have liked gaming to progress at that point. The hardware was optimized for a massive increase in quality and quantity of 2D sprites, texturing, and rendering. If there is some magical parallel universe where 3D was never pursued in gaming and 2D was mastered instead the Saturn would have been on the fringe. From an aesthetics POV I always liked the system name, logo, how the games felt, and the cases the games came in as well.

I'm glad but not surprised to see pixel art-styles and 2D games still being made to this day (and in such abundance), I just regret the whole awkward phase of the first 2 generations of over-hyped 3D - really bad cameras, bad imprecise controls, derivative gameplay/story/writing, bad FMV, quick time events, and blurry messes. At the time being a young kid (the perfect age for such "exciting" changes) even then I remember just constantly being disappointed by the very mediocre quality of the supposed "AAA titles" like Mario 64, Zelda OoT, Tomb Raider, Castlevania 64, Syphon Filter, Donkey Kong 64, FF VIII, GTA 3 + a lot more PS2 games etc. All the other 11-12 year old kids were eating it up and so stoked on something brand new that they couldn't see how frustrating, imprecise, and bad a lot of it was.

I guess I just imagine a world where the SNES carried on evolving for another 20 years or the lush 2D Saturn and PS1 games continued. The hardware would become more powerful, the resolutions larger; the sound, A/V, and game memory would all increase naturally, but without ever forcing the awkward learning phase of programming for a 3rd dimension. Focusing instead on story, writing, characters, intricate 2D art/animation, super tight controls, iterating on already unique plat-former and scrolling style games, and evolving battle systems in RPGs and Tactics style games. I think staying with 2D would have definitely kept controllers from becoming as ridiculous as they are now; way too many buttons and sticks, meaning forced long tutorials and common accidental control mistakes (less intuition for new players to "pick up and play").

This all sort of ties into why I love the Smash games so much and Fighters in general (specifically Melee). Imagine if these games were forced to be in a 3D space.....no. Tekken and Virtua Fighter are awkward still, Soul Calibur sort of pulls it off. But the Smash Brother games would be a joke if they tried to make them some kind of 3D run around or side shuffling fighting games. Playing on a 2D plane is very natural and it allows for far more precision and a complete feeling of perception since you are playing on a 2D screen.

And thus ends my digressing rant about the 3rd dimension forcing it's way into my videogames on my 2D TV.
I see where you are coming from, but lets not ignore the fact that many great games would not even exist if it wasn't for the first two generations of 3D consoles. Lets also not ignore the fact that there were PLENTY of bad generic 2D platformers before 3D consoles first came out. There would be so many game genres that wouldn't exist either. Gaming probably would've never been able to evolve that much and end up just dying out from a lack of gameplay diversity.

Also, maybe it's just because I'm younger and didn't really grow up with anything before the GC/PS2/XBox era besides the GBC, but I don't see what is wrong with controllers today. The only problem I could see with controllers from more recent consoles is the touchpad on the PS4 controller (Most games just use it as two extra buttons to open up menus.), Wii U gamepad (Cool concept, but it just feels like gimmick. Just like the PS4 touchpad, a lot of games barely even made use of it.), and the Switch joycons (I really like the concept of the joycons, but it has it's flaws and I could see why others might not like them). Some games really benefit from having more complex controls, like Smash for example. I don't mean that the basic controls in Smash are hard to learn, but competitive Smash is made a lot more interesting thanks to advanced techniques that are hard to master.
 
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Ten of Nine

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If you were referring to Japanese Saturn cases, I agree with you. I find the bronze coloring more aesthetically pleasing than the black and green labels on PS1 cases. Not really a fan of the American or European Saturn cases (both from an aesthetic viewpoint and in general), though.
I like all three varieties; I had the longboxes in mind but the Japanese cases are very nice for being PC jewel cases basically (the colors compliment nicely). This seems to be the case concerning most box art and casing of older games, Japan just seems to have cooler variants (Gameboy, GBA, SNES, NES)

In general I just really like the Longbox design, I actually have a near complete PS1 Longbox collection, my favorite variation being the thicker black cardboard on plastic Longboxes like DOOM, Descent, Twisted Metal, and Resident Evil. I know it was a retail space thing but I really wish the whole PS1 library was Longboxes.





 
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finalark

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touchpad on the PS4 controller
My favorite gigantic select button.

derivative gameplay/story/writing
I mean, sure I'll give you that. It's not exclusive to or even because of 3D games, but I'll agree that it's a thing in video games period.

Every era of games runs on follow-the-leader logic. You can say that it became more prevalent in the early 2000s, but so did the internet, thus making it easier to find mediocre, derivative games. Stripping away the nostalgia factor, most games in the 80s and 90s were just as dumb and derivative as the ones that came later. Its just that enough time has passed that people only remember the good games and forget about the bad ones.

EDIT: I'm pretty sure writing and story got better once 3D became a thing anyway. Yeah, in the early days there was wonky voice acting but that improved over time.
 
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Ten of Nine

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I've got to be honest the 2 replies so far are sort of predictable, these are the first kinds of things I've heard years ago when first talking about this subject with friends. But these kinds of counter-points are prone to hindsight and seem to be riddled with speculation since we are now knee deep in 3D. Remember I'm talking about the first 2 gens of 3D, not now.

My point about story and other aspects taking a hit is extremely valid and actually still relevant - time, money, and resources were prioritized to GRAPHICS GRAPHICS GRAPHICS AND all the programming problems and troubleshooting with new mechanics like 3D....this always leads to everything else suffering just so something can look pretty and sell based off a trailer or picture Ad.

Final Fantasy VII is an adequate example. Very haphazard translation, story wasn't quite finished in many places, not a lot of time of energy went into new or unique gameplay...they were spending everything on the FMVs and the 3D aspect, FFVIII is an even worse example. Again programmers and designers are learning brand new things while they are making games....like a child trying to talk when they are still learning a language. Every new gimmick or new mechanic has that effect.

Let's look at the Wii next and the era of motion controls being the new "thing" to to get bros and gals stoked on gaming again. Wii ended up being a joke, even the slow trickle of 1st party games suffered if they had motion controls, 3rd parties had no idea what they were doing so we got badly made baby motion carnival games. Then Playstation and MS of course had to jump on the motion train, both failing. All that time and money wasted, all the resources that could have been pumped into a whole library of things we'll never get to see. An amazing developer like RARE was pretty much ruined since they went all in with a sub-par gimmick.

Every new mechanic or gimmick good or bad by default sacrifices other aspects of games and sets back the quality of everything until the new "thing" is properly learned or mastered. I'm just not a fan of this constant forced reset just to try and wow consumers and beat competition....quality and mastery of making games seems to always take a back seat.

Also I would partially agree that story has gotten a little bit better, but really the ones that have are still derivative of movies or ripped from a source (Uncharted, Witcher, Last of Us, etc). And then you get weird things like the bad rushed voice acting in such a massive Zelda game, in part Nintendo being naive but also not being able to allocate the proper time to it.

This is obviously all a minority opinion, I'm 100% cool with that. Not specifically looking for people to agree or debate, but it's a free world I encourage everyone to do as they please.
 

finalark

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My point about story and other aspects taking a hit is extremely valid and actually still relevant - time, money, and resources were prioritized to GRAPHICS GRAPHICS GRAPHICS AND all the programming problems and troubleshooting with new mechanics like 3D....this always leads to everything else suffering just so something can look pretty and sell based off a trailer or picture Ad.
The Genesis literally had "High Definition Graphics" and "16-Bit" printed in big bold letters on the machine it self. I'm sorry, boyo, but this is not something that started with 3D by a long shot.

Final Fantasy VII is an adequate example. Very haphazard translation, story wasn't quite finished in many places, not a lot of time of energy went into new or unique gameplay...they were spending everything on the FMVs and the 3D aspect, FFVIII is an even worse example. Again programmers and designers are learning brand new things while they are making games....like a child trying to talk when they are still learning a language. Every new gimmick or new mechanic has that effect.
As a life long fan of JRPGs and Final Fantasy this is wrong. Kind of.

While yes, a lot of the budget for FFVII and VIII went into OMG GRAPHICS you can't forget that this was also the case for Square's late game efforts on the SNES, with Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger's monstrously detailed sprites and abundance use of mode 7 being a good example of this. And while we're on the topic of SNES era Squenix games, let's jump onto the narrative train.

Was FFVII's translation bad? Yes. Did it have loose ends? Yes. But guess what, so did the games before it. FFVII isn't even close to being my favorite game in the series and still willing to say that it had the best, the most ambitious and engaging narrative of the entire series at that point. FFI barely has a story, II is a footnotes version of Star Wars (until you get to the Emperor coming back from the dead and all that jazz), III also barely has a story, IV reads like something that was made up as you went along, although I do praise V for centering around a tight cast of likable characters instead of trying to astound you with twists, same goes for VI but to much lesser extent.

Now lets just onto the game play wagon. To say that VII and VIII, ESPECIALLY VIII, had their game play neglected in favor of graphics is just wrong. VII finally mastered the ATB system to make it fast and fun, introduced Limit Breaks which were well balanced to give you a rush of power but not let you steamroll the game, Materia topped every previous entry's character customization thanks to its flexibility.

VIII, on the other hand, went wild with where it took its game play. Junctioning is a crazy unique (although obviously inspired by FFVI's Espers) system that provides a ton of options for the player. Spells have charged and can be equipped to boost stats and provide other things on top of the stat boosts provided by the junctioned guardian. Christ, this game had TRIPLE GORRAM TRIAD in it, which was a crazy fun and engaging card game in and of itself. To say that these games didn't put a lot of energy into making the game play new or unique is just wrong.

Let's look at the Wii next and the era of motion controls being the new "thing" to to get bros and gals stoked on gaming again. Wii ended up being a joke, even the slow trickle of 1st party games suffered if they had motion controls, 3rd parties had no idea what they were doing so we got badly made baby motion carnival games. Then Playstation and MS of course had to jump on the motion train, both failing. All that time and money wasted, all the resources that could have been pumped into a whole library of things we'll never get to see. An amazing developer like RARE was pretty much ruined since they went all in with a sub-par gimmick.
Motion controls were dumb. Then again, disc based games also had similar problems, so eh.

On that note, I don't think Rare is that great of a dev, or has ever been that great of a dev, so that's an unpopular opinion for ya.

Every new mechanic or gimmick good or bad by default sacrifices other aspects of games and sets back the quality of everything until the new "thing" is properly learned or mastered. I'm just not a fan of this constant forced reset just to try and wow consumers and beat competition....quality and mastery of making games seems to always take a back seat.
Sticking to 2D isn't the answer. It was a style that was mastered in the early 90s, had 3D never came around game would have just stagnated.

Also I would partially agree that story has gotten a little bit better,
I'm pretty sure Persona 4 complex characters and small-town murder mystery is miles above Link to the Past's "save the world because destiny says so" thing.

And then you get weird things like the bad rushed voice acting in such a massive Zelda game, in part Nintendo being naive but also not being able to allocate the proper time to it.
I think BotW's forgettable voice acting is more on Nintendo. For whatever reason Nintendo is always behind the curb on these things, which is kind of embarrassing that Metal Gear Solid, a game from the late 90s, has more emotional and convincing voice acting.
 

Minato

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Final Fantasy VII is an adequate example. Very haphazard translation, story wasn't quite finished in many places, not a lot of time of energy went into new or unique gameplay...they were spending everything on the FMVs and the 3D aspect, FFVIII is an even worse example. Again programmers and designers are learning brand new things while they are making games....like a child trying to talk when they are still learning a language. Every new gimmick or new mechanic has that effect.
Hm... I actually agree with finalark on this one. Final Fantasy hasn't been too focused on changing up the battle system back in the day besides introducing ATB. They usually went wild with their other franchises regarding experimentation Keep in mind during this time, Square made Bushido Blade, Ergheiz, Parasite Eve, Brave Fencer Musashi, Threads of Fate, Xenogears, and Vagrant Story. These games definitely had varied gameplay ideas that weren't sacrificed at the expense of graphics. I'd argue that Square became too concerned with graphics once the HD era hit.
I think BotW's forgettable voice acting is more on Nintendo. For whatever reason Nintendo is always behind the curb on these things, which is kind of embarrassing that Metal Gear Solid, a game from the late 90s, has more emotional and convincing voice acting.
It's too bad how rushed it was. I actually think the voices are fine (the Gerudo are great imo). Mipha's voice isn't bad, but the direction was lacking which is disappointing. They could've really made it work. Zelda's just ok too I guess, nothing that stands out.

A shame since Nintendo can definitely do better. Kid Icarus Uprising is still considered the best for me regarding voices in a Nintendo game.
 
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