Hot takes

[SpectreOverflow]

The fact that streaming services release entire seasons at once flat out hurts the products they are trying to deliver by eliminating all speculation and doing away with any possible curveballs before they can even be thrown. That's why so many otherwise promising shows get shelved after a season or two... the hype is lost to exhaustion.

I know this is an older post but I wanted to throw something in:
Say what you will about Hazbin Hotel, but they go down the route of releasing two episodes a week for each season, usually meaning the entire season of about 8 episodes is released over the span of a month. It's a really sound strategy - I imagine there's probably a few other shows that do this, but this was the first example I could think of.

 

[Guinea]

Stargate SG-1 is better than Star Trek and Star Wars combined.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Stargate SG-1 is better than Star Trek and Star Wars combined.

I could agree about Star Wars but Star Trek is a much bigger debate.

 

[Pudendum]

It may sound silly but I like goofy album covers, it makes me feel younger when an album isn't afraid to be silly (or cringe as the kids say)

 

[Dreamcast_best_VN_console]

Nintendo's biggest sin was never the high game prices, was never the high console prices, and not even the subpar paid online, it was always how quick they were to bully companies/people whenever they did anything they considered a "threat to their ips"

Nintendo screwing over their main audience sucks, don't get me wrong. I personally suffered from it, being locked out of the (very much overpriced) Online and all it's features for as long as I used my switch. The lack of game price drops wasn't particularly good either, specially when, even though my wishlist for switch games was comprised of (mostly) relatively old games, it was pretty unaffordable to buy more than one of those per year.

But as much as I hate how greedy Nintendo was with it's customers and me, I really cannot stress enough how many worse things it has done than that.

Like, intimidating your most devoted fans out of passion, non monetary projects, simply to have an iron grip of everything that happens with your ip.

Bullying a super market chain in Costa Rica, because the way they usually name super markets there just so happened to make a name that you share with some of your mario games.

Or trying to patent basically an entire genre (that they didn't invent), because you don't want your creature capturing game to have miniscule competition (and are too lazy to make a better product than them).

Among other things I didn't mention!

And even with all the much more concerning patterns Nintendo has shown itself being comfortable partaking in, the only real time there's any big outburst over anything they do, is when the product quality to price ratio gets worse.

...When it gets worse for the second time in a row, mind you. The Wii U didn't have paid online, and I do remember Wii U games having price cuts in it's latter years, but I might be wrong about that.
But nevertheless, it's important not to forget how many bad things has done and will keep on doing, whether they impact our purchases or not.

 

[Mopeybloke]

Bad opinions containment thread is a great idea.

 

[moonbits]

Mass Effect only got progressively worse with each sequel. Even though I like ME2 a lot it just took away a lot of the best things about original instead of improving them.

Yes, the elevators were quintessential kino experience

 

[Stookymalarkey]

Mass Effect only got progressively worse with each sequel. Even though I like ME2 a lot it just took away a lot of the best things about original instead of improving them.

Yes, the elevators were quintessential kino experience

Damn straight. Mako > Hammerhead any day of the week.

 

[redux007]

Temporal association is a blinder marketers, reviewers, and even ordinary conversation enjoyers misplace for genuine quality standards slipping and customer satisfaction not being met. What sucked in the past, sucks now. As it is above, so it is below.

 

[ThatOneLum ThatOneLum]

crash 2 > crash 3

I dunno about some of that other shit but this be the truth.

 

[JellyjamLu]

I think the Yakuza franchise is kinda mid, they recycle alot of assets, town maps, mini games and sitting through some of the scrolling dialogue text is a real slog when not much of anything interesting is going on.

Modern God of War is awful, many slow moments, force walking & talking segments and unskippable scenes, put too much emotion & emphasis on father-son bonding, reuse of early bosses as filler later. Has Marvel humor. They used The Last of us & Joel/Ellie relationship as a light template and made that into the now new God Of War style.

IMO of course.

 

[moonbits]

Modern God of War is awful, many slow moments, force walking & talking segments and unskippable scenes, put too much emotion & emphasis on father-son bonding, reuse of early bosses as filler later. Has Marvel humor. They used The Last of us & Joel/Ellie relationship as a light template and made that into the now new God Of War style.

I was willing to move past all of that, give it a proper chance but the combat is just not good. The camera angle, the magnetism, the sponginess, the enemy variety, the combos. It just doesn't do anything right but it sums up to be a somewhat competent experience that is glorified beyond my understanding.

and lets not even talk about those mediocre shoehorned rpg mechanics and statistics.

 

[PhaseJump]

New God of War is more like a 3D Metroidvania followup to stuff like Batman Arkham Asylum.

 

[JellyjamLu]

I was willing to move past all of that, give it a proper chance but the combat is just not good. The camera angle, the magnetism, the sponginess, the enemy variety, the combos. It just doesn't do anything right but it sums up to be a somewhat competent experience that is glorified beyond my understanding.

and lets not even talk about those mediocre shoehorned rpg mechanics and statistics.

OMG you gave me a heart attack, i though i was gonna get slammed by you for a sec lol

In some ways i kindaaa respect it, you know there are cool cinematic moments but...eh call me an old fashioned horse, i just like the old style gameplay & scene to action loop.

 

[moonbits]

OMG you gave me a heart attack, i though i was gonna get slammed by you for a sec lol

In some ways i kindaaa respect it, you know there are cool cinematic moments but...eh call me an old fashioned horse, i just like the old style gameplay & scene to action loop.

I can't respect it The old games did cinematic action too and were competent action games with variety, weapons, enemies and puzzles.

But I won't hate it or the people who made it, they struggled to make a new IP for half a decade so Sony-chan forced them to go back to GoW.

 

[Beellucizarus]

I prefer the online phase of Phantasy Star to the classic phase.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

I prefer the Online phase of Phantasy Star to the Classic phase.

Either way both are better than whatever New Genesis is trying to be.

 

[Beellucizarus]

Either way both are better than whatever New Genesis is trying to be.

Without a doubt

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Without a doubt

I can kinda understand people liking Online over the Classics.

As much as they got good stories they require a lot of energy and perseverance.

Phantasy Star I without a proper GameFaqs map (or drawing them yourself) is harder to do. The Sega Ages 2500 series version on the PS2 called Phantasy Star Generations was a pretty good remake mechanically but at the cost of having a "cheap" looking game with a 2D art style that doesn't have the charm of the original nor the quality of the Online nor Universe games it's harder to get into. The Switch version of the Sega Ages release added an automap (which fills as you advance) and an easier mode for people who don't want to grind but sadly it's digital only on the Switch.

At best you can try the SMS Power romhack that vastly improves the game while having a more faithful script but once again it doesn't have an automap. I'd love to see the best of both worlds.


As for Phantasy Star II the story is much better but alas, the dungeon and battles are a hassle to do because of the slowness of characters that aren't on the center of the screen (so this makes bad visibility) and the flashing that are an eyesore. The Genesis Mini II release apparently fixed many issues (as well as the Phantasy Star Collection version on the Saturn with fast running yet is only in Japanese).

Phantasy Star III is the black sheep for a good reason and we needed more save files for each generations to get to see each endings so you'd need savestates specifically for them.

Phantasy Star IV is on the other hand perfect (despite the grinding) but that's because it was the end of the series.

Online may have a clunky battle system (with combos to keep) and the lack of Photon Arts make it stiff yet I still prefer it over spamming PAs which is sadly what HL becomes in PSU and PSO2...

I still think that Portable 2 (Infinity) has made my opinion of Universe much better. PS Zero could've been a better PSO if the DS had a proper stick and had a ZL/ZR.

I need to get into PSO2's first trilogy of episodes which was a solid story before they changed director for Episode 4.

That franchise had a see-saw kind of release, both good (if not really good) and mediocre releases...

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

The NES Simpsons games arent that bad

 

[redux007]

Despite older consoles having a finite amount of games and you clearly having experienced them all in some form or another through second hand exposure there will always be an infinite amount of these titles you haven't seen before and that are weirder than hell.

 

[Roy U. OmOm]

JRPGs have as much "gameplay" as cookie clicker does.

You basically watch game play itself while pretending you are doing something to influence it.

They are closer to para-social visual novels then actual games.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

The NES Simpsons games aren't that bad.

There are worse games yeah...

But this isn't Mario Bros either.

 

[Bakuma1997]

The NES Simpsons games arent that bad

Yes, not calling them underrated gems, but the GB games make those feel like Hit and Run

Despite older consoles having a finite amount of games and you clearly having experienced them all in some form or another through second hand exposure there will always be an infinite amount of these titles you haven't seen before and that are weirder than hell.

That's more like a fun fact or a shower through

 

[FlowersSunRain]

I'm quite a generic individual I feel, but in terms of hot takes I have a couple pretty inflammatory ones I've gotten a lot of shit for, these being;
- Dark Souls 2 (Scholar) is the best souls game other than Bloodborne
- Bioshock 2 is the best Bioshock game
The first one is more rooted in my own subjective preferences, I'm not one of those people who are overly concerned with the souls series focus on difficulty.
The latter is just something I've always believed, I thought Bioshock 2's story as a complete package (and especially including Minerva's Den) was more enjoyable and captivating than Bioshock 1's, and generally the gameplay aspect of it was a huge improvement although that is less contested.