Hot takes

[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.

 

[Emonoferus Emonoferus]

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

 

[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.

 

[Emonoferus Emonoferus]

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

Without a doubt

 

[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

 

[petran79]

it is the best solution currently if you are into shaders as the parameters and options are far ahead of any other emulator.

Also it is mandatory if you are using old crts or play in 240p monitors as other emulators have issues with the menus.

for the rest, standalone are better as retroarch cores lack the features of the original emulator

 

[Dyne]

The UI and settings were very difficult to navigate for a long time and it earned the reputation of not being user friendly.
To be fair, its gotten much better. Setting Core-specific Options is pretty straightforward nowadays. But its never going to be as simple as the more modern single-system QT emulators.

Personally I think Retroarch is great for GB/GBC/GBA and 8/16-bit emulation. Everything else has superior standalone emulators.

 

[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.

 

[Alarond]

Personally I think Retroarch is great for GB/GBC/GBA and 8/16-bit emulation. Everything else has superior standalone emulators.

I totally agree. 8 and 16 bits basically.

I also use it to play PSX (has some nice cores there, so, yeah, no need more than that) but not Saturn, N64, or anything greater than that, like Dreamcast or PS2. I mean, I can test those cores for Retroarch, from time to time, but... I prefer other dedicated emulators.

Another exception I do were I also use Retroarch, is to use its 3DO core. Because 3DO emulation is very strange and not that common, so, you better have 2 emulators at least. (The other 3DO emu is Phoenix, a BIZZARE emulator in Russian, which emulates 3DO and Jaguar for some VERY ESOTERIC reason I can't even understand. No, they do not have the same CPUs or architecture).

But even for Atari Jaguar I prefer to use another dedicated emu, BigPEmu, which emulates for the very first time Jaguar CD games, since 1 or 2 years ago: Finally you can play all that crap in your PC. And be thankful, because those Jaguar CD units were always shit and they are simple dying since 20 years ago (at least). So... some exclusive marvelous Jaguar CD games had the real danger to be not playable anymore until that emu appeared and give us joy to everyone of us.

So... only 8bit, 16bit, PSX and 3DO.

Fortunately, it is not the same case of MAME, were you HAVE to use it, to emulate HUGE QUANTITY of arcades, yes or yes (and we all know MAME, an all its different versions, can be a pain in the ass to config when you want to play a game for the first time). There are few notable arcade exceptions, like Model 2, Model 3, or NAOMI... much better emulated outside MAME.

 

[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]

The NES Simpsons games aren't that bad.

There are worse games yeah...

But this isn't Mario Bros either.

 

[Ikagura]

I may have misunderstood something but I'm tired of having to load a core each time.

 

[Glimbo]

I may have misunderstood something but I'm tired of having to load a core each time.

You can set a default core for each playlist.
Settings > Playlists > Manage Playlists > select a playlist > Default Core

 

[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

 

[csanjuro]

You can set a default core for each playlist.
Settings > Playlists > Manage Playlists > select a playlist > Default Core

that seems a little convoluted

 

[Glimbo]

that seems a little convoluted

Yeah, Retroarch has menu problem.
But ideally you would set the default core when you import your games through a manual scan so you don't have to go through that menu.

 

[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.

 

[.xxxevious]

I have some emulation handhelds (Miyoo Mini and Anbernic RG353PS) and having to deal with RetroArch's bullshit and how annoying it is to make saves to a specific emulator, only for it to ignore those saved settings and stretch a Gameboy game to 16:9 or something. It made me irrationally angry

i thought the saving setting issue was caused by my own stupidity... thanks for the enlightenment lmao. makes me not wanna play my Anbernic anymore :/

 

[Ikagura]

Weirdly enough BioShock 2 did BioShock Infinite much better than it.

I wish we got a leak of the prototype.

 

[JellyjamLu]

Metal Gear Solid 4 is extremely mid.

 

[Lee__Kanker]

A lot of modern games overdo it with the story sequences, and I hate that but there's also some players who thinks story has no bearing at all on a game, and jrpgs would be better as visual novels, and also that cutscenes are a band aid or a flawed way of putting story in a game because you're putting it "aside" the game and it's not interactive. Many people also say "games have bad stories anyway"

I never agreed with that, I'm somehwere in the middle. I think a good game story is one that compliments the gameplay. A game story is bad if it gets in the way of the game instead of, like I said, Elevating it. And I vastly prefer doing it with cutscenes than boring ass voice overs.

A good cutscene is a good way to set the mood and feel of a game, wether be at the beginning with a nice intro (remember when games had openings?) or to introduce a battle sequence or a boss fight, or after the boss fight.

A perfect example is the introduction of Phantom in devil may cry, it catches you by surprise, it looks sick, and it shows the player dante's persopnality, how unphased he is by the biggest enemy you've encountered in this game; it's also a way the game tells you "you can do this, the main character doesnt see it as a thread".

Then when you finally defeat him after the third encounter, he seemed impossible but now you probably dispatched him easily, and now you're gonna feel as confident as Dante as he looks down at him and goes "Sweet Dreams". It introduces you to the character while also connecting him to the player, and it's a satisfying watch after he made you game over many times and you had to grind for the yellow orbs. It's not detatched from the game in this way.
Still going wtih dmc, the scene before level 1 gives you an idea of "this is how you're gonna have to play the game" without going into boring tutorials and while still leaving room for the player to bash his head against the wall and get good.

I also dont think cutscenes should be The Sole way a game shows his story, I think they should be made On Top of the story the player is already experiencing with the game play. A lot of ps2 horror do just that, cutscenes are reserved for either introducing bosses or new areas or characters, the bulk of the story is told byu the player exploring the maps and engaging with all the scares