Unpopular Opinions On Gaming

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yeah, I wasn't a big fan of episode 6 either. The rest of the story was pretty good up until that episode. I have yet to play the DLC, though.

[Foggle]

I thought the DLC's stories were great, but I do agree that Episode 6's was a bit lackluster.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I don't know, I just couldn't really get into the whole Alan being trapped inside his mind (or Thomas Zane's mind) scenario.

Here are some unpopular opinions of my own:

-Sonic's gameplay was just fine in the Sonic Adventure games. Don't listen to the critics who tell you it was always garbage. Having replayed all of Sonic's stages in Sonic Adventure as well as the demo of Adventure 2, I can say for certain that his controls work and the camera rarely screws you up so bad that it'll cause you an unfair death. Also, if I were to be perfectly honest, while I do like what I've played of Sonic Colors and while I really enjoyed all of Generations outside of the challenge missions, I still prefer Sonic's gameplay from the Adventure games. It just feels more fluid and less restrictive to me, honestly.

-Ninja Gaiden 3 on the NES is really not a bad game. Extreme difficulty of the North American version aside, the game doesn't get enough appreciation for the elements it really does right. It has by far the best and most creative platforming scenarios out of all 3 of the classic NES games, and its not like it suffers from cheap enemy placement anymore than the first 2 games did (honestly, the Japanese version of the game makes it probably the easiest classic NES NG game of the trilogy). I think people have bad memories of that game as kids because they played the North American version which gave them double the health damage from enemies and limited continues. I played it just a year or so ago as a grown adult and still found enjoyment out of it. Its really a decent side-scroller. Not a great game, but I had fun with it.

-Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a good game. Yeah, I said it. Fuck the haters. It may be light on content but so are a ton of other classic fighting games that other people seem to love so much. What matters is the fighting. I've heard complaints that the fighting is not balanced in MVC3, but I guess people forgot that the series never really had perfectly balanced fighting to begin with. First off, how many of the people complaining about this game are so hardcore at fighting games that they play them so competitively anyways? The combat system is fun, and it DOES actually take some level of skill to get good at. Its not like a button-masher will be on equal footing with someone who has practiced the game extensively. It may fall apart on a more technical level, but as a casual fighting game player who'll never be good enough to be that technical, I couldn't give two shits. The real reason everyone hates on this game is because they didn't get their favorite characters in the roster, and the original Mega Man's not in it. Yeah, its kind of dumb of Capcom to leave him out, but you have MVC 1 and 2 if you want to play as MM. I played a ton of MVC3 against my brother and I had genuine fun with it, whether I was winning or losing. I guess fun doesn't matter so much for gamers anymore.

-I don't get what the big deal about Fez is. I'm pretty sure its gameplay gimmick has been done before, and even if it is original, its nothing mind-blowingly great. I played an hour or so of it since a friend of mine downloaded it via XBLA (he loves all of these "artsy" indie games, like Braid and Limbo, that I personally can't get into). For what its worth its not a bad game or anything, and I'd probably take it over some of the other popular indie platformers out there, but people overrate the hell out of this game. Its puzzles get rather repetitive after just half an hour or so of gameplay, and it most certainly does not emulate classic 8-bit gaming despite having an 8-bit look. People who say that clearly don't understand that there were more to classic games than just the style of their graphics.

-The XBOX360 controller isn't bad for 2D platformers and action games at all. I've heard people say that but I've played tons of classic 2D games from Sonic to Castlevania: SOTN, and the controls work fine for that. It does however suck for fighting games, since if you plan to use the d-pad for anything more than just 4 basic directions (up, down, left, and right), then you'll get absolutely no precision at all and likely won't be able to pull of the moves that you are trying to pull off more than half of the times that you actually attempt them.

[Foggle]

Agreed on all accounts, except for liking Sonic Adventure's gameplay more than Colors/Generations'. And to be honest, I play 2D games with the control stick. *everyone begins throwing tomatoes at me*

[Spark Of Spirit]

D-pad for life.

But I really can't stand the 360 d-pad, man. Outside of fighting games (where it really is terrible), I just never feel comfortable with it. I honestly think only Nintendo and Sega have made good d-pads, probably because they were designed with 2D games in mind. Also, I still haven't gotten a copy of MvC3, but since Ultimate has dropped in price and includes a lot more content than the original, I'll probably grab that one instead if I remember.

But as for me, I can't stand the ice levels in Rayman Origins. Coming from someone who typically likes ice levels in platformers, the physics are way too wonky to properly enjoy any of the platforming and those piranha fish are extremely annoying. Also doing anything besides jumping seems to kill your momentum (though jump attack stops you cold) which makes for some frustrating deaths. I say this because way too many people gloss over the faults in this game and judge it as a flawless masterpiece, and even though it's an excellent game, it has some silly issues. Though, the control issues seem to have been fixed with Legends, so at least they seemed to learn there.

[Rynnec]

-Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a good game. Yeah, I said it. Fuck the haters. It may be light on content but so are a ton of other classic fighting games that other people seem to love so much. What matters is the fighting. I've heard complaints that the fighting is not balanced in MVC3, but I guess people forgot that the series never really had perfectly balanced fighting to begin with. First off, how many of the people complaining about this game are so hardcore at fighting games that they play them so competitively anyways? The combat system is fun, and it DOES actually take some level of skill to get good at. Its not like a button-masher will be on equal footing with someone who has practiced the game extensively. It may fall apart on a more technical level, but as a casual fighting game player who'll never be good enough to be that technical, I couldn't give two shits. The real reason everyone hates on this game is because they didn't get their favorite characters in the roster, and the original Mega Man's not in it. Yeah, its kind of dumb of Capcom to leave him out, but you have MVC 1 and 2 if you want to play as MM. I played a ton of MVC3 against my brother and I had genuine fun with it, whether I was winning or losing. I guess fun doesn't matter so much for gamers anymore.

Gotta disagree with you here bro. I tried out UMvC3 last year and I wasn't really having that much fun with it at all. Some characters were fun to play as, but I just can't get into it the way I could with Tatsunoko vs Capcom. Usually I don't mind combo-focused fighters like this one, but the combo's in this game just drove me up a fucking wall. It's like if I wasn't getting mauled by a 10+ hit combo (WITHOUT a barrier burst system, which are important in games like this) I was just mauling on my enemy with a 20+ hit combo or something. The game made me feel more angry than anything. Blazblue and Persona 4 Arena also had relatively simple combo-heavy systems, but they never made me feel as angry as UMvC3 did. I also wasn't a fan of the final boss either. I'm not a fan of fighting game bosses anyway, but giant final bosses in fighting games just piss me off.

Despite its faults, I really wanted to like UMvC3, I really did. But it just turned out to be a huge dissapointment.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

But I really can't stand the 360 d-pad, man. Outside of fighting games (where it really is terrible), I just never feel comfortable with it. I honestly think only Nintendo and Sega have made good d-pads, probably because they were designed with 2D games in mind.

It does suck for fighting games, no doubt, and its easily the worst d-pad of any controller for current-gen consoles, but it still works just fine for most 2D games. Anyone who says it doesn't is lying. I can play through the entirety of any 2D Sonic game, for instance, without a single problem on the XBOX360 d-pad. I also played through all of SOTN on that d-pad and never once had a problem, so its not unplayable for 2D games like people claim. Its all a matter of getting used to. It just can't be used for fighting games or any games that require extremely precise inputs from the d-pad that require any diagonal directions, or rapid inputs in different directions at once.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Gotta disagree with you here bro. I tried out UMvC3 last year and I wasn't really having that much fun with it at all. Some characters were fun to play as, but I just can't get into it the way I could with Tatsunoko vs Capcom. Usually I don't mind combo-focused fighters like this one, but the combo's in this game just drove me up a fucking wall. It's like if I wasn't getting mauled by a 10+ hit combo (WITHOUT a barrier burst system, which are important in games like this) I was just mauling on my enemy with a 20+ hit combo or something. The game made me feel more angry than anything. Blazblue and Persona 4 Arena also had relatively simple combo-heavy systems, but they never made me feel as angry as UMvC3 did. I also wasn't a fan of the final boss either. I'm not a fan of fighting game bosses anyway, but giant final bosses in fighting games just piss me off.

Despite its faults, I really wanted to like UMvC3, I really did. But it just turned out to be a huge dissapointment.

Eh, You clearly are way more experienced with fighting games than I am. To be honest, I don't give a shit about technical stuff that much, and I suck at most fighting game final bosses anyways, so this one wasn't really any different for me. The final boss from the first 2 games were also a large bosses that was really annoying to fight, so at the very least this isn't the only MVC game to pull out that kind of fight.

At any rate, I can respect your opinion, but I personally I thought the game was fucking fun. I don't know what everyone else was playing, but I love the speed and fluid feel of the combat. I've played plenty of the previous MVC games, and this one didn't feel far off to me from those games, so at the very least I don't get why people would still praise those games (other than preferring their rosters), and bash this one. That is to say, if you didn't like this one, I don't see what makes the previous MVC game so much better than this one, but like I said, I'm a really casual player of fighting games so I probably wouldn't understand the details between what makes them so different to begin with. To me they are all combo-heavy games that move at a fast pace and are fun to play. I personally had more fun with this game than what I played of Blazblue, since that game felt more to me like you have to be good at fighting games to enjoy it (I got creamed at it and couldn't begin to understand the basics of its mechanics). I must reiterate, though, I suck at fighting games big time, so that may have to do a lot with why I enjoyed MVC3. Either way, I still say its a good game.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Agreed on all accounts, except for liking Sonic Adventure's gameplay more than Colors/Generations'. And to be honest, I play 2D games with the control stick. *everyone begins throwing tomatoes at me*

Well, it works just fine as well. I know "purists" (I really hate that term, BTW) scorn the idea of using a stick for 2D games, but as far as I'm concerned if its works it works. Its all a matter of preference at that point, and I know at least one of my friends who likes to play 2D games with an analogue stick.

[Rynnec]

Oddly enough, despite having slightly more experience with the genre, I don't think I'm that much better at fighting games. Honestly BB and TVC were my first traditional 2D fighters in years, and I can play the former just can, so I guess it has more to do with the fighting mechanics and how comfortable you feel with them more than anything.

But yeah, I can't put my finger on it, but UMvC just lacked something that Tatsunoko vs Capcom had, I'm not sure what it is, but it just doesn't feel quite as refined to me for some reason.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I only get annoyed when there's no choice to use the d-pad. Shank did that IIRC, when they could have at least given the option to swap the stick controls with the d-pad. I personally don't like using sticks for 2D games. It's why I've never fully adjusted to arcade sticks for 2D fighters.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Oddly enough, despite having slightly more experience with the genre, I don't think I'm that much better at fighting games. Honestly BB and TVC were my first traditional 2D fighters in years, and I can play the former just can, so I guess it has more to do with the fighting mechanics and how comfortable you feel with them more than anything.

But yeah, I can't put my finger on it, but UMvC just lacked something that Tatsunoko vs Capcom had, I'm not sure what it is, but it just doesn't feel quite as refined to me for some reason.

I think that you'd at least be able to point out the core differences in the mechanics between those games. For me, I don't understand anything other than the bare basics of combat.

For instance, I've been playing SSF4 (offline since I currently don't have a means to connect my XBOX360 online, and even if I did I don't have a Gold subscription right now), and I can understand how all of the techniques in the game work as individual pieces, and I can also sort of understand how you cancel combos into supers (which I have a really hard time doing since I'm stuck with my regular XBOX360 controller for now, and I also can only manage it with certain characters), but that right there is the most advanced I can get with the game's mechanics, and the sad thing is that its such a basic technique that its even included in the instruction booklet (which is how I found out how to do it in the first place ). Other than that, I just suck at fighting games, and admittedly would be classified as a button-masher. Well, to be more specific, I don't randomly tap buttons hoping that something good happens for me. I utilize blocks and back-dashes when I find them to be appropriate, and I use medium punches or kicks to poke my enemies when I get an opportunity, and I will time my anti-air attacks like uppercuts and such for opportune moments, but that's about the extent to where my knowledge of the game's mechanics lie. I can't do stuff like "linking" or any techniques that go beyond the bare basics. Maybe if I invest in a fightpad and practice the game a lot more I can get more into those techniques, but I just don't have the hands to play fighting games, if that makes any sense.

That said, I still enjoy the hell out of fighting games because for me, its just fun to feel like a bad-ass when you actually manage to break past an opponent's defense and lock them into a swift combo, and even though I lose a majority of the time, it feels that much more rewarding whenever I manage to win.

[Rynnec]

Well, for one thing it helps to go to a forum or site that to learn the deeper mechanics of the game, and to help improve your game and whatnot. For Blazblue and other Arc System Works fighters, I go to Dustloop, which has topics giving general tips on how to use advanced techniques, as well as character specific forums where you can learn their various matchups, combos, playstyle, etc. I'm sure a similar site exists for Capcom fighters. Video tutorials are also a pretty good option too.

Watching combo vids and fights between other more experienced players also can help a little.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've tried video tutorials before, as having a visual of how certain advanced techniques are performed and what they look like in action helps me the most when it comes to attempting to incorporate them into my playstyle. But then I try them and realize that they are MUCH harder to perform than they look in the videos....and then I sort of get impatient and decide to screw it and just start button-mashing again.

In general, though, fighting games are really complex and require a lot of dedication and patience to master.

I've been good and grasping the advanced and deeper mechanics of hack n' slash games, which incorporate nuanced combat akin to fighting games, albeit they are far less complex than fighting games, mainly because you're playing against computer controlled AI rather than smart human opponents. With Devil May Cry 4 I could actually learn a lot of the more advanced techniques on my own, and I was playing the game on DMD and wasn't having much trouble at all. I just stopped half-way through because I was kind of getting bored with it by that point. With Ninja Gaiden Black and NG2 I actually did go to forums to find out more advanced techniques and general battle strategies just so I could make it through the game on Very Hard/Mentor/Master Ninja mode. Something about hack n' slash games is just more simplistic to me, and makes more sense. I think fighting games take a lot more commitment and are far more skill-based.

[Rynnec]

He, I definitely know that feeling.

For me, if I can't do it in practice, I just set up a match with the computer in Vs. keeping those tactics in mind and try to do them in an actual match, usually relying on instinct.

So in essence...I just wing it.