Example; the Legend of Zelda: BotW and TotK weapon degradation system. At first I was annoyed at it, but once I stopped caring about my “favorite weapon” I really started to enjoy the system. I think it lends really well to the sandbox nature of the game and it itches that resourcefulness nature inside me.
I once read a comment on the old site about how Skyrim’s combat is like mashing WWE action figures together.
I completely agree but I don’t think that’s a weakness at all. Maybe when it released, the game was seen as a grand RPG by more casual people and as a watered down Oblivion by older ES players.
But I think by looking at it not through the lens of a grand RPG, but as a familiar, comforting brain-off experience, it really shines. It really gave us the most it could for how low effort it is to play, and I mean that in a good way.
I remember getting recommended a YouTube video (by the algorithm) called something like “why do we still like Skyrim” and I thought the video was very disappointing. And I think the video’s thesis was about the same as mine in this comment. I wanted it to be something like this:
I associate the game with a long tradition of RPGs that I wasn’t around for, as one of the last great games we got before the priorities of the industry shifted again. The graphics didn’t need to be perfect, the comically small number of VAs didn’t need AI bullshit, the straightforward story lines don’t need to be groundbreaking. The music and atmosphere though are immaculate. It’s a game with a ton of flaws, even some jank that is endearing in hindsight. It just works!
Throw on the modding aspect and you have a very “pure” PC gaming experience. This is exactly what I want from a game, something that’s good enough to just be fun to run around aimlessly in, without feeling like I need a podcast to play in the background, that I can just lose hours in.
I’m playing a much higher effort game now. Workers and Resources Soviet Republic makes the Cities Skylines 2 look like drawing stick figure houses. WRSR is absurdly complex and is super engrossing when you’re in it, if you’re wired to enjoy these types of games. However, I need to be mentally ready to jump in.
With Skyrim I just launched it when I was bored, and I was less bored after.
I insist: Skyrim’s simplicity is what made it work.
and as a watered down Oblivion by older ES players.
Uh… What?
A lot of complaints around release were that the game wasn’t as complex as Oblivion or Morrowind, to the point that it was a disappointment for more hardcore players.
Idk man. I was just living in my first apartment, had played both Oblivion and Morrowwind, and I don’t ever recall hearing anything like that.
Everyone I knew who was in to the games was fkin psyched over it. The mechanics were cool even if the world might’ve felt smaller to some.
It was definitely a thing some people felt. There are several reasons some people like one TES game over another, and while visual styles and the world in general are large parts of it, the streamlined feel is a component for many that’s divisive. Not just changed made to systems, but how arcane a previous version felt is absolutely a positive to some people. They felt the games hit a sweet spot and later game(s) went too far.
Were you there?
Do you know what Oblivion didn’t have, for instance?
Dual Wielding.
Yeah, I was there. I’m 44. I loved all three games and played them on release (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim.) I don’t want to oversell it. It was game of the year almost everywhere. Famitsu even gave it a 40/40. Maybe their first Western game reviewed as such? I remember that being a big deal. It was very well loved and very popular. A co-worker I knew who mostly only played Madden was sheepishly admitting he not only was paying it, but really loving going around picking plants for recipes.
But the skill system caught a lot of guff, which I recall being an issue some people had. I definitely remember the skill system being a thing that made a lot of people angry.
A lot of the other things were complaints you’ll find in other TES games, but people think a new game should’ve changed these things. For instance, there was the normal physics issues we get in a 3D TES game, which being the third game in a row, was adding up for some people. Then cities (and some buildings in cities) require loading was hated by some people who considered it old fashioned. Especially once a mod came out that got rid of that for cities. Also, the popularity of mods was instant. Not just people trying to add content, but initially a lot of that was people replacing models, and really talking shit on their modeling and textures.
Yeah, it got a lot of shit. But those people were playing it too. These are fellow gamers we’re talking about. People absolutely complain.
But the skill system caught a lot of guff, which I recall being an issue some people had. I definitely remember the skill system being a thing that made a lot of people angry.
You’re a decade or so older than me, and I think that affects our experiences of how it was received.
Personally I wasn’t on any online forums (at least ones which discussed TES) back then. I only had friends of my own age, people who had been tweeners/teeners when Morrowind came out and older teenagers when Oblivion came out.
I genuinely don’t remember any gripes about the game in comparison to older TES. Well, except that I really loved how open-ended the crafting was in Morrowind. You could do seriously OP items if you had the skill and gold.
Popularity of mods was instant
This is also a difference between us, as I played it on PS3 back then, so didn’t have mods. Neither did my friends.
I was much more critical of the games I played when I was 30 compared to when I was 20. So perhaps that’s a bit of the explanation? I’m not saying none of your complaints are true, they’re probably all true from a certain pov. I just didn’t experience any of them myself, and seemingly neither did my TES playing friends, and we weren’t into reading online reviews or anything.
I really like the big bang theory. I know online everyone hates it but I enjoyed the characters and the story lines. I generally like all of the actors who are in it. It just a silly sitcom. It’s comforting.
I think the big issue people have is that it made nerdy things more mainstream but they already were mainstream. or maybe they felt like it was mocking them in some way but I don’t think that is the case.
I hated it, but good for you for sticking to your opinion
I liked it. I’m not going to pretend it was the best TV media ever or anything like that, it was just a bit of harmless fun.
You’d think all the haters were forced to watch it against their will. We live in an age where you can watch anything you want whenever you want. I think some people just like a good moan.
I’m playing Dragon’s Dogma II, taking the suspended tram into Bahkbattal or however you spell it. One of my pawns failed to make it into the basket before it started moving but they’re not a ranged fighter so they’re no use in driving off harpies anyways and I don’t bother turning back since I know from previous antics that they tend to find a way back to you.
A few minutes into the trip, dangling precariously in a rickety wooden contraption over a canyon, I hear the cry of a griffin. I spot it over the horizon, its eyes locked with mine. I am forced to watch helplessly as it approaches, drawing an arrow as if it could accomplish anything. The griffin slams into my tram, shattering it instantly and dropping the three of us to our doom.
That pawn that didn’t make it on the tram catches me in a bridal carry and sets me gently down on my feet, completely unharmed.
That’s why the game’s fast travel systems are made to discourage you from using them, because adventures don’t happen during loading screens.
So much this! It’s hard to argue against qol stuff, hard to explain why Dark Souls doesn’t need difficulty settings, new Zelda games degradation system is reasonable, RE games with no moving while shooting adds to the immersion, monsters in monster Hunter don’t need a health bar etc
Everyone shits on Star Fox: Assault for shit controls. Which is half true at best, as in it makes you chose between 3 options (option C being the correct modern one) and the one the cursor starts on (A) is indeed shit. I mean it’s remotely annoying once, but like come on, it’s not even a hidden setting, it MAKES YOU CHOOSE!
I didn’t read the GOT books. That said, I enjoyed the show through to the last episode and wouldn’t have thought twice about any of it if the fans weren’t so angry. Idk why but I just don’t have the ability to be critical of (or follow very well) story or writing, or anything really. Maybe I’m just too good at suspending disbelief?
I thought the general broad strokes of what happened were fine (IE with
spoiler
Daenerys being the big villain and stuff
), I just thought it was rushed and done in a kind of sloppy way. I really didn’t like
spoiler
Bran becoming the king though
'cause I fucking hate that character lol.
Yeah, the broader plot points would have been totally workable if the execution hadn’t been so rushed and half-arsed.
The Zelda complaint is extra bullshit considering other open-world games like Just Cause do exactly the same thing by giving the guns limited ammo, so you constantly have to switch weapons based on what the enemies drop.
Considering in prior Zelda games you didn’t have to worry about your sword being unusable or your shield breaking (inb4 “what about…”, there’s like three circumstances in a dozen plus games, cmon.), I can understand why folks weren’t so keen on it in the new ones. Yeah you could run out of magic, arrows, or bombs, but that boomerang wasn’t going anywhere.
BotW is just not a Zelda game at all. It is a very mid outdoor walking simulator with fetch quests. I don’t care about the breakable weapons, even. I want the collection of tools, the long dungeons with puzzles using those tools, and the bosses vulnerable to those tools.
It has dungeons: The four divine beasts.
IMO It put a lot of the “Use a particular tool for this” puzzles into the shrines to scratch the puzzle solvers itch, (along with some of the Korok seeds.) but even those still gave leeway to not having to use those tools at all.
That is why I wrote specifically “long dungeons,” yeah. Those are simple and short, all the same little floating skulls, maybe one treasure that is a mild head-scratcher to get at. The boss fights in there are barely distinct from each other. It feels cheap compared to previous releases.
They did put all those tool puzzles into shrines. But they are one-offs and simplified. It takes longer to find a shrine than to solve it. And too many of them are just “fight this same little spidery guy again.”
The whole experience strikes me as Zelda for people who hated the majority of the content in previous games.
that boomerang wasn’t going anywhere.
Tbh, if I had a boomerang as a weapon, I’d get precisely one throw out of it (whether I hit anything or not).
I mean if I run out of RPG ammo in GTA I can buy more for a universal currency I don’t have to keep beating crime lords down with a big stick until one of them drops a fresh one.
I think there would have been less issue with the Zelda weapon system if they started you with a bigger inventory space or made the tree guy who expands it someone you talk to and learn where to meet them later at the beginning of the game.
That is kinda what happened in Tears of the Kingdom.
I think I missed that because I saw him in another spot wandering around before he went to the central hub place he stays at for a long time
Can’t you pick up ammo in the Just Cause games? It’s been too long since I last played.
That being said, I like how Dying Light handles the decay system. You can repair a weapon so many times before it becomes completely useless, but in the second game I think you can just always repair stuff if you have the means.
I think if you’re comparing open world games to open world games then yeah, BOTW doesn’t do anything too terribl differenty, but when you compare BOTW to other Zelda games then it’s very different and that’s where the criticism comes from.
Personally I feel BOTW is a very competent open world game, probably one of the better ones I’ve played but I still didn’t gel with it because I was already strongly feeling fatigued from too many games becoming open world and not making that leap particularly well (Mass Effect Andromeda and FFXV coming to mind for me personally), what I wanted was a more traditional Zelda game and that’s simply not what BOTW was.
The Original Mafia game is generally criticized for being a linear game in an open-world, but I think its linear nature is one of its strengths, because it gives the narrative a tight, driving focus that open world games tend to lack.
I’ve only played 2 and I feel the same way about it. I wish more games did this approach of using an open world as a setting for a linear game to perform.
You get the best of both worlds with this approach. The feeling of the world being more real and lived in, whilst having the tightness of the storytelling of a linear game.
I’ve always defended how mafia 2 did it and never understood why people wanted it to be more open world. The story had me gripped too much to even think about that stuff.
I always find it weird in some open world games where something in the story is described as being a race against time or so important it needs to get done now, but as the player you can just forget that for a bit and go do something else before continuing. Even just the ability to do that takes me out of it.
That last point is why I couldn’t play Fallout 4. My son was kidnapped, my spouse was killed, and I need to find out who did it and where they are! Right after I save a library, build a town, and solve some detective mysteries, I guess.
Mafia 2 was just the best damn looking game I’ve ever played. No other game has sold the late 50s to me in a way that I actually thought I was there
It’ll be a game I’ll always remember fondly. I still think of that ending to this day, one of the best.
Red dead redemption 2 was pretty linear and I think it’s one of the best games
In the case of rdr2, it has a linear story, but a plethora of side content the player can engage with outside of the main missions. In Mafia, there was a single person that would sometimes offer you little missions to steal faster and better cars, but otherwise had no side activities whatsoever in between driving to and from the story missions. The lack of side content was the main complaint.
Shadow of the Colossus was linear, but I don’t recall anyone complaining.
Was it? You were in an open environment
and you could do the opponents in mostly any order.Scratch that. I guess I’m think of post game when you can replay the battles.
I think Mafia received that criticism because of its surface level similarity to GTA, which is known for packing a ton of random side content in its open world.
In Mafia there is genuinely nothing to do out in the world when driving around outside of the main story missions, except for occasionally a mechanic at a garage will offer you some small mission to steal a newer and faster car. Because of that, people complained that the open-world part was pointless and a waste.
Is this the one where I kept trying to go visit my mom (as part of my belligerent insistence on looking for stuff to do in the open world after every mission), but the game wouldn’t let me go into any building that wasn’t the next story mission, and then later the main character got chewed out by his mom for never visiting her? I did find that annoying.
That might’ve happened in the sequel? I don’t think you ever see the main character’s parents in the first game, but I do recall visiting them when you come back from WWII in the second game.
I wasn’t a big fan of the sequel, since I found the main characters to be unsympathetic assholes.
I think you’re right, it must have been the sequel!
some people think harry potter is actually well written, they probably think it, because they read it as a kid and it was one of their first books, but the writing is quite plump and the storytelling mid at best imo
It depends on the book, tbh. I’ve read them all as an adult and was surprised how the quality varied
The lack of interpersonal conflict in Star Treks overseen by Gene Roddenberry is a good thing. Humanity got their shit together, made Earth paradise, and went exploring the galaxy and other frontiers in life. Shoehorning conflict and darkness into the newer series destroys what made it unique.
I couldn’t quite pinpoint what I didn’t like about the newer series, but you’ve nailed it - the hyper realistic tone it now has really clashes with the explorative nature of the old series.
There are some ways in which the newer shows like Discovery are realistic, but there are also ways in which they are stupid.
For example, two federation officers in a life or death situation where they have two minutes to solve an urgent crisis, and they decide to spend 60 seconds of that having an emotional heart-to-heart.
If that was in TNG, they’d have got the job done like professionals, and then had the friends chat later in ten forward. Because that’s how people with jobs get their jobs done.
TNG era was quite cheesy in some ways, but it kept characters real in that they always acted appropriately for their role and position, not just like a bunch of emotional oddballs who get to be in charge of a spaceship for some reason.
Well said. Discovery was more about individualism and the “rich tapestry” of family histories to show that these characters have inherited their greatness and that no one else is equipped to be in the singular intense situation they are now in.
TNG was more about the mission. Sometimes family history came into it, but most of the team was just doing the best they could given the circumstance and their characteristics were more quirks that helped the overall effort. At least that’s how it felt. Not one single character was more special than another.
No particular heroes, just professional heroics.
Discovery was trash. Lasted until season 2 but the plot holes and inconsistencies and bad writing was too much for me. Not to mention the 'member berries. And the key jangling, and tech ahead of its time breaking all manner of canon. Agreed the over emotional stuff came off as trite and out of place for what was essentially a space navy.
So, they can detect anomalies all over the milky way? In real time? Writers said that Klingons represented Trump supporters? Why? Or, with the baddies destroyed they didn’t have to travel in time. So why did they? Capital ships manoeuvring like borderline fighters? Plot contrivance from the writers? Okay. TNG or DS9 had their flaws but it was superior writing and seemed to be written for adults or did not insult its audience’s maturity, regardless of age. Discovery seems to have been written for kids or emotional teens. Lots of pew-pew action, too.
Seen shows where the writers --as they recalled-- originally removeded about this. Made writing harder, since it was more difficult to write plots, but fuck that, it made them think outside the box, which made for some excellent episodes Re: grander ideas and nuanced takes on many subjects. Most, if not all, have come around to seeing Gene was definately ahea of his time and came to agree, too.
However DS9 was excellent, even though it diverged from Gene’s formula.
I feel that divergence is what made DS9 so good. Instead of travelling around exploring aliens, we’re stationary exploring ourselves and our politics. It was a great idea to make a show about a completely different aspect of Starfleet life. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the last great idea they had.
Sonic Adventure 2’s mech stages. I actually loved those stages and was really surprised to learn that so many people didn’t like them, I always found it so satisfying getting good combos!
I heard a lot of complaints about the twins in borderlands 3.They’re shallow, they’re obnoxious, they remind you of wanna be tiktok influencers, on and on.
That’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Guys, Handsome Jack was bottled lightning. He was a masterpiece of good writing, good design, well placed improv, and just plain dumb luck. They were never going to pull that off again. You’d need to open a real vault to find that level of treasure.
The Calypso’s are exactly what they say on the tin. They’re all those obnoxious, unfunny things I mentioned because sometimes villains aren’t well thought out, complex characters. I fucking love shooting Troy in his smug hot topic weeb face. I don’t need to consider the complexity of a man driven to an extreme or the show erosion of one’s moral character in pursuit of power, they were two shitty kids on an ego trip with no regard for the damage they did. It is plain, and simple, and easy.
Are there problems with the rest if the story? Absolutely. Are there some awful plot-holes? Oh my fuck, yes. But are the Calypsos the thing that ruined the game? Fuck no, they’re fine and perfectly shootable as a bad-guy needs to be.
Just gonna chime in to say I bought Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands cause it’s on sale right now for like $12 on steam (the season pass is only $5 too) and MY GOD IS IT AN ABSOLUTE BLAST TO PLAY!
I’m just having straight up fun with this game, and I’m already wishing there was a sequel coming out tomorrow so I could dive right in when I finish this one. The bright vibrant world is fun to explore, the enemies are entertaining to fight with their quips and banter, the new mechanics (spells instead of grenades, new dedicated melee weapons and inventory slot, enchanted rings/amulets/armor to change that can all act as individual class mods to switch up your play style a bit) feel right at home in the fantasy setting.
I’ve heard about the lack of endgame and DLC stories, but I don’t care. I’m just having fun with my bowguns and magic missile launchers.
Forspoken is low key incredible and like, exactly one sound bite sealed it’s fate, once it became a meme, people already made up their mind about it.
It was one of the best games I played last year and I found the story to be compelling and the gameplay fresh.
I think it’ll be regarded as a hidden gem in the future unironically.
It also didn’t help that it was one of the first $70 games when the norm was $60.
Ariel in Disney’s A Little Mermaid doesn’t drop everything for “a man”.
She is clearly interested in land culture from the opening of the film, spending her time collecting shipwreck items and trying to learn what they are. She also isn’t interested in the hobby her father wants her to do, singing.
King Triton is abusive when destroying Ariel’s collection of artifacts, which makes you think of what else is going on with how he parents her.
So, Eric shows up and seems like a way out. It isn’t a lot of information to go off of for adults, but it is something solid for a teenager.
And what did she give up to gain her legs? Her voice. People interpret it as her giving up being able to speak for herself, but it is her giving up the thing that her father cares about.
In the original cartoon, it is explicitly shown that Triton does not like, or enjoyed or wanted to harm or hurt Ariel by destroying her collection. He wanted to protect her from her own follies and didn’t know what else to do. At worst, flawed but well intentioned.
This is obvious on the shot of his face, showing his sad expression, hurt and regret as he looks back at her and as she starts crying, as he leaves. This important nuance was completely cut out from the live action film. Doing so recontextualised the entire scene.
Which in the film does make him look like a crazy asshole father, do not know why this was done as it just unnecessarily vilifies him without reason and removes previously shown emotional depth and context from the cartoon. My guess was because he = man, and man = bad, which went along with some people working in the film and some others saying that she had dropped everything for “a man.”
It is still an act of violence against things she loved. It may be well intentioned, but we wouldn’t condone that behavior in real life.
Also I can’t look past the fact that there’s absolutely no way that they wouldn’t establish a form of nonverbal communication. ASL? Enthusiastic head nodding?!
One that always stood out to me was the ending of the Tom Cruise war or the world’s movie.
Now to be clear, this is not a good film and I don’t recommend that anyone bothers to go watch it, but a criticism I regularly saw was that the ending was bad - the aliens all just die suddenly.
That was literally the only thing that film got right from the source material. They changed literally everything else in an attempt to modernise it, it didn’t work but they at least kept the ending and that’s the bit people didn’t like.
Yeah. It’s a movie about surviving. Not winning. And the opening sets up the end.
Have you read the Wayside School books? I haven’t.
Have you watched the cartoon that was based off them? I actually have. And idk, I actually kinda liked it. To me, this is the fun type of “junk food cartoon”. A fun time waster if you will.
Maybe one day I’ll grab one of the books to really figure out if they’re that better than the cartoon adaptation. Maybe the latest one (Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom) will wow me.
