An opinion you're probably all alone with?

[WritersBlock]

Well I actively seek out a lot of the deaths in the adventure games where you can die just to see how it can happen.
The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian is a fantastic adventure game because of that and several other reasons. (Finding out the use for the socks you pick up at the beginning of the game is such a great moment.)

[Ignimortis]

I think the series is overrated except for IV, X, and XII, so the funny thing is I think that opinion is not unpopular it just varies by which games people think are "the good ones". Which are usually the ones people played first lol.

I think one of my biggest video game hot takes is that Dragon Age 2 was pretty good actually. Not perfect, but good. MUCH better than Inquisition, at least.

I consider DA 2 to be the peak of the series while also being noticeably and terribly flawed. DAO is okay in writing, but has an atrocious art style and the combat is duller than most CRPGs made in the 00s managed to make it. DAI is built on top of something that was meant to be an MMO and it shows. Also doesn't have as many non-annoying characters.

DA2 is still not an excellent game, but a decent one. If it had more than 12 months of development (imagine developing an AAA game in a year?), and took the proper 2.5-3 years it deserved, it could've been much, much better. Or worse, since DAI did not improve on DA2.

[Rodin]

It's kind of interesting to look at the different approaches of 80s adventure game giants LucasArts and Sierra. "You can't die and victory is always (eventually) possible" versus "You will die again and again and that thing you did two hours ago might keep you from ever completing the game".

That might've been harsh on Sierra. I do love a lot of their games, brutal as they may be.

The Quest For Glory series had "dying again and again", but they tended to make the deaths pretty comical. They had very little in the way of unwinnable game states, and those that existed followed on from blatantly stupid/unheroic behaviour. I looked through the TVTropes page for it (and yes, Sierra has their own page) and I found only one that I knew about, which was killing the spitting seed plants in the first game. Even that one was on a subsequent playthrough of the game where I was having fun with the text parser. I'm pretty sure the game scolds for it immediately, making the later failure (getting zapped by the dryad) predictable.

My favorite one on the list is if you drop your spare change of clothes (an action that is not beneficial in any way) which forces you to dress up in harem clothes later, causing a game over.

The other series though? Yikes. Dying via chest burster 15 minutes later in Space Quest is a pretty good highlight. Laura Bow 2 punishing you with a Bad Ending because you left crime scenes as you found them is another.

[factotum]

The Quest For Glory series had "dying again and again", but they tended to make the deaths pretty comical.

The original Monkey Island only had one game-ending state other than completing it. At one point Guybrush is tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea. Sure, he can hold his breath for 10 minutes, he told us that earlier, but if you somehow fail to rescue him inside that time he dies and all the regular interaction verbs get replaced with things like "Bob" and "Bloat".

[AvatarVecna]

Arkham Origins and Knight aren't bad, they're just not as good as City.

Origins had the martial artist enemy type and the Dark Knight system as solid additions to the series (even if they need some tweaks), the Deadshot fight was far better than City's, the Deathstroke fight was phenomenal, and it was interesting having multiplayer in a Batman game even if it wasn't quite the multiplayer I wanted. But for the bugs, which are annoying when they occur, it's a perfectly serviceable Arkham game, and I'm baffled whenever I hear somebody say it didn't add anything to the series.

Knight's story is great. Commissioner Gordon's progression through the game, Oracle getting to be more than a voice in your ear and actually show her badass credentials, Harley's evolution without Joker, the tragedy of the Arkham Knight himself, Scarecrow's "manipulative psychologist" routine that works in the way Hugo Strange's posturing and ego tripping never did, the fall of Batman both mentally and socially. Even the Joker's story works for me to a degree: he didn't need to be in this story, his story could've been left with the conclusion in City, but his inclusion in this story enriches it, and helps solidify City's conclusion in the end. Dynamic duo action is almost everything I could've asked for, save that it's not multiplayer. It's interesting playing predator encounters where the enemy is updating their tactics to deal with yours, and the vehicle sections are perfectly fine - you just don't have 2 or 3 games of practice with them the way you do with the flight/combat/predator systems, so you think they're trash.

[tyckspoon]

The Quest For Glory series had "dying again and again", but they tended to make the deaths pretty comical. They had very little in the way of unwinnable game states, and those that existed followed on from blatantly stupid/unheroic behaviour.

"Pick nose."

Yeah, the only other way I can think of to get into an unwinnable state is having really poor timing on saving when you are in/about to get into a combat encounter that you aren't able to beat. I don't think there are puzzle gates otherwise where doing the wrong thing or failing to interact with a set-dressing element ten screens ago will randomly kill your game. (Looking at you, Kings Quest V.)

[Rodin]

"Pick nose."

Yeah, the only other way I can think of to get into an unwinnable state is having really poor timing on saving when you are in/about to get into a combat encounter that you aren't able to beat. I don't think there are puzzle gates otherwise where doing the wrong thing or failing to interact with a set-dressing element ten screens ago will randomly kill your game. (Looking at you, Kings Quest V.)

King's Quest V has the most infamous ones (the pie and the rat), but for my money the winner will always be King's Quest IV. What's that? You didn't see the item that is hidden from the camera on the island you can only visit once? Too bad, no game completion for you. It doesn't kill you, it just leaves the game in an unwinnable state since without the bridle you can't tame the unicorn, and the unicorn is required for an endgame quest.

For those who haven't played it, here's a picture of the island in question. Point out the unicorn bridle if you can:

Spoiler

Show

[factotum]

Is it the black thing at bottom right? Looks like it has a loop in it which might handily go over a unicorn's horn.

[tyckspoon]

Is it the black thing at bottom right? Looks like it has a loop in it which might handily go over a unicorn's horn.

Nope, that's a partially buried boat anchor.

[WritersBlock]

I would say either behind the palm tree, or behind the boat, or behind part of the boat. Or maybe even hidden in the grass.

[tyckspoon]

I would say either behind the palm tree, or behind the boat, or behind part of the boat. Or maybe even hidden in the grass.

Spoiler: Puzzle solution

Show

'Behind part of the boat' is correct. To be precise, it's in the prow of the boat on the right, and does not have a visual representation on the screen at all. You are intended to use the game's 'look'/inspect type commands, which IIRC if you trigger the correct response will alert you to 'something shining on the ground' or similar. Then you have to go to the correct specific part of the screen and 'look ground' in order to actually collect the item.

[Amechra]

Kingdom Hearts makes more sense if you chunk it up like this:

Arc 1 — Welcome to Kingdom Hearts! feat. Sora, Riku, Donald, Goofy, and Kairi: Kingdom Hearts 1.
Arc 2 — Organization XIII + Axel, Namine, Roxas, and Xion. Mickey Mouse is now plot relevant: Chain of Memories → 358/2 → Kingdom Hearts 2.
Arc 3 — Xehanort Time! feat. Aqua, Terra, and Ventus. Oh, yeah, time travel is a thing.: Birth By Sleep → Dream Drop Distance → Kingdom Hearts 3 (most of it). You might also want to throw Re:Coded in there? I don't think it's strictly necessary, but it explains why the heck there's a virtual Riku at one point in Kingdom Hearts 3.
Arc 4 — we'll presumably learn about the Master of Master's deal, and about this Yezora dude: Kingdom Hearts 3 (the ending, mostly) → the mobile games → Melody of Memories → Kingdom Hearts 4

It also helps if you play/watch the series with an eye to the fact that no one really knows what's going on, no matter how much they might pretend otherwise. The biggest example of this is in Arc 2, where you get big spiels from multiple characters about how Nobodies aren't really people because they don't have feelings or personalities and can't form interpersonal bonds... and then 358/2 is literally about three Nobodies becoming best friends and trying to process their feelings about being told that they don't have feelings.

[GloatingSwine]

The real game in Kingdom Hearts is identifying the precise moment the series goes full Nomura.

Just remember: Everyone is Xehanort, everyone else is Sora.

[Anteros]

Kingdom Hearts is just a hot mess even by Square's dubious storytelling standards. I think it's best to just think of KH 1 and 2 as a separate story that never got finished and ignore the rest.

Eh, as someone who only played KH1 and 2, Kingdom Hearts' story lost me after you beat Millificent in the first game and it stopped being a romp through Disney stuff and went off and did its own, totally bizarre thing from out of nowhere. KH2's story I barely remember at all at this point. Gameplay was fun, but writing was never the series' strong suite. Hell, by far the most memorable part of KH2 for me is the Sephiroth boss fight, which I loved - and that despite having never played Final Fantasy 7 at that time.

I more or less agree with this, although disagree at the point where they lost me. Nomura just got so full of himself that he forgot what made the series good (nostalgic romps through Disney and Square's most famous material) and thought his own writing could carry a series. The problem being that he can't write for **** and all of the parts that he added in himself instead of leaning on existing IP are just awful.

Arkham Origins and Knight aren't bad, they're just not as good as City.

Origins had the martial artist enemy type and the Dark Knight system as solid additions to the series (even if they need some tweaks), the Deadshot fight was far better than City's, the Deathstroke fight was phenomenal, and it was interesting having multiplayer in a Batman game even if it wasn't quite the multiplayer I wanted. But for the bugs, which are annoying when they occur, it's a perfectly serviceable Arkham game, and I'm baffled whenever I hear somebody say it didn't add anything to the series.

Knight's story is great. Commissioner Gordon's progression through the game, Oracle getting to be more than a voice in your ear and actually show her badass credentials, Harley's evolution without Joker, the tragedy of the Arkham Knight himself, Scarecrow's "manipulative psychologist" routine that works in the way Hugo Strange's posturing and ego tripping never did, the fall of Batman both mentally and socially. Even the Joker's story works for me to a degree: he didn't need to be in this story, his story could've been left with the conclusion in City, but his inclusion in this story enriches it, and helps solidify City's conclusion in the end. Dynamic duo action is almost everything I could've asked for, save that it's not multiplayer. It's interesting playing predator encounters where the enemy is updating their tactics to deal with yours, and the vehicle sections are perfectly fine - you just don't have 2 or 3 games of practice with them the way you do with the flight/combat/predator systems, so you think they're trash.

Knight is just weighed down by the Batmobile. They were so obsessed with it that they shoehorned it into every aspect of the game, to the point where the entire game ended up feeling like an escort quest where you're escorting the Batmobile to your next area.

[Zevox]

Arkham Origins and Knight aren't bad, they're just not as good as City.

Is... that not an entirely average opinion of that series? I mean, I've seen a few people be particularly down on Origins for some reason, but outside of that as far as I'm aware they're all well-regarded.

[Rynjin]

My first exposure to that game was the Team FourStar stream of it. They actually CHEERED when the Batmobile got blown up towards the end of the game.

The issue with the Batmobile is that it was, from the start, an unnecessary addition to the game. As a conveyance it is pointless. Ziplining and gliding through the city is simply more fun (and in most cases faster) than driving. Even if driving the car WAS faster...it's a car. Who gives a ****? I wanna zipline.

If it was used for a few major sections of the game and that was it, fine. But it was the key to close to half of the puzzle solving in the game (if not more) and the mandatory forced tank sections were all awful and boring. Batman Arkham combat is fun because it's fluid and fast.

Batmobile combat is literally: side strafe....fire...wait for the cannon to recharge while sidestrafing...fire...wait...fire...wait...fire. It's utterly boring.

It's not that I have "less experience" with the mechanics, it's that the mechanics are half-baked and uninspired. I've played driving games before, all but the worst are better than Arkham Knight. I've played tank combat game before, it's better than Arkham Knight.

It's a subpar minigame tacked onto an otherwise fun game that takes over way too much of the actual game and detracts from it.

To segue into a hot take of my own, it's a big part of why I did not like Yakuza 6, and still haven't finished it. I do not give a **** about Clan Creator. I simply do not care. I do not find it fun. I did not fine it fun in Kiwami 2. I have no desire to play it again (for the first time).

So STOP INTERRUPTING THE ACTUAL GAME TO SHILL IT TO ME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[AvatarVecna]

Is... that not an entirely average opinion of that series? I mean, I've seen a few people be particularly down on Origins for some reason, but outside of that as far as I'm aware they're all well-regarded.

it feels like a pretty average opinion to me, but then basically any time I see people talk about either game, they're taking an enormous dump on it.

[Anteros]

To segue into a hot take of my own, it's a big part of why I did not like Yakuza 6, and still haven't finished it. I do not give a **** about Clan Creator. I simply do not care. I do not find it fun. I did not fine it fun in Kiwami 2. I have no desire to play it again (for the first time).

So STOP INTERRUPTING THE ACTUAL GAME TO SHILL IT TO ME AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I don't remember it being that intrusive in 6? Just the first part where they set everything up, but after that it hardly ever came up again that I noticed. I do tend to zone out some during Yakuza games though. I like them but they just drag on forever about stuff no one cares about a lot.

[Kesnit]

Games don't need to be difficult to be enjoyable. In fact, in many cases making a game more difficult makes it less enjoyable.

You are not alone in this opinion.


1) Morrowind could be a great game, if the quest interface was fixed. I WANT to play it. Everyone says it is great. It looks like it could be great. But the journal sucks. I cannot sit and play for days without end, and remembering every little detail someone said when the last time I played was a month ago means I am not going to remember how to complete the quest. (I also once found a quest where the questgiver said leave the village and turn right. The quest solution was to the left.) A journal that actually tells you things or quest markers would get me back to the game in a heartbeat.

2) Atari ET was a cool game. Sure, I was a kid when it came out. And it was really simplistic. (Although a lot of games were at the time.) But when I read years later about cartridges being buried in the desert, I thought it was a joke.

3) Forced grouping in MMOs sucks. When DDO first came out, I was so excited. I had never had the chance to play D&D and was finally going to get my chance. But once you finished the (very short) tutorial, all that was left was group dungeons - and not a lot of them. The game turned into people LFG for a while (thankfully they had an in-game LFG interface), then run the same dungeons over and over until you leveled enough to run the next one. There was no SP stuff at the time. (I am aware DDO has been changed a lot and I like the new version. But the original still haunts me.)

4) Kingdoms of Amalur isn't a bad game. The developer promised too much. But if you just view the game for what it is, it is fun.

[Rynjin]

I don't remember it being that intrusive in 6? Just the first part where they set everything up, but after that it hardly ever came up again that I noticed. I do tend to zone out some during Yakuza games though. I like them but they just drag on forever about stuff no one cares about a lot.

A lot of the cutscenes involved are non-optional, and I remember the straw breaking the camel's back for me was returning to Serena after a pretty heavy cutscene (IIRC where you find the guy you were looking for is already dead) and then get completely blindsided by more Clan Creator stuff in a loooong cutscene.

It's not even that I hate the concept of the story, I really enjoy those NJPW wrestlers in their voice acting roles (Tiger Mask W was a great anime for example), but man I just wanted to play the main game.

Kiwami 2 was at least less obtrusive. You get it introduced to you when you first reunite with Majima and then never have to touch ti again if you want.

Yakuza 6 makes you do the forced tutorial, constantly barrages you with it the entire time you're in Onomichi, and then is STILL sideswiping you with it once you get to Kamurocho. It's just too much.

[Kish]

Obviously not alone because the devs also thought the same,[...]

I would venture a guess that "Mass Effect 1 was mechanically* superior to the two following games" would be an opinion that would fit the thread better.

*Not talking about in terms of story.

[MCerberus]

I would venture a guess that "Mass Effect 1 was mechanically* superior to the two following games" would be an opinion that would fit the thread better.

*Not talking about in terms of story.

I will die on the Mako hill.
At a 60 degree angle

[LaZodiac]

I will die on the Mako hill.
At a 60 degree angle

In every respect ME2 is a superior game but the Mako segments were always genuinely very enjoyable to me, so same.

[Anteros]

A lot of the cutscenes involved are non-optional, and I remember the straw breaking the camel's back for me was returning to Serena after a pretty heavy cutscene (IIRC where you find the guy you were looking for is already dead) and then get completely blindsided by more Clan Creator stuff in a loooong cutscene.

It's not even that I hate the concept of the story, I really enjoy those NJPW wrestlers in their voice acting roles (Tiger Mask W was a great anime for example), but man I just wanted to play the main game.

Kiwami 2 was at least less obtrusive. You get it introduced to you when you first reunite with Majima and then never have to touch ti again if you want.

Yakuza 6 makes you do the forced tutorial, constantly barrages you with it the entire time you're in Onomichi, and then is STILL sideswiping you with it once you get to Kamurocho. It's just too much.

You're probably right. Yakuza is definitely a game I play with half an eye on the TV. I'm not above walking out of the room during a boring cutscene or skipping them if possible. I like them a lot, but there's usually about 4-6 hours of solid plot spread out over a 60 hour game. I may not remember it because I probably just didn't watch it at all once it became clear it wasn't main-plot relevant.

[LibraryOgre]

I miss Star Wars: Uprising. While it's "adventure" gameplay was fairly missable (phone action shooter), I loved the first part of the story, the idea of the Iron Blockade, and it's missions system.

[MetroAlien]

It's kind of interesting to look at the different approaches of 80s adventure game giants LucasArts and Sierra. "You can't die and victory is always (eventually) possible" versus "You will die again and again and that thing you did two hours ago might keep you from ever completing the game".

I chalk that up to video games being a new form media back then.
Developers had different, competing ideas about "what" a game should be.

The Sierra approach to game design is that the game is a puzzle that the player has to solve. It's inherently adversarial (in good spirit) between developer and player. Players are encouraged to actively challenge the "rules" a game presents to them.
A modern equivalent would be FromSoft.

The LucasArts design philosophy is that games are art: their goal is to convey an experience to the player.
Visual style, narrative, music, presentation and interaction design, are all just tools for putting the player in a desired state of mind.
A modern equivalent would be Kojima Productions.

Now, there's a third philosophy: that gaming is a source of potentially infinite profit, achieved by maximising "engagement" with a single title and minimising development/upkeep costs.
This is mostly embodied by EA, UbiSoft and Epic.

[veti]

You are not alone in this opinion.


1) Morrowind could be a great game, if the quest interface was fixed. I WANT to play it. Everyone says it is great. It looks like it could be great. But the journal sucks. I cannot sit and play for days without end, and remembering every little detail someone said when the last time I played was a month ago means I am not going to remember how to complete the quest. (I also once found a quest where the questgiver said leave the village and turn right. The quest solution was to the left.) A journal that actually tells you things or quest markers would get me back to the game in a heartbeat.

One of the DLCs, I'm not sure which, introduced indexing for the journal, which makes it perfectly usable.

I remember at least one quest where the instructions sent me in completely the wrong direction. But when I thought it over, I was fine with that. After all, it's just the sort of mistake that happens in real life, why should random bods in a game be infallible?

[Razade]

I remember at least one quest where the instructions sent me in completely the wrong direction. But when I thought it over, I was fine with that. After all, it's just the sort of mistake that happens in real life, why should random bods in a game be infallible?

The simple answer is "I'm an adult with things to do and my gaming time is limited and I want to make progress in the game I'm playing in my limited free time and I can't do that if the game is yanking me about because the information I was given isn't actually the information I needed and I had no idea that the person I thought was giving me reliable information was, in fact, not doing so and thus wasted my free time not actually playing the game in the manner I would have otherwise enjoyed."

Not a short answer, but the simplest one. If I know the game is going to jerk me around going in, that's one thing. If the game is going to jerk me around when pretty much every other thing in the game builds itself on the premise that information is accurate and exactly what I need (even if it takes some parsing) then throwing in the random "haha, this person is just like a real person and got it wrong!" is just jerking me about for the sake of it and I don't appreciate that. I don't play video games because they're like real life. I can go get wrong information from Twitter in half the time if that's what I really wanted.

[NichG]

No Man's Sky was okay. Not great, not terrible, just another game.

[MetroAlien]

Not related to the replies above, but I just remembered an opinion I had that none of my gaming friends wanted to hear, and it's about Pokemon.

Basically, when a new Pokemon game was coming out, everyone I knew was talking smack about it "because it has fewer pokemon than the last game"

now, to me, that was objectively untrue, because the last Pokemon game was a re-make, and thus had even less new pokemon, i.e. zero

All my friends told me "that doesn't count, it's just a remake"
But I'm just like... you paid the full price of a game to buy it, yes? Then you bought a Pokemon game with zero new pokemon in it, yes?
and had no problem with it?
Then, what's the problem now?

This mindset is so alien to me...
I just can't wrap my head around it.