Your video game hot take(s) thread

[Old_Hunter_77]

Re: reddit
I gotta say that one of the best experiences I've ever had with entertainment media was participating in the r/bloodborne sub when I got seriously into that game.

So this was around 2017-2018. I got a cheap used PS4 and Bloodborne as part of some subscription deal or something and I used that as a chance to truly push myself to finally get into a Dark Soul game. Boy was it rough, but I was in the mood for some punishment and I was fascinated with the game design so I committed myself to progressing and then, eventually, to getting the platinum.

I used the sub for tips etc and started posting my own experiences complaints. As you can imagine these including long whining posts about mechanical details and where I was having trouble. The responses were amazing- thoughtful, patient, complimentary, coupled with enthusiastic offers to physically help me beat bosses. Though at the time I was not playing online, I did discover the joy people experienced in playing Souls games co-op.

An important reason that Bloodborne is one of my favorite games of all time is that sub. It was the first time I experienced some of the social aspects of gaming I had when I was a kid, just geeking out about game details with others.

When I decided to continue and complete my Soulsborne games, I found similar experiences in each of the other games' subs. This included finding other achievement hunters for Dark Souls 3 and Demons Souls remake where we would purposefully invade each other's games and kill each other to grind out collectibles. I took particular joy in even helping a few folks beat tough fights- I become the guy that people thanked! It was delightful.

By the time I got around to Sekiro and finally Elden Ring, I relied on them less, with FextraLife and a billion trillion youtube channels providing everything I needed.

So, I'm sure that some From fans have been insufferable with the git gud nonsense. I'm not denying anyone's experiences, and frankly I think Elden Ring killed that particular unique vibe that I plugged into. It was a particular moment with Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne where pure gaming enthusiasm was nurtured. Maybe because those games are so... weird, I dunno. Some of the nicest online people I met were hardcore fans of Dark Souls 2, just looking for people as happy as they were to see unique move sets for wielding two maces or whatever lol.

The reason I didn't see the kind of comments being referenced here by u/Dalisclock is because they were downvoted to hell.
I dunno, maybe the moderators changed? But also with internet places, there are limited periods where things are good, and then people change, tech changes, trends change. I think I was lucky enough to plug into a very special, cool thing with these games at a particular time. I don't go there no more now 'cause I'm done with these games.

 

[BrawlMan]

Seraphim17 is not impressed and does not consider the Dead Space Remake better than Dead Space Original.

Dead Space Remake Being Objectively Worse in The First 5 Minutes of Gameplay #shorts

The Remake has some great touches and details. Checkpoints aren't one of them. #shorts #Deadspace #DeadSpaceRemake #Deadspace2023 #Seraphim17

www.youtube.com

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[BrawlMan]

@Kyrian007, I got another Skyward Sword for ya!

Can We Agree Skyward Sword Rocks Now? Zelda Cycle Explained

The Legend of Zelda has an appreciation cycle of hype, backlash, and reassessment, and now it is time to agree Skyward Sword rocks.

www.escapistmagazine.com

Being a Legend of Zelda simp can be a bit of a tumultuous experience. Of course fans have had to wait nearly six years and counting for the much anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. But even bigger frustrations stem from Zelda fans not really knowing or even understanding what they want, let alone what makes each entry in the franchise so special.

New entries into the Zelda series have an odd history of receiving the highest of praise at launch, garnering perfect scores from major critics and gaming journalism publications, only to fall out of favor with fans within a year or even a few months.

The trend of knocking a Link-centered adventure off its pedestal isn’t uncommon from other fandoms, though if you want a look at what popularized it to the hot-take culture it is today, you can trace the history back to YouTube thinkpieces attacking industry-changing classics like Ocarina of Time. But again, this is more a catalyst than an isolated incident. Wind Waker received backlash for being too cheery, Twilight Princess for being too dark, Majora’s Mask for being too complicated, and Skyward Sword, one of the most fluctuating in fandom opinion, for babying its players.

Carrying the mantle of the first in the series’s often confusing timeline, Skyward Sword offered a grand linear origin story, filled with creative dungeons and temples, and the first ever major Nintendo title that required slicing a Wiimote through the air as a core motion control mechanic.

Skyward Sword garnered countless perfect scores from across the industry, but once the dust from the sheer epicness of the 25th anniversary had fallen off, many began to call out Skyward Sword for having countless cracks, and within only a few months, gamers had changed their minds. That grand storyline was now too linear, the motion controls were gimmicky and unreliable, and those puzzles weren’t as enjoyable with a sidekick who kept interrupting the action with an obvious piece of advice at best. And countless series fans bemoaned its perfect scores, listing its artistic, mechanical, or even positive accessibility advancements as evidence the Zelda series was falling apart.

Like any fanbase, the Zelda community loves its own share of drama, arguing over the best, worst, or most under- and overrated entries. And like many fanbases, this discussion can cloud the strengths and successes of a game, which explains how there was such vocal ire for Skyward Sword, a game that, quite frankly, absolutely slaps.

Whether it’s the innovative new weapons like the flying beetle or the whip, the gorgeous watercolor cel shading, the quirky yet lovable character design, or the game’s ability to create a water dungeon that for a change was one of the best in the entire series, Skyward Sword prods the mind at every angle with colorful whimsy and creativity. But there’s also a continual sense of foreboding desperation, with Zelda and Link’s relationship being the driving factor for the player to push through each dungeon and battle each boss as a means to reconnect the story’s destined pair.

One of the biggest complaints about Skyward Sword I’ve yet to mention is its motif of repetition. But while dowsing for items can admittedly become tiresome by the third mission, revisiting fights like The Imprisoned not only heightens that sense of darkness inevitably taking control, but it also provides moments for our heroes to shine against this same darkness. As memed as Groose has become at this point, the third Imprisoned fight is so powerful because it’s the conclusion to his redemptive arc, showing care, ingenuity, and most importantly growth.

Similarly, while each realm is revisited three times, Skyward Sword finds creative ways to re-contextualize those areas. Returning to realms you may find them flooded, taken over by bokoblins, or home to hidden dragons. Other times, the game will rely on the knowledge you’ve learned there to successfully speedrun them while navigating the horrifying and pulse-pounding Silent Realm challenges. While there is repetition in these visits, it’s all designed with progression in mind.

There are plenty of other things to celebrate in Skyward Sword. The hub city of Skyloft is vibrant and full of secrets, sidequests, and goofy characters. Dungeons like Ancient Cistern and The Sandship are some of the best in the series. Heck, there are even so many delightful small details that stand out, like the way the score sneaks in some trombone to represent Groose during beautiful orchestral arrangements. It’s all the great features that were there on the first playthrough but take time and replays to fully appreciate.

After an HD Nintendo Switch re-release, more fans have remembered these good times with Skyward Sword, and it highlights the cycle of appreciation with Zelda series entries. With nearly every major entry, fans can set their watch to its fall from favorability, to a beloved resurgence years later, and Skyward Sword is somewhere on the up-and-coming end once more.

This is the same cycle Wind Waker dealt with, first facing accusations for its kiddieness, only to later be regarded as one of the series’s greatest. Majora’s Mask went from being seen as an awkward sequel with a weird time mechanic to being understood as the brilliant masterful work of fiction from games. Twilight Princess, Link’s Awakening, and even Spirit Tracks have been in the midst of their own rebirths or renaissances over the past five years.

If anything, the Zelda appreciation cycle hardly stands alone as something exclusive to Zelda fans. Fans love a hot take, a controversial opinion, or some exciting piece of news or opinion to make that wait between games more bearable. And in that process of waiting, fans lose patience and turn on the very media they adore as a sort of coping mechanism.

“Oh, that movie sequel I’m waiting for can’t be that good if there were so many holes in the thing before it I liked.” Or, “Ugh, I can’t believe this revolutionary new game didn’t evoke the exact same feelings my 10-year-old self felt about a wildly different game.”

Whether fans can’t stand to live another minute until that new piece comes out or a fan didn’t get verbatim what they were craving after waiting so long, it’s not until after we are removed from that waiting where we can truly appreciate a game for what it truly is. Luckily for Zelda fans, whenever they pick up an older title after some time away, there’s a good chance they’ll find a lot more reasons to love the game than criticize it.

 

[BrawlMan]

Seraphim17 is not impressed and does not consider the Dead Space Remake better than Dead Space Original.

Dead Space Remake Being Objectively Worse in The First 5 Minutes of Gameplay #shorts

The Remake has some great touches and details. Checkpoints aren't one of them. #shorts #Deadspace #DeadSpaceRemake #Deadspace2023 #Seraphim17

www.youtube.com

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[Absent]

The reason why I'm more likely to play the Dead Space remake than the original is the control. I just couldn't get rid of the original's weird mouse acceleration, and gave up on it because of that. Now I'm just waiting for the remake's price to drop and hope for a better camera movements.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

The reason why I'm more likely to play the Dead Space remake than the original is the control. I just couldn't get rid of the original's weird mouse acceleration, and gave up on it because of that. Now I'm just waiting for the remake's price to drop and hope for a better camera movements.

I thought that was solved by just disabling vsync but maybe I’m mistaken.

 

[Absent]

I thought that was solved by just disabling vsync but maybe I’m mistaken.

I'll probably try again. This, and any other solution that may have popped out since my last attempts.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Shadow the Hedgehog is actually pretty innovative for a morality choice system, for its time especially but probably even now. The fact that at the end of each of the "routes" for your alignment was two different outcomes is actually pretty unique and added a bit more nuance to the endings.

 

[BrawlMan]

Shadow the Hedgehog is actually pretty innovative for a morality choice system, for its time especially but probably even now. The fact that at the end of each of the "routes" for your alignment was two different outcomes is actually pretty unique and added a bit more nuance to the endings.

Too bad it's a nightmare to 100% everything to get the true true ending. I remember Shadow being one of the first playthroughs I YTd than rather play the game.

This a hilarious hot take in the title.

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[Kyrian007]

@Kyrian007, I got another Skyward Sword for ya!

Can We Agree Skyward Sword Rocks Now? Zelda Cycle Explained

The Legend of Zelda has an appreciation cycle of hype, backlash, and reassessment, and now it is time to agree Skyward Sword rocks.

www.escapistmagazine.com

Now that's a little more reasoned a look at it. Interestingly enough as I'm on my 2nd run through BotW right now; I'm finding in this game, Skyward Sword's real worst problem. Prompting overcorrection.

People complained it was "linear." So BotW went open world... and lost all sense of structure and destroyed the difficulty curve. Which was always a problem in Zelda games anyway, they all start off as difficult as they will ever get and only get easier as you go along. And that is even worse in BotW, because they had to compensate for the player chosing their own path through the game. So there has to be a way to get anywhere, even if you still have low level equipment and only 3 or 4 hearts. And when you have high level equipment and 10 or so hearts, going anywhere is far too easy.

People complained that puzzles based on the control scheme of SS were easy enough to figure out but "difficult" because of control issues. So BotW's puzzles are all much too easy. And because of the open world, they don't get progressively more difficult. They just stay as easy throughout. And repeat themselves over and over.

It seems like all the faults I find in BotW (which admittedly isn't many, it is a much better game no matter how much I like Skyward Sword) are overcorrections to "faults" in SS.

 

[BrawlMan]

Now that's a little more reasoned a look at it. Interestingly enough as I'm on my 2nd run through BotW right now; I'm finding in this game, Skyward Sword's real worst problem. Prompting overcorrection.

People complained it was "linear." So BotW went open world... and lost all sense of structure and destroyed the difficulty curve. Which was always a problem in Zelda games anyway, they all start off as difficult as they will ever get and only get easier as you go along. And that is even worse in BotW, because they had to compensate for the player chosing their own path through the game. So there has to be a way to get anywhere, even if you still have low level equipment and only 3 or 4 hearts. And when you have high level equipment and 10 or so hearts, going anywhere is far too easy.

People complained that puzzles based on the control scheme of SS were easy enough to figure out but "difficult" because of control issues. So BotW's puzzles are all much too easy. And because of the open world, they don't get progressively more difficult. They just stay as easy throughout. And repeat themselves over and over.

It seems like all the faults I find in BotW (which admittedly isn't many, it is a much better game no matter how much I like Skyward Sword) are overcorrections to "faults" in SS.

Good to know Zelda has a "cycle" similar to Sonic. I always had my suspicions, but I didn't really pay attention until just after SS came out. Egoraptor being one of the most vocal about hating SS at the time. Even when I was subscribed to his solo channel at the time, that video felt like a dumb piss take railing on anyone who likes the game, or found it better than the older games. It was one of the few solo videos I would never touch again. Christ people, be grateful for a game that works, is not buggy up the ass, and gives plenty of meaningful content. I think the only time I've seen a cycle with a Zelda game was both of the HW spin-off games. And even then, the first game had some trepidation at the time, before release.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I'll probably try again. This, and any other solution that may have popped out since my last attempts.

In any case, in case everything else fails this might be worth a try -

Steam Community :: Guide :: How to fix mouse control problems

Here's how you can fix all problems with the mouse controls by editing the game's config file....

steamcommunity.com

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

It's a phrase said a lot, in all of our eclectic mediums, the critics from large to small, famous to obscure whom indulge in each to their own ends, yet it bothers me still...

"This wasn't needed."

"Totally unnecessary."

"Who even needs this?"

Nothing, but nothing in all entertainment is ever "needed." It's all just a weird bonus in evolution so we can ignore our daily sufferings a tiny bit longer. If you mean something else with those words, then say something else with more accurate words! Cause that shit sounds dumb as hell otherwise.

 

[Drathnoxis]

@Kyrian007, I got another Skyward Sword for ya!

Can We Agree Skyward Sword Rocks Now? Zelda Cycle Explained

The Legend of Zelda has an appreciation cycle of hype, backlash, and reassessment, and now it is time to agree Skyward Sword rocks.

www.escapistmagazine.com

I'll agree that it's rock bottom, or that it hit the rocks, but not that it rocks. Skyward Sword is the worst Zelda game I've ever played, and that's all of them except BOTW and Spirit Tracks. The motion controls made the game much worse than ever before, and I'm gonna say that both Wii Sport Resort and Red Steel 2 had better sword combat. The way enemies would all play the game of "attack in the direction I'm not blocking or get electrocuted, whoops I changed my guard at the last second," the fact that you always had to hold the wiimote at an uncomfortable downward angle while flying (which you do a lot), or that the bow controls now use the gyroscope instead of the pointer controls that made it so you needed to constantly push a button to re-orient the gyroscope instead of the aiming just always working like in TP.

The game is also very empty and repetitive for a Zelda game. The Sky has even less to find in it than the ocean in Wind Waker which is saying something. You continuously have to keep revisiting the same 3 areas and re-fighting the same 2 bosses to "prove your worth" over and over again. It's obvious they needed more development time to fill the world out some more.

The game just looks bad. The aliasing is just awful, and I was constantly distracted by all the jaggies everywhere. The game has reverted to a more colorful art-style closer to the Wind Waker, but Link retains his gormless unexpressive face from Twilight Princess. When you are sailing on the sand sea and have a crystal that reverses time in a sphere around you, it's obvious that all it does is remove the layer of sand from the surface and let you see the water beneath, because you can clearly see that the water is everywhere and not just in a sphere around your boat.

And last, but not least, the game is incredibly hand-holdey. Twilight Princess was bad with it's starting tutorials, but Skyward Sword is even worse. You seriously get 40 minutes of cutscenes in the first hour of gameplay alone, and then Fi never stops interrupting the gameplay and puzzles to point out the obvious. Fi is much worse than Navi. Every time you get a new thing to douse for (the game's objective marker system) it won't stop beeping at you until you actually pull up the dousing menu and douse for it once. Look, I don't want to douse, I want to explore for myself, leave me alone! Then the worst thing is that every time you pick up a crafting item after shutting off the console the game has to pause itself, open the screen that shows your items, and show the counter incrementing by one. For every item. Every time you've reset the console. So if you can only play this game in small bursts (say because you're experiencing wrist pain from the motion controls) then prepare to be constantly annoyed by this. Like, I know this game was made with kids in mind, but I was a kid when I played OOT and Majora's Mask and I got along just fine.

Mattewmatosis did a pretty good review of the game that I largely agree with that I will post here as well.

 

[BrawlMan]

The motion controls made the game much worse than ever before, and I'm gonna say that both Wii Sport Resort and Red Steel 2 had better sword combat.

I will happily agree to that. Red Steel 2 is an awesome game, and sucks Ubisoft never making another one, nor porting RS2 on modern consoles. A Switch port would be fine enough for me.

 

[BrawlMan]

I usually don't have a problem with color coded enemies. They still get used today, and while I get why people don't like them, some of those same people go overboard. Most people cite Vanilla_DmC (2013) as the go to example on how bad it gets. Use blue/white weapon on blue/white demon to kill it, etc. Thankfully, the mods on PC and the DE ports fixed it. People complain that using color coded enemies "makes it too much like an old school arcade game or brawler!". Ok, and this a problem why? I know back in those days; it was more so due to hardware limitations with certain exceptions. Usually, a darker color palette means the enemy has either more health, a modified or different attack pattern, and move faster. Not exactly a bad thing when done right.

Besides, some of the older DMC titles used color coded enemies and weapons. DMC1 has color coded enemies with the Marionettes. The red and blue puppets tended to be tougher either with larger health, having high damaging weapons, or both. Ifrit, the orange/red flaming gauntlets, worked best against Frosts, who are blue and white ice demons (a reverse of how DmC worked). Though they have the benefit of being an enemy type introduced late game, instead of lazy palette swap.

DMC3 has Cerberus Ice Nunchucks that froze Bloodgoyles (blood red) and caused ice damage to 1 out of the 2 twin demon bosses (Agni, the fire demon). Viewtiful Joe has color coded bad guys with unique designs, and noted to let the player know when they would be facing a tougher group of enemies. The elites wore black SWAT/commando tactical gear. Hi-Fi Rush does a similar thing where robots are color coded and Chai has to use an assist that is color coded to break either their shields, armor, or a type of barrier, before wailing on them.

God of War 4 does this subtly, but still got some flak for it by a certain YouTuber user. At least Kratos could bypass this throughout half of the game by building up stun against frost type opponents. Then he later grabs the Blades of Chaos and uses fire to melt ice type monsters. Ragnarök takes this further, but gives you plenty of more options (most of the time), if you don't want to use the Leviathan Axe or vice versa.

Color coded enemies don't necessarily make things too easy, nor "casualize" anything when done right. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Kirby use color coded enemies/environments/puzzles, and a majority of gamers have no problems with those games either. Something I noticed is the backlash against color coded anything started around the Wii era, and when many games on the first HD consoles were streamlining things. There weren't much complaints at first, but around 2010, a later vocal minority started making much more noise over nothing.

 

[Absent]

I usually don't have a problem with color coded enemies.

It's also a thing that enriches Ghostbusters The Videogame. Having different proton pack modes weakening different types of enemies faster (the color code is somewhat subtle, sometimes needs confirmation through ecto goggles analysis) is part of what makes it feel so different from a generic doomlike.

 

[Absent]

The best video game of these last 5 years is on android and is called Hoplite.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Skyrim was never good. (I'd say 'I don't like Skyrim' but this is supposed to be a hot take thread.)

 

[Leg End]

Skyrim was never good.

The title says hot takes