Most Overrated Game

The Random One

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Furthermore, while FFVII is again cool to hate on and has diminished its brand by being spread into as many spin-offs as the source material allows, the original game stands out as being the first of its kind. RPG's existed before FFVII, but 3D RPG's did not.
I challenge this assertion, sirs. It's true that FFVII was the first 3D RPG, but since RPGs are so grounded in abstraction, that wasn't much of a change. Mario 64 had a completely different formula than earlier Mario games, since 'go towards the right' would no longer work in a 3D environment, so being the first 3D Mario platformer was a big deal. Ocarina of Time would was maybe 95% the same play-wise as the 2D installments, but there were a few times where the game took advantage of the 3D: for instance, the very first boss crawls up to the ceiling and you have to hit it while it's there. That simply would not be possible under a 2D isometric view. FFVII, though? Combat is mostly selecting stuff from a menu, and exploration is just walking around looking at stuff, and the 3D environs would just mean it's a layer of abstraction less between 2D representation of something in a screen and 3D comprehension of that area. It's not the game's fault as much as a thing of its genre, but that's how it goes.
 

Rakor

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I'm surprised there's no mention of WoW. I mean, I play it and like it, but I could see the argument here.

I would probably sit on the Halo side of the fence for this argument.
 

Punch You

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15 year old game spoiler alert!

Final Fantasy 7 is definitely the more overrated game. I got it off psn a few years ago because I figured I'd see what the fuss is all about, since I've never played it before. Honestly, most of the time I just wished it would end.

Battle system was boring and annoying, the active time battle system is the dynasty warriors of rpg battlesystems: you just mash the attack button on anything that isn't a boss, and doesn't allow for strategy when it's rushing you to pick a command as fast as you can. And as it was said in the video, the only difference in characters is really their limit breaks and stat increases, and those with bad stat increases (Yuffie) and/or bad Limit breaks (Cait Sith) aren't really worth using.

All the villains (except for maybe Rufus, who I felt should have played a larger role in the story) were flat, generic villain characters. The main, villian, Sephiroth, doesn't even have enough backstory to tell the audience whether he was less of a psychotic, cold-blooded killer before he found out about his origins. He was a working for Shinra, so who knows if he's the reason why there's only like 10 human towns/cities in the entire world.

There were 2 decent characters in FF7: Barret and Red XIII. Both actually had development, in that Barret learned important lessons about leadership and responsibility, and Red XIII learned about responsibility and growing up. Tifa and Aerith had no personality to speak of. That's it. There's nothing more to say about them, other than the fact that unconditional kindness toward your friends is not a realistic way in which anyone acts. Yuffie and Cait Sith were so obnoxious, and just didn't have any redeemable character traits. You'd at least think the psychic guy controlling Cait Sith would've talked more seriously and maybe control a battle mech instead of a puppet at the end of the game, but no,he sticks with the puppet and the obnoxious way of speaking through to the very end. Why Yuffie? She steals your stuff. Twice. Vincent first appears randomly, never has anything important to say, and his basckstory is revealed when you don't really care about him anymore and have kinda forgot about him. Cid's personality is cursing an generally being an terrible old man.

And finally, Cloud,has 3 personalities throughout the game, and the shifts between them make little sense. First, he's Han Solo, basically. After part of Midgar is destroyed and Barret's team is wiped out, he becomes a sad panda. He gets to be an even sadder panda as he finds the truth about himself and Aerith dies. It takes a coma to finally turn him into William Wallace, charismatically giving final speeches before the team marches toward their final battle.

The overall story is ok, but it doesn't have a conclusion. Sure, the world is saved from immediate danger, but what about all the "We can't use the planet's energy to play videogames anymore" argument at the beginning of the game? The planet's still (though perhaps not very explosionally) doomed. Did Barret continue his eco-terrorist ways? Did anyone else join him? The final cg movie is only more confusing, showing midgar conquered by nature 50 years later. Did mankind abandon technology? Or did they all die out? Did they just pack up and move their planet-sucking city somewhere else? We'll never know, whether due to lack of time, spinelessness to take a position, or just bad writing.

Point is, the game is imperfect. Even if it holds up to modern jrpg standards, (I'd argue it doesn't, after playing the SMT persona games) most other genres have improved a lot and are a lot more fun than this game.
 

The_Emperor

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Mar 18, 2010
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I don't think either were overrated both were really fun.

If I had to choose I would of said goldeneye though but because perfect dark was waay better.

FF7 had a beautiful story in a well imagined world, it was like playing a book. I think all the ff series have had excellent stories especially 8, I don't think I could choose between 7 and 8 tbh but 8 was a lot more polished due to the attention 7 got. 9 was again very different in terms of story and feel. while the combat systems have always been the same the story is why you played them.

I loved 10 as well, not as much as the other 3 I didnt think it had the same charm but was still pretty great. stopped playing them after t hat the whole 10 2 thing turned me off as I enjoyed the way they were all individual worlds etc. gunna try 13 soon cos it will be cheap.
 

RobotDinosaur

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How about the original X-COM: UFO Defense? Maybe not as interesting since it's less well known to most gamers. But man, people who love that game LOVE that game, and man, is it infuriating. The possibility of your squad being wiped out simply by bad luck, plus being unable to finish the game without getting lucky and randomly finding a live alien commander, plus simply being a grind that doesn't change much over the course of a play-through, might make it a realistic UFO invasion simulator, but it doesn't make it a fun game.
 

happy_turtle

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Apr 11, 2010
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"Halo being a strong contender (to be fair, it was Kyle's original choice for overrated game but didn't want to seem cliché)"
So, you threw out a fairly common option because many others have thought of it before....Seems a fairly poor method of selecting your choices.
 

RaikuFA

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I'm suprised Dan didn't use this episode/article to just go on a pedestal to declare that "Everything from Japan is bad and thats why FF has been the worse series ever since the first one for the NES."

Kudos to him.
 

ElectroJosh

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One note about Goldeneye. It didn't pioneer a lot of FPS features but it was groundbreaking in that it showed the FPS was a viable genre on the console. Even more than that it showed that multiplayer FPS games were fun - prior to this the PC was the only place to play FPS games.

The big irony is that the groundbreaking console FPS came out on a Nintendo system - a company that is now seen to have not properly embraced online multiplayer as they should.
 

ElectroJosh

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RobotDinosaur said:
How about the original X-COM: UFO Defense? Maybe not as interesting since it's less well known to most gamers. But man, people who love that game LOVE that game, and man, is it infuriating. The possibility of your squad being wiped out simply by bad luck, plus being unable to finish the game without getting lucky and randomly finding a live alien commander, plus simply being a grind that doesn't change much over the course of a play-through, might make it a realistic UFO invasion simulator, but it doesn't make it a fun game.
This holds true for a lot of games from the time though - they were punishingly hard (often to the point of frustration). So when it came out most gamers didn't notice it being especially difficult.

In fact Xcom was easier for a lot of us to play than most others in the same genre: Strategy games tended to be overly complex and, often, you needed to read the manual before even attempting to play. X-com was, by comparison, very intuitive and most of the mechanics could be worked out by the average 15 year-old (like me and my friends).

In today's context the mechanics aren't intuitive and the gameplay is difficult but if those are your sole criteria for declaring an old classic to be over-rated then most highly praised games from yesteryear fall into the same category.
 

Helmholtz Watson

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Golden Eye beats a game full of androgynous boys with the kind of hair you get when you put your finger in a socket.
 

ResonanceSD

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FF7 wins hands down. It's not that great a game, 8 was heaps better =D

But you could actually have fun for hours upon hours with Goldeneye's Multiplayer =D
 

Tsaba

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Oct 6, 2009
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This argument makes me sad, both where great games and GoldenEye 64 for all it's worth is still one of the few if not the only video game based off a movie to be awesome. I grew up on them and they where the only games I could afford at the time off of my allowance or what I earned from my first job, or got at Christmas for that matter. Gamers now have it good.
 

wooty

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Aug 1, 2009
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Bake this thread in the oven for 20 minutes on gas mark 4 and you shall have the tastiest flame pie.

One mans overrated is another mans favourite.
 

tehweave

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Apr 5, 2009
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I'll put a vote in for Half-Life 2 being highly overrated, though I still enjoyed playing it.

The problem with the two main games is that they're both still fun to play, but I for one had a much more enjoyable experience with Goldeneye, and it presented more of a challenge than FF7. (unless you did a no-materia run, then you sir are mad)

I would rate Ocarina of Time above both, and Halo as last.

Though to be fair, all five games are quite fun.
 

rustyhughes

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Feb 28, 2012
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Huh? So Dan, essentially the reason you decided FFVII was the most overrated was because you haven't played it and you enjoyed Goldeneye.

How about next time get a judge that has played both or neither of the games, rather than only one to ensure an unbiased decision?

Incidentally, both were groundbreaking pinnacles of the systems they were released on and neither is overrated.
 

Frostbyte666

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The problem when sayin a game is overrated is that for older (retro) games you're taking it out of context from the time it was released so both FF7 and Goldeneye if applying present standards are both overrated. However trying to judge it when they were 1st released they were both ground breaking. FF7 pretty much launched the franchise into the rest of the world. Before you start saying that the earlier one's were better (matter of opinion), FF7 brought attention to the series from a much larger audience than the usual crowd.

I think 1 of the oddest conversations I had from school was a former bully of mine asking (politely) for some help with the game.

Goldeneye was great fun playing with mates in the living room (goddamn you golden gun and rocket launchers) without having to deal with the online crap that you would with todays games though I had a preference for Timesplitters 2 and the evil monkeys.