Your video game hot take(s) thread

[BrawlMan]

Gekido is ass and is way too hard and unbalanced even by PS1 standards. The only good brawlers on the system are Panzer Bandit (Japanese only), Mad Stalker (Also Japanese only), Crisis Beat (European and Japanese only) and Jackie Chan Stunt Master. The last one has a lot of platforming involved, though and they get really annoying by late game.

 

[Gergar12]

The ideas people come up with:

 

[BrawlMan]

I am no hardcore SothN fan, but I've seen way worse UI design than that. The UI is if anything, just basic by comparison to what came later.

​

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

This applies to The Game Awards which makes it relevant here, but also all entertainment awards shows, including The Grammys, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the various sports halls of fames or MVP winners, and the Academy Awards.

It is just incredibly silly and stupid to give a care about who is nominated and who wins if you're not directly affected by it (i.e., Oscar winners having career boosts).
I mean sure I like to argue about things but it's with the air of a distraction, like debating with your buds about which superpowers would be better or whatever good-natured thing you know doesn't matter but is fun to mull around.

The only mature reasonable way to look at these things is as more media and entertainment, not as some Grand Statement About Our Culture or whatever.
So as entertainment, it makes sense to either:
- Be bored or disinterested, as most of us are by most things. I mean I'm betting few of us like Emily In Paris, so we don't watch it or think about it and have nothing to say.
- Be amused and interested as a thought exercise and yearly entertainment event, and be chill.

No game is ever ROBBED or SNUBBED. There is objective means to determine these things and no rule set you can come up with that everybody would agree would make some obvious sense to everybody.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

No game is ever ROBBED or SNUBBED. There is objective means to determine these things and no rule set you can come up with that everybody would agree would make some obvious sense to everybody.

But they have to award the thing that I like, so that I can tell everyone how smart I am for liking it!

 

[ExtraWildGames]

Oh man, I have some takes that might put me on a game designer's hit list.

Skill trees aren't overall good game design and I feel takes away from the gameplay, especially with some games where you want your whole moveset in order to bring out the game's potential and excitement when you're playing the first time.

This is especially prevalent in action games I love, sadly, and that's a real damn shame. Games like DMC, Yakuza, No More Heroes, and Bayonetta have this issue where you unlock stuff by grinding some sections of the game to get whatever resource in order to unlock said ability. I don't know why this is a thing with 3d beat em ups, usually? Modern 2d beat em ups like Fight N Rage, Streets Of Rage 4 and the new TMNT game don't incorporate a leveling up system to the main campaign, and if they did, it would be an extra mode like survival mode or the matter.

I personally don't like it, but it's not something that usually dissuades me from playing a game, unless it gets to something obnoxious like the skill trees in Assassin's Creed or Infamous, where 90% of your moveset is locked. Or Yakuza 5 with those stupid ass weapon upgrades (God, Yakuza 5's progression was all over the place).


Another hot take you probably have heard before, maybe:
Games like Dark Souls, Halo, COD, Fortnite, GTAV and Skyrim set an unrealistically high expectation for AAA, and now mainstream audience expectations/tastes, more specifically in the West, have been somewhat tainted with FPS/Sports/Battle Royale/Soulslikes.

I do wanna keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with these types of games, nor the games mentioned above. I have enjoyed the games mentioned myself, but to say they homogenized a lot of people's tastes when it comes to trying newer genres is an understatement.

 

[BrawlMan]

This is especially prevalent in action games I love, sadly, and that's a real damn shame. Games like DMC, Yakuza, No More Heroes, and Bayonetta have this issue where you unlock stuff by grinding some sections of the game to get whatever resource in order to unlock said ability. I don't know why this is a thing with 3d beat em ups, usually?

DMC, No More Heroes, and Bayonetta (Bayonetta 3 sorta does this to an extent) don't use upgrade/skill trees though. As for unlocks and upgrades, it's become familiar with moves, so new or fresh players don't get over whelmed, and extend replay value. The better you play, the easier most these moves can be unlocked. You rarely ever have to grind in the Bayonetta franchise at all. Especially in the second game. DMC, it can get annoying depending on the game. I'll say DMC3 and DMC5 have the worst grinding. Mainly, if you really want those EX taunts. There is a grinding spot if you have the Faust Hat equipped and play as Dante. So it mitigates the issues somewhat. No More Heroes is guilty as well with expensive upgrade moves, but the third game suffers from this the most. There's no reason for Travis's moves to be this expensive. As much as I like the game, NMH3 has the least amount of melee moves for Travis, compared to the first two games. Mondo, from Killer Is Dead, has more moves compared to NM3_Travis.

Modern 2d beat em ups like Fight N Rage, Streets Of Rage 4 and the new TMNT game don't incorporate a leveling up system to the main campaign, and if they did, it would be an extra mode like survival mode or the matter.

1. They're all much shorter games. Averaging at 2 to 2 and half hours max of campaign time. While there is depth, most of these character have smaller tool kits and move sets compared to Dante, Bayo, Kratos, Ryu, Joe, or Chai.
2. Most of the single player action games range from 6-10 hours of playtime and larger character kits.
3. It wouldn't fit their arcade nature. Though Shredder's Revenge technically does have a RPG elements in the non-arcade story mode. Those elements are removed when going straight to arcade mode.

Games like Dark Souls, Halo, COD, Fortnite, GTAV and Skyrim set an unrealistically high expectation for AAA, and now mainstream audience expectations/tastes, more specifically in the West, have been somewhat tainted with FPS/Sports/Battle Royale/Soulslikes.

Yes and no. You would've had a point during 7th generation for COD and Halo, but all of the COD clones are stuck on 7th gen consoles. Halo is pretty much at death's door and MS doesn't know what to do with the franchise. I don't like Fortnite, but it's other publishers fault for trying to jump on the live-service trend so hard, and still learn nothing. History repeats itself, because we had this problem many times before during 7th generation with nearly every game needing to have a dumb multiplayer, most weren't going to stick around for. GTAV pretty much has no competition in terms of realistic/grounded modern city open world games. Saints Row ran itself into the ground and the reboot bombed. Nobody is copying Skyrim, and every open word Western RPG has been doing their own thing, or even surpassed Skyrim in gameplay (not hard to do) and graphics/art style.

The Souls clones have taken a little slow down, but there are plenty of other games doing their own thing or twist/do the opposite of Souls style game design. Wukong is not a Souls clone, and the next year's Phantom Blade 0 only uses the level design. The game will play more like Metal Gear Rising than anything else. The director of PB0 even admitted he does not like Souls games at all. SIFU came out in 2022, and plays nothing like a Souls game nor in level design. The people who said that, were talking out of their ass, and the same people who intentionally mislabeled it as a"rouge-like".

Old-school style FPS have made a great comeback. Gungrave GORE and Evil West prove the arcade style non-cover shooters can exists just fine.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Oh man, I have some takes that might put me on a game designer's hit list.

Skill trees aren't overall good game design and I feel takes away from the gameplay, especially with some games where you want your whole moveset in order to bring out the game's potential and excitement when you're playing the first time.

This is especially prevalent in action games I love, sadly, and that's a real damn shame. Games like DMC, Yakuza, No More Heroes, and Bayonetta have this issue where you unlock stuff by grinding some sections of the game to get whatever resource in order to unlock said ability. I don't know why this is a thing with 3d beat em ups, usually? Modern 2d beat em ups like Fight N Rage, Streets Of Rage 4 and the new TMNT game don't incorporate a leveling up system to the main campaign, and if they did, it would be an extra mode like survival mode or the matter.

I personally don't like it, but it's not something that usually dissuades me from playing a game, unless it gets to something obnoxious like the skill trees in Assassin's Creed or Infamous, where 90% of your moveset is locked. Or Yakuza 5 with those stupid ass weapon upgrades (God, Yakuza 5's progression was all over the place).

Even worse when the skill options are hidden. A lot of RPGs do a thing where you choose from a bunch of classes to build your party, but then refuse to tell you which skills will be unlocked. So you get the double negative of ruining your pacing to grind out class abilities while also making it impossible to strategize strong party combinations without looking stuff up online.

 

[ExtraWildGames]

DMC, No More Heroes, and Bayonetta (Bayonetta 3 sorta does this to an extent) don't use upgrade/skill trees though. As for unlocks and upgrades, it's become familiar with moves, so new or fresh players don't get over whelmed, and extend replay value. The better you play, the easier most these moves can be unlocked. You rarely ever have to grind in the Bayonetta franchise at all. Especially in the second game. DMC, it can get annoying depending on the game. I'll say DMC3 and DMC5 have the worst grinding. Mainly, if you really want those EX taunts. There is a grinding spot if you have the Faust Hat equipped and play as Dante. So it mitigates the issues somewhat. No More Heroes is guilty as well with expensive upgrade moves, but the third game suffers from this the most. There's no reason for Travis's moves to be this expensive. As much as I like the game, NMH3 has the least amount of melee moves for Travis, compared to the first two games. Mondo, from Killer Is Dead, has more moves compared to NM3_Travis.

1. They're all much shorter games. Averaging at 2 to 2 and half hours max of campaign time. While there is depth, most of these character have smaller tool kits and move sets compared to Dante, Bayo, Kratos, Ryu, Joe, or Chai.
2. Most of the single player action games range from 6-10 hours of playtime and larger character kits.
3. It wouldn't fit their arcade nature. Though Shredder's Revenge technically does have a RPG elements in the non-arcade story mode. Those elements are removed when going straight to arcade mode.

Yes and no. You would've had a point during 7th generation for COD and Halo, but all of the COD clones are stuck on 7th gen consoles. Halo is pretty much at death's door and MS doesn't know what to do with the franchise. I don't like Fortnite, but it's other publishers fault for trying to jump on the live-service trend so hard, and still learn nothing. History repeats itself, because we had this problem many times before during 7th generation with nearly every game needing to have a dumb multiplayer, most weren't going to stick around for. GTAV pretty much has no competition in terms of realistic/grounded modern city open world games. Saints Row ran itself into the ground and the reboot bombed. Nobody is copying Skyrim, and every open word Western RPG has been doing their own thing, or even surpassed Skyrim in gameplay (not hard to do) and graphics/art style.

The Souls clones have taken a little slow down, but there are plenty of other games doing their own thing or twist/do the opposite of Souls style game design. Wukong is not a Souls clone, and the next year's Phantom Blade 0 only uses the level design. The game will play more like Metal Gear Rising than anything else. The director of PB0 even admitted he does not like Souls games at all. SIFU came out in 2022, and plays nothing like a Souls game nor in level design. The people who said that, were talking out of their ass, and the same people who intentionally mislabeled it as a"rouge-like".

Old-school style FPS have made a great comeback. Gungrave GORE and Evil West prove the arcade style non-cover shooters can exists just fine.

You have a point there on those 2 games. I did play and enjoy both, and I like Gore a lot. And it's not like we haven't seen games like Doom Eternal or Ultrakill not get the claim to fame they deserve.

I feel 3d beat em ups should try a more shorter and more arcade-like experience where you just get going, similar to their 2d counterparts.


Only games I remember that kinda did that were Mad World, Spikeout, the magical fantasy sequel to Spikeout, and the old TMNT games on ps2/xbox.

 

[ExtraWildGames]

Even worse when the skill options are hidden. A lot of RPGs do a thing where you choose from a bunch of classes to build your party, but then refuse to tell you which skills will be unlocked. So you get the double negative of ruining your pacing to grind out class abilities while also making it impossible to strategize strong party combinations without looking stuff up online.

Oh God, that sounds terrible.

 

[BrawlMan]

I feel 3d beat em ups should try a more shorter and more arcade-like experience where you just get going, similar to their 2d counterparts.
Only games I remember that kinda did that were Mad World, Spikeout, the magical fantasy sequel to Spikeout, and the old TMNT games on ps2/xbox.

You forgot about Die Hard Arcade/Dynamite Deka and Dynamite Cop/Dynamite Deka 2. The current Oneechanbara games, Z2: Chaos and Origin, can be beaten in 5-6 hours. Most first time playrhoughs of MadWorld are a 5-6 hours. With 6 hours and 30 minutes being the bare maixmum.

 

[ExtraWildGames]

You forgot about Die Hard Arcade/Dynamite Deka and Dynamite Cop/Dynamite Deka 2. The current Oneechanbara games, Z2: Chaos and Origin, can be beaten in 5-6 hours. Most first time playrhoughs of MadWorld are a 5-6 hours. With 6 hours and 30 minutes being the bare maixmum.

There was also Fighting Force

 

[BrawlMan]

There was also Fighting Force

Yeah, that hasn't aged well. I can't even play the game anymore. I tried. Fighting Force is too rough to play for me. Neither has Gekido. Die Hard Arcade has aged better than both of them. The only PS1 3D brawlers worth playing are Crisis Beat (released only in Europe and Japan) and Jackie Chan's Stunt Master. Panzer Bandit (Japan only)still wrecks them all and has aged the best, though that game is 2D with 3D backgrounds.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Never felt the draw others seem to have towards videogame love interests involving the playable character. I don't bother with the romance options, blank them all, and sandbag every attempt from any game pushing a romance narrative onto the player.

Don't bother with any sex options too. None of them conjour emotion, no amusement or entertainment, just ice cold dead cynical recognition of the limits of the simulacrum and the creeping dread of having to die alone in a failing broken poisoned world. That protag isn't me, it's a doll being puppeteered around other dolls all programmed to serve the main doll's inevitable hoard of gamified achievements. It's pure emotional disassociation: there is no heart-racing fear of rejection, alienation, disintegrating self-worth to contrast the intense rush of real romance or shared infatuation experienced IRL. Completely worthless waste of time IMO.

If it's romance between different NPCs instead of main character doll, then there's a sense of equity in the simulacrum where investment feels less a cheap trick and more a chance to engage with the narrative of love on fairer ground. Helping other characters find their loves in universe I believe is inherently more convincing than filling some grind bar to get them bumping uglies with the playable main doll.

This may be related to how the criticism of spec ops the line from some ppl doesn't vibe for me, like when they say "the game made me do war crimes, I couldn't choose!" But to me that character ain't me, it's the main character of that narrative fulfilling the narrative that was engineered for them to journey through. I'm incapable of taking anything that dumb kunt does personally cos there wasn't a single moment I believed I was them and they were me. Just more dolls doing more war crimes, whatever. Let the ICC issue their arrest warrant, I'll be waiting at the bar.


-.

Unrelated tangent but am almost certain after years of scrolling digital game stores, the one unexpected - utterly useless - skill with a 100% success rate acquired is being able to call out a VN game from cover art alone. Now if only it had any actual utility lol.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Oh man, I have some takes that might put me on a game designer's hit list.

Skill trees aren't overall good game design and I feel takes away from the gameplay, especially with some games where you want your whole moveset in order to bring out the game's potential and excitement when you're playing the first time.

This is especially prevalent in action games I love, sadly, and that's a real damn shame. Games like DMC, Yakuza, No More Heroes, and Bayonetta have this issue where you unlock stuff by grinding some sections of the game to get whatever resource in order to unlock said ability. I don't know why this is a thing with 3d beat em ups, usually? Modern 2d beat em ups like Fight N Rage, Streets Of Rage 4 and the new TMNT game don't incorporate a leveling up system to the main campaign, and if they did, it would be an extra mode like survival mode or the matter.

I personally don't like it, but it's not something that usually dissuades me from playing a game, unless it gets to something obnoxious like the skill trees in Assassin's Creed or Infamous, where 90% of your moveset is locked. Or Yakuza 5 with those stupid ass weapon upgrades (God, Yakuza 5's progression was all over the place).


Another hot take you probably have heard before, maybe:
Games like Dark Souls, Halo, COD, Fortnite, GTAV and Skyrim set an unrealistically high expectation for AAA, and now mainstream audience expectations/tastes, more specifically in the West, have been somewhat tainted with FPS/Sports/Battle Royale/Soulslikes.

I do wanna keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with these types of games, nor the games mentioned above. I have enjoyed the games mentioned myself, but to say they homogenized a lot of people's tastes when it comes to trying newer genres is an understatement.

This is the best post I've seen on here in a while. I think I agree? I dunno! I like when that happens.
I know I've been feeling a malaise in the AAA game space- and it's not just the same "AAA bad corpos indy good art" whines everyone says, it's more and you're touching upon some of that.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Never felt the draw others seem to have towards videogame love interests involving the playable character. I don't bother with the romance options, blank them all, and sandbag every attempt from any game pushing a romance narrative onto the player.

Don't bother with any sex options too. None of them conjour emotion, no amusement or entertainment, just ice cold dead cynical recognition of the limits of the simulacrum and the creeping dread of having to die alone in a failing broken poisoned world. That protag isn't me, it's a doll being puppeteered around other dolls all programmed to serve the main doll's inevitable hoard of gamified achievements. It's pure emotional disassociation: there is no heart-racing fear of rejection, alienation, disintegrating self-worth to contrast the intense rush of real romance or shared infatuation experienced IRL. Completely worthless waste of time IMO.

If it's romance between different NPCs instead of main character doll, then there's a sense of equity in the simulacrum where investment feels less a cheap trick and more a chance to engage with the narrative of love on fairer ground. Helping other characters find their loves in universe I believe is inherently more convincing than filling some grind bar to get them bumping uglies with the playable main doll.

The reason I engage with any romance stuff is because I just want to see as much "stuff" as there is in a game.
The one game where it mattered was The Witcher 3 but that is cheating because it relates to a hold legacy of books and previous games with characters I am really attached to.

 

[BrawlMan]

No game is ever ROBBED or SNUBBED

The indie developers were robbed of their speech and time at last year's Game awards. There was robbery and snubbery, but of a different kind.

Skill trees aren't overall good game design

This is the best post I've seen on here in a while. I think I agree? I dunno! I like when that happens.

If you want to see the worst case of skill trees, look no further than Wanted: Dead. It makes the ubisoft design look good by comparison. I get no joy from saying that. The skill tree unlock basic stuff that should have just been part of the default move set to begin with. The skill tree really doesn't get "good" until you unlock half way into it.

know I've been feeling a malaise in the AAA game space- and it's not just the same "AAA bad corpos indy good art" whines everyone says, it's more and you're touching upon some of that.

My problems with the larger gaming sphere are beyond all corpos bad, but their factory sludge design mechanics do not help and are usually a part of the bigger symptom.

 

[ExtraWildGames]

The indie developers were robbed of their speech and time at last year's Game awards. There was robbery and snubbery, but of a different kind.




If you want to see the worst case of skill trees, look no further than Wanted: Dead. It makes the ubisoft design look good by comparison. I get no joy from saying that. The skill tree unlock basic stuff that should have just been part of the default move set to begin with. The skill tree really doesn't get "good" until you unlock half way into it.


My problems with the larger gaming sphere are beyond all corpos bad, but their factory sludge design mechanics do not help and are usually a part of the bigger symptom.

Oh God, Stellar Blade too was like that.

 

[ExtraWildGames]

This is the best post I've seen on here in a while. I think I agree? I dunno! I like when that happens.
I know I've been feeling a malaise in the AAA game space- and it's not just the same "AAA bad corpos indy good art" whines everyone says, it's more and you're touching upon some of that.

Keep in mind, I don't take my own word as gospel. I genuinely do believe games like TOTK and GTAVI should come out and exist, but that can't be the de facto standard. And that's sadly what most casual people expect from games now; always bigger and better looking experiences. And at the cost of that comes gameplay density and substance.


Going through Armored Core VI, DMCV and Gungrave:Gore this and last year felt like a breath of fresh-air. 2 games that don't waste my time with some annoying open-world, "navigate to these points on the map" garbage. They just drop you in a level and say "good luck, we showed you the basics. Now go out there and kick some ass." And it felt great! A lot quicker to get through than these open-world games that kinda waste your time for the most part with navigation and collectathons.

 

[BrawlMan]

And that's sadly what most casual people expect from games now; always bigger and better looking experiences. And at the cost of that comes gameplay density and substance.

Not really, considering how many casual players enjoy the linear games just fine. You may have had a point during the seven generation or some parts of the eighth, but even most casual people don't expect every game to be an open world. There is a reason why open world sandbox fatigue set in during mid-late eighth generation. It was more than just the hardcore people complaining about it. There's plenty of AAA and non AAA games that have done great on the casual market. Proving not everything needs to be open world nor live service.