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What are controversial gaming opinions you have?

RedAlert said:
The keyword system was a pretty good addition, since it gave NPCs much more of a personality than, "Welcome to Corneria".
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TBH, Final Fantasy 2 implemented unique NPCs with their own characters and personalities better than Morrowind did.

In FF2, different people will respond in different ways to the same keyword prompt. In Morrowind, there is maybe two or three responses to a keyword prompt, shared among literally every NPC.
 
Again, the worst FF is VIII.

Talk about "directionless." That game couldn't even decide what it wanted to be.

Well, uh, TIME TRAVEL. Throw that in there!

Also atlest in FFVII every party member had their own subplot and character arc. Nobody matters in FFVIII except for Squall and Rinoa, who only matters because she's in love with Squall. The other party members are one-dimensional and worthless given everyone plays the same in the game.

But few people like FFVIII that much nowadays....


For FFVI, the fandom's darling, it seems like "who is the Main Character, Celes or Terra?" drives some people crazy. I didn't particularly like Terra but I didn't dislike her or undervalue her importance. It's just that Celes is the MC of the best part of the game yet some people positively despise her and insist she meant nothing to the story.
 
My opinion is that any "worst FF" that isn't FF14 is wrong, because when your game is so critically flawed that you need to rebuild it entirely from the ground up, you have to have made the worst thing.
 
Crimson Flight said:
My opinion is that any "worst FF" that isn't FF14 is wrong, because when your game is so critically flawed that you need to rebuild it entirely from the ground up, you have to have made the worst thing.
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This is a completely uncontroversial opinion. Well, at least as long as you make a distinction between FF14 1.x and FF14 2.0+ which are two different games. And I mean that quite literally.
 
This is apparently quite controversial in the Tales of fandom.

In Tales of Zestiria, I liked both Alisha and Rose, and I liked them better than every other party member save Edna ... and maybe Zavied.
 
Hmm well this likely will get me hung and burned by Final Fantasy seven fans but I honestly find Final Fantasy mystic quest to be both more relaxing and enjoyable to play than seven and has a consistently better soundtrack to boot.

But then I am one of those people who actually doesn't like Final Fantasy seven to the point I've sooner play Final Fantasy eight and thirteen than take another shot at seven which nearly consistently bored me after leaving mithgar.
 
Cirina said:
This is a completely uncontroversial opinion. Well, at least as long as you make a distinction between FF14 1.x and FF14 2.0+ which are two different games. And I mean that quite literally.
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I admit whenever I point out that FF14 1.0 was bad enough for the executive board of Square Enix to choose the "blow it up and redo it" option (as opposed to just players complaining), thus making it the Worst Numbered Final Fantasy Game, I get a lot of "we mean of the non-MMO games, nobody counts the MMOs", and that makes me slightly sad.

Although it is understandable, since when I first played FFXI I bounced right off it, since that game was made in the era of "if you have time to play a MMO, you have time to play only one MMO and no other games". So I understand the sheer difference in time investment required to be able to say "I played it".

(To elaborate on the "blow it up and redo it" thing, newly-appointed FFXIV director Naoki Yoshida gave the SE board two options: continue FFXIV 1.0 after fixing the major complaints, or redo the whole thing, while also acknowledging that this was a crisis situation for the Final Fantasy brand. The SE board chose the Blow It Up option, instead of the "safe" option of just fixing the issues, which should give an idea of how seriously they took the failure of FFXIV 1.0.)

(As for the "whole new game" thing, the FFXIV dev team didn't keep any of the original 1.0 code, because they didn't have the space for it during the switchover. The old 1.0 servers are now the FFXIV website servers.)
 
Paradoxically, gameplay is sometimes the greatest impediment to a good game.

Hear me out.

We all have had a hard boss fight that we died to again and again and again. Eventually you forget that teh game is anything but numbers and strategies and grinding. When you inevitably triumph and are rewarded with the post-boss cutscene you are like "oh yeah, this is what I'm actually supposed to be striving towards."

And in the meantime, all that stuff leading up to the boss quickly loses its luster. Take Final Fantasy X as a notable example. The cutscene before fighting Yunalesca is one of the most pivotal and memorable in the game. It's extremely well-done from cinematic direction to voice-acting to music. Yet how do you feel about that cutscene when you have to re-watch it because you got a bullshit game over? There is no way to know about Mega-Death and its cheapness short of someone telling you so you will probably lose at least once. Then you have to watch that awesome cutscene again. Only now it is an impediment, a worthless annoyance. The days of unskippable cutscenes made many a gamer very mad and utterly sapped a perviously emotional moment of its power. Now the only feeling it invokes is irritation. Even today, when you mash X through a scene or skip a scene to get to the boss for the billionth attempt, it means you are no longer emotionally invested. That scene is just in the way.

There's a reason games like Mass Effect 3 had something called Narrative Mode and Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse added Paradise Mode which is specifically said to be for people who just want to enjoy the story. Which obviously means that gameplay is a hindrance to enjoying the story.
 
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Nikkolas said:
Paradoxically, gameplay is sometimes the greatest impediment to a good game.

Hear me out.

We all have had a hard boss fight that we died to again and again and again. Eventually you forget that teh game is anything but numbers and strategies and grinding. When you inevitably triumph and are rewarded with the post-boss cutscene you are like "oh yeah, this is what I'm actually supposed to be striving towards."

And in the meantime, all that stuff leading up to the boss quickly loses its luster. Take Final Fantasy X as a notable example. The cutscene before fighting Yunalesca is one of the most pivotal and memorable in the game. It's extremely well-done from cinematic direction to voice-acting to music. Yet how do you feel about that cutscene when you have to re-watch it because you got a bullshit game over? There is no way to know about Mega-Death and its cheapness short of someone telling you so you will probably lose at least once. Then you have to watch that awesome cutscene again. Only now it is an impediment, a worthless annoyance. The days of unskippable cutscenes made many a gamer very mad and utterly sapped a perviously emotional moment of its power. Now the only feeling it invokes is irritation. Even today, when you mash X through a scene or skip a scene to get to the boss for the billionth attempt, it means you are no longer emotionally invested. That scene is just in the way.

There's a reason games like Mass Effect 3 had something called Narrative Mode and Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse added Paradise Mode which is specifically said to be for people who just want to enjoy the story. Which obviously means that gameplay is a hindrance to enjoying the story.
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I mean in any game baring truly inept play it shouldn't take more than a few tries to win any encounter. If people are constantly losing to the same boss over and over that means the game is poorly balanced.
 
It may also like, the player is not competent enough? A boss is a challenge of your skills. Of course you're expected to lose multiple times. You need to come back and reconsider new tactics or just become stronger.

It took me a dozen tries to beat bosses from a game that's extremely well known for its bosses. You know the one. An entire DAY to beat it.

That's right Hollow Knight. The entire White Palace is a boss in itself.

BUZZ SAWS ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENGGG
 
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Hykal94 said:
It may also like, the player is not competent enough? A boss is a challenge of your skills. Of course you're expected to lose multiple times. You need to come back and reconsider new tactics or just become stronger.

It took me a dozen tries to beat bosses from a game that's extremely well known for its bosses. You know the one. An entire DAY to beat it.

That's right Hollow Knight. The entire White Palace is a boss in itself.

BUZZ SAWS ZEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENGGG
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Traitor Lord was harder than the White Palace for me. That's not saying the White Palace was easy, I was just a complete fucking moron against the Traitor Lord.
 
The real sin is putting the autosave/checkpoint before the long cutscene.

And on that note - universal autosave. Give Me. The Overt Option. To Choose. When and Where. I Can Stop/Resume Playing. In At Least. Some. Capacity. [Glares angrily at Tomb Raider 2013 Reboot.]

Especially in exploration-based games.
 
The Englanderish said:
The real sin is putting the autosave/checkpoint before the long cutscene.

And on that note - universal autosave. Give Me. The Overt Option. To Choose. When and Where. I Can Stop/Resume Playing. In At Least. Some. Capacity. [Glares angrily at Tomb Raider 2013 Reboot.]

Especially in exploration-based games.
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The best thing is that they don't fix the issue in the newest Tomb Raider game. There's one part of the game where you get mobbed by several dozen melee guys, and the game places the checkpoint not only before the cut scene, but before a forced slow walk sequence where the game goes "Oooo! Look at our pretty graphics!!"
 
Nikkolas said:
Paradoxically, gameplay is sometimes the greatest impediment to a good game.

Hear me out.

We all have had a hard boss fight that we died to again and again and again. Eventually you forget that teh game is anything but numbers and strategies and grinding. When you inevitably triumph and are rewarded with the post-boss cutscene you are like "oh yeah, this is what I'm actually supposed to be striving towards."

And in the meantime, all that stuff leading up to the boss quickly loses its luster. Take Final Fantasy X as a notable example. The cutscene before fighting Yunalesca is one of the most pivotal and memorable in the game. It's extremely well-done from cinematic direction to voice-acting to music. Yet how do you feel about that cutscene when you have to re-watch it because you got a bullshit game over? There is no way to know about Mega-Death and its cheapness short of someone telling you so you will probably lose at least once. Then you have to watch that awesome cutscene again. Only now it is an impediment, a worthless annoyance. The days of unskippable cutscenes made many a gamer very mad and utterly sapped a perviously emotional moment of its power. Now the only feeling it invokes is irritation. Even today, when you mash X through a scene or skip a scene to get to the boss for the billionth attempt, it means you are no longer emotionally invested. That scene is just in the way.

There's a reason games like Mass Effect 3 had something called Narrative Mode and Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse added Paradise Mode which is specifically said to be for people who just want to enjoy the story. Which obviously means that gameplay is a hindrance to enjoying the story.
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Good game design either makes the boss run painless or have real gameplay to optimize in order to make the run to the boss. FFX really failed here. I'll try to remember to write a bit about trial and error later as well.

Also Yunalesca? The real "wait 10 minutes between each fight" was Seymour Flux, that son of a bitch.
 
Nikkolas said:
Paradoxically, gameplay is sometimes the greatest impediment to a good game.

Hear me out.

We all have had a hard boss fight that we died to again and again and again. Eventually you forget that teh game is anything but numbers and strategies and grinding. When you inevitably triumph and are rewarded with the post-boss cutscene you are like "oh yeah, this is what I'm actually supposed to be striving towards."

And in the meantime, all that stuff leading up to the boss quickly loses its luster. Take Final Fantasy X as a notable example. The cutscene before fighting Yunalesca is one of the most pivotal and memorable in the game. It's extremely well-done from cinematic direction to voice-acting to music. Yet how do you feel about that cutscene when you have to re-watch it because you got a bullshit game over? There is no way to know about Mega-Death and its cheapness short of someone telling you so you will probably lose at least once. Then you have to watch that awesome cutscene again. Only now it is an impediment, a worthless annoyance. The days of unskippable cutscenes made many a gamer very mad and utterly sapped a perviously emotional moment of its power. Now the only feeling it invokes is irritation. Even today, when you mash X through a scene or skip a scene to get to the boss for the billionth attempt, it means you are no longer emotionally invested. That scene is just in the way.

There's a reason games like Mass Effect 3 had something called Narrative Mode and Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse added Paradise Mode which is specifically said to be for people who just want to enjoy the story. Which obviously means that gameplay is a hindrance to enjoying the story.
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It honestly sounds to me like the real sin is a failure to either a) put the checkpoint after the cutscene rather than before, or b) give the option to simply skip the cutscene.
 
Well I don't really count the MMO's as 'mainline' FF, I'll say that out of the MMOs, XIV was the worst, but out of the mainline single player Final Fantasies, XV is the worst for me. They split the story up into multiple chunks so they can sell it to make more money, making the characters in the actual game come across as flat. At least in Final Fantasy XIII the characters weren't just a bunch of tropes strung together, and at least it showed people actually acting like people. And if you think the milking of FF 7 was bad, just look at the milking they're doing for FF XV. I also don't think the game play is anything special, when every enemy can easily be moved into a specific routine of dodging, attacking, and dodging again before they're dead.
 
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RedAlert said:
Well I don't really count the MMO's as 'mainline' FF, I'll say that out of the MMOs, XIV is the worst, but out of the mainline single player Final Fantasies, XV is the worst for me. They split the story up into multiple chunks so they can sell it to make more money, making the characters in the actual game come across as flat. At least in Final Fantasy XIII the characters weren't just a bunch of tropes strung together, and at least it showed people actually acting like people. And if you think the milking of FF 7 was bad, just look at the milking they're doing for FF XV. I also don't think the game play is anything special, when every enemy can easily be moved into a specific routine of dodging, attacking, and dodging again before they're dead.
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For one, you're ascribing malice to what was pretty clearly just incompetence. 15 was mismanaged from start to finish and when it finally congealed onto a disc it didn't so much as 'get released' as 'stop being developed'. I can't fucking find where I heard it so take it with a grain of salt but my understanding was that 15 had to come out in 2016 so they cobbled it together from what they had. Since then Squeenix have put in a frankly insane amount of work actually filling in the parts they had to slash, what with the paid DLC chapters that are more or less pretty alright and completely free content patched in which involves The Rest Of Chapter 14 basically including a dungeon and bosses I thought were absolutely fucking radical. The paid DLCs were to experiment with what the game could do mechanically (and they worked mostly, every single new PC is more fun to play than Noctis) and for all the game is rightfully criticised for being undercooked slop I honestly think the update and DLC scheme comes from a genuine place of, I dunno of remorse is the right word but it's close enough.

And second, I would take the characters in 15 over the 13 cast in a heartbeat. 20 hours of driving around taking odd jobs and taking pictures and COMING UP WITH A NEW RECIPEH was sure as shit more enjoyable than 20 hours of "so we're l'cie now" "what does that mean" "we're enemies of cocoon" "what does that mean" "means soldiers shoot us" "that sucks man" "so what do we do?" "i don't fucking know the fal'cie suck at giving instructions so it was a super vague vision" "so what do we do?" "uh walk around killing soldiers i guess" "i'm going over here now" "cool i'll go over here then" "so being l'cie means we're under a time limit too right?" "yeah but to be honest it literally never comes up so let's just continue moseying around like brown's cows" "cool sounds good to me" "so hey we've had some time what do you think we should do?" "i dunno yet" "HopeYouDon'tKnowYet!?.wav"
 
ZerbanDaGreat said:
For one, you're ascribing malice to what was pretty clearly just incompetence. 15 was mismanaged from start to finish and when it finally congealed onto a disc it didn't so much as 'get released' as 'stop being developed'. I can't fucking find where I heard it so take it with a grain of salt but my understanding was that 15 had to come out in 2016 so they cobbled it together from what they had. Since then Squeenix have put in a frankly insane amount of work actually filling in the parts they had to slash, what with the paid DLC chapters that are more or less pretty alright and completely free content patched in which involves The Rest Of Chapter 14 basically including a dungeon and bosses I thought were absolutely fucking radical. The paid DLCs were to experiment with what the game could do mechanically (and they worked mostly, every single new PC is more fun to play than Noctis) and for all the game is rightfully criticised for being undercooked slop I honestly think the update and DLC scheme comes from a genuine place of, I dunno of remorse is the right word but it's close enough.

And second, I would take the characters in 15 over the 13 cast in a heartbeat. 20 hours of driving around taking odd jobs and taking pictures and COMING UP WITH A NEW RECIPEH was sure as shit more enjoyable than 20 hours of "so we're l'cie now" "what does that mean" "we're enemies of cocoon" "what does that mean" "means soldiers shoot us" "that sucks man" "so what do we do?" "i don't fucking know the fal'cie suck at giving instructions so it was a super vague vision" "so what do we do?" "uh walk around killing soldiers i guess" "i'm going over here now" "cool i'll go over here then" "so being l'cie means we're under a time limit too right?" "yeah but to be honest it literally never comes up so let's just continue moseying around like brown's cows" "cool sounds good to me" "so hey we've had some time what do you think we should do?" "i dunno yet" "HopeYouDon'tKnowYet!?.wav"
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Ah, well that makes it alright, clearly I shouldn't blame the company that has a reputation for mismanaging projects over and over again, or the developer that can't seem to make a product without scrapping everything because it isn't "cool". Man I sure am glad they had to patch in content that was supposed to be in the game, and make a movie and an anime I have to watch if I want to understand certain elements of the plot. I don't understand why it "had" to come out in 2016, it's like with Sega and Sonic 06, when it "had" to come out in 2006. And I'd contest that at least the characters had some personality to them, even if it was stupid at times, and over the course of the game they at least grew as characters. The cast of XV is just awful, they play their tropes straight and barely evolve over the course of the entire game.
 
RedAlert said:
Man I sure am glad they had to patch in content that was supposed to be in the game, and make a movie and an anime I have to watch if I want to understand certain elements of the plot. I don't understand why it "had" to come out in 2016, it's like with Sega and Sonic 06, when it "had" to come out in 2006.
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Because the game started development right around the time Sonic 06 came out, with the intention of coming out on the PS3 alongside FF13 as a spin-off. That it released in 2016 on the PS4 tells you how well that turned out.
 
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