What's your spiciest take about a AAA or indie game series?

What's that opinion that you have that would anger the usual hate dome or fandom of a series of games. This doesnt mean a negative take necessarily or positive just something you have that would grind some gears.

I'll just leave this here preemptively:

I don't really know where people land on this anymore. If I were to say Persona 5 is the worst Persona game, is that a spicy take?

Breath of the Wild is majestic and b o r i n g.

@brian_: It's moderately spicy if you are actually considering all of the Persona games, less so if you do like most people and pretend they started at 3.

@efesell: I include 1 & the 2s. I've played them all. I don't remember much of 1, but the 2s let you kill Hitler and that's way better than anything that happens in 5.

i have found my people.

no but really...BotW is decently well made- but without Zelda/Nintendo nostalgia it doesn't really move the needle for me. i invested a huge amount of time and had fun, but i have trouble summoning impactful moments (this is probably due to most of my games-memory being tied to emotional beats, and that game barely has character or narrative). and in terms of gameplay- it feels like an open world. you have a horse, you climb towers, you look at a map, and weather happens.

alternative hot take: Nier Automata is too long and 90% of that time is mundane and 10% is engaging. i played through all the 'main' endings, and it didn't feel particularly affecting. i mostly remember a lot of angst and repetition. sickk chiptune songs, though.

My problem with Neir Automata is that I played Nier, which just did a lot of the same stuff.

If were talking Nintendo, I have a lot of terrible takes here. Keep in mind, I was a Genesis kid. My first Nintendo console was 64, but I think the NES and SNES Mario games suck. I hate playing them. I'm constantly dying jumping on enemies because I hit the wrong part of the hit box. I find nothing charming about its characters or world, and I don't care for much of the music.

EDIT: Oh yeah. I also have some opinions on Final Fantasy that'll probably upset people. The Dress Sphere is actually a good system and should be used in other JRPGs to support smaller casts instead of given you seven characters, three of which you'll never use because the party maxes out at four. X-2 is actually one of the best Final Fantasys because of it, but also the story is bad because it's still a Final Fantasy game, and most of the stories are bad. Also, the intro scene is great.

Similarly, Prompto is one of the best Final Fantasy characters because most Final Fantasy characters are bad.

So, what, the only outliers here are double A games/B games? Bummer. My spicy takes are boring, usually, but here are some recent ones:

- Nier: Automata is bad and the payoff isn't worth the bad, DREADFULLY boring gameplay.
- Doom Eternal is not just better, it's markedly better than Doom 2016 (gameplay wise).
- Dark Souls 2 is the best of the trilogy.
- Larian should be making Original Sin 3 and not Baldur's Gate 3.

Perhaps my spiciest take is that Mario 64 isn't fun.

Battle royales and more specifically, Fortnite, killed the gaming industry. They spoiled us with non-stop updates and a cash shop that people are more than happy to spend money on because it has their favorite media icons featured in it. No other company seems willing to provide a similar experience or has since. It's stagnated any development forward in gaming because many companies seem to want to bank on name recognition (Halo Infinite and CoD "reboots" of Modern Warfare) even more than risking a new IP that can't compete with a live service like Fortnite.

The only one I can really think of right now is that I find Undertale fucking boring. I think its one of those games that the fandom ruined? The writing just feels so internet meme-y in the way people hate on the Borderlands series for, and the gameplay is miserable. I like turn-based JRPGs, and nothing about Undertale is fun. Just click the same couple joke responses for joke answers until you click spare. Definitely doesn't get old immediately. I've never been able to get more than 3 or so hours into it because I just hate everything about playing that game.

It's because of what that term means, you see.

For something to be a hot take means that it's controversial, which generally is not associated with positivity.

@topcyclist: I don't remember anyone being upset or offended by the subject matters of Persona 5. I can only really speak for myself, but I dislike Persona 5 because I thought its writing was boring and repetitive. Being as vague as I can be, since the game has just been ported to new consoles for the first time, I was just annoyed that some characters' story were exactly the same as characters in past games, and that every character's problem in that game is caused by a person who is just possessed by a nebulous evil, and the way to fix every problem is to go into the magic world and purify their evil. I think the problems characters had in 3 & 4 were much more nuanced, solved in more nuanced ways, were more about accepting personal issues and changing and growing as people, instead of just mystifying evil.

Red Dead 2 might be one of the worst games to actually play in the last decade. Boom.

Just as a random aside, I'm replaying this on Xbox and while I still love the game (the style is something I can't get sick of) it's wild to think how similar it is in so many ways to P4, and I guess I just didn't notice before because in previous playings I hadn't played P4 recently.

@sethmode: For all the faults I place on its writing, Persona 5 probably has the best visual art, music, gameplay, and dungeon design in the series. I totally understand why people would love the game. The writing just urks me on a personal level, and I have a hard time looking past that.

@brian_: I dunno, I felt like the point throughout the game was that what you are doing isn't solving all of these problems and in fact things are compounding and getting worse as it goes on.

And it's not like in 4 you didn't confront someones inner turmoil as it transforms into a huge monster to fight.

I can't take Nier seriously when the super serious android is showing me her ass.

The Last of Us is a boiler plate piece of zombie fiction you all lost your [CENSORED] over. And Naughty Dog cannot make a good enough action game to save its life.

I wanted to play Last of Us again to see if I still loved it as much but that fuckin full priced PS5 version... can't do it.

@efesell: My issues are more egregious in what happens in the social links. In 4, fighting the inner turmoil demon was only the start of dealing with someone's personal issues. Then, how they delt with acceptance of those issues and worked them out was explored in their social link. In 5, every single social link in that game is about how someone else is causing a problem for that person and is solved by fighting a thing. There's no character growth. Just a problem that is solved with magic.

It's okay. Yours truly cannot take it serious after realizing that it stole from some funny books titled Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. This [CENSORED] industry is just too quick to praise.

@brian_: Hmm, I remember this is true with a lot of the side character links but I'm not sure about the party members..

Eh, but whatever. I'll get around to the game pass version eventually and might think differently.

@efesell: I'm sure the main cast in 5 were probably better about that stuff then it's side cast, but then that's where I get into some of the characters being too repetitive to previous games.

@brian_: Yeah no arguments about her from me.

She doesn't get good until her ACAB arc in Strikers.

@brian_: I saw people mad about the underage date you can have...it creeped people out. And some of the fanservice and implied stuff. Overall the game dealt with touchy subjects. That said if it was disney clean people would complain too so you can't win.

Breath of the Wild gets old after a while, and I dunno if I want a sequel.

indie:

Any game where the objective is to organize bookshelves or straiten pens or unbox boxes or whatever is the product of absolute spite for its eventual audience. The devs think you're all suckers. It's one of the most cynical outcomes of the past 20 years of twee that I'm aware of.

AAA:

With MGSV, Hideo Kojima entered his "George Lucas during the Star Wars Prequel" era, and you'll never get anything truly great from him again. Fame and facial motion capture are enabling all of Kojima's worst ideas the same way that fame and CG enabled all of Lucas'. It's done.

To follow on from that:

AAA: PT was never going to lead anywhere. Kojima was on thin ice during MGS V and he signed his own resignation when he roped in Del Toro and Reedus. A project that was barely beyond proof of concept was being given celebrity tie-ins. At best, it's another 5 year stint, $80m project that might scrape breaking even.

Konami had to kill it.

...or indie game?

If indie games are included, then Hollow Knight is boring and it doesn't feel great to play. I have tried to get into it multiple times and every time made it three or four hours in before playing something else. As far as "doesn't feel great to play", I'm not saying that it's bad, it's certainly very responsive, but it also feels weightless, like it needed another pass on how to handle character acceleration, jumping physics, etc. That said, it's been a few years since I last tried it and I do kinda want to try it again. It really seems like something I should love, but I just never get into it.

Here's one from the opposite end of the budget spectrum - Metroid Dread. Maybe there's an argument this isn't full-fledged AAA, but it was a flagship $60 Nintendo game so I'm counting it. Metroid Dread really is a good game, but I think that sometimes its controls are way too loose. When this game came out, I saw several posts and comments about how it feels great to play and sometimes that's true. Other times, the game expects you to do something more precise than its loose, floaty movement allows for. Also, holding L to spin the analog stick and aim wherever you want feels unnatural. I would much rather do things the way Fusion/Zero Mission did them - hold L to aim diagonally, L+Down to point down. At first this might sound worse, but having to plant your feet and aim just doesn't work well for me. If aiming diagonally doesn't get me where I need to be, I'll move or jump to get my shots where they need to be. And the parry system is way too overused.

And, to cap this all off, Timespinner needed more love than it got. It's not perfect, but it's amazing to look at, feels great to control, and has fantastic music. That's not really a hot take, but I think the comment fits in the context of my above two paragraphs.

I had never heard of Timespinner before. Just watched the trailer. I think I'm going to buy Timespinner.

Yeah I feel like it's easy to get lost in the shuffle as a 'vania but Timespinner kicks ass.

My memory is horrid. I apparently played Timespinner at some point and liked it enough to give it a 4 out of 5, but I could not tell you a single thing about that game. Seems like I think it's a pretty good game though.

I am thrilled to have reminded people that Timespinner exists!

Video games are good and fun.

Video games are good and I like them.

As I’m currently mindlessly playing Assassin’s Creed Origins, about 30 hours in (nearly done with second set of main murders) I can’t help but keep thinking that other than the ridiculous size of the world and mostly equivalent level of art, Bayek often is about as goofy as the Ryders were in Andromeda when it comes to reaction animations. It’s an almost impossible game to care about, other than it’s neat to see more of the sculptures and fun to laugh at the awful cinematics.

Indie, Hollow Knight was boring as hell. Bland art direction and to specific combat. If your brain interprets those two things oppositely then I get it’s the joint but I did not click at all.

Dark Souls 2 is easily my favourite Dark Souls game. I love how distinct the enviroments are, it feels so alien and sudden that I think it really contributes to the tone. It may have a few too many bosses but I really like most of them and I generally love the "duel" fights versus a humanoid enemy or two.

My hot take: The story in the Metal Gear Solid games are trash and Kojima wrote the same game story 4 1/2 times over.

He has interesting character ideas and set pieces but can't weave them together into a compelling story.

Nintendo first party games do not appeal to me. I think they are boring.

I have owned a N64 and did not own a single first party Nintendo game. Before owning my N64, I played Mario Bros at a friend's house and did not understand his excitement for it.

I did buy a wii for my kids, and they did get into Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros, but I still couldn't understand the appeal.

The most anger I've ever received from people about a take of mine was that Super Smash Bros. Brawl was a better competitive game than Super Smash Bros. Melee.

And yes, I both participated in and ran tournaments in both games. In fact, the last time Brawl had a tournament in town I swept the tournament.

But this take gets under the skin of soooo many people. And they are never really equipped to defend it because Melee is this golden perfect child and Brawl is the kid in the class everyone picks on because it is what everyone does.

But I feel like my critiques of Melee are valid.

• It focuses far too much a ludicrous execution barrier that is only fun for the people with the dexterity and willingness to forfeit their long term wrist and hand health to compete. No other game, fighting game or platform fighter, makes you risk that much just to play it.
• Its viable characters on the tier list is small, even given its roster size. What's more is that playstyle diversity is minimal. Yes, even including Jigglypuff. Comparitively, Brawl has a huge mid tier of viable options (like my main character, Kirby), all with very different playstyles that are viable.
• The above also means counterpicks are basically nonexistent in the meta. In Brawl, counterpicks are a lot bigger part of the meta game, as I had 4-5 characters I could bust out for a match if I felt they performed better. Many of my friends who competed did as well.
• Stage diversity is frankly terrible. I mean, it is in Brawl too, but come on, its even worse in Melee.
• Not only is the execution barrier tough to overcome to be competitive, even just to start playing the game, it is a daunting feat, one that might be the highest in platform fighters or fighting games in general.
• My old man back doesn't want to carry a CRT around to tournaments ever again.

DOOM's (reboot) pacing is awful because it's so tied to the retro idea of having to find the secrets in a level to get the most out of the game.

Surely you could just.. go from battle to battle and create a better paced game for yourself, but that way you miss out on a lot of stuff that the devs put in the game for you. So instead i found myself spending 70% of the time roaming around the maps looking for the secrets and trying to interpret the map properly. Pretty much the opposite feeling that the game wants to give you during the battles. Also, for a game that's supposed to be all about ripping and tearing, the world is so incredibly static. There's hardly an object in that game that you can break during a battle. No walls to break. No lights to drop down.

Another one? Another one

Bethesda's open world games have one big strength and that is the visual worldbuilding. Apart from that it's quite unremarkable. You come across characters that have 1 questline for you, you go to some cave, kill the enemy, and that's that. You hardly have an opportunity to care about an NPC and the questlines are too unremarkable to stick with you. Even the lauded Fallout New Vegas just doesn't have all that many memorable questlines and characters. I do appreciate that they wrote a lot of text depending on your stats and that the dialog you do get is often quite funny and written with flair, but i can't say that any of these characters actually stuck with me throughout the years. Also, the ways to interact with the world are just not enough to create remarkable moments or setpieces. Say what you will about the big Megaton decision in Fallout 3, but at least that was a big world-altering setpiece. Also, can anyone explain me why it's so important that you have the ability to pick up pretty much every item? Sure i've filled a room with cheese too, but the downside is that i had to constantly make sure i wasn't picking up useless stuff throughout my playthrough. Being able to put a bucket on an enemy's head to block his sight was a neat little move, and i probably stacked some barrels at some point to platform. But apart from those beneficial uses and probably some speedrun tactics, i don't understand why this aspect is so beloved. Taken an entire playthrough in account, it probably was more annoying than fun / useful.

Honestly, i found myself enjoying Fallout 3 and Oblivion way more than games like New Vegas & Skyrim because the best part of Bethesda games is that they design this cool-looking world in 3d and the first time you set foot in those worlds it's a visual spectacle. But after 100+ hours of having seen their take on first person fantasy or first person nuclear apocalyptic wasteland, the 2nd time around it just doesn't hit the same heights. And while the combat is serviceable enough to spend time with, it never feels good or interesting so these games feel like they devolve into cleaning up the map until there's nothing left, without much of a personal investment in what's actually happening in this world and it's characters. Just cleaning up the map in the hope to find an interesting NPC / questline somewhere.

@topcyclist: RE4 is worst mainline numbered RE game from RE1-8.

Devil May Cry 3 is the second worst DMC game (DMC2 is worst), while DMC: Devil May Cry is the best.

Super Mario Bros 2 is the best NES Mario game. Possibly the best Mario game period.

Mass Effect 2 is the worst mainline Mass Effect game, while ME1 is the best. Also, the Mako is good.

Assassin's Creed 4 is so annoying, it ruined the entire franchise for me. I went from playing every game to just done.

@ginormous76: That RE4 take so hot I don’t even think YOU can hold it.

@cle718: I couldn’t make it more than an hour in before feeling the same way, so your three hours is impressive as hell to me. Will never touch it again, have no interest in anything else in that universe.

Is the dress sphere being great a hot take? I thought that was just facts.

I think I figured out the perfect way to enjoy this game. I made my wife play it. So, I basically just got to see all the cool parts/help with some of the more complex/difficult parts while missing the 70% of game that's just boring.