Opinion Formation.
This seems to have become a meme of sorts. Inspired by Tenshi, and since I share a loathing for fandom_secrets and the like too, here we go with some of my opinions:
- Chrono Trigger is not an amazing game. Fun, sure, but no, folks. It’s not the savior of the 16-bit era people make it out to be.
- The Phantom Menace is by far the worst of the Star Wars prequel movies, save for one awesome lightsaber battle. Yes, that means Attack of the Clones, with all its talk of sand and, well, Hayden Christenson in general, is a better, more enjoyable movie. Also, Jedi is the worst of the original trilogy. Ewoks? Really? Still a great movie, but ugh.
- On the Star Wars note, things change. Yes, there are things in the Star Wars special editions I don’t agree with. Did George Lucas destroy my childhood? Shit no, I still love those movies. I’m about to watch A New Hope now, even.
- Outside of a few games, books and comics, the Star Wars EU really isn’t worth messing with. Play Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, read Tales of the Jedi, play Dark Forces and Jedi Knight, and then read some Timothy Zahn and Matthew Stover. Congrats, you have now experienced everything worth experiencing from the EU.
- Don’t get me wrong, I love Street Fighter, and I just got SF4 and I love it. But, really folks... it’s called The King of Fighters for a reason.
- On a related note, there’s a reason the lack of Street Fighter 3 characters in SF4 doesn’t bother me. Because, frankly, the cast that isn’t the returning character, Ibuki, or Makoto sucks. They have their quirk factor, but most of them are halfassed replacements for past characters that should have been in the game anyway, and the ones that aren’t are just plain not fun to play or have terrible designs.
Elena’s animation is still amazing though, which counts for something.
- I like a lot of pop and pop punk music, and I don't think it's the plague on the industry that many others think they are. In fact, the industry would have folded without that stuff to keep it going.
- Dragon Quest is one of the worst series of RPGs I’ve ever played. Yes, there’s worse, but most of those don’t permeate into series, or if they have they’ve died out by now. But Dragon Quest continues on with its boring characters, boring gameplay, boring stories and boring worlds, and in some ways, that makes it worse than many of those terrible games that have faded off into obscurity or have risen to infamy.
- Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition is the worst thing to happen to pen and paper gaming since... well, probably ever. After the flexibility, playability, and just plain fun factor of 3rd, 4th is nothing but one huge step back for pen and paper gaming with it’s rigid structure and complete lack of flexibility, overly simplified ruleset, and bizarrely unexplained facets of the system, like the skill challenges. Throw in all the bullshit legal rules, regulations, and D&D Insider, and it has me hoping no one else decides to follow suit with the industry’s biggest blunder.
- Disgaea sucks. Terribly boring, broken SRPG gameplay that requires hours on hours of grinding, one note joke characters who were tired and uninteresting after a few chapters of the game, an overly silly and terribly uninteresting story are not what I look for in my games. Disgaea 2 was better in that it had interesting and palatable characters, and a much more interesting plot, but the gameplay was still remarkably boring.
- Related, Phantom Brave is better than Disgaea OR Makai Kingdom. Think on that.
- I like Yuki Kajiura, but damn is she over rated. I mean, have you honestly listened to most of her soundtracks? Sure, there’s some stand out stuff, but really listen to them sometime. They’re all the exact same formula, repeated over and over again. Probably the only real exception to this is her Xenosaga 3 soundtrack, and that’s because she was trying to more closely emulate Yasunori Mitsuda’s style.
- Here’s a news flash to all the people who are dub haters: Watching something in Japanese exclusively and claiming all dubs suck (when chances are you haven't listened to more than clips of the dubs you're deriding) does not make you a better anime fan, it just makes you a bigger weeaboo idiots. Yes, I said it, and I hate that fucking word, so it’s a big deal to me. On the same note, sub haters who refuse to watch something that’s not in their language are just as silly, because their refusal is causing them to miss out on a number of great shows (some of which do end up better in Japanese, like Code Geass or Gurren Lagann). Take it on a case by case basis, guys, instead of doing these silly blanket judgments.
- Xenogears is not the pinnacle of PSX RPGdom. That’s Parasite Eve. It is, however, an intriguing and generally fun game, despite how broken it is functionally.
- Atlus has its hits, but they are not the niche RPG savior people make them out to be. They release terrible and mediocre games through out the year with a few gems (most of which are SMT games), and people laud them like I should love them just because they bring over niche games regardless of quality? Doesn’t work that way, guys.
- Mother 3 was a very fun game, do not get me wrong. But people are acting like it’s the best game released in years. Sorry, I don’t see it.
- The Macross series is one of the worst things to "grace" the anime industry. Over the years it has throw SDF Macross (and LYNN MINMEI), Macross 7, Macross 0, and more at us. And most of it was terrible.
Most. Macross Plus and Macross Frontier, though. Those can hang with the rest of the good stuff.
- Metal Slug > Contra, any day of the week.
- People shouldn’t let overzealous love of a game get in the way of enjoying a sequel just because it’s different. Recent case in point is Fallout 3. I can’t tell you how many people I saw hating it just because it wasn’t Fallout 1 and 2 all over again. What gives, guys? If you try it and genuinely don't enjoy it, that's one thing. But really, docking it points because it's not the same thing as it's predecessor is just... dumb.
- Pete Wentz is an attention whoring moron, and I think Fall Out Boy would be better without him. How in the world did a bassist get such a huge ego?
That's all I got for now.
- Chrono Trigger is not an amazing game. Fun, sure, but no, folks. It’s not the savior of the 16-bit era people make it out to be.
- The Phantom Menace is by far the worst of the Star Wars prequel movies, save for one awesome lightsaber battle. Yes, that means Attack of the Clones, with all its talk of sand and, well, Hayden Christenson in general, is a better, more enjoyable movie. Also, Jedi is the worst of the original trilogy. Ewoks? Really? Still a great movie, but ugh.
- On the Star Wars note, things change. Yes, there are things in the Star Wars special editions I don’t agree with. Did George Lucas destroy my childhood? Shit no, I still love those movies. I’m about to watch A New Hope now, even.
- Outside of a few games, books and comics, the Star Wars EU really isn’t worth messing with. Play Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2, read Tales of the Jedi, play Dark Forces and Jedi Knight, and then read some Timothy Zahn and Matthew Stover. Congrats, you have now experienced everything worth experiencing from the EU.
- Don’t get me wrong, I love Street Fighter, and I just got SF4 and I love it. But, really folks... it’s called The King of Fighters for a reason.
- On a related note, there’s a reason the lack of Street Fighter 3 characters in SF4 doesn’t bother me. Because, frankly, the cast that isn’t the returning character, Ibuki, or Makoto sucks. They have their quirk factor, but most of them are halfassed replacements for past characters that should have been in the game anyway, and the ones that aren’t are just plain not fun to play or have terrible designs.
Elena’s animation is still amazing though, which counts for something.
- I like a lot of pop and pop punk music, and I don't think it's the plague on the industry that many others think they are. In fact, the industry would have folded without that stuff to keep it going.
- Dragon Quest is one of the worst series of RPGs I’ve ever played. Yes, there’s worse, but most of those don’t permeate into series, or if they have they’ve died out by now. But Dragon Quest continues on with its boring characters, boring gameplay, boring stories and boring worlds, and in some ways, that makes it worse than many of those terrible games that have faded off into obscurity or have risen to infamy.
- Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition is the worst thing to happen to pen and paper gaming since... well, probably ever. After the flexibility, playability, and just plain fun factor of 3rd, 4th is nothing but one huge step back for pen and paper gaming with it’s rigid structure and complete lack of flexibility, overly simplified ruleset, and bizarrely unexplained facets of the system, like the skill challenges. Throw in all the bullshit legal rules, regulations, and D&D Insider, and it has me hoping no one else decides to follow suit with the industry’s biggest blunder.
- Disgaea sucks. Terribly boring, broken SRPG gameplay that requires hours on hours of grinding, one note joke characters who were tired and uninteresting after a few chapters of the game, an overly silly and terribly uninteresting story are not what I look for in my games. Disgaea 2 was better in that it had interesting and palatable characters, and a much more interesting plot, but the gameplay was still remarkably boring.
- Related, Phantom Brave is better than Disgaea OR Makai Kingdom. Think on that.
- I like Yuki Kajiura, but damn is she over rated. I mean, have you honestly listened to most of her soundtracks? Sure, there’s some stand out stuff, but really listen to them sometime. They’re all the exact same formula, repeated over and over again. Probably the only real exception to this is her Xenosaga 3 soundtrack, and that’s because she was trying to more closely emulate Yasunori Mitsuda’s style.
- Here’s a news flash to all the people who are dub haters: Watching something in Japanese exclusively and claiming all dubs suck (when chances are you haven't listened to more than clips of the dubs you're deriding) does not make you a better anime fan, it just makes you a bigger weeaboo idiots. Yes, I said it, and I hate that fucking word, so it’s a big deal to me. On the same note, sub haters who refuse to watch something that’s not in their language are just as silly, because their refusal is causing them to miss out on a number of great shows (some of which do end up better in Japanese, like Code Geass or Gurren Lagann). Take it on a case by case basis, guys, instead of doing these silly blanket judgments.
- Xenogears is not the pinnacle of PSX RPGdom. That’s Parasite Eve. It is, however, an intriguing and generally fun game, despite how broken it is functionally.
- Atlus has its hits, but they are not the niche RPG savior people make them out to be. They release terrible and mediocre games through out the year with a few gems (most of which are SMT games), and people laud them like I should love them just because they bring over niche games regardless of quality? Doesn’t work that way, guys.
- Mother 3 was a very fun game, do not get me wrong. But people are acting like it’s the best game released in years. Sorry, I don’t see it.
- The Macross series is one of the worst things to "grace" the anime industry. Over the years it has throw SDF Macross (and LYNN MINMEI), Macross 7, Macross 0, and more at us. And most of it was terrible.
Most. Macross Plus and Macross Frontier, though. Those can hang with the rest of the good stuff.
- Metal Slug > Contra, any day of the week.
- People shouldn’t let overzealous love of a game get in the way of enjoying a sequel just because it’s different. Recent case in point is Fallout 3. I can’t tell you how many people I saw hating it just because it wasn’t Fallout 1 and 2 all over again. What gives, guys? If you try it and genuinely don't enjoy it, that's one thing. But really, docking it points because it's not the same thing as it's predecessor is just... dumb.
- Pete Wentz is an attention whoring moron, and I think Fall Out Boy would be better without him. How in the world did a bassist get such a huge ego?
That's all I got for now.