What it says on the tin, name me five games you consider to be overrated and why.
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What it says on the tin, name me five games you consider to be overrated and why.
Persona 5 - I have a hard time not viewing this game cynically. It's the perfect iteration of the Hashino Persona gameplay loop, designed meticulously to tease you with 'the next unlock just around the corner' on three different levels and feeding you bites in such small but consistent increments to keep you hooked for dozens upon dozens of hours. I still had fun playing the game, but after dropping the NG+ run a couple hours in I doubt I'll ever return to it. Doesn't help that its story and themes never really went anywhere.
Super Mario 64 - I suppose I may have played this at a bad time where I really just didn't jive with its kind of exploration and gameplay, but I can't say I enjoyed this game. It feels like the kind of game where it's super cool when you already know all its secrets and are intensely familiar with its controls and can use them to perform great feats, but actually learning all of that is a chore. It also started a trend of games of its nature being generally pretty 'easy' but still highly 'punishing' and nothing feels worse than misjudging the distance of a jump after spending 10 minutes (that still felt like an hour) scrounging up 90 coins. No recourse, no checkpoints, have to do it all over again. Freaking hell.
Steins;Gate - Now here's a game I don't really mind, but its reputation eludes me. Sure it has a damn awesome protagonist and a rather unique story, that's all well and good, but it mostly just feels like pretty standard level as far as VNs go. I guess its popularity and anime adaptation kinda fed into itself into getting it the status as one of the most popular VNs out there. Oh well.
Virtue's Last Reward - There's a problem I have with the conversation surrounding the Zero Escape trilogy and it's primarily how people are so quick to forgive VLR for leaving a million open questions including a totally open ending and instead blame ZTD for not managing the impossible task of answering those cohesively. That's VLR's fault, not ZTD's. VLR just kinda likes making the scope bigger and bigger while not having any answers to show for it that don't come packed with more questions and it kind of sucks. I like a lot of things about the game, and yeah before ZTD came out you could still at least tell yourself it just holds its cards close to its chest instead of just not having any, but it really didn't have any in the end.
Final Fantasy VII - Was debating putting VI here for its own status, but VII kinda takes it as far as FF games go. I like FF7 a lot, I grew up with it, it was my favorite game for a while. But it does still get a kind of reverence that's disproportionate to what it deserves, and while being inside FF circles can kinda cloud (ha ha) things there due to loud vocal minorities, the remake coming out shows just how huge this reverence for the game really is. It actually has a lot of the same issues I take with FF6 with its cast's arcs mostly playing out in isolation from anyone and anything else. It's still a game I enjoy coming back to every now and then
I'm generally bad at giving arguments for my opinions, especially when they could be called "hot takes", but here goes :p
Half-Life 2
I actually never finished this game because I got bored at some point after Ravenholm. The physics and gravity gun were a fun gimmick at first, but in the long term they weren't interesting enough to keep me playing the game. Beyond those mechanics, gameplay-wise it just felt like a very average FPS with a story that I had no interest in. I felt it had a promising start in terms of environment (since you start out in a city), but that quickly devolved as well, especially during the boat sections.
God of War
The PS2 one, not to be confused with the PS4 game which I still consider overrated, but not as much. :p
In which you play as an unlikable violent dude who rampages through the Greek pantheon, murdering everything in his way. With that riveting story out of the way, let's move on to some of the issues I had with the gameplay. The game had far too many QTEs, which were sadly pretty prevalent in that era of gaming. The combat in general also suffers from a huge pet peeve I have: It's a combo-based combat system but any relevant enemy turns into a hit-and-run fight unless you play on easy. I hate hate hate it when games flaunt their combo system, only to force you to break every combo off halfway through because otherwise the enemy just attacks straight through it and chunks your health.
I still enjoyed the game enough to finish it, but one of the best PS2 games? Heck no.
Chrono Trigger
Now don't get me wrong, I like Chrono Trigger. I just don't put it on the pedestal that the RPG community at large does.
Enemy encounters being static (though not always visible) instead of random was neat, especially in an era that went a little overboard with random encounters in other games, but I wasn't a big fan of the actual battle system.
To elaborate, I'm not a fan of ATB. You just stare at the screen while every single character stands there like a potato, waiting for a bar to fill up so you can finally input a command. This is why I prefer actual turn-based systems. Chrono Trigger manages to make ATB even worse because double and triple techs are a vital part of the combat system, and every character partaking in those skills has to have their ATB bar filled. So now you get to input one command for every 2-3 ATB charges!
As for the story, it's a fun time travel adventure, nothing more and nothing less.
Final Fantasy VII
Well, Karifean already kind of explained this one. To add to that though, I wasn't a big fan of the game in the first place. I don't think it was bad, but I do think it fell apart shortly after you leave Midgar. A very promising start to a game that just spirals downwards after that. Also, again, ATB.
Skyrim
I'm not sure where to even start with this. Countless bugs and glitches, an extremely bland story, dungeons and caves that all look the same, and the combat is an atrocity. But somehow this game is often hailed as one of the best RPGs, usually because mods can fix what Bethesda couldn't be bothered to fix. :p
Ocarina of Time - the number one most overrated game of all time. Beats out CT if only for the reason that CT is actually a good game and this isn't.
Chrono Trigger
FFVI
FFXII - should be universally counted among the worst entries of the series, but for some crazy reason isn't.
Xenosaga (Xeno anything besides Xenogears, pretty much)
lol wut? I'd also say Xenosaga isn't overrated. Aside from its small community of diehard fans you run into now and again I don't even think it's a game most people like and it certainly didn't have any lasting impact on the industry or its genre. I'd actually agree OoT is overrated though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Golbez
I feel like Xenosaga is overrated because whenever I see anyone talk about it at all, it's in a positive way, and I have absolutely nothing good to say about the game. I lumped in other Xeno stuff though because people rave about the blade stuff more often now.
I adore Xenosaga and think that the first game in particular is really great.
Most overrated games, if I don't just list all Bethesda titles in a row:
1. Fallout 3 (alright gotta include one)
2. Ocarina of Time
3. Final Fantasy X
4. GTA V
5. The Last of Us
Now let's be clear, saying they're overrated is not saying they are BAD (although I do think that in some of these cases), merely that the perception of them is off.
Let's see. I'll try to limit myself to one per series.
Final Fantasy VII - yes, it's an important game that revolutionized not just the genre but the entire medium, but I feel it has too many flaws that many people just don't even remember. I consider it by no means a bad game, but its status as the sacred cow of the franchise is not entirely deserved, imo. Honorable mention: Final Fantasy X.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - once again, an incredibly influential game which probably wouldn't be even on this list, if it weren't for the fact that it laid the foundation for all the future games in the series, which I feel all do a better job at it in at least one respect, and yet they're not quite so revered. Honorable mention: The Wind Waker.
Breath of Fire III - by no means a bad game, but I never understood why it's considered the best one by so many. I feel IV does a lot of what it does better with just so many other elements added that fit in more neatly into my personal sensibilities, and it doesn't really have anything cool or interesting going for it like Dragon Quarter does.
The Sims 2 - this game was an important leap for the series, what with the shift to 3D and added aging, but much like other games on this list, I feel like its sequel just added so much more, so as to make this one nearly obsolete, yet somehow it's this one that's still considered the series gold standard for some reason.
Persona 4 - not the direction I wanted this series to take after 3, but I think what pains me the most is that (at least up until 5 got released) this was the most talked-about Persona, completely overshadowing 3, which is still my absolute favorite.
1. FFVII - Like others have echoed, I will agree it is not a bad game nor try to diminish what it did for the genre, but I also feel the game doesn't deserve the sacred cow status it has garnered as I feel the original game had a lot of problems in both it's writing and overall design to make it difficult for me to enjoy let alone lift it up to the status of the best RPG ever.
2. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Again, not much I can say that Fynn and others haven't already put out there. I still find it to be a solid game, but not nearly as great as many Zelda fans try to lift it up to. I still consider it to be one of the more vanilla entries in the series.
3. Super Mario Galaxy - I never really understood the acclaim this game received when it was released. The concept was interesting, but having levels broke up into little mini-micro challenges just hurt the pacing and feel of the game for me, not to mention said challenges were rarely fun or interesting.
4. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 - I see this game as the beginning of the end for the Capcom Vs. franchise as I feel it ushered in everything the series would eventually be known for by dropping the skill level of combos and over-emphasizing the over the top specials which feel even more powered down from older entries for the sake of making players use them more often. It stripped away a lot of the nuance I loved from the older entries and was poorly balanced. It still makes my blood boil when I hear fighting game fans say this was the last good entry of the series.
5: Valkyria Chronicles - Ugh, I've yet to make it completely through this game. It takes an interesting premise and battle system and then gums it all off by going hard on anime tropes and characters which makes the overall feel of the game feel weird to me. Not to mention it dabbles in the cardinal sin of Tactical RPGs which is making battles take way too long by overloading the battle field with too many units. It takes a bloody hour minimum to finish a single battle and half that time spent is just watching the computer take it's turn to move it's 30+ units around. The core game also just has weaknesses with certain units not being practical or too overpowered, and I feel the "personality trait" mechanic never seems to do anything.
Half-Life franchise
Borderlands franchise
BioShock franchise
Halo franchise
CoD franchise
League of Legends
Overwatch