Unpopular opinions

[Sixfortyfive]

I don't like to make broad generalizations about core design principles that can be executed well, but at this point in my life, whenever I sit down for an """open world""" game and am greeted by THIS:

...I don't think "man, what grand adventure awaits."

I think "god, what an obnoxious list of chores to plow through."

I don't think SV's world design is terrible. But I also don't think the nonlinear framework actually added anything. Part of the reason why Team Star feels like they have no impact on the world around them is because you can just literally ignore them until you've done everything else, when pretty much every villainous team before them would have roadblocked you at some point and actually present themselves as a meaningful threat for you to solve. SV doesn't have any stakes or antagonist until you get all the way to Area Zero.

One-hour long sidescrolling arcade action games from the '90s often have better narrative build-up and payoff than this.

 

[Bakugames]

god i cant wait for the open world trend to be over and for us all to look back on it going lol what a wacky decade

 

[ant4456]

god i cant wait for the open world trend to be over and for us all to look back on it going lol what a wacky decade

Well then there'll just be a new trend that enthusiasts say is ruining gaming lol

Everything works in Cycles.

 

[Bakugames]

Well then there'll just be a new trend that enthusiasts say is ruining gaming lol

Everything works in Cycles.

can i pick next. lets bring pinball back. everything has unnecessary pinball action

 

[ant4456]

can i pick next. lets bring pinball back. everything has unnecessary pinball action

I met someone who hated Hollow Knight because they think it ruined the metroidvania genre by normalizing them "not being like Metroid" (when asked, and I quote "shooting things and walls and getting upgrades"), so I think it'd be really funny if we got something of that nature

Like we bring back collectathons but it's a pinball trend and not platforming, and like 500 millenial Banjo Kazooie fans will be on their hands and knees at Walmart

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

You're correct but also the majority disagree with you so it lowkey doesn't matter

That's a wild take that I'm not even going to unpack. Just read that again, but slowly.

At any rate, this is all very subjective and pointless, as is discussing most subjective things. Especially art. I'd rather discuss politics than art tbh. It probably would've been a more honest discussion too.

But this is why we're calling out open world gameplay for the empty calorie trash it is. Everyone here is aware that we're on the Unpopular Opinions thread. We're not talking about the masses here, their feelings, their opinions, in fact, fuck their opinions.

Coherent, informed points based on objective facts can be made about how open world gameplay can be a detriment to a game if not done properly.

We understand that certain games do that to aura farm. We're also saying that it's a stupid decision that makes games worse.

Or I might as well save my time and just aura farm because I know I'm going to get more reactions on my post if I do this:

 

[ant4456]

That's a wild take that I'm not even going to unpack. Just read that again, but slowly.

At any rate, this is all very subjective and pointless, as is discussing most subjective things. Especially art. I'd rather discuss politics than art tbh. It probably would've been a more honest discussion too.

But this is why we're calling out open world gameplay for the empty calorie trash it is. Everyone here is aware that we're on the Unpopular Opinions thread. We're not talking about the masses here, their feelings, their opinions, in fact, fuck their opinions.

Coherent, informed points based on objective facts can be made about how open world gameplay can be a detriment to a game if not done properly.

We understand that certain games do that to aura farm. We're also saying that it's a stupid decision that makes games worse.

Or I might as well save my time and just aura farm because I know I'm going to get more reactions on my post if I do this:

View attachment 734737

Your takes aren't really unpopular within the demographic of this forum, in fact by being in a Nintendo related properly forum you are by far the most likely to get agreement by basically saying "most AAA games are slop"

Back in 2015 all you had to do to make a Nintendo fan popoff is say "The Last of Us is slop, New Super Mario Bros. is for real gamers" and that shit was real embarrassing.

Even in movies you have the Nintendo fans who are like "The Super Mario Movie is CINEMA" and you KNOW their asses have not watched The Green Mile. How many of them are going to go see Sinner?

People in the Nintendo-Pokemon circle have been saying that everything else (except indie because so many indie games are based on Nintendo) is slop since like, probably the Gamecube, maybe the N64. When Astro Bot came out there were so many Nintendo fan demographic millennials saying that Sony needed to be more like Nintendo and that games like God of War Ragnarok were bad and boring actually.

All I'm tryna say is the demographic of people most likely to have bought Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu can sit their asses down about dictating what "slop" is, and that's probably a more unpopular opinion within this community than saying "Yeah you're right the AAA trends are so cringe and ruining gaming!"

does anyone remember this one this one was a classic lmfao

 

[pika pal]

Here's my simple take: SV's Open World elements neither add nor take away anything significant for me in terms of progression. Being able to just quick travel and roam around to catch Pokemon is cool, but only insofar as it lets me play with certain Pokemon sooner in the adventure than more limiting games (like running into Level 35+ territory to evolve my Gallade before Iono).

SV is arguably my favorite game with an Open World design SPECIFICALLY because it doesn't design around it in a significant manner. You know what happens when you make an Open World with a bunch of borderline procedural tasks comprising most of the content? You gut any replay value and the game loses its long-lasting appeal when most players won't have any inclination to revisit it while chewing through the next 100+ hour game in a franchise. BOTW doesn't offer me anything on this front because if I want a short Zelda game I'll rerun ALttP, and if I want a longer playthrough I could get more out of marathoning Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and/or Twilight Princess than hunting Korok Seeds and Shrines until I remember those aren't fun in the Open Games.

Part of this is also me being bitter because I resent the Zelda OW games for their impact on the franchise as much as gaming at large. It took 11 years to get a new traditional styled Zelda game (between LBW in 2013 and Echoes of Wisdom in 2024). As of this post we are now further removed from the most recent Linear 3D Zelda (Skwyward Sword in November 2011) than it was from the FIRST 3D Zelda (OoT in Nov 1998), and than OoT was from the inception of the franchise (February 1986). It's also not helped by the fact that these games are turning into a small "sub-series" with a direct sequel using the same world (OoT and MM shared chronology but were in totally different settings, as were the Toon Link games. Only ALBW fits the bill up to this point) and two Musou spin-offs that just cover events mentioned-but-not-depicted to fill in the lackluster narrative (vs the original Hyrule Warriors being an outside-mainline Crossover spectacle). To draw a comparison, it's like when Final Fantasy 13 came out, proved divisive at best... and then Square gave it 2 sequels and tried tying it into other verse projects like Type-0 and Versus 13 (before that became 15). I am well aware my critical perception is probably a minority, but it's the same feeling of "I can't stand this iteration but it won't go away," probably made worse KNOWING that popularity instead of creator stubbornness is ensuring that (vs, say, the divisive newer Paper Mario games).

I get the Wild games were huge sellers, but I have absolutely no enthusiasm for their style and their existence is now starting to feel like it actively infringes on one that I DO care about since it's the Dev team putting work into a game that does not retain any of the design or "vibes" that I got invested in the IP for. SV can debate quality but I have no hesitation saying they fit right in as mainline Pokemon games, which is not something I can give to "better" Open World games like BOTW or TOTK. I wish people would stop focusing on how SV are good or bad Open World games, especially because I'm not convinved a "good" one of those even exists past the year of 2013-2015 with GTA 5 in general, or Xenoblade Chronicles X in a Nintendo specific context, and instead "Open World or not, does this design gel with the IP or is the name slapped on to sell a different idea?"

tl;dr Open World Zelda is worse than Open World Pokemon.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I have absolutely no enthusiasm for their style and their existence is now starting to feel like it actively infringes on one that I DO care about since it's the Dev team putting work into a game that does not retain any of the design or "vibes" that I got invested in the IP for.

Speaking as someone who grew up on classic Sonic, this is a feeling you just gotta get over. Once a franchise is this long in the tooth and has offshoots into all kinds of sub-audiences, you gotta come to terms with the fact that they're no longer going to be able to please the entire audience all of the time, and that they honestly should probably never try to do so because it just runs the risk of pissing off everybody equally. Best you can hope for is that they just cycle through different approaches on a regular basis.

I'm at the point where if I get a Mania or a Superstars once every console generation or so, I'm fine with that. Sega can spend the rest of their time working on Shadow the Hedgehog edgelord shlock if they want or more movies that I'm never going to watch. That stuff has their audiences to serve. No reason we can't all eat.

But on the broader point on open world Pokemon, I do agree that SV isn't as egregious a departure from traditional franchise design as it could be. If nothing else, it is kind of nice to be able to traverse a single big map without it being broken up by multiple GB/DS era "guard houses" everywhere, and that's one small plus worth underscoring in a game that's otherwise a performance mess.

 

[S.A.C. Martin]

I’m honestly of the opinion that the switch era of Pokemon has been one long experimental dev cycle building up to the tenth generation.

Look at what was shared and developed from SW/SH through to PLZA via SV and PLA and you can see how the open world and changes in gameplay have been influenced one to the other.

The bit that always gives me pause for thought is knowing that all four of these titles definitely share commonalities in their engine development - this has been extrapolated from the Tera leaks and spoken about at length on YouTube by a number of commentators.

Gen 10 I hope changes it up but absolutely takes the best of all of these forward.

 

[Ironmage]

Speaking as someone who grew up on classic Sonic, this is a feeling you just gotta get over. Once a franchise is this long in the tooth and has offshoots into all kinds of sub-audiences, you gotta come to terms with the fact that they're no longer going to be able to please the entire audience all of the time, and that they honestly should probably never try to do so because it just runs the risk of pissing off everybody equally. Best you can hope for is that they just cycle through different approaches on a regular basis.

I'm at the point where if I get a Mania or a Superstars once every console generation or so, I'm fine with that. Sega can spend the rest of their time working on Shadow the Hedgehog edgelord shlock if they want or more movies that I'm never going to watch. That stuff has their audiences to serve. No reason we can't all eat.

But on the broader point on open world Pokemon, I do agree that SV isn't as egregious a departure from traditional franchise design as it could be. If nothing else, it is kind of nice to be able to traverse a single big map without it being broken up by multiple GB/DS era "guard houses" everywhere, and that's one small plus worth underscoring in a game that's otherwise a performance mess.

I'd say that for a fair chunk of my previous favourite Nintendo series, Pokemon included, that one new game fitting my interests each console generation would be a noticeable improvement from the Switch 1. OoT-style 3d Zelda has already been mentioned, but I'd also list its 2d equivalent (Echoes of Wisdom is still far too TotK-style for my liking) and 3d Mario in the other examples. I feel like the reasonable extension of trying to get this setup implemented for Pokemon is that gen 10 should make no attempt to be open-world given how much that style dominates gens 8 and 9.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

I’m honestly of the opinion that the switch era of Pokemon has been one long experimental dev cycle building up to the tenth generation.

Look at what was shared and developed from SW/SH through to PLZA via SV and PLA and you can see how the open world and changes in gameplay have been influenced one to the other.

The bit that always gives me pause for thought is knowing that all four of these titles definitely share commonalities in their engine development - this has been extrapolated from the Tera leaks and spoken about at length on YouTube by a number of commentators.

Gen 10 I hope changes it up but absolutely takes the best of all of these forward.

I wouldn't go that far, but they're clearly experimenting out there and coming up with good ideas.

As much as people bash SV, that game had ambition. They were actually trying out there. Sure, there were some dumb, dumb decisions, and I'll always drag them over those, but performance issues? On a game that rushed? On a console that weak?

Nah, that's not on the devs.

Here's my simple take: SV's Open World elements neither add nor take away anything significant for me in terms of progression. Being able to just quick travel and roam around to catch Pokemon is cool, but only insofar as it lets me play with certain Pokemon sooner in the adventure than more limiting games (like running into Level 35+ territory to evolve my Gallade before Iono).

SV is arguably my favorite game with an Open World design SPECIFICALLY because it doesn't design around it in a significant manner. You know what happens when you make an Open World with a bunch of borderline procedural tasks comprising most of the content? You gut any replay value and the game loses its long-lasting appeal when most players won't have any inclination to revisit it while chewing through the next 100+ hour game in a franchise. BOTW doesn't offer me anything on this front because if I want a short Zelda game I'll rerun ALttP, and if I want a longer playthrough I could get more out of marathoning Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and/or Twilight Princess than hunting Korok Seeds and Shrines until I remember those aren't fun in the Open Games.

Part of this is also me being bitter because I resent the Zelda OW games for their impact on the franchise as much as gaming at large. It took 11 years to get a new traditional styled Zelda game (between LBW in 2013 and Echoes of Wisdom in 2024). As of this post we are now further removed from the most recent Linear 3D Zelda (Skwyward Sword in November 2011) than it was from the FIRST 3D Zelda (OoT in Nov 1998), and than OoT was from the inception of the franchise (February 1986). It's also not helped by the fact that these games are turning into a small "sub-series" with a direct sequel using the same world (OoT and MM shared chronology but were in totally different settings, as were the Toon Link games. Only ALBW fits the bill up to this point) and two Musou spin-offs that just cover events mentioned-but-not-depicted to fill in the lackluster narrative (vs the original Hyrule Warriors being an outside-mainline Crossover spectacle). To draw a comparison, it's like when Final Fantasy 13 came out, proved divisive at best... and then Square gave it 2 sequels and tried tying it into other verse projects like Type-0 and Versus 13 (before that became 15). I am well aware my critical perception is probably a minority, but it's the same feeling of "I can't stand this iteration but it won't go away," probably made worse KNOWING that popularity instead of creator stubbornness is ensuring that (vs, say, the divisive newer Paper Mario games).

I get the Wild games were huge sellers, but I have absolutely no enthusiasm for their style and their existence is now starting to feel like it actively infringes on one that I DO care about since it's the Dev team putting work into a game that does not retain any of the design or "vibes" that I got invested in the IP for. SV can debate quality but I have no hesitation saying they fit right in as mainline Pokemon games, which is not something I can give to "better" Open World games like BOTW or TOTK. I wish people would stop focusing on how SV are good or bad Open World games, especially because I'm not convinved a "good" one of those even exists past the year of 2013-2015 with GTA 5 in general, or Xenoblade Chronicles X in a Nintendo specific context, and instead "Open World or not, does this design gel with the IP or is the name slapped on to sell a different idea?"

tl;dr Open World Zelda is worse than Open World Pokemon.

SV's open world really has no purpose. At no point the game truly benefits from it.

BotW is an interesting case. The only mechanic I REALLY wish they ported to it from TOTK to the Switch 2 version is the innate weapon bonuses because weapons in BotW are kind of a bit too bland.

The mechanics are surprisingly well-thought out, the game was refreshing at a time the Zelda franchise really needed a shake up, and then... A sequel was announced. Oh boy, they'll fix all these issues that BotW had, right?

Nah, just add some bullshit Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts mechanics.

They had SIX years to understand the assignment and give us some dungeons. That was it. That was the single biggest issue with BotW. But nope.

That game is technically impressive, but maaaaaan, there's not much of a point if the decisions are dumb! This is even worse than HGSS, at least that had the excuse of being a remake!

 

[pokemon4eva]

Ima just going to ignore the SV-shaped elephant in the room and say that it's cathartic to see THAT section of loud Zelda fans constantly bashing Pokemon games, saying they're all the same, unpolished, etc etc etc, and then they just purchase the 70$ Ultra Breath of the Wild.

 

[Esserise]

Ima just going to ignore the SV-shaped elephant in the room and say that it's cathartic to see THAT section of loud Zelda fans constantly bashing Pokemon games, saying they're all the same, unpolished, etc etc etc, and then they just purchase the 70$ Ultra Breath of the Wild.

Loud Zelda fans are plenty obnoxious, but I don’t think this “gotcha” really holds up.

Like… look, I love Pokémon games more than any other kind of game, and I even tend to prefer the newer ones over the older ones, so I’m probably the last person who’s gonna join in on a weekly dogpile about how modern Pokémon is all just shit now. And I’ve also done my share of defending the kind of workload that Game Freak have to deal with that I think fans still don’t quite grasp. So understand that I’m saying this from a position of absolute love and appreciation for Pokémon and all the work its creators put into it, but…

… saying that Pokémon doesn’t compare to modern Zelda games is absolutely fair. The very idea that Tears of the Kingdom is just “Ultra Breath of the Wild” is frankly preposterous. USUM didn’t do a single thing that even remotely compares to the kind of technical engineering behind stuff like the Ultrahand, Ascend, or Recall abilities, and USUM didn’t add an entire shadow Alola that’s as big as the original map. Seven Ultra Hallways don’t even begin to compare to combined substance of the Depths, sky islands, and caves of TOTK.

 

[Bakugames]

pokemon is better than zelda because it has turtonator

^ look

 

[CPU]

Pokémon is restricted from leaning too hard into open world because we can't have the player character actually interacting with the world in any meaningful manner (so anything beyond picking up items) without the aid of Pokémon.

Zelda doesn't have that problem.

 

[AztecCroc]

Loud Zelda fans are plenty obnoxious, but I don’t think this “gotcha” really holds up.

Like… look, I love Pokémon games more than any other kind of game, and I even tend to prefer the newer ones over the older ones, so I’m probably the last person who’s gonna join in on a weekly dogpile about how modern Pokémon is all just shit now. And I’ve also done my share of defending the kind of workload that Game Freak have to deal with that I think fans still don’t quite grasp. So understand that I’m saying this from a position of absolute love and appreciation for Pokémon and all the work its creators put into it, but…

… saying that Pokémon doesn’t compare to modern Zelda games is absolutely fair. The very idea that Tears of the Kingdom is just “Ultra Breath of the Wild” is frankly preposterous. USUM didn’t do a single thing that even remotely compares to the kind of technical engineering behind stuff like the Ultrahand, Ascend, or Recall abilities, and USUM didn’t add an entire shadow Alola that’s as big as the original map. Seven Ultra Hallways don’t even begin to compare to combined substance of the Depths, sky islands, and caves of TOTK.

I'm pretty sure "Ultra Breath of the Wild" was referring to the Switch 2 port, not Tears.

 

[Magcargo]

SV's open world really has no purpose. At no point the game truly benefits from it.

The point of the open world is to get any Pokemon you want at any time. Get ANYTHING you want at anytime.

When teambuilding in prior Pokemon games, you needed to reach specific checkpoints in order to get what you wanted. Want to use Scyther for Gardenia in DPP? Too bad, you gotta wait until you get to route 210 before you get it. This is mostly fine, but it limits how much you can truly customize your Pokemon in a given playthrough.

With SV (and SS to some extent), you basically have the entire kitchen sink out of the box. All the games TMs, evolution items, and Pokemon are available before the first gym, barring a handful of exceptions. The games also make it much simpler to acquire these resources without making it "free" - TMs for example require a moderate amount of effort to make- so its not entirely free, but there is still a bit of progression being made on that front whenever you get Pokemon materials. Moves being relearnable from anytime is also a nice QoL that makes customizing around certain situations even more fun. Getting good items for a general team is also easier now.

I'd say the open world format in the latest games is a massive improvement to the franchise for those reasons - building your dream team is much easier out of the gate, with far fewer restrictions than there were in the past. And while I wouldn't say this "requires" you to interact more with the mechanics, it does make it easier to interact with them. I think SV's systems between the crafting, materials, and multiple different characters with differing movesets lends itself well to the open world grind loop too, since certain builds will always require some sort of progression which you have a few means of attaining.

 

[Esserise]

I'm pretty sure "Ultra Breath of the Wild" was referring to the Switch 2 port, not Tears.

I guess it could be, but that would only be the case if you for some reason want to buy the Switch 2 version as a separate, discrete new item rather than just purchasing the $10 digital upgrade path or getting it bundled with an NSO subscription. And if it’s your first time buying either game, then you’re essentially just paying the same price that you would have before ($60 for BOTW, $70 for TOTK) + $10 for the upgrade path.

The only people shelling out $70 for TOTK on Switch 1 and then another $80 for TOTK on Switch 2 are like… physical edition collectors, and in that case, avid Pokémon collectors don’t really have any high ground to stand on given that they’ve (sorry, we’ve) been buying different versions of the same game 2-4 times for 30 years now.

(Disclaimer: I don’t know how these nuances differ with other currencies.)

 

[Perriechu]

I'm an SV-truther, but I'm going to be a #hater for a quick sec.

Someone else already said it but I want to echo it, SV's open-world just felt so pointless.

I understand teambuilding being something that becomes very flexible with it, but then again, because there's no scaling (my absolute biggest issue with SV's open world) you end up with a team of incredibly mismatched levelled Pokémon - and there's no penalty for attempting to go for stronger Pokémon either, at least SWSH didn't let you capture the static encounters until you had enough badges. Wasting the dead obedience mechanic and not applying it to levelled Pokémon was a missed opportunity.

I'm also kinda against the complete easiness of in-game team building, I'm all for making it easier post-game and for competitive, but there was something exciting about finally reaching a destination where a certain Pokémon was available in previous games. I'm not someone who trades, so I would always put in the effort myself. SV took that away and made it too easy. Working with what's available in the current area(s) is part of the charm of Pokémon, especially in the early game. Where's the fun in cheesing a strong capture and just steamrolling bosses?

But going back to the pointless element, because there's no scaling you still pretty much have to complete the bosses in a set order. The illusion of free will

and super off-topic but on-topic of what's being discussed, I don't think Zelda is the franchise for Pokémon fans to go up against lol, whilst I personally don't have a lot of.. interest in Zelda there is a definite difference between each game released that shows a significant evolution in the way the game is played/how it performs etc etc.

Mario on the other hand..

 

[Sixfortyfive]

With SV (and SS to some extent), you basically have the entire kitchen sink out of the box. All the games TMs, evolution items, and Pokemon are available before the first gym, barring a handful of exceptions.

Obedience in SV still applies to all Pokemon caught above your current badge's level, so no, you can't use "nearly anything" before the first gym.

I suppose you could probably breed the overleveled captures to get around this, but that's also been true of overleveled trades for past games.

 

[ant4456]

I guess it could be, but that would only be the case if you for some reason want to by the Switch 2 version as a separate, discrete new item rather than just purchasing the $10 digital upgrade path or getting it bundled with an NSO subscription. And if it’s your first time buying either game, then you’re essentially just paying the same price that you would have before ($60 for BOTW, $70 for TOTK) + $10 for the upgrade path.

The only people shelling out $70 for TOTK on Switch 1 and then another $80 for TOTK on Switch 2 are like… physical edition collectors, and in that case, avid Pokémon collectors don’t really have any high ground to stand on given that they’ve (sorry, we’ve) been buying different versions of the same game 2-4 times for 30 years now.

(Disclaimer: I don’t know how these nuances differ with other currencies.)

My hot take: Physical collectors deserve it

"Well if the upgrade is on the cart then I gotta buy the entire game again!!! What if the servers shut down in 10 years and I don't have the upgrade!!!"

yknow what im gonna bitch about phys vs digital discourse rn

-you can still download wii, 3ds and wii u shop games if you bought them
-since the 8th generation, console stores are not the same. cont.:
-all 3 console manufacturers are now using digital and physical libraries as a lock in between console gens and are therefore incentivized to keep everything available ("if I have GTA6 on PS5, then if I get a Xbox Series XYZ then I will have to buy it again" -> "well I'll just get a PS6 ig so I can keep my games on the new system + get upgrades for them")

-ubisoft is getting sued and that's basically 1 of like 3 examples people have of this happening
-the second nintendo says "fuck you you dont own this digital game" they will get sued into oblivion. no, courts will not be amused by a TOS wording choice
-physical media also breaks down
-the impermanence of life is unfortunate but very real
-emulation is true preservation. NES systems will all be unusable within the next 100-200 years, but extremely accurate NES emulators can be spread within 3 seconds

 

[pokemon4eva]

I'm pretty sure "Ultra Breath of the Wild" was referring to the Switch 2 port, not Tears.

Nah I was referring to Tears

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

The point of the open world is to get any Pokemon you want at any time.

Which would be perfectly fine and was what I expected, but the levels didn't get the memo!

What's the point of sneaking alllllll the way up to Glaseado to get a Frigibax before Gym 1 if the lowest level you can get it is 34? And that's assuming you can catch one without getting swept outright.

 

[Sqookblooks]

Longwinded Rant about Changing Core Game Design

Lowkey, the Legend of Zelda fandom has quietly gotta be one of the most neurotic fandoms out there. The way you see people on online spaces rant and rave about the state of the series would make you think Aonuma personally shot their dog or something (this isn't really directed at yall btw, I'm just tired of the discourse I see in other places). Yes, BOTW and TOTK were massively successful commercially and critically. Yes, they will have lasting influences on the series and likely will influence the development of the next game. No, the next game is not going to be a carbon copy of BOTW, and yes, the next game in the series will likely find many ways to innovate and improve upon things people didn't like from earlier games. I think the pessimism in general is unwarranted, even if I also acknowledge that its the byproduct of a series that isn't continually updating like a run-of-the-mill live service.

But more to the point, I feel like people unnecessarily hate on devs for shaking up the core formula of a long-running game series. Like yeah sometimes those risks can make shit games, but also those risks can also make amazing games you never knew you asked for. For example, take Mario. If you grew up playing 64 and Sunshine, you probably fell in love with the breadth and the depth of the movement mechanics, the ability to explore the world fully, the ability to freely mess around in the hub world etc. And then Mario Galaxy comes out and it completely dumpsters all those things you loved. All that movement you grew to love about the core 3D mario formula? 100% Gone and replaced with extremely floaty, meandering jumps and the complete removal of the dive? The large interconnected worlds? Gone for the most part and replaced with a bunch of silly gimmick levels that forcibly include motion controls for some reason as well as much more narrow corridor style levels. The Fludd Nozzles and Cap powers? No longer are powers a way to extend your moveset, they are just set pieces for a singular star or two. And ofc Mario Galaxy is successful cuz its on the Wii which blew up so they make Mario Galaxy 2. And hey, all those design elements you hated about the OG galaxy? Well they are even more gone now, and the games doubled down on literally every aspect that differentiated Galaxy from Sunshine and 64. Then 3D World comes out, and hey, yet again no more free roaming worlds that you grew up loving yet again. I bring all this up because I think Mario Galaxy jumps the shark way harder in terms shaking up the core formula than BOTW or TOTK could even dream of. I think if you went back in time and described all the changes to the movement mechanics (you know the core of a platformer) to a 64/Sunshine diehard, they would almost certainly hate it. In fact, I think if Mario Galaxy came out today in a post Odyssey world with widespread social media, it would probably get excoriated for all the reasons I pointed out and people would say that 3D Mario fell off or something.

And I bring all this up, not because I think the Galaxies or 3D World suck, but because I think they are great. And they are so good that some people have even gone full circle and hate Mario Odyssey for changing the formula that 3D world has gone with. Isn't that crazy? And part of why they are so good is because they are so different. There are things Galaxy does, that no other Mario game can or does do, and because of that, some people would consider it the best style of Mario out there. You might say that Mario is allowed to deviate in a way that Zelda isn't, but its not like Zelda doesn't make big changes to its core design. The aesthetics of each game wildly changes from the grittier and depressing world of MM to the much lighter aesthetic of WW or even when they changed the grim-grey-muddy look of TP with the Skyward Sword and the goat Groose.

Honestly, I think part of the hate is unfortunately driven by the way Internet Discourse on social media is structured because its way easier to reflexively hate on something than it is to appreciate Devs for trying something different for their series. (See the reflexive hate on the idea of Open-World Mario Kart). (Ironic because this is the unpopular opinions thread I know). And although I don't want to imply that everyone is a sheep, I do think internet discourse does a lot to shape how we view games as a whole. We're social creatures at the end of the day, and we care deeply about other people's opinions even if sometimes we shouldn't.

That is all to say, sometimes changing things up doesn't work, but sometimes it does, and I think its a little silly to doom about game devs trying to deviate from their core formulas. Sure sometimes they might come up with something disappointing (like in the Zelda fan's POV BOTW or TOTK), but sometimes they can absolutely cook and give you a Mario Galaxy. Maybe they would have succeeded if they made a Sunshine 2, but IMO, I'm glad they took the risk because I really like Galaxy and a lot of other people do too.

Alright rant over. I really don't understand the hate for Open World Pokemon unless you are just burnt out on Open World games in general which I guess could be fair. Like all the pitfalls people say Open Worlds fall into are just not things that are an issue for the core Pokemon experience. Many open worlds incentivize exploration by offering out pointless sidequests, but a Pokemon Open World incentivizes exploration by putting all the rare and cool monsters in the boonies, something that objectively can't be pointless since its the whole appeal of the series. Open World interfering with the pacing of a story? Well Pokemon stories aren't amazing anyway, and even then, SV is still one of the most competent ones if not probably the best. And then there are the things that Open Worlds can showcase that aren't possible at all in a traditional linear Pokemon game. For example, I think the ecology of Pokemon is really cool, but it is basically impossible to showcase in a linear game. In an open world, they would have way more room to expand and explore the ecosystems and ecology of Pokemon. And then there is exploration which is done way better too. Yeah, you can do some exploring in traditional Pokemon games, but nothing hits harder than seeing a cool place and just bee-lining to it to check it out or just like stumbling onto a really cool set-piece out of nowhere.

Moreover, I really don't think Pokemon as a whole benefits from linearity in a way that a traditional RPG might. The whole core appeal of Pokemon and Pokemon world to me is about exploration, customization, and chill gameplay and those are all things an open world can do way better IMO. Also that Pokemon prop hunt thing they released was hilarious, and I don't think it would work nearly as well if movement around the world was restricted.

To be clear, I'm not really talking about SV here cuz those two games are genuinely unfinished and suck in many fun and distinct ways. But I don't think thats the fault of the Open World medium, I think its Gamefreak being ass. I think if there is any game that genuinely merits and really wants an Open World, its a monster-collecting series like Pokemon.