5 very popular games that I don't like

 Yes, yes, very original topic, I know. Well to be fair I did warn you that there was going to be a lot of criticism here.

Disclaimer: this is post is my own opinion and everyone is entitled to their own, this is an attack on the games, not the fans (unless you like Journey, then yes I am attacking you) so keep that in mind as you read.

 

• Undertale

This game will always top all my lists about disliked games. The game as a concept has a bunch of issues that include but are not limited to: pretentious main theme, boring characters, boring gameplay (that can be skipped in some scenarios, making it even worse) and plagiarizing elements from a bunch of other games.

My biggest issue however is, as mentioned, how the game is basically a touhou bullet hell and earthbound aesthetic ripoff without any of the qualities that make those games good, not to mention the fanbase, mostly consisting of children and tumblr users (who often have the mentality of children) who are quick to flood online forums and yotube videos claiming how similar, pixel art, top-down view games like Yume Nikki, a game that came out almost 20 years ago, are somehow undertale copies. 

The main theme is best described as "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle". Toby Fox won't miss any chance of telling you what an awful person you are if you choose to play the game as a normal RPG and try to level up. In this game, EXP stands for "Execution Points" and LV for "Level of Violence" which is creative and makes sense in context, but this isn't explained to us until later in the game, meaning that if you're a newcomer and are playing blind, you will inevitably get a bad time run, and once you do so, every subsequent run is altered to beat you over the head with how evil you are.

 

Average undertale fan's answer if you tell them their game isn't deep

 The concept of pacifist runs are almost as old as action video games themselves, Compet-N is a database collecting speedruns of Doom and Doom II, and they added the "UV Pacifist" category back in the late 90's. Prince of Persia, a game released in 1989, although probably not intentional, allows the player to block and parry attacks, and with precise timing, the parries can be used to slip past the enemy guards without killing them.

According to TV Tropes though, Nethack was the first game to actually encourage people into doing pacifist runs by tracking voluntary conduct challenges, and Metal Gear Solid 2 was the first game to reward players for no kill runs, setting the a core mechanic for every Metal Gear (except rising) and a lot of other stealth games in the process.

One thing it has going for it is that the world building is indeed interesting (until you start to look deeper into the monster society and realize it doesn't make sense most of the time) and the soundtrack, which is why most people even know undertale. Overall a boring tumblr game that should die already. 

Also Battle against a true hero is better than Megalovania, fight me.

 

• Minecraft: 

Specifically everything after 1.9. It's no secret that Microsoft bought that game and killed it by adding completely stupid monetization and so many unnecessary elements in an effort to turn it into terraria (ironically since everyone who hasn't played terraria says it's a minecraft copy). The minecraft boom of 2019 didn't help at all to rekindle the passion I had for this game when I was a kid, in fact it only made me like terraria even more. Good game, but redundant at this point, just like most youtubers who make a career by playing it.

• Oblivion

Morrowind was an incredibly amazing RPG, with a complex plot and basically establishing the trademark Elder Scrolls lore. Skyrim was an enjoyable game with an okay-ish plot, better graphics and more polished gameplay. Oblivion has the negatives of both games with very few of the positives, namely the dumbing down of RPG mechanics and the clunkiness of the gameplay,. Despite angry people claiming otherwise on the Nirnposting facebook group, Oblivion is just ugly skyrim that only nostalgia blinded people can enjoy nowadays, without installing a fuckton of mods to bring the game up to modern standards. The sidequests writing are top notch, and Martin is a pretty well written character, although you're better off just reading UESP if you want to enjoy that.

 

Stop! You have violated the Law! Pay the internet an apology or serve your sentence. Your forbidden opinions are now forfeited.

 

• Fallout 3

Now that we're in the topic of Bethesda games, let's bring up Fallout 3. Is not that FO3 in itself is bad, is just that New Vegas is on the same engine, has approximately the same size, was released around the same time but its infinitely better, so you're better off just playing that. 

Beyond that, the game does have some issues, namely the writers not knowing what the fuck to do, the enclave and Brotherhood of Steel are painted in a more ridiculous black and white morality, when in reality the moral dichotomy is grey and black at it's best and black and black at it's worst. They also completely just adapted the plot of Fallout 2 but made the protagonist a vault dweller instead of a tribal, and in the same way, the game designers just copied the skill progression system from the previous game with no regards to how it would translate into a 3D shooter, and the map is similarly a big bunch of nothing with some towns sprinkled around which worked in a turn based isometric game with random encounters but feels empty and hollow in an open world 3D game.

 Fallout 3 is a game that doesn't know if it should copy the predecessor or be it's own thing, so it's forever stuck in that limbo. (Worth mentioning, the DLCs all decided to be their own thing and as a result, they're all awful). 

 

•  Journey/Abzu

Yes, the title says 5 games, but Abzu is literally the same thing as Journey, but underwater. It has the same art director and everything and you can clearly see they were trying to replicate Journey.

Wow, where do I start with those ones? Lets start with Journey and what it is: not a video game. Just as whistling is not singing, manga isn't literature and masturbating isn't having sex, Journey isn't a video game despite being sold as one and being played in game consoles. A more accurate description would be "interactive movie", Journey is a movie where you can choose how the main character moves from point A to point B and that's about it.

People who like this game often like to point out the "pretty" visuals and Grammy winning soundtrack, but here's the thing: a video game's main selling point must be the gameplay, everything else is secondary, not the other way around. A soundtrack should enhance the gaming experience, in Journey, the gameplay enhances the listening experience (so you don't fall asleep halfway through I assume).

And in the gameplay department, Journey is extremely lacking, all you can do is walk, slide and do some weird light flash thing, probably so you can tell the people you meet in game how bored you are in morse code but since Journey fans aren't smart enough to know morse code, yout complains are meaningless, you should open a blog like me instead. Fuck that was a weird tangent. Anyway, Journey doesn't have gameplay, puzzles, not even a story to follow, most other walking simulators like The Stanley Parable and Death Stranding at least have the decency to give you something to be invested in, a goal to complete. The only reason you have to play Journey is because "it's pretty".

Naturally, this garbage of not-a-video-game received unanimous critical acclaim because of, and I quote, "the emotional response playing with a stranger created". Most reviews of the game look like that too, all praising some abstract characteristic such as emotions felt when you move the character, find another player, etc., stuff that don't have anything at all to do with the gaming experience itself. You can also experience strong emotions when defeating a hard enemy in an actual video game, or when you help a stranger or get help yourself, for no other reason than helping each other feels rewarding and you helped someone else to move one step closer to their goal. Then again, as we all know, game journalists don't play video games so it's logical that they praise a "game" that they don't have to play. You can already imagine how those people look like. 

 

 

 

"Journey made me feel a wide range of emotions ... wonder, fear, even sadness. Each time, without fail, individual moments... managed to give me goosebumps" (actual quote)

Personally, the most egregious thing about the not-a-video-game is how it doesn't even have a platinum trophy in Playstation, I was hoping to easily boost my trophy score in a few hours but I can't, meaning Journey doesn't even have that external factor to motivate skeptics like me to give it a chance.

My final verdict is that if you're a pretentious art student or major and/or you have a tumblr, buy this game, and if you're an actual gamer, don't.

 

Also abzu is literally the same thing but underwater, everything I said about Journey applies to Abzu.

The overlooked brilliance of Persona 5

 Fantasy worlds are almost always set in the past, that's kind of the common thing to do. Some people think that's because of Tolkien's influence, his books were so acclaimed that they left their marks in the writing world.

Whatever the reason, the fact is that most fantasy is set in the past, most but not all. A few daring writers wrote fantasy set in the distant future, like Star Wars, which has technology and science, veering it more towards Science Fiction, but it also has a lot of fantasy elements, mainly The Force and the whole division between the Jedi and Siths. But even more rare than fantasy set in the future, is fantasy set in the present.

Aside from superhero comic books, a lot of writers tend to stay away from contemporary fantasy world for some reason, my personal belief is that with either futuristic or medieval fantasy, it's easier for the reader to immerse themselves in the world, accepting it as an alternate universe, while as with a modern setting, it's harder for them to maintain the suspension of disbelief. 

There is also the challenge of world-building: how would a world that always had magic have evolved different to our world.

Some fantasy set in modern times choose to have the normal world completely unaware that magic exists, having the gods/wizards/whatever just chilling, hiding away in some cave while the muggles kill each other, others may have the protagonist(s) stumble upon an otherworldly source of power (sometimes inadvertently unleashing or discovering an evil that they must stop at the same time). Persona 5 does this last thing.

Now this isn't something exclusive to P5, all of the persona games and a good chunk of all of the Megami Tensei universe are contemporary, but with P5 being the one released more recently, it's easier for us the gamers to immerse in, with all the cellphones, TV, modern society, internet, etc. and all of the bad things that come with them.

Persona 3 had the protagonist play an MMO in his computer during the weekends and use a flip phone to take pictures and text, but that was about it, for people like us living on the age of smartphones and Internet of Things, the everyday life of Makoto Yuuki/Minato Arisato/[insertcanonnamehere] might seem monotonous and boring (and that's basically what being a high school student in the mid-2000s was).

See, in P5, smartphones and the internet aren't just something our main characters have, those things are integral to the plot. Cellphones are used to access the metaverse, where the whole persona fighting is done, text your friends to hang out, discuss things with the team members over in group chat and an anonymous forum on the internet is used to get side missions. You can even buy stuff online from a shady shop ran by none other than President Tanaka himself.

What this means is that the game makes immersion more easy, what kind of teenager isn't constantly texting their friends and browsing the internet? When you want to go somewhere you're not entirely familiar with yet what do you do? Open google maps and check the best routes and stuff to do. What do you do when you hate someone so much you're willing to let a random group of people brainwash them? You doxx them on 4chan... wait no.

Aside from the social life part of the game, smartphones also play a role in the combat part. Igor knew that teenagers use phones a lot so he made the metanav a phone app for convenience, this makes the double life of our heroes as simple as tapping their screens a few times.

An addition as simple as that made, in my opinion, the game a lot more enjoyable and entertaining. Instead of opening a menu to access your maps or schedule, you pull out your phone to fast travel or seeing who's available to hang out. 

Man I really could go for a Big Bang burger right now.

 

My introduction

 Hello there, if you're reading this it means you're either one of my two friends or stumbled upon this blog accidentally, in which case, welcome, I can't promise you'll like anything that I write.

My name is Ian, a.k.a Akira Takeda, a.k.a v0rtexbeater or just v0rtex in most games (although I also go by Zero sometimes), I like video games, specially RPGs, action/adventure and puzzle games (I also like visual novels but I don't consider them games). My favorite games include Fallout New Vegas, Persona 5, Terraria, Metal Gear Solid 3 and Bloodborne.

My other hobbies besides videogames and arguing with strangers on Reddit and Youtube comment sections include music, I like most kinds of music but my favorite genres are power metal, jazz, prog rock and funk and all of it's subgenres, specially future funk. I don't consider myself a fan or follower of any band in specific, I think it makes people more closed and limits taste in music, I just listen to whatever I feel like. I also like movies but I don't consider myself a cinephile or movie buff because 95% of the people who use those labels are pretentious pseudo intellectuals and I don't wish to be associated with them. My favorite directors are Tarantino and Scorcese and my favorite movie is probably Baby Driver.

I enjoy anime as well but you probably realized that already because I cited persona as one of my favorite games. There isn't really anything remarkable about my taste in anime besides my dislike of shonen (i.e. BNHA, SAO, Naruto, etc.) and irrational hatred towards modern localization and normie weebs so I prefer to just leave it at that.

The purpose of this blog is just to have an outlet to write my thoughts about the industry and the games I play, I don't intend to become rich or famous, open a youtube channel or being hired by a major video game "journalism" website. I'm still trying to figure out how this site works so have some patient if it looks too ugly or I make some typos. The name of the blog itself comes from my liking of alliteration. Expect a lot of complaining here, if you want to read nothing but praise for Triple A publishers you can go to IGN, I'll also try to complain about things that actually matter instead of forcefully shove in politics like certain websites.

It isn't all negativity though, I also plan on writing about more underrated or overlooked aspects of video games that not a lot of people notice. I hope you stick around to read my absurd thoughts.