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.
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| 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.
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- 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.
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