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Controversial Retro Opinions

ScouserInExile

By ScouserInExile
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ScouserInExile

ScouserInExile

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I didn't think this warranted a thread of its own, but I thought it could be a good thread starter.

 

Yesterday, I played right through both Streets of Rage 2 and Final Fight 3. Both are excellent, excellent games. However, I am aware of the fact that SoR2 is generally considered to be the pinnacle of the genre but I actually think Final Fight is the better game. It's hard to quantify exactly why I think this, since they're both brilliant, but Final Fight just felt better. It felt more like an arcade game on a console - minus the coin stealing difficulty - where SoR2 feels like a console game, if that makes sense? I just thought it was a more enjoyable experience overall.

 

So, top 1000 controversial retro game opinions? 

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Wiper

Wiper

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You people sicken me with your Final Fight hubris :P (though it's definitely Guardian Heroes that's the actual pinnacle of the genre, SoR2 is merely a close second)

 

Mine: most multiplatform games sounded better on the ST than the Amiga. There are exceptions, but generally the sample-oriented sound of Paula is just less enjoyable than the YM2149's crunchy square wave output.

 

Also: the first Monkey Islands are good, but they pale in comparison with the forward-thinking, beautiful Loom (specifically, the original, EGA, non-butchered-by-a-shithead-author version of Loom).

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DeciderVT

DeciderVT

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Funnily enough, I played the first Final Fight on XBLA and I was surprised by how much better I thought SoR held up. One of my friends considers this to be utter, barking heresy.

Anyway, let's throw some fuel on the fire: Mario Kart 64 is far, far superior to Diddy Kong Racing.

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ScouserInExile

ScouserInExile

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20 minutes ago, DeciderVT said:

Funnily enough, I played the first Final Fight on XBLA and I was surprised by how much better I thought SoR held up. One of my friends considers this to be utter, barking heresy

The original Final Fight, great as it is, suffers heavily from being an arcade game designed to suck money out of your pockets. The SNES-only sequels are much better.

 

21 minutes ago, DeciderVT said:

Anyway, let's throw some fuel on the fire: Mario Kart 64 is far, far superior to Diddy Kong Racing.

I'll see you Mario Kart opinion and raise you: Street Racer is better than Super Mario Kart. It's only the Mario ip that made MK stand out.

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ulala

ulala

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3 hours ago, ScouserInExile said:

I didn't think this warranted a thread of its own, but I thought it could be a good thread starter.

 

Yesterday, I played right through both Streets of Rage 2 and Final Fight 3. Both are excellent, excellent games. However, I am aware of the fact that SoR2 is generally considered to be the pinnacle of the genre but I actually think Final Fight is the better game. It's hard to quantify exactly why I think this, since they're both brilliant, but Final Fight just felt better. It felt more like an arcade game on a console - minus the coin stealing difficulty - where SoR2 feels like a console game, if that makes sense? I just thought it was a more enjoyable experience overall.

 

So, top 1000 controversial retro game opinions? 

 

So you are saying that the most controversial retro game opinions you have, is that the order of the top two scrolling beat-em-ups should be reversed?

 

How very mild.

 

 

Mine is that Super Castlevania is absolute garbage

 

 

 

 

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Riven

Riven

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3 hours ago, ScouserInExile said:

I didn't think this warranted a thread of its own, but I thought it could be a good thread starter.

 

Yesterday, I played right through both Streets of Rage 2 and Final Fight 3. Both are excellent, excellent games. However, I am aware of the fact that SoR2 is generally considered to be the pinnacle of the genre but I actually think Final Fight is the better game. It's hard to quantify exactly why I think this, since they're both brilliant, but Final Fight just felt better. It felt more like an arcade game on a console - minus the coin stealing difficulty - where SoR2 feels like a console game, if that makes sense? I just thought it was a more enjoyable experience overall.

 

So, top 1000 controversial retro game opinions? 

 

Very much agree, that said I never liked Final Fight that much to begin with, I found it rather dull when release and much preferred the 4 players action of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade. Which had more enemies going on screen and just felt more fun and interesting with the stage design.

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Nick R

Nick R

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56 minutes ago, Skull Commander said:

I will defend this one to the death: Aladdin Snes is FAR superior to the Megadrive version. Graphics aside I just don't enjoy the loose feeling "Shiny by numbers" version and would much rather play the Capcom version which feels better in every regard and has an absolutely amazing soundtrack. 

 

The view that the SNES version is superior always seemed to be more prominent in North America than the UK. But there are Brits who prefer the SNES one too:

https://retronauts.com/article/1016/capcoms-aladdin-experience-is-one-jump-ahead

https://retronauts.com/article/1012/aladdins-smash-hit-sega-outing-is-25

(and the Master System version, for good measure.)

 

I still haven't been able to bring myself to listen to that Aladdin Retronauts episode, for fear of how comprehensively they'll dismantle my beloved Dave Perry Mega Drive Aladdin. :(

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Nick R

Nick R

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My big controversial opinion, which I've posted about before, is that I like Sega's Zelda clone The Story of Thor (Beyond Oasis) more than Zelda: A Link to the Past:

 

Quote

The Story of Thor/Beyond Oasis was one of my favourite MD games. So much so, that I found LTTP disappointing when I eventually played it on GBA and discovered how much of a debt Sega's game owed to it.

 

LTTP obviously has better in-dungeon puzzle design, but I found its overworld awkward to traverse, as it has loads of arbitrary blockages that force you to take the long way round the overworld to get anywhere, and its poke-focused combat means you need to be permanently cautious in any skirmish. Whereas Sega's game lets you pull out a broadsword and hit enemies with somersault flips combos, while your fire spirit pal Efreet ignites rat-people with his punches! Shallower combat maybe, but a lot more spectacular and fun!

 

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ScouserInExile

ScouserInExile

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58 minutes ago, ulala said:

 

So you are saying that the most controversial retro game opinions you have, is that the order of the top two scrolling beat-em-ups should be reversed?

 

How very mild.

 

 

 

 

 

SoR2 is a bit of a sacred cow, so saying anything is better than it is a touch controversial.

 

56 minutes ago, Colonel Panic said:

This is so schoolyard, but I generally don’t like the Megadrive. I tried and tried when the mini came out. 

With you on that one. Couple of decent exclusives, but I've never really been bothered about it.

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Wiper

Wiper

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1 hour ago, ScouserInExile said:

With you on that one. Couple of decent exclusives, but I've never really been bothered about it.

 

Considering this is the pre-32 bit era, and so the vast majority of the games on any given console were exclusives (either completely, or in terms of having dramatically different versions between systems - e.g. Aladdin) - you're saying that only a couple of the games on the Mega Drive were even decent? I suppose that does count as a controversial opinion, yes.

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Qazimod

Qazimod

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I've said this before* so I know how well this will go down, but Jet Set Radio was never that great as a game. The cel-shading's pretty and the soundtrack is fantastic, but it's essentially that annoying timed waypoint mission you never enjoyed in GTA stretched across an entire game - you spend 15 minutes blindly attempting a route between tag spots only to find that you weren't quite quick enough and now you need to figure out which part of your route needs to be optimised. Usually when I talk about this I suggest that the time limits should have been dropped and that the game could have rewarded high scores to fast times... but thinking about it now, the whole situation could be solved instantly if there were multiple small timed challenges within certain areas, and checkpoints between each one. Instead, you're learning from mistakes - failing a bunch of times before you discover the optimal route - and having to do the whole thing again every time.

 

I know that the ideal image people have in their head has all of the perfect lines from point to point where everything's beautifully optimised, but the work needed to get there isn't always that fun. It's trial and error gaming where each time you learn from your mistakes you've wasted 900 seconds on a run that was probably garbage after the first three missed jumps, but you never know until you plug away and run the clock down. Give the player smaller timed challenges, give them extra seconds on the clock for doing something well, give them anything that prevents them from second-guessing that their latest attempt at a stage is going to end in failure. Even outside of the timed missions, the camera was a mess (before the ports to formats with twin-stick controllers), and a few of the set-piece events against the police were a bit of a chore (a criticism I could also level against Future.)

 

I'm not hating on the old thing with no point of reference - in the early 2000s I had a DC and a bunch of games including JSR, and I've even re-purchased the game on Vita. For all of the jank I do kind of like it (and twin-stick camera controls help) but I can't pretend that it couldn't be improved.

 

*and I'll say it again, again, again, again

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matt0

matt0

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After Doom and Quake 1 I didn't really enjoy any FPSs until Halo came along. I played loads of them, including Half Life, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, AvP 1, Counterstrike (when it was still a Half Life mod), but they all felt like I was steering a greased block of polystyrene with a camera on it down a series of icy corridors.

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