The Grudge List

[StriderKyo]

On that note, I left off grudges that weren't individual games but fabrications of history caused by gamers and the media are at the top of my list. There's not much more annoying in gaming discussion than having someone tell you that gaming was dead and buried in 1985 until the NES came out, and calling you an idiot for saying otherwise. These people are almost always not old enough to remember entering a mall or arcade in the mid '80s, not surprisingly. But I'm sure I have ranted enough about this before. At least TNL generally knows better. It's more a problem at less informed places.

Incidentally, I'm one of those people who disagrees with you, and my reasoning is quite sound and proper. I give Nintendo credit for saving gaming for the same reason Apple will go down in the history books for having popularized the MP3 player - sure, somebody else might have done it if they didn't, but they did.

You might not feel gaming needed saving because there were still arcades and Commodore 64s and Portugese people playing Dynamite Dux, but none of those things were a part of everyone's life in the 1980s the way Super Mario Bros. ended up being, and I'm not really sure anything else has been since. Gaming could have easily gone the way of collectible card games or comic books or tabletop rpgs or pro wrestling - big for a time, but faded back into a niche. It wasn't a fait accompli that they'd become a dominant form of entertainment. Nintendo baked the pie that all the other players came in to carve up in the 90s - Sega included.

[Granderoho]

the aiming is marginally better and the graphics are still ugly.

Mods really add to the game

[Cowutopia]

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes - They're remaking MGS1 with MGS2-style controls and graphics! What wonderful news! And... the end result was slightly less than satisfactory. Though I am eternally thankful for the dog tag, my grudge has to do with the fact that assholes get into the series and pick this turd up thinking it's equivalent to the PS1 version. The Ryuhei Kitamura cutscenes may be cool, but they ruin the tone of the game. And the new music? Terrible. It did more wrong than it did right, and I wish Konami would do it again someday. Properly. Without Silicon Knights.

I'm with you on this one. I was super disappointed. I'd love for them to try it again.

[kuro]

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance-
Gee, I really loved Final Fantasy tactics. The story/settings eskewed sappy wappy f-chan bullshit in favor of a Square-style spin on the culture and political drama of the Middle Ages. It was at once fantasy, yet also somehow felt "real", which made it special. How should we follow this up? By appealing to the lowest common denominator of Japanese consumers (read: 99% of them) and fill it with GODDAMN SAPPY WAPPY F-CHAN BULLSHIT FUCKFUCKFUCKSHITCOCKASSFUCK.

I don't know how I missed this at first, but I whole-heartedly agree.

A day in my shoes SSJN, a day in my shoes.

Just a couple games that irk me:

Tekken - A competition to see who can land two juggle combos in a row. I'm not a big fan of 3D fighters at all, but at least I see how much better the newer Virtua Fighters are compared to the newer Tekkens.

Mortal Kombat - A fucking block button? People are just getting this for the gore now, there is no way in hell anyone's buying them for the gameplay.

I'm sure there are a ton more that'll hit me later on.

Final Fantasy VII - I really like this game, I've beaten it 20+ times back in the day, but it isn't the pinnacle of anything. Even though it hurts me a little to say it, I feel this game to be the downfall of J-RPGs. It seemed like a more casual, hand holding run-through than previous entries in the series, and it seems like that's pretty much what we've been getting ever since from the east. Save for a few series like Dragon Quests and some Megaten games they're mostly hand-holding cake-walks. And the praise this game gets for not being spectacular at all disturbs me. Not just from fans, but from Squenix themselves. Does it really deserve all these sequels and a movie? What about FFIV? I'd love to play an RPG as Cecil fucking shit up as a Dark Knight on an airship then going home and having a beer with Kain then fucking Rosa.

I'm slowly building up to ten.

[Thief Silver]

I liked the concept of Final Fantasy, it leaves everything open for fan fictions so nerds like me can enjoy it when we're not too lazy to do it, without putting the same game down our throat every time. Now there are sequels galore and it's no longer Final Fantasy. Something many of us complained about at the announcement of FFX-2.

Edit:

You know what? Fuck FFX-2 - You devalue the meaning of Final Fantasy, you take the dumbest concept fill it with Pop Teen Super Stars Saving The World (PTSSSTW), create a fantastic battle system, the best turn based system in a Final Fantasy, a decent job system, and you make it with some horrible horrible story. Every cut Scene is painful, I didn't finish the game, I got to the last dungeon and decided I probably wasn't going to enjoy the game anymore at that point. Now you've been shitting out sequels since this sold well, EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BAD, people still bought it because it was Final Fantasy. Now they know they don't need effort, so Crisis Core, and Dirge of the Cerberus are welcome oddities into the world, because they're going to be bought.

Fuck you FFX-2, Fuck you.

[Frogacuda]

Oh yeah, here's one:

Waluigi: He's an awful nonsense character created as a tennis partner for Wario in Mario Tennis and now they need to put him in ever fucking Mario spinoff, and he just sucks. I won't buy any game that acknowledges he exists.

[A Robot Bit Me]

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance-
Gee, I really loved Final Fantasy tactics. The story/settings eskewed sappy wappy f-chan bullshit in favor of a Square-style spin on the culture and political drama of the Middle Ages. It was at once fantasy, yet also somehow felt "real", which made it special. How should we follow this up? By appealing to the lowest common denominator of Japanese consumers (read: 99% of them) and fill it with GODDAMN SAPPY WAPPY F-CHAN BULLSHIT FUCKFUCKFUCKSHITCOCKASSFUCK.

Quest and/or Squaresoft Games with Excellent Stories and Brilliant Direction:

Vagrant Story -- Director : Yasumi Matsuno
Tactics Ogre -- Director : Yasumi Matsuno
Final Fantasy Tactics -- Director : Yasumi Matsuno
Ogre Battle : March of the Black Queen -- Director : Yasumi Matsuno



Quest and/or Squaresoft Games with "Sappy Wappy F-Chan Bullshit" and Awful Direction:

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance -- Director: Yuichi "lolwho?" Murasawa

[Cowdisease]

Oh yeah, here's one:

<b>Waluigi:</b> He's an awful nonsense character created as a tennis partner for Wario in Mario Tennis and now they need to put him in ever fucking Mario spinoff, and he just sucks. I won't buy any game that acknowledges he exists.

That being said, Waluigi's Pinball stage in Mario Kart DS was one of the best designed tracks in the game, and its soundtrack was pretty good too.

[YellerDog]

Waluigi serves to remind us that they are never, ever, going to bring back the Koopa Kids.

[Cowdisease]

Waluigi serves to remind us that they are never, ever, going to bring back the Koopa Kids.

I thought that was Bowser Jr.