Okay, so this is a double-header because I feel like I can't necessarily do one without the other...or maybe I just don't want to. Anyway, on to the point. We've all got things that we love, right? Games, movies, TV shows, etc...and that is perfectly fine. Love what you love, but I feel that the general opinion, especially online, is that these days if something is not amazing and perfect, people will regard it as trash. That's not to say that some things that are labeled as trash aren't worthy of that title due to the state of certain things, but that's not what I'm talking about. It just feels like nothing is allowed to be just ok anymore and some things just aren't allowed to exist as their own thing and both of these are hurtful to the products.
I've got a lot of things I love. If it wasn't obvious, I love Hollow Knight and Dark Souls and My Dress-Up Darling among other things. I enjoy them for a variety of reasons, but I also am not blind to their faults. 63Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi5QBXCPZSb
One of Dark Souls' key points is the hidden and non-obvious lore that is vague and hidden through random dialogue, scenery and even item descriptions such as the bone shards from DS 2 being from some undead monarch who could very well be the player from DS 1. However...unless you find a lore content creator who actually makes sense or do some deep diving on your own to try and figure a few things out, this point of Dark Souls is completely missed out on. The difficulty is the main thing that drives people away from FromSoft games, it was the reason I didn't start playing until recently, and that is 100% understandable. Even though a good chunk of it actually is skill, with a bit of luck, there are still places like the Crystal Cavern of DS 1, and the Iron Keep of DS 2. I love the games, but they are absolutely NOT for everyone.
In a similar vein, even though Hollow Knight is nowhere near as difficult as FromSoft games, I definitely remember feeling discouraged by how difficult some bosses were. The lore point still stands so I won't go over that (despite already mentioning in another part how some people have misinterpreted the lore in my opinion, but that's just an opinion) but I hated getting through a lot of areas my first playthrough. Soul Sanctum and Soul Master actually made me stop playing for a while, but I was so happy with myself when I beat the area and haven't had any trouble since. But that feeling of discouragement isn't completely gone. There isn't a boss I truly struggle against anymore except for Abs Rad and the only reason I haven't completed Pantheon of Hallownest is because I just can't be asked to dedicate more my time to get good enough to be able to beat it.
On my last liked thing, I can 100% understand people's aversion to My Dress-Up Darling as they view on a very surface level. Having watched the first season and read a good chunk of the manga, I know that it actually turns out pretty wholesome even with Marin teasing Gojo. But this isn't obvious if you just look at it and don't give it a chance, which I myself am guilty of doing. We've all done this with something at some point for whatever reason and sometimes we are proven wrong, but other times not so much. It's just part of who we are as people and the different tastes we all enjoy.
Now...on to the first point I want to make.
I haven't really found a new game here recently that, from the premise or whatever, that I actively wanted to put my time, effort and money towards. Unfortunately, quite a bit here in recent years, games have been released at full price while being unfinished and barely working. This doesn't mean that many of these such games didn't grow to become good games, nor that they weren't good games to begin with just with some issues that got fixed and were only released in that state because publishers pushed for it. There are plenty of examples of this that you can find like Cyberpunk 77, but it's not always the case unfortunately.
However, even for the good things, people seem to believe, as I stated above, that if it doesn't meet 100% of their expectations, then the thing is garbage. Just look at how people talk about Spider-Man 2 despite, from what little I know (wasn't really interested), it honestly seems like a genuinely decent game. Meanwhile, people are ragging on it who have put tons of hours into it over little things that they don't like that they think are terrible and should never have been added to the game or that something that was removed should be put in. Some of those people might still enjoy the game as a whole, but from all the complaining they do, you'd assume they hate it. I like to acknowledge the faults in the stuff I enjoy, but that's different than doing nothing but rag on the stuff that I might not like because there are certainly parts of a lot of games that we all don't like (Peril Cliffs when I was younger).
On the flip side, you get the people who will not accept any criticism, valid or not, about what they like. I see this a lot with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Undertale and even Deep Rock Galactic. I've seen a lot of fans who are so adverse to even the most mild of criticisms of these and are pretty vile when they attack. I like Undertale, but I also know that the gameplay in and of itself is not that great and what really carries it is the music, characters and the plot(s). I've already expressed my feelings on JJBA, and don't really have any interest in DRG, but I've seen how some people react to being told they're either not good or just alright. This isn't how you draw people to what you like...this is how you make sure they stay far away. 63Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD9G3vXHFrh
I could go on about other fanbases who don't want to hear anything bad about their game, but I also want to talk about games standing on their own two legs. I'm not talking about game genres like rogue-lites/-likes, metroidvanias, etc. The best example of what I'm talking about, currently, is Palworld. I'm sure it's fun and all, but all I've heard about it when people talk about it is in reference to how it's Pokémon with guns and especially people ragging on Pokémon and Game Freak by saying that Palworld is what Pokémon should be like. I have my own thoughts on that, but I have different thoughts on that. Palworld would 100% have brough over the Pokémon crowd due to the pals and how similar they are to Pokémon, but the constant comparison to Pokémon really hurts the game, I feel.
It hasn't really allowed it to find its own place as a game because it's near constant comparison to a single part of the game to another. I've seen people make a point that, outside of the pals looking like Fakémon, it plays closer to something like ARK but they don't compare the two. This comparative attitude also probably doesn't help the Pokémon fans who already thought it was a copyright infringing rip-off (the announcement GF and Nintendo made was more likely just to shut these people up) and also the people who might've been on the fence. It doesn't help anybody and, even though the Palworld player base is growing, how long is that going to last with the discourse I described above?
I mentioned something like this when I talked about Legends Arceus. I probably wasn't going to play it anyway, been burnt out of Pokémon since about gen 7 where I actively didn't care enough to finish the game, but when I saw people continually compare it to Breath of the Wild or Monster Hunter, it really sealed the deal on me not wanting to play it on top of all of the other reasons (some petty, some not) to at least give it a fair shot. I don't want to go into a game and then interact with a fanbase that constantly compares it to another game whether or not I like it. That might be a stupid reason to not play a game, but it's again a sentiment that isn't as uncommon as one might think. Legends Arceus also ties into the thing about letting things be just okay. 63Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYopFxPMLyO
Nothing will be loved by everyone and that's okay. Having this mentality has let me still have at least some fun with the games I play because I know that I like it and that's all I really care about. And it's fine to say 'oh, this is like this' with a game, but it shouldn't be the main discourse about it. So many things are derivative of something else, hence why we have metroidvanias and souls-likes, but those should still be allowed some breathing room to grow into their own.
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and then Add to home screen.