unpopular retro opinions

[A Nobody]

6 minutes ago, MassiveEdgelord said:

Shadow the Hedgehog is a shit game but it had cool ideas that were fucked up.

I disagree. I think it's a good game.

[taufan99]

Video games:

• Radix: Beyond the Void should've gained just as much popularity as Descent 1+2. People unfairly judged it for its 2.5D nature (aka. "Descent if it was a half-assed DOOM clone"), and still do. Don't ya think 3D drivers in 1995 were still pretty uncommon?
• Sega Saturn's RAM cart looks like a good idea with a wasted potential. Why limit it for the RAM? Why not make game cartridges for it as well? A CD + cartridge retro console would've been great.
• Philips CD-i has such a great concept ruined by its shitty games (excluding non-gaming interactive media), and 1990's interactive media is unironically fascinating.
• (not sure if this one is unpopular) Exidy deserves to be put with the likes of Namco and Taito in the arcade history. Most sources only acknowledge Atari and Bally Midway as America's top historical manufacturers AFAIK.
• The Catacomb 3D series needs a reboot, like DOOM with the 2016 game and Eternal.
• Redneck Rampage is enjoyable

Music:

• 1980's black metal (eg. Mayhem's Deathcrush) > 1990's black metal onwards. More songwriting sensibility to create a feel of unease with some punky riffs catches my attention more than just playing similar dreadful riffs most of the time. (I still like black metal from 1990's-onwards,)
• Enka > city pop. I listen to George Yamamoto more than I can recall listening to the likes of Mariya Takeuchi or Anri.

Edited May 22, 2020 by InDOOMnesia

[seed]

43 minutes ago, InDOOMnesia said:

Music:

• 1980's black metal (eg. Mayhem's Deathcrush) > 1990's black metal onwards. More songwriting sensibility to create a feel of unease with some punky riffs catches my attention more than just playing similar dreadful riffs most of the time. (I still like black metal from 1990's-onwards)

 

That's not an unpopular opinion though.

 

You'd be surprised how many people are stuck in the past in the metal scene in general, becoming oblivious to all the cool stuff that continues to come out even today, due to the fact that quality decreased as a result of the attention over-exposure it received after the 90s. Classics will be forever classics, but good black metal is still made nowadays, even though recapturing the magic of the past can be quite difficult at times.

 

But it's still moving forward, and that's all that matters. As long as amazing stuff like Akhlys, Aoratos, Bestia Arcana, Azazel, Abigor, Altar of Perversion, Drastus, Antaeus, Aptorian Demon, Craft, Lvx Haeresis, Odraza, Dysangelium, Diabolicum, Dodkvlt, Mortuus, Hrae, Fides Inversa, Mephorash, Svartrit, Limbonic Art, Vargrav, Negative Plane, Mysticum, and so and so on continues to exist, we're all good 👍.

 

But I prefer the thrashier kind of black metal that was made back then too, yet bands that are still pumping out "OSBM" still exist.

[taufan99]

4 minutes ago, seed said:

That's not an unpopular opinion though.

 

You'd be surprised how many people are stuck in the past in the metal scene in general, becoming oblivious to all the cool stuff that continues to come out even today, due to the fact that quality decreased as a result of the attention over-exposure it received after the 90s. Classics will be forever classics, but good black metal is still made nowadays, even though recapturing the magic of the past can be quite difficult at times.

I do realize the part of getting stuck with the oldies. I just thought most black metal fans preferred the good ole 90's Norwegian black metal sound, with the thrashy kind only coming second or third.

 

And now... back to video games, I guess.

[hybridial]

With music I've always preferred to be current, and all the stuff that's impressed me the most have been in the last 20 years, some in the last 5.

 

Part of that might be because I like progressive styles the most and the process of combining that with the various forms of metal has been an ongoing thing, but I feel like it has been an upward trajectory, with recent albums like Ne Obliviscaris' Citadel, Wilderun's Veil of Imagination, Insomnium's Winters Gate and Be'lakor's Vessels blowing me away and for me ascending to new heights. 

[seed]

7 minutes ago, InDOOMnesia said:

I do realize the part of getting stuck with the oldies. I just thought most black metal fans preferred the good ole 90's Norwegian black metal sound, with the thrashy kind only coming second or third.

 

Not all, in fact plenty prefer the thrashier kind, from around the time of Bathory's The Return. I personally prefer that.

 

Funny that there's a good Bathory clone (pre-Hammerheart era/the black metal days) around now lol, literally called Born for Burning. Their debut album "The Ritual" is both fresh and old school to the bone, I'm loving it.

 

Another notable clone would be Vargrav's "Reign in Supreme Darkness", which is a total worship of Emperor's "Nightside Eclipse", and some Sacramentum/"The Somberlain"-era Dissection.

 

5 minutes ago, hybridial said:

With music I've always preferred to be current, and all the stuff that's impressed me the most have been in the last 20 years, some in the last 5.

 

Same here 👍.

[Cynical]

3 hours ago, seed said:

But it's still moving forward, and that's all that matters. As long as amazing stuff like Akhlys, Aoratos, Bestia Arcana, Azazel, Abigor, Altar of Perversion, Drastus, Antaeus, Aptorian Demon, Craft, Lvx Haeresis, Odraza, Dysangelium, Diabolicum, Dodkvlt, Mortuus, Hrae, Fides Inversa, Mephorash, Svartrit, Limbonic Art, Vargrav, Negative Plane, Mysticum, and so and so on continues to exist, we're all good 👍.

All evidence indicates Negative Plane broke up years ago and just never made it official; the only other one of those bands that's any good is Antaeus (Mortuus's first EP was good, but they've been consistently terrible since; similar story with Drastus, "Roars from the Old Serpent's Paradise" was good but "La Croix De Sang" sucks).

[Lizardcommando]

Legends of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Legends of Zelda: A Link to the Past were boring and tedious.

 

eSports people and just eSports in general take itself way too seriously.

 

I don't get why people are most nostalgic towards Goldeneye compared to Perfect Dark when PD vastly improved on things that Goldeneye did, especially for its multiplayer mode.

 

About 95% of let' play commentators on Youtube are really annoying. Most of them act obnoxious by shouting and screaming randomly.

[seed]

17 minutes ago, Cynical said:

All evidence indicates Negative Plane broke up years ago and just never made it official

 

Aw what? Really?

 

That sucks - and kinda reminds me of Ancient who pulled a similar move once -, would've liked to see where they go after Stained Glass Revelations... Do you have any piece of the said evidence?

 

17 minutes ago, Cynical said:

the only other one of those bands that's any good is Antaeus

 

Don't even know how to react to this so whatever, to each his own...

 

Do you happen to also know what happened with Aosoth? Mkm said he wanted to continue the project as a studio-only act after he announced they split-up following VI: The Inside Scriptures' release, but a month or so ago I noticed their Facebook page seemingly vanished. He's not been active on Antaeus' page since 2019 either - well, okay, there's been two random posts this year, but that's about it, and I've not been able to find much info on the subject.

 

I could probably shoot him a message but I'd rather really not if the answer is in an obvious place and I'm just being blind as usual.

[Cynical]

IIRC, MKM hinted that Aosoth was breaking up in an interview he did with Bardo Methodology.  Musically, VI is pretty much the continuation of that project (and shares members) anyways.

 

As for Negative Plane, Occultation was obviously intended to be a continuation of that project.  Also, Nameless Void quit all of his other musical projects in around 2015, Negative Plane sets at a few festivals at around that exact same time were cancelled, and the band has done literally almost nothing in about a decade.

[seed]

20 minutes ago, Cynical said:

IIRC, MKM hinted that Aosoth was breaking up in an interview he did with Bardo Methodology.  Musically, VI is pretty much the continuation of that project (and shares members) anyways.

 

As for Negative Plane, Occultation was obviously intended to be a continuation of that project.  Also, Nameless Void quit all of his other musical projects in around 2015, Negative Plane sets at a few festivals at around that exact same time were cancelled, and the band has done literally almost nothing in about a decade.

 

Yeah, that's the one I've read back then as well, where Mkm announced the split-up - loving his sarcasm in that interview as well. However, after I think less than a month he mentioned in a discussion with fans on Facebook that he resurrected the project. Someone asked him about it and he simply replied with "yes. mostly likely studio only". Fast forward now, and Aosoth's page is gone.

 

The Metal-Archives page has the status changed to "Split-Up" for a while now, but again I've not managed to find any reliable information about this event, and I don't trust simple status updates, that's not enough - I'd like to know who discovered that Katharsis split-up as well, since they went completely silent after the release of Fourth Reich (as if they ever were talkative to begin with... up to this date I recall them giving a single interview for a zine or something).

 

Looks like I'm gonna have to bother Mkm then, I'm sure he's dying for it.

 

20 minutes ago, Cynical said:

As for Negative Plane, Occultation was obviously intended to be a continuation of that project.  Also, Nameless Void quit all of his other musical projects in around 2015, Negative Plane sets at a few festivals at around that exact same time were cancelled, and the band has done literally almost nothing in about a decade.

 

Fair enough. I suppose they simply split-up without notice in that case, or entered an indefinite hiatus. Bummer.

 

Edit: Re-checked the Archives page, and funny, now Aosoth's status is marked as "Unknown". Wtf.

[Cynical]

Katharsis definitely did split up, metal-archives isn't inaccurate on that one.  They're inaccurate about plenty of things, but not that.  They tend to be quiet because Drakh's nowadays dayjob is working as a leftist pro-immigration academic, and that doesn't exactly play nicely with his former associations.

[taufan99]

Fighting games that put emphasis on combos (that is, 96% of them) need to perish. It should be okay for you not to cram your brain with long and various combo commands.

[seed]

16 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Katharsis definitely did split up, metal-archives isn't inaccurate on that one.  They're inaccurate about plenty of things, but not that.  They tend to be quiet because Drakh's nowadays dayjob is working as a leftist pro-immigration academic, and that doesn't exactly play nicely with his former associations.

 

Ohoo yes, I ran into these news last year as well, and I fell on the floor when I read them.

 

That being said, I find it extremely unlikely that the other members didn't know about Drakh's activities, as some have speculated. But I just loved how people reacted to the news, I wonder how many of them threw their CDs or cassettes out the window as a result :D .

 

I dunno but I just enjoy seeing idiots who take for granted everything the artists put on their plate in this scene, they never seem to learn to stop taking the bands so damn serious. Most of the actually serious bands don't even make such big background noise like their so-called "fans" about their own projects and their concept, most that tend to do so are typically the exact opposite of what these idiots are looking for, or in other words: Too much smoke, not enough fire. Get lost.

Edited May 22, 2020 by seed

[Cynical]

Just now, seed said:

 

Ohoo yes, I ran into these news as well last year and I fell on the floor when I read them.

 

That being said, I find it extremely unlikely that the other members didn't know about Drakh's activities, as some have speculated. But I just loved how people reacted to the news, I wonder how many of them threw their CDs or cassettes out the window as a result :D .

 

I dunno but I just enjoy seeing idiots who take for granted everything the artists put on their plate in this scene, they never seem to learn to stop taking the bands so damn serious. Most of the actually serious bands don't even make such big background noise like their so-called "fans" about their own projects and their concept, most that tend to do so are typically the exact opposite of what these idiots are looking for.

Given how widely rumored it is that Drakh is still working with Scorn in Ascension (just doing it anonymously, for obvious reasons) and is also in Deathspell Omega (it's known that there's a German member, and Hasjarl has said that the mystery German member and Mikko's politics are so opposite of each other that, if they weren't in the same band, they'd probably be shooting each other in the street), my guess is that even if they did know, they wouldn't care.

[A Nobody]

1 hour ago, Lizardcommando said:

eSports people and just eSports in general take itself way too seriously.

 

I don't get why people are most nostalgic towards Goldeneye compared to Perfect Dark when PD vastly improved on things that Goldeneye did, especially for its multiplayer mode.

Esports in general is overrated. It sucks, with them having rude and rage filling people.

 

Probably because of the James Bond brand, or because Perfect Dark came out during the end of the N64's lifespan.

[Cynical]

1 hour ago, Lizardcommando said:

 

I don't get why people are most nostalgic towards Goldeneye compared to Perfect Dark when PD vastly improved on things that Goldeneye did, especially for its multiplayer mode.

Because no one played Perfect Dark, and tons of people played Goldeneye.

[seed]

27 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Given how widely rumored it is that Drakh is still working with Scorn in Ascension (just doing it anonymously, for obvious reasons) and is also in Deathspell Omega (it's known that there's a German member, and Hasjarl has said that the mystery German member and Mikko's politics are so opposite of each other that, if they weren't in the same band, they'd probably be shooting each other in the street), my guess is that even if they did know, they wouldn't care.

 

Hence my point, the bands typically do their job and do it well, but it's the "fans" who always set themselves up for disappointment in dumb ways. These people would be completely incapable of holding together a band, they'll have a big surprise when they start a project and later notice that no-one is interested in uniformity or shares the same views they hold on a 1:1 scale - and dumb, uncultured views no less, got from anywhere but a serious place.

 

Then again, what else can you expect when they probably also think metal is fan driven when it's artist driven, like all art is.

 

I heard the same things about DsO too. I wonder if we'll have the full answers one day, but frankly, the identity of the members never interested me much, unlike others. I've never been big into DsO either, although I do like quite a few of their works.

Edited May 22, 2020 by seed

[taufan99]

Speaking of DsO, that reminds me of one thing.

I like their debut album, especially the original release over the remaster, over anything else they have recorded. It's an example of Darkthrone worship done right.

[seed]

16 minutes ago, InDOOMnesia said:

Speaking of DsO, that reminds me of one thing.

I like their debut album, especially the original release over the remaster, over anything else they have recorded. It's an example of Darkthrone worship done right.

 

Eh, never thought too much of Infernal Battles myself. Inquisitors of Satan is my personal favorite album by DsO, followed by Furnaces of Palingenesia, but I like other releases that are not necessarily full-lengths as well, such as Drought and Mass Grave Aesthetics.

[Cynical]

Their best work was Manifestations 2002 -- moving beyond simple Gorgototh - "Pentagram" cloning, but still black metal, not goofy structureless and incoherent prog.  Other than that, I have an odd liking for "Chaining the Katechon", but the rest of their discography is pretty disposable.

[seed]

15 minutes ago, Cynical said:

goofy structureless and incoherent prog

 

Honestly I think that's also why DsO stopped clicking right with me past a certain point in their discography, the structure of some of the later albums especially feels like this IMO, but they're dialing back on that it seems.

 

And in the case of fan favorites such as Paracletus, I always thought Negative Plane's Stained Glass Revelations was a more creative album, I pretty much always compare these two. But, it was nowhere near as influential, so be that as it may.

 

But I do like their older works a lot, particularly Inquisitors since it reminds me a lot of Sigh's Scorn Defeat, especially the vocals, and not Gorgoroth. I wonder if Gorgoroth can even make good music anymore, Quantos is the only album I can say I really like after everything that followed Antichrist.

[DesecratorJ]

7 hours ago, InDOOMnesia said:

Music:

• 1980's black metal (eg. Mayhem's Deathcrush) > 1990's black metal onwards. More songwriting sensibility to create a feel of unease with some punky riffs catches my attention more than just playing similar dreadful riffs most of the time. (I still like black metal from 1990's-onwards,)

I agree more or less with that statement, though Deathcrush is a very bad example for me regarding 80's black metal, but nonetheless It's a very different approach. I like probably equally both period. However, 2000s onwards black metal is definitely something I don't enjoy very much with some exceptions of course, but overall it's copy-paste Darkthrone and such.

[Chow Yun Thin]

2 hours ago, Lizardcommando said:

I don't get why people are most nostalgic towards Goldeneye compared to Perfect Dark when PD vastly improved on things that Goldeneye did, especially for its multiplayer mode.

I do agree that PD greatly expanded upon the Goldeneye formula, but I'm guessing Goldeneye was a first for a lot of people including me. The game brought a lot of things from other FPS into a package that felt good in a grounded way. Realistic locations that were lifted from the movie, fairly impressive AI at the time, objectives that were expanded a bit beyond getting keys and killing enemies (though I'll admit they were definitely busywork), that sniper rifle with the adjustable zoom, a large arsenal of mostly-real weapons, getting those unlockable cheats. Splitscreen multiplayer was also a great and simple thing when not a lot of games had that at the time and LANs needed a lot of planning and setup.

 

If I were to play Goldeneye today, I'd probably pick on the controls most. They worked well enough in the day especially with Solitaire (aka Turok) controls, but feel so limited after dual analog and ADS were standardized in the coming years. That aiming/leaning system was fine in campaign where your enemies stood still to fire, but it was clunky as hell in multiplayer. I also never liked how turning also caused your gun's point of aim to pivot in that direction, making accurate circle-strafing a lot harder.

 

Quote

About 95% of let' play commentators on Youtube are really annoying. Most of them act obnoxious by shouting and screaming randomly.

Yeah, I really despise solo Let's Plays where the player is constantly running their mouth in lieu of something interesting or insightful. There's also that weird disconnect where the player is talking at the player, but that's more because of how the format works. Let's Plays with two or more people are more tolerable since at least the people can play off each other and that feels more natural. Streaming works better when it comes to interactivity but comes with its own dumb shit. Longplays are definitely my jam, and if they come with optional commentary subtitles (since annotations are gone), even better.

[Toilet_Wine_Connoisseur]

E1 of Ultimate DooM is incredibly overrated. 

 

 

[The_SloVinator]

San Andreas is a shitty GTA game.

[VGA]

7 hours ago, The_SloVinator said:

San Andreas is a shitty GTA game.

San Andreas is one of the gems of the GTA series. It is better than the clunky GTA 3 and Vice City games which have not aged well. And it is better than the two Stories games that used the same engine as SA. 

 

SA probably has the biggest map of all GTA games and the most things to do.

[A Nobody]

No game ages badly. You like what you enjoy. If you don't like say... Castlevania or Duke Nukem 3D, that's ok.

[Rathori]

2 hours ago, VGA said:

It is better than the clunky GTA 3 and Vice City games which have not aged well.

Except it's the same engine with bells and whistles bolted on as they made newer games, and the handling is pretty much the same between the games. Also VC is the best of 3D-era GTA games (i.e. before GTA IV) - SA's too big and has too many pointless crap that no one would care about or notice if it wasn't there.

[ReaperAA]

Speaking about GTA games, both Vice City's Demolition man (RC helicopter mission) and San Andreas' Wrong side of the tracks (The "all you had to was follow that train" mission) are grossly overrated in terms of their difficulty.

 

Especially Demolition man is nowhere even near the hardest mission in VC. Death Row and The Driver are far harder missions in VC.