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[theclaw135]

The Street Fighter 2 input/command system has fostered an unnecessary, indefensible entry barrier to viable competitive play in conventional fighting games.

In spite of the fact that a substantial portion of the genre owes its lineage to The World Warrior, most of the dozens of earlier martial arts games would've quite deservedly faded into the dust bin of history for any number of reasons other than their commands. SF2 was a cosmic leap in smooth animation, background graphic detail, appealing characters, etc.

 

[B_Boss]

So far I’ve never cared for any Final Fantasy after 9 (except 14 online) lol.

Zelda 2: The Adventure Of Link (US) is hands down one of the best Zelda games in the entire series (graphics, Music, mechanics) and it makes me cry seeing that satellaview shot of it in 16-bit glory....I also did not really like or care to play OoT but appreciated the direction and game in general. Ever since I first saw a mere image of Windwaker I knew I’d love the hell out of it. One of my classic favorites .

 

[Cutty Flam]

So far I’ve never cared for any Final Fantasy after 9 (except 14 online) lol.

Zelda 2: The Adventure Of Link (US) is hands down one of the best Zelda games in the entire series (graphics, Music, mechanics) and it makes me cry seeing that satellaview shot of it in 16-bit glory....I also did not really like or care to play OoT but appreciated the direction and game in general. Ever since I first saw a mere image of Windwaker I knew I’d love the hell out of it. One of my classic favorites .

You HAVE to give The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time another chance

It’s the pinnacle of achievement in gaming, that game...What an epic game OoT is. I could write essays for weeks about its greatness and glory

It still strongly inspires me to this day

 

[Kokoloko85]

The Street Fighter 2 input/command system has fostered an unnecessary, indefensible entry barrier to viable competitive play in conventional fighting games.

In spite of the fact that a substantial portion of the genre owes its lineage to The World Warrior, most of the dozens of earlier martial arts games would've quite deservedly faded into the dust bin of history for any number of reasons other than their commands. SF2 was a cosmic leap in smooth animation, background graphic detail, appealing characters, etc.

Street fighter II might be one of the most important games in VG history let alone fighting games

 

[Miles708]

The Street Fighter 2 input/command system has fostered an unnecessary, indefensible entry barrier to viable competitive play in conventional fighting games.

In spite of the fact that a substantial portion of the genre owes its lineage to The World Warrior, most of the dozens of earlier martial arts games would've quite deservedly faded into the dust bin of history for any number of reasons other than their commands. SF2 was a cosmic leap in smooth animation, background graphic detail, appealing characters, etc.

The funny thing is that Virtua Fighter (with its simple 3-button layout) started exactly as an answer to the Street Fighter's input complexity.
Ironically, it developed to be the most complex 3D fighter as well.

 

[Birdo]

Hard games suck.

 

[Mobile Suit Gooch]

Rockstar doesn't need to make another GTA because they killed it.

Port-begging makes it seem like your platform of choice doesn't have any games.

-Naughty Dog hasn't made a fun to play game since the PS2 (Jak 3)

Well, Druckmann said they don't use "fun" to describe their games around there.

 

[theclaw135]

The funny thing is that Virtua Fighter (with its simple 3-button layout) started exactly as an answer to the Street Fighter's input complexity.
Ironically, it developed to be the most complex 3D fighter as well.

IIRC Virtua Fighter's learning curve is friendlier.
Even Street Fighter itself backed off a bit. 5 tones down the most extreme inputs.

 

[LarknThe4th]

The industry is reaching a creative dead end at an alarmingly faster rate than the movie industry has, videogames have only been around for about 40 years and the industry is already at the uncontrollable big budget blockbusters stage that took Hollywood about 100 years to really get to

For any game to get any attention now it has to tick a check box of (open world, dramatic story, GUNS!!) Before anyone will even care about it

The indie game boom has also fizzled out incredibly fast.

 

[Ian Henry]

The industry is reaching a creative dead end at an alarmingly faster rate than the movie industry has, videogames have only been around for about 40 years and the industry is already at the uncontrollable big budget blockbusters stage that took Hollywood about 100 years to really get to

For any game to get any attention now it has to tick a check box of (open world, dramatic story, GUNS!!) Before anyone will even care about it

The indie game boom has also fizzled out incredibly fast.

Hopefully we'll see a revolution or counter-culture forming. I hate to see something bad happening to this industry but with they way things are turning it might be for the best.

 

[pochepiller2]

Xbox has exactly 0% chance to win the next generation sales wise. It loses Japan and Europe, I give it 15% chance to win North America.

 

[DeaDPo0L84]

-RDR2 was a great movie but a shitty game

-People who say 30fps is okay couldn't pass any exam that required intelligent thought

-While playstation is releasing hit after hit Xbox just keeps releasing interview after interview.

-People who say Witcher 3 combat is bad just suck at videogames

-FF8 is the best FF. FF7 Remake was meh.

-Destiny 2 is the best live service game regardless of platform. Xbox fucked up forcing Bungie out when they could've had Destiny franchise as an exclusive

-1440p/120fps on a 27" g-sync monitor takes a giant shit on 4k/30fps on a 55" TV. If you disagree it's just because you haven't experienced it,prove me wrong.

-People who bitch and moan about Abby having biceps are fucking idiots. The only pussy they've been close to is the one they came out of.

-Console warring is the dumbest shit when it comes to gaming forums. If you say shit like "Phil is gonna drop bombs on playstation come July 23rd" or "I bet playstation gamers are scared of the megatons Xbox is about to show" you're fucking stupid and need to find the nearest mirror and repeat that statement to yourself until it sinks in. This goes both ways, discuss shit but grow the fuck up.

 

[pochepiller2]

2160p is better than 1440p

people who like jrpg just got boring job or no friend at all.

 

[Miles708]

The industry is reaching a creative dead end at an alarmingly faster rate than the movie industry has, videogames have only been around for about 40 years and the industry is already at the uncontrollable big budget blockbusters stage that took Hollywood about 100 years to really get to

For any game to get any attention now it has to tick a check box of (open world, dramatic story, GUNS!!) Before anyone will even care about it

The indie game boom has also fizzled out incredibly fast.

I'm not sure I agree, in fact i'd say that this generation has been one of the most creatively varied in the last 15 years at least (PS3/360 gen indeed has been a tragedy, especially the second half).

For the big budget stage, I guess it has less to do with the stage the industry is on, and more with the current hystoric moment of the entertainment industry. It's not a linear evolution, is that entertainment as a whole is a total and unmitigated disaster right now.

Except videogames. For now.

 

[LarknThe4th]

I'm not sure I agree, in fact i'd say that this generation has been one of the most creatively varied in the last 15 years at least (PS3/360 gen indeed has been a tragedy, especially the second half).

For the big budget stage, I guess it has less to do with the stage the industry is on, and more with the current hystoric moment of the entertainment industry. It's not a linear evolution, is that entertainment as a whole is a total and unmitigated disaster right now.

Except videogames. For now.

I actually feel the 360/PS3 was far fresher COD 4 was a stunning game at the time of release, we got Bioshock, The Orange Box, Halo 3 and that's just the FPS space

We got the Mass Effect trilogy and Oblivion and Skyrim along with New
Vegas

And a truly original brand new sensation in Demon Souls that would spawn a whole new series that still excites

The imperious Galaxy games, and the indie boom with Fez, braid, and minecraft leading the charge

The only difference last gen is Japanese publishing houses didnt have a clue now they are caught up

Every bug series around now is basically an open world game where ya check stuff off on a list or a series made the previous gen(COD, TLOU, GOW, the other GOW, Bloodborne)

We are in a poverty of ideas now and it is not accurate to blame that on some innate "inertia of entertainment" in general

We all know what is causing this, bloated budgets which prioritize cutting edge graphics leading to campaigns being cut in half or developers just opting to create bland sandboxes(what Kojima did to MGS 5 was akin to murder!) That de-emphasise bespoke level design and creative ideas because devs are afraid that ther game where ya wander around for ours on end with a gun following an arrow telling ya where to go wont stand out amongst the rest

 

[Miles708]

I actually feel the 360/PS3 was far fresher COD 4 was a stunning game at the time of release, we got Bioshock, The Orange Box, Halo 3 and that's just the FPS space

We got the Mass Effect trilogy and Oblivion and Skyrim along with New
Vegas

And a truly original brand new sensation in Demon Souls that would spawn a whole new series that still excites

The imperious Galaxy games, and the indie boom with Fez, braid, and minecraft leading the charge

The only difference last gen is Japanese publishing houses didnt have a clue now they are caught up

Every bug series around now is basically an open world game where ya check stuff off on a list or a series made the previous gen(COD, TLOU, GOW, the other GOW, Bloodborne)

We are in a poverty of ideas now and it is not accurate to blame that on some innate "inertia of entertainment" in general

We all know what is causing this, bloated budgets which prioritize cutting edge graphics leading to campaigns being cut in half or developers just opting to create bland sandboxes(what Kojima did to MGS 5 was akin to murder!) That de-emphasise bespoke level design and creative ideas because devs are afraid that ther game where ya wander around for ours on end with a gun following an arrow telling ya where to go wont stand out amongst the rest

And DLC cash grabs, and patches.
Most of my memories of the previous generation are Ninja Gaiden 2 (timeless masterpiece), Lost Planet (timeless masterpiece) and others, but drowned in a whole lot of brown and bloom.
I'm not saying there weren't excellent games, mind you. It's just that, at some point, the generation stopped.

Crucially, almost every single game on the market required shooting things, as the bullet was the primary (and, often, only) way to interact in a virtual world. We moved away from that and I couldn't be happier, and I hope to never go back there again honestly.

 

[LarknThe4th]

And DLC cash grabs, and patches.
Most of my memories of the previous generation are Ninja Gaiden 2 (timeless masterpiece), Lost Planet (timeless masterpiece) and others, but drowned in a whole lot of brown and bloom.
I'm not saying there weren't excellent games, mind you. It's just that, at some point, the generation stopped.

Crucially, almost every single game on the market required shooting things, as the bullet was the primary (and, often, only) way to interact in a virtual world. We moved away from that and I couldn't be happier, and I hope to never go back there again honestly.

It's funny because this industry "renaissance moment" was the original Super Mario Bros. And in that game the enjoyment comes from simple running around a digital world with reckless abandon and then slowly being tested by more difficult obstacles as the games difficulty increases

And funnily enough Nintendo showed this again with Mario 64 and then again with Galaxy

Yet the wider industry refuses to learn these lessons and continues to explore more ways of killing things

The best FPS made in the last 20 years is Portal because it takes the vital lessons from Mario, which is the world is the main character and the fun comes from being able to vault around it in a way that would be impossible in the real world, this control, the press of the button and the on screen character moving to it, these complex systems are the true art of videogames not pretentious attempts at being Hollywood where we are shown cut scenes that we cant interact with and have to sit on our hands as motion capture digital dolls spew exposition whilst we have our control arrested from us

Interestingly enough a lot of modern day budgets are wasted on those empty cut scenes

 

[BadBurger]

I started trying PC card games recently. Gwent, Hearthstone, etc. While they are fun at first it's clear that they quickly ramp up into probably the most pay to win engines ever conceived. They don't take much thought, they only exist to attract whales who get angry over losing a match so they spend $15 here, $50 there. I know a lot of people like them but damn, they are clearly designed to drain suckers of their money.

 

[pochepiller2]

I started trying PC card games recently. Gwent, Hearthstone, etc. While they are fun at first it's clear that they quickly ramp up into probably the most pay to win engines ever conceived. They don't take much thought, they only exist to attract whales who get angry over losing a match so they spend $15 here, $50 there. I know a lot of people like them but damn, they are clearly designed to drain suckers of their money.

I play Kards
a ww2 theme game

 

[Bakkus]

Mirror's Edge was appropriately rated at the time it came out. It has since become overrated.

 

[Corderlain]

TLOU2 is a good game and most of the hate is just another gaming circlejerk.

 

[SEGA_2012]

Alpha Protocol is one of the best games ever made.

 

[Freeman]

Skyrim(any Bethesda game as well), RE4, Halo(the first one at least) and Forza Horizon are trash.

 

[The Fartist]

Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself.

 

[teezzy]

I'm really excited for Halo Infinite.

 

[Saint Boot]

I don't know how controversal it is, but Breath of the Wild is absolute garbage.
I enjoy the final fantasy XIII trilogy
Dirge of Cerberus remaster please?
Mystic Quest was a fun FF game
I think Parasite Eve 2 is just as good as the first game
if I think of anything else, I will post again later.

 

[Carna]

The "let's hate on Xbox" binge, neogaf has been on lately is becoming redundant,

 

[Carna]

Oh, I'm gonna piss people off here with this opinion:

Sonic Mania is trash, I wouldn't give that game anything above a 5 out of 10, reasons why -
-if you want to play the new, and redesigned levels, you have to slog through the vanilla levels which is a drag,
-the special stages have shit controls,
-the physics don't even work right half the time, look at the studiopolis hard-boiled heavy fight, that fight is trash,
-the bosses suck, most of them have shit physics design like the damn robot spider, and that gravity drone,
-besides the studiopolis theme, the soundtrack is nothing to write home about, it's just a bunch of fruityloops remixes and boring as fuck tracks,
-mighty and ray are nothing to write home about, ray is a ripoff of smw's racoons tail powerful, and mighty being immune to spikes seems like a last minute thought,
-s3&k special stages are unnecessary, and are made to pad out the game (CS2 is laughing at this) I don't give a shit about what they unlock because next reason....
-the unlockables suck, the peelout is unnecessary, the composer for Daytona is wasted on a mutiplayer mode no one is going to play, the little planet screen is just filter compared to things you had to unlock in various old Sonic team games,
-the 2 out of 3 new stages in the game, don't even look that good, studiopolis looks fantastic, but their creativity ran out from there, and they made two crappy looking stages that look like amateur hour,
-the reused/redesigned stages look like trash, whoever thought of turning a cool stage like flying battery into a trash compactor, should never be allowed to work in the industry again,
-the people behind the game, have some bizzare cult of personality complex, like kojima levels of ego, okay, you can design physics, can you make anything else about the game besides the physics appealing?
-the fans of this game, are sensationalists dumbasses "it's good because it is, don't question authority" is the mindset they have, if one brave reviewer give this game a negative review, they would lineup to downvote the YouTube review faster than a Nintendo or Sony fan would downvote a negative review of those companie's games, you can guarantee a terrible sonic forum like SSMB would spend their posts about the review, complaining that the review is "no true-scottsman" or "not a true sonic fan" to justify they can't handle a negative review of a blantant/redundant/irrelevant game that tries too hard to recapture former glory,
-it doesn't feel like a worthy follow-up, the final boss in s3&k is the definition of "cool as fuck" meanwhile the final bossfight in mania is some where's Waldo shit and can't even top a final battle taking place in space, the final boss fight in adventure 1 destroys Mania's final boss fight lmao,

It's the most overrated game this gen, besides Mario oddshit, breath of the 7 at best, and various interactive movie Sony games. and I just want to abandon Sonic at this point if they can't make a decent original game, or make a nostalgia cashgrabs aimed at 35+ losers and underaged memers, this is coming from someone who liked the "dark age" games and liked every sonic title this gen up until lost world (fuck that game too)

 

[gamerguywashere]

If BotW didn't star Link, nobody would care.

It's a poor skyrim clone that abandoned dungeons, and any real item/puzzle based advancement in favor of trying on a lot of outfits.

I didn't feel powerful at the end. I didn't have any cool toys to play with, and the thing I did find just broke after 3 swings.

I have no fond memories, no favorite boss. There were like 4 different enemies, and masks to avoid them.

Just thoroughly disappointing

 

[Miles708]

Oh, I'm gonna piss people off here with this opinion:

Sonic Mania is trash, I wouldn't give that game anything above a 5 out of 10, reasons why -

-the physics don't even work right half the time, look at the studiopolis hard-boiled heavy fight, that fight is trash,
-the bosses suck, most of them have shit physics design like the damn robot spider, and that gravity drone,
-the fans of this game, are sensationalists dumbasses "it's good because it is, don't question authority" is the mindset they have, if one brave reviewer give this game a negative review, they would lineup to downvote the YouTube review faster than a Nintendo or Sony fan would downvote a negative review of those companie's games, you can guarantee a terrible sonic forum like SSMB would spend their posts about the review, complaining that the review is "no true-scottsman" or "not a true sonic fan" to justify they can't handle a negative review of a blantant/redundant/irrelevant game that tries too hard to recapture former glory,

Even if I think Sonic Mania is a very competent game and a pretty good Sonic chapter (as long as it's labeled as a spin-off), i kinda agree with you especially on these points I quoted.
The physics doesn't work all the time (the 2nd boss in Studiopolis Zone just breaks apart every time you jump) and it's annoying how you can die easily when you get squished by a vertical platform, even if it collides with you by 1 pixel. The hitbox in the originals is much more forgiving, and frankly it's a weird thing to get wrong from such passionate devs.

But it's true that many fans of Sonic Mania consider it a masterpiece just because they can't remember (or never played at all) how the Mega Drive chapters were actually made.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Games from the 90s were objectively better than most titles released since ca 2005, especially with regards to PC games which were always more interesting and creative. Gaming as a whole has become worse and the main reason is that more people are playing than ever before. It's no longer a niche were nerds are developing games for other nerds. Mainstreaming has eaten this medium alive.

 

[Zog]

The internet has ruined gaming. It has cost us cheat devices, completed games on the disc and will cost us physical copies eventually.

Cheat devices are gone because updates would render them unusable. Day One updates have become the norm and their size is often more than many last gen games and you pay for the storage, not the publisher.

 

[Tesseract]

competitive shooters are in creative hell, have been since the end of the source mod era

 

[Fushitsusha]

Skyward Sword is by far better than Breath of the Wild.

Breath of the Wild is the first genuinely bad mainline Zelda game.

Breath of the Wild is one of the most overrated games in existence.

Breath of the Wild is a braindead game, devoid of challenge and complexity.

Breath of the Wild sequel should be cancelled.

 

[namekuseijin]

I actually liked Wii-mote controls (When used well) and wish the industry evolved the idea instead of abandoning it.

they evolved into fully-fledged 6DoF spatially tracked VR controls, flatty

 

[Spukc]

they evolved into fully-fledged 6DoF spatially tracked VR controls, flatty

Better a flatty then a fatty

 

[namekuseijin]

I don't like Animal Crossing, heck, I can't understand why my gf is so obsessed with it, but I respect that people like it and that it's a success and probably GOTY for many gamers.

(I think that's controversial enough regarding AC since it seems like a "love it" or "hate it" thing, lmao)

AC, Fortnite, Minecraft and The Sims have popularity and sales but will never get a GOTY because they're hardly games at all to begin with...

 

[Hostile_18]

Oh god I have some as a few posters on here know

1; Every game should have an easy mode so anyone who buys a game can enjoy it to some extent.

2; If a day 1 game comes out on Gamepass don't dare expect PS4 users to pay full price for something your giving to X Box/PC users "free".

3; Games where you have to make your own fun are not good (I.e Minecraft). That's why I pay developers in the first place, to give me a good time.

4: Backwards compatability and improvements to old games are essential to the gaming industry, we have helped create. The sooner we recognise this the better for us all, in the long run.

 

[mcjmetroid]

The internet has ruined gaming. It has cost us cheat devices, completed games on the disc and will cost us physical copies eventually.

Cheat devices are gone because updates would render them unusable. Day One updates have become the norm and their size is often more than many last gen games and you pay for the storage, not the publisher.

Well maybe not ruined. Changed maybe? Some good and some bad.

But everything you said is true.

 

[kikkis]

People always demand raw uncut gameplay for marketing but i am not sure if that is really all that good show. It generally favors games which sacrfice gameplay feel for animation systems and those games which focus gameplay feel usually get just labeled janky, stiff etc, so not good marketing. Likewise most games are kind of boring to watch at the end of the day, fun part is only apparent when actually playing the game. This probably most visible when it comes to challenge which is usually fun, for example god of war looks better in terms of combat, than dark souls, but souls is obviously hell of a lot better.

 

[mcz117chief]

completed games on the disc and will cost us physical copies eventually.

Those almost don't even exist anymore. As far as I know PC games have practically no physical releases and when it comes to consoles those are usually just a part of the game on a disc and you still need to do a day-1 patch to make the game fully functional, or even if the entire game is on the disc it could be excessively buggy without the patch so you still need the internet to play (Halo MCC for example). PS3/xbox360 gen was the last physical one, this one is, at best, a hybrid generation.

Games from the 90s were objectively better than most titles released since ca 2005, especially with regards to PC games which were always more interesting and creative.

No, the are not, they are objectively worse and I am a retro gamer myself. Only very very few games are still playable enough that I can spend many hours playing them. People always say "yeah, the good ol' games are so much better, let's go play this old game to prove my point." then they play that game for 5 minutes and say "yeah, the greatest game ever made, but enough of that, let's go play Siege." and play Siege for 8 hours straight. I can easily play a Call of Duty for half the day but I can't do that with the original DOOM anymore. I might play a few levels and enjoy them but not nearly as much as when I was a kid, the game just isn't as engaging as most modern games. Another example would be Star Wars Dark Forces, it is a fantastic game that blew my head off when I was a kid and the sequel blew me away even more. Those are objectively amazing games but try to find someone who would be willing to play those games for 5 hours straight. I could back in the day but today most games are just straight up superior. Like with any art/trade the people who make video games just got better and are now making amazing games, the one thing that is seriously lacking though is proper storytelling. Look at the newest Call of Duty for example, the gameplay is the best it has ever been but the story is just terrible and jerks me out of enjoying the campaign. So in general, games are better, just the writing got worse.

 

[Thicc Enigma]

Xbox needs to cut their ties and go 3rd party already before it's too late like it was for Sega.

 

[evanft]

Rare was a bad purchase by Microsoft. They have not made much of anything worthwhile since the N64.

Double Fine is not a good developer.

The indie game scene is just as full of cliches and copy/paste gameplay as the AAA releases.

The last three Tomb Raider games are better than any of the Uncharted games.

Breath of the Wild's world is boring and empty. The core gameplay does not evolve much at all after the first few hours. The cutscenes/storytelling are absolutely abysmal.

Remedy is not that great of a game developer. Alan Wake was pretty shit. Quantum Break was kinda cool but the whole TV synergy idea was terrible. I haven't played Control yet but plan to once I have an RTX card.

Horizon Zero Dawn is far and away the best open world/crafting/tower activating/side quest/whatever game there is.

Bioshock 2 was an overall better game than Bioshock 1. If Ken Levine's name had been attached to it the reception would have been dramatically better.

No one actually gives a shit about PS5 getting Spider Man for that shitty Avengers game.

No one actually gives a shit that PS4 controllers won't work in PS5 games on PS5.

Outside of Forza, the only truly great game Microsoft has released this gen was Gears 5.

Alien Isolation is a two hour idea stretched to 18 hours.

Mass Effect Andromeda is a great game, but only on the PC with mods to alleviate some of the issues.

 

[alstrike]

Souls games are clunky AF and overrated to the extreme.

P.S. I did platinum Bloodborne

 

[Miles708]

The Dragon Ball franchise deserves a grand Adventure-RPG game based on the first series, since it's naturally fit to any non-beat'em up type of gameplay.
Also, the first series has always been vastly superior and much more enjoyable than Dragon Ball Z.

 

[TheGrat1]

Always online/DRM/No used games had nothing to do with why the Xbox one sucked this gen. All of those policies were reversed before launch. The vast majority of people that buy consoles do not know what E3/Games conferences are let alone watch them and thus had no idea those policies ever existed. Sales sucked because it was $100 more expensive than it's main competition with no value proposition to justify it. That simple.

I actually liked Wii-mote controls (When used well) and wish the industry evolved the idea instead of abandoning it.

Instead we are still stuck using regular controllers for another gen.

The industry did not abandon it first, the market did. It was just an unsustainable fad.

 

[Mozzarella]

Witcher 3 combat was good.

 

[Rest]

Alpha Protocol is one of the best games ever made.

One of the only games I've played through multiple times. Also the only "branching story" games I've ever played where the story actually branched and it felt like the choices I made changed things.

 

[Vaelka]

Sony first party exclusives are severely overrated and games that spend millions upon millions on cinematics and cutscenes are wasting their money.
It's just money down the toilet as far as I am concerned.

I get that there is an audience for it and I am not saying that there is no place for it, but it's basically the normal in AAA nowadays.
I am just not impressed by watching what is essentially a movie clip rendered in super high fidelity that is only interesting once if even that and I think that it doesn't really even try to take advantage of the strengths of the gaming media most of the time.
It's just '' wow:ing '' people with fancy pictures, but it's not actually that impressive from the pov of actually playing a game.
Telling the story through gameplay is way more impressive and fun imo.

I also feel like Sony first party exclusives are sorta like J.J Abrams movies, they're competently made and look pretty but they sorta have a clean and artifical look and feel to them imo like they've been covered in visual filters or something and was calculated to be made for the mass market in a really boring way it's hard to explain.
And ultimately they're not that deep or interesting.
GoW isn't a bad game but holy crap the praise for it was overblown and the story with his son was the most tired and generic story imaginable.
Again not saying that it was bad but it was very safe for the times even if people pretend otherwise, honestly the old GoW games would be unsafe by todays standards and actually risky.

I admit that my dislike for those games tho is overinflated because of the excessive fanboy:ism surrounding them and PS4.
If something is getting such extreme praise and I feel like it doesn't deserve it and isn't THAT good or special then I tend to be more against it. It's the same with the MCU, the Avengers movies weren't bad movies but they weren't as good as people act like they are imo.
To me both the MCU and Sony first party exclusives are just above average but nowhere anywhere near the level where they're like the best things ever.

Also video games are way too serious and gritty imo.
They're trying way too hard to aim for some weird pseudo-realism and I think that it's holding things back a lot. GoW would be so much more fun imo if they made the gameplay more on the levels of DMC5, Bayonetta or even the old GoW games.
'' ludonarrative dissonance '' and all that, but I mean come the fuck on...
If people can handle TLOU2 ( where ludicrously unrealistic things even happen in cutscenes ) and Lara Croft becoming Rambo in five minutes etc people can handle the literal God of War pulling some crazy shit and being more impressive.
Same in HZD and GoT, it just feels so underwhelming and monotonous to play.

 

[Tulipanzo]

The Lockhart/Series S will bomb spectacularly, and is a bad idea on several levels.

Development: developers will have to dedicate extra time and effort to make sure this version runs properly. While scaling is common on PCs, that work doesn't translate 1:1 to a closed box, and extra time is needed on top of that. This will lead to general poor performance on the device, the same as it happens now on OG X1 and X1S.
Developers, naturally, reportedly dislike it.

Next-gen features: having a lot of GPU power for high-res allows these systems to potentially use reconstruction and implement new features while looking impressive. Think RT, UE5's Nanite and Lumen, etc. This can't work on XSS, which would be pushed below 1080p, requiring yet additional optimization, exacerbating the problem for devs. This will only get worse as the gen progresses, and the systems are pushed harder.

Communication: having a bunch of poorly distinguished SKUs, with similar names, design, controller, and playing the same games is a bad idea. While technically more advanced than say the X1X, it's hard to make the case for XSS when all you have is theoretical performance improvements, still well below your other offering and the competition's.
MS has kept delaying its announcement because they know it'd look bad, and requires a ton of additional explaining and justification that will mar the last stretch before launch.

Marketing: the thing has leaked numerous times already, but the main problem is how the XSX has had months, potentially years (from E3 2018), in the spotlight as the one and only next-gen SKU. It makes the XSS look even more like a knock-off, and as if MS has no confidence in it at all.

Sales: people buy consoles at launch either because of "next-gen features" (as nebulous as they are), or games. XSS has neither. It's quite expected for the most expensive SKU to sell better at launch (see the PS3). Afterwards, as the main consoles get discounted, XSS becomes less and less enticing. PS5/XSX discounted to $400 or lower will look much more appealing.
Effectively XSS would be marketed to people with 1080p screens, who don't plan to upgrade at all over the whole gen, but still somehow want a next-gen system. This is a nonexistent audience.

Value: "but it's cheap" seems to be the only argument. However, if your system is objectively far worse, it being cheap isn't a great value proposition, it's necessary to even things out. PS5/XSX are going to play games at 4 times the resolution, but they aren't 4 times as expensive. They're 2-3 times as powerful, but won't cost 2-3 times as much. Even if it's optimistically below $300, it's still a huge chunk of change for the worst version of what is ultimately a commodity.

Really, most people will be presented with Lockhart out of left-field, due to 0 marketing, as a much worse alternative for a lower price. It's far weaker, coming from the less popular brand, has no disc-drive, plays the same games as last-gen, and is likely less optimized.
The average buyer will either buy a "proper", as in properly advertised, next-gen machine, or wait for those to get cheaper, potentially just playing the exact same games on their old PS4/X1 in the meantime.

If I were to boil it down further: if MS had a well performant, low-priced, attractive machine, they wouldn't have repeatedly delayed announcing it until now.