Not a true mario, and not even a good mario for me.

I dropped the game after 2 hours, it was too boring, i still wonder why i bought this thing anyway.

I do understand GTA V criticism. I think its metascore is inflated. The best GTA game was San Andreas and V, while a great game, fails to beat it even if it has the advantage of better hardware.

San Andreas had a better open world map. It had Las Venturas, so you could drive through the road and end up in a bright Las Vegas. On GTA V, you just reached Sandy Shores that was... disappointing. I also hate the physics of new GTA games, you basically fly from your car after minor crashes, cops are too much of a problem, etc. The game is supposed to be funny and a big joke, but the new ones cut down what was good on SA.

I also not sold in the characters. Michael is great: interesting, good backstory. Trevor could be as good, but they are always trying to hard to make him over the top as a psycho, most of the times sounding too silly. Franklin is pretty much a poor man CJ.

I've been back to GTA V recently while also playing San Andreas on my phone and really SA is the better game. GTA V is good, but it's not as good as critics want it to be. It's more of an 90-92 than an 97.

MGS5 I agree, people were just complaining for ridiculous reasons. However, I do admit that its general plot is a bit weaker than MGS4. The second act is also a downside: a lot of repeated missions that detract from the game experience. But it adds a lot with the side missions and the open approach to reach objectives, so it balances its shortcomings.

Yeah, I think that the ending makes perfect sense, it's the core concept of the trilogy. The problem was that Bioware overpromised, saying that your choices would reflect on the ending, and in the end it was a A,B,C choice. I think that's what made fans angry.

If you want to be so nitpicky about it, then yeah, you need to kill in order to win and there's no way around it at certain points in the game. Playing to win isn't strictly dictated by exploiting the game mechanic's in your favour (though I concede it's a way to do so, but not necessarily the most fun). Playing to win is just that: play the game in order to beat it, and how to fullfill that is upon the player himself. You can follow the game's rules or you can ignore them, there's not a specified way to do so. Unlike F1 (and I say this with my ulmost ignorance about it), games have plenty of ways to be played and be beaten. Doing a low-level run through FF8 because that's how you get the easiest way to fight through the game is as legit as doing a massive grind and go for Ultimecia at max level, as long as the game is beaten. If you think the later is a boring way to do so, fine, but it's still playing to win since beating Ultimecia means the game is being beaten. Whether you find that interesting or not a different thing.

Did you purposedly mention the two Final Fantasy games I haven't played so that I don't have any ways to reply back there? I don't know about FFV or IX rules; though if you play to win, good luck rushing through the whole game on the later, don't want to miss Steiner's best weapon, don't you? Sounds like a lot of fun doing so by the way.

According to your idea of play to win, you'll never attain 100% with any character in Dark Souls, because to get 100% you need to go into New Game +. But hey, New Game + makes the game harder than New Game, so we're screwed, are we? EDIT: forget about this point since playing to win doesn't necessarily means attaining 100%. Still, I'll let it out here posted.

Didn't know that about Omega. Checked the wiki before and purposedly gets deceiving with the table of HP per character levels, because on Steam version Omega too escalates with the player. EDIT: which is dumb because I haven't played the Steam version, only PSX, but I guess my memory isn't as good as it used to be.

Am I crazy or are people listing quite a lot of games that were praised or at least liked by most and hated by a few??

Lol, I actually played it finally. It's a trash 3D Mario game, it does however fit in nicely with the New Super Mario Bros series

I just named the first two Final Fantasy games with no glaring balance issues that came to my mind.

Steiner's strongest weapon isn't as a big deal as it seems on paper. It doesn't teach any new skill, it deals elemental damage, and his skills hit so hard that they still deal 9999 damage with weaker weapons. I remember that I was doing 9999 damage already with Climbhazard when I got Shock and I thought "wait, there's an even stronger skill?". I was considering using Defender at the end of the game because it granted several elemental resistances and +3 to Spirit, which sounded more useful than more power that was going to be wasted due to the damage cap. At the end I dropped him from my party because all he does is damage so I replaced him with more versatile characters like Freya or Quina that can deal 9999 damage too.

What are you waiting for to play FFIX?

Funny that you mention it. I told someone I would start it when I start the uni, and that's basically this monday. So this monday I'll be playing IX for the first time.

I agree. I see why people got angry. But then they often said things like 'it made no sense,' 'it was all so illogical.' And I was like...well, no, it wasn't.

Definitely not. All the franchise is about that, so the ending, and the choice make perfect sense. I still think that bashing a gane which has an outstanding character development and side quest just because of the ending... It's a bit narrow-minded I think.