What are some popular criticisms you see about any show/movie/videogame that you strongly disagree or you just don’t think it’s really a bad thing?

I once read a comment on the old site about how Skyrim’s combat is like mashing WWE action figures together.

I completely agree but I don’t think that’s a weakness at all. Maybe when it released, the game was seen as a grand RPG by more casual people and as a watered down Oblivion by older ES players.

But I think by looking at it not through the lens of a grand RPG, but as a familiar, comforting brain-off experience, it really shines. It really gave us the most it could for how low effort it is to play, and I mean that in a good way.

I remember getting recommended a YouTube video (by the algorithm) called something like “why do we still like Skyrim” and I thought the video was very disappointing. And I think the video’s thesis was about the same as mine in this comment. I wanted it to be something like this:

I associate the game with a long tradition of RPGs that I wasn’t around for, as one of the last great games we got before the priorities of the industry shifted again. The graphics didn’t need to be perfect, the comically small number of VAs didn’t need AI bullshit, the straightforward story lines don’t need to be groundbreaking. The music and atmosphere though are immaculate. It’s a game with a ton of flaws, even some jank that is endearing in hindsight. It just works!

Throw on the modding aspect and you have a very “pure” PC gaming experience. This is exactly what I want from a game, something that’s good enough to just be fun to run around aimlessly in, without feeling like I need a podcast to play in the background, that I can just lose hours in.

I’m playing a much higher effort game now. Workers and Resources Soviet Republic makes the Cities Skylines 2 look like drawing stick figure houses. WRSR is absurdly complex and is super engrossing when you’re in it, if you’re wired to enjoy these types of games. However, I need to be mentally ready to jump in.

With Skyrim I just launched it when I was bored, and I was less bored after.

I insist: Skyrim’s simplicity is what made it work.

some people think harry potter is actually well written, they probably think it, because they read it as a kid and it was one of their first books, but the writing is quite plump and the storytelling mid at best imo

I really like the big bang theory. I know online everyone hates it but I enjoyed the characters and the story lines. I generally like all of the actors who are in it. It just a silly sitcom. It's comforting.

I think the big issue people have is that it made nerdy things more mainstream but they already were mainstream. or maybe they felt like it was mocking them in some way but I don't think that is the case.

I’m playing Dragon’s Dogma II, taking the suspended tram into Bahkbattal or however you spell it. One of my pawns failed to make it into the basket before it started moving but they’re not a ranged fighter so they’re no use in driving off harpies anyways and I don’t bother turning back since I know from previous antics that they tend to find a way back to you.

A few minutes into the trip, dangling precariously in a rickety wooden contraption over a canyon, I hear the cry of a griffin. I spot it over the horizon, its eyes locked with mine. I am forced to watch helplessly as it approaches, drawing an arrow as if it could accomplish anything. The griffin slams into my tram, shattering it instantly and dropping the three of us to our doom.

That pawn that didn’t make it on the tram catches me in a bridal carry and sets me gently down on my feet, completely unharmed.

That’s why the game’s fast travel systems are made to discourage you from using them, because adventures don’t happen during loading screens.

Have you read the Wayside School books? I haven't.

Have you watched the cartoon that was based off them? I actually have. And idk, I actually kinda liked it. To me, this is the fun type of "junk food cartoon". A fun time waster if you will.

Maybe one day I'll grab one of the books to really figure out if they're that better than the cartoon adaptation. Maybe the latest one (Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom) will wow me.

The lack of interpersonal conflict in Star Treks overseen by Gene Roddenberry is a good thing. Humanity got their shit together, made Earth paradise, and went exploring the galaxy and other frontiers in life. Shoehorning conflict and darkness into the newer series destroys what made it unique.

Lord of the Rings (the books) are terribly written by modern novel standards and while the story is amazing their value purely as literature is quite low. I will always defend people who loved the movies and couldn't get into the books.

A big complaint I saw about the live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation for Netflix was that the acting was too cartoony/over-the-top.

Personally, I thought the acting was spot-on for what they were trying to accomplish. It was meant to be a live-action anime, so it was never intended to be 100% tethered to reality to begin with. The characters are meant to be characters, and I thought they did a great job with it. Spike, Faye, and Jet were all perfectly-cast, IMO, and they all felt like their original characters felt from the animated series. There are so many times where you can just close your eyes and listen to them talk to each other, and it feels exactly like it felt watching the anime on Adult Swim back in the early 2000s as a kid.

I honestly loved the live-action adaptation and thought it was amazing. I'm still immensely disappointed that the reception was so poor that Netflix decided to cancel it halfway through the story. There are so many characters I wanted to see that didn't appear until later in the original series. I would've loved to see a live-action Toys In The Attic or Heavy Metal Queen.

The Original Mafia game is generally criticized for being a linear game in an open-world, but I think its linear nature is one of its strengths, because it gives the narrative a tight, driving focus that open world games tend to lack.

Ariel in Disney's A Little Mermaid doesn't drop everything for "a man".

She is clearly interested in land culture from the opening of the film, spending her time collecting shipwreck items and trying to learn what they are. She also isn't interested in the hobby her father wants her to do, singing.

King Triton is abusive when destroying Ariel's collection of artifacts, which makes you think of what else is going on with how he parents her.

So, Eric shows up and seems like a way out. It isn't a lot of information to go off of for adults, but it is something solid for a teenager.

And what did she give up to gain her legs? Her voice. People interpret it as her giving up being able to speak for herself, but it is her giving up the thing that her father cares about.

I heard a lot of complaints about the twins in borderlands 3.They're shallow, they're obnoxious, they remind you of wanna be tiktok influencers, on and on.

That's not a bug, that's a feature. Guys, Handsome Jack was bottled lightning. He was a masterpiece of good writing, good design, well placed improv, and just plain dumb luck. They were never going to pull that off again. You'd need to open a real vault to find that level of treasure.

The Calypso's are exactly what they say on the tin. They're all those obnoxious, unfunny things I mentioned because sometimes villains aren't well thought out, complex characters. I fucking love shooting Troy in his smug hot topic weeb face. I don't need to consider the complexity of a man driven to an extreme or the show erosion of one's moral character in pursuit of power, they were two shitty kids on an ego trip with no regard for the damage they did. It is plain, and simple, and easy.

Are there problems with the rest if the story? Absolutely. Are there some awful plot-holes? Oh my fuck, yes. But are the Calypsos the thing that ruined the game? Fuck no, they're fine and perfectly shootable as a bad-guy needs to be.

The Zelda complaint is extra bullshit considering other open-world games like Just Cause do exactly the same thing by giving the guns limited ammo, so you constantly have to switch weapons based on what the enemies drop.

One that always stood out to me was the ending of the Tom Cruise war or the world's movie.

Now to be clear, this is not a good film and I don't recommend that anyone bothers to go watch it, but a criticism I regularly saw was that the ending was bad - the aliens all just die suddenly.

That was literally the only thing that film got right from the source material. They changed literally everything else in an attempt to modernise it, it didn't work but they at least kept the ending and that's the bit people didn't like.

Joker: Folie à Deux.
The first movie was not about Joker, it is about Arthur. Joker is the unfortunate identity he takes on as a result of the events of the first film. But at the end of the day, he was just a guy. He was delighted but bewildered at the people rallying behind him.

!Folie a Deux picks up is after the police inevitably apprehend Arthur. He is on medication, and speaking to a mental health professional regularly. He doesn't want to be Joker, but everyone around him expects him to be. The tragedy of the ending is that Arthur rejects the love and admiration he has earned, knowing it will not redeem him to the people who hate and fear him now. He chooses to be completely alone and powerless to stop hurting people.!<

As far as the musical numbers went, they were infrequent and clearly a representation of the connection between Arthur and Lee. There was at least one scene where we view Arthur from the perspective of onlookers after he finished singing and dancing, but all they saw was him staring at a TV or something. I always felt like the songs added to character development, but even if they weren't your thing they were brief and heavily outweighed by scenes with just dialogue.

It seems like a lot of people complain about Doctor Who not really having any canon or rules, and contradicting itself constantly (sometimes within the same episode) but I don't think that's necessarily a failing because it's not trying to do that at all.

The trend these days is for a lot of shows, especially sci-fi ones, to be sort of 'internet-proof' and be designed to withstand the people who go through frame-by-frame looking for little errors and contradictions to pull apart, and Doctor Who ignores that completely and just aims to be big fun campy dramatic nonsense, which I think it mostly succeeds at. I think the only cardinal sin for that show is don't be boring, which IMO it pulls off more often than not.

And it's fine to not like that of course, but I don't get it when people try to call the show out for not doing something it's never really tried to do, at least since it came back in 2005.

In the last season of The Crown, Princess Diana's "ghost" makes an apperence to Charles and the Queen. People were super upset, saying that it's offensive to speak for her in that capacity.

That show is not fantastical, and they have never shown "ghosts." I took it as those characters having a mental conversation with her, like, technically talking to themselves, as part of their grieving process, and not that the actual spirit of Diana came from the afterlife to tell Charles it's cool.

Dark Souls 2 gets so much hate for a few things that I don't see as a big deal, or gets blamed for things that are present in the other games in the series.

They tied a stat called Adaptability to your dodge, so you have to level up that stat to get the same number of invincibility frames as the previous game. I did not notice at all until I read complaints about it. I never felt entitled to a certain number of i-frames. I can see how it might be annoying to someone with more experience from DS1, but it's far from a deal breaker for me.

People complain about hitboxes, as if DS1 isn't full of nonsensical jank in this category.

They complain about enemy spam, as if there aren't 12 undead crammed in a small room before the Gargoyle boss who will body block you if you don't deal with them. Or 8 Taurus demons followed by 6 Capra demons in a row. Or 40 crystal undead that hit like trucks in the Duke's archives. Or another 12 undead in one room in The Depths.

Then there's the magic bullet - Miyazaki wasn't that involved. Ok, well does that mean the rest of the company is useless? Maybe he should create the entire games all by himself just to make sure those pesky colleagues don't screw it up. It's so disrespectful to the rest of the team to imply they aren't shit without him.

People cry "development hell" when you point out the very unfinished second half of DS1, but crucify DS2 which had a massive change of direction and redesign halfway into development.

Everyone is on fire in this thread. Every comment legitimately interesting and well thought out. Upvotes abound. (Apologies for the meta)

Almost every case of movie purists. The Hobbit trilogy was great. The new Star Wars trilogy was great. The old ones are great too.

I have similar issues with music and video games. I almost always love the most hated albums or games in a series based on the loudest commentary online. I also find the most popular entry to be kind of meh. I think average people have boring taste or just follow a crowd or something.

While I understand people's criticisms of Sucker Punch, I still really enjoy the movie and its soundtrack.

One of the most common criticisms I see is that their outfits have sex appeal. It's a totally valid criticism, but at the same time, I see this as Babydoll choosing an outfit that is the exact opposite of the unsexy hospital gowns she's forced as a way to escape her reality. I would do the same to be honest.

Forspoken is low key incredible and like, exactly one sound bite sealed it's fate, once it became a meme, people already made up their mind about it.

It was one of the best games I played last year and I found the story to be compelling and the gameplay fresh.

I think it'll be regarded as a hidden gem in the future unironically.

The movie Tomorrowland. I don't understand why anyone could not like it. Maybe because I watched it in German, but I love this movie. It has character, it has character arcs and development, it has fun gadgets and delivers more than once a great message, that's motivating and gives you something to think about. It has an amazing fantasy world and I enjoy the dialogues too.

Sure they could've shown more of the high tech society and some lines are a bit cheesy, but I never saw the audience to be 18+ and more on being also entertaining to kids.

Sonic Adventure 2's mech stages. I actually loved those stages and was really surprised to learn that so many people didn't like them, I always found it so satisfying getting good combos!

I enjoyed the ending to the Battlestar Galactica series. I know there were some missed opportunities but the writer's strike had an impact.

Everyone shits on Star Fox: Assault for shit controls. Which is half true at best, as in it makes you chose between 3 options (option C being the correct modern one) and the one the cursor starts on (A) is indeed shit. I mean it's remotely annoying once, but like come on, it's not even a hidden setting, it MAKES YOU CHOOSE!

I just beat Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and they said it was long and tedious but I really enjoyed it. It's a lot darker than the other games and had the potential to be my second favorite after 2 had they remade it (and maybe favorite if they kept multiplayer and revamped it to allow it in story mode). Just watching the "HD" cutscenes reminded me just how much of a missed opportunity that was.

I didn't read the GOT books. That said, I enjoyed the show through to the last episode and wouldn't have thought twice about any of it if the fans weren't so angry. Idk why but I just don't have the ability to be critical of (or follow very well) story or writing, or anything really. Maybe I'm just too good at suspending disbelief?