Let's Play Devil's Advocate

[Kitsune Hunter]

We all like to stick to our views on the things we love and the things we hate, so I thought why not have a game of Devil's Advocate, whereby we give out a criticism of something you love and say something good about something you hate.

I love Game of Thrones to death, but I will agree with one main criticism, the nudity, as at times it's uncalled for and can be completely distracting as well e.g. Robb and Talisa discussing tactics.

I'm not a big fan of Sword Art Online, I wouldn't say I hate it, I just think it's flaws overshadow it's good points. But I will say to some degree, I enjoyed the first part as it had a good precise and Kirito's Gary Stu abilities didn't bother me that much (well until the second half anyway). But what I liked most about it was how the first part ended

Spoiler

Kirito defeats Kayaba, everyone can now logout, Kirito and Asuna share a kiss goodbye and Kirito, after being stuck in a virtual world for two years, his body is now very weak and skinny and he gets up and slowly walks down the hallway to find Asuna with the credits and the ending theme playing in the background as he walks away

If the series had focused solely on the first part and ended on that note, I would have forgiven it's flaws and say that I actually ended up liking it

So fellow Escapists, what about your likes and criticism of things you love and hate?

 

[Elfgore]

So you have a problem with sword art online? *cracks knuckles Let's take this outside. (I feel for safety reasons I should put a jk or something in here.)

Well I will say something bad about SAO because I love it. That girl in the guild, can't even remember her damn name, needs to have been forgotten within two episodes. But no! She's is seen almost once an episode for the rest of the series in a stupid repeat flashback. Really annoyed me. Actually repeat flashbacks annoy me in every anime.

Something good about something I hate... Dishonered it is. I hated Dishonered, I found the whole thing boring and dull. But the one thing they did right was sword combat. The sword combat actually felt real and challenging. If the Elder Scrolls adopted it for their next game, I would be super happy.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I love Cowboy Bebop, though I will admit some episodes are pretty weak and wasted on one-shot characters with one-shot personalities. And Ed and Jet are a just a bit wasted in their inaction and non-presence. I would've liked to see more of them. This becomes even more glaring in the Cowboy Bebop movie, which is really about Spike and Faye and a couple of newcomers nobody really cares about. Same thing with the game.

I love Twin Peaks, but the show loses something big when Laura's killer is finally revealed/off, and it becomes just a quirky show with none of the mystery for a good deal of season 2... and when it's becoming interesting and gripping again, with Earle and the Black Lodge: boom, cancelled. I feel the show lost somethig it never really got back after Laura's killer is caught, and it was offed before it got THAT good again.

I love The Sopranos, but Season 4 is no way to treat a character like Furio. And a lot of stuff they plant here and there throughout the series never really pays off. The Russian mafia disappears, the FBI and its many threads become numb one by one, Tony's shrink becomes little more than a cameo after season 3 with nothing to her name or interest... and Tony's kids, man. I know that's how spoiled brats act, but man are they annoying. For some reason I found Meadow the more annoying in the first three season, and AJ took over as the annoying one in the latter three.

I love Shadow of the Colossus. But the original colossi count was 24 and... well, I would've loved to fight 8 more colossi. The game can be pretty short, especially if you're replaying it on a speedrun. And that one colossus you have to ward off with torches remains a game-breaking pain if you get yourself tackled by it.

I hate MLP. The animation is Flash ad level, the humor is obvious and stale, the fans seem to find purpose in life as fans. I'll admit though, I'd rather lose such a big demographic to ponies than to Bratz or Hannah Montana, which are also shows about things friendly.

I hate Xbox One's $100 tacked on Kinect, cloud-based server, DRM restrictions, always/sometimes online needs, game exclusives and inconsistent nature and demeanor overall. But I will admit, if I were a company who wanted to do everything the wrong way, I'd do EXACTLY that, before firing my CEO. So kudos!

 

[Queen Michael]

I love manga, but...

I hate the way series that are supposed to have an actual plot with a beginning and an end get thir pacing ruined by lots of meaningless filler episodes. You rarely see a manga with the quality pacing of a novel or a movie.

I hate the way so much of it is about young, temperamental and stupid teen boys who shout "I'm gonna be the best!"

I hate it when story arcs go on for waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than they should. Like the latest one in Naruto, which made me stop reading that series.

I hate it when I start reading a series that's supposed to have a lot of fanservice and all the girls turn out to look like they're no older than my twelve-year-old sister. You see, the thing is... I'm not a paedophile.

I hate it when a series that's all about silliness and jokes decides to become super-angsty, expecially when series that start out angsty never turn silly. And I hate it even more when it's not even well-written angst. (I'm looking at you, Ouran High School Host Club.)

I hate the way it's so hard to find a series that's a serious drama with people who are realistic both art-wise and psychology-wise.

I hate the way almost no josei is ever published in English.

 

[Realitycrash]

Twilight-books and movies might be terribly written and with laughable characters and mythos, but they make people happy and encourages reading.

 

[EeveeElectro]

I hate Hollyoaks but I love the adverts they do occasionally, they're really creative. I also like how they do the more edgy story lines because the younger audience seem to be able to take it in and understand it more without kicking off.

I love a lot of anime, but I hate the stupidly unrealistic representations of women, like many others do.

I love cats but I hate how the lay little bastards just sit on their arses and never let me stroke them sometimes and how ungrateful they are *angry face*

I hate rude and nasty people but I like how they've managed to help me build up a thick skin against said people.

I hate some of the ignorant and hateful people on here but I like having my mind opened up to other people's reasoning and opinions.

[sub]Also I think this might end up people just ranting about what they hate then saying something positive which isn't really positive at all.[/sub]

 

[shrekfan246]

I love Cowboy Bebop, though I will admit some episodes are pretty weak and wasted on one-shot characters with one-shot personalities. And Ed and Jet are a just a bit wasted in their inaction and non-presence. I would've liked to see more of them. This becomes even more glaring in the Cowboy Bebop movie, which is really about Spike and Faye and a couple of newcomers nobody really cares about. Same thing with the game.

All of this.

Ed has a fantastic introduction to the series, and then might as well not exist for the rest of its run. Really disappointing.

OT: Kingdom Hearts franchise - The writing is just laughable. I mean, I give them credit for at least trying, and the voice actors usually give it their all, but it's basically Star Wars: Final Fantasy & Disney Edition. I like the story, mostly because it gets me all nostalgic for the movies I grew up with and I think Sora and Riku are pretty neat characters, but really, Kingdom Hearts is a big example of why I'll almost always value gameplay over stories in video games.

Metal Gear Solid franchise - It's an obvious choice, but holy fuck, let me play the damn game! There's a reason I spend an exorbitant amount of time just messing around with the guards in those games. Though I suppose it helps that I'm pretty bad at stealth games in the first place, so I get more "gameplay" time than people who actually know what they're doing.

Final Fantasy XIII - You would've been a great movie, if it weren't for all of that darned gameplay ruining the flow and pacing.

brokeNCYDE - Thank you for giving me something that I can consistently point to whenever somebody asks "What's the worst song you've ever heard?"

 

[Casual Shinji]

I love, and I mean fucking adore, Berserk, but the moment the ice between Guts and Caska breaks, Casca quickly turns into a super girly love interest type character. Eventhough before she was all tough ice queen *****. She also suddenly aquires rape magnetism.

I love The Last of Us, but the way you pass through spore sections without even rinsing yourself off afterward seems dangerously naive.

I love Ghibli, but I wish they would deviate from the typical artstyle once in a while. Spirited Away did this a bit with Yubaba, and Chihiro not looking like the regular Ghibli protagonist.

 

[Zhukov]

I love, and I mean fucking adore, Berserk, but the moment the ice between Guts and Caska breaks, Casca quickly turns into a super girly love interest type character. Eventhough before she was all tough ice queen *****. She also suddenly aquires rape magnetism.

Oh, ho ho ho. Caska. Yeah.

So which was your favourite part?

- Where she was assigned the duty of jumping in bet naked with a wounded and unconscious Guts to keep him warm. Because campfires and blankets totally don't exist.
- Where she "sacrificed her femininity" to join the Band of the Hawk.
- Where a character who had previously mistaken her for a guy (somehow) sees her a second time and instantly realises she's a woman on account of her having lost her virginity in the intervening time.
- Where (my personal favourite) she gets her period mid-battle and is suddenly rendered completely helpless. Was she suffering the the worst cramps in history or something? She later apologizes for compromising the band by not informing everyone of her terrible, debilitating condition.

I hate to pull a white knight act, but the author seems to have some questionable notions regarding women.

I'd harp on the getting almost-raped like six times thing, but given the setting and her chosen profession, that's actually kinda-sorta justifiable.

 

[hazabaza1]

I love, and I mean fucking adore, Berserk, but the moment the ice between Guts and Caska breaks, Casca quickly turns into a super girly love interest type character. Eventhough before she was all tough ice queen *****. She also suddenly aquires rape magnetism.

On the other hand, it gave us this
So I think it's all good.

OT: Recently I've really been enjoying Fire Emblem Awakening but holy fuck the story is like "Anime and movie cliche` test: let's see how many we can fit into one game!"

Spoiler: Actual spoilers and partially ranty

The evil "I am your father" from nowhere
Time Travel
Amnesia
Multiple Dimensions
1000 year old little girl dragons
Overly angsty characters
Overly cheery characters
The entire fucking nation made of evil people
Evil other self
The Power of Friendship
The most incompetent person being basically objectively the best
ANNIMU UGU GIANT EYES

Also the way the support stuff works is weird because I can have some guys talk about something then not pair them up until the 2 year timeskip then they talk about the thing like it happened yesterday.

Oh and because I always do this I think the first Deus Ex aged fucking horribly. Like abysmally bad. But I can't deny that it did some pretty impressive stuff for the time that probably helped shape a lot of the games I really like.

And I guess I should mention the GoT books. Good books, but fucking hell the filler of "let's talk about shagging and food also anyone who isn't a Lannister or Danerys doesn't do much interesting."
Of course I'm only nearing the end of 3-1 so it could change soon.

 

[Queen Michael]

And I guess I should mention the GoT books.

What books are those?

 

[hazabaza1]

And I guess I should mention the GoT books.

What books are those?

Game of Thrones.
I suppose it's technically A Song of Ice and Fire since Game of Thrones is the name for the series on TV.

 

[Tanis]

@Zhukov:
If you read the manga you'll realize...

Spoiler

EVERYONE...and I mean EVERYONE...
Gets 'raped' at some point.
Be it physical, or mental, or both.
If there's a hole in you, it's probably going to be forcibly entered.

The author/artist, I think, have some HUGE issues with sex.
Like Catholic 'sex is evil, and you're gonna get what's coming to you' level of fear/issues with sexuality/sex.
It's very...weird.

 

[freaper]

Breaking Bad: I love the show, and while I'm perfectly OK with the violence in it -because it makes sense in context-, I have to cringe every single time they censor swears and cusses.

Spoiler: Spoiler for the most recent episode

Hank's about to get executed, and in a last attempt to show his resolution and integrity, he tells Walt and his thugs to go fuck themselves, only for his phrase to get bleeped out, follow shortly by a gun to the chest

I mean why? *bleep* just got punched/shot/whatever, why the hell does a "fuck" or a "shit" matter? We can watch someone get decapitated, but for the love of Jeebs, we don't want to hear no swearies...

 

[Brian Tams]

I really like Fairy Tail, but fuck is there a lot of ridiculously over the top fan service. Lucy's boobs have slowly gotten so big, that I'm shocked they haven't achieved their own field of gravity. It can be difficult to take her seriously as a character when the author is so eager to stuff her into yet another towel, or bikini, or super short skirt.

 

[AkaDad]

I like Game of Thrones as well, but it needs more nudity, including male nudity. Who doesn't want to see a full-frontal Peter Dinklage?

 

[Edl01]

Sounds fun, even if I know it will cause a ton of hate. You already mentioned SAO which I hate with a passion for being a great premise filled with everything I dislike in an anime(fan service, plot holes, one-note characters, Deus Ex Machina ect.), so I'll have to think of something else...

Apollo Justice. It changed the main character to a much less interesting protagonist and opted to be a trilogy, meaning unlike the previous games where every case had an epic and exciting climax a lot of them just ended up building towards what would be a sequel. But admittedly I really like some of the newer cast like the older Ema Skye and the cases - while all far weaker than the previous games - are all fairly entertaining to play through. Even if they did ruin Gumshoes' character in the 4th case for no good reason.

Clannad - my favourite TV show ever. It has an awful transition in the middle of the second series with a bunch of major characters disappearing and never appearing again, the first season has some really stupid cliff-hangers and at times it is a little bit too melodramatic for my tastes.

 

[Something Amyss]

Twilight-books and movies might be terribly written and with laughable characters and mythos, but they make people happy and encourages reading.

But do they really read outside that block of books? That's the problem I've had with the "got me reading" argument. A lot of these people read one series and that's about it.

Far as Devil's Advocate goes...People should be able to read what they want, regardless of what my opinion is.

...No, I can do better than that.

I know!

Justin Beiber isn't bad.

 

[Queen Michael]

I guess I forgot to support something I dislike, so here goes: That first sentence in Twilight about the sky being a perfect blue is actually pretty beautiful.

 

[sanquin]

I absolutely love Hellsing OVA. (The anime.) For me the bad part would be that the story gets pretty ridiculous at the end. Vampire steampunk nazi's invading london isn't that bad yet. But then the fights Alucard has and the overpowered abilities he has... (Summoning a whole army of 10,000 zombie-like creatures from his own body? Riiighhhtt...) Not to mention him apparently being able to shape-shift...

I absolutely hate bronies, for reasons that are hard to explain in here. But hey, they at least come out for what they like, not being afraid of the ridicule and such they get for it. Cudos to them for that.