The most pretentious games you've ever played

[Rydian]

What the hell even is a pretentious game anyways? One thats good?

It's when the game itself pretends it's better than others. Examples...

• Direct references to mechanics of other games and mentioning that this game is better.
  • "Press X to continue. Now we'll learn about leveling up. Some other games think you're stupid and give you points automatically, but in the world of (X) you can distribute them yourselves to suit your own tastes."
  
  
• Telling you that you need to play it a certain way to "appreciate it".
  • "Confirm name? Before the game begins, be sure to play in a dark room with headphones, or you might not get the mind-blowing experience."
  
  
• Assuming that something blows your mind.
  • This is often done not in direct words (HAY PLAYER DID WE BLOW YOUR MIND?), but in focusing on certain events, such as making one character's speech really slow or linger on-screen for an unreasonable amount of time, sort of like how when an important character dies in a movie things tend to get all slow-mo. Sometimes an effect like this is required to make the player pay attention to a seemingly-unimportant detail (that the characters are unaware of at the time), but if a game does it over and over to specifically highlight "deep" moments, it falls into this.
  
  
• Treating you like you don't understand the concepts it's handing out.
  • "Well (YOURNAME), I know I just said a lot of confusing stuff, would you like another NPC to hop in and explain in more detail to make sure you get it?"
    
    
  • "This next conversation is going to be deep and probably boring to the uneducated. Press X to skip it and then we'll just highlight which character you need to kill to continue."

 

[UltraHurricane]

It's when the game itself pretends it's better than others. Examples...

• Direct references to mechanics of other games and mentioning that this game is better.
  • "Press X to continue. Now we'll learn about leveling up. Some other games think you're stupid and give you points automatically, but in the world of (X) you can distribute them yourselves to suit your own tastes."
• Telling you that you need to play it a certain way to "appreciate it".
  • "Confirm name? Before the game begins, be sure to play in a dark room with headphones, or you might not get the mind-blowing experience."
• Assuming that something blows your mind.
  • This is often done not in direct words (HAY PLAYER DID WE BLOW YOUR MIND?), but in focusing on certain events, such as making one character's speech really slow or linger on-screen for an unreasonable amount of time, sort of like how when an important character dies in a movie things tend to get all slow-mo. Sometimes an effect like this is required to make the player pay attention to a seemingly-unimportant detail (that the characters are unaware of at the time), but if a game does it over and over to specifically highlight "deep" moments, it falls into this.
• Treating you like you don't understand the concepts it's handing out.
  • "Well (YOURNAME), I know I just said a lot of confusing stuff, would you like another NPC to hop in and explain in more detail to make sure you get it?"
    
  • "This next conversation is going to be deep and probably boring to the uneducated. Press X to skip it and then we'll just highlight which character you need to kill to continue."

THANK YOU rydian for exampling this, i was beginning to wonder how long this thread was gonna go on with people listing games they hate just cause there popular since they had no idea what pretentious really means

 

[retKHAAAN]

Any Final Fantasy game after IX, when Square realized that the title "Final Fantasy" was enough to sell a game in regions other than Japan and gave up on story and complex characters to focus on the newest/hippest battle syztems and graphix.

Pokemon. Because how pretentious is a game that releases multiple iterations of the same damn game at the same damn time with minute differences?

The last decade of JRPGs in general, really.

But let's get to the root of the actual problem...


Pretentious gamers
"CoD sucks"
"Casual game is casual"
"Wear da grafix at?"
PC Master Race
Console fanboys

A finicky gaming population where everyone is a critic is the reason we get the drivel that we currently do; why money and resources get focused on a handful of AAA titles a year leaving hipster indie devs to their own devices in attempting to ;o; touch the soul ;o; of the ;o; indie gamer ;o;


Also,
pre·ten·tious
[ pri ténshəss ]

1. self-important and affected: acting as though more important or special than is warranted, or appearing to have an unrealistically high self-image
2. made to look or sound important: intended to seem to have a special quality or significance, but often seeming forced or overly clever
3. ostentatious: extravagantly and consciously showy or glamorous

 

[TripleSMoon]

Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Why? Because Masahiro Sakurai (as much as I respect him) has made it clear in the game's design (and in statements) that he thinks he knows more about what's "fun" than the players. Id est, "I don't want you to play competitively! You think that's more fun? Well too bad, you're wrong! Now I'm going to purposely unbalance the physics and characters and add cheap chance elements you can't turn off, to FORCE you to play the way that I consider fun!"