Video Games / Broken Base

From Sonic to Final Fantasy to World of Warcraft... It's sometimes easier to list video game fanbases that haven't been noticeably fractured.

Games with their own pages:

There are quite a few fault-lines among video gamers in general, on a wider scale than any one game:
- PC vs. Console
- Computer Wars
- Console Wars
- Casual Video Gamers versus Hard Core gamers.
- The Casual-Competitive Conflict
- Easy games vs. hard games.
- Mobile Phone Gaming versus console gaming.
- Microtransactions: Acceptable funding model in an era where rampant piracy makes simply selling games uneconomic, or evil way of extracting money from the naive or weak-willed that gives players with real-world money to burn an unfair advantage?
- Digital distribution vs. physical copies. Digital supporters enjoy not having to wait for a copy to arrive in the mail or drive to a brick-and-mortar store and not having to worry about copies selling out. Physical supporters point out that digital distro isn't the best option in countries where connections are unreliable and is outright unavailable in many countries; things get worse if DRM is involved, which is always the case for console and handheld platforms.
- In some circles, the Realism Debate. Where should you draw the line between Acceptable Breaks from Reality versus mechanics that are too "gamey"?
- What is a "retro console" or a "retro game"? Is it relevant to the person's age or is there a clear line? Most, as of 2015, don't see the sixth gen as retro, with the exception of the Dreamcast (and even that's debated), but the topic of if it will ever be retro is divisive amongst retro fans. Some people don't even see the fifth gen as retro. PC games are a whole 'nother issue since they don't have clearly defined generations like consoles and handhelds.
- Similarly, what constitutes as as "Triple A" game? Are they inherently better then Indie games for being funded and published by big game companies? Actually, what constitutes as an "Indie game" in the first place? Do they still count if they become "mainstream"?
- Update patches for bug fixes. Are they a godsend for allowing developers to caulk over Game Breaking Bugs that slipped under their noses as opposed to having to issue costly reprints, or do they encourage lazy "release first, fix later" practices that treat the players as unpaid beta testers?
- Cartridges vs discs. The debate had died out after the Nintendo 64 (except for handhelds) however it has started up again due to the Nintendo Switch using cartridges. Discs are a more standard format and thus cheaper to produce games on, yet cartridges are more durable and can store player data on the game medium instead of requiring the player to use separate storage space (e.g. memory card or console hard-drive).
- Frame rates. Do games have to run at 60 FPS (or at least close to it, or 50 FPS for PAL screens) for an optimal experience, or are people just making a big mountain out of a small molehill?
- Modding proprietary systems, especially for piracy and removing region locks. A risky endeavor considering that software updates can de-mod systems at best and brick them at worst, or are people denying themselves the full potential of the system?
- Do video games qualify as art? Does the medium as a whole have enough expressive merit to count? Related to this are the concept of Art Games: creative forms of expression or pretentious trash that goes against the spirit of video games?
- And heaven help you if two or more of the above meet at once — mobile games with micro-transactions being a common example of such.
- Achievement and trophy difficulty. For insanely difficult achievements, should game developers change the requirements if not many people can get it? Or should gamers just suck it up and git gud? This is doubly contentious when it comes to achievements that rely on RNG and/or end up more tedious than challenging. On the other end of the spectrum, for stupidly easy achievements, should the free boosts in gamerscore be allowed? Or should game developers stop giving out participation trophies and learn the definition of an achievement?
- Sniper rifles as equippable weapons in general, particularly in multiplayer first-person shooters. There will be players who defend them arguing that they are Difficult, but Awesome and easily counterable if you know what you're doing, and there will be players who despise them for being irritating, One-Hit Kill Game-Breakers that offer no opportunity for counterplay once a player with good aim gets their hands on one — especially if the player in question is a griefer with aimbot hacks.
- Video-Game Lives. Are they a good way to add an extra degree of challenge and give the player more incentive to improve and actually do better in order to avoid losing them, or are they an outdated and archaic example of Fake Difficulty that has no place in video games today?
DLC as a whole often leads to very heated debate, with one side despising DLC, and the other side praising it. The fact that DLC can have a lot of different meanings, DLC can be of very different types, and the absence of clear legislation about it doesn't really help, leaving the editors to do as they please when they propose DLC.
- On the side of those who hate DLC, complaints about its inclusion and use include how content is often removed from the game in order to sell it for more profit (ex. some missions in Assassin's Creed II); how content can already be on the disc yet still needs to be unlocked (ex. the costumes of Street Fighter IV or characters in Street Fighter X Tekken), resulting in the more derisive "disc-locked content" initialism for DLC; how content which could be seen as vital (or at least very useful) can be paywalled (ex. the chest in which you can store your equipment in Dragon Age: Origins); how it's used to separately sell content which reasonably could have been available in the game right from the start (ex. the costumes and arena fights of Final Fantasy XIII-2); and how it's sometimes not even legitimately new content, but simply a way to bribe your way to victory (ex. some DLC in Tales of Vesperia, which allow the player to gain levels, money, Artes, items, etc. — which is less "downloadable content" and more "paying cheat codes"). Additionally, some DLC is activation codes which merely unlock the full game, such as with Batman: Arkham City (which prevents you accessing a part of the game if you buy a secondhand copy). Overall, this side sees DLC as a cash machine for the editors, and fear that they are considered as cash cows.
- On the other hand, the side in favor of DLC argues that DLC can provide new content and fun to a game way after its release, allowing the players to prolong the experience; that release day DLC (be it DLC "removed" from the game or that which needs to be "unlocked") exists out of necessity, otherwise secondhand retailers get most of the profit while the developers see none of it; that DLC can come about simply to not waste people's time and resources ^{(More context.)}; that what's seen as "essential" DLC is simply due to a form of hindsight bias (you didn't see it as a missing feature when it wasn't a thing yet, but once it's released now you can't imagine playing without it); that a consumer is not forced to buy DLC and that many commit the fallacy that their game isn't "complete" unless they own all the content (of course, keep in mind YMMV on this depending on what game you're talking about); and that the aforementioned issues with DLC implementation doesn't mean all DLC is bad. In short, this side believes that DLC can extend or otherwise enhance a purchase (with Rhythm Games being a genre where DLC is a generally accepted practice^note), and argue that its poor/shady implementation by certain companies should be held against the companies themselves and not the presence of DLC itself.
Amongst retro game enthusiasts, when it comes to those games coming to modern platforms: Emulation "port" or a proper port made natively for the platform? The former format tends to be more faithful to the original at the cost of requiring stronger hardware (especially once you start to dive into consoles where polygons are the norm as opposed to sprites), while the latter can give the game some modern flair and lends better to extra content not in the original at the risk of having some inaccuracies.
External turbo-fire^note functions for games that weren't designed around them^note. Is it cheating, since it's often not playing the game as intended? Or is it a fair accessibility and anti-injury feature? This may be a case of Values Dissonance too, since many arcade cabinets in Japan are modified to have turbo-fire buttons, arcade gaming magazine high score tables accept autofire, and many arcade games that are ported by Japanese companies even have turbo-fire options; meanwhile, most American arcade competitions (most notably high score tables on Twin Galaxies) disallow turbo-fire since rapidly-tapping is consdered an essential gaming skill and turbo-fire is considered an unfair advantage as not all arcades have rapid-fire buttons and not everyone can afford a turbo-fire controller.
Amongst Rhythm Game enthusiasts, there is the entire debate about whether a player's combo (the number of consecutive notes that the player has hit) should contribute to scoring or not. Proponents of combo-based scoring argue that accuracy-based scoring (where the player's score only comes from hitting notes accurately, ideally with "perfect" hits) isn't as exciting as holding a massive combo and that combo-based scoring suits easier games better. Opponents complain that combo-based scoring severely punishes smaller mistakes in the middle more than major mistakes at either end of the song and that it leads to rage-restarts and ragequits more than accuracy-based scoring does.

Devil May Cry:
- The original and numbered Devil May Cry titles versus DmC: Devil May Cry, overlapping with Fandom Rivalry at times. Fans of DmC believed that it was more accessible, had better art direction, had a far easier story plot to follow, and centered on a protagonist that experienced actual character development. Fans that loved the original titles criticized the many changes that was implemented, the arguments ranging from criticizing how DmC Dante was so drastically different compared to original Dante, DmC's story being too on the nose and missing the point of the original games' primary themes of how devils can learn to love like humans as well subtly on the theme of family, and the gameplay mechanics that had been overly simplified and lacking DMC3 and DMC4's mechanical depth and complexities, just to name a few game-related points. In short, some consider DmC worth playing, while others feel it simply doesn't match up to the legacy of the older games. The rivalry had died down somewhat after the 2015 releases of both the Special Edition for DMC4 and the Definitive Edition for DmC, but the rivalry flared up again after the announcement and release of Devil May Cry 5.
- Meta-wise, that unfortunately exacerbated the division. Capcom at the time had been wanting to reach the same type of sales numbers such as the Call of Duty franchise, and sought to Westernize their games, so the new DMC game's development had been outsourced to Ninja Theory. Part 1 of the problem was that while Capcom had told Ninja Theory to "go crazy with it" on developing DmC, Ninja Theory also had the tendency to focus on "cool visuals first" instead of working the visuals to match the gameplay, necessitating some of the Japanese Capcom team members to both rein in and redirect NT throughout development. Part 2 of the problem was how PR was handled. For the longest time after DmC's trailer debuted at the Tokyo Game Show 2010, no one could nail down if it was a Continuity Reboot or a Prequel or even an Alternate Continuity, until Capcom finally settled on DmC being an Alternate Universe... in October 2017. Hand in hand with the PR issue was how some of the key members from NT went about promoting the game. Director/scenario writer Tameem Antoniades had been known to belittle the fans that did not like DmC, denigrating them in various interviews, and art director Alessandro Taini even went on a rant at the 2013 Game Developers Conference with a slideshow of how the original Dante wasn't cool anymore — alienating the original fanbase (i.e. the demographic most likely to purchase the reboot out of anyone). What also didn't help was how many game journalist websites also lambasted fans of the original titles and ignored most of the legitimate criticisms pointed out by this group (usually dismissing it as fans hating the reboot simply because Dante's hair wasn't white or something else superficially related to his redesign), whereas they gave high reviews to DmC versus fans giving it low scores. To say that the path leading up to the division being highly complex is an understatement.
Fable. The largest camps are fans of the first game vs. fans of the second. Almost no one actually prefers the third, but there are fans of the second who consider it a step down but still worth playing, and those who malign it as a glitchy mess that added nothing to the franchise.
Gears of War 3 seems to have this verbally. Mostly due to the new weapons in the third one, and minor fixes. Let's start:
- The shotguns. The Gnasher has been there since the first game and it's usually the main source of someone's death. A lot of people still today complain they didn't nerf it enough. And then there's the Sawed-Off. People complain of its cheap one-hit kill, but it's limited with 1 shot per reload, and can only kill you up close. Why is it cheap? It has the insta-kill, that people tend to use when they rush. It's like the Retro-lancer charge, without the manliness. Did we mention the Sawed-Off can kill multiple enemies if they are close enough?
- The new rifle they brought in: The Retro Lancer has a better damage-modifier than the normal Lancer, but instead of the slow-moving insta-kill saw, it has a sprinting bayonet charge. Because of people's tendency to spray with it, due to its lack of accuracy, that's why some hate it.
- Then there's the grenades and power-weapons. The grenades aren't any hassle besides the lack of warning of any incoming frags (it's third person and the grenades are smaller than your character's hand) but hey, at least it makes them useful to kill campers! Anyway, the Ink grenades are somewhat cheap, but the Fire grenades need to actually hit the target to kill it. If not, you get a damage-dealing spot, which can (slowly) kill the opponent if they're new or unlucky.
Although many parts of the internet think that Genshin Impact is just a clone of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with different characters and enemies, there are others who believe that Genshin was simply inspired by Breath of the Wild and that it's unique enough to not qualify as a clone.
Shin Megami Tensei:
- The fanbase, while not being quite as broken as Final Fantasys, is still fairly fractured. First you have the elitists, who only like the older games in the series; it's hard to say where exactly the line divides, though it's either at Persona 2 or Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne. Then there's the "Persona 3 and onward" fanboys/fangirls, who are crazy about the "modern" Persona titles, but won't accept anything else, including the previous Persona games (admittedly not helped by P3 being a Soft Reboot that barely acknowledges its predecessors). And then there's certain other groups that aren't limited to just "modern" Persona, but still only like one of the subseries; this can range anywhere from the mainline series, to Persona as a whole, or any of the others (especially "the Ibunroku vs. the main series who feels the series has become a case of being shameless fanservice" debate). Of course, it's always possible to just like all or most of the series in its entirety, but there's less common ground for that than you might think.
- SMT is one of the few franchises big and old enough to have a Fandom Rivalry with itself. Main series fans inevitably hate Persona fans for only playing the Lighter and Softer games and thinking SMT begins and ends with Persona, some of whom mistakenly believe that Shin Megami Tensei is a spin-off of Persona (the reality is the opposite, with P1 being in-continuity with Shin Megami Tensei if... — a literal What If? game branching off from SMT I) or even that Kazuma Kaneko's designs originated from Persona (whereas his earliest work with the series dates back to Digital Devil Story in 1987). The fact that Persona would end up eclipsing its parent series in popularity, including in Japan, makes this a particular sore point for many. Persona fans hate main series fans for their harsh and immediate judgement towards newcomers, or they may reject the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games for being too dark, or not having any social sim elements — Shin Megami Tensei IV was hit by the latter particularly bad, with many negative comparisons to Persona 3 and Persona 4. This even extends to specific games: Persona and Persona 2 fans hate fans of later installments for not even acknowledging the earliest entries of the sub-series, Nocturne fans tend to see their chosen game as the objectively best despite some archaic mechanics (something exacerbated by Nocturne indeed turning out to be a Tough Act to Follow, the later SMT V being a Contested Sequel accused of rehashing its plot, and the reveal that the widely praised turn to a Wide-Open Sandbox in V was planned as far back as Nocturne), and any mention of who the strongest protagonist might be is bound to start a huge debate. The Shin Megami Tensei fandom is more like a bunch of unwillingly connected smaller fandoms, really.
- And then there are the fans who fight over whether Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona 5, etc. is better.
- Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth has two Broken Bases. The first: Either this game is loved for being an awesome and funny crossover that all the fans asked for or a stupid excuse for fanservice, with massive Flanderization and no respect for canon. Second: The fact that it's simply "Etrian Odyssey with Persona characters" caused both fandoms to argue if that's good or bad.
- Shin Megami Tensei IV had the change in art style with Masayuki Doi and several notable Kamen Rider artists as character designers instead of Kazuma Kaneko. The game also brought a number of gameplay mechanics that proved to be polarizing, the most notable one being the lack of a Defense stat. Opponents dislike it because it turns the game into Rocket-Tag Gameplay: The RPG, while proponents argue that having both a Defense stat and an HP stat that both increase with levels is redundant and enjoy the faster-paced battles.
- The alignments, especially when it comes to which of the two extremes is better (or rather, less shitty). Of course, given God's and Lucifer's Grey-and-Gray Morality properties, this may have been intended.
Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear quite divided fans betweens compliments and criticisms, and tones became pretty harsh in the first months after the release. Some of the criticism was constructive, but other topics of debate degenerated into fruitless flame wars. Some really harsh ones involved the perceived presence of "SJW" features and "LGBT propaganda", like a very minor NPC that could simply confess not to identify in their birth-assigned gender, if you asked (apparently that triggered many players despite having no influence on the game whatsoever). In turn, some people who tried to criticize other aspects of the game were unfairly compared to the aforementioned anti-LGBT users and accused of hating the game as bigots, in a wall-against-wall for the benefit of none. Besides these sad contrasts, most of the complaints were about the changes in the depiction of some characters and the linear campaign, the latter regardless of the various different approaches you could use to progress several points of the story. Some dared to say that the beloved classic Baldur's Gate II did the same things and even more, with a linear But Thou Must! main quest through the same places (to the point that you cannot refuse to follow Gaelan into his home at the beginning), several returning characters being changed in their representation to better fit the larger narrative (rather than being just carboard figures like in Baldur's Gate as Word of God said), and the establishment of a canon party that traveled with the protagonist during the first game. Well, they couldn't peacefully discuss with tea and biscuits.
Dragon Age:
- The series got this with the release of Dragon Age II splitting the fanbase down the middle; one side believes that the changes in Dragon Age II opened up the game to more people, improved combat and gave them a main character they can relate to. The other side believes that the game traded away all its depth and complexity to lure in more players and turned faithful fans into haters, doubly offensive because Dragon Age was previously held as the Spiritual Successor of the classic Baldur's Gate. Some of the more die-hard fans have gone so far as to declare that Mass Effect 3 is the 'last chance' for BioWare to redeem themselves in their eyes.
  - Anders is probably the most divisive character in the entire franchise by the end of the game. A mage trying to fight against the Templars (who oppress mages), Anders "removed the chance for compromise"^notehis exact words by blowing up the Chantry and forcing the issue to the front of the line. He's either a revolutionary with a just cause or a terrorist willing to do anything to push his views, and asking the fanbase is sure to result in a "Here we go again" alongside essays from both sides.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition also fits this bill, although to a lesser extent than Dragon Age II. Some fans think it received more acclaim than it should have and only won Game of the Year because 2014 had a weak batch of games for it to compete with. The main criticism is that BioWare tried to incorporate the open world aspect of the popular Skyrim and Fallout, detracting from the game's story and characters which are considered the series' strong point.^note Many of the side quests were just fetch quests and there were only five main quests, excluding the prologue and finale. People who didn't like Dragon Age II think it was a marked improvement over the previous game and a sign the series was bouncing back.
Minecraft: Story Mode: There's been some hot debate over whether or not you should save Petra or Gabriel in Episode 1. Whoever you save will become extremely sick and whoever you fail to save will gain amnesia. The choice changes the nature of a few cutscenes and Dialogue Trees but doesn't have much of an impact on gameplay... which may or may not be why it is so fiercely debated.
The Mother series is usually an aversion, thanks to its nature, but EarthBound Beginnings has a few.
- While the game has always been polarizing in the Mother fandom, and people are excited since it means high hopes for Mother 3, Nintendo's decision to release this game in America before Mother 3 has gotten them quite a bit of flack from people who aren't fans of Beginnings, and to a lesser extent, people wanting a Video Game Remake compilation that updated Beginnings' battle mechanics to that of later entries of the series. On the other hand, many people tell the other side of the base to be glad another EarthBound/MOTHER game is being released overseas, and that they thought the first game was always going to be localized first due to being already translated.
- Which translation is better, the official localization or Fan Translation? The Bowdlerization of the official localization isn't as criticized as you may think; the main complaints are the town Dub Name Changes, that the script is "dry" and doesn't have that witty EarthBound (1994) or Mother 3 humor, and that due to only one member of the localization team returning for EarthBound, there are more than a few inconsistencies, including the Big Bad being called Giegue instead of Giygas.^note The fan translation imitates EarthBound's writing style and mends these inconsistencies, so it's all a matter of whether a fan prefers "official" or "polished". The Virtual Console version uses the official localization, so while it was unrealistic to expect a fan translation being used, it has brought up the debate again.
- A few fans wanted the game to be on Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console instead of just Wii U, either due to lack of a Wii U, desire for portability, or otherwise. Other fans once again tell them to be glad another EarthBound/MOTHER game is being released overseas in the first place. They also point out that since Mother 3 is a GBA game, if it's localized and released on Virtual Console in the coming future, it will likely be on Wii U, which would conveniently make all three games playable on the same console, the Wii U.
- After the Virtual Console release was revealed to be called "EarthBound Beginnings", what is the "true" English title of this game? Supporters of the EarthBound Beginnings title do so because it's official and makes more sense next to EarthBound. Supporters of the MOTHER title argue that MOTHER is just as official an English title, citing Super Smash Bros., and also support it because it was Itoi's original and intended title^note and it's what they were used to for years. This wiki and the EarthBound Wiki have settled for EarthBound Beginnings, but The Other Wiki and WikiBound, another EarthBound/MOTHER wiki, decided to leave it at MOTHER until discussion comes to a consensus.
Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It has remained controversial among the Interactive Fiction community since its release, and it's hard to get a clear consensus on its quality. If you like it, it's probably for the creative concept, varied level theming, and funny writing. Others feel that the game is too reliant on obscure puzzles, has a lot of bugs, and feels inferior to similar word-based games that came later, like Ad Verbum or Counterfeit Monkey. Alternatively, some think that while the game has a few good segments, it loses momentum in the second half, leaving questions as to whether it remains good overall.
The Total War franchise. Although all the fans agree that the battles have consistently got better and better, the changes to the turn-based strategy portion of the game have caused all amounts of Flame. The first main group are those who feel Shogun and Medieval are by far the best, and in their eyes Rome spoilt it all by fixing something they thought wasn't broken by changing the simple Risk style strategy map into something that was more Civilization in feel and had far too much tedious micromanagement. Then on the opposite side are those who think Rome and Medieval 2 are the pinnacle of strategy gaming. And then there's that old, dying core; to them, it's Shogun and nothing else. Of course, the time period that tickles your fancy the most is a major factor.
- A subset of the Broken Base over the strategic layer is one around the diplomacy mechanics. Many experienced players can rattle off about when Spiteful A.I. suddenly decided to make trouble against a clearly-superior player while they were military allies for years beforehand (or worse yet, Gang Up on the Human just applied in full-force), making diplomacy seem more like a pretense rather than a true mechanic to play with - especially with Paradox Interactive's grand strategy titles making for an obvious comparison in this regard. Of course, plenty of other players accept that the series is titled Total War after all, along with the fact that the game also has a very significant real-time battle layer to dedicate development time to, and so they have no real problem with diplomacy being a bit unreliable.
- One half praises Empire for finally making guns effective in battle and the polish in graphics. The other rips the game apart for supposedly being buggy and the naval battles' clunkiness. The new patch has fixed the former.
- In another part of the TW community the broken base is about the battles rather than the strategy map. The divide is between the newer RTS gamers, who like the faster-paced battles, and the older wargamers, who think the speed makes realistic tactical manoeuvring impossible and serves only to mask a crippled A.I.
- Then came Total War: Warhammer. One half of the fandom thought it was a solidly built, well-balanced game which brought a fresh breath of air into the franchise by bringing in a well-established and exciting IP. The other half declared it a DLC-laden mess and that leaving purely historical settings had ruined the franchise forever. Ironically, the game was near-universally loved by the Warhammer-fandom, with some going so far as to declare it the true eighth edition and much prefer it to the divisive Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.
The Europa Universalis fandom tends to be a bit... testy over #3. Some like the more free-form approach and lack of "strait-jacketing" historical events. Others think that removed the very thing that made the games different. Most agree that #3 is still a decent game (at least after two expansions)
There are at least two "major" fanbases of the long-running Need for Speed series. The first one preferred the series when the focus was on exotic, quarter-million-dollar sports cars and semi-realistic, down-to-Earth road racing (most notably Porsche Unleashed and Hot Pursuit fans), and that it declined in the Underground era when it started focusing on "rice burners." The other prefers the sporty compact tuner cars, arcade-style gameplay, and Narm Charm-filled storylines that characterized the series from Underground to Undercover (which also includes the original Most Wanted). However, some lenient, middle-ground fans don't really mind either ones, and would love to have a Dream Match Game between sporty tuners and multi-million-dollar exotics hulking on each other.
Tomb Raider. There's the main one of those who mostly prefer either Core Design's or Crystal Dynamics' entries to the series, but then there are divisions within those divisions, like those who only like a small amount of each developer's games, and the 2013 reboot broke things up even more.
From Dark Souls, the series are known for its Nintendo Hard difficulty, but is it really hard? Or you just have to play it in a one-and-only right way to win? Ask this to the players and you get ready for a big debate between Fake Difficulty vs "Get good noob!"
Mortal Kombat, primarily around the time it stopped using digitized actors and switched to 3D.
- The crossover with DC Comics didn't help either.
- There's also the fact almost every character outside of Scorpion and Sub-Zero is very polarizing. And new characters are almost always hated by default.
- Sindel's fandom shatters after a certain point of the story mode in Mortal Kombat 9, where she brutally murders the majority of heroes in the fashion of Cutscene Power to the Max, one camp thinking she has fallen so bad she became the new most hated character ever while another does take account to how she's Brainwashed and Crazy, having no control of her actions, as well as her Arcade Ending where it's revealed that her noble side was still there before the brainwashing kicks in.
The Final Fantasy flame wars.
- The dividing lines can be boiled down to SNES-era-and-earlier supporters, most of whom will band around Final Fantasy VI and/or Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VII supporters (who tend to be hated by the former camp and anyone who prefers Final Fantasy VIII or Final Fantasy IX), and Final Fantasy X-and-later supporters, who are sharply divided on the merits of direct sequels like Final Fantasy X-2 and whether the MMOs are part of the main series. Other games' supporters tend to band together with one of these primary camps. Do well to know which camp is predominant in your area; talking about how great you imagine Sephiroth to be when you're on a forum filled with oldschool players is a good way of getting yourself mercilessly mauled. And the violent arguments within the Final Fantasy VII fandom alone are enough to cow a small island nation.
- Was Final Fantasy IV: The After Years a worthy successor or a lazy, rushed cash-in?
- Final Fantasy VII: Was the Compilation a good idea or not? Just about the only thing not up to debate here is that Dirge of Cerberus didn't play very well. There's also the legendary hatred between Tifa and Aerith fans. Curiously, slashing the two together will get both sides to stop fighting long enough to Squee, while shipping CloudxAerithxTifa will get both sides to toss rocks at you. It's got to be a meme. In camp one, you have "Sephiroth is the best Final Fantasy villain ever!" and in camp 2: "Sephiroth's an overrated Bishōnen mama's boy adored only by squeeing fangirls, and Kefka's way more evil and entertaining to watch!" There's even debate over whether the flower girl's name is Aeris or Aerith.
- Careful saying you like Final Fantasy VIII. Lot of real cranks for that one. Many of them people who had never played a Final Fantasy game before VII and were sorely upset because VIII wasn't a sequel, and they've never forgiven it for that.
- Final Fantasy IX, naturally, created a huge rift between the people who thought it was a good tribute to the old classical SNES-era games with its more lighthearted and idealistic themes and colorful world, and those who thought the FF series was, is, and should always be intended for more mature audiences, and saw IX as a big step backwards.
  - Other points of contention regarding IX: Sci-Fi vs. Fantasy (VII and VIII had moved the series into almost completely Sci-Fi with Fantasy window dressing, while IX was more "pure" fantasy than FF had been since IV) and the art style (the change from VIII (the most realistic up until that point) to IX (the most "moe" of the main games) was a bit much for some fans.
- You should also be careful about saying you like Final Fantasy X-2. If you say it too loud in a public place where people can hear you, you'll get torn apart between the people who want to drag off with you and talk about how great the game was, and the ones who simply want to tear you apart for liking it.
- Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV. Should they be considered part of the main series despite the Genre Shift, or spinoffs despite the fact that they're numbered as though part of the main series? Are they even any good? And what about Final Fantasy XII, which had an MMO-inspired combat system despite being offline and single-player?
- Final Fantasy XI fans have two lines of thought: Either Red Mages need to be able to self-skillchain for 2 trillion damage while casting Meteor instantly while gangraping the 50 mobs around them, or that Red Mage is horribly, horribly broken, and needs to either be hit with the nerfbat or never updated at all, ever. The arguments have gotten so old most people go "Red Mages? Again?" and promptly ignore the thread. Another point of contention is meleeburn-style parties. Either meleeburns are the best thing that ever happened to the game and an elegant solution to the problems of Level Grinding and DPSer oversupply, or they're a cancer on the game that precludes people's training in basic tactics, excludes some jobs and perverts others, and has caused the seek function to be conquered by "Stop Having Fun" Guys.
- Final Fantasy XIII: Every single gameplay element apart from the graphics is either praised to ungodly levels or is causing cataclysmic shitstorms, depending on who you ask. It even split the professional reviewers to previously unseen levels. Also, Lightning's fans call her a strong feminist role model in a series that is famous for its Shrinking Violet style characters in revealing outfits. Her haters point out that she is rude, needlessly violent, glorifies the double standard that it alight for a woman to hit a man and is still far too Ms. Fanservice (such as her L'Cie brand being situated between her boobs).
- As for Final Fantasy XV (formerly known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII)... Let's just say you're better off reading all about it here.
- There are two types of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance fans. One side believes that Marche was right to undo the existence of Ivalice, so that his friends would face life (the Aesop of the game). The other believes that, through doing this, Marche is a mass murderer, like Hitler times a million.
- Every Final Fantasy sequel plays quite a bit differently than all previous games in the series, much more than most other video game series. So it is easy to see how fans could have a They Changed It, Now It Sucks! attitude towards the games in the series that aren't their favorite.
- There's also the fact they started to use less and less medieval High Fantasy settings and more Punk Punk type settings.
- It's best not to start a discussion on race and the characters. Asking whether Cloud or Tifa are Asian or not causes major backdraft in particular.
- People who think Final Fantasy XII's battle system was a right direction for innovation versus people crying for tradition.
- And, of course, which system made Final Fantasy popular to begin with, and why did the game go to a certain platform.
- The issue of sequels and remakes as a whole:
  - With remakes, it goes like this: on the one side, you have the people who pitch a fit every time SE does something that isn't a completely new title. On the opposite side, you have vigorous defenders of porting/remakes whose usual favorite argument is media accessibility. In between you have the people who are in favor of porting/remakes in theory but have concerns over the actual ports/remakes SE has made due to quality etc. issues. None of them like the other very much. Further complicating this are the lines drawn between fans of different versions—for example, you have fans of the SNES pure-Woolsey translation of Final Fantasy VI and fans of the revised GBA translation. The first side argues with Nostalgia Filter over the translation and Good Bad Bugs and says that the flaws of Woolsey's translation (if they are even acknowledged) are a product of the times and circumstances and that he represents more of a step forward than anything. GBA advocates argue that the revised translation is more accurate to the original version of the game, are not amused by the Good Bad Bugs, and cite the additional content of their version as reasons for its superiority. Once discussion of what the character Setzer was "really like" gets started, run for the hills.
  - Sequels. You have the fans who like sequels in general and in principle, the fans who only like some sequels, and the fans who hate everything the word "sequel" stands for. The arguments are absolutely vicious. Notably, many of these kvetchfests are fans using sequels as proxies in already-extant rivalries (Fans of VI have targets firmly locked on the Compilation of VII, which is a damning example/cause of favoritism, selling-out, quality decline, the hole in the ozone layer, and long lines in the DMV; fans of the franchises of VII and XIII are engaged in a sort of bizarre dick-measuring contest where sequel numbers are some sort of indicator of inherent worth of a thing). Perhaps ironically, the no-sequel-ever purists are quick to attack the sequel fans as being johnny-come-latelies who only care about getting more of their favorite FF game (that is the only one they have ever played) and accuse them of knowing nothing of the history of the series—and while it's true that SE doing direct sequels is a relatively new thing, it's also true that before they did direct sequels, fans begged them to do it.
- The main artists and design philosophy in general, particularly the heated rivalry between Nomura and Amano fans, a time-honored proxy conflict of the "old school" versus "new school" when it isn't an artistic debate on its own. (And it frequently is, because these two artists have a very different approach to their work on the series because... well, the one-sentence version is that Amano is an amazing illustrator but a poor designer, while Nomura is a poor illustrator but an amazing designer). Tetsuya Nomura has a gigantic Hate Dom (that explicitly wish death on him) as well as his fervently-adoring fandom. Yoshitaka Amano has fewer haters, due to both his role in the genesis of the franchise and his fandom descending on Amano's critics with all the kindness and subtlety of africanized bees. Akihiko Yoshida has his own fan issues as well, frequently related to underdog issues. Each of these three represent a different approach to visuals, and FF fans are willing to crucify each other over their dedication to design.
- Then there's the Bishōnen issue. You have the fans (many female) who love the pretty men, the fans (many male) who loathe the pretty men, and the myriad positions inbetween, usually connected to fanboyship of one of the above artists.
The Resident Evil wars.
- Resident Evil 4 had this problem before and after its release:
  - In general, some fans see it as a crowning achievement of video games (regardless of the franchise or video game sub-genre). While dissenters feel that this was a turn for the worst, and prefer the old Survival Horror/ammo-rationing gameplay over the more frantic, relentless, action-oriented gameplay of RE4. The storyline and the revamp of Leon are both a whole other can of worms.
  - When the game actually got released, some people complained about the controls (attributed to the different perspective), while others liked it. People were also underwhelmed by the amount (or lack thereof) of B.O.Ws, plus a lot of divisions over El Gigante, with some saying he was a LOTR reject. There were a few who thought Capcom should have stuck with the "Hookman" version because of how bone chilling it was. Others thought this would be too different of a departure (whether or not that's ironic is also up for debate).
- Resident Evil 5 has a lot of people who enjoyed it and a lot of people who think that it's the worst thing ever. Not many consider it their favorite in the franchise, though. Then there's a group of people who still misses the zombies.
- Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City started it all over again, with fans saying "YAAAY the zombies are back!" but others lamenting that it's still action-oriented. People were surprised and happy by the returning zombies and B.O.W.s but then they found out it was being developed by the same people who made SOCOM. Then, when the game came out, people became split on whether it was a great game with some minor bugs, or almost completely broken. Yet another point of debate is whoever had the better missions — USS Wolfpack, or the American Spec-Ops team Echo-Six; the people who like the latter were surprised at how much better the missions were compared to the original protagonists.
- Resident Evil 6 became even more polarizing. Fans (and critics) seem to be split on whether or not it's an ambitiously good yet flawed game or a complete uneven disaster.
- Some fans believe Resident Evil: Revelations was the last "true" RE game. It does have better reviews on average compared to Resident Evil 6. IGN claims that polarizing reviews of Resident Evil is par for the course for the franchise.
- Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, which features a first-person perspective, divided opinions between outcries of They Changed It, Now It Sucks! and claims that the game Revisiting the Roots resulted in one of the best and most frightening games to grace the series in years.
NetHack:
- Fans are often divided on whether or not the use of alternate graphic-tile sets, instead of the default ASCII, "improves" or "ruins" the game.
- Whether one must play using the YUBNHJKL keys for movement or if using the numpad/tenkey is an acceptable alternative.
Mega Man:
- Wily Stage 1 from Mega Man 2 is one of the most iconic songs from the series, and possibly video games in general. No one is going to outright call it bad, but in later years there's been a backlash against it from certain fans who feel that it's overplayed and over-remixed and that its popularity takes away from other songs in the series that don't get as much attention as they feel they should.
- Mega Man 9:
  - The game has clearly destroyed what's left of the bonding between Mega Man fans. As the game is 8-bit, many fans regard it as the most revolutionary game of all time, while others think of it as betrayal. Simply going to a 9 video and commenting negatively will garner the wrath or joy of other fans.
  - The ultimate counterpoint to anyone who criticizes any aspect of 9's visual style is that they must be a n00b gamer who only cares about pretty graphics and explosions. Even if you suggest an old-school Mega Man game that simply has higher-resolution 2D graphics, like something along the lines of 7 or 8, this will still happen. In fact, your complaint doesn't even have to be graphics-related at all. The real kicker here? Mega Man 11 would be unveiled many years later and go the 2½D route much like Mega Man X8 did, essentially validating the complaints of those who didn't like 9 and 10 being Retraux.
  - There is much debate over whether removing Mega Man's abilities to slide and charge his Buster make the game appropriately challenging like Mega Man 2, or make it unbearably hard for the wrong reasons.
- There are also arguments over the spin-off games like Battle Network and Legends straying too far from the original games. Despite the fact that there are STILL games being made to cater to the ones that love the classic gameplay, the "true fans" will cling to the NES titles while others embrace the diversity and variety, sometimes saying they are better than the old games. The announcement of a crossover game between Battle Network and Star Force reignited that flame war awfully fast.
- The only Battle Network games you should really risk saying you like are two and three. You can only like the first Battle Network if you swear an oath saying that you only like it because it led into number two and three. If you dare like Battle Network 4, then prepare for a lot of flame wars from the "Purists" who only like the first three games and "Battle network fags" who like them all. After 3, the series was ruined. There's also a lot of hate for sequel series Mega Man Star Force, for various reasons—from the character designs to the gameplay to complaining about how the main character Geo Stelar is "whiny", in contrast to the cheerful but flat Lan.
- Mega Man ZX appeared and repeated exactly what happened to the Mega Man X and Mega Man Zero series, together with its sequel, ZX Advent. Both games are sequels for Zero but they raise more questions than answers. The games are much less serious too, though to be fair, it would be hard to beat the level of Darker and Edgier Zero brought to the table without turning the series to downright Downer Ending territory. And you can play with a heroine if you want, but some people hate when you call the ZX games "Mega Woman" or "Mega Girl" games.
  - ZX and ZXA also received criticism for their use of Transformation Sequences. Some people say it's a cool addition, while others say is a shame for the series and they are trying to turn this into an anime like with Star Force.
  - The (perceived) continuity problems didn't help either. Advent has an Axl analogue in the form of Biometal Model A. Problem is, Axl was never mentioned once in Zero (with all the Biometals implied to be the Soul Jars of prominent players from that series), even with X8 being released months before Zero 4 wrapped up the series. Naturally, half of the fans believe that was an offensive Ass Pull. The Reveal at the end, with Albert revealing that Model A is actually a backup of his data, whose own powers just so happen to resemble Axl's could be argued to have assuaged that half of the players while having the other half scream betrayal.
The Monkey Island series. Whilst everyone has a favorite, it is generally agreed that the first two games are the classics and the third is great. However, the fourth game in the series, Escape From Monkey Island divides people but as the years have gone on, has gathered quite a fanbase, but is generally not liked by the fans of the first three games. The series revival, Tales of Monkey Island has been greeted with acclaim by many, despite many hating it for the same reasons they hated Escape. Things get even deeper by it being a five episode series; some hate certain episodes and like others, although it is commonly said that the last three episodes are much better than the first two. This is mainly because the developers took feedback from fans and changed aspects of the later games accordingly.
Halo is full of this:
- A subset of fans are bitterly, bitterly at arms over the differences between Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and Halo 3. Some complaints centered around the fact that they gave the Elites English dialog, destroying their eerie and creepy mystique, and physically transformed them from sleek and lanky to big and bulky. Some liked the change, while others didn't. There are fans who also find it ridiculous that 80% of the Halo story isn't in the game but in tie-in merchandising.
- People also had this reaction to the developer interview stating that the Elites would be "scary" again (in terms of speaking in a non-human language again) in Halo: Reach.
- Halo Wars got this over continuity.
- In the original trilogy, there's also people who think the Pistol was perfect in the first game, and the people who think the first group should just suck it up and use the Battle Rifle, which is the same thing. Of course, later games restored the pistol to something approximating its former glory .
- Whether or not Halo 3: ODST is worth 60 dollars.
- How about Matchmaking? When Halo 2 tried it for the first time, the gaming community was split between those who liked the ease of being placed in a game with a certain ruleset and those who wanted full control of what server they wanted to play without having to rely on building a friend's list for custom games.
- People generally agree that Reach's multiplayer is solid. But when it comes to the campaign, people are vehemently split. Some don't like it for varying reasons, some for gameplay, others say They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot. It's mostly the latter though. Apparently it didn't live up to its premise and wasn't as epic, dark, gritty and emotional as they thought it would be (some saying there was zero tension and dramatic weight in the game, considering the circumstances). Also possibly due to the fact it contradicts the Expanded Universe. Then there's Noble Team itself, with most only liking Jorge, Emile, and maybe Kat.
- Honestly, almost every campaign after Combat Evolved is polarizing.
- Armor abilities, especially the invincibility-granting Armor Lock, are very polarizing to Reach's MP player base. Some players defend Armor Lock as something that requires a lot of skill to use effectively, while detractors consider it a broken game mechanic that allows players to easily cheat death when they would otherwise not be able to.
- Matters have not improved with 343 Industries' takeover of the franchise. Their first order of business was a title update for Reach, changing a number of elements of gameplay that were clamored for by the community. Cue the vitriolic war between those in favor of the TU updates and those who say Reach was fine from day one.
- The canonization of Noble Six being a male rubbed some fans the wrong way. Some fans believe that Six's gender should have stayed ambiguous.
- Halo 4 might be one of the most controversial of the games yet, due to it having perhaps the most changes introduced in a Halo game at the time. On the one hand, there's people who liked the direction. On the other, there are people who hated that it kept anything from Reach, most notably Armor Abilities (jetpack, surprisingly, at the top of the list) and bloom. On a third hand are people who wanted it to be exactly like Halo 2 or Halo 3, with simply more weapons and vehicles.
  - One of the most controversial and base-breaking features was the new custom loadouts and armor-mods. Before they were fully unveiled, someone said they were a bit similar to perks from Call of Duty. This went about as well as expected with the loyalist Halo fans, who raged endlessly. Even after they were revealed and named, they were still referred to (in bitter tones) as "perks", even though the differences have been shown to be significant.
  - Further complicating things is the "competitive vs. casual" argument. Basically, competitive fans accuse everyone else of being "casual players" (a derogatory term, the way they use it), and, in most cases, assert that casuals have no say in what should be in the next Halo, because "if it's competitive it will please everyone". They often have valid arguments, but most simply lose credibility by raging.
  - The campaign (minus the Cortana drama) seemed hollow and flat to some, both story and gameplay wise. There's also the UNSC Infinity which is a Cool Ship that doesn't do much of anything.
- 343 Industries itself causes this. There are many rabid anti-343 Industries fans, who feel that Halo as a series is ruined by the changes to story that they've made.
- The real irony is that while one group complain about the subtle similarities to Call of Duty, Another is complaining about the fact that the franchise has less, and less Military Science Fiction. Some going as far to say Infinite Warfare is what Halo 4 & 5 should have been.
Though The Legend of Zelda remains as one of the most beloved series among critics, it has become victim of intense fan debates, sometimes to horrifying degrees:
- Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. It's described as the dark horse of the series, both because of its radical gameplay changes and because of its high difficulty, but even a game with this reputation has defenders, especially from the old-school era.
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask was either the best or worst thing to happen to the franchise. In some places, it is quietly ignored as a "side story" that "doesn't count" (mostly on timeline forums), while in other places it is hailed as the greatest game in the series. There are also divided opinions on whether the game is better or not than Ocarina of Time, as well as whether the three-day cycle was a good idea. Even among those who love the game, there are conflicting sentiments over which version is superior (Nintendo 64 or Nintendo 3DS), as the latter brought up changes that either enhanced the experience, or made the game feel less special.
- The controversy over The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is attributed to various reasons. Most of the fanbase appreciated the change in tone and milieu, but another portion decries its lack of difficulty (as if any Zelda entry besides the two NES games were ever difficult) and/or its Lighter and Softer tone, especially in regards to graphics. The warp songs in the game have also not stopped critics of the game from complaining about how long the sailing sequences take. Most of these criticisms were addressed largely on the Wii U Updated Rerelease, to the rejoice of critics and fans alike, but then there are divided opinions of whether the game really needed a re-release in the first place, as well as whether the visual overhaul is better or worse than the GCN graphics.
- There's also the demographic of people who think any 3D Zelda game is bad and think the series turned for the worst after A Link to the Past. Sean Malstrom and his more passionate followers are well-known for belonging to this group, as is Egoraptor. The latter is particularly well known for disliking/despising Ocarina of Time and Skyward Sword.
- This came back in full force after the release of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. The Wind Waker fans decried Twilight Princess as a stale retread of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and adored Phantom Hourglass and its touch screen controls. The Twilight Princess fans complained that Phantom Hourglass wasn't as serious as its predecessors and that its controls were inferior to traditional D-pad and buttons controls.
- There's also The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which divided the The Wind Waker vs. Twilight Princess split base into three (the people who dislike the mix of cel-shading and realism as well as the overall changes made in comparison to the previous games, the people who hoped for even more changes as they felt the game didn't change enough, and people who enjoyed it). And barely a month after its release, near the end of 2011, the official timeline was revealed, causing a major controversy among theorists over its structure and order of games. This and the aforementioned Skyward Sword divide ruined what was supposed to be a great anniversary celebration (25 years) for the franchise.
- The base gets broken yet again with the 3DS sequel to the classic A Link to the Past, A Link Between Worlds, with the half going "yay" for the first traditional 2D (or 2.5D in this case) Zelda since Minish Cap, and then other half being composed of complainers ragging on that the game's graphics aren't realistic like Twilight Princess (mostly because of the potential shown by Ocarina of Time 3D), as well as concerns over the unconventional item rental system. The game was better received when it was released, but the debate on the potential of a 3D game resurfaced once again with the reveal of Tri Force Heroes in 2015.
- The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes has divided fan opinions on whether its over-the-top premise and humor are benefitial, detrimental or simply indifferent to its quality. For an specific example on the humor part, in the American version, the game includes a Shout-Out to the doge meme; fans are divided on whether it's a funny Woolseyism or a gratuitous, unnecessary shoehorn that won't age well. In terms of gameplay, the strong focus on the online play as well as the totem mechanic are the primary points of debate.
- Though most fans, for years, were suggesting a crossover game involving Zelda, there are divided opinions on whether Hyrule Warriors (which combines the series with Dynasty Warriors) was or not the best choice to go.
- An issue that frequently appears in the Zelda discussions is whether or not the series should have voice acting. Many consider it a shame that such a story-heavy series doesn't have voice acting besides Voice Grunting while others don't want to hear the characters talk, especially after bad experiences such as the cartoon and the CD-i games. There's also debates on whether they should speak Hylian or English, and what accents the characters should have. Voice acting was later implemented for major characters in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and its spinoff and sequel (including specific dubs for English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Japanese), while Link remained a Silent Protagonist. Whether this was an excellent addition, a flawed attempt at a good idea, or proof voice acting should be avoided is debated. Opinions are likewise split on the decision to keep Link silent. Some see this as a good compromise, while others feel it undercuts the story that all conversations with Link are inherently one-sided.
Metroid:
- While Metroid Prime 2: Echoes was the first entry in the series to have a multiplayer mode, it was Metroid Prime: Hunters that really got the fanbase talking about whether multiplayer had a place in the franchise. Hunters was heavily focused on online multiplayer and many reviews would end up loving it; however, the game's single-player mode was almost an afterthought, being incredibly short and full of recycled multiplayer maps and repeated bosses. The game ultimately divided up Metroid fans into two groups; people who supported the idea of the Metroid Prime games having multiplayer modes or even having multiplayer-focused entries, and people who insisted that any multiplayer goes against what the series is really about and that Hunters had just ruined the franchise. While this debate no longer reaches Flame War levels, the two factions still exist to this day.
- Criticism of Echoes and Corruption from other segments of the Metroid fanbase come from a perceived slide from "first-person adventure" Metroid gameplay to generic FPS (the former because of the ammo system and the aforementioned multiplayer addition, the latter for its more story-centric elements and the addition of action-heavy sequences like the Escort Mission in the Pirate Homeworld). Ironically, FPS fans criticized these very games for having an unconventional control scheme, while its defenders pointed out that they're still adventure games, just played from first-person. Other M, with its third-person gameplay and heavy focus of narrative and action, only added to the conversation over whether any 3D Metroid after the first Prime actually properly translated the tenants of the 2D games or diverged too much into other genres.
- Metroid: Other M has this several levels. The general consensus is that the story is bad, but was it bad because of the execution, or were the very ideas and concepts presented just plain terrible? Is the combat a good evolution of Metroid gameplay, adding fun melee moves and stylish counters to our heroine's arsenal, or is it mindless button mashing that just makes the game worse? Outside the game itself, there was even more debate, as a poorly understood statement from series producer Yoshio Sakamoto began arguments over whether the Prime series should still be considered canon or not. In general, the game broke fandom discourse from that point forward.
- Metroid Prime: Federation Force: As the first Metroid game after Other M, reception was unambiguously negative due to many wanting a proper Metroid title instead of a Spin-Off. After the dust cleared and the fandom realized that, no, the series wasn't dead and Nintendo did care about the franchise, the fandom now finds themselves arguing other whether the game was actually bad, or if the annoyance surrounding the franchise's situation at the time exaggerated the flaws of a good or possibly even great game. Proponents view it as a fun co-op title that pushes the 3DS hardware, enjoy the additional worldbuilding of the Metroid universe outside of Samus's perspective, and note it has the polished presentation expected of the series. Opponents still regard it as the worse game in the franchise next to Other M, with solo play not being as well-balanced as squad play, feel the more cartoony aesthetics diminish the series' usual horror-adjacent atmosphere, and dislike that Samus not only has her role as protagonist sidelined in favor of Federation military grunts but feel that the circumstances surrounding her being the final boss shares "lack of agency" issues that make Other M so loathed.
- Samus' design is a point of mass debate, both in and out of her suit. Are her suits better when they have an ambiguously robotic look or is it okay for them to be a bit curvy and feminine? Did Samus look her best as a more realistic human in Prime or is her more stylized, animesque design from later games the way to go?
Half-Life 2 Episodes:
- Are they an utter failure with how long it's taking to get each game, or are they worth the wait and the fans are just whiny and unappreciative of Portal, Left 4 Dead 2, or Team Fortress 2's free updates? Both, because it takes time to make a game, but the angry fans are justified in that the episodes are a failure since the idea of "Episodic Gameplay" is to not keep the people waiting 2 years for the next installment.
- Also, while it's generally agreed by people as a whole that Adrian Shephard was a cool protagonist and nice counterpart to Gordon Freeman, and many would like to bring him back in future installments (Valve has even stated that they're interested in maybe bringing Adrian back one day), the more pro Half-Life 2 forums (who generally like the Half-Life 2 series better than the Half-Life series), go into massive fits of rage whenever Adrian's name is even casually mentioned on one of their forums, and many of the anti-Shephard fanboys generally now try to attempt to distance the Half-Life series from Opposing Force, saying it's not canon, simply because of Shephard (and with no reason why they even hate Shephard in the first place), even though Valve has stated that the Gearbox expansions are canon unless proven otherwise. People who are even only mildly casual fans of Opposing Force and Shephard generally get so many hate complaints that it's laughable, while more open forums generally have a more positive opinion on Shephard and Opposing Force.
Left 4 Dead:
- Fans have broken themselves once Valve announced a sequel stated to be released at the end of 2009, exactly one year after the first game was released. The fans are basically organized into camps of those who are excited over a sequel so soon, those who are pissed that Left 4 Dead didn't get anything like the post-release support that Team Fortress 2 is still getting for free, and those who are wondering when Half-Life 2: Episode 3 is going to come out. The second camp even started a Steam group dedicated to boycotting Left 4 Dead 2, which gained more than 35,000 members and garnered some attention from places like IGN and The Escapist (of Yahtzee fame).
- Naturally, fans have started to whine about everything in Left 4 Dead 2. Complaints range from the characters being dull compared to the original cast to how the melee weapons and the new special infected ruined everything. On the other side, people in support of the sequel say the environments are more varied, there are more weapons to use, and how the survivors have more personality than the old set. Just try to compare both Left 4 Dead games without fans in both camps coming together to tear each other apart.
- The release of the DLC, The Sacrifice, has taken what's left of the broken base and shattered into smaller pieces; fans are complaining that Valve is intentionally trying to kill off Left 4 Dead 1 by making its DLC available to Left 4 Dead 2 and porting over a campaign from the first game to the second.
- The smaller pieces are now even smaller once Valve announced that they are going to release all of maps from the first game into the second. Reactions were predictable.
  - The same ports divided the fans to even smaller fragments since the ported campaigns have been adjusted slightly to meet the standards of the gameplay for Left 4 Dead 2. People either love the changes or hate them and demand Valve to keep the maps as they were without any changes. Some have even suggested a "Left 4 Dead Classic" mode where the ported maps are basically as how they ran in the original game.
  - Didn't think it was possible to divide the Left 4 Dead fan base even further? Think again. Just try to bring up the topic of not seeing your legs in Left 4 Dead 2 or how the survivors there don't have a rag doll effect when they die.
- This far down into L4D and no one brought up how the Shipping broke the base yet? You either have the fanbase divided into "screw the ships, I'm here to play the game", to "those who ship everything from Survivors to Infected to Survivors AND Infected." And then it splits further when you get into who's shipped with who.
  - Ellis and Zoey or Ellis and Nick? For that matter, Rochelle and Francis or Francis and Zoey? For that matter, why not Rochelle and Nick (the rather amusingly named "Nickrophilia" ship)?
  - Infected shipping: Sick and wrong or an interesting (and sometimes heartwrenching) exploration of the zombie condition? Hunter/Witch or Hunter/Smoker? What about Infected/Survivor?
Castlevania, to an extent. With Koji "IGA" Igarashi in control of the series, some fans feel that IGA (which some purists like to spell out as "eeguh") has ruined the series, as it means nothing but Metroidvanias and little variety for the remainder of the series. To some, more Metroidvanias means more of the same game, just with a different map each time. Others though, would rather not talk about the "Classicvania" era and the Nintendo Hard titles that defined the series up to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
- Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance: Whether the soundtrack is an awful low-quality mess, or is awesome because of the usage of the less-advanced sound hardware, is still one of the most hotly-debated things about this game.
- Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin have damaged the unity of the fanbase even further with anime-style artwork, which is in sharp contrast to the more Western artwork of titles like Symphony of the Night and Aria of Sorrow (never mind that the original Castlevania: Rondo of Blood had anime-style art and nobody complained). Some like the anime-style artwork, others thought it ruined the series' image. (The next DS installment, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, would drop the style in favor of something closer to Ayami Kojima's acclaimed artwork.)
- Castlevania: Judgment. On top of being a Castlevania fighting game, its characters bear striking resemblances to Death Note's, mainly because they are being designed by Takeshi Obata, the artist of Death Note. And yet most fans were complaining about the allegedly stale formula of the other games in the series.
- Here comes Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, a Continuity Reboot developed by MercurySteam (aka the same guys who made the divisive Clive Barker's Jericho) with IGA not in sight. Patrick Stewart doesn't save this game from arguments over the art style, and the people who don't want a "Godofvania".
- Oddly enough, fans who used to argue between Classicvania or Metroidvania had united in their mutual dislike of the Lords of Shadow reboot. However, Lords of Shadow fans hate original timeline games (both Classicvania and Metroidvania titles) for—from their perspectives—their confusing storylines and shallow plots. This is evidenced by the (second) sequel to LoS, which had a surprisingly deep plot and regarded as a Cult Classic among fans.
- The yet-to-be-shown battle of 1999 in which Julius Belmont permanently killed Dracula. Back when IGA was in charge of the series, fans debated over whether it was well overdue for a proper depiction or if any depiction of it would fail to do it justice. With the series having undergone a Continuity Reboot (see Lords of Shadow example above) and IGA having left Konami and getting to work on the Spiritual Successor Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, however, it looks like this debate is dead in the water.
Ace Attorney:
- Some regard Apollo Justice as a good game with great characters who just need another game to develop better and a strong, self-contained plot without the filler that the Ace Attorney sequels were getting bogged down by. Others trash Apollo for having next to no old characters, Phoenix having turned from the titular Ace Attorney into a hobo (albeit a freakishly crafty hobo), pseudo-Time Travel in the fourth case, the main villain's motives, and regard the plot to be substandard compared to previous entries.
- Fans are also divided over whether Justice for All was good or not. And many, just about the third case.
- The spinoff Ace Attorney Investigations divides the fans between those who love it for offering a fresh perspective on the series and those who feel it's not up to the standard of the main series. Particular points of criticism are the lack of trial sequences (jarring, since the PC is still an attorney) and the uneven writing.
City of Heroes fans generally have four changes that are points of contention for the fanbase: the suppression of travel powers after using a hostile power, the Global Defense Reduction and Enhancement Diversification (generally lumped into one change of "making characters weaker"), the addition of player vs. player combat, and the removal/modificatio of rewards to discourage farming in Architect missions. To this day, there are people who are subscribed and paying purely to start trouble on these changes.
In World of Warcraft, the complaining of some Horde players reached epic proportions when Blood Elves were added to their race list. While some just shrugged and said it'd be nice to have some new blood on their side, a very large group of people feel that it would ruin their faction of ugly monsters. Four years, and two new races later and there's still a dividing line between Blood Elf fans and those who despise them, despite or because of, the fact that Blood Elves make up 50% or more of the player population on almost all servers.
- One of the biggest divides in the WoW community is between the hardcore gamer and casual gamer. End game content in the original required around 40 players to progress, which in turn required dedicated raiding guilds and a whole lot of grinding in order to be competitive, not to mention guild politics determining who was even allowed to experience the content. Six expansions later, Blizzard has firmly come down on the side of the casual gamer with features like Raid Finder (join a queue for end game raiding), decent gear available via solo play, heirloom gear for quicker levelling, etc. The popularity of private servers like the former Nostalrius shows there is still alot of support for older hardcore content.
- The second expansion is sure to make things worse due to drastic changes in nearly every field (especially raids). Some people welcome the changes (if not completely), others contest them on the ground that they are dumbing down the game.
- The Warcraft fandom finally splintered into people who accept the MMO and people who don't when WoW's first expansion changed the backstory to allow new playable races (see Retcon for more information).
  - The draenei retcon was either so petty as to be nearly irrelevant, or completely ruined Warcraft lore. There is no middle ground.
  - Especially since Cataclysm, a new backlash has emerged over the direction of the overall lore in regards to factional bias, real or perceived. In particular, a large number of Alliance-side players have complained that many of the new quests in the old-world zones come across as incomplete or rushed for the sake of Christmas release schedules, in comparison to seemingly better-written Horde-side quests in the same zones. Less nuanced debate has arisen over perceptions that Blizzard has biased the lore towards Horde-side victories with the Alliance, and Alliance victories mostly being out of game or in Horde questing, and has shifted up a gear with rumours of a major and cherished Alliance stronghold being destroyed by the Horde in the lead up to the Mists of Pandaria expansion. Horde-side players have countered with arguments that the Alliance held the cards in the original game.
  - On the other hand, the latest expansion Legion, have been criticized over the direction of the overall lore, and accused of being factional bias as it excludes half of the player base, create a large gasps within the lore, leave them with the few stories to invested in, whether it’s truth or perceived. A large number of Horde-side players have complained that the storyline and the overall theme of the expansion to be very Alliance-centric, which range from the story, the class campaign, the characters to the faction hub and the theme of the class hall. As Horde presence is small to non-existence while Horde leaders oddly absent and haven’t been as proactive as many Alliance leaders in the defense and counter attack against the Burning Legion. Despite how the invasion affect every life on Azeroth, and every Horde races, such as the Orcs have a bad blood or grudge against the Legion. It's also baffling consider how the storyline portrays the Alliance as the only protagonist and hero, while the Horde have slowly been written off from existence, in a setting where there's two protagonists and heroes factions, which conflict with one of the running theme since Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos about two heroes faction, under different banners and ideology band together to protect Azeroth from the common threat. Not to mention two playable Horde races, in particular Orc and Troll is left in a bad position, with their racial character taken up the role as acting leader, while the direction for their races story left unclear and Sylvanas’s ascension as Warchief is the only lore and development the Horde received have cause Horde-side players to show a bad reception toward the overall lore and storyline in Legion.
- On the smaller note, in the comics that served as the prologue story for this expansion, two comics explore the story about Alliance characters. While there's none about the Horde and their characters. Also, the Battle for the Broken Shore scenario’s Horde cutscene was criticized for how nearly the entire cinematic is about Varian Wrynn’s heroic sacrifice, while Horde characters is being shown for less than a minute, and it supposed to be told from Horde perspective. Varian’s death was compared to Vol’jin’s death, for one is being in glorious fashion, and the other in a non-spectacular way. Much like how there’s a site of monument, several musics, trailer and an appereance in other Blizzard’s title:Heroes of the Storm solely dedicate to Varian Wrynn character. While there’s nothing for Vol’jin have upset Horde-side players who perceive it as a blatant favoritism and factional bias.
- After patch 7.2: The Tomb of Sargeras have been released, one of the main story content within the patch is about Anduin Wrynn rising as the new King of Stormwind. As it’s the Alliance-only quest line, the storyline is criticized for how it focused on one faction alone, and leave other storyline that Horde direly need in the state of limbo, such as Vol’jin story that Blizzard hinted his possible return and legacy, the continuation of Sylvanas’s story in Stormheim, the state of the Darkspear Tribe and other races of the Horde. While the quest line gives Alliance-side players an extra advantage in regards to an artifact power. Alliance-side players have countered with arguments that the previous expansions from Cataclysm onward have been Horde-centric, or at least heavily Horde themed, and they haven’t received any real attention and development within the lore until later, as well as how there’s two cinematics for Horde after the Broken Shore.
- After Blizzard has created an article about said Anduin quest-line in patch 7.2, it caused a less nuanced and heated arguments between players from two factions. Interesting enough, some Alliance-side players have shown their agreement with Horde-side players over the perceived factional bias storyline, and other have expressed their dislike over how only two playable Alliance races (particularly, Human and Night Elf) are the only one that receive the attention within lore, while other races such as Dwarf, Gnome appear as secondary races, and Worgen exist only to be the foil to the Forsaken. While some Horde-side players express their defense of Legion storyline, claiming that the Horde have receive enough attention in past expansions.
  - Furthermore Horde players believe that they're constantly getting turned into the bad guys, especially in The Wrath of the Lich King onward. Many horde players originally signed up because Thrall (along with Vol'Jin and Cairne) was a Reasonable Authority Figure who wasn't out for constant conflict - rather like the leaders on the Alliance side, but with a different cultural feel and an almost anti-hero attitude to the Alliance's shiny cape. When Blizzard had Thrall become a world guardian and leave the horde in the control of the warmongering Garrosh, much complaining ensued that the horde had become villainous and the anti-hero appeal of playing horde had been lost. It's reached the point where the outcry from the horde players forced Blizzard to scrap their planned character development for Garrosh and make him a villain in an upcoming expansion. However this didn't help either, as in Pandaria the Horde players were forced to commit countless attrocities for Garrosh, orcs as a race were stripped of any and all redeeming qualities, and many Horde NPCS who were previously positively portrayed were retconned into being evil.
- The update that added the Ulduar instance and changed a lot of gameplay elements created a huge backdraft over, of all things... fishing. Players are now able to fish anywhere, not just where they have a high enough fishing skill level. Skill level now only affects the likelihood that you will catch junk versus fish. Plenty of threads erupted over how this now nerfs fishing and how no longer requiring players to spend hours and hours skilling up fishing completely ruined that part of gameplay.
- A large break in the World of Warcraft fanbase is actually a split between the expansions: Those who think WoW was best before the expansions, those who think WoW was best during The Burning Crusade, and those who think it's best in Wrath of the Lich King. Each group is constantly at each others' throats, and many foresee a fourth group rising up when Cataclysm comes out.
  - In fact, the announcement of Mists of Pandaria has caused an even bigger online ruckus, to the point where accusations that it's completely ruined are common. People either say that the Pandaren being the first neutral race will add interesting content and that Pandaria looks amazing, or that the new expansion is a kiddy Kung Fu Panda ripoff. There were also many complaints about the handling of the faction war, with the Alliance still coming off as inneffectual, the Horde being stripped of all redeeming factors, and the series falling into Black-and-White Morality.
- The biggest break in the WoW base seems to be between casual players who don't really care about character optimization and just want to run the storylines, and hardcore players who could care less about the storyline as long as they have the best gear and are ultimately optimized killing machines.
  - There's now another huge argument coming up about raid difficulty in the next expansion, Cataclysm. Currently, there are two options for every raid - 10 man and 25 man. 25 man is harder, requires more coordination, better gear and more skill, but gives better loot. Cataclysm changes this - 10 and 25 man raids will now give the same quality loot, but 25 man simply gives more of it. This, of course, has left "hardcore" players furious, claiming that the game will become "too easy", while casual players are happy that they no longer have to spend 5-6 hours in 25 man raids to get the best loot.
  - And even bigger break is the argument that Heroic dungeons are too hard. Casual players cite that there's too much time required to be invested for little to no rewards, while hardcore players basically tell them "qq l2play" and to just do regular dungeons.
- Cataclysm's PvP is also spawning another "Casual vs. Hardcore" argument. Currently, battle grounds, which are battles that go anywhere from 10v10 (Warsong Gulch) to 40v40 (Alterac Valley) only reward two-season-old gear, two pieces of current season gear, and no weapons. In order to get the newest loot and weapons, you have to play in the Arenas, which are 2v2, 3v3 or 5v5 fights with no goal other than "kill the other team" and earn a specific "rating" by winning more than you lose. Cataclysm will reward the best PvP loot and weapons from Battlegrounds, meaning Arenas will become entirely optional. This has spawned a serious debate among PvP players, with one side arguing that Arena isn't true PvP and welcomes the change, while the other side deems battlegrounds too easy and thinks that the best gear should come from Arena.
  - PvP weapons in themselves are a big debate. In Burning Crusade, players were able to buy old PvP weapons from Battlegrounds. In Wrath of the Lich King, they removed this option. This leaves many players feeling very cheated. The only way to obtain PvP weapons is to do very well in Arenas, but how can players do well in arenas if they don't have weapons to use? This has split PvP players, again, into two different groups: "PvP weapons should only be obtained in Arenas, B Gs are too easy" and "Well how am I supposed to earn Arena weapons if I don't have something to start with?"
- In fact, PvP vs. PvE has spawned fanbase splits since the game started. Some players consider fighting scripted boss encounters boring, while others consider fighting other players boring. It all comes down to personal preference, but that doesn't stop WoW players from arguing over it.
- "Class X is imba/needs a buff", especially pre-TBC Shaman vs. Paladin. Back in the day, you could go to any class forum and see a thread discussing whether or not a class needs a patch to balance them, whether or not said patch completely broke the balance or not, whether or not shamans are the most absurdly powerful class in any game ever - or whether or not Paladins are actually much superior, whether or not making both classes available to both factions is a good idea to balancing both factions or completely ruins the uniqueness, whether or not rogues and/or hunters and/or warlocks (and/or any other class really) are way too strong/weak, whether or not Blood Elves should get the warrior class like everyone else, whether or not gnomes should get priests, whether or not the pre-TBC Fear Ward available for Dwarf Priests defeats the entire point of raid encounters (Blizzard stopped giving Fear to bosses in the expansions) - or really ANYTHING!
If you include Warcraft's RTS fandom, you'll find those who believe everything after Warcraft III is garbage along with those who believe everything after Warcraft II is garbage. The argument against Warcraft III is that the Orcs went from a blood thirty race of bad-asses to a bunch of Noble Savages who turned out to be the victims of a demonic army. High Elves became jerks (they were ALWAYS jerks, Alleria Windrunner being the biggest $#%$^ to ever appear in the Warcraft series, the archer/rangers only slightly less), Goblins went from Horde suicide bomber to neutrals, navies disappeared, heroes became undying super units with unique abilities and an inventory slot, and the overall focus of the game shifted from larger armies to comparatively small ones. Proponents of Warcraft III, by contrast, prefer its tighter, more personal story, the surprisingly complexity of its RPG like flare, its superior map tools, the much better unit variety, the addition of hostile creeps, and the introduction of two noticeably different factions.
As one of the older MMORPGs around today, Everquest is full of this kind of stuff. In the early days, EQ 1 was very newbie-unfriendly. No tutorials, no easy armor quests, and if you wanted to run from one end of the continent to the other, you had to... well, run from one end of the continent to the other. And if you wanted to take a boat to the other continent, you waited for the boat. In short, the game was Nintendo Hard and everyone hated it. Over the years, the game has been made easier in the lower levels, and now you can get gear for your level 10 character that's better than the gear you had to do quests to get for your level 40 character. As for travelling, now there is the "Plane of Knowledge", from which you can get to any zone in the entire game that you'd want to go to. And people hate this too.
Guild Wars:
- The game has a very noticeable split that is seemingly supported by the producers: PvP vs PvE. In the attempts to balance PvP, a skill or class will be Nerfed. This also affects the PvE iterations of the skill/class, which throws this half of the fanbase into outrage. "Why are you changing things for me that weren't broken for me?"
- With the PvE update split, it's not "They're nerfing us because of PvP!", it's "Why does PvP get all the updates?" And then there's incredible contention over which campaign is best - there're the Proph purists (usually the "let's-lynch-Izzy" crowd), the rare Factions fan, and the Proph-is-slow-let's-go-play-Nightfall people (usually the "shut up about the skill updates, let's enjoy the game and leave A Net alone" crowd). Then there's the horrific debate over PvP skills and consumables ("They broke the game!" "No they just made it more fun!" "Dude guys chill!" "Ur mom!"). Lastly, though this isn't so pronounced, there's the huge gap between the overly vocal, Izzy-fandom, HM- or Guild Battle-elitist (depending on PvE or PvP), PvX-despising, title-fandom, A Net-loathing (or loving, in a few rare cases), anti-Eot N, GW 2-skeptical, Proph-addicted, (sometimes hypocritical) guildie-group-only, "GW is dying!" doom-and-gloom Guild Wars Guru types and the silent, Izzy-tolerating, PvE- or Arena/AB/HA-enjoying (though sometimes elitist, especially in HA), meta-following, title-greedy, A Net-ambivalent (or accepting), pro-Eot N, GW 2-excited (or skeptical), NF-loving, PU Gging or H/Hing, "GW is fine but they just nerfed my build!" average Joe players.
EVE Online is notorious for whipping up epic whine-fests after every patch or content upgrade. Most notorious was the 'Speed Nerf' added in December 2008, which, depending on who you ask, either eliminated small-gang PvP in favor of server melting 'blob vs. blob' combat, or else saved the entire game from a Failure Cascade. Which camp you're in seems to depend on whether or not you have a billion or more tied up in your super fast fandom and implants to make it Gofasta, or whether or not you are Caldari.
Kingdom of Loathing seemed to suffer from this after the NS13 update rolled out. The fandom split between those who thought the new, longer and rebalanced game was the best thing since sliced bread, and those who hated the nerfs and felt the slower game was less fun.
- To make things worse, another such division arose around the same time over the development of KoLMafia, an unofficial but legal open-source bot/client for the game. Some felt the two lead developers on the project were being oppressive about the development of the program and how it would be adapted to NS13, calling anybody who disagreed not a true proponent of open source, and others reacted by calling the first group was a bunch of ingrates with a sense of entitlement. Both sides being equally tactless, the flame wars raged for about three weeks.
Star Wars: Galaxies. Bring up the words "Combat Upgrade" or "New Game Enhancements" and watch the sparks fly. The former (and even most of the current) playerbase seem (relatively) united in agreeing that the game's glory days are behind it, but asking when and why is an excellent way to start a violent flame war.
The Unreal series fans since Unreal Tournament III. The OMGTHECOMMUNITYISDYING-UT3 fans and the old-school Unreal/Unreal Tournament fans who want to boost the fanbase. This Broken Base was set in the moment that Unreal Tournament was released, and established a gulf between the MP and SP side of the franchise, and every time a new game is released, more breaks are going to happen.
Grand Theft Auto IV was built on a new game engine, revamping many of the core gameplay aspects at the cost of some of the features in San Andreas. Once Hype Backlash set in, one side began insisting that all the fun had been removed from the game while the other side maintained that planes really wouldn't have that much of a point in Liberty City. Being reminded that San Andreas was the third installment of its generation and more features would be added to the system through downloadable content and the sequels hasn't cooled matters down.
- The series overall has seen other splits too:
  - Realistic vs over the top fun
  - Setting inside vs outside America
Grand Theft Auto V and it's online mode. Specifically the bad servers list, in that players who enjoy griefing and trolling are made to wear a dunce cap and only play with other griefers and trolls. Some see it as a god send who would like to enjoy the game, some believe being a dick is the whole point of the game where others are upset over not being allowed to play the game their way.
Fire Emblem:
- Debates include oldschool games vs. newschool games, original Japanese vs. localized, FE purists vs. people who got into it through Super Smash Bros., stat fans vs. storyline fans, those who think the franchise should be mostly on handhelds vs those who want more console games... and that's not even going into the endless pairing debates.
- In general, the worst extremes of either side of the "old vs. new" debate over whether or not the changes brought in the Nintendo 3DS era were for the best or not.
- The entire concept of Permadeath. Some players like it because it encourages the player to put a lot of value in each of their units and to prevent their deaths, and teaches players a valuable lesson in not treating death as a slap on the wrist; for these reasons, they do not look kindly upon Casual mode in Awakening. Others dislike it because they consider it Fake Difficulty and point out that in games where the player can save and retry the chapter, the Final Death mechanic in practice becomes "restart the whole chapter every time somebody dies" and that the only way for proper Final Death to occur is to never reload saves ever.
- The interpretation of Ike's love life (or lack thereof) broke the Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance base. There's a massive war over whether Ike is gay or straight, with some people taking asexual and bisexual sides as well. The fact that the games give unverified support for interest in men and outright mixed messages for interest in women doesn't help. Due to the ambiguous nature of Ike's sexual orientation, these arguments all rely on inferences which means that the two sides can easily discount each other's evidence as inconclusive, which only serves to prolong the war.
- The playerbase doesn't even deny how Fire Emblem: Awakening split the fandom into "pro-Awakening" and "anti-Awakening." The latter portion cries that the game's story is much lighter with a simplistic conflict of complete good vs complete evil, continuity problems with Archanea, Aborted Arcs, and too much Fanservice in place of competent storytelling and characterization, and the other half will argue that the game's characters are at least fun, the core gameplay is a "greatest hits" collection of other mechanics from throughout the series, and that Awakening helped the franchise recover from its slump from poor sales of the Tellius games overseas as it sold really well overseas and brought many new players to the community. Whether the changes made to the Fire Emblem formula or a good release date/advertising resulted in Awakening's good sales are another point of contention. Even among fans of Awakening itself there are splits: One notable one is over who is the main character. Officially, Chrom is the hero while Robin is more of a Supporting Protagonist (as the story is told from their perspective) but many fans feel that Chrom is actually the Decoy Protagonist, as Robin dominates most of the latter half of the plot. This mainly became the sour point it did because Chrom became a Butt-Monkey in the fourth Super Smash Bros. while Robin was playable... and yet pre-release material for Fire Emblem Fates says that the Avatar in Awakening was a supporting character.
- As for Fire Emblem Fates... uh, it's best to see its page.
Banjo-Kazooie:
- The game has gone to mayhem over Nuts & Bolts; one side does not want to touch the vehicles. The announcement of a port of the first game on Xbox Live Arcade fueled the flames further.
- When Rare released the remake of Banjo-Tooie with the previously-scrapped Stop 'n' Swop feature intact. Some fans were satisfied, while the rest claim it wasn't really Stop 'n' Swop since the extra reward from it was just a Gamerpic and theme.
Metal Gear:
- There's some bickering (to say the least) in the fandom over the increasingly Post-Modernist-shading on the plot and the wobbly 4th wall the games had acquired since Sons of Liberty. Some cite it as a brilliant way to hook the players into the stories and characters, while others think it's a clogging, incompressible mess that gets in the way of the actual game play - don't even go into the subject of Sons of Liberty's infamous Gainax Ending. There's also the changes in the combat and stealth systems that each game had, usually with complaints "It's too easy" or "Come on, I don't have time to memorize all this junk!"
- There also seems to be a strange dividing line between fans of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. If you love one, you hate the other. If you love MGS2, you have no appreciation for a character-driven story and probably like Raiden, and, worst of all, you hate The Boss. If you love MGS3, you are a simpleton who doesn't understand that MGS3 is just a Pastiche of 60s spy movies with none of the plot twists that made the series great.
- Due to Kojima's minimal involvement, fans tend to debate whether Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops was a worthy adaptation of the series to the PSP or an unnecessary cash-in. It doesn't help that Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, the next PSP game in the series (which Kojima directed), dismisses the events of Portable Ops entirely with a single discontinuity nod.
- The announcement of Kiefer Sutherland replacing David Hayter as the English voice of Snake in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes/The Phantom Pain has split the Metal Gear fanbase between those who think that Hayter's performance has become gradually worse with each game and think Sutherland is a step up, and those who think that Hayter is irreplaceable as Snake.
  - The series is traditionally PlayStation exclusive (to a degree, as the series has appeared on multiple consoles as a result of ports or the HD Collection), but The Phantom Pain debuting on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is atrocious to some fans. Others think it's a fantastic way for the franchise to expand and grow more popular.
  - There’s also the issue of whether the game was even finished, partly due to Kojima getting fired from Konami, the game’s clumsy Gainax Ending and the Aborted Arc concerning Eli. Official sources state that the game is indeed finished, but the fact is that the uneven nature of the game’s final act is polarizing and has left many fans with a feeling longing. Some claim that this is intentional and hinted at with the title, while others claim that the game was clearly meant to be much bigger, citing interviews with Kojima. However, Word of God has indeed claimed that the ending is supposed to be ambiguous. Whether this decision was affected by Konami is still unclear.
Street Fighter:
- There are the Alpha (Zero in Japan) series fans who decry the other game's lack of air-blocking, and are themselves split between those who like Street Fighter Alpha 2 with its shorter but easier to do custom combos and those who prefer Street Fighter Alpha 3 with its harder to pull off but longer and V-ism custom combos (plus the differences between their Alpha Counter systems).
- You either hate the Street Fighter EX games or think that they're gems that were overlooked simply for being in 3D. Even more baffling is that EX wasn't even true 3D; it was 2½D, with dynamic camera angles utilizing the third dimension only popping up during specific occasions, much like in SFIV. EX played like the old 2D titles (falling the closest to Alpha in terms of style), just with 3D-rendered models as opposed to sprites. Also stemming from this is the question of whether or not the new faces of this series should be integrated into series' canon: either they're cool, sleek designs with quirky personalities and likable traits overshadowed by the more "mainstream" characters (this goes double for Skullomania, perhaps the one character people know about from this series, popular enough to show up on an absurd amount of character wishlists) or some of the blandest, most unoriginal people to have ever graced a fighter. All of this is further compounded by the initial vials of acid thrown at the newcomers from Street Fighter IV (itself another Broken Base) and the fact that Capcom shares the rights with Arika over said characters, making their inclusion in future games difficult. Also, there's a group of fans who are quick to point out that, for all the flak EX received from the majority of the fanbase (at the time, at least), it was a prototypical IV that came out a decade too early. Compare the EX games with (Super) SFIV and you'll begin to see a lot of aspects carried over from the former, movesets and gameplay mechanics especially. Makes you start to wonder why EX even got the short end of the stick from the fandom in the first place when it provided the backbone for the game that revitalized 2D fighters.
- Capcom Sequel Stagnation in general is prone to wedge a stake between fans, but nowhere is it more apparent than with SFIV (and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but that's another can of worms in and of itself). Super managed to dodge a bullet by virtue of being the first offender for IV, adding back several fan-faves, and being one of the last games released before Capcom fell into what many fans agree to be its Audience-Alienating Era but with each new revision (first Arcade Edition and then Ultra), the fandom seems to splinter more and more.
Guilty Gear
- When it comes to XX, #Reload or Accent Core (Plus)? Each game has its fanbase who says one is awesome and the other is terrible. Meanwhile, Slash—released between #R and AC—is overlooked for being a Japan-only release (even though this is the entry in which Order-Sol made his debut).
- Speaking of Accent Core, Accent Core Plus R created some rifts for a short while, mainly regarding whether the character rebalancing for Kliff and Justice nerfed them straight into the ground (or at least took away a lot of the traits that made them unique/fun to play) and whether Arc System Works was taking the constant tweaking of XX too far when the last "true" entry in the series was the very experimental Guilty Gear 2: Overture some five years earlier. A lot of the controversy died down when it became apparent Plus R was the last hurrah for XX prior to Arc finally moving the series forward with Xrd. (Plus, the update patch that upgrades Plus to Plus R allows players to switch back to the previous version of the game if desired.)
- The series is well-known for its awesome heavy rock-inspired soundtrack, especially the character themes, which all get fresh remixes every game. That is, until Xrd, where the long-runner themes were all thrown out and replaced with a new batch of different themes. The general consensus is the new music is good (if not necessarily better than their predecessors), but many argue whether it was really necessary or not. ^note
- On another note, Elphelt, the first console DLC character for -SIGN-, ended up fracturing the fandom. Some praised her intriguing design and her unique mechanics, while others dismissed her as "too girly," "too anime-ish," and "not metal enough"... though a common counterpoint is that Guilty Gear has always drawn inspiration from anime (if not as overtly as Elphelt does) and El is—quite literally—a Guns N' Roses reference. Others took issue with how she seemingly came out of nowhere ^note and "took up a slot" that they would've rather seen go to an old fan-favorite from a previous title. While the former criticisms continue to persist to some degree, the "new faces vs. returning veterans" aspect slowly faded as more iterations of Xrd were released—several other characters from preceding entries were added back to the roster (Johnny, Jam, and Dizzy in -REVELATOR-, Baiken in REV 2) and the newcomers as a whole managed to endear themselves to the fanbase through their various personality and gameplay-related quirks.
- Bridget in Guilty Gear XX was presented as a feminine, crossdressing boy, Raised as the Opposite Gender because of superstition surrounding her birth as a male twin. Bridget became a bounty hunter and pursued other masculine interests to escape this upbringing and assert personal identity as male at that time. The later Guilty Gear -STRIVE- sees Bridget after dispelling the superstition that forced her initial identity choices and ends with her making a personal choice to come out as a trans woman. This has been a controversial development, that many at first dismissed as bad translation, however Daisuke Ishiwatari has made it clear it was intended since her conception as a character. While many fans loved seeing a Coming-Out Story for a long-standing character who is not fetishized for being a trans woman, there are many others who liked Bridget as a feminine boy who, equally rare, was also not fetishized.
The Elder Scrolls:
- As Bethesda has a tendency to rebuild each installment in the series from the ground up, fans of the series tend to judge each new game (as well as earlier installments) against whichever game they were introduced to the series with, sort of their own personal version of First Installment Wins. As such, this leads to serious Broken Base issues and claims of Contested Sequels. To them, any games newer than their favorite are dumbed down to appeal to casual gamers while using shiny graphics to cover up the lack of depth in the world/story. Meanwhile, any games older than their favorite are obtuse, not very player friendly, and look/sound poor due to using outdated graphics and technology.
- Playing on PC versus the console is another major fan divide. The series has a massive and industrious Game Modding community which, until Skyrim's "Special Edition", was only accessible to PC players. PC players tend to consider console players to automatically be more "casual" fans, while they actively harm the series because Bethesda tries so hard to cater to them. Console players meanwhile point out that each game in the series tends to push the boundaries of PC gaming technology of its time, and that they simply want to be able to enjoy the series without having to spend a fortune on computer upgrades.
- The series is well known for its Worldbuilding, having some 4000+ years of backstory before any game in the series takes place as well as deep universal metaphysics. Known to the fandom as "Lore", any game (or part of a game) that conflicts with or alters previously established lore is certain to break the fanbase in any number of ways.
- Also relating to lore, the series' developers and a number of former developers contribute "Obscure Texts" which further flesh out parts of the series lore. Treated by the majority of fans as, at the very least, Loose Canon, bringing up these texts in a group of fans is certain to split them in various ways. Some consider them more Canon that what actually appears in-game, largely due to the (intentionally) Unreliable Canon nature of the series. Others dismiss them as little more than educated fan fiction. In particular, former series writer (through Oblivion) Michael Kirkbride is considered My Real Daddy by the former group. Kirkbride is credited in particular for establishing the series' famous lore, essentially taking the loose assembly of fantasy elements that existed as of Daggerfall and forming them into a unique Constructed World with a deep backstory, mythology, and cosmology. Kirkbride still does some freelance work on the series, and as of Skyrim, some of the concepts in his works have been officially referenced in-game (the idea of "kalpas," Ysgramor and his 500 companions, and some of the motivations of the Thalmor), moving them to Canon Immigrant status.
- After some 20 years of the series being a single-player Western RPG/Wide-Open Sandbox blend (with a few Gaiden Game style spin-offs), The Elder Scrolls Online brought it into the MMORPG sphere. Main series fans seeking The Elder Scrolls VI were outraged. Complaints range from Online being a blatant cash-in, to radically changing the series' formula, to just plain not being a very good video game in general.
Chrono Cross - Is it an excellent game that brings resolution to the events of Chrono Trigger in a fun and inventive way, or a bad game with too convoluted a plot, too many characters, and too many unanswered questions?
- The cease-and-desist letter sent to the makers of the fan-game Crimson Echoes has also generated numerous cracks in the Chrono fanbase: Was Square right to defend their intellectual property by shutting down the game, or did they act too hasty to crush a nearly-completed work? Were the creators being practical and mature in complying with the letter, or are they cowards for not trying to find a way to put out the game? There's also whether or not Crimson Echoes is beyond awesome in its own right, or a horrible conglomeration of Fanon and half-baked theories.
There are two types of Tetris players: Those who play casually and will accept any kind of Tetris. And then you have those who play the Tetris The Grand Master series.
Mario Kart has this all over, particularly since the DS and Wii incarnations.
- Mario Kart: Double Dash!! became a target of controversy over the pilot-copilot parity, as well as the introduction of special items (last seen in the SNES game). Some fans liked these mechanics while others thought it was too much of a change to the main formula, with others saying it wasn't enough of a change for a formula they perceived as stale (this was also echoed by the critics, particularly from Gamespot and IGN).
- Starting from Mario Kart DS and Mario Kart Wii, there's the question of whether snaking ruins the game or just rewards the skillful. There's the question of bikes versus karts, which gives some people a headache to even be near. There's also arguments over given sets of tracks, particularly in the DS and Wii versions which bring back some of the old tracks. There are even arguments over how the items behave, and which way works best (should fake item boxes block attacks from behind? How should the blue shell work?). About the only thing that the fanbase can agree on is that The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard.
- Going way back, there is a small but vocal group of people who began with Super Mario Kart, the original game, and dislike how items have become a central game mechanic rather than a little addition to what was otherwise standard racing. They consider the series to have taken a nosedive with the second game and consider the only other good Mario Kart game as Super Circuit, which was a close cousin to the original game. There are also arguments on whether or not exploiting glitches in some tracks that lets you jump ahead of everyone by 30+ seconds is legit or cheating.
- Another point of contempt is which character line up in each Mario Kart game is good or not. Just mentioning the baby Mario Bros. or baby princesses will cite flames over whether or not those characters are cool or a waste of space. Metal Mario falls under the same case after his introduction in Mario Kart 7.
- Some fans are happy to see Mario Kart 64's Rainbow Road reduced to a one-lap course in Mario Kart 8. Others feel that reducing it to less than two minutes on a good run takes some of the dramatic feel out of it.
Fallout has this.
- Fallout 3 was produced by a separate company which, rather than producing an RPG, produced an action RPG. Fans of the Fallout franchise were split over the fact that the "sequel" wasn't a sequel in the sense of "being the same sort of game," as well as certain continuity errors and "dumbed down" mechanical elements. While supporters of the game countered with calling the opposition fandumb and They Changed It, Now It Sucks!.
- Fallout: New Vegas had this impact, albeit not as great. Older Fallout fans liked the game for being more like the original games in terms of story, setting, and other elements, while some fans of Fallout 3 have decried it as a simple expansion pack, and one that isn't enough like Fallout 3. Another aspect that divides the fandom is to discuss which is the best ending or the closest thing to a "Golden Ending", between the NCR, House and a good karma Wild Card, (The Legion is usually discarded, although even it is has its fans) with each side giving arguments for each faction. There is another group of fans who believe that there is no such thing as a "Best Ending" and hoping to get one is missing the point, and there is a last sector that believes that the "Best Ending" is achieved by helping the Mojave with side missions, instead of for the victory of the NCR, House or the Courier at the Hoover Dam.
- Fallout 3 had an even louder three-way split over Fawkes' gender, or whether he had a gender at all. This might've died down when the voice actor for the character weighed in during an interview, but it didn't until true Word of God said, "Hey, it's a guy. Who would've thought otherwise?"
- Fallout had a broken base before Bethesda got it in their hands. To some, Fallout Tactics is the 'non-Fallout'. To others it was a game with fun features, and though it missed the heart of what made the others enjoyable, there was a salvageable baby in that canonical bathwater.
- Fallout might be one of the few games that made a broken base with it's first game. Fallout is the Spiritual Successor to Wasteland. Some of the fans of Wasteland refuse to acknowledge the existence of Fallout.
- As the more extreme and vocal isolate themselves, the base looks a lot less broken. Developers and critics may get their ears boxed from time to time, for the most part the unpleasable stick to a forum that's so inciteable it's irresistible bait to Trolls.
- Fans later started debating whether Fallout 4 even deserves to be called a Fallout game let alone an RPG when Bethesda removed many RPG elements from 4. It's not uncommon to hear "Fallout 4 was good on its own but it was terrible as a Fallout game."
- Fallout 76 has created such a large broken base it would be hard to list all examples here. Refer to the games page for examples.
Silent Hill seems to suffer another fracture in its base with every sequel, enough to put the full list of those fractures on a whole separate page.
Day of Defeat - well, there's weaponsmod, which some find intuitive and fun, whilst others complain it makes class selection irrelevant. There's the war about whether or not firing through thin walls is fair play, plus those who play the game as a tense, realistic deathmatch, and those who strictly play as part of their team.
The Crash Bandicoot fandom. There are the fans who refuse to acknowledge any of the games not made by Naughty Dog and hate the later games, the fans who embrace the series as a whole, and those who only like the newer games and constantly hate on the Naughty Dog games. Elements of this breaking include the nomadic change of developers, change of characterization (Crash no longer being a Heroic Mime, but a Taz expy), and the general decline in quality.
Spyro the Dragon:
- Any game made after the original Insomniac trilogy is guaranteed to start a Flame War because of a perceived general decline in quality. Sierra, however, took it up a notch by rebooting the series with The Legend of Spyro, which has a combo-based fighting system, different characters (apart from Spyro, Sparx and Hunter), a surfer-dude voice for Sparx, and an art style comparable to The Lord of the Rings, complete with Spyro being voiced by Elijah Wood.
- Although all Spyro fans agree that 2002's Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly was a highly glitchy, painful-to-play failure, the fanbase is still divided over 2004's British entry Spyro: A Hero's Tail. To some, it's a simplistic rehash of the classic trilogy bursting with franchise clichés (though still an improvement upon ETD), while to others, it's an underappreciated, diverse game with great graphics and beautifully-written music that make it worth playing through at least once for fans of the purple dragon. The same applies to the Game Boy Advance games made by Digital Eclipse, to some they are great underrated games that are faithful to the original Insomniac trilogy, while others dislike the isometric perspective, or see them as uninspired rip-offs of the originals.
- Ship-to-Ship Combat is surprisingly rampant despite the general lack of romance in the franchise. Elora/Spyro vs Ember/Spyro vs Ember/Flame vs Spyro/Cynder are extremely common (even though Cynder isn't even in the same universe as the others).
- Following the success of the Reignited Trilogy, there's been debate about where the franchise should go next, such as whether Enter the Dragonfly would be worth revisiting with more time and polish to allow all the planned ideas, or whether a new story would be worth it.
Counter-Strike has a rather fractured fanbase. There are those who think that Beta 7, 1.3 and 1.5 were the best. That's not counting Condition Zero which is almost identical to 1.6. But just as things were starting to settle down, the Source re-make comes out and further splits the community, mainly between the competitive and more casual players. Don't even visit the forums when an patch comes out because there WILL be something that has completely ruined the game according to some players.
Kirby:
- The series has a bit of a broken base concerning the quality of the games after Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, like whether an abundance of single-move Copy Abilities or a limited amount of multi-move abilites is the way to go (or the "happy medium" in the GBA and DS games), and whether the games should stay fresh with new characters or bring back the old ones like Ribbon, Gooey, the Animal Friends, and Adeleine. There are also debates on the anime version, especially whether the English or Japanese version is better.
- There has been a debate over the different kinds of Kirby games ever since Kirby: Squeak Squad. While not the the extent of the Zelda franchise's They Changed It, Now It Sucks!/It's the Same, Now It Sucks!, there are similarities at its core. Which Kirby experience is better? The Classic style platformers where Kirby absorbs enemies to gain their abilities, or the ones that innovate (the likes of Kirby: Canvas Curse or Kirby's Epic Yarn) where the gameplay is given an overhaul. Critics of the former feel the formula grows stale, whilst critics of the latter feel that it's too gimmicky. Of course quite a few fans like both and want to see what Nintendo comes out with next.
- The debate over Console vs. Handheld games, and whether or not Nintendo favors one group over the other.
- Should the series stay a sidescroller or should it have 3D platformer titles?
- Are Ado and Adeleine the same character or not?
Nintendo fans in general have broken themselves once the Wii came along. Are motion controls an innovative new direction or a cheap gimmick? Should Nintendo be pushing new IPs and courting third parties, or focusing on quality first-party games from established franchises? Whose fault is it that third-party and Mature games on the Wii just plain don't sell? Nintendo's, the developers', or the game-buying public's?
The Nintendo GameCube. You either think that it was a wonderful but underappreciated console or it was one of Nintendo's biggest mistakes. Supporters defend by pointing out the amount of ignored good exclusives while detractors criticize how different those exclusives are from their Nintendo 64 counterparts.
The Wii U broke the Nintendo fan base even further when it was shown to have a tablet-like controller. Fans either like the new controls or hate it for being too much like an iPad.
Nintendo's localization teams use of Woolseyism when translating games; particularly NOA's Treehouse team, which at times has a tendency to put creating entertaining dialogue over maintaining the game's original lore or tone. Anger towards this tends to flare up in more in the fandoms for dialogue-heavy games like Fire Emblem, where this also butts head with content being changed in general to safely secure a Teen rating (as keeping it unaltered risks a Mature rating due to Values Dissonance). Other fandoms are more neutral or even positive regarding this, such as Splatoon and Paper Mario.
The Thief series also has this, to a certain extent.
- The most prevalent bone of contention regards how Thief: Deadly Shadows stacks up against Thief: The Dark Project and Thief II: The Metal Age. Some feel that Deadly Shadows carries the torch of the series, and others think that it was a mistake (and others still who haven't played the first two games anyway). And it's not even mentioning the 2014 reboot...
- And then there is the very classic split between the horror/undead/supernatural Dark Project faction and the mechanical/human-oriented Metal Age faction. In this latter split, you have TDP-fans who love the creepy atmosphere of the first game, the dark (pun not intended) plot, the terrifying critters and mid-to-late game levels, and think that TMA lacked atmosphere and was generally unpolished - to the point where some state that Thief II was noticeably rushed due to the then-impending demise of Looking Glass Studios. On the other hand, the Metal Agers think that the levels in TMA were better designed (with the mid game levels are amongst the best in the series), that the plot was more nuanced than the first game and featured a fantastically mad bad guy, and that the undead/creature levels took away from the pure thievery segments. At the end of the day, however, it basically boils down to one group preferring Hammer Haunts and Burricks, and the other preferring security bots and mechanical Cherubs. It should be noted, however, that there are still many supernatural elements and creatures in Metal Age, just a lot more downplayed.
UB Funkeys is a child's game with many adult players. Amusingly, only the adults have childish arguments over the game - but boy, do they EVER. The first series was the best, the Chat Funkeys are ruining everything, how dare they add so much new furniture, every new Funkey is ruining the series forever, all the designs are either too weird or too generic, and so on and so forth. The fandom is most notably divided over the Nightmare Rift and Dream State additions; either adding alternate dimensions wherein small isolated species have developed and been contained against their will (thus explaining why we never saw them before) is a brilliant concept or a complete and total Ass Pull depending on who you're talking to. (And the voice acting is either so overdramatic it's hysterical or so badly done it's cringe inducing depending on which character and what player you're talking to.)
The Messenger (2018) starts off as a solid Ninja Gaiden-esque game, but plenty of people were so put off by the second half of the game where it turns into a Metroidvania that they don't recommend the game because of it, so it becomes a question of how much you can put up with the Ending Fatigue.
Whether Visual Novels can be considered a game at all, or just a "book on the PC" sparked some debate. Good luck when the subject of Ecchi is used as ammo.
.hack:
- Message boards are usually very peaceful... until you make a poll measuring up "Project .hack" (The World R:1, SIGN, and the original four games^*, plus spin-offs) against ".hack Conglomerate" (The World R:2 and G.U., plus its own spinoffs), leading to an instant flame war. This usually comes down to fans of the R:1 quadrilogy thinking its story is better than G.U's, while G.U. fans argue that its story was more character-driven. This leads IMOQ fans to counter that G.U.'s characters and story were all stock archetypes, leading G.U. fans to retort that most of IMOQ's characters did nothing for their main story whereas G.U.'s "stock" cast and storylines having shown themselves more resilient by proxy of Persona 4, which G.U. bears great similarity to despite Persona 4 releasing a full year later. For fans who like both entries and view the franchise as just one long, ongoing story, these divides generate nothing but headaches. Both sides do agree that .hack//Roots (an anime serving as a prologue to G.U.) was terrible and undermined the following stories in the R:2 media, a sentiment also shared for .hack//XXXX (a graphic novel reinterpretation of the original four games).
- Then came CyberConnect2's announcement of .hack//G.U. Last Recode, a HD remaster and improvement to the World R:2 games. Fans of the first era complained about how their entries were not being remastered, nor made available on PSN/Steam like Last Recode on top of the (Japan- and Europe-exclusive) physical disc. Unlike the above fandom divide, however, G.U. fans are in agreement with girst-era fans that the original games are deserving of a digital release, both due to age and scarcity of all four games, and G.U. having many story points that, while not difficult to understand if a player lacks knowledge of the first era, are enriched if one has experienced what the R:1 games had to offer (as several IMOQ-era characters have their stories continued and advanced in G.U.).
- .hack fans are similarly split over the "third era" content of works set in The World R:X, such as .hack//Link, .hack//Quantum, .hack//Beyond The World (aka .hack//The Movie), and .hack//Versus. While many enjoy the movie, the Quantum OVA has, at best, a mixed reception due to its protagonists and storyline rubbing many the wrong way. As for Link, while many consider it the Holy Grail of unexplored .hack content due to never leaving Japan (on account of poor reception and sales) and are irritated they have no access to what turned out to be an Intra-Franchise Crossover, those who managed to play it and understand its content (through either translators or knowing Japanese) tell horror stories of what they deem to be blatant, obnoxious, and wholly derisive character assassination for much of the returning cast — most notoriously G.U. protagonist Haseo being shown attempting to murder the female lead and love interest Atoli as part of Link's assertion of its protagonist as a stalwart hero. And that's not even touching how Link and the third era attempt to retcon the entire franchise as being the manipulations of a group of ecological terrorists that plots to download everyone into computers so they that would stop harming Mother Earth, a retcon nearly everyone seemed to dislike.
Kingdom Hearts:
- Various aspects of 358/2 Days have done this to the KH fandom. Especially Xion, whom you either hate to death or like very much and think it's a pity that she died.
- This goes as far back as Kingdom Hearts II, actually. Most people can agree that the gameplay changes were for the better, but forget about having a civil discussion over Organization XIII. A lot of people simply think they took too much focus away from the main trio. Yet others think that they were a step in the right direction in terms of expanding on the lore of the Kingdom Hearts universe. So, what are they? A classic example of a Spotlight-Stealing Squad? An entire group made of Ensemble Dark Horses? You'll get very different answers, depending on where you are and who you're asking.
- 3D has also broken parts of the fanbase thanks to Wham Episode-style revelations like Nobodies being able to grow hearts over time, the inclusion of Time Travel, and even Lea receiving a Keyblade. Never mind Nomura statinh that Kingdom Hearts III would only be the Grand Finale of the Xehanort Saga, not the series as a while. It's also a point of contention that there are so many games in between II and III. Some fans think that the handhelds are just cash grabs that make the already complicated plot even worse and didn't do enough to change the gameplay mechanics, while others believe that the handhelds were necessary to build up to III and that there are so many cool moments and gameplay additions that they're worthy series entries.
Knights of the Old Republic has many.
- First and foremost, there's debate over whether or not the first or second game is better.
- LucasArts may have made a "canonical" alignment and gender for Revan and Exile, but bringing the topic of either up is still a great way to get a MythBusters-style kaboom.
- You can also look at the reaction to Star Wars: The Old Republic being a MMORPG here. Tons of fans were mad about the next game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, being an MMO set 300 years after the last game instead of a direct sequel to KotOR II.
- And while the majority of those upset about The Old Republic being an MMO have mostly sighed and given up complaining, it wouldn't be an MMORPG without a forum filled with people complaining about game balance, lack of focus on PvP, too much focus on PvP, game mechanics, and a host of game-specific issues like space combat, species choices, and swimming. Did we mention the game wasn't even out of closed beta yet?
The Breath of Fire fandom generally got along pretty well... and then Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter came out in 2002, with the fanbase firmly divided between those who loved it and those who hated it with the passion of a thousand suns (even refusing to acknowledge it as being in the series). And seeing as, for a long time, this was the last Breath of Fire game released, the Holy Warring only worsened with time, with a sizable portion of the fandom seeing Dragon Quarter as a Franchise Killer. It ultimately wasn't... but only because 2016 saw the release of Breath of Fire 6 as a free-to-play game with microtransactions that was met with widely negative reception and barely lasted a year and a half before ending service.
Call of Duty, one group thinks any thing past #2 sucks, a second thinks anything before #4 sucks. Debates also rage over whether the ones made by Treyarch suck or not and even on what direction the series' setting should go.
- Basically, every time there is a sequel in the series, the fanbase divides itself over whether or not the new game is better than the previous. At first, the sequel is viewed as better, but then becomes hated, and people go back to the previous game. Another sequel comes out, and it happens all over again. Along with that, there are some people who liked it until 4 or World at War, but got tired of how the franchise was being milked by Activision and that the series has fallen into It's the Same, Now It Sucks!.
Modern Warfare 2 had a rather large split after the announcements that there would be no dedicated servers for PC, multiplayer matches would be limited to 9v9, it would be priced at $60, digital copies for PC would be released AFTER physical copies were sold, and some games were banned for not being released from the correct sources. Basically trying as hard as possible to make PC players hate the game.
The Super Mario Bros. fanbase is not as viciously defensive as some of the other examples on this page, but each fan has a different opinion on which games are the best and the worst, and some petty arguments will pop up if two fans with different tastes collide. For example:
- Back during the Nintendo GameCube era, there were debates over the changes and aspects of Mario games like Luigi's Mansion and Super Mario Sunshine, most specifically whether the changes were welcoming or not. In the latter's case, even the detractors are unable to agree on whether the changes (specifically the introduction of FLUDD, the tropical setting of the game and the bigger emphasis on item collection) ruin the essence of Mario or, on the contrary, don't make it evolve enough like the innovations of Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy did.
- Sean Malstrom inadvertently brought into the woodwork the old-school 2D platforming Mario fans who derogatorily call 3D Mario games "Starfinders" in that this is all Mario does in those games against the 3-D platforming Mario fans who argue that finding flagpoles is all 2D Mario does. When New Super Mario Bros. sold like hotcakes, Nintendo became aware of this divide.
- With Super Mario 3D World being on the Wii U, the fanbase has divided more between people who only want non-linear games, like 64 or Sunshine, on home consoles and people who don't mind the linear titles. Even referring to them as "linear" and "non-linear" is divisive.
- The Koopalings, who began as Ensemble Dark Horses and were brought back due to their large popularity in the fandom, have been getting hit with some of this over time. There's a three-way split between those who like them and don't mind them getting more exposure, those who think the franchise is oversaturated with them and that their role as recurring bosses (especially in the platformers) is preventing the games from innovating by introducing new boss characters, and those who don't care one way or the other and just want to play the games, Koopalings or no.
- How story and characterization heavy should the games be? Some prefer their Excuse Plots and want Mario to stay light on plot while other fans think the series ie being held back and wish it would have plots akin to other platformers like Spyro the Dragon and Ratchet and Clank. The latter often feels Death of the Author on many of Sugimori's ideas, such as the Koopalings being unrelated to Bowser, and wishes for them to be canonized along with bigger emphasis on plots.
- Should the games be fully voiced or not? Super Mario Sunshine featured voice acting for cutscenes and major characters however Super Mario Galaxy reverted back to Voice Grunting, largely due to the mixed reception of Sunshine's voice acting. Fans are mixed on whether they prefer voices, prefer random noises, or don't care.
Gears of War fandom is broken due to the morally ambiguous description of the C.O.G. in the extended universe. Particularly the tie in novel Aspho Fields. Then there's the nerfing of the shotty. And with the news that the Gears 3 story will be written by Karen Traviss, reaction is split between "Awesome!" and "We're doomed!"
The Lunar series has a lot remakes, opening the fanbase up to uncivil behavior as fans discuss the comparative merits of different versions. Fans of the Sega CD games tend to condescend to fans of the Playstation remakes. Lunar Legend, the Gameboy Advance remake of the first game, changed a few scenarios and had a different translation style, cue rage. The release of Silver Star Harmony ruffled feathers with the new sprite style, the editing of the world map, the new opening...and the fault lines still remain.
Supreme Commander fans are split on wether the many gameplay and cosmetic changes in the sequel streamline the experience and make it more enjoyable or utterly gutted it of everything that made it worthwhile and unique. Major points of contention are the simplified economy and the research system, although the weaker graphics and smaller unit selection are also frequently brought up. And the game uses Steam, with most anti-Steam threads complaining about updates and such, that it was published by Square Enix (apparently they were responsible for the improving/neutering of the game, that Gas Powered Games developed the Xbox 360 version in-house instead of outsourcing it like last time, supposedly dumbing down the game, etc.
The Civilization fandom seems to be split into at least 3 groups:
- Those who like Civilization 2, those who like Civilization 3, and those who like Civilization 4. The announcement that Steam will be mandatory in Civilization 5 really broke the base. Same goes for the simultaneous announcement about Downloadable Content. Upon the release of Civilization 5, it's proven to be the greatest base-breaker in the history of the franchise and has dwarfed any and all previous division. Opinions range from it being genius that at worst needs some refinement which will come with patches and expansions, to it being an atrocity so at odds with what Civ is meant to be that it's almost fraudulent to give it the name Civilization and something that is beyond repair even with years of work. Battle lines seem to be specifically drawn between Civ 4 fans and Civ 5 fans, because of the massive changes to many long standing and in some cases much loved game mechanics. Civ 4 fans generally believe They Changed It, Now It Sucks! and say 5 is an attempt to dumb down the franchise for the masses, and that the "one unit per tile" mechanic is unrealistic and fiddly, and worse, it was implemented without thinking about whether the AI could be taught to use it. Civ 5 fans think the series had grown stale and too micromanagey by 4, and that 5 streamlined it for the better, and that fighting in Civ 4 consisted of throwing your army at the enemy's and hoping yours was stronger, or your choice of units and upgrades could counter your opponent's well. The fact that Civ 5 was developed by the same team who did Civilization Revolution for consoles also injects a layer of PC vs. Console gamer to the fighting.
- Was Civ 3 Conquests a great expansion pack that added all sorts of new content to the game, or a poorly-thought out wreck that completely shattered the game balance and broke what didn't need to be fixed? Beyond Earth is another one: Solid game with some cool new innovations, or a hackneyed retread of Civ 5 that tries to draw on Alpha Centauri's reputation?
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: There's a pretty sizeable contingent of players today who refuse to use the Alien Crossfire expansion, believing that it skews the mechanics more than it improves them, that the alien factions are not only broken but ruin the game's hard sci-fi feel, that the other new factions feel forced and aren't nearly as interesting as the original seven, and/or that it (and specifically the Cloudbase Academy) shatters the game balance. On the other hand, you've got a lot of players who enjoy the changes that the expansion brought and the new options for units and base facilities, and even occasionally some who like the new factions (although even among SMAX die-hards, there are precious few who will play with the aliens in).
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six have broken bases as well, those who liked the newer games for being a fast pace tactical shooters while others hates it for being too action like and not tactically inclined
Mass Effect:
- Fans are divided over the changes made between the first game and second game: the loss of an inventory system, reduction in the number of powers, the removal of the Charm and Intimidate skills, the change in the way weapons worked (originally an overheat mechanic with infinite ammo, replaced by a "thermal clip" system which effectively adds an ammo mechanic), the Mako replaced by planet scanning, etc. And that's just game mechanics: the storyline is subject to this too.
- For those unfamiliar with the game, ME1 was a classic hero's journey, the only subversion being that Shepard was already well-known in Alliance circles, no matter what origin you chose. ME2 went Darker and Edgier, with most of the plot consisting of building a team of specialists (with some being mercenaries, assassins and sociopaths) to take on a final, deadly mission. Depending on how you played 1, the plot of 2 could also have quite a few absurd moments. There was also a massive shift in tone, practically a change in genre. The first game was all about world-building, presented Shepard as operating mostly on their own volition in their search for answers, and contained a huge number of conversations with random civilians that revealed information about how different groups perceived the universe and each other. The sequels almost totally abandoned this for a more straightforward and action focused narrative, played fast and loose with the established rules of the setting (where they didn't outright retcon them), and stripped Shepard of any agency beyond shooting things.
- Cerberus - well-intentioned extremists or evil human supremacists? On that same regard, how justified is the Virmire Survivor in distrusting Shepard for working for Cerberus?
- The default look for female Shepard, used for advertising the third game and appearing on the Collector's Edition, has turned the fandom into a battlefield. And it's still not as bad as it was when she was blond because a blond Commander Shepard is naught but a Barbie clone. A new poll was eventually held that made her a green-eyed redhead and changed nothing else.
- The inclusion of multiplayer in Mass Effect 3, as well as combat that makes the second game's look slow-paced, has raised accusations that the franchise has become a Call of Duty clone. It would probably be less contentious if multiplayer was not required to get the best ending prior to the release of the Extended Cut DLC, which made it possible to get the best ending without playing multiplayer.
- A small flame war erupted over the unveiling of Tali's face. One half admits that while Bioware was obviously lazy in just photoshopping a picture that was public domain they were overjoyed that Bioware finally gave them a look at what Tali looked like under the helmet and were sure they meant no harm. The other half wants to destroy Bioware for their lack of effort in unveiling her face and demanded a full character model just like every other character in the game.
- The (original) endings of the third game, not so much in terms of the quality of the endings themselves (which were deemed unsatisfactory), but in exactly how vicious the anger regarding them was, with fan-feedback ranging from "BioWare had a good idea but its execution was flawed" to "BioWare doesn't care about its fans and they're dead to me". The Extended Cut DLC, on the other hand, divided the fanbase sharply between "BioWare has totally redeemed themselves," "too little too late," and "So Okay, It's Average." Further divisions rose up when details of a cancelled ending plan and writing team changes were revealed, with some regarding the news as a completely normal occurrence in game development, and others citing it as proof that Executive Meddling ruined the franchise.
- Romances are always a source of fan division, but a rivalry has arisen between fans of the Mass Effect 1 and 2 romances. Fans of the first game's romances are split between being angry over Ashley/Kaidan angrily refusing to join Shepard on Horizon and to a lesser extent, Liara being relatively cold and distant and being more understanding. The fans of the Mass Effect 2 romances will frequently say that the romances in the first game were relatively shallow in their eyes and that Ashley and Kaidan were "boring humans" at best or "bitchy", and at worst, "bitchy" and "racist" (Ashley) "useless" (Kaidan) and wrong about Shepard on Horizon, thus concluding that the romances in 2 (mainly Garrus and Tali ^notewho debuted in the first game) are better. The debate got even more intense in the third game, in which, of the six romance options, only Garrus and Tali return to your party, of the remaining four, Thane dies, Jacob cheats on you and Miranda and Jack have reduced roles. This has led to fans of the Mass Effect 2 romances often complaining about how their pairings were pushed aside in favor of the old ones (specifically, Liara), especially considering that in the original ending, Liara would always be Shepard's last thought if you did not romance the Virmire Survivor. On the other hand, those who chose the Virmire Survivor were relatively upset in Mass Effect 2 that they didn't get any closure in that game while the romances in Mass Effect 2 were focused on and that the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC offer the opportunity to reconnect with Liara and also pointed out that two of the three other love interest party members who returned in the third game were forced in your party with little help of the war gameplay wise other than being a party member. One thing these two groups usually agree upon though is that Liara gets the most focused out of all the love interests.
- On the subject of Liara and focus, even outside of romances, this is a source of controversy among the fans. One camp loves her character throughout the series, her evolution from naive scientist to information broker and eventually Shadow Broker. Others felt her growth was inconsistent, and found her wishy-washy. Others may have been fairly ambivalent, but felt the camera pulled in too tight on her and neglected everyone else. It didn't help that, in the 3rd game, Liara is required for more missions than any other character ^note
- The gay option in Mass Effect 3 is controversial: while only a small part of the base were completely averse to the subject, there is the question of whether or not someone who showed no previous inclination towards homosexuality would shift rather abruptly.
All Points Bulletin, like most MMO's, has an extremely split fanbase over EVERYTHING EVER. APB's fans haven't agreed on anything since the first day of closed beta.
- One of the biggest arguments is Criminal versus Enforcer, which is the entire point of the game. Criminals get no special weapons, but Enforcers get what is called "LTL" or "Less than Lethal". Enforcers can shoot criminals with these LTL weapons to stun, then arrest them, which takes them out of the game longer than killing them. This, of course, caused an uproar of anger among criminal players, who have nothing to balance this with. Realtime Worlds, the game's developer, tries to claim that Criminals earn more money during missions, which balances the combat. Nobody takes this answer seriously.
- Nerfing the N-TEC and OCA has been a raging battle since the game released. Both weapons are extremely overpowered, and because of this, the entire playerbase uses these weapons, entirely neglecting the wide selection of other weapons. There is not a serious player in the game that doesn't use either an N-TEC or OCA. Some people see this as totally okay and say that they would use those weapons, nerfed or not. The other people say that these weapons being so good is detrimental to the game, because nobody uses the other roughly dozen weapons.
- In-game griefing has also been an issue that some players argue over. In-game, APB is entirely open world. All players run and drive around on the same streets - even during missions. However, this allows players, if they want, to ignore all missions, and simply drive around in big cars and blow up other player's cars while they are on missions. Half the game seems to think this is entirely okay, because "That's what an open-world game is for" while the other half thinks that they should just stop being assholes and play the game.
The announcement of Ace Combat: Assault Horizon already is dividing the fandom, and there's only a teaser available. Then the demo was released and people quickly became divided as to whether this was Call of Duty: Aerial Warfare, in spite of the fact that the features present in the demo were completely optional.
There is a small but very dedicated and fanatical group of the Command & Conquer fandom who insist that the only real games were made before Westwood was bought out by EA Games. You are not allowed to like any game released after Red Alert 2 and are expected to declare war on EA. Ever since they took the license, fans have almost universally moaned and complained about the various changes, no matter how small. For example, Generals was criticized for having a Bottom Bar and using a traditional Worker system (yes really, they saw these as legitimate complaints). However, Generals did bring in a particular cult following in the C&C fanbase, and one that still persists up to this point in writing. One criticism leveled at Tiberian Wars was what amounts to research failure and woe betide anyone who liked the game's third faction, but is regarded as a generally decent entry by most fans. Red Alert 3 was complained about by fans because it was Lighter and Softer to the point of being overly camp. Finally C&C 4 has had the most criticism levelled at at because it tried to innovate - ironically, the same fans who complained about General's worker unit system used that as an example alternitive to the Crawler system. While camps for and against these titles have formed (usually along the lines of "X was pretty decent" or "X deserves to go die in a fire"), virtually nobody in the Community defends C&C 4 under the same lines. As is always with this fanbase, YMMV.
The WWE Video Games can get just as heated as the industry fandom itself. Start from pre-vs-post Aki/synSophia/No Mercy fandoms and continue onwards to the feuds between the individual SmackDown titles and the SmackDown vs. Raw and WWE 2K series.
- Much like the real life WWE, there is a debate on whether the developers should put more focus on the current roster or the Legends. Especially after SvR 2009 had no Legends and WWE '13 and 2K14 were themed around the Attitude Era and WrestleMania respectively. One side complains that the inclusion of Legends takes spots away from current roster members and that Legends should be either minimally present, DLC only, or scrapped completely because this isn't 1990 anymore. The more nostalgic fans and detractors of the current product want more Legends to play as, pointing out that a deeper Legends roster will be more appealing to older or lapsed fans and (theoretically) increase sales of the game.
- Likewise with "duplicate" stars. Many claim that they are useless and just take up extra space on the roster screen while others point out that past versions of wrestlers are often times necessary due to differing movesets, stats and personality traits and that a retro model takes up the same amount of disc space as an alternate attire.
- Attitude Era Mode/30 Years of WrestleMania/2K Showcase, either it's a fun look at classic moments or it's useless nostalgia with no replay value that is taking up resources that could go towards anything else. The mode was axed in 2K17 due to fan requests and the lack of available Legends to use for one.
- Goldberg being the pre-order bonus for 2K17. Those who are against it believe it was a bad idea because unlike Warrior, Sting or even Arnold, Goldberg has appeared in previous games with little-to-no hype behind his inclusions and is someone that should have been available on the the disc. Those who support it point out that Goldberg has only appeared in two other WWE games: Here Comes the Pain and WWE 2K14^note that were released ten years apart, that some fans were miffed at getting a non-wrestler the previous year and are happy not only to see the return of one of their favorite wrestlers, but the addition of the WCW Monday Nitro and Halloween Havoc arenas as a reasonable compromise for fans who keep asking for a WCW showcase, which will never happen now.
Dead or Alive is also subjugated to broken fanbase, as it is mostly split on whether their deciding to make the series more into a volleyball/soft porn/beach game than the original fighting game ruined the series or was a big hit. The faction that thinks it's a big hit also is split on whether or not Team Ninja should or even would include actual nudity in the Xtreme/Paradise subseries (similar to a nude beach setting). Then there's the actual fighting games. Are they good fighters in their own right, or are they shallow games with no reason to play them besides for fanservice?
The inclusion of Male Idols in The Idolmaster has provoked an extremely hostile reaction from many fans who hate Project Jupiter with a bloody H. The fact to make room for them they had to turn 4 previously playable idols to unplayable lead to a greater source of flames.
Star Fox:
- Starfox Adventures: Total waste of time and not enough Arwings or lovable new game mechanic and show of the Nintendo GameCube's abilities? Nobody can tell. Another point of debate is Krystal. Long overdue female character, or a boring love interest and Furry Fandom bait to boot? There's also the small-but-dedicated Dinosaur Planet (the cancelled game that Star Fox Adventures is based on) fandom who either think the finalized game was good or that it was terrible and shouldn't have been made into a Star Fox game.
- There's also the Fandom Rivalry between Star Fox and Star Fox 64.
Touhou Project:
- The big one, canon versus fanon. A number of fans don't really approve of ignoring the fairly extensive side material for the sake of comedy (less often, drama). Others argue that Touhou is really all about the fandom, and what ZUN says shouldn't matter.
- PC-98 vs Windows. Mostly an argument over whether the PC-98 games should be considered Canon, as the number of people that legitimately think the PC-98 games are better are neglible.
- The 6th through 8th games versus the 10th game and beyond^note. This is both gameplay-wise (the later games tend toward gimmicky patterns) and story-wise (the story got fleshed-out around that time, and changed things a lot from what they appeared to be). To a lesser extent, the 8th game versus everything else (the most complex, the most content, and some of the best writing and art).
- As of Hopeless Masquerade's release, there are four fundamentally different official fighting games. The entire gameplay style is different in all of them. Naturally, they all have their own fans and detractors.
- Should one have to play the games to be a proper fan? There are a lot of players who enjoy the games but look down on those who primarily focus on the fan material, calling them "secondaries" in a dergatory manner; a lot of these people are also general shmup fans who gloss over lore in shmup games, no matter how intricate it is. Fanwork-focused fans loathe these kinds of players in particular for their gatekeeping and forcing people to enjoy the series in a specific way instead of being allowed to Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game. This divide has gone on ever since the first Windows games came out.
- Easy mode: Is it a useful way to ease Bullet Hell newcomers into the series, or is it a mockery of what Touhou stands for? It's certainly not helped by the "EASY MOODO" meme as well as players who assert that the only mode that exists is Lunatic.
Amongst Shoot 'Em Up fans:
- There are those who prefer older shmups for their manly military aesthetic and dislike the stupendously high bullet counts and girly-looking visuals of more modern shmups, and those who prefer character-based bullet hell games due to their more personality-filled visuals and prettier patterns along with the reductions in Fake Difficulty.
- Playing for pure survival, or playing for score? Survival-oriented players will often dismiss scoring systems, feeling that they needlessly complicate an otherwise-fun game. Scoring-oriented players argue that playing for score makes each game feel unique instead of just "the same but with different patterns and visual style". As examples, Touhou fans will heavily lean towards survival and rarely will you ever see a fan discuss scoring, while in contrast, CAVE and Yagawa fans love to dissect scoring mechanics and figure out how to optimize their scores even if they don't nab a no-continue clear.
- Boss milking: A fun challenge or a form of Padding in the name of high scores?
- What's the best kind of controller to play on: arcade stick, gamepad, or keyboard? It seems to depend on the player's background: Those who have historically enjoyed arcade games tend to obviously prefer sticks, those who "grew up with" console shmups prefer pads, and those who play doujin shmups (especially the aforementioned Touhou) prefer keyboards. World records have been set on all three, but it doesn't stop players from asserting that one is better than the rest.
- The PC ports of CAVE games have been getting a bit of this due to the occasional problems with them. Some think that the porting team will improve over time and that these bugs can be patched out anyway, while others call the bugged launches a prime example of what happens when developers can just push out a half-baked product and patch it later and refuse to support CAVE and Degica on this front.
- How much should shoot-em-ups cost at launch? Do they deserve the same full price tag of $50-60 that modern "AAA" games get too, the idea being that ramping up the price will get people to take them seriously rather than seeing them as quick bucks? Or is that too expensive given the amount of content?
Fans of Diddy Kong Racing are divided over the original game vs. its DS remake. The remake brought numerous new things to the table, such as vehicle upgrades, more customization options, a new game mode, four new characters, and even a track maker. It even moved the Silver Coin Challenges out of the main game to the side, which, depending on how you look at things, could be good or bad.^note However, it also introduced a very disliked new quickstart system (which was a dealbreaker on its own for many people), awkward new controls for the hovercraft, removed Conker and Banjo due to Microsoft now owning the IPs, and made battle games unplayable outside of multiplayer. Both versions have their fans, but never, ever ask which version is better.
Was Space Channel 5 Part 2 HD a good idea? Or was it in poor taste due to Michael Jackson's death?
MechWarrior (and, indeed, the whole BattleTech franchise) has suffered this perhaps the most of any video game franchise in history, and has severely hindered its fanbase. Everyone has a different idea of what Mechwarrior should be. The incredible amount of splitting is due to the following:
- Many games to choose from. If you count up all the installments in the series with multiplayer, including expansions, fan mods, and at least three fan sequels, you've got a lot to choose from. While a lot of fans of a specific game will play whatever is available, every one of these divisions has its fans that simply will not compromise.
- The MechAssault games caused a lot of this, due to their arcade-style gameplay instead of the MechWarrior series' traditional simulator gameplay.
- It is possible to turn off the heat mechanic and make ammo unlimited, drastically altering the dynamic of the game. This has generated two groups: NHUA (No Heat, Unlimited Ammo) and HOLA (Heat On, Limited Ammo). Again, there are many extremists in both groups that will not compromise and play the other if their preferred type is unavailable.
- BattleTech boardgame enthusiasts. These people want the game to be accurate to the boardgame. Some are more reasonable, and just want a resemblence to the source material for Mechwarrior. Others are fanatical and want the things in Mechwarrior to match the things in the boardgame number for number, at all costs. Since BattleTech is a dice-based boardgame, things work there that don't work in an FPS (and would lead to a lot more one-shot deaths!).
- The weapon loadout change in Mechwarrior 4. In most games (and the tabletop), weapons work on a Point Buy, costing a certain number of a mech's "criticals" to install, but can be installed anywhere there's room, save for the really big guns. In MW4, weapons are placed into "slots" of a given type (such as laser slot, missile slots, or wildcard "omni" slots.) To some fans, the change helps differentiate mech chassis from one another and makes loadouts more varied, since you can't simply run the numbers on which gun is best for your tactics and load up on them regardless of mech. To others, it's a glaringly unnecessary change that dumbs down weapon selection and doesn't fit any of the other games or BattleTech.
- Realism enthusiasts. A lot like the BattleTech enthusiasts. These players demand more realism. This isn't unreasonable on its own, as Mechwarrior is simulator that is meant to give the feel of piloting a giant robot instead of a tank or airplane. But extremists want realism at all costs, even at the expense of the gameplay. There is also the matter that 100% realism eliminates a lot of elements in Mechwarrior... such as the Mechs themselves. In reality, there isn't much reason to make a large legged vehicle, and it would be incredibly vulnerable. Relatedly, fans of the original, more Animesque mech designs, and their more agile, humanized behavior, vs. the later Walking Tank designs that look and act much less human and much more like military machines. This is not helped in the slightest by the fact that most of the video games' designers are more-or-less openly in the second camp. (Consider that, in the tabletop game, mechs can engage in melee combat, the one portion of the rules never adapted to any of the video games.)
- Nearly every online mode of each game had multiple fractures. Mechwarrior 2 Netmech suffered from this especially, which had inummerable versions due to constant upgrades to graphics, and were not backwards compatible. Netmech had DOS and Macintosh versions, and 3 Windows versions that weren't compatible with each other. Additionally, this was also before the era of built-in netplay as a standard: in the beginning, Netmech could only play over a LAN, and needed to use a service to play over the internet. There were multiple services, mplayer, Gamespy, Dwango, Kali, Khan, and eventually Activision's anet service. That's just one game! Mercnet (Mech 2: Mercenaries netplay) was split similarily, Mechwarrior 3 is currently split between Gamespy, Gameranger, and the in-game browser, and Mechwarrior 4 is split by the numerous expansions and fan-mods.
Even generally passive fandoms like the Story of Seasons have these:
- Animal Parade vs Tree of Tranquility, updated versions in general vs the original, boy versions vs girl versions vs special editions, Harvest Moon 64 vs Back to Nature, Back to Nature vs Friends of Mineral Town, the typical "game from generation vs game from same generation" war, and possibly most severe of all is the "Classic series (up until DS or Magical Melody according to who you ask) vs Modern series".
- Currently there's a rather large break in the fandom: "Fans who think the series went down hill from 64 and A Wonderful Life", "Fans who think the new games (post-Magical Melody) are horrible", and "Fans who like the new games best". It's often related to how long you've been playing Harvest Moon and whether you prefer flashy and colorful romance or a cute Life Sim.
- Which characterization of characters causes a riot around fans. Have all the characters lost their depth and interest between Harvest Moon 64 and Back to Nature, or are they far superior in Back to Nature? Do you prefer the original Tree of Tranquility guys or the Animal Parade versions? Are the Mineral Town characters annoying in Island of Happiness'' or not?
Tsukihime, the base is broken over whether Ciel's Good Ending is good or not. Half of the base loves it because it's the harem ending, and the other half detests it for the same reason.
Despite Brad Evans actually being gay, the Wild ARMs 2 fandom seems viciously split on Values Dissonance lines over this Single-Issue Wonk.
StarCraft vs StarCraft II. Some fans believe that the second game is a boring, plotless waste of time and money. The other group believes the game is even better than the original and that Blizzard did a great job with it.One group liked the older game, where you had to micromanage the economy at the cost of merely watching combat, and another group likes the newer game, where you can manage the economy from a distance while managing combat instead (but not optimally). The new game also has an automated matchmaking system and "easier" controls, meaning more people who buy the game will actually play it at the cost of a potentially lower skill ceiling.
- There was also the battle over battle.net features; the new version has many new features but dropped many old and beloved features by the release date. After some serious patching, this issue has been mostly resolved.
Hitman got one post-Absolution reveal at E3 2011; although there has been debate in the fandom as to the merit of Contracts and some of the characterisation of 47 in Blood Money, Absolution seemed practically designed to snap the fanbase in half. It features a different voice actor for Diana, possibly a different one for 47 himself (nobody seems sure what's going on there), a different composer to all four other games, 'more action' and attempts to make stealthy players play in a more action-oriented style, a more 'accessible' playstyle and is overall a 'significantly different experience from other Hitman games'.
Though most people agreed that there was a huge improvement between The Sims and The Sims 2, there is a huge debate over whether The Sims 3 is better or worse than the 2nd game. Proponents say that it has more integrated gameplay, open world, and the story progression that families age without you playing makes it easier. Detractors say that the Sims look doughy and overly realistic, there are too many rabbithole community lots and empty venues, story progression makes controlling multiple households harder, and bugs were left unfixed, making the game almost unplayable for some. And then there is the backlash over The Sims 4 with many fans of both Sims 2 and Sims 3 outright despising The Sims 4 for lacking many features that were considered basic features (such as open world and toddlers), having overly linear gameplay mechanics, and looking like a mobile game. However, fans of "Sims 4" say the game runs more smoothly than the previous iteration, community lots are more lively, and includes multitasking that for the first time, allows sims to do two things at the same time.
For such a highly anticipated game, Batman: Arkham City is getting a lot of Two Faced reactions from its announcements.
- "Catwoman a playable character? I thought this was a Batman game!"
- "Penguin not a Gentleman Thief? It's ruined forever!"
- "Riddler using death traps on innocent people? THIS ISN'T SAW!" ^note
- Harley Quinn getting The Other Darrin treatment is really the only justifiable one because her original actress voiced her in the previous game and Hamill and Conroy are returning. Interviews with Tara Strong have set some at ease however.
- And then there’s the announcement/leak Robin will be a Challenge Map character.
Batman: Arkham Origins: Either it's a flawed but still great game or a cheap, sloppy cash grab that does not exist…
Ever since SOCOM 4's release, a good half of the fanbase has been rather... vocal about their distaste. So much so that they're all but declaring [developer] Zipper the reincarnation of Hitler. The complaints are numerous but they all boil down to one core criticism: SOCOM 4 isn't a ''true'' SOCOM game. Nicknames include SOCoD (i.e., SOCOM meets Call of Duty) or 3rd person MAG (i.e., Zipper's other PS3 shooter). Some are even so adamant about their opinion, they're spamming the Amazon forums to declare their distaste, and their acrimony within the official SOCOM forums is raised to intolerable levels. Most gaming critics, on the other hand, agree that it's a decent shooter, while the more supportive SOCOM fans say it's a few patches away from being So Okay, It's Average to being close-to-par with the original SOCOM games.
Another example is in the Rayman fanbase. When Raving Rabbids was released, the fanbase was split into many subsections. Justified due to the fact that the developers completely changed the genre (from platforming to mini-games).
- And with Rayman Origins, it broke the fanbase even further. Some say it's even better than Rayman 1-3, some say it's good but not as good as the first three, some found it disappointing, and then there are those who haven't even played the game but hate it all because of Rayman's characterization (even though they fail to realize that Rayman is very young in this one), and claim that those who like it are newbies who haven't played the first three games.
- Whether 2d or 3d games are the best is another point of contention. Also what is the "right" direction of the series: whether Rayman 2 was too dark and edgy for the series standards or if Rayman 3 was too dense and wacky for the series standards.
Somewhat meta example in the Battlezone fanbase.
- Every time a new public beta of the unofficial 1.3 patch comes out (right now there are no less that 11 versions - it's been in development since 2001), there is much rage by those who don't like the changes. Excarberated even more by the fact that while 1.3pb3 is widely regarded as the most moddable version, the later ones are not really compatible with mods written for previous versions (in one instance, the most popular mod and unofficial sequel Forgotten Enemies was rewritten for pb3 - and one of the testers reported that the new version works much better on pb5 than on the version it was intended for!).
- Some hardline veterans vilify the entire 1.3 series of patches because of how the patch developers changed some things in the physics engine as compared to 1.2, most notably a glitch that enabled hovercraft to fly at any altitude. As the lore goes, the first version of 1.3 took out flying because it was a glitch that gave LOTS of headaches to new players. When the developer was repeatedly flamed for this by angry vets, his response was that he's keeping the change in all future versions but he MIGHT undo it if the flamers apologize.
- 1.3pb6.1 - the newest version - fixed several lagging issues but introduced a rather nasty one that caused multiplayer games with five or more players to heavily lag for a while then simultaneously kick everyone. Lots of flame from accusations of blaming bad internet connections on the developers to calling each other names ensued.
League of Legends. Summoner spells - essentially very powerful abilities on long cooldowns, a valuable addition to the MOBA genre/a crutch to get "undeserved" kills or escapes depending on who you ask. In particular the Flash spell, which teleports you a short distance and can be used to pull off skilled initiation tricks/escape any gank no matter how badly you are out of position. Player opinion is harshly divided about the spell, although many players and even the developers see it as a necessary evil due to its impact on game balance, and others declare the game uncompetitive and its gameplay overly passive solely due to this spell. For what it's worth, almost all professional e-sports players choose it as a matter of fact.
- The only summoner spell there is any agreement about is Revive - the general opinion is that it's the worst summoner spell in the game.
  - And even that's not entirely true, as the small faction of people who play Dominion competitively assert that Revive is one of the strongest possible summoner spell picks on that map.
- Any change, introduction, or update not specifically catered to the will of the fanbase will instantly outrage them. And updates occur once a week.
- New Champions split the base for/against when they are announced and split those bases when they are released. Things get fractal once balance changes start.
In fact, the three big MOBA games in general. DotA, League of Legends, and Heroes of Newerth. All three will argue that Icefrog sucks at balancing and Dota 2's UI is terrible and its art style is unimpressive, LoL is a casualized part-MMORPG that dumbed down the genre, and that nobody should care about HoN because it's the least popular of the three and S2 ruined DotA's balance/are capitalist pigs. Basically, you can't like more than one of these.
The online Doom community has three main multiplayer ports - Zandronum (once known as Skulltag), which supports many of the GZDoom improvements in a multiplayer environment, allowing for a wider variety of mods; ZDaemon, which, based on an older build of ZDoom, is a blend of newschool and oldschool gameplay, but has a release schedule that rivals Duke Nukem Forever; and Odamex, which is open-source (unlike the first two, although Skulltag is supposed to be open-sourced at some point), and strives for a pure oldschool style of gameplay, with a few newschool features like jumping added but disabled by default. Naturally, there are some deep splits in the community based on what port you prefer to use for multiplayer. It's not as bad as some, but Odamexers don't intermingle with Skulltaggers/Zandronumers very often, and ZDaemoners are generally hated by both of the other camps. It's been getting a bit better, though.
- Doom games themselves aren't divisive as severely, though there are still those who hate Doom³ and call it a "flashlight simulator" that lacked the fun of the originals, and those who prefer modern games and think Doom and Doom II are "outdated". And then there are the arguments over whether Doom (2016) was a worthy successor to the original games or not, which includes debates over the viability of SnapMap as a modding tool. Doom 3's reputation began improving over time, among those who prefer the classic games, though some debates remain such as whether its shotgun is a good weapon or not; some appreciate its high power, matching the classic Super Shotgun in that a single shell can potentially do the same damage as a rocket, while others hate it for its extremely wide spread, which wastes a lot of that potential beyond extremely close distances.
- The modding community also has its own nitpicks - some players will gripe over any mod that requires jumping, other become angry at mods that disable jumping (overriding the source port's controls is possible), weapon reloading, amount of detail (some want as much detail as can be packed in, others want it minimized, just like how the original developers intended, a.k.a. "the way Id did"), etc.
- The mod Knee-Deep In ZDoom tends to get some degree of arguments going for various reasons, including the expansion of remastered Episode 1 maps which was considered an improvement by many and unnecessary by others, and the boss fight being either a good, climatic showdown with a new monster or a completely ridiculous battle with a creature that comes with little foreshadowing.
- Once upon a time there was much arguing over Final Doom going from a freeware mod to a commercial project.
Situations goes from bad to worse at Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch when the subject is rendering engine, OpenGL users vs Software-Rendering users. This is so serious, that even poking the subject starts a flame war, specially if you consider most developers (Whether of the main game or of mods) actually uses OpenGL. In fact, there's a LOT of conflict within the community, but they still keep stuff going just fine. It's like a group of friends that argues a lot among themselves but gets things done. Most of the time, done RIGHT.
Almost every update for Minecraft breaks the fan base into smaller and smaller pieces. The biggest one came from the enchantment system that uses experience points to power up tools and armor. This caused the fan base to be split up between people who are for the feature and others that are against it by saying how the game is now too much like an RPG.
- The shattered fan base also shattered themselves further when Notche had announced that Minecraft would be coming to the Xbox 360. Fans declared that Minecraft was now utterly ruined because they felt Notch either sold out or would make the game appeal more to the frat boy FPS fans.
- The fan base is now divided over who is the better developer of the game. Once Jeb took over as head developer after Notch stepped down and started to push out more features, people either say Jeb is awesome and Notch sucks or how Jeb is changing too many things.
- Naturally, the base got even more broken when one of the snapshots showed single player and multiplayer being combined as one. This means that when you play alone, you still connect to a server, namely yours. Fans somehow interpreted the changes as letting anyone, griefers included, getting into your game unannounced and how being on a server will lag the game even more. Others counter that single player and multiplayer coding will be the same so bug fixes can be done faster and how online games will have invites instead of open servers.
- Don't like a feature for a legitimate reason (oceans are ridiculously big, who has time to travel all that?)? Then you're a whiner.
- Every update always brings about a flame war over whether or not Minecraft was better off with Notch or Jeb.
- While most players like the basic idea of phantoms (a flying, evil mob), the fact that they only attack you if you haven't slept in three days is controversial, since some think it's clever, while others think it feels too patronising and/or is unproductive since many players mine at night.
Step one: Mention Steam on the forums for the X-Universe. Step two: Watch the normally amicable and helpful forum turn into a war zone.
- The sticking point is that the games up to and including X3: Terran Conflict have been available both with and without Steam. Starting with X3: Albion Prelude and continuing to the yet-to-be-released X: Rebirth, Steam is required. The flame wars have gotten to the point where the moderators have basically banned talking about Steam except for one particular thread, and Egosoft has promised a no-Steam-required executable for Albion Prelude.
- Also, multiplayer, whether MMO or something smaller like an arena. The boards seem to be split about 70-30 against, with the biggest worry of the antis being that it would attract trolls and griefers.
Character selections in general for long running series. Developers can never avoid pissing someone off whenever a beloved character from a previous game doesn't appear in the next game or how a popular yet-never-appeared character still hasn't been included in the character roster.
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger was a serious game, with a Crapsack World, lots of Black-and-Gray Morality, and a dark, epic tone. It's sequel, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, had more Fanservice, more humor, genuinely good characters, and was generally Lighter and Softer. Some believe the sudden shift for Continuum Shift meant the BlazBlue series couldn't be taken seriously anymore and was subsequently wrecked, and some like the fact that the game has avoided the pitfalls so many Darker and Edgier games fall into.
- Also, Continuum Shift 2 is either the most balanced and polished version of the game yet, or an inferior version with a metagame that rewards you for trapping your opponent in the corner and raping them rather than pulling off a stylish combo.
- Even though she's generally well-liked, the consensus on Mak oto's Stripperiffic new outfit when she was announced was split down the middle. Some fans said it was shameless Fanservice, and other fans defended the outfit, for more clear reasons.
- Slight Hope has to be mentioned, as the story itself is a major source of Makoto's current Broken Base. One side supports it, commenting on how it expands on Makoto's role in events and elaborates on several pieces of other characters' stories (Rachel's Character Development, Tsubaki's Mind Rape, Litchi's memory deterioration and Boundary corruption). The other side rejects it, broadsiding it on pushing Makoto's role too hard for their tastes (even though her relevance had been elevated bit by bit throughout Continuum Shift proper and in her Arcade mode). Somewhere in the middle is a group that tries to make sense of the story in a way that appeases both sides, but the far camps are particularly loud. They're basically the ones calling the shots.
- NOL overall. One base think it's an organization version of The Empire that's only interested in expanding their power at cost of people's welfare, where every rebel, no matter how 'bad' (like Sector Seven) is going to be honorable La Résistance who fights for the people, one base thinks that NOL is ultimately a Well-Intentioned Extremist organization that fell in the manipulation of Terumi and Relius, but otherwise are really the ones who would give a damn about the other people's welfare, while 'resistances' like Sector Seven are just as bad and deplorable and the ones that doesn't give a damn for the people, only interested in filling their own ambitions, setting up a Black-and-Gray Morality.
- The lack of an English dub in BlazBlue: Central Fiction has caused this: While some fans don't mind the English voices that much, others think its absence ruins their enjoyment of the game, as they grow fond of them since the first game.
Mario Party 9 has become this due to the massive changes in the mechanics of the game. People are either for the changes or against it. Then Mario Party: Star Rush vastly shook up the core gameplay again, splitting the player base into three.
Dynasty Warriors Online suffers from this.
- There are a few splits that pop up from time to time, such as if a weapon is overpowered. If you look through the forum history you will see legions of splits on one thing or another. One of the longer running problems is "musou", more specifically whether it's overpowered or fine. It's died off as new weapons and abilities popped up.
- You either go Honor and Fame farming or Item, Gear and Weapon farming. That's another point where the community splits. One side is all above fighting other players, even sitting through a Campaign lobby to hold out for enemies while the rest of the players just want to farm items with no player enemy. The other side only wants to rush to a battlefield with no player enemy to quickly harvest all they can and get things done. It doesn't help the game's PvP is broken beyond belief due to Backwards Reconciliation causing hits to be "delayed" on another player, which usually makes easy for the player to forget where his enemy is and was.
Asura's Wrath presents another example of a base that has people that enjoy the unique way the game plays, with others basically hating how it's basically mostly QTE's and most of the gameplay elements aren't all that apparent. In spit eof the fact that there are plenty of playable segments throughout the game, and the game was intentionally supposed to come off as an interactive anime since the beginning of development. Similarly, the DLC has gotten some controversy for having a DLC "ending" (Even though if you look carefully, it's full new part and not just an ending that is being given to you).
The fanbase for Godzilla Unleashed is divided over whether or not the Wii version is better than the PS2 version. Also, the fans are divided over Krystalak and Obsidious. Some fans argue that they are decent monsters that provide original characters to the game. Other fans, however, argue that they replaced other Toho monsters that they'd rather see in the game.
Is the ending of Abobo's Big Adventure sheer undiluted awesomeness or just disgusting gorn, even by the game's standards?
[PROTOTYPE 2] created a sharp divide between fans of the first game. Many people were upset that original protagonist Alex Mercer was now a megalomaniacal villain with few similarities in terms of attitude or motivations to his character arc from the original (with the reason for his shift being revealed only in side material), while there were others who felt that Alex wasn't a particularly good protagonist anyways, and the improved gameplay more than makes up for the change.
Homeworld:
- The fanbase had a brief but spectacular Flame War on Relic Entertainment's official forum over the question of whether or not the Khadeshi - Two Mission Wonders turned Ensemble Darkhorses - were actually wiped out during the events of the first game. New threads raising the question are locked on sight.
- Ambiguously canon "standalone expansion pack" Cataclysm was pretty divisive as well, with a lot of people disliking its Genre Shift away from Space Opera and the introduction of Cosmic Horror elements but many enjoying the fact that it fleshed out a lot of background elements to the game's world that'd previously been confined to the game's manual.
- Homeworld 2 Retconned multiple points of established canon, suffered from several Plot Holes and was generally rather rushed; Relic had run out of money with a long way still to go before realising their original lofty ambitions and the game was somewhat thrown together. Opinion is sharply divided on whether it's "pretty good but could have been far better" or "ruined the series permanently".
Fate/stay night: Going on a forum and asking which of the three routes/heroines is your favorite is a surefire way to start an argument among fans.
- Heaven's Feel in general is divisive. Is the route just as good or even better than the other two routes, or is it poorly written and excessively dark? Is Sakura a Woobie who isn't to blame for the deaths of hundreds of people, or is she an Extreme Doormat who bears at least some responsibility for the aforementioned deaths? Is Shirou giving up his ideals for Sakura's sake a good thing, or is the Mind of Steel ending more in-character? Which ending is more appropriate, the true ending or the normal ending? Fans will never agree.
- On another note, say anything about Fate's epilogue in the Realta Nua version, positive or negative. Have fun roasting marshmallows.
Saints Row:
- When the third installment came out, the fanbase had a split. Some fans greatly enjoyed the extremely over-the-top antics and comedy of The Third, and hoped to see its zany elements expanded upon. Others greatly disliked the tonal shift from the first two games (which were more grounded and along the lines of Grand Theft Auto), finding the humor and action to be juvenile. The former holds that the series has come into its own after Follow the Leader. It doesn't help that many were inevitably disappointed due to Saints Row 2 being a Tough Act to Follow. But, most of all, no matter what else you do, never mention Johnny Gat's death. There are also the opinions on the massive changes in the characters. Some preferred SR2 stoner Shaundi, while some like the more professional version in The Third (But most fans support Pierce's change from typical gangsta to a more suave character).
- Saints Row IV has also been divisive; while some fans liked the new superpowers, the throwbacks to previous games and the return of Johnny Gat, others disliked the game for being even Denser and Wackier then the previous game and didn't like the shift to fighting aliens in a computer simulation instead of fighting gangs in the real world like in previous games. And then there are the people who decried it for being too much like a Mission-Pack Sequel to the previous game.
PAYDAY: The Heist had a stable and pleasant fan base until a secret was hinted to be in the game. Thanks to the developers giving out very vague hints, the fan base eventually split up into smaller groups just to find the secret for themselves so they could get credit. Once the secret itself was revealed and its methods were shown, the fan base fell apart. To access the secret itself, people needed the gold masks, which are only earned by beating the first 6 levels on the highest difficulty (far from an easy task), wait 2 hours (real time) for a door to open, and then press specific tiles in the floor to open the vault (pressing the wrong one releases deadly gas), all while doing everything on the highest difficulty. The fan base grew divided between people who thought the methods to get to the secret were fine and people that were upset that they could not access the secret because they didn't have the gold masks. It also didn't help that players only had one month to get to the secret if they wanted the masks inside the vault and another prize.
- After the event was over, the developers left the secret vault and its pile of gold in the game and changed it where anyone, regardless of their mask, can access the vault, it could be done on any difficulty, and the 2 hour wait was reduced to 30 minutes. Players quickly used the secret vault to Level Grind with minimal effort and the fan base quickly demanded for the vault to be put back to its original requirements.
- The game eventually got a sequel and fans grew divided over the direction it took; instead of having large and visually pleasing maps that look like something out of a Hollywood film, the sequel used smaller maps and smaller heists for quicker "run in, steal shit, run out" rounds and promoted the character skill and level up system. Fans either love the new mechanics that let them approach heists in multiple ways or they hate how the heists are simply not epic enough.
There are three types of Jet Set Radio fans: Those who love Classic but dislike Future for the sole fact that it's easier, those who love Future but dislike Classic for being too linear and hard, and those who enjoy both games. Most fans enjoy both games, but you will run into quite a few people who like Classic but not Future, and people who like Future but not Classic.
Monster Hunter:
- Monster Hunter 3 (Tri): Some aspects of the game divided the Monster Hunter community back in its day. Was the game's release on Nintendo's Wii the right choice or not, considering that the previous games were only available on Sony systems? Is the underwater gameplay a great idea or not (and if the former, was it properly implemented or it could have been better)? Does the addition of the Medium Bowguns and Switch Axes compensate the removal of Dual Blades, Gunlance, Hunting Horn, and Bow? Should there have been more monsters from previous games, or was it the right choice to present a predominantly new bestiary? Many of these topics were addressed in Portable 3rd and 3 Ultimate.
- Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate: Are the Apex monsters a brilliant challenge or do they show that you can take That One Boss too far?
- Monster Hunter Frontier:
  - The issue of whether it's is an awesome game that deserves to be localized for international gamers, or a hilariously broken spinoff that should just stay in East Asia.
  - Monsters from the main series appearing in Frontier. Some people are fine with the main series and Frontier integrating, while others see a Double Standard; sure, monsters from the main series get to show up in the spinoff, but no spinoff monsters sans Hypnocatrice and Lavasioth get to appear in the main series?
- The series' Competitive Balance being affected by the overall changes in mechanics (new weapons, special moves, monsters and monster abilities, items, armor skills, etc.) is another major point of contention between the fanbase, with some veterans claiming that the newer mechanics have shifted the emphasis away from methodical combat and more into hack and slash territory in many different ways^note while defenders of the changes are claiming that many of the additions were not only needed to breathe new life into the series, but were also necessary for addressing quality of life issues that the original titles had in spades.
- Even the method of playing the game can divide the players. Is it more fun to find ways to speedkill monsters and therefore avoid tedium and frustration, or is it more exciting to drag out and analyze the fight in order to show that ugly wyvern some fancy tricks of your own, like cutting off its tail right in the middle of its sure-kill attack?
- Monster Hunter Generations:
  - A contention that arose with the Hunting Arts + Hunting Styles mechanic is the rise of the "Meta Only" attitude among a portion of the fans. While the mentality has been present in earlier installments^note, the fact that certain weapon and armor skill combinations work extremely well with certain Art / Style combinations has given birth to a mentality that if you're not using Meta-approved gear and Hunting Art / Hunting Style setups, you might as well not join a lobby.
  - Is the high emphasis on style and action an exciting way to shake up how players hunt, or is it a disservice to the franchise's tried-and-true formula?
  - Is Generations' overhauled upgrade mechanics^note a great way to cut down on the franchise's infamous grind and make the series more accessible for newcomers, or does it alienate older fans by removing a key component of the series that made it unique?
  - Is there enough content in the game? This is an especially sore point for Westerners, as it's been a while since they last received a Monster Hunter game with no G rank (Tri; Portable 3rd and vanilla 4 were skipped over) and thus have likely gotten used to games having three rank tiers instead of two. Then there are those who point that there's so many different monsters — more than 4 Ultimate, in fact — and equipment pieces that the game can be forgiven for it.
  - Are Hyper Monsters more fun to fight than Apex or Frenzied Monsters? Are they at least a reasonable replacement?
  - When it was announced that Generations Ultimate would add the option to transmogrify two pieces of equipment together, putting the stats and skills of the first item on the model of the second, the reception was mostly positive, with people liking that there would be more diversity instead of everyone wearing one of a few armor sets in the late game. However, some people dislike that it removes "Fashion Hunting", the art of coming up with original combinations of armor that both look and perform well.
  - Showing "true attack" like in Generations, Generations Ultimate, vs "bloated attack" like in other games. Basically, in most games, each weapon's true attack is multiplied by a weapon type-specific constant not used in any damage calculations to produce the attack value you see on the screen. Some players prefer having true attack shown since it is the number used in damage calculations and it lets the player see if their weapon is as powerful as it should be given the monster they are hunting. Others prefer bloated attack since while it may not be necessarily accurate, it still gives the player a rough idea of how powerful their weapon is since true attack does not take things like "motion values" (a multiplier applied to each attack move) into account.
- The existence of Monster Hunter: World (and eventually Monster Hunter: Rise, as well as their respective expansions) created a permanent rift between fans of "classic" Monster Hunter and modern. Classic MH fans prefer its more deliberate gameplay and focus on the monsters, and see World as casual garbage with a lackluster endgame. Fans of World prefer its more accessible gameplay and greater detail, and trying to convince them to try older games will lead to responses of "why would I want to play an objectively worse game?" The release of Generations Ultimate after World in the West solidified this, with classic fans cheering that their style of Monster Hunter is still alive, while those who started with World or see it as an upgrade in every way scoffing at the idea that Capcom would bother with a game that they view as outdated and not worth localizing anymore.
The ending of The Last of Us—due in no small part to the game's Grey-and-Gray Morality—has been divisive among those who have played it regarding which character involved crossed the Moral Event Horizon. The game hints that the fungus directly alters a host's brain, so when Joel and Ellie finally reach the Fireflies' headquarters, their leader, Marlene reveals to Joel that the operation required to synthesize a hypothetical vaccine would inevitably kill Ellie. By this point, Joel has developed an essentially familial bond with her, and after she has ordered a troop to remove him from the premises he kills said troop and proceeds to fight or sneak his way to the operation room. Upon arrival, he may or may not kill any or all of the surgeons present before carrying Ellie out, and killing Marlene when she attempts to dissuade him in the parking garage; effectively destroying current Firefly leadership and, given the fact that they were already on the defensive, possibly hampering any attempts of synthesizing a vaccine. At first, it would appear that Joel is clearly a case of Villain Protagonist. However: a fairly easily overlooked recorder on the upper level of the complex mentions that Ellie was not the first immune, and that they had operated on many in the past which did not yield the desired vaccine; only considering Ellie in that her case appeared to be different, and that she would possibly yield better results. This, added to the fact that many wondered whether a vaccine was truly practical, especially given the cost of such a vaccine, led many to believe that Joel actually prevented yet another unnecessary death and that Marlene and her Fireflies were sacrificing too much. It remains a subject of heated debate, still.
The Last of Us Part II:
- The game's early plot twist: Joel's death at the hands of Abby.
  - Supporters commended Naughty Dog and Neil for making an incredibly bold decision, felt it was necessary for Joel to die as a consequence for his actions and felt it fit perfectly with the theme of revenge, loss, and mercy. Fans of the original game went ballistic, saying that not only did the scene betray what made the predecessor so special, but Joel was killed in such a contrived and anticlimactic way that it was unemotional and rather laughable at best. A third group confesses that they were okay with the plot point in theory considering many had guessed it would happen before the leaks went public, but felt that the execution was poor and ultimately why many were upset about it.
  - As evidenced by him letting his guard down constantly and even giving out his name unlike the cautious and Properly Paranoid man he was in previous game, Joel's overall behavior was also extremely debated by defenders of the second game and fans of the original game. For defenders, they claim that since Joel lived in Jackson for four years, it was only natural that his survival instinct had begun to dull. Fans of the original game believed that living in Jackson for four years doesn't eliminate the fact that Joel is an experienced survivor and he wouldn't have let total strangers know so much about him or his brother and get the drop on him so easily. Even further, the complete lack of foreshadowing of Joel losing his survival edge makes the assertion feel forced.
- Was the infected taking a backseat in the narrative necessary? Supporters claim that focusing on the infected was unnecessary as it would have put less focus on the theme of revenge and that it already has enough infected shown to the point that they really weren't taking a backseat. Fans of the original game believe that a lot of opportunities for the infected could have been shown, as shown by the Rat King, and thought that the infected should've had more importance in order to learn more about them and expand on the lore.
- Is a theme of revenge really an appropriate choice for a story with two playable characters where the plotline is each character taking revenge on the other? Supporters argue that this is the point: Seeing both characters fleshed out supports the theme of how bad revenge is. Fans of the original game argue that trying to humanize the target of a revenge story makes the player uninterested in the protagonist getting revenge.
- Whether Abby's sections and her development should have been excluded. Supporters believe that not only does it allow two different perspectives and allow players to make a connection to Abby and empathize with despite her actions, while others argued that her sections were poorly paced and too outside of the overarching plot, feeling more like a string of random side quests. In addition, they believed Abby's section should have been DLC as it would have made Abby a more compelling enigmatic figure in the base game.
- The climactic battle between Ellie and Abby is the second most controversial part of the story. The fact that Ellie spared Abby as a sign of mercy was baffling to many fans. Detractors saw this as an extreme Ass Pull as Ellie had no thoughts about sparing Abby beforehand and that it would have been better if Ellie killed Abby as a sign of her making a terrible mistake and having to live with it, which would have been a bold choice. Supporters argued back that Ellie sparing Abby was actually a bold choice for Ellie because it ultimately breaks the cycle of revenge. In addition, the fact that she thought about Joel before murdering Abby makes it look more like that Joel wouldn't want her to throw everything away just to avenge him.
Planet Puzzle League allows you to use the Nintendo DS stylus to move blocks, instead of the series-traditional method of using the control pad and a button. This can be used in online matches without penalty. Considering that a lot of veterans started out with the original Panel de Pon / Tetris Attack on the SNES, this feature is VERY controversial.
Jojos Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle:
- The declaration that the priority would be making it a good fan-service game first, a well-balanced fighting game second. Although, players who'd rather have it the other way around probably doubt CyberConnect2's ability when it comes to the latter anyway, so maybe it's for the best.
- Making Yoshikage Kira, one of the Big Bads and one of the most popular villains in the series, DLC-only has ruffled quite a few feathers, despite it being free in first-print copies (to serve as a buy-it-early incentive).
- The fact that the game runs at 30 fps, which for fighters generally means there's input lag for commands. Though it's considered to be a better option than trying to force the game to 60 fps, which would cause variable frame-rate issues (a criticized problem with MvC3).
- Shigekiyo "Fatty" Yanguu making it into the game initially over other, more popular JoJo heroes and villains, even if he is DLC, has split the base. Doesn't help that Shigechi was yet another Scrappy of Part 4, making Part 4 the most bloated in terms of character representation.
- Part 4 in general has it the worst since in addition to having Josuke, both versions of Kira, Rohan, Koichi and Okuyasu, it also has the significantly less popular Akira and more infamously, Shigekiyo "Fatty" Yanguu instead of... anyone from the later parts who has actual fans.
- Baoh's announcement has also caused another Broken Base; some really like Baoh, and are pleased to see him in, using the basis of this still being a manga of Araki to justify his inclusion, and others say this is a Jojo game, that should be reserved only for Jojo characters, and that regardless of who they were created by, no-one from any other manga or source should be allowed. Of course, he's DLC, so if you don't want him, you don't have to have him.
Many non-Japanese fans of Konami's previous Shoot Em Ups have a cold reception towards the Otomedius series. The complaints usually aren't about the gameplay, but the amount of Fanservice and Stripperific characters. Never mind that Otomedius is meant to be a Self-Parody, although some do have complaints about its grind-heavy but otherwise very basic Gradius gameplay to the point of considering other Cute Em Ups superior in this regard, so there is still a divide on whether the satire works or not.
Like the Otomedius example, there are some fighting game veterans that have a cold reception to the Arcana Heart series just because it has an all-girls cast filled with Fanservice and Stripperific characters.
Project × Zone:
- More than a few people online are annoyed that some of the cooler characters in the game (like Sanger and Heihachi) are in the game as support units rather than fully playable roles.
- Some Street Fighter fans are upset at the fact that Seth is the Villain representative for the series and not M. Bison. To be fair, Dictator is already dead at this point from The Verse's timeline. Of course, he did come Back from the Dead in his game as well. However, if the opening of the sequel is any indication, M. Bison will be returning.
- And there are some of the fans who think that the entire plot of the game is just an Excuse Plot.
- Because Sonic the Hedgehog is not included in this game, a lot of people weren't exactly happy about it. Then again, that blue hedgehog is a Broken Base mine already all on its own, albeit to be fair, neither Klonoa nor many other furry/non-human-looking characters from Capcom, Namco, Bandai or Sega appears here, the ones that do appear are villains, not to mention Sonic the Hedgehog is more popular in the U.S. and some Western countries than his native Japan. Then there's also the matter of if that, or Sega, or the game's content is the reason why he isn't included.
- There is also the topic on whether or not the game, mechanically, is actually good, or just becomes a chore after a while.
- Some Good News and Bad news about the sequel. The Good news is Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey are in it. The Bad news? They've been confirmed to be assist characters instead of fully playable. Likewise with Axel Stone
- Female characters, specifically Pai and Xiaoyu and Black Rose and Estelle seemingly being replaced with male characters Kage, Kazuya, Haseo and Flynn (who was in the last game, but as solo unit) in the sequel was not well received. It turns out that Xiaoyu, Pai, and Estelle actually DO appear in the sequel, however the latter two are now solo units.
- Were Kogoro and Mii victims of underdevelopment to their characters in the first game and deserve a return in the sequel to properly do so or are they shafted because of being overshadowed by more popular pairings like Reiji and Xiaomu and the rest of the roster? Given their absence in Project X Zone 2 and Reiji/Xiaomu ascending back to protagonists, indications point to the latter; additionally, Kogoro and Mii being accused as Flat Characters who had less plot relevance (despite being the main characters) as the party grew larger, unintentionally making them unappealing and unvaried compared to other pairings. The fact that Brave New World shows the Koryuuji mansion late in the game yet the two don't make an appearance and are only mentioned in passing has peeved the Kogoro/Mii fans more.
- Regarding character inclusions and overall series representation, a lot fans have become pretty vocal about the amount of representation Sakura Wars is getting compared to their own favorite franchises overlooked or not getting as much focus - most notably due not only having all 4 characters returning as pairs, but receiving two new bosses on top of previous two returning from the last game. By contrast, Street Fighter and Tekken receive a lot of representation as well, but due to their overall popularity and being the most well-known series of Capcom and Bandai Namco, fans believe their representation is justified. And even then, they don't have as many characters as Sakura Wars has in this game^note.
- Some fans of Sakura Wars see this justified due the franchise being one of SEGA's juggernaut properties, having lived the glory days as the major franchise and Killer App for Saturn in Japan and has quite an expansive media and legacy stretching to present day.^note
- The very inclusion of a Hot Springs Episode in the second game. While it's a completely optional cutscene that's played for Fanservice, the fact that it's only available on the New Game Plus doesn't help either. Is it worth viewing on a second playthrough or not?
The broken base between fans of Devil May Cry and the reboot DmC: Devil May Cry was massive and toxic, not helped by the fact that both Capcom and Ninja Theory had delivered a point-blank Take That, Audience! at several points (in-game and in interviews). To show how bad it was, the estimation for edit warring on TV Tropes was so bad that the Work, YMMV, and Character page for DMC was locked two days after its release, and wasn't unlocked until February 2014, a full year after it came out.
In the tumblr community for Danganronpa, do NOT go talking about Chihiro's gender identity if you want to stay sane. If you claim he's comfortable as a male, as he is in canon, you'll get people bashing you for "erasing trans representation" or just being transphobic. If you claim he's a transgender female, unless you handle things extremely carefully and even then it can still happen, you'll get people bashing you for misinterpreting his story arc and perpetuating gender roles simply because he wears a dress. No matter what you say, someone will be angry.
Bravely Default features a standard RPG plot involving saving the world from Darkness and fighting the Evil Duchy. Once you've awakened all the Crystals and summoned the Holy Pillar of light... you wake in the same inn from the first chapter with all of your hard work undone. Cue four chapters of replaying the same thing over and over again, with little variances, if you want to unlock the true ending (you can still unlock one other ending as soon as the cycle begins though). Some fans find it to be interesting and a good way to explore minor characters that were previously killed. Others find it repetitive and tedious, but push through for the sake of completion. Still others ragequit the game after this reveal, vowing never to pick it up again.
While nowhere near as being a bad game, Shock Troopers: 2nd Squad was ill received by fans of the first game due to the game being much different than its predecessor, its more cartoony graphic style, and the more limited choice of characters and paths.
Whether or not Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is a worthy sequel to Hotline Miami, and whether or not it's better or worse in terms of gameplay and story is something still being debated by fans.
BEMANI. Let's count the ways...
- DanceDanceRevolution:
  - Holding onto the safety bar: A fair-play tactic or a Game-Breaker?
  - Fans of more classical DDR games versus modern DDR. Fans of the former cite the much more social community back in the early years of DDR and the timeless Dancemania licenses, while fans of the latter enjoy Konami's efforts to make DDR more competition-viable.
  - Goods counting towards combo as of DDR (2013). Some decry it as devaluing full combos, while others point out that it doesn't matter when it doesn't affect scores at all. Ironically, players who complain are generally low- to mid-level players, while the ones who don't are the ones who are skilled enough that "PFC" (Perfect Full Combo) is part of their everyday vocabulary.
- The consumer ports of jubeat and REFLEC BEAT: A useful alternative for those who don't live within driving distance of a cabinet (i.e. nearly everybody outside of Eastern and Southeastern Asia), or overpriced as hell at $4 for a 4-pack of songs?
- Whether "FLOWER" is an awesome track deserves to be the BEMANI "national anthem" or is a So Okay, It's Average song that has had way too much exposure.
- VENUS: Fun Ho Yay songs to play and listen to, or needless pandering to yaoi fans?
- The inclusion of VOCALOID and Touhou Project crossovers, especially once these crossovers became no longer limited to SOUND VOLTEX: A great way to attract new players, or Konami becoming sellouts?
- jubeat saucer had one regarding its song swap system: Did regularly swapping songs in and out help encourage players to try different songs, or was it just a Scrappy Mechanic that arbitrarily shrinks the songlist? Opinion seems to be in favor of the latter, as Konami did not bring song swap back for future jubeat versions.
- Any time a new version of a game adds hold notes (beatmania IIDX 17 SIRIUS, DDRMAX, jubeat prop), a subset of players complain that it "turns the game into O2Jam". (O2Jam, a non-BEMANI rhythm game, is derided by many players for having charts that use hold notes as a form of Fake Difficulty.) However, detractors generally chill out after one or two more new versions.
- beatmania IIDX INFINITAS. Some dislike the very limited songlist (so far, it mostly just consists of songs from beatmania IIDX 17 SIRIUS) especially in conjunction with the subscription fee of 1598 yen per month. Others are just glad that Konami finally put out a new consumer version of IIDX after six years and are hopeful that they will eventually start expanding the songlist.
A point of contention amongst Rhythm Game enthustiasts is games that use full-length songs (mostly seen in Western rhythm games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero) vs. games that use songs that are 2 minutes or cut down to that size (mostly seen in Eastern rhythm games like the BEMANI franchise, especially arcade games). Those who enjoy longer tracks like being able to act out Epic Rocking in video game form and see 2-minute songs as an artifact of arcade games and 2-minute cuts as butcherings of excellent songs, while those who prefer shorter songs cite that songs that get particularly long easily fall victim to Ending Fatigue and are very tedious to play, especially since many rhythm game players will play the same songs many times; for some players, failing out of a 7-minute song near the end is exceptionally frustrating.
Amongst First-Person Shooter players: Keyboard-and-mouse or gamepad? KB&M players cite the better precision of a mouse and far more buttons/keys to assign commands to as reason for their preference, while pad players like being able to play comfortably on a couch or other recline-oriented chair.
A point of contention amongst Under Defeat players is whether the Sega Dreamcast or the HD port on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is better. Those in favor of the former cite its arcade perfect properties, as the arcade version was released on Sega NAOMI hardware, which allows for a very easy port to the Dreamcast, and take issue with the differences in enemy placements and timings in the HD ports, as well as the introduction of slowdown (on consoles one generation later, no less). Those who prefer the latter enjoy the better visuals and the addition of new modes and soundtracks, even if it's not a 1:1 port which is something that shouldn't matter to players who aren't very competitive about scores and have never played the arcade version.
Amongst Shoot 'Em Up players in general, the use of external auto-fire in games that do not have it, or have a slow version of it (such as Darius Gaiden). Is it fair to use auto-fire to save wear and tear on one's own fingers, or is it a cheating tactic?
When the New Nintendo 3DS XL was announced to come with no AC adapter (with that becoming a separate purchase instead), half of the fanbase were disgusted at having to purchase the adapter separately and felt that the adapter is an integral part of a handheld game system package, while the other half pointed out that the lower price of the new system offset the lack of included adapter, with some upgrading from previous 3DS models actually thankful and arguing that since they already have adapters from their old 3DS units, there's no need to pay for the cost of a new adapter again.
The Xbox 360, Steam, and NESiCAxLive ports of Ikaruga feature some slightly changed enemy patterns. Some dislike it because of Damn You, Muscle Memory! and rendering scores non-comparable to those of the Sega NAOMI, Sega Dreamcast, and Nintendo GameCube versions, while others fail to see the problem either due to having never played the earlier versions or not playing the game as competitively as those who take issue with it.
Naruto fans have one between the two main licensed games: Clash Of Ninja for Nintendo consoles and Ultimate Ninja for Playstation consoles. They're both fighting games however play dramatically differently from each other. The former series has died off while the latter became Ultimate Ninja Storm though.
There's one over the lack of checkpoints in Super R-Type. Some dislike having to restart the entire stage from the beginning each time they die even if they were at the endboss, while others feel that being sent back to the beginning is actually a blessing given that respawning in mid-stage with no powerups is practically suicide a la Gradius.
Gradius: Fans have generally been divided as to which of these games is the best in the series: Gradius III (SNES) and V amongst North American fans, in addition to II and Gaiden for European and Japanese players as well as North Americans who import the games (due to those two games suffering from No Export for North America for a long time):
- II is responsible for a number of series innovations such as multiple weapon loadouts.
- III (SNES) for having a large variety of content including stage diversity and Weapon Edit, as well as bringing the notorious difficulty of the arcade version down to managable levels.
- Gaiden for having a balanced ship roster, the rearrangable powerup meter, and some very creative stage design such as the boss junkyard in stage 2 and the volcano level getting sucked into a black hole in stage 7).
- V for introducing Bullet Hell to the series, being developed by Treasure, and the sheer length of each loop.
In spite of being some of the best games of the series, Darius Gaiden and Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours have this. For Darius Gaiden, is it fair to play the game with externally-assisted autofire that outpaces the default rate? Should high score threads for the game on Shoot 'Em Up forums allow or disallow it? Does the fact that Arcadia magazine accept turbo autofire scores change anything? A few questions that are often followed up with responses comparable to discussions on how to play Super Smash Bros. "correctly".
- For Chronicle Saviours, the surprisingly expensive price points; for the PS4 release the game runs for 60 USD, while the PS Vita release has a 40-USD price tag and the Steam release has a price of 50 USD. Some think there's enough content to warrant the price and that it helps support the developers. Others think giving the game the same price as the latest Call of Duty and Dark Souls is going too far and is a great way to turn the game into a commercial failure. Others point out that the non-Windows versions are a bit of a ripoff, as the Steam release features the dual-monitor mode that the other versions lack and costs less than the PS4 version.
- The lack of a physical release except for the Vita version coupled with the prices above. Some players are not happy about having to pay so much for non-physical copies or that digital releases have shortcomings like DRM, and are willing to deal with the shortcomings of the Vita version just to get the physical copy. Others are fine with digital releases, and would rather not deal with the problems of the Vita version (extremely small game window for AC Mode and lack of multiplayer) just to be able to have a tangible copy.
- What counts as legitimately completing a mission in CS Mode? Does one have to use presets, or are customizations also acceptable? Some players feel that using customizations, especially to give oneself a huge amount of shield, is a form of cheating, while other players point out that since it's part of the game, it's perfectly acceptable.
- The game's main theme, "Freedom", has split opinions very widely. Does it qualify for Awesome Music, or is it cringeworthy due to its cheesy lyrics and shrill vocals? Being catchy doesn't help, either.
- On the topic of DLC, the most common argument is over which Shoot 'Em Up franchise should or should not be in the game, with franchises such as Gradius, R-Type (which got the winning vote on Twitter), and Thunder Force included. This is very comparable to the fandom of Super Smash Bros.. And then there are those who just think the DLC is too expensive (4.99 USD a character) for what little original content it offers (original characters, but no original stages or bosses, instead recycling existing stages and bosses).
When it comes to ports of arcade games, as well as arcade-style games, a common point of debate is how continues should be handled: Should the player be granted unlimited continues, allowing players to reach the ending regardless of skill level? Or should they be finite so as to encourage players to "git gud"? The problem is, no matter how continues are handled, a large number of players will be pissed off: infinite continues means players will complain about the game being effortless (even though a major point of these sorts of games is to beat the game with as few continues as possible, or ideally, on one credit; notably, many of these complaints will come from players who are not aware of the concept of a one-credirt clear), but finite continues will lead to complaints of being ripped off and being denied the ending because one isn't good enough.
The Witness:
- The $40 USD price was a point of contention, as it rivaled some console games and made The Witness one of the most expensive indie video games of all time, if not the most. The core argument was whether the quality of the game justified the price or not. Seven years of development went into the game, and it includes a wide variety of content. There's also the licensing of video content, including from the BBC. However, the style of gameplay has its own stigma around it, as the game is largely a vehicle for puzzles with little effort made to include traditional "rewards" for solving them. As a result, Jonathan Blow commented that it became the most popular torrent at the time of its release, which would delay his ability to make a third game.
- Blow also mentioning that his next game would potentially have DRM in an effort to prevent the above from happening again caused a lot of heated discussion.
Space Invaders: Which of the three classic alien designs should be the series' Mascot Mook?
Raiden V's overseas release:
- The 50 USD price tag has some people complaining that it's too expensive for a shmup, and others justifying the price and feel that the genre's historically low game prices have not done wonders for the series' image.
- The non-Japanese release being digital-only; it's either a way to cheapen the game's value and make it impossible to buy once the Xbox One's digital distro marketplace shuts down, or justified due to the increasing popularity of digital distro in the west with the added point that one can just import the Japanese version and set it to English if they really want a physical copy.
There's a bit of a divide on whether the Contra or Probotector versions are better. While many prefer the Contra versions because they're the uncensored originals and run at a superior 60Hz refresh rate rather than PAL 50Hz, Probotector is preferred by another crowd because the robots are perceived as cooler and less generic. It also isn't uncommon to see fans of Contra III: The Alien Wars and Contra: Hard Corps argue about which game is the best in the series - especially considering that both games split the franchise in two entirely different directions (with Contra III being a basis for ReBirth and Contra 4, while Hard Corps style of gameplay was revisited in Shattered Soldier, Uprising, and to some extent Neo Contra).
The NES Classic Edition. On one hand, "why buy this when you can just emulate?", not helped by the system's fixed catalogue; on the other hand, given the amount of games it has and the price point, some feel that it's worth the cost.
While Steam is widely regarded as the greatest thing to happen to PC gaming since sliced bread, it's had its share of divisive elements:
- If you reset your password because you forgot, then you'll be barred from trading and the Community Market for about a week. While some say it's a neccesary evil to prevent hackers from stealing items, others think it's more punishment for forgetting your password. A proposed fix to the idea (a verification process to remove the restriction) itself creates a Broken Base, in that critics say that it'll worsen already sluggish Steam Support response times.
- While the DRM is considered by many as far less intrusive and more friendly than other DRM brands such as Origin, Games for Windows Live, and SecuROM, there are still some users who don't like having the products they own at the mercy of Valve.
- Steam's refund feature. Some hail it as sorely-needed for games that are either unsatisfactory or simply refuse to work with one's machine (a longtime issue for PC gamers and a common argument for preferring physical copies of games), but others, especially developers, don't like how it's easy to abuse by buying a small game, finishing it, and returning it, cheating the developer and publisher out of their money.
- Steam Greenlight: Quality control to ensure that Steam isn't plagued with crappy games, or a way to screw over good developers who don't have a publisher to work with or an established reputation, not helped by Steam's monopoly on PC games ensuring that games released only on other digital outlets sell very minimal copies?
Tekken 7: To say Lucky Chloe divided Western players is a huge understatement; since while some were fine or at least neutral, many cried out that the Rated M for Manly franchise had sold out to the Moe crowd for creating a "Furry Vocaloid Idol". And when director Katsuhiro Harada sarcastically responded that she was Japanese-exclusive (along with other Take That, Audience! moments) via Twitter people took them at face value and rejoiced.
LEGO Adaptation Game: With LEGO Batman 2: DC Superheroes adding voice acting, some thought the grunting was funnier and charming, while others like it because it has another layer of humor.
Terraria:
- Terraria version 1.0.6 quickly became one of the most polarizing updates in its history due to a few high caliber bugs that made it into the game.
- One of the more annoying changes is the inability to place anything in lava anymore, meaning that making tunnels to Hell are much harder to create now unless you exploit dropping sand into the lava or are really patient about using water to make obsidian walls or digging a reservoir to drain the magma into. Since mining Hellstone creates lava now, this makes Hellstone difficult to mine without lava-immunity potions or digging a reservoir below to carefully drain the magma into.
- The release of 1.0.6.1 corrected the bugs and fixed the fireblossom issue, but it got broken again when 1.1 made it so not even the sand trick worked anymore.
- The announcement marking the end of Terraria's development after one last bugfix has broken the base into those who think Terraria is ruined, those who just accept that all things come to an end ultimately, and those who believe that the real experience has just begun, and its time for Game Mods to shine.
- When the announcement was made that XBLA and PSN versions of the game were being developed and that they would feature new content, the majority of the old PC crowd were not pleased to say the least, especially because this news was hyped up the day before after months of silence.
- Medusas. Are they a cool and unique, if unusually dangerous enemy that forces you to switch up your strategy and adds a level of coolness to the game? Or an obnoxious Fake Difficult gimmick enemy that exists only to screw you over? The nerf they got in 1.3.0.4 calmed this argument slightly, but the medusas still have their share of haters. They were pushed into hardmode in 1.3.1, spawning complaints in the opposite direction that the change neutered the difficulty of the marble caves.
- The art style of Terraria Otherworld has caused a rift between fans of the original game. There are those who think it looks like a nice improvement with amazing sprite work, while others prefer the 16 bit Retraux of the original game to the new style, saying it looks far too much like Starbound.
- What is the most "effective" way to play the game to get the proper Terraria experience? Using all weapons with disregard for classes, or doing class playthroughs like the developers "obviously" intended? If the latter, how much should the character only stick to using weapons of that class? Needless to say, discussion of such can get rather heated in the fanbase...
- Are summoners underpowered when compared to the other classes and deserve a much-needed buff to bring them up to speed, or are they a case of Magikarp Power that is as powerful enough as is and any further buffs would push them into Game-Breaker territory? Again, discussions on that can get rather heated as well. This also includes arguments over the "proper" way to play summoners. Should they only use summons to deal damage while they focus purely on dodging or, since they don't need to keep a hold of the staff to attack, does this mean they're free to use weapons from other classes with no problem? Also, how do summoners start the game? Are they allowed to use lava and a Slime Statue to grind for the Slime Staff? Or are they really expected to get the Reaver shark, mind down to the Underworld for Hellstone, and craft the Imps as their first summon? You'll never be able to get a straight, general consensus on this.
- The final major update, Journey's End had two notable — and controversial nerfs where the Reaver Shark is no longer the best prehardmode pickaxe and prehardmode fishing crates will no longer give hardmode ores when opened in hardmode. Unsurpisingly, these two nerfs have attracted the most controversy. Are these two elements so overpowered that they allow for easy Sequence Breaking? Or are they an appropriate reward for spending lots of time and effort fishing? Or is eliminating them a move to cater to the "Stop Having Fun" Guys at the expense of casual players and speedruners?
Mobile Rhythm Games:
- Playing with thumbs, or playing with additonal fingers? Those who prefer the former argue that it's more convenient (don't need to find a hard, flat surface) and more familiar-feeling, while those who prefer the latter cite the stronger degree of accuracy and control that particular style allows.
- Phone or tablet? Phone is obviously more convenient and you don't need to tether or find a wifi hotspot if your game has online features or requirements (assuming your phone is your main one that has a data plan)^note, while tablet has more precision and is better-suited for bigger hands.
No Man's Sky:
- With the Foundations Update, some are happy, but some are saying it's too little, too late, arguing those features found in the update should have been in the game to start with, and that putting them in now won't help the game much, if at all.
- The reception to the Waking Titan ARG to promote the 1.3 update is split down the middle for fans. On the one hand, many find it both interesting and fun, especially since it adds a lot of story details to a Story Breadcrumbs setting, and think it's leading into a nice meaty update after two rather small ones. On the other, many fans are cautious of getting the hype train started again after it ran wild before the game's release.
Are the characters of Bullet Storm so over the top and offensive they are unappealing, or so over the top and offensive they are funny and cool?
Everybody Edits:
- The Staff's choice to create a rule list and a moderation team split the base into those who wanted freedom, and those who wanted order. Even since then, many still believe the rules in both the game and fora have gotten too strict. Others believe that the community needs more moderation to stay pleasant. Many bans and actions from the moderators end up causing lots of controversy.
- Should the game focus its efforts on old users, or new users? Those in the former camp argue that changes alienate lots of old players, and that their time and effort put into the game shouldn't go to waste. The latter camp believes that the game will die out if it doesn't attract new players, and that changes are simply needed after so many years of added features. This debate even broke the creative team, as one of the former owners of the game Nou left the team because of this.
Nintendo Switch Online has been a heated topic ever since it was announced, moreso when the service became paid in September 2018. Proponents of the service being paid argue that the cost is low enough at 20 USD a year, less for those who group up for a 35 USD / year family plan, while opponents call it anti-consumer, is still unfair to those who don't have means to top up their Nintendo accounts, and is not worth it due to not markedly improving the quality of online play. Any discussion of this topic inevitably leads to verbal poop-flinging; you're pegged as either an asshole who supports greedy business practices and is part of the game industry's problems or an Ungrateful Bastard and nothing in between.
Rimworld: Not the game, but rather a particular mod, Combat Extended, which is meant to overhaul the combat system whole for a measure of realism. A minor fracture exists in the community as a whole between those who like its more tactical, lethal combat and those who find it far too easy to cheese or just disliking the ensuing Rocket-Tag Gameplay. A major fracture exists between modders, and slightly lesser extent people who love mod-heavy runs, because Combat Extended is made expansively and somewhat less than neatly, making it catastrophically incompatible with most mods out there; they need to account for it directly to work. This even after the creator tried to make it more compatible with others, after a lot of complaints. Naturally, since the mod has many fans, some of them loud, other modders can bet quite bitter because CE users keep bugging them to make their mod compatible (which is a bothersome effort). As a result, some prominent modders have made it clear, complete with banner, that their work will never be compatible with Combat Extended.
Dwarf Fortress: If you wanna start a !!Conversation!!, the full overhaul mod MasterworkDF is one option, mainly outside of its exclusively assigned board (and especially outside Bay 12, in the wild). Due to its sheer prominence in the mod community, it tended to draw a lot of attention away from other modders that didn't sign up with it, leading to some quitting from lack of recognition. Additionally, the mod itself tends to be contentious due to its kitchen sink mentality, adding many different entities, factions and groups that didn't necessarily mesh well together, which can end with worlds being a mishmash that doesn't work right. Both problems were exacerbated by the fact the head of the project disappeared for an entire year due to a massive depressive crisis (he's thankfully fine now, and actively working with Toady for the Steam overhaul).
Animal Crossing: The one topic that's guaranteed to cause heated debates is exploits. Are they bad for ruining the player economy, and is using them missing the point of the games, or is it an acceptable way to make the game more fun, and are the critics just "Stop Having Fun" Guys who have no business telling others how to enjoy their game? The most divisive exploits are:
- Time travel, the practice of setting the console clock ahead in order to speed up things, get disliked villagers to leave, and access out-of-season items. You'll either get told it's cheating and against the way the game is meant to be played, or hear how it actually isn't officially cheating, just discouraged, and that some things are just too slow to wait in real time for.
- Duplicating items with glitches, before the glitches were patched. While some fans enjoyed profiting from rare item sales, others pointed out how the practice was reducing the items’ value.
Dragon Quest:
- Dragon Quest IV:
  - Fans who remember the original straight-forward NES translation were generally disappointed with changes made in the remake's localization: the addition of 'regionalism' which brought ridiculous broken accents in the dialogue, and the changing of most names of people and places to make cultural references or bad puns. But plenty of new players enjoyed them and found the humor charming.
  - The mobile port. To begin this divide, you have fans that are furious that Square Enix decided to put out a lackluster port (the game only works with the screen vertical, there's no controller support, etc.) vs. fans grateful to even have a legal way to get it/support the series after the limited print run of the DS version. (And even then, many are worried that it sends the wrong message to Square Enix to support the series over mobile platforms since the majority of the fans want console rereleases.) Then there's concerns over whether this is a worthy port when it's essentially the DS version vs. this release being the definitive edition because it adds party chat back into the game. However, it should be noted that this port received considerably greater acclaim than the mobile port of VIII because of the features this port added when compared to what VIII lost (VIII lost voice acting and the gorgeous symphonic suite of the American rerelease; IV had the textures spruced up for mobile tablet screen resolutions, the symphonic suite added to the soundtrack and the aforementioned party chat restored).
  - Chapter Six. A welcome expansion of content, including being able to recruit Psaro, or is it a Fix Fic that ruins the tone of the first five chapters, as well as the original game?
- Dragon Quest V: The reception of Your Story. While a many of people, especially in Japan, are in the camp They Changed It, Now It Sucks!, from not using Akira Toriyama's iconic character designs to the extremely random, out of nowhere meta twist near the end that made the entire movie out to be a VR game that some kid was playing, there are a few who embraced it for its differences, even if not exactly loving everything and point out there were subtle nods to the Isekai twist. From the random in-game footage, the Hero not using a Staff, a mainstay of the V Hero's aesthetic as the only staff user hero in canon materials; to the hero having a name different from any other official materials; to the art/design changes to the title which omits any mention of the brides or even that it's an adaptation of V and suggest that it's "Your [The Player's] Story". Also, it's a reflection on the Fan's relationship with the franchise.
- Dragon Quest VII:
  - Dharma Temple/Alltrades Abbey. Some people consider it the Best Level Ever (particularly in the remake where it's more balanced than the original) finding it to be reasonably challenging but not too much so. To these people, the storyline is a truly epic tale involving a missing high priest, an occupied temple, an ordinary man trying to protect his sister from a city of vice, a slightly creepy guard cast out of his position (who turns out to be okay in the end), and three heroes brought down to nothing who have to fight their way out of that city and make things right. It would almost make an excellent game in itself. As for everyone else's opinion...see That One Level below.
  - The fact that the Updated Re-release on the Nintendo 3DS is getting a completely new localization for its international release. Some people welcome this, as they're satisfied enough with the game finally averting No Export for You after close to 3 years, while others are against it due to the copious puns and accents in the dialogue of newer Dragon Quest localizations like IV and IX being annoying to them.
  - When it was found that the international 3DS version replaced the remastered orchestral score with synthesized (albeit still remastered) versions of the music, the base split even further: Some felt ripped-off, some think the decision was Enforced by licensing issues, and others preferred the original soundtrack to begin with.
- Dragon Quest XI:
  - The fact that the 3DS version will not leave Japan. On the one hand, some people feel that the 3DS is getting the shaft (since the versions do have some differences). But on the other, some feel that this is a smarter business choice, due to the fact that the 3DS is in decline outside of Japan, particularly in 2018 (when shelf space in most brick-and-mortar stores for 3DS software is shrinking). It has become less of an issue when the Switch version was announced to have the ability to play the game with 16-bit SNES style graphics, a mode that was available in the 3DS version but not the PS4 and PC versions.
  - Also, the fact that Square-Enix is publishing. Some who are not fans of the accents used in the Nintendo-published remakes like it, while others think that adds to the charm. This ended up being a bit moot as the game does retain a fair bit of the accent conceit of older titles but pares it down in a lot of cases to not be obnoxious.
  - The soundtrack. Some people take significant issue with the midi soundtrack, feeling that it's a significant downgrade to the orchestral version that was made, but wasn't included because the composer wanted to maximize music and ticket sales instead of letting players hear it in the game. Others are more accepting, feeling that it suits the classic feel of the game. While PC players got a mod that replaces the music with the orchestral version almost immediately and the Nintendo Switch version includes both the MIDI and orchestral versions, 3DS and PS4 owners are currently out of luck. Beyond the MIDI controversy, many fans have derided the actual composition of music as subpar, even when orchestrated.
  - The nature of the post-game undoes a lot of the character development of the crew in exchange for a happier ending. Some argue that this is disingenuous and that removing said character development is a disservice to the story, with Serena in particular reverting back to her old self and making her emotional triumph kind of pointless. Others argue that this is in the nature of Dragon Quest- to always strive for a better conclusion for our heroes, and that because of the defeat of the True Final Boss, the happier ending is worth it for the struggle it takes to get there.
  - The Nintendo Switch version getting announced as the Definitive Edition, getting extra story content, dual audio options, and even having the full Orchestral OST the PS4 and PC (without mods) versions lacked. This ended up invoking quite a bit of Console Wars sentiment among the community. As it later turned out, PS4 and PC players will get the chance to experience this content over a year later on December 4, 2020, alongside with a new port to the Xbox One.
The Zoner archetype are the most controversial type of fighters in fighting game, particularly Super Smash Bros. and Mortal Kombat. One side argues that they're braindead and cheap to play as as well as annoying to play against, it also doesn't help how favored they are in online play that uses delay-based netcodes because of the short reactibility timespan which contributes to their Base Breaking status among the FGC. The other side however don't mind them and say that those complaining about them need to get better or not to blame bad online for losing against them. That said though, games like Guilty Gear Strive try to find a more even ground for them like using the much better received Rollback Netcode and having mechanics that punish players if they spam projectiles.
The Grappler archetype in fighting games is almost as controversial as zoners. Most grapplers are Mighty Glaciers with a straightforward high-risk, high-reward gameplay where most of the work they have to do is getting in the opponent's face in the first place, but they're rewarded with highly damaging attacks. People who hate grapplers call them braindead Skill Gate Characters who only has to make a few lucky guesses to win a round, no matter how poorly they were doing beforehand, while grappler mains argue they have to work hard to get to the point where they can start dealing damage and the hate is undeserved since most characters in the archetype have been in the lower side of the Character Tiers for a majority of fighting games anyway because of their inherent weaknesses.
While they were almost universally reviled in 2015/2016 due to their great debacle about being an abusive and corrupt company, as starting from the 2020's, anything that came out from Konami fell onto this for the most part (mostly on the Western side, but sometimes you also find a few Easterners with this). Considering that during the heydays of their controversy everyone was practically united against them, this can count as an improvement.
- On one hand, we have a camp who is extremely adamant on making sure Konami will never live down the debacle and must be remembered as one of the evilest companies that should sell their franchises that 'was being held hostage' and is remembered only as a Pachinko company or sometimes for NFT, thus all of their games afterwards are to be put with suspicion and a distraction from the moral obligations. Even if the game was generally innocent, not problematic and/or devoid of most of the accusations, they felt obliged to continue to Accentuate the Negative just to ensure that the 2015/2016 controversy is never forgiven and forgotten, which unfortunately created a lot of Common Knowledge phenomenons. The below camp is usually accused by them as being too gullible to let their evil actions triumph and unpunished by doing nothing about condemning them, thus constant committers of Fandom Heresy.
- On the other hand, we also have a camp who let time heal their past wounds and considering that there hasn't been any more ridiculous news that came out and Konami has been generally 'taking it slow' with smaller paced, non-AAA games and helping indie companies, not to mention they were a bit right that mobile gaming was about to get big and understood that the AAA gaming scene was basically threatening to destroy them financially if they insist on going through it^note, they consider that the damning news could be a result of bogus mistranslation that got out of control, they might not be as bad as many made them out (and even if true, in the latter days, they haven't been proven to be doing any overly evil actions) and has been mostly re-accepting their newer games or re-releases nicely, considering them most likely undergoing a rehabilitation process (they still accept that Konami's a shadow of their former selves and can still screw up from time to time, but they're not too bothered with it) or just separating any moral debates with the act of playing games. The above camp is considered by them either horribly outdated, stuck in the past and/or highly annoying in a manner of Holier Than Thou that their 'moral obligations' felt like being taken to a Knight Templar levels (though not a lot are vocal in it, most likely considering the above camp to be not worth debating with and they couldn't be bothered to change their mind).
Want to start a Flame War? Try saying "X game is definitely/is absolutely not a Roguelike" and watch the sparks fly. One camp believes the term should only cover games that play similarly to Rogue, meaning RPGs with grid-based movement, that automatically pause when you aren't performing an action, and have randomly-generated levels and permadeath. The other camp believes that the meaning of the word has changed over time, so any game with randomly-generated levels (or even just any strong focus on randomness) should be allowed to call itself a roguelike, regardless of gameplay. (The "strict" camp believes such games should only call themselves "rogue-lites" or "roguelike-likes".) The fact that the most well-known titles to use the roguelike label, such as Spelunky, The Binding of Isaac, and Hades specifically fall into the latter definition while games that fit the former definition tend to be more niche doesn't help.
Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead's developers have the philosophy that everything in the game should be as realistic as possible, even if it results in a less fun game. Lots of arguing ensues whenever a major feature is changed due to "realism". Pro-realism players think people should just learn to play without the Acceptable Breaks from Reality they depended on, especially the more game-breaking ones, while anti-realism players think the excessive focus on realism makes things too punishing, especially due to the (debatable) belief that the "realism" only focuses on removing/changing things that give the player an advantage, while things that make the game harder are more likely to get overlooked. Some players even started making their own version of the game, Bright Nights, which keeps some of the Acceptable Breaks from Reality and the sci-fi elements that were retconned out of DDA.
Mascot Horror has a varied reputation among the general horror game fandom. It is a very popular subgenre, with many loving the Subverted Kids' Show aesthetic, more colorful palette that makes such games stand out from the usual dark and gritty horror, and deep hidden lore that serves as fodder for many theory videos, with even a massive Periphery Demographic of children. But just as many despise the subgenre and feel that it is mostly made of ripoffs of Five Nights at Freddy's that do little to differentiate themselves, that these games should not be catering to children, that the focus on merchandising and “theory bait” makes the actual gameplay and story suffer, and that the immense popularity of the subgenre takes attention away from other, more unique horror games that lack these elements. Then you have a third group who treat these games on a case-by-case basis, enjoying some of them while feeling that other games are guilty of the criticism they get.

Broken Base / Video Games

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