The thing with me, objectivity, and opinions.

[Cless Aileron]

Now, this is where I get into what my thing with opinions and the critiquing ways is since there's some things with my views and having a hard time accepting it.  Yeah, I figure I should really spill it.

There's one thing I'll start off with...objectivity.  Now, if one were to seriously review something, that person needs to be objective.  Go deep into the thing in question.  Find the good and find the bad and be fair about it.  While it's hard to be 100% objective, it's still something that has to be used when critiquing something.  This bring my case to the things that's been going through me...Tales of Legendia and Tales of the Abyss.  This has also applied to other things like the English dub of Naruto and my shots I made at Nintendo, though I won't get into that just yet.

Tales of Legendia.  They pretty much said it.  In the words of Jay Sherman from The Critic, "It stinks!"  I mean, look at the game, it's...ah, screw it!  I'm not playing this charade anymore!  I didn't really think the game was really horrible.  Sure, the dungeon design were poor, but the rest of the game I didn't find it horrible.  What got me performing the "Tales of Legendia was a *bleep*load of *bleep*" charade in the first place was doing it "In the name of Objectivity."  Now, objectivity had it stated that Tales of Legendia was horrible, with its awful character development, poor battle system, and lousy story.  Now, I actually used all the objectivity in my mind and the only problem I had with the game was with the dungeon designs.  But no, real objectivity states that it sucks and shouldn't be enjoyed because it's legitimately unenjoyable.

Tales of the Abyss...I'm not going to get into that again, since I already explained what I didn't like about it but still feel like a douchebag since real objectivity states Tales of the Abyss is the greatest Tales ever because of its story, characters, and gameplay, thus is suppose to be enjoyable.

Now, there's the thing about enjoyment is the only thing that matters.  Sorry, that can't be the case here.  The way I have grew, I mostly can't see any point in critiquing with the intent of mindless enjoyment, as in just buying horrible games just for 15 minutes of enjoyment of laughing at how bad the game is.  To get what I'm going here, let me tell you something.  My friends actually want to buy the Power Glove off eBay, which runs for $50 and it became infamous for being a controller that barely works.  Yet, they want to buy one for mindless entertainment to try to work the thing.  I just can't understand why they would want to waste money on an awful controller that doesn't really work for 15 minutes of mindless enjoyment, especially when there is better and more legitimately good stuff to be spent on.  Sorry, I don't go for illegitimate enjoyment, in other words, laughing at the horrid stuff that wasn't any good.  This is also why I got pretty rotten when it comes to not finding Tales of Legendia that bad and didn't find much enjoyment in Tales of the Abyss.  Tales of Legendia was a game I was not suppose to enjoy and I was suppose to be able to enjoy Tales of the Abyss.  I'm sorry, but enjoyment isn't going to cut it without some merit, thus what got my track into my whole charade of Tales of Legendia trashing and getting myself to get that I was suppose to enjoy Tales of the Abyss.

As ridiculous as it may sound, that's pretty much what my thing is with critiquing, objectivity, and opinions.  I have this standard I'm following in finding what's good and what's bad and was something I should go by.  Objectivity rules over what opinions come out.  Now some of you are going to say, "No!  Objectivity is still opinion!" (even a friend of mine ended up saying that).  However, that's not really the case, since objectivity is suppose to expose what that something is really like.  So yeah, that's pretty much what's my thing on not accepting my own views.  I just figure it should go out into the open.

P.S.  Yeah, I'm aware I'm sounding like Simon Cowell towards everything, including my own views.

[Kogahazan]

From what I've gathered so far, it sounds to me that you've come to these conclusions as a result of being around large online communities. After coming to this board, I started drifting away from large communities such as GameFAQs the point I just never go to their forums except if there's something not in the FAQs... I've found this board to be quaint in comparison to most other online communities in that it's not too big, but it's not small either. That balance has made it so all of us get to know each other to some extent and we all develop some sense of basic human... rights, if you will.

Now I believe their is some implication that you continue to go to these online communities. There also appears to be implication that your opinions have not been valued in said communities, leading you to come to conclusions such as "objectivity rules over what opinions come out." Using myself as an example, I don't listen to opinions on a message board. I do read reviews, however, from time to time, but I only consider reviews that have well supported claims. Even reviews with what you say is "objectivity" do not really stop me from playing a game that I really want to play (Shadow the Hedgehog, Samurai Champloo, Dirge of Cerberus, etc). I actually have little regret playing these games, even if I do realize why "objectivity" says it's a bad game. If such is the case, I consider it a guilty pleasure. Even when my own real life friends say to my face that a game is bad, I still play it afterward. I feel no remorse for straying from "objectivity."

Much like in the real world, it would be quite foolish to let another tell you what to think or what to do. A simple example:

Child: I want to be a fireman!
Parent: No, be a doctor or lawyer, be successful, make lots of money. (then give us some)
Child: Oh... okay... if it will make you happy...

Sadly this sort of pressure still exists, someone giving up their dreams or something they like/enjoy just to satisfy the wishes of another. That particular example stems from a sort of sense to work for the betterment of the family. In other cases where family is not involved, it stems from the ever continuous phenomenon called peer pressure. Peer pressure seems to be just as powerful online as it is off. The ability to speak your opinion under an alias gives you complete anonymity to others in the immediate community and that can be powerful in itself. What happens in this case is that when people of different opinions butt heads online, the majority opinion makes itself to appear to be the "correct" view. It creates the illusion that their way is based on "objectivity" and "fairness." Now if someone wishes to subscribe to this illusion that the majority opinion is objective and fair, that is their decision. I mean hey, no one likes being a black sheep, m i rite?

In short, don't give up what you believe is fun and enjoyable. If you really do wish to believe in what you want to believe, you have to be unique. You can't be scared of being a black sheep if you want to like what you want to like and do what you want to do. The reverse is true as well. You're free to dislike what you want to, even if it goes against popular opinion. There are people out there that do and they are entitled to feel that way. Some of them have seemingly baseless convictions about what they hate, but it doesn't matter. Little, if any of them, actively work to stop people from liking what they like just because they hate it and little work to stop people from hating what they hate just because they like it. Harking back to earlier, online peer pressure can be powerful because even a small group that is vocal about their opinions can appear to be the majority opinion merely because those who oppose them are simply absent.

Now if you really do wish to continue and believe that objectivity and majority opinion should take precedence over your own opinions and affect what you want to do and enjoy, I can't stop you. But if you want to enjoy what you want to enjoy, hate what you want to hate, and do what you want to do, I suggest you stop believing this objectivity and never look back.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

what? i don't get it. if you like it, you like it. if for some reason you feel like you need an explanation why, try to think of the reasons why you like it. are you saying that you found legendia to be mostly terrible, yet you enjoyed it? or are you saying that other people told you that legendia is mostly terrible, yet you enjoy it? if the latter, then just ignore them and/or explain what you liked. if the former... hm, that's odd.

i actually haven't gotten around to playing either one yet, but i did check out a bunch of youtube videos of them way back when. if it makes you feel better, it seemed to me like both had a crappy combat system. if anything, it seemed like legendia's was cooler, as far as the physical artes go.

[Cless Aileron]

Now, in response to you, Kogahazan, this whole thing stem from the GameFAQs forums.  I stopped going around those forums, yet the horrible community of those forums still rear its ugly head around me.  The low intelligence posts, the opinionated members, and so much more.  This is pretty much where it stems from.  Now, I'll also mention that I have been following these videos I made a small reference to before in my Abyss confession about an Angry Video Game Nerd.  In these videos, the character bashes some awful games and game-related things from back in the days, with the noticeable characteristic being that he swears a lot in the reviews.  Now, there are some truth to the lashing but in the end, its intention was mainly for comedy and didn't really affected how I looked at games.  That's not the only reason I brought it up because it reminds me of a line said in an Angry Video Game Nerd video where he did something different and bashes the third Ninja Turtles movie and made a line that went along the line of, 'You're probably saying, 'Hey, that's your opinion!'  Well, yeah, it's my opinion that it's a fact that this movie is horrible!'  I couldn't help but think of how that line sums up the GameFAQs community (replace "movie is horrible" with "(insert game here) is (insert view here)"  Guess what?  We got a formula!).

It brings up another thing Kaji brought up...being told what was so damn horrible about Tales of Legendia.  I tried defending it on GameFAQs but all it did was made me look like a douchebag.  I said things that shouldn't have come out and get a whole, "You can't prove that Tales of Legendia isn't horrible so ha!  You're wrong!  You need a lecture on why Tales of Legendia is horrible!  And anyone who thinks Tales of Legendia is good is a Tales fanboy and is in denial!"

I did say I'm sounding like Simon Cowell.  Well, after talking further, maybe we should make it, "I'm sounding like Simon Cowell in combination with the Angry Video Game Nerd."  Bashed for defending Tales of Legendia, bashed for not seeing Tales of Legendia as horrible, and bashed for my way of thinking.  Yeah, that's what led me to hush up about Tales of the Abyss and question my way of thinking.  I'm also thinking there's another factor I can't figure out right now.

[Kogahazan]

Then it's a matter of the people you associate with. Stop associating with them, even if damage has already been done. Just remember this forum is not GameFAQs. Here, we realize that people are entitled to have their own opinion and don't chew out anyone for having a different opinion (although some events may lead you to believe otherwise). Just be civilized about your opinion and things will go well for the most part. Stop letting the past haunt you, it will only further inhibit your future.

[Cless Aileron]

Well, I've chilled out now on the topic and slowly putting this behind me.  It's just got so much into my head that I stopped taking my own views seriously.

Though it does make me wonder why some people act like their opinions are facts?  Sure, objectivity says a lot but not everyone's objectivity works the same way.  So, why make do people find it necessary to act like their opinions are the facts?