Opinions...

There are a few trends i've seen for many years that i find a little... silly...

See even though i didn't really start playing games all the time till i was about 14 i have always had a gaming console in my house. I Consider myself a gamer even though i don't tend to stray outside the RPG Genre... i will play other games but i almost always return to RPGs...
however being a gamer and liking rpgs tends to mean people assume a few things about you.
You love series like Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda.
You are a nintendo OR a sony Fanboy/girl and how dare you ever try to like both.
or that if your opinion is neutral then you must Hate something they like...
and if they aren't assuming that then they keep telling you how the JRPG is dead and how you should play more types of games.

ugh... okay i'm gunna take this point by point... and it's gunna be long...

While i have nothing against Final fantasy they will never be one of my fav games.
Yes the music is amazing, yes the character designs are lovely and yes the story is pretty gripping most of the time.

HOWEVER.... i didn't grow up with these games, I don't have this childhood nostalgia of playing through the first games... the first Final Fantasy game i ever played was X... which i really liked.... until the final boss which was kinda pathetic and put a damper on the entire experience... plus my copy of the game had been touched by my not terribly gentle with CDs little brother causing the game to crash after that stupid boss...

then i Played VII which again was good and fun with great music and great characetrs but honestly it didn't age very well...
and there is a certain move that the final boss has that send me into Panic attack ville.... the first time i saw supernova i had to walk out of the room for a good hour...
suffice to say i never beat VII

Since i have played almost every Final Fantasy game barring the online ones and the ones that were after XIII and so far i have only beaten tactics advanced series.... yeah...  again there were always wonderful elements but for whatever reason i didn't latch onto the games as much as other people did... they are still good but they will never be one of my favorites.

Does that make me any less of a gamer? No... I am allowed to have an opinion... we as gamers do not have to like the same thing just cause everyone expects us to.

What about the legend of zelda?
Again great music and fun story but again i never latched onto it... i always had more fun watching people play then i did playing it myself cause i didnt particularly care about Link.
unlike FF i haven't played every Zelda game and out of the games i have played Wind waker and Majoras mask are my fav of the series. why? Cause wind waker has one of the best scores in any game and the colourful natural as well as emotive characters really make the character feel alive and Majoras mask has an amazing hopeful yet incredibly dark story.... unfortunately i have a hard time beating it cause it deals with the moon so much and again that sends me right into panic attack ville.
But those are two of the games most people frown upon? how can you like them?
EASILY.... it is my OPINION that they are good fun games... i don't expect others to agree because it's an opinion...

but does not liking the majority of LOZ games make me less of a gamer? NO... why would you even think that?

oh because everyone loves those games? So what? what does that have to do with anything? Why does my opinion have to be thrown back in my face in such a negative way just cause it doesn't conform to yours?

However thats not the only issue when it comes to being a gamer... theres also the so called console wars.

Which side do you pick? Nintendo? Sony? Microsoft? PC? choose carefully cause apparently you can only choose one to be a true gamer...

or.... you can choose multiple... i mean... okay... again i grew up in a house where we always had a nintendo console.... so i must be a nintendo Fangirl right?
Nope... see when i first had enough money to buy a console i bought a game cube, I was 13 or 14 at the time... i got a few games and played it occasionally however i thougth the Sony PS2 had a great library of RPGs...
So i'm a sony Fangirl?
Nope....

My brother, who is autistic, really liked FPS and racing games... hm... well racing games theres a few on PS2 but FPS? hm... so we got him/my dad an xbox? while i never played it i did eventually play  few games on thee XBOX 360 like Tales of vesperia and Eternal sonata.
So your an xbox fangirl?
nope
recently i've bought a few games on PC, some out of nessity to continue certain series and other just cause they seemed like fun little indie games (read as Recettear)
so I'm a PC fan girl? you're never gunna guess me answer....
No...

I do not consider myself loyal to any one brand of console.
"But Kat, you don't own a PS3 or a PSvita! you must therefor hate sony!"
not at all, i have nothing against sony... i mean i don't own a WiiU yet either cause the Tech is a bit too new and i dont' have the time to play any games...
in the case of the PS3 any game i wanted for it was also on the xbox 360 which
a) i didn't have to buy cause it's my brothers
b) was pretty much the same price and aside from some framerate issues probably played close to the same.
or when i was looking to buy one the console in question was too expensive for my taste.... i try to have a rule of "there need to be 3 games on the system in question to warrant purchasing it"
why three? cause for the span of my game cubes life i only owned three games that i constantly played (it's been bumped up to 10 since the console ended but at the time it was only 3)

HOWEVER the very instant Ys 4 is put out on Vita... i will go buy that handheld... because thast the only way i'll be able to go play it. Not because it's a sony product, not because it has super processing speed or better specs then the 3ds.... simply because it'll have a game that i REALLY want to play.

But thats not enough for some people and they will continue to argue which is the best console... why can't we just like a few of them for different reasons? why do we have to pick? cause everyone is picking? who cares.... they are entitled to their opinion just like i'm entitled to mine.

are we noticing a theme here? cause i sure as hell am.
I am getting so sick and tired of my opinion being discredited just cause i don't fit the norm of what games like... like my opinion doesn't matter simply by the fact that it is different.
Um... the whole point of an opinion IS for people to look at things with their own personal biases and decide what they like and dislike for themselves.

This whole mentality of "you had to cry when Aerith died in FFVII" (fun fact i did but i cry so easily) or "you have to love Ocarina of time as it is the best game ever" (it's a good game yes but for me it's not my fav game... it's not even my personal fav in the series) all because thats what everyone else thinks? NO! My opinions do not make me more or less of a gamer they simply make me a diverse part of the community.

I once listened to a thing where people were complaining that a friend had such bad taste SIMPLY because Their taste was different. maybe those games were just fun? ever think of that? Maybe for whatever reason they had a good time with a game that didn't resonate with you... and maybe... just maybe... thats okay. it's alright to have differing opinions cause otherwise we would just get together in a con and be like. "Remember when Final fantasy 6/3 came out? wasn't that the best game ever?" and the reply would be "yes, it really was" and then the discussion would end.
What a Boring community to be a part of... instead of when you go "oh well my fav game is skyward sword" and you are met with "i personally liked wind waker" and then you discuss and see WHY the person is over that opinion.

The only thing worse then having an opinion that is different from the norm is having an opinion that is just in the middle.
it's a little off the subject of games... but when the film Scott pilgram vs the world came out i got to see it at a screening and after the film ended and people were done clapping i thought. "well... what did i think"
it had it's cute moments but it also had some problems... i didnt' really like the main characters... ah but it was fun and harmless so all is good.
then my friends saw it.... to the friends that loved it they assumed i hated the film... i didn't.... i just felt it was kinda mediocre...
to the friends who hated it they thougth i loved it.... i didn't cause again... the whole film was kinda just Okay....
but it was a matter of i wasn't allowed to have a nuetral opinion... i had to pick one side or the other or my opinion would be null and void.
WHY? why can't i just say a film had good things and bad things and they balance out to create an experience were i'm neither angry or happy for having seen it? why do opinions have to be love it or hate it... being of a nuetral opinion should not discount the opinions i do have about elements... ARGH.

and then of course theres my final bullet point of JRPGS being dead... it's not... you just aren't trying games outside of your comfortable series. It's understandable because rpgs ask you to log in a considerable amount of hours and not everyone is comfortable with doing that... but trust me there are so great games like Hexys Force, Luminous Arc, Ys, Legend of Heroes, Disgaea, Tales of series all JRPGs (which varying levels of strategy or action attached) all tons of fun, most of which have ongoing series which are all just as fun...
therefor not dead and please stop arguing that it is... i get your talking about the style but since the begining there has been action, strategy and turn based games... all of which are still alive and kicking today.... so shush.

and i think thast the point where i've run out of things to be annoyed about.... yay~

TL;dr
If someone is of a different opinion then you that does not make their opinion wrong and it doesn't make them any less a member of the community in question... it simply makes their opinion different and instead of threatening violence simply because they disagree with you (you think i'm kidding but i have been to cons where the person in question threatened to cut me if i said a single negative thing about Naruto... despite the fact that i have never seen a single episode of the show and therefor and unable to form an opinion other then "Holy shit some fans can be scary") you should open up the channels of discussion and find out WHY they think that that and then tell them why you think the way you do.
Also just cause someone doesn't liek something as much as you doesn't mean they hate it...
and just cause a genre isn't as popular as it used to be doesn't mean it's dead... as long as people who like the genre exist games will continue to be made.

sorry thats a long TL;dr.... i talked about too many things in this rant... i just get touchy when my opinion gets thrown back in my face as being wrong simply because it's different...
Opinions about personal preference with games cannot be wrong... only different.

okay this is too long again i'm sorry to whomever actually reads this incoherent rant.... maybe you can tell me one of your unpopular opinions and how you deal with situations.