Great games that you hate? Awful games that you love?

[Razzie.P]

What are some critically acclaimed/widely loved games that you kinda hate, or maybe just not a fan of, since “hate” seems a bit much?  And what games are generally known to be stinkers, but you love ‘em?

 

Here are a few of mine to start —

 

 

Critically acclaimed but I don’t like at all:

Sonic the Hedgehog.  The whole damn franchise, it seems.  I’ve given it dozens of chances over the years, most recently with Sonic Mania, got the “true ending” back in the day on the original, but never really like it.  Platforming always felt sloppy to me, and I’m still not sure if I’m supposed to go fast, or take my time to collect rings.

 

Diablo.  Beat the first one at launch, and was bored silly.  Tried part 2 but it seems like I was just clicking a lot and waiting for some random loot to pop up; no real point to the gameplay.  Tried part 3 with a couple of friends, but the whole bit was just “follow the leader” since they’ve beaten it so many times.  Never fun for me.

 

Breath of the Wild.  I’ll come back to this one and hope it wins me over, but my attempts at playing it to date have been some of the most boring gaming moments I’ve ever had.   Weapon breaking ruined the combat.  And something about gathering/cooking (I don’t remember what it was)  made me prefer to just go do chores in real life instead.

 

God of War.  The newest one on PS4.  The combat was just button mashing to me.  Finished the game and never really had a reason to “try” anything more than that.   And the bulk of the game should have just autoplayed.  They didn’t need me to press the joystick to walk and listen to dialog.

 

Generally disliked games that I loved:

Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon.   The EDF games are generally “so bad it’s good” to most folks, but even the fans seem to hate this one because of the focus on longer levels and a “story” in the campaign.  Even still, I played the crap out of this thing with some friends and we had a blast from front to end.

Resident Evil 6.  Another that’s usually hated by the franchise’s fans, but some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a co-op action shooter type of thang.  I get why it’s disliked, and yep, it’s a pretty big departure from RE, but I loved it anyways.  I’m indifferent to the franchise as a whole, though.

 

Prince of Persia.  The one on 360 that didn’t have “the real prince.”   The one where people complained because “you can’t die" because the girl catches you instead of forcing you to watch a load screen.   I dunno, I’ve heard so much hate for this one, but looking at reviews, the scores seem solid, so maybe my memory is off.

 

Tomcat Alley, Sherlock Holmes, Prize Fighter, Dracula Unleashed, Sewer Shark (Sega CD).  Yeah, I know… FMV… but I loved these!  Well, still do…

 

Friday the 13th on NES.    One of my favorites as a kid, and one of my favorites now.  There was a certain sense of exploration and adventure about it that appealed to me

Karateka.  I didn’t know this was considered a stinker until recent years.  It was always one of my favorites on Atari 7800.
 

[Parker77]

Same answer every time for me, the original Street Fighter.

Yes it's clunky and unbalanced, but the seeds of what the series would become are still there, the artwork is cool, soundtrack is brilliant, and I just enjoy firing it up every now and again to see if I can manage the 1CC. Spoiler, I die at Sagat, every time.

 

I just find it an absolutely fascinating capsule from just before 1 on 1 fighters really found their feet.

[Lostdragon]

Never understood what all the fuss was about at the time for the following:

 

Dead Space II

 

Any F-ZERO title. 

 

Uncharted 4

 

Any Core Design Tomb Raider title. 

 

Soulstar 

 

Bonaza Bros

 

Sonix Adventure II

 

Duke Nukem 3D

 

Bulletstorm 

 

G. T A:San Andreas and GTA 5 

 

Red Dead Redemption. 

 

Serious Sam

 

 

Ultra Vortex 

 

MKiii

 

 

Alien Trilogy

 

 

Titles unfairly scored/I got a lot out of:

 

 

Hoverstrike 

 

Alpha Protocol 

 

The Saboteur (Pandemic PS3) 

 

Delta C64 (yes, it's a memory test, but played with lights off, music up loud, it was a real experience) 

 

 

Colony A8

 

Red Max A8

 

Milk Race A8

Edited September 14, 2021 by Lostdragon

[zzip]

Highly Acclaimed games that I don't like:

 

H.E.R.O - After Pitfall II, I think I expected more from this game, and it just didn't deliver.

 

River Raid - I guess I did enjoy this at first.  I remember playing it a lot the first weekend we got it.    But after that I just didn't have much desire to play it.

 

Super Mario Brothers - by the time this came out, I was a moody teen.  The last thing in the world I wanted to play was a game with bouncy music, bright colors, dancing flowers.  Plus it just went on and on.  Everything about it put me off.   (although I did like the Wii version)

 

The Last of Us - probably the hype around this game set unrealistic expectations, but I just did not enjoy this game.  I generally don't like the post-apocalyptic zombie genre to begin with.  It's almost enough to make me want to play a game with bouncy music, bright colors and dancing flowers.  Almost :)

 

Critically panned games that I enjoy

 

E.T.  -  This has been discussed to death by now

 

Knack - One of the first games I got with PS4, and I had fun with it,  was shocked to find that it only had a metacritic score of 53.  I started thinking that the only reason I liked it was because I didn't have much else to play on the console.    But then later got Knack 2 on sale.. it was mostly the same formula but I enjoyed that just as much.

 

No Man's Sky - Oh sure, people say nice things about this game now.   But I was enjoying it in the early days when it seemed that everyone else hated it.

[Lord Mushroom]

I have never liked:

- Bionic Commando for the NES. I can´t handle not being able to jump.

- The Donkey Kong Country games. The graphics are too modern for my taste.

[Razzie.P]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Knack - One of the first games I got with PS4, and I had fun with it,  was shocked to find that it only had a metacritic score of 53.  I started thinking that the only reason I liked it was because I didn't have much else to play on the console.    But then later got Knack 2 on sale.. it was mostly the same formula but I enjoyed that just as much.

 

 

Ah!  Can't believe I forgot Knack!   But yeah, when I got a PS4, it was mostly "meh... it's ok I guess" until I played Knack.  That was the first game on the system that I can say I had a blast playing, even though everyone else (it seemed) was hating the thing.   Enjoyed the sequel, too.

[turboxray]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Super Mario Brothers - by the time this came out, I was a moody teen.  The last thing in the world I wanted to play was a game with bouncy music, bright colors, dancing flowers. 

 

I think you mean Sonic..

[Leeroy ST]

2 minutes ago, turboxray said:

I think you mean Sonic..

Or SMB2, the US version. I think that had them iirc 

[CatPix]

Hyper/Good games I can't seems to appreciate :

 

Super Mario World :

Hailed as the 16 bits masterpiece of the Mario Franchise? For me if feels like a super-souped-up 8 bits game; This shouldn't be a problem, but it had an unpolished flair all around, rough edges, Yoshi mistreatement (seriously, is Mario bonking Yoshi on the head to make it pull his tongue out??) and seems to want to compensate for those designs by throwing truckloads of levels to your face.

Now, I don't dislike SMW, but really it doesn't have the same polished, clean feel of SMB3 or Yoshi's Island, which, save for the (lack of) difficulty, is the real 16 bits Mario game.

 

On the same platform, Zelda A Link to the Past.

In general I don't fancy the 2D Zelda, save for Link's Awakening (in general, I found out that amongt Mario and Zelda, I prefer the outliers : SMB2, Yoshi's Island, Zelda Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess...) But ALTTP is the worst. Confusing layout for the world, lack of direction, blocked paths requiring you to memorize every corner to use with tools you'll find later, path that are never unlocked to travel seamlessly (a real peet pive of mine. Yes now I know how to cross, just make a tree fall on the gap so I don't have to stop the game to get the hook or the whatever...) and in general a lack of feel for the game.

Long story short, I played about 7 hours in ALTTP , and only found in let's plays that there is a dark world and a bird to warp to places. Sheeesh.

 

And it's not for lacking the patience for those kinds of games... I spend countless hours in P&C games and I absolutely LOVED struggling to get most stuff done in Majora's Mask.

ALTTP just doesn't click at all to me.

 

Mario 64 : One word :

CAMERA.

Yes, let's make a platform game with 3D controls and a moving camera, and let's make the camera spin during jumps so Mario fall down because he follow the camera. Yeah, real good design here. How can people say it's not an issue is beyond me! Especially when Zelda games on the N64 doesn't have the same problem.

 

Resident Evil 4 :

Where is the fear?

 

I don't have any special gripe about RE4 in itself.. except for turning a masterpiece of an horror series into a shooter with monsters. Zero fear playing RE4, just frustration, boredom, immersion break-up (yes, let's have a pervy-looking man opening his coat to sell you stuff... Same man that follow you to sell you stuff, hidden ih tight corners of the maps. Woo, feel the immersion in there?). Not a bad game, just not the right label. Imagine labelling a Demolition Derby game with a Gran Turismo label. That's what RE4 is. A mundane zombie shooter with a Resident Evil nameplate.

 

Games that I like despite their bad rep :

 

Not any "major" stinker out there that I like. Mostly because I avoid them or I don't care for the game typ enough to even try them!

 

But I found most games on "bad" consoles to have more to themselves than what people make it to be.

The Gamate usually have a solid line-up of games, though usually those are dismissed as being (admittedly) rip-off of other games. But being a rip-off doesn't make a game bad. Just not original.

The Watara Supervision is usually equally associated with the idea of bad games, which, yeah, it has more poorly-made games than the Gamate, but still a share of decent games as well.

 

 

[Classic Pac]

You can talk about "Games that People Hate", but yet a lot mentioned above sold very well. But the one I love frankly didn't but I love both games for not only there quirky humor and the make no sense at all puzzles. A good example of this is turn at ironing board into a surf board to take photos from a cave of drawings of sheep, so you get a dead sheep to be a stunt double in a film. Let's say it's impossible to play both games without a Walkthrough.

 

Discworld and Discworld 2: Morality Bytes 

[Steven Pendleton]

This is the thread where I will admit that I get some amusement from CrazyBus.

[Pokeypy]

On 9/14/2021 at 4:00 PM, zzip said:

Highly Acclaimed games that I don't like:

H.E.R.O - After Pitfall II, I think I expected more from this game, and it just didn't deliver.

What? It's one of my favourites. Ok, it's not like Pitfall II (especially not as huge), but think of it: The game idea, gameplay, graphics, sound - it's all just about perfect. Great game!

Edited September 18, 2021 by Pokeypy

[RJ]

Metal Gear Solid.

 

Anything Zelda..

 

1 v 1 fighting games.

 

Any game with turn-based combat. (Sure, I'll just stand here while you hit me if you PROMISE to let me do that to you)

Edited September 18, 2021 by RJ

[+save2600]

10 hours ago, Pokeypy said:

What? It's one of my favourites. Ok, it's not like Pitfall II (especially not as huge), but think of it: The game idea, gameplay, graphics, sound - it's all just about perfect. Great game!

Isn't HERO really just a game of memorization though? Try this way, get burned. Learn the patterns and move on. I've tried and tried to like this game throughout the years, but has never kept my attention for very long. Unless you only play it once in a blue moon, not a lot of replay value IMO. 

[Razzie.P]

3 hours ago, Classic Pac said:

You can talk about "Games that People Hate", but yet a lot mentioned above sold very well. But the one I love frankly didn't but I love both games for not only there quirky humor and the make no sense at all puzzles. A good example of this is turn at ironing board into a surf board to take photos from a cave of drawings of sheep, so you get a dead sheep to be a stunt double in a film. Let's say it's impossible to play both games without a Walkthrough.

 

Discworld and Discworld 2: Morality Bytes 

I love those games!    Discworld was the very first game I bought when I got a PC in the 90s ( I had the game in hand before the PC arrived) and I bought the sequel on launch date.

Can’t agree they were “impossible without a walkthrough” though.  Finished the first game during a simultaneous play through with a friend.  We didn’t really have internet at that time, but she may have gotten her info from a guide or something, not sure.  I seem to remember us having trouble getting around bug later in the game, though…

 

Part 2 was much easier.  Plowed through that one in something like a weekend and the characters/jokes/situations still stick with me.

 

There’s also a 3rd game that’s worth checking out called “Discworld Noir.”  Same type of gameplay, but different art style/tone, and focuses on a different part of the Discworld series to recreate the detective/film noir stuff
 

[turboxray]

On 9/14/2021 at 9:54 AM, CatPix said:

Hyper/Good games I can't seems to appreciate :

 

Super Mario World :

Hailed as the 16 bits masterpiece of the Mario Franchise? For me if feels like a super-souped-up 8 bits game;

I don't get this. What about the game feels 8bit? If anything, SMB3 on the NES is a 16bit game with 8bit color limitations - through and through. There's nothing about SMB4 that feels 8bit, then or now.

[Leeroy ST]

Even Nintendo didn't think SMW was too much of a jump from SMB3 on their new console.

 

Personally I didn't really care for any of them until Sunshine. Which still wasn't a great game but was fun.

 

But SMW paled in comparison to something like Mega Man X, Super Metroid, or even Kirby. Never got some of the hype select fans showered it with. It was basically an updated SMB3, like how Crash Woc was an updated Warped, difference is the last two examples are good games.

 

5 hours ago, Classic Pac said:

Discworld and Discworld 2: Morality Bytes 

 

On the subject of adventure games and the thread, Kings Quest.

 

Each one is toxic hubris liquid, conjured together with ego producing absolute trash, with nonsense puzzles, death puzzles you won't figure out you screwed up on until hours later, crazy solutions to get out of situations, trial and error, terrible interfaces and world interactivity for most games, bland characters, several being ripoffs, tedium, heavy backtracking, and so much more.

 

King Quest only got its status because PC was shit for games in the 80's compared to other computers, so Kings Quest 1-4 were considered technical marvel's and clever game design by people trapped in the PC echo chamber. Reaching the peak after Kings Quest Vs CD version, while there were more impressive games even on PC at that point, with better gameplay.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[Pokeypy]

4 hours ago, save2600 said:

Isn't HERO really just a game of memorization though? Try this way, get burned. Learn the patterns and move on.

Well, on the one hand, you're right, that's what you do in HERO.

But on the other hand: Aren't video games in general just games of memorization? Jump from a point on a platform the first time (in Jumpman for example) and fall down. Memorize, where you can jump, and make it to the next level the second time.

Seems just like a general principle of video games to me. Not an argument against a specific one.

Edited September 18, 2021 by Pokeypy

[Ramses]

SMW was never a favorite of mine either. I don't hate it or anything like that. I really liked when it first came out, but the level design didn't feel as tight as SMB3 to me.

[+save2600]

3 hours ago, Pokeypy said:

Well, on the one hand, you're right, that's what you do in HERO.

But on the other hand: Aren't video games in general just games of memorization? Jump from a point on a platform the first time (in Jumpman for example) and fall down. Memorize, where you can jump, and make it to the next level the second time.

Seems just like a general principle of video games to me. Not an argument against a specific one.

Agree to an extent, and without turbo-nerding the subject; the particular dynamic (let's call it the discovery mechanic or process) in HERO or Jumpman Jr., is more tedious than fun for me. 
 

 

[turboxray]

7 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Even Nintendo didn't think SMW was too much of a jump from SMB3 on their new console.

 

Personally I didn't really care for any of them until Sunshine. Which still wasn't a great game but was fun.

 

But SMW paled in comparison to something like Mega Man X, Super Metroid, or even Kirby. Never got some of the hype select fans showered it with. It was basically an updated SMB3, like how Crash Woc was an updated Warped, difference is the last two examples are good games.

MMX came out in 1993, Super Metroid in 1994, and Kirby in 1996.... SMW came out in 1990 as a day-1 launch game. 

[Leeroy ST]

38 minutes ago, turboxray said:

MMX came out in 1993, Super Metroid in 1994, and Kirby in 1996.... SMW came out in 1990 as a day-1 launch game. 

And?

 

I'm just saying I think that it paled compared to those games. Especially overtime. Imo.

 

2 hours ago, save2600 said:

Agree to an extent, and without turbo-nerding the subject; the particular dynamic (let's call it the discovery mechanic or process) in HERO or Jumpman Jr., is more tedious than fun for me. 
 

 

You seem to dislike games were the main element or content is the memorization itself.

 

Hero the entire game is basically repetitious memorization mixed with trial and error to get a good score instead of actual skill or multiple ways to interact with the game. 

 

In Pitfall 2 the game has multiple layers of engagement, more skill based, exploration, and stage design.

 

Hero is basically a game of memory and there's almost nothing else to the game. Once you figure things out the game has barely any content and nothing to engage you with, it barely had that from the start.

 

Depending on what system you run it on, it can look good, but that's the biggest compliment I can give it.

[turboxray]

19 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

And?

 

I'm just saying I think that it paled compared to those games. Especially overtime. Imo.

Why are you going to compare next? SMB3 to Balloon Fight? I think the concept of release games is lost on you. That's what "and".

[DragonGrafx-16]

Super Mario World is actually pretty complex... more so than SMB3 is...

 

I've watched a lot of SMW romhack videos and things can get pretty nuts mechanics wise.

[CatPix]

"Romhacks" And I'm not saying I hate SMW, just that for me, I didn't let the jump from the NES to the SNES with SMW. It's still a good game, but for me, I'd rank it way below many other Super Mario Bros games.