Games that are supposed to be really bad but you like
 

Yeah, it's a response to Eleo's thread. But just in the opposite direction.

There's probably alot of games that all the major review sites hated, but when you played it, you never really had a problem at all with it, and basically just ignored that the reviews said.

I probably only have one game at the moment.

Sonic Riders.

I like the idea of riding on other player's turbulance to catch up to them. It's like drafting, but it can curve. The air boarding idea was executed in an okay manner, and the new characters seem to fit right in. The extras in the game were good as far as unlocking NIGHTS, Aiai (from Super Monkey Ball), and Ulala (from Space Channel 5). And the variety of boards were good too.

Probably the only things I hated about it were the voice overs and the term "Extreme Gear".

If I could think of another game in my collection that everyone seems to hate, i'll post it up here. What's yours?

I really liked both Castlevania 64 games. I must've beaten the first one over 6 times with each character. I'm so mad i couldn't find a copy of Legacy of Darkness when it was still around. I wish i could play that game soooo badly nowadays. Here's hoping it's on Wii Virtual Console.

I also really loved Donkey Kong 64. The magnitude of the world was just stunning, and it was always fun. I can't think of a single time in that game when i wasn't having fun.

Grandia Xtreme comes to mind. I rarely if ever hear anything good about the game. I had no problems with it.
I believe the main reason people seem to hate it, is because it's a dungeon crawler with very little story, but that suited me just fine. I enjoyed the game.

I'm not entirely sure if it is considered a bad game or not, but I feel I must mention Suikoden III as well.
I honestly don't get why this game is received so badly by so many people... I dare go as far as saying that it's my favorite Suikoden so far. Everything in that game just rubbed me the right way. Characters, Music, Graphics, Story, and of course that you get to see things from multiple perspectives.

I'll name a few that you could just consider "underdogs"...

Wizardry VIII -- Fantastic PC title that passed under the radar. I suggested it to a few folks but they loathed it. Not only is this game ridiculously hard, but the battles are long and unforgiving, monsters respawn, and there are NO safe zones. But god help me, I love this damn game.

Wizardry, Tales of the Forsaken Land -- A PS2 game that was largely not received well by the populace. It's a first person dungeon crawler, but it's not a hack-and-slash! You run into random battles and your party of six will have to deal with anything from one ginormous monster to literally dozens of enemies in rows. You would get these really REALLY nice battle skills if your characters were used to eachother. Things like Charge or Assisted Shot or what-not. I own this as well but I stopped playing it for some freakish reason... Each floor in the game takes maybe a couple to three hours if you're blindly feeling your way around. Lord knows that the Graveyard level took me a fucking eternity... Ten floors total and you constantly revisit previously unavailable paths or are handed shortcuts to previous floors or even the entrance. I really should bolt down and finish this... It may share the title of the predecessor, but JP Wizardry games play and look entirely different. But they're still awesome.

King's Field Trilogy -- 1, 2, and The Ancient City. Recently played 2 on emulator and crumbled to purchase tAC off ebay for surprisingly cheap. Last I looked a mint condition was $30-40 but I found one and paid for shipping for right around $12! Can't way to play it again. I had fond memories of this mindless hack & slash.

Painkiller -- wtf guys. Sure, it's mindless destruction, but the interesting weapons and sheer mayhem along with a nice (albeit early) game physics in play make opening a can of whupass very appealing. Far better than Doom 3, guys.

Dead to Rights was the worst-reviewed game I ever played through. Despite its mediocre graphics, longwinded plot, and simplistic gameplay, I enjoyed it quite a bit. But it's not a "really bad" game. Just an average one, really. I generally don't even bother to start games with bad reviews.

Any Rampage game.

Every reviewer loves to give the franchise horrible reviews, claiming they're too repetitive. Well, they're absolutely right, but that's what the fans like about it. It's just too much fun smashing cities and eating people to care whether or not we have to do the same thing for hours on end. It's great being destructive.

Probably Evil Dead - Hail to the King. What a bad game, I finished it 'cause I'm an Evil Dead fan.

Just remembered another --

Sniper Elite.
Oh my fucking god. I started playing it and was all "lol what is this shit".

You are a sniper in the latter end of WWII. An American agent posing as a remnant SS soldier I believe. You go off on your own to do your mission. Bottom line is there are plans for an atomic bomb that the Germans have. The Ruskies are making a grab for it. This a fictional start to the Cold War. It's a nice length game.

Now the AI is just unforgiving. And the shooting physics are great. There is bullet-drop and as you play on higher difficulties, wind must be taken into account. Background noise can be used to muffle your shots (air raid or explosions), and you can bait enemies out by leaving wounded out in the open.

If you anchor down in one spot and go on a killing spree, the enemies will flank and kill you. You have a weapon of choice for close-combat (MP40, PPSh, etc) but you can't run-and-gun well. The main character's aim is a bit poor with those weapons.

The real fun I found later on lies in your equipment. The best freaking weapon ever in this is the tripwire. Jam down a grenade and tug out its pull string for as far as you need. Stake it down and bait enemies to make a patrol.

Once you master this game and learn all the tricks, oh my god is it cruel. Toward the end, I found out ways how to make enemies want to flank me, so I'd lay out tripwires. Or I'd bait them, and once I spot them patrolling, I'd position myself under cover and shoot the gas tank to a truck. Or snipe a stick of dynamite I had laid out.

This game is very hit or miss. The story is nice but the voice acting is fucking god-awful. I have some VERY fond memories of this game ;D Plus the bullet cam is badass. If you make a looooong shot and it lands a killing blow, it'll do a bullet-cam on a basis you specify (always, sometimes, never etc). It's sweet to make a shot to take out another sniper and see your bullet cause him to lose his left eye and gain some ventilation through the back of his head ;) Very sweet game that most folks didn't care for. Which is unfortunate. But the background repeat, the music is nonexistent... It's just the sheer hell you can wreck once you get good that makes it fun.

Clayfighter games. I have a lot of fun mastering them. I also like playing as Boogerman and Earthworm Jim (n64 version.)

I also enjoyed Castlevania 64. Someone mentioned that earlier.

Killer 7. I just like the art direction. I don't own it personally but I want to finisht the game at some point.

I don't know if it counts or not, but I've had scores of people tell me how much they fucking hated Final Fantasy VIII - I still love it so far, though.

I also enjoyed Twisted Edge a lot.

I would have said FFVIII too, but the original poster said major review sites, and last I checked, pretty much all the major websites (IGN, etc) gave the game high scores. The only bad reviews I've seen came from the average joe.

Oh. In which case my vote rests with Twisted Edge.

Actually, that reminds me - When I got my N64, my uncle picked up Cruis'n USA with it. I was probably too dim to realise just how bad the game was, but I couldn't help but love it seeing as I kept procrastinating buying Mario Kart.

People always seem to dump on Majora's Mask, but I enjoyed it as much as, if not more than, Ocarina of Time. It wasn't the first Zelda game to do something other than the standard "resuce the princess" thing (Link's Awakening did it long before), but it was nice to see them try something different with the plot. Enough that I didn't even mind the fact that so many sprites and songs were re-used from OoT. Yeah, it could get a bit tedious having to re-stock your money and arrows every time you reset back to day 1. But I enjoyed the mask system, and having the days repeat made for some interesting side-quests (having to watch where certain characters were on certain days and catching that window of opportunity). The game deserves more credit than people give it.

I think I'm also the only person in the world who liked Total Annihilation: Kingdoms. Having unlimited resources let me have SO much fun building up massive armies and slowly wiping the enemy forces off the face of the map. And even the non-army-building levels tended to be very unique in their objectives. I remember one level forcing you to sail a ship around some guard towers, land on an island, build up an attack force as fast as possible, run them through a hellish gauntlet of an enemy base to rescue prisoners that were being executed one at a time, and help the prisoners escape back to the ships before too many of them died. Granted, the game had one of the most anti-climactic, random endings ever. But it was lots of fun up until then.

Galerians: Ash. It got pretty bad reviews, and a lot of people I know haven't even heard of it, but I really liked this game. I don't really know why I liked it as much as I did, but I definitely think it's better than what it gets credit for.

Final Fantasy VIII, my favorite of the series. The game was praised by the major review sites, but pretty much everyone else hates this game. From what I can tell, the reasons people hate it are the same reasons why I like it (Draw and Junction System, Characters, World, Music, etc,.).

Chaos Legion comes to mind. Every game review gave it a mediocre score, but i find it to be awesome. The game focuses on one thing and one thing only: Hack and slash till your thumbs hurt and i think it pulls it of very well. And i might add that its got a killer soundtrack composed by Hideyuki Fukasawa. Last time i played it i maxed out all my stats and had major fun with Thanatos :)

The recently ported Astonishia Story on the PSP comes to mind. I got pretty addicted to it, actually. The characters are nothing if not entertaining at times, the special moves are cool, the sprites and environments are pretty well-detailed, and the story's not bad, albeit with some holes in the plot.

Overall though, I wouldn't have said for anyone to steer completely clear of the game, but that's what reviewers said to do.

For me, I would have to say The Bouncer. As much as alot of people didn't like that game, I always found it to be quite fun despite it's shortness.

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. I adore that game. I don't know if it's the lack of freedom of movement, or if it's the ourageously simple plot that draws me to the game so much but I always end up replaying it on my simulator. Everyone always mocks me for it but I don't mind because I know it's an awful game by normal standards. It's like that old game Trog, for the NES. I wish we still had it, I loved those little dinosaurs.

I fucking love Chaos Legion as well, but I never really thought people hated it. Most people have probably never played it, and it got average reviews for the most part, but I don't think anyone really hated it. But yeah, this is a great game, and I love it to death. The story, the graphics, the music, the gameplay, it's all great.

Hell yes. I will give folks that only played the first two levels a hint: it gets better. (sup running through dracula's castle with a bomb . . . oh, and getting chased around by a chainsaw dude in a garden. Incredible games, both of them. And I still have copies of both!

And let's not forget the wonderful WONDERFUL Secret of Evermore. So much bashing on a game just because it's not Secret of Mana.

Rengoku on PSP. No positive reviews can be found for that game. I say people never played the game to the end, missing what the game is really offering. I don,t say that you could have changed your mind about Rengoku (if it's about the repetitive bland level design), but the gameplay is really interesting and addictive for me. I can't wait to get Rengoku 2. I'll probably be the only owner of that game in North America. I feel special.

A little PR is always good :)

I couldn't agree more. There isn't a single game in that franchise I haven't enjoyed immensely.

I'm sure I'll get ripped apart for this, but I have to say 'Catwoman'. 99% of the reviews were bad, but I still play through it. I like the fact that I get to control Halle Berry. Only opportunity I'll ever have to do that. Plus, I like the music in the game.

xman25

I remember seeing Rampage games get low ratings in the past as well. I own two of them, and I thought they were fun. It was the type of game I would enjoy only if I had nothing else to play.

I love Suikoden III also. Although i'm a complete RPG fan, I never have the patience to complete them. This was one I finally did beat. Completely for that matter. The characters were awesome, the graphics were great, and the storyline was compelling. I guess that's why I buy the manga for this game. Either way, I only know a couple of my friends that say this game is bad also. I don't see what they mean. I whorred this game to death.

Also, The Gauntlet Series comes to mind.... Particularly Gauntlet Legends. Major sites and magazines gave it crap scores. I loved it personally. It's a great multiplayer game that has a pretty decent level up system, and the fact that you have to work together to unlock different characters and find those tower thingys.

A lot of the later original Megaman games tend to get a bad rap...I enjoy 5-8 every bit as much as 1-4 (with 7 being my personal favorite). MM8 was a key game for me in deciding to get a Playstation. Also, I have nothing but praise for the often-maligned MMX5, but every X game after that deserves what it gets...

Also, Wild Arms 2...Look past the horrendous graphics and it's a solid character-driven RPG. Not many RPG's have done "traditional" right like WA2 did.

I also feel compelled to mention ET for the Atari 2600...Anyone who believes the mainstream videogame press that this game caused the great crash of 1983 is an idiot because this game was not that terrible (especially compared to all of the other junk available at the time). Yes, you fall into pits, but they're easy to get out of...You HOLD THE BUTTON and move ET out of them once the screen transitions back to the overworld. If you release it too early, you WILL fall back into it. Anyway, it's like an extremely primitive Legend of Zelda, which is pretty cool. Not to mention one of the few Atari 2600 games with an ending.

I'd agree with you on MMX5, GoldfishX, because it was pretty cool. But X6 was horrendously difficult, and X7 was just...for pity's sake, a bad first-step in taking a 2D series into 3D. But Megaman X8 was good, since it combined the best elements of both 3D design and the 2D movement Megaman was built on.

Yeah I liked Castlevania 64, Harmony of Dissonance and Chaos Legion too. They weren't amazing, or great, but they were good games to play which got a lot of undeserved bashings.

i really liked batman begins and predator:concrete jungle , sonic ryders, shadow the hedgehog but gamespot gave those games an insane score, like 6.5\10, 5.3\10.
believe me, these games were awesome.
with the stealth in batman begins, it really felt like a great batman game along with the gadgets as well.

the sheer alien technology in predator and a 3rd person camera angle, the gore,
and more stealth makes it worthy of a 7.0\10 at least.

and also i think that dbz budokai tenkaichi was also really underrated, it surely deserved an 8.0\10 because of the astonishing graphics and awesome gameplay controls.

Actually, I love that one, too. First videogame I ever played, as well, so I'm a living exception to those journalist ninnies who say it's the sort of thing that would put a stranger off the medium.

As far as Megaman goes, the Legends series doesn't get enough credit. For my money, the only truly terrible games under the MM banner are MM6, X5-7, and everything in the Battle Network series after the second one.

Ape Escape 2 & 3 get dumped on for 'not being as good as the first'. On the other hand, I'd say the first game was raw, and in some parts completely awful, whereas the latter two are completely awesome.

Others? Let's see...Breath of Fire IV, Legend of Legaia, Silhouette Mirage, Sonic Heroes, countless platformers of the 8- and 16-bit generations...I take a lot of other people's rejects under my wing and give 'em a good home.

legend of dragoon- best RPG i've played. my friends like it but gamespot doesn't.
DBZ Ultimate Battle 22 was pretty lame but at least i had some fun with it

Ah yes...Sonic Heroes. Slipped my mind how hated that game is. For something with so many flaws (camera, targeting), it sure is a lot of fun. Casino levels FTW.

I was also a fan of Legaia 1 as well...It was a tad slow, but it was definitely a welcome RPG with some difficulty behind it. Even having levels up to speed didn't gaurantee a win against bosses...Climbing that tower with the fog is one of my favorite RPG dungeons.

I might still have my copy of ET for the Atari 2600 somewhere.

I should dig it out and take a picture.

I'll be cool then, right?

Ultima IX Ascension kicked ass, I am sorry. Bugs were fixed in the patch like nothing and was a killer game.

Dead to Rights too as Eleo said.

Many people absolutely hated Unlimited Saga, but I had the tolerance for it, despite how glaringly hard and arguably flawed it was. Stuff like needing the required skills, the slot system, all the weapon maintenance, the board moving aspect, non-linearity, etc. actually made me think it was more challenging than bad. Of course it was still frustrating but I really still liked it, if only for being another SaGa installment.

Postal 2:
Fun game, I guess I have a thing for 'em. I had a blast playing Postal 2 though, it's not like the game mechanics are broken, I just guess that reviewers have a hard time giving it a good score because it's so damn violent. It's just about every "Jack Thomson's" bad dream. Personally, it lays down an intriguing story, not what you would expect from the game if you were to only play a few minutes of it. I also picked up the expansion pack as well, "Apocalypse Weekend", added for a more linear game, but a Resident Evil-esque game play.

I really like Majora's Mask...although I know a lot of people dont like it so much, I thought it was great once I got the hang of it.

I can think of two games that really stick out as being ones I enjoyed despite reviews: Breakdown and Monster Hunter

Breakdown was a game that interested me ever since the original E3 trailer was shown. It had a fairly interesting concept (first person hand to hand fighting game), and the presentation looked very nice. Upon playing it, three things impressed me most: the immersion ("seeing the game through the eyes fo your character" is a phrase almost exclusive to Breakdown), the story, and the combat system. While ranged combat was pretty weak, thanks in part to the rather simplistic aiming system, the hand to hand combat was extremely fun once you got into it. The controls are quite tight, you aren't nearly as "floaty" in this game as most first person games are, partially because your movements are dictated by full body awareness. The story really surprised me though, it has by far the best story (and plot twist) of any first person action game. Of course, that isn't saying much since most first person action games have terrible stories, but even on it's own it's a very well-presented plot.

Breakdown did have it's flaws, especially when fighting against multiple enemies and the generic/repetitive nature of some of the environments (although they do come up with a good reason for needing to retrack your steps). Overall though, I thought it's execution was very well done, and it's sad to think that they'll never be able to make the sequel which they seemed to plan for because of the game's poor sales. It has one of the few cliffhanger endings that doesn't make me feel cheated.

Monster Hunter is sort of a love-it-or-hate-it game. The concept is something almost anyone can enjoy (killing big monsters), but it's not a game that's easy to pick up and play. The combat system takes some getting used to, you have to plan and time your swings (or jabs, or shots), or you'll quickly be run over by a rampaging dragon. It certainly has a Diablo-level repetativeness to it, especially since the areas themselves are pretty small. But, it does have a surprising amount of variety when it comes to enemies and environments, and playing online with 3 other people to take down a colossal monster is really enjoyable. Again, the game did have it's flaws, and I can see why many people would hate it, but if you can manage to get into it, there's actually a pretty involving game to be found.

I've enjoyed every Mega Man game, including X5 - X8 (X6 difficult? I beat the game on Extreme with no-armor X for crying out loud, I thought it was too easy ._.), despite the crap reviews they've gotten recently. Breath of Fire III and IV are also ones I enjoyed a lot.

I saw The Bouncer mentioned earlier. I, too, thought the game was fun abliet short. Once you unlock everyone at their highest ranks it simply becomes a fun multiplayer game.

I agree with the Rampage games. The N64 and PSone versions got so many stones thrown at them by reviewers. I don't think any of them understood that they're not the type of games you're meant to play non-stop for hours on end. ;__; They're fantastic fun in short bursts, especially with two other people (why didn't World Tour support four players? You so silly Midway).

I've put about 5 hours of my time playing US and after 2 restarts later, I've still yet to beat my first boss. Still, I do like how that game is pretty challenging and learned early on to rely heavily on life protection gear and martial arts to keep my LP at a decent level and save my weapons until boss battles. Still haven't mastered how to use the magic system, but it's still fun and definitely rewarding to figure stuff out as you go along.

Also, Stella Deus didn't seem to be that popular despite what I saw to be a solid combat system and a really good customization system where you can outfit a character with virtually any ability you wanted through fusioning. Definitely a game that RPG mechanic junkies should play (even if the difficulty is ridiculously easy) and those who like story-based RPGs should avoid. I had fun with it though.

In spite of most people not liking the game (and thus avoiding the second game like the plague, unfortunately), I really enjoyed the first Dark Cloud. For a lunch PS2 title, it was surprisingly well-polished. There was plenty of room for error, what with the free-form creation of cities, but the execution was triple-A. Of course, now I understand that Level-5, the creators, are fantastically and miraculously skilled at what they do.

I adored the Georama system, even if it was simplistic to use and slightly limited in what you could do. I liked the dungeons even if they were a bit long. Item creation was cool, and the multiple characters you could recruit were also pretty cool, since each of them had unique abilities you had to exploit in order to complete certain levels.

I'll throw in a quick nomination for Legaia: Duel Saga. It was ridiculously easy for the most part, and some of the voices made my eye twitch at how bad they came off, but for the most part everything was reasonable. I liked the revamped battle system, and the combos were also really, really cool to watch. All of the attacks flowed together really well, even the ones that looked like they might make you fall over mid-strike.

Other than that, the story was entertaining if not a little cliche`, and the minigames were fun. The casino rocked.

Mortal Kombat 1,2,3.

I have no idea why I enjoyed them but my brother and I used to just love playing that game.

I enjoyed Sonic Heroes as well because I put up with the bad aspects of the game and got through.

Maybe it was because the World Cup was on at the same time but I loved Mario Soccer when it was at the Nintendo DS Connection tour over here in Melbourne. Why????

I don't think many people shit on Mario Strikers, though! Any game with;

http://cubemedia.ign.com/cube/image/...8031545093.jpg

in it can't be that bad!

Robotrek: Mostly all people consider that is the worst J-RPG ever but i guess that nobody get that the game is just a comical RPG by Enix/Quintet and nothing to get too serious...

One of the only arcade sports games (or any type of sports game) that I can play for hours (as long as friends are around).

- WraithTwo -

Damn, I forgot all about Robotrek! I used to play that alot when I got frustrated with FFIII (VI). It's obviously a quirky game, I'm shocked to hear that people are taking it seriously.

Seven Samurai 20XX. I absolutely adore the game,but the highest this game has been reviewed was 7/10. Even on the mighty Intarwebs it's next to impossible to find somebody who actually played it,let alone liked. Most of the time you get the typical "nvar plyed it but i heard it suxors lol." Everybody and their mom bashed the repetitive combat and blamed the game for being "too easy". I wonder if I was the only one who ever tried playing on a difficulty level other than Normal. =_= The game becomes anything but easy. Consequently,it starts to punish you for simply slashing shit left and right like you did on Normal,forcing you to utilize moves other than the Nitou-Ryu spam and actually look for boss patterns. Also,from the looks of it,nobody even noticed the outstanding voice acting,well-developed storyline and extremely unique design of the world and the characters.

Oh,and then you have the purists throwing hissy fits about how "ohnoes Kurosawa's original vision has been mangled omg!1!!1"

Quite a shame,really. -_-

Okay, I actually bought Seven Samurai 20XX. And played it on Hard. The game wasn't that bad, but you have to admit, for what it could've been it failed miserably. It could have been quite a bit more open-ended and they've could really put a lot more work into the combat system. Honest and truthful, the developers could have made this game easily a triple-A title. It had the voice acting, the graphics were nice, the art design was top-notch, but the gameplay was so lackluster that it made the game come off as just bad.

Even if you forgive the combat system, the game is waaaay too linear. It's literally go here, then go there. Nowhere else. :/

Edit: Didn't realize I was the first post on this page, so I went back and quoted Shuriken to avoid backtracking.

Sad,but true. ;_; If only the combat system was as simple,yet deep as in Shinobi... Hell,even a simple lock-on would've made the difference! Also,it's a big letdown that you only start noticing the nuances of gameplay one harder difficulty modes,where your task not as much to kill,but to merely survive.

It really could've been so much more. Nontheless,I'm still able to enjoy it for what it is.
The only exception being Chapter 2,which is exactly what makes it my favorite chapter in the game. For me,being allowed to freely explore the town while looking for hidden bosses was extremely rewarding. If only the rest of the game was more like that. -_-

After doing some more thinking, I'd also like to add Legend of Mana to the list. The big turnoffs that I think most people had with the game were the lack of a centralized storyline and the crap AI that made battles far easier than they should be.

Despite those shortcomings, I found a huge world to explore within the combat system, especially when it came to combining abilities (Spin + Strong Attack to make a whirlwind sword strike) to come up with more special moves. Forging new equipment at the blacksmith and trying to make new musical instruments ate up a large amount of time as I went around trying to scrounge for components necessary to make better items and instruments. The ability to create your own world was also pretty neat and while the game lacked a central story, I found some of the story arcs to be pretty engaging, especially the one where you go into the Underworld and hunt the 3 dragons.

Man, I actually liked that game myself. It had a pretty quirky style to it that made it kind of fun.

Shadow the Hedgehog. HANDS DOWN.

It was better composed than heroes by far. An improvement in every way aside from the extra boss and the tacked-on swearing.

Xenosaga Ep.2, Blood Omen 2, Maken X, Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage, Streets of Rage 3, Shadow Man: 2nd Coming, just to name a few of the top of my head.