Games you like that people DESPISE

So, when I've been at home these past few days and have had music on (vs. tv or games or whatnot), I've been marathoning the Akumajou Dracula Best Box thing, and I got to thinking about the fact that I love a certain game in the series that folks fucking hate:

Castlevania 64. Yes, I agree with what most of the detractors say about the HORRIBLE camera (but what 3d console game really had a good camera two generations ago (don't you fucking say Mario 64 with the frustration that could induce)), and the beginning of the game is slow and not that great.

My main problem is, most of the folks who bitch never made it past the first couple of levels. If that was all there was to the game, then I wouldn't love the fuck out of it. It's not. By the time you get to the garden maze and are running around praying to God you remember exactly where your next objective is before Leatherface comes and kills your ass with his chainsaw, the game becomes fairly thrilling (also at this point, you're used to the character movement, so that bitch goes away just like the fact that the game stays bad level-wise). The lack of an in-game map just serves to make things more entertaining, honestly. Then there's the fact that there are stages you can only hit with one of the two characters and suddenly replayability. Put simply, I loved the game. I think it's a much better Castlevania than most of the 3d entries in the series, TBH. I liked it enough I got the expansion pack sequel/prequel Legacy of Darkness (which does a lot towards fixing the camera issues from the first).

So. What are y'all's gaming loves?

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Final Fantasy VIII

Seriously, I don't get the all the hate this game is getting. People complaining about emo/lame characters, wherein almost every FF game the same types of characters. The Draw system, which is although a bit flawed, works pretty well if properly utilized. The romance element, which isn't new. The lame final boss, pointless story, etc etc. I think these complains pop up almost on every FF game released. Sure, FF8's characters aren't as good as FF9's (which is the best FF btw), but there's still a lot of good things that make this game great. Flying around in Ragnarok (best airship imo), the Triple Triad mini game, GFs, characters that have normal human proportion, good music (I still like Eyes on Me a lot), and one of the most memorable opening sequences!

I'm pretty sure "hardcore final fantasy fans" will disagree with me and will retort with "FF3 IS BEST RRRARGGH", but I don't really care. They just probably hate fun.

How ya doing, buddy?

I really, really enjoyed Too Human, one of the worst commercial flops of all time. I liked the combat system of using the sticks to fight and my love for obsessive loot farming makes the fact the game is incredibly short not an issue for me (Seriously, if I ever played WoW my life might as well end). I do get the reasons it was unpopular but I just genuinely love the game.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Suikoden IV. Suikoden Tactics. Bionic Commando.


I stand entirely alone in defending the former two, but those of us with taste unequivocally know Bionic Commando was too amazing for most people to properly comprehend.

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I didn't dislike Suikoden IV, it just compared badly to the rest of the series. Released under another name it might have got a more favourable reaction. Suikoden Tactics was fucking terrible though. Just the way they all pronounce "Rune cannon" was enough to make me stop playing it, let alone the shitty mechanics and the bizarre way it's the only trpg ever made where higher ground doesn't let you shoot arrows further.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Fluffykitten McGrundlepuss

I really, really enjoyed Too Human, one of the worst commercial flops of all time...

I've got to agree. Did it have its flaws? Yes, among them being the absence of a loadout-swap functionality (as introduced in D2) - plasma combined with the various bonuses from the human alignment might melt faces like nobody's business, but laser remains king for smacking the assault goblins' Itano Circuses out of the sky - but the mechanics were sound and once you got the hang of them, things just worked and you were tearing through most comers like the hybrid offspring of Dante and Kratos. And if you found a charm or weapon with the Graviton Pulse or Necrotic Pool effect... yeah, good times.

THat aside, you have to give SK props for their sci-fi take on Norse mythology (itself not that commonly used in games). It's a shame we'll probably never know just what they were going to do story-wise for part 2. After all, you may have taken Hel out, but Loki's still out there...

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Grandia Xtreme.

I've always loved the battle system in Grandia, and having a game that basically distilled it down to hardly any story, lots of loot, and somewhat varying battles where you got to think through every attack? Yes please. Sadly I never had the time to finish the 100 floor or whatever dungeon at the end.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Vemp

Final Fantasy VIII

Seriously, I don't get the all the hate this game is getting. People complaining about emo/lame characters, wherein almost every FF game the same types of characters. The Draw system, which is although a bit flawed, works pretty well if properly utilized. The romance element, which isn't new. The lame final boss, pointless story, etc etc. I think these complains pop up almost on every FF game released. Sure, FF8's characters aren't as good as FF9's (which is the best FF btw), but there's still a lot of good things that make this game great. Flying around in Ragnarok (best airship imo), the Triple Triad mini game, GFs, characters that have normal human proportion, good music (I still like Eyes on Me a lot), and one of the most memorable opening sequences!

I'm with you on this one. The thing about this game is that it stands out against the rest of the series (except i suppose for VII). VIII has it's flaws, but i love how differently they handled the FF formula. The story beats stand apart from almost every other JRPG out there, the story itself was risky, emotional, sprawling, political, and existed in a sort of moral gray area that gripped me until the very end.

I'm also with wvlf on Castlevania 64, my reasons i outlined in Episode 2 of I Like to Video Games. Although, i will say that Legacy of Darkness was an improvement on the first title, even though they drastically changed some level layouts making it necessary to play both games if you wanted to see the whole game.

On the topic of Final Fantasy, I know it's not widely panned but I often come back to Final Fantasy X as the perfect example of everything i want in a JRPG. The battle system, the endearing characters, the rich tantalizing fantasy world, I love it all, so even if it's not despised, i like it more than most people.

Bioshock 2 is another one for me. I really don't understand what people hate about this game. I know it's not as good as the first one, or Bioshock Infinite (although...), but honestly, i had a shit ton of fun with it, if even because it just felt like more of what i already loved. I played Bioshock 2 over two weeks, and the only reason it took me that long was because i went on tour with my band for 12 days during that time. The van picked me up when i was playing Bioshock 2 and the first thing i did when i got home was play Bioshock 2. Then i surfaced for air, looked around some forums and learned new ways to hate myself because my crimes were inexcusable.

Devil May Cry 2. This one for a lot of the same reasons as Bioshock 2. I was on a Devil May Cry kick after having just finished number 1, so i booted up 2 and went for it. After it became apparent that the writing and voice acting weren't as strong as number 1 (which is a pretty harsh thing to say all things considered) I just stopped expecting it to be and played and i enjoyed it. I thought there were a bunch of things they improved on from the first one and a bunch of things that i didn't like that got edited out when 3 came out. A pretty standard sequel. Didn't set the world on fire but i had enough fun with it.

I also hear a lot of hate thrown at Resident Evil Code Veronica (X) and to those people i say SHUT! THE FUCK! UP! I flat out loved this game. By this point in the series the story and characters were so stupidly over the top and bordering on pointless that it reached a perfect zen of mindless creativity that spoke to me like few other works of art can. I'm not going to defend this game, i'm not going to try and justify anything it does. If you hate it then fine, go be a cynical asshole. I'm just gonna play Code Veronica again loving every minute of it, giggling maniacally the entire way.

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Suikoden III. I never really understood the hatred for this game. I liked it quite a lot. It was nice having 3 main characters each with their own story that eventually linked up at the end. I mean come on, 4 true rune users in one party, hell yeah!

Resident Evil 6 is another good one. While I understand the complaints about it using too many QTE and the occasional annoying camera view, it really isnt as bad as people make it out to be.

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter probably deserves to be here too. I am pretty sure most people didnt care for the drastic change from the previous breath of fire games, especially the SOL restore and dragon gauge filling = game over thing. But damnit was it good.

How ya doing, buddy?

Star Trek (2013): Though I'd loathe to recommend it to anyone, this game wasn't the worst thing I ever played. Frankly, I enjoyed it more than the last two movies. Its broken, certainly - but not unplayable - and the banter between Kirk and Spock is pretty great. If there is one major flaw with it, is that it suffers from "sameness" (same three minigames to crack a computer, same types of weapons, generic level design, etc).

Duke Nukem Forever - This is all in all a very solid if not-so-special shooter. It works. Theres some stupid fun to be had. Its most offensive thing is that its so goddamned short (any game that takes this long to come out should have 50+ hours of game play. Seriously.)

Shadows Of The Empire - I really like this game, despite the fact that the camera has massive goddamned issues. If it wasn't for that, I'd say this game was a lot more fun than it has any right to. Alas, it has a following of people who dislike it once you beat the snowspeeder stage. :\

Wing Commander Armada - Sort of a b-title for the series and something of a bridge between WC2 and 3 (it uses the earliest version of WC3's in-game graphics engine). Its basically a run-the-gauntlet type game along with a very shallow, but addictive "strategy" campaign where you take over planets, mine them for materials, build bases and fighters and fight your way to the other team's base. There was even multiplayer! Which would be a thing you'd totally use an exclamation point for in a 1994 dial-up world.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by LeHah

Shadows Of The Empire - I really like this game, despite the fact that the camera has massive goddamned issues. If it wasn't for that, I'd say this game was a lot more fun than it has any right to. Alas, it has a following of people who dislike it once you beat the snowspeeder stage. :\

I never really knew that people were disappointed past the hoth speeder level. I think it was a good game too, hell I bought it after renting it twice. A shame people gave up on it so fast, since the best levels are gall spaceport and the last mission, that battle was really impressive at the time, The imperial star destroyer the millions of fights going on with the tie fighters and x-wings and you had to fly through this really small corridor to blow up power cells, It felt like a intense battle, you know?

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I barely remember anything about Shadows of the Empire except that the third level in the sewers was awful, but I could play the Swoop bike level endlessly. I've actually considered rebuying it just to play that level again.

I'm a huge fan of the original .Hack series as well as .Hack//G.U., but I can understand why they're not very popular. The first series' battle system was inconvenient and repetitive among other issues, and the second series suffered from too wide of a gap between levels. Anything 2-3 levels higher couldn't really be damaged even if it wasn't able to hurt you very much either. GU also got pretty silly with how seriously players took ordinary player killing. Of course, there was also the annoyance of paying full price for 3-4 separate, short games to get the full story with even more of it spread out among anime, manga, and books. Even with all of its issues I'm still pretty obsessive about everything .Hack. I could go on at length about its music, story, and characters, but my favorite thing about the series was its knack for cliffhangers. GU Vol. 2 even went so far as to have a convincing false credits roll before going into the real cliffhanger disguised as one of the usual post-game quests.

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Originally Posted by Tritoch

I barely remember anything about Shadows of the Empire except that the third level in the sewers was awful, but I could play the Swoop bike level endlessly. I've actually considered rebuying it just to play that level again.

I'm a huge fan of the original .Hack series as well as .Hack//G.U., but I can understand why they're not very popular. The first series' battle system was inconvenient and repetitive among other issues, and the second series suffered from too wide of a gap between levels. Anything 2-3 levels higher couldn't really be damaged even if it wasn't able to hurt you very much either. GU also got pretty silly with how seriously players took ordinary player killing. Of course, there was also the annoyance of paying full price for 3-4 separate, short games to get the full story with even more of it spread out among anime, manga, and books. Even with all of its issues I'm still pretty obsessive about everything .Hack. I could go on at length about its music, story, and characters, but my favorite thing about the series was its knack for cliffhangers. GU Vol. 2 even went so far as to have a convincing false credits roll before going into the real cliffhanger disguised as one of the usual post-game quests.

I think the only reason they weren't as popular was because of what you said, that you had to buy 4 and 3 games to get to the ending. Doesnt go well with people. Only ones that get away with that now is Blizzard with Starcraft 2, which is the real ripoff.

I wouldnt mind another .hack series tbh, both a game and a anime. I bought them all as well, all 7 of them. I think the best parts was the stuff that happend on the outside you know? the bulletin boards that slowly got flooded with missing persons and admins deleting posts, and the news report videos and shit, they even added that silly card game that was actually pretty fun, Crimson, I remember that no deck you made was ever perfect, there would always be a point to where you had to change something around to progress.

I wouldnt really call each chapter of a .hack game short. Each one was around 40 hours give or take, if you did everything, which is alright for what they did with it in my book. The thing that kinda annoyed me about the games was that all those endgame weapons you got in each game were pretty much useless right away in the next installment. And some of those took some real effort to get!

Definitely a unique series. I'm pretty sure there will be another, I have no doubt of that.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I've heard CyberConnect is interested in making new .Hack games, but the question is how profitable they would be. I don't know the sales figures, but it seemed like GU vol. 2 & 3 sold really poorly in the US. It's always nice to see Kite and other characters pop up from time to time in unrelated games though, so I'll keep hoping. I'd given up hope of seeing more of .Hack after the original series, but then came GU. Another anime series would be great as long as it isn't like .Hack//ROOTS. That one quickly became non-stop padding with a lot of big contradictions to the games.

30-40 hours is probably accurate for the GU games, but the original series was much shorter. I remember beating Infection in about 10-15 hours, and I move pretty slowly in RPGs. Quarantine had the long, painful extra Databug dungeon at the end, but everything else could be finished up pretty quickly. That reminds me; I still need to go back and finish up the extra dungeon in GU vol. 3 and the PK list to recruit Natsume.

Originally Posted by Xellos

I think the best parts was the stuff that happend on the outside you know? the bulletin boards that slowly got flooded with missing persons and admins deleting posts, and the news report videos and shit, they even added that silly card game that was actually pretty fun, Crimson, I remember that no deck you made was ever perfect, there would always be a point to where you had to change something around to progress.

Yeah, all that stuff outside of The World added so much to the atmosphere. I remember thinking the bulletin boards were really cool, because this was back when I was still on dial-up and the extent of my internet usage was usually just checking a few game news sites and reading reviews. Well, that and Worms Armageddon. I didn't join GFF until just before Outbreak came out.

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I'm really glad you mentioned Castlevania 64. I actually really enjoyed the game. I beat it with both characters. I have very fond memories of playing through the game with my childhood friend. Certainly not the exquisite masterpiece that SOTN is, but it still has its charm. I suppose the transition to 3D could have been better and the camera was a bit wonky, but it had R targetting and a great final boss sequence.

My other gaming guilty pleasure is .hack//infection series. I know there was a lot of hype prior to the game coming out, but I really enjoyed the game a lot. Unlike other rpgs, status effects were actually useful and I liked the ingame trading system to get better gear and loot.

I would also like to echo Final Fantasy VIII. Honestly, I didn't hate it although its so easy to make fun of. I replayed it not too long ago and still enjoyed it although I don't think it aged particularly well.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by LeHah

Star Trek (2013): Though I'd loathe to recommend it to anyone, this game wasn't the worst thing I ever played. Frankly, I enjoyed it more than the last two movies. Its broken, certainly - but not unplayable - and the banter between Kirk and Spock is pretty great. If there is one major flaw with it, is that it suffers from "sameness" (same three minigames to crack a computer, same types of weapons, generic level design, etc).

Given that the shows themselves never really had this as a major point, so the game's developers following suit can be understandable. However, I would point out that STO not only manages to give each type of DEW its own distinct effects, but they come in a range of flavors (increased critical-hit likelihood, increased critical damage, et cetera). Firearms in other games also manage to show differences within a category as well (Defiance, for example, has several sizes of spread pattern - including zero (slug rounds) - on shotguns).

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Super Mario Sunshine
People thought the equipment Mario used was gimmickey, but the gameplay was on par for Mario's high standards and the visuals and music were nice. Perhaps because of the last 3D Mario game's praise, this one was rated too poorly.

Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
I think people are gaining an appreciation for this one more, but from the start, I was caught up in the story and dungeons. The visuals were different, but certainly nothing I felt was "childish." Still one of my favorite Zelda games. Certainly more appealing than Twilight Princess's muddy look.

Lost Odyssey
Few people played this, but when I got a 360, I wanted to try RPGs. There were none that anyone recommended. I tried it and had one or two people call it a "Final Fantasy ripoff." Its felt more like a Xeno series game at times, but had a lot of the traditional RPG elements that kept me hooked. Also nice to have the hero a badass from the start.

Diablo 3
Sure it didn't have the rune words or charms. The skill trees weren't as complex. Diablo 3 still challenged players and addressed balance (for the mostpart). Diablo 2 wasn't really highly rated until its expansion and D3 has added Paragon leveling to let players grind. Sure the Auction House is being cited as its biggest downfall, but I understand either stuffing mobs with loot until you bleed legendaries or giving players a way to better access them. I like the game, so fuck you.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Xellos

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter probably deserves to be here too. I am pretty sure most people didnt care for the drastic change from the previous breath of fire games, especially the SOL restore and dragon gauge filling = game over thing. But damnit was it good.

Mannnn, Dragon Quarter was cool and all, but using very limited tokens to save? That sucks. The game was already very challenging for me, and not being able to save often just made it impossible to play. I didn't even get past the 1 mission or something.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I have my fair share of games I like that many gamers hate.

.hack
I didn't realise the .hack games were that unpopular. I've been a fan of the series, including the games, but I must admit a lot of the love stemmed from what the .hack//SIGN anime set up.

The .hack games were pretty repetitive and had a lot of padding, and I think that put off some of my friends who were fans of the original anime. But I was always hooked by the games' characters, art design, music, premise and storytelling. I did like the first game series more though; it had more likeable characters than the second one.

Might have helped if CyberConnect released each series as a single game instead of a few titles, or added more significant improvements to each entry, like what Digital Devil Saga did.

Ultima VIII
Many gamers derided U8 as the Mario Ultima and hated on it. True, the platforming could get very finicky and the action-based combat system was pretty unforgiving. U8's world was also very dreary and bleak, unlike previous Ultima titles.

But I was still fascinated by this horror RPG (yes, it's quite macabre). I guess it helped that I didn't have prior experience with the previous Ultima games.

U8 had a terrific cast of NPCs, and the gameplay was surprisingly varied. I also loved its eery and dark setting and atmosphere, from the gritty environments to the skin scrawling groans of zombies clawing their way from the ground.

Kinect Star Wars
Okay, I must be one of the few crazy people who got the game and liked it enough.

The core light sabre swinging part of the game wasn't the super epic affair it was originally hyped up to be. Part of the reason had to do with the somewhat imprecise Kinect controls. There's no real intrigue nor super exciting fights either. But it was not terrible and there's still fun to be had.

Then there's the fairly competent pod racing. The Kinect controls worked pretty well, surprisingly.

But my favourite part of the Star Wars spin off was the dancing mini game. It's downright campy, with lyrics of pop tunes given the Star Wars parody treatment. The dance moves I had to take cues from a grooving Hans Solo or Darth Vader were pretty silly, too (the Chewie Hug, anyone?). Hardcore fans were mortified, but it's incredibly hilarious, for me anyways.

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How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Vemp

Mannnn, Dragon Quarter was cool and all, but using very limited tokens to save? That sucks. The game was already very challenging for me, and not being able to save often just made it impossible to play. I didn't even get past the 1 mission or something.

Haha, I totally forgot about that! I dont remember it exactly but I'm pretty sure you could find them throughout the game in chests and stuff. I remember I had enough to get me by but that's because you got used to not saving every 5 minutes in that game.

And the game was hard alright, got even harder at the end of the game when all the enemies got that shield that absorbed damage. I think the way it worked is each shield absorbed a certain amount and when your attack combined did more then the shield then finally you could start doing some damage, a real pain in the ass. It restored every turn as well I think.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Dragon Quarter is a fantastic game. I forgot to mention that but really had me engrossed from start to finish. Too bad Capcom decided to bury that series. Don't even talk to me about BoF 6

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I've been fruitlessly trying to think up games to mention, but all I can come up with are games that I've never heard anyone else mention, much less despise, but happen to be arguably bad anyway; or games that are merely despised by videogame snobs (of which I am a member).

Best I can think of is Hybrid Heaven. If anyone had bothered to play it, they'd no doubt despise its god-awful out-of-combat controls, its aimless level design, and its downright ugliness. (Really, it is an objectively bad piece of art.) But as an impressionable youth, I managed to dig its cool each-bodypart-has-its-own-stats combat system and its fight-everything-in-the-game challenge mode, and I still do today.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Hyde

Dragon Quarter is a fantastic game. I forgot to mention that but really had me engrossed from start to finish. Too bad Capcom decided to bury that series. Don't even talk to me about BoF 6

I prefere Dragon Quarter X with soundtrack composted by Koichi Sugyama

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Oh, heres one that just occurred to me. Superman Returns.

I bought the game used for maybe $15 (it was one of my first Xbox 360 games) and though it has big issues, I really enjoyed the whole flying around bit and the random battles. Even the time trials - something I hate in every game - weren't half bad.

Funny thing is - after beating it, I put the game away for a couple of years. When I fired it up last winter, the game was awful. Strange how tastes change so much. Can't fathom how I have a 1000/1000 gamer score on it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.