I’m talking about games that you still like but you had no idea were criticized so much.
The perfect example for me is Sonic Unleashed.
I admit that the game has its bad things, but I would have never imagined that it was so hated at the time… Although, that could be extended to the entire Sonic franchise, since for many years I was not aware at all of that “Sonic was never good”, “Sonic had a rough transition to 3D” nonsense.
Indigo Prophecy
Played it when it originally released in the US and I loved it as a pre-teen who had no fucking idea what was happening in the story.
Came to find out no one had any clue what was happening in the story regardless and people thought the game was a mess.
Oh man I loved that game as a teen but I had to give up somewhere near the end cuz I was in a sneaking section that I tried for hours but kept failing. I ended up dropping the game and just reading the story online. Up until then, it was a really fun game though.
It has literally been about 20 years since I played. I can’t say I really remember which part you’re talking about. I just remember about halfway/three-quarter into the game things get fucking weird.
Yeah absolutely. I just remember me/the protagonist being god or something? Or maybe I misunderstood 😂
I loved this one, too. Super weird story, but I was hooked. I didn’t even object to what I sort of remember as a deus ex machina kind of ending. Seemed fittingly weird for the vibe.
Dead Space 3. Sure, it has some issues, but I didn’t realize how much others actively disliked it until I tried talking to people about it.
Edit: And the point of the post is immediately proven lol
Dead Space is one of those series where the first 2 games set the expectations UNBELIEVABLY high. So high, in fact, that the developers were actually terrified they couldn’t live up to the legend, and were terrified they were gonna make a bad game that ruined the series. But they were gonna try their damndest.
And then EA executives came along, and they saw that “”“all the rage”“” those days was in Co-Op action shooters a-la Resident Evil 5/6 and Army Of 2, or Gears of War, and they DEMANDED that Dead Space 3 be “”“more like that”“”, or else. So they did it, and were also forced to shove microtransactions into the game with crafting materials.
The end result? Dead Space 3 was an… alright 3rd-person action-horror co-op shooter. Not great, not terrible, but… alright. An above-average shade of mediocre, certainly worth playing on its own merits, both mechanically and plot-wise, but not much more than that. A perfectly OK game.
And an absolutely TERRIBLE Dead Space game. Previous installments sold millions on multiple platforms. DS3… didn’t, and it ended up killing the studio.
dead space 3 took Isaac and Ellie from the previous games, made them kinda stupid bimbos, and put them into a high school slasher with a love triangle. they also had to sell 5 million copies to be considered profitable by EA, which was more than the previous two games’ sales combined
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood and cyberpunk 2077 (PC) not too long after release
I made a post not all that long ago about Lords of the Fallen after discovering it myself, only to find that nobody else seemed to like it as much as I did (which, fair; it’s probably why I hadn’t heard of it until recently).
It’s not as good as a Fromsoft game, or Lies of P, but, to me anyway, it’s like the 2nd best soulslike that isn’t a Fromsoft game. The major disappointments are minimal enemy variety, and the story is just kinda shit. The highlights are the combat and build variety, and unique aspects like tying item descriptions to your actual skills so you can’t read some descriptions unless you invest in “knowledge” of it. It just sucks that you don’t really get much from it because, again, the story is kinda shit.
Also it’s the only non Fromsoft soulslike I’ve played that has PvP. I got into Dark Souls and the rest because of the invasion system more than anything else, so LOTF having that was a big plus for me.
Might and Magic 6-8. Thought it’s the best game ever during my childhood. Turns out it was pretty bad. Still like it (nostalgy)
7 and 8 maybe, but I lived under the impression that 6 was critically acclaimed and also very popular.
Fallout 3. The criticism is absolutely fair*, but it was the first RPG I ever played and I’m still very fond of it.
* I never got the ‘metros are hard to navigate’ criticism, I never had that issues. Most of them are pretty linear.
So, I’m an ardent ‘New Vegas is the best 3D Fallout game’ person.
But… Fallout 3 is not a bad game.
It is fun, it is enjoyable. It has solid game mechanics, it has a good number of well written characters and questlines, it is fun to just explore and find crazy shit.
It has flaws, yes.
But it is far from bad.
It just isn’t as good as New Vegas, which imo, basically just did everything FO3 did, but better, had a better overall storyline, refined and improved on all the gameplay mechanics, added in new gameplay features/elements.
i dont think new vegas had better exploration. fo3 is still pretty unmatched in that. so many unmarked gems in fo3
It also had some big gameplay departures from 1 & 2. I’m not talking about being an FPS (although no longer having to worry about accuracy was pretty significant) but the fact that putting on different clothing magically made you more intelligent, and that it was a lot easier to do everything.
In FO3 you can pick all the locks, hack all the computers, pass all the conversation checks, and take on hordes of enemies all by yourself. In FO1+2 you had to pick the couple of things you were good at and not be able to do the other things until your next run.
A lot of the metros look copy and pasted; whole hallways, rooms, so it gets a little confusing.
Oh for sure, Fallout 3 Geoguesser would be hard. Idk, I just never had a problem navigating them, even if they were a bit samey.
To be fair, Fallout 3 is a bit more of a mixed bag of good and bad features.
FO3 is my favorite Fallout (haven’t played 4 or 76 yet).
Have you played 1, 2, or New Vegas?
1 & 2 I played a little bit. NV I 100% on steam a couple years ago and 360 many years ago. I did actually play 4 for about an hour. Was annoyed with how things had changed lol
Guess that’s me too. I loved Fallout 3 and wasn’t really aware of a lot of hate for it.
Not going to lie, I like it quite a bit more than New Vegas. I understand several criticisms that people have, but 3 was by far the better experience for me.
Same here. NV was pretty boring to me while FO3 was actually fun.
Fallout 3 for me works well as a sandbox and less as a narrative driven RPG. I had a lot of fun with it but I know if you went in expecting it to be something it’s not (like the first 2 fallout games) you’re gonna be disappointed.
I loved FO3. And coming from Bethesda, I was expecting a sandbox.
Actually, do people hate FO3? I thought it was well liked, even amongst New Vegas fanatics.
It got a lot of backwards hate when 76 came out and it was suddenly really trendy to hate Bethesda. This is not to say that lots of people changed their mind on the game, though I’m sure some did, more that people who didn’t like the game got more confident to speak up about disliking it. This is also around the same time the New Vegas became a huge darling in popular opinion.
I lived in D.C. when I played it. Between that and it being the first of its kind in the series, none of the others come remotely close for me.
Yoshi’s Story. Yeah it’s short, and level unlocking is weird as all outdoors, but people really hating on it for being too easy? Bro, it’s a YOSHI game. That’s a quarter of the appeal! It’s a game you can get younger kids involved in, or you can play after a hard day when you want to turn your brain off partially.
Plus almost everything in that game is adorable. And 64 bit sprite art is goated
I dunno, Yoshi’s Island can get pretty hard…
Story (N64), not Island (SNES).
I was referring to where they said
Bro, it’s a YOSHI game
Going based on the expectations set by Yoshi’s Island, one wouldn’t be off to expect challenge in Yoshi’s Story, its follow-up.
Its the context and expectations. The last “Yoshi” game was a mainline Super Mario World 2, and people expected similar scope and challenge but in 64 bits. Super Mario 64 had further primed people for crazy genetlrational leaps. Yoshi’s Story was a fine game, but it wasnt SMW3 by a longshot.
Exactly this. Yoshi’s Story was a follow up to Yoshi’s Island, often considered one of the greatest 2d platformers of all time. I spent weeks if not months completing Yoshi’s Island. Then when Yoshi’s Story came out, I rented it and completed it over the weekend.
I loved Yoshi’s Story as a kid. Never knew there was hate for it for a long time.
I loved it but I was sad I completed it before the rental period was up.
Every game that ever gets released when you check gaming forums within the first month of a game’s release lol /s
Im joking. I get the sentiment that a finished product should be fully complete and inspected by a QA team before release. But still, the fuckin extreme hatred ill see for the game and its studio, regardless of the company’s history, is soooooo fuckin wild. And almost everytime when I get to the point of buying the game, ill check the steam reviews and it’ll be mostly positive after like one patch release.
I’ve been curious about this recently after seeing all the reviews for MindsEye. I’d never heard of it until a few days ago, yet all the reviewers I pay attention to are talking about how it’s the worst game ever, while the footage they show makes it look fine. I haven’t played it, so I can’t disagree with them, but the vitriol for something that appears to be completely average is surprising.
Super Mario Sunshine. I thought it was just hard as a kid. Come to learn it’s fucking broken.
Wait, people hate it? I still do nostalgia playthroughs occasionally, one of my favs for GC.
There were so many issues
- Final boss was lame and level leading to it was slow and tedious completely killing the momentum
- Camera system was wonky
- Rocket nozzle barely got any play
- Jet nozzle was too difficult to control to be useful outside of specific racing segments
- Pachinko machine physics were fucked
- The lily pad level was unfairly difficult
- There was no way to track which blue coins you found. Like even a grey coin marker for already collected coins would have been super helpful.
- The reward for getting blue coins was pathetic
- Yoshi was criminally underutilized. The whole juice mechanic was used like twice.
The whole thing just felt rushed. Like there was another third of the game that they didn’t get to make.
If I remember right, both Legend of Zelda Windwaker and Mario Sunshine were either rushed to an end or released early, leading both to come out unfinished. I the details on why are hazy, but I think they were pushed to try and make up for poor sales of the Gamecube at large or to make up for other gaps in the schedule.
Windwaker had a ton of content cut. The ice island and fire island were both supposed to be full dungeons. Both of those incomplete dungeons later ended up being used in Twilight Princess.
Tap for spoiler
Hyrule Castle was supposed to be a full dungeon.
The tower of the gods was supposed to be longer.
I’ve just learned about it right now. I loved it but I thought that it was a skill issue, I’m not a great player overall.
Personally the movement mechanics and the tropical overworld were amazing in this game.
While the water jetpack may seem like a gimmick, I thought it really changed the platforming in a good way.
Additionally, I’m a sucker for a good overworld and the amount of things you can unlock or discover in delphino plaza turns it into its own sort of level.
There is definitely some jank and padding (blue coins) in the game, but it holds up better than Mario 64 in my opinion (just due to the camera issues IN Mario 64).
Camera issues in Mario 64 are fixed by playing the decomp / homebrew versions that have free camera control. It’s how I first played and 100%d it.
Destiny 2.
Started playing the first game day one but stopped for several years. Picked up 2 when I found out it was ftp right after beyond light came out and bought all the dlcs available until after lightfall. I was at work and a customer asked what games I play. Said D2 and someone else said “why would you do that to yourself?” I thought hard about that for awhile and realized all I do is grind and don’t really have that much fun with it. It was more like a second job. And lightfall was a garbage dlc. That was also a major contributer to me quitting.
I started with Shadowkeep and I got sucked in hard for 5 years. The first year or two I heard these sorts of negative comments here and there, mostly from long-term players, but didn’t think much of it.
Fast forward to this past year, and Revenant is what made me say fuck it and drop the game entirely. I was already sick of the state of the game, powercreep to hell and back, pvp in the dumpster, nonexistent loot, etc etc. But jesus that season was eye-opening. I uninstalled a day after Tomb of Elders launched.
I was also a major completionist - near max triumph score, never missed a day 1 raid from DSC onwards til unfortunate scheduling fucked our SE run, every GM soloed to that point, shit like that. Missing that one single season and a couple shitty little time-limited events was enough to feel like I’d fallen behind, and that was it. Booted up the game once since to check out Heresy, activity was the same shit as always, loot was dogshit, so I checked out right away.
And that’s just the gameplay gripes. Bungie as a studio is toxic as fuck in so many ways and I can never in good conscience support them again.
It took a few years but I finally understand what people were telling me way back when I started.
My biggest issue with Destiny 2 is that I paid $60 for it and then it soon went free to play and I had absolutely nothing to show for that $60 I paid.
Edit: oh yeah and that original $60 campaign was removed from the game by the time I went back to check out what was new. There was straight up less content available for me after not playing for a year. I felt so ripped off that I wrote the game off.
Even TF2 gave special cosmetics and stuff to existing players when it went F2P ages ago. It’s a standard practice at this point. I sunk 12k hours into D2 until I quit it for good this past fall, and looking back I swear I just notice more and more red flags like this that I hadn’t thought too much about.
I was excited to start again right as beyond light dropped, but it was confusing as hell as a new player because they sunset the starting campaign. Weird to have to research how to play a game.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
People only ever talk about Final Fantasy Tactics and dismiss any of the other games. However, going by the original release, Tactics Advance is by far my favorite. It’s my favorite GBA game and at least in my Top 25 JRPGs, despite having played almost nothing else for the past 20 years. I like many of the things the game gets criticized for.
Probably my favourite gameboy game across all generations
Marche and the general lesson of FFTA are great, to me. I love the strategic map mechanics. And honestly, I think the Laws (except in the cases where they’re intended to be screwy) are neat additions that make you have to think.
Bruh, FFTA is a great game and I will hear no slander of it.
This is the one where we bully our little brother into going back to the world where he can’t walk, right? :P
That’s the one! We can also bully him with snowballs in the opening scene, if we want to.
Joining the future zombies in abusing Mewt is the fastest way to get past the tutorial.
And that’s critical, because it’s one of the longest tutorials in game history (because it’s so slow).
I’ve ganged up on Newt every time, after my first playthrough. Poor kid.
Yep. It’s terrifying when you really put together the story with that being part of what Marche does - but he escaped being made into a zombie (which is such a great piece of foreshadowing).
I loved FFTA and have replayed it multiple times. I’ve played FFTA2 some as well, which was definitely not as good.
I thought A was much better than the original. I didn’t even know it was “not good”
Usually, whenever people talk about A, you get a few of the following arguments:
- The story is bad/too childish
- Laws/Judges are overall a terrible mechanic
- Learning skills from equipment is bad
- SRPGs need permadeath
- Send missions are bad and just there to promote the game with having 300 missions
Of course, I disagree with all of these. Actually, these are some of my favorite things about this game.
Yeah I don’t see those are negative honestly. The send missions inflated the numbers and I don’t love that you can get locked out of stuff easily but it’s totally fine
I personally dislike the skills from equipment because, compared to FFT, it creates an artificial, story-gated wall on character progression (you can’t get the most powerful magic because you can’t get the equipment, because it only unlocks later during the story)
As for the judges, I don’t think they add enough to game to make combat more interesting
FFTA is great but a hidden gem, I don’t think it counts. It’s weird though because I have never met anyone who has played all lf FFT, FFTA, and FFTA2, but I know a lot of people who love either FFT or FFTA
I’ve played them all! Although, I haven’t finished all of them. I’m planning on fixing that with the FFT remaster, however, I had to drop the original release.
Personally, it goes FFTA > FFTA2 > FFT. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who likes FFTA2 the most.
FFTA is great if you never played FFT. If you did, however, it is a cheap imitation that turns it into “baby’s first SRPG”.
FFTA2 did a better job, but those of us that started with FFT were highly disappointed with FFTA as a “sequel”.
Funnily enough, I really didn’t like FFT. The only thing I could get behind was the story. However, I’m planning on giving the remaster another shot.
I really hope square doesn’t fuck up the remaster like they did with the PSP and Android versions, both shipped with a stupid bug that caused a huge slowdown on every magic-like animation.
I have a lot of childhood nostalgia for Donkey Kong 64. If you were a kid who could only get a new game every few months or so, this giant behemoth of a game will last a long time.
But it undeniably is a bloated clusterfuck, the internet is not wrong in hindsight.
Next thing that comes to mind for me is the GBA port of Tales of Phantasia. Symphonia was a huge part of my adolescent years, and as soon as I heard this was getting a GBA remake I was all over it. Loved it, and didn’t hear until much later that GBA is apparently considered the worst version of the game. If PSP ever gets translated, I’d love to see what I missed out on…
hbomberguy did a 50+ hour 101% nightmare stream for trans charity a while back and I watched the whole thing. I would not subject myself to playing that game but damn it was interesting to see.
DK64 for me too. I played the shit out of it for probably a solid 6 months to a year and loved it but it has no doubt aged badly.
Honestly the collectathon genre as a whole doesn’t hold up much these days. A few modern games pull it off here and there, but going back and trying to play any of the classic Rare titles feels like a slog.
Loved all those games as a kid, and they did a ton to shape the industry, but they don’t really hold up.
Bro what people didn’t like DK64? I spent a large chunk of my childhood getting 100% in that game. Lanky Kong was my boy.
I wonder if a fan mod of DK64 where the bananas aren’t colored would fix many of the problems. I feel like that one small change might fix a lot of complaints. I haven’t played it though.
There’s a ROM hack that let’s you swap characters with a button press rather than trek through the level to find a swap barrel and then trek back again, and do that again and again for coins, bananas, etc.
Small change that has a big impact on the replayability.
If I ever do a DK64 playthrough I’ll check this out.
E.T.
Yes really. I played it all the time as a kid and didn’t think it was any more difficult or abstract than the rest of the 2600’s catalogue. Granted, we kept the manual, which made a huge difference in understanding and enjoying its bizarre logic, but still. I had no idea it was so hated until at least a decade later.
it was actually way ahead of its time, for a game. One small bug (the workaround for which was in the manual) ruined its reputation. But I genuinely think it was a good game.
Also written in 6 weeks by one guy. Freaking impressive
What was the bug and workaround? :)
when climbing out of the pit, it was very easy to immediately fall back down (due to the pixel-perfect collision detection).
And here is an excerpt from the manual: “Even experienced extraterrestrials sometimes have difficulty levitating out of wells. Start to levitate E.T. by first pressing the controller button and then pushing your Joystick forward. E.T.'s neck will stretch as he rises to the top of the well (see E.T. levitating in Figure 1). Just when he reaches the top of the well and the scene changes to the planet surface (see Figure 2), STOP! Do not try to keep moving up. Instead, move your Joystick right, left, or to the bottom. Do not try to move up, or E.T. might fall back into the well.”
Wow yeah. That must have been a really infuriating gameplay issue, no wonder players were upset with it.
A shame the game was so rushed or I’m sure the dev would have fixed that in code.
he was forced to release it quickly to coincide with the film’s release. For comparison, it used to take a team of devs a couple of months to make a game. He had 6 weeks.
Also, if you read the manual, this essentially never happened to you. It was easy to avoid.
You also needed to read the manual. The game did stuff that other games at the time didn’t, for example, a contextual button. You couldn’t know what would happen unless you read the manual to learn what the icons meant. A lot of people never did and so decided that the game was bad.
Yeah, I played it as a teenager on emulation and was pretty mystified at why it was considered so much worse than the other things available on the system. Why would people love Adventure but hate this?
i bought an original cartridge and played it on the vcs i iherited from dad
For me it was war thunder. Seen this game advertised on youtube a while ago, and about year ago i decided to just install it and see what this game is. Firstly i liked it. It was fun game to play. After some time of playing this game, i wanted to see videos of this game on youtube, and thats where i found a lot of criticizm for this game. Only after hitting about 60 hours of total playtime, i started understanding the hate for this game myself. I did not played war thunder ever since. For context, the main reason for hate to this game is that it is too grindy, and it will take hundreds of hours to reach top tier, even with premium account.
it’s very pay to win. it feels good to play at first then your progress stagnates to the point of frustration and paying players get put in the same matches as non paying players. paying players get access to entirely new planes and upgrades and they always kill me soon after i spawn.
Can confirm, several hundred hours in and I have like, 3 usable jets with missiles. And I deliberately rushed the shortest tech line to get them faster. And Im basically permanent premium.
How the fuck is a free player meant to do it
That’s the neat part, you aren’t! Gaijin 100% expects you to pay to get to top tier.
I remember having a lot of fun in the first two or three tiers of war thunder. But then the higher tiers hit, everything gets way too fast and you have to deal with too many sweaters.
I just wish they would fix bombers somehow. I wish I could fly my B-17 or B-29 and actually drop bombs.
All I want is high altitude carpet bombing, I know everyone else thinks it’s boring but it’s what I want 😭
Final Fantasy 8. I loved it but apparently I was in the minority.
8 is a very solid game. The issue is that it was always compared to 7 and 9
Which is funny since I’ve played all three of those for the first time recently, and FF7 doesn’t hold up in comparison to 8 and 9. But I can see at the time how 8 could be seen poorly in comparison to 7 and 9.
FF8 has been going through a bit of a resurgence lately where it does seem to be getting a fair amount of praise. It used to get slated though.
It still feels fresh.
I still love it.
I also loved FF8. I’d be more interested in a remake of that one than 7 tbh.
Another FF8 enjoyer here! My husband and I got married on Halloween, so for the reception, I was Rinoa and he was Squall!
10/10 fantastic game!
