Poorly rated games you like
Carmageddon 64: it's unique, looks different, plays different. It is not trying to be a Mario Kart clone or anything like that. Bad controls and confusing track layout but it has its charm
Cruisn USA: it got bad scores but I dont see what the problem was. Perhaps my favorite point to point racer after OutRun 1986
Revolution X (Arcade/SNES/Genesis/Playstation/Saturn/PC): I never even was that big of an Aerosmith fan. I just love it's on-rails shooter goodness. For the time, I never experienced anything else with so many destructible pieces of the environment. Of course the arcade version itself is a masterpiece, but the poorly reviewed home versions have a special place in my heart. I had the SNES version back in the day and it was a ton of fun. I also traded a guy from Brazil my original Gran Turismo PlayStation game (I already had GT2) for a CIB PC version of Revolution X. I don't care what people say, I like it.
I loved Driv3r for several years after it came out. I got it (the PS2 version) in June 2004 and loved it. I got GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas (also for PS2) in May 2006 but still preferred Driv3r over all three. Something about a car automatically exploding when it flipped just didn't sit right with me, I knew that was highly unrealistic and cheap even at 13. I loved Driv3r's excellent (for the time) damage modeling and the good vehicle simulation for the time. Okay, the shooting segments were tacked on and the game's story mode was short and shallow, but it was a game where you could just mess around with cars, sort of like Driver 1 and 2. A lot of people say that Driv3r is buggy and glitchy, yes there were a number of glitches but 95% of the time the game ran perfectly, at least my copy.
Once I got GTA V for Xbox 360 on May 13, 2008, my interest in Driv3r quickly faded, but amazing that such a mediocre rated game by the critics could give me four years of enjoyment and it took a game from the next generation to unseat it.
I also found SimCity Societies to be rather enjoyable, for a while, as a totally different game from SimCity 4 (which I also love so much, I still play it to this day, 16 years after it came out). A lot of people said it was watered-down, that it was far worse than SimCity 4, but I liked it for what it was. That is, until my copy crapped out on me. Not all at once, it just stopped working right and started crashing a lot. It ran great in 2008-2009 but ran like crap on the same exact computer by 2011.
Real collectors drive Hondas, Toyotas, Chevys, Fords, etc... not Rolls Royces.
Advance Guardian Heroes
It got mediocre ratings but more to the point it was widely maligned by Guardian Heroes fans as not being the sequel they wanted.
I feel it has a tighter gameplay and isn't so convoluted as the original. It's one of my favorite GBA games, just really fun to play.
I still defend Club Drive on the Atari Jaguar. It was crapped on for having low-count unshaded polygon environments, but I didn't care, it was great to have free-roaming 3D levels I could drive around in.
I will happily play practically anything on the Jaguar; I bought one during the test-market phase in 1993 and stuck with it as my main games machine all the way 'til the end. Even games like the Highlander CD game that was brutally reviewed by magazines I kept playing until I finished them. I'm just an Atari fan I guess.
Some of my favorites that people seem to widely dislike things about include:
Beyond the Beyond - PS1 (they say the story is too generic and don't like having to grind so much to level up... well I think this is like a Dragon Warrior except on PS1 and with better graphics than NES or early SNES RPGs. Good enough for me. There's other choices on the system I get it, but I had this one first. Nothing but good nostalgia for me.)
Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22 -PS1 (they don't like how slow the movements are compared to other fighters. I get that but I like how in this one you can see the whole arena unlike the Butoden series where you go off in this split screen boxed in area when you fly. It's disorienting. Plus the UB22 build up mode is fun. I can't think of any fighting games older than this that had a build up mode. It was like adding RPG elements to a fighting game except it wasn't measured in points. Still, I can see why some don't have patience for the loading times.)
Big Nose the Caveman - NES (they say that it's just a generic bland looking platformer. Sure they do reuse a lot of the backgrounds and don't have very many level tropes, but I find the music catchy. You also have to think of this as a horizontal scrolling shooter when it comes to the powerups. If you get hit and lose them, it may be difficult to get your full arsenal back. But like a shooter, I've been able to memorize the muscle memory required to get a perfect run on this game. I think this is one of the best unlicensed NES games. Its sequel Big Nose Freaks Out does kind of suck though - no level music, smaller sprites, weird skateboard physics. Yawn.)
Sonic 3D Blast - Genesis, Saturn, PC (people don't like it just because it's not just a straightforward run through like the four main Sonic games. Myself, I don't mind the Flicky hunting and level exploring. The game has enough core elements to make it a main entry Sonic game in my book. Ring collecting, running and jumping, robot smashing, 50 ring to enter Special Stages with Chaos Emeralds, boss fights with Dr. Robotnik in a variety of weapon attachments, good game music in either version.
Sonic Blast - Game Gear (they say ugly graphics... I didn't hear them complain about Mortal Kombat or Donkey Kong Land)
I remember this was asked before, every time it comes up I mention Bebe's Kids. Still it seems like I'm the only one who likes this game.
https://forum.digitpress.com/forum/s...bsolutely-love
https://forum.digitpress.com/forum/s...ou-know-of-any
Let's not forget the one everyone is gonna say, Earthbound, which famously was trashed by most magazines.
Personal examples though would include...
I never got why people hate the first Bubsy.
Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures is one of my favorite games and yet apparently it wasn't liked at the time and today is seen as a mistake. Screw the haters. Mostly, I like the whole idea that Pac is his own person and you're a friend helping out by giving him suggestions. There are some cracks in the illusion (the game works on a clear "X happens, Pac changes to mood Y" system rather than it being gradual, plus how you have to keep him in certain moods to do certain things) but at the same time fighting that final boss makes me feel a little good inside. Also I can't be the only person on Earth who loves those "wa-waow-wa" noises Pac-Man makes.
I feel like kind of a hipster saying this, but I liked From Software games before they were cool. EVERYONE used to say that King's Field, Shadow Tower, Eternal Ring etc. were terrible games (From used to subsist on their Armored Core series, which IS pretty good).
I've probably told the story before about how goofing around in Dragon Warrior with a character named "Bippydoo" completely changed my ideas on what a good RPG was (before then I was like most people in the early 2000s, convinced any RPG that wasn't basically a novel with controllable battles was not worth your time). After that, I tried out King's Field (the first US one, which is actually Japan's second) and loved it. It might've helped that I was familiar with PC games like Daggerfall. But yeah, King's Field was great.. basically if Castlevania SOTN was a first-person RPG (so I guess Metroid Prime done a decade earlier, and IMO done a lot better). I tried out other From Software PS1 and PS2 games... admittedly, Eternal Ring was kind of weak. Shadow Tower (which used to get downright hated by the magazines) is these days getting love--Derek Alexander (formerly the Happy Video Game Nerd) praised it in one of his videos and calls it the true predecessor to the Souls series. Not sure how true that is (never got to play the Souls games) but I will say this... Shadow Tower is freaky. Have some episodes of Care Bears on hand as a palate cleanser to help you sleep at night.
On the Genesis, it's Sword of Sodan for me. I honestly enjoyed that game, and getting to the point where I could beat it comfortably on the hardest settings. I also like Warrior of Rome II, which makes most players run screaming from its glacial pace.
On the SNES, I'd put forward Drakkhen, Lord of the Rings Vol. 1, and Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge. Not a coincidence that al three have great soundtracks.
On the 3DO, Immercenary sometimes gets a bad rap, but I had a thoroughly good time playing through it. I don't finish many FPSes, and it's telling that the ones I've completed tend to be "bad", offbeat and/or hybrid games like South Park, Krazy Ivan, Kileak (another bad game I enjoyed), and Immercenary.
I also thought Plumbers Don't Wear Ties was funny as hell, and had a blast playing through it with my wife.
Oh, man, I almost forgot: Virtual Hydlide on the Saturn. The Hydlide series, with its early-1980s computer gameplay, has always clicked with me for some reason. Virtual Hydlide may have a terrible framerate and many other issues, but I genuinely enjoyed my time with it. (Well, mostly.)
I've always had a soft spot for Lagoon on SNES.
Seconding Drakkhen and the Hydlides (Tho I never got to play Hydlide II MSX or Virtual Hydlide). It's hard to believe people hate those games. Okay, Hydlide 1 on NES I can understand but like, when people complain about Super Hydlide or Drakkhen, I have to question their standards.Originally Posted by goldenband
Yeah, it's got a weird sort of appeal about it. Like... I'm not sure how to describe it (Happy Nerd once called it like "preferring vinyl over compact discs") but for some reason Lagoon doesn't feel like any other SNES action-RPG. Something about how the world looks. Always brings me back to the game, despite being armed with a pencil.
I agree. Pac Man 2 and Bubsy were great
Pac Man 2 is something that stands at "I pretended to hate it because I was 12 and wanted to play FF6 some more instead but now I admit I liked it a lot."
Legend of Mana is still a game I very much like despite the backlash that was simmering (I remember most of my circle liking it a LOT for all of two weeks and dropping it in some sort of desperate attempt to look cool).
Operation Darkness was loads of fun; I only dropped it because I wanted to give yet another 'sucky' game a shot: the PS2 version of Romancing SaGa. And immediately before those two, Star Ocean: The Last Hope. I personally feel that if Operation Darkness was released on PS3 and had its mechanics be a bit more clearly explained then it would have been more successful. Romancing SaGa is still SaGa; there's infuriating mechanics and you're going to spend your first playthrough bumbling around like a moron, but there's wonders to behold for a player willing to put in the time and effort. SO4...well there's glimmers of a good game here and there, and some good ideas (all hail Bacchus D-79, aka Space Elf Robocop) but there's an area that turns into the whole game into a boring slog and it never fully recovers, made worse with the 360 version's disc swaps. I still like, I just can't explain why.
Army Men RTS. That game is just stupid fun. All it needed was multiplayer of some sort.
RPGs: Proof that one you start done the dork path, forever will it dominate your wallet's destiny.
NIER was one of my favorite games of its generation, but I remember reading a few mediocre to poor reviews for it when it was current.
I don't think I'd ever played anything quite like it, and the way it blended so many genres together in a way that seemed very organic was something really special to me. Also, the soundtrack was just incredible, the story was amazing (IMO) and the characters were great. There were certainly flaws (like weapons balance, and lots of repetition), but I still feel the game was among the best of its generation.
I feel like it'll get a lot more interest and appreciation now because of the popularity of the sequel, NieR: Automata.
I was going to say the same game - Beyond The Beyond. It plays like a old school RPG, which I like. It's a great RPG!
Pataank on the 3DO.
People hate this game. However, I absolutely loved it. Easily my favourite game on the entire system.
Mangar
http://www.lucid-vision.org
Everytime I answer to this kind of question, the first game that comes to mind is Heavy Nova for the Genesis. It's a piece of garbage, I know. But, for some reason, I really enjoy playing it.
Blowing on cartridges since 1987
Mario is Missing. People seem to hate it due to the fact that its educational/uninvolved. Its a relaxing game, you get to learn about different countries (which is nice) and has great music. The only complaint I have with it is it's too short!
I love Mario is Missing
Traysia - Gets a lot of disprespect. While it is pretty much a run of the mill game it isn't as terrible as many people make it out to be.
Brigandine - people seem to be split on this one - most people seem to either really like or really hate this game with no middle ground. I find it really flexible if you want to create your own challenges. For some reason detractors often like to compare it to Dragon Force (which I think is way overrated) when in fact the games share only a few pretty minor similarities.
7th Saga - this game requires a lot of grinding - but offers a lot of variety of play depending on your choice of main and secondary characters. Another game that people either really like or hate with generally no middle ground.
When I come home from a long day in Hell, there's nothing I'd rather reach for than a fire-brewed bottle of Styx Beer. Made from the filthiest waters from our own River Styx. Styx Beer is a third more toxic than any other regular beer. The worst beer - the filthiest beer - the deadliest beer. It's Styx Beer!
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