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.
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Sonic Adventure 1. I love the hub worlds and how the stories of the different characters intertwine in the shared areas. And I love the variety of characters and being able to freely choose which one to advance (unlike Sonic Adventure 2…)
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.
Mine was final fantasy 12. I played that game so hard, really enjoyed it and if was released in the time of trophies I would have platinumed it. Even did the grinding for Gilgamesh to spawn for a sword or something. But I was hated at the time.
Now everyone is saying it was one of the best and I was proved right all along.
Sure the story was star wars and the main character wasn’t, but the combat system was really fun, way better than 13.
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.
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
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.
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.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey apparently, according to reddit a few years ago, was looked at as being shitty I guess? Not the best one?
It’s the only one I played, and I played it 3 times with ~240 hours. Kassandra is my favorite character ever, in any video game. I loved the world, its beauty, the ships and sea, and shooting arrows through rocks as a demo god.
I’ve still not touched any other assassins game.
I am willing to bet that people who chose the female main character enjoyed this game more.
Odyssey was really good in a vacuum. Ive heard it described best as that it was a good action RPG set in Greece, but not a good Assassins Creed game. The main issue being that stealth was usually a huge focus in previous titles, but this one seemed to favor general combat and didnt even have the signature wrist blade until the DLC. Also a bunch of the story seemed to return pieces of previous lore, some setup in just the previous game that came out a year prior. Overall though I did enjoy the game!
I can’t think of any that I wasn’t fully aware of the criticism.
But I did play No Man’s Sky, Cyberpunk 2077, and Fallout 76 for hundreds of hours each right at launch and enjoyed every moment without significant issues, despite being fully aware of all the hate being thrown at them at the time.
I really enjoyed Mass Effect: Andromeda.
I will continue to defend Andromeda. Yes it has its flaws, but no more than the original trilogy. It could’ve been the start of a cool new trilogy.
IMO, I would rate them: ME1 Andromeda ME2 ME3
The original Mass Effect was great, a classic, but 2 and 3 had less and less of what I’d loved about the first game. By the time I got to 3, I was playing because I felt invested in the story and characters, not because I found the gameplay enjoyable. Andromeda wasn’t quite as enjoyable as ME1 to me, mostly because I didn’t connect with the characters as much, but the story was surprising and original, fights were exciting, and the gameplay had a lot of interesting new elements that made the scenario feel immersive. It’s really too bad that so many people didn’t like it.
I really wish this had been one for me, but I’ve never been able to make it more than halfway through despite a few good faith attempts. I am really glad you had a great time with it, though!
The beginning of the game is really bleak, but it makes the scenario of trying to colonize a lifeless planet feel all the more real IMO. After you meet aliens and start terraforming planets, it starts to be more what people wanted out of it, I think.
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.
This is the one where we bully our little brother into going back to the world where he can’t walk, right? :P
Final Fantasy 8. I loved it but apparently I was in the minority.
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!
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.
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Two Worlds 1-2 There are tons of youtubers making joke videos about these games, but against all the jank I alway found them both enjoyable and even I dare say good games. The magic system in particular was amazing.
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.
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.
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)
