Games You Like But Everyone Else Hates

[Jeff_the_Thriller]

I've already mentioned Resident Evil: Survivor and the Army Men games, so I'll also add that I'm a fan of the PS2 game Dead to Rights.

Dead to Rights was Max Payne's dumber younger brother. He shotguns beers and ends up puking on his shoes but he's fun to hang out with. Max Payne was the better game but Dead to Rights is just over the top dumb fun. Discovering all the disarms was one of my favorite parts of the game. Plus virgin Max Payne wasn't a beast master unlike chad Jack Slate.

 

[ThicClaw]

Morrowind. Any time someone brings up the Elder Scrolls I'll mention loving Morrowind when I was younger, then they always say something like "oh, that game sucks! Whenever I try to hit anything attacking me it doesn't register? like the fuck!?"

Then trying to explain how the combat works I'll get the "Oh... well that's dumb."

 

[Mike Stoklasa]

Excite Truck and its sequel Excite Bot were a lot of fun on the Wii.

I played this old time travel RPG on the Super Nintendo that was also really good. Not sure if anyone else ever played it though.

 

[Professor G. Raff]

I have a big one and a lesser one.

The big one is Two Worlds. Two Worlds is often given no quarter and every bit of it is criticized without mercy, but it has a lot going for it in terms of unique things. My utmost favorite thing about it is just that it actually does have a very good sense of exploration for findind skill trainers as you don't start out with all the skills. There are also a ton of mechanics that I love - I love the weapon stacking to increase power, it gives some standard loot actual purpose. I love that the ability to re-roll skills gives you the option of turning skills that start at 1 to 0 for extra points towards things you want in exchange for the inability to do the ones at 0. I like the teleport stones you can drop anywhere. I love there are items you can permanentley increase stats with and they are best held off until you can gain max alchemy and maximize their potential. I love quests giving skill points. I love the crappy, campy dialogue - I still quote it occasionally. It's probably in my top 50 games, something most people would consider laughable I think.

A lesser one because it is not outright hated - Banjo-Tooie. You can't throw a stone on YouTube without some video essay how it's worse than the original but I think it's the masterpiece logical end-point of the collect-a-thon genre. The complex interconnected levels are geniues and I'm really gonna go even more against the grain and say people's often sited worst level - Grunty Industries - is actually the best level because of it's puzzle box nature being the personification of the game as a whole. With the collect-a-thon's life-support existence and Tooie's general unpopularity there will probably never be another game made in it's vein ever again - and that causes me to value it ever more. It's one of my most replayed games ever because there's nothing else like it.

 

[Super Hans]

Morrowind. Any time someone brings up the Elder Scrolls I'll mention loving Morrowind when I was younger, then they always say something like "oh, that game sucks! Whenever I try to hit anything attacking me it doesn't register? like the fuck!?"

Then trying to explain how the combat works I'll get the "Oh... well that's dumb."

I get it. Over the years I had a lot of playthroughs aborting themselves 5-ish hours in each time. The start is fucking brutal. But after the Youtube algorithm rec'ing a couple random Morrowind vids early this year I sat my ass down and made myself play until I loved it. You def have to have to the right mindset to appreciate the game, not one of mongoloids who insist Skyrim is the best RPGs have to offer..

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Quake 4's not a good Quake game, but as an FPS made between the classic era and the modern military craze, it's become a very interesting time capsule. It somehow uses elements from both eras without feeling tied down to either, and it's a far more impressive showcase of the idTech 4 engine than Doom 3 ever was. Seriously, the level of scripting going on in some of the setpieces is insane, and the fact it came out before CoD 4 popularized highly scripted campaigns is nothing short of insane.

I can definitely see why people hate it since, again, it's not a good Quake game (movement is way too slow and the enemy variety isn't as engaging as II's), but by itself, it's a neat little game.

 

[SamTheEagle]

The Battletoads reboot is actually fun regardless of what people say.

At best, I think they had a good base to work with in the combat system, but that's about it. Maybe the puzzle/platform section could be developed into something good, too. A big problem with the gameplay is that the developers got too focused on having multiple genres and didn't develop any of them enough. The original game had multiple genres, but they blended together and you didn't feel like you were playing an entirely separate game every level. Each level had some blend of combat, platforming, and obstacle courses, often with two out of the three.
It's hard for me to find anything good about the game because I hated it so much I wanted a refund of the $1 Game Pass trial I got to play it.

 

[Fialovy]

Harvest Moon: Mad Dash. It is often heavily panned as a puzzle game for being too mindless and easy, but to me, that is what appeals to me because sometimes I just need a mindless game to play to chill out and this one is perfect.

 

[Asdfgunman81]

At best, I think they had a good base to work with in the combat system, but that's about it. Maybe the puzzle/platform section could be developed into something good, too. A big problem with the gameplay is that the developers got too focused on having multiple genres and didn't develop any of them enough. The original game had multiple genres, but they blended together and you didn't feel like you were playing an entirely separate game every level. Each level had some blend of combat, platforming, and obstacle courses, often with two out of the three.
It's hard for me to find anything good about the game because I hated it so much I wanted a refund of the $1 Game Pass trial I got to play it.

I got the game as a gift from a friend. Its got a few issues here and there, maybe they'll fix things if they make a follow-up to this game.

 

[Braito-san]

I only ever hear people talk shit about MOTHER. For the cavemen, it's the prequel to Earthbound, though I wonder if that's still a little-known fact nowadays.
It's got the issues you'd probably expect from an 80s JRPG. Every two steps you take triggers a random combat encounter, something that you could avoid in Earthbound as all enemies were visible on the level, and low-levels would run away from you and immediately lose battles. Here, you just pray, or abuse the teleport PSI's run, something that I've learned about on my last playthrough, and will always use from now, specially when going through Mt. Itoi.
You gotta grind. Second you leave your house to adventure, spend half an hour or so getting yourself to level ~7, and you'll make the experience up to the cemetery considerably easier for yourself.
Good fucking LUCK finding where to go. Sure, the NPCs will give you vague hints, but that's all you get. I don't know if those jap kids in the 80s were just geniuses, but I don't know how they could've found out how to progress without Nintendo Power or some shit. But it's honestly impressive the freedom you're given. Went somewhere you weren't supposed to, yet? You'll get your ass beat to hell and back and lose all your money as if you got mugged on the streets of London, kinda like going anywhere other than Undead Burg when first playing Dark Souls. It's got a lot of secrets and stuff of the sort, but considering the combat, finding them is like risk-and-reward. I admit I shamelessly used a walkthrough for my first time, but if you're (very) patient, unlike me, you probably won't need to.
Worst part, though? Finding those fucking 8 melodies. To beat the game, you have to find 8 melodies randomly scattered around the world, with extremely vague clues as to where they are. Some canary which you've gotta give a chick you buy from a shop to. A weirdly-shaped cactus in the most sadistic desert in vidya history. A haunted piano in a maze mansion with so much enemy spam you'll die from boredom first. Imagine going through all of the game without finding one of these. You're fucked.
Earthbound fixes most of these issues and expands on characters, the world, and the humor a lot more. It's pretty much a straight improvement MOTHER in every way, but I could never beat it, unlike MOTHER, which I've beaten thrice. I think I got close to beating EB twice, and both times I gave up late-game.
Feel like a game journo sometimes.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Dead or Alive 4 doesn't seem too well remembered or well liked by the fanbase but I've always really liked it as Itagaki's last hoorah with the fighting game side of the series as well as the last fighting game one to use the original artstyle.

It's a similar deal with Xtreme 2 or the 360 version of Ninja Gaiden II, both games also get overlooked in favor of their predecessors but both, while not as good as the predecessors, are still a lot of fun, just the overall 360 era of Itagaki is underrated and I wish Itagaki led Team Ninja games was a thing that still exists.

A lesser one because it is not outright hated - Banjo-Tooie. You can't throw a stone on YouTube without some video essay how it's worse than the original but I think it's the masterpiece logical end-point of the collect-a-thon genre. The complex interconnected levels are geniues and I'm really gonna go even more against the grain and say people's often sited worst level - Grunty Industries - is actually the best level because of it's puzzle box nature being the personification of the game as a whole. With the collect-a-thon's life-support existence and Tooie's general unpopularity there will probably never be another game made in it's vein ever again - and that causes me to value it ever more. It's one of my most replayed games ever because there's nothing else like it.

I played Banjo-Tooie first and actually wasn't able to get into the original afterward as a kid, Tooie seemed like so much an obvious superior sequel, I'm surprised to learn that's not a popular opinion.

But yeah, Tooie blew my mind with how the levels were interconnected and all the other little details and secrets, I also thought Grunty Industries was just fine, not my favorite level but a good one.

Quake 4's not a good Quake game, but as an FPS made between the classic era and the modern military craze, it's become a very interesting time capsule. It somehow uses elements from both eras without feeling tied down to either, and it's a far more impressive showcase of the idTech 4 engine than Doom 3 ever was. Seriously, the level of scripting going on in some of the setpieces is insane, and the fact it came out before CoD 4 popularized highly scripted campaigns is nothing short of insane.

I can definitely see why people hate it since, again, it's not a good Quake game (movement is way too slow and the enemy variety isn't as engaging as II's), but by itself, it's a neat little game.

It reminds me of Prey, another game that was weirdly between the 90s era of FPS and the more modern ones.

It's fascinating to be reminded me of how 90s most of the 2000s were.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

Partly driven by nostalgia and partly driven by great enthusiasm for the franchise, I really like the console Bionicle game. It was hastily made, laden with rough edges and is largely an unfinished project but in retrospect it makes the game feel sort of endearing. It has a surprisingly good soundtrack too. It still has poor ratings as a game overall, but to Bionicle fans it's another installment in perhaps one of the greatest original themes Lego has ever concocted.

 

[Bum Driller]

Double Action: Boogaloo

Simply one of the most enjoyable shooting games out there. Hated by almost everyone I know.

 

[Jinmen]

I absolutely love pause to play western rpgs and much prefer it to turn based. I'm in the strict minority here.

 

[Kurtis Trent]

Remothered

 

[EmpGulcasa]

The two Castlevania: Lords of Shadow games. They're solid God of War-likes with better music than anything in the mainline series.

I absolutely love pause to play western rpgs and much prefer it to turn based. I'm in the strict minority here.

Got any good examples?

 

[Ruin]

Got any good examples?

The first Dragon Age game had really good pause to play tactical combat with customizable AI commands.

Why they nuked the entire concept is baffling and I'll never understand it.

 

[The Fair Lady]

Remothered

I didn't hate Remothered, the final product was just disappointing. It could've been so much better if they actually took their time with it. I did like the atmosphere but the gameplay is frustrating, the voice acting sounds oddly rushed most of the time, and the story can be hard to follow. Not to mention the sequel, Broken Porcelain, was nearly unplayable on launch because of the sheer amount of bugs. I'm surprised I managed to finish both of them.

Remothered had some interesting concepts (the whole moth powers thing in Broken Porcelain in particular), and the Red Nun was admittedly pretty spooky, but it needed a LOT more polishing before being released.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

I absolutely love pause to play western rpgs and much prefer it to turn based. I'm in the strict minority here.

I hate western RPGs who are just action games with stat progression.

RPGs doesn't mean you gain XP if you kill enemies, RPG means actions are determined by character skill, not the player skill.

 

[feedtheoctopus]

Gone Home. I thought it was a sweet story and the music's great.