Games you used to hate but now like?

skykiii

skykiii

kiwifarms.net
Joined
Jun 17, 2018
We have a lot of "stuff you used to love but now hate" type topics, but I feel like we need a cosmic counter-balance.

This is that balance for video games.

What games did you hate previously, but now you love them? What made you hate them and what changed to make you love them?
 
It's not that I ever hated the genre, just the opposite, but what I do hate is that I no longer have the capacity to play shmups, like Raiden, R-Type, and Darius. And you can forget bullet hells, as I can't even get past their first stages.

I still love the genre and try to support it when I can (as dumb as that sounds), but actually playing them, even relatively leisurely ones, are getting to be beyond my ability. I'm fortunately still rather adept at Dead Space-like games, though.
 
  • Like
  • Horrifying
  • Feels
Reactions: Something Awful, SSj_Ness (Yiffed) and Ether Being
Uberpenguin said:
But why would you keep playing the game if you hated it?
Click to expand...
Normally you wouldn't. Thing is I sometimes find that games I don't like nevertheless have something compelling about them. Its almost like.... they appeal to me but there's just little things (or sometimes one big thing) that just isn't clicking.

For me this happened with the Sega Genesis game Master of Monsters. When I was younger, I didn't get it at all, I didn't understand its mechanics or anything. Also it having a time limit turned me off. But for some reason later on I suddenly had a compulsion to play it again, just out of nowhere (this happens to me sometimes... I'll just wake up or something and suddenly want to play a game again).... and this time I loved it.

In that case I think it was just I was young and impatient and not used to hex-based strategy, but now I had more experience and was able to get a grasp on how Master of Monsters worked.

Similar thing happened with Sid Meier's Civilization. For years I literally did not know those icons in the city view could be clicked on to place them on a different tile for different results, so I was just not managing my cities at all, losing because of it, and wondering why this game was so beloved. When I found out about that mechanic (by accident), suddenly the game made sense.

I remember this also happening the first time I played a JRPG. It was Final Fantasy VI, and I had no clue how the mechanics worked (I was also convinced there had to be a way to dodge attacks). I recall even dying to the slug-thing in the Narshe cave... and then I loaded up an existing save (this was a rental cartridge), getting Zombie status, but not realizing this was a bad thing as the zombies still attacked the enemies, and at first thinking "sweet, so characters basically can't die?" Then my entire party got zombied and I figured out it was a bad thing....

But for some reason I kept wanting to play RPGs, and gradually I figured it out. These days I'm curious HOW exactly I actually died to that slug thing in the Narshe cave.....
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kheapathic and SSj_Ness (Yiffed)
I used to hate platformers and souls-like games because I sucked at them. Then I got off the psych meds and got gud. Now I enjoy them.
 
  • DRINK!
Reactions: eDove
i used to maybe not dislike but was broadly disappointed in rayman legends, because i loved origins so much that legends felt off to me and i didnt like the more collectathony style of level design. hitman 3 and the pre-blood money games were also growers on me. because i was so enamored with the nuhitman 2 having less levels and not as big ones was a major let down for me, as well as some levels just not being very good. it's a great game, especially now that there's an extra level and new mode but it definitely benefits from being a platform for better levels. with contracts i didnt like it because i was introduced to the series via blood money and wanted it to play the same as that game, as well as not understanding that running is sus. silent assassin i liked a little better but began to get frustrated by how linear and obtuse it was. eventually i played them both multiple times and like hitman benefits from stockholm syndrome lol so over time i of course got good at the games and loved contracts and really liked H2SA. also plug for my hitman thread: https://kiwifarms.net/threads/io-interactive-general-thread.133080/

Another one I remember disliking as a kid was San Andreas and Vice City Stories, because I loved Vice City so much and didnt like the atmosphere, graphics or mechanics of these other games (notice a pattern?) I especially hated controlling territories, but now I really enjoy the shit out of them because it's a long timesink excuse to just play the game for a good chunk of hours without having to do structured missions. i had a similar thing with saints row 3, but so long as you play that game a loooong time after sr2's left your mind it's pretty good. i used to dislike true crime streets of la and actually liked tc new york lol. i didnt get that game at all, nyc has some interesting ideas for mechanics but it's a buggy, retardedly written mess

I kinda didnt like the Tony Hawk games when I first played them, was more of an SSX guy and didnt really get how these ones controlled. now ive played a bit of the PS4 remake and im kinda getting a hang of it. it seems like it's something i can really get into once im good at it. another one that i was kind of bad at and thus disliked was sonic 1, but now open replays with the spin dash and drop dash features added i feel its level design is really underrated

spelunky i think i always enjoyed as a kid, at least i guess so because why did i keep playing it otherwise? however i always used to practically scream in frustation at it as a lad. now i get completely why it's brilliant because it tests patience and strategy. it used to feel like luck but once you learn to slow down and think you realize while there is luckish elements its for the most part super fair

there's some other old games i didnt get. castlevania i enjoy now, whereas i always thought it was gay, poorly aged bullshit that wasnt designed fairly. then over time i realized how fair and consistent it is, when you compare it to most other games even newer ones the old castlevanias have way more thought put into difficulty balancing because everything: every enemy pattern, hazard, level, is designed around your moveset and to be the same exact thing every time. you could play that game blindfolded and do it purely by memory
 
  • Like
Reactions: Calandrino and Ether Being
Hate is a pretty strong word, not sure what games I hated but now like. I certainly didn't care for JRPGs as a kid because my retard brain didn't understand them, but they were still fascinating in a way.

As for a specific game, the only thing that comes to mind is Silent Hill 2. I must have played it before Resident Evil because the tank controls really threw me off at first to the degree that I almost wrote it off, and I don't remember them ever being an issue in RE. That, or the controls just felt clunkier than Resident Evil to me for some reason, because I don't really remember which I played first.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Lone MacReady II and This Is Violence Now
The Speed Bingo minigame in Muppets Party Cruise on the PS2.

Muppets Party Cruise is one of those really nostalgic childhood games for me and I used to hate the bingo minigame because the muppet would say the letters and numbers too quickly so I would get overwhelmed and freeze up. Therefore it was one of my least favourite mini games in the game. It suddenly clicked and became easy when I played the game again as an adult and realised the letter they said before the number corresponded to the column of the bingo board the number was in. This should have been obvious to me earlier than the age of 18 considering the fact that the letters are literally B I N G O like the word on the board and on top of that the numbers are literally placed in numerical order to make it easier, but I guess I’m just retarded.
 
Last edited:
I used to hate turn-based games because of RNG bullshit (Fallout 1 comes to mind, where you can miss with a shotgun at point blank but a raider can traverse 4 tiles and 1-hit kill you in one turn).

But now I like it, because it gives me time to strategize. Contrast that with RTS, where things go tits-up if I look away for 5 seconds.
 
  • Like
  • Agree
Reactions: The handsome tard, Radola Gajda and XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG
I can think of one but I didn't really hate it as much as I was incredibly disappointed in it. That game was Flashback. It was touted as the sequel to Another World which is one of my favorite games to this day, then I played it... Another World obviously took ideas from Prince of Persia while Flashback was more a direct Prince of Persia with guns. It was too action oriented and I put it down before finishing the first level.

Then I gave it another shot years later and really liked it, maybe because I had played Chahi's next game at that point.
 
"Like" is too strong a word, but I went from hating the Dark Souls games to thinking they're medicore and overrated.

I like souls-likes such as The Surge and The Surge 2, but FromSoftware's games never did it for me. After playing through Dark Souls 3 with the advice of a knowledgeable friend, opinion on them improved a bit. I still think they're mostly trial and error bullshit made worse by a toxic fanbase, but at least I see the appeal.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Radola Gajda and XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG
Mmm, that's actually a tough one... Certainly nothing as strong as hate going to love... Closest would be a game having a rough start but sticking to it and enjoying it. Demon King Chronicle is the only one that comes to my mind at the moment (game starts stupid hard till you level up a bit and understand how the equipment progression goes), usually if I have a hard bounce with a game I just drop it and play something else, god knows I have a big enough backlog as is.
 
I have a bad habit of disliking almost every game I play at first, although I think it probably think the game it took me the longest to actually click with has to be The Binding of Isaac. I really didn't click with the game until I pushed myself through it for the first two weeks or so. Also had a hard time growing to like Hotline Miami (Both 1 and 2), despite them being my favourite games, by now.
 
Judge Dredd said:
"Like" is too strong a word, but I went from hating the Dark Souls games to thinking they're medicore and overrated.

I like souls-likes such as The Surge and The Surge 2, but FromSoftware's games never did it for me. After playing through Dark Souls 3 with the advice of a knowledgeable friend, opinion on them improved a bit. I still think they're mostly trial and error bullshit made worse by a toxic fanbase, but at least I see the appeal.
Click to expand...
Hate is a bit strong a word too but I feel similar about souls like games - went from dislike to finding them tolerable/mediocre at worst, with some actually good elements.

Usually experience improves when I start consulting a guide. While I like exploring in games, these games go too far in one direction and are needlessly obtuse. Yes, of course, you need to tickle the goblin's anus with the monkey's paw during a blood moon behind this one tree in the forest to get the item you need to progress. How silly I am for not instinctively knowing to do that and aimlessly wondering around for 3 hours.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: LloydBraun and Judge Dredd
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back