Critically Panned Games You Will Defend to the Death

[Thespian]

Dragon Age 2. I loved that game, played it to the death. I think it's story was, though haphazard and flawed, a breath of fresh air and coupled with engaging characters.

And it wasn't NEARLY as stream-lined as everyone says. The changes were mostly superficial and didn't actually change much to the core gameplay.

 

[The Funslinger]

I think the first 3 Harry Potter games were hated on by critics. I don't know why, they were awesome. Don't hate on ma boy Harry, yo.

Getting full access to the broomstick in Chamber of Secrets was the best thing ever.

"FUCK Y'ALL BITCHES, I'MMA FLY!"

The broom really let me enjoy the freeroam landscape to my heart's content. I'd go so far as to call it one of the best PS2 games of all time.

Playing the 4th game really bugged me because they scrapped the free roam sandbox mechanic. It was to the extent I put it away permanently. It had just become a generic reskin movie tie in game along with Eragon and Star Wars episode 3 (though that one was kind of cool, and I liked the dueling)

OT: It's hardly critically panned but I'm highly irritated by all the bull Dragon's Dogma is receiving. Every time we get something like the next Elder Scrolls or Fallout game comes out, you have every Escapist and his mum going on "oh, fast travel breaks immersion. I'mma play without it/download a mod to resist temptation!"

A game comes out without instant fast travel: "waaah! I'm tired! My feet hurt! MUUUUUUM!!!"

And the combat system is the shizz.

 

[Otaku World Order]

Let's see... Red Ninja: End of Honor, N3: Ninety-Nine Nights, Oneechanbara, Undead Knights, God Hand and, like a lot of others in this thread, Mirror's Edge.

 

[shrekfan246]

Like I said for '06, it was only in parts, but I still found parts of it enjoyable. Yes, the story was pretty shit and it was buggy out the arse, but I enjoyed running through some of the stages, especially went it went to ludicrous speed on a few of the levels. And the last boss. That music is among the best, if not the best, in a Sonic game.


Which reminds me, some of the music isn't bad either.

Okay, '06 does have some pretty decent music and has spawned other decent musical tracks, I'll give it that.
Though that remix is from one of the hands-down worst stages in '06.
I guess I can't really defend the actual levels because it was the first Sonic game that has ever actually given me trouble with how Sonic controls. Adventure had its fair share of buggy moments, but it never stopped me dead while I was running along the side of a wall, causing me to fall into a bottomless pit.

And sherkfan246, I would gladly defend all the games you've listed to the death, but out of that list I would only have thought Unleashed and perhaps Heroes needed defending (unless it's on the SEGA forums, in which case, every Sonic game needs defending in one way or another =P )

And that really depends on where you go. There are plenty of people on this very website who will adamantly claim that Colors and Generations are even worse than Unleashed, even though they've never played it. It's a Sonic game, so it must be terrible, because Sonic has been dead ever since his move to 3D for those people. I don't begrudge the people who just don't care about the franchise, that's fine, I don't particularly care about Mario myself, but I don't go actively bashing Super Mario Galaxy 2 for basically being an expansion pack to Super Mario Galaxy, even though I've never played either game.

 

[OrpheusTelos]

Final Fantasy X-2. I dunno, I really don't mind playing dress up while going through storylines which play out like Saturday morning cartoons.

That game was a LOT of fun.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Okay, '06 does have some pretty decent music and has spawned other decent musical tracks, I'll give it that.
Though that remix is from one of the hands-down worst stages in '06.
I guess I can't really defend the actual levels because it was the first Sonic game that has ever actually given me trouble with how Sonic controls. Adventure had its fair share of buggy moments, but it never stopped me dead while I was running along the side of a wall, causing me to fall into a bottomless pit.

And that really depends on where you go. There are plenty of people on this very website who will adamantly claim that Colors and Generations are even worse than Unleashed, even though they've never played it. It's a Sonic game, so it must be terrible, because Sonic has been dead ever since his move to 3D for those people. I don't begrudge the people who just don't care about the franchise, that's fine, I don't particularly care about Mario myself, but I don't go actively bashing Super Mario Galaxy 2 for basically being an expansion pack to Super Mario Galaxy, even though I've never played either game.

Yeah, I'm not going to defend Crisis City =P (besides the music). That stage in fact, was the one that nearly made me give up with it completely. "There's a tornado carrying a car!"

And I agree with you on the whole "I don't go bashing franchises I don't care about thing". Those that say that Colours and Generations are automatically bad are...bad people.

 

[OrpheusTelos]

In alphabetical order?

Alpha Protocol
Bayonetta
Final Fantasy X-2
Final Fantasy XII
Final Fantasy XIII

There are probably more but I can't think of them off the top of my head. Going in order: I'm glad to see all the love for Alpha Protocol which I feel was a highly underrated game that gave lots of options if you were awake enough to see them. I have never really played a game with that much raw choice laced with actual in game effects of even minor choices, to the point of NPC's remembering your actions. Bayonetta got a lot of flak for being 'Overly Sex-driven' but I always find it useful to point out that this is entirely Hideki Kamiya's style, Dante in the Devil May Cry games was larger-than-life machismo on steroids and so much man that even the devil couldn't take him down. Essentially he was the 'Male Video Game Archetype', not AN archetype, but THE archetype for male protagonists. Bayonetta is just the other side of the gender coin, she's the Female Video Game Archetype, I know it's essentially semantics but I appreciate the style and flair that the game had while not-so-subtly lampooning the overused archetypes of the games industry all without sacrificing an actual story for the sake of satire. The laundry list of FF's up there I defend because regardless of how hinky the story or the characters or the combat got they were still fun to play. I honestly don't like FFVII or VIII because their stories were nearly impenetrable and the characters were actually kind of bland. I'm not saying all three of those games were gems through and through by any means, all games have their weak-points like X-2's fanservice costumes or XIII's abominably long intro time. The point is though that all of the characters in those games feature actual growth in their character while Cloud turns out to have been out of his gourd insane from the trauma of Zack's death and other factors, and Squall basically just cranks his natural dickishness down from 11 to a meagre 8. On the flipside in XIII the character Hope is initially introduced as a whining bag of irritation who it turns out is struggling with an intense hatred for another character in your party who was responsible for his mothers death and trying to deal with both his feelings of rage conflicting with his passive and somewhat cowardly nature eventually growing as a character and become much more defined.

So there it is, a vomitous wall of text. Enjoy?

XII's like, the highest reviewed game in the series. Not sure 'critically panned' works for any of those, actually.

 

[Mstrswrd]

NieR, which has a fairly large cult following, so I wouldn't be the only one defending it. It didn't review to well, though. It's also the most depressing game ever. And then Aliens attack (Grimoire Nier Expanded material talks about it. It completely breaks the mood).

Asura's Wrath, which had a wide range of reviews, but ended up fairly low reviewed because it really was more of an... interactive media experience then a game. Which was fine by me. I just played through it again (like my 5th time) yesterday, start to finish and DLC, no stops.

 

[Dryk]

I think this is the least I've ever seen people hating on Mirror's Edge on this forum... where are the people who attack it and why aren't all it's defenders around when they are?

 

[natster43]

Probably Dynasty Warriors 7. It was my favorite game I bought last year and made me get back into the Warriors games.

 

[astrav1]

Now, I agree with you on Sonic Unleashed, but die-hard Sonic fan that I am, even I couldn't stick with '06 after finishing Sonic's storyline. The game felt like it was only half-finished, had more bugs than any Sonic game I've ever played before, and was just... so... so bad. And I'm someone who will defend Adventure, Adventure 2 and their Gamecube re-releases, Heroes, Unleashed, Colors, Generations, and 4: Episode 1&2.

... which brings me to the OT part of my post! Most of the Sonic the Hedgehog games. Especially Unleashed, Colors, and Generations.

Sonic '06? I didn't think that was possible. How?

Like I said for '06, it was only in parts, but I still found parts of it enjoyable. Yes, the story was pretty shit and it was buggy out the arse, but I enjoyed running through some of the stages, especially went it went to ludicrous speed on a few of the levels. And the last boss. That music is among the best, if not the best, in a Sonic game.


Which reminds me, some of the music isn't bad either.

And sherkfan246, I would gladly defend all the games you've listed to the death, but out of that list I would only have thought Unleashed and perhaps Heroes needed defending (unless it's on the SEGA forums, in which case, every Sonic game needs defending in one way or another =P )

I will agree that the music was good and that I feel bad for the developers for not having enough time, but I tried playing it and it was more broken than Sonic Heroes.

 

[lordmardok]

In alphabetical order?

Alpha Protocol
Bayonetta
Final Fantasy X-2
Final Fantasy XII
Final Fantasy XIII

There are probably more but I can't think of them off the top of my head. Going in order: I'm glad to see all the love for Alpha Protocol which I feel was a highly underrated game that gave lots of options if you were awake enough to see them. I have never really played a game with that much raw choice laced with actual in game effects of even minor choices, to the point of NPC's remembering your actions. Bayonetta got a lot of flak for being 'Overly Sex-driven' but I always find it useful to point out that this is entirely Hideki Kamiya's style, Dante in the Devil May Cry games was larger-than-life machismo on steroids and so much man that even the devil couldn't take him down. Essentially he was the 'Male Video Game Archetype', not AN archetype, but THE archetype for male protagonists. Bayonetta is just the other side of the gender coin, she's the Female Video Game Archetype, I know it's essentially semantics but I appreciate the style and flair that the game had while not-so-subtly lampooning the overused archetypes of the games industry all without sacrificing an actual story for the sake of satire. The laundry list of FF's up there I defend because regardless of how hinky the story or the characters or the combat got they were still fun to play. I honestly don't like FFVII or VIII because their stories were nearly impenetrable and the characters were actually kind of bland. I'm not saying all three of those games were gems through and through by any means, all games have their weak-points like X-2's fanservice costumes or XIII's abominably long intro time. The point is though that all of the characters in those games feature actual growth in their character while Cloud turns out to have been out of his gourd insane from the trauma of Zack's death and other factors, and Squall basically just cranks his natural dickishness down from 11 to a meagre 8. On the flipside in XIII the character Hope is initially introduced as a whining bag of irritation who it turns out is struggling with an intense hatred for another character in your party who was responsible for his mothers death and trying to deal with both his feelings of rage conflicting with his passive and somewhat cowardly nature eventually growing as a character and become much more defined.

So there it is, a vomitous wall of text. Enjoy?

XII's like, the highest reviewed game in the series. Not sure 'critically panned' works for any of those, actually.

I guess you're right about XII, I just hear a lot of bad things about it and how many people don't like it from the forums, I never got why. Bayonetta has been the butt of a lot of things since it was released so I usually mention it. You cannot tell me that X-2 isn't pretty badly panned, I've seen four or five people just on this post defend it. Ditto for Alpha Protocol. And come on. FFXIII? That game has gotten so much flak for the atrocious time sink it turned out to be even though it actually got really good 25 or so hours in. Which I realize doesn't excuse it but for what it's worth it's pretty good.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon is an awesome game. I never got why it got such low scores. My only complaint is that it takes to long to increase armour level.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Perhaps not defend to the death, but Sonic The Hedgehog (2006) and Sonic Unleashed. They're not the greatest Sonic games, not by a long way, but I enjoyed Sonic 06 in parts and pretty much all of Sonic Unleashed (although the length of the night stages was ridiculous at times)

Well I thought Sonic 2006 had the potential to be a great game, if it hadn't been for the broken support character controls. ...that and a few other things, like the punishing difficulty of those auto-run sections. Grrrrrrrrrr.... It was because of one of those that I ended up giving up on that game.

 

[Timnoldzim]

Every Sonic game that isn't Sonic 2006. 2006 was horrendous, unforgivable shit, but it was vastly inferior to basically every other game in the series. Aside from that one, the series has never really dropped below "good".

Oh, and also: E.T. No, it's not good. It's really boring and there are hundreds of games that I'd rather play. But... there's nothing fundamentally wrong about it. It's just dull. And it's a hell of a lot better than a LOT of the other games for the 2600.

I mean, our standards of games are very different now than they were in 1982. Sure, it was the worst game ever THEN, because there weren't enough other bad games to compare to it. And sure, it's a really lousy game today, but we really can't expect great things from ANY 2600 game. There are other, far worse games that deserve the Worst-Ever title.

 

[bullet_sandw1ch]

AVP.

I love this game to death, and while I won't deny that it'll piss you off, it'll make you feel like a badass sometimes, make your pulse actually increase at others, make you feel like a part of a team, make you feel like a ninja, make you feel like a hunter.

Basically, a good match of the newest AVP is as good an online experience as can be had.

add me, BULLET SANDW1CH [if you are on xbox]. i will fuck you up.

 

[Klumpfot]

I looked through the bottom five pages of scores on the list of PC games, and I found a game I have some affection for: Postal 2.

It's very open worldy, the objectives tend to be somewhat amusing and there is something serene about a town that can go from zero to deadly violence that quickly.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Mirror's Edge and Tenchu games. Mirror's Edge was both unique AND very playable. I don't get what all the fuss was about.

The fuss was about half the game being in tight corridors which was the exact opposite of what people expected considering it's a game about parkour. Still, the parts that were actually platforming sections instead of unnecessary shooting sections were really well done. Personally I would love to have a sequel for the game so long as they completely do away with firearms.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon is an awesome game. I never got why it got such low scores. My only complaint is that it takes to long to increase armour level.

Agreed, I love that game with all my heart and soul. If only the survival mode allowed to you use ALL the classes instead of just the infantry class. Such a missed opportunity...

 

[Isalan]

I quite liked C&C: Generals and the Zero Hour expansion. I realize this puts me in a minority of one, but there ya go. Probably not to the death though.

If we're also considering games that didn't sell well, I would honestly go to the wall for Psychonauts. A few people I know have told me they thought it was terrible after I recommended it too them and I've had to have serious words with them.