Games you love despite huge flaws

[Lolth17]

Demon Stone. The tri-character battle system was just awful. But god, the story and voice acting were so great, it was easy to look past the fact that actually playing the game wasn't much fun.

 

[Auric]

Yea id say oblivion as well.

The leveling system for one had me going nuts, everyone leveled with you which is quite possible the stupidest RPG decision in the world, yet i still played it and liked it.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

The old PS1 Harry Potter games. They control like piss, the voice acting is terrible and the gameplay is repetitive.

But still, I play them and like it. Why? I don't know! The game is shit and I know it! But I still love it!

It actually annoys me that I like such a piss-poor game.

 

[De Ronneman]

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for GBC.

Don't laugh, go play it!
It's among 2 turnbased games I like. The other being the flash gameseries Sonny.
Flaws include:
-Sticking to movie plot, thus killing a lot of options.
-Giving you 1 character to dress, but taking her out halfway through
-Having you upgrade spells all the game, but taking away your wand in the final battle
-Being very short
-All equipment is in the same ranges: defence yahoo. I'd liked to have a choice between +agiliy, +attack and +defence in stead of the easily obtainable coat with the absolute highest stats of everything else you'll get.

Things that make me like it:
-A fun little fetchquest, but it can be solved before your first class, so that's rather stupid.
-A card colleciton minigame with in-game bonuses for getting all cards of a series.
-Having likable minigames like bowling, but also quiditch.
-Having a huge bestiary for you to fill, I need only 3.
-Having a great map. It's big, but not huge. You get to know it pretty fast, but still have to use the map every once in a while.

All those flaws are annyoing, but I finished it over 20 times. It's just THAT good!

EDIT: Lol, I got ninja'd by the guy above me!

 

[elbowlick]

MGS4 - Despite the loooong cinematics (that are skippable) and bland level designs (but considering that this was gamespot's game of the year it's hardly worth commenting on in any place other than this site)
Drakengard - Despite it's retardedly hacky-slashy gameplay, it's somewhat rewarding to obliterate hundreds (over a thousand on some levels) of faceless dorks between point A and point B. Especially with swords that grow and change appearance after killing enough of said dorks.

 

[Kouen]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

 

[TheDuckbunny]

Arcanum's one. Awesome setting, music, characters and overall atmosphere.
The game was awfully buggy though and the combat mechanics were pretty clumsy.

Lol, you posted as I was writing my post.

<3 Arcanum

There should be more steampunk games like that! I can forgive any game as long as they get the atmosphere right and Arcanum's defenitely one of them.

 

[IcarusA]

Thief: Deadly Shadows - There's just... so much wrong with it, the AI sucks, on the level of being absolutely insane, the physics engine is weak at best, and the climax is ehhhh, but it's still one of my favourite games.

BFBC2 - It's not so much huge flaws, as it is tiny flaws and crashes that niggle the hell out of me. And the less I say about the Single Player the better (It sucks. A lot.) But it's fun as hell when you're playing with other people.

 

[vorkon]

Xenogears.

Easily the best JRPG ever, with 2 combat systems that were both genuinely fun, (and served to make you feel like climbing into that giant robot was really something impressive) and one of the best examples of the massive, cinematic, highly linear storyline which (love it or hate it) pretty much define JRPGs, but with enough exploration, interactivity, and sheer scope that you never feel like you're not playing an actual GAME anymore...

...then I went and popped in disc 2.

And while I'm at it, I'm gonna' second all the people who mentioned Bloodlines and KOTOR2.

 

[lleihsad]

Deadly Premonition.

I'd explain, but Lowtax has done a much better job detailing that game's bizarro-virtues than I could. Read about it here: http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/deadly-premonition-review.php

 

[Eyelicker]

Shadow of Rome

some god aweful steath missions, a terrible plot and acting, and some of the most frustrating level designs ever, but makes up for it with glorious ultraviolence, and some fantastic combos. Hacking off someones arm and beating them to death with it gets you an award, chopping someone in half earns the award "red volcano", as well as "sadists utopia" for stabbing someone when they're already injured on the ground crawling away. Possibly the best violence in any game ever.

 

[dreadbolt]

Haze

Every fiber of my being screams out in pain when I play it, but for some reason
it appeals to me. I have no idea why.

and Bloodlines and KOTOR2, naturally.

 

[Godhead]

Silent Hill 2. 'Nuff Said

 

[lleihsad]

...then I went and popped in disc 2.

Yep. Killed the game for me, too.

 

[thirdsonsaburo]

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core: Whatever you may say about the retcons, ridiculous characters, and silly plot, the game was fun and had tons of heart. It was also (mostly inadvertent) comedy gold.

.hack//G.U.: I'm not even sure why, but I love this series.

MGS2: Actually, it's wrong to say that this game is flawed. It's reviled, yes, but arguably the most technically solid game in the series. Say what you will about Raiden and the ending of this game, but it was intelligent, tight, a massive trolling attempt that went over just as planned, and most of all, fun to play.

 

[EHKOS]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Such a good game, but so many glitches, a shoddy stealth/combat system and repetitive enemies. But still such a fun game overall. The scenarios and general cast is worthy of the World of Darkness and some of the text options are just hilarious. And the haunted hotel level was incredibly scary despite so little happening.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. The atmosphere is amazing, the story is great, the characters are interesting, awesome humor, you have several options to solve quests without the run and gun method being the most profitable.

The bad? Riddled with bugs, the combat system is severely lacking and the end of the game turns into a slugfest, which with this poor combat system isn't fun.

Here, here! I also loved Bloodlines despite it being a broken piece of shit with quests that didn't work. My thing about the game was the variety of gameplay. Haunted house level, FPS level, zombeez are eat mah brainz level, etc.

A great game that suffered from a similar pattern was Arcanum, an old PC rpg made by the same dev (troika). It was this wicked awesome steampunk game where you could make fantasy characters with magic or steam (lol) or whatever you wanted.

I too, loved VTMB. The textures kinda got screwed up, but WESP5 fixed alot of the quests. The atmosphere was awesome, the single hub soundtrack was really good, and the malkavian playthrough is hilarious.

EDIT: Also Psi-Ops.If you played the ps2 version, the controls were surprisingly good, the story was...errr decent, and the training room was barrels of fun...literally. TK surfing, while hard to maintain, was a proud display of what a physics engine can do, and the powers were ranged and fun to use.

 

[kogane]

Resident Evil 5. With a friend, it's a blast. But on single player you are going to wonder if your AI controlled partner isn't actually an incognito zombie, trying to sabotage you.

 

[oOxatikeOo]

The old PS1 Harry Potter games. They control like piss, the voice acting is terrible and the gameplay is repetitive.

But still, I play them and like it. Why? I don't know! The game is shit and I know it! But I still love it!

It actually annoys me that I like such a piss-poor game.

Hahaha I loved them too! I got up to killing Voldemort at the end of Chamber of Secrets and for some reason I just gave up.

And Overlord 2. I wouldn't say it's a bad game, just has really cringe-worthy moments XD It had me in hysterics though.

 

[Numbert]

Heavy Rain just screems on this one. I love it, but dang all if the plotholes aren't massive.

 

[mechanixis]

Armored Core 4: the controls are a *****, the missions can be as short as ten seconds, the whole thing is riddled with incomprehensible interfaces and load times, there are enough anime tropes to make me gag, and the story is as easy to follow as an invisible jackrabbit in a three-wheeled dune buggy. But god-DAMN does it make you feel like you're an actual pilot of a giant battle robot.