Poorly Reviewed Games You Enjoyed

[Syrograph]

I know it was reviewed quite well, but it wasn't such a critical success; at least, I don't think so.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

It's one of my favourite games and I still waste countless hours playing it. It's so diverse and open-ended, but arguably slightly unbalanced in favour of magic. I didn't realise this until I stopped playing gunsmith characters and played a mage instead ("Ferdinand the Angry Gnome"). The first-level dark necromancy spell, Harm, is very very powerful. The trade-off is that if you overdo it, you pass out. I guess that worked to balance it a bit better?

At least with guns you can run away when you run out of ammo.

Still, I'd urge anyone who's not played it to go and buy a copy from GOG.com. It is excellent value for money and scratches that high-fantasy/steampunk itch that I know a lot of you suffer from.

 

[Norrdicus]

Guys, New Vegas had 84 on Metacritic, that's not "poorly reviewed". I love that game as much as you do, but the game got high scores, even if it didn't go above the arbitrary line of 85/100

As for badly reviewed games that I enjoyed, I'll name Vexx, a cute yet still very gory 3D platformer on 6th gen consoles

I always liked Tenkaichi 2 more than 3. Dunno why. But I liked all the Tenkaichi games more than the basic Budokia games. Dat 3D.

I'm with ya. I think I liked 2 more because it had more game modes as far as I remember, and I think the basic moves and combos weren't as identical between characters in 2. Might remember that wrong

Otherwise, STALKER Clear Sky, even though I kinda get it... it was just too buggy on release.

Did you play Shadow of Chernobyl before it? I mean, I'd guess many did not like Clear Sky because SoC did almost everything that Clear Sky did, and did it better. That was my experience, I was so charmed by SoC so that when I got to play Clear Sky, the atmosphere was not enough to grab me. Re-used an incredible amount of assets, and what wasn't reused, was often half-assed or unneeded.

I did somewhat enjoy it for one playthrough though even if I don't see a reason to play it ever again.

 

[Carnagath]

For a game to get poorly reviewed with the way reviewers hand out scores left and right, it needs to be a real stinker, so I can't think of one. Maybe Ripper, the FMV adventure game back in the day. It got terrible reviews, but I enjoyed it a lot, it was quite challenging and the story was a complete mindfuck.

 

[EstrogenicMuscle]

This gen J-RPGs especially "moe" J-RPGs NISa is localizing, i even enjoyed original Hyperdimension Neptunia!

I'm with you there.

This also seems to be one of those cultural things where fans of such stuff seem to be as poorly reviewed as the games themselves. I found the combat in Neptunia quite boring. But the characters managed to amuse me. I tend to enjoy most of the Compile Heart games despite none of them being fantastic.

And on that subject, I don't know how badly it was reviewed, but a lot of people hate the heck out of it. But I enjoyed it. Star Ocean 4. So many people hate this game, but I played and enjoyed it.

 

[FourCartridge]

It's so diverse and open-ended, but arguably slightly unbalanced in favour of magic. I didn't realise this until I stopped playing gunsmith characters and played a mage instead ("Ferdinand the Angry Gnome"). The first-level dark necromancy spell, Harm, is very very powerful. The trade-off is that if you overdo it, you pass out. I guess that worked to balance it a bit better?

At least with guns you can run away when you run out of ammo.

There a fan patch I use that re-balances the game so tech characters can be on equal footing. I'd post the link, but I don't want to be on the wrong end of a mod so if ya want see it just PM me. =P

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Iron Man 2.

While the system mechanics like Suit upgrades are shat on by only allowing it in half of the playable levels (In others, you have to use a premade suit), the ugly graphics (Frame Rate drops in cutscenes) and all the other gripss, I fucking loved the controls and blowing shit up.
When they make an Iron Man game, that's how I want it to feel, but look MUCH better and have MUCH better gameplay.

 

[The White Hunter]

A LOT of Sonic games.
Seriously. I was in a blind love for Sonic for a very long time.
I even liked Sonic 06 for a time until I started to play better games and realized how bad it was.
But for some reason I still look back on Shadow the Hedgehog as a good time, I don't know why.

The prime example of poorly received Sonic games that are good is Heroes. People hate it and I don't really get whats bad about it, yeah there's a few glitches, the rail jumping is dodgy and every story has the same stage progression, but it is also fairly solid, fun, with decent (if long) stage designs and nice and varied themes to those stages.

Unleashed too was a lot of fun,e vent he werehog levels, their biggest issue was feeling out of place and stuff taking too long to die. Imagine if they'd made a Sonic & Knuckles thing? With Knuckles stages as beat em ups?

Shadow the Hedgehog I wouldn't call good but it has a certain level of enjoyability. The story is complete and total garbage but it's alright.

I love Sonic Spinball too, and Sonic R. Sonic R is amazing

Sonic 4 is just bad though. 06 has a certains o bad it's hilarious going for it, to be honest I'd say it's only marginally more broken than SA1 and 2, those both aged like milk.

Oh and Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed. It's easily the best karting game I've ever played. I wrote a review, it's in the user reviews section and on my website. It's brilliant. I adore it. Go play it.

Sonic aside;

The Sly series gets mediocre reviews and I mostly adore it.

Resident Evil 6 isn't as bad as it's made out to be, it's not great but it's definately better than 5 in some ways, though it's a pathetic attempt compared to 4.

ZombiU is unfairly judged, it's actually easily a solid 7/10 survival horror game, it's just a bit rushed and poorly thtought through. The lack of iron sight aiming for more accuracy really hurts a game with scarce ammo and extremely dangerous enemies. When you have to fire bolt-action rifles with a cone going on it's gonna lead to angry time. Deserves a follow up to fix what was broke.

Singularity is a fun and clever shooter with some unique mechanics and an engaging story. It's formulaic and not necessarily original but it's certainly fun to play and has a decent story. I did have some issue with the PC version though I can't remember what, some option that wasn't there or something.

Medal of Honor 2010. It's a solid modern day shooter with a focus on being relatively grounded in reality, it's campaign was a highlight even though it was rather short, it's multiplayer was kind of poor though and couldn't distract long from the juggernaut Bad Company 2. Nonetheless it's a very underated title well worth a play, it's sequel is, however, utter garbage.

Hmmmm...

That'll do.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I really liked Hunted: The Demon's Forge.

The opening level was extremely poorly designed and...well, crap...but after I pushed past that, I liked the rest of the title. The gameplay was engaging and I actually grew pretty fond of the characters.

Also, elf butt.

 

[Rush Syks]

The Last Remnant was really fun in my opinion. Reviewers shredded it for generic and nonsensical story and blah blah blah but I had countless hours upon hours of fun with it. It was hard, thought provoking, and just an absolute blast. Not a perfect game by any means but not worthy of the 4-5 most reviewers gave it.

You know what the worst part is? The PC version, which is infinitly better in terms of party and character customisation, technology and content (all DLC integrated into the game seamlessly) and has no bugs I could recall, got the same metascore as the Xbox version (66). Yes this game has weaknesses, but it has a really interesting world and artstyle and some of the more "innovative in a good way" takes on the JRPG fighting system I've seen in a while.

So yeah, this would be my choice as well.

 

[Strelok]

Alice: Madness Returns.

Alice: The Madness Returns got a 7/10 how is that a bad review?

On Topic: For me it was You Are Empty, was very unpolished, buggy, but it had a charm that was lacking in other games at the time. It also had a fairly decent story.

Spoiler

 

[bluerocker]

Nier
A kind of action adventure game with a good cast of characters, a decent story, and some memorable boss fights/stages.
While it didn't get terrible reviews I don't really think they did it justice.

Damn, Ninja'd!

But yeah, unfortunately for Nier, the graphics weren't the best, so it gets crapped on a lot for that. Otherwise, I adore it's story and characters so much. It's hard to say when I play an Action-RPG and I don't dislike anyone in the main cast!

Now, it's predecessor, Drakengard, has similar flake. I will admit that the gameplay can be a bit repetitive, but it acts like a really good stress reliever after a hard day. I mean, who doesn't love the idea of raining fire on an army from dragonback? Aside from that, it had a wonderfully twisted cast of characters and turned a lot of typical JRPG tropes on it's head. Your silent protagonist is unwillingly made that way and is a sociopathic murderer. The elves aren't all frilly and magical; and the faeries are grating and rude. Golems and wars are going on and even when you think you thwart the big bad everything goes to hell. The Apocalypse strikes and the imagination that went into some of the enemy designs can really make a character cringe! I love it!

 

[Adept Mechanicus]

Alpha Protocol. It's the Saints Row 2 to James Bond's GTA. Then again, the gameplay was completely broken, but I saw past that because the story was amazingly funny.

 

[AT God]

Duke Nukem Forever.

It wasn't worth the 50 bucks I paid for it, I agree it was more of a 20 dollar game, but it was at least different.

Several design mistakes (weapon limit, regenerating health, horrible rape joke level)

Loved the originality (originality being the way macho man Duke makes jokes regarding pop-culture "You're gonna love my nuts").

Also, I think Sonic Adventure 2 was okay, not great but not the abomination people refer to it as.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

God Hand
ADORE this game, but the reviewers shat on it pretty hard.

God Hand wasn't too poorly reviewed. IGN gave it a 3/10 and even other reviewers on the site questioned the reviewer(Chris Roper) on it. Publicly. That review was a legendarily bad one. It drove people from IGN just like Jim Sterling's Assassin's Creed 2's 4.5/10 saw people leave Destructoid. It hurt the site's reputation in a big way.

Other than that, I fucking love God Hand. And I love you for loving God Hand.


OT:The Way of The Samurai Series is one of the most annoying games ever made. But I love it. The combat is very timing based, so it drives a lot of people away, but its the best open world samurai game series out there(along with being the only one I can think of) and the customization of the main character is superb. There are also over 8 different endings in each game in the series and 100s of weapons to unlock. Each weapon has some unique moves that need to be unlocked as well.
I want more of them. Or a PC collection release.


Also a Yakuza PC release would be nice :/