The games you love that everyone hates

[insektmute]

A conversation with a coworker not too long ago made me realize that I really love an underdog. I'm not talking about liking Assassin's Creed when your friends don't, I mean the dogs of the industry... those ones that receive a constant stream of poor reviews, articles reference them as among the worst of their generation, and just mentioning them makes people start cracking jokes. Anyone else have an affection for some of these?

Some of my picks:
Bullet Witch [360] - I've read one positive review of this game, ever, and I'm honestly baffled by the hate. For every ragged edge to it, there are tons of cool things, like a boss battle that takes place on a plane in mid-air, blowing up a gas station by summoning a huge bolt of lightning, and once you get used to it, a surprisingly fluid control scheme. I sometimes feel like I'm the only person that willingly bought this game, let alone for more than $10.

Dragon Age II [PC] - Yep, I went there. The reused dungeons aside, I thought the story and characters were absolutely fantastic, and the combat was actually pretty fun, in an arcade shooter sort of way. Hooked me just as much as the first game, but for different reasons.

Hunted: The Demon's Forge [360] - I actually pre-ordered this game, and I love it to pieces. Like Bullet Witch, it's full of rough edges and problems, with some jerky animation in spots and inconsistent visual quality, but it has heart, and I always get the sense the developers were making a sincere effort to put together just a fun, arcade-style dungeon crawler.

Infinite Undiscovery [360] - I don't know if "love" is the right word, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by how fun this was to play. It's definitely not perfect, mainly in that controlling your companions doesn't really work, but there's something about it that I find really charming.

Legend of Dragoon [PS1] - This appears more frequently on "best of" lists now, so it being hated is questionable in 2013, but back when it came out, this thing might as well have been a sugar-coated dog turd. Just about every review I ran across dismissed it as an attempt by Sony to cash-in on Final Fantasy, it sold horribly, any hope of a sequel was basically killed within weeks of being released. Such a fantastic, beautiful RPG that was left to twist in the wind for far too long.

Resident Evil 6 [PS3] - It's the Dragon Age II debacle all over again, basically. Too much was changed, not scary enough, not Resident Evil, etc. This is all basically true, but with the exception of Chris and Lars campaign, I was hooked on this for weeks. Much faster and more frantic than past RE's, which isn't particularly creepy, but still makes for a really fun experience if you can put expectations aside.

Anyone else?

[disgaeniac]

A few, off of the top of my head, that I enjoyed that were widely disliked & panned would be:

- the PS3 RPG Cross-Edge,

- the PS2 RPG The Lord of the Rings: The 3rd Age (at least, I played it on the PS2 - iirc - it was also on other platforms), and

- the PS2 RPG Final Fantasy X-2 (I guess a lot of people saw it as nothing but a "girly" and "fan-service-ey" kind of game)...but...OMG did I love that battle system!

[foxhack]

Alone in the Dark (2008) for PC. AND FUCK YOU ANYWAY.

[insektmute]

A few, off of the top of my head, that I enjoyed that were widely disliked & panned would be:

- the PS3 RPG Cross-Edge,

- the PS2 RPG The Lord of the Rings: The 3rd Age (at least, I played it on the PS2 - iirc - it was also on other platforms), and

- the PS2 RPG Final Fantasy X-2 (I guess a lot of people saw it as nothing but a "girly" and "fan-service-ey" kind of game)...but...OMG did I love that battle system!

I've owned FFX-2 for years, and despite 3 attempts, have never been able to bring myself to play for more than about 4 or 5 hours before I'm like, "fuck this!" and go off to do something else. It's on my bucket list of games I desperately need to finish out of some weird sadistic urge.

How would you describe Cross Edge? Anything you could compare it to?

[burningdoom]

I used to say King's Field series when this question came up. But ever since Demon's Soul hit big, now everyone loves the series when before I used to get told how much of a piece of crap it is.

Oh well, I'm not complaining. I'm hoping that all this new interest in the series, will lead to a new King's Field game one day!

[psydswipe]

It seems just about everyone I know thinks Seaman is weird and creepy. They like to laugh when imagining me sitting at home talking to a man-fish.

I did play through Dragon Age II twice and while I enjoyed the characters and story, the setting did get tiresome.

[soera]

Nothing for me. I have great taste!!

[pacpix]

Hydlide!  It really is not that bad! Or maybe I am just a little strange......

[sin2beta]

I'm not including games that I like to play ironically or the so bad it's good category.

Final Fantasy 13. This is actually my favorite final fantasy.

Day Dreamin Davey for the NES. This is a bad game. But I played it when I was a kid. I kind of made my self like it. I still love the Wild West stage.

[gecko101]

Cosmic Carnage and Mansion of The Hidden Souls

[burningdoom]

Cosmic Carnage

Mark at Classic Game Room has made it cool to like this game. I've always taken it as sarcasm, though, because it looks terrible.

[kingrat101]

Fighting Street on the TG-16 CD
I agree with The Legend of Dragoon. I also kind of like Capcom fighting evolution just as a very simple un-balanced fun fighting game same goes for SNK vs Capcom

[gecko101]

I can say that he inspired me to get it, but it's actually quite enjoyable.

[disgaeniac]

How would you describe Cross Edge? Anything you could compare it to?

Well...let's see -

Cross-Edge is (not surprisingly:) a "Cross-over" type of game.

Most of the cross-over games that I've seen, tend to be almost all fighting games of some sort.

Cross Edge is an RPG cross-over.

It has several new/unique playable/main characters...but it also has recruitable/playable characters from Disgaea (Etna & Prinny), Ar tonelico (Shurelia, Lyner, Ayatane,Bourd, Misha, & Aurica), Blazing/Spectral Souls (Zelos & another female character), Atelier Marie (Marie), and Darkstalkers (Morrigan, Lilith, Jedah), Mana Khemia (1 & 2) (Lily & Whim, Raze, & Reicher), and a few I may be forgetting...

It's *Greatly* (and rightfully & fairly) disliked for its immense learning-curve, difficuly spikes, complexities (that aren't well explained), and a lack of detailed help & answers both in game & in the manual.

Also, it has an un-intuitive control scheme that takes some getting used to -and- (if you want the True End, at least) it is very much a "Guide-Dang-It"...*NOBODY* ever has or will figured out/lucked/stumbled onto this ending w/o following a guide very closely.

All of that said...*IF* you can get past & learn how all of these mechanics work...it has, IMHO, one of the best, most in depth, & complex & enjoyable battle & combo systems I've ever had the pleasure to play!

A few other similar RPG's would be:

Chaos Wars (PS2) an extremely poorly voice-acted (yet, again - it has a pretty great combat system),

Trinity Universe (On the PS3),

and (at least regarding the cameos & complexity), it's also similar, I think, to the Disgaea games.

Obviously - the more of the previous games you've played & the more you know/remember about those characters = the greater your enjoyment of the game would be

[disgaeniac]

Back on topic, 2 more games that (almost) everyone seems to hate/dislike that I didn't were:

Last Rebellion (PS3 RPG)...It certainly wasn't a *Good* game - I just didn't think that it was that bad as the majority seemed to -AND- the exact same case with:

Enchanted Arms (PS3 RPG).

Neither game is, IMHO, more than a 6 or so out of 10...I just didn't think that they were *THAT* terrible, either.