Games that Everyone Loves Except You

[DreamsDied13101]

Thought this would be an interesting conversation. I searched the archive (still wiping the dust off) and didn't see any old threads - feel free to merge or kills this one if so.

Paraphrased from a post by haloofthesun: The thread is not about offending anyone who likes these games. What's most important about games is that you personally enjoy them. It doesn't matter what other people think about them.

Ones that come to mind for me are the following:
1. Call of Duty games (I like FPS - just not Call of Duty. I'm even really good at them - they just don't float my boat)
2. Pac-Man (No love here - never was. This might be for us older gamers who lived through the arcade/atari scene)
3. Grand Theft Auto (Don't understand why it is so loved)
4. Assassins Creed (Puzzled, confused, utterly bored)
5. Halo (at least I understand its significance in the online kill each other world we live in now)
6. Batman Arkham City (I loved Arkham Asylum and hated Arkham City - where most people praised City for opening up the gaming world)
7. Fallout series (did I play a Chinese knock off game that was sold at my local Target?)

[aliensstudios]

Call of Duty for sure, my friends love it but I've never had less fun playing a video game. The Wonderful 101 as well, it's got a neat art style and awesome style but the gameplay is really bad in my opinion. I played about ten hours and then haven't touched it since.

[gf78]

There was a thread before similar to this, but it's been dead for a long time.  Might as well go with this one.

In no particular order....

Shenmue:  I just don't get the undying love for this series.  Wow...I can drive a forklift.  Wow...quicktime events.  Just not for me I suppose.

Assassin's Creed:  While I initially really enjoyed the first two games, I haven't completed one since then.  My nephew loves them but I'm done.  It's the same old crap in a different city.

Legend of Zelda:  I've really enjoyed some.  The original, Link to the Past and Wind Waker were a lot of fun for me.  But all the others?  Ugh.  Ocarina of Time is the most overrated POS in my humble opinion.

Mario 64:  An atrocious camera, blurry graphics and big empty worlds you have to slog through repeatedly to get stupid coins.  BoOOOring!

Half-Life (anything):  What overrated tripe IMO.  These games get praised to the heavens and I'm so sick of hearing fanboys pine for HL3.  It's sickening.  As far as lame enemies go, I don't think that oversized crotch crabs that mount your head are all that great.  In fact, they suck.

[gf78]

I'd like to add Turok for the N64.  N64 gamers must have really been starved for games when this came out to even remotely think it's good.  Take a mediocre character from a grade-B comic company, pop them into an equally assanine scenario and put a chromium cover on the box.  MILLION SELLER!

[aliensstudios]

There was a thread before similar to this, but it's been dead for a long time.  Might as well go with this one.

In no particular order....

Shenmue:  I just don't get the undying love for this series.  Wow...I can drive a forklift.  Wow...quicktime events.  Just not for me I suppose.

Assassin's Creed:  While I initially really enjoyed the first two games, I haven't completed one since then.  My nephew loves them but I'm done.  It's the same old crap in a different city.

Legend of Zelda:  I've really enjoyed some.  The original, Link to the Past and Wind Waker were a lot of fun for me.  But all the others?  Ugh.  Ocarina of Time is the most overrated POS in my humble opinion.

Mario 64:  An atrocious camera, blurry graphics and big empty worlds you have to slog through repeatedly to get stupid coins.  BoOOOring!

Half-Life (anything):  What overrated tripe IMO.  These games get praised to the heavens and I'm so sick of hearing fanboys pine for HL3.  It's sickening.  As far as lame enemies go, I don't think that oversized crotch crabs that mount your head are all that great.  In fact, they suck.

I actually understand the dislike for Super Mario 64, but I think the DS remake makes it much more enjoyable,

[indenton]

I'm pretty much indifferent to Spyro the Dragon, I won't claim the games are actually bad, they are clearly aren't bad.  for the record, I am talking about the original PlayStation trilogy by the way.  I don't like the music of the original despite the critical acclaim of the composer, the enemy encounters are formulaic and bland.  I suppose the cover artwork kind of lied to me about the game's aesthetic.  The Soundtrack of 'Year of the Dragon' redeemed it for me, it seems more varied and far less happy-go-lucky, but I honestly don't enjoy the games all that much.  You can lump Croc into this category too, the world just seems generic and you have no impact on the world, never gotten too far into the game before getting bored. 

I played Crash Bandicoot before and I prefer Crash Bandicoot till this day. 

I'll also mention Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, I haven't played any of the other games and I don't know how fans regard this one.  The battle system became even less user friendly for me once the partners join.  The inputs for basic attacks feel broken, I can never perform the desired moves half the time.   

Here's what left me baffled, so much that I had to look it up online, that broke the game for me: You have to hold a button to WALK?! I've been using analog sticks for years now, yet this is one of the only games I've played in which walking was used as an actual mechanic, yet they STILL managed to mess up something so simple, a lot of games let you do it (Off the top of my head, Ratchet & Clank, it's completely useless, but you can walk by tilting the stick just slightly)

[Warmsignal]

Not really that tough of a critic. It's just that some games, while I could take or leave, others might buy the sequels until the end of time. So basically look at all of the top selling games right now that are sequels and there you go. I might like some of the entries into those series, but I'm not like obsessed with any of them enough to buy every sequel.

It's largely why I am dissatisfied with this generation of retail level games, sequels after sequels. When a different game comes out, critics are 10 times tougher on it in reviews for not meeting the standards of sequel x and so people skip over them, loosing the studios money and reinforcing the idea that new games are not worth investment or time, and sequels are all that we want. Bleh.

For classic games, nostalgia plays too big of a factor to really argue with. What Super Mario 64 is to me, Final Fantasy VII is to someone else, and what Nights into Dreams or Panzer Dragoon is to someone else. I try not to let the massive nostalgic rose-colored retrospective on certain titles taint my tolerance for the games themselves. Certain games hit people at just the right point in time, so that they come away thinking "this is the best game evar!" While it may well just be like any other game. Certain promoted titles had that impact on large audiences. So it makes sense you might hear a lot of praise for a game that will never have that impact on you.

[DreamsDied13101]

@warmsignal

Not sure how long you have been playing games, but I have been playing since Atari 2600/Arcade days. I definitely feel like nothing new has come along in awhile and as you said - studios are not encouraged to try new things. When something like Splatoon gets hailed as one of the most innovative titles of 2015 then we have lost the meaning of new gameplay experiences. (Don't get me wrong - I like Splatoon).

[aliensstudios]

@warmsignal

Not sure how long you have been playing games, but I have been playing since Atari 2600/Arcade days. I definitely feel like nothing new has come along in awhile and as you said - studios are not encouraged to try new things. When something like Splatoon gets hailed as one of the most innovative titles of 2015 then we have lost the meaning of new gameplay experiences. (Don't get me wrong - I like Splatoon).

Without the online function, Splatoon is basically obsolete. Companies play it too safe, much like movie studios. Anything new  and innovative gets swept under the rug.

[haloofthesun]

Call of Duty - Nothing really needs to be said here. Everyone already knows the complaints about this series.

Half-Life - These games are so.... BORING. MY GOD I AM SO BORED. I can't even say anything else here, that's how boring these games are.

Xenoblade Chronicles (and XCX) - I'm not sure I would categorize these in the "everyone loves them" group, but my, how rabid the fanboys are. I would never say either game is bad, because they aren't. But I would never say that they are great, because they aren't. I don't love them. I don't hate them. They're just kind of "eh". But ask a Xenoblade fanboy and it's immediately "ZOMG best JRPG evarr!!!!111

Sonic the Hedgehog - Yeah, the quality of the games beyond the Genesis trilogy are questionable - good AT BEST - but everyone hails the original three as masterpieces. You know what? I don't like them very much. 3 is okay (oddly the only one of them I don't own), but man, they just really aren't good games. "Let's take bad level design and tell people they 'gotta go fast', that'll sell, right?" Well guess what? I don't wanna go fast! If you go fast, you die unless you play the game so much that you already know how to just charge through it. So you gotta go slow. But then it's boring because the levels are designed so poorly because they want you to go fast.

The Witcher - I get why people like these games so much. Really, objectively they are good games. I just don't find them enjoyable. The combat is awkward, unintuitive, and overly complex. I get how it works, and I understand how it would become easier for someone over time. But I don't find myself invested in it enough to care to try.

Pokemon - Here's where I probably get dirty looks from some of you.  I just don't like Pokemon at all. I enjoy collecting things. Obviously, since I'm posting this on a video game collecting forum. I enjoy games where you collect things. I even enjoy collecting things in games where you're not even intended to collect things (like in Final Fantasy IX, I always have at least 1 of every possible item). I do not enjoy collecting Pokemon. I guess I would if the series ever evolved (hehe, get it?), but it's so stagnant and repetitive that I'd rather not waste my time. Especially have no interest in buying two of the same game multiple times every generation. Sorry, just don't care about it.

Monster Hunter - I just don't understand this, I guess. I tried to play one of them and after a few hours of utter boredom and confusion, I decided to sell it. Fans go on and on about how great these games are, but I really just don't see it.

Halo - These can be enjoyable multiplayer games. Mindless, sure, but fun. That's about it. Not great. Singleplayer is average at best. Pretty similar to Call of Duty in that regard.

Dark Souls - I may have to give this another shot someday, but as of now I just don't like these games. It's not because they are hard. I like hard games. But I also like it when hard games are fun.

Persona - I guess I just don't like these games because I have no interest in J-pop and waifus.

Undertale - This game is just terrible. Don't even try to justify it. It's a bad game.

No offense to anyone who likes these games, of course! What's most important about games is that you personally enjoy them. It doesn't matter what other people think about them.

[DreamsDied13101]

No offense to anyone who likes these games, of course! What's most important about games is that you personally enjoy them. It doesn't matter what other people think about them.

I paraphrased this line in the initial post. Thanks for including it. It should have been mentioned in the original post to clarify what this thread is all about. I hope you don't mind me lifting it!

[Faalagorn]

Mario series. (don't lynch me!)

But I liked Mario Golf: Advance Tour.

[badATchaos]

Here are three identical threads

Games that are universally loved....but you hate them
http://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,5846.msg83648.html

Games everyone loves but you hate?
http://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,5105.msg65924.html

A game/series/Dev that is held in the highest regard that you hate
http://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,6307.msg94842.html

[indenton]

Persona - I guess I just don't like these games because I have no interest in J-pop and waifus.

It's a required taste, but Waifus... what waifus?  I think you meant to say modern Fire Emblem

Undertale - This game is just terrible. Don't even try to justify it. It's a bad game.

Pretty superficial!  I haven't played it myself and everybody says this game's great, did you want to expand on that??

[DreamsDied13101]

Two of those are from 2015! Might as well pull up a BBS from the 90's. 

Here are three identical threads

Games that are universally loved....but you hate them
http://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,5846.msg83648.html

Games everyone loves but you hate?
http://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,5105.msg65924.html

A game/series/Dev that is held in the highest regard that you hate
http://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,6307.msg94842.html