Highly Acclaimed Games -- that you just don't like!

[avatar! | 1,811]

On 11/9/2020 at 9:51 PM, SilverspoonGaming said:

After a few mins of the Batmobile at the beginning of the game, I shut it off and never played it again.  Arkham Asylum is one of the best games Ive ever played tho.

I agree that Arkham Asylum was great. It was easily the best of three. The game where you really feel as if you're Batman. I finished Arkham City and was like meh, why exactly is this considered better than Arkham Asylum? Did not even finish the last game. It wasn't so much the Batmobile which was fairly lame, but the fact that to get the "true ending" in Knight you have to collect ALL the Riddler trophies, all 243 of them, and they are a real pain. STUPID game design -not worth it. Watching the ending online and said "meh" which is exactly what I think of that game.

[avatar! | 1,811]

On 11/9/2020 at 10:32 PM, Webhead123 said:

Okay, some of you should probably prepare to be enraged. I did/do not care for:

• Fortnite (what even is this game?)
• The entire GTA series (fun for about 2 hours a piece and then boring)
• All of the Fallout games after Fallout Tactics (Fallout did not transition well to the 3rd dimension)
• The entire Elder Scrolls series (see Fallout above and apply that logic to games like Baldur's Gate)
• The entire Uncharted series (the very model of 3rd-person shooter mediocrity)
• The entire Assassin's Creed series (just...ugh)
• The entire Halo series
• Minecraft (simply not a style of game that offers me any entertainment value)
• Diablo III
• Final Fantasy VII (*mic drop*)

That's enough for now, I suppose. 

You should explain WHY you do not care/dislike EACH of those games. Many of those games have already been mentioned by others, but again, you need to give a reason, otherwise it reads like trolling.

[Brickman | 3,986]

I just thought of another popular game I couldn’t get into. Kingdom Hearts. 

I like Disney and I like action RPGs but something about it never worked for me.

The worlds never grabbed me like all the reviews praised and then it reached cult status and I could never understand the appeal. I also found the combat to be fairly average even for an action RPG.

[Webhead123 | 675]

3 hours ago, avatar! said:

You should explain WHY you do not care/dislike EACH of those games. Many of those games have already been mentioned by others, but again, you need to give a reason, otherwise it reads like trolling.

Sure. Lots of the nitpicks really have to do with simple preference but here are a few highlights:

-Fortnite: To be fair, I feel the same way about all "battle royale" shooters. I just don't like the format. When it comes to multiplayer shooters, I prefer other formats like deathmatch/team deathmatch, king of the hill, move the payload, etc. Permanent elimination from those kinds of games has always grated on me.

-GTA: Most "open-world, do-whatever-you-want" games suffer from the same problem for me. As a player, I need a sense of direction and I want to feel like my actions are pushing me toward a goal. So while I do enjoy just cruising around in an open sandbox for a little while, unless I have something really compelling me to see the story to its conclusion, I lose interest quickly. GTA is just one example of this.

-Fallout (post-Tactics): I started playing Fallout with the original, loved it and immediately followed up with the sequel and Tactics. Maybe because I was so acclimated to the series as a top-down, turn-based RPG a la Baldur's Gate (another personal favorite), I just didn't take well to the game transitioning to a 3D engine. I tried my hand at both Fallout 3 and New Vegas but I couldn't get more than about 6-8 hours into either one before I just lost the will to continue.

-Elder Scrolls: Same as Fallout above. My favorite examples of fantasy RPGs are the 2D, turn-based entries like the Baldur's Gate series. I tried to get into Morrowind, Oblivion AND Skyrim. I stuck with Oblivion the longest...about 15 hours...but eventually I lost steam.

-Uncharted: I'm not the biggest fan of 3rd-person shooters anyway but as acclaimed as the series was, I told myself I would stick with it to the end. I really struggled to get through the first game. I was soooo ready for it to be over by the time I got there. I just didn't click with the characters. There were many annoyances with the game play. I was not impressed. But I'd heard Uncharted 2 was the best in the series. To it's credit, 2 had some legitimately fun set pieces and the story was a LOT more interesting than the original. But the core game play was still kind of underwhelming (again, I tend to much prefer 1st-person shooting action to 3rd-person shooting). After finishing Uncharted 2, I still haven't been able to bring myself to play 3. Maybe one day. Maybe.

-Assassin's Creed: Similar to issues with some of the above titles, I'm a huge fan of the Thief series and I prefer this style of game in the first-person. I did enjoy the opening hours of both 1 and 2, learning the ropes as it were. But much like GTA, once the thrill of discovery was gone, I was left feeling that the actual game play wasn't my style and the massive checklists of "Ubisoft tasks" felt a lot more like chores than fun.

-Halo: I've only ever finished the original. It was *fine*. Nothing spectacular in either game play or story. But, I'd been spoiled by the white-knuckle action of shooters like Doom, Duke, Quake, Serious Sam, etc., so the much more limited and slower-paced feel of Halo's combat didn't really jive with me.

-Minecraft: See "open-world, do-what-you-want" commentary above. The whole point of Minecraft seems to be that you "make your own goals". I can't explain why but that just doesn't do it for me in a game. I need a goal. An objective. I need to know that the game is pushing me toward a specific end-point. If I can choose how to get there, I'm happy with that...but there needs to be a finish line. A light at the end of the tunnel. Some kind of finality to the experience.

-Diablo III: I think it's just a case of burn out. I was a big fan of the first 2 Diablo's. I've even played through the main campaign of Torchlight 2. But when I tried to apply myself to Diablo 3, I just felt kind of fatigued of the concept. These days, I'd much rather play a turn-based tactical game like XCOM over the real-time click-em-ups like Diablo.

-Final Fantasy VII: I don't really have an explanation for this other than a)I didn't own a Playstation in the 90's, so I didn't get in on this game when it was new and b) the older I get, the harder I find it to get into JRPGs. I loved the Dragon Warrior and FF series early iterations when I was younger but these days I just don't have the same kind of fondness and patience for them like I used to.

Hope that helps. Cheers!

Edited November 15, 2020 by Webhead123

[avatar! | 1,811]

Webhead123

Thanks for the explanations. I think what you said is certainly fair. I have to say, I have not played a FF game in ages... but I still keep up with Dragon Quest. I find that for whatever reasons, Dragon Quest games are still fun and super enjoyable, and FF, well again, I haven't had a desire to touch one in ages.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

Hell if you struggle with Uncharted on the whole, and wished 1 would end towards the later part, but found 2 far better but still being 'Uncharted' don't bother and skip the franchise as it was downhill from there.  3 isn't as excellent as 2 and 4 ...blah, one of the final stones tossed at the glass house of my former PS4 ownership.

[Gloves | 11,777]

30 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Hell if you struggle with Uncharted on the whole, and wished 1 would end towards the later part, but found 2 far better but still being 'Uncharted' don't bother and skip the franchise as it was downhill from there.  3 isn't as excellent as 2 and 4 ...blah, one of the final stones tossed at the glass house of my former PS4 ownership.

Uncharted was a really great revival of the Tomb Raider style. Uncharted 2 perfected it. 3 and 4 were just trying to feed off the cow's teet.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

8 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Hell if you struggle with Uncharted on the whole, and wished 1 would end towards the later part, but found 2 far better but still being 'Uncharted' don't bother and skip the franchise as it was downhill from there.  3 isn't as excellent as 2 and 4 ...blah, one of the final stones tossed at the glass house of my former PS4 ownership.

 

8 hours ago, Gloves said:

Uncharted was a really great revival of the Tomb Raider style. Uncharted 2 perfected it. 3 and 4 were just trying to feed off the cow's teet.

The original Uncharted blew me away when I first played it and is responsible for reviving the third person adventure genre. One could also argue that it laid the groundwork for Sony's current console dominance. It is the blueprint for their big-budget first party games and set them on the path that defined the PS4.

That being said, I consider Uncharted 2 among the most overrated games ever made. Not because it is bad, but simply because it is too beloved for what it is. I'd compare it to something like Avatar in the movie industry. A competent production with tons of flair, but no soul. Uncharted 3 is about as uninteresting as the series gets.

As for Uncharted 4? It has many of the same warts as the other games in the series, but it doesn't matter. There is no better linear adventure game out there. It is the perfect mix of melodrama, big action set pieces, and ridiculous adventure. It also has some of the best visuals, animation, and voice acting in the history of videogames. Is the story cheesy at times? Of course! But that's part of the charm. I would take Indiana Jones over Avatar any day of the week and that's what you get with Uncharted 4. I love this game.

Edited November 15, 2020 by DoctorEncore

[Tanooki | 4,933]

Ahh you don't need to tell me.  I'm all about Indiana Jones, and I liked the idea of Tomb Raider early on too despite that going off the rails for a long time.  Uncharted made me like these types of games again, and it was like a rebirth of good adventure gaming brought along with incredible attention sucking story and detail in the work.  I really dug 1 and 2, but 3 was good but not great like the previous 2, even the Vita game was pretty solid.  I can't wait to see the books and movies that are rolling out from this as well.

That said, and it's a pen name entirely, originally published over a decade ago, and re-published without the pen name (gabriel hunt) using the real authors names is a series of 6 books. http://www.huntforadventure.com/ These books are everything you'd like from an Indiana Jones/Uncharted adventure from this era, and it's fantastic.  Strange McGuffins, weird ghostly odd stuff going on, ever lasting life level weirdness in one.  They're not terribly long, well done though, so a fast read.  They're quite cheap, kindle especially, but probably in print too I'd guess.  I got into those because of Uncharted right after getting a Kindle in the 00s.

[Sumez | 2,951]

On 11/15/2020 at 12:33 AM, avatar! said:

I finished Arkham City and was like meh, why exactly is this considered better than Arkham Asylum?

Really, who considers it straight up better?

The two games are very different, and I like them both, but the general consensus I see most places seem to echo the fact that Asylum is just in every way a tighter game, that really does the metroidvania-esque structure well.

City+Knight is a completely different direction, and the one thing I'd say City does have over its predecessor is that in terms of narrative content and just pure Batman fanservice, it's absolutely spectacular. Nearly all of Batman's most prominent rogue's gallery is in there, and the game somehow manages to neatly fit all of them into the context. Even if you're only barely a fan of the characters, the pure fanservice in this game is a perfect example of how to do that well.

I'm really glad both games exist, but purely as a game there is no denying that Asylum is the better one.  

Edited November 17, 2020 by Sumez

[Sumer | 221]

On 11/14/2020 at 10:19 PM, Webhead123 said:

-Final Fantasy VII: I don't really have an explanation for this other than a)I didn't own a Playstation in the 90's, so I didn't get in on this game when it was new and b) the older I get, the harder I find it to get into JRPGs. I loved the Dragon Warrior and FF series early iterations when I was younger but these days I just don't have the same kind of fondness and patience for them like I used to.

 

This is spot on.

I absolutely dislike Final Fantasy 7.  I loved FF 1, 2, and 3 (1,4, and 6 I suppose, as we call them now), but for some reason, FF7 ruined FF for me.  It just seems like it was a departure from the old school, where "Vintage JRPGs" were Japanese replicas of old school Western CRPGs, like Ultima and Wizardry, which I love, into something totally too...too annoying?  What I mean by annoying is exactly what you mean when you say "the older I get, the harder it is to get into JRPGs."  I guess I call these Neo JRPGs.

I think I tried one more FF after 7, and that was 10 for the PS2.  Played the game for about 3 or 4 hours and just had to stop.  Again, too "Neo JRPG" for me.

Edited November 18, 2020 by Sumer

[Sumer | 221]

On 11/14/2020 at 6:33 PM, avatar! said:

I agree that Arkham Asylum was great. It was easily the best of three. The game where you really feel as if you're Batman. I finished Arkham City and was like meh, why exactly is this considered better than Arkham Asylum? Did not even finish the last game. It wasn't so much the Batmobile which was fairly lame, but the fact that to get the "true ending" in Knight you have to collect ALL the Riddler trophies, all 243 of them, and they are a real pain. STUPID game design -not worth it. Watching the ending online and said "meh" which is exactly what I think of that game.

Aren't there four of them?  I include Arkham Origins in that as well, too.  I actually like Origins the best out of the ones I have played (Asylum, City, and Origins).  I haven't played the last one.  I think I enjoyed the story to Origins quite a bit, and Gotham itself just felt more like Gotham than in City, for some reason.  Maybe it has to do with the constant, drab snow that is falling.  

[Tanooki | 4,933]

3 hours ago, Sumer said:

This is spot on.

I absolutely dislike Final Fantasy 7.  I loved FF 1, 2, and 3 (1,4, and 6 I suppose, as we call them now), but for some reason, FF7 ruined FF for me.  It just seems like it was a departure from the old school, where "Vintage JRPGs" were Japanese replicas of old school Western CRPGs, like Ultima and Wizardry, which I love, into something totally too...too annoying?  What I mean by annoying is exactly what you mean when you say "the older I get, the harder it is to get into JRPGs."  I guess I call these Neo JRPGs.

I think I tried one more FF after 7, and that was 10 for the PS2.  Played the game for about 3 or 4 hours and just had to stop.  Again, too "Neo JRPG" for me.

Oh thank you.  I hate feeling alone making that same damned argument. FF7 I don't absolutely dislike, I do own it on PC thanks to a couple dollar goodwill find and I'll dabble non-seriously, rarely, but it's just not good enough to finish, definitely not great.  It ruined what was a standard more or less over every FF game, blamed them, blamed Sony and their mass marketing of it, and the CD format.  It seemed they became over ambitious, lazy, and a puppet to a massive marketing campaign to say the old way sucked and was dead, and this is how it is.  Yet Square went more into the weeds with 8, then outright recanted it with FF9 which was a straight homage to the classic Nintendo six and I love that one.  I'm all fairness i'm not picking on Sony either, I feel its equal in overrated ass kissing is 3D Zelda on N64.  The first is ok at best, the sequel is crap, rushed crap to have a game out on a dying system.  Both have their fanboy pools and they detest dissenters.

[Nintegageo | 582]

Generally the FPS or modern sports games. They're prolly cool at a technical level however I enjoy seeing my character do cool shit.

[avatar! | 1,811]

Starts off great, and by the end becomes crap.

1)Play control is terrible.

2)ANY enemy kills you in one hit, and if that happens, you have to redo the entire freakin' sequence!

3)Supposedly the plot and characters are so amazing... yeah, no. I was not invested in any of them. They're just plot devices.

4)Boss fights are an exercise in tedium.

Reminds me of The Last of Us, overrated in numerous ways, particularly story and character development (or lack thereof).

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

4 hours ago, avatar! said:

Starts off great, and by the end becomes crap.

1)Play control is terrible.

2)ANY enemy kills you in one hit, and if that happens, you have to redo the entire freakin' sequence!

3)Supposedly the plot and characters are so amazing... yeah, no. I was not invested in any of them. They're just plot devices.

4)Boss fights are an exercise in tedium.

Reminds me of The Last of Us, overrated in numerous ways, particularly story and character development (or lack thereof).

That's unfortunate to hear. I've been looking forward to playing it. Hopefully my experience will be a bit better.

[DarkTone | 984]

Among us. 

[LutherDestroysTheGond | 690]

The entire Paper Mario series and Mario & Luigi series.  I started with Thousand Year Door and Superstar Saga, respectfully, and I don't get the hype.  Went back to the first Paper Mario and it was ok.  I left it feeling like I would just rather play Super Mario RPG.

Kingdom Hearts.  I bought it new back in the day with paper route money and I tried to start that game so many times and it just never grabbed me.  I gifted it to my little sister and she still adores the series.  I'm still bitter about spending like a month of paper route money on it. 

Modern sports titles.  I like the 2K sports back in the day but haven't been interested in playing any sports titles in the last 15ish years.

Mortal Kombat / Killer Instinct.  Even as a kid I didnt care for these series.

3D platformers.  Mario 64/Sunshine/Odyssey, Donkey Kong 64, Croc, Banjo series, etc.  I just never felt like platformers transitioned well into 3D and every series being a collect-a-thon is just not enjoyable

[The King | 23]

Majora's mask was a very frustrating game. I know it is good, but at times it feels more a chore than a game.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

23 hours ago, LutherDestroysTheGond said:

The entire Paper Mario series and Mario & Luigi series.  I started with Thousand Year Door and Superstar Saga, respectfully, and I don't get the hype.  Went back to the first Paper Mario and it was ok.  I left it feeling like I would just rather play Super Mario RPG.

I don't get the hype either.  Paper Mario was atrociously messed up.  The Gamecube game was the only one that seemed both balanced and fun to me, as was SSS on the GBA too.  It just was a sad cry to try and be Super Mario RPG without Square being involved and ended up a mostly epic fail.

[Sumez | 2,951]

8 hours ago, Tanooki said:

without Square being involved

All the people who were essential to the experience of the original Mario RPG worked on either M&L or Paper Mario.
Alphadream was basically made up of ex-Square employees.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

Maybe so but the original Paper Mario was a kick in the nuts dumpster fire to me coming off SMRPG shortly before.  The fact they basically took one aspect of the RPG nature and ruined it and then a fun bonus of the other and made it some anal retentive precision pain in the ass was a combo kiss of death eventually for my cares about it.  They forced a horrible clashing combination of both those gripes into sheer utter pure annoyance.  You have an RPG you can't really level up in, at least as much as you want, because even at an unreasonable level suddenly every pack of kills is worth only 1XP making it a horrid grind fest.  And then they give you such a shitty low level of HP (and ATK/DEF) that you are required to be some rhythm heaven timing deity or you get beat to death from standard blows if you can't perfectly synch up hitting the button which all require different moments based on enemy attack.  Just thinking about that from the 90s still aggravates me how they ruined the good name of Mario RPG.   That said I did like the original M&L enough, even have a couple of the 3Ds remasters, but of Paper Mario only the Gamecube game I found rewarding.

[Sumez | 2,951]

Sounds like you didn't have a lot of patience for Paper Mario, because the game isn't like that at all.

It's kinda weird because the Mario & Luigi series is probably the proper sequel to Mario RPG based on the team working on it, while I think Paper Mario only had the main scenario writer. But Paper Mario (1 and 2) is probably the most RPG'ish of them.

My point was really just that I don't think it's really a question of Square's involvement, since the core team left for Alphadream.

[Friendsfa35 | 35]

 

DuckTales on the NES........

people always praise this one, and yet, when i play.....

- the bees in the jungle stage keep respawning, even on easy mode.

- the snow goats...... impossible to not get hit...

i keep turning that game off, because of these reasons...
i didn't grow up with game, so i also have no nostalgia for it...

[Renmauzo | 1,201]

Chrono Cross.

I try to pretend this game doesn't exist and that there is no actual sequel to Chrono Trigger. I pre-ordered it with the clock and OST back when it released, was stoked to get more Chrono awesomeness, and quickly found that it didn't enrapture me like Trigger did. 

The graphics are great, the music is by Mitsuda (my favorite modern composer) so it's wonderful, and the tropical feel of the islands is really well captured...and that's about where the good ends for me.

I got over the character design, but the amount of characters makes the game feel more abut recruiting than about building meaningful relationships with the characters. The retread of environments gets old, and the progression can be difficult to follow but this comes more from leaps in logic and presumption by the characters which sends you barreling from event to event (maybe barreling is an exaggeration since this game is a slog). Besides all that, much of the 'in-house' terminology and referencing just made me tilt my head half the time. The dragons felt like a completely unnecessary addition to the story that got really convoluted, and there are/were definitely more effective ways to get from A-B story-wise with this game. Capture elements drove me crazy (some enemies just won't through out an attack if you use the corresponding trap), but magic becomes a waste of time in the later 3rd of the game when your weapons do all the real damage. The most frustrating addition to the game for me though is the hit %; it's a bad joke...the amount of 95% + misses is laughable and my wife could feel my seething rage from the other room, lol.

I was really dismayed by how little respect was given to the characters of Trigger in this game (Robo's fate was particularly ridiculous) for those that were referenced meaningfully at all...the game really tries to make you feel like the stakes in Trigger were paltry compared to the stakes in this game and it all just rubs me the wrong way.

I played half way through when it came out, tried again 10 years later and didn't get much farther before shelving it again, and then two months ago I was playing through Trigger on DS for the 13th ending that links to Cross and decided I'd play again but this time, force myself to play through. i did, and it was a real chore, cementing my feelings about this game and wishing I could pretend it doesn't exist.