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

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

Castlevania 4, just a really boring game. The rest of the classic Castlevania games are fantastic 

[RH | 4,903]

17 minutes ago, Renmauzo said:

Chrono Cross.

I think that's actually a common perspective within the fan community.  In fact, I can't recall where but semi-recently Square Enix made a statement that if people want sequels for games, they basically need to buy those games as continual player re-investment is an important metric for them.  This game did so poorly back then and is still not that popular on the PlayStation store, or anywhere else it's found, that SE assumes people aren't interested.

Well, no.  People simply didn't like that game.  I loved Chrono Trigger, but for reasons like you and others have outlined, I've never brought myself to play Chrono Cross.  I have an interest to do it, but since it's such a low priority title for me, I doubt I ever will.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

1 hour ago, Renmauzo said:

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.

 

45 minutes ago, RH said:

I think that's actually a common perspective within the fan community.  In fact, I can't recall where but semi-recently Square Enix made a statement that if people want sequels for games, they basically need to buy those games as continual player re-investment is an important metric for them.  This game did so poorly back then and is still not that popular on the PlayStation store, or anywhere else it's found, that SE assumes people aren't interested.

Well, no.  People simply didn't like that game.  I loved Chrono Trigger, but for reasons like you and others have outlined, I've never brought myself to play Chrono Cross.  I have an interest to do it, but since it's such a low priority title for me, I doubt I ever will.

I enjoyed Chrono Cross, but it definitely doesn't feel like Chrono Trigger in any meaningful way. I agree that the extensive cast of characters hurts the game and all connections to the original feel forced. It feels like the game started development as its own thing and was converted to a sequel by management. It really suffers for it. If you play it as its own thing, completely unrelated to Chrono Trigger, I think it plays better.

That being said, my memories are still generally positive, although I haven't played it since launch. 

[Br81zad | 629]

Earthbound. Really tried to like it, but there's nothing to like

[Reed Rothchild | 9,526]

Chrono Cross is actually a great answer.

I wouldn't call it a bad game, or say I don't like it.  But man is that not what I wanted it to be.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

May have already said this but Castlevania  sotn. I've tried to get in to it a number of times but just kinda find it boring. It's weird since Super Metroid may be my favourite game and I love the classic Castlevania but together it just doesn't jive for me.  It's a good game but just not for me I guess. The ones on DS I found similar and never completed a single one. 

Edited December 4, 2020 by Andy_Bogomil

[croagunk | 798]

I can’t stand Kinect games. The full body requirements for the Kinect games to work are a no from me. The Wii motion controls are more fun, easier, and more accessible. From what I can tell online, Kinect was highly acclaimed and sold a lot. The only reason I have one is because it came with my Xbox 360. My Kinect games are my least played games.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

46 minutes ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

May have already said this but Castlevania  sotn. I've tried to get in to it a number of times but just kinda find it boring. It's weird since Super Metroid may be my favourite game and I love the classic Castlevania but together it just doesn't jive for me.  It's a good game but just not for me I guess. The ones on DS I found similar and never completed a single one. 

It would be a better game if it was actually Castlevania in the Metroid format.

But "Metroidvania" has relatively little to do with what makes Metroid good -- and is really just an attempt to rebadge side scrolling Action RPGs like Faxanadu.

SOTN (and other Castlevania games in that style) suffer from some fairly tedious grinding at times in a way that Metroid absolutely does not.

 

I deeply enjoy the Metroid-like indie games that hold true to the Metroid style of item-based exploration.

I find most "metroid-vania" indie games (i.e. SOTN clone / action-RPGs) to be incredibly tedious because they miss the point of what makes the genre fun, and suffer from balance issues that either lead to grinding or just make the game effortless/pointless.

 

It would be interesting to look back and see what game managed the play style of SOTN prior to Faxanadu, and who did it better, long before SOTN on the PS1

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

13 hours ago, Friendsfa35 said:

 

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...

It's a really good game -- you just have to go into it with an era-appropriate expectation for how hard Disney-licensed Capcom games were intended to be.

And compared to something like Mickey Mousecapades, DuckTales was a walk in the park

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

1 hour ago, arch_8ngel said:

It would be a better game if it was actually Castlevania in the Metroid format.

But "Metroidvania" has relatively little to do with what makes Metroid good -- and is really just an attempt to rebadge side scrolling Action RPGs like Faxanadu.

SOTN (and other Castlevania games in that style) suffer from some fairly tedious grinding at times in a way that Metroid absolutely does not.

 

I deeply enjoy the Metroid-like indie games that hold true to the Metroid style of item-based exploration.

I find most "metroid-vania" indie games (i.e. SOTN clone / action-RPGs) to be incredibly tedious because they miss the point of what makes the genre fun, and suffer from balance issues that either lead to grinding or just make the game effortless/pointless.

 

It would be interesting to look back and see what game managed the play style of SOTN prior to Faxanadu, and who did it better, long before SOTN on the PS1

Yes, you've pretty much summed up my thoughts. Didn't like how much of an RPG element they put into them (leveling up through XP rather than exclusively finding upgrades). Castlevania has a great theme and difficulty and Metroid is the king of exploration and upgrading but together they don't make sotn. I do like the music, enemies, etc. but overall it's not my cup of tea. 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

29 minutes ago, Andy_Bogomil said:

Yes, you've pretty much summed up my thoughts. Didn't like how much of an RPG element they put into them (leveling up through XP rather than exclusively finding upgrades). Castlevania has a great theme and difficulty and Metroid is the king of exploration and upgrading but together they don't make sotn. I do like the music, enemies, etc. but overall it's not my cup of tea. 

Honestly, my biggest gripe about SOTN is that it somehow spawned the misnomer of "Metroidvania" that gets over-applied to Metroid-like games that bear no similarity to SOTN, while SOTN itself bears relatively little similarity to Metroid in the first place  

 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

On 12/3/2020 at 7:28 AM, BortLicensePlate said:

Castlevania 4, just a really boring game. The rest of the classic Castlevania games are fantastic 

I totally agree with this, excepting the music.  The soundtrack in CV 4 is fantastic, but the play control is janky (why does Simon walk with a stick up his butt the whole time?) and the "whip any direction" gimmick just waters down the difficulty, making many of the enemy placements trivial, and looks really g-, I mean wimpy, when he's wagging that whip around with his arm out.

Dracula X, on the other hand, I find to be fantastic top to bottom - not as good as Rondo, but clearly cut from the same cloth, and a great game in its own rite, yet that's the SNES Castlevania that is constantly ragged on for being the inferior of the two games.  I mean, wtf?!?

Edited December 5, 2020 by Dr. Morbis

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

12 hours ago, BortLicensePlate said:

Castlevania 4, just a really boring game. The rest of the classic Castlevania games are fantastic 

I don't dislike SC4, but I will say that it probably is my least favorite of the classic CV games as well, I do find it to be a little bit overrated. Even the soundtrack I don't like as much as some of the other games until you get to the final few stages where the CV classics start playing.

[Razzie.P | 6]

There’re are plenty for me, but off the top of my head –

God Of War 2018 (PS4) – I played and finished it, but was mostly bored to tears. I never really saw a reason to strategically fight, as button mashing seems to have gotten me through it just fine.  But the thing that really bored me was the groan inducing “walk n’ talk” type of non-gameplay that they pulled from Last of Us and Uncharted 4.   Far, far too much of the game was just “let’s walk forward or paddle on a boat while listening to dialog”

Inside – Played through this one multiple times (PC and again on PS4) and just it just never clicked with me.  It seems like long stretches of just holding right on the control pad admiring the pretty aesthetic.  And the twist at the end had me rolling with laughter, so the intended emotional response was lost on me, I suppose.

Sonic, the whole damn franchise, it seems.   Tried them in real time on Sega Genesis, thought they were crap.  Heard nothing but good things about Mania, so I picked it up, thought it was crap, too.  It’s all about speed… but nope… slow down and collect those rings, I suppose.  But go fast!  But slow down.   WTF, game?

Breath of the Wild.  I only played this for a few hours, and plan to come back to in with high hopes that it just hooks me in and I absolutely love it.  But the weapon breakage and short , “few minute long” dungeon things let me wanting to play something else whenever I booted it up.
 

[Tanooki | 4,933]

On 12/2/2020 at 4:05 AM, Sumez said:

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.

Patience?  I had too much I think given I'd try and level up my characters re-running the same paths through places to discover I was denied the right to level up beyond a point having entire parties diminish instantly to 1XP gains when the level up before hand I'd get 1 here 3 there depending on the unit.  I don't do well in most styles of rhythm games, especially when they're overly picky and the queues are kind of ambiguous.  Hell I can't even get through the training stuff on rhythm heaven because it goes I think entirely off audio queues so I just fail it entirely.  I get your argument, but whatever it was it went wrong.  Even if it were the same people, somehow they felt fucking with a fantastic formula that SMRPG had and dumbing it down into a lowly leveled nitpicky timing based game for attack and defense was a good idea, it wasn't.  PM Gamecube though wasn't so damned fussy, so I enjoyed that one.  After that the franchise kind of went into the weeds while M&L seemed to be fairly consistent.

[Sumez | 2,951]

6 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

God Of War 2018 (PS4) – I played and finished it, but was mostly bored to tears. I never really saw a reason to strategically fight, as button mashing seems to have gotten me through it just fine.

You absolutely need to turn the difficulty up for this game.

I've never played it on lower than hard, but holy shit I got killed a lot. There's a lot of skill involved with the combat, and I found it a lot more satisfying than the original GOW games. The level design wasn't as interesting though.

[BortLicensePlate | 652]

8 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I totally agree with this, excepting the music.  The soundtrack in CV 4 fantastic, but the play control is janky (why does Simon walk with a stick up his butt the whole time?) and the "whip any direction" gimmick just waters down the difficulty, making many of the enemy placements trivial, and looks really g-, I mean wimpy, when he's wagging that whip around with his arm out.

Dracula X, on the other hand, I find to be fantastic top to bottom - not as good as Rondo, but clearly cut from the same cloth, and a great game in its own rite, yet that's the SNES Castlevania that is constantly ragged on for being the inferior of the two games.  I mean, wtf?!?

You worded it much better than me, but yeah I agree all around.

Also with the whip any direction, it makes the sub weapons mostly useless, since it's easier to just whip wherever you want.

The reason I like Castlevania is because its hard, CV4 just made everything too easy. 

[MiamiSlice | 3,095]

How did I never see this thread? 

Saw someone mentioned Xenoblade Chronicles, I'm playing the Definite Edition and while I like it, it is not a "cannot put this game down" experience like XC2 was. I'm surprised because so many people who like the series will insist that XC1 is the best of the bunch, by far. Maybe it's because I played 2 first but I think 2 is greatly improved in so many ways. And I'm like 30+ hours in on 1 so it's not like I haven't seen anything good yet. That being said I still think both games are fantastic so maybe this isn't a good example. 

Some that come to mind for me are: 

Fallout: New Vegas. I know this is a great game and might be the best of the 3D Fallouts. I can't deny that I was really impressed with it and I put quite a few hours into it. But the story was just too depressing. I had to stop playing it because it made me depressed. 

Fez. This one I really wanted to like because the soundtrack is fantastic and it looks great and of course I love puzzle games. I had heard the soundtrack long before I played the game (had to wait for it to hit PC) and I even remixed two of the songs from the soundtrack and made it onto the official remix album. And then I played the game and I was so disappointed. Not because the concept or level design was bad, but because IIRC there was no map and it was so easy to get lost. It felt like a game that you had to complete on one playthrough or take a lot of notes. Maybe I should try it again but I was shocked with how much praise it got and without anyone mentioning this poor design choice. 

Fortnite. This one is more because I'm just not good at the building while shooting mechanic. Obviously it's a great game. But the most complexity I can handle in an FPS is playing the Spy in Team Fortress 2 and even then I sometimes screw up my moves and end up getting caught. Having to rapidly build structures in Fortnite to defend myself while also shooting at my opponents is just too hard. 

That's my list for now. And... is it um... weird that all of these begin with F? I think it's weird. 

 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,526]

I'm playing through Xenoblade 2 right now and absolutely loving it btw.

[Tulpa | 3,494]

21 hours ago, arch_8ngel said:

It's a really good game -- you just have to go into it with an era-appropriate expectation for how hard Disney-licensed Capcom games were intended to be.

 

It's a good game, but people overpraise it and give it like 10/10 when it isn't quite that.

It's also glitchy as hell at times (and the reason speedruns are like 7 minutes because you can glitch the whole moon level.)

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

7 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

 

Fez. This one I really wanted to like because the soundtrack is fantastic and it looks great and of course I love puzzle games. I had heard the soundtrack long before I played the game (had to wait for it to hit PC) and I even remixed two of the songs from the soundtrack and made it onto the official remix album. And then I played the game and I was so disappointed. Not because the concept or level design was bad, but because IIRC there was no map and it was so easy to get lost. It felt like a game that you had to complete on one playthrough or take a lot of notes. Maybe I should try it again but I was shocked with how much praise it got and without anyone mentioning this poor design choice. 

 

Fez definitely requires some willingness to take notes in real life.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,526]

Okay, I know.  Here are some games that have metacritic scores/a general consensus that are higher/substantially higher than where I would have any of them.  But I don't think any of these are bad games or dislike them

• The Halo series
• The Gears of War series
• Basically any Sonic the Hedgehog game
• Any fighting game
• Virtually any American football game
• Killzone 2
• Resistance
• Lunar
• Valkyrie Profile
• Final Fantasy VII
• Final Fantasy IX
• Final Fantasy X2
• Crisis Core
• Chrono Cross
• Any Kingdom Hearts game
• The Thunder Force games
• Moonlighter
• Most Mario Kart games
• Most Kirby games
• Most Ys games
• Bastion
• Axiom Verge
• Shantae Half Genie Hero
• Persona 3
• Metroid
• Contact
• Certain SNES games that I won't spoil.  But everyone knows what I think of Secret of Mana

 

...and if the Wizard and Warrior games are acclaimed, that's my final answer.  Those games are horrible.  I refuse to accept a reality where people like them.

[avatar! | 1,811]

^ the point of this thread is to list acclaimed games that you don't like ie dislike! Not games that you're lukewarm about

[Reed Rothchild | 9,526]

4 hours ago, avatar! said:

^ the point of this thread is to list acclaimed games that you don't like ie dislike! Not games that you're lukewarm about

Sorry, that's the best I could do.  I'm the anti-hater.

[Koopa64 | 51]

I don’t like sandbox or online games in general