What are some good qualities of “bad” games (modern or vintage)?

[Strange | 1,700]

I’m usually pretty forgiving of subpar or bad games and look for the good in them. I can usually find the interesting parts of bad games or ports and take in the whole experience rather than let the bad ruin the entire thing for me. I tend to look at most blocky, botched Atari 2600 or Game Boy ports and find the good or impressive that the devs managed to squeeze in. With modern games, if I don’t like a game, I’ll try to focus on what I do like. It’s why I don’t jive with modern gaming’s outrage culture. I don’t have the emotional energy to let a video game ruin my day and complain about it online.

Example: Final Fantasy XIII is BORING to play. Most Final Fantasy fans agree. However, the story and world’s lore are up there for a Final Fantasy. The soundtrack is a plus too. It’s just the way they presented that story and soundtrack made them excruciating to sit through. A lot of the main cast was grating as well. 

I know I have more examples but I’m curious what others think.

[Hammerfestus | 3,880]

Final Fantasy XV has — pretty graphics?  That’s all I‘ve got.

[Nintegageo | 582]

2 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

Final Fantasy XV has — pretty graphics?  That’s all I‘ve got.

I actually really enjoyed the teleportation combat in that game. Just wish they hadn't Xenogears'd the game's end.

[Sumez | 2,987]

Yeah, or the beginning and the middle.

I did have fun with what was there, and can actually say quite a few nice things about the game, but it was horribly incomplete.

[Inzoreno | 102]

The late-2000s reboot of Alone in the Dark, I just loved how your inventory was literally just in your coat, so you just have to look down rather than go into a separate menu to access your stock. Rest of the game was a mess, but I always loved that mechanic. 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Inzoreno

[Tanooki | 4,949]

Not picking on any particular game, but I've noticed a large uptick in average to piss poor games in general that have come out where they've completely sold on using ninja magic (smoke bomb) tactics.  You throw out garbage, but nail people with the combination of a great story and a huge hit if not raise the bar level of visual quality that people give a free pass on shoveling an otherwise mediocre to downright turd of a release.

[G-type | 2,503]

Billy Bob - Action 52, had pretty nice character animation. Almost Prince of Persia level quality.

 

[RH | 4,946]

Quest 64 was short! I couldn't imagine trudging through that game for 40 hours, though I know I would have as a kid.

[Robot_Ninjutsu | 122]

How the hell does a game like "Cheetahmen" get such a fantastic theme?

 

[DefaultGen | 5,426]

Blue Toad Murder Files is an obscureish episodic puzzle adventure game. It's pretty badly executed, except that for solving a mystery your character doesn't click on obvious clues that go into a collection log and get testimony that gets put into a bulleted list of the important bits so you the player figure out the case 3 hours before Phoenix Wright inevitably does. You have to notice all the things in the background and put together all the testimony yourself. You don't get a "No Phoenix, that doesn't make any sense" message if you choose the wrong culprit because you missed the clues along the way. You just lose. You're wrong. It's brilliant. I love it. I would play better-made whodunnit games like this!

It looks like it's only 4 bucks on Steam now so you can probably excuse its low-budget faults.

Edited July 8, 2021 by DefaultGen

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

I can't think of any specific examples off the top of my head at the moment, but overall I tend to have a soft spot for lots of games that are generally considered "bad" by the overall gaming community.  As such, a lot of times I think "bad" games can end up with very good worldbuilding and interesting plot/characters, but either fall short on gameplay or just deliberately drag on for so long to create an inflated amount of gameplay time (Duke Nukem Forever is a shining example of this--overall great entry in the series, but just too damned long after a certain point) that it ends up ruining the whole thing.  Thinking back to the launch of the PS3, I recall there were a bunch of games that at the time were considered gorgeous (and as a result were system sellers) but ended up being awful to actually play due to weird control schemes (Lair, being the prime offender).

[T-Pac | 7,581]

I love objectively bad games from a "campy novelty" perspective. 

The part of my brain that loves Showa-era Godzilla films is the same part that entices me to play 2600 Pac-Man in lieu of a competent port.

I actually think redeeming qualities diminish my enjoyment of a bad game haha.

-CasualCart

[phart010 | 1,708]

Megaman X5 and Megaman X6. Both potentially good games. But they were ruined by many story elements that destroyed the action flow of the game.

Apparently there are some hacks available that have eliminated many of the mandatory text dialogue sequences and made other dialogue sequences optional. If I had to play PS1 games on a flash card I would definitely look into the X5 and X6 hacks as definitive versions

[koifish | 557]

On 7/5/2021 at 4:24 PM, Inzoreno said:

The late-2000s reboot of Alone in the Dark, I just loved how your inventory was literally just in your coat, so you just have to look down rather than go into a separate menu to access your stock. Rest of the game was a mess, but I always loved that mechanic. 

That element is the best part of VR gaming, so many games where you just reach down to your relevant equipment and grab it to start using it. Pavlov is a great example, even cooler how other players can see and even grab your stuff too, there's a popular clip where someone sneaks up on an enemy and pulls the magazine out of his rifle. He tries to shoot then freaks out when no bullets fire, at which point the guy who snuck up on him takes him out.

23 hours ago, CasualCart said:

I love objectively bad games from a "campy novelty" perspective. 

The part of my brain that loves Showa-era Godzilla films is the same part that entices me to play 2600 Pac-Man in lieu of a competent port.

I actually think redeeming qualities diminish my enjoyment of a bad game haha.

-CasualCart

I feel the same way, one of my favorite games to play is Sonic 06, because it's so broken that it ends up making me laugh just trying to do basic things. The xenia emulator can now run that game, yet ironically I enjoy it less, because it's much more stable and less prone to framedrops than on real console XD

[Tanooki | 4,949]

I can related to the Showa Godzilla crack, you hit this point where it's so bad it's good if not excellent to watch for being just well itself.  I've got the criterion big folder collection of that entire era on blu ray it's that amusingly bad.

[T-Pac | 7,581]

10 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I can related to the Showa Godzilla crack, you hit this point where it's so bad it's good if not excellent to watch for being just well itself.  I've got the criterion big folder collection of that entire era on blu ray it's that amusingly bad.

Oh man I'm so jealous - I've held myself back from getting that Godzilla Criterion set because I don't have a blu-ray player. I'll need to fix that in the near future haha.

-CasualCart

[Tanooki | 4,949]

Just now, CasualCart said:

Oh man I'm so jealous - I've held myself back from getting that Godzilla Criterion set because I don't have a blu-ray player. I'll need to fix that in the near future haha.

-CasualCart

Considering I've seen an annoying trend of an uptick in prices on Criterion Collection stuff they no longer grab, just bite the bullet now or suffer.  They've already slashed the price a few times on their site, as I wasn't having it at full value as it was well up there.  They've dropped it still to a high-ish 180 range from around 230, but it's on amazon right now for around 110, can't get it much lower unless lucky off ebay unless you don't mind second hand.  I dropped around 100ish +/- on it new when I got it months ago.

[MegaMan52 | 2,455]

In Universal Studios: Theme Parks Adventure for GameCube, the real Back to the Future theme song from the movies (not a video game version of it) plays during the Back to the Future: The Ride attraction. The first time I played Universal Studios: Theme Parks Adventure several years ago, I was blown away by the fact that my GameCube was actually playing the real song from the movies (well, specifically Back to the Future Part 2's version of it). Driving the Delorean is kind of fun as well.

Other than that, I don't really like the game. But I still play it occasionally just because of Back to the Future: The Ride, which is kind of decent compared to the rest of the game.

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by MegaMan52

[AmandaCathedral | 148]

I'm playing through Mighty No. 9 for the first time, and having a lot of fun.

The true standout moments are the boss fights against the Mighty Numbers. Each one has been a total blast, and they're the most intense and fun Mega Man bosses I've ever played. After I land the final absorb on them, I always have a moment where I appreciate how haywire these bots have gone.

The fight against Avi in particular was my favourite one, as it's a really involved battle, and it plays up how big of an advantage he has by being able to fly. The fact that he taunts you during the boss fight and the whole level prior while zipping around makes him really satisfying to finally beat.

The boss theme is the best song in the game too, and I've found myself humming it a lot. I think this game would be a waste of time if the boss fights weren't so awesome. I've heard the final boss is a jerk, but I'm up for the challenge.

[glazball | 172]

While it's not usually considered a "bad" game, The Order: 1886 seems to get a lot of grief from my friends who have played it (and critics too).  I don't really understand why.. I think it's a solid enough game.

One subtle but great feature it instituted: it was the first game (as far as I can tell) to flash your aiming reticle red after getting a kill shot.  Before then you were never really sure if that enemy in the distance is actually dead, or just waiting in cover.  If you haven't noticed, just about every 1st- and 3rd-person shooter uses that feature now.

Edited July 26, 2021 by glazball

[Strange | 1,700]

Earlier in the thread someone mentioned FFXV and while that’s certainly a contender for this list I did see some things I liked in it. I think it brought the world of Final Fantasy to life in a way we haven’t seen before. I know the car driving is particularly critiqued in this game but one cool feature was that you could have the soundtrack to every previous Final Fantasy play as you drive. And that bright countryside is exactly how I imagined the fields of older Final Fantasy games looked from the perspective of those characters. I think they portrayed classic Final Fantasy monsters very well. And the marriage of modern society (smartphones, etc.) with fantasy elements (magic, classic monsters, etc.) I think is a unique and interesting setting. There’s definitely a lot wrong with that game but I think there are some things it does do well.

[phart010 | 1,708]

8 hours ago, AmandaCathedral said:

I'm playing through Mighty No. 9 for the first time, and having a lot of fun.

The true standout moments are the boss fights against the Mighty Numbers. Each one has been a total blast, and they're the most intense and fun Mega Man bosses I've ever played. After I land the final absorb on them, I always have a moment where I appreciate how haywire these bots have gone.

The fight against Avi in particular was my favourite one, as it's a really involved battle, and it plays up how big of an advantage he has by being able to fly. The fact that he taunts you during the boss fight and the whole level prior while zipping around makes him really satisfying to finally beat.

The boss theme is the best song in the game too, and I've found myself humming it a lot. I think this game would be a waste of time if the boss fights weren't so awesome. I've heard the final boss is a jerk, but I'm up for the challenge.

I too think it was a good game. It received a lot of hate because it was hyped up excessively by Megaman fans and then fell short of expectations. Also missed on some Kickstarter promises, you know how that goes.

Look at it with fresh eyes and its a good game.

[Tanooki | 4,949]

Actraiser 2 is a broken dumpsterfire of a game, a total mess of fouled up messy play control, coupled with an insidious challenge due to that(though it would still be hard w/out broken jump mechanics), and removal of both save feature battery and the entire SIM aspect people adored.

That said, it has some of the most top notch visuals of a SNES game, truly some/many of those stages just have to be seen.  It's the one part they didn't ruin.

[Strange | 1,700]

13 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Actraiser 2 is a broken dumpsterfire of a game, a total mess of fouled up messy play control, coupled with an insidious challenge due to that(though it would still be hard w/out broken jump mechanics), and removal of both save feature battery and the entire SIM aspect people adored.

That said, it has some of the most top notch visuals of a SNES game, truly some/many of those stages just have to be seen.  It's the one part they didn't ruin.

This type of comment is exactly what I wanted to see in this thread lmao

[Homer | 17]

Maybe not bad games.  But there's a bunch of middle of the road NES games where Tim Follin did the music.  I find myself enjoying the music the most on these titles.

And another good quality with bad games, sort of a joke, is they're usually cheap.  I find that some games are known as bad but are actually pretty good if the price is right. Games like Cobra Command, Athena, Karate Champ and 1942 on the NES all usually rate bad but I totally got my $5 worth of fun out of these games.