Topic: "Bad" games that you like / "good" games that you didn't like

I find it interesting that there are some communities online who love "Bad games" and others who are the minority of people who hate "well regarded games". Some games are hidden or forgotten-gems whiles others are called near-perfect games. Yet they still have their fans and their haters.

Are there any games that you love to play, despite being called bad by others? And are there any games that you dislike despite their critical reception?

I like Enter the Matrix more than every game that's like Gears of War (unless you count the Mass Effect series).

Off the top of my head, I really liked Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. I don't understand the bad rap it gets. It wasn't as good as the original, but it was still enjoyable. Relatedly, I recently finished the remake of the original on Switch and still thought it was great, had no issues with it. I don't know if people are just that picky or if updates have just made it that much better. I didn't play it when it first came out and apparently had myriad issues.

On the other side, I think Night in the Woods is easily one of the worst games I have ever played. Just kept waiting for it to get better. Never did.

I dislike Wii Play, Twilight Princess, and Mario Party 3

Off the top of my head:

"Bad" games that I like:

• Wanted: Dead
• Recore
• Gotham Knights

"Good" games that I don't like:

• Stardew Valley
• Super Metroid
• Sonic CD, Sonic Colors

I'm sure there's plenty more. Obviously there's more nuance, and generally my opinion just isn't that strong / only slightly deviates from the consensus, especially with the "good" games (e.g. I'm not the biggest fan of most N64 "classics" but I don't hate them).

"Bad game that I like":
I will always fight for Contra: Rogue Corps. No, it's not perfect, and yes it's kinda ugly and repetitive.

It's also fun and addicting. And, style-wise, it felt like Contra. In 2019, it had been a while since the previous game in the series, so it was cool to Contra back.

Contra: Operation Galuga is definitely superior though.

"Good game that I don't like":
I love Zelda-like games. I also love games with Japan mythology/folklore. But some reasons, I'm unable to enjoy Okami. I tried a couple of times and I get bored fast.

I like every "modern" paper mario (except sticker star) for their most like parts, and parts of their gameplay. I would still consider myself a sonic and the black night fan. And super smash brawl is my favorite game of all time.

For my dislikes, the closest I got is I don't like the 2004 ps2 transformers game.

I will say I'm not mentioning Star Fox Zero, because its not a bad game I enjoy, its a good game I enjoy, people were just...wrong. But unlike Pokemon Mystery Dungeon or Sonic Unleashed, not enough people played it to notice how stupid their takes were. Can I get paid money for not noticing you can change the control scheme in a video game before reviewing it?

I can only think much more of games I like that people don't, but here's what I can think of for now.

"Bad" games I like:
1. Donkey Kong Country 3- I like the cool mountainous theme, the music is still good even without David Wise, Kiddy Kong doesn't bother me, I don't care about Kremlings looking more cartoony, no obnoxious difficulty spikes like in DKC2, there's purer underwater levels than DKC2, and I can freely explore the world map unlike DKC2 where I have to pay Funky or beat a boss again to leave a world.
2. Donkey Kong 64- Sure, the DK Rap is cringe, there's a lot of collecting and a few of the minigames are infuriating, but the game is solid enough with large levels full of exploring, good music, great boss battles and lots of charm.
3. Wario World- Wario's only 3D platformer is an absolute blast with its snazzy soundtrack and over-the-top cartoon violence. Its only problem is just being too short. So what?
4. Yoshi's Story- It's no Yoshi's Island but it's a fun, little romp with adorable music.
5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl- The tripping never bothered me. This was a great installment with some great stages. It has a story mode with many cutscenes.
6. Wii Music- For just fooling around with instruments and the novelty of making music videos with my Miis, even this one was still worthwhile. I loved the Mii Maestro minigame where I could conduct all of my Miis in an epic orchestra!
7. Star Fox Adventures- Ironically my first Star Fox game despite not being a "true" Star Fox, I just enjoyed it for what it was; a beautiful game with impressive GCN visuals and music.
8. Kirby: Triple Deluxe- I admit that Planet Robobot is far superior, but I still enjoyed Triple Deluxe when it first launched and couldn't understand the lukewarm reception. Even if it's a "safe" Kirby game, the climatic final world with Queen Sectonia is epic alone.

"Good" games I dislike
1. Super Paper Mario- This isn't for the gameplay but for the overly dark story that just never felt right for a Mario game. That did NOT mean I didn't want Paper Mario to have a big story with unique characters again. Worst misunderstanding ever!
2. Pikmin in general- The characters and environments are intriguing, but I could never get into this series, including 4. The dandori is just not my thing.

Here's what I could think of at the top of my head.

"Good" games that I don't like:

• Rocket League - I tried getting into this game since a friend of mine likes it, but I absolutely hated it. I get bounced around way too often, and sometimes I even get blown up for seemingly no reason. The whole game is just plain frustrating in general, honestly.
• Stardew Valley - This is to a lesser extent because it's nowhere near as frustrating as Rocket League, but for some reason, I just can't get into SV. Which is odd, because I like Animal Crossing. I can't pinpoint exactly why... maybe I'm not into the whole farming thing. Not sure if I like having this stamina bar that depletes as time passes, either.
• Pokemon series - This might sound weird coming from me. Even though I'm a massive Nintendo fan, I am just not huge into Pokemon... mainly because I've had a hard time getting into the main series games themselves, even when I was a kid. I don't really like having to focus on multiple Pokemon, either... that's what turned me off from the games. I would just use my starter, and I kind of had a bad time later on as a result. That's what happened to me when playing Pokemon Diamond years ago. I know the newer games have experience share, but it was a tad too late for me to really care. And if I recall correctly, I've seen others say the newer games are a bit too easy or something along those lines.

"Bad" games that I like:

• Mega Man 8 - I recall seeing others say it's one of the weaker Mega Man games, but I thought that it's a pretty solid one overall. The controls are great for the most part and most of its levels are pretty good. I also like its pixel art and the soundtrack has quite a lot of great tunes. There's only a couple levels that I didn't like... and yeah, the voice acting is not that good. (Seriously, why does Mega Man sound like a little girl in that game?!) Other than those negatives, I did like the game.
• Star Fox Adventures - I'll agree with @Croctopus on this one, I thought it was really good for a Zelda-like game, even with the Star Fox theme plastered on (which isn't bad, just a bit odd). And yep, it's a great-looking and sounding game, too.
• Yoshi's Story - Again, agreeing with Croctopus. Not quite as good as Yoshi's Island, but it's still a nice little game. I used to love playing it when I was a kid as well.
• Mario Party 8 - I liked this one quite a bit despite it being labeled as one of the weaker games in the series. The minigames are probably not the greatest in the whole series, but I thought they were pretty all right. I love some of its boards too, and heck, I even like how you'd hit the dice block by moving your Wii remote upward. It was a fun one to play during the first year I had my Wii, as well.

I can’t think of enough, so a lot of the games on this list are Rare games. Apologies if my response is super lengthy. I have a lot to say:

“Bad but I liked”

Perfect Dark Zero (Xbox) - This is often considered to be one of Rare’s worst games, and it’s often said Zero is a disappointing prequel to Perfect Dark. I’d assume the reasons are that the sci-fi setting of the original is downplayed, alien life having no appearance at all (though aliens are hinted at during a conversation between two scientists), the game’s change in tone, and the changes made to the preexisting characters, like Joanna (both in her appearance and personality), which probably seemed jarring at the time since it was expected that the OG was getting a sequel, which it was but never happened. The changes made to Zero were super big, to the point people consider Zero to “not be a Perfect Dark game.” I played it in June alongside the original after Microsoft showed footage of the reboot, so I played the PD duology to build some hype up. I had heard things about Zero being bad, but after playing it, I’d say I disagree (respectfully, of course!).

While I understand the disappointment that it was not a sequel and that the changes differentiate the game from PD significantly, I found the game to be super enjoyable, mostly from the cheesiness the updated versions of the pre-existing characters brought (like in their clothing choices and the over-the-top voice acting), and I really like Joanna’s new look in Zero a lot! It evokes 2000s teen Disney Channel vibes and I kinda like it. I found the gameplay to be way better than the OG, and the objectives were clearer and better explained, plus if you are stuck on where to go next, there are markers that show up that you can follow. When I played the OG, I often got lost from how there weren’t any detailed explanations for the objectives, so that was a welcome change. I still love the first PD and agree that it is amazing and revolutionary, but I like Zero way more from its cheesiness that made it a more memorable experience and how much it improved a lot of the issues I had with PD. Plus, the multiplayer in Zero is so freaking fun.

Yoshi’s Story (N64) - Like what the two comments above mentioned, I also found this game to be fun even though I think it sounds like a lot of people find it is one of the weaker Yoshi games. It’s just a super simple, cute, and nice 2D platformer game. That’s all I really have to say about it!

Pokémon Rumble World (3DS) - I think the Pokémon Rumble games have never ever been liked, and each installment seems to get mixed to extremely bad scores online, I think from the games being way too simplistic, uninteresting and short. But, I found the 3DS installment good. Not a masterpiece, it’s far from it, but good.

I remember playing this all the time since it was a freemium game, and it’s pretty fun to pick up and play in short sessions, and it was my earliest introductions to beat em’ up games, as I never played any before since they were nothing of interest to me. I love the toy aesthetic the game has, and I remember having a pretty decent collection of Pokémon from how much I played it. I dunno, I just think the game is cool. I remember there was a mobile installment that I did play and liked, but they shut that down years ago.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies (Xbox) - I rated this a 6 on PX, but I’d change it to a 7. It’s also a game by Rare that is pretty forgotten and also hated (plus Rare themselves are aware of that and have poked fun at the game.) I found the game to not be awful and decent instead, but not entirely great. But, it was far from bad and probably one of my favorites.

The game’s main issue is being super repetitive and having annoying challenges, which did annoy me quite a bit, but the game does well in the other aspects.

The characters were silly and charming (especially the Grim Reaper, he is super minor but he still was super goofy), I liked the haunted mansion setting alongside its inhabitants, and the beat em’ up gameplay was well done. I can’t tell you how much fun the gameplay was, and it’s extremely creative with some of the items you use, like a water gun but it instead uses holy water, or a gun that uses soda cans as ammo. Some of the power-ups you get from eating special cans of soup make the game a bit more fun and interesting. It definitely has a lot of fun ideas that I’d say we’re done well. Probably a game that I won’t revisit a ton, but it was a good experience.

“Good but I disliked”

Jet Force Gemini (N64 and Xbox) - This is one of Rare’s least remembered games, but I heard some people saying it was an amazing game. I picked it up again a few weeks ago, and I did not like it at all. Using guns is crucial in the gameplay, but the aiming is pretty bad, and even when I swapped to the modern control scheme on the Xbox, it still felt awful, and the gunplay is maybe the worst out of Rare’s N64 games that have shooting gameplay.

Another thing is that you apparently have to rescue a bear-like alien race, but you need to find ALL of them in order to complete the game, and it just sounds like the Jinjos in Banjo-Kazooie but done way worse and dialed up to 11. I can handle collecting nearly every item in a game in order to finish it as long as it’s not all the collectibles, but having to 100% it to complete the game by collecting EVERYTHING? Sorry, but I really don’t want to do that if it’s going to tick me off a bunch.

Shoutout to Fragile Dreams, which has one of the best stories in any game but is still so lousy as a video game I can't give it higher than like a 6/10. That's genuinely the closest to another example I have that.

Maybe the 2003 TMNT game? I remember kinda liking that despite it obviously not being that good. I dunno, I think nearly every game I've ever liked is a good video game, even the ones with clear, major flaws.

For the opposite: RE5 is probably good but I didn't play it in co-op but in single player I feel like I should've enjoyed even a disappointing RE4 follow up but I didn't much. But its not bad, unlike 6 which is bad and anyone who tells you otherwise is a much bigger liar than anyone saying Stat Fox Zero has bad controls.

Are there any games that you love to play, despite being called bad by others?

A lot of retro games that were a lot of fun back in the day, particularly "black sheep" of franchises, like Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. People online often recommend "avoiding" them, ignoring their many good qualities.

And are there any games that you dislike despite their critical reception?

I saw all the worldwide frenzy over Animal Crossing: New Horizons and checked out some gameplay. It...did not look like it would be good? But the critic reviews were through the roof, game of the year nominations, etc., so I picked it up. Played it a bit every night for about a month then put it aside. A couple of months went by, and I realized I...never want to play that again. What I look for in a game is more or less the opposite of that.

I'd say pretty much everyone dislikes some 'good games' simply because most people don't like every genre under the sun. I don't care how well received your first person shooter is, it's not for me. Balatro? No matter how many glowing reviews I read, it still feels a bit like eshop garbage to me even though I love lots of indies.

Games which have a bad reputation I like? I rated Pokemon Brilliant Diamond 9/10 compared to the user metacritic score 5/10 although that is an odd case because everyone hated it for being too similar to an old game which was famously good so it is less a case of bad game and more a case of Pokemon fans being rabid. On the other hand, I play plenty of $2 eShop platformers with jank UIs, jank controls, sub-par graphics, occasional soft-locks; I enjoy them but they are also definitely kind of bad although they are too obscure to be well known as bad.

I greatly enjoyed mario party ten and couldn’t get through the Witcher 3 because the combat is boring and all the side quest are almost essential

I loved playing Paper Mario sticker star, but didn't like playing a link to the past

I completely agree, I've never got into any of the Mario Party games, but Warioware with other players is always a good time.

The only good game that I can think of currently that I didn't gel with is Metroid Prime, I've started it 3 times but I always end up stopping. Comparatively, I've beaten all of the 2D Metroid games, (minus the original versions of 1 and Samus Returns) and I love them.

@NeonMullet Interesting opinion on Smash.

Actually, now that I think about it, I do think that I like it highly mostly from the big roster and the characters they got for it. I haven’t played any of the previous games before Ultimate besides Smash WiiU, but I do miss some of the features that game had, like the trophies. I have a nearly complete collection of spirits, but I think I only did that because I was obsessed with playing Ultimate at one point years ago. I didn’t mind what they did with World of Light, but I think I felt that way because I never played Subspace Emissary.

@Servbot_EJ Ah, I forgot about Majora's Mask... I didn't like that one either. I do like how it's a darker Zelda game in terms of story and theming, but I got stuck in it very early on, and having to restart the timer makes the game feel more cumbersome to me. I liked Mega Man X8 quite a bit as well, even though I haven't finished it yet. It's been ages since I last played it, so maybe I'll give it another shot.

Couple of "bad" games I could think of I like, keep in mind not on Switch...

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric on Wii U - did not hate the game. I just took it as a different take on Sonic, and enjoyed it for what it is. It did have some technical issues at launch, but an update did fix most of them. I'm going to say it, I really liked the Sonic Boom games and disagree with the popular opinion of the games being bad. It was a different take on Sonic, and wasn't disappointed with it. I'll still play it from time to time.

Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis on GBA - poor port of Sonic 1 on GBA, still enjoyed it. In 2007, it was a novelty playing Sonic 1 on the go, and this game let me do that despite its problems.