Things people hated about a game that you liked

[Gamerforlife]

I liked the Mako driving sections in the original Mass Effect. I enjoyed zooming in and picking off targets from long range, running over soldiers and blasting them with the mako's cannon and jumping over incoming shots from Geths units. I honestly never understand why people bitched and moaned about the Mako so much when it's so easy to use once you understand what you're doing. The game is so broken in your favor when you're in the Mako and people bitched about it.

The thing I hated about the Mako driving was the parts in between destroying the tiny ant people. I agree; it gave you those moments of utter awesome when you flattened everything in your path. But then you would be on those planets with the really crazy mountain ranges (i.e. all of them), and frequently they'd be between you and wherever you're trying to go. The handling on those was pretty asstasstic.

I'll even mis-characterize why they hated it. I think they hated it because it looked like a beat-em-up, but was much more slower and studied. Muramasa, I think, became the game they wanted. But Odin Sphere, a little less action-oriented a bit more tactical, was what I wanted.

To me the combat didn't quite feel tactical. I saw what they were going for in terms of drawing your opponents away and picking them off. However, the execution in my mind seemed to leave a bit to be desired. The Pow system forced you to take breaks for no reason when you already were having to back off due to a larger horde coming at you. The part that really got me, though, was how it was very hit or miss whether or not an enemy would go into hitstun from your attacks. If it was consistent I could plan around it. But many times it seemed to be due to the roll of the dice.

Also, Beliel is bullshit. Especially Belial + Wizard.

Now, I'd like to close this by saying that I loved Odin Sphere's story and MOST of the game. Hell, all of the final chapter boss fights were awesome.

The hit stun bugged me. And while I know Odin Sphere was not a beat'em up, there was still no excuse for the paltry amount of moves you had at your disposal. This, plus a very simplistic item creation system made the game feel VERY light on gameplay to me. It doesn't help that the game has you going through the same levels and bosses over and over and over and over again

I might give Odin Sphere another chance one day, but it seemed very much style over substance to me. I absolutely love games that are artsy, but I don't support anything that is style over substance. That is the dark side of artsy games

[lisalover1]

All the reviews at the time complained about the aiming/shooting part of shadow. I thought the game sucked because of the slippery controls, crappy level design, glitchyness, retarded story, awful cut scenes, lame attempts at being edgy, poor graphics, cheap difficulty, and stupid "missions".

If you expect any kind of good story out of a Sonic game, then I really don't think we're on the same page. Also, how much different are "missions" from normal Sonic levels? You can run through them like normal; the branching paths are just side-quests, in my opinion. Another thing, I haven't had any problem with the game's controls, and I know it's not just a system-specific issue; I've played the game on the PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox, with no problems. Maybe it's just that things move too fast for most people, and they don't have time to react.

[Yiddishpilot]

I liked that you couldn't skip the summon animations in Final Fantasy 8. I had just broken my ankle when that game came out and was laid-up for almost a month so it wasn't like I had anything better to do.

[Hatta]

Two things come to mind, both having to do with Sierra adventure games.

First, the parser. Being limited to a half dozen verbs felt so, well, limiting. And having all your dialog choices presented to you took much of the fun out of the games. The parser had it's flaws, but they should be dealt with by improving the parser not scrapping it. Think of what 20 years of parser development would be like in an adventure game today.

Second, dying. Lot's of people felt that dying was punishing the user. Personally, I had a lot of fun figuring out ways to die, and reading the messages. Maybe it would be easier for people if there was a quicksave button.

[Josh]

The Shenmue Forklifts were pretty damn awesome. The Shenmue 2 crate carrying "mini game"? God I wanted to punch the obnoxious guy in Aberdeen. Made me want to puke every time he....moaned/shouted/cried/whatever the hell you call that noise.

One thing I don't get is why Star Fox Assault got as panned as it did. I actually loved the 3rd person shooter sequences and the landmaster controls weren't that bad. Sure the game shined as a ship shooter, but the boss fights were great, the voice acting was great, the camera angles were a little iffy at times, but overall better than what people expected it to be.

[CRTGAMER]

Okay here's one lotta reviewers blasted.

Wild Metal, plodding slow gotta climb that hill, but love it because of the heavy tank aspect.

Great Rockstar Dreamcast game and it is freeware (thats non-DRM) download on the PC.

[fvgazi]

Shaq-Fu is my favorite game of all time.

[Limewater]

Two things come to mind, both having to do with Sierra adventure games.

First, the parser. Being limited to a half dozen verbs felt so, well, limiting. And having all your dialog choices presented to you took much of the fun out of the games. The parser had it's flaws, but they should be dealt with by improving the parser not scrapping it. Think of what 20 years of parser development would be like in an adventure game today.

Heh. That would be pretty awesome, but I imagine it would be ridiculously tedious to code.

Second, dying. Lot's of people felt that dying was punishing the user. Personally, I had a lot of fun figuring out ways to die, and reading the messages. Maybe it would be easier for people if there was a quicksave button.

Dying all the time was fun in the Space Quest games, for example. Not so much in King's Quest, but I just prefer Space Quest in general.

My big complaint with the old Sierra graphic adventures is that you could easily get the game into an unwinnable state with no notice.

Space Quest 2: You forgot the jock strap on the second screen? You can get through 80% of the game and then you're stuck.

King's Quest 5: You threw the stick at the cat to save the mouse instead of the shoe? You'll still save the mouse, but you secretly can't finish the game! Whoo hoo!

[Gamerforlife]

Blitzball in FFX, I loved it. It was like a mini-rpg. You could level everyone to level 99, there were tons of different characters, all with different stats and abilities that came into play during each game. It was actually fun seeing certain abilities being used against your enemy team. And if was fun to see Tidus' Jecht Shot in action. Also, there were some fun tricks and AI exploits you could use to make the games even more fun

Blitzball was fun once you got a good team(which maent ditching your default team and getting recuits) and knew how to play.

Also, the card game in Final Fantasy 8 was lots of fun and appealed to the collector in me(I had to get every card). It was just that damn random rule that could ruin the game if you let it get spread throughout the world

[Jrecee]

All the reviews at the time complained about the aiming/shooting part of shadow. I thought the game sucked because of the slippery controls, crappy level design, glitchyness, retarded story, awful cut scenes, lame attempts at being edgy, poor graphics, cheap difficulty, and stupid "missions".

If you expect any kind of good story out of a Sonic game, then I really don't think we're on the same page. Also, how much different are "missions" from normal Sonic levels? You can run through them like normal; the branching paths are just side-quests, in my opinion. Another thing, I haven't had any problem with the game's controls, and I know it's not just a system-specific issue; I've played the game on the PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox, with no problems. Maybe it's just that things move too fast for most people, and they don't have time to react.

I thought the stories in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 were pretty decent. The missions I recall was stuff like "to complete the 'dark' mission you have to kill all the military guys in the level, to complete the 'good' mission you have to kill all the monsters". So you'd have to go through these levels that were designed with movement in one direction in mind, and be trying to backtrack to find all the stupid enemies you have to kill to take a different path. They weren't really sidequests, since you didn't get to see most of the game with the basic path. If you just plow straight through the levels like a regular sonic game, the whole thing can be beat in an hour.