A game you "didn't know it was bad 'til people told you so"?

Fallout 3. The criticism is absolutely fair, but it was the first RPG I ever played and I'm still very fond of it.
I never got the 'metros are hard to navigate' criticism, I never had that issues. Most of them are pretty linear.
- So, I'm an ardent 'New Vegas is the best 3D Fallout game' person.
  But... Fallout 3 is not a bad game.
  It is fun, it is enjoyable. It has solid game mechanics, it has a good number of well written characters and questlines, it is fun to just explore and find crazy shit.
  It has flaws, yes.
  But it is far from bad.
  It just isn't as good as New Vegas, which imo, basically just did everything FO3 did, but better, had a better overall storyline, refined and improved on all the gameplay mechanics, added in new gameplay features/elements.
  
  i dont think new vegas had better exploration. fo3 is still pretty unmatched in that. so many unmarked gems in fo3
  
  It also had some big gameplay departures from 1 & 2. I'm not talking about being an FPS (although no longer having to worry about accuracy was pretty significant) but the fact that putting on different clothing magically made you more intelligent, and that it was a lot easier to do everything.
  In FO3 you can pick all the locks, hack all the computers, pass all the conversation checks, and take on hordes of enemies all by yourself. In FO1+2 you had to pick the couple of things you were good at and not be able to do the other things until your next run.
- A lot of the metros look copy and pasted; whole hallways, rooms, so it gets a little confusing.
  
  Oh for sure, Fallout 3 Geoguesser would be hard. Idk, I just never had a problem navigating them, even if they were a bit samey.
- To be fair, Fallout 3 is a bit more of a mixed bag of good and bad features.
- Not going to lie, I like it quite a bit more than New Vegas. I understand several criticisms that people have, but 3 was by far the better experience for me.
  
  Same here. NV was pretty boring to me while FO3 was actually fun.
- FO3 is my favorite Fallout (haven't played 4 or 76 yet).
  
  Have you played 1, 2, or New Vegas?
- Guess that’s me too. I loved Fallout 3 and wasn’t really aware of a lot of hate for it.
- Fallout 3 for me works well as a sandbox and less as a narrative driven RPG. I had a lot of fun with it but I know if you went in expecting it to be something it’s not (like the first 2 fallout games) you’re gonna be disappointed.
  
  I loved FO3. And coming from Bethesda, I was expecting a sandbox.
  Actually, do people hate FO3? I thought it was well liked, even amongst New Vegas fanatics.
- I lived in D.C. when I played it. Between that and it being the first of its kind in the series, none of the others come remotely close for me.

Yoshi's Story. Yeah it's short, and level unlocking is weird as all outdoors, but people really hating on it for being too easy? Bro, it's a YOSHI game. That's a quarter of the appeal! It's a game you can get younger kids involved in, or you can play after a hard day when you want to turn your brain off partially.
Plus almost everything in that game is adorable. And 64 bit sprite art is goated
- I dunno, Yoshi's Island can get pretty hard...
  
  Story (N64), not Island (SNES).
- Its the context and expectations. The last "Yoshi" game was a mainline Super Mario World 2, and people expected similar scope and challenge but in 64 bits. Super Mario 64 had further primed people for crazy genetlrational leaps. Yoshi's Story was a fine game, but it wasnt SMW3 by a longshot.
  
  Exactly this. Yoshi's Story was a follow up to Yoshi's Island, often considered one of the greatest 2d platformers of all time. I spent weeks if not months completing Yoshi's Island. Then when Yoshi's Story came out, I rented it and completed it over the weekend.
- I loved Yoshi’s Story as a kid. Never knew there was hate for it for a long time.
  
  I loved it but I was sad I completed it before the rental period was up.

Every game that ever gets released when you check gaming forums within the first month of a game's release lol /s
Im joking. I get the sentiment that a finished product should be fully complete and inspected by a QA team before release. But still, the fuckin extreme hatred ill see for the game and its studio, regardless of the company's history, is soooooo fuckin wild. And almost everytime when I get to the point of buying the game, ill check the steam reviews and it'll be mostly positive after like one patch release.
- I've been curious about this recently after seeing all the reviews for MindsEye. I'd never heard of it until a few days ago, yet all the reviewers I pay attention to are talking about how it's the worst game ever, while the footage they show makes it look fine. I haven't played it, so I can't disagree with them, but the vitriol for something that appears to be completely average is surprising.

Super Mario Sunshine. I thought it was just hard as a kid. Come to learn it’s fucking broken.
- Wait, people hate it? I still do nostalgia playthroughs occasionally, one of my favs for GC.
  
  There were so many issues
  Final boss was lame and level leading to it was slow and tedious completely killing the momentum
  Camera system was wonky
  Rocket nozzle barely got any play
  Jet nozzle was too difficult to control to be useful outside of specific racing segments
  Pachinko machine physics were fucked
  The lily pad level was unfairly difficult
  There was no way to track which blue coins you found. Like even a grey coin marker for already collected coins would have been super helpful.
  The reward for getting blue coins was pathetic
  Yoshi was criminally underutilized. The whole juice mechanic was used like twice.
  The whole thing just felt rushed. Like there was another third of the game that they didn’t get to make.
- I’ve just learned about it right now. I loved it but I thought that it was a skill issue, I’m not a great player overall.
- Personally the movement mechanics and the tropical overworld were amazing in this game.
  While the water jetpack may seem like a gimmick, I thought it really changed the platforming in a good way.
  Additionally, I'm a sucker for a good overworld and the amount of things you can unlock or discover in delphino plaza turns it into its own sort of level.
  There is definitely some jank and padding (blue coins) in the game, but it holds up better than Mario 64 in my opinion (just due to the camera issues IN Mario 64).
  
  Camera issues in Mario 64 are fixed by playing the decomp / homebrew versions that have free camera control. It's how I first played and 100%d it.

Destiny 2.
Started playing the first game day one but stopped for several years. Picked up 2 when I found out it was ftp right after beyond light came out and bought all the dlcs available until after lightfall. I was at work and a customer asked what games I play. Said D2 and someone else said "why would you do that to yourself?" I thought hard about that for awhile and realized all I do is grind and don't really have that much fun with it. It was more like a second job. And lightfall was a garbage dlc. That was also a major contributer to me quitting.
- My biggest issue with Destiny 2 is that I paid $60 for it and then it soon went free to play and I had absolutely nothing to show for that $60 I paid.
  Edit: oh yeah and that original $60 campaign was removed from the game by the time I went back to check out what was new. There was straight up less content available for me after not playing for a year. I felt so ripped off that I wrote the game off.
  
  Even TF2 gave special cosmetics and stuff to existing players when it went F2P ages ago. It's a standard practice at this point. I sunk 12k hours into D2 until I quit it for good this past fall, and looking back I swear I just notice more and more red flags like this that I hadn't thought too much about.
  
  I was excited to start again right as beyond light dropped, but it was confusing as hell as a new player because they sunset the starting campaign. Weird to have to research how to play a game.
- I started with Shadowkeep and I got sucked in hard for 5 years. The first year or two I heard these sorts of negative comments here and there, mostly from long-term players, but didn't think much of it.
  Fast forward to this past year, and Revenant is what made me say fuck it and drop the game entirely. I was already sick of the state of the game, powercreep to hell and back, pvp in the dumpster, nonexistent loot, etc etc. But jesus that season was eye-opening. I uninstalled a day after Tomb of Elders launched.
  I was also a major completionist - near max triumph score, never missed a day 1 raid from DSC onwards til unfortunate scheduling fucked our SE run, every GM soloed to that point, shit like that. Missing that one single season and a couple shitty little time-limited events was enough to feel like I'd fallen behind, and that was it. Booted up the game once since to check out Heresy, activity was the same shit as always, loot was dogshit, so I checked out right away.
  And that's just the gameplay gripes. Bungie as a studio is toxic as fuck in so many ways and I can never in good conscience support them again.
  It took a few years but I finally understand what people were telling me way back when I started.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
People only ever talk about Final Fantasy Tactics and dismiss any of the other games. However, going by the original release, Tactics Advance is by far my favorite. It's my favorite GBA game and at least in my Top 25 JRPGs, despite having played almost nothing else for the past 20 years. I like many of the things the game gets criticized for.
- Marche and the general lesson of FFTA are great, to me. I love the strategic map mechanics. And honestly, I think the Laws (except in the cases where they're intended to be screwy) are neat additions that make you have to think.
- This is the one where we bully our little brother into going back to the world where he can't walk, right? :P
  
  That's the one! We can also bully him with snowballs in the opening scene, if we want to.
- Bruh, FFTA is a great game and I will hear no slander of it.
- I loved FFTA and have replayed it multiple times. I've played FFTA2 some as well, which was definitely not as good.
  I thought A was much better than the original. I didn't even know it was "not good"
  
  Usually, whenever people talk about A, you get a few of the following arguments:
  The story is bad/too childish
  Laws/Judges are overall a terrible mechanic
  Learning skills from equipment is bad
  SRPGs need permadeath
  Send missions are bad and just there to promote the game with having 300 missions
  Of course, I disagree with all of these. Actually, these are some of my favorite things about this game.
- FFTA is great but a hidden gem, I don't think it counts. It's weird though because I have never met anyone who has played all lf FFT, FFTA, and FFTA2, but I know a lot of people who love either FFT or FFTA
  
  I've played them all! Although, I haven't finished all of them. I'm planning on fixing that with the FFT remaster, however, I had to drop the original release.
  Personally, it goes FFTA > FFTA2 > FFT. I don't think I've ever met someone who likes FFTA2 the most.
- Probably my favourite gameboy game across all generations
- FFTA is great if you never played FFT. If you did, however, it is a cheap imitation that turns it into "baby's first SRPG".
  FFTA2 did a better job, but those of us that started with FFT were highly disappointed with FFTA as a "sequel".
  
  Funnily enough, I really didn't like FFT. The only thing I could get behind was the story. However, I'm planning on giving the remaster another shot.

I have a lot of childhood nostalgia for Donkey Kong 64. If you were a kid who could only get a new game every few months or so, this giant behemoth of a game will last a long time.
But it undeniably is a bloated clusterfuck, the internet is not wrong in hindsight.
- hbomberguy did a 50+ hour 101% nightmare stream for trans charity a while back and I watched the whole thing. I would not subject myself to playing that game but damn it was interesting to see.
- DK64 for me too. I played the shit out of it for probably a solid 6 months to a year and loved it but it has no doubt aged badly.
  
  Honestly the collectathon genre as a whole doesn't hold up much these days. A few modern games pull it off here and there, but going back and trying to play any of the classic Rare titles feels like a slog.
  Loved all those games as a kid, and they did a ton to shape the industry, but they don't really hold up.
- Bro what people didn't like DK64? I spent a large chunk of my childhood getting 100% in that game. Lanky Kong was my boy.
- I wonder if a fan mod of DK64 where the bananas aren't colored would fix many of the problems. I feel like that one small change might fix a lot of complaints. I haven't played it though.
  
  There's a ROM hack that let's you swap characters with a button press rather than trek through the level to find a swap barrel and then trek back again, and do that again and again for coins, bananas, etc.
  Small change that has a big impact on the replayability.
  https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4961/

E.T.
Yes really. I played it all the time as a kid and didn't think it was any more difficult or abstract than the rest of the 2600's catalogue. Granted, we kept the manual, which made a huge difference in understanding and enjoying its bizarre logic, but still. I had no idea it was so hated until at least a decade later.
- it was actually way ahead of its time, for a game. One small bug (the workaround for which was in the manual) ruined its reputation. But I genuinely think it was a good game.
  Also written in 6 weeks by one guy. Freaking impressive
  
  What was the bug and workaround? :)

For me it was war thunder. Seen this game advertised on youtube a while ago, and about year ago i decided to just install it and see what this game is. Firstly i liked it. It was fun game to play. After some time of playing this game, i wanted to see videos of this game on youtube, and thats where i found a lot of criticizm for this game. Only after hitting about 60 hours of total playtime, i started understanding the hate for this game myself. I did not played war thunder ever since. For context, the main reason for hate to this game is that it is too grindy, and it will take hundreds of hours to reach top tier, even with premium account.
- Can confirm, several hundred hours in and I have like, 3 usable jets with missiles. And I deliberately rushed the shortest tech line to get them faster. And Im basically permanent premium.
  How the fuck is a free player meant to do it
  
  That's the neat part, you aren't! Gaijin 100% expects you to pay to get to top tier.
- I remember having a lot of fun in the first two or three tiers of war thunder. But then the higher tiers hit, everything gets way too fast and you have to deal with too many sweaters.
- it's very pay to win. it feels good to play at first then your progress stagnates to the point of frustration and paying players get put in the same matches as non paying players. paying players get access to entirely new planes and upgrades and they always kill me soon after i spawn.
- I just wish they would fix bombers somehow. I wish I could fly my B-17 or B-29 and actually drop bombs.
  All I want is high altitude carpet bombing, I know everyone else thinks it's boring but it's what I want 😭

Final Fantasy 8. I loved it but apparently I was in the minority.
- 8 is a very solid game. The issue is that it was always compared to 7 and 9
  
  Which is funny since I've played all three of those for the first time recently, and FF7 doesn't hold up in comparison to 8 and 9. But I can see at the time how 8 could be seen poorly in comparison to 7 and 9.
- FF8 has been going through a bit of a resurgence lately where it does seem to be getting a fair amount of praise. It used to get slated though.
  
  It still feels fresh.
- I still love it.
- I also loved FF8. I'd be more interested in a remake of that one than 7 tbh.
- Another FF8 enjoyer here! My husband and I got married on Halloween, so for the reception, I was Rinoa and he was Squall!
  10/10 fantastic game!

How old were you when you played Sonic Unleashed? I thoroughly played and enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2 for the Gamecube when I was in middle school, but revisiting it as an adult, it was so hard to envision how I ever enjoyed the way that game controls. However, even though my muscle memory was totally gone, since all the levels I knew from SA2 were remixed, Sonic Generations was good even as an adult.
- I was 10 years old when I played Unleashed. I wouldn't even have internet back then (I'm from Latin America)

A lot of people didn't like Assassins Creed Odyssey, but I loved it. Only AC I've played since 2.
- I think that might be part of it. For a lot of people, it was that the formula was old and tired. I know Odyssey did fairly well, but it's still just an AC game
  
  Odyssey was the second entry in the new batch of games in the series, where they completely reinvented what that series is. There are a lot of us who find it to be a poor substitution for what came before.

Indigo Prophecy
Played it when it originally released in the US and I loved it as a pre-teen who had no fucking idea what was happening in the story.
Came to find out no one had any clue what was happening in the story regardless and people thought the game was a mess.
- Oh man I loved that game as a teen but I had to give up somewhere near the end cuz I was in a sneaking section that I tried for hours but kept failing. I ended up dropping the game and just reading the story online. Up until then, it was a really fun game though.
  
  It has literally been about 20 years since I played. I can't say I really remember which part you're talking about. I just remember about halfway/three-quarter into the game things get fucking weird.
- I loved this one, too. Super weird story, but I was hooked. I didn't even object to what I sort of remember as a deus ex machina kind of ending. Seemed fittingly weird for the vibe.

Sonic Adventure 1. I love the hub worlds and how the stories of the different characters intertwine in the shared areas. And I love the variety of characters and being able to freely choose which one to advance (unlike Sonic Adventure 2...)
- Same here, I always liked SA1 more than SA2. I remember being so amazed that you could pick any character to play next and then you'd find out, in any order you chose, how their stories would intersect with one another. SA2 felt like a downgrade without that. I also liked the art style of the first game over the second one.
  
  SA2 just wasn't as satisfying for me. There was too much rail grinding, which isn't much fun when overused, because you're barely controlling anything.
- Ah, a comrade SA1 enjoyer 🤝
  
  and off topic, but why the hell do the SA2 treasure hunting stages only do radar for the "next piece"?? SA1 has the radar active for all 3 pieces, so there's way less back and forth
- I didn't know this one wasn't well received until just now. To me it's one of the few good 3D sonics. The plot, stage design, intersecting stories with varied play styles. All of that made it feel like playing in a full world.
  That being said, I'm hit or miss on sonic in general, so maybe I like it for not being a traditional sonic game.

Mine was final fantasy 12. I played that game so hard, really enjoyed it and if was released in the time of trophies I would have platinumed it. Even did the grinding for Gilgamesh to spawn for a sword or something. But I was hated at the time.
Now everyone is saying it was one of the best and I was proved right all along.
Sure the story was star wars and the main character wasn't, but the combat system was really fun, way better than 13.
- FF12 is definitely my favorite FF. The combat system is the most interesting to me - programming your party to act how you want without spending the time of selecting combat options every single round. It's also why I love the first Dragon Age and hated the sequels. I wish more games used that type of combat.
- Dude I put that game down after like 30 hours going “what the fuck am I doing?” First game I just abandoned.
  Hated it. Literally the best part was the opening cinematic. After that I could not give less of a shit about anything I was doing, my love for Final Fantasy X was carrying me through it. But even that had its limits.
  Imagine being me a few years ago discovering that apparently, as you said, it is now one of the most lauded in the series. Fucking baffling. I cannot stand that game lmao
  
  I hated the game at first too. But I actually gave it a replay a while back and ended up loving it. Ironically, my love of FFX was holding me back from enjoying XII. Once I replayed it with a more open mind, I thoroughly enjoyed it. There are certain things I dislike about it, sure. But that’s true for any Final Fantasy game.
  I think replaying it when I was older also helped. I didn’t have the patience for the politicking when I played it the first time. And the game’s story is very political. So I think the added maturity meant I was able to appreciate the story more.
  
  Amen, I am equally puzzled.
  Truly some of the worst FF decisions all in the same game.
  Why is the key to the postgame dungeon a piece of undifferentiated loot? Why did the game allow me to accidentally lock myself out of the postgame by selling it?
  Why is the story is a low effort clone of Star Wars?
  Why set FF12 in the world of FF:Tactics but make no reference to it?
  Why, oh why, an all-women-race of playboy bunny girls in lingerie and heels?
  That being said, programming your own teams’ AI is peak jrpg wish there was more of that. This baby got thrown out with all that dirty bath water unfortunately
- I still like FF12, although I've never beaten it. I had no idea people disliked it.
- I loved it at the time too! But you're the first other person I've seen praise it.
  I've gone back to replay it a couple of times and, yep, still love it. The story has its flaws but that's final fantasy for you.
  
  I liked a lot about the original. I thought the real-time, turn-based fighting system was going to take over as the new fighting system going forward to replace the ATB as the go-to, and I was happy about it (XIII and XV would have been better for it).
  The remaster raised the game to its full potential imo. Having jobs is so much better than free-for-all. And getting rid of the Zodiac Spear disqualification treasure chests is just good on my psyche.
- Interesting I don't think I've seen anyone call it the best before. I loved the shit out of ff7/9/10 and was so excited for 12 and it was one of the first big gaming letdowns I can remember. Ive still had the heart to pick it back up.
  
  I've seen a lot of people recently give it praise. I think 4, 9, and 12 all seem to be looked back at far better than their original reception.
  
  XII remake is my third favorite after X and VIII.

I rented Superman 64 as a kid, never knowing it was a universally hated game. We had fun with the weird multiplayer mode where you fly around in weird pod things. I remember flying through the rings too. The whole game makes zero sense in hindsight.
- The game became that shitshow because Warner Bros execs got pissed that a "no-name" yuropeean company got the rights to make a licensed Superman game (because they were the only company that bothered to bid), so they did a lot of time-wasting requests to the developers.
  https://www.retrojunk.com/a/C1CKNP9rjC/the-story-behind-superman-64
  
  This. Check out the leaked beta on YouTube. It's looks significantly better than the finished product

Assassin's Creed Odyssey apparently, according to reddit a few years ago, was looked at as being shitty I guess? Not the best one?
It's the only one I played, and I played it 3 times with ~240 hours. Kassandra is my favorite character ever, in any video game. I loved the world, its beauty, the ships and sea, and shooting arrows through rocks as a demo god.
I've still not touched any other assassins game.
- Odyssey was really good in a vacuum. Ive heard it described best as that it was a good action RPG set in Greece, but not a good Assassins Creed game. The main issue being that stealth was usually a huge focus in previous titles, but this one seemed to favor general combat and didnt even have the signature wrist blade until the DLC. Also a bunch of the story seemed to return pieces of previous lore, some setup in just the previous game that came out a year prior. Overall though I did enjoy the game!
  
  Yeah I think you're right with it being good in a vacuum. That makes complete sense because it was different than the other games.
  I have panic disorder, so most games with combat overwhelm me as I'm just constantly afraid. I never got that with this game. Just give me a bow so i can stand hella far away and clear the area before entering it. Thats how I did stealth. I'd take an hour slowly picking off everyone from the fort. Plus, it was really beautiful and emersive. Exploring the map was super fun.
- I am willing to bet that people who chose the female main character enjoyed this game more.

I enjoyed Outer Worlds. Tons of criticism online, but I liked it.
- I had the opposite for this one, heard it was good and really didn't like it when I gave it a try.
- I enjoyed the hell out of that game. My only complaint was that the loot lacked variety, and it was a bit more on rails than what I think of as a proper open world RPG.
- Me too, didn't even know people thought it was a bad game until recently. Honestly I don't get why, I wasn't expecting anything different from what I got, there were definitely some dialogues that made me chuckle, and a lot of storylines were very tongue in cheek, and while gameplay was nothing to write home about neither is fallout and this was sold as "fallout in space", and definitely delivered on that.
- Agreed. I thought it was a competently made game, even if not groundbreaking or best in class for shooting. I think people's expectations are often their biggest obstacle to enjoyment.
- It still has a 9/10 on Steam despite all the flak it took. I think it's a classic. To me it's similar to the backlash to Fallout 4 from purists, which I also feel is a classic game

Thief 3. I had never played a Thief game before and thought it was great. Apparently, fans of the first two games were disappointed with it at first. I think the criticism didn't last long, though. Everyone now seems to agree that it was good.
- Do you mean Thief: Deadly Shadows? That was the 3rd game in the series, and from what I understand it was pretty well received. The orphanage level alone is so highly regarded that it has its own Wikipedia page.
  Now the 2014 reboot, just titled Thief, that was so poorly received the it basically killed the series. It might have been a decent game, but it was not a good Thief game.
  
  Yes, I meant Deadly Shadows. It was liked overall, and moreso as the years went on, but I remember plenty of people thinking it was disappointing at the time. Heck, there's one in this very thread. :P I haven't played the first two (and I know that I need to), but I know that it deviated from those quote a bit, and that seemed to be one of the main things people disliked about it.
  
  The best (only good?) part of Thief 2014 was the asylum level. The devs should have just made a horror game from start to finish instead of the watered down Dishonored that we got.
- It's a good game. Just not as good as the first two, that's all. Many attributed it to the console release dumbing down the mechanics.
  But, oh man, The Shalebridge Cradle is so awesome even if the rest of the games sucked so much as to be unplayable, that mission alone could redeem it.
  At the time my parents were away on holiday or something. So I dragged my PC and awesome sound system upstairs and hooked them up to the big TV, ironically getting closer to the console experience. Darkening the whole room and getting immersed in the game was so awesome. And the Cradle scared the everliving shit out of me.
  Good times.

Too human. I loved it so much I don't know why people hate it
- Same, as a kid i had no idea if the controversy to and was still waiting on a sequel for some time after. I thought it was a novel idea and it was my first proper foray into Norse mythology.

I really enjoyed Mass Effect: Andromeda.
- I will continue to defend Andromeda. Yes it has its flaws, but no more than the original trilogy. It could’ve been the start of a cool new trilogy.
  
  IMO, I would rate them: ME1 Andromeda ME2 ME3
  The original Mass Effect was great, a classic, but 2 and 3 had less and less of what I'd loved about the first game. By the time I got to 3, I was playing because I felt invested in the story and characters, not because I found the gameplay enjoyable. Andromeda wasn't quite as enjoyable as ME1 to me, mostly because I didn't connect with the characters as much, but the story was surprising and original, fights were exciting, and the gameplay had a lot of interesting new elements that made the scenario feel immersive. It's really too bad that so many people didn't like it.
- I really wish this had been one for me, but I've never been able to make it more than halfway through despite a few good faith attempts. I am really glad you had a great time with it, though!
  
  The beginning of the game is really bleak, but it makes the scenario of trying to colonize a lifeless planet feel all the more real IMO. After you meet aliens and start terraforming planets, it starts to be more what people wanted out of it, I think.

Every Ubisoft game since Assassin's Creed 2
- To be fair to Ubisoft, the newest Prince of Persia game was a great metroidvania game.
  To be fair-er to Ubisoft, they can go fuck themselves for closing down the studio that made said game only a few months later.
  They can make good games. They just clearly would rather rehash the same tired formula that they've been running with for the past decade while unreasonably expecting to make more money each time.
  
  To be even more fair-er still, They didn’t fire everyone who worked on their best game in decades, they remain with Ubisoft just moved to separate projects. Still a shame, but you know, could always be ~~like everyone else nowadays~~ worse

Enter the Matrix, I loved the slowmo effects and the fights, the first hallway scene felt like it was straight from the movie. Using the computer terminal to unlock stuff felt magical. Only later I learned that Path of Neo was supposed to be a better Matrix game while Enter the Matrix was universally panned. And I’ve played it too, but didn’t get as much enjoyment out of it, it just didn’t have as much soul
- Enter the Matrix was dope. Fuck the haters.
- I loved enter the matrix. It was lowkey more fun with the cheats though

Dead Space 3. Sure, it has some issues, but I didn't realize how much others actively disliked it until I tried talking to people about it.
Edit: And the point of the post is immediately proven lol
- Dead Space is one of those series where the first 2 games set the expectations UNBELIEVABLY high. So high, in fact, that the developers were actually terrified they couldn't live up to the legend, and were terrified they were gonna make a bad game that ruined the series. But they were gonna try their damndest.
  And then EA executives came along, and they saw that """all the rage""" those days was in Co-Op action shooters a-la Resident Evil 5/6 and Army Of 2, or Gears of War, and they DEMANDED that Dead Space 3 be """more like that""", or else. So they did it, and were also forced to shove microtransactions into the game with crafting materials.
  The end result? Dead Space 3 was an... alright 3rd-person action-horror co-op shooter. Not great, not terrible, but... alright. An above-average shade of mediocre, certainly worth playing on its own merits, both mechanically and plot-wise, but not much more than that. A perfectly OK game.
  And an absolutely TERRIBLE Dead Space game. Previous installments sold millions on multiple platforms. DS3... didn't, and it ended up killing the studio.
  
  dead space 3 took Isaac and Ellie from the previous games, made them kinda stupid bimbos, and put them into a high school slasher with a love triangle. they also had to sell 5 million copies to be considered profitable by EA, which was more than the previous two games' sales combined

Deus Ex: Invisible War, and Dragon Age 2.
I liked them both. Not as good as Deus Ex 1 or DA:O, but I enjoyed and finished playthroughs of both games.
- I enjoyed Dragon Age 2 as well. It's just that it's an action movie to Origins' House of the Dragon. It's just different genres.
- All 5 of the dues ex games were good. And Ill die on that hill

Final fantasy 13. Rented it as a kid for the 360 for a week and loved it. Didn't get to finish it, but as soon as it released for PC shortly after I built my first PC I played it and loved it. I now have over 300 hours in the game on steam and have beaten it 4 times. One of my favourite FF games despite how much the fanbase shits on the game.
I also don't care for the 2nd game in the trilogy despite that being the fanbase's "preferred" game of the trilogy. Did not like the "monster as a 3rd party member" thing at all. Lightning returns is also amazing and I've put a couple hundred hours into that game and beaten it 3 times as well.
Love the FF 13 games even if they get shit on a lot by FF fans. 13 will always be one of my favourite games.

I’m sure there are lots of examples for me, but I guess one that comes to mind is 007: The World Is Not Enough for PS1.
Reading/hearing about it as an adult, not only is it seen as a poor follow up to Goldeneye, but also the PS1 version is the worse of the two releases, with the general consensus being that the N64 version is better.
Back in the day, though, I didn’t know any better and I loved it. I expect most people have games like that.

King's Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity. Even as a kid, I felt like it was a very strange gore-and-action focus shift for the King's Quest series. Only as an adult did I hear the story of executive meddling that lead to the complete tone and gameplay shift.

This is an oldie, but Lords of the Realm II. I loved the first two, but had trouble with the third and ended up giving up, assuming it was a me problem.
Nope, the community pretty much unanimously hates it. It's not a terrible game per se, it's just very different from the first two, throwing out everything most people liked about the predecessors and not exactly succeeding at the new mechanics.
I've decided to build my own take on the best parts of all three, we'll see if I ever finish it.

I spent a lot of time playing Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts alone and online with friends. A lot of people I've talked to view it negatively and are surprised when I say it was one of my favorite 360 titles. It's one of the main reasons I want to try out Xbox 360 emulation.
- I'm in the same block built boat as you. I always vehemently defend this game since finding out the general gaming public don't like it.
  
  The way I see it, more engines for us!

Ultima IX: Ascension (1999)
I genuinely enjoyed the game. Fans of the series claim that it destroyed the franchise. Perhaps they're right, but the franchise was pretty fucked up to begin with.
- Then I pick Ultima 8. It felt like Crudader No Remorse but with fantasy trappings (because it didn't play like Ultima at all).
  That said, it is janky, full of bugs and incomplete (clearly there was a second part that never came), but I had fun and at the time it felt edgy and kind of a dangerous and misterious travel.

Aero the Acrobat for GBA.
Cheap Sonic ripoff? I loved that game. Spent many childhood hours and AA batteries playing it and learning every corner of every level.
- My partner LOVES that game!

Two Worlds 1-2 There are tons of youtubers making joke videos about these games, but against all the jank I alway found them both enjoyable and even I dare say good games. The magic system in particular was amazing.
- Finally, someone else who remembers these games! They weren't as polished or impressive as others, but they were fun and had lots of challenges.
- Harold Faltermeyer made some nice music for the game. Opala is still stuck in my head.

Might & Magic VIII. The ending was underwhelming in comparison to previous parts, yes, but gameplay is exactly the same.
- If I'm honest, Enroth is inferior to Xeen.
  
  Xeen was what I thought of our first "proper" game. So many good memories. I played it like it's real time, spamming the attack button without any strategy.
  Still play it every so often. And thanks to ScummVM I could play it on a toaster if I wanted to.
  
  I wasn't a fan of M&M before 6. Free movement was a huge step forward for this game...
- Come on, M&M8 was as awesome as the rest of them.

Final Fantasy XV. (I just played the Royal Edition with all DLCs, I don't know how the Base Game was without the extra stuff) Man I love that game, I love the Characters, the Lore, the cinematics, the movie, the anime, the world, the gameplay. The Gameplay is soooo fucking fun, switching between Characters, switching between weapons with Noctis. The Animations are beautiful. I'm probably one of the only people on earth that is happy that we left the open World after a while and the game is more on rails. Because the Moment the Story is getting interesting, the pacing is way better.
- Right there with you! I preordered it, played at launch, loved every bit of it, and love the expanded updates its gotten even more. Its like taking the world of Final Fantasy and turning it into an open, monster hunter life sim with the bros with a solid story on top of it all. People love to hate modern Final Fantasy imo rather than accept the newer directions just aren't their cup of tea.
- I've probably talked more about XV than any other supposedly bad game, so maybe I've developed some sort of Stockholm Syndrome. But for an objectively pretty bad game I enjoyed parts of it and it did elicit emotions out of me at times.
  The game has many problems, but maybe the biggest is the huge overambitious "multi-media experience" they attempted. The game itself suffers because its content is spread so thin as it's stretched out over a movie and a comic and the DLCs and I don't remember what else. An anime? Even the Royal Edition still suffers for not integrating the DLCs, and it's kind of awkward to have to stop playing at the appropriate times to go so the DLCs for the maximum impact. And even then the planned Lunafreya DLC would have added so much to the story, but they never got around to that as the game flopped (in large parts because crucial story elements were scheduled for fucking DLCs instead of included in the game!)
  I do agree that the combat is fun, and they did have a really good vibe going with the bros and the road trip. There are some really nice heartfelt moments where the game shines. And the fishing minigame is absolute top drawer, one of the best in gaming. But ultimately I look at it as a huge pile of wasted potential.
  Absolutely gorgeous music though, some really powerful leitmotif work like Sunset Waltz/Valse di Fantastica and Ardyns themes.
  
  Oh Yeah, I would love to see a Remake with some of the Cut Content. That the last DLCs are bundled into a book is the biggest bullshit. I would love to Team up with Ardyn and beat Bahamut like the alternative ending in the book.

Dying Light 2. It was definitely different than the first game, but I enjoyed many of the changes. My buddies and I spent a lot of time just running around killing Volatiles, and having a blast while doing so. But apparently a lot of the changes were deeply unpopular with fans of the first game.
- I played the first game and thought it was okay but not great. What were the changes? Maybe they'll suit me since I'm not so attached to the original.
  
  The parkour handled slightly differently, and that angered a lot of the fans from the first game. They also drastically changed the way the grapple worked. The combat was also slightly different, (critics would say simplified) so it tended to be more straightforward.
  The first game had you doing a lot of jumping and diving just to survive, whereas the second game gave you some more survival options to avoid getting trapped by mobs. You could absolutely still do the jumping and diving if you wanted, but it wasn’t as critical anymore.

Kings quest 8. Universally panned as a "bad Kings quest game" and I agree, It's a terrible entry to the kings quest series. But when you look at this quirky adventure game from a modern perspective you can see it was really ahead of it's time. It has an unmatched vibe and atmosphere.

I can't think of any that I wasn't fully aware of the criticism.
But I did play No Man's Sky, Cyberpunk 2077, and Fallout 76 for hundreds of hours each right at launch and enjoyed every moment without significant issues, despite being fully aware of all the hate being thrown at them at the time.

Dying Light 2. I honestly have no idea why so many people prefer the original.

Jaws on the NES. I absolutely loved that game, but I found out many years later that it was hated.

Literally every MMORPG targeted at an oldschool/hardcore/PvP oriented audience. Without fail the related comments and reviews will be littered by people angrily ranting on how these games are outdated and should change to be more casual
- And inversely, games like RuneScape that changed to be more casual, which pissed off all of the tryhard players.

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood and cyberpunk 2077 (PC) not too long after release

Diablo 4. I mean, I know it is easy, but I felt the version of Halo I played was way easy and it has a good reputation.
- I’m a die hard Diablo 1-2 fan (thousands of hours in D2) and I liked D3 well enough but maybe put in 250 hours… skipped D4 entirely and I have zero regrets hahaha
  
  I'm waiting for PoE2.
- I wouldn't day D4 is a good game but I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. I stopped playing right after VoH came out, and the direction that expansion was taking the game didn't interest me, but it was a fun time overall. Not a very deep game though and endgame was basically non-existent since everything falls over at that point.

what console version of Sonic unleashed did you play? i have heard that the wii version is probably the best because, despite the motion control gooberness, it cuts out maybe tons of annoying open world busywork and overly long levels due to the Wii not having enough storage space or whatever
- The PS2 version, which i think is kinda the same as the Wii version. It was my first PS2 game ever too.

Soldier of Fortune: Payback
I already knew some of the writing was bad, and the cutscenes/animations were fever dream-esque. Despite that I really enjoyed the feel of the combat, and how destructible enemies’ bodies are in the game.
I’ll be honest. I was curious and looked up reviews of the game, and saw mostly negative-looking videos. But I chose not to watch them because I didn’t want to ruin my enjoyment of the game. I know the game is bad. But I still like it. I will say though that it’s mostly because of nostalgia.
There are some objectively bad things about SOF Payback though: regular human bosses that are bullet sponges for whatever reason and the pc port of the game being unplayable.

The first Call of Duty game I played was Ghosts, and it may have coloured my perception of what the series is about. Bombastic popcorn munching action that goes in one ear and straight out of the other. I was like "eeeeh it's okay". After playing some older ones I was like "well I'm sure it was groundbreaking at the time". (Hm. Did I ever finish MW2? And I think I put Black Ops 2 on hold after the first mission. Loved Advanced Warfare tho!)
- I hated ghosts but also enjoyed the bots that learned from actual players so they would behave like how players online would....and you would get XP too
  Soon I saw them corner camp or even dropshot.
  I cannot believe (actually I can since bots can't monetize) that the idea of playing against bots where they would get smarter was never used again

I made a post not all that long ago about Lords of the Fallen after discovering it myself, only to find that nobody else seemed to like it as much as I did (which, fair; it's probably why I hadn't heard of it until recently).
It's not as good as a Fromsoft game, or Lies of P, but, to me anyway, it's like the 2nd best soulslike that isn't a Fromsoft game. The major disappointments are minimal enemy variety, and the story is just kinda shit. The highlights are the combat and build variety, and unique aspects like tying item descriptions to your actual skills so you can't read some descriptions unless you invest in "knowledge" of it. It just sucks that you don't really get much from it because, again, the story is kinda shit.
Also it's the only non Fromsoft soulslike I've played that has PvP. I got into Dark Souls and the rest because of the invasion system more than anything else, so LOTF having that was a big plus for me.

Ultima IX. I somehow never played the earlier installments despite being of the right age to have, and enjoyed the hell out of IX. In retrospect, the massive amounts of criticism were earned, I just came into it fresh and was enthralled by the world.

Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex Some YouTube analysis about it really broke the magic for me

Most games that dont scale into 100+ hours. I never reach that point anyway.

I never played the others. I play with my friend overseas every Monday. He chooses the games. He may have chosen it because it is cooperative, online and not PvP. IDK.
But we also play, Aliens, Grimm Dawn, all of the borderlands games, like literally ALL of them including Tiny Tina's Wonderland. Two is my favorite.

For me it was the original Modern Warfare 3. I played that campaign a lot as a kid, but didn't have internet back then so no multiplayer and no one to discuss the game with. The story is dumbed down compared to the first two games but it was pure fun and cinematic, every mission was memorable to me.
Like I didn't even know what the stock exchange was back then, I just thought it was awesome traveling through city ruins fighting invaders.
Also the survival mode was super fun too.

To me it was the 2014 Thief. I never had any proper experience with the previous games of the series, only tried Thief 3 back when my PC could barely run it, so the low fps made me give up. My short time with new Thief wasn't bad, though I didn't finish the game as it was on my xbox1 and I never really sat down to play anything to completion on it. Online it's all "Thief is shit, it's a shit game" etc. Maybe I didn't get to the shit part, I completed maybe 4 missions?, but while it wasn't amazing, it felt like a decent stealth game and had me more interested in continuing than Styx Master of Shadows

Dark Souls 2

I don't let other people influence my tastes.
I make my own opinions
- I don't mean that other people have changed your opinion, but quite the opposite: a game that you think is good and you didn't know that other people hated it.
- It's more likely that you are just not aware of the influence others have on you. Which is fine, a lot of that stuff is subconscious.
- So you are both a liar and semi-literate.
- You might be the first human to actually do that.