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Post by edmonddantes on Nov 2, 2018 1:35:26 GMT -5
Okay, most times when people talk about overrated games, what they really mean is "this game sucks, why does everybody like it?"
It's often forgotten that overrated, strictly speaking, only means a game gets higher regards than you think it deserves.
To that end... this topic is to talk about games that are held up as masterpieces but which you personally found at best, fun diversions but little more.... but they're not outright bad, they just aren't as good as the hype makes out.
I'll start with two:
Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time
I've only played the PS2 edition, not sure if that matters.
I played/beat this game for the first time 2-3 years back. It was fun... at first, but by the end I was sick of it. Recently I started it up again (I've been on sort of a Prince of Persia kick) and wondered if I'd think better of it now.
Well... okay, here's the thing: I like the runny-jumpy-platformey, but the game is kind of badly-coded in parts--I'm constantly having issues with the camera, with the prince doing things I didn't want him to do, too many unclear situational commands, glitches (in my first playthrough i wound up having to restart the game due to a bug that made the game unwinnable. Hot tip: NEVER save the game when Farah is standing on a switch!)...
But my biggest problem is that the game lacks variety. By an hour in, you've seen everything the Sands of Time has to offer--there are only so many ways you can design "run across wall then jump to platform" type challenges, after all. I think if the game was some short demo or something, it would make me wide-eyed at the possibilities, but as it is, the game just makes me go "when is it gonna effing end?" My biggest problem though, is the combat.
Seriously, games of this era could use a guideline. If your combat...
A) is based on killing a certain "quota" of enemies (that'll spawn in until the necessary number is met) as opposed to enemies being present in the environment and thus limited to what is pre-placed on the map
and/or B) has a system where you MUST use a particular move/weapon for an enemy to count as "dead"
...then its a bad combat system. Devil May Cry is the only game I've seen break Rule A and still be awesome.
But to reiterate... the platformey aspects are awesome and when I realized you can just run from most encounters I started minding combat a lot less, but the game just goes on too long for how much content it actually has on offer. It works best if you only play it for an hour a day every 2-3 days or so.
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
Okay, I actually really enjoy Eternal Darkness.
The thing is I love it for all the wrong reasons.
As a horror game, it fails--it feels way too much like a cartoon, in fact the main villain is blatantly just Skeletor serving Horde Prime (okay, I'm mixing up my Masters of the Universe mythology there, since Skeletor actually left the Horde and went into business for himself... but the villain is more Skeletor than Hordak, and the being he serves reminds me too much of Horde Prime no matter which one it is), and the monsters are all the most uncreative and dull beasts since the NES Nightmare on Elm Street (or "Boo! Haunted House" as AVGN calls it).
But where Eternal Darkness gets awesome is the magic. Suddenly, it isn't a game about people up against incredible odds... its a game about how you're a freaking demigod wreaking havoc on CGI nasties all while having Pargon Pargon Pargon looping eternally through your ears.
It's a rare feat where a game fails at its primary focus and instead becomes wonderful for letting you send a magically-enchanted broadsword through a hulking monstrosity.
.... Come to think of it, I don't think this fits my topic's criteria. But whatever.
....
Okay, I can't think of a third game. Anyone else wanna contribute?
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Post by Owlman on Nov 2, 2018 5:16:54 GMT -5
Resident Evil. The plot is a dull "secret project goes awry" piece, the voice acting and dialogue is bad but too infrequent to carry the entire game, and the game is primarily challenging because 1) the controls sucks and 2) it was modified for the international release. On top of that, while the game (or rather its makers) coined the term "survival horror", it's ultimately just a clone of Alone in the Dark with some of Capcom's own Sweet Home. It probably didn't help that I played it shorty after playing Clock Tower.
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Post by dsparil on Nov 2, 2018 7:07:53 GMT -5
Undertale - The game itself is fun, but the story is not that good. The reprehensible actions of many of the characters go uncommented which completely undercuts all the game's themes. All your "friendships" are incredibly toxic and if they were actual people, the characters are not friends you should have. Toriel is the worst of all as the mother figure. Beating you to near death rather than to death is not compassionate. Undertake is a good example of how being a little reflective is actually worse than not being reflective at all since it leads to scenarios that are awful and end in ways that are undeserved.
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Post by kaoru on Nov 2, 2018 7:36:39 GMT -5
Super Mario RPG is simply a tad boring.
So is Solatorobo.
Mother is too rough an NES RPG to be fully enjoyable.
Parasite Eve would been better withouth the RPG trappings.
Doki Doki Literatur Club would have been better if it stayed a commentary on VN/Dating Sim tropes and how they would not work/be harmful on real people instead of changing to meta horror.
Catherine has a badly written story about reprehensible characters and is way too close minded for any meaningful commentary about modern relationships.
Persona 5 also falls very short of its ambition by wearing "rage against the machine" and reforming society all over its sleeves without ever actually following through, demanding you live the most standard normie heteronormative life to succeed in the social sim part, and having the story end super hollow on the group saving the status quo from supernatural danger without changing anything.
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Post by lurker on Nov 2, 2018 8:13:06 GMT -5
I have a feeling this thread is going to go awry.
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Post by GamerL on Nov 2, 2018 9:00:22 GMT -5
Resident Evil 4.
It's a great game but.... not a great Resident Evil game.
I just wish we got the original version of Leon infiltrating Spencer castle to take down Umbrella once and for all, instead of an unrelated side story.
The original version also looked scarier, the final game leans too much in the action (though not nearly as bad as 5 and 6)
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Post by Snake on Nov 2, 2018 11:20:51 GMT -5
Final Fantasy VII. I enjoy it. It's not the great end-all-be-all that grown-ups from that generation make it out to be.
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. - Solid game, innovative for its time. But not my first choice for greatest Zelda game of all time.
Vagrant Story - Maybe not over-rated in modern times. I'm just surprised it got a perfect 40/40 in Famitsu magazine. I actually think it takes a bit of a hardcore gamer's mentality to figure out how to play the game effectively. Hard for me to see that kind of game having mass appeal. I like the game, the cynicism of its plot. But I would hardly call it gaming perfection.
Tetris - I never "crave" playing Tetris. I'll play if I'm taking a long flight on Japan Airlines or Asiana Airlines, when I need a break from watching movies and Korean dramas. It's not something I care to see in a classic gaming compilation. Yet I see it making the top of various gaming lists at various points in time. It's a good mental exercise, but there are other puzzle games I would rather play; games with added theatricality, like Puzzle Bobble 2 and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo.
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Post by Bumpyroad on Nov 2, 2018 18:06:49 GMT -5
Resident Evil 4. It's a great game but.... not a great Resident Evil game. Let me guess, you must be Ben, right? Re 3: Nemesis sounds as much as a "side story" as Lost in Nightmares DLC for RE 5 for me. At the end of the day, we've been left to deal with our "inner" comparisons to deal with, while they tried to "reset". |
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Post by edmonddantes on Nov 3, 2018 3:25:19 GMT -5
I have a feeling this thread is going to go awry. Yeah, I get the feeling some people might not have understood the "its still good, just not a masterpiece" part. Resident Evil 4. It's a great game but.... not a great Resident Evil game. Let me guess, you must be Ben, right? I thought Ben drowned?  Personally now that I've been reminded of it, I think RE4 would be another one of my picks. I do find it an okay game, but it has the same problem Sands of Time does--its only fun for an hour or so before it gets repetitive, then you need a break, and the thin story doesn't really justify the 20-hour (first playthru) length. It's still better than RE Zero though, which I kinda consider the worst game in the series (though RE4 was the last one I played so I'm unfamiliar with any installments past it, its conceivable there's a worse one out there... i just thought Zero had a lot of annoying design elements). Absolutely love RE1, 2, 3 and CV tho. |
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Post by windfisch on Nov 3, 2018 8:17:21 GMT -5
Tetris for sure.
I should love it for nostalgic reasons alone, as it was one of the first two games I ever bought (bundled withe the original Game Boy) alongside TMNT Fall of the Foot Clan. But to this day I'd much rather play the latter, even though TMNT is a rather short and simple game. Even back then I thought that Tetris was just okay - I completed all the regular stages, but part of that was more out of a sense of obligation. Gameplay-wise it has always felt a tad too much like repetitive work. I might play it now and then, but not longer than for a couple of minutes. After that I need something more satisfying - something exciting, something with "graphics", something with, you know, Ninja reptiles! (Funny side note: Fall of the Foot Clan's third stage features enemies that use Tetronimos as weapons.)
Double Dragon 1,2 (NES) and Advance
I like the overall style of the NES games, but I'm not sure how to properly play these games without feeling too frustrated, even if you discount the (ugh) platforming segments. Advance is much better, but it's one of those rare examples of a Beat'em Up that I feel could be slightly slower paced. And it still has stages that feel overly cheap. Luckily the game gives you enough continues to get through, but it diminishes the sense of accomplishment.
Metal Gear Solid
Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of fondness for it. After all I've played it multiple times on several systems like PC, Dreamcast (via Bleem), PSP and the remake on Gamecube. I've even read the graphic novel (both the paper and the digital version). But it does have many flaws that I feel often get overlooked due to nostalgia. Especially the original can be a mess: - the core gampeplay mostly consists of you having to stare at the rather tiny radar window
- there are segements (like those tedious stairways) that can be downright unfair, if you did not collect enough ammo and don't have a save state from a previous area
- while I like the overall cheesiness of the story, sometimes it gets too cringe-worthy (e.g. almost every dialogue exchange between Snake and Meryl)
- the editing of the cutscenes can be pretty random and amateurish from a cinematic standpoint. One may criticize Twin-Snakes' even more over the top approach, but at least people actually knew what they were doing in that one (as a former video-editor this is a pet peeve of mine)
- those jittery PSOne graphics almost give me a headache
- while some people complain about first person mode "breaking" the boss fights in Twin Snakes, they tend to forget that you already can break many of those in the original. The IR-goggles for example make any "camouflage"-encounters a piece of cake (Ninja, Mantis, the eleveator ambush)
So in conclusion: I still love MGS, warts and all. But boy, are there warts.
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Post by wyldesyde on Nov 3, 2018 17:29:44 GMT -5
Halo immediately comes to mind.
Agree with Resident Evil 4.
I expect people to disagree, but not everyone will look at a “masterpiece” and see the same thing.
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Post by Bejeweled City Ruin on Nov 3, 2018 20:25:03 GMT -5
I'm going to have to agree with a couple of already mentioned games. Final Fantasy VII - I think the backlash against it being overhyped has evened things out a lot, but its reputation was definitely beyond what I think it deserved. But then so much of that was due to historical circumstances. For much of the gaming world in the late 90s, FFVII was the first truly narrative game they'd ever played. It's kind of crazy to think now when every game from a major developer is trying to compete with movies and TV, but in 1997 if you weren't an RPG player you had almost certainly never played a game with a complex plot and character development. Halo - I am so not an FPS fan, so maybe I'm not the best person to judge, but I never understood what was supposed to be special about it. It seems... fine. I see people say that it finally got FPS controls on a console right, but honestly I don't think they're that much better than what came before, and they are still that much worse than PC. But, again, I am not the target audience, so who knows? (For the record, if for some reason I'm going to play a FPS, it's probably going to be an Unreal Tournament). |
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Post by alphex on Nov 4, 2018 8:12:45 GMT -5
I'm not the biggest fan of Tetris, but this is arguably a perfect game, because all it set out to do, it did. Even technological limitations only played a minimal role regarding this one, so it'd be hard to argue how fundamental stuff was bested afterwards. Not sure 1 is overrated, it's pretty much been forgotten in favor of 2 (and rightfully so). Advance rules, but the art style kinda hurts the atmosphere a bit. |
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Preki
Junior Member
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Post by Preki on Nov 4, 2018 8:43:17 GMT -5
- the core gampeplay mostly consists of you having to stare at the rather tiny radar window
If you play on lower difficulty settings, then it's like this. But on higher difficulties you must resort to observation of the actual environment (more often than not in first person view). And MGS3 completely ditches the radar in favor of motion detectors and such. |
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Post by windfisch on Nov 4, 2018 9:40:36 GMT -5
I'm not the biggest fan of Tetris, but this is arguably a perfect game, because all it set out to do, it did. Even technological limitations only played a minimal role regarding this one, so it'd be hard to argue how fundamental stuff was bested afterwards. So does that mean I'm oligated to like it?
By your definition a game like Flappy Bird could be seen as a perfect game, too. And, frankly I don't blame people for liking it. But at the same time it's just a very simple game.
Tetris also is a very basic game, in part due to the limitations of the computer it was developed on. It's also not that far removed from some "real world" physical puzzle games. Some of which have also served as an influence for Tetris. I don't deny it's well made and I also don't deny its impact on the medium. But on the other hand it barely touches upon the potential of video games, namely things that would be impossible to replicate in other media. Things like expressing yourself through gameplay, interactive narrative, immersive presentation. Tetris may check some of these boxes, but only to a minimal degree. To me some other (relatively) early titles like Pacman or King's Quest much better hint at what only videogames can achieve, even though neither of these are perfect by any means.
edit: I actually really like the art style in Double Dragon Advance. It was a bold move not to update the graphics too much and rather embracing the goofiness of the original.
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