Defend a hated game.

[Alex]

Not a thread to explain why a game that didn't sell was actually good, example, "ICO WAS AN AMAZING GAME!" but a thread to tell why you thought a game that sort of got shit on upon it's release actually wasn't that bad.
My first pic...

Secret of Evermore for the SNES.
Evermore wasn't some huge bomb in sales, but it got tons of flack and isn't looked on fondly, largely because it played like Secret of Mana but wasn't Secret of Mana 3. See, at the time it came out, FF7 hadn't come out yet, so JRPGs hadn't really boomed, they had a lot of fans outside Japan, but it wasn't huge.
So out comes this Secret of Manaish game made by an american division of Square, and people were horribly upset that it was, in fact, not Secret of Mana 3.
But what it did do, was have a fun combat system, different magic system, lots of different weapons to use, that didn't all work the same way, and hugely varying locations and characters to interact with as the story went on.
Also, it's story of sci fi time travel/alternate worlds mixed with 1950s geewhizneez was a quite a change up from the norm of action rpgs at the time.

[Guest_1001]

Mercenaries 2. Sure, it could've used a final boss (as the first game had, if he can be called a "boss") and the decision to make the gamer travel halfway across the map to order supply drops and airstrikes when the first game gave you them at the touch of a button was ... bizarre. However, I find it hard to dislike a game that is basically the video game equivalent of playing with army men when you were a kid. It doesn't particularly seem to care if you survive or not or complete its missions, it just wants you to go and relax and have fun by blowing stuff up. It doesn't want you to care about your reputation with factions or any of that twaddle ... that's what bribes are for! Basically, it feels like a video game that's well aware that it's a video game and doesn't put any more effort into the story than it needs to, which is probably for the best because the story isn't very good.

[Arvandor]

Dragon Age 2.

I consider this to be Bioware's best game. Better than Origins. Better even than Mass Effect 2 OR 3. Yes, the recycled maps were annoying. But everything else was great. The gameplay was excellent. The ability trees were well designed and both easy to use and provide great customisation. Your party members were all well written and had full personality (Anders betrayal HURT), as did Hawke. And the plot was wonderfully written - a reluctant champion's struggle to keep warring zealots on every side from tearing her city apart. And it was this struggle that really helped define the world as a world on the brink of cataclysmic war, with all races, religions, and factions hating each other for no other reason than simple bigotry. This is in many ways a much darker and deeper plot than most fantasy quests - its not a struggle against ancient evil, but against very human prejudice and fanaticism.

I love this game. I have played through the full campaign nearly a dozen times.

[Alex]

Dragon Age 2.

I consider this to be Bioware's best game. Better than Origins. Better even than Mass Effect 2 OR 3. Yes, the recycled maps were annoying. But everything else was great. The gameplay was excellent. The ability trees were well designed and both easy to use and provide great customisation. Your party members were all well written and had full personality (Anders betrayal HURT), as did Hawke. And the plot was wonderfully written - a reluctant champion's struggle to keep warring zealots on every side from tearing her city apart. And it was this struggle that really helped define the world as a world on the brink of cataclysmic war, with all races, religions, and factions hating each other for no other reason than simple bigotry. This is in many ways a much darker and deeper plot than most fantasy quests - its not a struggle against ancient evil, but against very human prejudice and fanaticism.

I love this game. I have played through the full campaign nearly a dozen times.

I didn't like the story as much, but i found the combat much more satisfying. Though Balder's Gate fans are still annoying by the change.

[Fonecrusher]

I liked Secret of Evermore too, when I was a kid it was practically the only decent SNES RPG at my video store, I hired it pretty much every weekend till I finished it lol.

[Knight Lancer]

Street Fighter x Tekken...

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-shoulder shrug-