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...

...

...

-shoulder shrug-

[666MasterOfPuppets]

Ninja Gaiden 3. Sure, not as many weapons or controls as responsive as the previous 2 games, but I felt the story was much tighter and delivered on the promise to show the human side of Ryu. Action was non stop as usual and the bosses were just as big. Can't complain about the QTE's, although I see why some gamers are complaining about that (there's a particular scene when QTE's IMO, shouldn't have been used). The controls and the weapon issues can be fixed via DLC. The only thing I regret is that they haven't implemented things that we saw in Ninja games from three or four generations ago (for instance, horseback riding in Shinobi 3. Either that or driving a bike would have been awesome).

All in all, it's still Ninja Gaiden.

[Young Avenger]

Street Fighter x Tekken

The DLC fiasco, gems, and 360 not having local online co-op did a lot to hurt the game. It's a shame since it's an ok game. It's a couple of tweaks away of being something great.

[Kage Kisaragi]

Dragon Age 2, say what you will but the only real issue this game suffered from was lack diversity in terms of its environments. I have played thru this game more than 3 times, after DLC.. the game is well made with that glaring repetitive map thing aside. The combat felt more active than Dragon Origins, the character graphics/designs looked more fresher and crisper. I loved this game.. and Lady Hawke is one of the sexiest video vixens their is.

[dupersuper]

ET for the old Atari....nah, forget it. I got nothin'.

[Last1oftheJedi]

Final Fantasy 8. I really enjoyed that game, but it's concidered like the red headed step child of the series. I found the characters and enviroment a joy. The card mini-game was a blast.

[KingofMadCows]

Knights of the Old Republic 2 - very well written. Added a lot of interesting ideas to the Star Wars universe. There's a lot of depth and nuance. Everyone has their secrets and they don't telegraph their motives like in a lot of other games. You have to sift through a lot of conflicting information to glean the truth about the intentions of certain characters and how certain events played out. Kreia is one of the best written video game characters ever.

[Jadeskies]

When it came to dragon age 2 yes the combat was better but it didnt make up for the rest of the flaws beyond just the re-occuring maps. In 1 you could start off as what... one of 7 races? Go where you wanted all over the world and collect what ever allies you wanted when you wanted them? Want two mage allies? Go to those quest lines and do them. There were far more decisions that had to be made.

I also really enjoyed swapping gear on my allies and constantly juggling their inventory. I like micro management. Hell in Baldurs gate I would wear heavy armor until I was attacked, pause the game and remove the armor, cast spell and the pause and rearmor in the time between spells and managing other characters in the party.

The story itself was catered to every decision you made in the game and reinforcements later in the game were based on decisions made during game play.

In 2 ally gear was already set on one choice of clothes, you could only play the human character and it was pretty much a linear story revolving around one town. It was rushed out the door and smacked of lazyness.

[Kage Kisaragi]

When it came to dragon age 2 yes the combat was better but it didnt make up for the rest of the flaws beyond just the re-occuring maps. In 1 you could start off as what... one of 7 races? Go where you wanted all over the world and collect what ever allies you wanted when you wanted them? Want two mage allies? Go to those quest lines and do them. There were far more decisions that had to be made.

I also really enjoyed swapping gear on my allies and constantly juggling their inventory. I like micro management. Hell in Baldurs gate I would wear heavy armor until I was attacked, pause the game and remove the armor, cast spell and the pause and rearmor in the time between spells and managing other characters in the party.

The story itself was catered to every decision you made in the game and reinforcements later in the game were based on decisions made during game play.

In 2 ally gear was already set on one choice of clothes, you could only play the human character and it was pretty much a linear story revolving around one town. It was rushed out the door and smacked of lazyness.

You got a little backwards..

In Dragon Age Origins you picked your gender and your picked out of 3 races with prepared backgrounds specific to each race, ie if you were a elf you either were dalish or city elf with only minor changes based on gender if you were from the city or a mage almost forgot about them. If you were human you were noble or a mage.. no city orphan or anything else one or the other. If you picked Dwarf you were a exiled noble or a casteless banished from your home.. all plots led to the same outcome, you become a Warden.

You couldn't travel the world as you pleased, you had a specific goal which was completed after meeting 3 particular criteria, if you decide to do the side quest it improved your odds and gave you more rewards and a better ending. Morrigan was forced on you as well as Alistair, you had no choice in them joining you same with Oghren. Everyone else was optional. As far as the world went, you stayed in Ferelden, because obviously the Blight was in Ferelden, it would have made little sense to travel to Orlai when the war was being fought in Ferelden. You could travel across Ferelden but it wasn't a open world like Skyrim you traveled to one prepared dungeon to the next, better term would be area.

In Dragon Age 2 outside of combat it was more of the same, except this time rather than an entire continent it was the city of Kirkwall, which just so happens is where the main plot takes place.The only real difference here is that you didn't get to pick a race, however you did get to pick a class and it only particularly effected the story as oppose to downright controlling the first part of the story in DA:Origins. Neither game gave you choices that led away from the final outcome, in DA:Origins it was the Blight, no matter what choice you made you still ended up there, the only differences came in terms of who was on your side at the time. In DA2 again the end was unavoidable, you start a rebellion either with the Mages, or with the Templars. Regardless of who's side you picked you still have to kill Orseno and Meredith, who's on your side in the end is all that changes based on your actions throughout the game.

As far as clothing characters go, so what? In Dragon Age Origins all the armors looked practically the same anyway with only the real difference being whether or not it was light, medium, heavy, or massive.. and some color palette swaps. So who cared? None of those armored look particularly awesome, save maybe the Warden Commander armor. So in DA2 that decided to make everyone look unique and allowed you to improve the allies armor, i rather them do that same as Mass Effect than everyone running around in armor that doesn't look like it fits them. (seriously Morrigan and Wynn in Massive Armor looks ridiculous.)

Also I don't see how Baldur's Gate factors into this. it's a completely different game with a different focus, its only similarity to Dragon Age is that it's a RPG.

[Chou Blaster]

Final Fantasy 8. I really enjoyed that game, but it's concidered like the red headed step child of the series. I found the characters and enviroment a joy. The card mini-game was a blast.

The main reason for the hate was the Draw system. That sucked big time. I like the idea of assigning summons/with benefits for the characters equipped. Just the problems to me were.

1: Once again, the Draw system.
2: All enemies leveled up with you.
3: The ending took *Forever!* to finish.

Besides those three strikes I still played it to the end. It had cool characters but just it from there.