Are there any games that you loved at first, but now you dislike them?

[Zera]

Sometimes, we replay a game and realize it's not as good as we remember. When we first play a game, we willfully overlook its flaws so we can get the most fun out of the experience (especially if the game was purchased). But upon replaying, the cracks are impossible to ignore.

The Sonic Adventure series is a great example. The level design isn't bad, but the godawful camera and enemies that appear out of literally nowhere certainly are. They are the best 6/10's I ever played.

[FiboSai]

There is no game that I can think of that I actively dislike now, though Genealogy of the Holy War comes pretty close. The gameplay and balance of this game are horrendous. You can either play efficiently, which makes you bench everyone who doesn't have a horse basically immediately, or you can choose to use everyone, in which case you will spend dozens of turn doing nothing.

There are many games, however, that I used to adore but have come to realize their flaws. The best example is the second generation of Pokemon. I played Silver on the virtual console recently and noticed how pathetic all trainers outside of a few gymleaders are. The wild Pokemon also don't scale very well, which makes many supposedly exciting Pokemon completely useless unless you are willing to grind them for 2 hours. Another example is Shin Megami Tensei IV. The monster mechanics is very solid, but the game mechnics are way too swingy in my opinion. If you can exploit weaknesses, you will win every battle easily, but that goes for the enemies as well. Playing this without a strategy guide will cause many frustrating game overs because you happen to get ambushed by a monster you are weak to or you guess the bosses weakness wrong.

[Slumber]

1 hour ago, Water Mage said:

Out of curiosity, what’s your opinion Persona 5’s story?

  Hide contents

Do you think it’s too black and white? Do you think it suffers from protagonist-centered morality? Honestly, in a story that is supposedly about rebellion, the only morally grey character in the entire game is Akechi. I find him a much more interesting character than all of the Phantom Thieves, and I don’t like when people call him a villain because it puts him in same level as the cartoonishly evil villains of this game like Shido and Kaneshiro. Seriously, Persona 5 has to many cartoonishly evil villains. I suppose it was only way to justify something as morally questionable as changing someone’s heart. 

Spoiler

The point of Persona 5's story and the part of rebellion is based on society's complacency. The story IS black and white because the whole point is that complacency leads to corruption, apathy and stagnation, which are typically inherently destructive traits, which is why Yaldaboath was going to wipe everything out. All of the villains represent these traits in some way, to drive home the idea that the heroes, who all take the form of famous thieves and Robin Hood-esque criminals who disrupted society. Kamoshida was basically able to run wild and abuse students because the school cared more about social standing than what was right. Madarame profited off of the unspoken acceptance of corruption in the art world. Kaneshiro builds a giant crime empire because of society's obsession with money, and he thinks having more money is the only thing there is to the world, to the point where his main way of blowing off stress is spending money, but he quickly gets very angry because he now has less money. Okumura exploits his employees and uses money to advance a political agenda, and sees money as a means to an end, while Kaneshiro sees money as an end in and of itself. These two both show different sides of society's obsession with money. One wants to amass it purely because he thinks it will make him happy, they other because they believe money=power. Shido, meanwhile already HAS power, and uses it to exterminate people in his way, and simply because he's charismatic and knows what to say, nobody questions him.

And these people only have palaces, and thus they're only part of the story, because having a palace confirms they have warped cognitions.

I don't think a black and white story(The final battle is literally Satan vs. God, with you being on the side of Satan) is innately weaker than one that dabbles in grays, as long as the story presents a strong theme or message with it. Obviously if the message is too overbearing or specific, it comes off more pandering, and possibly almost propaganda-y. But I don't think Persona 5 does that. I think it does its job decently to present a case for chaos in an "order vs. chaos" argument(Kinda like what Radiant Dawn did, but more focused).

Plus, it's not like Persona 3 or 4 aren't dabbling in gray. The case of the protagonists losing ALWAYS ends in disaster, and the stories are presented as such that the protagonists are purely in the right. It might not be as apparent, since those two aren't quite so villain-centric as 5, but the villains that are there are just as extreme and cartoony as Shido or Kaneshiro. Strega is composed of 3 people who kill and cause mayhem during the Dark Hour simply because they can. Chidori does ultimately defect to save Junpei, while Takaya is legitimately meant to be the Anti-Christ, with Jin being his loyal follower. You also get the laughably maniacal Shuji Ikutsuki, who is about as flat and black as a villain gets. Nyx really isn't anymore extreme than Yaldaboath, as both are simply doing basically what the world wants/needs them to do. Persona 4, meanwhile, gives us Adachi. I don't think I need to go much further on that, Izanami follows the Nyx/Yaldaboath path, as a huge force threatening humanity that can only be defeated if the world is to go on.

And finally, even though it's far less of a focus compared to the rest of the themes in Persona 5, it DOES more or less hinge on the idea that EVERYONE, including Kaneshiro and Shido, is good at heart, but warped expectations, ambitions and cognitions lead people astray. That's what stealing the treasure and making people have a change of heart is meant to do. You remove what corrupted these people. Which is arguably more gray than we got out of characters like Takaya or Ikutsuki(Adachi would arguably fit, but social links are usually treated with sincerity, so what we got out of him in Golden probably is supposed to suggest that not all of Adachi is rotten, even if his rotten bits are ridiculously rotten).

If you don't like that it's that so black and white, that's cool. But a story isn't good based on if it has prominent grays. Black and white stories tend to be pretty compelling(Everybody loves rooting for the good guys now and then), and plenty of stories that try to present shades of gray fall flat.

Edited October 31, 2017 by Slumber

[De Geso]

3 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Someone hasn't played Street Fighter 5. Also, it's a party game, not a fighting game.

SFV is trash, what is your point? And Smash being a party game hasn't stopped people from calling it a fighter for damn near 20 years.

[Armagon]

4 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Someone hasn't played Street Fighter 5. Also, it's a party game, not a fighting game.

You're objectively wrong if you think Smash isn't a fighting game. Is it a party game? Yes. Is it also a fighting game? Yes. Is it as complex as other fighting games out there? Not really though there are some pretty advanced techs out there.

[Water Mage]

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

  Hide contents

The point of Persona 5's story and the part of rebellion is based on society's complacency. The story IS black and white because the whole point is that complacency leads to corruption, apathy and stagnation, which are typically inherently destructive traits, which is why Yaldaboath was going to wipe everything out. All of the villains represent these traits in some way, to drive home the idea that the heroes, who all take the form of famous thieves and Robin Hood-esque criminals who disrupted society. Kamoshida was basically able to run wild and abuse students because the school cared more about social standing than what was right. Madarame profited off of the unspoken acceptance of corruption in the art world. Kaneshiro builds a giant crime empire because of society's obsession with money, and he thinks having more money is the only thing there is to the world, to the point where his main way of blowing off stress is spending money, but he quickly gets very angry because he now has less money. Okumura exploits his employees and uses money to advance a political agenda, and sees money as a means to an end, while Kaneshiro sees money as an end in and of itself. These two both show different sides of society's obsession with money. One wants to amass it purely because he thinks it will make him happy, they other because they believe money=power. Shido, meanwhile already HAS power, and uses it to exterminate people in his way, and simply because he's charismatic and knows what to say, nobody questions him.

And these people only have palaces, and thus they're only part of the story, because having a palace confirms they have warped cognitions.

I don't think a black and white story(The final battle is literally Satan vs. God, with you being on the side of Satan) is innately weaker than one that dabbles in grays, as long as the story presents a strong theme or message with it. Obviously if the message is too overbearing or specific, it comes off more pandering, and possibly almost propaganda-y. But I don't think Persona 5 does that. I think it does its job decently to present a case for chaos in an "order vs. chaos" argument(Kinda like what Radiant Dawn did, but more focused).

Plus, it's not like Persona 3 or 4 aren't dabbling in gray. The case of the protagonists losing ALWAYS ends in disaster, and the stories are presented as such that the protagonists are purely in the right. It might not be as apparent, since those two aren't quite so villain-centric as 5, but the villains that are there are just as extreme and cartoony as Shido or Kaneshiro. Strega is composed of 3 people who kill and cause mayhem during the Dark Hour simply because they can. Chidori does ultimately defect to save Junpei, while Takaya is legitimately meant to be the Anti-Christ, with Jin being his loyal follower. You also get the laughably maniacal Shuji Ikutsuki, who is about as flat and black as a villain gets. Nyx really isn't anymore extreme than Yaldaboath, as both are simply doing basically what the world wants/needs them to do. Persona 4, meanwhile, gives us Adachi. I don't think I need to go much further on that, Izanami follows the Nyx/Yaldaboath path, as a huge force threatening humanity that can only be defeated if the world is to go on.

And finally, even though it's far less of a focus compared to the rest of the themes in Persona 5, it DOES more or less hinge on the idea that EVERYONE, including Kaneshiro and Shido, is good at heart, but warped expectations, ambitions and cognitions lead people astray. That's what stealing the treasure and making people have a change of heart is meant to do. You remove what corrupted these people. Which is arguably more gray than we got out of characters like Takaya or Ikutsuki(Adachi would arguably fit, but social links are usually treated with sincerity, so what we got out of him in Golden probably is supposed to suggest that not all of Adachi is rotten, even if his rotten bits are ridiculously rotten).

If you don't like that it's that so black and white, that's cool. But a story isn't good based on if it has prominent grays. Black and white stories tend to be pretty compelling(Everybody loves rooting for the good guys now and then), and plenty of stories that try to present shades of gray fall flat.

I definitely understand the themes of Persona 5 and is it mostly black and white. But I think it rubbed me off the wrong because the game goes out of it’s way to make the Phantom Thieves absolutely “white”, where in P3 and P4 the group as whole has its darker moments. But in P5 everyone in Phantom Thieves are saints. Nobody calls them out on the possible consequences of their actions. For example Kamoshida almost committed suicide out guilt, what’s stopping all of their other targets in Mementos in doing the same? The person who has their changed becomes meek and apologetic, and this could have horrible consequences. I mean, what if someone wants revenge on one of the targets, and the person, whose heart was changed, is so apologetic that they let themselves be killed? But the game never acknowledges the possibility of person’s life being ruined by the change of heart. And saying they’re evil, so they deserve it, it’s not really a good way of thinking and blaming it on “disortions” that corrupted them feels like the villains aren’t really guilty of their actions, and thus wouldn’t punishing them after the change of heart be wrong? And everything bad that happens in P5 is the villain’s fault, where in P3 and P4, the heroes’s actions where both good and bad. There are other examples of the game going out of their way to make the thieves “white”, to the point that the thieves feels like a group of boyscouts rather than rebellious thieves.

[Slumber]

39 minutes ago, Water Mage said:

 

  Hide contents

I definitely understand the themes of Persona 5 and is it mostly black and white. But I think it rubbed me off the wrong because the game goes out of it’s way to make the Phantom Thieves absolutely “white”, where in P3 and P4 the group as whole has its darker moments. But in P5 everyone in Phantom Thieves are saints. Nobody calls them out on the possible consequences of their actions. For example Kamoshida almost committed suicide out guilt, what’s stopping all of their other targets in Mementos in doing the same? The person who has their changed becomes meek and apologetic, and this could have horrible consequences. I mean, what if someone wants revenge on one of the targets, and the person, whose heart was changed, is so apologetic that they let themselves be killed? But the game never acknowledges the possibility of person’s life being ruined by the change of heart. And saying they’re evil, so they deserve it, it’s not really a good way of thinking and blaming it on “disortions” that corrupted them feels like the villains aren’t really guilty of their actions, and thus wouldn’t punishing them after the change of heart be wrong? And everything bad that happens in P5 is the villain’s fault, where in P3 and P4, the heroes’s actions where both good and bad. There are other examples of the game going out of their way to make the thieves “white”, to the point that the thieves feels like a group of boyscouts rather than rebellious thieves.

 

Spoiler

The Phantom Thieves doubt and question themselves all the time, though. They're ultimately happy that the Kamoshida thing worked out, they do cast doubt on themselves when he shows up at school, confesses, and threatens to kill himself. This happens up until the fake-out where they trick Shido and Akechi. They question whether Madarame deserved it and if Yusuke was alright with it, they're hesitant to go after Sae, Okumura's death nearly breaks up the group, and it's only because Haru reassures them that they stick together. 

There's a whole segment after Okumura's death where they realize that they stopped doing the Phantom Thieves thing to help people, and they only cared about notoriety. This is crucial to them realizing that Shido was behind the Medjed part of the plot, and that Okumura's place on the target poll was manipulated. It's not until the Shido palace where they're fully confident that they're doing the right thing now, a solid 60 hours into the game. Up until then, it's them questioning their actions, or them losing sight of what they actually want to do, which is how they get set-up. 

I don't see how that's any different than Adachi framing Namatame and tricking the investigation crew or Ikutsuki using SEES to basically speed up the apocalypse. 

 

Edited November 1, 2017 by Slumber

[Interdimensional Observer]

11 hours ago, Slumber said:

Another Square title, Final Fantasy XIII.

Wow.

I always enjoy a well written critique with an edge to grind. I've never played FFXIII so I can't say how accurate it is. That the "critic" reviews were all pretty high scores suggest they're a farce from what the fan reaction was (no surprise- a big franchise like FF is bound to score well on the name brand- an unfortunate fact). It looks like the "this isn't actually good" thing sunk in by Lightning Returns. 

FFXIII sounding like a train wreck has put a passing interest into my mind about picking it up and trying it myself. But on the other hand- if it is a real crash accident, even if I get it cheap, it'll be a regret buy. I don't have a PS4, but I've heard a little that XV has been tumultuous too. Have you played that and have any comparative opinions between XIII and XV?

By the way, how can a JRPG plot happen in just two days? How does one go from starting out on a journey to offing the final boss in 48 hours? In a movie or book, two days can work like it was nothing, and I'm not denying that it could possibly work in a JRPG, but a full length one?

Edited November 1, 2017 by Interdimensional Observer

[Sire]

Games I loved at first but now somewhat dislike? I could probably list more besides PC games, but I will try to stop myself here before I end up looking at my entire library...

Darkest Dungeon - I loved the theme and enjoyed the gameplay. However, I find the main "core" of the game to be quickly repetitive. I'm the type of guy who likes building one "ultimate team" and typically sticking with it for a playthrough than having "multiple specialized teams." Trying to find the right combinations, making a suitable party, and leveling all of them up quickly became a chore. I want to like Darkest Dungeon, but the core gameplay is too repetitive for my tastes. Every now and then I'll boot it up and play a little, but I do not see myself playing for prolonged periods of time. (I never even got to do the first venture into the Darkest Dungeon itself...)

Factorio - A few years back I enjoyed watching the Yogscast and their various Minecraft series. One of the things I always enjoyed was all the machinery and stuff moving through pipes, and Factorio is more or less that game. I enjoyed the game for a fair number of hours but then realized Factorio is nothing but trying to be efficient as possible. Trying to optimize a factory and getting all these separate parts in one place to create things became more like "work" and less like "fun." Like Darkest Dungeon, I open it up to mess around a little bit, but is not something I would regularly play.

Starbound - Following after Terraria, I was excited for Starbound. This was back when I was running a Youtube channel and my friends and I planned on doing a series on Starbound when it released. The early prototypes came out and while I enjoyed myself for a while, the novelty quickly faded away. I just could not get over the art style, especially for Humans. It just looked so off to me, and the gameplay was not as solid as Terraria. // Now I did go back recently after they officially launched the game, and while the gameplay is a little bit better, I rather just play Terraria instead. I prefer Terraria's sprite style and gameplay over Starbound. I also tend to be more of a Fantasy guy than a Sci-Fi one.

Sanctum, Sanctum 2 - These are essentially Tower Defense games combined with some FPS elements. Honestly, I have no recollection on why I got them. Sure, they were somewhat enjoyable, but after a while the games just did not resonate with me. I guess the TD aspect was okay, but the FPS elements didn't feel good. I guess one could say I was using a water gun against mobs instead of something that felt powerful. I suppose I just found other games that did the Hybrid Tower Defense better, such as Orcs Must Die! (although even that nowadays seems to be going downhill...)

World of Warcraft - @Tolvir more or less explained it for me in his post on the first page, but I'll say my piece. I used to love WoW and be a massive Blizzard fan, but my enthusiasm for the company began declining later in the Cataclysm era. I started "in the dying days of Burning Crusade" (right before Wrath of the Lich King) and WoW was my first real MMO. (I played Runescape if that counts.) I remember logging in for the first time as a Dwarf Warrior and exploring the mountains. I remember flying over the Burning Steppes and Searing Gorge saying "One day, I'm gonna be strong enough to level here." I made lots of alts and even got some Horde characters going. It was a fun and memorable experience.

I was initially excited for Cataclysm, eating up all the information I could about it. (I indirectly got into PC Gaming and Steam because of Totalbiscuit, who was doing heavy Cataclysm coverage at the time.) However, when I learned they changed the way Paladins worked, I was not too happy. Sure, before it was just "spam buttons whenever it is off cooldown," but they changed it to a pseudo-combo system like the Rogue. I already had a Rogue and do not need a Rogue in Paladin Armor! I went through Cataclysm anyway and got to max level with my Human Retribution Paladin, but my interest was essentially gone. Around this time, Guild Wars 2 caught my eye...

Anyways, over the years the Blizzard I learned to love and enjoy faded away. Diablo III was not that good, Starcraft II's story was crap, and WoW was making changes I did not agree with. Yeah, they got Overwatch now, but the only interest I have in it are the shorts and cinematics they make. The only Blizzard games I play nowadays are Starcraft II (The Arcade reminds of my Warcraft 3 days while the Co-Op missions are fun diversions) and a little bit of Heroes of the Storm (because it reminds me a little of the "good old days"). I feel like ever since Blizzard merged with Activision it has been going downhill.

World of Warcraft, TLDR - Blizzard's stories declined in quality and the company made decisions I did not agree with. 

[Slumber]

9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Wow.

I always enjoy a well written critique with an edge to grind. I've never played FFXIII so I can't say how accurate it is. That the "critic" reviews were all pretty high scores suggest they're a farce from what the fan reaction was (no surprise- a big franchise like FF is bound to score well on the name brand- an unfortunate fact). It looks like the "this isn't actually good" thing sunk in by Lightning Returns. 

FFXIII sounding like a train wreck has put a passing interest into my mind about picking it up and trying it myself. But on the other hand- if it is a real crash accident, even if I get it cheap, it'll be a regret buy. I don't have a PS4, but I've heard a little that XV has been tumultuous too. Have you played that and have any comparative opinions between XIII and XV?

By the way, how can a JRPG plot happen in just two days? How does one go from starting out on a journey to offing the final boss in 48 hours? In a movie or book, two days can work like it was nothing, and I'm not denying that it could possibly work in a JRPG, but a full length one?

If you want a good laugh, compare the XIII reviews to the XIII-2 reviews. XIII-2 didn't come out long after XIII, it scored a fair bit lower on average, and most XIII-2 reviews mention XIII-2 being a better game than the original in pretty much every way(To be fair, it is. It's still not a very good game.) Everyone who reviewed XIII and then went on to review XIII-2 pretty much admitted "Yeah, that 9/10 we gave XIII? It actually wasn't that good. Whoops."

Can't say much on XV since I haven't played it. I decided to wait for the PC version, but from what I gather, it has one major thing over XIII: The characters you follow for 50 hours are likable and they have good chemistry. The plot is still a mess, and the gameplay is even more shallow(Again, from hearsay), but it won't be aggravating any time anyone opens their mouths.

The game gives a dumb, arbitrary time limit for a framing device. Basically, these big dumb gods called Fal'cie that nobody comprehends mark random people as L'cie. L'cie have to complete a task, called a "Focus", given by the Fal'cie within an arbitrary time limit, or else they become big crystal zombies. The dumb part comes in that the Fal'cie have no real way of communicating with L'cie, so for a good chunk of the game, the main characters, who all get marked as L'cie, have NO WAY OF KNOWING how to complete their Focus. So this gives a one-two whammy that just makes the plot really hard to be engaged in:

A) The characters bumble around, and split up with different ideas on how to complete(Or not) their Focus. Hope and Lightning, the two angsty members, decide to destroy Cocoon, the only place Humanity knows they can live. Sazh and Vanille decide to do nothing, Sazh just wants to find his son. Snow meets up with Fang, and they decide they should beat up the Fal'cie. Eventually they all meet up again, and they still don't really have an idea of what to do until late into the game.

B) Because of there's an arbitrary time limit, the characters rarely stop to talk to each other about what the fuck is going on.

So these characters have no idea what they have to do, but they have to do it fast. It's a frustrating story to sit through once you let it digest once. The first time, there's still an air of mystery, and you keep playing hoping somebody explains something, but nobody does.

Also, the game is really dumb with what the "Focus" is. Sarah, the character that kicks off the plot, I think just has to go to one of the Fal'Cie, and this completes her focus? Or something? Then you get Dajh, Sazh's son, who was taken from his dad for being marked as an L'cie, but Dajh's Focus was to meet up with his dad? Why? I don't know. Outside of Barthandelus, the Fal'Cie are totally incomprehensible and they never try to explain why they're so random, even in the pages of codex. If they did explain it, then I missed it, and it's still dumb.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Slumber

[Lerandel]

I'm going to open a can of worms with my first entry: Star Fox 64. It's a good game, don't get me wrong but it feels very repetitive and a bit bland gameplay wise. All-Range Mode is seen a total of seven times, which is a shame because it adds a bit of variety. While the script and music is great, the gameplay feels a bit rusty at times. The flaws I had int his game became more apparent the more times I replayed it.

Another candidate would be the previously mentioned World of Warcraft. Sometime during the Warlords of Draenor beta, it seemed Blizzard just mailed it in and made drastic changes, cutting content. When the expansion was released, it was to near-universal acclaim. However, a few months passed and the acclaim turned to criticism: It had the fewest raids, zones, a lot of cut content and subscriptions fell like a rock. Legion as mentioned, tried to reinvent the wheel but added more problems, such as gutting classes in the name of "class fantasy."

Someone can fill me on my second entry because my mind is a bit hazy.

[Reality]

5 hours ago, Lerandel said:

I'm going to open a can of worms with my first entry: Star Fox 64. It's a good game, don't get me wrong but it feels very repetitive and a bit bland gameplay wise. All-Range Mode is seen a total of seven times, which is a shame because it adds a bit of variety. While the script and music is great, the gameplay feels a bit rusty at times. The flaws I had int his game became more apparent the more times I replayed it.

 

Burn the heretic.

I'm not sure how you ran into a point that the game play would get old. You have the alternate routes to go through, and hard mode spices up most of the levels. The only levels that ever started to feel stale to me were the star wolf levels and Aquas. It is definitely a "score attack" game rather than a difficult game though. I'm not sure how many times I've beaten it but I would guess 30-40. I would say my only major gripes with the game are that a lot of the bosses are heavily phased based and invincible for long periods of time(mostly a replay problem though), and that it counts the medals the same for expert mode despite them being ridiculously easy to get due to the denser enemy count. 

[Renkindle]

Fates. And... [shudders] Sonic 06. Young me was blind to all its flaws.

[DragonFlames]

Fire Emblem Fates - I was blinded by the hype and promise it delivered.
Story is shit, gameplay is mediocre at best and frustratingly unfair at worst. Characters? Don't even get me started. There are some decent ones in there, but they are overshadowed by the most prominent and / or popular ones, all of which I hate with a burning passion.

Pokémon - as in, the franchise as a whole.
I grew up with Pokémon. It was literally my childhood. I bought every console up until the DS just because there was a Pokémon game available for it. But now? Now the franchise has overstayed it's welcome. The longer I played it, the more apparent it's flaws became. The 7th Gen was the straw that broke the camel's back. Terrible music that makes me want to gouge my ears out, boring as all get out region design that was done before and better (a theme that fits most mainline Pokémon games, funnily enough), awful character and creature designs... yeah, no thanks. I played the demo, hated it and now Pokémon is all but a memory in my mind. A cherished memory, but still just that.

Those are my biggest ones. Every other game I played and liked, I still like to some degree, while others I disliked or didn't care for in the first place. Others I desperately wanted to like, but it didn't work out. Persona 4 Golden being one example for the latter category.

Edited November 2, 2017 by DragonFlames

[Icelerate]

Pokemon Diamond or Pokemon in general. 

[Doodlebug Four]

FF13 and WoW for me, as others have mentioned.

The whole FF13 trilogy is one big convoluted mess trying to push Lightning as the next big thing in the FF Series, not helped by Motomu Toriyama's waifu obsesseion for her. Snow was obnoxious with his hero don't need plans talk (at least in the 1st game), Hope was "hopelessy" whiny early on(And is responsible for kickstarting Yuuki Kaji's typecasting as angsty little turds in anime). I actually did like Vanille and her character arc though the crap writing and literal deus ex machina at the end of the game cheapens it, and Sazh and Fang were decent, but not enough to save the series. Serah was a plot device in the 1st game and was kinda a bimbo in 13-2, and was annoyed with how Serah and Snow consider themselves close friends in FF13-2 to Noel for some reason. And Noel was....ok at best.

And WoW for the usual reasons, and even then it's mainly because I played it on my dad's account and he don't play WoW anymore.

[henrymidfields]

Awakening for what turned out to be a mediocre story and sub-par worldbuilding, with boring gameplay. For all its faults, at least Fates Conquest's story was entertaining as parody material, (I've seen one fanfic that really makes fun of the story). It also helps that it has genuinely good gameplay that discourages one-manning, and this should be mandatory for all future FE titles, and where possible, remakes.

While I enjoyed Pokemon Red, I have to admit, it hasn't aged well at all.

Mario series as a whole has that story and characterization that has become infuriating since Melee and especially since the Wii era, with one exception.

[GreenDragon17]

Awakening is a boring fire emblem game imo. I beat it at first and then just never went back. It's way too easy for me tbh. I highly prefer something like fates conquest with its higher difficulty of gameplay and the many class options coming from different seals.