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Love-hate games?


Alastor15243
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Anybody else have a game that the absolutely adore from a concept level and do enough things right that they can enjoy playing them, but they do so many things so wrong that you sometimes wonder how you can bring yourself to enjoy it in the first place?

For me that game is Der Langrisser.

It's basically Advance Wars Days of Ruin with champion leader units, RPG elements, and a multiple-alliance branching-path high fantasy story where basically no side is wholly right or wrong, and you can side with any of them. I love so much about it. I love the command auras, I love the concept of choosing sides, I absolutely adore the Imperial Army's noble, idealistic paragon Leon, I love the soundtrack, and I adore the games it resembles and the things it wants to accomplish so damned much.

...I just wish they were realized... like... competently.

First off, and bear in mind this may just be the fault of the fan translation, but at times the dialogue is terribly written and the exposition is delivered with absolutely shameless clumsiness.

Second off, and this is far, far worse, the actual gameplay of the game is atrocious and nothing like what you'd get from IS TBS games. There's almost no tactics whatsoever to combat, and it's more a matter of simply overpowering your foes through smart powerleveling methods and/or sheer dumb luck, because the battle engine works entirely through an extremely random and totally undisclosed system that, to the best of my knowledge, offers absolutely no advantage whatsoever to attacking first. There's some tactical decisions in terms of unit type advantage effectiveness, but beyond that when two units engage in battle, either you make it so that you're vastly statistically superior to your enemy force, or else battles can swing scarily widely between nothing happening, one side winning a rout, or even both sides simultaneously destroying each other (and this is really annoying since the game actively encourages you to keep all of your platoons alive).

So you're generally encouraged to use powerleveling and buff spells to make your units vastly statistically superior at all times. That's when the simplistic nature of the battle system really starts to rear its ugly head, because it results in the most boring AI behavior I've ever seen in a strategy game. Since there's no advantage to attacking first, whether or not the enemy attacks you is determines solely based on whether or not it's a favorable engagement for them. If it isn't, then they just walk up to your units and... just do nothing. So if you've kept your units buffed and fully healed like you're supposed to, then victory is almost entirely a matter of walling and slowly slaughtering the enemy in one-sided battles.

...It's... not a good system. I was really hoping this system could be fixed in a new installment, but sadly Langrisser Re:Incarnation looks like it turned out to be scarily phoned-in :(

Anyone else have games like this?

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Pokemon Black and White. It has interesting Pokemon and gym leaders, but having to wait until you beat the game to travel the other half of the region sucks. The story also doesn't stick out that well for me, but that may be because I'm a huge gen 4 fan and D/P/PT had a pretty decent story.

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So you want games with terrific concept and terrible execution?

Kid Icarus: Uprising

Mario Pinball Land

Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Metroid: Other M

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So you want games with terrific concept and terrible execution?

Kid Icarus: Uprising

Mario Pinball Land

Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Metroid: Other M

More games that you can bring yourself to enjoy playing despite the fact that they have glaring flaws that really annoy you. To clarify, I enjoyed playing Der Langrisser for a time (I played it to brace myself for the morally unpleasant stuff I anticipated doing in Fates, though so far in my playthrough that seems to have been unfounded) and it does a lot of stuff I just can't get anywhere else, it just simultaneously pushes all my buttons of bad game design.

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Typically speaking, games that have great ideas and terrible execution are my all time most hated games in existence. Are they playable? Yes. Are they enjoyable? At times. But seeing a game be so much less than it obviously could have been just enrages me. So I can't really call it a love-hate thing, so much as a hate-obsession thing, because I will play those games in their entirety and dissect them with a passion that would make people think I really like the games when in reality i just have some terrible compulsion that will probably ruin my life one day.

This includes games like:
- Chrono Cross

- Sticker Star

- Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

- Avalon Code

- FF13

. . .and probably more I just can't think of. Sure, I like plenty of games that aren't complete master pieces, but none so flawed from a gameplay standpoint that it bugs me. As soon as a game starts having those "glaring flaws that really annoy" me, it's like a switch gets flipped and I go on a critical-thinking warpath that no one but myself cares about.

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Xenogears. A glorious narrative that is worth experiencing more than once. With some of the worst gameplay a JRPG ever had to deal with even in those days. The worst level design, camera going all buggy, sprites that didnt age well, and slow ass battles. Not to mention the old PSone load times.

I love that game. I hate playing that game.

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Hmm I have a few.

Batman Arkham Origins I really did try to like this one especially with how good Arkham Asylam was but I just couldn't

Sin and Punishment 2 Star Successor. Again good game but just not my thing.

Dragonball Butoden 3DS. Pretty meh game but I can see it being enjoyable on the go. I've been spoiled by Xenoverse though.

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Is Avalon Code that DS RPG? I was actually quite interested in that one. What's it like?

Terrible! Like I said, it's got some genuinely great ideas and a killer premise, but there's a reason I was able to buy it at Walmart for five dollars. The premise is that the world is ending and you happen upon a magical book that will allow you to record whatever you want to bring over into the new, re-imagined world. Gameplay wise this means you get to "scan" and record every NPC, love interest, boss and monster and screw around with what makes them what they are. You can add or remove elements, materials and "traits" from enemies and use the same things to enhance your own gear. . . it all sounds promising but it fails on every level. There is no purpose to actually messing with enemy stuff other than to lessen their hp and make them killable. There are no puzzles that utilize the book in any meaningful way and the whole romance angle falls incredibly flat due to having not only a silent protagonist, but one who doesn't even have any expressions other than smiling and nodding. I could go on forever. . . there really isn't anything good about it, other than the unfulfilled promise it had. It is anti-fun.

But, here. This is great if Avalon Code interests you but you don't want to play it. And you really shouldn't bother playing it.

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Pokemon Conquest. Once I got a bit in, I just kind of got lost in all the mechanics and it seemed my entire army was underlevelled. I never did finish that game, even though I love playing it, at least playing the individual levels instead of managing my army on the outside.

Also, Metroid Fusion, mainly because I kept ending up locking myself into point-of-no-returns. The game itself and its bosses are really fun, but because doors keep locking behind you, I never could find a good opportunity to go back and find all the powerups. The game itself ended up being a lot harder than it should have been. I'm glad no other Metroid game had these prob--oh wait...

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Awakening. It was actually my first fire emblem game, and I spent a loooot of time playing it, but nowadays I see it mostly as a broken mess. A enjoyable broken mess but a broken mess nonetheless. The map design is really bad and the game is easily breakable.

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@Noma: Aw man, and the demo I played from the Nintendo Channel had so much promise... oh well.

Sin and Punishment 2 Star Successor. Again good game but just not my thing.

Beep beep boop. Game not hateable. Does not compute.

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Pathologic and Darkest Dungeon, for almost opposite reasons; the former I thought was a pretty unique and engaging experience brought down by terrible presentation and a pretty awful translation, while the latter is aesthetically pretty excellent all around but is almost never fun to actually play.

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Heroes of Might and magic 4.... the last of the series, a interesting game with some neat ideas but a rushed one, it could have been just as great as the third one but.... its missing things, all thanks to 3DO pushing them.... Also, the newer games in the series just... dont feel right.... the last one has alot of problems even more having to do with Ubisoft being a twat and not to forget the worst HD release i've seen for a while,with missing content and much more overpriced then the one in GOG.... same thing for Might and Magic, its not the same series, its just a game that plays similiar but doesnt feel like part of the series, even less the plot

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I'm gonna talk here about great to excellent game that I don't enjoy as much as I should, for some reasons (often gameplay related).

Tactics Ogre LUCT. Don't take me wrong, I love that game. It has one of the freaking best scenaro of all time, with lots of really interresting Ideas (Chaos Frame and Loyalty, mainly. Being encouraged not to slaughter everyone is great.). Thing is... Both the original and the remake are not really fun to play (for different reasons).

I still love that game far more than I hate it.

Special mention to Final Fantasy Tactics. I only played the remake, and this game also have abgreat story, and great visual. ANd a pretty complete job system. But it is sooo daamn sloow. I stopped playing because I have some grinding to do after a certain mission (one where the only wya to win was to buff Ramza to death.) and so I didn't touch it for a while.

Also Persona 3, because the dungeon phases are pretty uninspired and boring. ANd battle stop being fun when ennemies stop having exploitable weakness (Suppressing a whole gameplay element for some battles is NOT good gameplay.)

It also may have the usual problem with Persona games and difficulty (giving more exp on easier modes is such a freakingly stupid idea, dammit! That's the epitome of false difficulty.) The difference betweenexploration and story is also quite bothering.

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@Noma: Aw man, and the demo I played from the Nintendo Channel had so much promise... oh well.

Beep beep boop. Game not hateable. Does not compute.

Oh don't get me wrong I don't hate it at all I just couldn't get into it. Probably just an interest thing I waited until it was like 17 dollars to get it so I'm not too broken up about it...

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Xenogears. A glorious narrative that is worth experiencing more than once. With some of the worst gameplay a JRPG ever had to deal with even in those days. The worst level design, camera going all buggy, sprites that didnt age well, and slow ass battles. Not to mention the old PSone load times.

I love that game. I hate playing that game.

Huh. I don't think the battle system in xenogears was that bad. Not anything really remarkable, but pretty fun, and there are plenty of good rpgs with mediocre battles.

However, I admit the platforming elements were pretty poorly done. That goddamn rope swing or whatever it was in tower of babel...

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I could also adds Chrono Trigger. I generally love that game, but some part in the future are pure hell (most notably catching that goddamn rat.) and I spent too many time finding that secret passage in the sewers...

And also the Fire Emblem series, of course.

Repeating a chapter eover and over because of a tiny mistake you made, but still comming back to it in the end. Frustration have always be the fuel needed to beat those games (thatr, and I'm an awfull player.).

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Awakening. It was actually my first fire emblem game, and I spent a loooot of time playing it, but nowadays I see it mostly as a broken mess. A enjoyable broken mess but a broken mess nonetheless. The map design is really bad and the game is easily breakable.

i can almost completely agree on your view on this game

also top down zelda games i tend to have a love hate relationship with i like thenm in concept but don't find them that interesting to play likely due to preferring the 3D style of gameplay as a result i haven't beaten that many of them (only LTTP and ALBW) and as of right now i haven't had any desire to replay those games.

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Fates/EXTRA. Great story and characters (even if it is admittedly one of Kinoko Nasu's weakest works) and really cool game concept. But good god is this game a grind fest and the concept of memorizing enemy attack patterns in the rock-paper-scissors battle system doesn't work out as well in practice as it does in theory.

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Huh. I don't think the battle system in xenogears was that bad. Not anything really remarkable, but pretty fun, and there are plenty of good rpgs with mediocre battles.

However, I admit the platforming elements were pretty poorly done. That goddamn rope swing or whatever it was in tower of babel...

Battle got tedious and gear battles sucked because of BS limitations. But yeah, omg Tower of Babel was BS and then you have the mess that is disk 2.

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