Games you were glad you just rented, not bought outright.

[RageBurner]

Yeah I'm on fire today. Ideas, ideas, ideas!

Anyway, I remember a little anecdote from my childhood and decided to make a thread out of it.
In a galaxy far away... nah, seriously, what happened is at one point in the past during my childhood I rented Sword of Sodan. Having loved Golden Axe, I thought I was in for more of the same, given the premise and art on the cart...

Needless to say, I couldn't have been more wrong. The game is slow, ugly, plodding, has no music, has terrible hitboxes and is a disservice to the legacy of the Mega Drive. Boy was I relieved to get rid of that kryptonite level disaster.

So, if you had similar experiences, do share them!

 

[Bonkers225]

Nightmare Creatures
Saga Frontier
ECW Anarchy Rulz

 

[ThirdEidolon]

Dynamite Headdy.

The fuckers from blockbuster made the games harder, so you'd have to keep hiring them out.

I wasted so much money on that crap, but I don't honestly think I'd have wanted to own it.

 

[Waffles]

I rented basically every game I touched before the age of the internet, so... all of them? XD

But seriously, I'm glad I didn't pay full price for stuff like Virtual Bart for the Genesis.

 

[rollobobo]

Definitely Menace Beach for NES. The cover looked awesome and it looked like a game I would save my money for and buy as a kid. (Color Dreams game) My God it was awful. I remember renting it and being so excited to play it over the weekend. I probably played a total of 10 minutes.

 

[Gorse]

I used to rent a ton of shit licenced GBA platformers from my local Jumbo Video. The ones I remember are Tales of Desperaux (which I actually remember being quite good), Finding Nemo (an interesting Ecco the Dolphin-like game), and some BS about Jimmy Neutron fighting aliens in space. The GBA had so much shovelware, but every now and then you’d find a gem.

I also rented a lot of great games, too, like Chibi-Robo, Digimon Rumble Arena 2 and Digimon Battle Spirit, and Pokemon Crystal. Also, a VHS of the Donkey Kong Country cartoon, which I quite enjoyed. My rental store also had free popcorn made in-house and was next to a restaurant, so we’d go there quite often on Saturdays. It lasted way longer than it had any right to, but it was a great store while it was open.

 

[Yousef]

Yeah I'm on fire today. Ideas, ideas, ideas!

Anyway, I remember a little anecdote from my childhood and decided to make a thread out of it.
In a galaxy far away... nah, seriously, what happened is at one point in the past during my childhood I rented Sword of Sodan. Having loved Golden Axe, I thought I was in for more of the same, given the premise and art on the cart...

Needless to say, I couldn't have been more wrong. The game is slow, ugly, plodding, has no music, has terrible hitboxes and is a disservice to the legacy of the Mega Drive. Boy was I relieved to get rid of that kryptonite level disaster.

So, if you had similar experiences, do share them!

Great idea!
Ok, some of these will sound like I hate the games but trust me, my fear of spending money overpowers any emotion of love or hate.

Yakuza: like a dragon (which I’ll just call Yakuza 7 for short), is a game I was super happy to pour 80 hours into without buying the whole thing and while also actually finishing the postgame stuff too!!! Really proud of that.

Persona 3 Reload is another game I was happy to play a maximumilist style of. Maxed out all social links.

I’m mainly happy I got so much out of these games while paying so little.
I have no rental stories of games I dislike because I either forget them really fast or realize very very quickly I don’t like them, thus they don’t stick. The stuff you immediately realize isn’t your thing are usually the stuff you forget the quickest!

 

[RageBurner]

Dynamite Headdy.

The fuckers from blockbuster made the games harder, so you'd have to keep hiring them out.

I wasted so much money on that crap, but I don't honestly think I'd have wanted to own it.

And here I thought Treasure could do no wrong.... haha .
Yeah it's pretty scummy how certain games were made harder on purpose on the west. Streets of Rage 3 comes to mind.

 

[Pickle surprise]

One of the worst rental experiences I had was Rugrats: Scavenger Hunt for the N64. Imagine Mario Party but at a much slower pace, maddening music and sloppily designed minigames. One of the worst titles I ever played on the console and was so happy that I did not actually have this tedious slop sully my home library.

Post automatically merged: Tuesday at 6:32 PM

Great idea!
Ok, some of these will sound like I hate the games but trust me, my fear of spending money overpowers any emotion of love or hate.

Yakuza: like a dragon (which I’ll just call Yakuza 7 for short), is a game I was super happy to pour 80 hours into without buying the whole thing and while also actually finishing the postgame stuff too!!! Really proud of that.

Persona 3 Reload is another game I was happy to play a maximumilist style of. Maxed out all social links.

I’m mainly happy I got so much out of these games while paying so little.
I have no rental stories of games I dislike because I either forget them really fast or realize very very quickly I don’t like them, thus they don’t stick. The stuff you immediately realize isn’t your thing are usually the stuff you forget the quickest!

That is crazy that you managed to rent Like A Dragon but also complete it within a rental session. How long did that take? Admittedly a pretty sweet bargain if you can get as much as you can out of a game without buying it.

 

[JustLooking123]

And here I thought Treasure could do no wrong.... haha .
Yeah it's pretty scummy how certain games were made harder on purpose on tye west. Streets of Rage 3 comes to mind.

Oh, i only played the japanese version of them! and both were awesome!
but later that Dynamite Headdy got a fan-translation, uhh... i was totally disappointed! playing it without understanding what they were saying was way more fun! i expected more mocking and humorous dialogues! but i don't think that's the translators fault...

As for renting games, i think it happened only once for me! it was a sega megadrive cartridge which my parents rented for me, i think it was a 4-in-1 compilation, and i can't even remember what games was in it...
Other than that, I owned all other games i had in real consoles... which of course all of them were compilations! (it was norm where i lived) like 17-in-1 games, 7-in-1 games, etc...
The only games which wasn't compilation, were Batman and Robin Adventures and Bare Knuckles 3!

so i never experienced regret for having a game, i guess i missed a lot...

 

[Insomnia_ig]

Wasn't a game I rented my mom and dad never rented games but I'm pretty sure my uncle rented Tekken 6 and I never bought the game lol

 

[hembruh]

Batman and Robin on ps1. the game is super ambitious and actually has a lot of neat ideas to it, it's just not fun to control or play. I hope someday someone who really cares about it for whatever reason does some kind of improvement patch because I actually would like to see more than the very beginning areas of it without resorting to a video. beyond that, Digimon World 4. it's not really an RPG like the first 3 and absurdly hard even with 2 players. also Dragon Ball Sagas. because I beat it with my friend the night we rented it in what seemed like no time at all. a lot of people hate it because it's clunky and not very good but it's not a bad co-op screw around in game, but it's way too short. if I was to sit down and make a huge list it would probably be mostly stuff like that. games for the PS1/2, N64 that you can beat in one sitting without much replay value. looking back that disappointed me more than anything else as a kid, even if the game sucked at least if it wasn't super short you'd have something to do for a while. nothing was worse than buying a game that ended up being 4 hours long and beating it that day or the next and there not being anything else to do or hardly anything to unlock.

 

[Gorse]

Digimon World 4. it's not really an RPG like the first 3 and absurdly hard even with 2 players.

I rented this too, and was glad I did. A 4-player Digimon action platformer sounds like my child self's dream game, but they really phoned it in with this one... They should have left out all the RPG stat-grinding nonsense and just made it a straight beat 'em up with Digimon characters. The movie it's based on, Digimon X-Evolution, is pretty awful too.

 

[hembruh]

I rented this too, and was glad I did. A 4-player Digimon action platformer sounds like my child self's dream game, but they really phoned it in with this one... They should have left out all the RPG stat-grinding nonsense and just made it a straight beat 'em up with Digimon characters. The movie it's based on, Digimon X-Evolution, is pretty awful too.

I rented it on playstation 2 so I only ever tried it with 2 players back when it came out. a few years ago when I first owned a modded original xbox with the whole library we tried it with 4, because a friend who lived with me was also a big digimon kid growing up and we had friends over and it was equally as much of a pain for 4 adult men. lol. they half assed it with both the rpg and beat em up mechanics, the whole game pretty much sucks in every way. when I tried it 3 years ago at least I saw beyond the 2nd level but it wasn't worth continuing. a shame, should have been a slam dunk!

the movie at least has some kind of interesting concepts even if the animation isn't very good and the execution isn't anything to write home about. the game had 0 redeeming qualities.

 

[ThirdEidolon]

And here I thought Treasure could do no wrong.... haha .
Yeah it's pretty scummy how certain games were made harder on purpose on the west. Streets of Rage 3 comes to mind.

Treasure weren't the problem. Blockbuster and other companies would pay programmers to make games harder. this happened in the psx era as well.

our version of Alundra? is not the Japanese version. ours is much harder.

 

[RageBurner]

Treasure weren't the problem. Blockbuster and other companies would pay programmers to make games harder. this happened in the psx era as well.

our version of Alundra? is not the Japanese version. ours is much harder.

Oh yeah, Working Designs loved messing things up, didn't they? I always hated the font they used too.

 

[ThirdEidolon]

I rented this too, and was glad I did. A 4-player Digimon action platformer sounds like my child self's dream game, but they really phoned it in with this one... They should have left out all the RPG stat-grinding nonsense and just made it a straight beat 'em up with Digimon characters. The movie it's based on, Digimon X-Evolution, is pretty awful too.

You know if Data Squad was any good?

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 12:09 AM

Oh yeah, Working Designs loved messing things up, didn't they? I always hated the font they used too.

they were the fuckers, yeah!

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 12:10 AM

One of the worst rental experiences I had was Rugrats: Scavenger Hunt for the N64. Imagine Mario Party but at a much slower pace, maddening music and sloppily designed minigames. One of the worst titles I ever played on the console and was so happy that I did not actually have this tedious slop sully my home library.

Post automatically merged: Tuesday at 6:32 PM

That is crazy that you managed to rent Like A Dragon but also complete it within a rental session. How long did that take? Admittedly a pretty sweet bargain if you can get as much as you can out of a game without buying it.

isn't that game like 60 hours?

 

[RageBurner]

they were the fuckers, yeah!

Good thing those "Unworking Designs" patches exist.

 

[ThirdEidolon]

Oh, i only played the japanese version of them! and both were awesome!
but later that Dynamite Headdy got a fan-translation, uhh... i was totally disappointed! playing it without understanding what they were saying was way more fun! i expected more mocking and humorous dialogues! but i don't think that's the translators fault...

As for renting games, i think it happened only once for me! it was a sega megadrive cartridge which my parents rented for me, i think it was a 4-in-1 compilation, and i can't even remember what games was in it...
Other than that, I owned all other games i had in real consoles... which of course all of them were compilations! (it was norm where i lived) like 17-in-1 games, 7-in-1 games, etc...
The only games which wasn't compilation, were Batman and Robin Adventures and Bare Knuckles 3!

so i never experienced regret for having a game, i guess i missed a lot...

It gets better. They gutted like all the story, because they couldn't be bothered to translate it.

STILL to this day, I have no idea what Dynamite Headdy was actually about.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 12:12 AM

Good thing those "Unworking Designs" patches exist.

too bad it still affects the physical releases, though.

 

[RageBurner]

too bad it still affects the physical releases, though.

Yeah no salvaging those I'm afraid, short of burning a custom medium (cart/disc, depending on game) and then using that.

 

[VampireLord1024]

Maybe Glover or one of the Chameleon Twist games, (though I'm not saying they're bad games).

 

[ThirdEidolon]

Yeah no salvaging those I'm afraid, short of burning a custom medium (cart/disc, depending on game) and then using that.

it's not all bad. I still have and love my physical copy of the first Alundra.

 

[Gorse]

You know if Data Squad was any good?

I never played it, but I saw a lot of reviews which said it was a monotonous slog with a flawed-but-creative menu system. I imagine it’s good for people who liked the show, because it uses the same VAs and anime-accurate art assets, but I haven’t been compelled to track it down.

 

[ThirdEidolon]

I never played it, but I saw a lot of reviews which said it was a monotonous slog with a flawed-but-creative menu system. I imagine it’s good for people who liked the show, because it uses the same VAs and anime-accurate art assets, but I haven’t been compelled to track it down.

I'll probably emulate it.

I ask, because it's not an insane price to buy. But... there's probably a good reason for it.

 

[Cu-Neo]

(I borrowed from a friend so technically I rented it). For me it was this almost unplayable game

The game was made with the idea of playing it with four people. So when you play alone the CPU is atrocius (they always go to attack the enemy and never helps you) and the last missions are imposible