Overrated "Classics"

[WokiBakoki]

What games have a reputation as classic, but you think are just plain bad. Mainstream, cult classics, ultra niche. Whatever ya got. I got some I wanna throw out there right away.

- Postal 2: Undeniable charm, sure. I put too much time into it and like it more than I should. But realistically this game is dogshit. No sprint, no music (99% of the time), foul gunplay held up by having healing items everywhere, you're just a bullet sponge with a sexy voice at the end of the day. It's really only fun if you have a soft spot for old PC games, and know where all the hidden goodies are so you can enjoy the better weapons sooner.

- Silent Hill 1 and 2: Early days for the genre, sure. But you'd be amazed at how most horror games even today are terrible. I think these 2 games are the perfect template to showcase why. It's all fine on atmosphere and such. Till you get bored. Once butting against jammed doors and smacking copy/paste monsters with a pipe gets old, you reach the stage where you don't care and wanna get it over with, no fear. But with the clunky movement and tedious obstacles. It's just a big shitty slog through the fog. Fear is not a game mechanic!

- Literally Every "Classicvania" (except Bloodlines): Bloodlines is the most fair and honest. Short but fun and the learning phase is smooth and consistent. Playing as Eric, that's pure ethical gaming right there. However, 1 and 3 are full of Mario Maker troll level BS. 4 starts great but quickly devolves into "bad hard" trickery. Full of slow autoscrolling sections as well. Dracula X really runs with the troll level design. Chronicles will put you to sleep before Belmont can even slither through level 1. I think it speaks to how low standards used to be, how these games are held at such high regard, when ALL of them are shit.

- Devil May Cry: Ugh, it hurts my soul because atmosphere and visual-wise. Easily my favourite in the franchise. I should love this game. But it goes from passable to savage buffoonery real quick. Yeah I know it was 2001, it was the first of it's kind, it wasn't intended to be what it was at first. Listen, I don't care why it's awful, if it's awful, I'm hating on it. The sequel is a famous disaster, and yeah I agree. But honestly I'd prefer 2 over 1. I'd rather a game be too easy than too hard. Especially with the ways DMC1 makes itself so fuckin' hard.

(I know this last one isn't really "retro" but where else am I gonna rant about it.)
- Dark Souls 2: Yeah it's not as beloved as the others but it still brings enough people joy to warrant my infernal hatred. I just don't get it. It's so fuckin' slow! It's held together by duct tape and introduces a lot of the changes from 1 to 3 that I can't stand (not being able to level up wherever and splitting equip load and stamina into different stats). It's gone from being treated like crap, to a lovable autistic middle child. As an autistic middle child, this game sucks!

 

[Potapota]

Sonic games. I will not elaborate.

 

[Iguana-0]

Final Fantasy VII [The 1997 version] Yeah i said it. Bring it on!

 

[Mopeybloke]

Blood. It's around the top of every recent boomer shooter tier list, and is easily the most flawed of the holy trinity. Relying on hitscan enemies annoys me, but at the same time, they're the only enemies that ever hit me in it. If enemies need to navigate any environment to get to me, and it isn't perfectly flat, they're never reaching me.

 

[moonbits]

these threads are all starting to feel the same

 

[Iguana-0]

Blood. It's around the top of every recent boomer shooter tier list, and is easily the most flawed of the holy trinity. Relying on hitscan enemies annoys me, but at the same time, they're the only enemies that ever hit me in it. If enemies need to navigate any environment to get to me, and it isn't perfectly flat, they're never reaching me.

i thought the game was just too damn hard. Starting off with a pitchfork and fighting dudes who of all things have Machine Guns!

 

[WokiBakoki]

these threads are all starting to feel the same

I couldn't find one that was exactly this, I checked before making one of my own.

 

[Cantarella]

these threads are all starting to feel the same

overrated 'overrated classics threads' threads coming in six months

 

[moonbits]

overrated 'overrated classics threads' threads coming in six months

game that ppl think it good that u dont think it good the 40th edition

 

[ciro64]

My biggest gripe with Postal 2 was the balancing. When it comes to shooters I like when you die fast and kill fast, especially on headshots. Increasing the difficulty just turned the enemies into superhumans. I suppose a simple mod could fix this.

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 8:54 PM

overrated 'overrated classics threads' threads coming in six months

Stuff like hot takes and waifu threads will come every now and then, just in slighty different flavors sometimes. It's just a common theme. And I do find this thread refreshing for specifically targeting classic games.

I played a Mega Man 2 stage with teleporting platforms and that shit was boring af

 

[bjork]

Goldeneye. It wasn't groundbreaking. You were 11.

 

[Yankee]

- Literally Every "Classicvania" (except Bloodlines)
- Devil May Cry

Skill issues? Castlevania was best in general before Symphony of the Night. Super IV is actually too easy IMO.

(I know this last one isn't really "retro" but where else am I gonna rant about it.)
- Dark Souls 2

...a widely, and unjustly, hated game? Even if the counter-culture vibe is coming around on it, it doesn't belong in a thread about games that everyone loves. I have friends who still go into spergouts about Soul Memory.

Final Fantasy VII [The 1997 version] Yeah i said it. Bring it on!

I actually agree with this easily. FFVII has good stuff, but it's not some kind of Godsent Masterpiece that its cult treats it as. It just happened to capture lightning in a bottle when it came to timing: 3D graphics were exploding (a lot of people forget just how poorly 2D games were regarded at the dawn of the PlayStation Generation), FMV cutscenes impressed every normie and nerd, overtly anime design aesthetics captured the imagination of the new American mainstream anime fanbase, as well as its angsty mature story and waifu harem.

Goldeneye. It wasn't groundbreaking. You were 11.

There's a certain sadistic joy to seeing the looks on someone's face when you whip out Goldeneye and hand them a controller change as they realize it actually controls like ass and the gunplay is flaccid auto-aim frustration in confusing maps where you can run for minutes without seeing anybody else.

 

[Raggs]

If we're complaining here, then allow me: To me Resident Evil 4 will always be that overrated thing that make a lot of money and misled the entire gaming industry to a bunch of boring clones.

 

[UntoldLegend13]

NFS Underground 2
No fast travel makes it tedious later on, especially because there's only 2 ways through the different areas.
Progression is vague and a lot of races are the same, and requires winning some hidden races (and you're not warned about that)
No story until the end, even then it's rubbish

Most Wanted is much better

 

[Yankee]

If we're complaining here, then allow me: To me Resident Evil 4 will always be that overrated thing that make a lot of money and misled the entire gaming industry to a bunch of boring clones.

I don't know if it made clones (at least not as bad as Breath of the Wild has) but I will say this:
People complain that Resident Evil became a stupid action game and most of the time they point at RE5 but it was actually RE4's fault! It's the one that turned Survival Horror into Horror Action and yet it's regarded as 'the best' by many. Senseless!

 

[X y b e r - S k u ll]

Metal Slug 3: I genuinely do not understand why that game has the reputation it does, I can understand for more casual players who will credit spam what the appeal is, but for those that really like to learn and get good at games like this, I don't get how anyone doesn't look at 2/X as the superior game. Overstays it's welcome (That final level is one of the most unbearable gauntlets that just never ends) and pretty much every non-human enemy is a bullet sponge where the only real challenge is how fast you can tap to fire button. Honestly, outside of the graphics and animations (Which I will admit are a real technical achievement and I'd probably agree it's the best looking of the games), I really have nothing good to say about it.

 

[WokiBakoki]

Skill issues? Castlevania was best in general before Symphony of the Night. Super IV is actually too easy.

Finished DMC1 on DMD, finished CV1 and 4. No skill issues here. These takes were formed over an embarrassingly long time playing these ass games. No amount of skill makes dancing around a shitty camera a good time. Shoutout to the 2 melee weapons in the whole game btw. Thrilling action :/

 

[J.B’s rabbit den]

The original super Mario world, it’s a fun game to look at but the gameplay itself is product of its time if that’s a way to put it, but at the same time they were mixing up the formula a bit.

 

[snackcannon]

Goldeneye. It wasn't groundbreaking. You were 11.

lol I feel this. Going back to the game on actual hardware feels like complete dogshit. Game runs at like 12FPS and the N64 controller is Aquaman's dildo.

Sonic games. I will not elaborate.

I agree wholeheartedly, and that's coming from someone who has a special place for Sonic in their heart. SA2 is especially bad, but people are so autistic about it.

 

[Hourai]

I could talk about how much I hate Persona 4. But I feel it's be more interesting to go into VNs, here.

Utawarerumono, and its updated rerelease Prelude to the Fallen. It wasn't great. Hakuowlo had his moments, and I do like some of what it did. It just wasn't really all that exciting. It was a fine VN/SRPG hybrid translated in an era where we didn't have many good VNs, and that's it.

Tsukihime, again, the original. It wasn't good. It had good ideas, and it was fun seeing Nasu try to figure out how to make an enjoyable VN, but it would've sank so deep into the ground and have been forgotten outside of a scant few were it not a game made by the person who wrote Fate/Stay Night a few years later.

If we're going to be pedantic about how old a classic is, the OG Danganronpa (it's from 2010) sucks. It was popular because it was designed to be popular, and people bought into it.

 

[Esau]

The legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. I refuse to elaborate.

 

[ciro64]

The original super Mario world, it’s a fun game to look at but the gameplay itself is product of its time if that’s a way to put it, but at the same time they were mixing up the formula a bit.

The only thing I got to criticize is that the game became a lot easier as I grew older. Thankfully we got SMBW romhacks.

 

[Antilocal123]

All of them.

 

[Lweo4]

- Silent Hill 1 and 2: Early days for the genre, sure. But you'd be amazed at how most horror games even today are terrible. I think these 2 games are the perfect template to showcase why. It's all fine on atmosphere and such. Till you get bored. Once butting against jammed doors and smacking copy/paste monsters with a pipe gets old, you reach the stage where you don't care and wanna get it over with, no fear. But with the clunky movement and tedious obstacles. It's just a big shitty slog through the fog. Fear is not a game mechanic!

Man, come on, it's not like that, I mean... ehm... damn, I think you're right about the "butting against jammed doors", I don't find the movement clunky at all (Resident Evil with the tank controls is unplayable for me, even SH1 is better), I disagree about the rest but I agree with the part about the jammed doors. The only part that felt like a "big shitty slog" for me was the final dungeon on SH1, those puzzles were stupid.

 

[ShadowsofCreation]

Goldeneye. It wasn't groundbreaking. You were 11.

It was absolutely groundbreaking, it just isn't good.

My answer to this would be Ocarina of time. Boring, boring boring all the way down. Highly impressive for the time though.