Severely Flawed Video Games That You Still Like

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Chances are that many of us here have games that we like more than we "should" based on their quality.  I thought about this topic while playing the 3rd game on the list. . .



Sonic the Fighters


-Characters are so unbalanced, even an inexperienced player can "counterpick" Fang the gunner with a spindasher like Sonic.  But it's funny to watch, especially when you keep an opponent on the ground with Amy's hammer!  Sonic the Fighters was a good diversion during the PS3 years, but I doubt it has many players online today.


Ecco the Dolphin


-This series is unique for being underwater 2D action adventures, and the environments aren't like anything you'll see in other games.  However, the difficulty in the first game was made intentionally frustrating to prevent people from renting and beating it.  I can't recommend playing Ecco the Dolphin without save states from later ports, at least in some areas like Welcome to the Machine.  Tides of Time is more forgiving than Ecco the Dolphin, and is the game I'd recommend to other people.


Dragon's Dogma:  Dark Arisen


-A Capcom action RPG with a linear quest structure that pretends to be open world to force you to run through its generic medieval fantasy world.  And you'll be doing a lot of running since fast travel to anywhere but the two main towns is impossible without scarce Portcrystals.  Even the unlimited fast travel to towns was a feature added in the Dark Arisen rerelease.  Random difficulty spikes happen during low level quests, resulting in overpowered bandits.  But the combat easily makes up for the shortcomings, and solo runs are viable as long as you pick as class with decent ranged attacks.



Pokemon Sword/Shield


-Although both versions are for the Switch, you'd never know it judging by the tiny areas, graphical blunders that would be laughable on the Nintendo 64, and AI that's still as primitive as the Game Boy entries.  Yet it's still fun to try solo challenges because of the variety of early game monsters and moves, easy level grinding, and Dynamax/Gigantamax making the bosses more memorable and challenging than in some earlier games.

[Gustaran]

I think a key part especially when evaluating older games is that the standards change so much over time. If I look at your list, I would think most of the games were actually considered good at the time of release. Sure, they might have obvious flaws from today's point of view, but judging them at their time these flaws were much more forgivable.

So I find it a bit hard to call out a game on this. For example, the AI in many early RTS games was completely stupid and the main goal was usually "destroy enemy base".
IIRC in Dune 2, the AI would always take the same path towards your base. So the "correct" stratey was to put up a ton of defensive towers at one spot and let the AI waste tons of units until you built up a large army yourself.
Today, such an AI opponent and mission design would of course be unacceptable, but I certainly didn't think that back in the day.

[superdeath]

Stronghold 2. Spore. Both games that can be broken pretty badly, or had great moments and then fell short.

[yuris125]

Civ5 (admittedly I don't think many people outside RB would agree it's flawed)

Dune 2 AI.. units stuck behind a 1-tile rock... oh the memories

[Bobchillingworth]

"Severely flawed" is kind of harsh, but I got 100s of hours of enjoyment from Sims 3. The game was buggy to a level frankly unbecoming a legitimate product, but that was half the fun. That, and inevitably reaching the point where you get bored and begin abusing your town's populace in the most creative & appalling ways possible.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Even among games of a similar time period, there are noticeable differences.



Consider Earthbound.  Its "automatically kill weak enemies if your party is strong enough" mechanic is ahead of even modern RPGs.  It's rarely copied if at all.  But Earthbound's item management is atrocious relative to other Super Nintendo games.  Each character has their own inventory, which would be fine if there were a bag.  Unfortunately, equipment and the excessive amount of key items take up space that could otherwise be used for consumables.  And if you want to store items with Tracy, you have to call the appropriately named Escargot Express, and can only deposit 3 items at a time.


Trials of Mana is another contender for the list.  The DEX and LUCK stats are mostly useless due to glitches, items can't be bought in bulk and have laggy menus, and the game loathes spellcasters/Level 2-3 Class Strike users and loves to kill them with counterattacks that come seemingly out of nowhere if you haven't memorized GameFAQs guides.  Yet I've played through it multiple times and completed a solo Hawkeye challenge.


Now I want to check contemporary reviews for old games to see what precisely the standards of the time were, but I don't know how to find them.  (I used to have Nintendo Power from 1997-2006, but all the issues are gone now.)