Unpopular games that you love, and vice versa

[Grelb]

First of all thanks so much everybody for the suggestions. I have added quite a few new games to my library. The first I am going to play is little big adventure, all three of them.

I have a popular game that I hate. I am a big mario fan, and I am attempting to go through all of them with my partner. Recently we have finished Super Mario Wonders, that was the latest 2D entry in the series that I was really looking forward to play.

Everybody praised the game, both online and in the meat world. All of my friends loved it while for me it was almost unplayable.

The gameplay was extremely easy. Basically kid level. There is nothing bad with that and you can't expect Celeste level platform mechanics from Mario. But the biggest problem was the overall lack of progression. You can beat lvl 1 and lvl 30 and lvl 60 with the same effort. There was no increase in difficulty and no buildup in skills in any part of the game.

Then you go to the usual last world, that you are supposed to clear if you want to 100% the game, and the difficulty is cranked up to maximum, like some initial lost levels stuff. Honestly it was quite disappointing because there is no buildup to that and it feels inaccessible for most players that might have enjoyed other titles.

The game also tried to do too much. There were tons of nice props given by the wonder flower mechanics, that only lasted for a few seconds and were not used fully imho. It would have been nice if they focused only on one or two power ups, such as gombat and sproink, but on multiple levels.

[Memory]

also adding on since my last one - Doubutsu no Mori (N64) is fine, it does have its limitations of course but if you can emulate a translated version, it's fine actually.
if anything DnM looks a lot better on the N64 than DnM+/AC/DnMe+ on the GameCube tbh - it's at like 240p and half the framerate than the GameCube ports, but it actually looks better imo since it doesn't look eggregiously low-poly and low-res textures like it does on all the GameCube versions. since all the NGC ports actually all retain N64 models and textures - for instance a full texture for an umbrella or a shirt of all things is 32x32px and it's super low-poly since it was made for the N64 in mind, but it kinda looks worse on the GameCube since it's at 480ish resolution and like 60fps.

also wanna mention some versions of Minecraft for some reason even though Minecraft itself doesn't really fit this.
between Classic and modern Minecraft there's a LOT of versions and each with their own vibe but they always get overlooked. but say Beta 1.8.1 is fun to piss off hostile mobs in creative mode, 1.2.5 is fun to mess with Tekkit, 1.4.7 is simple enough (and so is 1.5.2) and so on.

should i mention Um Jammer Lammy? it's a spinoff from PaRappa the Rapper - it didn't seem to get great reviews plus it didn't seem to sell too well? but i love the concept of it and the main character is so real.
and EyeToy Play 2 and EyeToy Monkey Mania were fun - i remember them from when i was little ! though they use the EyeToy camera so don't expect them to be the most accurate (especially since it's for the PS2) but they're still fun when they work.

[candycanearter07]

also wanna mention some versions of Minecraft for some reason even though Minecraft itself doesn't really fit this.
between Classic and modern Minecraft there's a LOT of versions and each with their own vibe but they always get overlooked. but say Beta 1.8.1 is fun to piss off hostile mobs in creative mode, 1.2.5 is fun to mess with Tekkit, 1.4.7 is simple enough (and so is 1.5.2) and so on.

should i mention Um Jammer Lammy? it's a spinoff from PaRappa the Rapper - it didn't seem to get great reviews plus it didn't seem to sell too well? but i love the concept of it and the main character is so real.
and EyeToy Play 2 and EyeToy Monkey Mania were fun - i remember them from when i was little ! though they use the EyeToy camera so don't expect them to be the most accurate (especially since it's for the PS2) but they're still fun when they work.

Like I said in my own post, I could never really get into Minecraft, like at all. I get why people like it, though.

Un Jammy Lammy might be my favorite of the 3 (disclaimer i havent really played them but i have watched a lot of vids and stuff) and the goofy super-compressed parappa voices in the 2p mode are hilarious ALSO THEY REDID EVERY SONG TO FIT WITH PARAPPA'S MUSIC STYLE i LOVE when games change little stuff like that to fit the characters better

[♡QUAGSIRE ENJOYER♡]

sin and punishment star successor on the wii

that game is star fox on crack

its so cool but also very hard and arcade like but that's just the type of game i love 


I'm also obsessed with the ecco the dolphin games and i cant wait for a new one

no other game is like ecco its so good but i must warn its also very very hard

[✿ Passerine ✿]

There is one game that I have spent an unfathomable amount of time on that, over time, I have grown to hate. It's one that has had an incredible influence on the internet and on meme culture, and has been given an overwhelming amount of praise.

Garry's Mod.

The reason I have come to hate it doesn't come down to something like its core mechanics or the aging version of source engine it uses, it's the multiplayer scene. Over the years, the multiplayer servers that populate the game have experienced a very large increase in toxicity. There are many server that are entirely corrupted by the influence of g**ners, doxxers, and all the other freaks you'd expect to find. It's a mess, and it's something I've dedicated some time to fighting against, even if it was ultimately futile.

Now I look back at the game with a lot of cynicism, with the view that it's a masterpiece of a game that was unfortunately corrupted from the start. A lot of owners generally don't care about moderating their servers, and Facepunch isn't really willing to enforce their own terms of service and blacklist offending servers. To fight against this toxic culture is exhausting.

Thing is, it's kind of a love-hate relationship. I still thoroughly enjoy singleplayer or multiplayer with just a few friends, but I don't have any friends to play with, and singleplayer can get stale after a while. I'll still play by myself to do scenebuilding or play with PAC3, but not much else. I'm moving on from a game that I spent nearly 12,000 hours playing at the time of writing.

[rnottelovesowls]

i wouldn't call it "unpopular", moreso "niche", but i love the video game adaptations of I Spy, the hidden object game picture books by jean marzollo and walter wick. some of my favorite games to play as a kid. what hurts their value for me as an adult, though, is that the riddles are always the same with every playthrough, and i've played them so much back then that i know all the riddles like the back of my hand. i hope one day, there can be a new game adaptation, especially since wick returned to making new i spy books with riddles by marzollo's sons

and a popular game that i dislike is Honkai: Star Rail. i like turn-based RPGs, but i HATE gacha mechanics, over-stimulating flashy animation, and characters with over-designed and impractical outfits, and star rail has all 3 of those in spades. and no, the fact that hoyoverse keeps giving away free 5-star units like candy, and buffing old units, doesn't make a difference to me. in games like these, if a unit isn't S-tier, they're Z-tier. playing a video game has never felt more like work. i don't know how anyone can tolerate gacha games, but i applaud their fortitude

[Horsey Chobunso]

My favorite fighting game of all time is Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid. It was created by a small company called nWay that has moved on to worse pastures, but at the time, it was a massive undertaking. It had crossplay and server based rollback netcode in a time where a lot of the bigger fighting game developers were struggling to implement those features. It has simplified inputs to make the barrier to entry lower, but some of the most insane mixups and setups I've ever seen in a fighting game. That's not why its unpopular though. I think the bulk of its unpopularity was in the developers unwavering belief that modern fighting games can still be as punishing as older ones.

BFTG is a tag-team fighting game where you play with 3 characters on your team. Traditionally, games of this style are very fast and have very high damage. This is because losing one character is roughly akin to losing 33% of your life bar. Most modern fighting games, including tag fighters, have a burst mechanic that allows players to escape a combo early with some limitations. The main developers, Clockwork (one of the main developers for 2XKO) and ShadyK, were both high level Marvel vs Capcom 2 and 3 players, which lead to them chosing to forgo the burst mechanic. They paired it with a robust and creative combo system, but the outcome was that every time a player got a hit, it resulted in one of 3 things:
1. a very long, guaranteed combo that kills one of the opponents characters
2. a short combo that leads to a guaranteed inescapable, unblockable setup
3. a mixup on another character of the opponents team that requires the defender to guess how to block correctly several times in a row.

This leads games to being often one sided unless the losing player gets a chance to use the insanely powerful Zord comeback mechanic, which allows them to functionally summon a full screen sized robot to fight with them. It was later discovered that specific combo routes with help from the Zord allowed a player to wipe the opponents entire team in one inescapable combo. Many tournaments ended up banning this, but I don't think one of these combos was every fully completed in a tournament match.

The combination of a deep combo system with relatively easy execution, high damage, and cheap insane bullshit created a game where winning means playing perfectly. You can't afford to make mistakes or guess wrong because you have the change to lose the entire game on any hit. It is one of few modern fighters where I have felt truly rewarded for labbing and creativity and truly punished for being bad.

The community itself is what kept me around for so long. For a long time, the community was very welcoming and very interested in helping everyone achieve the highest possible level. There aren't many truly punishing games like this, so the types of players that were attracted to the style wanted new players to stick around and understand the beauty of it. I ended up meeting one of my closest friends and future groomsmen through this community. They supported every tiny ass online tournament as much as possible, including my own series which raised money for the Bearded Dragon Foundation, and a plethora of other charity events. Meetups at major in person fighting tournaments were always a blast. Everyone was so happy just to be playing the game and seeing the small online community in real life. There's a specific feeling about those moments that I can't put into words, but I remember it exactly.

Most of us have moved on to other things, but you can still get games by joining the discord or just sitting on ranked in the more populated times of day. No one takes it too seriously anymore, and the minimum power level of the game means that basically any character is viable. Every character has the ability to kill an opponents character off of any hit, and almost every character has access to an infinite if you're down to really grind some execution. You just need to have the stomach for some of the most busted fighting game shenanigans you'll see outside of barely functional games from the 90s.

This video by Ferns gives a great overview on the silly and busted mechanics of the game.

This is the full VOD of the second charity tournament I ran which I think showcases the peak of gameplay. It was close to the end of development, so we had damn near everything figured out, but some of the most busted stuff hadn't been found yet.

[alexela64]

I can't believe I haven't replied to this post yet!!

I have a lot of games that I feel this way about, especially because I love to play games that have a lot of potential.

the most overlooked game that I would say objectively was REALLY fun to play was Gabrielle's Ghostly Groove 3D for the 3DS. Sure it's a rhythm game, but it's also got a KILLER peak early 2010s soundtrack, a creepy-cute theme that's just lovely, collectibles and outfits, challenge modes and a story that's dark enough it would have creeped me out as a kid......

I spent like 3 days straight trying to 100% this game. I did, in the end, and I don't regret a second of it.

[Trench_Man]

I don't know if I'd count it as truly unpopular but Mario Pinball Land for the Gameboy Advance is a game I really enjoy just chilling out with, I've always loved pinball and I've always loved Mario so it puts two things together that I like and it just works for me.

On the flipside I don't much care for games like GTA 5 despite their massive popularity I enjoyed the online mode of 5 for awhile but the story mode of the games like 4 and 5 just never really hooked me, I can understand why they're popular but I just don't enjoy them that much