Games/systems that got mixed reactions - which side were you on?

• Final Fantasy 8
  • Final Fantasy 8 was my favorite Final Fantasy game for years. I remember when it came out; it was stunning and a true show case for the PS1. Over the years I’ve heard people say they didn’t like the junction system among other things. I didn’t have a problem with it. Also, the rivalry between Squall and Seifer was awesome. And man, dem summons!
    • Verdict: fan!
• Death Stranding
  • It’s not Kojima’s best game, but what it does well, it does really well. The hiking gameplay starts slow, but once you get going and accumulate more abilities, it’s SUPER addicting. Other than that, I found the game mediocre in Story and Combat. It does have an underrated horror aspect to it.
    • Verdict: I know a lot of people couldn’t get into it, but for me…I’m a fan.. with reservation! Hopefully D2 is much better.
• PlayStation Vita
  • Probably one of the few people here that was a launch Vita owner. Amazing hardware, even to this day. Was unfortunately overshadowed by the popularity of smart phones/tablets. There were a lot of people who trashed the Vita saying it lacked games and/or support from Sony. But that wasn’t entirely truly. The system had great original first party games like Killzone Mercenary, Tearaway, Gravity Rush, Persona 4 Golden and many more. Also, the Vita was a great gateway for indies and visual novels.
    • Verdict: Fan obviously!
• Last of Us 2
  • There is one thing that Last of Us 2 does exceptionally well, and it’s the enemy AI. That was a breakthrough for games. But other than that, the Story went haywire, the game was a bit bloated with a lot of walking segments, and I felt like Naughty Dog was trying to be edgy with the Abby character, but I still didn’t care for her.
    • Verdict: Mixed feelings, but not a fan for the most part.
• Sonic Frontiers
  • It’s not the Breath of the Wild type revolution for the Sonic franchise, but it was a breath of fresh air (😄). It has a lot of good ideas, and I’m still enjoying it. Oh and that OST is godly!
    • Verdict: Fan

How about you, SW? Games/systems that got mixed reactions - which side were you on?

One of the top of my head is the Wii U. Thought it was a very good system with some really excellent games.

I liked Skyward Sword. Had pacing issues, and controls needed to recalibrate a bit too often, but the dungeons were great and the combat was fun. Has a few of my favorite boss fights in the series too. Mid-tier Zelda is still a pretty high bar.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst is awesome. It takes about as many steps back as it does forward, but you're still left with some of the best first person platforming around. People seem to look more favourably at it now, but reception was mixed on release.

Twisted Metal and SSX 2012 kick all the ass, and the fact both were shat upon or ignored hurts me.

Though there were many people who believed something contrary to what I'm about to say, I'm of the opinion that Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is a disappointment. The frame rate was a constant nuisance; in some cases, it sank down to the single digits (of frames per second). Moreover, the boss fights were shallow and didn't particularly do anything special. It has a big open world, but nothing to do in it. The texture pop in was horrible as well.

It hurts me very much because I love Pokemon. The series deserves better than this turd of a game. Nintendo doesn't care though; they got incredibly impressive sales, so they have no motivation to fix these issues once the next Pokemon game comes out. It's not that the developers are incapable of making a good Pokemon game -- it's that they don't care enough to put in effort.

FF8 is better than FF7 in my opinion. The only reason it's hated because most players was so dumb to understand the junction system.

A couple random ones:

Mass Effect Andromeda: Maybe "mixed" is generous since most people hated it, but I had a good time overall with Mass Effect Andromeda. the main story and most of the characters in your squad were definitely underwhelming - and those were huge parts of what made the original games popular. But I enjoyed the combat and how the game was structured, exploring those 5 or so planets. Its best content was in the side quests on those planets and if you mainlined the story, I can see how it'd be a bad experience.

Warhammer 40k Darktide: this game got "hammered" from a lot of people due to its lack of crafting on launch, dumb method of acquiring new gear and early introduction of a real-money cosmetic shop when other features were missing. However, I still dug it due to the actual gameplay and atmosphere being really awesome. stopped playing for now, but i'm looking forward to getting back into it with updates.

Monster Hunter Rise/Sunbreak. Capcom should never return to weak ass hardware. Game is compromised so much due to Switch underpowered hardware. Small maps, bland environment, piss easy monsters, terrible dlcs. Combat saved the game.

Gameboy Micro

Sure it was small like the size of a pack of playing cards. But I liked it cause of the interchangeable faceplates.

PSP Go

Tiny and digital only though hated the small analog sticks and face buttons. Got hand craps from long periods of time playing.

Totally agree with this, Sonic Frontiers is underrated.

FF8 is one of my fav FF games. Junction system is awesome. Draw draw draw! Let me break the game with cards.

Vita was awesome, but PSTV is better.

PSTV better?!

Yeah, it really was. Too bad it never had the time to get more games.

Nice controller, good graphics, intuitive games. It was almost like a sequel to GameCube.

@blamix: I thought the junction system made the game way too easy. Once you got hold of a valuable asset like meteor you could junction that and make Squall über-powerful.

FF12 >>>>>>>>>>>>> FF10 (actually hated 10)

MGS2 > MGS3 (People hated pt2. but I found the idea behind the fake out physiologically brilliant)

Sega Saturn was an amazing console that I loved (best 2d fighting game console using 4meg ram cart outside of $600 NeoGeo, w the absolute best 6 button fighting game controller ever created)

I like Blue Dragon on xbox 360

I hated Lost Odyssey on Xbox 360

Original Xbox > Xbox 360

I hated MGS4

Love me Master System.

Simple as.

lol except that's not really mixed or controversial. If you had said Turbo Graphics 16 then maybe

@above_average:

In 1993, reviewers scored it 2, 2, 3, and 3 out of 10, noting its abandonment by Sega in North America and lack of new releases. By contrast, 62 million NES units were sold in North America alone, outselling the Master System several times over.

Haha I love my PSTV. It's a VITA in a tiny box with an HDMI port and an ethernet port.

@pmanden: true. It's optional though. Just like the Souls games and other rpgs out there. Some games just have ways to get OP early

Redfall: On the haters side, we laugh at this game🤭

when are we getting the review?

I loved Final Fantasy VIII and X, thought that they were excellent games. Also really enjoyed XIII, XIII-2, and XV.

Rage 2 ... it's open world is lame (99% of open worlds are....) , may as well not have bothered with the driving part of it, and had some inexcusable technical issues... but i still enjoyed it about as much as Doom / Eternal.

It's a shame Sony handled the Vita so poorly, Vita 2 could've been very interesting.

@SolidGame_basic: I agree with you on FF8, but never knew it got mixed reactions. To me it's still the FF game.

I also agree with Sonic Frontiers, the game is awesome, sure it has some bad pop in, but as harsh of a Sega fan that I am, I thought they nailed it, and have a solid to base build the sequel from.

As for the Vita, well there was no GT game, so I am in the mixed category here, I think the PSP was better, the Vita was a wasted opportunity.

Did you know Death Stranding won best snowboarding game of 2019?

As for Last of Us 2, the leaks were wild and got the criticism it deserved for what they did to certain characters.

Lol never seen this video, but I do remember the floating carrier. Ziplines are still the best!

WHat do you mean there is ONE thing TLOU2 does well? TLOU2 does absolutely everything well.

10/10 gameplay

10/10 combat

10/10 enemy AI

10/10 cinematics

10/10 narrative

10/10 character development

10/10 replay value

10/10 level design

10/10 voice acting / mocap performances

10/10 game direction

10/10 graphics (for a PS4)

10/10 storyline

10/10 pacing

10/10 controversy