"Good" kusoge

[BrainΦΠΦTemple]

cfx:
The other SFC Sailor Moon beat em up is Sailor Moon R, not everyone's cup of tea, but to me an incredible beat em up. No it's not Final Fight, or Streets of Rage, but it does the trick for me.

As for if the Beyond the Beyond game is kusoge, some consider it to be so, but I remember buying it when it came out, first RPG I ever owned (But not the first ever played and beaten, that goes to Dragon Warrior IV), I found it to be a decent game. The problem with it in my eyes, the enemy encounter rate is absolutely batshit insane, you take a few steps, BOOM, you fight something, beat it, take a few steps, BOOM another fight. Rinse and repeat...... a LOT. It was made after all by the Shining Force guys, I figured back in the day it had to be due to the same type font every dialog box had. One of the main characters is cursed a majority of the game by a cursed scarf, and it does weaken him a bit. It's got some great music, and it's difficulty is pretty high, I was surprised to beat it, but not right away. No, no, it took me more than a decade later to finally put it away from the save file I had as I could never find the last stone tablet to finally access the final area.

Wasn't until I checked GameFAQ's later, and found a small island I somehow kept missing, finally fired up the game again, and beat it once and for all. This game isn't for everyone, just the hardcore RPG gamer who loves a stiff challenge.

dragon warrior 4 on nes is fukken awesOme, but i never beat tHat 1 and dq11 despite dragon warrior/quest being my favOrite jrpg series ever. ._. (i beat the rest along w/ several remAkes and the dq monsters games thOugh)
but i cOuld unapologetically just fukken kiss the hell outta the dragon warrior 3 nes cartridge all fukken day
^3^me wuv dwagOn wawwiuh <3 <3

anyway, yEah, people seem to have a problem w/ the high encounter rate in beyond the beyond, but it never really bOthered me since battles were so quick, and i'm never gOnna complain about gaining more exp :B
shinsenden had an even mOre insane encounter rate where it was 1-3 stepz. it was super rAre when i could get a 4th or 5th step in lol

btw, even though the 1st bOss in beyond the beyond is kind of a wayz into the game, doesn't the dude who has the curse get it removed before then? maybe my brAin is starting to atrophy, but was it actually the majority of the game? =oc

For jRPGs, anything that can't match up to Stargazer isn't really trying. When you swing for the king, you best not miss.

oH yeah, i woulda mentioned tHat 1 because it is definitely the king of kusoge jrpgs, but i was tryin' to think of stuff tHat'z "good kusoge" 'cause of the thread title. =o
but anyway, i tried playing tHat sHit before, and it's a charming little piece of dog sHit :3

[Steven]

I've only seen pictures of the fighters. I wasn't too clear but the game I had and the Super S one I was referring to were the scrolling beat-em-ups. I think I remember seeing that RPG in Famitsu.

The fighting games are ridiculously broken, with stuff like Saturn's kicks being unblockable and infinite combos and stuff. They are actually pretty good despite that, so definitely try them. They are not all that expensive, either, surprisingly, unless you try to get a copy that has the little card thing that came in the first edition copies.

I like Sonic R and love the soundtrack. When I think 3D Sonic what always comes to mind is Sonic Adventure, which I hated. I have Generations which I have yet to play. I knew I'd at least like the 2D parts so risked getting that one. I'll look into Colors.

Yeah, Sonic Adventure has some problems. Parts of it are good, though, and it has some arranged music from 3D Blast, which makes me really happy. Sonic Adventure 2 completely sucks. I hate that game. As for Generations, the 2D parts are the worst parts of the game! The 3D sections where you play as modern Sonic are a lot of fun.

Recommending what version of Colors to play is not as straightforward as it should be; the best version is probably the original Wii version since they broke a lot of minor stuff in the PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch versions, but aside from the Switch version, they all run better than on Wii. If you decide to play something other than the Wii version, the PC version unfortunately has crappy Denuvo and the Switch version is probably the worst version of the game in general, so play the PS4 version on PS5 or the Xbox One version on the Xbox Series if you can. Just make sure you get the latest patch, which fixes a lot of the more major problems and also lets you choose the Wii version's music, which is way better than the disappointing arranged versions from this new port.

I have been playing Colors on PS5 for a few weeks and it runs perfectly, loads super quickly, and I'm generally satisfied with it there. It's been a while since I played it on the PS4, but on PS4 it has strangely long loading times and weird stuttering. I guess the game is poorly optimized and the PS5 is powerful enough to brute-force its way through whatever causes the stuttering on PS4. It mostly plays well on PS4 aside from the occasional stutter, though, so if you have no other way to play it and don't mind some minor stuttering and the long loading, play it on PS4.

I'll keep those two Neptunia games in mind as I've off and on wanted to try one but wasn't really sure which weren't total junk.

The main series is generally tolerable as a whole if you have nothing else to play, but mk2 (which is PS3-exclusive; it has a remake on PC and Vita that is pretty good, but the general consensus is that the original version mk2 is slightly better due to having a battle system with better balance. Compile Heart's definition of game balance is pretty fucked up, so it's still very much imperfect, but...) and VII are the best. There is also some kind of VR version of VII that I guess is worse than VII is, but I have not played it. Avoid most of the spinoffs because most of them range from mostly salvageable (that Noire strategy RPG is pretty decent! Best of the spinoffs that I have played... but I never finished it) to complete shit with no redeeming aspects.

That said, if you're going to play Compile Heart games, play Mary Skelter, which is the best series the studio ever made, and throw everything else in the trash and forget it exists. They somehow got the creator of Corpse Party to write Death end re;Quest (and it's extremely obvious that it's him even without looking at the credits), but the story is the only good aspect of the game; the gameplay is complete shit.

I always wanted this one. It was shown as the arcade game of the week in Famitsu at the time and looked great. Some years ago when I was still buying arcade boards I wanted to get it too. I either never found it at all or did and it was really expensive; I don't remember which. Unless it eventually shows up in something like ACA I'm sure there will never be a port of it so I will likely never get to play it. For all I know it's probably emulated, but I know nothing about that and it isn't my thing.

Yeah, this one is both very expensive and kind of hard to find. It was made by Gazelle, which is problematic enough given the unspeakable catastrophe that apparently ended the company, but it's also a licensed game and I have heard that the creator of Sailor Moon was smart enough to ensure that nothing related to Sailor Moon happens at all without her personally allowing it, so I am sure a rerelease will never happen. It also has a little bit of Toaplan in it, too; Joker Jun worked on it. I wonder if any of the others who worked on it came from Toaplan.

[Air Master Burst]

Recommending what version of Colors to play is not as straightforward as it should be; the best version is probably the original Wii version

The best version of Colors is far and away the DS version.

It was made by Gazelle, which is problematic enough given the unspeakable catastrophe that apparently ended the company,

Someday, somebody will spill the beans about what happened there. At least, I desperately HOPE somebody does, because I'm a messy bitch who loves secondhand drama. I assume some obsessives in the Japanese shmup scene have done the detective work and looked through all the available criminal records to see if something lines up?

ETA: Is there a Gazelle conspiracy theory thread around here somewhere?

[Steven]

Recommending what version of Colors to play is not as straightforward as it should be; the best version is probably the original Wii version

The best version of Colors is far and away the DS version.

So I have heard, but we're talking about 3D Sonic games lol. I do want to try DS Colors. Hopefully I can find a copy locally; I've been looking for one at Book Off and stuff for a while with no success. Might have to give up and order it online.

It was made by Gazelle, which is problematic enough given the unspeakable catastrophe that apparently ended the company,

Someday, somebody will spill the beans about what happened there. At least, I desperately HOPE somebody does, because I'm a messy bitch who loves secondhand drama. I assume some obsessives in the Japanese shmup scene have done the detective work and looked through all the available criminal records to see if something lines up?[/quote]
Joker Jun says it was REALLY bad, and he won't talk about it beyond that, which makes me super curious as to what happened.

I guess when Toaplan died the management suddenly told the employees to not come back anymore one day because that was the last day and that was it. Yeah, no advance notice, just a sudden "don't come back tomorrow because we won't be here". At Gazelle something super terrible happened, something so bad that nobody will talk about it.

ETA: Is there a Gazelle conspiracy theory thread around here somewhere?

Need one for Takumi as well.

[BryanM]

Sonic Utopia always gave a rough hint of what a 3D Sonic game could be, but I think they cheat a bit by using a mouse as an input device. The little thumbstick joypads use isn't nearly precise enough. Cursed above, I think gyroscope waggle controls might be better.

But thinking of them as a racing game or Grand Theft Auto kind of driving simulator is definitely a way they could have gone.. or of course just make Mario 64 but make him move twice as fast... it isn't rocket science...

I can understand quick throwaway arcade games, but these higher budget affairs really should have someone more thoughtful in control of the design. That might have been why many of these companies were hopeless with the changing times and rising standards; their internal designers were used to pumping out as much product as fast as possible and seeing what stuck.

i was tryin' to think of stuff tHat'z "good kusoge" 'cause of the thread title. =o

It is verrrrry tricky, since it's hard to say without including good games that are just misaligned with what most gamers are looking for. And a sack of shit is only entertaining until the novelty wears off.

Dragon Warrior 3 is one of my favorite games too, I hope you've been able to try out Shining Force over the years it's basically Dragon Warrior on a grid. Closest we'll ever get to a real Dragon Quest Tactics sadly.

Compile Heart games

I think Trillion is my favorite of the two games of theirs I've played. An interesting idea for a roguelike, at least. It has a sales pitch gimmick that makes it stand out, like Untitled Goose Game and such.

Their niche of cute stupid shit seems to be overshadowed by the output of the absolute bloodbath the mobile wars has wrought. It's like that kodoku insect thing where everything's thrown into a jar and only the meanest baddest motherfucker comes out alive. The character designs there, man. It's either hornier and hornier. Or cuter and cuter. To the point that they're like SCP objects that annihilates a man's reason and has them hand over their entire life savings on a unit that'll be powercrept and obsolete in like two months.

[Steven]

Oh yeah, speaking of Toaplan, they made a game that goes in the kusoge category: Knuckle Bash. trap15 told me this game is actually a lot of fun because of how broken it is, so I want to revisit it and see if I like it more.

Compile Heart games

I think Trillion is my favorite of the two games of theirs I've played. An interesting idea for a roguelike, at least. It has a sales pitch gimmick that makes it stand out, like Untitled Goose Game and such.

Their niche of cute stupid shit seems to be overshadowed by the output of the absolute bloodbath the mobile wars has wrought. It's like that kodoku insect thing where everything's thrown into a jar and only the meanest baddest motherfucker comes out alive. The character designs there, man. It's either hornier and hornier. Or cuter and cuter. To the point that they're like SCP objects that annihilates a man's reason and has them hand over their entire life savings on a unit that'll be powercrept and obsolete in like two months.

Compile Heart actually gets way more hate than they deserve, and as a result they're probably at least slightly underrated, but their quality is wildly inconsistent, as their games range from irredeemable garbage to... well, Mary Skelter. Most of their games are functional junk food types of things at worst, so they are mostly pretty inoffensive as a collective whole, but then you occasionally get things like Arc of Alchemist, which from what I have heard seems like it's about 1/3 finished. It's really weird because Mary Skelter proves they could be a good developer if they wanted to, but it's like they actively don't want to be good or something because that's the only thing they made that I have played that's actually got some effort put into it, to the point where I had a hard time believing they actually made it. There's that AVGN episode where he played some LJN Spider-Man game and he's like "I can't believe it! It's not shit! IT'S NOOOOOOOOOOOOOT SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Yeah, that was me when I played Mary Skelter for the first time.

The most notable things about Compile Heart are that they never actually bother to optimize their games, so they almost always run like shit on every single platform unless you play their PS4 games on PS5 or have a PC powerful enough to exceed the recommended specs by a rather large margin, and that game balance seems to be an afterthought in many cases. That and the fact that their music typically ranges from pretty decent to... lol Mary Skelter, which as a series has an awesome soundtrack. Finale in particular has a certain battle theme that wouldn't be entirely out of place in fucking Shin Megami Tensei IV if not for the heavy violin usage.

The original Neptunia is remarkable oddity in game design in that using items outside of battle is impossible and being able to using items in battle is determined by RNG, so sometimes the game will literally just be like "no, fuck you, you can't use an item. Enjoy your game over because being able to heal is random and I'm not going to let you". Yeah, that game is terrible. Glad they never brought that random item use mechanic back.

[cfx]

I like Sonic R and love the soundtrack. When I think 3D Sonic what always comes to mind is Sonic Adventure, which I hated. I have Generations which I have yet to play. I knew I'd at least like the 2D parts so risked getting that one. I'll look into Colors.

Yeah, Sonic Adventure has some problems. Parts of it are good, though, and it has some arranged music from 3D Blast, which makes me really happy. Sonic Adventure 2 completely sucks. I hate that game. As for Generations, the 2D parts are the worst parts of the game! The 3D sections where you play as modern Sonic are a lot of fun.

Recommending what version of Colors to play is not as straightforward as it should be; the best version is probably the original Wii version since they broke a lot of minor stuff in the PC/PS4/Xbox One/Switch versions, but aside from the Switch version, they all run better than on Wii. If you decide to play something other than the Wii version, the PC version unfortunately has crappy Denuvo and the Switch version is probably the worst version of the game in general, so play the PS4 version on PS5 or the Xbox One version on the Xbox Series if you can. Just make sure you get the latest patch, which fixes a lot of the more major problems and also lets you choose the Wii version's music, which is way better than the disappointing arranged versions from this new port.

I have been playing Colors on PS5 for a few weeks and it runs perfectly, loads super quickly, and I'm generally satisfied with it there. It's been a while since I played it on the PS4, but on PS4 it has strangely long loading times and weird stuttering. I guess the game is poorly optimized and the PS5 is powerful enough to brute-force its way through whatever causes the stuttering on PS4. It mostly plays well on PS4 aside from the occasional stutter, though, so if you have no other way to play it and don't mind some minor stuttering and the long loading, play it on PS4.

I don't have a PS5 so PS4 it is. I don't mind loads, and I doubt I'll notice stuttering. I seldom notice that screen tearing on PS3 that everyone seems to complain about, and I cannot tell the difference between 30 and 60fps.

[BryanM]

This reminded me of those guro games that were all the rage after the internet was invented. (Also I'm surprised to learn Cho Aniki was an entire franchise.)

Sprung is a game that's not very quality.

Darkseed 2 also goes places. It's kind of a contemptuous sequel to the first game in the Darkseed trilogy. The game's programmer self-inserted himself as the protagonist and actor in the first game (they recast the part in the second one) (and yes, he named the character after himself why were you even wondering), and well. There are theories. "This is art" and nodding your head is really all you can say about its storyline.

The carnival arc is quite a feverdream nightmare. Everyone should know about it.

It's really weird because Mary Skelter proves they could be a good developer if they wanted to, but it's like they actively don't want to be good or something because that's the only thing they made that I have played that's actually got some effort put into it, to the point where I had a hard time believing they actually made it.

They really have a lot of pressure on them just to stay alive. Gotta churn product out as possible and get paid. Difficulty in particular is not what its customers are looking for. (I wasn't expecting Kusoge Dungeon Fucker from Mary Skelter, but was still surprised how gentle it was.)

They're very close to early era mobage card games... and of course their mobile fare can't compete because they release stuff that would only be passable over ten years ago. These days Shadowverse is like the bare minimum standard.. The blood ocean's not a place where you can half-ass anything, not anymore.

Their Monster Monpiece game basically is an old mobage card game, I dunno why they didn't just recycle some assets or something and launch that instead. The curse of clashing interests of whether they're a console developer or a mobile developer, I guess. One can't choose to be both.

.. Well, I mean you literally can choose to be both by launching your game on every single platform under the sun. Especially if you're using Unity since that was the entire point of Unity... but...

[Steven]

I don't have a PS5 so PS4 it is. I don't mind loads, and I doubt I'll notice stuttering. I seldom notice that screen tearing on PS3 that everyone seems to complain about, and I cannot tell the difference between 30 and 60fps.

PS4 Colors: Ultimate is generally good enough right now. There are a few remaining glitches that will probably never get fixed, like a Wisp near the very beginning of Asteroid Coaster Act 1 that is not possible to actually get, but the game-breaking glitches all got fixed from what I can tell. I mentioned it earlier, but I definitely think it's worth mentioning once again before you buy it that Colors absolutely does have some very rough parts. You have 6 Acts per Zone, or 7 on the technicality that bosses have their own separate stages, but with many of the later Acts being quite literally 30 seconds ~ 2 minutes long at most. They clearly decided to add a bunch of these little tiny Acts to lengthen the game, and it causes the game to feel somewhat haphazard and very awkwardly paced.

Also worth mentioning is that like a third to one half of Colors consists of 2D stages or 2D sections in the 3D stages. This in itself is fine, but the controls in these sections are super stiff, and you can't use the d-pad to control Sonic, so the 2D parts can feel very awkward and clunky. I do like Colors, but it took a while to get to that point. Generations is definitely the best 3D Sonic game, but I'll put Colors in a comfortable second place.

I got Sonic Frontiers on PS5 today and it's alright, I guess. One thing that I hate about open world games is that it takes fucking forever to do anything if you are unable to use some sort of fast travel/teleport option for whatever reason, but when you are Sonic the Hedgehog you are your own fast travel system, so that certainly fixes a lot of things! For some reason Sonic can generate infinite amounts of rings by doing something as simple as moving in a circle while holding triangle and then releasing triangle, which makes no sense at all and means you can have max rings whenever you want with no skill or effort, but since being at max rings makes you run significantly faster I am not complaining.

They really have a lot of pressure on them just to stay alive. Gotta churn product out as possible and get paid. Difficulty in particular is not what its customers are looking for. (I wasn't expecting Kusoge Dungeon Fucker from Mary Skelter, but was still surprised how gentle it was.)

They're very close to early era mobage card games... and of course their mobile fare can't compete because they release stuff that would only be passable over ten years ago. These days Shadowverse is like the bare minimum standard.. The blood ocean's not a place where you can half-ass anything, not anymore.

Their Monster Monpiece game basically is an old mobage card game, I dunno why they didn't just recycle some assets or something and launch that instead. The curse of clashing interests of whether they're a console developer or a mobile developer, I guess. One can't choose to be both.

.. Well, I mean you literally can choose to be both by launching your game on every single platform under the sun. Especially if you're using Unity since that was the entire point of Unity... but...

I'd say the remake of Mary Skelter that is on PS4 and Switch is actually pretty close to being a complete pile of shit due to how difficult it is, which is directly caused by how badly designed and unbalanced it is compared to the original Vita game. Try playing that remake on the highest difficulty setting if you haven't. Or, better, don't because it's miserable. There are lots of improvements, but the remake's dungeon design is so much worse and so many things kill you in 1~3 hits even with the best equipment available even on normal difficulty that it just sucks to play.

There is also a weird thing on the PS4 version of the remake where enemies from the last dungeon will spawn in an optional tutorial battle in the first dungeon. Naturally, since they will be faster than you until you are like level 60 or so, you are guaranteed to game over if you start that tutorial when you first have access to it. This was fixed on Switch, fortunately, but I still far prefer the PS4 version since the PS4 version doesn't like to crash like the Switch version does. Both versions of the remake have a really cool and clearly unintentional sequence break, and that sequence break has another sequence break inside it. I rather like this even though you are totally not supposed to be able to do it.

Anyway, yeah, Compile Heart seems to exist to make/outsource a bunch of awful Neptune spinoffs that still somehow keep CH in business despite how bad they are. Still, if you can put in as little effort as possible by outsourcing and then still be able to turn profit on bad games, you're doing pretty damn well as a business. I think CH is very slowly getting better as a developer since I first played one of their games a decade ago or so, but I haven't played anything they've developed or released since the Japanese release of Mary Skelter Finale.

[cfx]

I don't have a PS5 so PS4 it is. I don't mind loads, and I doubt I'll notice stuttering. I seldom notice that screen tearing on PS3 that everyone seems to complain about, and I cannot tell the difference between 30 and 60fps.

PS4 Colors: Ultimate is generally good enough right now. There are a few remaining glitches that will probably never get fixed, like a Wisp near the very beginning of Asteroid Coaster Act 1 that is not possible to actually get, but the game-breaking glitches all got fixed from what I can tell. I mentioned it earlier, but I definitely think it's worth mentioning once again before you buy it that Colors absolutely does have some very rough parts. You have 6 Acts per Zone, or 7 on the technicality that bosses have their own separate stages, but with many of the later Acts being quite literally 30 seconds ~ 2 minutes long at most. They clearly decided to add a bunch of these little tiny Acts to lengthen the game, and it causes the game to feel somewhat haphazard and very awkwardly paced.

I watched a Digital Foundry video on the game, and he talked about these same points with those short stages and how the game is worse off for having them.

Also worth mentioning is that like a third to one half of Colors consists of 2D stages or 2D sections in the 3D stages. This in itself is fine, but the controls in these sections are super stiff, and you can't use the d-pad to control Sonic, so the 2D parts can feel very awkward and clunky. I do like Colors, but it took a while to get to that point. Generations is definitely the best 3D Sonic game, but I'll put Colors in a comfortable second place.

That is unfortunate that there isn't d-pad control but I guess they thought switching back and forth would be weird?

I got Sonic Frontiers on PS5 today and it's alright, I guess. One thing that I hate about open world games is that it takes fucking forever to do anything if you are unable to use some sort of fast travel/teleport option for whatever reason, but when you are Sonic the Hedgehog you are your own fast travel system, so that certainly fixes a lot of things! For some reason Sonic can generate infinite amounts of rings by doing something as simple as moving in a circle while holding triangle and then releasing triangle, which makes no sense at all and means you can have max rings whenever you want with no skill or effort, but since being at max rings makes you run significantly faster I am not complaining.

I dislike open world in general and think it's one of the worst trends in gaming, so this one probably isn't for me.

I'll get Colors and Sonic Mania which I had planned to get but never got around to before.

[null1024]

Man, I saw the words Sonic Adventure 2 sucks while reading through the last page and like, I'm conflicted. SA2 is a game that I will constantly fight for despite its unavoidable flaws, especially when SA1 gets praised over it.
I don't really believe either SA game belongs in this thread; they just feel too high budget all around despite the relentless wonkiness. [edit: honestly, after typing this whole post, this is a lie]

The Sonic/Shadow portions of SA2 control so much better than SA1 Sonic does, although they did try and nerf the spindash too much. Jumps don't feel weirdly floaty in SA2, Sonic seems to follow where you're pointing better, instant lightdash works way better than needing to charge, and apart from the dumb somersault/spindash change, it just feels so much snappier.
There are flaws, but if Sonic Team was capable of actually iterating on what worked instead of doing big sweeping changes each release, SA2 Sonic's control would, at its worst, still be a great starting point.

I'll also admit that the level layouts in SA2 aren't quite as good on average as in SA1 [Final Rush is what I'd say is the best 3D Sonic level in the franchise, but that is only one single level that surpasses all or even most of SA1's], but I can't say they're much worse either. You just don't get the crazy spindash skips you can get in most of SA1, which is a shame, but not a game breaking one.
There's like what, Final Chase as an actively bad Shadow level, and then like, I guess you can argue pretty heavily against Crazy Gadget. The rest are all pretty good.

Unfortunately for SA2, the Tails/Eggman bits are just Gamma but worse [Cosmic Wall is a beautiful example of what the entire campaign should have been like, it is yet another single level that is definitively better than its counterpart playstyle in SA1, but one level doesn't make it suck less as a whole].
Plus, the Knuckles/Rouge bits are just SA1 Knuckles but just worse -- I get that they're way too easy in SA1, but SA2 just makes them tedious; just making the levels bigger and not having the Tikal orbs direct you immediately to the target would have been enough. The layouts are way more interesting in SA2, but the short radar range and it only operating in order is an absurd overcorrection.
also, in general, I don't like talking about Cannon's Core, so I won't

...but I also think like so much of SA1's campaign is just not good and the one saving grace is that unlike SA2, you literally can just not ever do it -- SA1's final fight sucks, so if you really just don't ever want to do Big/Amy/Gamma/whoever, you just don't. If I just want to do Sonic/Tails/Knuckles, I can, and I'll mostly have a blast. The game has a screwier camera, the character handling is worse, you can't skip cutscenes on DC, the non-DC versions of the game are even buggier and while SA2 is full of game design problems, SA1 doesn't quite feel like a final build of anything. SA2, it feels like the game was finished and released as normal, SA1 feels like they threw a build that didn't crash out even on DC, and SADX's additional oddities [why did they make the textures uglier, anyway] don't help.
With SA2, you are forced to do the shit parts. Sonic, Shadow, and Eggman's portions are the best [in descending order of quality], but you still have to do Rouge, Knuckles, and Tails' levels [in descending order of awfulness] if you don't just get an all-clear save and play the levels a la carte, and so much of SA2 just feels much worse when you don't have all of the upgrades, where the game just is missing basic actions [not being able bounce or lightdash from the start sucks so much].

Maybe these really are kusoge, I've spent so many words being like "these games are shit but I still like them".

[cfx]

I can't comment on SA2. I despised SA1 so much there was no way I was going to buy another one. I thought SA1 was mostly horrible, and at that particular point in time I was also really pissed off that 2D platformers that I loved were all being replaced by vastly inferior 3D versions.

I should make it clear that I also do not like Mario 64 at all either, and hold it responsible for killing 2D platfomers given how over-praised it was, everywhere. So I'm in a minority opinion obviously. The only thing worse than 3D platformers that still expect you to somehow do precision jumping like their 2D counterparts (SA1) are collect-a-thons like Mario 64.

I don't see why a high budget should discount something from being kusoge; if anything that just makes it worse. Really low budget games at least have that aspect as an excuse for their kusoge-ness.

[Air Master Burst]

The existence of Chao Gardens alone keeps either Sonic Adventure from being labeled kusoge.

2/3s of SA2 actually makes for a pretty solid game; although I admit that while I always enjoyed the Knuckles/Rouge levels for what they were (killing time while listening to amazing music), they're not everyone's cup of tea.

If you don't like 3D platformers then even something as dope as Rayman 2 won't convince you. Mario 64 blows goats, but I'd never try to label it as kusoge no matter how much I personally hate it, because that's just silly.

ETA: Also, I find it telling that someone in here actually likes the Robotnik stages in SA2 enough to defend them. Personally, I enjoy everything in SA2 EXCEPT the Robotnik/Tails stages.

[cfx]

I had put chao gardens out of my mind. Putting tamagotchi in Sonic was a lousy idea.

Rayman 2 was tolerable compared to others, but you're right, I didn't like it. At least it understood that you can't do precision positioning in 3D so you had the propeller to slow descent to adjust your landing on platforms.

Mario 64 is a terrible game in my opinion, but I wouldn't call anything that's generally popular kusoge.

[null1024]

I don't like Mario 64 terribly much [although, I would NEVER consider it a kusoge despite this], but mostly from a level design perspective. Mario's control is EXTREMELY good, the camera, regardless of how it might seem today, was still better than pretty much every other third person 3D game for the next five years, maybe even more, and even the graphics ended up appealing to me a lot more than a lot of other N64 games, despite being simpler. The framerate is relatively stable, you can see pretty far ahead, it's just a nice package.
Looks great, sounds nice, feels good to play....

...except then I start playing, I'm reminded that I just don't like Mario 64's levels very much, and then I just turn the machine off.
Maybe I'd be more fond of it if I grew up with it, but it wasn't one of the N64 games I had way back when.

On an not-entirely-related 3D platformer note -- when I was younger, I thought Jumping Flash looked like absolute garbage. It looked like a god damn mess to me back in 90s, just a fucking basic looking asspile of polygons and fog.
Years later, I actually play it and like... it's probably the one 3D platformer from before Mario 64's release that I really liked. It's arguably just an FPS with a huge-ass jump, but like, that's alright. I was going to call it a kusoge, but like, it really isn't at all. It's actually good, if still a bit ugly. Hell, I'd say the visuals look better to me nowadays and you could claim it's some kind of stylization instead of just being not good.

Also, I just remembered about Ninpen Manmaru on the Saturn, which I will definitely call a kusoge. The visuals are honestly quite nice for the machine, but mechanically, the game is painful.
The first handful of levels are a really basic affair, with the controls being just barely screwy enough to get in the way of platforming, and there's an absolutely necessary triple jump that you will absolutely not know about if you weren't told/didn't have the manual, since there's no in game indication that the next jump will be different, you just jump higher the third time in a row.
If the game was just a bit awkward to control and easy, it wouldn't be worth mentioning here.

However, by level 3, the game switches gears rather hard to become an aggravatingly tight precision platforming affair, and the controls are absolutely nowhere near good enough for this. The difficulty cools down a bit later on [then ramps up again lol], but good god, the controls are just awful for the kind of platforming it wants.
It's an absolute shame, because the game is quite pretty. Looks just aren't everything.

[edit] changed a few odd pieces of wording that bothered me when I re-read my post

[Air Master Burst]

it's remarkably and probably the one pre-Mario 64 released 3D platformer that I really liked.

Depending on how you stretch the definition I also enjoy Light Crusader, Sonic 3D Blast, and the first Twinsen game.

[BrianC]

Also, I just remembered about Ninpen Manmaru on the Saturn, which I will definitely call a kusoge. The visuals are honestly quite nice for the machine, but mechanically, the game is painful.
The first handful of levels are a really basic affair, with the controls being just barely screwy enough to get in the way of your platforming, and there's a triple jump that you will absolutely not know about if you weren't told/didn't have the manual. If it was a bit awkward to control and easy, it wouldn't be worth mentioning.

Is the anime/manga any better? I like those character designs and it's about a ninja penguin.

[null1024]

Haven't read it or seen the show, so I couldn't tell you. I didn't know much about the franchise, I was recommended the game somewhere, can't remember where, as a possibly neat 3D Saturn game to try out. Just looking up the title, it seems to be more well known for the game on the English speaking internet.
If the controls worked, I'd say it was a fairly basic game, but it'd also be good.

[Steven]

I checked the prices for Big Rigs on ebay and I am amazed that people are asking $650~$2000 USD for this thing. Pricecharting suggests something a bit better, with loose copies going for about $100 and CIB at about $240, but that is still way more money than I am willing to pay.

I watched a Digital Foundry video on the game, and he talked about these same points with those short stages and how the game is worse off for having them.

I don't think I would say that they make the game worse, and some of them are pretty cool, but they definitely don't really make the game better. Apparently these were meant to be optional side missions instead of required levels but they decided to make them regular stages to make the game longer.

That is unfortunate that there isn't d-pad control but I guess they thought switching back and forth would be weird?

Most likely. Using the analog stick in the 2D sections isn't really so bad. The sluggish and awkward control itself is more annoying than using the analog stick, but you can get used to it, and Sonic has a double jump in this game that really helps in the 2D sections.

Unfortunately the double jump and the homing attack are both mapped to your regular jump button, so you will frequently end up using the homing attack when you want to double jump if you are not careful. You can get used to this as well, but it is still annoying and I am amazed that this made it all the way through development and nobody said "this is annoying and needs to be changed".

The Wii controller doesn't really have enough buttons in practical places to give the homing attack its own separate button, but there is no reason why it can't have its own button in Ultimate.

I dislike open world in general and think it's one of the worst trends in gaming, so this one probably isn't for me.

I'll get Colors and Sonic Mania which I had planned to get but never got around to before.

Sonic Mania is like the single best game of the past 2 decades, and the only Sonic game that is better than Mania is 3&K, and even then it's really close. Some of the bosses are not that great, like that annoying Mean Bean Machine boss that takes so fucking long to kill that I typically skip it by quitting right before it and then using level select to get to the next Zone/Act, but aside from that, the game is basically perfect, although it is a bit easy. Forget that every Sonic game that isn't 1, 2, CD, 3&K, and Mania exists and just play those five games since those the only ones you need.

[drauch]

I don't think Big Rigs is actually selling for that, though. IIRC, it's fairly rare, only because it was a trash budget game, hence the unplayability. I'm sure they're just gouging for the notoriety/youtube coverage. I'd say nobody is actually going to pay more than 100 bucks for that, but then again Plumbers Don't Wear Ties sells for hundreds and even got a fucking re-release. Again, presumably catapulted from AVGN. Maybe LRG will re-release it! They seem to be on a roll for re-releasing really shitty games.

[Steven]

Yeah, I have heard Big Rigs was produced in relatively small quantities. At this point I am somewhat surprised that LRG hasn't reissued Big Rigs, provided licensing isn't an issue, as they would probably make a lot of money from such a release. Who knows, maybe they could even port it to Switch. It would fit in very well with all of the other... uh, software that infests the eshop. Hell, Big Rigs probably has better graphics than a lot of the stuff on the eshop.

Speaking of the Switch eshop, in addition to games that everyone knows about like Vroom in the Night Sky, it also has things like Deep Space:Action Fire Sci-Fi Game 2023 Shooter Strike Simulator Alien Death Ultimate Games. Yes, that is its real title. Seems to be a bad and cheap Dead Space ripoff, but in first person, so it's definitely something I kind of hesitantly want to check out.

[BryanM]

Found a recommendation in the conceptual sea of youtube comments: Alpha Protocol.

Apparently there is a Russian mobster boss obsessed with American 80's culture, who quotes Scarface and you fight him while Turn Up The Radio plays in the background. He leaves occasionally to regain his strength by snorting cocaine.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Alpha Protocol is great! As well as the coke-fuelled gangster, there's a butch German lady whose romance path is essentially "be an arsehole to her until she rapes you". It's completely barmy, being bonkers in places while playing some scenes completely straight. Bond/Bourne/Bauer being the three tones of dialogue options can lead to some unintentionally hilarious exchanges. There's also the option to start the game as a complete n00b character which apparently has some silly bonus dialogue options.

Make your character look like a complete douchebag (there's an outstanding array of facial hair, shades and hats), then have fun being as ridiculous as possible in the game.

The cover mechanic is a bit janky but otherwise it plays well as a stealth/action hybrid. There are some seriously overpowered build options which go nicely with the batshit tone of the whole thing.

[XoPachi]

I love Sonic and the Secret Rings. It's only real problem just happened to also permeate the entire game and that's obviously how it controlled. At the dawn of "everything needs motion controls no matter what". Don't get me wrong, the game works fine but it never feels natural or fitting of Sonic at all. Bosses are awful and the game in general can feel claustrophobic and like you're trying to wrangle an unruly ankle biter during a dog walk. But it was a surprisingly complete package with a soundtrack and aesthetic I adore. They even shoved a whole ass Mario Party in the game for no reason. On top of the loads of other content to experience.
Black Knight was horrid but Secret Rings was one I always appreciated for some reason. The locales suit Sonic better to me and the levels were waaay longer. Linear still to be sure, but they weren't literal boxes and blatantly empty plains with dingy colors.

[XoPachi]

Oh yeah! If it wasn't mentioned already, GodHand. That game SUCKS, but it's so fucking funny and frantic.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

What on earth sucks about God Hand lol. It's one of the best games in its genre - some of the best combat in any 3D action game.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

He must have really liked Imagine Party Babyz.

I think God Hand's a good game if you invest the time to learn it, but I actually don't think it's a great game. It has some serious issues. The execution needed to progress is quite daunting so there's little surprise it's not going to have widespread appeal. I also dislike how controls can't be remapped; I would rather attacks be on the shoulder buttons so you can attack without having to move your thumb off the right stick. It's a bit weird moving your thumb from right stick to the face buttons over and over, or having to hold right stick with your thumb and curling your index finger over the face buttons. Mechanically speaking, it's way, way more demanding in terms of skill and execution than Bayonetta is.

But if you can get a handle on the unusual controls and learn the finer points like the universal attacks, duck cancelling, etc, it's really fun. There's just so much flashy stuff you can experiment and creativity to how you setup your attacks. Most of the weird attacks are still super viable and fun.

I also think it needed a 4th difficulty mode that doesn't go to Level Die. Level Die is brutal and drastically changes how enemies react when hit by attack. You basically have to get counterhits to see any exotic effects on your moves once you hit Level Die, and as a result it felt really weird learning to deal with enemies at Level 3 vs Level Die. I'd say make the current Normal difficulty into Hard, make Hard into Very Hard, and create a new Normal difficulty that only goes from Level 1 to Level 3. That way you don't feel suddenly shunted into Level Die and its entirely new rules if you're playing well, and you're not playing on Easy which caps at Level 2.

[XoPachi]

It's difficulty in just surviving doesnt really bug me. I feel like theres worse in that regard.

The controls even when you get used to them never feel natural and its just an uncomfortable game to play at all times. I remember the more I got to grips with it the less comfortable I was playing it. Just because I learned basically it had to be played in an unorthodox manner. Especially hot off the heels of DMC 3, I was not feeling it. The camera didnt help much either though in all fairness the game isnt some kind of platformer where its super important.

For 2006, its just kinda rough especially when stacking it against other action games released in the years prior. Hell, Okami dropped the same year by the same studio and is still incredibly polished though piss easy.
GodHand is still unique and really goddamn funny. You could do way worse on the console but I just never could stay with it past the Mr's.

Roo put it better than I could though.

[Rastan78]

Anyone play Devil's Third and have impressions? Never had a Wii U and now it's stupidly expensive anyway. Always had a feeling it might be decent in spite of the kusoge tier reviews it got.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The controls even when you get used to them never feel natural and its just an uncomfortable game to play at all times.

I'm not sure I'd call it a kusoge because of the controls alone, but on the other hand I agree the controls definitely suck a lot of the fun out, no argument there. I'm in the same boat with Dark Souls, I think it's a lot of fun but I loathe the default controls and took forever to remap them in a way I was finally happy with. The only way to address it with God Hand would be to play in an emulator and remap, which adds input lag (very bad given how quick some attacks come out when you have 3 different dodges you pick from, Elvis's jumping attack on Level Die gives you almost no time to evade), or to somehow use a customizable PS2 controller? Oof.