Videogame genre love (independant of quality)

[sjewkestheloon]

Ok so maybe not entirely independant of quality, but which videogame genres, if any, can you play with a loose critical scope?

I ask this after contemplating my love of RPGs, both C and J, and my ability to play and enjoy many many games that have incredible fundamental issues that, if present in another genre, would stop me playing altogether.

When it comes to third person shooters, racing games or any other action titles, I am very picky and will often ignore highly rated games without a care in the world.

In the last year or so I have played about 330 hours of Star Ocean The Last Hope which is without doubt guilty of many sins. The dialogue, voice acting, plot and pacing is a travesty. The battle system is huge fun but fundamentally broken and many of the end game bosses on higher diifficulties require cheap exploitation of the same stun locking trick over and over for any element of success.

The fact that I can mess about with every piece of equipment and completely taylor it to my needs, as well as take control of every character and carry out pointless arbitrary tasks for no real reward keeps me going. And I plan on playing it through around 2 or 3 times further.

I'm also playing Risen which looks like crap, is filled with glitches, contains no explainations of key factors, is easy to break quest wise and has inept combat. I'm in the final chapter of the game and I'm planning out my next character.

Any input?

[MX7]

Cool topic! It's something I've thought about a lot. Because I generally don't like 3d action games or Doom clones, I tend to be fairly critical of their merits. Which of course has the implication that I'm missing out on a lot of interesting games, an argument I usually counter with "well, I don't have enough time to play them anyway".

But then when I sink hours and hours into an arcade port, I wonder if I'm only doing it out of arcade fetishism, or, worse still, just trying to differentiate myself from other people's tastes. It's a thorny issue, so I generally just blot it out by sticking to what I like.

My favourite release of the last 2 or three years has been Grasshopper Manufacture's Flower, Sun and Rain, a PS2 port on the DS. I devoured the game in a few days, entranced by it's polygon fetish graphics, postmodern asides, it's subtle references to PC point-and-clicks, it's Claude Debussy score and it's narrative structure that, by and large, seemed to be an homage to Bunuel. In short, it was a game that seemed tailor made to reference everything I loved. After finishing it, I read a few reviews, which deemed it average to poor on the whole. Now, I've never been one to take heed of a review, yet I struggled to find anything that shared my point of view. Which lead to me seriously doubting if it was a good game, for it was indeed repetitive, at times deliberately obtuse, and even boring. Now I think back on it, I really don't care. I love every little flaw in the game as much as love every inspired touch, so much so that I actively enjoyed running through harsh empty landscapes for ten minutes at a time. It felt more like 'my' game because of it. I wouldn't be surprised if in around five years or so, English speaking players rediscover FSR, which will delight me, but until then, I can enjoy replaying and reminiscing upon a game that seems like it was constructed to my exacting specifications

[Ed Oscuro]

FPS definitely - those games are eroding my faith in humanity yet I still try all I come across. I really ought to put my foot down and stop getting pissed off by the lack of intelligence or innovation in many of the so-called "best" titles out there. Strangely I go easiest on the games that pretend to be "realistic" though, mainly the war shooty-jobs, even if their stories and mechanics are at times just as fanciful as stuff with portals and low gravity shenanigans and whatnot. Valve and classic iD can (almost) do no wrong though.

[Pirate1019]

RPGs

Rogue Galaxy. That game is so fucking broken that it has no right to exist. Just thinking about how flawed and imbalanced it was makes my blood boil. This is apart from the atrocious story and visuals. Catch? I played the entire thing. Maybe it was because a friend was sitting in on it with me so we could laugh about it, but the game was probably the most painful thing I've ever subjected myself to. I can't imagine doing that to myself if it was any other genre.

I also unconditionally love weird games. Killer7 is an obvious choice, but shit like Chulip too. Both games are riddled with incomprehensible or downright terrible design choices, but I still love both of them to pieces because they're tiny fountains of weirdness in an industry that seems to be stuck in a curling down-spiral of mediocre sameness.

[BulletMagnet]

Rogue Galaxy.

Funny you should mention that one, as I share (to an extent) the ability to ignore the flaws of JRPGs in particular (i.e. I played all the way through Magna Carta 2 recently, despite its overall mediocrity - though if you want to get technical that one was a KRPG). For some reason, though, despite being a fan of the Dark Cloud games, and liking several of RG's characteristics, I just couldn't warm up to it after watching my AI allies die from stupidity almost every battle.

In all honesty, I think in my case it's less a matter of what genre I'm playing but what the specific flaws are - I was able to put up with MC2 in part because my allies were at least semi-reliable, but couldn't stand RG because it screwed up that one particular aspect. I guess it comes down to which low points I'm most willing to ignore and which have me rage-quitting from the word "go".

[Pirate1019]

Rogue Galaxy.

liking several of RG's characteristics.

I can't even make myself like anything about that game. It was such a mess. I could 1-hit kill any enemy in the last dungeon with an all-target ice attack. Even enemies that were essentially constructed from ice. and I never had to stop using it because they dropped items that cured the entire party's SP reserves after every other fight. I also remember some of the materials for the revelation charts had drop rates that would make a WoW player cry. Like 1% drop from an enemy with a 1% encounter rate. It was such a horrible way to cripple player growth.

I still can't believe I finished that...I need to go beat something good as repentance. Maybe Strange Journey, once I get it.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I played through the fucking awful Xenogears last year, which was by far the most traumatizing disappointment in my gaming career. Guess which genre. The game almost killed my affection for Square and my favour towards jRPGs. I can barely believe I keep playing them after this gash of a game. To be fair, I liked some things about it, but none of them was the actual gameplay. I actually preferred the second disc, precisely because it gave me a break from the "gameplay".

[Vexorg]

I'd have to go with Metroidvanias and their ilk. We've been fortunate that most have been at least reasonably good (I could take or leave Castlevania: CotM or Metroid Fusion) but there's just something that makes them semi-mindlessly entertaining to just wander around for a while and find stuff.

[MX7]

Chulip.

This looks really interesting! Cheers!

[Vyxx]

For me, Survival Horror games.

The genre is somewhat misunderstood I think. Back when Capcom released Residetn Evil and somewhat coined the term Survival Horror a new wave of games were born. Sure we had Alone in the Dark on PC and others but when RE came out it was a whole new ball game. Survival Horror games as we know it were born and I feel are sadly dieing now a days. Gamers don't want something creepy and with atmosphere, they want guns and shooting aliens with lasers (not that that's a bad thing I guess, for a different genre though).

Horror games are often heavily critiqued because of "slow pacing" or "clunky controls" and usually "not enough action". We have the same reviewer who gave Call of Duty a 10/10 giving Siren" Blood Curse a 4/10 because he couldn't shoot people the whole time.

Horror games have always been about a deep, rich story, tons of scares, having limited ammo so you actually have to ... you know... survive, not just blow everything away with your M16.

Back on Topic: The Survival Horror genre is one that I feel you can easily look past games with many flaws quite easily. People like me who play these games religiously do so because we love the idea of being creeped out, the adrenaline rush. A game can have horrible controls, bad story, and yet if it has a spooky atmosphere and zombies I'd probably pay $50 for it.

[BIL]

At least with most PS1/PS2-era stuff, I think a tolerance for clunky mechanics is almost a prerequisite for survival horror fans. The only games I still have a real interest in, outside of shooters and other arcade staples, are the earlier Silent Hill games. Awkward controls, flakey combat, functional at best find-a-key game design? All there in spades. But I'd have them all back in a second for another installment as rich in story, audiovisual style and atmosphere as those games.

Outside of that one genre, or rather series, I don't have any such affections for games. Even with shooters/other AC stuff, which I love now more than ever, I try to prune my collection down to stuff I consider the absolute best.

[xris]

Ditto on the survival horror.
A couple of games I've been forgiving of, Bullet Witch, X-Blades, EDF 2017. I only care if it's fun, I can be a little more forgiving than most people.
Keep niche alive!

[No_not_like_Quake]

"Casual" puzzle games involving words, like Puzzwords on XLIG.