Have you ever played and enjoyed a game a lot while still considering it a ‘bad’ game? Calling a game bad is pretty subjective, of course. Games are art and it’s a little hard to define art as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ most of the time. It mainly comes down to preference. Not including games that are completely broken though. Not sure you can call a game that crashes or breaks every two seconds ‘good’, after all. But those aren’t the games I want to talk about in this post! Rather I wanted to discuss the kinds of games you might see the flaws and cracks in but still enjoy it anyways.

I’ve always found it weird how some people seem to feel like if they enjoy a game that game has to be perfect. There really isn’t anything wrong with enjoying a game and recognizing said game’s short comings. For example, one of my top games of last year was No More Heroes 3, a very flawed game technically but one I still absolutely loved. The game’s issues mainly came from performance. Especially in the over world! The game had trouble loading things properly and it just looked really bad when traveling around. Luckily, the performance issues did not extend to the combat! The game ran super smooth and looked great when it came to the fighting. Which is arguably the most important part of the game for No More Heroes 3. Now I should say I’m a big fan of the No More Heroes series in general, so the story played a very big part in my enjoyment of the game as well. That’s where it really shined apart from the fun and flashy combat! As such, it’s a little hard for me to say the game is ‘good’. I’d say it’s great if you’re a fan of the series already! But if not this entry won’t do anything for you. And honestly? That’s okay! I can accept that most people won’t be into the game. I can say that the over world is not good and does drag down the overall experience. But at the same time, I still love the game! It was one of the few games released last year that I was sad when I finished it because I wanted more.

Another very interesting example of this is one I feel like a lot of people will agree with me on. And that’s with the original Nier. Most people know Nier now for it’s sequel, Nier: Automata. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the remaster that was recently released for the original, I don’t think most people knew Automata was a sequel at all. And that’s probably because the original Nier was not a good game. The combat was super repetitive and got stale fast, and the world wasn’t exactly good looking and often felt rather devoid of life despite being so open. The combat being super repetitive is a big problem by the way! Mostly because the game has about 5 different endings, meaning even if the combat was good you would still be replaying the same sections over and over again. However, despite this, a lot of people were extremely excited when a sequel was announced. Myself included! Especially since it was also announced that Platinum Games, best known for making games with awesome game play like Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising, would be handling the game play this time around. This is because the developers of the original game understood what worked and what didn’t work about it. The thing that people loved about the original Nier, as well as the sequel, was the story and characters. Those aspects were so good in fact that they carried me and a lot of people through the boring game play to get all those endings… And guess what? Automata ended up being an absolutely amazing game! In all aspects this time around. 2B, the main character of Automata, has since become an iconic character in gaming history even. And all of that wouldn’t have happened if people weren’t vocal or willing to accept that they can enjoy games despite not enjoying every part of them.

Discussions like this can really help us understand what makes games good. Being able to look objectively at the games you love and accept their short comings is important for helping the game industry grow after all. We can learn from our mistakes. Also, there really isn’t anything wrong with enjoying something that someone else hates. I adore the Dark Souls series but completely understand why others hate them. Like wise, I’ve never been a fan of sports games or more hardcore military shooters but I wouldn’t call them bad games or look down on others for enjoying them.

I just wish we could talk about all aspects of the games we love without it turning into an argument about whether or not the game is really that good or not…

But those are just my thoughts! What are some of yours? Are there any games you love that others consider ‘bad’? Are there any games that you consider ‘bad’ that others love? Feel free to let me know!

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