Your Favorite B-Games

These are games which you would never rate as a 9/10 or 10/10 objectively, maybe not even 8/10... but you still like them.

For me:

• Valis series — Horrendous, unforgiving, precision gameplay. Yet, the characters, artwork, and plot are still charming.
• Iron Seed — the gameplay is unbalanced and impossibly-difficult to the point where the easiest way to win fights is to just fly away from your enemies as far as possible, making them spontaneously explode. Yet, the hard-sci-fi feel, the transhumanist elements (the party lives as consciousnesses stored in "ego-synth" fluid on a self-sufficient space ship), and the way that aliens feel truly alien makes this a memorable game.
• DB Quest — The title actually stands for "Dungeon Basement Quest." This was an old "RPG" for MS-DOS that had some... technical issues, to say the least. Only one savegame could be active at a time, so if you wanted to restart the game, you had to delete and then reinstall the game. It also had a pre-set way of going through the plot, and if you strayed from it, you would get killed from Beef Gate s. Yet, this game also let you get an extremely large party with tactical-"RPG"-like gameplay, and it was fun to try to find and exploit all the bugs to become totally invincible.

I have plenty, but the one at the top of the list is Lost Magic. I've ranted repeatedly on this very forum about how much the time limit is retarded, how the AI pathfinding is horrendous, how the plot is cliche, how the characters are bland, how the balance is laughable, how the graphics are overly simple, how the control is wonky, how the... Well you get the idea.

But the spellcasting is amazing. Seriously, nothing like it has ever been made in any other game ever. Drawing runes then linking them together to form unique spells is just jaw-dropping in execution. Not just finding out which spells to cast in which situation, but how you cast them. Do you take your time and carefully draw out each rune to maximize the spell's power, or do you just blow your mana on repeat casts? Not even Magicka comes close to the versatility and complexity of your repertoire. But it's still easy to pick up and play. Wow.

Time Splitters too. At least the second game, the third being a pure 10/10. The AI bots blatantly don't act anything like an actually player, using dodge moves you can't and recoiling when they are hit and whatnot. But it's still tons of stupid fun to load up a deathmatch and go to town on them.

R-Type Leo. Not a "true" R-Type game but it's pretty neat anyway.

White Knight Chronicles: Worst story ever in a JRPG, and possibly any kind of RPG, and yet the ridiculous grindfest is strangely addicting. Plus I love the avatar

Dynasty Warriors series: I think this goes more for how other people see the game, but either way... yeah, it's incredibly repetitive, you can win any battle by just rushing the enemy commander, and it has some terrible voice acting, and yet I keep buying every DW sequel that comes out. Just not the Xtreme Legends or Empires games, although I did buy one.

Oneechanbara. Hot Chicks and mindless beatemup action.

edited 17th Mar '11 11:15:23 AM by Schitzo

Future Tactics: The Uprising.

Flawed as Hell, but cratering the landscape is good stuff. Also, the plot's fairly unusual for a strategy title.

edited 17th Mar '11 11:29:53 AM by Charlatan

This post was thumped by the Shillelagh of Whackingness

Wolfenstein: Not the best Castle Wolfenstein game, but it's still somewhat enjoyable. Just wish that you didn't have to scour for stuff so much...

Quake IV: Not really similar to previous Quake games, but it is still awesome because of it's story, the setting, and other related aspects.

Unreal II The Awakening: Not really good when you look at it as an Unreal game...but still good when you look at it as a First-Person Shooter.

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit: It certainly has its flaws (no DLC for PC versions at all, lot of emphasis on drifting, Burnout-style gameplay...) and while I might prefer TDU2 over this, it's still enjoyable and it's perhaps the closest thing to classic NFS you can get.

edited 17th Mar '11 1:28:37 PM by RocketDude

[cosigns with Schitzo]

Dark Spire. Ruthlessly hardcore dungeon crawler that seems to be lacking many accessibility features of a modern day RPG, but still gets down to the basics of "You're a group of adventurers in a dungeon, go figure how to ascend". Plus, the game has a great sense of humor.

Eternal Eyes. J-tactics game with a ludicrously complex spellcasting system, a Guide Dang It! system for class-ups, a Hero Unit who's The Load much of the time, and a story so generic I think the developers found it in a plain white box... but something about it and its monster designs compels me.

Also, The Legend Of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon. I didn't even like the first game in this subseries, and I thought even the GBA version of the second game—which is generally regarded as excellent on its own merits—was just kinda OK-ish. But I totally dig this game, and have played it twice to completion. I don't totally get it myself.

Hmm: I prefer a 5 point system. Also a bit hard as most of my lesser games were bought REALLY cheep (waiting a few years ho!) and that effects my thoughts on them.

• Dark Messiah: Awesome combat that is still fun many times through with a decent character progression system, but nothing else at all going for it. Worth the 5 bucks.
• Star Wars Battlefront 2 is nothing exceptional, but has its fun. Also worth the 5 bucks.
• Mount And Blade (Vanilla, some mods, like 1866, are a lot higher): Fun combat and interesting premise, but the rest of the game doesn't really let you d anything (lack of a story leaves only random quests or the horribly broken attempting to take over the world thing)

edited 17th Mar '11 10:55:42 PM by deuxhero

Holy cow, I can't believe I only just remembered Amazing Island.

It is the corniest thing, but damn if making monsters isn't addicting. The card battle game you can play with the GBA Link is pretty fun, too.

Somehow this looks like the "unpopular opinion" threads. As in, there are entries, I wouldn't have expected here.

Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest. There's just something weirdly appealing about it, despite the repetitive gameplay and odd choice in graphical style. Seventh Cross: Evolution is in the same boat in terms of weird, repetitive gameplay and with less charm. Deliciously corny once you get to the story towards the end of the game, though.

Lost In Shadow is a more recent one; yeah, it's a total rip-off of the ICO aesthetic to the point that some of the more blatant references made me set the Wiimote down and laugh, and yeah the controls can be kinda fiddly, but damn if it ain't an enjoyable romp.

I'm probably gonna get flamed for this, but... Sonic Heroes. The story is terrible, the dialogue makes me cringe every time I hear it, and it's more than a little buggy...but still actually pretty fun to play.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2006: Worst Sonic game ever made. Yet the narm, Glitches, DAN GREEN and Let's Play made out of it are fun and/or funny.

Big Rigs: The Plan 9 From Outer Space of videogames.

I'd say sonic unleashed for me but for a specific point, I liked the dark stages more than the daytime stages. I don't know but once I'd figured out how to do the combos and such, it really was very enjoyable, especially when I had to collect all those dang coins which was incredibly easier in the dark stages (at least if you knew where to look).

Captain America And The Avengers. Almost as close to X Men Arcade in terms of Narm content.

I... CAN'T MOVE!

edited 22nd Mar '11 1:30:29 PM by Schitzo

Front Mission Evolved

Lame bosses. Lackluster voice-acting. Really predictable Cliché Storm of a plot...

And yet it is just so. much. fun.

I may get some flak for this but Wild Arms 4, mostly due to me enjoying the 3rd one so much that it somewhat disappointed by comparison.

The gameplay by itself is fun and I wouldn't even consider it bad...if not for the story. Far too anvilicious to be taken that seriously and some very strange character designs:

• "My special power is CRYING! I am also an extremely plot relevant character!"
• "My special power is being a Barrier Maiden! I also go blind near the endgame for very little plot importance!"
• Moral of game: "Remember kids! You are better than your parents. Also, war is bad. But self-defence murder is A-Okay and not traumatic in the slightest!"

...And then there's that Crazy Awesome, Norio Wakamoto voiced Gawn. (spoiler)

Don't get me wrong. I recommend it and enjoyed playing it. But the story is Narm Charm at best.

EDIT: Also, if I was "pretty confident with everything from the neck up", I wouldn't use that line.

Also, also, how do you have a throw-away boss wearing a freaking jetpack and an ANTI-TANK CHAINSAW?! He should've been the final boss!

edited 22nd Mar '11 3:06:58 PM by NiftyLostKite

[cosigns with Schitzo AGAIN]

While I think the Avengers game was a decent game (my brother and I always looked forward to going to the laundromat to play it because it was the only arcade game in my town), I'm still never going to forgot Whirlwind's immortal "YOU WILL BE THE ONE ESCAPING!" line. It sounded like there was only one guy doing the voices for every character.

(imitating Game!Avengers!Mandarin) "SEEEEE MYYYY POWAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Hmm? A thread I haven't mentioned Gotcha Force in? Blasphemy!

Heee. I really wouldn't consider Gotcha Force a B-Game. Really, the only bad thing about it is the voice acting. DEAR GOD THE VOICE ACTING AHHHHHHHHH

By almost all means, it is a top notch game.

Personally, the graphics are a bit childish, but I like that. I know its the number one thing that turns my friends off of it.

You know, the more I think about it, the only thing the game has going for it is the premise and gameplay. Story was a bit lacking. Still probably my favourite game of all time.