Recently, we here at GamerSushi were having an intense email fistfight discussion and Final Fantasy X-2 came up. You might remember that one as the Girl Power edition, with three female protaganists who change their class by changing clothes in the middle of battle. The tone was also much more light-hearted and irreverent than its predecessor, Final Fantasy X.
Because of this, a lot of people judged a game by it’s cover and thought it was pure crap. I, having played the game, defended it, especially its fast-paced battle system, which paved the way for Final Fantasy XIII’s hyper fighting. Needless to say, no one believed me, chalking it up to my Final Fantasy fanboyishness. Thankfully, Eddy looked it up on Metacritic and discovered it had an average rating of 85. Ah, vindication, my old friend.
Which leads me to ask: what games have you heard or assumed were bad and then later found out they were pretty awesome? For me, I think that Saints Row was one of them. I mistook it for a cheap GTA-clone, but it surpassed it in terms of sheer fun for me. What about you guys?
Um, I’d have to say the big ones were Oblivion and Iron Man.
Oblivion I had thought I wouldn’t have so much fun with, because I was told it was a pretty intense RPG, and I don’t really fair well with those, but it was pretty fun when my friend Ty sat me down and had me play it. I remember flying around with Enemies Explode and walking into the basement of a church full of ghosts.
And Iron Man had horrible ratings, but it was pretty worth while.
Well, as you well know I often complain about cheesyness or fantasy driven stuff, but I finally (get it) caved about 2 years ago and Played FFVIII (I think? The one with Squall). And man, it was such a great experience.
So, that was an entire series, that really surprised me. Had a lot of fun, but still haven’t played any of them since then.
Quite a few, actually. My tops would be psychonauts and the world ends with you. Both outstanding games that I judged to be mediocre by their covers.
Oh how wrong I was.
Yay! FFX-2! I really liked that game too. Now, let’s get started:
Oh God, I still can’t believe this but… Fallout 3! I thought that VATS would ruin the combat but, thankfully I researched it more and ended up finding a spectacular post-apocalyptic gem. Let’s see, what else? Oh, here are more WTFs: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (looks like Tomb Raider with a dude. It’ll never be as good as Tomb Raider), WarioWare Inc. (5 second bite size bits of games? Dumbest. Idea. Ever.) and Shadow of the Collosus (16 enemies? Where’s the fun in that? Pah!).
I’ll admit, my judgement can be off at times. I dread to think when you’ll do a feature on the games we thought would be good turning out bad.
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…Oh God, I still can’t believe this but… Fallout 3! I thought that VATS would ruin the combat…[/quote]
Actually, my friend and I had the same belief!
But I ended up finding out that it actually added more of the RPG element than just doing all the work for you.
Definitely AC2. I disliked the first one, but after seeing so many great reviews, especially the one by Mitch, i decided to play it, and it was awesome. Probably the best game i played last year.
I haven’t been surprised by a game in a while because I do a lot of research before spending money on a game, but I have been pleasantly surprised in the past. For the most part, games like Fallout 3, Assassin’s Creed, and other titles that did in fact get at least pretty good reviews were even better for me because they took me by surprise with their awesomeness.
But the main game that surprised me was Golden Sun. I literally walked into the game store one day, saw the cover, read the back, looked at the screenshots, and decided “Wow, this looks pretty cool!” As soon as I start playing, I’m impressed with the graphics, gameplay, and story. GS-1 proved to be a fantastic RPG, and easily the best RPG on the GBA. It was fun, epic, and intriguing, and if you guys haven’t gotten it, GET IT NAAAOOOW. There’s also a sequel, Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age, which is awesome because it feels similar but has quite a few new features.