Well, to be fair you do eventually get to mix it up a bit by right-clicking to cast spells.
O(o)kami. Everyone and their mom saw it as the next big thing, and I thought it would be too, but it irritated the shit out of me. It was like a parody of everything was supposed to be good about it and the art direction wasn’t THAT amazing.
Also, the Wonderful Life series. Seemed right up my alley, but you can’t be plodding AND pointless, you gotta pick just one.
God of War. I can see where it’s a good game. Really I can. Everyone I know has loved the game. It just never stuck for me.
For those who didn’t like Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, it’s worth noting that it is the absolute worst game of the series. It was essentially an attempt at turning the dashing prince into a gritty action hero (which was the style at the time). Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is a much better game with 90% less butt floss.
Super Mario 64. Everyone considers this the greatest mario game of all time, and talks about how it was revolutionary at the time but is still relevant and fun.
I couldn’t get over the horrible controls, terrible camera, and the fact that there’s a button dedicated to making Mario belly-flop onto the ground, at which point he usually aimlessly slides, often at a slug’s pace and in defiance of all physics until he goes off a cliff or into an enemy.
The level designs were also really uncreative, gimmicky, and boring.
Terrible, terrible game.
Almost every Japanese style RPG.
Every Final Fantasy, all the Dragon Quests, etc…
The only one I ever liked was Chronotrigger.
Final Fantasy X-2. I missed one of the spheres early on, apparently because I didn’t let a cut scene play all the way through or something, and this sphere JUST HAPPENS to be the only one that you can’t get any other way. If you miss it, it’s gone. I don’t have the stomach to start over again and I don’t have the desire toplay the rest of the way through incomplete. Being forced to watch a fucking cut scene? That sucks! I adored VII, VIII, IX, and X. I recently purchased XII but haven’t started it. I wanted to like X-2 in the worst way, but I’m really soured on it.
There another big thing in the game that also changes if there’s a sufficient amount of downtime between certain saves.
The trick to avoid it all, reset the clock on the PS2.
CMC +fnord!
Dance Dance Revolution.
As anyone who’s seen me on various video game-related boards over the years, I’m as huge a fan of music games as you’ll ever encounter. I’ve played them all: Beatmania (both incarnations), Guitar Freaks/Drummania, Taiko Drum Master, In The Groove, Mad Maestro, Pop 'n Music, Guitar Hero, Keyboardmania…hell, I even have that ultra-forgettable, sloppily designed Flow and haven’t thrown it out yet.
I started playing Pump It Up after hemming and hawing and overcoming a mountain of embarrassment because…well, I was tired of listening to the same songs over and over. That’s it. It eventually became one of my favorite games of all time, lasting all the way to Premiere 3. You’d think that the original stepping game would be a sure thing for me, right?
1st/2nd and Club Verison for Dreamcast. Annoying announcer. Choppy graphics. Nonsensical scoring. But fun games nonetheless, with a nice variety of music.
3rd, 4th, Extra, and 5th for Playstation. Slightly improved graphics. Really annoying announcers. Music getting a bit repetitive, especially with 6 notecharts per (9 for extra), and Dive is just plain overrated. But still good games, and I need a break from the way, waaaaay too hard Beatmania IIDX.
Max series. Lots of repeats, getting more and more repetitive. Incredibly obnoxious announcer. Getting tedious going through all the notecharts. Still some good songs.
And then Extreme came along, with an unholy flood of incredibly boring, done-to-death repeats, the announcer not getting any less irritating, some absolutely ridiculous songs (Maxx Unlimited, anyone?), and scroll speed finagling, formerly a rarity, being thrown all over the place. Not a lot of fun.
Supernova was where the bottom fell out. Incredibly tedious, tired, overrated licenses, no creativity whatsoever, nonsensical unlock system, and repeats that I don’t even want to think about anymore. And every Bemani crossover is an overrated, overplayed piece of dreck that doesn’t sound even remotely like dance music (Xepher! Dragon Blade!).
I tried. I tried as hard as humanly possible. But I’m just not getting this once-free and fun game anymore.
Honorable mention to Capcom vs. SNK. One of the most widely anticipated fighting games ever…and we had to have an idiotic “groove point” scoring system, heavy-handed character levels, no individual endings, and next to nothing in terms of rewards. How could a groundbreaker like this be so forgettable?
The only one I ever liked was Skies of Arcadia. I’ve bought a bunch of them and I’m always disappointed.
The Fire Pro Wrestling series. These games are hyped up beyond belief by reviewers and fanboys alike. They constantly get 9.5’s and 10’s for their customization, replayability and old-school charm.
Too bad the controls are so shitty that attempting to play the game results in me getting so mad I want to rip out my pubes.
It’s fairly easy to break the hell out of Final Fantasy Tactics (via prodigious abuse of your second ability slot), but early battles do tend to be a major grind. And even though I tend to be nigh invincible by mid-Chapter Two or so, I still hate the [censored] battle to save Rafa.
Except for FFT, Square-Enix games as a whole have been a disappointment since FF7. I think part of it was that I got older and I couldn’t identify with any of the characters, but none of them had a plot that made a lick of sense. And I hated, hated, HATED the whiny emo teenagers that made up most of the cast. (Why oh why didn’t Payne kill Rikku in her sleep? :P)
Sounds like you might enjoy XII. The teen angst stuff isn’t completely dropped, but it’s dialed way back, in favor of Tactics-like political intrigue.
I came in here expressly to mention Diablo (both I and II).
And Black & White.
And Far Cry, which would have been a great game if it had used a real savegame system.
RR
Every party I ever create for FFT always has one ninja and one monk in it. If the ninja can’t end the fight to save Rafa in the first turn, the monk will.
Wow, I actually managed to find someone who agrees with me. Couldn’t stand that game.
Pretty much all of the Forgotten Realms and/or D&D based RPGs that came out before NWN. I’ve tried them all. I actually got into Baldur’s Gate for a bit. They’re just… not that fun to actually play, in the end.
WoW. This one is sort of silly because I love RPGs, I love MMOs (including EQ and even Vanguard!), I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Warcraft 3 and the WC universe, and I love playing games with other people. I’ve tried to really get into this game a few times now, levelling my own chars up into the 50s, playing a friend’s max level char with his guild for raiding… and, just, no. There’s something about this game that turns what should be a lot of fun into something that’s completely lacking as an enjoyable MMO experience for me, even if I can’t put my finger on it exactly.
I’m glad I have one that hasn’t been mentioned yet.
Resident Evil 4: I played this for about two hours before the mind-!@#$ingly bad controls just got to me. Tank controls? In this day and age? Who could possibly be so stupid to okay that despicable idea? Here’s how the game went for me…
See a mob of crazed townsfolk. Aim, fire, dead. More coming, on the right. Turn. Turn. Turn. WHY IS THIS SO SLOW?! Turn. WHACK WHACK WHACK. Shoot. Dead. See more villagers, too close on my left. Turn. WHACK. Turn. WHACK. Run away (BECAUSE YOU CAN’T SIDESTEP!?!?). Turn. Turn. Turn. Get one shot off because it takes so damn long to turn around. Push Power button.
Honestly, how hard is it to screw up pseudo-FPS controls? You can do better. Playing that game was like playing a game about a character with all the agility of a zombie on stilts. Just like you don’t have to impose arbitrary rules to make a game more challenging (looking at you Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, you stinking pile of turds).
(Yes I am going to try it on the Wii and see if it’s any better. I am that convinced by the misplaced hype.)
For what it’s worth, I know at least two people who much preferred it on the Wii.
Did you try the versions for XBox? I thought they were worlds better than the ones made for Playstation, in regards to the songs and the difficulty.
As for me, all of the Halo games. They should be right up my alley; I love games that you can play with friends and killing people online is something I consider fun and relaxing after a long day of school or work. But I could never get into Halo. I think hearing about it all. day. long. in high school by the fanboys really killed any interest I had in it. Even watching people play it gets a big resounding “meh” from me. Graphics look alright. Story seems decent. I’ve seen better gameplay on other games, though. Plus I don’t have to wade through the sea of gamespeak on my own games.
The only people I know who played the Wii version and still prefered the older version complained that the new controls made it too easy. The general difficulty of the game wasn’t balanced to take the new controls into account. If you found the PS2/GC version to be too difficult to control, the Wii edition would be right up your alley.