My Top 5 Games I Like That Everyone Hates

Every so often a game is released, and for whatever reason that may be, gamers may come to hate it. These games can be objectively bad, a game that was hyped up and ended up being a disappointment, or prerelease trailers and teasers had managed to make fans irate, especially if the game is a sequel or reboot. There are a ton of games out there that gamers generally hate on, but personally, there are some that I actually enjoy playing despite general consensus and judgement on these games, or even despite their flaws. Here, I'm going to list my personal top five games that I enjoy even though everybody seems to hate them. These games are arranged from what I think are from the least to the most controversial. Of course, taste is subjective, so if you don't like some or all of these games, that's fine! We're all entitled to our own opinion, and none of us are any better or worse for having different ones. And as a heads up, there might be some spoilers ahead.

#5 - Super Smash Bros. Brawl

"Wait, Super Smash Bros. Brawl? I thought everyone liked that game?" you may ask. And yea, you'd be right. Brawl recieved universal acclaim upon release, and as of March of this year had sold over 13 million copies, so it's safe to say that Brawl is very well liked to most players. However, Brawl is on the list for a more specific sort of gamer: those that enjoy competitive Smash. While Super Smash Bros. Melee is certainly the most beloved game of the series for competitive play, with popularity for the most recent Wii U game closing in in terms of popularity, a lot of gamers that enjoy watching or playing Smash competitively seem to treat Brawl like an unwanted child. With a lot of changes to gameplay, with tripping being one of the most egregious ones, and questionably balanced characters (there is a reason many Brawl players hate Meta Knight!), the competitive scene deemed Brawl to not be up to snuff as a step forward from Melee. It would take a team of modders to take the game, tear it apart, implement many gameplay features from Melee, improve the gameplay features from Brawl, rebalance and even add characters, and redo or replace most of the stages in order to make the game appeal to competitive players, transforming Brawl into Project M. An impressive feat, to say the least, but even as an ameteur Smash competitor, I still really enjoy vanilla Brawl.

Brawl offered a very good suite of options for multiplayer, lots of new and interesting stages, a lot of new characters to play as, and the introduction of Final Smash attacks. Notable character additions are Zero Suit Samus, the Pokemon Trainer who used Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard, Lucas from the Japanese-only Mother 3, and Pit from the long-dormant Kid Icarus series, which gained a surge of popularity thanks to Brawl and would get a long-awaited sequel, Kid Icarus Uprising, on the 3DS. Oh, and of course, Solid Snake and Sonic the Hedgehog joined the roster as well, making them the first third party characters to appear in Smash! One of Brawl's biggest features, however, was The Subspace Emissary, an awesome sidescrolling action-adventure featuring nearly the entire Brawl roster, enemies both familiar and original, and a rather straightforward story with many awesome moments. Project M may be the choice for competitive players, but I still find Brawl a lot of fun to play.

#4 - Syndicate

I was actually considering putting Dead Space 3 here, but after looking through my old trophies and seeing this on my list of games I've played in the past, I decided to give 2012's Syndicate the nod instead. I remember looking forward to this game when I saw previews, since I like cyberpunk settings, and Starbreeze Studios was developing the game, the same team that made the awesome Chronicles of Riddick games. However, knowing about Syndicate's heritage as a top-down isometric real-time strategy game, I knew fans of the original games would hate this FPS reboot simply on the basis of the game being an FPS reboot... and maybe that Electronic Arts was publishing the game. Eventually, I found myself to be correct on my assumptions; the game recieved mixed to positive reviews, but sold fairly poorly.

Although the main campaign's story wasn't really anything to write home about, most of the weapons were fairly standard, the co-op multiplayer only had nine missions, there was no competitive multiplayer, and there was no post-launch content, I rather liked this reboot. Your character has the ability to hack objects and even enemies, forcing them to either misfire their weapon, fight their allies, or straight up commit suicide, which I felt added some uniqueness in a rather derivative genre. There were also boss fights in the single player! In a modern FPS! I still wish that there are more boss fights in FPS games nowadays. The co-op missions actually had a decent amount of length to them and provided a good challenge, especially on the harder difficulties. Each character in co-op also had a class - Medic, Assault, Spec-Ops, and Generic - each with their own abilities, and each class played an important role in completing missions. You could also upgrade your character in single player and co-op as you progressed, and weapons could be researched and upgraded in co-op, as well. I think Starbreeze did a pretty good job with the Syndicate reboot, and personally, I consider this game a little underrated. I recommend giving it a shot if you are looking for an FPS with a cyberpunk flavor to it.

#3 - Super Paper Mario

Super Paper Mario is a game I don't understand why it gets so much hate. It seems that wherever this game is brought up, it almost always gets put down, often by fans of the previous two games. The Paper Mario games succeeded the SNES classic Super Mario RPG as the RPG spinoffs for the Mario franchise (alongside the later Mario & Luigi games, which would eventually cross over with Paper Mario). The N64 original and the GameCube sequel, The Thousand-Year Door, were both great games in their own right and are beloved by their fans, but starting with the Wii's Super Paper Mario, this series began to experiment quite a bit with gameplay. Since Sticker Star and the upcoming Color Splash returned to the standard turn-based RPG combat, Super Paper Mario stands out as a black sheep of sorts.

Super Paper Mario has a rather unique blend of traditional platforming akin to the original Super Mario Bros. series with some RPG elements, such as HP and EXP (which is cleverly incorporated as "Score", like the classic sidescrolling Mario games). You can play as Mario, Peach, Bowser, and Luigi, with each character having their own strengths and a unique special ability. While the partner system of the previous Paper Mario games was removed, you do get some assistance from Pixls, which are little floating sprites that give your characters special abilities to progress through the game, like grabbing and throwing objects, becoming a bomb, and transforming into a moving platform. One of the most notable gameplay features is Mario's ability to "flip" dimensions from a 2D to 3D environment, as seen in the above photo. This allows the player to find things they couldn't in 2D mode, such as pathways to move forward, enemy weaknesses, and hidden items. As for the story, it's pretty standard fare: Mario and company must collect the Pure Hearts to prevent the villain, Count Bleck, from destroying the universe. However, the game has some really good moments that are awesome, funny, and sad. In fact, Count Bleck's backstory is rather tragic, and makes him a rather sympathetic character once you get to know him more. Overall, Super Paper Mario is a great game that's definitely worth getting for your Wii game collection. I appreciated the unique gamplay features this game offered, as well as offer hours upon hours of content. Unfortunately, even though it got high praise from critics, fans just don't like this game, and I'm baffled as to why that is. Was it the gameplay? The story? The difficulty? Apparantly, some Paper Mario fans have come around to liking this entry... though from what I've heard Sticker Star is rather maligned amonst the fandom, with Color Splash looking to upset them further. While I've yet to play Sticker Star, I'll hold my judgement until I try for myself.

#2 - DmC: Devil May Cry

Oh boy, now things are getting brutal. The Devil May Cry games (except for 2, for good reason) were some of the finest action games of their time, and the original Devil May Cry pioneered the modern "hack and slash" genre of games that would later be joined by the likes of Ninja Gaiden, God of War, and Bayonetta, to name a few. Dante, the badass red-clad white-haired half-human, half-demon son of Sparda would become an iconic character in gaming. After Devil May Cry 4, fans (myself included) were waiting for the next entry with bated breath, and in 2010, the next Devil May Cry game was teased. But wait! What's this?! It's wasn't sequel to DMC4, but a continuity reboot! Dante looked like a grungy punk with black hair! And he smoked! And the entire feel of the trailer was edgy! And it was being developed by Ninja Theory! Of course, fans went into a huge hate-filled frenzy over this reboot in a backlash the likes I've never seen before (aside from the #1 entry of this list...), with most of the hate being towards the new, redesigned Dante, or "Donte" as some would call him. However, I felt it was too early to pass judgement on the new DMC... or DmC as it would later be called, and just kept an eye out on new information on the game. A few years pass, and DmC: Devil May Cry finally comes out. The game generally recieved positive reviews from critics, but the game still didn't bode well with fans. I went into the game with no real negative preconceptions, and you know what? I thought the game was great!

While the original Dante is one of my all time favorite video game characters, DmC's Dante is actually a pretty good character that has developed well by the end of the game. In fact, DmC's Dante has some development parallels with the original Dante from Devil May Cry 3; both start out as a selfish jackass (though in DmC's case, certainly more hedonistic), but grows to embrace their heritage and powers and takes responsibility for defending humanity at the end of their games. Dante's development is a major focal point in DmC's story, which in itself is pretty solid, though there is one forgone conclusion for any Devil May Cry veterans out there. The gameplay is still as slick and stylish as ever, with some interesting changes. As you progress though the game, Dante's sword, Rebellion, will gain transformations into different weapons to suit the situation, coming in Demonic types for sheer power and Angelic types for crowd control. By simply holding down one of the triggers, Rebellion transforms into the Demonic or Angelic weapon of your choosing, allowing for some interesting combo play. As with past games, stylish combat earns you a higher score, which earns you more currency to buy abilities, moves, and items, and it still works rather well here. The only problem I had with combat was the lack of a lock-on system, but the rereleased Definitive Edition for current gen consoles added this into the game. The art style of the game is rather surreal and unnerving at times, and technically looks fairly good. The only issue I had was that colors were a bit too intense in some settings. Almost all of the gameplay takes place in Limbo, which is a dimension parallel from the human world and is manipulated by demons. The level design isn't too bad, but having most of the game take place on floating platforms over endless abysses can get dull at times, and the levels are rather linear aside from the odd side area that has hidden items and challenge rooms. However, there are moments where the levels change shape in order to impede Dante's progress or straight up attempt to kill him, which I felt was kinda neat. Overall, I thought DmC: Devil May Cry was a lot of fun to play, and that people that dismissed this game were really missing out. I highly recommend getting the Definitive Edition if you can, as it adds new features and content on top of the original release and it's DLC expansion where you play as Vergil. I do hope that this continuity gets a sequel, but for now it seems uncertain if we'll get more DMC for the time being, whether it's the original timline or the reboot's. For those that really do think DmC is the worst Devil May Cry game ever made... have you even played Devil May Cry 2?

#1 - Metroid: Other M

Yes, I went there. I actually like Metroid: Other M. Now, before you come up with creative ways to berate me, I just want to state this: I like Other M enough to think that it's a decent game, and I certainly think it's the weakest game in the Metroid series. However, despite the flaws, I thought Other M was alright. Anyways, let's turn the clock back to E3 2009, when this game was revealed to the public for the first time. Fans were super pumped for the follow-up to Retro Studio's awesome Metroid Prime trilogy, and were looking forward to what the Project M team (consisting of devs from Nintendo, Team Ninja, and D-Rockets) would bring to the table. We were told that there was more of an emphasis on story and what kind of person Samus Aran is, as well as witness the fate of Adam Malkovich, an person of importance to Samus referred many times in Metroid Fusion (and would end up playing a major post-humous role). The game would also incorporate the same engine used in Ninja Gaiden, which would make for some flashy combat seqences, including some melee combat moves which would be a first for the franchise. There was a lot of excitement for this game... and then, in late 2010, Other M came out. Recieving some mixed reviews, some critics and many fans were not happy, to say the least, with many aspects of the game. Samus' characterization, the sub-par voice acting, the authorization system for unlocking weapons and abilities, and Samus' relationship with Adam were heavily criticized, and Other M was deemed as one of the most disappointing games of 2010.

Now, after recently replaying this game to confirm how I felt about it, I can agree that there are some concerning flaws to this game. Samus' voice acting was mostly very flat and emotionally detached. While this is seen as cool in Japan, over here in the west this sort of personality is seen far less favorably; it made Samus' English voice actress in this game, Jessica Martin, seem like she was disinterested in her role to me. The authorization system I also had some issues with. When Samus joins Adam and his platoon, she agrees to follow his orders and to keep her equipment and abilities locked until they are deemed necessary. From a story standpoint, it did make sense to lock away most of Samus' abilities in order to prevent damage to the Bottle Ship research station the game takes place on. But why lock her defensive and mobility upgrades, like her Space Jump, the Speed Booster, or the Gravity Feature (yes, unlike the Gravity Suit in other games, the "feature" is a purple aura that activates in water and high gravity areas)? The authorizations to use upgrades usually come at a time where you either can't progress any further or if Samus is in danger, with the most egregious example of this being her Varia Feature. Going into Sector 3 with a lot of high heat areas that slowly drain your health? Nah, you'll manage, Adam will just wait until you face the area's boss. There's also the instance with the Power Bombs, where you get them unlocked to do the finishing blow to a boss... but not get any notification that you unlocked them. On my first playthrough of the game years ago, I was puzzled about what to do until I found that I had the Power Bombs unlocked when I had the game paused! How convenient. Oh, speaking of convenience, there are no item pickups, either. While you can replenish missiles any time by using a "concentration" mechanic where you hold the Wii remote straight up and hold the A button, you can't replenish your health at all. The only way to do this is to make it to a save station or be at near death state, where you run out of health and are just barely alive, and use concentration to replenish emergency health. While basically having unlimited missiles is fine, having no health pickups can be really inconvenient and dangerous at times. There are also some moments that require you to scan an object in first-person mode. While most of these are fairly painless, there are a couple of instances where one can be finding a certain small or hard to see object for several minutes, which can be frustrating the first time around. As for the story itself, I thought it was just ok, but there were a couple of glaring issues. There is a subplot with a character Samus called "the Deleter". He was a member of Adam's platoon that was actually an assassin sent by the Galactic Federation to cover up what was going on in the Bottle Ship by killing his squad mates and any survivors on the ship. However, in an offscreen scene, he gets killed, and the story never explicity states who the Deleter was, leaving the player to assume it was the particular character we find in the spot he died later in the game. Also, Samus never gets a chance to finish the game's main conflicts. The aforementioned Deleter was one of them. How about Ridley? Nope, he gets taken out by something much bigger and nastier than him. What about the Bottle Ship's top secret area which holds the Galactic Federation's most hidden and dangerous bits of research? Taken care of by Adam, which was his last, noble sacrifice. Dealing with the big bad of the game? Federation soldiers take care of it. It makes for some really anticlimatic and disappointing moments.

But other than that, I actually kinda liked playing this game. In terms of the gameplay itself, while it is rather linear compared to most other Metroid games, it plays more like an action game akin to Ninja Gaiden or Devil May Cry, minus any scoring system for stylish combat or anything like that. What's impressive is that the game is only played using the Wii remote with no attachments, and it still feels pretty good to actually play. While jumping, shooting, and transforming into the Morph Ball are the norm, dodging attacks is as easy as a well-timed double tap of the d-pad. In order to fire missiles, you need to point the remote at the screen, which switches you into a first-person view similar to Metroid Prime. This not only allows you to fire missiles, but allows you to manually aim your beam shots. While this makes you vulnerable, since you can't move, missiles and super missiles are quite powerful in Other M, so it's an acceptable balance in my opinion. The difficulty of the game is just right; it isn't really that hard, but it will kick your ass if you sleep on it. And there's a hard mode if you finish the game and collect every powerup, and completing it is one hell of a feat, as all the collectable upgrades have been removed; no energy, missile, charge, or emergency health upgrades! Just 99 health, 10 missiles, and a lot of deadly enemies, including many that can kill you in one attack later in the game! The game also looks quite nice. While not as good-looking as the Metroid Prime games artistically, on a technical level it's actually quite good looking, and I consider Other M to be one of the better-looking Wii games. There are also a couple of neat touches that allude to this game's sequel, Metroid Fusion. Ridley is ultimately seen in a frozen, energy-drained state near the end of the game, and the Nightmare boss that became "that one boss" in Fusion is left in pieces after he is defeated in Other M. Later in the game, though, both Ridley and the Nightmare disappear, being taken by the Federation, which leads to their appearance in Fusion. A neat touch, I must say. And while there is a lot of vitrol about Samus and Adam's relationship, I felt that it was misunderstood. Samus had looked up to and greatly respected Adam in the past, and had a rather unique, if not unusual, friendship. While Adam does treat her less than favorably upon their reunion, they both reconcile before Adam goes on to make his sacrifice. Before he does this, Samus pleads for him to stay, and I can understand why she does this. Having lost so much in the past, including her parents when she was young and many comrades and friends in the Federation, including Adam's younger brother Ian in an incident years ago, and her former squadmate Anthony, who was thrown into the lava of the Blast Furnace by Ridley earlier in the game, losing her last good friend would be a lot to bear. And then there is the scene with Ridley. She is stunned to see him yet again, and we see a flashback of sorts to when Samus was a child when she had her first fateful encounter with him. I can imagine she had some thoughts about Ridley both up to this point and in past encounters, so I wasn't too bothered by this scene as most others... though having her react this way after facing off against Ridley and defeating him five times in the past is rather unusual. I can get what Metroid co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto was attempting to do with Samus: she's a badass, and she still is in this game. But she's still human, and shows care and compassion towards the few friends she has. Apparantly, this characterization was meant to appeal to the Japanese audience, but ultimately, because of rather flawed writing and presentation, the Japanese weren't that impressed, and everywhere else the game ended up bombing in sales, and gained much ire from fans. And sadly, aside from the new spinoff title Federation Force that came out very recently, we've yet to see a new Metroid game starring our favorite space-faring bounty hunter. Sakamoto himself has left the Metroid franchise, as well, wanting to take on new challenges and ideas, so with him gone and Metroid's other co-creator, the great Gunpei Yokoi, lost to us almost twenty years ago, Metroid's future seems uncertain. It's a shame, really, but while Other M is quite flawed, I still think it's not as terrible as everyone makes it out to be. Copies of the game should be quite cheap nowadays, so if you find a copy, pick it up and give it a shot. At best, you just might like Other M enough to think it's alright, and at worst, you'll only have spent about ten bucks or so.

And there you have it! Do you agree or disagree with my list? Have any games that you like yourself that everyone seems to dislike? Feel free to leave a comment, and thank you for checking out my post! Hopefully, I'll be making more stuff on this blog sooner than later. Hell, I just may flip the theme of this list around! Take it easy, and have a good one!