Now I'm not talking about bad as in completely soulless and creatively bankrupt games like Gollum or (insert zombie survival asset flip here) but more like the games that promised the world but missed their mark massively and became commercial failures.
Tomb raider angel of darkness widely known as what killed the franchise and Core design for me is actually a really enjoyable and completely absurd experience. The game has a fever dream like quality to it that i find quite mysterious and alluring. I sense an attempt at an immersive sim but eidos didn't seem interested in letting the team finish it.
Sonic 06. I can't explain it but it has an allure i can't quite explain. On all fronts its bad but I can't stop thinking about it. With better controls this game could have been a lot better than it was.
Operation winback on the ps2. Brilliant game, my favourite third person shooter with a really high skill ceiling its just fun to master. Subtitles are in comic sans which means its perfect.
Drakengard. The monotonous gameplay and ear grating music amplify the games core themes and the general madness as the story unfolds.
Goldeneye rogue agent. An odd one considering the era had no shortage of brilliant bond games yet this one seemed to ensare me more than others.
Ff14 1.0. 1000 polygon flower pot need i say more? I really want to have some private server snapshot of this game to play because it just doesn't look real.
Haze. Thematically quite an interesting game but executed very poorly, the game that killed free radical and why timesplitters will never come back.
Alone in the dark 2008. Its a stupid game filled to the brim with such brazen stupid I can't help but adore it. It's definitely unique I'll give it that.
Two worlds 1 and 2. Honestly somehow my favourite RPGs there's something deeply wrong with me.
So these are the most notable bad games I enjoy. Anyone else got any?
I don't think a game needs to be a good as a game to be a good game
The most recent example of this for me was Rule of Rose, a cult classic survival horror PS2 game I played recently. It's a really clunky example of the genre and you can tell it was made by a team with not much experience in making such a game while also running out of time and money. It's combat is downright awful at times and exploring its sparse environments is very repetitive. Still, the game's story, characters, music and overall aesthetics were compelling enough that I happily played through the entire game.
I looked up discussions about the game and I saw several people express the opinion that the game should be remade as a modern walking simulator or visual novel type experience to keep the story and cut out the jank, but to me the survival horror was the hook that made me interested in the first place