Games you have a love-hate relationship with

[Cash In 23,503]

Pretty sure we all have that one game which we love but also manages to get on our nerves.

For me, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Love the game and I have hundreds of hours on it, but losing a good run has to be one of the most aggravating things in the world. 

[Flutterstep 47,373]

Call of Duty and Battlefield. Both games have the potential to be amazing, but they always trip up.

[The Recherche 29,983]

Honestly? Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. Granted, the love half of this relationship is much more prominent... but there are instances which I can get terribly distraught with it. Be it online lagginess, certain spirit battles, the spaminess of certain characters, a few of the Classic Mode paths, how much of my overall time it devours, etc..

The fact that I main Ken, Olimar, and Bayonetta certainly doesn't help.

[Passion 3,490]

osu!

...

I HATELOVE THIS GAME.

It's like, it gives you immense satisfaction to finally beat or perfect that one map, but it is literally the most stressful experience I have ever had. Honestly, with each combo rise, especially if beat is fast and beatmap long, I can feel the pressure rising, because the further you are in the map, the more sore the feeling of making a mistake and missing a beat.

It, is, horrible. I am certain the stress from osu! shortened my lifespan more than my work have by now. I never have to take a break from my work to catch a breath and clear my mind. I do have to do it with osu!

It's a purely masochistic game.

[Iris Flower 255]

Every Dark Souls game and The Walking Dead first season. I got legit angry at the Dark Souls games the harder they got yet they are so beautiful and rich with lore. With TWD season 1, the story really got to me (especially the ending) and it made me feel everything is doomed. However, if a game can make me feel powerful emotions then I give it high regards.

[ExplosionMare 28,955]

- Super Mario 64- I like hunting for stars and stuff at my own pace but there are way too many ways to slide off a cliff and die in the worlds.

- FNAF 4- I love and hate the atmosphere at the same time. I really like the concept of chasing off Nightmares in a child’s bedroom, but I don’t like how you have to listen for sound in the quietest game ever.

 

[Odyssey 5,721]

The first Crash Bandicoot, I guess. I like the difficulty at times, it always feels great to collect a gem or unlock a secret path. The music is still good, and I love the atmosphere in all of the levels. But the requirements to collect coloured gems/keys can be really unfair, the save system is awful and some of the levels come off as really cheap with how hard they can be.

And oh my gosh crash's 3d model looks so fucking ugly, i'm glad they subtly changed it in the second game

[Here No Longer 5,290]

Paladins: Champions of the Realm. I really like the game, but Evil Mojo knows how to ruin it for me and everyone else... Also, the community can be rather toxic. Nothing like Overwatch's, but it can still get pretty bad.

[Denim&Venöm 22,100]

The WWE Smackdown vs. Raw series.

Up until '09 it had very detailed character creation. Make anyone you want and they'd look amazing. More than a few OCs were conceptualized there.

Up until '08 it had a kick ass ost. And until '07 had great season campaigns and General Manager modes. 

Matches were fast paced arcade affairs before later games slowed things down in a more realistic Sim mode. 

You can see the pattern. Little by little, features were cut in favor of repetitive 'career modes', short story modes, rewind modes based on past shows, and boosts in the graphics. Now it's little different than the madden games, the changes being mostly cosmetic year to year. 

 Haven't bought a new game in 8 years. 

[Oleks 2,003]

GTA V. I love how fun and diverse it is, but here's the thing: I hate cars and can't really drive, even in video games. Even worse with planes and helicopters. It didn't stop me from completing the main storyline though.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 42,208]

Where to begin with this...

Dark Souls 3: A game that has so many good aspects and tweaks to the Dark Souls gameplay that work well, but the game has so many little issues that I could never fully escape in my two playthroughs. Enemies far too often move extremely fast and sporadically, making it feel like Bloodborne but with the slower Dark Souls framework, which doesn't mix. I also didn't like the world of DS3 as much as DS1. No doubt, DS3 has some absolutely beautiful designs and vistas, but everything just felt...weird. Like a conflict of design. As good looking as some places are, there aren't many places in DS3 that were very memorable for me, whereas DS1 has areas I will always remember. That is not to say DS1 is perfect by any means, I have a love/hate relationship issue with that game too, but that is only after a certain point in the latter half, whereas DS3 has little issues throughout.

Dynasty Warriors, all of them: I love me a good hack n slasher game. They are mindless as hell, but they can be fun in short bursts. However, even as a fan of these games, I cannot ever deny the issues that always plague these titles and how these issues are never fixed. Cheap A.I. at times, dying resulting in a game over (something only a few games are now addressing) and simply put, not enough customization. Something these games could very well benefit from is taking aspects from these loot style games. These games need to try implementing far more ways to customize our experience. This could be through gear, many different weapons and customization, just something more to give the gameplay more purpose. There are some games like this that have dabbled with the concepts, but not enough.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: The gameplay is rock solid. The amount of characters and stages is downright staggering and the game overall is still fun to play. However, I have more issues with this game than I think most people do. Mainly, World of Light. In my opinion, World of Light and the spirits system as well, both suck, a lot. World of Light is nothing more than a nostalgia bait-fest that is insanely repetitive and way too long. Sure it has tons of clever references to other games, but that is all they are, references. Stuff to make you go "I get it." and not much else. Not to mention most of these fights are gimmicky and downright annoying. All for a 'plot' that any 4 year old to come up with and do it BETTER. The spirits too are irritating. While I still like the collection aspect, Spirits boil down to numbers. Getting the strongest spirits you can get for the highest numbers and this is vital if you want to stand a chance in World of Light. This combined with tons of spirits that do identical things, it makes them seem far less valuable than the awesome trophies from Melee. It is a classic case of quantity versus quality.

Grand Theft Auto V: I love the game's world, I love the graphics, the vehicles, driving around, the first person mode, the immersion the game can offer, but even with all of this, the game feels like wasted potential. First though, I hated the story. I hate the characters, the missions are okay, but the reasons for doing them I simply did not care about any of it. The characters are so unlikable that I could never become invested and Trevor, while the favorite of many, is the one I hated most. He is the perfect example of a total tryhard character and I couldn't stand him. I also am tired of Rockstar games taking place in the US. The US isn't the entire goddamn world, do something different. Also in these games because of their aging sense of humor, we get all this 'America' humor. I don't need constant reminders of how much this country is a crock of shit, I get those reminders every day just by living here. It has gotten old in these games. I also just wish there was more to do in the world. While the game has some mini games and such, I actually wish this was expanded upon. Like being able to be a truck driver or something, just more little things to give us options of how to experience the world. I also hate how all updates for the game are only for the online mode, an online mode I simply do not enjoy. It feels like these updates only serve to keep driving those microtransaction sales and nothing else. Wouldn't mind some big paid expansions or something, those could add more activities to the base game like I said above.

I'll probably have more to add here once I think of them.

[Soundwave 28,558]

Call of Duty, I'm one of those weirdos who play these games for their campaign, so when it sucks it feels like a huge waste, and with the exception of Infinite Warfare(which had the best campaign since Black Ops 1), most since the PS4/One generation started have been average(WWII, AW) to outright abysmal(Ghosts, BO3), and seeing BO4 drop it completely makes me wonder if the series is gonna start phasing it out. Thankfully the backlash to lack of SP in BO3 was enough for Activision to confirm that the next game will have one, but since it's, well, Activision, they aren't exactly the most trustworthy publishers(to put it lightly)

Also gonna echo Kyoshi on Dynsasty Warriors, I loved 3-5 on the PS2 but since the 7th gen they've been....really lackluster, notably 6 and 7 were really mediocre. I thought they finally got their luster back with DW8(which imo, the best since DW3, which is still my favorite), they hit their lowest low with DW9, trying to chase a trend that doesn't work with their style if game, and the game suffered immensely for it. I'm already seeing it hitting clearance bins quicker than any other DW game and now I'm seriously worried for the series. The fact that they decided to bring 8 over 9 to the Switch is even more telling

[joanro 247]

I would say Dead by Daylight for sure. And fighting games in general. There's a sort of frustration out of trying to "get good" in a fighting game, only to realize that you will always be a "casual scrub" at it. I guess I am okay with that.

[Envy 6,529]

There are two I can think of off the top of my head:

Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Aside from one issue that will be mentioned later my issues with the game are purely my own and not something I'd put on an objective level. Those issues are that I just straight-up don't like violence, hurting people, and seeing dead bodies everywhere. I get no fun out of that. But otherwise I loved the game. I love the setting, the massive open world, the combat (if only it weren't involving people), etc., etc. After playing Odyssey and Breath of the Wild, for sure any game I play that calls itself an adventure game and does not have an open world will feel archaic and I won't like it.

Now as for the other thing which I think objectively takes away from the game... It happened in the DLC and it's a spoiler. It's a well-known controversy, so anyone can Google it if they wish.

The Sims 4 - Before last year, I wouldn't have said there was anything at all to even love about this game. And no matter what there really isn't any getting around the fact that the base game really does absolutely nothing special (or good) to really set itself apart from its predecessors. After playing I discovered there are little refinements that are nice, but nothing big. On top of that, the base-game (and ultimately the whole game) takes a major step back from The Sims 3 by no longer being open world. The game fakes a partial open world by segmenting the (tiny, very tiny) 'worlds' into little sections so you seem to have a little open area around that expands beyond the active lot... But even that is fake, because there is still only one actually open lot at a time. Even the lots that are in the radius of the "open" area are closed. With The Sims 3's open world, I am used to multitasking my Sims, no matter where they are in the world. The Sims 4 took that away. In fact, the game even has a lovely little glitch that if you send a Sim away while another is at work or school, the Sim at work/school will come home early and be docked for it. Terrible, terrible. Did I mention that the neighborhoods are tiny? They are infinitesimally small. For the Get To Work EP, they released a world that literally had like... four whole lots to build on. That is all. Wow.

What did the game do that made me actually give it a chance? It was Seasons. EA hit my weak spot with Seasons. Everyone probably knows I love winter, and one thing that I felt like was never given the attention to detail in the previous The Sims games was winter. Of course both The Sims 2 and 3 focused on snow very well, and they did it better than The Sims 4. The problem is along with bare trees and frozen ponds, that's all of the effort they put into winter in The Sims 2 and 3. EA completely and totally surprised me when they put actual attention to detail in The Sims 4 of all things. I did not expect it. They pulled the rug out from under me and I was in such a tizzy I actually had to buy Seasons and play it for myself. In The Sims 4, they actually put attention to other details about winter - the terrain changes, plants that are not just trees change with the winter.

This sounds incredibly shallow of me. I don't even care.

Another thing that they did in The Sims 4 pretty early on (IIRC, I didn't play the game at all back then), was add gender identity and expression options. I wish they could have done that in The Sims 3. But in the era of TS3 all they did was make fun of transgender people in their ads and I didn't take kindly to that. Not that this makes EA good or anything, but adding that officially in the game is significant for so many reasons and I applaud them for that.

There is one other thing that I appreciate and that's that The Sims 4 runs so smoothly on my PC (the known out-of-my-control glitches aside) and that is amazing. Because even with my stupid PC being built to run The Sims 3 + all Packs at max settings with minimal lag it still doesn't even achieve that with The Sims 3. The Sims 4 runs so smoothly that I find it hard to believe I'm running it on a PC and not a console.

Curse The Sims 4 for having anything good about it. I hate it, hate it, hate it. lol

Edited February 27, 2019 by Envy

[Will Guide 21,378]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series especially Rescue and Explorers. A fine example of Enjoy the Story, Skip the Gameplay.

Love the story that unfolds, especially in Explorers with the final scenes before the end credits.

Hate the traps and Monster Houses that appear in later dungeons,likely kill me and Continuing is Painful here.

Because of the points I hate, I was never able to experience more stories that unfold after the end credits with my own two eyes

[DixonTheAdversary 1,638]

Motorstorm. I love to play it, but if I'm legitimately trying to win, I get pissed over the littlest things.

[Here No Longer 5,290]

I'm very sorry to say this, but Pokémon Gold and Silver. I understand these games are loved by the Pokémon community as a whole, but I can't get behind the difficulty curve being all over the place. Some parts of the game are FAR too easy (Fourth and Fifth gyms), while others are painfully difficult and require way more grinding than they really should (Elite Four). Not to mention, THAT FREAKING MILTANK!  (That actually isn't that bad if you trade for the Machop in Goldenrod). The game's difficulty issues really make it a pain to play sometimes.

 

[BritishBrony2012 921]

Spyro games, I enjoyed the games and like some characters but do stuggle and get frustrate specially at speedways and mini-games.

[Early Sunsets 2,112]

Zelda: Majora's Mask comes to mind. It was one of my favorites as a kid, but I always had trouble with the three day thing. I beat it eventually and loved it, but I never went back to replay it.

Pokémon Fire Red. I loved playing it as a kid, but grinding my Pokémons' levels up was torture. It's that way with every Pokémon game, Fire Red is just the one I played the most growing up.

MechWarrior Online is another. It's a fun game, but the complete lack of teamwork makes it impossible to win. That, and it hardly feels like a MechWarrior game.

[The Historian 518]

Mega Man 1 to 6 on the NES/Famicom. I love the original Mega Man games. Excellent platforming action, but they are relentlessly difficult. I love to try them again and again, but I find myself stopping because I'm pissed at the damn games. The same thing holds true for Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden. Super great games but the difficulty is punishingly infuriating.

[Prometheus 3,043]

Metal Gear Solid V for definite. While graphically and gameplay-wise it's brilliant, the story in comparison to the other Metal Gear games is just a complete disappointment. Plus, having to complete missions that are carbon copies of previous missions in the second half of the game is just lazy in my opinion.

[Twisted Cyclone 🚓 6,299]

Definitely Call of Duty but from Ghosts on to the newer ones. The older Call of Dutys were great

[Windseeker 546]

I absolutely despise Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 for its unit overspecialization, resource management, and ridiculously OP 'win from the couch' super weapons and support powers.

Yet for some reason, maybe out of nostalgia, I will enjoy playing it every now and then.

[Lucky Bolt 35,271]

There isn't really any video game I have a love-hate relationship with. I just don't play video games so there's that.

[SparklingSwirls 21,609]

Overcooked 2 comes to mind, it starts out as fun and silly but getting three stars on all the levels is insanely difficult.