Have you ever bought a game, expecting it to be bad? How did it turn out?

So, after a long line of American attempts to breathe new life into Japanese classics, from Operation Racoon City to Silent Hill, I've found myself actually purchasing one instead of staying the f*** away.

That game is Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z. Don't look at me like that, the special edition is launch-only! And, and, it comes with a new bikini for Momiji in DoA5 Ultimate!!

But seriously? The game actually doesn't deserve quite the bashing it's receiving right now. I mean yes, it's "not a Ninja Gaiden game," but it's branded as Yaiba in the first place. Ninja Gaiden is in the subtitle, and that fits the game well. What I think redeems the game is that it actually succeeds in being different. This isn't a God of War rip-off like Dante's Inferno or Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (or like Spark Unlimited's other game, Lost Planet 3 ripping off Dead Space,) and this isn't trying to copy Ninja Gaiden apart from its combo inputs. While it isn't as good as the series that spawned it, and quite frankly I see it as more of a beat-'em-up with action game controls, it performs well, looks great, something that the other western-Japanese collaborations tend to lack, and is a ton of button-mashy dumb fun, and sometimes that's all you need.

It's also got a pretty great sense of humour delivered in enemy intros, attack names and through Miss Monday (the person who made Yaiba a cyborg) speaking through comms and enemy descriptions, and Yaiba's backstory is actually pretty clever and fits with the universe, the LE comic has a smart idea too (although it forgets to wrap up or connect a couple plot threads.) Basically, Yaiba had a sacred weapon known as the Tempest Blade, and Ryu, being from a clan that tries to keep sacred and occult stuff under wraps (like the Dark Dragon Blade) went out to recover the weapon and, if need be, kill the one wielding it. He ended up breaking it in the process, rendering its powers useless (think of DMC's Force Edge or Lightning Returns' Crimson Blitz) and it was renamed the Heartless Blade because of Yaiba's actions with it. The comic shows Yaiba's early days and how he once tricked a Hayabusa village girl into giving him a piggyback ride across the River Styx (or whatever the Japanese equivalent is) because those who have sinned cannot see nor touch the bridge there. He leaves her stranded on top of a cliff on the other side, saying that Ryu will come to save her, but can he see the bridge, for are his sins, no matter how good-intentioned, not as bad as Yaiba's? The final image shows Ryu looking at an expanse of water.

It's got a lot of swearing and there's some gross stuff (one of the game's elemental effects, yes it has an elemental weakness system, is bile. I'm not joking) but it's more like a Suda51 game in terms of maturity than something like DmC that seemed to have a fetish for absolutely vile shit.

I want to see what Spark Unlimited does next, without Comcept's assistance (I'm not even clear on what they were responsible for, but I figure it's a relationship similar to the one between Castlevania and Kojima Productions, but just in case, I want to see Spark stand on their own.)

Oh, and I wanna give a shout out to Double Helix for making Strider. That's a game that is not getting enough attention right now.


So how about you guys? Have you ever bought a game, expecting it to be poor, and for what reason, and how did it turn out in the end?

Bullet Witch.

Heavenly Sword.

It was mediocre.

I bought Metroid: Other M for $10 at Gamestop. I expected horrible things since I found it for so cheap but it really isn't that bad. The story is not the best in the world, and there are times where you stop and have to scan a certain object until you can move, but overall the game was okay. I think it was worth more than $10.

Yaiba is Techmo and Comcept, though... no real Western blood in there.

The Stanley's Parable.

Had some good laughs.

I could name tons of games like this as I buy a lot of games I expect to be terrible, but it's those low expectations that make me end up liking the game even if it DOES turn out terrible for everyone else (go figure).

One game I expected to be terrible but turned out AMAZING though? Nier. I'll admit it's an acquired taste but Oh. my. GOD. Did I ever love that game from start to finish (and that includes all endings.)

And ugly-yet-burly adult Nier Gestalt trying to save his daughter is 100 times more interesting than younger emo-looking Nier Replicant. F*** all the haters. To me, the bond between father and daughter serves as a far stronger motivator than brother and sister.

BlazingFiddlesticks wrote:

Yaiba is Techmo and Comcept, though... no real Western blood in there.

Read my post more closely, you should notice that I mentioned Spark Unlimited, the primary developers, several times (they're in California.) As far as we're aware, Comcept's involvement was primarily Inafune creating character designs. That may be why Yaiba, the character, has such a good backstory. The game's sense of humour is definitely very American, I'd reckon that they're responsible for the writing beyond Inafune's concept work, rather than the usual Tecmo localizers.

Tenshigami wrote:

ugly-yet-burly adult Nier Gestalt trying to save his daughter is 100 times more interesting than younger emo-looking Nier Replicant. F*** all the haters. To me, the bond between father and daughter serves as a far stronger motivator than brother and sister.

No offense, but that's a really stupid argument. You can't really compare saving one life over another. There's no reason for either game to be limited to one console or region beyond Square-Enix's failure to understand its western fanbase. Even if they brought over both, if you don't like pretty-boy Replicant, there'd be the gaijin-approved version for your consumption.

Tenshigami wrote:

One game I expected to be terrible but turned out AMAZING though? Nier. I'll admit it's an acquired taste but Oh. my. GOD. Did I ever love that game from start to finish (and that includes all endings.)

And ugly-yet-burly adult Nier Gestalt trying to save his daughter is 100 times more interesting than younger emo-looking Nier Replicant. F*** all the haters. To me, the bond between father and daughter serves as a far stronger motivator than brother and sister.

Tenshi, you are amazing for playing Nier. But kind of hard to think that you thought it was bad at first.

@Taiyz: In my experience with both video games and Anime, the brother saving sister theme is a pretty common theme and version of the "saving dear people" story. Nier giving this time the Father and Daughter dynamic was quite unique and different, and it felt a lot stronger than the Bro and Sis version.

I think it has to do with the Father and Daughter dynamic actually being used, and done pretty well, for an action RPG in the PS3/360/Wii era, where everything is so...barren now.

On-topic: I tend to buy my games knowing I would enjoy them. I usually get the opposite case. But if I have to pick one, I am guessing Star Wars Force Unleashed for the PSP> I had a pretty spanking enjoyable time with that game.

Well, no wonder, Spark is down their after all.

DylDawg wrote:

On-topic: I tend to buy my games knowing I would enjoy them. I usually get the opposite case. But if I have to pick one, I am guessing Star Wars Force Unleashed for the PSP> I had a pretty spanking enjoyable time with that game.

I can second this. I don't know if Krome got to make a better game because they weren't worried about LucasArts graphical showcasing, but aside from a little bit with the camera and quick-time events the game was fun.

Well some time back, I was looking at 360 games and I came across Fable 2. At that point, I had already played Fable 3 and came away disappointed with it. From the reviews I'd seen on 2, I wasn't expecting anything like the first game, so I pretty much went in with the mindset that it'll be boring/bland like 3. And well...to me, it wasn't as bad as 3.

It had the childhood prelude that 3 was missing and the ending to it was just as emotional as the prelude to 1's had been. Theresa had a much more central role in the story than in 3 and the music was damn good. Elements were halfassed but no where near to the levels of 3 and I actually came away from that game more satisfied than I thought I would.

DylDawg wrote:

Tenshi, you are amazing for playing Nier. But kind of hard to think that you thought it was bad at first.

I didn't. I thought it was GOING to be bad or mediocre at best before I even played it, but I bought it when it first came out anyway. And boy was it worth it (and I don't even like overly depressing plots, usually).

DylDawg wrote:

@Taiyz: In my experience with both video games and Anime, the brother saving sister theme is a pretty common theme and version of the "saving dear people" story. Nier giving this time the Father and Daughter dynamic was quite unique and different, and it felt a lot stronger than the Bro and Sis version.

This is what I meant. I never said a brother couldn't be that hellbent on saving the life of his sister no matter the cost.

I mean I don't really know how teenage Nier actually acts as I haven't experienced that version of the story, but the mindset of a teenager and his sister is just a completely different dynamic that makes it somewhat harder to imagine Nier being quite so selfless about it.

Whereas father-Nier's mindset is "Yonah and only Yonah. My life doesn't matter in the slightest aside from the fact that if I die then there will be no one left to save her." It hasn't just become a cause for him to fight for, it's pretty much become his very reason for existence. A brother-sister dynamic could get this strong as well, sure, but the father-daughter dynamic seems far less contrived to me.

Then there's also the whole fact that he looks a lot less ridiculous carrying a sword bigger than he is because he actually has some muscle to speak of - even if that muscle still wouldn't be enough in real life. (And of course the mask. The mask would make anyone look ridiculous.)



There are a number of other games I thought were going to be terrible that weren't but most of the ones I can think of at the moment I only thought I would hate because my taste in games at the time had narrowed down to JRPGS and JRPGS only. I remember trying Ratchet & Clank for instance on a whim several years ago, thinking I was going to hate it, and it's now one of my favorite game series.

Another game that came to mind last night is Vampire Rain. To this day I have no recollection of why I bought it, I think there was a demo and I played it on a whim, but the game got absolutely horrible reviews. I wouldn't say it's a great game, but it's competent, has some unique "current-gen" stealth game mechanics (like being able to shoot the locks off of doors to break into places, without the locks being obvious giant cartoony things) and the cutscenes are totally in the style of the CG Appleseed movies and Vexille. It was also kind of neat that it actually punished you severely for fucking up. This is a stealth game where you're hiding from vampires and if you're seen they run over to you with superhuman speed and tear you apart in seconds. Obviously this can get very frustrating, and that's why it's not particularly great.

BlazingFiddlesticks wrote:

DylDawg wrote:

On-topic: I tend to buy my games knowing I would enjoy them. I usually get the opposite case. But if I have to pick one, I am guessing Star Wars Force Unleashed for the PSP> I had a pretty spanking enjoyable time with that game.

I can second this.  I don't know if Krome got to make a better game because they weren't worried about LucasArts graphical showcasing, but aside from a little bit with the camera and quick-time events the game was fun.

Krome's just a good company in general. Also, they had apparently shutdown but now they're back in action after a couple years! It's a shame that they haven't continued the Game Room service, it was basically an Intellivision, Atari and Arcade game Virtual Console for the 360 and PC.

FFXIII-2 was a damn sight better than I was expecting to be honest, off the back of FFXIII being a horrid, broken mess of poor design, incomprehensible writing choices and unlikeable characters. The sequel manages to recapture a bit of the series charm 13 utterly did away with.

And while we're on the subject of kick the monster's ass then they join you games, here's one FFXIII-2 cloned wholesale on that front; TOS2. I only played it first in the Chronicles re-release and was honestly expecting it to be an affront to my senses based on what I had heard about it, but it was just flawed and generally inoffensive. It was actually mildly enjoyable despite its problems.

1. Pokemon Channel. I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, it still isn't much of a game by any right, but it was cute and fun and I enjoyed it.

2. Sonic R. Blew my mind. I thought it was going to suck ass, and I was really really impressed. The game doesn't have much depth or even that many tracks for that matter, but it was just really fun and the music's amazing and the gameplay was interesting enough to keep me playing for all the chaos emeralds. For me, Sonic R is the ultimate game for proving how important your expectations are when it comes to playing games.

Sonic R definitely wasn't bad. It has such a bad reputation because of its visuals but it's pretty fun and different from your usual racing fare. It also makes more sense for the franchise than Sega All-Stars Racing, Sonic in a car and all that.

This really ties into the Sonic franchise thread going on right now. A lot of Sonic fans are waaaay too judgmental (Abicion bringing up the werehog is a great example.) The Sonic Cycle image is funny, sure, but it's a total dead horse. I'd rather have Sega experiment and end up with the occasional shitfest than settling for "average/exactly what I expected" time and time again like Nintendo, because the payoff is usually worth it.