Gaming Guilty Pleasure.

I feel like I'm going to have to say this before someone comes and tell me otherwise (mainly because of what a friend said once). I'm not getting behind the idea there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure, so don't try to stop me on this one. This is a topic where you come to say the games you enjoy, despite the lingering thought in the back of your head telling you that you should know better. Whenever it's enjoying a game despite being aware of just how lacking it is or maybe you enjoy a game has some taboo or controversial element to it.

I really only have two here.

*Project X Zone.
This will need to be explained. I actually did import Namco X Capcom back in 2005, mostly because of Stahn & Rutee from Tales of Destiny making an appearance in the game. Once I got far into the game, I realize once the novelty of the crossover wears off, it wasn't a good game. Battle skirmishes drags on, the game's obsessions with calling in reenforcements, having to load each attacking setups and also having to tediously watch each enemy unit beat up whatever unit they decide to attack, even if the attack looks underwhelming. I lost my patience with the game that I have a hard time finishing it because of the design of the game. For that reason, when this game was announced, I resisted it as much as I can. I wasn't going to be tricked into it by Tales characters like I was Namco X Capcom, yet I mentally screamed the F word in my head when I saw the Sakura Wars characters (since I actually got done going through the 5 main games in late 2011, not long before this game was announced). Of course, if the game wasn't localized, I could easily avoid it since I don't have a proper 3DS to import it. Not only that, finding Namco X Capcom lacking was a big reason why I did not go bugging Harada about localizing Project X Zone. But because I'm a tool, I bought the game when it was announced to be localized.

While battles have been streamlined and not waste so much time, I still see some of the same problems in Project X Zone that I did in Namco X Capcom. I still don't find it to be a particularly good game. However, I'll have to admit that, I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would, especially considering I found Namco X Capcom to be a lacking game & not fun to play. Though, I only find it good for one playthrough. Not to mention, I feel like I would have enjoyed it less if I didn't know who most of these characters are. Nonetheless, I find it better enough that I was able to put this game under my guilty pleasure list, even if I still don't think it's a particularly good game.
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*Resident Evil 6.
Oh boy, here it comes. I've heard it all with this game. It's a bastardization of the franchise, it's not a real survival horror game (nonetheless a survival horror game period), it's a Call of Duty wannabe, it's not scary, and it's a train wreck. I gather the reception being a polarizing installment but another sounds like it's a train wreck. Even I have some criticism with the game (a big one in the design of having an identity crisis).

That being said, I still actually enjoy it. Maybe this is just me this year deciding to play the Steam version of the game, or being into the game's rendition of Mercenaries mode. Lately, I've been getting myself playing this some more than I previously did. But whatever the answer is, I have come to accept the game as a guilty pleasure.
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So, what do you consider your gaming guilty pleasures?

Let me see... MegaMan X8, Quest 64, Age of Empires (Original), Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories (Game Boy Advance version, naturally!), Pokemon Battle Revolution, and perhaps more topically relevant, Symphonia 2.

Personally, I'm rather fond of the Tony Hawk Underground games fer PS2. Wonder Project J: Kikai no Shōnen Pīno is a fun cute lil game I adore. Oh and I actually like that skiing minigame from Ape Escape 1!


Also Guardian's Crusade fer PS1 ftw. Yeah I said it.

BlazingFiddlesticks wrote:

Quest 64

I commend you on this.

You enjoy RE6 because you're a reasonable person. People don't want Resident Evil, they want zombies and hallways. Resident Evil has always been about BIOHAZARDS like the Japanese title, not just zombies, unless people forgot about all the crows, dogs, sharks and plants in RE1, and the Hunters and Lickers and Tyrants which are various BOWs in the sequels.

If anything I feel like Resident Evil started to develop its identity only once RE4 came out and we finally left traditional zombies behind for a while. Resident Evil has always been about cool characters being badass against crazy mutated monsters. Resident Evil 6 has all this and more.

It's by no means perfect, the co-op was far less interactive than RE5 (pretty much all you do in RE6 is revive each other, otherwise you're fine on your own, sharing tablets via proximity was very finicky) and the combat system needed some work, but it was a really unique game if you took advantage of the quickshots and melee attacks and didn't play it like a cover shooter (which you can, but you don't have to, but people do, and complain, because they're bitches.)

It just has additional stuff on top of the great mechanics of RE4 and RE5.


I'd even go so far as to say that survival horror is a dead genre. I look at all these games that get YouTubers excited and they're all walking simulators with jump scares and minor puzzle elements (Slender, Amnesia, Outlast, P.T.) and hell Five Nights at Freddy's is basically a spiritual successor to Night Trap, you sit in a chair, watch events unfold and block enemies at the right time using various contingencies.

You want to turn Resident Evil into that? f*** off internet, I want to suplex a parasite-infested cultist; I'd better still get to see RE7.



I don't really feel guilty about the games I play. I find that most games I enjoy that go against the mainstream, I enjoy mostly because I play around with mechanics that the mainstream never seems to really acknowledge, either due to the game being poor at explaining itself, like Sonic Lost World or Oneechanbara, or due to people taking everything at face value and not experimenting to find hidden combos and stuff, which honestly is a big thing for anything with action game inspiration (Dragon's Dogma has some Devil May Cry-style combos that require you to stagger your inputs, one is even directly from DMC4, and they're all unlisted, Resident Evil 6 has a bunch of unique quickshot combos like with Leon's VP70s and Helena's Hydra, and even some dodge moves that most people don't know about. Even Hyrule Warriors' combat system is deeper than most people realize, and that's a popular game, because the movelist only tells you to press Y and occasionally stem off into X button combos, but Link for example has a combo that's like Y Y X Y Y Y X that is pretty much straight out of DMC, you get an air combo and a helm breaker.)

People who call action games "button mashers" make my brain hurt. I mean yes, you can beat the game by mashing, doing awesome combos isn't really necessary to do better as long as you can dodge right between your shitty low-ranking combos, but I honestly don't understand how somebody can be satisfied with constant bronze/silver medals and c/b ranks.

Playing primarily Japanese games in the past eight so years puts you against the mainstream by default- the Japanese keeping the arcade mentality alive being one reason, yes.

Heck, as far as tinkering when no one asks for it, I've mentioned Godzilla Domination on the GBA in the past- every monster that game has a noticeably different playstyle, if you actually both to study the properties of their moves. And it's a licensed game! Portable licensed games usually being better notwithstanding.

Suikiwiden wrote:

BlazingFiddlesticks wrote:

Quest 64

I commend you on this.

Great detail and time has been spent quantifying just how bad it is. I cannot bring myself to care.

>Topic is about guilty pleasures

>Everyone, including the TC, list games that are actually fun

What?

Because you really shouldn't feel guilty about playing video games so this thread is arbitrary and pointless.

If I like something at least, I figure out why, and I talk about that. As you can see above. That's how you (hopefully) sell things to people. I don't let people shame me when I know exactly what I like about something. Communicating what we like is always the most difficult part of our hobby, IMO.

The premise of a guilty pleasure is enjoying something that you know you shouldn't. I say f*** that, I'll tell you why you should enjoy X and why Y is not a problem, or at least why you should like X despite Y.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, I really enjoy that game. I feel so filthy every time I play it but it's sooo good...

Crystal Power wrote:

Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, I really enjoy that game. I feel so filthy every time I play it but it's sooo good...

Okay, this is a post that deserves to be here.

DreamSword wrote:

Crystal Power wrote:

Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, I really enjoy that game. I feel so filthy every time I play it but it's sooo good...

Okay, this is a post that deserves to be here.

I thought it would! Well my job here is done, I'm off to save other topics now! *Skips away*

It's more like you damned this thread. =P

On that note though, Slowbeef and Diabetus are currently LPing Sonic 06 on the Retsupurae channel. They seem to know jack shit about Sonic beyond the Genesis but they're amusing as always.

Sonic '06 seems to be played because it is "funny-bad" not "bad-bad" that is Sonic Boom, aka Sonic '14.

Nah, the internet is powered by a graveyard of horses. If a game is reputable, it doesn't matter if it's been done to death, people will still upload LPs and say WOW THIS GAME SURE IS BAD AM I RIGHT GUYS?

Popular games peter out unless they're sufficiently retro (or Nintendo,) but bad games are forever. I mean hell, Slowbeef's doing this almost 10 years after the game came out, the Game Grumps did it a year ago I think? IMO the final nail in that game's coffin was hammered in by pokecapn and his crew in 2008.

Taiyz wrote:

IMO the final nail in that game's coffin was hammered in by pokecapn and his crew in 2008.

Indeed it was was, which is why all Sonic 06 stuff done now (like the recent Retsu) come off as really boring to me, especially in comparison.

Although this does bring back the funny memories I have of some people trying to claim that people ONLY hate Sonic '06 due to pokecapn's 24 hour LP.

I mean I'm not gonna argue that pokecapn's LP is perfect or anything, there were some stages where they took fucking ages and pokecapn ended up getting really pissy (the pool ball sections for example) but they knew what they were talking about.

Slowbeef and Diabetus are missing an entire second layer of how bad Sonic 06 is because they aren't familiar with the universe. I would assume that the Game Grumps cared just as little about the franchise's history, even though they were likely familiar with the earlier games.