Flawed gems

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

What games you like despite them having major flaws?

edit
Not just any game you kinda liked despite having flaws. every game has flaws, that goes without saying. I am talking about games that you really like and they may even be one of your favorite games despite said games being very flawed.

Spoiler: my list

Most/all of these will be rpg's since there the genre I enjoy the most to the point of tolerating glaringly major flaws if it gets the things I value the most in a rpg right.

In my favorite games list

Planecscape torment- It has a lot of problems but the writing, characters, and setting is not one of them.

Kotor 2- With out the restored content mod I still think it's a great game despite it having a magnitude of problems. with the the restored content mod It's much better while still having glaring problems. The combat is never satisfying and but it's tolerable for the most part. a few areas are a real slog to fight though, in particular the final area of the game. Kreia also happens to be my favorite video game character and one of my favorites in all of fiction.

vampire the masquerade bloodlines: Without the unofficial patch It is quite buggy. with said patch It's defiantly better but still far from perfect. the boss fight are kinda shit, and there is a boring sewer area you have to go thought, the last hub area is a bit empty in terms of content. But the setting, characters, voice acting, and writing is excellent witch helps to create an amazing atmosphere.

Fallout New Vegas?
I am not sure if I condenser this game to be a flawed gem but It is one of my favorite games. steam says I played it for 1243 hours. I have played modded New Vegas long enough to stop seeing any major problem as a problem unless it can't be modded away.

fairly close to being in my Favorite game list

the witcher- the pacing of the game is really bad and the combat is kinda meh. but I like how your actions have consequences and the writing is good enough for me to like once I get into this game.
1st chapter- is boring with for the most part while having an interesting ending
2nd chapter-the investigation stuff is decedent-ish, the town is ok,then the swamp is a giant slog. over all the non swamp parts of the chapter is slightly better then the first, then the part with the swamp part is worst then the the first chapter.
3rd chapter- very interesting political stuff happens in this chapter with little bit of swamp fighting
4th chapter- less interesting then the third but much better then the second and first chapters.
final chapter- also very interesting
If anyone thinks the witcher is a terrible game then I fully understand why because despite the really liking it by the end of the game. It's very flawed while requiring lots of patience and time to get into, It's the most deeply flawed game I ever manged like quite a lot.


Dragon age: origins- I think the combat is boring(there is lots of combat in this game) and a few places a slog to go thought due taking to being too long(fade and deep roads), but nether the less I did overall enjoy the game

 

[small]

personally i loved the combat in dragon age origins, i loved the tactical aspects of it but each to their own.

my contribution would be alpha protocol.. hand guns are stupidly over powered, the hacking minigame is head ache inducing and you constantly get "stuck" on corners but its still one of my favourite rpg's ever, and it handles player choice in a way that actually matters

 

[Sniper Team 4]

The biggest one that I get flack for liking is Dragon Age II. Just yesterday, when I said I was going to buy a PS4 when Inquisition comes out, one of my coworkers looked at me like I was mad because Dragon Age II was terrible, so why was I excited about the third one. When I told him I liked DA II, his eyes popped out of his head in disbelief.

I enjoyed that game very much. It had terrible flaws, but it was still fun for me to play and I liked the characters.

 

[SquidVicious]

Definitely agree with your inclusion of The Witcher and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. As for my own contenders...

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Solid survival-horror game that got Lovecraft's style of horror down right. It's like V:tM - Bloodlines in the sense that there are game breaking bugs in the vanilla version, but fortunately community patches have fixed them.

Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves

I've never been a big fan of tower defence games, but I've put a ridiculous amount of time into this silly, kind of ugly, and oddly translated (the dev team is French-Canadian) game. I got a tremendous amount of satisfaction when I pulled off a plan without a hitch and that's where the game really comes alive, especially if you play as the weaker brother (their version of hard mode) when you really can't just tank damage and kill enemies with your axe. That said though, the writing and voice acting are pretty dreadful and while the graphic style isn't bad, it's nothing stellar either. The soundtrack kicks ass though, I wish more games had a folksy/ bluegrass soundtrack.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadows of Chernobyl

As great at this game is, you have to admit that it is really weirdly structured and can be incredibly confusing on your first couple of plays, as well as hard a granite. Then, paradoxically, it gets insanely easy towards the middle/end section when you get better weapons and armour. Despite the frustrating gameplay at the beginning, there's an insane amount of atmosphere and immersion that keeps you playing, and now with the Lost Alpha version, there's really no reason to play the original.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

IN BEFORE ALPHA PROTOCOL!

Hahahaha! Take that suckers! You can't use Alpha Protocol now because someone already mentioned it! And it was finally me! Me!

The biggest one that I get flack for liking is Dragon Age II.

Dragon Age 2 works as well. That game did a lot of things right, it was just offset by the handful of really high profile things it did so terribly wrong. Let's hope the third game is a bit more polished given it had more than 18 hours of development time.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

IN BEFORE ALPHA PROTOCOL!

Hahahaha! Take that suckers! You can't use Alpha Protocol now because someone already mentioned it! And it was finally me! Me!

You might wanna check the first response to the topic.

But yeah, Alpha Protocol. That's a good one. And Dragon Age II, has anyone mentioned that?

Some people may disagree with me, but Oblivion has some pretty major flaws. Combat is heavy and frustrating, the game breaks its own immersion every five minutes, character faces are horrifying, and Oblivion Gates are a *****. Nevertheless, it is an enjoyable, addicting game with a cool, engaging world and a ton, and I mean a ton of different things to keep you interested.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

You might wanna check the first response to the topic.

Oblivion is a good choice. The scaling if nothing else would qualify it as deeply, deeply flawed.

 

[MysticSlayer]

IN BEFORE ALPHA PROTOCOL!

Hahahaha! Take that suckers! You can't use Alpha Protocol now because someone already mentioned it! And it was finally me! Me!

Sorry to interrupt the celebration, the but Alpha Protocol was mentioned in the first reply.

Anyways, mine would be

The Witcher: The combat was hardly good. Plenty of difficult fights could be easily beaten by just drinking Swallow and Blizzard, which took away a lot from the tension of the experience. Even the final battle was ridiculously easy. Then there's the fact that, despite how flashy it was, the combat lacked a lot of substance. Outside of combat, the game also had some really horrendous voice acting at times and some really weird animations. Oh, and the card collecting mini-game never stopped being disturbing, as you simply can't go down certain side-quests and story threads without being reminded of it.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl: Part of me wants to call this game "Glitch: The Post-Apocalyptic Adventure Through the Almost-Real World". For how immersive this game is, it suffers horribly from glitches and crashing. The cutscenes are also annoying, as you often can't see what is going on yet the action continues as-if you aren't being forced to watch a cutscene.

Technically speaking, every game I enjoy has its flaws (duh), but those are probably my two best examples of otherwise great games that were still dominated by flaws.

Edit: I guess someone else pointed it out while I was typing up my response.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Rage: The game definitely had a lot of issues. The story was crap, it was far too linear, and the game ended way too suddenly, but damn did I absolutely love Rage. The graphics were awesome, the enemy movement was bananas, the guns were fun and really felt powerful, the gadgets and power-ups were entertaining, and I thought they really built an interesting and convincing world. I'd love to see a sequel with deeper RPG elements and more freedom of choice.

Splatterhouse: This game was buggy as all get-out, had horrid loading times, and very repetitive QTEs, but I thought it had awesome atmosphere and combat, a fun "Re-Animator" feel to it, and it was great fun to play as a hulking brute who literally beat people to death with his bare hands.

Dante's Inferno: In my opinion, the first 2/3rds of this game were awesome, and then it really fell apart towards the end. It also suffered from QTEs that were literally the same thing every time (no idea who thought of that but it was idiotic). Still, I thought the game did an incredible job of bringing Dante's version of Hell to life, it was one of the few games I've played that I would flat out call 'disturbing', and I liked the idea of the "holy vs. unholy' skill tree. I also liked that, unlike God of War, it was impossible to unlock every skill on a single playthrough, which encouraged multiple playthroughs on harder difficulty.

 

[Autumnflame]

Vampire bloodlines.

Alittle unfinished due to being rushed for the holidays .

A terribly boring sewer component.

But arguably one of the best Lore vampire games around

 

[Danny Dowling]

Clash of Clans. If you call the flaw the business model making it a total pain in the ass, then yeah... the thing is that despite everything with CoC, it's a damn fine game.

Sonic Generations. The 3D suffers from issues just as any other 3D Sonic game does.

 

[Silvanus]

I'm not sure I could think of any games that were completely without flaw.

Ocarina of Time has the conversations with Kaepora, the awkward jumping mechanics, the Water Temple; Half Life 2 has the less-than-stellar dune-buggy sections; Final Fantasy 7 leaves you without a damn paddle (more than once).


A game that I enjoyed immensely despite major flaws... would be Age of Mythology. There is much to criticise about the balance in that game, but it's still the best RTS I've ever played, and one of my all-time favourites.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Rage: The game definitely had a lot of issues. The story was crap, it was far too linear, and the game ended way too suddenly, but damn did I absolutely love Rage. The graphics were awesome, the enemy movement was bananas, the guns were fun and really felt powerful, the gadgets and power-ups were entertaining, and I thought they really built an interesting and convincing world. I'd love to see a sequel with deeper RPG elements and more freedom of choice.

Oooh, Rage is a great one. You're right, the story is pointless and no one in the wasteland has an ounce of personality, and the world is cliche as hell. Basically, id put all their innovation into the mechanics and had none for the story. But damn is it just fun to play. I don't think I've ever played an FPS with such rewarding shooting mechanics and enemy reaction. Even the driving sections are usually fun. Hell, even the card game was cool.

It's a real shame that they seem to have forgotten all about that IP.

 

[thoughtwrangler]

The Misadventures of Tron Bonne... actually, Megaman Legends 1 & 2 also. The control scheme for those games was just terrible, but the atmosphere and the characters were just a lot of fun. Especially the Bank Robbery missions in Tron Bonne.

 

[babinro]

Diablo 3

Everyone still loathes that game, right? It's hard to tell sometimes. I still consider it the superior entry in the franchise and the best loot hunt game I've ever played. That said, I could probably type up 10 pages of flaws. So many decisions about class balance, skills, items, UI and more that I don't agree with.

Marvel Puzzle Quest

I feel as though no one knows about this game (probably cause it's a casual match 3 on the surface). It's got more depth and than the surface game might suggest. That said, it's got plenty of flaws. The biggest of which is the use of timers and pay to win....yeah. Despite it's flaws, MPQ has become my game of the year 2014.

 

[Alex Baas]

Kid Icarus Uprising. The controls are flawed but other than that it is a very enjoyable game with interesting characters, entertaining banter, plot twists that actually suprised, and a difficultly system that has not been surpassed in its genius. Basically you had to pay more hearts to play on higher difficulty but you get more hearts back. If you die you lose a portion of what you payed and the difficulty is bumped down. Also you had to pay to play on super easy mode

 

[JagermanXcell]

Prior to Dead Rising OtR that pretty much fixed everything wrong, I have a love hate relationship with Dead Rising 2.

Now I'm one of the few people who actually love Dead Rising's time mechanic, but you know what I hated... the goddamn mandatory Zombrex for Katey missions. There comes a point where too much pressure is put on a player, and having you worry about two major race against the clock progression blockers always put me off in that game. DR1 gave you plenty of time to sight see, try on bras, do missions, and wreck shit, whereas half of that gets cut because your daughter keeps slowly dying. Another thing was the story and how it felt just tonally off... yeah the first Dead Rising had it's serious moments but it had this campiness about it that helped it stick. But in DR2 everything wants to be so serious and straight faced that not even Chuck's puns could detract from how tonally messy it all was. And it certainly doesn't help when near the end game things take a turn for the dark.

Otherwise it's a fine game in the series. Combining items was a great inclusion and it overall stuck with me... until Frank came back for OtR and saved that game something major.
Haven't played 3 though... Microsoft won't let me.

 

[FPLOON]

Virtua Quest... A gem so flawed that barely anyone knows about its existence...

But seriously, outside of some questionable control choices[footnote]The C/Right stick to use the game's version of a grapple hook that only goes in the direction the character's facing instead of just using the L/L1/L2 buttons... Then again, the L/L1/L2 buttons only moves the camera to the default "behind the character" camera position instead of just using the C/Right stick to control the camera more freely... So, I only ask this one question: Who the fuck thought that kind of control scheme was a good fucking idea?![/footnote]as well as a basically pointless "level-up"-type system[footnote]Why have it if the game's going to force me to "level-up" anyway?! It's not like it increases my stats or anything like that because only the upgrade tools as well as which fighting type I end up adopting the most can do that... Just because I can't do certain sidequest[footnote]which are only there to, hopefully, get a rare upgrade tool for your stats or "lost data" for you collected Virtua Souls...[/footnote] because I'm not at the right "level" story-wise doesn't mean it counts by any stretch of the meaning in this situation and you know it, game...[/footnote] due to plot reasons (just to name the major flaws), its use of both stats and fighting style customization options gave this game potential to be a good spin-off to the Virtual Fighter series...

Too bad it was a ~10-hour repetitive/mediocre game with an ending that will remain a cliffhanger for the rest of its life, basically... and I keep going back to it either on GameCube or PS2 because I have both versions...

 

[Malkav]

Pathologic. Its main selling points are the story and the unique kind of setting and atmosphere. But its also infamous for its horrendous English translation and dated graphics.
You're one of three different healers in a 19th-century-ish rural russian town in the middle of nowhere, as it's getting hit by a mystic plague. Think of it as a simulator of that, rather than a game. Resource management, survival and solving the story quests before the day ends is punishing, not fun, and deliberately so. Still, the story and unique experience made me pull through. The clunkiness and ugliness actually compliment the experience. Some say that decyphering the texts befits being trapped in a foreign, superstitious, far out town, but that doesn't mean I'm not wishing for the original top notch prose every sentence. I want to recommend that game, but I don't want to feel guilty for it.

Luckily, the devs just finished an insightful kickstarter campaign for a Pathologic remake [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1535515364/pathologic], which I can definately recommend to check out. They explain how each of these faults came by and how they can fix them. Also, Pathologic was their first game. Their second game (The Void) already had one of the best writing and voice that I've seen in games.

 

[Irick]

RAGE.
I love RAGE, so much. The engine, the uncompromised devotion to providing smooth, fluid gameplay. The virtualization of texture. Every single bit of that world was unique, and cliche, and beautiful, and fluid, and smooth and... <3

I want, so badly, to play the uncompressed version of that game. I know it's like a terabyte of space, but I'd do it just to see how awesome it looks without compression artifacts everywhere.

I love Vampire the Masquerade, both retribution and bloodlines. They both are flawed, have massively different play styles, but they are <3

I love RIFTS, the tabletop game. Even though it has a shitty developer who does nothing but gloat about his system. Even though it needs to be house ruled to hell and back. It's broken and janky and hasn't changed its game design principles since the day it was introduced (august 1990) but the setting is so good....

Ah, there are so many flawed gems...
I'm just going to leave it with these four.