Games that were so good they made you despise the whole genre they belong to.

[ninja666]

The gaming market is known for its blatant copying of others' ideas. However sometimes under a pile of clones, there are one or two titles that don't just copy surefire formulas, but rather either improve them or take a risk and change them completely to distinct itself from the others. The results may vary, but when they're good and the game itself is made well, it can make you hate the whole genre it belongs to for being all boring and the same instead of trying new ideas. Do you have any games that did that to you? Mine are:

1. Dark Souls

It made me dislike Action RPGs as a whole because they all make you an OP whirl of destruction, while Dark Souls actually posed a reasonable challenge. Plus, very rarely you see such a well-made combat system where you actually "feel" all of the hits and weight of your equipment.

2. Tomb Raider (2013)

On the surface it's a Third Person Shooter like any other, but when you actually play it you can see it's something more than that. The cover shooting mechanics have very "fluid" feeling to them thanks to the soft cover system that doesn't "stick" you to the walls, but instead lets you move freely while at the same time scanning the environment and dynamically changing the character's position according to the cover's placement. It also improved upon something that annoyed me about this genre - the enemies come from multiple directions at a time instead of being a torrent coming from one spot. Not only it added to the challenge, but it also forced you to stay mobile the whole time you were fighting.

3. Silent Hill 2

It didn't really make me hate a specific genre, but rather the quality of the writing in video games as a whole. I'm not going to spoil anything here, but the tale of James's search for his wife turned out to be the most mature storyline I've seen in a video game.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The second I saw the thread, I said to myself "Someone made this thread to talk about Dark Souls".

I've never played a game that made me "despise" the genre. I've played games that made me despise that game in particular for pissing me off, but generally only for a few minutes.

Oh wait, I lied. Hearthstone has, at times, made me despise competitive card games. But I keep playing it all the same. And I don't despise them because Hearthstone is "so good" but because it's such a rotten cheating motherfucking...

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

The second I saw the thread, I said to myself "Someone made this thread to talk about Dark Souls".

I've never played a game that made me "despise" the genre. I've played games that made me despise that game in particular for pissing me off, but generally only for a few minutes.

Oh wait, I lied. Hearthstone has, at times, made me despise competitive card games. But I keep playing it all the same. And I don't despise them because Hearthstone is "so good" but because it's such a rotten cheating motherfucking...

Ugh, lately the game has become this way for me as well..It's stopped being fun, win or lose. I've stopped playing the past couple days after running into control priests that drag out the game for 30+ minutes, just not fun at all to play against, I should quit before turn 4 because after that point it's non-stop spells and stealing my cards/minions.

OT:

Mount and blade: Warband

normally I couldn't give two shits about open world/sandbox style games..especially one with absolutely fuck all plot..but fuck if this game doesn't rev my engine, the battles are just so much fun and it REALLY scratches my medieval/game of thrones style itch. Anytime I look at a melee/horseback/bow and arrow game now, I just can't help but compare it to warband.

 

[hybridial]

Ninja Gaiden Black.

There are a handful of games that I feel I can compare to them, God Hand, Onimusha 2 um... that's about it. But I've yet to play another action game that remotely compares to the quality of NGB, including it's sequels. I hate every other game in the genre, because they're just not good by the standards achieved in Ninja Gaiden. God of War, Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, everything else, you all suck. You all suck.

Good shout out to Silent Hill 2, which I have played a handful of games that I think are comparative in writing quality, it remains kind of a hard act to follow.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Absolutely agree on Silent Hill 2. Every survival horror I've played ever since has paled in comparison to SH2. And if SH2 isn't the best game ever, it certainly has one of the best stories ever, within or without the gaming universe of storytelling.

 

[josemlopes]

Ninja Gaiden Black.

There are a handful of games that I feel I can compare to them, God Hand, Onimusha 2 um... that's about it. But I've yet to play another action game that remotely compares to the quality of NGB, including it's sequels. I hate every other game in the genre, because they're just not good by the standards achieved in Ninja Gaiden. God of War, Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, everything else, you all suck. You all suck.

Funny that you say that, I just finished today Ninja Gaiden Black, bought it on the xbox marketplace recently and damn, its one fine game, I had already played it a long time ago when it came out but I was too young to really get into how hard it can be so by then I had only reached Tairon. Its such a good game, it really does fast paced combat well, sadly the sequel has some terrible camera placements, tried II some months ago and the camera was my biggest enemy. But damn, it even made me play Dead or Alive again.

To me I think I would say Mount and Blade too since it shows how much depth a game can have and give that depth to the player for him to do whatever the fuck he wants with it.

 

[Iwata]

I don't know about 'genre', but playing 'Dishonored' made me really dislike the 'Thief' reboot, that I was actually looking forward to.

 

[hybridial]

I don't know about 'genre', but playing 'Dishonored' made me really dislike the 'Thief' reboot, that I was actually looking forward to.

To be honest I think that was more likely because the Thief reboot was just a poor game. I'm not a super hardcore fan of Thief 1 and 2 but I definitely know the reboot failed quite spectacularly to be anything like them.

Oh and despite what I said, I don't mind Ninja Gaiden 2. It's not amazing but it was fun at least. But 3 was a complete Betrayal.

 

[Silvanus]

Though it hasn't made me hate the genre, Age of Mythology spoiled me. I can't get involved in an RTS in which I'm just bossing around boring regular humans and boring regular war elephants.

 

[BarryMcCociner]

I don't know if this really applies, but no turn based strategy or real time strategy stacks up to Total War in my opinion.

Best of both worlds, two games in one and it works out fantastically.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I sort of think that it is silly to start hating an entire genre because of one game, let alone try to justify it. I can understand someone having particular tastes that one game in a genre manages to cater to very, very well, but I don't see that as a reason to start hating the rest of the genre. It's basically just ignoring all the potential ways that the genre could work because one way worked really, really well. And yes, that does mean I view such an idea as little different than the way business people respond when something like Call of Duty takes off.

 

[DementedSheep]

I don't play TPS that often, in part because they often do feel stiff to me so it may just be lack of exposure to the genre and I wouldn't say it made despise other TPS's but I agree on TR 2013. I love the way combat feels in that game, especially the bow. I'm torn between loving the game for that and disliking it because it's a TR game with fuck all puzzles and plat-forming.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Myth: The Fallen Lords and Myth II: Soulblighter ruined the RTS genre for me. Those were the first two RTS games I played, and I thought all RTS games were like those two. They are not. They are not even close. As such, I haven't been able to pick up and enjoy a RTS in years. Years.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Battlefield 4 made me not give a damn about other FPS games, even until now. I'd say my next FPS game that isn't Battlefield would be Battlefront. That might be cheating though, since I'm pretty sure that Battlefront will be a gorgeous Star Wars Battlefield re-skin.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist ruined stealth games for me. I know that people more enjoy slow, tactical stealth, but I love being a phantom taking out fools, parkouring all over the place, and hiding corpses in random places. Also, I kinda like it's cover mechanics. That's why I didn't enjoy MGS Ground Zeroes too much, I never liked having the game decide whether or not your character should be in cover.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Dark Souls

I knew the OP was going to ninja that one on me, but I'll take the time to say that Demon's Souls nearly destroyed all genres for me, with Dark Souls being the next game purchase that followed. Demon's was a curiosity that I saw for $20 at Best Buy, and my life was never the fucking same again. It affected not just Action RPGs, but almost all games with an action based combat system as well.

Since Dark, I enjoyed Dragon Age a bit because the storytelling is more "in your face" and it's enjoyable as a narrative experience. Shame the tactical camera is balls in 3 or it could be enjoyed as a strategy RPG.

I've also been able to enjoy roguelikes, mainly because of that tension I crave of really reaaallly not wanting to die. Games that have a death penalty of "go to the checkpoint 5 seconds ago" take that element away.

Gotta agree about Silent Hill 2, my favorite horror game since (Lone Survivor) was probably only enjoyed so much because it decided to be Silent Hill in 2D. But I also enjoy the Amnesia's and such because shit popping out and running from monsters is a stark contrast to the slow, psychological horror that SH2 brought.

But yeah, Demon's Souls. I have a Steam backlog with over 400 games and it's hard to last more than 10 minutes in 95% of them since. Everything was fine before, I was oblivious, I didn't know how gaming could make me physically feel. I should probably sell everything for a PS4, unless something terrible happens Bloodborne would probably dock more hours in 2015 than all else combined. Thanks Miyazaki

(sorry, had to get that off my chest at some point)

 

[TheArcaneThinker]

Deus ex, vampire bloodlines masquerade , made me despise most of the rpgs with bland and stupid storylines and mediocre overall experience...

 

[Magmarock]

For Me, there's a few.

-Star Fox 64 I can't see myself getting into any other game like this that isn't Star Fox. This game just got all the mechanics right.

-Goldeneye64/Perfect Dark despite being a PC gamer after I played these two games I haven't looked at FPS ever the same.

-Deus ex This game marries FPS and role playing together perfectly. No game and stand up to the standards set by this one hit wander.

 

[MiriaJiyuu]

To be honest I think that was more likely because the Thief reboot was just a poor game. I'm not a super hardcore fan of Thief 1 and 2 but I definitely know the reboot failed quite spectacularly to be anything like them.

This, this right here is what I hate most about the reboot. It wasn't a good game, or a bad game, it was a meh game that I'm glad I only played $6 for. At the same time though, it is a terrible Thief game. Although, gotta say the AI is stupid as hell

 

[ninja666]

I sort of think that it is silly to start hating an entire genre because of one game, let alone try to justify it. I can understand someone having particular tastes that one game in a genre manages to cater to very, very well, but I don't see that as a reason to start hating the rest of the genre. It's basically just ignoring all the potential ways that the genre could work because one way worked really, really well.

Well, I don't mean hating as in not touching anything else because this particular game is so great, but more like still playing the genre, but seeing that it's inferior compared to this one game. Although the former also happens with people. Even I'm guilty of it - I haven't touched a single fantasy Action RPG since Dark Souls.

 

[hybridial]

Oh, I don't know if this counts because well, I don't like racing games besides F-Zero.

I don't know if this is because F-Zero is so perfect or because F-Zero is so perfect. Well, I know I only like arcade racing games as well but I've never enjoyed any thing besides F-Zero in the genre.