this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2026
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Numen: Contest of Heroes is a game that sits at about 50% recommended on steam. I beat it years ago and really enjoyed myself, but I knew it was a unique fit for me. I only say “bad” so that we have common ground, but I value that experience.

What are “bad” games you enjoy?

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[–] berrystumped@catodon.rocks 0 points 3 hours ago

Hmm, I guess I'll go with Barbie Explorer, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Petz Sports. Also arguably Ostrich Runner because it's unfinished/unpolished in some places: particularly I don't know how the final level is meant to be played because it ends on its own without the player really doing anything. I played those as a kid so I was less critical back then.
#game #videogames #gaming

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 hours ago

Bear with me…

Megaman legends 2

Silly kids game, lots of fun, early dungeon crawling, but they snuck in heavy philosophy.

There is a scene where the protagonist is recalling long forgotten memories. The last living human, in luxury, in extravagance, in exactly what techbros want today but actually achieved here, has a perfect system, a perfect world, serving his every whim. A world without poverty, disease, suffering.

And he is lonely.

He befriends a bit in this system charged with keeping order. Basically a cop in this world. But he gives him special privileges to be able to “think” in ways the others are restricted from. This one is special. He literally creates a friend.

Then he uses the incredible technological prowess to recreate suffering.

He creates a synthetic recreation of humans, designed to be vulnerable to disease, to hunger, to suffering. They are subject to pressures that simply delay their deaths. And through doing so they achieve meaning and happiness. They exist.

The master watches them, like fish in an aquarium, for generations. Eventually, he goes down to earth to fully experience them. Thousands of years of disease free living have basically robbed this last human of an immune system. He is vulnerable there. No force in the universe can take him out. Man has become god. And yet, he goes down there anyway.

To experience the smell of a dinner bearing prepared.

He dies. Before he does, he released the bot that brought him down to earth from the rules of the system that governed him and told him to burn it all down. Perfection was not a remedy, it was a curse. And then he dies as the bot holds him in his hands, watching him fade away.

This was a game for children. And I understood way too much of it.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Starfield is great if instead of wanting to play a good RPG with a great story, you wanna just play 1st person Diablo with guns in space and be a loot goblin.

[–] bonegakrejg@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 hours ago

Castlevania 64. Not even Legacy of Darkness, the original one. It gets a lot of hate I think just because the rest of the series has such awesome games and it gets held to a high standard but just as a N64 game I loved it.

[–] flamekhan@lemmy.world 5 points 17 hours ago

The first Witcher game. I adored it. Janky controls, weird plot holes, subpar graphics. But oh man - the environments, the ambiance, and the dialogue absolutely slap.

[–] EuroNutellaMan@sh.itjust.works 1 points 12 hours ago

Hard Times by MDickie.

It's crap, but has generated some stupidly fun shit because of it

[–] Ilixtze@lemmy.ml 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I played all the 16 bit Phantasy star games when i was a kid. Phantasy star 3 is considered to be the black sheep of the series but it is the one that stuck with me the most, something about the music and atmosphere, and odd take on scifi fantasy it portrays.

[–] sness@sh.itjust.works 3 points 18 hours ago

Maplestory. I had a ton of fun hanging out with friends and grinding for hours with cute art. I would never recommend anyone play it, absolutely does not respect your time.

[–] FryHyde@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

Friend and I played through Redfall and enjoyed it immensely , specifically because of how broken and half-complete it was. We just could not stop laughing.

[–] rodneylives@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Athena for NES. Now THAT'S some jank!

[–] dosse91@lemmy.trippy.pizza 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Clive Barker's Jericho

It's janky af but it has great atmosphere.

[–] Summzashi@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago

Really cool to see this mentioned. It was a mediocre game indeed but had such an amazing premise. I still think about it often.

[–] Summzashi@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Bad is very subjective ofcourse. Most of the time these days it means that a video game is very polarizing. Elite: Dangerous is a great example of this. I fucking love it and have lived in that game for thousands of hours. But it's not hard to see how it's not everyone's cup of tea.

[–] orenj@leminal.space 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Starbound is kind of like Terraria in space, but with a worse gameplay loop, worse characters, and worse bosses, but I did like gentrifying the cosmos.

[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 1 points 15 hours ago

Man, the full release Starbound was such a... I don't want to call it a disappointment but it's definitely a shame what happened with it. It went through so many cool mechanics throughout the development and threw away like half of them (not to mention the near complete rewrite of the lore). Such a weird situation.

I barely touched the 1.0 version but I still play some of the beta builds from time to time - they might lack in content but boy do they grab me in a way the full release never managed to.

[–] Snowman_sir@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I love starbound, it's definitely not a bad game at all.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Far Cry 2.

The game is fundamentally broken in a way that mods apparently can't even fix. The enemy militia checkpoints instantly fully respawn as soon as you trip an invisible trigger. It makes combat with them pointless, which means getting stuck in a firefight with a checkpoint tedious.

The weapon degradation feature is way overtuned to cause some weapons to start visibly rusting from shot to shot.

These two aspects turn the game into a slog. Not even in a way that makes it immersive and survivalist, but immersion breakingly frustrating.

It's a shame because the game was so ambitious. The game having a mechanic where a player at 0 health can get randomly saved if they befriended an NPC which will drag them to safety is really cool. The fire spreading everywhere was visually and tactically great. The malaria bouts were controversial, but I think they were a good way to increase the feeling of survival and desperation. There's a lot good with a bleak, serious, and grounded Far Cry game but it just missed the mark in all the most impossible to ignore ways.

'Far Cry 2 (2)' would be amazing.

[–] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Hocus Pocus

Duke Nukem 2

Rise of the Triad

Raptor: Call of the Shadows

Sim Tower

Shadow the Hedgehog

Star Fox Adventures

Halo Reach

[–] janewaydidnothingwrong@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oookay calling reach a bad game will make me your enemy for life

[–] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's a good game, but bad in terms of reception, which is what this thread is about

[–] wizzor@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

Raptor was great.

[–] Ontimp@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

'Pirates of the Caribbean' (2003) by Bethesda

Edit: Also 'Age of Pirates' (2006)

I just liked pirates I guess.

[–] Summzashi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Did you know that game was actually Sea Dogs 2 but got rebranded because Disney wanted a game to go with their movie?

Such a great game. I played the hell out of it but could never figure out how it had absolutely nothing to do with the movies.

[–] Xanthrax@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Thing thing on Crazymonkeygames

[–] wk5ar@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Does anyone remember Deathtrap Dungeon. The game was so bad and confusing but i loved it.

[–] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

X-Com: The Bureau Declassified. Your "teammates" are fundamentally suicidal, making keeping them alive almost impossible. But the setting, story and challenge made up for it. It was inventive.

The Technomancer: Mid-budget game by Spiders. Was short and straightforward, which most people disliked, but I thought it was a blast. The story still sticks in my head screaming for me to write a novel based on it.

[–] rsky@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Earth Defense Force is a terrible looking game with an even worse premise and is fun as hell.

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[–] Worstdriver@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Life is Feudal. It had the potential to be something great, but ended dying in a hail of bad server coding and poorly implemented monetization.

Every so often I will reinstall it, find one of the free servers and just chill for hours on end.

[–] Ontimp@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Populous: The Beginning (1998). I don't think it was actually bad, it's just been forever. But man did we have fun with that.

That's a blast from the past! I used to play it on the Amiga in like 1990. Loved it too.

[–] Macaroni_ninja@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (9 children)

Two Worlds and Two Worlds 2 The first one was advertised as the "Oblivion killer". Which is hilarious, because of how janky bug ridden pile of code it is. Yet I love it. I could create such broken OP characters, which could one shot bosses.

The second one got a bit better production quality, but its still a broken mess. Love it.

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[–] TheGoldenGod@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ultima 3 Exodus for the NES. Few games incentivize you to wait to level up as much as this one does, not to mention the drudgery.

[–] zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 day ago

I forgot about the "not leveling" thing. I thought I was so clever as a kid when I realized it was better.

[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Alpha Protocol, a spy-themed RPG by Obsidian and probably their worst game. The gameplay was absolute garbage, but it had some of the best writing in games and your dialog choices actually affected the plot in dozens of ways. It was the first time I can remember since the old Sierra days where a minor choice you made ten hours ago could come back and screw you over.

In some ways it was the game that Mass Effect claimed to be, one that reshaped itself around your choices and let you lead the plot where you desired. It just sucks that in all other ways it was a buggy piece of crap, where everything from combat to stealth to hacking were miserable chores that weren't fun even when they did function properly.

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Excuse me.

The question was about bad games that you enjoy.

Not about fuckawesome games that are fuckawesome and that Sega needs to burn for not allowing us to have a sequel of.

[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Alpha Protocol is one of the great tragedies from Obsidian's days of doing contract work, back when they were never given enough time or money but still put out brilliant but flawed games like AP, New Vegas, and Knights of the Old Republic 2. I would do terrible things for a remake of any of those games where the original team was given the resources to do things properly.

(Though IMO I think AP might work better as a Telltale-style game in the vein of Dispatch or the Walking Dead. The dialog is the star and all the other gameplay only detracted from it.)

Alpha Protocol being rushed was especially tragic because there's no other game that changes the plot to such an extreme degree based on your actions. It really felt like your story. It also avoided an obvious "best" route by having every choice be a tradeoff, where helping one contact could alienate or even endanger another. It's not like a Bioware game where you can pick the top option in every dialog and cruise your way to an ideal ending for everyone. You had to pick a side eventually, pitting you against former allies who you genuinely liked.

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[–] Zeddex@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

A couple I can remember really enjoying at the time that were not well reviewed and yeah probably are bad.

  • Resident Evil: Outbreak
  • Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain

I don't remember a whole lot about either of these but do remember playing them a lot.

Final Fantasy XIII I don't think it's actually a bad game, and thought so at the time too. There's a lot of revisionist history with this one. I see so many discussions now of people being like yeah it's a great game I love it. Where were all these people at when it came out? XIII-2 is...weird. I think I prefer XIII, but like both. I've never finished Lightning Returns but enjoyed what I played.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Xenogears/xenosaga. I liked them. Xenogears had a bad disc 2. Xenosaga had a bad episode 2. Saga also went overboard with the needlessly sexualized robots. But it was fun, the story was interesting, and by episode 3 the graphics were really good. Music was good, characters were enjoyable.

All I remember liking from episode 2 through was jr charging a religious zealot screaming “you damn bitch” while firing at her. It was such a weird scene I was laughing my ass off. Oh and the American censorship had a scene where a little girl going through a breakdown scooping blood from her mother and trying to put it back in the corpse, except there’s no blood in the US version so WTF are we supposed to think is happening here? Ep 2 was horrible.

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