Title says it all. Are there any games that are considered to be awful by the majority of people that you enjoy anyway? If so, why? Stories of personal bias are always interesting. I'll start.
Friday the 13th (NES)This probably comes as no surprise to anyone. Jason is my favorite horror character despite my better judgement, and I based my avatar on the sprites from the video game.
Everyone shits on this game. AVGN ripped it 10 new assholes in one of his early reviews. People complain about how hard it is to kill Jason, the fact that he's been colored purple, the confusing map, the slow camp counselors, the "Jason Alarm", the rock that flies into an arc over the head of the enemies.
I say bullshit, these guys never took the time to learn how to play the game. Sure, any well designed game should be easy to learn (yet tough to master), and I'm not claiming Friday the 13th is without any flaws. It WAS an LJN game after all, and most likely a quick cash in, but there are some brilliant ideas in the not so perfect execution.
The only choice they made I won't defend is Jason's color. It looks off, and they probably only did it because it's a children's game, and a rotting zombie would have turned them off. Well, why make a game bout a murderer then? Just color him like he should be. I did it.
Let's talk about the counselors. Many people complain that only two of them, Mark and Chrissy, are useful. While that's true, I see it as an accurate portrayal of the movies. Mark and Chrissy would likely be the leading, surviving couple, and the other ones the stupid, out of shape counsellors who get slaughtered by Jason.
When you get in the cabins (which are easy to naviguate, unlike most people claim) however, every counselor fight the same, so they're on equal grounds when they're inside, and that's where you'll spend most of your time fighting Jason. Just make sure you kill a few Zombies with everyone, in front of a cabin so you can retreat, until they have a knife of machete, which are miles better than the rocks,and you're good to go.
But what if the Jason alarm rings, and you have to save a counsellor who's far away while you're controlling a slow character? Most people don't know this; you enter any small cabin (should take 10 seconds at most), push start, and select the character who's being attacked to directly fight Jason.
Jason isn't so hard by the way, like every Punch-Out!! bad guy, you just have to learn his pattern, dodge well and counter-attack.
The map makes perfect sense.
When you're in the bottom part, you push right, you go right. Notice how it curves and the pathway is essentially a big circle? That's why your character goes left when you push right at the top of the map, stop complaining.
There are also a mulitude of secret areas and weapons to find. They're high risk/high reward, and completely optional. You can naviguate the woods, though it's easy to get lost/killed, and hope to find Jason's house and a powerful weapon inside. You don't have to do it, and it's supposed to be hard, yet people bitch about it.
You can also go in the caves, and find the shrine where Pamela Voorhees' head lies. Yeah, it comes to life, flies around and is hard to kill, but you get special weapons and armor from her. Who cares if her head wasn't alive in the films, it's a video game.
And last but not least, it's one of the few NES games that have a sense of genuine tension. Jason can be anywhere in the map, stalking you, and you never see him until he's right up your face. You know what other game did it? Slender, and everyone was spooked by it.
If it sounds like I'm saying that it's the greatest game ever, believe me, I'm not. The game is repetitive, unbalanced, sometimes clunky and a lot more could have been done with it, but taken for what is is, I'll say it's a very interresting, and partially successful early attempt in the survival horror genre.
