So I guess the obvious answer is some random shovelware 2600 game that barely works, so that’s not much fun. In terms of games that have some traction and nostalgia, I can think of a couple that just don’t do it for me. YMMV.
Contra is more of a beatdown than an enjoyable challenge, the konami code is iconic for a reason.
Defender is inscrutable and overambitious and the control are a weird early take on the side scrolling shooter.
Most arcade driving games were (and are) quarter eaters that aren’t trying to do much that’s interesting once you’re behind the wheel.
I’m trying to think of something that was somewhat popular to make this more interesting. I’ll say Paperboy, I had a friend who really liked it but I never cared for it. Even when it showed up on emulators or retro game packs, it’s was always annoying and boring to me.
There are a bajillion crappy old games that I actually dislike more, but none of those would be interesting answers.
Of games that are generally well-regarded, so the gap between my opinion and the common opinion is largest, I’d have to say Final Fantasy Tactics.
It’s not that I dislike it - it’s just that, between FFT and Tactics Ogre, there are five games of the same type from the same devs and the same general era (FFT, FFT Advance, FFT A2, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis) and IMO, FFT is the bottom of the barrel - every single one of the others is better.
FFT is a game I have played through 3+ times with probably 1,000+ total playtime and I’ve played all the games you mention. I recommended FFT to a friend a few years ago and watched him play through the first couple missions and it’s easy to forget the difficulty curve of that game if you haven’t played an older style TRPG. A lot of the mechanics aren’t really explained well (stat growth for example), there’s permadeath, a few instances of possible softlocking, and a bunch of really obscure requirements to access some of the content and recruit some of the characters.
I think it suffers from sequel syndrome where the newer TRPGs have better quality of life aspects to them. That said there are rumors of a remake that maybe will address some of that.
I never tried that one but I did play the The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia and it was not bad. I swear I am not a typing game enthusiast but it is weird there are two zombie typing games.
Of course the TRUE least favorite would be some trash that never should have been pushed out, but if we’re sticking with well known classics, I’m going with Castlevania 1-3.
The controls on those games were terrible. You were slow and clunky. Jumping between platforms required a trigonometric calculation. The weapons had a very specific and often a very strange path that
Enemies dipped in and out of attack range, and it constantly felt like I was supposed to press the attack button two seconds before the enemy was even on the screen.
I’m sure its not so bad once you memorize the levels and get used to the timing, but I have enough good games in my collection, that I don’t need to waste my time adapting to the flaws of these games.
“Retro” is so big of a category now. But Final Fantasy IX was my least favorite. I have a feeling I’ll get some hate for this but:
On PlayStation, the loading times were like 15-30 seconds before AND after each battle, the high random encounter frequency meant you would battle sometimes after every few steps, and monster variation was very low. And running never seemed to work.
So literally 10 seconds of movement, 25 seconds load into battle, battle one of the same 3-4 enemy groups in that area, 25 seconds load out of battle, and repeat.
The story was also very generic. Everyone seemed to love it, but it felt like they played every decision safe to create a nostalgia-friendly experience.
I played it so much but was always frustrated with it. Every time I see someone reminiscing about how great it is, I am just wondering what game they were playing.
It’s a hot take in the JRPG/FF communities, but I’ll be right there with you to die on that hill. I still can’t believe that it has one of the highest metascores in the series to this day. I thought I was crazy when I was reading reviews back in 2000.
It’s not just the transitional load times either; the load times in battle were also so bad that they messed up the ATB. These technical issues had all sorts of weird side effects, like making anything with a cast animation worse than alternatives or making Haste the worst it’s ever been in the series. Bizarrely, the best way to avoid the action queueing was to turn down the ATB speed in the options (or to use a mod that sped up the FPS and thus the battle animations, because the ATB ran separately).
The whole thing was technical overreach on Sakaguchi’s part. Games had voice acting for years by the time FF9 released, but he was obsessed with film-making so he packed the disc storage with voiceless CG animation instead. The Dreamcast had been out over a year with its titles alongside PC games that were regularly pushing 60 FPS, but this game just had to have a fourth party member to really gum things up. By the time it finally came out in the West, we were already seeing footage of PS2 games out in Japan. Final Fantasy has never been as far behind the curve as it was with IX.
I didn’t click with the story or characters at all. Was I just so annoyed by the tech issues that it was a non-starter for me? I never played through the game with the newer releases/mods that address some of these issues, so I still don’t know if I would have liked the game. Maybe I’ll play the likely remake.
At the time I was something of a fan boy for final fantasy, but ff9 was the first one I didn’t finish. I played through all the way to the beginning of the end… and then decided I didn’t care and that I was forcing myself to play a game I didn’t enjoy.
I don’t remember having the technical issues you mentioned, but I just didn’t click with the characters and the world felt meh to me. I can’t recall a single song that I enjoyed from 9 either.
X was probably the last FF I finished before the series lost its magic to me. (FFXIV was fun but a bit too costly)
I liked Ocarina of time, so I’ll side with the majority there, but my dirty little secret is that I haven’t played a Zelda game since OoT and really don’t care to.
I never understood the love for ocarina of time until I played the 3ds version of it. The aesthetic just ruin the game for me. The 3ds version looks good and plays nicely.
Lots of “old” games i don’t like. But Retro implies Popular, so that narrows it down for me.
If I was to choose, it would be the genera of 3D Collectathons during the N64 and PS1 era. I don’t like the idea of being given a game with no direction and be told find your own fun. The N64 was filled with these games, like Mario 64, and Banjo Kazooie, the PS1 would be like Crash.
The exception to this rule was Spyro which gave the worlds a bit of a story after the first game. Enough to know what to do in a world, so when you stumble into the side distraction you can play them if you want. At times even those have stories.