What games do you feel were treated unfairly upon release?

I'm sure this will be kind of a controversial pick, but I thought The Order: 1886 was unfairly ripped to shreds. While I do agree that it was pretty damn overpriced at 60 dollars considering it was at BEST a 6 hour game with little to no replay value, other than that, I thought it was fantastic. I loved the characters, the settings, and I loved the whole conclusion of the game. I agree that it mostly felt like build-up to the next game (that will unfortunately never come out), but it still had some genuinely great ideas and great moments.

Division 2 is a good recent example. I know a bunch of people that are super into that game including myself but much of the games press seems to be, if not totally negative, very lukewarm on it.

@undeadpool: I feel like part of what hurt P5's rep out of the gate is how neck deep we are in streaming culture these days. Because of Atlus' weird streaming restrictions a lot of critics and think-fluencers immediately had an attitude of "I can't justify spending time on this if I can't produce content with it." Personally I love all the Persona games and 5 was no exception but I guess I underestimated how precious people got about past entries. I think there are some interesting allusions made to that sort of toxic fandom in P5's end game though I'm not clear how intentional it actually is. If there was one complaint that I could understand holding against it is that maybe some of the actual character interactions were not as fun as they have been but I thought the cast themselves were as good or better in some cases than in prior games.

@mezmero: think-fluencers and shlooter: which is the more vomitous word?

I think the ending is great, and I think if it pissed off a certain subset of fans: good. Despite it stumbling in some places with its treatment of some characters, it's a game with a strong message that doesn't "both sides" it and actually takes a stand. Honestly, this most recent playthrough I saw so much more to love in the game than I did my first time through, whether that's where I was as a person or we are as a people, I don't know. Maybe it's because I also just rewatched the P4 ER and BOY some parts of that game can't be seen with rose-tinted glasses but Persona 5 really spoke to me in a way that makes me VERY excited to play the expansion.

And part of me understands: the ER is a huge part of this site's history and P4 was a lot of people's first entry in the series because of it (I myself played along with the ER after loving P3), so anytime you get a game that says "Persona" and Chie, Teddie, and Yukiko aren't there, it feels can feel a little freaky. But I think people were too quick to try and fit the P5 cast into the P4 roles, and part of the point of Persona 5 is to land a lot harder on people not being who they are outwardly. And while P4 is a great game, it was also very ham-fisted with that message (the prim and proper girl has a GOOFY LAUGH! The best friend WANTS TO BE THE PROTAG! The tomboy HAS A MASSIVE BUST!!!!!) while I actually think 5's interactions go a lot deeper.

It's also SO MUCH DARKER (Makoto's 'bad ending' is one of the most grim in any mainstream JRPG), and I could definitely see that putting people off. Persona 4 has a very fun and fancy-free tone, while 5 deals with some REAL serious shit.

@random45: You know, every time I see that game on a super deep discount (I've seen it as low as $5) I kinda want to pick it up because I always thought it looked cool despite the middling reviews. I then talk myself out of it because I have too many games to play already.

Titanfall 1. Poor game was hastily dismissed by virtually everyone who wasn't an early adopter of the Xbox One. With generally negative sentiment from much of the gaming community towards MS at the time, Titanfall (as a flagship title) bore the brunt of a lot of it. The PC community in particular was too busy snickering at the console version's resolution to even really give it a fair shake on their own format. No one seemed to care if the game was actually good or not.

It remains one of the most fluid, best-feeling shooters out there, and maybe THE best ever on a console controller. It was also arguably the most innovative FPS of the last decade, with many others trying to imitate its mobility even now. I was happy to see Titanfall 2 get some love as a multiplatform title later on, but even the people that liked that game didn't seem to want to acknowledge that they might have missed out on the first one, which they absolutely did.

absolutely agree with this.

Prey. Bethesda mismarketed it and sent it out to die. The demo released didn't help either. It actually hurt it. It's seriously one of the best games that released that year and its still baffling to me how overlooked it is.

@atastyslurpee: Agreed! Not only that, they released a legitimately GREAT DLC that actually added to everything I loved about the game in such a perfect way that most DLC can only dream of doing.

@random45: I also enjoyed The Order 1886 and hope it gets a sequel.

@sethmode: Mooncrash was great. Prey was one of those games that the more I played, the deeper I fell in love with it. Its one of the few games I've thought about often weeks after finishing it. I still occasional think about it and doing another playthrough. Loved Mooncrash too. Built upon everything that was great but had the infinite replayabilty aspect. I didn't get to play Typhon Hunter because the few times I tried, I could never get in a game with somebody

I bought and played ME:Andromeda for the first time a few months ago. It's a little buggy, and some of the facial anim and voice acting is weird, but I really like the crew you're able to assemble, and while I wish the planets and new alien species were more unique and varied they still look fantastic, and the combat is pretty fun! So while I sympathise that it didn't meet the crazy high expectations people had, it didn't deserve to be completely and unanimously destroyed in every review. That game is a solid 3 stars at the very least.

The Evil Within 2.

It was literally the first game done right. One of the best survival horror games recently. Yet nobody really cared about it due to the first game not being good.

Also, DmC has a myriad of issues, none of them having to do with Dante’s hair.