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Sway Grunt
May 15, 2004

Tenochtitlan, looking east.
Back in spring there was some talk in the Steam thread about janky but charming games and there seemed to be enough interest in a dedicated thread. Hopefully this can be a place for people to discover some odd gems.

I believe it was Gorn Myson who originally considered making the thread but it's been six months and I don't think it happened so I'm seizing the initiative. Sorry, Gorn!
---------------

What do you mean by 'jank'?
'Jank' can mean many things and the definition is ultimately kind of subjective. It could be the devs aimed too high, far beyond their budget and ability, and the game fell flat on its face. Or the localization was botched and the result is an obtuse mess. Or the animation's poor, the art a disaster, the mechanics insane. Or all of these together. Whatever it is, something just isn't quite right about it, yet, crucially, a charmingly janky game manages to endear itself to you somehow. In many cases you can see what it's going for, and you can feel the heart that went into it. You want to give it a pat on the back because dammit, it tried.

Janky but charming games will be a waste of time for many, but a subset of players might find enough in them - an interesting idea, a unique art style or just some plain dumb fun – to make the experience worthwhile.

A lot of AAA games are janky. What's the scope of this thread?
There are plenty of well-known and commercially successful games that are janky as hell. I think it'd be best for this thread to focus on lesser known titles. For example, if we ranked janky RPG developers in terms of recognizability and commercial success, Bethesda might be at the top and a company like Spiders at the bottom, with Piranha Bytes somewhere inbetween. For the purposes of this thread I think PB would represent the cutoff point. Titles like Skyrim and Mass Effect Andromeda might be delightfully janky but they're big enough to be discussed elsewhere.

That said, I'm not into making strict rules or whatever. Arguably games that are odd, inscrutable or difficult, but interesting, and are nevertheless competently made (like, say, The Void) might attract the same type of player and repel others in the way a janky garbage game would. The scope of this thread could perhaps expand to include those flawed gems as well. Maybe?

Bottom line, when in doubt, :justpost:.

Any examples?
Here are a few janky games that I like just to get the ball rolling.

E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy: One of the best-known janky games, and for good reason because it rules. Incomprehensible narrative, massive unwieldy levels, opaque character progression, batshit weapons – EYE is an excellent example of the 'genre'.

Afterfall InSanity: Like Dead Space except worse in every possible way. Yet it sticks so close to the formula it can't help but be fun despite itself, and honestly I recall the melee combat being pretty satisfying. Sadly it's been removed from Steam and the developer went out of business after Epic sued them for using a pirated version of Unreal. Many will have a copy of this already as it's been in lots of cheap bundles over the years.

Cryostasis: A slow-paced FPS that has you roaming through a crashed ice-breaker uncovering its story. There's definite jank here but it does cold effects very well and there are some good setpieces. Has a memorable ending. Also removed from Steam for some reason.

Two Worlds: Potentially one of the dumbest games ever made, but you can strap twenty swords to each other to make an uber sword. The faux-medieval dialogue and atrocious voice acting are the stuff of legends and it never stops being funny.

A Valley Without Wind: I am a big Arcen apologist. Their games always have something interesting going on even if the execution leaves something to be desired and the art is painful. AVWW is not their best, and actually some might say is their worst, which makes it perfect for this thread. I genuinely enjoyed the strategic layer of the sequel a lot. The platforming and combat are terrible, though.

Hammerfight: A weirdo indie classic with unusual and difficult controls that, when everything accidentally aligns perfectly, can actually feel amazing. When it doesn't it's a nightmare.
---------------

Anyway post about janky games, and if you've got anything to add to this admittedly spartan OP let me know.

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Sway Grunt
May 15, 2004

Tenochtitlan, looking east.
I feel I should mention that janky cult classic Precursors is available at Fanatical for $1.49 in their Pick & Mix bundle at the moment. I bought it but haven't tried it yet. There are some discouraging reports about how this version runs, and it seems like it requires at least a community patch. On the plus side, Wesp of Bloodlines patching fame posted that he intends to give this and another Deep Shadow title, Xenus 2: White Gold, some attention. Eventually.

I've had Culpa Innata on my wishlist for a while and that looks like it might either be a cult classic or a total mess. Has anyone played it?

And are any of Spiders' games actually worthwhile?

TjyvTompa
Jun 1, 2001

im gay
My Summer Car, super janky game when building your car, especially pushing it into the garage to mount the engine and stuff under the car is total bullshit, but the game is really well made so it is fun.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/516750/My_Summer_Car/

on the computer
Jan 4, 2012

The fighting game Lugaru and its sequel Overgrowth was super janky, but also super satisfying. You ran around as an anthromorphic rabbit and fought other anthromorphic rabbits and wolves with a realistic fighting system that had blocking, bone breaking, weapons, etc. Hilarious and cool.

Mr Scumbag
Jun 6, 2007

You're a fucking cocksucker, Jonathan
My wife calls my penis charming jank.

I'll show myself out.

Mordja
Apr 26, 2014

Hell Gem
They're more popular than a lot of other games mentioned so far, and the last one was actually comparatively polished, but the STALKER games absolutely belong in this thread.

Sway Grunt
May 15, 2004

Tenochtitlan, looking east.
STALKER is great, yeah. I've always had it in the back of my mind to go back and replay at least one of them but I'm bad at replaying games. Even years later I feel like I should be tackling a new game rather than going back.


I've started playing one of the games I picked up alongside Precursors earlier today and it's a bit of a perfect fit for this thread. It's called Across the Moment and it's a first-person puzzle game that has some trouble explaining itself (but it tries), mostly because of poor English to be honest. There's a lot of abstract visuals and long-winded, philosophizing narration. I'm currently stuck on an annoying jumping puzzle but have otherwise enjoyed it so far. Feels a bit like a cross between The Void, Myst and Antichamber. I guess?

Some screens:






Mr. Baps
Apr 16, 2008

Yo ho?

Dragon's Dogma, especially the Pawns. (and also the plot)

The game is extremely good and by all rights probably shouldn't be. But it is, and it rules.

McFrugal
Oct 11, 2003
Deios II // DEIDA is pretty drat janky. I'm not sure how much of that is intentional though. It's a sort of exploration-based platformer where you can glitch up the already-glitchy world to (hopefully, probably not) make the terrain or your avatar do things that will help you reach stuff you normally wouldn't be able to. In practice only one or two glitch commands are useful while the rest will either make the terrain impossible to traverse or have merely cosmetic changes. I'm not sure there's much you'd need to use the glitch commands for anyway... but I've certainly not exhausted the possibility of well-hidden secrets, and even the map posted in community guides is incomplete so it appears nobody else has either. Not like many people have played it.

McFrugal fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Dec 11, 2017

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
Just off the top of my head/library and mostly of the Eastern/European variety:

Dead Effect 2: low-effort sequel of a low-effort mobile shooter port, what could possibly go right? Turns out this is actually pretty fun - imagine Borderlands except in a claustrophobic space station with zombies instead of bandits. Weapons aplenty, skills that just scream abuse (it's easily possible to two-shot the final boss with the right combos) and an inoffensive length with offensive voice acting.

Deadfall Adventures: it's a really lovely shooter that accidentally excels in something else entirely as it happens to be the best tomb raider this side of Tomb Raider. You play through the plot of a bad Indiana Jones movie and mow down legions of Nazis and mummies using thoroughly underwhelming guns, but the ancient crypts you'll be spending most of the time in are chock-full of secrets, traps and puzzles you have only some cryptic notes to navigate. Not exactly brain food but the graverobbing is fantastic.

Deadly Premonition: Super bad survival horror gameplaywise, utterly fantastic story and characters. Whether it's going to run and how well is pretty much pure chance.

Earth 2150: Quite possibly the most underrated RTS of all time. Ugly as sin and hard as balls but the options for screwing around with units and terrain are amazing. There's also a lot of it as it had two expansions.

Gorky 17: Polish survival horror SRPG. Exactly as charming as that sounds.

Inquisitor: A huge cRPG that suffers from a whole plethora of issues, starting with iffy translation, going through several incredibly boring areas and ending up with weird difficulty walls. Underneath that all it's a really lovingly made world and a story that reflects some parts of medieval setting that most fantasy would rather we forget. If you can survive the beginning and the one gamestopper dungeon, it's a real gem buried in a pile of poo poo. Protip: your inventory has five pages and no weight for a reason. Stock up on potions. No, I mean stock up on potions.
Probably my favorite bad game, with the possible exception of...

Necrovision: An utterly hilarious arena shooter where you have no idea what is going on half the time and the other half you just know it's batshit insane. Starts as a really bad WWI shooter, then it escalates. And boy it does escalate. By the end you'll be riding a dragon towards the gates of Hell in order to kick Satan's rear end while dual-wielding rocket launchers and calling up waves of lightning and fire.

Realms of the Haunting: An oldie but a goodie. Don't let the shooter engine and controls fool you, this is mostly survival horror with puzzles and ammo conservation. Also live-action cutscenes and a story that collapses on itself about two thirds of the game in but you'll want to finish it anyway. By the way, Hell is a park.

Silent Storm: Best squad tactics game to came out after Jagged Alliance 2. Fantastic demolition engine where blowing a hole under an enemy sniper in order to make the fucker plummet through three storeys of a shot up building to his death is a perfectly viable tactic. Non-linear campaign where your next missions are determined by clues you find on the battlefield. Also basically nonexistant difficulty curve, some skill trees straight-up don't work and the campaign generator can screw you into a dead end. There are mods that fix most of that, though. Did I mention the setting is WW2 with mechs?

anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Dec 11, 2017

Kibayasu
Mar 28, 2010

You unfortunately can't buy it any more, on Steam or pretty much anywhere else digitally that I can tell, but I found Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason to be a bizarrely charming FPS despite some large shortcomings. You play as a Russian scientist that goes out to meet a Russian icebreaker ship in an ice sheet only to find it stuck in said ice. You get aboard and soon discover that the entire crew is either dead or turned into strange creatures and its nuclear reactor has failed, turning the entire ship into an ice chest.

What you don't expect is that soon your fairly typical setup for a zombie/monster shooter actually involves time travel, interacting with "echoes" of the dead crew to alter past events and allow you to progress, and at the end fighting the god time to repair the personal relationships between the ships' officers and avert the disaster that got the ship stuck out of time in the first place. Throughout the game puts in passages and references to a Russian fairy tale I'm not at all familiar with but even without knowing the material beforehand it helps sell the out-of-worldliness of what's going on.

It's main boasting point was ice, in that the ice covering everything in the game wasn't a texture but real-time frozen water that, when warmed, would actually melt. Turning on the warmth is various areas is one of the big puzzles of the game. That leads to the first shortcomings, the strain the game puts on your system is immense, even when its just ice on the walls. This game will chug if you turn up the settings and don't have some kind of supercomputer and when it melts can tank your FPS to nothing. But the ice is seriously impressive. Every part of the ship is just plain eerie as it cracks and things echo and you can feel the cold. The cold is actually a mechanic as well. It doesn't drain your health like a "survival" game but warmth is how you heal yourself from damage. A single flickering incandescent light bulb in a dark hallway becomes a oasis.

The other problems are mechanical. Before you get any guns the game is a first-person brawler for a bit and we all know how fast that can go wrong. Even after you get a gun, and this might have just been me, the aiming is just... off. I don't know how else to describe it. Even by the end of the game I never felt like I was controlling things properly.

The brawling and shooting is never so bad that it stopped me but it's not something I could describe as fun. The game absolutely sells itself with its atmosphere though. The game does cold better than almost anything that's been done since and does really good subtle job with its characters' stories.

Kibayasu fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Dec 11, 2017

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

anilEhilated posted:

Inquisitor: A huge cRPG that suffers from a whole plethora of issues, starting with iffy translation, going through several incredibly boring areas and ending up with weird difficulty walls. Underneath that all it's a really lovingly made world and a story that reflects some parts of medieval setting that most fantasy would rather we forget. If you can survive the beginning and the one gamestopper dungeon, it's a real gem buried in a pile of poo poo. Protip: your inventory has five pages and no weight for a reason. Stock up on potions. No, I mean stock up on potions.
Probably my favorite bad game, with the possible exception of...

Can you elaborate a bit more on how to survive and thrive in this game? I was determined to like it, and loved its writing, but then ran headlong into the difficulty curve outside of the first town and went "welp" and never came back. I'd be game for trying again!

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer

StrixNebulosa posted:

Can you elaborate a bit more on how to survive and thrive in this game? I was determined to like it, and loved its writing, but then ran headlong into the difficulty curve outside of the first town and went "welp" and never came back. I'd be game for trying again!
Hit and run around the first town. The difficulty is completely over the top there, I'm fairly sure no one playtested it - go out, kill a monster or two, go heal up. If you run out of money, just wait until you regenerate, get a book or something. You should be able to get a dog companion in the first town; he's stupid and will probably die pretty soon but helps with the early game. Do any quests you can, a couple levels in you should be able to start tackling higher level monsters - the leveling-up curve will actually kick in, it just takes for loving ever to get off the first couple of levels.
Iron mines is the gamestopper dungeon - thing is long and boring and hard, 2+ inventory pages of potions are a must (you'll generally want to carry at least a page of bottles with you always - money will come pretty easy from the second town on). If you're a priest, any spells that disable enemies while you wail on them are a godsend (hurr) and some are utterly loving broken - basically the moment you're able to cast Black Mass you can obliterate entire screens of enemies that aren't even aware of you because the thing ignores walls. Thorn Crown allows you to cheese every boss in the game because it stacks with itself. If you're a warrior, supplant your defenses with some spells but forget about throwing fireballs. If you're a thief, you're probably screwed, but I haven't actually played as one.

StrixNebulosa
Feb 14, 2012

You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

anilEhilated posted:

Hit and run around the first town. The difficulty is completely over the top there, I'm fairly sure no one playtested it - go out, kill a monster or two, go heal up. If you run out of money, just wait until you regenerate, get a book or something. You should be able to get a dog companion in the first town; he's stupid and will probably die pretty soon but helps with the early game. Do any quests you can, a couple levels in you should be able to start tackling higher level monsters - the leveling-up curve will actually kick in, it just takes for loving ever to get off the first couple of levels.
Iron mines is the gamestopper dungeon - thing is long and boring and hard, 2+ inventory pages of potions are a must (you'll generally want to carry at least a page of bottles with you always - money will come pretty easy from the second town on). If you're a priest, any spells that disable enemies while you wail on them are a godsend (hurr) and some are utterly loving broken - basically the moment you're able to cast Black Mass you can obliterate entire screens of enemies that aren't even aware of you because the thing ignores walls. Thorn Crown allows you to cheese every boss in the game because it stacks with itself. If you're a warrior, supplant your defenses with some spells but forget about throwing fireballs. If you're a thief, you're probably screwed, but I haven't actually played as one.

Perfect, thank you! Installing the game now, I think I'll go full priest and try to actually experience the game this time. :D

Grey Fox
Jan 5, 2004

Friday the 13th has so much jank. From the amazingly goofy faces the counselors make when they're scared, to the ridiculous physics glitches involving cars, corpses, and sometimes a boat.

Sometimes you'll get stuck as Jason and have to politely ask a counselor to hit you with a baseball bat to get going again.

buglord
Jul 31, 2010

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Buglord
STALKER Series :

Probably my favorite FPS of all time, and also easily the scariest game I've ever played, Stalker throws you into the Eastern European wasteland. Even though this wasteland (known as the Zone) is plagued by mutants, pockets of radiation, physical anomalies, and super-storms, there are now supernatural valuables scattered about. This has created a gold-rush of sorts, drawing people and factions from all over who you'll inevitably befriend or murder in cold blood. Each of the Stalker games is incredibly immersive, and very unique to boot.

Where Fallout is the respected family-man of post-apoc shooter/rpg games, Stalker is your crazy uncle that's clearly on something and has been to jail many times for reasons he still wont disclose. Also his teeth are horrendous and he smells of booze. While both are technically in the same family of apocalyptic shooters, they couldn't be further different in setting and storytelling. Continuing the metaphor, Stalker games are textbook definitions of jank and missing polish. Glitches abound, appallingly bad English VO, incredibly lucky AI routinely pulling off fatal headshots that you yourself seldom make, its the furthest possible distance away from a smooth ride. But on the other hand, you'll see a side of post-apocalyptic gaming that isnt seen in western game studios, and you'll likely be terrified to adventure when its dark because the game is littered with (unscripted) opportunities to scare the hell out of you.

e: I need to emphasize that no horror game ive played after Stalker has been nearly as scary. I'm still trying to chase the fear-high and havent been lucky since 2012.

buglord fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Dec 12, 2017

buglord
Jul 31, 2010

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Buglord

Walrus Pete posted:

Dragon's Dogma, especially the Pawns. (and also the plot)

The game is extremely good and by all rights probably shouldn't be. But it is, and it rules.

Yeah someone needs to do a post on this because this game looks like forgettable garbage but is far from it.

hifi
Jul 25, 2012

Glare Seethe posted:

I feel I should mention that janky cult classic Precursors is available at Fanatical for $1.49 in their Pick & Mix bundle at the moment. I bought it but haven't tried it yet. There are some discouraging reports about how this version runs, and it seems like it requires at least a community patch. On the plus side, Wesp of Bloodlines patching fame posted that he intends to give this and another Deep Shadow title, Xenus 2: White Gold, some attention. Eventually.

I've had Culpa Innata on my wishlist for a while and that looks like it might either be a cult classic or a total mess. Has anyone played it?

And are any of Spiders' games actually worthwhile?

Precursors is badass, it's like an open world EYE but the setting reminds me more of kotor. It runs fine but you need the patches because it fixes the weapon sounds playing a second after you press the button.

Tiggum
Oct 24, 2007

Your life and your quest end here.


Evil Genius was a game that I always thought should have been amazing but never quite gets there. The biggest issue are the bugs, because it's really easy to end up with things breaking so you just can't progress at all, but even if it worked perfectly there would still be a bunch of small issues with ideas that had a lot of potential but just weren't quite developed enough or didn't quite fit with the rest of the game. But that core concept of, essentially, "The Sims but you're a super villain" is great.

Scalding Coffee
Jun 26, 2006

You're already dead

Grey Fox posted:

Friday the 13th has so much jank. From the amazingly goofy faces the counselors make when they're scared, to the ridiculous physics glitches involving cars, corpses, and sometimes a boat.

Sometimes you'll get stuck as Jason and have to politely ask a counselor to hit you with a baseball bat to get going again.
Sometimes you get hit so hard by them that Jason decides to leave the map and the game.
Jason can also kill someone so hard their corpse flies a good distance from where you killed them.

Also for the myriad of different errors I have been getting from that game that resulted in crashes. It finally had enough of me when the EAC server started kicking me from every game, as the frequent crashes were not enough of a clue to give up on the game.

Coolguye posted:

i think your computer is a quantum one, it's just that it fluctuates between existence and nonexistence instead of two simultaneous existences.

Scalding Coffee fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Dec 12, 2017

bewilderment
Nov 22, 2007
man what



If Dragon's Dogma belongs in this thread then EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 definitely qualifies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WHL5niM9JU

It's a game where you shoot giant evil robots and bugs.
The environment is all totally destructible with no consequence other than making your system chug - entire skyscrapers go down with your bigger weapons.

Eventually you get to punch a kaiju in the face with a giant robot.

The voice acting is B-move as hell.

And there's couch and online multiplayer and FOUR CLASSES!
RANGER: A regular guy with regular weapons! Never a bad pick, although they could use, like, a grappling hook ability or something. Bazookas, rocket launchers, shotguns, rifles, snipers, it's all here.
FENCER: A big slow moving armored guy that equips one weapon on each arm, but has a long-range dash and can dash-cancel! Swords, gatling guns, artillery! Also has superweapons that they need an Air Raider to help out with. Kind of not the greatest but still fun!
WING DIVER: Be an anime robot magical girl with TnA! Fly around with an energy meter that your weapons can share! Shoot lasers!
AIR RAIDER: Looks like a ranger, but their default weapons are just lovely mine launchers and targeting lasers for heavy Fencer weapons. But they can summon vehicles into combat, or call in airstrikes! I have no idea how you play these guys in underground levels because then they can't summon poo poo.

And the game has a goofy weapon levelling drop system where higher difficulties drop much higher level weapons, so instead of doing a 'straight playthrough' of normal mode, it's suggested that after you get some OK unlocks, you repeat some of the early levels on the hardest difficulties so you can get some really wacky weapons.

It's just a fun time.

Also you can sing mid-battle and NPCs will sing the appropriate counterpoint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJdj92N_d2I

bewilderment fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Dec 12, 2017

Sway Grunt
May 15, 2004

Tenochtitlan, looking east.

McFrugal posted:

Deios II // DEIDA is pretty drat janky.

The art for this basically immediately grabbed my attention, looks very cool. The dev needs to update pricing on the newest currencies before I can buy it, though.

Kibayasu posted:

I found Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason to be a bizarrely charming FPS despite some large shortcomings.

I agree 100% with everything in this post, it's a pretty perfect summary of Cryostasis. It's been years since I played it but it's one of those games that really leaves an impression.

hifi posted:

Precursors is badass, it's like an open world EYE but the setting reminds me more of kotor. It runs fine but you need the patches because it fixes the weapon sounds playing a second after you press the button.

I'm looking forward to trying it finally. I was waiting for it to hit Steam for years since previously it'd only been available on Beamdog I think (and then not at all). Now they just need to get Boiling Point up there for the complete Deep Shadows trilogy.


Also noticed that Inquisitor is available in a bundle on Fanatical alongside Lichdom: Battlemage (and others), which I haven't played but recent discussion in the Steam thread suggests may also belong in this thread. I might pick that up but it's not time-limited so no rush. One nice things about the older titles is that they're really common bundle fodder.

grate deceiver
Jul 10, 2009

Just a funny av. Not a redtext or an own ok.

Glare Seethe posted:

Wesp of Bloodlines patching fame posted that he intends to give this and another Deep Shadow title, Xenus 2: White Gold, some attention. Eventually.

I tried to like Xenus 2, but it feels and plays like a Precursors reskin. Like, same skills, same weapon progression, same item functionality, just different names and models. Not sure which one was first, but Precursors at least has the bonus of going into space. Though on the other hand, I remember the space parts being very bad.

Does Arcanum count? It's one of the best isometric rpgs of that era. I'd maybe even put it above Fallout in some respects. But the combat was terrible and there were some really annoying mandatory parts (loving dwarf mines, god).

grate deceiver
Jul 10, 2009

Just a funny av. Not a redtext or an own ok.

Glare Seethe posted:

Lichdom: Battlemage

It's bad. Terrible, awkward and sluggish controls. I wanted to like it, but it fought me every step of the way.

Faerie Fortune
Nov 14, 2004

bewilderment posted:

If Dragon's Dogma belongs in this thread then EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 definitely qualifies.

This post managed to sell me on a game I didn't even know existed, so thank you for bringing this into my life

Sway Grunt
May 15, 2004

Tenochtitlan, looking east.

grate deceiver posted:

I tried to like Xenus 2, but it feels and plays like a Precursors reskin. Like, same skills, same weapon progression, same item functionality, just different names and models. Not sure which one was first, but Precursors at least has the bonus of going into space. Though on the other hand, I remember the space parts being very bad.

Does Arcanum count? It's one of the best isometric rpgs of that era. I'd maybe even put it above Fallout in some respects. But the combat was terrible and there were some really annoying mandatory parts (loving dwarf mines, god).

Arcanum counts, and still has one of my favorite soundtracks in games.

I think Precursors came after Xenus 2 so maybe it benefited from a little extra refinement mechanically (and obviously the setting is just more interesting).

Hwurmp
May 20, 2005

bewilderment posted:

If Dragon's Dogma belongs in this thread then EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 definitely qualifies.

since this thread is about charming jank it should be noted that if you are in a wheeled or tracked vehicle and any enemy robot physically touches you, you will be catapulted into space

be prepared: make sure one of your quick-chat macros is set for "Yahoo!"

quote:

I have no idea how you play these guys in underground levels because then they can't summon poo poo.

ZE-GUNs, Assist Guns, and hope you can kill everything before it gets close enough to sneeze on your Depth Crawler

Hwurmp fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Dec 12, 2017

Bruteman
Apr 15, 2003

Can I ask ya somethin', Padre? When I was kickin' your ass back there... you get a little wood?

EDF is great because it throws giant enemies every other level at you that would be some other game's end boss.

C.M. Kruger
Oct 28, 2013
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Gothic/Risen series yet. They're like one of the prime examples of janky but compelling games.

Sway Grunt
May 15, 2004

Tenochtitlan, looking east.

C.M. Kruger posted:

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Gothic/Risen series yet. They're like one of the prime examples of janky but compelling games.

I'll admit to being a little bit of a Gothic 3 apologist. The first thing I like about it is how it drops you into an enormous world and the only direction it can be bothered to give you is a quest description that says "Find Xerxes". :shrug: Like fifty hours and a billion dead boars later you shuffle up to Xerxes and he's like "Oh, there you are". Dude I've been looking all over for you.

The second thing I like is that it has a desert map, which is all too rare in games, and also ties into the third thing, which is Piranha Bytes' excellence at crafting the geography of their game worlds. It's just always so fun to traverse the map in Gothic/Risen. Something about the world design in their games just works. I remember the forest region in Gothic 3 being just gorgeous, with sweeping pastures and giant waterfalls crashing into streams that flow into riverside towns. It absolutely shames its peers (like Oblivion or Two Worlds), and probably many games that have come since, though I'd have to revisit it to make sure. Just looking at random youtube videos, though, I think I stand behind that statement.

Sadly the game eventually devolves into PB's standard combat-heavy late-game misery. Every town you take over throws dozens and dozens of orcs at you at once and it's just awful. And fighting through the furnace up north was insanity. That place would just vomit piles of enemies endlessly, it was unreal. I honestly remember that battle taking literally hours.

Weirdly, if I recall correctly, it also doesn't have any female characters. At all. There might be a few female models among the rebels but I don't remember them having any lines. I think it shares that with STALKER.

ChrisBTY
Mar 29, 2012

this glorious monument

grate deceiver posted:

Does Arcanum count? It's one of the best isometric rpgs of that era. I'd maybe even put it above Fallout in some respects. But the combat was terrible and there were some really annoying mandatory parts (loving dwarf mines, god).

let us remember the best part of Arcanum. That the best character build was a mentally deficient Ogre wielding a rapier.

turn off the TV
Aug 4, 2010

moderately annoying
X3 Terran Conflict and Albion Prelude. They're amazing games that are also strapped in with some terrible path finding, performance problems, bizarre voice acting and CGI, bland plotlines and atrocious menus that will make you question your sanity.

https://youtu.be/xzjy2ZdMDi4?t=681
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7Z42KxM2XE

Scalding Coffee
Jun 26, 2006

You're already dead
You can always find new things to do in EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqoW0qhLzbM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJzLKNMfOEg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GcEIxt_IAk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXHFEFPxhYY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnkCQzEFlsU

buglord
Jul 31, 2010

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Buglord
to save our mother early from any alien attack,

Vakal
May 11, 2008

Glare Seethe posted:


The second thing I like is that it has a desert map, which is all too rare in games, and also ties into the third thing, which is Piranha Bytes' excellence at crafting the geography of their game worlds. It's just always so fun to traverse the map in Gothic/Risen. Something about the world design in their games just works. I remember the forest region in Gothic 3 being just gorgeous, with sweeping pastures and giant waterfalls crashing into streams that flow into riverside towns. It absolutely shames its peers (like Oblivion or Two Worlds), and probably many games that have come since, though I'd have to revisit it to make sure. Just looking at random youtube videos, though, I think I stand behind that statement.


Get Elex if you haven't already. It has all of that stuff but ten times better since you have a jetpack.

DisDisDis
Dec 22, 2013
I think the Elder Scrolls V Skyrim definitely qualifies. Can feel really repetitive at times and combat is pretty bad but it's full of hilarious bugs and its really fun to climb vertical cliffs by clipping your horse into them. It's a shame the default skill trees are so boring but this is improvable with mods. The main quest is lame and it has the problem of combat becoming trivial way before you finish the game and combat being most of the game but despite its many problem I've sunk a shameful amount of time into it.

e: a nd who could forget classic videogame meme "and then I took an arrow to the knee"

anilEhilated
Feb 17, 2014

But I say fuck the rain.

Grimey Drawer
Eh, I'd say Skyrim is a typical AAA attempt. It's not janky, it's just poo poo.

Sway Grunt
May 15, 2004

Tenochtitlan, looking east.

Vakal posted:

Get Elex if you haven't already. It has all of that stuff but ten times better since you have a jetpack.

Yeah it's on my wishlist but sadly my CPU and RAM are almost eight years old and don't meet the minimum requirements. Maybe some day I will have the funds for an upgrade.

I do still need to get around to Risen 3, anyway, and that should just about run.

Accordion Man
Nov 7, 2012


Buglord
Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi- A survival horror FPS with some procedural generation, Nosferatu is all about saving your family members from a vampire who has kidnapped them during your sister's wedding. It's kind of buggy but its atmosphere is real good and while its hard, Easy is a manageable difficulty. A fun thing is that your fists are actually really good at stunlocking enemies so the game practically turns into Phantom Blood: The Game and its some goofy fun. There's also neat mechanics like using your crucifix to make holy water and using stakes as torches. It's a unique and fun game despite its jank even to this day.

Rule of Rose - A PS2 survival horror with some serious jank with its combat, wonky rear end hitboxes, a protagonist that can barely fight, and the inability to hit enemies when they're down. Thankfully its really easy to avoid enemies though. While the combat sucks, the writing and atmosphere are fantastic; its one of the most beautiful and sad games I have played.

Deadly Premonition- As previously mentioned DP isn't a looker and the combat is just there, but DP has so much charm and personality. I genuinely think that its superior to its higher budget and more polished Twin Peaks inspired spiritual sibling, Alan Wake.

MARLOW BRIGGS AND THE MASK OF DEATH- A budget God of War clone, Marlow Briggs has a lot of cheesy 80's action movie style charm. Its fun to play and the characters are likable and funny. Sadly it ends on a cliffhanger and there won't be a sequel.

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The Colonel
Jun 8, 2013


I commute by bike!
Dragon's Dogma manages to come out really good pretty much entirely thanks to a really unlikely team, it's an open world action rpg made by... the people who make Devil May Cry. That, combined with taking a lot of influence from Monster Hunter, makes it something incredibly special. Instead of being an open world game about your party awkwardly plinking away at enemies forever, it becomes a ridiculous open world class-based action game where warriors exist to bash everything across the world, and agility-based classes exist for an even simpler, grander purpose



Armored Core, at least the first one, is pretty much jank personified, but despite its terrible controls and camera and atrocious early ps1 3d and some really godawful boss fights, there are surprisingly fun bits of writing, creating your own supermech is really satisfying and managing to blast through enemies is a lot of fun. The later games, as far as I know, manage to be really solid improvements while never really losing the insane jank.



Makai Toushi SaGa is a SaGa game. It's a bit more palatable than the later ones, but it's still a SaGa game and every boss in the game can be killed in one hit with a chainsaw you get on level 5. The final boss has a unique animation for this. Your party can include monsters that evolve by eating the meat of other monsters. The levels in this game can range from two hours of pure questing, to a 20 minute-long tragic redemption story. The penultimate floor is about fighting a phoenix with the help of a rowdy biker gang in post-apocalypse japan.

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