bite sized: best of the worst

Hey vloggers, welcome back. I'm your host, Josh, and I'm the only one here today because this is a bite sized episode. If you've never listened to a bite sized episode, obviously it's bite sized. That means that it's shorter, it's smaller, it is more condensed. I don't know that that's actually true. But anyways, for our main episodes, we generally try and actually do some prep and think through some things and have some things that we want to share. I've got some things I want to share today, even though this is a bite sized episode. But what I'm saying is for bite sized episodes, we usually don't have really a full thought. We're kind of in process while we do this. And so that is what I'm doing today. I've got a topic for you and actually I would love your help with this as well. So here on this podcast we have our top 100 list. We have a lot of games that we have said are some of the pinnacles of the medium of video gaming. And we've made our arguments known as to why we enjoy these games so much, why we think there's something really special about them. But today I've come to talk about when some of the best of games and some of the worst of games and when those two things overlap. So I'm here to talk about the best of the worst games. Games that. Because we understand that art or in video games being a form of art or, or even if it's not really trying to be, or art, then maybe it's just about fun. Anyways, there's this idea of beauty in the eye of the beholder, or not necessarily that, but how about this one? How about this cliche? There's no accounting for taste, right? Different people have different tastes. And there may be a number of different reasons why you find a game compelling or engaging or something along those lines. We talk a lot about the games that we really enjoy and we think are really special and games that we think that other people ought to play. And we try and make a solid case for this medium of video games in general and what it can teach us and what it can show us and how we can grow through having these experiences. However, today I'm kind of flipping that coin over and I'm saying that sometimes, sometimes there are video games that we just enjoy, even though we recognize that it is not indeed the pinnacle of the medium. Even if we it's not something special, even if we would not recommend the Game to everyone. There's something about the game and usually frankly, it's nostalgia that I played it as a kid that falls into this, this camp, this idea of the best of the worst games, or perhaps it just does something special, but it doesn't go far enough with it. It only. It has a kernel of something really cool there, but maybe it just. It's not that great sometimes. It's a game that just kind of captures you with its mechanics and you just have fun with it and you just enjoy it while you can also on the other hand, say, yeah, the game's kind of trash. It's kind of garbage. It's just an hour of fun that I can have. This would be your popcorn flicks when it comes to movies. This would be your guilty pleasure albums, you know, the, the. The radio music, while it has its own merits, you know, in terms of production, in terms of maybe, maybe even some songwriting chops and things like that, it's very much geared towards the lowest common denominator and you just enjoy it. You have a good time and you move on. And it's not something that's going to move you emotionally. It's not something that's going to hit you hard. It's not something that's going to change your life or make you see things in a different perspective. It's simply just to have some fun or maybe to challenge yourself in a new way for a short amount time and then walk away from it. So these games are some of my personal best of the worst. So I recognize this handful of games that I'm going to be talking about are not good games. Okay, I'm not saying they're good games, but I want to explain why I really enjoy these games. So what I did was I just took a look at my GG list over the past five years or so of games that I've played and I've pulled out a few. A handful starting with the games that I've played recent, the most recently to some of the oldest games here. So one of the first that comes to mind as I take a look at games that I've beaten over the past five years is one, we've actually done a full episode on it. You can go listen to it for some extended thoughts, but that's Sakuna of Rice and Ruin. I. I think this game falls short of really doing something, something special and setting a place on, setting a really high bar for itself. I don't. I don't actually think this game is trash. I don't think it's garbage, but I also wouldn't recommend it to everyone. I think it's too long. I think there's not really enough in the game to. To really justify its overall thing that it does. But what I think what it's trying to do is really cool. I think the fact that it's. It's basically an indie game that's kind of stretched out. I think it's cool. I think it's good. I enjoyed it. I don't think it's very fleshed out, and I think it could have been a lot better. So I really enjoyed my time with it. But I also recognize it's not a great game. But I still really like it and I think back on it fondly. So that's the first game, I would say best of the worst. Here's another one that I do think in a certain sense, it's a garbage game. It is very transient. It's like vapor. It's heat today and gone tomorrow. This was a game that was originally a mobile game. I believe it's Korean, if I'm not mistaken. But it was ported onto the switch and I picked it up for a dollar or two. I mean, super cheap. And this is a game called Mom Hid My Game. And this is a very. It's. It's dumb, but it's actually. I love its sense of humor. I think it's really funny. And the whole conceit of the game is that you are this little kid who wants to play his ds but his mom has hid his DS from him. And so on each level, it's just a point and click little deal. You're going around and trying to find where your mom hid your game. And often it's like ridiculous crazy things that happen on the screen and it's just played for laughs. Like, for instance, one of the episodes is where your DS is on the other side of this room that you're in. But as soon as you start walking towards it, then people in bicycles come by. And so you have to find a way to stop the people in bicycles. And somehow you find some like, thumbtacks or something and you throw them on the ground. And so all the bicycles, all the people on bicycles pop their tires and crash. And so then you can walk and get your ds. I mean, it's really dumb stuff. And it starts off kind of simple, like, oh, check under the bed. Oh, you know, did mom hide it in the closet? Like, it starts off normal, and then it gets absolutely ridiculous and stupid and funny and a Little crass at times. It's juvenile humor. But the reason that I picked this one out is because I think I. I don't think it's. It's much of anything. Like, it's not something that I would say, oh, everyone needs to play this. No, it's a dumb 30ish 45 minutes maybe that you'll be playing this thing. But I had a big dumb smile on my face the whole time that I played it. So I really like it. And I recognize it's not good. It's not traditionally good, but I really enjoyed it. And so that's. Mom hid my game. Recommend that one. The next one on the list is another one. It kind of plays with this title that I've given kind of the best of the worst, and That's Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Okay. I've talked about this on the. On many episodes before. I really like this game. It has some really big missteps in terms of. Not mechanics, but in explaining its mechanics and how, how complicated it is. But also there is a lot of Weeb garbage all throughout this game, which really makes it difficult to recommend and is frankly kind of embarrassing to play. So I think in a lot of ways the game is garbage. But in a lot of other ways it is actually really emotional and meaningful and impacting, impacting, impactful. I don't know. It leaves an impact. And so I really like this game. While also I think it's garbage. So both of these things, this, this one is the most polarizing. I think it's a great game. I also think it's kind of garbage. So this is me kind of rummaging through the trash and saying, and not recommending that you play Xenoblade Chronicles 2 because of the garbage in it, but also saying that, oh man, I do think it's actually great in some ways. So Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is another best of the worst that video games has for you. Here's another one I played through on 3Ds. It is puzzle and Dragons, Super Mario Brothers edition. Puzzle and Dragons is another one of those Match three games that was originally a mobile game. They ported a version of it to 3Ds and added a new Super Mario Brothers version. And all this is. Is your dragon. It's a Match three. Dragging stuff around, going crazy all over the screen. I do like it. The fact that you buy the game and you play through the game and so you're not like with mobile games. I'm thinking, oh well, the RNG is just gonna lose on me because it wants my money. And I can only play for so long every day before the RNG just kind of says, forget it. Give me money, kid. And so the fact that it's not a mobile game and the fact that you actually purchase the game and play through it, like, that's why I wanted to try this one out. And here's the deal with this game. It's garbage, but I really liked it. It was way too long. I believe it was 20, maybe 30 hours to play through the whole campaign. That's in, in Scare quotes there. But to play through the whole story mode, which was no story at all. I mean, it's. It's dumb. It's dumb. It is, it is stupid. The conceit of Mario being there is just a coat of paint over this thing. I say that. I mean, yeah, you get power ups and things like that. Okay, anyways, it's a very dumb game, but I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed. It's not stupidity, but I enjoyed just kind of the puzzle nature of. You don't have to think too hard, but at the same time you're like really concentrating on this thing. There's not much to it. There's not too much going on, but it's really fast paced. So it is definitely adrenaline pumping or, or just. It just hits those dopamine receptors. So I really enjoyed my time with this game, but I also think it's pretty trash. I think it's. I think it's garbage. So Puzzle and Dragon Super Mario Brothers Edition is definitely one of the best of. One of the worst games of all time. Okay, now we're winding down here. Before I get to the last one, I'm actually going to go way back in time. And as. As an honorable mention is one that I kind of go back to all the time of. It's not a good game, but I really enjoy it. And this is purely because of nostalgia. Is, is Spider man the Animated series on Super Nintendo. This was one of my first Super Nintendo games and I played it a ton as a kid. It was developed by Western technologies, I think is what Google told me. But it was published by ljn. So you're thinking, oh, this is an absolute garbage game because AVGN says all LJN games are garbage. Sort of. It's not. It's not a terrible game, but it's odd. It's a kind of a 2D side scroller. You're Spider man. You can do some web slinging, you know, you've got. You've got your web, but he's also kind of heavy. Enemies take a lot of hits. It's, it's, it's. It's really just that it's not a great game. It's. It's a little bit like the levels. There's only like five or six levels in it, but they're kind of huge levels. For 2D side scrolls. It's not just left to right. You're going up and down, you're going around, you're trying to get. Collect different things in different parts of the. The levels and then go to other parts, you know, to unlock doors and anyways, it's not a great game and I recognize that, but it's one look. I really liked Spider man as a kid. I still really like Spider Man. I liked the Spider man animated series that this is based on. I really like that. So. And it was a Super Nintendo game that I had as a kid, so there's definitely nostalgia there. So I just, I really enjoy it. I don't know that there's that much to say about the game. It's not great, but I've played through it so many times. I have so much of the game memorized. And so it just has a special place in my heart. That's Spider man on Super Nintendo. Go check out YouTube or something for some gameplay if you want to see anything about it. It's like I said, it's not terrible. It's not like Spiderman X Men Arcades Revenge like that game is. That game is just. That game is garbage. But this one's not great. It is very like mid. Yeah, just a super mid Super Nintendo game. But because of the Spider man coat of paint, the enemies, you know, it's a little bit more than a coat of paint. Like I think they do pretty well with it. But yeah, I like it. So it's one of my best of the worst games Games kind of trash, but I like it and I could go back and play it anytime. So lastly, and the reason that this one is last is simply because this is kind of where this whole episode came from is I talked about on the last episode I picked up a PlayStation 4 Pro because my previous PlayStation 4 kicked the bucket on me. And so I went to download some games and my kids were interested in a game that I had played through on PlayStation 4, which are the Persona dancing games. And so I reloaded them on this PlayStation 4 Pro. And I've been replaying some of these games and especially trying to unlock a song that Nanako sings if you're familiar with the game at all in Persona 4 dancing all night. So I like Persona 3 dancing in moonlight a lot. I like the music from that. I've talked about this on previous episodes, so you can go back and check those out. Here's the deal, man. Persona 4 dancing all night is my least favorite of all three of them. It actually has a story, which I think is garbage. And as I'm trying to unlock one song in particular in this game, I have to go through the story mode. And my goodness, there is so much flippin talking in this game. You can't. You can't actually skip all of the text. You can just like super speed it up. And even then, it is so annoying to have to go through all this text speeding across the screen and these characters popping up. There is so much text in this game and the story is so stupid. It is. It is so dumb. I think Persona 4 Dancing All Night is a garbage game. However, I think the rhythm game mechanics are solid. I think, frankly, I think the music is just okay. I know some people really love Persona 4 music. I don't think the remixes in this game are that great. So it's very, very mid music. But I like the mechanics of the rhythm gameplay and there's just something about it. So. So Persona 4 dancing all night I don't think is. I think it's a garbage game. I can have a fun time with it. Really. Persona 3 Dancing in moonlight is my favorite. Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight is good as well. I enjoy it. But Persona 3 is the one that I really enjoy and that one's the most. Like not guilty pleasure because I will openly talk about it. But the game that like, hey, I know this one's trash. There's like almost no story and the story is complete garbage. But that's actually a good thing. Like that's kind of in its favor because the story in Persona 4 is such trash in the Dancing All Night is. So I'm lumping all these games together. One is that I haven't played a ton of rhythm games, so I don't know how this compares to other rhythm games in general. But I really like the mechanics and it's a lot of fun to actually play. And these are some of the few games I've ever platinumed platinum to gotten a Platinum 4 on PlayStation. And I. I really like playing these games, but I also think they're garbage. Less so with Persona 3, but with Persona 4 dancing all night. Like I think the game is utter Garbage, but I enjoy it to a certain extent. And Persona 3 I really enjoy. Persona 3 dancing in moonlight. Dancing is what I mean. Persona 3 dancing I really enjoy. But it's also pretty garbage. Not quite as garbage as four, but it is pretty garbage. So anyways, I think. I think that's enough for me. I think as we kind of rummage through the bottom of the barrel here and talk about the, the best of the, the worst that gaming has to offer, here's where I said at the start of the episode, I want your help. How about you guys? What are some games that you recognize are not good games that you really enjoy? I'm looking forward to some of these that may come up. You know, we all have games that we're just nostalgic for when we played when we were younger, but I think there's also, you know, you could easily just put in like Call of Duty, right? You know, these aren't great games, but man, it's a good time. You know, sometimes you just want to scratch that itch and Call of Duty is just what you need for, you know, an hour or two and you're having a good time. So anyways, I'd love to hear from you. What are some of your favorite games that are complete and utter garbage that you don't mind saying? This is not a good game. But also I kind of love it. I'd love to hear from you. So. So reach out. There are tons of ways you can do that. Go to our link tree linktree.com thebacklogbreakdown and reach out to us. One of those ways. Email us, join our discord. You know, just. Just get a hold of me because I want to hear what you have to say. Now that you've heard what I have to say on this bite sized episode. Anyways, guys, appreciate you listening. Until next time, keep beating down your backlogs and we'll keep breaking down.