I’m talking about games that you still like but you had no idea were criticized so much.
The perfect example for me is Sonic Unleashed.
I admit that the game has its bad things, but I would have never imagined that it was so hated at the time… Although, that could be extended to the entire Sonic franchise, since for many years I was not aware at all of that “Sonic was never good”, “Sonic had a rough transition to 3D” nonsense.
It’s a good game. Just not as good as the first two, that’s all. Many attributed it to the console release dumbing down the mechanics.
But, oh man, The Shalebridge Cradle is so awesome even if the rest of the games sucked so much as to be unplayable, that mission alone could redeem it.
At the time my parents were away on holiday or something. So I dragged my PC and awesome sound system upstairs and hooked them up to the big TV, ironically getting closer to the console experience. Darkening the whole room and getting immersed in the game was so awesome. And the Cradle scared the everliving shit out of me.
Good times.