I actually had a review prepared for this week, but I've decided to take a little bit of a detour. Thanks to the magic of personally curated content suggestions, I stumbled upon something I found to be quite interesting.
When you play video games for as long as I have, you are bound to encounter some bad ones. Typically, these games are dismissed immediately and often become the target of online game reviewers like myself, pointing and laughing at their horrible controls or stupid plots or lousy graphics or whatever. I touched on the whole subset of online content dedicated almost entirely to anger-fueled, profanity-ridden rants against horrible games in the intro episode of my podcast. Unlike other media formats, it's seemingly rare for bad video games to have defenders. Which is why I was surprised when I came across an entire sub-culture of gamers that embraced these titles, games affectionately known as Kusoge.
Kusoge is a portmanteau of the Japanese words Kuso, meaning crappy (the more literal translation is something else, but I like to keep it PG here) and Ge, meaning game. Simple enough, right? The phrase was relatively common within the industry as early as the 80's. It's unclear where the actual sub-culture surrounding these games started, but most gaming historians seem to trace it back to around 1996. That is when Japanese magazine Gameside began running a column called "Bishoku Club Bakage Senka," which in English works out to "Gourmet Club Stupid Games Course." Is Japan awesome or what? Anyway, the general Kusoge culture focuses on finding the fun and joy of games that are widely considered "bad." Understandably, many of the early games that fall under the umbrella are Japanese exclusives that never made it to the U.S. However, the term has certainly expanded to fit titles released in the West as well.
I'm kind of new to all of this, so I don't want to talk about it like I'm an expert. But it seems to me there is a pretty fine line between games that are considered Kusoge and games that are just straight up awful. Kusoge games seem to fit more under the umbrella of what I like to refer to as "awesomely bad." I first heard this term use by, of all places, VH1 when discussing lousy songs. The term kind of stuck with me, because it made a lot of sense. There was a difference between bad and awesomely bad. "Ice, Ice Baby" is an objectively terrible song. But in a way, it has its own weird charm. The beat is catchy, they lyrics are unintentionally hilarious, the whole aesthetic surrounding Vanilla Ice is goofy, there's as much to like as there is to hate. Awesomely bad is something like "Rollin'" by Limp Bizkit, or "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung or even "Macarena." Just straight up bad is something like "My Pal Foot Foot."
I think it's the same with video games. To me, something like Primal Rage is awesomely bad, the kind of game that I would consider to be Kusoge. I know that not everyone feels this way, but I just think the game isn't very good, I hate the special move inputs, I feel like the controls are stiff and it's just a generally awkward game. But at the same time...it's a fighting game with freakin' dinosaurs. You can play as a giant monkey that stuns enemies by farting and has a fatality where he disintegrates his opponent by peeing on them. You can eat your human followers for health or use them as volleyballs if you so choose. Primal Rage may not be Street Fighter II, but it's weird and quirky and there's fun to be had. Shaq Fu is another great example. For a long time, it was considered one of the worst video games ever released. There was even a website dedicated to finding and destroying every copy of the game. But, it's really not THAT bad. It's not great, but the issue is really more that it's one of the stupidest ideas ever for a video game. I know they were trying to be some level of serious, but you can't look at an interdimensional fighting tournament featuring Shaquille O'Neal through a modern lens and not think its funny. Again, not an expert, but this seems like the kind of game people are talking about when they call something Kusoge.
This is a major difference from something like, say, Rise of the Robots. There is nothing redeeming about that game, it's an absolutely miserable experience from the time you press start. I mean, I guess you could find some level of comedy in how atrociously bad it is? I guess that's kind of where the line gets drawn: fun but greatly flawed vs. not fun at all because it's greatly flawed. As a patient gamer, it's easy for me to look past certain flaws if a game is fun at its core. This is especially true when it comes to the things that modern gamers deem to be "flaws." Oh no! It doesn't render in 1080P! There aren't enough Ps! The framerate is below 100FPS! Who cares about gameplay, worst game ever! But by the same token, some games are just beyond help. I defy anyone to play the Moose and Squirrel game and find anything to like.
It does seem like what exactly constitutes a Kusoge is kind of up for interpretation. However, there is a list available on Hardcoregaming 101, which I will link here. I am sure there are more than this, but it seems like a pretty solid list. I am actually a little surprised that I have not reviewed any of these games yet, but the list definitely gave me some ideas. I am most certainly going to review Day Dreamin' Davey and H.U.R.L. at some point and, spoiler alert, they most certainly fit into the whole "flawed but fun" category. There are some games on that list that I would definitely put into the "just bad" category as well. I don't know how much fun I could get out of Bubsy 3D, even in an ironic sort of way. There are also a few games I have heard brought up frequently that aren't on the list, like Fist of the North Star for the PS2. I've never played that either, but I've seen some gameplay footage, mostly focused on the absolutely insane touch of death combos that every character can do. It's the kind of thing that makes a fighting game bad, but I can definitely see why people find joy in it. Side note, a lot of Kusoges tend to be fighting games, which I guess makes sense.
Regardless of what genre they fall into, I think it's kind of nice to see people appreciating flawed games despite their faults. As with any media, there isn't a black and white divide between good and bad. It actually kind of makes you wonder, are any of these games truly "bad" if they are fun at the end of the day? More than anything, that's the mark of a good game, right? At the end of the day, a lot of it comes down to feel. The difference between good, bad and awesomely bad is kind of in the eye of the beholder. I've reviewed a lot of games over the past few years, sometimes my opinions differentiate from the consensus and sometimes they are the same. I have played and reviewed many games I would consider to be Kusoge over the years, though that might not be general consensus. Of course, I think the aforementioned Primal Rage fits. But, off the top of my head, I would consider games like Quest for the N64, Beavis and Butt-Head for the Super NES, Nano Breaker for the PS2 and, probably most off all, Street Fighter: The Movie for the PS1/Saturn to be Kusoge. Again, I don't know if there's really a true definition, or if those games would meet it. But that's what I feel based on my understanding of the concept.
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