I can't remember where I first heard of Fortune Street, but I was hooked immediately by the premise. It's a Monopoly-style board game where you buy up property, and try to dominate each section of the board by owning all the shops there. You even charge people if they land on your space, and can make the rent go up by pumping money into a property. The one real difference here is that stocks play a major role. If you buy a lot of stock in your district before investing money into it, your stock price will go through the roof. Alternatively, if you can buy stocks in a competitor's district before they invest, they have to decide between helping both of you or abandoning that district. Or, if one player has all their money tied up in stocks, you can buy out property from under them, tanking that district's stock price and ruining them. I'm a huge Mario Party fan and this basically sounded like a grown-up version of it, with some of the randomness reduced and more strategy involved.

It didn't exactly work out like I hoped. I could only find one friend who was willing to trade Mario- and Dragon Quest-themed stocks with me, so we decided to try the single-player mode. That began a nearly decade-long quest to conquer one of the most frustrating games I've ever played. The deck is stacked against the player hard in Fortune Street, to the point where I’m convinced that the AI flat out cheats. That may sound like sour grapes, but it’s hard not to think after you’ve seen Bianca make a boneheaded trade to Mario to hand him the win, or Bowser Jr. bumble through Dragonlord’s district, handing him thousands of dollars, while deftly sidestepping every trap you have set for him. When you’re in a race with the AI, suddenly you’ll be rolling all ones, while they’re rolling eights. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t experienced it, and I know there’s no point in a developer rigging the game against their players, but I’ll always be convinced that’s the truth.

But that only steeled us further. We were the underdog, virtuous warriors fighting to beat an unjust system. Like any cheater, we couldn’t let the game get away with what it was doing. It took a long time, and it was exhausting work, but it’s oddly one of the most satisfying notches in my gaming belt.

Games are weird like that. Due to their interactive nature, they challenge us directly in ways that other media can’t. If the insult is personal enough, you can get drawn into a ludicrous grudge with a children’s game. I’ve been thinking a lot about my Fortune Street experience lately, so I wanted to pose the question to the GBAtemp community: do you guys have any games like this? Ones that you know are bad, but for whatever reason, you just need to force yourself to beat anyway?

 

[IC_]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I dislike so many things about it and its community compared to New Leaf and the previous games but for some reason I still keep playing it.

 

[RobXcore]

League of Legends.

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

League of Legends.

No one hates league more than league players

 

[tech3475]

Not a specific game but a series, I’ll still play newer Sonic games even if they’re mediocre/bad e.g. Lost World, Forces, etc.

I even completed Sonic 06 once and no I wasn’t streaming it.

Of course this doesn’t include games like Generations or Mania.

 

[RobXcore]

No one hates league more than league players

I concur.

 

[RedoLane]

That's quite a trivial question... but I'm gonna be that guy and simply say: No. I don't have such game in my book.
Personally, if there's something that I can't stop playing, it's because I like it more than other games in my library.
With that being said, a counter-question:
Why would you spend your time playing something that you don't like?
Just putting my curiosity on the table.

 

[Tomato123]

Warframe. Been playing since 2014 and they hardly seem to care about veteran players. Most content added is either for new players or dead on arrival. Hoping to see New War release date announced in the next TennoCon as the story is the only thing I have hope left in.

 

[N10A]

Mario party 9.
Cars are stupid, I'm pretty sure the dice rolls are against you and most of the maps feel pretty similar because there's really only one path you can go down. Most of the minigames are pretty weak as well, and yet it's one of the wii games I've spent the most time on. Beating the story mode was a bear, because you could be in the lead the entire game and some random bullcrap would happen and you'd lose all your ministars.
All in all 10/10 never played any of the gamecube ones.
Bought 2 on virtual console. It was okay.

 

[banjo2]

I guess that would be Mario Kart Tour. I mean, I think it's a good mobile game, but there are better Mario Karts to play.
Every two weeks, I force myself to complete all of the courses at least once. This week (Bowser vs. Donkey Kong Tour) is arguably the worst tour so far, featuring 0 new tracks, 0 new drivers, 2 karts (which are recolors) 1 glider recolor, and one actually new glider (which is just an 8-bit style glider, pretty lazy)
Yet, I plan to complete all courses. I don't really participate in ranked mode anymore (don't care enough) nor do I try to get as many grand stars as possible. I don't really care about playing multiplayer either, again there are multiple better Mario Karts for that.

And for anyone wondering, no I haven't put a cent into the game, nor do I plan to, ever.

 

[Zhongtiao1]

Civilization Revolution's Deity mode.

You'll be playing the best game of your life and at 300AD all of a sudden Catherine of all people will build oxford and learn Advanced Flight. Like wtf

 

[Deleted User]

To be honest, the Civilization Franchise.

It seems I understand the base mechanics, but the longer I play the more I realise I understand very little, which is annoying.

I grew up on the DOS versions of KOEI's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, so I'm starting to think that this affected what I expect Civilization to work like.

That said, I can't stop playing; not because I think I'm going to get smarter, but because I think I'm playing a different and enjoyable Game.

The nail on the coffin for me is Civilization 4's Narration by the late Leonard Simon Nimoy; this fact just makes me want to keep on playing this Version, even though I don't enjoy it.

If only KOEI asked him to Narrate their Game instead ...

 

[Pipistrele]

Classic Doom - less because I dislike it (in fact, quite a huge fan of the series), and more because I'm committed to marathoning all the official Doom releases, and covering Plutonia Experiment+TNT Evilution+Sigil+No Rest For The Living+Doom 64 in one swoop left me burned out on gameplay formula. That, and with most acclaimed entries/add-ons already being out of the way, it leaves mediocre stuff (Doom Zero and Master Levels) on the table; something I feel obliged to complete for checklist's sake, but not looking forward to it at all.

 

[NumberXIIIEdwin]

Definitely gonna have to say League of Legends. The game itself isn’t terrible and I can see the fun in it but by god the community is so toxic that it always makes me question why I opened the game again. God forbid you’re trying to just have a chill time or you’re actually trying to practice/better yourself cause no matter what you do you’re gonna get flamed by people that think they’ll be high rank one day when really they peaked at like silver

 

[mightymuffy]

I guess that would be Mario Kart Tour. I mean, I think it's a good mobile game, but there are better Mario Karts to play.
Every two weeks, I force myself to complete all of the courses at least once. This week (Bowser vs. Donkey Kong Tour) is arguably the worst tour so far, featuring 0 new tracks, 0 new drivers, 2 karts (which are recolors) 1 glider recolor, and one actually new glider (which is just an 8-bit style glider, pretty lazy)
Yet, I plan to complete all courses. I don't really participate in ranked mode anymore (don't care enough) nor do I try to get as many grand stars as possible. I don't really care about playing multiplayer either, again there are multiple better Mario Karts for that.

And for anyone wondering, no I haven't put a cent into the game, nor do I plan to, ever.

This! Fukkin horrendous game (some of the 'T' and 'RMX' courses - Christ on a bike...) yet I still play it!! (team DK for me at the moment). I know it's a load of old shite, but I think part of me has latched onto this because not since SSBMelee have I felt the urge to make a little Nintendo museum/collection, which this for some reason feels like..?!? And hell no, I've not and never will spend a penny on it either - used the 2 weeks gold pass trial and slammed it hard, before knocking that off and never looking back.

 

[Draxikor]

Monster Hunter Tri, but because i was so bad in that game and i hate that feeling, i leave the game many times for frustration and still come back to play it until i became a bit better.

 

[MohammedQ8]

Every jrpg/rpg games ever, I hate exp grinding but it is the most satisfying.

All horror games because I always waste bullets quickly , get lost, cant solve the puzzles without youtube videos hehe but again beating them satisfy me alot.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Oh that's easy, modern Pokemon games. I grew up playing Pokemon from the first game on up, and basically everything after gen 4 hasn't been as enjoyable to me as those first few generations at all. The only reason I play them these days is to simply see where the series I grew up playing is going, not so much because I like them, in the hopes that maybe they'll actually do something to make the games better as opposed to just making them super handholdy/easy.

 

[Deleted User]

If I didn't know any better, I'd have assumed based off the title that @Stealphie wrote this.

 

[CloudStrife190100]

I hated the destiny franchise... But stopped playing now after the last 2 seasons. Can't stand the cash cow of a game that gives us dlc that we've purchased in the past!