Wow, I can’t believe Dark Void didn’t just fly off the shelves.
Capcom was probably the worst offender, but Hudson made Bomberman dark, gritty and shitty with Act Zero and Namco made Ace Combat: Assault Horizon with QTEs and a NATO bootlicking plot, and gave Ridge Racer to FlatOut developers Bugbear to turn into a Burnout ripoff with Unbounded. Many such cases!
I remember just before that when every North American game critic seems to hate Japanese games, stylized games, RPGs (especially JRPGs) and we’re generally joyless.
I specifically remember XPlay said Kingdom Hearts 2 was too long, too complicated* and had graphics that were too stylized.
*Not completely wrong