Multi Disappointing Games

[Danny]

Not necessarily a bad game, but games that had potential and left you feeling they could have been better.

I'll start with Brutal Legend. Being a lover of heavy metal, this was immediately on my radar. The demo and beginning sections were extremely fun and I loved driving around while listening to various songs.

And then the RTS sections kicked in. Game went from a fun hack and slash to...something that aggravated me and didn't feel fun anymore.

There was talk of a sequel, but I don't see anything happening.

 

[Raine]

Oh my god, Brutal Legend was a goddamn gut punch. The demo was a complete bait-and-switch, it was only the amazing introduction and stuff and cut off before the Action-RTS bullshit. But, sadly, it didn't even stop there. As the game continued on, all of the humor and amusing characters started to give way and by the end it was just some terribly phoned in, by the numbers, cliche-riddled power fantasy narrative. Absolutely soul crushingly disappointing.

Final Fantasy XV should be on the list for a lot of people. Even I, Chief Hatessquarealot, don't really hate it. It's just... bad at everything. Unfinished - even doing all of the DLC, I often get the nagging feeling like I never finished the game. It lacks direction, earns none of its "emotional moment" segments (WHO THE FUCK IS JARED?!), can't even figure out what genre it wants to be. Totally embarrassing. For all that Versus XIII was supposed to be, for all that XV should be, it's just... not. Truly an astonishingly sad way to end a series. Though for me personally by the time XV rolled around XII and XIII had already shoved my love and enthusiasm off a cliff. I only picked up XV a couple years after the fact, post-Royal Edition launch, which was the first time in series history I'd done that since I started in the late 90's. If I was more invested, I'm sure it would be more bad than disappointing for me.

And again, for a lot of people, Assassin's Creed III is going to be an easy choice. But that's not the real answer; the real answer is Revelations. Originally meant to be a throwaway smartphone game, they shuffled plans and made it into a third and final game for Ezio and even brought Altair along for the ride. In terms of gameplay, it was just uninspired. Not bad, not good, just... there. As a narrative hook, they decided that they wanted to have it continue the modern day storyline too. Give some more closure for Lucy, and actually introduce us to Clay. And... that's the problem. I didn't play AC3 for a decade because it just didn't matter anymore.

Going against the modern community's grain for this last one, Kingdom Hearts II. It's not really a character action game, not at all an Action-RPG, baffling design decisions all over the place, the Disney worlds are there but in no way meaningful or connected, and... not a single bit of the original character stuff makes sense if you didn't play the GBA game (Chain of Memories) that released before it and the DS game (358/2 Days) that released after it. In recent times some people want to point to Critical Mode (which was added in the Japanese-only Final Mix version) as making it into one of the best Action-RPGs of all time. I know better, though; what KH2 had could not be fixed with just some tweaked difficulty and HP sliders. Four years and hundreds of hours of sharing fan theories all across the internet, all for nothing. KH2 will always be my most disappointing anything.

 

[Danny]

In regards to FFXV, it changed a lot also due to a shift in directors. Nomura decided "I'm gonna go work on Kingdom Hearts III" so someone else was bought in and then they left Square leaving the DLC to be unfinished, although they were done in book form.

 

[Boots]

Anthem. My fiance was so looking forward to that game, and then on launch day he couldn't even create his character.

 

[Jawneh]

Shardpunk: Verminfall. It's kind of an XCOM like tactical RPG that has very nice looking pixel art style with an isometric view of everything. It just ended up being way too easy to play even though I cranked everything to being as difficult as possible as a veteran XCOM player, but I just couldn't even finish one complete playthrough before getting bored. :/

Flinthook. A very great looking roguelite 2d action game. You got space pirates, shooty things, a flint hook, and very very satisfying feeling movement. Sadly, it kind of gets really hard all of a sudden at one of the bosses that just stumped me. Essentially at that point you have to master movement with your hook thing to avoid damage, as the floors and everything is now also a spiky death. It has great ideas, satisfying way of unlocking things, but just the difficulty of that one boss ruined it for me as I couldn't really beat it. And I rarely give up a boss fight.

Tom Clancy's: The Division 2. I think I just had high hopes of getting a decent looter shooter thing that might've been a bit more grounded than something like Borderlands, but it just ended up being a way worse bullet sponge mess that also basically forced you to play with others to get through some harder missions and getting better loot. I did play it a lot, but I didn't want to care about other people and just do my own thing, so meh. Fizzled out at some point when I didn't care to peekaboo headshot enemies for a minute a time since I got too good at the game and it made all the enemies too tanky.

 

[Boots]

Tom Clancy's: The Division 2

I actually really enjoyed the Division 2. Played it at launch with my boyfriend and other friends. I went through almost the entire game before realizing I could change out my armor plates. I was playing on hard mode by accident.

 

[Jawneh]

I actually really enjoyed the Division 2. Played it at launch with my boyfriend and other friends. I went through almost the entire game before realizing I could change out my armor plates. I was playing on hard mode by accident.

I imagine I would've enjoyed it a bunch more if I had one or two buddies to play it with me. It's not really a bad game, just not solo player friendly unless you really enjoy the grind.

 

[Quagmire]

Both Kingdom Hearts 2 & 3 , I know 3 2 is loved, but that is where one I feel the story really started to go off the rails, and two it was simplified and I found much easier and more button mashier, even the hardest difficulty was easier than KH1. 3 I knew would let me know, but I played it anyway out of stubbornness. Not bad, but nothing got close to capturing what the first game was like

Going against the modern community's grain for this last one, Kingdom Hearts II. It's not really a character action game, not at all an Action-RPG, baffling design decisions all over the place, the Disney worlds are there but in no way meaningful or connected, and... not a single bit of the original character stuff makes sense if you didn't play the GBA game (Chain of Memories) that released before it and the DS game (358/2 Days) that released after it. In recent times some people want to point to Critical Mode (which was added in the Japanese-only Final Mix version) as making it into one of the best Action-RPGs of all time. I know better, though; what KH2 had could not be fixed with just some tweaked difficulty and HP sliders. Four years and hundreds of hours of sharing fan theories all across the internet, all for nothing. KH2 will always be my most disappointing anything.

Amen brother!

 

[Fool's Requiem]

Battlefield 5. While it mostly launched in a functional state, it was a really incomplete game that next reached it's peak potential. They attempted to make it a live service game where updates would be plentiful and free, but people had soured so much from the initial teaser trailer that showed a woman sliding around the WWII battlefield with a prosthetic arm and face paint, so when the game came out, there weren't as many people playing, and since the majority of the community only seemed to care about authenticity, the cosmetics you could purchase, which would have helped future development, were mostly ignored.

The intent was to create a live flow of the war, starting with Gemany fighting Europe on the western front and Africa, and then proceed as the war proceeded. Japan and US got added the year following release and it was a HUGE hit, but then that was it. They released a TTK patch that murdered the game and made many guns useless. There were no more major content drops outside of some unpopular cosmetics and specialtists. The Eastern front never got touched, meaning no Russians. The US never joined the war in Europe and Africa. No invasion of Italy. No Normandy.

Compared to BF1, gunplay isn't as satisfying, even though most gameplay features were an improvement. Some guns were so incredibly useful that people only ever used them and the community really didn't like the Type 2A because it was OP and medic seemed to always use it. Only a few maps were truly fun. Fortifications were cool, but plane spam made them borderline useless.

Shortly after the TTK patch, they had pretty much announced that teams were moving on to help the development of Battlefield 2142 for the following year and a half, and all development for BFV had ceased.

Oh, and hackers were a major problem, a problem that never got fixed.

 

[Boots]

I've played quite a bit of BFV and the cheater/hacker problem is still so prevent and annoying. Just one asshole ruining a server of 128 players. Reports go nowhere.

I love the gameplay and settings otherwise, and wish it had received more maps and support.

 

[shortkut]

Marvel ultimate alliance for PSP. Maybe it was my expectations, but I played it after playing X-men Legends 2: rise of apocalypse… and while I loved having such a wide variety of champs to choose from, it felt like half a game compared to X-men. There was limited replay value/fun to be had. Fewer secrets, fewer items to equip and customize your characters… I was just left wanting

(Small chance I have the order I played the games backwards, if that’s the case then switch my reviews)

 

[Spiner202]

God of War (2018) was pretty disappointing for me. I bought it well after it came out, so I had high expectations based on what I'd heard about the game, but I found the story fairly lacklustre, and the gameplay didn't intrigue me. That said, I do think Ragnarok was much better.

Bayonetta is a game that I'm not sure if it's actually bad, or I just didn't understand how to play it, but I could barely get through this game. I'm going to go back and try to platinum it eventually, but I found this game really confusing. I wouldn't call it bad because a lot of people seem to love this series, but I didn't understand it.

Although I am not a fan of racing games in general, Driveclub was not very fun. Much like Bayonetta, I felt like I didn't know how to play this game. I don't think I really gave it a fair shot but I just couldn't make myself enjoy the game. This game felt really hyped at the time, but I feel like it was largely abandoned and forgotten.

I don't want to call this game a disappointment by any means, but Marvel's Spider-Man has a huge disparity between how good it is, and how good people think it is. The fun parts of the game were swinging around the city, but the combat was very tedious (and worse, very frequent!). There was a lot of side content, but it was very repetitive, and only some of the activities were any good. I will buy Spider-Man 2, but if it's more of the same (like Miles Morales was), I'll consider it a disappointment. When you compare the scope of this game to the scope of games like God of War, Horizon, GTA, etc., I'm not sure how this competes. This feels more like a PS3/Xbox 360-era game.

 

[Danny]

I'm probably going to get shanked for this.

FF7 Remake.

I will admit that I've never played the OG. But I know the story and why it's so beloved.

I'm on chapter 8 and...I'm bored. I'm so fucking bored.

 

[Marlfox]

Ending of Mass Effect 3

 

[Marlfox]

I'm probably going to get shanked for this.

FF7 Remake.

I will admit that I've never played the OG. But I know the story and why it's so beloved.

I'm on chapter 8 and...I'm bored. I'm so fucking bored.

I enjoyed it but I’m annoyed that like every other time someone has said “we’ll release it in parts” the development on the next chapters has stalled

 

[Marlfox]

All three Witcher games (hugely hyped, I never enjoy them). Batman Arkham City (yet I love all the others in the series). Assassins Creed Odyssey (beautiful but I found it soulless after the prologue).

 

[Raine]

Both Kingdom Hearts 2 & 3 , I know 3 is loved, but that is where one I feel the story really started to go off the rails, and two it was simplified and I found much easier and more button mashier, even the hardest difficulty was easier than KH1. 3 I knew would let me know, but I played it anyway out of stubbornness. Not bad, but nothing got close to capturing what the first game was like

KH3 is just beating a dead horse, honestly. It's kind of impressive that they started to recover the story post-KH2 by introducing a new trio and fleshing out the Organization more, but... KH3 just sat around smelling its own farts for 90% of the runtime. Basically nothing of consequence happens until you arrive at the final world, and then the story 1) shits itself (WTF at everyone dying and then rewinding time?) and 2) simultaneously dumps lore and fast-forwards. You wanted a nice, satisfying outcome for Roxas? For Namine? For Xion? Well too fucking bad, we're out of time!

KH3 can't even claim to be good gameplay-wise because they didn't ship it with optional bosses or anything to do at endgame. They dropped that kind of stuff later with Re:Mind, which also had something stupid like a $30 price tag just for a slightly more coherent ending and some non-canon battles against Organization XIII.

Bayonetta is a game that I'm not sure if it's actually bad, or I just didn't understand how to play it, but I could barely get through this game. I'm going to go back and try to platinum it eventually, but I found this game really confusing. I wouldn't call it bad because a lot of people seem to love this series, but I didn't understand it.

I'm sort of in the same boat of not understanding what the game's doing and having it on my list of things to go back to eventually. I only played about 20~30 minutes of it though, and I think my basic impression was that it was a fighting game masquerading as a Character Action game. I never got gud at Devil May Cry (also on the list!), so I couldn't really speak to how the depths of those compare.

I'm probably going to get shanked for this.

FF7 Remake.

I will admit that I've never played the OG. But I know the story and why it's so beloved.

I'm on chapter 8 and...I'm bored. I'm so fucking bored.

This was inevitable when they decided to turn ~4 hours of the original game into a ~25 hour trilogy opener. Everything negative I've seen about the game involves there being entirely too much padding and all of the sidequests being trash tier MMO garbage.

It's also not actually a remake, so people that haven't played the original apparently have no clue what's happening a lot of the time.

 

[Andy]

Dragon Age Inquisition. It’s the only one of the series I’ve played and it’s just not great. I love the Mass Effect games and thought it would be similar gameplay and it just felt like a bad version of elder scrolls more than anything.

Never really got into Far Cry either.

 

[Marlfox]

Dragon Age Inquisition.

Hell yes. What a crap game. I loved Dragon Age 1 and 2 but this one was so bad it killed my interest in the series.

Mass Effect Andromeda was a disappointing sequel too but at least it was alright. It was nothing on its forebears but I got to the end and enjoyed it.

 

[TD]

Kingdom Hearts 3. I dove into the whole series early this year as it was on PS Plus. It was a terrible conclusion to the 10-or-whatever series.

God of War. I wasn't into the OG series. After all of the hype and GOTY stuff around it I was excited to give it a try. I didn't like it, at all.

FF7 Remake. The only reason I finished it was the nostalgia. Haven't touched integrade and quite frankly I'm not interested in the upcoming games.

 

[Quagmire]

Dragon Age Inquisition. It’s the only one of the series I’ve played and it’s just not great. I love the Mass Effect games and thought it would be similar gameplay and it just felt like a bad version of elder scrolls more than anything.

Never really got into Far Cry either.

I loved DAI, but I went in knowing to get out of the hinterlands ASAP and skip most of the filler side quests

Really enjoyed the characters

Far Cry can be fun, but I think its gotten more generic, I think 2 and 3 are its best games

 

[Spiner202]

Dragon Age Inquisition. It’s the only one of the series I’ve played and it’s just not great. I love the Mass Effect games and thought it would be similar gameplay and it just felt like a bad version of elder scrolls more than anything.

Never really got into Far Cry either.

I probably should have mentioned this game above because I found it very similar to Bayonetta in that I had no idea if I was playing the game correctly. I got through it somehow, and I'm also planning on going back for the platinum later, but I think I'm going to need to do a lot of reading to figure out how I'll get through it on the hardest difficulty!

 

[Tirith]

Elden Ring. Just like every other  souls-like game, I find pounding my head against a brick wall to be infinitely more enjoyable.

Cyberpunk 2077. It had potential. Seemed like a great game. Was released in shambles. Even after the patches, driving feels better in Atari games.

Witcher 3. Just couldn't get into it. I love that type of game, but it felt like such an.... I dunno, incomplete? World.

Jedi: Survivor: Can someone just let me know when it isn't a complete bugfest on my PC?

I see a few comments about FF7R.... I loved it. Not every minute of it, but for the most part, I enjoyed myself. Waiting for the next and then the final installments.

 

[Tommy Boy]

Elden Ring. Just like every other  souls-like game, I find pounding my head against a brick wall to be infinitely more enjoyable.

Cyberpunk 2077. It had potential. Seemed like a great game. Was released in shambles. Even after the patches, driving feels better in Atari games.

I dumped a lot of time into these games before I realized I didn't like them. I forced Elden Ring so hard, I just couldn't and don't like it. Or any souls game for that matter. Just not for me, and that's okay. Even with cheats on, I still was confused on where to go and what to do. Hated the experience.

Cyberpunk I actually liked until I realized the game was just so.... lifeless? And I couldn't get rich enough to buy shit without doing the materials glitch, so I eventually played until I forgot about it. Never finished the main story, don't care to ever go back.

All three Witcher games (hugely hyped, I never enjoy them).

I tried getting into the 3rd one a bunch of times and it never stuck. Around the 5th attempt, it finally worked for me and I ended up playing the whole thing and the DLC. Never played 1 & 2 though. When I tried playing 3 again recently, I hated it again. I don't know what it was but something pissed me off while I played all the time lol. Just stopped being fun.

Assassins Creed Odyssey (beautiful but I found it soulless after the prologue).

Agree 100%. It was just copy and paste formula after that.

 

[Spiner202]

I feel like I'm in the minority, but I enjoyed Cyberpunk a lot. Granted, I saw the train wreck coming from a mile away, so I waited for the game to get majorly patched before buying it. Plus, I somehow got a copy for $10, so I didn't have high expectations or a strong financial attachment to the game. It did feel a bit slow and lethargic at times in the gunplay, but I actually really liked that. It felt a bit weightier than a lot of other games. The aesthetic was awesome, and I liked Keanu Reeves, even if his natural range is pretty limited.

I can see why it was a disappointment though, because it was being hyped as basically the greatest game ever.

 

[Tirith]

I don't know what it is about CDPR games that turns me off so much, but they all seem to do it.
Is it a pretty game? YES
Does gameplay just not feel right? YES. It's something about it, still, that feels off to me. The cars don't handle like cars. My guns shouldn't have RPG elements. Idk. It's something. I've tried to get into CP77 numerous times since release.

 

[Holly]

Fable 3. Fable 2 is one of my 'guilty pleasure' games because I acknowledge it's not considered a great game but I had fun and played the hell out of it. Fable 3 feels like I'm just being pulled along on a theme park ride that's not particularly enjoyable. And the "shock reveal" when you lead the kingdom...it just wasn't fun. I never finished it, and I was so hype I bought the collector's edition and the art book.

 

[Smacktard]

Bayonetta is a game that I'm not sure if it's actually bad, or I just didn't understand how to play it, but I could barely get through this game. I'm going to go back and try to platinum it eventually, but I found this game really confusing. I wouldn't call it bad because a lot of people seem to love this series, but I didn't understand it.

I felt the same way about Bayonetta, but I find that all of Platinum's games start off really lackluster, confusing, and simultaneously overwhelming (in mechanics) and underwhelming (in gameplay/ability to pull off those mechanics). The trick is to keep playing, keep buying upgrades, and by the time you beat the game you'll be at a point skill-wise where you can start to enjoy it. Counter-intuitive, I know, but it was the same with Wonderful 101.

FWIW, it seems like Bayo 1 is more for the chiselled, hardened beat'em-up gamers. Bayo 2 is more casual -- it's easier to string together combos, the combat seems more fluid and responsive, and none of the challenges are too mind-numbingly frustrating.

For another underwhelming game, how about Bloodborne. I love pretty much every Souls game From shots out, but I found Bloodborne to be incredibly underwhelming. The fights with demons felt sloppy and janky, the difficulty curve was all over the place, trash mobs and traversal were completely non-threatening, assets from the beginning of the game were reused right up until the end, the color palette/environmental variation was incredibly limited, and the Chalice dungeons were such a boring, shitty, and uninspired way to artificially increase the game's length. What a total slog. The DLC was great, though.

 

[Marlfox]

Fable 3. feels like I'm just being pulled along on a theme park ride that's not particularly enjoyable. And the "shock reveal" when you lead the kingdom...it just wasn't fun. I never finished it, and I was so hype I bought the collector's edition and the art book.

Hahaa I think they were all a bit off in one way or another. I played all three to the end but never felt any of them were exceptional. Fable 2 the best though. Funny story, OP player character and funny being mega landlord.

Fable 3 was kinda durrrrrr after you became king because it was easy to get through all the moral choices by just spending your own money which I was happy to do. Gravitas of each moment was lost as I never had the limited pool of money that would have forced me to agonize over which "bad" ruler choice I needed to pick.

 

[Crystal]

Hahaa I think they were all a bit off in one way or another. I played all three to the end but never felt any of them were exceptional. Fable 2 the best though. Funny story, OP player character and funny being mega landlord.

Fable 3 was kinda durrrrrr after you became king because it was easy to get through all the moral choices by just spending your own money which I was happy to do. Gravitas of each moment was lost as I never had the limited pool of money that would have forced me to agonize over which "bad" ruler choice I needed to pick.

Yeah, they really screwed up the money system in Fable 3, just wait your way towards a fortune and then you never have to worry about what choices you make. I love the Fable series, but Peter Molyneux consistently over-sold and under-delivered on the Fable games, to the annoyance of everyone. Still fun, though

 

[Marlfox]

Black and White still my favourite Molyneux game

 

[Quagmire]

I feel like I'm in the minority, but I enjoyed Cyberpunk a lot. Granted, I saw the train wreck coming from a mile away, so I waited for the game to get majorly patched before buying it. Plus, I somehow got a copy for $10, so I didn't have high expectations or a strong financial attachment to the game. It did feel a bit slow and lethargic at times in the gunplay, but I actually really liked that. It felt a bit weightier than a lot of other games. The aesthetic was awesome, and I liked Keanu Reeves, even if his natural range is pretty limited.

I can see why it was a disappointment though, because it was being hyped as basically the greatest game ever.

I played it not long after launch, even on ps4 pro and I enjoyed it a lot. It did crash about every 10 hrs (even if console is turned off in between), but had fun with the gameplay and the characters were great, which that is what I really wanted was story/characters

 

[Quagmire]

Fable 3 was kinda durrrrrr after you became king because it was easy to get through all the moral choices by just spending your own money which I was happy to do. Gravitas of each moment was lost as I never had the limited pool of money that would have forced me to agonize over which "bad" ruler choice I needed to pick.

Also the choices were too black and white, like I do get that is part of Fable, but it was basically do you want to save some orphans or murder some orphans. Nothing was interesting in the choices.

 

[canadaguy]

Breath of the Wild. I kept hearing how this was supposedly the greatest game ever and when I tried, I just could not for the life of me see how. Everything felt so tedious to the point it felt the game was actively battling against me enjoying it. I just do not get it at all.

 

[Danny]

I got Cyberpunk a few months ago and really enjoy it myself. I'm looking forward to the DLC.

But I am glad I didn't get it at launch considering everything about it at that time.

 

[Holly]

Also the choices were too black and white, like I do get that is part of Fable, but it was basically do you want to save some orphans or murder some orphans. Nothing was interesting in the choices.

Right, it lacked nuance. And that's ignoring if you had saved up a fortune you could trivialize that part of the game.

 

[Andy]

Also the choices were too black and white, like I do get that is part of Fable, but it was basically do you want to save some orphans or murder some orphans. Nothing was interesting in the choices.

Right. Like who’s going to save the orphans?

 

[Quagmire]

Right, it lacked nuance. And that's ignoring if you had saved up a fortune you could trivialize that part of the game.

Yep I was loaded in gold by that part