The greatest 'should've been better' game disappointments?

chempop · Post by **chempop** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 9:57 pm

FFX-2, end of story. I practically learned how to read on games like Lunar and FF2, so RPGS had a place in my life, after 5 minutes of FFX-2 I don't think I can play a single PRG ever again.

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Sun Aug 31, 2008 11:01 pm

FFX-2 = Agreed. Although I was disappointed with every Final Fantasy after SNES 6.

And THE BOUNCER! GOOD CALL! That one should've been amazing. The character designs are still so cool, and the setting was awesome. Why did it have to be so bloody unplayable. Grrrr, Squaresoft, what the hell were you thinking?!

(Getting bloody annoyed just thinking about it

)

BIL · Post by **BIL** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 7:30 am

Silent Hill 4: The Room. It should've been a very healthy breath of fresh air for the series, after SH1-3. The story and premise had originality in spades. And its timing would've been perfect for a break from traditional SH, before a next-gen take on the town-centric model.

Then the devs completely fumbled the game design. SH1-3 had the good sense to keep the "game" aspect simple, and no more than a chassis for storyline, atmosphere, all of their actual strengths. SH4 wasn't smart enough to settle for that, and became a constantly piling trainwreck. The constant back-and-forth between the apartment hub and the main areas is already questionable. But then there's an identical second loop, which is also a nonstop escort mission complete with increased fetch-quest and monster-battling loads, and rife with invincible pursuers... not a smart move for a horror game. If the gameplay is weak, it should be minimised. Not made into an ever-present grind at the expense of every artistic merit the game has.

It just turned the game into a job of work, where the earlier titles simply entertained. Had they re-used SH1-3's uninnovative but safe "let the art do the work" game design, 90% of SH4's bad reputation wouldn't exist. One of the worst-designed games I would still call a personal favourite, being the patient type.

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 8:07 am

The n00b wrote:Sega GT 2002- This game was supposed to be a Gran Turismo- killer back when there was a need for such a thing. All the previews pointed to great graphics, an advanced physics model, and a very unique car lineup. What the xbox got was a spruced up budget racer with a unique car lineup. It would be a hell of a long wait for Forza...

I played this one back in the day, and I actually quite liked it. I don't think anyone really expected it to be a GT killer, and although it was a bit short on tracks, it was still pretty good in its own right. I can see some of the complaints about the physics model though (if anything some of the cars were probably a bit too easy to drive.) Forza blew it out of the water of course, but at the time it was a more serious alternative to the rather arcadey PGR, and I didn't regret buying it.

A couple other games that should have been better:

-Lumines Live (XBLA): Stole the title of poster child for runaway paid DLC from the Oblivion horse armor, at least until EA started going completely overboard bv charging to unlock stuff already in the game.

-Contact (DS): I found the premise of the game intriguing, but ended up with a half-baked, mind-numbingly linear game with some particularly hare-brained design decisions along the way.

-Metroid Fusion(GBA): The first new 2D Metroid game in years, and it doesn't belong anywhere in the same league as the others. Zero Mission was a major improvement, but we find ourselves in another drought for 2D Metroid games.

-Kirby Squeak Squad(DS): Just doesn't seem to be up to the standards of some of the other titles in the series for some reason. Looking forward to Kirby Super Star Ultra though.

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 8:59 am

Army of Two. Turned out to be tit for tat shit for shat shit shatty. Why in God's name couldn't you system link? No - you gotta have X-Box live. Ruined the whole game for me. Story and characters were great fun, solo gameplay not so much.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 9:03 am

Lordstar wrote: so im not the only person who loves JSRF. Please can we stop the RSRF bashing your hurting its feelings.

It's the only reason I still have my Xbox!

Ozymandiaz1260 · Post by **Ozymandiaz1260** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 12:03 am

Every single DDR released after 5th mix.

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:20 am

Another one: Eternal Champions

After all that build up and, to its credit, some potential - completely marred by the hardest difficulty setting in just about all of fighting game history.

A complete waste of time.

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 4:43 am

^^ Ban, plz.

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 10:17 am

Specineff wrote:^^ Ban, plz.

What? It's rubbish!

D · Post by D » Tue Sep 02, 2008 11:08 am

Dissappointed with the last Sega Ages Fantazy Zone. Why this game again? There are probably 100's of cooler sega games that never got any ports. And why so few. Heck, Sega should release a Sega Ages title every month. But then they would probably be crapier.
Please let the next one be a SHINOBI/SHADOW DANCER compilation.
I would just die.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 12:00 pm

chempop wrote:I practically learned how to read on games like Lunar and FF2 [...]

To your credit, I can't tell...

D wrote:Dissappointed with the last Sega Ages Fantazy Zone. Why this game again? There are probably 100's of cooler sega games that never got any ports. And why so few. Heck, Sega should release a Sega Ages title every month. But then they would probably be crapier.
Please let the next one be a SHINOBI/SHADOW DANCER compilation.
I would just die.

Amen, give us Bullet, that team platforming/jetpack game, and a bunch of other good stuff.

emphatic · Post by **emphatic** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 1:17 pm

http://www.mameworld.net/maws/romset/nastar

I loved Rastan (Saga) and when I found this in MAME I almost threw up.
Emph

Dremark · Post by **Dremark** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 3:03 pm

tyranid wrote:sven666, the best thing about assault suit valken ps2 remake was they left the debug symbols in the main executable, yay Konami

Unless i'm mistaken, Konami didn't have anything to do with the PS2 remake. They released the US version of the original game and that's it.

MR_Soren · Post by **MR_Soren** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 3:10 pm

EDIT: PS1 ports of SNES RPGs.

Diabollokus · Post by **Diabollokus** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 4:25 pm

@Specineff

I'm sure he ment the genesis game, not to be confused with the best 2D fighter ever released i.e. the Sega CD sequel : Eternal Champions challenge from the darkside. We can both sleep easy.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 4:58 pm

Ed Oscuro wrote: that team platforming/jetpack game

Quartet? It's in this. http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-r-4 ... 43-99.html

gennss · Post by **gennss** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:48 pm

the 3d megaman x for ps2.. it sucked, wasn't fun, and it was oogly.

I liked jet grind radio.

Virtua fighter 3tb was like.. wtf first gen ps1 game doin here? So much for a deep fighter, was so ugly and hard i couldn't deal with it.

Border down (why is everyone carrying torches and pitchforks?)
Everytime i died, it made me wait what felt like 10 minutes when it said BORDER DOWN (i know the fking game's name thx) and dropped me back into the game. On top of that it was very difficult, but totally killed any potential for immersion unless u can 1cc off the bat.

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 6:01 pm

Diabollokus wrote:@Specineff

I'm sure he ment the genesis game, not to be confused with the best 2D fighter ever released i.e. the Sega CD sequel : Eternal Champions challenge from the darkside. We can both sleep easy.

I did mean the Genesis version - I didn't even know there was one on the Mega CD.

But the best fighter ever?!

Zebra Airforce · Post by **Zebra Airforce** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 7:17 pm

dodonpachi

ED-057 · Post by **ED-057** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 7:34 pm

I don't think the difficulty of the fights in Eternal Champions was that far out there. The annoying part was having to repeat previous matches when you lost and getting the bad ending if you lost against the boss. I beat it with Larson once anyway.

Skykid · Post by **Skykid** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 8:42 pm

ED-057 wrote:I don't think the difficulty of the fights in Eternal Champions was that far out there. The annoying part was having to repeat previous matches when you lost and getting the bad ending if you lost against the boss. I beat it with Larson once anyway.

It was ridiculous! Who wants to play a fighting game where you battle your way past an absolute bastard character, win, then lose on the next one and have to fight them again.

Hair tearing madness.

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 9:47 pm

Distinction noticed, apology issued. Sorry.

kozo · Post by **kozo** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 10:23 am

Growlanser V. Sold it within a week of buying it. Loved the first 4, but V really pained me. I kind of want to try it again.

Magna Carta, same deal. Looks neat, was horrible to play, but oddly want to give it a new chance.

Kingdom Hearts, KH2. I really hate both of those games. I would have never touched them if it weren't for the constant pleading of my friends and wife to get them. Horrible, horrible, horrible games. Yet everyone swears by them. Note: I don't like Disney or (post PS1) Square all that much, so that's probably one of my big gripes and is unfair to the game. Still, it was a mess from a storyline standpoint, and an great introduction to Sora-butt-centric-camera button-mashing hellz. (sorry guys, no offense.)

Suikoden III: My goodness. First two games (and eventually IV and V) have excellent soundtracks, great non-cliche epic war stories with superb character development, and a consistent, charming, old-school art style/presentation with fairly realistic proportions (no big-head disease.) Then we get S3, with it's soul-crushing circus MIDI music soundtrack, stuttering eye-bleeding framerate, muddy textures, and nightmare inducing character models that look stunted, made out of half melted wax and walk around with a giant stick up their collective butt. The story did pick up, but basically every other possible thing in that game was a huge pile of steaming monkey diaper.

On the flip side, I've been very impressed with things lately: Persona 4 and it's top-class, radio-melting soundtrack especially taking the spotlight. Xanadu, apparently still the best selling Japanese computer game - holding said record since it's debut in 1985 - is holding up jaw-droppingly well and is a joy to explore and play through now. Also saw "Le Samourai", best movie yet - pure class. 1960's = my favorite film era, THE film era. ;D

Also, Jet Set Radio and JSRFuture are two classy games. Love them both, and LOVE the OSTs too boot.

CStarFlare · Post by **CStarFlare** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 1:33 pm

Ozymandiaz1260 wrote:Every single DDR released after 5th mix.

Max was great, aside from the fact that they cut out all the old songs. Max CS is better in that regard because CS games generally didn't have a whole lot anyway.

Shit started going downhill with Max2, but no one really noticed because Oni courses were cool and foot ratings were back.

Clock Tower Ghost Head/The Struggle Within was a huge disappointment coming from the first two. Clock Tower 3 was kind of like JSRF in that it was different (waaaaaay different) but still perfectly enjoyable.

SamIAm · Post by **SamIAm** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 1:51 pm

Rainbow Cotton

I have a big crush on the Cotton series. The first one had great style for its time, Panorama Cotton is just fabulous, and Cotton 2 is one of the most unique games and coolest shooters I've ever played.

Then they had to make a crappy 3D Cotton game and pretty much kill the series.

On that note, my current fantasy game is a new 2D Cotton that pushes the limits of one of this generation's consoles.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:44 pm

Illbleed - Great concept and theme, absolutely fucking awful gameplay.