Biggest Game Disappointments

[Chad B.]

What are some of your biggest disappointments you've experienced in gaming?


For me, my most recent disappointment that I can think of is: Rayman Legends

I loved Rayman Origins, I even ended up getting all the achievements on the Xbox, Legends on the other hand was pretty meh for me. The game was just waaaayyy to easy. I know they tried to make it more family fun, but the whole game I never really felt challenging. Lums were super easy to get, and I felt there wasn't a whole lot to do after you beat it. Sure there was the online challenge mode, but after you've done all the types of challenges it starts to feel really stale.

And Wii U exclusive? Nope. Delayed another 6 months so it can be a multiplatform release.

 

[Stars]

I forgot that Rayman Legends was originally going to be Wii U exclusive. That was a mess.

I'm still sad that we didn't end up getting an F-Zero game made by the Burnout guys. That would have been amazing.

Also disappointed that Star Fox Adventures wasn't a proper Star Fox game, but at least we're getting a new one of those. If they're done delaying it.

Now you've got me thinking of several disappointments. And now I'm thinking about Other M. I need to go curl up in a corner for a bit. Excuse me.

 

[Sutekh94]

Being a former Sonic fan, you can imagine the amount of disappointments I've experienced that came from that one series alone, particularly '06. I think a lot of people here have at least heard of the horrors of Sonic '06. Outside of the Sonic series, I remember being pretty disappointed at Duke Nukem Forever. It's just not the same as the classic Duke Nukem games, and that's probably giving it too much credit.

 

[Avering]

Oh Jolly. I generally wait some time for reviews on a game, so as not to be disappointed. And while I had my fair share of it anyways, I kinda forgot most of them by now.
The only two I can remember from the top of my head though is Battlefield 4 (Oh, my god the story mode and ai is just..... just what the hell Dice?) and the britsh army in Company of Heroes 2. It was so horribly unbalanced when came out, it singlehandedly straightened the statistics of the game (there was a major axis domination in certain matchups).

 

[Oreo]

A friend recently bought me DmC: Devil May Cry, which is the Devil May Cry reboot. He bought it for me because he knew I wouldn't spend money on it. I still wanted my money back.

I went into the game expecting nothing. I was still disappointed.

 

[Altashi]

<Insert Japanese Game/Content> wasn't localized due to <Insert Reason Here>.

That about sums up all of my disappointments.

 

[Velvet_The_Reindeer]

Halo 5.

*Opinion incomming*

Story was lacking and it destroyed all the emotional meaning of the story from Halo 4, plus the story was completely different from what was expected after the #Hunt the Truth campaign.

Story was confusing unless you read outside media wich did not happen with prior Halos.

MP is the worst of the series.

The Halo with the least content at release and still lacking.

And also lovely... micro transactions.

 

[SquiddyWiddy]

I wouldn't say it's my biggest one, but it's one of the more recent disappointments I've had. J-Stars Victory Vs. + was a game I was particularly hyped for before it released. I never actually played a fighting game of it's kind, and I was fairly familiar with a majority of the Shonen Jump cast members in the game. Unfortunately, I found the game to be very repetitive, the story very lackluster (had quite a bit potential though) and the overall cast of characters you can play as kind of bland (they all play the same way, no creative ways to execute combos like in Street Fighter) . Not to mention online matches are completely boring, since the repetitive combat still carries over from the single player modes.

Overall I was fairly disappointed with the game, with the only merit it as is it's visuals. I don't think I'm gonna check out any other fighting games in the same style as it for a while if this is what they're all like (which I'm hoping, unless proven wrong, isn't the case).

 

[Muro]

Fallout 3.

As a long-time Fallout fan I love the series for its atmosphere, interesting level up system, good writing, immersive world, humor. Fallout 3 revived the series - with a sloppy and forced amalgam of previous Fallout themes, dreadful dialogues, comparably bad voice acting, forgettable plot and a complete lack of choices and consequences.

Biggest plus of the game - by existing, it allowed the next Fallout entry, New Vegas, to be created. That one was outsourced to be largely made by the creators of Fallout 1-2 and felt like the actual sequel both story-wise and due to having all of the mentioned key features of a Fallout game, while admittedly it would not be made without Fallout 3 being there first.

Despite all that, Fallout 3 does have some positives here and there and can be a fun experience, particularly when it comes to exploring post-apocalyptic ruins. OK game, horrible Fallout game.

 

[fah_q2]

Metroid Other M, oh god what did they do with Samus.

 

[Galaxy Heart]

I've been racking my brain trying to think of what the biggest disappointment was overall to me in gaming and I can only think of two or three because I deliberately keep my expectations low.

1. The way PlayStation AllStars was treated by the publishers.
I am inclined to say this is industrial sabotage because the game had so much potential to be REALLY good, but they were given an extremely limited budget and an unrealistic amount of time; around half of what was promised on both ends. There's plenty of initial concept stuff floating around which shows a far bigger scale of what was planned as to what was accomplished and the fact that their budget and time was severely slashed explains a lot.

2. The throwaway of Frank West in the Dead Rising series.

This one's more personal to me. I really loved Frank as a character and to see him replaced by Chuck in the sequel was... underwhelming.

3. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

I'm a sucker for character customisation. I love it.
Removing the trainer customisation from X and Y felt like one hell of a gut punch to me and the reason they gave for it was pathetic, too.

 

[Orcryst]

are we talking recently? or of all time?

Recently, i can't really think of any, i buy a very small ammount of games and do a lot of homework beforehand as to avoid hypetrains and dissapointment.

of all time... i'd probably have to go with the entire skylanders series. it started out ok, was fun, had a solid idea... but very quickly turned into a HUGE moneysink... it became impossible to 100% the games levels unless you sunk hundreds of dollars into a damn toy collection of overpriced collectables.

Fallout 3.

As a long-time Fallout fan I love the series for its atmosphere, interesting level up system, good writing, immersive world, humor. Fallout 3 revived the series - with a sloppy and forced amalgam of previous Fallout themes, dreadful dialogues, comparably bad voice acting, forgettable plot and a complete lack of choices and consequences.

Biggest plus of the game - by existing, it allowed the next Fallout entry, New Vegas, to be created. That one was outsourced to be largely made by the creators of Fallout 1-2 and felt like the actual sequel both story-wise and due to having all of the mentioned key features of a Fallout game, while admittedly it would not be made without Fallout 3 being there first.

Despite all that, Fallout 3 does have some positives here and there and can be a fun experience, particularly when it comes to exploring post-apocalyptic ruins. OK game, horrible Fallout game.

i will have to agree with you on this one, as a HUGE fallout fan back in teh day, trying fallout 3 was fun, but in the end a huge letdown... the gameplay was ok, but it felt rusty compared to fallout 1, and the story took less then a few hours to complete at a leisurely pace.

 

[Szkieletor]

Obligatory Spore. Was supposed to be an evolution simulator/god game of epic proportions, turned out to be a collection of average quality minigames and an alright monster creator. Spore gets brought up almost every time this topic is discussed, and it's kinda personal to me because I bought Collector's Edition and was completely disappointed.

More recently, Elder Scrolls Online, at launch at least. It was... alright. Quests were actually fun and creative and many had just as much story to them as fighting. Lore was controversial at first but now many describe it as best since Morrowind, and I have to say I'm in that camp. It's well-made, and touches some uncommon topics.

The rest though... Combat was boring, skill trees were "meh", PVP was broken, balance was practically non-existent, crafting was basic and lacked depth.
They fixed it through some big updates, so it's not a complete train-wreck. Balance is better, PVP is alright, combat got a bit better with improved balance, there's more stuff to do (you can literally get rich by sneaking around cities and stealing stuff from shops and stands) and it's generally a better game. Still don't have anyone to play with so I'm not an active player, and it's got a lot of bad press because of it's huge launch issues, so that was a disappointment.
But hey it no longer has a subscription fee other than the DLC content, so that's cool.

Fallout 3.
[snip]

That's what I always say, it was a good game but a bad Fallout. They did better with Fallout 4, but I still hope Obsidian gets another shot at the franchise. When it comes to Fallout, Obsidian just can't be topped.

 

[Whitetail]

Metal Gear Solid V

Really the most frustrating part of this is how good what you DID get was but then you get to what feels like the halfway point in the game and it's ended incredibly abruptly in the least satisfying way possible, given a tease credits screen before saying "time for episode 2" where it just makes you trudge through hard mode versions of older levels where they literally just give every soldier a missile launcher and take out the already incredibly unforgiving checkpoint system to get pieces of the story that should've been part of the main story all along. Pretty clear this is what happens when you fire the head developer of a game partly through production but it's so frustrating that what starts out as one of the best games of the year leaves the player so unsatisfied as it awkwardly tries to wrap up what it started in time for release.

Also Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - I was so hype for a game where you finally played AS pokemon with a world to explore but instead got a clunky roguelike with ugly repititive tiles, boring missions, a forgettable cliche story and a recruitment system that barely works

 

[Nadia]

1. When Gaming Companys try to deceive us Gamers.

The First time for me was Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
The reason for my disappointment was that they faked Screenshots and promised features that where not in the finished product, they even used the faked Screenshots on the backside of the damn box to deceive people who had not read about what happend in gaming magazines.

Another good example was Alien Colonial Marines, almost the same strategy, but this time it was a fake trailer.
And I realy love the Alien Franchise.

2. Everytime a Game get's censored, not released or indexed in Germany, because of our stupid laws.

 

[Chad B.]

Also disappointed that Star Fox Adventures wasn't a proper Star Fox game, but at least we're getting a new one of those. If they're done delaying it.

I still feel like Star Fox Adventures would have been better off if it didn't have Star Fox in it.

Being a former Sonic fan, you can imagine the amount of disappointments I've experienced that came from that one series alone, particularly '06. I think a lot of people here have at least heard of the horrors of Sonic '06. Outside of the Sonic series, I remember being pretty disappointed at Duke Nukem Forever. It's just not the same as the classic Duke Nukem games, and that's probably giving it too much credit.

At least Sonic Generations was a ray of hope. Too bad they don't go back and do more of that.

Really says something about Duke Nukem Forever when most Gamestop's wont accept it.

Metroid Other M, oh god what did they do with Samus.

I was all for giving Samus a voice and diving deeper into her backstory, but the way that it was executed was just awful. They took one of my favorite video game characters and turned her into a wimp!

Metal Gear Solid V

Really the most frustrating part of this is how good what you DID get was but then you get to what feels like the halfway point in the game and it's ended incredibly abruptly in the least satisfying way possible, given a tease credits screen before saying "time for episode 2" where it just makes you trudge through hard mode versions of older levels where they literally just give every soldier a missile launcher and take out the already incredibly unforgiving checkpoint system to get pieces of the story that should've been part of the main story all along. Pretty clear this is what happens when you fire the head developer of a game partly through production but it's so frustrating that what starts out as one of the best games of the year leaves the player so unsatisfied as it awkwardly tries to wrap up what it started in time for release.

That got me thinking of that demo of PT. What shame that got canned.

 

[Stars]

I still feel like Star Fox Adventures would have been better off if it didn't have Star Fox in it.

At least Sonic Generations was a ray of hope. Too bad they don't go back and do more of that.

Really says something about Duke Nukem Forever when most Gamestop's wont accept it.

I was all for giving Samus a voice and diving deeper into her backstory, but the way that it was executed was just awful. They took one of my favorite video game characters and turned her into a wimp!

That got me thinking of that demo of PT. What shame that got canned.

Pro-tip: You can quote multiple posts by hitting Reply on each one.

 

[A88mph]

I would have to say that, one of the bigger disappointments for me would be when a game is fun, but there is not enough variety in the scenarios that it offers. Especially if the game dose not have a difficulty changer (or if max level is too easy).

 

[LLHero25]

Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

Pointless Combat, No Leveling, Horrible Level Design, Unimpressive Music for a Mario Game, Running out of Stickers means you cant attack and basically lose, having to grind for stickers if you run out, a massive difficulty spike halfway through the game, Thing Stickers being a one time use (which take up a large portion of your sticker book) which if you mess up using it trying to figure out the boss's cryptic weakness, you have to run all the way back to the main town and back through the stage to try again assuming you are even using the right Thing Sticker, Kersti is Boring, etc.

Needless to say, I love Paper Mario 1 and TTYD, and thought Super Paper Mario was pretty average so I had high hopes for me to just fall in love with it after seeing the trailers. I HATE Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Worst game I've ever played. Stay away from it.

 

[Stars]

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5.

I loved 1 and 3 and heard nothing but good things about 2 and 4. Each of those was somebody's favorite Tony Hawk game. So confident was the studio that this would be a triumphant return to form that they decided to call this new game "5" as if everything else since 4 was inconsequential.

Then it came out.

 

[Rich Jammer]

I've got 3 disappointments that I can think of. Basically a lesson on wait for the dang review to come out before buying.

Star Wars The Force Unleashed.
Man, I remember playing the demo over and over. Playing around with the physics and stuff. I managed to snag a copy like 3 days earlier than release. Man was I disappointed. Level design was pretty brain dead and reminded me of some lackluster PS2 games.

Resident Evil 6.
I managed to play this at GAMES 12 (Games Conference in Dubai) and I enjoyed the Leon campaign. I snagged a copy 1 week early. Wow was Chris' campaign the worst.

Brutal Legend
Played the demo a lot. I even kept the demo open so I could listen to the awesome soundtrack. But man was this game a disappointment. The campaign was way too short and the RTS gameplay left much to be desired.

 

[Shadowking58]

I've been racking my brain trying to think of what the biggest disappointment was overall to me in gaming and I can only think of two or three because I deliberately keep my expectations low.

1. The way PlayStation AllStars was treated by the publishers.
I am inclined to say this is industrial sabotage because the game had so much potential to be REALLY good, but they were given an extremely limited budget and an unrealistic amount of time; around half of what was promised on both ends. There's plenty of initial concept stuff floating around which shows a far bigger scale of what was planned as to what was accomplished and the fact that their budget and time was severely slashed explains a lot.

2. The throwaway of Frank West in the Dead Rising series.

This one's more personal to me. I really loved Frank as a character and to see him replaced by Chuck in the sequel was... underwhelming.

3. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

I'm a sucker for character customisation. I love it.
Removing the trainer customisation from X and Y felt like one hell of a gut punch to me and the reason they gave for it was pathetic, too.

What was the reason for removing the trainer customization?

 

[Galaxy Heart]

What was the reason for removing the trainer customization?

"Kalos is the region based on fashion, that's why it's only there."

 

[Gamerdude854]

I forgot that Rayman Legends was originally going to be Wii U exclusive. That was a mess.

I'm still sad that we didn't end up getting an F-Zero game made by the Burnout guys. That would have been amazing.

Also disappointed that Star Fox Adventures wasn't a proper Star Fox game, but at least we're getting a new one of those. If they're done delaying it.

Now you've got me thinking of several disappointments. And now I'm thinking about Other M. I need to go curl up in a corner for a bit. Excuse me.

I actually really liked Starfox Adventures

Being a former Sonic fan, you can imagine the amount of disappointments I've experienced that came from that one series alone, particularly '06. I think a lot of people here have at least heard of the horrors of Sonic '06. Outside of the Sonic series, I remember being pretty disappointed at Duke Nukem Forever. It's just not the same as the classic Duke Nukem games, and that's probably giving it too much credit.

Duke Nukem Forever is a massive turd, but still a fun game in it's own way

A friend recently bought me DmC: Devil May Cry, which is the Devil May Cry reboot. He bought it for me because he knew I wouldn't spend money on it. I still wanted my money back.

I went into the game expecting nothing. I was still disappointed.

I've heard that it's a decent game if taken in as it's own game

<Insert Japanese Game/Content> wasn't localized due to <Insert Reason Here>.

That about sums up all of my disappointments.

Basically

 

[Gamerdude854]

I was actually a little disappointed by Half Life 2, now don't get me wrong I think it's an awesome game, but just not as good as the first game

 

[Stars]

I actually really liked Starfox Adventures

I didn't hate it. I just wish it wasn't pretending to be a Star Fox game.

Addendum: Which was the original plan. It was going to be it's own thing, titled Dinosaur Planet as I recall.

 

[Stridershy]

Mortal Kombat Gold. It was supposed to be an upgraded version of MK4, with new characters and new stages added. But dear god, did they completely mess things up. All the new additions were completely unfinished, fatalities looked completely clunky and ugly to look at. The new characters looked AWFUL. Maybe if they spent a bit more time working on it, it might have been great. But...it wasn't.

 

[Whitetail]

Addendum: Which was the original plan. It was going to be it's own thing, titled Dinosaur Planet as I recall.

Yeah Nintendo's kinda got a history of repurposing original games into new entries in other series when they think it'll sell better that way

Kirby's Epic Yarn was originally just going to be about the Prince, they added Kirby stuff in since they thought it'd sell better
Same thing with Mario 2 as most people know, the original Mario 2 was considered too hard for the western audience so they reskinned a different game

 

[Velvet_The_Reindeer]

Yeah Nintendo's kinda got a history of repurposing original games into new entries in other series when they think it'll sell better that way

Kirby's Epic Yarn was originally just going to be about the Prince, they added Kirby stuff in since they thought it'd sell better
Same thing with Mario 2 as most people know, the original Mario 2 was considered too hard for the western audience so they reskinned a different game

Yup doki doki panic for the Famicom Disk System.

I actually own the game and the system.

 

[Wadusher0]

Syndicate. Its a generic first person shooter set in a cyberpunk world, which features boring combat in front of pretty scenery, no characters who are likeable, and a story I not only couldn't follow, but had no impact on whatsoever.

That's disappointing enough on its own, but the real disappointment came when I found out that this was a "remake" of a much older game from a completely different genre that had the same name. A game which I hear is much better than this pile of crap EA put out.

 

[Cronnicossy]

Rayman Origin's.

Having Origin's in the name implies it makes an attempt at the 1st game again.
Maybe worlds returning and music that's redone.
But no. It wasn't a bad game, but why the HELL was it called Origin's if its more of a Reboot?

Also it's nowhere near as hard as the original. And the ending was dumb.

 

[Whitetail]

Also it's nowhere near as hard as the original.

For good reason tbh, the original Rayman's one of the most brutal platformers ever made that's not trying to be like "jerk difficult" if you get what I mean

 

[Cronnicossy]

For good reason tbh, the original Rayman's one of the most brutal platformers ever made that's not trying to be like "jerk difficult" if you get what I mean

I suppose but it lets you learn at your own pace.
I beat it when I was 8 (got all cages at 16 but, still).

It isn't unfair so all the learning comes from the players ability to react/adapt.

I understand that making it easier (Origin's) appeals to a larger crowd...
But even the Livid Dead world (post game) was kinda easy.

Iunno, it bothers me because Rayman (PSX) was literally what got me into gaming at all.
And I hyped myself up for Origins REALLY hard. Hell, look up the original concept art...

Okay I'm done whining

 

[Chad B.]

I was actually a little disappointed by Half Life 2, now don't get me wrong I think it's an awesome game, but just not as good as the first game

Maybe I should try the first one then. I played a little of Half-Life 2 to see what all the hype was about, but I just couldn't get into it.

 

[Stars]

Rayman Origin's.

Having Origin's in the name implies it makes an attempt at the 1st game again.
Maybe worlds returning and music that's redone.
But no. It wasn't a bad game, but why the HELL was it called Origin's if its more of a Reboot?

Also it's nowhere near as hard as the original. And the ending was dumb.

I actually really liked Origins. But I never played the original or any others in the series, so there was nothing for me to compare it to.

 

[Horsebucking Ponymaggot]

To be honest, I never really get into video game hype and almost always play a game weeks/months after it's been released. The biggest contender of a game I was disappointed with was WWE2K15 though, not a bad game and I enjoyed playing it, but I was disappointed with the features of the game after they hyped it up to be this groundbreaking game and ended up being kinda average.

 

[Randael]

The biggest disappointment i can think of spontaneously would be Dungeons... i regret preordering it due to DK nostalgia up to this day... *shudders*

 

[Gamerdude854]

Maybe I should try the first one then. I played a little of Half-Life 2 to see what all the hype was about, but I just couldn't get into it.

I greatly prefer the gameplay of the first game, I defiantly recommend it, plus it has some sick mods

 

[Ethaes]

In no specific order:

1. Sonic '06 - Could have been the next Sonic Adventure, but was rushed and released unfinished. And awful. No Sonic game has been the same since.

2. Phantasy Star Universe - Freaking LOVED Phantasy Star Online to death. Months and months of play time. Great game to play with friends. PSU might have been fun to play, but its single-player story was boring and I ran out of content way too fast. Also, horrible voice acting.

3. Aliens: Colonial Marines - Hahaha. Good for a silly let's play.

4. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City - See above.

5. Silent Hill 4: The Room - I love the classic trilogy of Silent Hill games. But 4 wasn't even originally supposed to be part of the franchise and should have stayed that way. They just shoehorned in SH references and plot devices to try and make it work. After this the Silent Hill games have been pretty hit or miss.

6. Metroid: Other M - Should have kept Jennifer Hale onboard for the voice of Samus. That might have saved it. Maybe.

7. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs - Removed basically all game mechanics from A Dark Descent. No insanity meter, no inventory system, no interactable environments. Why?

8. Dead Island - I'd rather just watch the announcement trailer again.

9. Final Fantasy XIII2 - I really enjoyed FF13, Great characters, a unique story and world design, and it wrapped up nice and neat and the end. Hooray. So why did you have to make a sequel that completely negates the story of the first one?

There's been more I know, but none of them come to mind right now.