What games disappointed you when you finally got and played them?

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We've all most likely made a game purchase for a title that was either hyped up to be something amazing or something that caught your interest on its own. But for some of these kinds of games, the actual experience didn't live up to the hype or our own expectations for one reason or another, or were even straight up bad games. So what game(s) have been that way for you?

For me, I would say the most recent game purchase I've made that disappointed me was Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I love life sim games like Rune Factory or similar games, but Animal Crossing really gave me no incentive to keep playing. I never felt a good reason to keep building my island or get new villagers and there was no real progression (from my perspective) other than the actual improvements to the island's appearance.

Edited July 31, 2020 by twilitfalchion

[GodSejeong97]

Deadly Premonition 2. Not from narrative or gameplay perspective, but due to how incredible laggy the game is on Switch.

[vanguard333]

For Honor. I got the PS4 version without knowing about PlayStation Plus or the fact that the entire game required being online; even the single-player story mode for some stupid reason. I was thankfully able to play the story mode, but every other part of the game required PlayStation Plus. So, I was able to play the game to its full extent for only three days (the length of PlayStation Plus's free trial) and then had to put it away. 

Fire Emblem Fates. It was the first time I was able to be hyped for a Fire Emblem game, as it was the first time I heard about a new Fire Emblem game before it released. The trailers made me think there was going to be fantastic gameplay and an exciting deep story. I got the special edition of the game so I didn't have to buy the three versions separately... and I was so disappointed.

[Captain Karnage]

Aliens Colonial Marines

If you remember the backstory of what happened you'll know why

[Dark Holy Elf]

Super Mario Odyssey is the first game to come to mind in recent years. While I've never been quite as big a fan of 3D Mario compared to 2D Mario I still really liked the Galaxy games and 3D World. Odyssey was a massive step back in terms of platforming IMO, and it's treasure hunting aspect is not what I play Mario games for. I don't think it's a bad game, just not what I look for in Mario games at all (or any games, really).

All-time the mantle probably goes to Suikoden 4. A massive step back on both storytelling (in a series which excels in it) and gameplay compared to its predecessors.

[OdinsGrimoire]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2, the designs for most of the female blades and Pyra were so bad I couldn't bring myself to finish the game. Just unabashedly horny, I couldn't get into it. 

Another game was Monster Hunter World, my younger brother loves the series and I got it to play with him and neither of us play it anymore. Just didn't vibe with it I guess. 

Edited July 31, 2020 by OdinsGrimoire

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Fire Emblem Echoes for having such a bland map design for the most parts.

It didn't even feel like a Fire Emblem game for the most time.

Storywise it was good for most part and I like the arte system, but the gameplay left to be desired.

[DragonFlames]

A game that really, absolutely disappointed me to the point where I quit it after, like, 20 minutes of playtime is Mary Skelter 2.
But that's solely due to the main protagonist being one of the most atrocious things I have had the displeasure to witness in a video game.

Edited July 31, 2020 by DragonFlames

[DarthR0xas]

The game that comes to mind most recently is Dark Souls Remastered. I dunno, maybe it's just the years of hype for Dark Souls as a whole got me excited for an experience the first game just couldn't provide, but frankly I found it to just be bad

Another one that comes to mind is Arms. It wasn't bad, but just so bland that I never really played it. It just became "Well, I don't have Smash yet, so this is the only other fighting game I have". I hoped for more out of it, because Splatoon was super good.

[Sire]

Fire Emblem Fates - The initial hype was real and the premise was awesome, but what we ended up getting was very disappointing overall. While there are indeed some amazing things to be found in Fates (Conquest's Gameplay, Fate's Music), the story was a complete disaster despite having an amazing setup. I hope Fates gets a complete remake from the ground up to fully realize the ideas it had some day.

Divinity: Original Sin - I actually got this during a Steam Winter Sale if I recall correctly because I heard so many good things about it and wanted to experience it for myself. All my research into it was positive, but all that was for naught when I actually played the game.
-- I found the controls to be unintuitive, both with mouse/keyboard and a gamepad. This mostly revolved around manipulating the environment among other things and I couldn't even get an hour in. I eventually refunded the game and got God Eater 1 & 2 instead, which I fell in love with instantly.

[Sidereal Wraith]

SMT IV Apocalypse - I thought that I’d really like this game based upon the trailers, but ultimately it was a disappointment. A new SMT game that was an expansion to the solid SMT IV, what could go wrong? What went wrong was they tried to make the game more like Persona in terms of the supporting cast, which doesn’t work for a mainline SMT game. The story as a result came off as feeling too corny and saccharine, with the characters not so subtly telling you about the power of bonds. Near the end of the game you have a major choice to make about how the story ends. Either you side with your friends and they help you kill God, or you massacre your friends, kill God, and take His place as the new creator God of the universe. It wasn’t a very hard choice for me to make.

Edited July 31, 2020 by Wraith

[Dandy Druid]

Assassin's Creed III - the game just failed to grab my attention. The cast of characters wasn't the most impactful or charismatic. I only played for a few hours before dropping the story mode. I would occasionally mess around with multiplayer, but I couldn't figure out how to set up an account at the time so I couldn't play with anyone except for one day where I got it working. I miss AC's old multiplayer mode tbh.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Dynasty Warriors 9

What the fuck is that shit. Who play tested this and thought that it was acceptable to sell?

 

For Honor

A game all about directional blocking should NOT be literred with unblockable attacks and grabs. Utterly goddamn imbecilic game design.

 

Tales of Zestiria

It's not good. It's not good at all.

 

Fire Emblem Fates

It's too difficult for all the wrong reasons and it doesn't feel like Fire Emblem.

 

Fire Emblem Echoes Shadows of Valentia

How did you make Fire Emblem boring? How?!

 

Every Rockstar Game

I will never understand why RDR2 is hailed as the second coming of Cowboy Christ. It's so... fucking... boring.

Edited July 31, 2020 by Fabulously Olivier

[Lightcosmo]

Kingdom Hearts 3. Poorly designed gameplay and the lack of Aqua killed this for me. If not for the DLC being amazing, I would never play it.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Quote

Tales of Zestiria

Forgot to mention it.

Bought on launch day.

Armatization is so unbalanced that it literally killed the gameplay for me.

Also Alisha is the most ruined character in a JRPG I've seen yet.

[Integrity]

xenonauts, man. it was just so soulless.

[Fabulously Olivier]

19 minutes ago, Julian Teehee said:

Forgot to mention it.

Bought on launch day.

Armatization is so unbalanced that it literally killed the gameplay for me.

Also Alisha is the most ruined character in a JRPG I've seen yet.

I agree for all of these criticisms.

 

But also:

The bland cast.

The overcomplicated combat mechanics.

Why am I still getting frequent combat tutorials 35+ hours in?

Frequent massive difficulty spikes.

[starburst]

Four Houses was, by far, the biggest disappointment of the past year. There may have been worse games that I tried, but the expectations that I had of them were nowhere near as high.

Having a hacked Switch has given me the opportunity to try many games before purchasing them. And even though I still do some research about games and only download those which I already believe that I will like, it is true that the expectations are lower when the only cost is time. On the one hand, I have tried and enjoyed games which I would not have bought. On the other, I was lucky to first try games that everyone recommended but that I did not like at all (like Xenoblade Chronicles 2, both the main game and Torna.)

I understand the arguments against piracy, but it can be used to try games and then purchase the ones which you actually enjoyed. However great a review may be, your own experience is the best arbiter.
This at least suits a casual gamer like myself, who only has around twenty games, despite being able to install them all.

[Samz707]

Resident evil 3 Remake: Take Resident evil 3, cut more content out of an already short game. (2Remake at least cut less out of a longer game and added some new stuff to compensate), tear out the fun bonus mode and basically practically lie to the player by having the only open area in the game be the demo level.

Three Houses: The Monastery is an unfinished awful mess, Come on even Oblivion had dudes training by firing arrows/slashing at practice dummies in it's training areas, you're telling me Three Houses couldn't do that?, Before I played Echoes (and was thoroughly jaded from Awakening/what I saw of Fates), I thought the Monastery would be a generic crappy anime high school where unfunny anime stuff would happen every 10 seconds, that honestly would have been better than the boring walking sim that is every single terrible modern Open World element in a game that manages to still technically not be an open world, also I hate pretty much every change to the combat, I pretty much hate everything in general that wasn't copy/pasted wholesale from a previous game, I came in with low standards even after Echoes made me think I'd be able to enjoy the newer games in the series again and I still managed to have them crushed by one of the worst base mechanics I've ever seen and I have to spend several hours in it just to get to a basic fight that's inferior to the GBA games, no thanks, I play FE to play battles, not fetch-quests that have as much work put into them as the game's terrible visuals that make Echoes look good. (And Echoes isn't even that impressive, it's just Three Houses is an actual disaster on the visual level that I've honestly not seen anything similar to since the PS2 Era.) I've long been an apologist for games that people claim "Look like PS2 games" and generally consider it a hyperbolic statement but Three houses is actually not that far off the PS2 Era and not in a good way. (People fading in like a PS2 game and jagged edges on models in combat like a PS2 game.) Add in removing several great elements from Echoes (Death reactions for instance.) and this is a game I frequently can only play about an hour of at a time before it finds someway to piss me off hard enough I stop playing, I've played games made solely because the publisher banged on the developer's door for a quick game in-between console generations that had more effort put into them than this.

So yeah bought it with low standards and still manged to be incredibly disappointed with it on pretty much every level.

Sonic Mania: It's an old school sonic game down to still having the terrible camera of old Sonic games, so yeah while most people consider to be pretty good, I quickly grew frustrated and dropped it after a good few hours. (The bosses having cheap attacks that you will not dodge on your first attempt and a ranking system that punishes you for getting hit at all is frustrating as well.)

Devil May Cry 3: Yeah sure, it's technically better than 2 but personally I find it's flaws managed to actually make it even more annoying to play than 2, I got the 3 games together on the HD collection and honestly Devil May Cry 1 is the only one I can really enjoy, I do enjoy 3 at times but then a poorly designed enemy rears it's ugly head now and then, the fact the game literally opens with one of it's worst designed enemies as a common enemy does not help at all.

 

 

 

 

 

[Silver Star]

Skyrim: The npcs speaking over one another gave me a headache, plus it has really janky gameplay.

Hollowknight: This game got really tedious really quickly, losing all my geo and having to fight my shade everytime I died and the long treks back to boss rooms made this game a slog. 

A Hat In Time: While I do love this game and think it is very charming and fun, I hate how many bugs it had when it launched on the switch, that coupled with the frankly ridiculous file size (16GB!!) left a a sour taste in my mouth.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons: I was so hyped for this game and even saved up to be able to buy it on release, however the amount of content that was left out from New Leaf, the horrible online, the lack of a mass crafting option, the repetitive dialogue, among many other things makes me really regret buying it.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

On 7/31/2020 at 7:17 PM, Fabulously Olivier said:

Frequent massive difficulty spikes.

It's caused by the armatization.

The enemies have doubled stats because they take this into account. If you fight a same leveled elite monster as your party is without armatization, you have no chance. They will oneshot you.

I made the experiment fighting the first elite monster with a same level team without armatization. I could do it....... at cost of a half dozen of group elixirs (all the ones I transferred from my completed run).

I hate armatization because of this.

The cast wasn't great, but I also could say this about other Tales games like Graces or Symphonia 2 (at least in person of the protagonist).

Edited August 2, 2020 by Julian Teehee

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

For me it would be the following games:

Fire Emblem Three Houses/Shadows of Valentia: Both are case studies on how to make very boring maps (especially the latter). The former additionally disappoints with unnecessary nonsense.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: This one perhaps I had wrong expectations for the game as I was new to the franchise, but the game seems to be summed up perfectly as: stand around and press a bunch of buttons.

[Etrurian emperor]

Mass Effect 3 is a big one. Its famous for its bad ending but it was already a big downgrade compared to its predecessors before that. It also retroactively taints the Reapers which makes the first two games harder to get back to.

[Reality]

Tribes:Ascend I like FPS  with lots of movement options but Tribes never really clicked with me. It might be the heavy CTF emphasis because I do like the Jetpack/skiing, but they feel at odds with the rest of the game - Fast oudoor movement and suddenly having a really hard time mainatining any speed while dealing with the inside of bases, and then back to fast outdoors. The game also uses mostly projectile (non hitscan) weapons to complement the high speed, but I'm not convinced they go far enough - Not sure if I would suggest even slower bullets (certainly don't want Battlefront esque slow mo bullet dancing) but it was enough to leave me conconvinced.

[MagicCanonBalls]

Witcher 2 and 3. The bad combat control, long ass sidequests with too much unnecessary backstory/dialogue, Geralt, everything just makes me frustrated. 

Baldur Gate 2. I love neverwinter 2 and pillars of eternity, so I thought this classic is worth trying out, but the dated interface is not user-friendly, followed too closely to dnd guide which means memorising or looking up guide on item/stat/spell/recruitment, and really cingey dialogue even for a dnd rpg game.

Elder scroll 4 Oblivion. When they say this game is great open world exploration game, I didn't realized it meant no map and no any sort of quest marking at all, quit within an hour. Dont even wanna go anywhere near skyrim.