Current Events > Do you have any good stories about a game you were excited for letting you down?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I wanted to ask how people typically respond to being let down, but I myself don't really have a consistent response to this kind of disappointment. If you're personally invested in a game, it'll have to find a unique, personal way to disappoint you. Because of this, I've settled for this kind of vague topic title.

I don't really mind if the twist came when you finally sat down to play it, or if it was the initial game reveal, or something in between.

I had a huge erection when I pre-ordered and then picked up Grand Theft Auto IV but afterwards I'm pretty sure it made me impotent

the first Watch Dogs.

the previews made it look so "next gen" at the time, with it's visuals and hacking mechanics, but when I tried it out, it looked pretty drab, the protagonist was a grimdark loser, and while cool at first, the hacking was a gimmick that lost its novelty not long after it was first introduced.

the second was a lot better, at least.

Irony posted...

I had a huge erection when I pre-ordered and then picked up Grand Theft Auto IV but afterwards I'm pretty sure it made me impotent

That was my first game in the series.
People were going crazy for it, I figured I'd see what the series was about.
It was about boredom. The people couldn't get enough of boredom.
Middling expectations in the first place though so I merely shrugged, dropped it and never looked at all the series' fans the same way again.

Sonic 06 was my second most hyped game that year behind Twilight Princess.

Halo MCC, I was devastated to see the disaster of a launch. Bugs, missing content, horrendous playlists, made me sad

No Man's Sky.

I expected it at launch to be what it is now.

Callisto Protocol

Brawl's lame side scrolling, floaty combat, and awful laggy online multiplayer

My brother and I were chipping in to buy Death By Degrees and after we played it, i was disappointed and quickly losing interest. My brother however, refused to admit that it's a bad game, even said "Impossible, this game is not bad. Namco never made a bad game." We were big fans of Tekken series back then.

My friend was a huge Duke Nukem fan. He was hyped Duke Nukem Forever was finally being released, and preordered the limited edition. When I went over, he already the bust sitting on the TV, and had been listening to the OST it came with.

We sat there taking turns playing for a few hours. After it was done, we switched to Black Ops or something. We never once mentioned it again, as if we had just experienced an awkward situation together.

MrResetti posted...

Brawl's lame side scrolling, floaty combat, and awful laggy online multiplayer

SSBB's a weird one for me.
The strongest argument for journey > destination that I've ever experienced.
When it came out, it'd felt like such a wait and we'd been told so much up front that it didn't have a lot of surprises left for me. It kind of didn't matter by that point though.

In a weird way I was less focused on it not living up to the unreachable expectations, but I was really appreciative of the ways we stayed sane during the wait. Flash movies, machinimas, YTPs, Youtube in its prime. It was a really fun time and it ended up outshining SSBB itself for me.
I still think about that time fondly. Sometimes that sunset shot of all the characters on that mountain in the opening lets me momentarily re-experience that excitement.
I can't hate SSBB like some do.

Holy shit though that online what the fuck

The only game that really let me down that I was eager to play as Mario is Missing. I was expecting Super Mario World Lite with Luigi as the only playable character. I thought it was going to be the game that tided players over until a proper Super Mario World sequel was made.

Instead, it was just an "edutainment" game. And there was no Super Mario World 2 in the works. Even the game released under that title was an unrelated spinoff starring Yoshi. I love Yoshi's Island. But it's not a sequel to Super Mario World anymore than it is a sequel to Donkey Kong Country.

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I've definitely had this. A series takes a direction so bad it makes you not even want to acknowledge it anymore.

I actually bought KH2 cheap for a joke ages ago. I'd never played KH1 and I thought it might be fun to get hit full blast, no context by all the insane confusing stuff I'd heard about.
I did finish it but it didn't win me over, people say there's good combat but I didn't dig very far. Seemed like mashing A and Y was enough.
And that story. It's the only game I own that I think I'd be ashamed to be seen playing.
At least it's easy to make fun of.

I was super excited for Forza Horizon 5, had played every other entry and loved them. They are huge games (but expensive) that you typically play for a few months. About 1.5 years after it released I finally played it, I started with the Hot Wheels DLC and thoroughly enjoyed that. Got to the main game and played that for a week. Then the game started freezing and crashing all the time. I could play for about 10 minutes before it crashed. Unfortunate as if not for that, I would have kept playing for the next few months.

Victoria 3, sadly. I had spent an obscene amount of time playing Vicky 2, from making small "uncivilized" nations into world superpowers to playing interesting minor powers, never really touched any of the original Great Powers. Especially with the HPM mod. Victoria 3 didn't really capture me, I spent a game playing as Persia and turning them into a world class industrial power with the Chinese eating up all my engines.

Deus Ex Invisible War

I have been a die hard mega love fan of Shenmue since the first game came out on Dreamcast.

....

You know where this post is going. :(

I expected epic hyped Peter Molyneux's: Project Ego.

I got... Fable.

I would've been mad. But turns out it fit me well, as I was falling hard out of video games at the time. Super casual play for the casual player. I was both falling out of gaming and swapping careers at the time. I didn't have the time for a deep all encompassing game. Casual, simple and short, worked for me.

I got more out of it because it let me down lol.

Notti posted...

I expected epic hyped Peter Molyneux's: Project Ego.

I got... Fable.

I would've been mad. But turns out it fit me well, as I was falling hard out of video games at the time. Super casual play for the casual player. I was both falling out of gaming and swapping careers at the time. I didn't have the time for a deep all encompassing game. Casual, simple and short, worked for me.

I got more out of it because it let me down lol.

In relation to that, Fable itself was one of my biggest letdowns. By the time Project Ego was in development, I was already wary of Molyneux's false promises.

hyperskate65 posted...

I have been a die hard mega love fan of Shenmue since the first game came out on Dreamcast.

....

You know where this post is going. :(

I know someone who went through this.
He migrated to the Yakuza franchise. I don't know what he sees in it or Shenmue but he's head over heels for both.

Samurai Legend: Musashi was a big reality check for teenage me. Not even necessarily a bad game. But a total snore fest and completely lacking in any of the charm Brave Fencer did.

not much of a story though

ViewtifulJoe posted...

I know someone who went through this.
He migrated to the Yakuza franchise. I don't know what he sees in it or Shenmue but he's head over heels for both.

I eventually tried Yakuza and I'm still kicking myself in the dick for not doing it earlier. It's in my top 5 all time series (along with Shenmue).

The two that really stick out are:

Spore... (The GDC footage of the original "Spore" concept was so different from the game, that they might as well have been two different games).

Then No Man's Sky (although the memes almost made up for it...)

There's quite a few MMORPGs there, to be fair...

I don't know how to describe my first time playing Dark Souls 2.
It was definitely a let-down but there was a kind of captivating bewilderment that made me keep going. I wanted to know about every misstep it'd taken that DS1 had avoided first hand.
ADP, generic humanoid bosses, the legendary pile of rubble, the weird run animation that managed to slightly annoy me every time. It was all fascinatingly twisted.

For a little while I was even enjoying pitting my own underhanded tactics against the game's tediousness. Playing an OP magic build, having Giant Lord on hand as free souls.
Once the fun wore off it was pretty disappointing but also a kind of acceptance that a good follow up was too much to be ask. I also immediately stopped buying Soulsbornekiring just to be safe.

There was fun to be had but I don't want to go back and replay it any time soon. It sucks.

Oddworld Soulstorm. I knew it wasn't going to be an outright 1:1 remake like NnT was, but it feels like an entirely different game, and I wasn't a fan. Had been looking forward to it for ages.

I actually missed out on a lot of the horrible games in the series I liked.

Dmc2 I didn't play until after dmc4 just to check out how bad it really was. I was disappointed by some final fantasy games, but even after playing 10, I quickly knew that I'd never love even a great ff game as much as 7.

Gran turismo almost always disappoints me at the beginning and end somehow. I was late on a lot of other bad games, so my expectations were tempered quite a bit.

I think my biggest disappointment I can remember atm was mgs2 at first, and that was only because I was an 8 or 9 year old kid feeling hollow and lied to about not being able to play as Snake. It grew on me too, but it's still my least played mgs game, no matter how amazing the story is. >.>

Starfox Adventures
After the Banjo games and even DK 64 showed what Rareware could do with collectathon 3D platformers, I couldn't wait to see what their Zelda inspired game would be. Shortly before the release I was devastated that the company had been sold to Microsoft and then SFA came out. First red flag was finding out that the final boss was Andross in the Arwing. Then I played the game and the melee combat was too fluid with no sense of where one movement with the staff ended and the next began. And then the dungeons were terrible.

Whatever misgivings I had about Wind Waker and the controversy there evaporated pretty damn quickly after playing Rare's last Nintendo published game.

Hoo boy...

After having amazing and fun times with Animal Crossing and Super Smash Bros Melee on Game Cube, and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga on GBA...I expected their (respective) sequels Animal Crossing: Wild World, Super Smash Bros Brawl, and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (middle for Wii, the other two for DS) to deliver nearly just the same amount despite the steps backwards they took in some areas.

Upon release, disappointment can only explain so much on how I felt in the end (at least, compared to their predecessors). Animal Crossing: Wild World felt like an "early access" release for how many steps backwards it took in spite of its expanded villager dialogue, Super Smash Bros Brawl took its casual direction way too far to the point of absurdity, and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time watered-down too many elements that made its GBA predecessor amazing while also making its "time-traveling" element (among many other things) as utterly barebones as possible. During those times, I was on the verge of giving up on Nintendo as a huge fan of them :(

The only credit I can give to these games are that they helped me keep my expectations in check and to ensure that I'll be less and less disappointed for any upcoming games since; the only game I can think of right now that reached that same level of disappointment is Yoshi's Crafted World on Switch.

Arkham Knight was one of the first games I got for PS4. Then I played it, and thought it was just alright. Yeah, I can harp on the batmobile being used too much. But something about the game just didn't click with me. I've played Asylum, City, and Origins multiple times. But Knight is still currently just that first playthrough.

FF12. It was not, and I have still not tried, the zodiac thing that supposedly is better, and frankly unless they replaced the entire combat system with a different game's, I wouldn't bother trying the improved versions.

Xenoblade basically took the same world combat concept but gave it a system that, while perhaps a bit too simple, was basically what FF12's combat should have been set up like.

The weird mix of menu combat and you actually moving freely around was just... bad. I also wasn't a fan of how weak the magic and stuff looked compared to FFX and X-2.

I would have been more disappointed about FF13 (which has just a horrible combat system IMO), but I was already wary.

I never finished 12 or 13 because I hated the combat systems of them so much.

Halo 2, but I wasnt completely let down. I beat the single player quickly but it was fun. The online MP however was a big letdown and it basically killed all of xb live for me. The entire industry followed suit on matchmaking. No more public custom rooms like we had on xb connect for the original xb. I complained a lot back in the day on these forums. Nobody agreed with me.

Sephiroth_C_Ryu posted...

FF12. It was not, and I have still not tried, the zodiac thing that supposedly is better, and frankly unless they replaced the entire combat system with a different game's, I wouldn't bother trying the improved versions.

Xenoblade basically took the same world combat concept but gave it a system that, while perhaps a bit too simple, was basically what FF12's combat should have been set up like.

The weird mix of menu combat and you actually moving freely around was just... bad. I also wasn't a fan of how weak the magic and stuff looked compared to FFX and X-2.

I would have been more disappointed about FF13 (which has just a horrible combat system IMO), but I was already wary.

I never finished 12 or 13 because I hated the combat systems of them so much.

I had to check to make sure I didn't write this. I get it, if I'm moving in battle, I want to attack when I hit the button. A timer for spells or abilities I get, but a basic sword swipe shouldn't be on a timer. I think I played Rogue Galaxy first and that felt better than FF12.

Liu_Kano posted...

Deus Ex Invisible War

There's a throwback.

Would you agree that if DX:IW came out as a standalone, it'd probably do okay? I love the DX games but it took me a while to get back into IW.

I never really gelled with Mankind Divided either. HR was alright, but MD just felt like a Crysis clone, not a true DX game.

I much prefer playing Revision.

Back to the topic, Test Drive Unlimited 2, particularly on PC. The devs had Forza-level magic at their fingertips, but for whatever reason (bean counters likely), they weren't given the budget to develop the game any more than a half-arsed update to the 2006 TDU.

I was looking forward to Final Fantasy 12, but I only knew that it wasnt online like 11. Then I played the beginning and saw the combat

Otomedius Excellent. Was a huge Gradius fan, and we were in a drought for good horizontal shmups at the time, especially non-indie touhou knockoffs.

Game got delayed like 3 times. Then it came out. Ignoring all the FBI watchlist stuff in the game, it was just aggressively average. Looked ugly. Tons of downtown in levels to show off dumb animations and taunts (bad for a shmup) and really underwhelmin stages. I also 1CCd it on expert, and it wasnt even so difficult.

The entire games focus was on underaged fanservice, and it was really creepy too. We need a real Gradius game,

Every Spider Man game on XBox 360, particularly the one based on the 3rd movie

Madden on the XBox 360

NCAA Basketball 09

Kingdom Hearts 3

I wanted to like it, but the battles take a bit long, I didn't care for the gummi ship open galaxy stuff, and that damn pirate ship race that took a dozen attempts.

I'd been hyped for FF Versus XIII since the first trailer. Was thrilled when it was announced to become FFXV. Got a PS4 solely to play it.

Got one of the most pointless, minimum viable products I've ever experienced and felt numb for like a month.

Also was super hyped for Xenoblade 2 since the first was my favorite RPG of its generation. I don't get excited for games anymore after that trash fire.

More recent example, but for me it was Red Dead Redemption 2. RDR1 is one of my favorite games, period. It felt like Rockstar took the best parts of recent GTA games and put them into a giant western sandbox. I love the game.

RDR2 sounded like it was going to be incredible. And, in many ways, it still was. I remember going to a midnight release (first and last one I've been to in years), got the special edition, even took some time off work to play. Yet the more I played, the more I realized that, while it's definitely an... experience, it's a major chore to actually play due to all the realism elements added. Just about every action is bogged down by realism - having to maintain your character's health statuses, travel being far more limited and taking longer, gunplay being unsatisfying, side content lacking or overly punishing if not done exactly right (i.e. hunting), and EVERYTHING having this additional weight to it. The more played, the more I just stuck to the story content to say I beat it. It's definitely the best cowboy simulator out there, yet I don't think it's the best cowboy game. I still really liked the story, but I don't think I could ever play RDR2 again whereas the first is much easier to jump back into.

Final Fantasy XIII
So much disappointed that I made alternate reality:
https://youtu.be/lenhpRkLR70

The Last Of Us.

Came bundled with MLB The Show in a PS4 package. Was moreso buying the PS4 for the Show but a free download for Last Of Us came with it. Looked into it and saw how many people absolutely loved it, so I got excited.

And it was......ehh. Played it start to end, sheerly out of boredom, but nothing about it just clicked with me. Overrated AF IMO.

When I was young and Oblivion was announced, and they started talking about traveling between the regular world and Oblivion, I was picturing Oblivion has an entire world map to explore instead of little self contained areas. I was super super disappointed to find out each Oblivion Gate led to just a little island (and not even all of them unique!) rather than an entire mirror of the regular world or whatever.

I'm also not sure which Pokemon game it was where I learned to stop being hopeful for cool new features but I'd say between gen 5 and 6.

BignutzisBack posted...

Halo MCC, I was devastated to see the disaster of a launch. Bugs, missing content, horrendous playlists, made me sad

Might be this for me. One of the worst games I've ever played bug wise. I didn't touch it again for years until a friend wanted to play through a campaign and it was STILL shitty.

Shenmue 3. People who played it and waited almost decades for it like me will know where I'm coming from.

While it had its moments and it was certainly an ambitious project, it was kinda just... Bad...

I'm really surprised Spore was only mentioned once. It was an awful game compared to what was originally promised. They cut out so much that it wasn't even remotely close to the previews