Games that could have been amazing but turned out to be just mediocre

[JohnnyDelRay]

No Man's Sky.

Haaaaaaaa just kidding, I haven't even played it.

The Thief Reboot, and the Jagged Alliance Reboot (Back in Action). Could've been so much better than it was, I mean JA2 and it's official and unofficial expansions still hold up today with it's tense turn-based gameplay and varies tactics. BiA had the chance to be all that and more, but the clunky interface and ridiculous and illogical difficulty curves made the game a bit of a mess for me. Was looking so forward to it. Good thing XCOM came along and made a widely different, but good, twist on the formula.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Fallout 4.

Largely because... well, it was incredibly rail-roady. You MUST care about your lost son. You MUST care about your dead partner. You MUST kill certain characters. You MUST do this, you MUST do that. There's just... not a lot of variability in how you interact with all the major plot points. You can go off on your way, murdering you way across the wastelands and fucking anything with a pulse and a hole or be the second coming of Wasteland Jesus, but as soon as a story quest pops up you get slammed back into how the writers wanted your character to be instead of how you wanted them to be.

Spoiler: like

The whole 'kill Kellog' quest. Why do we have to kill him? Why can't we talk him down? Disable him somehow? Oh, it's because you wanted that shitty quest where you walk through his brain and see his life? Man, if only there was another way to deal with that, like, say, recruiting him as a companion and finding his story out through conversations? C'mon!

It just... really spoiled the quality of the game for me, since I couldn't *really* play the way I wanted to play like I did in 3 and New Vegas. And given it's supposed to be an RPG where you can play as whomever you please, getting railroaded into shouting 'SHAUN!!!' whenever I saw something plot-relevant just booted all the immersion out of me.

...also the gun selection was pretty piss-poor. Half my mods now are just more weapons so I've got something besides the combat rifle and combat shotgun to use in the endgame.

 

[Joccaren]

Dragon Age Inquisition, and to a lesser extent, Dragon Age II. Yes, I said 'lesser' for DA II.

I liked Dragon Age II. I thought it had compelling characters, and I liked the idea that you weren't savior of the world or destined for greatness. You were just someone in the right place at the right time and you built yourself up from nothing. And while I did not care for the Mage vs. Templar thing that it kept ramming down my throat, I found the stuff going on in the background of the game to be very interesting. It's just that Hawke and her company didn't have time to stop and really thing about it because they were too busy just trying to stay alive. So yeah, I think II had a lot going for it. If they hadn't rushed it, I probably would have liked it even more than Origins.
What's truly sad was that we got to see the game II could have been when they released the two DLCs for it.

And then Inquisition came out, and it started out great. All the threads were coming together from the first two games, it really had a sense of building up a ragtag army against an impossibly stronger foe, and then Haven was attacked and the game just...lost it. It became too unfocused, too open. It didn't help that the story took a hard left turn about 90% into the game and suddenly became about the elves. The whole thing just came apart.
And, much like II, when Trespasser came out, I felt like it was glimpse as to what Inquisition should have been. Tighter story, more character banter while out on the road, and a feeling that your moving the story along with each activity you do, instead of just wandering around some vast open map while a giant rift threatens to swallow the world.

You know, while I dislike II a lot more than Inquisition, I agree with the assessment. It matched its potential in a lot of ways, it was just rushed and didn't make it to the finish line.
Inquisition had everything going for it, but it was just... bland. It had the ball, and dropped it through a lot of just poor design decisions. Definitely more mediocre than bad, and without a good reason to be - unlike II.

 

[Glongpre]

Mass Effect 2

Serviceable gameplay, bad main story. In it's defense, I had unrealistic expectations for it coming off ME1.
Never played ME3. That's how much ME2 killed my buzz.

Spoiler

 

[baddude1337]

MGSV Phantom Pain for sure. it should have been a fantastic swansong for the series, but you could quite clearly tell it was rushed and not finished in time for release. The story was the weakest in the series with an ultimately underutilised and boring villain, with a pretty disappointing conclusion and a stupid plot twist even by MGS standards. The actual stealth gameplay was pretty fantastic but the open world felt unnecessary as it was basically completely empty between the mission zones. The forced online and grinding for soldiers/gear really bogged the game down, as did the "act 2" of the game, which was just repeating missions with no thought at all. I thought we would get an open world to stealth around in with faction warfare like the few scenes in 4. Sneaking around an actual battlefield with different factions on the map, maybe having an impact on the war. Instead we just got... Nothing really. Solid Stealth gameplay with mediocrity at best surrounding it.

 

[sXeth]

Bethesda games. Prettymuch full stop. They may be able to make big, arguably able to make pretty. But the games are just so half-baked for actual gameplay, being bags of half-realized ideas and poor execution.

On a not too dissimilar note, GTA V. Which has the paradoxical effect of having too much polish. They clearly put in the effort creating their world, whether their "Satire" works for you or not. They seem to have done this by throwing down their first draft for the actual game elements though. Driving/car customization is average at best. Shooting is a half-assed system with hitscan laser bullet physics, auto-aim, a shoddy cover system, and ridiculous NPC accuracy. Stealth is just plain broken, and melee is a very poorly executed clone of the bog-standard AC/Arkham counter system without any of the fluidity or impact. Heists were a big selling point, but Heists as advertised only pop up twice in the story, other heists are just regular missions with no player agency in the planning. The whole thing is a pilot for an MMO which has some of the worst design for facilitating group play that I've seen in the genre, AAA or otherwise. Packed with microtransactions in a full-price title (that continues to be full price 3 years later) that set records for sales. And when they did finally add the Heists (2 years late), they were locked into the multiplayer mode, with restrictions that auto-failed you if their horrible netcode disconnected people (as it very often does).

 

[WindKnight]

For me its Bullet Witch. Third person shooter combining magic and gunplay, and its totally duuull.

Encounter a skyscraper sized enemy in a cool cutscene? It stands in the distance firing at you while you pummel its weak point.

Fight a giant flying monster atop a jumbo jet? Only one specific attack hurts it, and after you use it you have to grind back the energy to use it.

Final boss is a demonic juggernaut bigger than a skyscraper? It spends the first third of the fight just standing there, and the rest of it walking back and forth, and the one attack that finishes it off takes a pile of grinding to get the energy to use it if you miss, and it can accidentally kill you.

 

[hermes]

Surprised nobody already mentioned Batman Arkham Knight.

The previous Rocksteady games were amazing, and as a whole, I would say the Arkham series was tied with Mass Effect as my favorite series of the previous generation. I was holding up buying a new console until the inevitable new game by Rocksteady, so imagine my disappointment when the newer game was not only a technical mess, but a design mess that put so much attention in the batmobile being shoehorned in as many sections as possible, it felt like half a Batman game.

I also wasn't impressed with God of War 3. Not only was the writing the worst it has been up to that point, but many of the set pieces were rather dull. Fighting a giant titan was nothing different than fighting a giant whatever since its PS2 days: just stand in the platform while the titan is shown motionless from the waist down and looks at you menacingly. The worst was that you don't even play to get the McGuffin inside the titan... you just get swallowed, fade to black, and emerge from its belly carrying the McGuffin. No clue of how you got it or where it was. Even doing it in a cutscene was too much trouble for them... It was clear this was a stage that was removed early on development, as I have never seen in any media an entire section edited in a clumsier way in my life.

 

[pookie101]

Dragon Age Inquisition, and to a lesser extent, Dragon Age II. Yes, I said 'lesser' for DA II.

I liked Dragon Age II. I thought it had compelling characters, and I liked the idea that you weren't savior of the world or destined for greatness. You were just someone in the right place at the right time and you built yourself up from nothing. And while I did not care for the Mage vs. Templar thing that it kept ramming down my throat, I found the stuff going on in the background of the game to be very interesting. It's just that Hawke and her company didn't have time to stop and really thing about it because they were too busy just trying to stay alive. So yeah, I think II had a lot going for it. If they hadn't rushed it, I probably would have liked it even more than Origins.
What's truly sad was that we got to see the game II could have been when they released the two DLCs for it.

And then Inquisition came out, and it started out great. All the threads were coming together from the first two games, it really had a sense of building up a ragtag army against an impossibly stronger foe, and then Haven was attacked and the game just...lost it. It became too unfocused, too open. It didn't help that the story took a hard left turn about 90% into the game and suddenly became about the elves. The whole thing just came apart.
And, much like II, when Trespasser came out, I felt like it was glimpse as to what Inquisition should have been. Tighter story, more character banter while out on the road, and a feeling that your moving the story along with each activity you do, instead of just wandering around some vast open map while a giant rift threatens to swallow the world.

You know, while I dislike II a lot more than Inquisition, I agree with the assessment. It matched its potential in a lot of ways, it was just rushed and didn't make it to the finish line.
Inquisition had everything going for it, but it was just... bland. It had the ball, and dropped it through a lot of just poor design decisions. Definitely more mediocre than bad, and without a good reason to be - unlike II.

i tend to agree with the sentiments for inquisition and i do like it but its pretty clear they were at some point planning to make it an MMO and it has an MMO feel about it

 

[Barbas]

Judging by what I've seen of it so far, Battlefield. Looks like another Battlefront, this time with the trademark shallow and macho approach brought to bear on the First World War. What I saw of it made my eyes roll a few times and my jaw drop at least once. American super-soldiers to the rescue again, but apparently this time it's being widely praised as an excellent, outstanding departure from the established norm. The intellectual starvation continues.

 

[BaronVH]

Skyrim and Fallout 4 for the very anticlimactic endings to the main quest. Skyrim made me question if that was the end. It's cool that you keep playing, but both barely acqknowdge the success and nobody seemed to notice you saved the world and whatnot.

 

[Poetic Nova]

For me its Bullet Witch. Third person shooter combining magic and gunplay, and its totally duuull.

Encounter a skyscraper sized enemy in a cool cutscene? It stands in the distance firing at you while you pummel its weak point.

Fight a giant flying monster atop a jumbo jet? Only one specific attack hurts it, and after you use it you have to grind back the energy to use it.

Final boss is a demonic juggernaut bigger than a skyscraper? It spends the first third of the fight just standing there, and the rest of it walking back and forth, and the one attack that finishes it off takes a pile of grinding to get the energy to use it if you miss, and it can accidentally kill you.

The kicker? They lowered your damage output of non-magic attacks in the international release to put more emphasis on the magic.

Judging by what I've seen of it so far, Battlefield. Looks like another Battlefront, this time with the trademark shallow and macho approach brought to bear on the First World War. What I saw of it made my eyes roll a few times and my jaw drop at least once. American super-soldiers to the rescue again, but apparently this time it's being widely praised as an excellent, outstanding departure from the established norm. The intellectual starvation continues.

I have to second this. i was kinda looking forward to BF1. But it ends up being another generic musclely dude simulator that is honestly a slap in the face towards the people that helped others.

 

[WindKnight]

The kicker? They lowered your damage output of non-magic attacks in the international release to put more emphasis on the magic.

So... they wanted to emphasises magic, but didn't cut the mechanic where your energy cap has a HUGE chunk taken out of it by USING magic, and you have to use gunfire to kill enemies to get that cap back up? My brain hurts at whatever logic informed that decision.

 

[Poetic Nova]

The kicker? They lowered your damage output of non-magic attacks in the international release to put more emphasis on the magic.

So... they wanted to emphasises magic, but didn't cut the mechanic where your energy cap has a HUGE chunk taken out of it by USING magic, and you have to use gunfire to kill enemies to get that cap back up? My brain hurts at whatever logic informed that decision.

It left me really puzzled when I found that out for sure.

 

[09philj]

For me it's Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask. I love Professor Layton. Lost Future is one of my all time favourite games. I just got bored with Miracle Mask. I own Azran Legacy but have barely touched it. It just killed all my enthusiasm.

Forza Franchise. I know it generally fires on all cylinders as the racing simulator it sets out to be, but just seems really anticlimactic when all of those subtle details shoehorned in to make the ultra-realistic experience amount to driving around in circles. Maybe it?s not fair to call it mediocre, because as a sim in the purest sense, not sure what else anyone should expect, but the most fun I personally got out of it was the paint job customization; after that, I couldn?t give two shits about actually racing.

Forza Horizon, however, sheds the petty inhibitions of physics and reality and replaces them with ludicrous speeds, an open world, and hurtling the air.

 

[Tanis]

Kingdoms Of Amalur - Reckoning:
This one is iffy for me.
While the GAME PLAY is really good, I mean, REALLY good, some of the crafting system was kind of retarded and the world building had WAAAAAAAAAY too much front-loading.

This, while you're having fun, the world is basically a custerfuck of names, places, and events you can barely understand.

Plus, unlike, say, Skyrim or GTA, where the post-story content can be really fun to dick around with...
KoA:R suffered from 'by end of game you're OP as shit and there's NOTHING for you to do'.

 

[Joccaren]

You know, while I dislike II a lot more than Inquisition, I agree with the assessment. It matched its potential in a lot of ways, it was just rushed and didn't make it to the finish line.
Inquisition had everything going for it, but it was just... bland. It had the ball, and dropped it through a lot of just poor design decisions. Definitely more mediocre than bad, and without a good reason to be - unlike II.

i tend to agree with the sentiments for inquisition and i do like it but its pretty clear they were at some point planning to make it an MMO and it has an MMO feel about it[/quote]

I'm not as sure Inquisition was going to be an MMO, but I do feel that as they had to shoehorn in open worlds because Skyrim, they went to the "Open World" people at Bioware for some help with design - the guys who work on SW:TOR. Which is an MMO. And they took the lessons from there for what to do, even though it doesn't really apply to a single player game.

Its definitely designed more as an MMO, than a single player RPG. Which is a shame, as it honestly had a ton of potential, and MOSTLY handled it well.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

-Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)

It's a given fact that this game was rushed to meet Sonic's 15th anniversary. I've played some of it, and while I don't think it's the worst thing ever, this game is fundementally flawed that people have spent hours dissecting. And what sucks is that looking at the game, I feel that this could have been a very solid entry. A return to the SA1 style of hubs + levels? Check. Three core characters with side characters with their different playstyles? Check. Enjoyable gameplay when it isn't glitching? Check. Make some adjustments to the story (e.g. cut out Elise, or make her a furry and/or capable character), and I could see this being a solid entry.

Also give Tails and Rouge back their melee attacks. That game was visually amazing, but let down by so many flaws.

-Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

STH06 was flawed because of lack of development time. Sonic Chronicles is flawed because it's lazy. Like, really lazy. Like, "seriously BioWare, did you just copy-paste Archiverse material into the Segaverse seting, undermining the latter while not getting what worked in the former, coupled with some of the most generic music I've ever heard in a Sonic game? I could go on, but I refuse to put more effort into this than the developers did. Basically, Sonic Chronicles was ME3 before ME3 happened, coupled with just as atrocious an ending (yes BioWare, leave me with a cliffhanger that'll never be resolved, topped off with Sonic and Tails discussing the history of BioWare. Yep. That's what I wanted.)

Also the combat system sucked. I almost broke my DS in frustration over that.