Okay, I'll nominate one...Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.
No, it's not the worst game ever made, Sonic or otherwise. However, I do hold a lot of disdain for it, and the short version of it is that it's lazy. It came from BioWare after I was blown away by Mass Effect, and then I got this. And let's be clear, Sonic isn't exactly an unblemished series - there are far worse games, like I said, but this was a particular kind of irksome. Even some of the worst Sonic games at least felt like the developers were trying. Secret Rings at least had a good story. Sonic Labyrinth at least had an idea that might have worked. '06 could have been great if more time had been allowed in its development. But SC has no excuse, because the laziness comes entirely in its story.
First of all, BioWare didn't give a damn about continuity, despite all claims that they wanted to dive into the setting. They screw this up from the outset by having Green Hill Zone, Station Square/Central City, and Metropolis Zone all border each other, despite the fact that Green Hill is on South Island, Metropolis is on Westside Island, and Station Square/Central City is supposed to be in the United Federation - in another hemisphere. Fine, I can live with wonky geography, goodness knows Sonic Battle is guilty of this as well. What Battle ISN'T guilty of is Dark Legion rip-offs. Because that's what the Nocturnus Clan are - Dark Legion knock-offs. Archieverse material in the Segaverse that undermines the entire storyline of Sonic Adventure. Because while not strictly a retcon, it does establish that:
a) Pachamac was just a really nice guy who wanted to save his people.
b) Tikal is more or less an idiot for siding with the chao over the Knuckles Clan.
I'm going to go out on a limb that Sonic Adventure didn't want to convey these ideas, that the echidnas were a selfish, war-like people who sowed the seeds of their own destruction, that SA1 is a tragedy in as much that it fits the literary definition (flaws lead to disaster which is beyond the protagonists' control), and that Sonic Chronicles either doesn't know, or doesn't care, that it undermines the whole thing? Frankly, I'm going with "doesn't care." Because that's the overall feeling I get. Lazy story, lazy writing, not even decent music.
So, now that the game has managed to sour me from the moment of reading the manual, I get to enjoy a bland RPG that feels like a cash-in more than anything else. A cash-in where robotization exists (because that makes sense in the Segaverse), where we enter the Twilight Cage (more Dark Legion stuff), where we go through the rigamarole of allying with boring alien races, and reach the point when I gave up after it establishes that Emerl was just one of many gizoids, which undermines his character in Sonic Battle.
Oh, and it ends on a cliffhanger, because of course it does, and the credits have Sonic and Tails talking about the history of BioWare. Because that's what we all want, isn't it? And since this game never got a sequel, it's thus the conclusion of the series (chronologically) that Eggman wins. Yay. Or something. I like to think that Sonice 2017 takes place after it, with the whole 'join the resistance' thing.
Like I said, this isn't a bad game. I'm probably investing way too much thought in a series that's never really been that strong in continuity. But when you build up a game based entirely on that continuity, when you undermine that continuity at every turn, when you just give this sense of laziness that permeates the whole thing...well, yeah. It joins my "most disappointing games of all time" list for a reason.
Speaking of which:
Evonisia said:
Undoubtedly "Halo 4". Though I'm sure a depressing amount of my posts are ragging on the poor thing.
Suffice to say: I hate the direction it took; I hate pretty much all the new lore; I hate the villain and that new Covenant faction; I hate the aesthetic changes to the Covenant races; I hate that it feels more like yet another conclusion to the series[footnote]After "Halo 3" and "Reach" both had this overriding conclusive tone to them[/footnote] than the beginning of a new trilogy; most of all I hate the fact that there is such good potential in there that is squandered by everything else. The penultimate mission on that asteroid station is a genuinely good one imo, and the Cortana/Chief relationship is taken to its logical conclusion in a decent way.
Gameplay wise it's just another "Halo" game. For all the visual flair of the Prometheans, they largely just fill the combat roles the Flood did with the odd mini-boss enemy thrown in to spice things up. And as far as I'm concerned the series peaked with "ODST" in terms of gameplay, so it's not entirely "4"'s fault I don't care one way or the other for it.
In all honesty it's not this horrendous worst game ever or anything. I've played worse games, but as a huge fan of the series it fills me with nothing but disgust and hatred.
I pretty much second all of this. Halo 4 isn't my most hated game of all time, but for me, it's one of the most disappointing, even after having reservations from the start. While I felt Halo 5 was a step up, and 343 has produced some good stuff, the Halo series stands in testament to knowing when to quit. Given how Reach bookended the series, that felt like the perfect place to leave off.
