Biggest Gaming Letdown?

Wind Waker. I had loads of fun going through dungeons, solving puzzles, and figuring out boss strategies; right up until I had to find the triforces. Up until that point I'd managed to keep the boaty to a minimum. Still haven't found the chart I need to get the chart on the stupid ghost ship. That's where the game fails, it's just plain annoying to sail around all the time. I missed Epona so much while I was playing that game....

Other than that, I'm not often disappointed, because I don't expect anything.

Final Fantasy VII in it's entirety. Yes Final Fantasy VII.

I enjoyed Starfox Adventures... a little. It was just too easy to be any REAL fun though. And look! It was Andross all along! ...again. Ugh. New bad guy required!

Also, I don't like card games, so RPG series that TURN into card games is something I hate. Phantasy (sp?) Star Online, for example. Ugh.

zoraking wrote:Final Fantasy VII in it's entirety. Yes Final Fantasy VII.

Good for you, want a medal? A medal dedicated to your outstanding tastes in gaming, such that you would turn your nose up at FFVII? Declaring it unfit for your refined palate?

Daarkseid wrote:Good for you, want a medal? A medal dedicated to your outstanding tastes in gaming, such that you would turn your nose up at FFVII? Declaring it unfit for your refined palate?

In reinforced my point because I'm sure someone was going to come around and say, "uhh... you mean 8 right?" thinking I had made a typo. I was attempting to prevent any misunderstandings, but, I guess I screwed it up somehow.

zoraking wrote:In reinforced my point because I'm sure someone was going to come around and say, "uhh... you mean 8 right?" thinking I had made a typo. I was attempting to prevent any misunderstandings, but, I guess I screwed it up somehow.

zoraking wrote:In reinforced my point because I'm sure someone was going to come around and say, "uhh... you mean 8 right?" thinking I had made a typo. I was attempting to prevent any misunderstandings, but, I guess I screwed it up somehow.

Actually, it's that I know of alot of people who list FFVII as their least favorite, if for no better reason than it represented Squaresoft's betrayal of a beloved game company(Nintendo) or because of its movement to 3D graphics or FMV use. I've seen it posted regularly on this board, actually and tends to be a scapegoat amongst classical gamers as the moment "gaming" began to suck(or at least with the FF series).

The only reasons I could really accept for disliking VII is if the gameplay wasn't great or the story sucked. VII's story is easily the most well written in the series, and I initially disliked the fact the game wasn't set in more medieval fantasy settings(like previous FF games). Gameplay wise, its pretty weak because of a dissapointingly low difficulty level, which probably inspired the addition of the Emerald and Ruby weapons; this actually represents the moment that the FF series became engineered for two separate gamer demographics.

The casual gamer is welcomed to an RPG that is quick and easy to get into, and can be completed with relative ease and without some of the skill conventions developed by previous RPG gamers, such as leveling and developing battle strategies to win. Also characters require only three equipment pieces and only two are really necessary, and then theres no cross character equipment, so armor and weapons are easily identified to be used with what character. The only consideration givin to the RPG or FF fan was extras, like side quests, a character building system of some complexity(materia) and then of course the Weapons as challenges requiring full use of the hardcore arsenal provided in said side-quests and materia.

All true FF games since then have been divided between the casual and hardcore gamer, and this is probably the only real reason I have for disliking where the series went.

Something I've noticed in that regard is that there seems to be a spike in difficulty near the end. Although the game is fairly easy enough most of the way, if you go the bare minimum the finale is much harder. If you go for the sidequests, though, the finale is probably the easiest part. Which is another problem I had with FFX, the game goes by so fast you barely have time to do any sidequests ('cept blitzball, which I hated)

Axel wrote:Something I've noticed in that regard is that there seems to be a spike in difficulty near the end

Bah, the last boss in FFVII was so easy it was pathetic. For being chalked up as such a badass, Sephiroth was so disappointing.

I did like the game overall though. I wish there were a way to re-watch the FMV scenes once you finish the game - being able to watch the FMVs and hear some of the better music is my only motivation for replaying the game.

Army Men for Game Boy Color. Completely idiotic.

As opposed to Metal Gear Solid:Ghost Babel and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil which were fine game-boy versions of their big-console predecesors.

Daarkseid wrote:Actually, it's that I know of alot of people who list FFVII as their least favorite, if for no better reason than it represented Squaresoft's betrayal of a beloved game company(Nintendo) or because of its movement to 3D graphics or FMV use. I've seen it posted regularly on this board, actually and tends to be a scapegoat amongst classical gamers as the moment "gaming" began to suck(or at least with the FF series).

The only reasons I could really accept for disliking VII is if the gameplay wasn't great or the story sucked. VII's story is easily the most well written in the series, and I initially disliked the fact the game wasn't set in more medieval fantasy settings(like previous FF games). Gameplay wise, its pretty weak because of a dissapointingly low difficulty level, which probably inspired the addition of the Emerald and Ruby weapons; this actually represents the moment that the FF series became engineered for two separate gamer demographics.

The casual gamer is welcomed to an RPG that is quick and easy to get into, and can be completed with relative ease and without some of the skill conventions developed by previous RPG gamers, such as leveling and developing battle strategies to win. Also characters require only three equipment pieces and only two are really necessary, and then theres no cross character equipment, so armor and weapons are easily identified to be used with what character. The only consideration givin to the RPG or FF fan was extras, like side quests, a character building system of some complexity(materia) and then of course the Weapons as challenges requiring full use of the hardcore arsenal provided in said side-quests and materia.

All true FF games since then have been divided between the casual and hardcore gamer, and this is probably the only real reason I have for disliking where the series went.

I agree. Even back before I had a PSX I picked this game up for PC (one of the few that was ported over - and actually the PC port is *better* than the PSX game - considering they fixed typos, the graphics are slightly better, and they added in a few new monsters and such - though of course keyboard is never as good as joystick but at least the save system was pretty nice, being able to have something like 100 save files 😃). I enjoyed it quite a bit. One of these days I need to go back and finish it. Hopefully I still have the save where I mastered most of my Materia before the second disk 😃

Anyways, my only real complaint about this game was Aeris' death - not that I am against main characters dying but she dies so freaking early in the game. It's like, you invest all this time in skilling her up and then, oh oops.. you never get to use her again. I mean, even the process for getting her best weapon and limit break (right? been awhile so I hope I have the right word) are insanely annoyingly long and hard for the first disk only to use them for like.. a couple hours before you waste all that effort forever. I dunno, it has just always felt like Square intended to bring her back later in the game but changed their minds. Therefore a lot of her "content" was left somewhat unbalanced for the limited time you get to play her.

Other than that, a great game overall. I wish Square would really remake it like they did for that short FMV PS3 preview (which as they stressed over and over.. was JUST a tech demo and NOT a game).

vegeta1215 wrote:Bah, the last boss in FFVII was so easy it was pathetic. For being chalked up as such a badass, Sephiroth was so disappointing.

I did like the game overall though. I wish there were a way to re-watch the FMV scenes once you finish the game - being able to watch the FMVs and hear some of the better music is my only motivation for replaying the game.

One of the reasons that people thought they could revive Aeris was that if you Gameshark her back in, she has dialogue.

I also heard that people thought you could bring Aeris back on the Japanese FFVII because if you used an action replay code you could get the 'underwater' materia which, in the Japanese version, had no effect. So people figured you would use it to go into the pool and get her. But then in the American version they added the weapons, and so of course you can use the underwater materia to fight Emerald without a time limit.

The problem though I would say though for bringing Aeris back is her later limit breaks are way too strong. For those of you who don't know, here level 4 limit break heals everyone to max HP and makes them invincible for the entire battle. Imagine using that against Emerald Weapon.

PS: It doesn't surprise me that there are a few lines that don't normally get played in the game. There is a decent chance that whoever wrote that scene was the one who worked on the snowboard minigame. That person might not have a full understanding of the story, other than knowing that unique lines can be supplied for the various characters. Therefore, he may have inlcuded the line for Aeris, thinking she would be alive at the time. Since in all the testing she would have been dead, that line would never have come up, and therefore there wouldn't be anything pointing to it needing to be removed. As for the translation, remember that the person doing the translation doesn't do it through the game - they have a big table of text strings and are told to simply translate them. So the translator would not know that a line that says "I'm sick of this" actually belonged to a dead character.

As for keeping the thread on track...
A game that I found was a letdown was the new Contra. I picked up Gradius V and have had a lot of fun with it (although I've only gotten as far as level five twice). So I picked up Contra thinking it would be a dose of retro fun like Gradius was, but it wasn't. Contra as a series really hasn't felt the same since Alien Wars - after that game, it seems that they've largely ditched the level style the older games used to have and focus more on the bosses. That isn't as enjoyable for me.

Darth Marsden wrote:You can if you have the PC version - just root around on the CDs and play them in Media Player. They're even prettier if they're not squished into a 640x480 resolution. Of course, knowing me and my efforts to help people, you've probably got the PS version, right? 🙄

I had the PC version - it was a copy burnt from a friend. I did watch some of the movies on the CDs, but they weren't easy to identify cause the file names didn't match the content of the FMVs.

I have since gotten rid of my burnt PC version though 1) because I can't play it anymore since I have Linux and it doesn't run in Windows XP (at least I don't think it does) and 2) I decided to get rid of all my pirated games and actually buy them. I got real copies of Warcraft II and Starcraft, and bought FFVII for the Playstation.

I agree with Warlock about Aeris - she was an integral part of my team who I built up quite a bit, and I was really upset to see her get killed. That and she was really cute.

I've seen the FFVII tech demo for the PS3, and although Square says it's just a demo, there are rumors floating around that they may be remaking the game. Who knows what's true? All I know is I want to freakin' see Aeris' face! (it's always cut off!)

Ah, the

you can bring aeris back by fighting rufus 300 times and then going to nibelheim and youll see shadow from ffvi and if you beat him he gives you a sup[erlife materia and you can go back to where aires dies use the soperlife meteria and you can bring her back to life!!!!1!!!1!!

Darth Marsden wrote:
Anyway, I prefered Tifa. Not as cute, but more feisty.

That's interesting, I just prefered her because she had huge tits.

Daarkseid wrote:That's interesting, I just prefered her because she had huge tits.

Plus Tifa has a sweet limit on top of all that stuff. It's cool cuz they all string together. I dont know what my biggest let down was. I'd have to say Hulk for GCN.

Biggest gaming letdown?

Super Mario Sunshine would probably be my guess. Instead of a classic "Super Mario Bros." style adventure, we got Mario running through a very non-Mario-ish world spraying things with a watergun.

I long for the day that we get a Mario game as good as Super Mario Bros. 3, which is still the bestselling Mario game of all time.

Mario Power Tennis was a slight letdown because Toad wasn't a playable character, yet "Petey Piranha" was. Nintendo seems to be neglecting the fact that there are many Toad fans out there,

MPT was an awesome game, though, I just miss playing as Toad.

KRY wrote:Plus Tifa has a sweet limit on top of all that stuff. It's cool cuz they all string together. I dont know what my biggest let down was. I'd have to say Hulk for GCN.

Who cares? I've always just wanted to fuck her between the tits and splooge on her face. Every damn battle in that game won with Tifa left me needing to masturbate furiously. Incidentally, if I needed to get some progress done in that game, I'd keep her out of the party.

Same thing happened with Lulu in FFX.

Lulu >>> Tifa. Easily.

Yeah I have heard that stuff about Aeris before. The problem is there is a lot of BS floating around the internet about her too. I once read this really elaborate explanation of how you were supposed to "revivie" her by going in the sub and finding that materia she drops in the water (or something) and then apparently that was fake. There was a lot of fake crap like that around.

But yeah, if she had maybe died in the last disk or something I think it would have been better.

Regarding the Underwater Materia, it's also possible the Weapons were planned for the Japanese version but not finished until the American version. Hence the materia being in there but not having a point. And as for her limit break, it's possible they just beefed it up to lower the "suck" factor of her being lost so soon after you get it.

Yoshiman wrote:Silent Hill 4- This game wasn't nearly as creepy as it could've been. No broken radio, no dark areas, and no flashlight. Granted, there were some parts that were disturbing (apartment building, 2nd time and the room hauntings), but SH3 was much scarier. Also, combat seemed kinda rushed. Enemies had a ton of life, and you always had to kill them by stomping on them (which looked odd when Henry's foot went through them).

Yeah, I understand. What really irked me about the game was that the game was distinctly level-based. SH3 was, as well, but in SH4 it was even worse. The game also goes for the gore factor more than the psych factor, which drops it down a notch. In addition, the Links-like "charge up" system for melee weapons was very awkward. I still enjoyed the game, but I think the series was at it's best in SH2.

Grasshopper wrote:I thought Half-Life 2 was a let down. Not really because the game was bad, but just the way it ran. I was so disappointed when it ran terrible even after meeting the recommended specs that it pretty much ruined the entire game for me. I expected a game like Doom 3 to run worse when it had more demanding requirements, and when it actually ran smoother on a system that didn't meet the minimum requirements then Half-Life 2, I was extremely disappointed.

That's really strange. HL2 runs like a dream on my machine, with all the settings cranked, wheras Doom 3 still won't run at any graphical setting above "medium."

This may already of been said, but Metal Gear Solid 2:The movie . Well, that's basically how I remember it. There were at least 4 hours of cutscenes, in a 10 hour game. The game itself was good, but what the hell was with the story? The la-le-lu-li-lo(sp?) had to of been the dumbest name ever used in a game. What the hell were the Patriots? What happened in the last hour of the game, when the guy kept sending you weird messages over and over and your gf was all messed up? How come when you wait in the cold-passage way as naked Raiden, a Japanese model appears in the mini-map/radar. Ok, I may of been a little biased at the end of the game, but I can't hold it in for an hour, so I kinda missed the last two cutscenes, so I don't even know how the game ended.

DarkDragoonX wrote:Yeah, I understand. What really irked me about the game was that the game was distinctly level-based. SH3 was, as well, but in SH4 it was even worse. The game also goes for the gore factor more than the psych factor, which drops it down a notch. In addition, the Links-like "charge up" system for melee weapons was very awkward. I still enjoyed the game, but I think the series was at it's best in SH2.

Yeah, and while there were "levels" in SH3, it didn't even seem like they tried to cover it up in SH4. You go in the hole, Subway, cutscene, home, go in the hole, Forest, cutscene, home, go in the hole, Water Tower, cutscene, home, go in the hole... well, you get the point, then after you get the hosital, you get to do it ALL over again. 😡 Pretty lame way to try and connect with all the characters.

I agree, SH2 was my favorite in the series, and it has nothing do to with the fact that I think Pyramid Head is one of the coolest baddies in any video game. It was just really good because of the depressing psychological story. :tongue: Ok, enough of that...

Daarkseid wrote:Who cares? I've always just wanted to f**k her between the tits and splooge on her face. Every damn battle in that game won with Tifa left me needing to m********e furiously. Incidentally, if I needed to get some progress done in that game, I'd keep her out of the party.

Same thing happened with Lulu in FFX.

Edited for naughty language - Darth

I was thinking about getting Billy Hatcher, but I decided not too. I figured if Sega couldn't polish it's own mascot's game, what makes me think they would do so for a new franchise?

Don't get me wrong, I like Sonic Heroes, and I didn't have as many problems with it as you did, but it has a lot of things wrong with it.

vegeta1215 wrote:I was thinking about getting Billy Hatcher, but I decided not too. I figured if Sega couldn't polish it's own mascot's game, what makes me think they would do so for a new franchise?

Don't get me wrong, I like Sonic Heroes, and I didn't have as many problems with it as you did, but it has a lot of things wrong with it.

I agree that Starfox Adventures was a letdown - there was no real reason for me to carry on past a certain point, which was quite far into the game, but a part I found annoying (the bit where you fly on a pteradactal, shooting towers.) So I stopped playing.
Another game I found a huge letdown was Shining Soul for the GBA. Not a major game, but it got a good review so I bought it. Never have I been quite so annoyed in a game. The whole thing is based on pressing A enough times to make your thumb drop off. The reviewers must have been seriously high when they wrote the review. Maybe I should sue and get my �30 back...

Darth Marsden wrote: Star Wars : Jedi Academy, Earthworm Jim 3D, Unreal 2, Shrek 2 GC, Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo and Enter the Matrix.

And I enjoyed Billy Hatcher, but it is indeed bizarre. Also it suffers from Sega Camera Angle Disease (SCAD). Especially at the end where you find a hell of a lot of bottomless pits.