Games that wasted a perfectly good premise/plot

[Hawki]

Command's story was shiiiiiiiiit, oh my god. I dunno how I managed to 100% that game, but it wasn't the most fun at times.

The thing bout the story here is that since Command's story was such garbage, I don't think I would've even wanted it to continue past that point. Some of the possible endings were neat ideas, but ultimately it wasn't a future I looked at with a lot of excitement. It is too bad Zero just reboots it.

If you 100%ed it, that's way more than I did (about 1.5 playthroughs - I looked up the endings online).

Anyway, Command's endings aren't the most interesting in the world, but I'd take them over yet another reboot.

But after 64 and Adventures, Nintendo did try and expand the story, narrative and world with Assault, and it once again got kinda mixed reception on that front. Following that up with Command and the little things it tried to do (Ghost of Andross, blech) was just a second kick to the gut. It seems that whenever they do do something different, it's not as well liked. But now when they do what people liked, everyone craps on that too. Kinda puts them in a bit of a bind, ya know? What direction do you take at that point?

I think it's pretty clear what people want at this point - Arwing gameplay. Not Adventures, not Assault, where we have the on-foot missions, not Command, where the control scheme was shit, and not Zero, where we had the motion control nonsense. Just good solid gameplay. And none of that precludes decent storytelling, or at the very least, storytelling that continues without relying on reboots that don't do anything new from a narrative standpoint.

 

[meiam]

Tidus and his dad plot is really the B plot of FFX, if you go back and play trough it, after the first 5 hours of the game that part of the plot pretty much disappear until the very end and Yuna and her pilgrimage is front and center, Tidus is just along for the ride and serves as the character that justify the exposition. I'd say the plot is 60% Yuna/pilgrimage, 20% Titus/Jetch and 20% odds and ends. And unlike most stand in main character he actually has a purpose since he doesn't know that Yuna will die at the end of the pilgramage and this has big effect on most conversation, most of which you'll only realize on replay.

I'd say if anything FFX-2 is the one that wastes potential. The idea of exploring a society going trough profound shift when they find out that there religion/government was actually a giant con if pretty interesting. But most of it is Charlie Angel with creepy dude who want to sleep with his relative and some giant gun from the afterlife.

Can we include mass effect 2/3 in this? You know, for... well everything really.

Most of the star ocean, they're supposed to be space exploration JRPG but instead almost all of them are just generic medieval fantasy. And the only game which isn't is by far the worse one.

FF12... fuck you Vaan (TBF I find the gameplay super boring anyway, but the story could have been cool, maybe rival FFT).

 

[Dalisclock]

I'll throw in FFX. Its a very interesting world with very interesting characters (except for the main character somehow) that really could have had a very deep, not-stuck-up-its-own-butt story, but somehow they just screwed the pooch. Most of this is plot spoilers so just a general warning here.

Titus is just a douche, and in spite of his origin, and the fact that he basically catalyzes the story, he just doesn't amount to much compared to the side-protags in his own battle party. Being a dream of creatures that want to end a cycle of destruction is interesting, but nothing is really done with it. Its just windowdressing for a dude who has emotional issues because his dad was a prick. Yuna is a summoner who is trying to follow in her fathers footsteps of CHOOSING TO DIE to better the lives of the people in the world. That is the endpoint of her entire story, and as she travels through the world she faces off with people trying to compete with her to die (other summoners), people trying to replace her (knights who attempt to destroy the big bad through military might [and fail spectacularly]) and people who want to stop her (a race of people who oppose the sacrifice of summoners). And each time she has a reaction and she has a little character growth. She goes from doormat to a person who attempted to solo-orchestrate a takedown of a side-big bad in a way spectacular enough to fuck with the heads of her enemies and make her moral standing clear to the public. And yet somehow she's second fiddle to 90's hair. And that's just one character. We've got a fish out of water story where a character from a small craphole town wrestles with guilt and projected hate against a race because of the traumatic and senseless death of his brother as he attempts to come to terms with what he's helping Yuna do. Then we've got a member of that race who opposes the sacrifice of summoners working with the group hoping that she can use reason and positive action to stop Yuna from ending herself, rather than the borderline terroristic methods of a portion of her brethren. And so on.

How do you have that much good shit to work with and fuck it all up by focusing on daddy issues and stupid pants.

Yeah, I really wanted to like FFX. But Titus constantly acting like a nimrod ruined it for me and I was annoyed how that big reveal of what Yuna fate actually is is predicated off of the fact nobody has the heart to tell Tidus. Not even Rikku, whose trying to put a stop to the whole thing. Seriously, not one fucking person notices Tidus keeps trying to hook up with Yuna, pulls him aside and calmly explains that she's meant to die at the end.

Also, the Daddy-Tidus Fist bump at the end after Tidus's Sacrifice felt like it kinda ruined the whole mood of him fading from existence.

I briefly tried playing FFX-2 and while the dresssphere thing was fun for a couple hours, I got bored of it pretty fast and the goal of wanting to revive Tidus(for some reason) wasn't a goal I wanted to spend hours of my only lifetime pursuing. Not when I could be randomly browsing through internet message boards and wasting hours on TVTROPES.

And finally Thimbleweed Park.

I loved this game so much until the story took its own head and placed it up its own ass and farted up its own nose. There was a bunch of really interesting plot threads and funny interactions and just plane cool story ideas and then we get the digital equivalent of "it was all a dream". Thanks guys. I don't want to dig in too far into the details first because if you do want to try a 90s style point and click this is a great game and you shouldn't ruin it for yourself too much even if the ending is crap, and second because it feels too easy to take cheap shots at a silly game made for fun by people who loved a certain era of gaming. Yeah its dumb, and yeah we could have gotten just zonks of cool game story if they hadn't decided to crap up and cut it off, but its still a worthwhile play.

That's pretty much my take on it exactly. Loved the fact it was a love letter to old 1990's Lucasarts games(which I still consider the golden age of adventure games, along with a few select Sierra ones) and was totally digging it, until that bit at the end. Yeah, it kind of falls apart and I was stuck thinking "What happened to the real ending? What the hell is this shit?" It was funny when Monkey Island 2 did something similar, this not so much.

Also, I'm kinda shocked someone other the me has played thimbleweed park. I figured I was one of the few people on earth who still played adventure games when I'm not yelling at the kids to get off my lawn.

 

[Dalisclock]

Can we include mass effect 2/3 in this? You know, for... well everything really.

Most of the star ocean, they're supposed to be space exploration JRPG but instead almost all of them are just generic medieval fantasy. And the only game which isn't is by far the worse one.

ME2 had some great character missions, but all of the story missions(aside from the finale) were kinda not good. And it's also where the story started going off the rails(partially due to the lead writer leaving to go work on SW:TOR). ME3 had some good stuff, but Cerebus took up way too much running time(and them having such huge amounts of firepower begs the question of just how braindead everyone's Intelligence is. The Galaxy's most notable terrorist org has a small fleet and their own army, and literally nobody notices until it's unleased on the galaxy. HOW?).

Also, the whole thing with the Crucible was fucking stupid. Here's a big thingy, we don't know what it is or what it does but we're not only going to build it but improve on it(despite not knowing what it is or how it works) because....uh, we need a big doomsday weapon to fight the reapers and OH NOS! It was the REAPERS STUFF THE WHOLE TIME! WHO WROTE THIS? HOW DO THEY STILL HAVE JOBS?

I only played the first Star Ocean but yeah, I was super excited when I saw it was Star Trek as a JRPG...and then 90% of the game was set on some fantasy world with cat people. Except at the end when you end up going to another planet(Fargett?) for like 20 minutes that had somehow been behind the plot the whole time and I don't remember why. Apparently that final planet was meant to be a lot more of the game(which jives with my feelings at the time that the final planet felt super rushed).

 

[Hawki]

Can we include mass effect 2/3 in this? You know, for... well everything really.

What about Andromeda?

TBH, I almost included Andromeda on my list, but decided not to. The thing is, looking at the plot of Andromeda, everything about it is technically fine - there's not much to criticize purely on a plot perspective. Yet nothing about it really works for me.

Then again, maybe I answered my own question.

 

[Palindromemordnilap]

Arkham Origins. I thought the overall idea of a powerful crime boss deciding to just release the goddamn hounds on Batman and send all the elite killers and assassins he could the Bats' way was a pretty neat idea. Lots room to do some interesting things with that concept so of course they threw it out at the end of the first act so it could all be about the Joker again. They couldn't even be bothered to finish with the assassins in the main story, Deadshot and Lady Shiva (two of the more notable adversaries in the line up) were dealt with in optional side quests

 

[Phoenixmgs]

-Assassin's Creed series
Way back when there wasn't a million of these things, the series was set up for a pretty decent TRILOGY. The 1st game was just learning about the assassins and templars. The 2nd game was Desmond learning to become an assassin. The, the 3rd game should've taken place only in the present day where Desmond takes down the templars.

-Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock ended up being literally the worst assassination plot I've ever seen. The game started out really strong and even had a pretty good horror vibe to it, then about a third of the way though, you were basically just doing pointless side quest type stuff extending the length of the game. Bioshock Infinite has a great intro and a great ending but the middle is, again, just busywork along with being nonsensical. Booker and Elizabeth make a deal with Daisy to get her guns in exchange for an airship but once they go through the 1st tear to another world, it becomes rather pointless as that world's Daisy is not the same Daisy you made a deal with. Even if you interpret what Elizabeth does as pulling stuff from other worlds (instead of going to other worlds) into your world, then just pull a fucking airship into this world. It's really disappointing as the ending is actually really really fucking good and every line of dialog that Elizabeth says through it all has a very specific purpose. It almost feels like they might've had a great story to tell but it didn't fit with being a shooter so they just had to just fill-in shit so that it could be a shooter.

I'll throw in FFX.

Yeah, I didn't really care for anything about the FFX story or characters.

Can we include mass effect 2/3 in this? You know, for... well everything really.

FF12... fuck you Vaan (TBF I find the gameplay super boring anyway, but the story could have been cool, maybe rival FFT).

At least Mass Effect is better than Star Trek: Picard...

I don't get the hate for FF12's gameplay, it's literally the same exact battle system (under-the-hood) of the classic FFs but you could automate all the repetitive inputs. It saved me a bunch of time so it was an improvement for me.

 

[Trunkage]

What about Andromeda?

TBH, I almost included Andromeda on my list, but decided not to. The thing is, looking at the plot of Andromeda, everything about it is technically fine - there's not much to criticize purely on a plot perspective. Yet nothing about it really works for me.

Then again, maybe I answered my own question.

Came here to say this.

My issue is that it was being too real with what you'd probably have to do if you go to a new galaxy. Everything is about fixing up the planets so they are livable so the game feels like your doing chores. Can't we do more exploring and see at least more than one race?

OT: New Vegas. It's a western themed game... and you aren't allowed to make a posse. What are you even doing, Obsidian. Imagine rolling up to the Lucky 38 with 6 buddies in toe. Shoot out ensues

Edit: Forgot my other idea. Since its in Vegas, its Ocean 11 heist time. Boone is smooth James Bond type, Rual for mechical break in, Veronica for terminal break in, EDE for vents, Arcades for philosophising a distraction, Cass should be left outside or the bar. The only good thing I can think for Rex is replacing his brain with House and you can control Vegas. At a loss for Lily

There are a lot of things that dont live up to the hype in that game but if they just fixed this one thing, it would have been next level

 

[Dalisclock]

-Assassin's Creed series
Way back when there wasn't a million of these things, the series was set up for a pretty decent TRILOGY. The 1st game was just learning about the assassins and templars. The 2nd game was Desmond learning to become an assassin. The, the 3rd game should've taken place only in the present day where Desmond takes down the templars.

That was the apparent plan. I've heard Brotherhood and Revelations was a result of AC3 taking too long to make and they didn't want to leave the series hanging for a couple years because god forbid gamers have to wait a few years between sequels.

And then the lead dev left ubisoft(or was forced out, I forget which), which screwed over the original plans. That and ubisoft wanting to make AC a yearly thing because $$$$$$$.

And while I like AC3(with caveats), I would have liked to see the original plan come to fruition, even if it means AC4 would have never happened.

 

[Hawki]

Came here to say this.

My issue is that it was being too real with what you'd probably have to do if you go to a new galaxy. Everything is about fixing up the planets so they are livable so the game feels like your doing chores. Can't we do more exploring and see at least more than one race?

I never thought I'd hear anyone complain about Mass Effect being "too real."

Anyway, I don't begrudge Andromeda the lack of new alien races. In the original trilogy, we had a few, but their points of origin are spread over an entire galaxy, while Andromeda takes place in a relatively small segment of said galaxy. That isn't to say that there couldn't be an in-universe reason for more races, but it does fit the setting as we understand it.

As for exploring, dunno if we needed more of it. Andromeda has vast environments, sure, but I was mostly bored by them. I mean, the original had exploring too, and sometimes frustrating exploration at that, but had strong characters and plot to fall back on. Andromeda? Not so much, despite cribbing a lot from the plot of ME1 when you get down to it.

 

[happyninja42]

That was the apparent plan. I've heard Brotherhood and Revelations was a result of AC3 taking too long to make and they didn't want to leave the series hanging for a couple years because god forbid gamers have to wait a few years between sequels.

And then the lead dev left ubisoft(or was forced out, I forget which), which screwed over the original plans. That and ubisoft wanting to make AC a yearly thing because $$$$$$$.

And while I like AC3(with caveats), I would have liked to see the original plan come to fruition, even if it means AC4 would have never happened.

The issue I think that crippled the AC series for a lot of people, is that they got the story structure backwards, based on the gameplay.

Here's what I mean:

So the entire premise of the AC series, is a pretty standard story, as far as things go. You have a clueless protagonist who in the present, who is caught up in events outside his control. He is forced to undergo experimental technology to uncover lost information, that only he can provide. The story then proceeds into a series of flashback sequences, to uncover the Macguffin in a sequential order, that gives the hero time to devise a plan to escape and thwart the badguys. No problem there, tons of movies have done something similar, specifically using a series of flashback scenes to convey information to the current problem in the present. It's a great method of storytelling, but the problem that the AC series ran into, as a result of this plot device, was time investment.

They left the "flashback" sequences as the primary game, and the "real events" as the transition scenes that last almost no time at all. And it's supposed to be the other way around. When using flashbacks, you're supposed to just dip into a short event, one sequence of actions, that are immediately relevant to the protagonists, current plight, which will provide insight into their current problem, allowing them to overcome it. And this is the important part, then you go back to the present day, real events, and show that flashback's impact on the current problem.

But AC didn't do that. They let you wander around for 20+ hours at a time, depending on how much ambling about you do, before taking you back to the story of Desmond. But the problem is that you have no investment in Desmond, because they don't actually establish him as the important person. He is relegated to a plot device, and he is the actual protagonist of the game. Because nothing that is going on in the actual game itself (the flashbacks) matters. You don't "win the day against the Templars" by doing what Ezio does, because in the present day, the Templar's still won. They control the world. So it makes all the efforts of Desmond's ancestors effectively pointless, because it always ends with the same conclusion "And then the Templar took over everything and brought the world to the brink of destruction." Nothing you do in the flashback (the majority of the game) changes that outcome. All it does, is inform Desmond on what HE needs to do, to save the day in the Final Hour. But that's the point that Ubisoft stops the story, cuts to credits, and starts working on the next game. So you end up with a narrative thread, based on a character that is given the amount of screen time, normally associated with a supporting character, or...a flashback family member. So they flip the structure on it's head, and the narrative suffers for it.

This is why I think the AC film actually is a lot better than people give it credit for, because they structure the different story elements properly. The focus of the film is on Cal, who is the one who can actually enact change, establish the stakes for him, establish how the Animus works, and why they are using it. They escalate the stakes as he gets closer to revealing the Apple, and they only delve into the past, for the length of a single action sequence, like a flashback should work. Cal is the one that has the character arc, has the moment of revelation of purpose, and takes actions that actually change events going forward. It's a well made film for the structure that the game franchise set up.

 

[Yoshi]

Metroid Other M

enough said

 

[Chimpzy]

Ride to Hell: Retribution
No really, hear me out. It had outlaw biker gangs on the American plains in the summer of '69 as backdrop. That's a cool and unique setting, the only other game I know that does bikers is Full Throttle, and that's a way different genre. There's enough potential there for a decent GTA-style open world game, but with a nice 1%er flavor, not to mention all the other late 60's tropes you could've drawn from. But they fucked up everything that could possible be fucked up.

 

[Hades]

Fire Emblem Fates is a big one. It had quite the interesting premise about two countries being at war and one prince having to make the awkward choice of siding with the royal family that raised him or the royal family of his birth. The premise hinted at a very nuanced and morally grey plot. However because you need to be able to marry your handsome tsundere brother or your cute loli sister the supposed ''birth'' family turned out not to be your real family either. Meanwhile the country that raised you was implied to be driven to extremes by their poverty but instead it just turns out their leadership consist solely of utter psychopaths.

Instead of one's birth family vs one's adopted family you get your adopted family vs a bunch of complete strangers who pretend to be your birth family. Instead of grey morality you get pure and glorious Japan vs a nation that's pretty much the Fire Emblem version of Mordor.

 

[meiam]

Fire Emblem Fates is a big one. It had quite the interesting premise about two countries being at war and one prince having to make the awkward choice of siding with the royal family that raised him or the royal family of his birth. The premise hinted at a very nuanced and morally grey plot. However because you need to be able to marry your handsome tsundere brother or your cute loli sister the supposed ''birth'' family turned out not to be your real family either. Meanwhile the country that raised you was implied to be driven to extremes by their poverty but instead it just turns out their leadership consist solely of utter psychopaths.

Instead of one's birth family vs one's adopted family you get your adopted family vs a bunch of complete strangers who pretend to be your birth family. Instead of grey morality you get pure and glorious Japan vs a nation that's pretty much the Fire Emblem version of Mordor.

Fates was the worst of both world, traditional FE always had a corny story about the goodest kingdom in the world being attacked by the absolute evil empire. That doesn't leave a lot of room for interesting nuance but it has a kind of simple charm at least. Fates, particularly conquest, was just weird. I was kinda excited to play it since your character being able to work for either kingdom should mean that either a) the writting would actually have some grey with neither kingdom being absolute good or b) you're character would be 100% evil in conquest which would be a nice change of pace from every other FE. But no, there is no grey and you're character is 100% good who for some reason decide to work for the obviously evil kingdom... because family? The brother/sister are implied to be good people and only the king is evil, but they don't exactly try very hard at stopping him, it's an absolute monarchy, if one of them kill him there's not going to be any repercussion "the king is dead, long live the king" and all.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

So I'm sure there there games that all of us played and came out the other side(whether finishing the game or not) thinking "You know, the idea behind this is awesome. Why doesn't the game live up to it?"

Especially if the game advertised itself or set up an initial idea of "This game is about X" and then proceeds to do almost nothing with the idea or does it extremely poorly.

Examples off the top of my head.

-Metal Gear Solid V. So this game....oh boy, initially looks like it had a lot of cool ideas. Bridging the gap Between Big Boss truly embracing his nature as an outsider In Peace Walker and building this "nation of warriors" Outer Heaven in Metal Gear, getting revenge against Skullface for almost killing him, and delving more into Cypher/The Patriots.

It spends most of the game....doing very little of any of those. It's made worse when it's revealed that You aren't Big Boss and he's off building Outer Heaven without you and very few of the ideas in this game relate to stuff in other games, despite the attempted fanservice with Liquid, Ocelot and Volgon. There's a bunch interesting stuff in the cassette tapes when you beat the game, and the whole idea of Skullface being mad because of his original language being taken from him is fascinating idea, but very little of it plays into the game at large and instead there's a bunch of random missions in Africa and afghanistan with some plot relevant ones sprinkled in. It feels like you could skip the entire game and miss pretty much nothing as far as important to the overall timeline, especially since Peace Walker already set up Big Boss building his own PMC and getting his own Metal Gear, as well as addressing some of the themes from Snake Eater(notably Big Boss still being messed up over having to kill the Boss).

This is a weird case, because I think as far as general gameplay goes MGS has never been better. There were some things MGS4 did better with CQC (and those wonderful pressure-sensitive face buttons), but Kojima himself said once that MGSV is finally realizing what he’d wanted the series to be from a design standpoint. The problem is the plot behind it is an unfinished mess for reasons oft discussed and lamented.

If the game was able to cook another year, perhaps that would’ve hopefully been enough time for Kojima and Co to flesh out the mission structure to carry more narrative resonance vs just padding the game out a dozen or two hours because hey it’s open world now.

 

[Dalisclock]

This is a weird case, because I think as far as general gameplay goes MGS has never been better. There were some things MGS4 did better with CQC (and those wonderful pressure-sensitive face buttons), but Kojima himself said once that MGSV is finally realizing what he’d wanted the series to be from a design standpoint. The problem is the plot behind it is an unfinished mess for reasons oft discussed and lamented.

If the game was able to cook another year, perhaps that would’ve hopefully been enough time for Kojima and Co to flesh out the mission structure to carry more narrative resonance vs just padding the game out a dozen or two hours because hey it’s open world now.

I have no complaints about the on the ground, moment to moment gameplay in MGSV. It's awesome gameplay that's bolted to a lackluster plot with an unfinished 2nd act. And without Kojima, Konami couldn't even think of anything to use the FOX engine for other than a shit zombie game. Because #FUCKONAMI

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I have no complaints about the on the ground, moment to moment gameplay in MGSV. It's awesome gameplay that's bolted to a lackluster plot with an unfinished 2nd act. And without Kojima, Konami couldn't even think of anything to use the FOX engine for other than a shit zombie game. Because #FUCKONAMI

They can only redeem themselves somewhat if they allow Kojima to use the Silent Hill IP to create a new proper game in the series, with G. del Toro writing. There have been rumblings that something could be in the works.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Sands of Destruction for the 3DS. A lot of this seems to come from marketing meddling on the story end but the game's premise is that you are not trying to save the world, you are trying to destroy it. It's been years since I played it but this world has humans and animal people in it and the humans are treated as slaves and trash while the animal people are on top. This game was originally intended to be very dark indeed given that they still have things like one of the bosses talking about how he grinds up humans as mulch to fertilize his gardens, I can only imagine what the original game would have been like.

But no, the game eventually turns into a typical fantasy RPG plotline and you instead save the world. I'm leaving out a lot of details but I think the original intent was that the world is slowly being consumed by sand and it would likely have been that your hero needed to cause the destruction of the current world before it all turned to dust so that it could be reborn into a new flourishing world which is a rather heavy and interesting plot for a game to tackle and would have been very interesting had they gone through with it. Also the main romance sucks and is shallow as hell.

Gameplay is also a disappointment, it had this kind of combo system to it where you could level up your basic attacks and abilities to hit more or do more damage (And other things I'm forgetting) but it became incredibly easy to break by putting huge combos on your basic attacks to do ridiculous damage even without putting points into damage. It could have been remembered as a great dark gem but it's now just a generic fantasy RPG.

 

[Catfood220]

I was going to piss all over The Last of Us again, but I got typing and I just couldn't be arsed after a couple of sentences. I've said it all before, at this point I'm just repeating myself.

So, I'm going to suggest Overwatch instead. Don't get me wrong, I like Overwatch, I've had a lot of fun with it even if I haven't played it in months. But, Activision/Blizzard have created this interesting future world where there are robot uprisings, private armies and shady companies and a whole host of superhero/villain type characters to fight the good fight or bring the world to its knees. And what do they give us? An online only first person shooter where the only hint of a story is a few lines the characters say to add a bit of flavour. And the actual story is contained in videos and comics. I mean what the fuck Activision/Blizzard?