What Game Had the Most Wasted Potential

[Ieyke]

This is hard.
So many options....

The Castlevania:Lords Of Shadow series

Every MegaMan X game after X4

Diablo 3

Spore

Hellgate:London

The Borderlands games.

The Battlefield series after 2142 made it cool and interesting.

The "sequels" to Final Fantasy Tactics

The new SimCity

RAGE

Okamiden (simply because it was a handheld game, and having sequels on a totally different system format is idiotic)

Skyrim - pretty world, good story, boring as hell gameplay and terrible animation quality

Sonic Lost World - I can't say from personal experience, but it looked soooo promising and then people hated it

Assassin's Creed Revelations - Could've elegantly finished off Ezio's trilogy, but they HAD to go screw up the gameplay. At least everything else was good.

Dead Island

Assassin's Creed 3. Great setting, premise, player character idea and the previous games' setup was fine - how did it end up so...boring?

Becaus ethe setting and main character are both boring and bland. Connor had the potential to be cool, but the setting didn't. And it's a terrible place for an Assassin's Creed game to boot.

 

[A.K.B.]

Nier first and the last remnant as a strait second . SquareEnix have properly proven over the past four or five years their capability of squandering huge potential . those two games are prime examples ...

Nier had one of THE BEST CONCEPTS I COULD EVER THINK OF. A touching story that doesn't lack a punch in term of complexity and an art direction that would have worked if enough time was spent to polish it. It could have possibly been the next Shadow Of Colossus _ and I say COULD _ if they hadn't decide to appoint to it a budget as tight as my left nostril during flu season and enough time to make blowing a napkin seem a refreshingly long and fruitful journey while in fact my nose is already completely clogged and NOTHING IS COMING OUT OF IT! and instead decided to waste all their smelly and precious green bells on a stupendously detailed sky box for the Final Fantasy XIII that chances are NO ONE HAS NOTICED...
and its really a shame because underneath all the shortcuts and confiscations they rigged Nier with you can see the shadow of monstrous potential clocking the wall, complemented by blinding bright light flowing from behind the corner fade into the image of a stray-lice infested kitty sleeping against a light-projector that is just about to burst in flames granted all the cheap, old decrepit wiring and electricity work they've linked it with and all the cracks and sparks Its exposed light-circuit is spewing, as you peek from corner to play the second, third forth or fifth hour of the game ...

on the other Hand. I can easily depict how producers and lead-designers of SQUARE were discussing how to fuse the best elements from an RTS into a JRPG right after they consented to call their _hopefully_ newly born offspring THE LAST REMNANT ....
I can also depict how they, two days prior to the release, recalled after they had sat down to test the game that they forgot something...
" OH, THE BEST OF RTS ELEMENTS! " their voices resounded ...
" NOT TO TRY AND MAKE A BAD AND AWFULLY BROKEN, SHATTERED AND POINTLESS COMBINATION OF THE WORST AN RTS AND A JRPJ COULD OFFER! RESULTING IN A RPG THAT NEITHER LOOKS GOOD, PLAYS WELL NOR EVEN RESEMBLE ANY OF THE TWO AFOREMENTIONED GENRES! "
I mean I like both chocolate cakes and chicken-wings , and they say alcohol can make S#@^ taste good _even though I hadn't tried this myself_
but I don't think squeezing the three of them into a blender could make a tasty smoothy ....
In fact I think it's stupid.
THE LAST REMNANT was stupid. even though the idea itself feels amazingly promising...

.............................

sorry if this had a couple of mistakes, my English isn't as good as it appears ...

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

1...2....3....

Final Fantasy 13.

Ambitious abstract storyline, poorly presented.
Ambitious take on the battle system (your mileage may vary)
Ambitious three game structure, later split apart in favor of direct sequels.
Ambitious environments, fully exploreable, scrapped

Art director Isamu Kamikokuryo revealed that many additional scenarios such as Lightning's home, which were functioning in an unreleased build during development, were left out of the final version due to concerns about the game's length and volume.

Toriyama said in an interview that the team was unable to make them as graphically appealing as the rest of the game and chose to eliminate them.

Admittedly, they managed to band-aid it back together in the sequels, but just imagine what it would have been if everything had gone according to plan.

Similarly, Final Fantasy XII could have been the best game in the main series. It had the most interesting and three-dimensional villains, an ambitious and sprawling world that comes so close to feeling really alive, some fantastic dialogue-writing, and a highly-political plot with a lot of potential. The problem was its utter lack of focus. It's torn between the more typically "Final Fantasy" elements and the more explicitly Matsuno elements. For instance, while I actually think using Vaan as an audience surrogate to explain the stranger parts of the world was a good idea, the problem was that he really, really did not gel with the rest of the cast.

highly agree with this, there were SO many cool things about XII, but holy hell the focus...just threw off any momentum you had and there were a few key points where you had to grind to holy hell and back (I think roughly level 28-30ish? to get by that stupid dragon in the forest that would insta-poison/status effect you hardcore, that area was a choreeee to grind in).

OT: Will have to add in star wars: the force unleashed.

when I first saw development videos and what they wanted to do with the games...i was drooling while trying to control massive excitement seizures, it sounded like such an amazing game.

Granted, I didn't HATE the game...but it definitely was a let down from what I thought it might be.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Broken Age has disappointed me the most of all games, it plays like reading a children's book, not that that's bad, but for as much as they got I feel it could have been better.

 

[Roxas1359]

highly agree with this, there were SO many cool things about XII, but holy hell the focus...just threw off any momentum you had and there were a few key points where you had to grind to holy hell and back (I think roughly level 28-30ish? to get by that stupid dragon in the forest that would insta-poison/status effect you hardcore, that area was a choreeee to grind in).

Ah yes the Elder Wrym, literally the hardest and most bullshit boss I think I've ever faced in a Final Fantasy game. They fixed it a lot more in the International version because in that version you can also control guest gambits by turning them off or on, or setting them up for new things. They also leveled up with you too. Really wish that other people around the world could have played that version instead of the vanilla one sometimes. (note that XII is still my favorite FF game)

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Final Fantasy XII

It had the most interesting and three-dimensional villains...

some fantastic dialogue-writing...

Wait, what?

I had the same reaction to your assessment of Shadow Hearts.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

highly agree with this, there were SO many cool things about XII, but holy hell the focus...just threw off any momentum you had and there were a few key points where you had to grind to holy hell and back (I think roughly level 28-30ish? to get by that stupid dragon in the forest that would insta-poison/status effect you hardcore, that area was a choreeee to grind in).

Ah yes the Elder Wrym, literally the hardest and most bullshit boss I think I've ever faced in a Final Fantasy game. They fixed it a lot more in the International version because in that version you can also control guest gambits by turning them off or on, or setting them up for new things. They also leveled up with you too. Really wish that other people around the world could have played that version instead of the vanilla one sometimes. (note that XII is still my favorite FF game)

yes!!!! just at that point in time it sucked so bad, certain magic spells weren't strong(enough, or were "ra "raga") and you hadn't opened your licensing skill tree too far, so if I remember right I just grinded until I could brute force myself through that battle.

I think another battle I had slight trouble with early on was that stupid moving wall, it's when your characters are roughly lvl 10-15~ish and I think it was right before the fire esper guy, but that was another one I had trouble with.

 

[Roxas1359]

yes!!!! just at that point in time it sucked so bad, certain magic spells weren't strong(enough, or were "ra "raga") and you hadn't opened your licensing skill tree too far, so if I remember right I just grinded until I could brute force myself through that battle.

I think another battle I had slight trouble with early on was that stupid moving wall, it's when your characters are roughly lvl 10-15~ish and I think it was right before the fire esper guy, but that was another one I had trouble with.

You mean the second Demon Wall after the first one? Yeah I hated that thing, but then again I never had as much of a problem with it since I'm a really bad grinder. Let's just say I was already level 32 when I got to that area and I actually took out the first Demon Wall as well. XD
One of the things I like about XII though is that when you get a new character then they are the same level that you are when you get them, and thanks to the International version they can now level up. I hate it when the character you get starts off at a low level and it was really bad in Skies of Arcadia when you get Fina and you could be level 20 or something and she will always be level 1...>.>

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

snip

You mean the second Demon Wall after the first one? Yeah I hated that thing, but then again I never had as much of a problem with it since I'm a really bad grinder. Let's just say I was already level 32 when I got to that area and I actually took out the first Demon Wall as well. XD
One of the things I like about XII though is that when you get a new character then they are the same level that you are when you get them, and thanks to the International version they can now level up. I hate it when the character you get starts off at a low level and it was really bad in Skies of Arcadia when you get Fina and you could be level 20 or something and she will always be level 1...>.>

hah yeah it's been years since I played, so I couldn't remember exactly, but you're right! I was definitely nowhere near as bad as you at grinding...(at least until level like 38-40? it's whatever the minimum was to do that level grinding trick with the gambit system and the infinite spawning monster XD )


and yeah agreed, it's really annoying to have party mechanics where you don't get the character until later on but then they start in scrub mode while your other party members could one hit KO them 5 times over >_>

 

[TristanBelmont]

Remember Me had a pretty cool idea behind it, but it was handled by Capcom. I also loved Hitman Absolution (huge fan of the series) but I don't feel it was a great game. Writing issues were a bit more prevalent than usual for the franchise, AI wasn't challenging, stuff like that.
Resident Evil 6 was another one I loved playing but couldn't look past the issues with gameplay and the absolutely idiotic story (even by RE standards).

 

[EHKOS]

FF12 had a great plot going, it was going to be like a Skies of Arcadia thing. The combat was so bad I never went past the sewer part. I hate it! I want it to be good and it isn't! Airships! Either give me real time hack n slash combat, or turn based, not half-n-half. Not some kind of coffee creamer ass fights.
Rogue Galaxy had almost the same problem. Fuckin' Steve Blum usin' all mah health items every ten seconds.

Also every DBZ fighter after Tenkaichi 3. Everything got progressively worse.

oh yeh and obviously SWTOR is $200m of wasted potential.

Yeah, if you took out the multiplayer bit, that would be an amazing KotOR III. I actually have no idea what the story was, but the gameplay and lore was great. I would play the crap out of it if I could get by without social interaction. And I could have it on my hard drive.

 

[TallanKhan]

For me it is a toss up between Knights of the Old Republic 2 (could have been so much more if it were just finished) and Dragon Age 2 (too much reuse of material, 2D characters and severe lack of ambition with the plot and scope).

 

[SteveoTheBeveo]

Alot people have said already but...Brink. The idea and premise was actually pretty interesting and it looked like it could be a nice little innovation to the FPS genre. But man was the execution terrible. Felt as if the ideas were slapped onto it and it ended up as a mess.

A another I can think of would have to be is Amensia: A Machine for Pigs. This game didn't live up to its predecessor because it had stripped out several elements from the first game and I felt it dragged the game's quality down by alot.

 

[themilo504]

The civil war is the same. The initial battle for Whiterun is really cool with catapults shooting at the walls, archers everywhere etc. . The final battle against Solitude? You storm the fortified city with 3 soldiers destroy maybe 3 barricades and kill 5 soldiers or something like that on your way to the enemy leader. Then you kill him and...nothing. No one cares. All NPCs are standing around looking blankly at you until you leave. The whole game feels completely unfinished.
Also they should have learned more from the world design of Fallout. They did some nice random quests and some of the ruins etc. had some interesting back story. But most of the time you plunder generic cave A oder generic grave B.

There's a mod for that! [http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37216/?] (Yeah, that is basically the catch-phrase for every single issue with Skyrim...)

Yeah, apparently the Civil War in Skyrim was originally completely dynamic, with settlements changing hands depending on who you help (or don't help, as the two sides attack each other whether you are there or not) and your side can actually lose the war if you mess around too much with those skinny draugh girls and boys in their damp holes instead of helping the war effort. This particular mod restores most of that.
You could call that wasted potential, I call it realized potential, as we wouldn1t have it even now if Bethesda wasn't swell enough to hand over the dev-kit to the fans as usual.

To be honest making it possible to lose the civil war if you don?t help seems like a pretty terrible idea, it basically means that you can?t do anything but fight battles until the civil war is finished if you want to be certain that your side wins.

The original x com is easily the worst game I ever played in my life but I kind of like the premise, thankfully the new one is awesome.

 

[Steven George Jeffrey]

Too Human could have been a great launch of an awesome series. Who doesn't love an ultra techno future Viking robot murder game?

What we received was... man was that a let down. That game had no reason to suck that badly.

Like a lot of people I was going to say Dragon Age 2 because it was a definate let down after the first but you're right.

It was so bad I think I blanked it from my memory and it could have been so good. Those damn cut scenes every time you died, none of yourweapons did any damage at all and the fact that the controls were bizarre ruined the game.

More importantly. How does anyone make a game about futuristic Norse Gods beating the crap out of robots with guns and axes bad?

So much wasted potential.

 

[White Lightning]

I'm gonna say Dragon's Dogma, yes I know a lot of people liked it as it was but honestly I couldn't finish it. There was so much I loved in that game but the bad AI, a huge interesting world with not enough in it, and lack of story stopped me. It sucks because it could of been perfect... or at least as close to perfect as a game can be.

 

[wolfyrik]

Wait, really? Nobody? Ok, I'm gonna get jumped on for this I reckon, but here we go.

Syndicate.

Whoa whoa whoa! Hold up before you all bludgeon me to death with whatever comes to hand, I'm serious.

I agree with this. It could have been a good game if they had put more work into it. I'm thinking the same thing about XCOM Declassified . I liked the stuff they showed before they scrapped everything and made it into the game that they released. Finding tech on the battlefield and researching it, resource management inside and outside of combat missions, tactical combat. It could have been really good. I also don't think most people would flame a shooter spin-off if it was really good. I love the old XCOM titles but I found the idea of making a shooter in that universe quite interesting.

But I guess the game (at least for me) with the largest amount of wasted potential in recent times was Skyrim. The dark brotherhood missions were really well done, but then they suddenly end with you sitting in a cold ugly cave doing randomly generated missions and nothing has changed in the slightest.

Spoiler

You killed the emperor! I mean someone should realize that their emperor is dead, right? But everyone just goes on with their stuff.

The civil war is the same. The initial battle for Whiterun is really cool with catapults shooting at the walls, archers everywhere etc. . The final battle against Solitude? You storm the fortified city with 3 soldiers destroy maybe 3 barricades and kill 5 soldiers or something like that on your way to the enemy leader. Then you kill him and...nothing. No one cares. All NPCs are standing around looking blankly at you until you leave. The whole game feels completely unfinished.
Also they should have learned more from the world design of Fallout. They did some nice random quests and some of the ruins etc. had some interesting back story. But most of the time you plunder generic cave A oder generic grave B.

The whole game WAS unfinished. Check out the Skyrim Nexus site, several modders have dug out code that wasn't finished in the game, much of which refers to the civil war. You were tight to point that out specifically. What the code shows, is that the civil war was meant to be a dynamic battle across the map, continuing throughout the game and changing based on your actions. It was supposed to be affected by your rise as Dragonborn and affect the quests you are able to engage in, creating a game which requires multiple playthroughs to see all the content. Some conetent would be walled by helping the one side or the other, drastically altering what you could achieve in a single playthrough. I believe there was some element of politcal gaming to mitigate this effect found in the code aswell. You were supposedto be able to fight for land and capture any hold for either side.

Sadly, skyrim wasn't finished and the features you called out, were the ones sacrificed to the gods of corporate gaming.

 

[Nobuoa Schniell]

Guild Wars 2. All of the technical aspects of the game are amazing. The combat system is very fluid, the design choices that went into resource/exp sharing, dynamic events, and the general questing from the main game was refreshing and made me really feel like part of a community. It's the first MMO where I didn't view players as an enemy: someone who would steal a resource node, tag my mobs, etc. The class design was interesting and the World vs World pvp was a lot of fun to play. Unfortunately, they've been terribly lackluster in content. Their failure to create more prevalent end-game with their main release has led to this constant mad dash to create new content. Features keep getting added and then forgotten, currencies used for one update and then never seen again, design philosophies completely changing. So while I enjoy everything about the game from a technical standpoint, I don't think their design team is able to create content that lives up to the potential of their own game.

 

[putowtin]

Dragon Age 2, for one simple reason. In a game where everyone is datable, where everyone is bi....

Why can't I date Varric!!! ;-)

 

[Kevlar Eater]

Guild Wars 2. All of the technical aspects of the game are amazing. The combat system is very fluid, the design choices that went into resource/exp sharing, dynamic events, and the general questing from the main game was refreshing and made me really feel like part of a community. It's the first MMO where I didn't view players as an enemy: someone who would steal a resource node, tag my mobs, etc. The class design was interesting and the World vs World pvp was a lot of fun to play. Unfortunately, they've been terribly lackluster in content. Their failure to create more prevalent end-game with their main release has led to this constant mad dash to create new content. Features keep getting added and then forgotten, currencies used for one update and then never seen again, design philosophies completely changing. So while I enjoy everything about the game from a technical standpoint, I don't think their design team is able to create content that lives up to the potential of their own game.

And much of that could have been forgiven if Scarlet wasn't written to be the ultimate Villain Sue [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainSue]. With that aside, one of the things that pissed me off to the point of quitting the game was the incompetent "balancing" team. They obviously favor the warrior above all else while trying their hardest to sweep the mesmer, engineer and ranger classes under the rug when they *do* any 'major' class updates. On top of that, damn near everything that made this game a success was thrown completely out the window in favor of the cash shop with abysmally low drop rates concerning Black Lion tickets or scraps; I could max out my credit card on Black Lion keys and get nothing of value, but why would I ever do that?

I could write a novella about the problems of this game and it would be a better-told story than almost anything the writers could and have churned out concerning this game. To me, wasted potential is the least of Guild Wars 2's problems.