Worst waste of story telling potential that annoyed you.

[MrBaskerville]

I remember being interested in the film The Purge but I never went to watch it because despite the premise (once a year, all laws are suspended: From dusk til dawn anarchy rules). I skipped out on The Purge because the story they told with that premise was another damn home-invasion movie!

I had the opposite experience, i thought the premise was awfully laughable but was pleasantly surprised that they only used it as a framework for a decent home invasion movie. It´s defineately better than panic room as far as invasion movies go.

Oblivion
Awful movie and silly premise, but i kinda liked the idea of an invading alien AI, it probably shouldn´t have created an army of Tom Cruise, but it had great potential and i would like to see someone else try.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Episode 19 ends with the main character kicking major ass after having suffered a mental breakdown, resulted from being forced to kill his friend, with a gigantic robot-human hybrid awakened, about to go on a rampage through an already ruined Tokyo. It seems like answers are finally coming, secrets are about to unveil and the series is entering a spectacular final act...

...and the next episode is mostly static images with voiceovers of characters talking, the main character tripping balls in a liquefied state and fuck-all getting resolved. Even the death of Toji (or did he die only in the manga? I forget) is merely glossed over in a phone call scene.

In the anime he loses his leg. There's a scene where he somehow observes one of Shinji's "trolly tantrums", and then wakes up in a hospital to find Shinji lying unconscious in a bed next to his. There's also a moment where what's-her-face the freckled girl comes to visit him, and it's all akward with him not having a leg and all.

Or an arm, either, I think he lost his left arm and leg, above the shoulder and knee. Which to be fair, is fucking crippling and would be a serious dent in one's self confidence, especially for an athlete like Toji.

 

[ThreeName]

-fallout 3-
It's a shame because they put so much effort into making a great world to explore. Then they proceed kill my interest in ever playing it again after running out of interesting things to do with it's writing. The writings only achievement is inspiring apathy. the Pitt had a single moment of good writing but even then the apathy from everything else seeped in and made allowing slavery and supporting the guy in power an easy decision.

they make a crappy main story and failing to write more the 1 character I could care about. The one character I kinda cared about wanted me to kill him; so I granted his wish by destroying his heart that was in a tree root. I can't even think of a single character I hated/strongly disliked enough to remember.

edit: fallout new vegas- OK it's not the worst but it bothers me.
Obsidian never fleshed caesar's legion enough to justify joining a bunch of misogynist, slavers , and rapist. I have no clue how a female courier could justify ever joining them. what Caesar says when talking to him about his future plans is interesting but even with that it's hard to justify joining him. when I see him I have the desire to shoot him just began the first stage of caesar's legion collapsing early.

This, basically verbatim. Fuck Fallout 3, the entire world is full of arseholes and atmosphere-ruining nonsense. That fucking main storyline and that goddamned shitcunt of an ending.

I also agree with New Vegas; although it is one of my favourite games of all time, it would have been so easy to write the Legion as vaguely sympathetic rather than plain psychotic. So easy! Even slavery would work if they weren't such dicks about it, make the slave's children citizens or something, I don't know, just something.

You can have harsh "necessary" brutality without making them cartoonishly evil.

 

[Random Argument Man]

In Mass Effect 2, Shepard is killed for completely nonsensical reasons. And then resurrected for completely nonsensical reasons. And nothing is done with it. They don't go anywhere interesting. And the justification for a former enemy of commander Shepard resurrecting him to fight the collectors is that Shepard "is an icon".

But there is already a much cooler motivation built into the bloody game. Shepard is one of the only people who possess the Cipher. Shep has the ability to understand Protheans on a basic level, to the extent that Shep cannot distinguish between their language and his own. He knows how they think, how they speak, everything it means to be a Prothean. Who are the Collectors? They are the Protheans, thousands of years of slavery later. The only other living being known to posess it is an indoctrinated asari, someone that Cerberus has clear and obvious reasons not to trust.

If BioWare had it so that Cerberus knew of the Prothean connection, it would turn a nonsensical plothole into a wise decision. Why did Cerberus spend almost all of it's money bringing a deceased enemy back to life when they could have simply hired an army, one far more likely to be loyal? Because Shepard is the the right person for the job in ways no other human could be.

I thought killing Shepard was to showcase that the collectors are a way bigger threat since they've killed the already established strong character. (You)

I supposed the Cipher thing would be good. Although, I guess that its better than Shepard being Space Jesus.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Twilight

There's the interesting premise of vampires living in modernday small town America. Then there is a subplot of Native American werewolves and an another subplot about mysterious and slightly ritualistic serial killings.

What do we use this awesome set-up for, you may ask? Well, a bog-standard teen romance drama, with an angsty and incapable main character, of course!

I'm probably in the minority as I actually got some slight enjoyment out of the series on DVD (no, I don't own them on DVD myself but sometimes family members coerce you into watching stuff), but I can clearly see the wasted potential here.

SO MUCH THIS, except for the fact that I get no enjoyment out of the movies whatsoever because the books, and by extension, the movies managed to ruin almost EVERYTHING that could have been good. Every idea that could have salvaged the book at least somewhat was stuffed into a dark, dank, forgotten corner in favor of this 'I NEED MAH BOYFRIEND!11!' bullshit. And it pervades each and every part of the story.

Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I suppose Bioshock Infinite. Oh wow a floating city where xenophobia, super nationalism and religious zealotry are kings, that's such an awesome setting for a story.

Wait what are you doing? Why are you bringing alternate universes and time travel into this? Stop, please. I said STOP! DAMN YOU KEN LEVINE!

Seriously the earlier bits of the game while I can nitpick the fuck out of them, they were pretty interesting. Suddenly they drop all of their earlier themes as bare bones background dressing and wheel out some retarded Hypertime dimension jumping plot that proceeds to take over the game entirely.

The lapses in logic are astounding too. Right we need to gather enough guns and ammo for all the black people in Columbia, let's go. What do you mean we have no means of carrying so much equipment away from an impound lot? We'll just ignore that and bullshit teleport our way out of it later. Also why is there a ghost? Seriously. A fucking ghost. Jesus christ.

Oh and the ending is a lot less complex than it thinks it is. I know the "P word" has had to huge amount of misuse and abuse around gaming semi recently but this is one case where it accurately applies.

I personally thought it worked but that was me.


My addition.

any we all knew this was coming.
MASS EFFECT 3 ENDING.

A magnificent world had been weaved and characters that you loved.
the fanbase that supported the franchise in dlc, merchandise, cosplay, fanfics, art, proved it was something special.
The first 99% of the series had the theme of the universe perfect then.
LOL NOPE giant middle finder.

The potential to see what could happen in different scenarios.
If sentient life would take the chance against the odds for survival on their own
or be handed the solution but in doing so lose the identity and work that made them unique.

we could have had so much more. games in the back story, side stories of people surviving the different wars,
Post shepards story

I really cannot stand dimension jumping or time travel. They always, always create more problems than they solve in terms of plot and plotholes and Infinite took both on at the same time.

Look guys, if you're going for a really heavy dimension jumping plot that is the backbone of the entire game I expect it to not be plagued with inconsistencies and contrived, stupid ways to progress the story (a fucking GHOST!)

The only legit good use of time travel/dimension jumping plot I have seen is The World God Only Knows and I was really worried for the series' future when the writer started to bring it up. I mean it's good. Not tolerable, not "not bad enough to totally ruin the game/film/whatever" actually fun to read and well presented. Remember this is a romantic comedy about this really godlike at visual novel games gamer saving cute girls from evil demons through love (think a male, successful version of Tomoko from Watamote with supernatural help almost.) Somehow develops the plot into dimension jumping better than a super high budget AAA game.

I'll be damned if I have to speak praise about a dimension jumping plot again.

 

[Vault101]

I also agree with New Vegas; although it is one of my favourite games of all time, it would have been so easy to write the Legion as vaguely sympathetic rather than plain psychotic. So easy! Even slavery would work if they weren't such dicks about it, make the slave's children citizens or something, I don't know, just something.

You can have harsh "necessary" brutality without making them cartoonishly evil.

I think there was a lot about the legion was was originally intended but never implemented...from Van Buren as well

 

[moggett88]

Well, 20 minutes ago I finished running through the main questline of Skyrim for the first time, and I think it was atrocious. I hadn't made it past the embassy mission before since I got bored of playing, but I was waiting for DSII to arrive so thought I'd power through. I went to a mountain, talked to a guy, when to a city, talked to a guy, went to a different city, talked to a guy, all the guys went to the mountain and talked...then there was some bullshit crawl through a dungeon practically identical to 20 other dungeons I'd been in, filled with the same chump zombies, then I fought the "World-Eater", who was just a standard dragon. What should have been an epic battle between a super-powered man and a super-powered dragon turned into listening to a political debate for 20 minutes, then 20 more minutes of regular gameplay. Bad, bad, bad writing.

 

[Nimcha]

Glee. Everybody who still watches that crap knows what I'm talking about.

 

[forgo911]

You've probably seen it, a book, a movie or a show that had great potential because of the setting, and it got pissed away for something entirely different. Just name them, what went wrong and what could have gone right.

Worst offender I can think of in recent years was Sword Art Online.

10 000 people trapped in an MMO where if you die you die in real life? And to escape they need to finish the game? That could be an epic story that lasts years. Wait, why is episode 4 filler? Why is episode 5 filler? Why was that Two Parter not relevant to anything? Why are those two characters married when they barley knew each other? Why where there 11 filler episodes out of 15 in the setting? So many questions, no logical answers.

And then there's the second arc.

No. The anime was not meant to be about everyone's struggle in the game, it is about character development and the romance between the two. In fact, this is the only anime that I've watched that has no fault. The animation is flawless, the story is one of the top 5 I have ever seen, the characters are unbelievably well written and the romance is the best written, better than even Clannad. The male lead is strong loner who develops his humanity through the game while the female lead is strong, free willed and a great role model. She even tries to save herself in act 2, which most heroines wouldn't even try to do.

Overall, SAO is the greatest anime I have ever seen, because as hard as I try, I can't seem to find fault in it. What you call filler I see as character development, allowing us to fall in love with the characters while discovering more about them.


P.s. I don't care how easy a captcha is, anything this annoying is never as "easy as cake"

 

[Zontar]

You've probably seen it, a book, a movie or a show that had great potential because of the setting, and it got pissed away for something entirely different. Just name them, what went wrong and what could have gone right.

Worst offender I can think of in recent years was Sword Art Online.

10 000 people trapped in an MMO where if you die you die in real life? And to escape they need to finish the game? That could be an epic story that lasts years. Wait, why is episode 4 filler? Why is episode 5 filler? Why was that Two Parter not relevant to anything? Why are those two characters married when they barley knew each other? Why where there 11 filler episodes out of 15 in the setting? So many questions, no logical answers.

And then there's the second arc.

No. The anime was not meant to be about everyone's struggle in the game, it is about character development and the romance between the two. In fact, this is the only anime that I've watched that has no fault. The animation is flawless, the story is one of the top 5 I have ever seen, the characters are unbelievably well written and the romance is the best written, better than even Clannad. The male lead is strong loner who develops his humanity through the game while the female lead is strong, free willed and a great role model. She even tries to save herself in act 2, which most heroines wouldn't even try to do.

Overall, SAO is the greatest anime I have ever seen, because as hard as I try, I can't seem to find fault in it. What you call filler I see as character development, allowing us to fall in love with the characters while discovering more about them.


P.s. I don't care how easy a captcha is, anything this annoying is never as "easy as cake"

That's a joke, right? Even if it was about romance and character development (more on that in a sec), the opening arc started with the explicit implication that it was about them trying to escape the game. You don't spend your first three episodes going in one direction (the only genuinely good episodes I might add) and then shift the whole focus of your show. By then you've attracted your audience and cemented what the story is about.

Now on to the romance and the character development: it sucks. That's really all I can say about it. The romance is so forced it reminds me of the Star Wars Prequels. The characters had no chemistry, and they where put together just because the writer wanted them to be. Hell, half the first arc is the "protagonist" making some random girl we never see again fall in love with him because the writer said so. Chobits had a better romance. Actually, even Karin had a better romance. On third thought, even Rosario Vampire (the anime) had a better romance. At least in that one the reasons for the girls falling for the protagonist where at least plausible.

And character development? What character development? The only character who ever changes is Asuna, and that's because she regressed from a kick-ass fighter and poorly written tsundere to a damsel in distress and poorly written tsundere. Kirito didn't develop, by the end of the show he was still the same asshole he was at the start. The only thing that changed was he became an idiot in the second arc. Can't say anything about the other characters either, since we never see them long enough for them to even be characters.

And then there's the villain decay. No motivation for the first villain, and a second villain who was as threatening as a butterfly.

But to be honest let's just ignore the second arc exsists just for the sake of argument, because that shows that everyone, from the characters to the government, are all morons in the world of SAO.

 

[SerithVC]

Dragon Age 2.

At the beginning of the game.

Quick Summary of what i refer to.

"Hey you know how we used our money and influence to get you into the city?"
"Yeah, thank you"
"No, Thank you because you have to work for our group until your debt is paid off."
GAME SKIPS AHEAD UNTIL AFTER THAT INSTEAD OF LETTING US PLAY WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN INTERESTING

By the way, $%@# DA2.

 

[Vicount Tinselby]

Robocop 3.

Go back and watch both Robocop 1 and 2 together.
Robocop 2 ends with the set up for a great conclusion to the overarching plot of Omnicorp trying to privatise the entire of Detroit and the fact that Murphy and Lewis are going to have to eventually go rogue from the Omnicorp owned police department to finally put a stop to the machinations of Omnicorps 'Old man' and his executives. They would possibly have to go against the entire police force and omnicorp guards+ whatever cyborgs they finally came up with to take him down.

It could have been one of the greatest 'trillogies' of all time, up there with star wars, LOTR's and the like.

But then it became the mid ninties and ninjas were what all the kids wanted to see, so Robocop 3 was a F***ing PG about some random japanese zaibatsu taking over Omnicorp, writing the 'Old man' out of the entire film, just so that Robocop could fight some f***ing robo-ninja's.

Seriously, watch the first two Robocops back to back then watch the third one, i felt like i had been mugged.

 

[forgo911]

You've probably seen it, a book, a movie or a show that had great potential because of the setting, and it got pissed away for something entirely different. Just name them, what went wrong and what could have gone right.

Worst offender I can think of in recent years was Sword Art Online.

10 000 people trapped in an MMO where if you die you die in real life? And to escape they need to finish the game? That could be an epic story that lasts years. Wait, why is episode 4 filler? Why is episode 5 filler? Why was that Two Parter not relevant to anything? Why are those two characters married when they barley knew each other? Why where there 11 filler episodes out of 15 in the setting? So many questions, no logical answers.

And then there's the second arc.

No. The anime was not meant to be about everyone's struggle in the game, it is about character development and the romance between the two. In fact, this is the only anime that I've watched that has no fault. The animation is flawless, the story is one of the top 5 I have ever seen, the characters are unbelievably well written and the romance is the best written, better than even Clannad. The male lead is strong loner who develops his humanity through the game while the female lead is strong, free willed and a great role model. She even tries to save herself in act 2, which most heroines wouldn't even try to do.

Overall, SAO is the greatest anime I have ever seen, because as hard as I try, I can't seem to find fault in it. What you call filler I see as character development, allowing us to fall in love with the characters while discovering more about them.


P.s. I don't care how easy a captcha is, anything this annoying is never as "easy as cake"

That's a joke, right? Even if it was about romance and character development (more on that in a sec), the opening arc started with the explicit implication that it was about them trying to escape the game. You don't spend your first three episodes going in one direction (the only genuinely good episodes I might add) and then shift the whole focus of your show. By then you've attracted your audience and cemented what the story is about.

Now on to the romance and the character development: it sucks. That's really all I can say about it. The romance is so forced it reminds me of the Star Wars Prequels. The characters had no chemistry, and they where put together just because the writer wanted them to be. Hell, half the first arc is the "protagonist" making some random girl we never see again fall in love with him because the writer said so. Chobits had a better romance. Actually, even Karin had a better romance. On third thought, even Rosario Vampire (the anime) had a better romance. At least in that one the reasons for the girls falling for the protagonist where at least plausible.

And character development? What character development? The only character who ever changes is Asuna, and that's because she regressed from a kick-ass fighter and poorly written tsundere to a damsel in distress and poorly written tsundere. Kirito didn't develop, by the end of the show he was still the same asshole he was at the start. The only thing that changed was he became an idiot in the second arc. Can't say anything about the other characters either, since we never see them long enough for them to even be characters.

And then there's the villain decay. No motivation for the first villain, and a second villain who was as threatening as a butterfly.

But to be honest let's just ignore the second arc exsists just for the sake of argument, because that shows that everyone, from the characters to the government, are all morons in the world of SAO.

Yes lets agree that the second half was the worse of the two, just like death note. And while I disagree about the romance being bad, there is no way you just put Rosario Vampire in that list. While that show was super funny, it just doesn't have the power of SAO's romance, or the quality. As for no character development, We learn about their relationship with the "child" they adopt, learn about the "motivations" of the villians and learn more about his cousin (I think she was his cousin I forget). Karin was a decent show that was pretty damn funny but still lacks the class that SAO has.


Btw don't know if you've seen it but you have to see Another, starts off a little slow but totally makes up for it as it goes on. And the twist at the end OMG it is amazing, right up there with KOTOR's Revan twist.

Dragon Age 2.

At the beginning of the game.

Quick Summary of what i refer to.

"Hey you know how we used our money and influence to get you into the city?"
"Yeah, thank you"
"No, Thank you because you have to work for our group until your debt is paid off."
GAME SKIPS AHEAD UNTIL AFTER THAT INSTEAD OF LETTING US PLAY WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN INTERESTING

By the way, $%@# DA2.

This game gets a bad rap for it's story when it really isn't that bad, if you look at it from a distance. The entire game is about the mages struggle against the templars. The quanari are a side story as well as going into the deep roads. It really is a decent story if you look at it from a different perspective.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

Modern Warfare 3. They left the second game at a very high note. Price and Soap were now terrorists and the next should have all been about clearing their name and avoiding and fighting the US, TaskForce 343 and Russia and should have involved a lot more stealth than even the first Modern Warfare.

Crysis: They could have American and North Korean forces trapped on the island with no contact with the outside world and having to work together against a much bigger foe.

Black Ops: This was Call of Duty's chance to tackle real issues like PTSD instead it went for the same generic stuff.
Black Ops 2: Now they were about to actually tackle a real world problem. Drones. Again they chose to play it safe and didn't kill the villain's family with drones and actually making it America's fault.

BONUS Crysis 2: Afghanistan was mentioned in the first game as the place where the first artifact was found. They did nothing with it. Imagine, a war-torn country, a people who have recently resisted two massive invasions and fighting among themselves and now they have to go up against a much much bigger invasion than even they have ever faced before.

THE OPPOSITE: Mass Effect 3 exactly what did you expect? They built the army, they set up the conflicts and their initial resolutions and just carried them out here. The only real disappointment was they didn't do anything with the Rachni or the Collector thing at the end of 2. The ending was fine by me because they wrote themselves into a corner with the Reapers.

 

[SerithVC]

Dragon Age 2.

At the beginning of the game.

Quick Summary of what i refer to.

"Hey you know how we used our money and influence to get you into the city?"
"Yeah, thank you"
"No, Thank you because you have to work for our group until your debt is paid off."
GAME SKIPS AHEAD UNTIL AFTER THAT INSTEAD OF LETTING US PLAY WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN INTERESTING

By the way, $%@# DA2.

This game gets a bad rap for it's story when it really isn't that bad, if you look at it from a distance. The entire game is about the mages struggle against the templars. The quanari are a side story as well as going into the deep roads. It really is a decent story if you look at it from a different perspective.[/quote]

Does not change the fact there was a huge missed opportunity in storytelling at that point in the game. There is so much character development that could have happened during that time. They could have made him do things he wasn't proud of and he had to deal with it. Maybe they were really good to him or maybe they learned to value his input and contributions. Maybe they offered to settle the debt early but he chose to go for the full time because he wouldn't have felt like he repaid them properly.

To my knowledge, they don't even talk about what happens during that time. They turn what could have been one of the best arcs into a passing couple lines of "I'm have to repay my debt. I've repaid my debt" and then never mention it again.

 

[Rariow]

As much as I don't want to bring this damn thing up again... Mass Effect. The ending, namely. It could have been such a fantastic moment, so many variables coming together to form an amazingly complex, satisfying variety of endings. Nope. Press the button, then the thing happens. Three colors, people.

OK, something that hasn't been a major controversy on the internet and we're all sick of hearing about... Erm... Far Cry 3. It could've so easily turned into something after the spirit of Heart of Darkness: A regular person thrust into a harsh environment, slowly turning insane as the artificial bounds of civilization crumble and he has to become precisely what he originally set out to survive against... Instead, we got an, admittedly pretty good, "gotta go save my friends" type story. Sure, there were a couple arbitrary nods to the whole Heart of Darkness angle, but it really wasn't emphasized at all, and it all just felt token. I just think that what Spec Ops: The Line did could have been done even better, this being an open world scenario where, if you're fighting people, it's mostly your own choice, piling the guilt on you as a player rather than the game designers forcing you into combat and then putting the guilt on you.

Also, I guess Dragon Age 2. "Hey, we're going to introduce a new type of storytelling games haven't really done before: Instead of focusing on an overarching plot, you're going to experience the story of a place, the city of Kirkwall: the different political struggles, how society evolves over time and reacts to changes, and how changes in one sector of city life affect others. We're also going to have you play a character doing rather banal things for most of the time, and chain you down to their uninteresting little story involving them doing fuck all most of the time and occasionally stumbling into tidbits of the city's evolution".
To be fair, it's a bit hard to blame BioWare for it: If you're making an RPG (which they kind of but not really were, but that's beside the point), you need to follow a single character, since you need to keep your stats and loot and all that goodness. This doesn't really mesh well with having the emphasis of your game be the evolution of an entire city. Perhaps it would've been better as an honest-to-God hack'n'slash (which it was approaching anyway), and made you play as different people at different times.

 

[Nadia Castle]

Transformers 2 and 3. I know I'm in the minority here but I thought the first film was pretty solid build up, and the thought of 'okay, now they will be unleashed on the world, this is gonna be insane' had me all kinds of ready. But, nope, just re-hash the same bloody plot with a 'government covered it up' slant that was absolute bulls**t. Do you seriously expect me to believe that the internet wasn't COVERED in imaged of giant machines slugging it out in the middle of a f**king populated city?

Then they shoved the villain the entire first movie has been building up to to the side for the rest of the franchise. Why not just have Megatron kill Sentinal Prime, or violently back stab him revealing he never intended to work with him? That's something a 10 year old could think up but apparently it was too complicated for the Bayformers. Do you mean the Chernobyl disaster was caused by transformers tech? That's an awesome idea! Shame it has all of a two second flashback to go anywhere.

I'm not even a transformers fan, bu there were just so, so many things that could have been entire plots got p**sed out to fill space between explosions!