Worst waste of story telling potential that annoyed you.

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
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Reincarnatedwolfgod said:
-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. 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 very easy.

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. I can't even think of a single character I hated/strongly disliked enough to remember.
Jericho!

More to the point the companions are. Complete waste Jericho teaming up with a morally just plucky young girl from the vault is a story just waiting to happen, but unfortunately they are Karma locked and do very little when you do have them ...don't even get me started on butch
 

Reincarnatedwolfgod

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Vault101 said:
that avatar looks familiar. wait minute... weren't you banned a while ago?
yeah I agree the companions in fallout 3 were a waste of potential. Pack mules who help you in fights is nice and all but I have a hard time caring about them as characters.

The same criticism I gave fallout 3 also could be leveled at skyrim.
maybe one day Bethesda will make something on par with shivering isles but I would not hold my breath.
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
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Reincarnatedwolfgod said:
Vault101 said:
that avatar looks familiar. wait minute... weren't you banned a while ago?
yeah I agree the companions in fallout 3 were a waste of potential. Pack mules who help you in fights is nice and all but I have a hard time caring about them as characters. The same criticism could be leveled at skyrim.
This has been my problem with Bethesda games... What's the point if such a huge world if you don't give a crap about anyone in it?
 

FoolKiller

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Feb 8, 2008
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From me, its what Jim Sterling pointed out last week. The atrocity of Spark and the fact they created some cool games (in theory) and then completely botched the delivery.

Turning Point, Legendary, and Yaiba all had cool ideas but the games were atrocious. For once I would love to see EA gobble up a studio, pay them to write a game and not let them near any fucking code.
 

Gearhead mk2

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Aug 1, 2011
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Metroid Other M. As much as I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE that game, I really like the idea of exploring Samus as a character. Think about it. Her birth parents were killed, the race that raised her vanished into thin air, she's been fighting and hunting for god knows how long, she's fought the Space Pirates for years and never made a serious impact, Ridley keeps coming back no matter how many times she schools him, her commanding officer and the Metroid that saw her as a mother both died protecting her, she's been in near-death situations hundreds of times, and damn near every planet or ship she sets foot on blows up. Everything she loves dies while everything she hates lives into eternity. She's obviously a damaged person, and exploring that would make for great drama. But no, we just got a mess of sexism and plot holes and her CO acting like an abusive boyfriend/dad.
 

fix-the-spade

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I'm going to go with Crysis, Crysis 2 and Crysis 3.

Each game has it's own storyline, some quite well realised characters and masses upon masses of internal details and world building if you're willing to look.

It's such a shame that collectively they're a complete mess.

Each game has enormous time skips, rendering cliff hangers and sequel hooks moot, characters appear and vanish will barely a word of explanation (or any explanation at all), the abilities, physiology and motivations of the Ceph go from mysterious and unexplained to world domination to super psychic hive mind Borg types, antagonists appear and disappear without having ever been mentioned.

Viewed as three entirely separate stories, similar to Marvel's What if? comics Crysis works pretty well. Crysis is a pseudo-realistic sci-fi tale of human greed unearthing something they probably shouldn't and ends on a cliff hanger. Crysis 2 is a traditional action movie filled with escalating action scenes and a happy ending. Crysis 3 is more of a fantasy (or even Horror?) themed tale about the strength of the human spirit and has a relatively open ended but broadly happy ending.

Unfortunately Crytek try to structure them as a proper trilogy and it's just a shambles.
 

SteveoTheBeveo

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Oct 9, 2012
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Well Mass Effect 3 has already been checked off the list already? Damn...

Alright, so what was wasted in regards to its potential story? Let's see there were numerous TV shows, movies, games I can think of but what was wasted is hard because there is alot. Well Dexter definitely is a tv show that comes to mind. I used to LOVE this show so much before Season 3. I felt like Season 1-2 was some of the best episodes on tv at the time. Now, the show has become an mess in regards to not only Dexter's character, but the only show's character, plot, etc. So much wasted potential because there could have been some interesting ideas that the show could have done even within some fo the later seasons. But they already have a Season 9 on the way, so this garbage isn't over yet. -_-
 

Drizzitdude

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Nov 12, 2009
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The wasted potential of sub character or methods that aren't the best in any series. What I mean by this isn't JUST characters with cool powers and backstories getting pushed to the side as well, but also interesting plot elements. Sniper above me mentioned Naruto as an example and I have to agree that that is a major one, in fact pretty much every anime does it (especially bleach)but there are also quite a few examples of people or things going to waste for the sake of not having to worry about them.

Earliest example I can think of is Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers; sure it was a kids show and they used old sentai footage so it was simple, but something that always bothered me was how little the individual zords in the show. I mean was the only point of the tyrannozord too combine with all the others? We all saw how powerful an individual zords could be with the dragonzord and the movie, but they are never used. The same with the rangers individual weapons, often they seem to just forget they had special weapons in the show in favor of punching enemies and when they did bust out their special weapons it was usually to form a goofy ass cannon. I mean come on, the black ranger had an Axe/gun combo, we saw it do cool things like once and then it was forgotten about entirely.

Look, I know power rangers isn't exactly the best example to bring up of this, but it was the earliest I could think of so I figured it needed a mention. The point being I hate it when animes, movies, games or whatever SET UP an individual character having awesome powers and then they NEVER use them. I am pretty sure the only side character in Naruto that uses his powers regularly is Shikimaru, but of course because his power is overpowered to the extreme everyone has the power to escape it. You can also use the same example for any number of examples on bleach. Are you seriously going to tell me that the united 13 captains and Ichigo couldn't just go kick Aizen's teeth in? No? Just Ichigo? Got it.
 

AntiChri5

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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.
 

IrenIvy

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Mar 15, 2011
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Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (first)

Submitting to fatum and descend a man into a monster are some of the least explored themes in video games, and this Castlevania has both as central themes, with a golden opportunity to show such descent gradually, unlike, say, VtM: Redemption where similar transformation just happens. Instead of showing such descent, we are just told about this descent by narrations, without anything to support this notion in-game: Gabriel basically is a walking, fighting log of wood. For example, when he kneels near slain Brotherhood knight in the beginning of the game his movements are just as respectful and solemn as in the end of the game where he, presumably, seething with rage and/or questioning his beliefs. He supposed to suffer from extreme insomnia but it isn't reflected anywhere, not even in bloodshot eyes, for example. There was one, just one almost brilliant moment in Resurresion DLC when Gabriel seems to finally stop breathing but this moment is given no good build-up, and no attention later, and I'm not really sure if this moment even was intentional.

From my perspective this is a very much missed opportunity for a really good story.
 

Matsuya Salad

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Feb 22, 2014
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All Neon Genesis... Fantastic premise, great depth and symbolism (check your King James). However I just get bored watching it. I could talk about it for, quite literally, five hours but it doesn't hold my attention.
Gantz the anime was absolutely riveting. I would never bother to spoil the anime by watching the live action. I will read the manga.
Berserk... The anime was very enjoyable. The manga (insert your favourite expletive word here)blows the anime away. An interesting reverse on manga not being more enjoyable would be My-HiMe. The manga reads alike a four year old wrote it. The anime is award winning by comparison.
 

Mikeyfell

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Aug 24, 2010
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The Purge is probably a good answer, but I never saw it mostly because it squandered its cool premiss.

I'm going to say RWBY, it had ("Has" much to my chagrin it's going to have a second season) two of the most important things any artist would kill for, a large audience and a big budget, and it turned out to be a total train wreck.

I mean really, check to see if a writer knows how to deliver exposition before giving them lead on a project.

You might say this answer is missing the point of the question, but if you have a whole team of animators and actors and story borders and audio engineers that are all being paid to bring your creative vision to life and you completely fail to tell a story at all, that's wasted potential.


Oh almost forgot, Star Wars Prequels. *Mic drop*
 

lucky_sharm

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Aug 27, 2009
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gunny1993 said:
SAO is awesome, filler is character development, scene setting, stake setting.

And they get married because they're in a extremely stressful situation and find love; not exactly a grandmaster level Sudoku. Now if you want to argue that it was forced and a bit stilted, then you'd have a better point.


If you want real perspective on a great concept ruined by terrible writing go watch guilt crown.
What character development? What stakes? The only characters that actually wound up dying get no more than an episode of characterization. They were red shirts, important only to the extremely brief story arc they're involved in and are erased once they're no longer relevant. This is not effective character death.

And I'm completely flummoxed as to how anyone can justify Kirito and Asuna's incredibly forced romance subplot. These characters have as much chemistry as Anakin and Padme, but with even less dynamic and conflict. This is basically the author putting himself into the story and writing in the most barebones tsundere archetype imaginable into falling in love with him.

This is the extent of their relationship. They interact a bit, kind of know each other, get involved in pointless in-game politics that have no effect on the outcome of the story arc, she pretends not to like him but spends time with him anyway, blushes a lot, has typical tsundere overreactions, and then they get married. For all of the potential that NGE wasted, Shinji and Asuka had a far more believable relationship full of sexual tension and conflict.
 

Malbourne

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Sep 4, 2013
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Remember Me!

Caveat: I didn't play it (I'm not really a fan of most mechanics in the game), but from some of the playthroughs I watched, remixing the memories of certain targets were leaking potential from every oozing pore.

You dive into the preconscious of people you may or may not know and start hitting those memories with a monkey wrench! That's neat by itself, but I was hoping it would escalate. Perhaps you and one of your enemies would be remixing one another's memories at the same time, and it would be a war to see who would get the other to remember a crucial piece of data before unjacking. Or maybe you'd remix your own memory in the hopes of fooling people into thinking you're on their side (too Kira?), and then sabotage their plans when you remix your memory again. Maybe it would backfire and you'd create a situation that gets out of hand too quickly!

Well, from what I could tell, much of the story was driven by personal qualms and a bad guy you could label from the moment he started talking. What's even more criminal is the fact that the final battle isn't a memory remix at all! It's just a combat sequence, and there were probably more than enough of those.

I guess the game lacked a firm sense of direction, so the story aspect suffered for it. I wish fewer resources had gone into the okay combat system and albescent environment and more into the puzzle/narrative-centric memory remixes.
 

CrazyGirl17

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Sep 11, 2009
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I'm gonna say the DC Reboot. Yes, there are some good ideas, but ones that could be told in the "old universe". And the weird characterization turns that are just baffling.
 

Alexei F. Karamazov

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Feb 22, 2014
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Vault101 said:
Reincarnatedwolfgod said:
-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. 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 very easy.

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. I can't even think of a single character I hated/strongly disliked enough to remember.
Jericho!

More to the point the companions are. Complete waste Jericho teaming up with a morally just plucky young girl from the vault is a story just waiting to happen, but unfortunately they are Karma locked and do very little when you do have them ...don't even get me started on butch
Vault 101! You're back! Or is it against the rules to reference that sort of stuff?

I thought that New Vegas had a much greater cast of companions, let alone characters, to play with, ESPECIALLY Boone. Honorable mentions go out to Arcade Gannon, Cass, and Veronica. And, especially if you have Lonesome Road, ED-E, who actually somehow managed to somehow transform from a flying laser hamster ball with music so western John Wayne would shed a manly tear, into a decent character. Bravo.

OT: Since Mass Effect 3 has already been mentioned, I'll go to the next spoken-about-to-death topic: Skyrim! Namely, the conflict between the Stormcloaks and the Imperials. It's presented in a way reminiscent of New Vegas, where there isn't a definitively "good" and "bad" faction, and both outcomes hold severe consequences for the country and even the entire Empire. Sadly, it all falls horribly flat, and is one dreary endurance-trial fort after another, before you finally storm the opposing HQ as anti-climatically as possible. The only aspect of the game that ever changes is Whiterun's appearance and the aesthetics of the guards. At least New Vegas had the sense of ending the game after the big climactic fight.
 

Coakle

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Nov 21, 2013
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The Severing Crime Edge: I will never stop being disproportionately mad at this show.

The writers knocked the first episode out of the park, but there was no follow up. I have never seen writers eviscerate interesting ideas this brutally. If they had just dug into the logistics of the show's premise, "A cursed guy has to make a bunch of similarly cursed schoolgirls 'disappear' because they are also compelled to kill someone important to him. And police notice the string of disappearances and suspect a serial killer." Perfect for a morally ambiguous, tense story that deals with topics like addiction, obsession, and the value of a human life.
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
18,863
15
43
Alexei F. Karamazov said:
Vault101 said:
Reincarnatedwolfgod said:
-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. 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 very easy.

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. I can't even think of a single character I hated/strongly disliked enough to remember.
Jericho!

More to the point the companions are. Complete waste Jericho teaming up with a morally just plucky young girl from the vault is a story just waiting to happen, but unfortunately they are Karma locked and do very little when you do have them ...don't even get me started on butch
Vault 101! You're back! Or is it against the rules to reference that sort of stuff?

I thought that New Vegas had a much greater cast of companions, let alone characters, to play with, ESPECIALLY Boone. Honorable mentions go out to Arcade Gannon, Cass, and Veronica. And, especially if you have Lonesome Road, ED-E, who actually somehow managed to somehow transform from a flying laser hamster ball with music so western John Wayne would shed a manly tear, into a decent character. Bravo.

OT: Since Mass Effect 3 has already been mentioned, I'll go to the next spoken-about-to-death topic: Skyrim! Namely, the conflict between the Stormcloaks and the Imperials. It's presented in a way reminiscent of New Vegas, where there isn't a definitively "good" and "bad" faction, and both outcomes hold severe consequences for the country and even the entire Empire. Sadly, it all falls horribly flat, and is one dreary endurance-trial fort after another, before you finally storm the opposing HQ as anti-climatically as possible. The only aspect of the game that ever changes is Whiterun's appearance and the aesthetics of the guards. At least New Vegas had the sense of ending the game after the big climactic fight.
....it's like they slap together the bones of an RPG and say "done!" I think in this day and age we should expect more

anyway my favorite NV character has always been cass, Veronica I felt was too "engineered" to apeal to the demographic...where's as casses "don't give a fuck" attitude I found refreshing, she's not your Alex vance and she doesn't care
 

Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
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Jul 18, 2009
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bartholen said:
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.
 

Tom_green_day

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Jan 5, 2013
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Reign of Fire.
It was about dragons invading England and could have been an awesome mix of apocalypse and fantasy with a good dose of anti-American propoganda, but then it skips a long time forward and nothing really happens.
Flashforward
I really cool premise (YEAH I KNOW IT'S A BOOK) which they wasted by trying to drag it out over multiple seasons BEFORE the first had even finished, they had no way of knowing if it was popular or not and since it wasn't they had to stop it without giving any real answers. What it did have was really interesting however.