What was your most disapointing RPG

[imweasel]

Pillars of Eternity.

I'm a HUGE Infinity Engine fan and had a 3 month long erection when PoE was announced. Then Sawyer started spewing design points (Sawyerism) which are so atrocious that they could make Gary Gygax rotate in his grave... sigh.

 

[Modron]

Lionheart, Another War, NWN, and Beyond Divinity. The former two get nominated because they had promising starting areas and then turned to shit and the later two because they were terrible and failed to live up to their pedigrees.

Probably be flamed for this but Morrowind as well, I was big fan of Daggerfall so I morgothed Morrowind only it never grabbed a hold of me like Daggerfall and still to this day I just cannot get into it.

Oh yeah and Static for releasing a cool tech demo then never getting made.

 

[Micormic]

Another War

Just curious what was wrong with this one? Always wanted to play it because of the unique setting but never bought it.

 

[Modron]

Just curious what was wrong with this one? Always wanted to play it because of the unique setting but never bought it.

I should give it another shot because it's been quite a while since I played it but I remember thinking the later stages were more just wipe the enemies from the map sections with none of that cool starting village questing the demo showcased. TBH my memory is a bit hazy on the actual details.

 

[Outlander]

Gothic 3. My first and last pre-order. Ever.

 

[Ovg]

Another War's biggest problems were 1. lack of content 2. shit, utterly shit combat 3. a lot of filler to counterbalance said lack of content, only making things worse

The worst I got burned was when I played Dragon Age (codex lied). NWN 1 I saw at my cousin's, so I knew what I was getting into.

Last preorder where I didn't know what I was getting into was PoE1.

 

[Fenix]

When i mean disappointing I mean games you actually belived they wouldn't suck. I mean no one ever had hopes for crap like Lightning Returns or Paper Mario Sticker Star.

Then I think none.
Because I have some kind of radar, that alarmd me in every case the game was shit.
I got shit called Fallout3 exectly as I thought it was.
Same with rest.
If I havn't enough information to make some conclusions, then I just have no expectations - so no disappointment.

DOS2 was a disappointment in a way I bought it too early, I should did that later, maybe today, now with all that waiting I don't want to play it anymore.

EDIT
After reading the thread - fine reading - I definitely remember this game, that cought me by surprise with my pants down - Lionheart.
Abandoned it at a point when I have found some demon in game, that let me edit my chracter in every way - so I set every attribute to 10, and lost interest a minute after...

 

[Toraak]

Oblivion. I still remember how excited I was to install it only to find myself staring at a potato character with no proper beard.

Well at least there's still those edgy, racist Dunmer, I thought. And then I heard its voice.

 

[mondblut]

If you get some friends

Wut?

If I had some friends to play D&D with, I wouldn't need a fucking computer to do so

 

[Invictus]

As another poster stated to be disappointed means you actually were invested and looking forward to a game to have expectations, as one of my favorite characters said “Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment”
As a side note I came to know some pretty awesome series very late so by the time I played the first or second game in the series (for example Gothic) I already knew that Gothic 3 and the later series from Piraña bytes sucked too so it wasn’t a shock so that saved me of a lot of angst
As for series I loved and was disappointed I would say:

Quest for Glory 5
One of my favorite series of all time, full of charm and great memories ended up in a whimper where it should have been its great finale; ugly 3D graphics, lackluster setting and writing made it very sad for me to see one of my favorite series ever to go out in souch a way

Might and Magic 6 and onwards
Some of my favorite memories from my youth was long all nighter sessions of World of Xeen with my friends so the series had such a special place for me, but after a pretty good (but very different M&M5) I really felt that they dropped the ball big time with the sequels; they had aging systems, gpahics and concepts and seems that after X the series too died down

Diablo and Dungeon Siegue
With all the rage for both games I remember saving to buy Diablo and finding it mind numbing boring, a click fest if it ever existed one with all the worse concepts for an RPG based on senseless combat, loot and little else, but still I played Dungeon Siegue and it was even worse
I dutifully finished both games and the first thing I felt overalls was relief over not playing that anymore, took the great Freedom Force and Warcraft 3 to rinse the taste of those pos

Final Fantasy 13 and onwards
For such a beloved franchise for me, where I played all the previous FF games and enjoyed them tremendously the fact that nowadays I simply do not care about the franchise at all anymore is quite astonishing, I can hardly believe it myself but they simply lost me among that MMO bullshit, pretty much after they united with Enix they lost their identity and my interest forever

Dark Souls 2
Beign a huge fan of the original games I really looked forward to this one and while it didn’t disappoint me as to sour me to the whole series (or genre as Dungeon Siegue did) it did hurt my interest for the series overall
The slowpaced combat, unimaginative levels, boring storyline and frankly underwhelming setting was truly a shame and has kept me from replaying it while I generally replay the original Dark Souls at least once every 6 months

Kickstarter games
This is a tough one since I have found that on an investment per game ratio I have played some good games (none of them timeless classics) which cost me roughly $20 each, so for that kind of money Pillars was ok, Wasteland 2 was ok, Darkest Dungeon was ok, Grimoire was damn excellent, Divinity Original Sin...
But shit like Torment which failed sooo spectacularly has been relatively rare, mostly Kickstarter games have been mediocre; not bad enough to be disappointing by themeselves but as a whole the concept of Kickstarted games has been a disappointment

The funny thing is that games the games I have played over the last 3 years like Age of Decadence, Dungeon Rats, Fallout New Vegas, Dead State, Gothic... they have been so consistently good that they have washed out the bad taste of all the Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 or all that bullshit I never even got to experience because I knew it would be shit so I ended up not even having to be disappointed by them

 

[Shatterbrain]

Witcher 3 was also a big disappointment to me. 2 was consolized, yes, but I still liked it a lot. I stopped playing 3 when I realized bandits, drowners, and wolves were level scaling to the area they're in. It's still level scaling if they're not scaling to the PC. How do you justify that in world terms? "The doggos r just stronger here lel." My last memory is going to the city that was out of my level range and fighting level 50 dwarf mercenaries... They couldn't hit me for shit, but I could only do chip damage, making the fight pure attrition. Quality content gating right there. Zelda BOTW is a better RPG than that shit, and it's not even an RPG.


Basically, if your game becomes unplayable when you remove the level number that hovers over an enemy's name, you did something wrong. There should be some kind of world logic to the power levels.

 

[Fenix]

Kickstarter games
This is a tough one since I have found that on an investment per game ratio I have played some good games (none of them timeless classics) which cost me roughly $20 each, so for that kind of money Pillars was ok, Wasteland 2 was ok, Darkest Dungeon was ok, Grimoire was damn excellent, Divinity Original Sin...
But shit like Torment which failed sooo spectacularly has been relatively rare, mostly Kickstarter games have been mediocre; not bad enough to be disappointing by themeselves but as a whole the concept of Kickstarted games has been a disappointment

I see it different - they were mostly 3/5 which is mediocre or solid work depending on your mood.
I think KS did great job at creating middle segment games - not AAA, and not absolutely cheap shit, that middle segmnt that was gone for fucking ten years from 90s.
There should be middle segment in games - it's a nutrient medium that contributes to the creation of really good games, such games facilitate crative proccesses in gamedev, with them you have lot of examples what was done good, lot of ideas that maybe was good but was implemented badly.

 

[CryptRat]

Dungeon Master 2 was disappointing.

 

[Bohrain]

Numanuma. I never backed PoE, but found it enjoyable enough. Then I heard about Torment spiritual sequel and actually had high hopes, only to drop the game after 3 hours or so.

 

[Invictus]

Numanuma. I never backed PoE, but found it enjoyable enough. Then I heard about Torment spiritual sequel and actually had high hopes, only to drop the game after 3 hours or so.

So many have mentioned this game, I wonder if it has more to do with the huge expectations people had for this or the fact that the game was just plain boring? If it was named just Numenara and was released without any ties to Torment would people have reacted as badly? Or does the game just by itself just plain suck?

 

[Bohrain]

If it was named just Numenara and was released without any ties to Torment would people have reacted as badly? Or does the game just by itself just plain suck?

The latter I'd say. You'll be reading dialogue for the most part and the purple prose is just way too pervasive. While the writing wasn't that amazing in Pillars either, at least it had combat to break the pace.
As a more minor note, the aesthetics of game also bug me. Non-human races all look human and actual humans look like hipsters doing futuristic amateur theater.

 

[Morality Games]

I'm pretty good at doing my research and maintaining realistic expectations so I don't experience much disappointment. I suppose I am disappointed whenever a Final Fantasy game fails to be as good as VI.

Every single time it happened...

After playing about five of them my realism modulator kicked in and I realized they had never made a game like that before and that they would never make a game like that again.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Numanuma. I never backed PoE, but found it enjoyable enough. Then I heard about Torment spiritual sequel and actually had high hopes, only to drop the game after 3 hours or so.

So many have mentioned this game, I wonder if it has more to do with the huge expectations people had for this or the fact that the game was just plain boring? If it was named just Numenara and was released without any ties to Torment would people have reacted as badly? Or does the game just by itself just plain suck?

The problems with TTON are really bound up with the spiritual successor issue. TTON was definitely the victim of sky high expectations but it’s more than that. Lots of people dislike the flood of text and lack of combat, but inXile never would have made a game with such a high text to combat ratio if they weren’t aiming to duplicate PS:T. The whole thing is very much in the shadow of Planescape: Torment, and without the frequent attempts to ape its predecessor it likely would have been a better game.

But, yeah, the main thing people are angry about is that TTON raised a fortune on Kickstarter to make a PS:T spiritual sequel, and as a spiritual sequel the game doesn’t really deliver. Personally, I thought TTON was okay; however, it’s more like the world’s most verbose CYOA than an RPG. And that’s not what backers wanted.

 

[Fenix]

spiritual sequel

When you hear something like this in PR-campaign - RUN! form that shit of a game.

spiritual successor

Yeah, that too.

 

[Riddler]

Without a doubt Oblivion, holy shit I was so pissed.

The Vault Dweller Oblivion review was what made me really frequent the codex in the first place. Reading that was cathartic.

Sure I was disappointed with Gothic 3, nwn, Dao etc. But those games at least had redeeming qualities and the drop in quality between Morrowind and Oblivion is just fucking unmatched in gaming history.

 

[DeepOcean]

I wouldn't use the word disappointing, those weren't disappointing as I kinda expected being problematic games but they are sad wastes of potential:

Inquisitor: Really fresh setting with awesome 2d art, ruined by awful gameplay, somebody took the concept of trash mobs and ran with it, when you aren't unveiling some creepy diabolical plot (the good parts of the game), you are eliminating endless trash mobs on a barely functional combat system, the game is almost unplayable. I gave up on the first time I had to withstand a "dungeon" that was more a gauntlet in tedium as if the developers were trying to see how much you could take before giving up.

Witcher 3 - Witcher 1 was trying to be a real RPG and had a eastern european atmosphere that was really interesting, Witcher 2 had entire different acts based on your choices with a really interesting narrative with choices everywhere, Witcher 3 was a really disappointing game. CDProjekt invested alot more on quantity over quality and the basic combat system is more simplistic than a game like Assassin Creed Origins, what is terrible, the loot is terrible, the character progression is terrible, the combat is terrible, the quests are repetitive asinine (follow the red cloud) popamole nonsense over and over, most of the content is terrible with copy pasted bandit encampments everywhere, there are more bandits than people on this game.

They failed into continuing Witcher 2 awesome narrative structure, the major choices of the game have consequences relegated to the end or near the end, many choices had really insignificant consequences. There are some moments where the game truly shine storywise with some well written really charismatic characters but those moments are islands on a sea of open world boredom, even some main quests feel like boredom being just a long string of cutscenes with questionable follow the questmarker "gameplay" that you would find on any MMO between the cutscenes.

Dragon Age 2: Dragon Age 1 was a controversial game here on the codex but it had its qualities and if Bioware had build upon them, we could had some nice RPGs from them, instead they gone on a path, dunno if it was incompetence as the most capable people with RPG background in Bioware left when EA bought them or it was EA cracking the whip, I dunno, but if there was still hope on Dragon Age 1, Dragon Age 2 ended any silly hopes I had on Bioware.

Everything that could go wrong, did, they tried pushing the game into a more action focus that failed miserably, the game is a mess of recycled content because of the short development cycle and the narrative is a prime example of what happen when the cretin idea that fantasy is just some excuse for "anything happens" is allowed to manifest without being contested. Even the art style is horrible, how a sequel can look worse than a previous game is a mystery I won't understand.

 

[octavius]

Jagged Alliance 2 has been rather disappointing to me.

To play optimally there's an unprecedented (for me) amount of micro management and logistics needed.

The tactical combat is supposed to be the best ever, but it's not that much more advanced than JA 1, which was a more focused and enjoyable experience.
I found (Open)Xcom to be superior in the tactical combat department. Same with fantasy CRPGs like Nahlakh and Disciples of Steel.
The mercs are also duller than in JA1.

The combination of Chance to Hit not displaying correctly, enemy soldiers having godlike armour, stamina and action points, no mercs being really expendable (unlike X-COM) and the fucking bloody inability to look into windows from a distance, means it's the first game in over a decade I have shamelessly savescummed, just to get it over with.
Just captured the air base in Menduna, so it's not much left.

Some of the things mentioned may be issues with 1.13 Vanilla, though.

 

[Atlet]

Patically every RPG was a disappointment.

 

[United Nations]

Fallout 4

 

[octavius]

Bard's Tale 3 was perhaps my biggest disappointment.

I loved BT 1 and 2, but 3 was so buggy (like monsters lacking special attacks) and the audiovisuals on the Amiga such a decline that I only played the first dungeon. Decades later when the audiovisuals were no longer so important to me, and the UOP fixed the bugs I finally finished the DOS version.