Biggest drop off / devs throwing in the towel

[Menckenstein]

Couldn't come up with The One on my own so I figure I'd throw it out there for discussion:

What's the best example / biggest offender when it comes to an RPG that does most things right but just falls to shit when the game reaches a certain point and never recovers? I thought maybe Lionheart but the "turns to shit" happens pretty quickly in that one and most of it wasn't good to begin with.

Feel free to throw out some that aren't the worst but are noteworthy.

Discuss discuss.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Risen.

 

[G.O.D]

New Vegas.

I found the end phase, (that is the phase where you are forced to choose side/alliances) to the "boss battle" with Lanius ( and the end-slides that followed ) in particular, utterly disappointing.

It felt very uninspired and rushed compared to the rest of the game.

 

[Zarniwoop]

New Vegas.

I found the end phase, (that is the phase where you are forced to choose side/alliances) to the "boss battle" with Lanius ( and the end-slides that followed ) in particular, utterly disappointing.

It felt very uninspired and rushed compared to the rest of the game.

Seconded. But then you can always forget that part and continue the with some Dead Money

 

[Lockkaliber]

Risen, Bloodlines and Lionheart are good contenders.

 

[G.O.D]

Seconded. But then you can always forget that part and continue the with some Dead Money

I have yet to play the DLCs..
GOTY edition, i say







Maybe.

 

[Rhalle]

NWN2 OC.

Rocks come down. You're all dead. Voiceover by a staff member because we couldn't afford a real actor.

 

[villain of the story]

But it was still playable. Bloodlines is a much bigger offender to me. I would actually say it's the biggest offender but I might be forgetting a few other.

Plus, NV is kind of far from doing most things right. Being a standalone Fallout 3 expansion alone offs it for most people, for all the faults it carries over by default.

 

[villain of the story]

Now that I think about it, Arcanum is also eligible. The amount of grind in that game... In fact, I can replay Bloodlines just fine. It's painful to go through some of the late parts but it's endurable. Arcanum, on the other hand... I dread to even think. I want to replay but the memories of the grind is holding me back. And the end game was rather uninteresting.

So yeah, it might be Arcanum for me.

 

[Trash]

Basically everything made by Troika. So much promise and so much fail.

 

[G.O.D]

Plus, NV is kind of far from doing most things right. Being a standalone Fallout 3 expansion alone offs it for most people, for all the faults it carries over by default.

It's what Methadone is to a Heroin addict..

 

[curry]

Oblivion. The game is a joke now but after Morrowind the expectations were really high.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I wouldn't say Bloodlines declined... Unless you didn't do the smart thing and play Nosferatu or Malkavian, since then you couldn't just skip the mind-numbing SWAT teams.

 

[Zarniwoop]

I wanted to mention NWN2, but I know most people here don't like the OC. I actually liked it, but was super pissed off at the ending. Really sounds like one of the programmers just did the voiceover over lunch, trying his best not to sound too nerdy (and failing miserably).

 

[Menckenstein]

I wanted to mention NWN2, but I know most people here don't like the OC. I actually liked it, but was super pissed off at the ending. Really sounds like one of the programmers just did the voiceover over lunch, trying his best not to sound too nerdy (and failing miserably).

It was like playing a pnp campaign and the DM catches everyone checking out his mom while she's squating infront of the fridge in her robe trying to find something in the crisper drawer.

"Ok fuck it you all die in a completely unavoidable way, assholes, NOW GET OUT."

 

[JrK]

Witcher 1 required more pylons. Though to be honest the outskirts of Vizima were also pretty pylonless.

 

[villain of the story]

Oblivion. The game is a joke now but after Morrowind the expectations were really high.

Redding is teh hard:

an RPG that does most things right but just falls to shit when the game reaches a certain point and never recovers?

I bet you really loved the installation and the main menu. Because the moment the game starts, it starts falling apart.

Fucking newfags.

 

[Excidium]

I know it's about RPGs, but since people cited Risen, I'm going to stretch it a bit more:

System Shock 2. Great game overall, but when you get to the final sequence it loses all the survival horror theme and turns into a run n gun shooter with crappy weapons. Also the most retarded ending cutscene ever.

Gothic also had horrible final chapters, the last 4~6 hours of the game all I wanted was to see the ending and be done with it.

 

[Captain Shrek]

I know it's about RPGs, but since people cited Risen, I'm going to stretch it a bit more:

System Shock 2. Great game overall, but when you get to the final sequence it loses all the survival horror theme and turns into a run n gun shooter with crappy weapons. Also the most retarded ending cutscene ever.

Gothic also had horrible final chapters, the last 4~6 hours of the game all I wanted was to see the ending and be done with it.

Don't stretch it too much. I doubt any homo on this site has anything that spectacular (blllrrggh).

 

[pocahaunted]

Risen stands out the most, mainly because it hasn't been too long since I played it.

 

[saenz]

No mention of KOTOR 2 yet?

Obsidian [fixed] essentially wrote a 5 Act plot but ran out of dev time. So instead, they just cut out the 4th Act. Which might have been a good idea if the plot was only about half as complicated as MCA laid out. All of a sudden you're at the endgame, bewildered at the amount of plot holes that just blew by.

Everyone's first playthrough should be without TLSR to see how utterly ridiculous the end comes across.

Spoiler

So Kreia ran off as a Sith somewhere and somehow? How do we know she's set up a temple on Malachor V? Will anybody ever explain what the Shadow Generator was except as some kind of McGuffin Doomsday Device? Why is my party split up? Why is the Ebon Hawk abandoned?

Bloodlines gets a honorable mention for building the best urban RPG ever made and then forcing a godawful sewer crawl, and making the endgame rely on arcadish'ly difficult boss fights.

Fallout: NV, for building up Caesar's Legion as "the evil path" and then giving them next to zero content to follow. You can pretty much count the number of quests for the Legion on one hand.

Ironically enough, all three of these games are still in my top 20. Maybe I like the abuse?

 

[Excidium]

Oblivion [...]

Ironically enough, all three of these games are still in my top 20. Maybe I like the abuse?

Maybe just there aren't enough good CRPGs to fill a top 20 list.

 

[DraQ]

Also the most retarded ending cutscene ever.

Nah.

 

[Oriebam]

Now that I think about it, Arcanum is also eligible. The amount of grind in that game... In fact, I can replay Bloodlines just fine. It's painful to go through some of the late parts but it's endurable. Arcanum, on the other hand... I dread to even think. I want to replay but the memories of the grind is holding me back. And the end game was rather uninteresting.

So yeah, it might be Arcanum for me.

What? There isn't any grind, there are plenty of trash mob encounters in the dungeons but nothing that really required going out of your way and grinding, for most builds at least.

 

[Norfleet]

NWN2 OC.

Rocks come down. You're all dead. Voiceover by a staff member because we couldn't afford a real actor.

What are you talking about? The NWN2 OC ending was CLASSIC. It felt EXACTLY like a real D&D campaign. Real D&D campaigns don't tend to have epic endings. They have the players annoying the DM beyond the point of frustration, rocks fall, everyone dies. In this way, the NWN2 OC captures this perfectly. I laughed my ass off at this ending.