Games you wish had been better than they were

[mauve]

Kingdom hearts Chain of memories

Oh man, you just reminded me about the original Kingdom Hearts' item use system. If you didn't go out of your way to tell your AI partners NOT to be completely stupid, they'd waste all your items on themselves and let you die a horrible death. It was especially annoying at the beginning of the game, when you don't have any healing spells and can't afford more than two or three potions at a time. I'd give Donald and Goofy two potions each, in the hope that they might, I dunno, HEAL THE KEYBLADE BEARER, YOU KNOW, THE KID UPON WHOM THE FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSE DEPENDS, but no. They waste them all on each other within ten minutes, and then promptly die anyway. THEY can resurrect themselves after a few seconds if they get KO'd. I most certainly CANNOT. The rest of the game was pretty much awesome, though.



And as long as we're on the subject:

Kingdom Hearts II.

I know I bitch about this game a lot, but seriously, it sucked. Real bad. I had high hopes for it, and Square/Disney Interactive just dashed my hopes violently against the jagged rocks of reality. Especially when I found out that Sora can't fly (the stupid limit break/whatever gauge ability doesn't count) anymore, and that Goofy survived.

Oh, and Atlantica. All of it. But that goes without saying.

The only redeeming qualities of KHII were the gummi ship builder and the new ability to program your sidekicks to use their health items ONLY ON SORA.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

Oh, and Atlantica. All of it. But that goes without saying.

I do not recall Atlantica in that game at all. Nope there was no Atlantica sing along level.

On that note, KH 2 was tolerable when dealing with places like Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden or Olympus or even the ending. I found the final fight quite enjoyable.

[mauve]

On that note, KH 2 was tolerable when dealing with places like Hollow Bastion/Radiant Garden or Olympus or even the ending. I found the final fight quite enjoyable.

Okay, yeah, so Riku's combo attacks and the whole chopping-through-buildings and reflecting-lasers thing was pretty cool.

But that does not excuse the excessive amount of emo pretty boys and singalongs. And the fact that I could no longer launch Winnie the Pooh from a tree swing.

[01d55]

My issue with D2 has less to do with the mice that may or may not have been broken than it has to do with the activity which might have broken those mice, i.e. clicking way too goddamn much.

There's also a whole lot of balance issues and the way the skill and stat mechanics devolved into mind numbing min-maxing in a desperate attempt to minimize the number of situations that could instantly kill you.

[Yumil]

Only thing I really hated about KHII was that they change the level design to something extremely linear. I loved to explore KH, but KHII, if you dont get 100% just doing the story, you are doing something wrong.

[Aerozord]

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

But that does not excuse the excessive amount of emo pretty boys

this is a game made by Square, by there standerds 100% of the male cast still wouldn't be what they'd call excessive

[Mirai Gen]

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

Okay, yeah, so Riku's combo attacks and the whole chopping-through-buildings and reflecting-lasers thing was pretty cool.

But that does not excuse the excessive amount of emo pretty boys and singalongs. And the fact that I could no longer launch Winnie the Pooh from a tree swing.

Or the godawful plot pacing.

"We're looking for Riku and Heartless - BAM THERE HE IS!

THE END"

I still have my copy but I haven't just gone ahead and gotten rid of it.

[russianreversal]

I'm gonna go with KotOR here. I was loving it, the dialogue was great, whatever that aquatic world was called had kicked me out and was refusing to let me back in despite my best efforts to convince them that I for reals this time wouldn't go off and massacre another sith base. Everything was a blast until... the plot twist.

I saw this coming the minute Malak showed up on the destroyer and didn't immediately force lightening my ass. Funny enough, for most people, this is what they liked about the game, but I felt it was stupid, and the emotion surrounding it was forced at best. Also, I laughed my head off when they do the cutscene of Revan taking off his hood because it looks really stupid when you're a woman, as I was. Needless to say, Space Bitch (as I had dubber her way back above Taris) was not too thrilled at the prospects laid before her, and I kinda did my part to make her as evil as possible after that. Ruined a perfectly good game for me.

[Kerensky287]

There are a bunch of games I think had great ideas and/or potential, but screwed them up with stupid design decisions or outright laziness.

Red Faction Guerilla: I'm on the last mission, I think, but I'm pretty sure I can still comment about what I don't like. The game itself is a blast (pun) and the combat is actually really good, but the plot is stupid and bare-bones (plot development happens all of 3 times in the game - in the beginning, when you find the Macguffin, and at the end), it's full of cheap deaths like getting hit with a piece of drywall while taking cover inside a building, and some of the Guerilla Actions were terrible. Transporter missions, for example, involved you finding a regular vehicle out in the middle of nowhere that a Faction member arbitrarily wanted, driving it to a SPECIFIC safehouse often on the other side of the world, and hoping that you don't get attacked by EDF or Marauders on the way for no reason. Last gripe: you never feel like the Red Faction does anything that isn't spearheaded by - and successful purely thanks to - your character. They keep saying the RF is a big organized group but nobody ever does ANYTHING except Mason.

Phoenix Wright could have had less stupid bullshit Spirit Medium crap. By extension, Apollo Justice could have been longer and had sequels.

Mass Effect was a pretty big letdown all around. They give you these teammates that have widely differing abilities, in-depth characters that endear them to you, and then they don't let you control the characters at all except by asking them politely to use ability X on enemy Y? I want to be able to co-ordinate my squad members by telling them to use cover... or INDIVIDUALLY move to a location. Why bother giving you the "Move there" command if they both fucking do it?

Star Wars: Republic Commando was an outstanding fucking game and I loved every bit of it. They could make every other game with squad members better by following this example (see Mass Effect). To make Republic Commando itself better... I dunno, make a sequel, give it online play, and throw in GeoMod 2.0 for good measure.

[Azisien]

Originally Posted by Kerensky287

Mass Effect was a pretty big letdown all around. They give you these teammates that have widely differing abilities, in-depth characters that endear them to you, and then they don't let you control the characters at all except by asking them politely to use ability X on enemy Y? I want to be able to co-ordinate my squad members by telling them to use cover... or INDIVIDUALLY move to a location. Why bother giving you the "Move there" command if they both fucking do it?

*Slow tear*