What's Your Most Disappointing Game of 2017?

Couldn't have said it better myself. All the cool stuff happens in special cutscenes (except for the one awesome spot)

I hate to say it, but I can't help how I feel.

Super Mario Odyssey has been really disappointing for me so far. :(

I'm just not clicking with the game's mechanics or style. I couldn't bring myself to play it the last few days. Too much "been there done that" syndrome.

Mass Effect Andromeda. I don't often replay games but have played through the original ME Trilogy three times. Out of the forty to fifty hours I spent with Andromeda, I enjoyed very little of it. I wish I could go back and spend that time otherwise. I guess my love of the previous 3 games made me feel an obligation to see it through to the end, but man, what a bummer.

@neurogia: I wasn't digging it at first either, but I was going through a bout of depression when I started it, and the whimsical charm was a turn off instead of a pick me up. But, now being on the other side of said depression, I'm enjoying the game a lot. The Woods world is where it really started to hit for me--the music in that level is so good.

Having the motion controls not mapped to button and stick combos on the pro controller is a big downer for me though.

Disagree. I played Persona 3 _after_ Persona 4: The Golden, and it held up. Sure, the systems were clunky, but I liked the characters and the world/setting a hell of a lot. Persona 5 just felt flat compared to either of them. (Hell, I'm psyched for the Persona 3 rhythm game to come out, just because I enjoy those characters in that world. P5D I'm far less interested in). I've beat P3fes twice, and P3Portable twice, but I'm dreading replaying parts of P5, which I think is telling.

The big problem for me with P5 is that it hinges _everything_ on the main narrative, and it just isn't that great. You're on a tight schedule with the dungeons, and, unlike in P4, there's little to no character investment pushing you through them (it's not a case of "we must go rescue <party member>") so they end up feeling like more of an annoyance that has to be gotten past. The puzzle dungeons in the latter half of the game don't help either - they are incredibly tedious. At least in P3/4, you could just zone-out, get to the top, and fight the boss. Here, you've got to be paying attention to get through, but even when it does something interesting it repeats FAR too many times and just becomes boring (the Cruise Ship being particularly egregious).

It also feels like everything you do is in service of that main thread; there's no respite or downtime. In Persona 3 and 4, you had moments that were wholly unrelated to the overall picture (e.g. the school trip in P4, or the beach in P3), and there are social links that aren't tied to the central plot (e.g. daycare in P4, or the kid at the park in P3). You have some downtime, so even when the main story isn't particularly engaging, there are fun character interactions off to the side and you can take some time not really doing anything important. That's lacking in P5 - all of the story beats are part of the same narrative, most of the social links are tied in with it as well (and even when they are, it feels like they are only there to provide additional skills etc.), and the characters aren't as interesting (the way they are writing is just flat and come across as one-dimensional). It's wearing to not have that downtime, and the quality of the main narrative in P5 certainly isn't good enough to warrant that singular attention.

It doesn't help that the payoff to the main narrative is just uninteresting. For what should be a power-fantasy moment, the game just goes "here's a boss rush, and here's a monologue that might as well be carbon-copied from the ending of P4". There's no sense of payoff - it's just done.

There's _so much_ I love about P5 (the music, the style, and the combat are all fantastic, and some of the characters are good) that it might well end up being both one of my favourite games of the year, whilst also being one of the most disappointing games.

I think Persona 5 is pretty overrated. I haven't even finished it because the gameplay and main cast are so boring. It feels like they could have cut down on so much content and some of it just seemed like wasted potential. I was pretty hyped about the Hawaii trip, but when it ended up just being a small beach that you briefly ran around in and then most of it was just to give exposition for the next dungeon, which was really disappointing. The main cast are all unlikable... Ryuji and Morgana are almost Jar Jar Binks tier annoying with little to no redemption (that I know of... but I highly doubt it since the story of this game never really seemed to go anywhere). Ann is groan inducingly stupid, it feels wrong that Futaba should even be a romance option and Yusuke feels like a character from a different game. What's odd is that the other social link characters are some of the more interesting, but even then I have my doubts because I might only feel this way because they are juxtaposed to some very annoying characters. I still need to play P3, but I still think P4 Golden is one of my all time favorite games, if not one of the best JRPGs. With so much hype for P5, I was hoping it would just barely approach the greatness of P4 and yet it couldn't even do that for me.

I'm not going to buy Battlefront 2, but I was bummed out nearly to depression when hearing about the loot boxes being tied to multiplayer progression. Here they finally seem to create a complete game, but they still screw up by adding a gambling mechanic...I know it was probably some producers stupid idea to get extra cash and it's probably the same with Shadow of War, but you would think someone within would still voice something like "Hey, you know what? I don't think this is going to fly with some of our customers." The worst part about Battlefront 2 is that you know it's going to sell a lot of copies anyway simply because of that big fat Star Wars branding and that this is likely going to stay as a trend in future games.

On a side note, I'm glad that all this ridiculous loot box bs is a red flag for me to avoid a game, but I also wonder if this is a sign of things to come. There's no doubt that gaming is mainstream now so I wonder how far are we going to see companies get away with this cheap nickle and diming of franchises? We could have entire separate topic about this, especially since it's gotten to the point that it's been petitioned in the UK to adapt gambling laws onto games. Granted, nothing will probably happen with that, but we're at the point where it's starting to be considered and I'm sure if lootboxes get more popular,other countries and lawmakers are going to start thinking about it as well. If it was implemented and depending how broad it would be, this could hurt the industry.

@francium34: Agreed. I wish so much that they would made that into a more interesting product. Its one that I took a day off work to get in the AM, a ritual I do for certain beloved franchises...but I stopped midway through playing that day and never came back to it. It made me more hesitant about the Mass Effect series, BioWare, EA, and day 1 purchases as a whole... It was such a bummer.

Shadow of War for me. The changes to the nemesis system are great but everything surrounding it is just so mediocre. I got to The Shadow Wars and promptly stopped caring. It really is a shame that its a Middle-Earth game, they could do so much with it if it wasn't but because it is you are limited to Orcs, Trolls and maybe Goblins if they wanted to add them.

Zelda and Osyssey are my biggest disappointments. Both for kind of the same reasons. The world / level designs give everything a much smaller, less lived-in effect. Both games feel less like a living, breathing world and more like a sandbox or a collection of obstacle courses loosely tied together. Mario 64 did a better job making its castle seem huge in comparison to any of the kingdoms in odyssey despite the increase in scale.

@stordoff: Ah I see. Out of curiosity, would you say you're more on the die-hard Persona side of the spectrum? Seems you have a good amount of experience with the series. I was thinking more along the lines of Jeff who don't usually care for JRPGs, enjoyed P4G, and then was disappointed by P5 I guess.

Re-reading my "Its funny to see so many Persona 5 mentions. That seemed predictable to me." line there, that seems less clear to me now. Feel like I should be more specific by saying not that it was predictably going to be a bad game, but that it seemed impossible for it to live up to the hype. The way I wrote that post sounds a bit dismissive of the series or JRPGs in general. I (used to?) enjoy JRPGs but more so the Final Fantasy, Legend of Mana, Squaresoft stuff blah blah blah. Persona for me falls into a different category.. I guess because its kinda based in real world Japanese culture? Like a Akiba's Trip or Steins;Gate etc. Not that those are JRPGs exactly. Reminds me of that "Slice of Life" anime genre I guess?

Anyway, I don't wtf I'm saying anymore. Its 1:40 AM and I need to sleep. Ignore everything I said. Night!

Oh man, you absolutely NAILED how I feel about Persona 5. Nicely done, and echo everything you've said. Great game, yet most disappointing for me of 2017.

Easily Mass Effect Andromeda for me. As someone that loved all three previous games, yes even 3, and considers 2 as one of my favorite games of all time, I couldn't even make it past five hours of Andromeda. Forget the shitty animation, crappy dialogue, bad story. Yes it had all that, but the worst part was that the game was just not fun to play :(

Even though there's so much content it's stuff like this that makes the game feel weirdly rushed and scaled back from previous games. Like, obviously the assets are harder/more expensive to make now but the "running gag" of every celebration the group had ending prematurely (or being 10 minute "food is good yum" sequences) was a real bummer. Never felt like the group had any fun, or had any time for each other outside the Phantom Thieves stuff.

Like @stordoff said, P3 and P4 knew when to turn it off and chill for a bit. I can't think of a single instance of the P5 group meeting up and not talking about the plot.

I was super skeptical of Andromeda long before anyone knew much about it, and still have no plans to ever play it.

And despite having zero investment into it, that game still bums me out half a dozen ways.

Pretty close between Andromeda and Wardor but got to give it to Andromeda. I thought the 1st middle-earth was good and I bounced off the sequel hard with it's bad main character, grind-happy gameplay, and annoying implementation of the nemesis system this time around.

Andromeda though, whoa boy. The plot, characters, dialog, framerate, and general wonkiness made it not just a disappointing game but a straight up bad one and a travesty of a way to end such a beloved series.

I'm sure Destiny 2 would've been in the running for this category had I bothered playing it. I learned from the first one.

Mass Effect: Andromeda or Shadow of War

After playing more Danganronpa V3, I'm now much more confident calling it my most disappointing game of the year. There have been several moments where I've just stared at my screen and asked, "Why did anyone think that was a good idea?"

There are some basic rules of both mystery writing and game design being broken in this game.

The UI is great, the character designs are solid, but these cases and minigames are bad, even by Danganronpa standards.

Wasn't really excited for Persona 5 because I pretty much already had an inkling of how far atlas was going to stray from what made P4 so great, and I didn't expect much from Shadow of War because the first game was bad too..

Soooooo

I guess..

Nioh

People, stop saying things are like Dark Souls. Can that be the everyone's resolution for 2018?

Please??

I loved Persona 4 and after reading the reviews on Persona 5, you'd think it improved on 4 in most ways. I did not think that was the case at all, in any way.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands is the game I am most disappointed. Ubisoft's latest open-world multiplayer shooter is a clear attempt to cash-in on The Division's popularity and milk the teat of another Tom Clancy license for an easy buck. From a sales perspective, it absolutely worked.

Wildlands boasts an impressive scale, but boredom quickly sets in due to the tedious lack of mission variety, head-smackingly awful driving controls and generally anonymous characters and forgettable story.

It's tolerable if you're got a six pack of beers and a few friends to play online with, but otherwise it's another cynical, me-too Ubisoft open-world game. As it sold so well, though, expect them to keep coming down the pike year after year.

I will take the time to play free games like Run 3 ( https://www.freegames66.com/run-3 ). It's free and really fun.

Wolfenstien II: TNC. I don't know man, just doesn't have the magic the first one did. Guns feel good, but the actual gameplay loop feels sloppy. I don't know where I'm being shot from, I feel weak as shit and honestly the story isn't really catching me, like the first alt-history one did. I'm only 4 hours in but man is it hard for me to go back to.

For me it is 'Cook, Serve, Delicious! 2!!' It is still a fun game to play just like the first, but the whole game is you just working for different restaurants. There is no opportunity to become attached to your own restaurant and feel motivated about building your own food empire, which the first game did so well. The developer plans on adding a lot to the game but right now it feels stale after about 8-10 hours of playtime. The first game didn't get boring for me until after 40 hours of play time.