Eighteen Games That Were Huge Letdowns (Updated for 2024)

Today I'm going to look at nine eighteen games that I had high initial expectations for, expectations that were shattered once I got ahold of them. This is a bit different from my Games I Tapped Out On Midway Through and Games I Didn't Enjoy But Still Finished lists in that, whether I finished these games or not, they didn't live up to the hype in any way.

Note: There are a few "no-brainer" entries that won't be on the list (for instance, No Man's Sky) because I haven't played them. Also, there are some games that very much deserve to be on this list (Fable) but won't because I played them well after release (aka after I knew better than to expect anything). In short, this list is limited to things that I played while the hype was still strong, only to find them to be a huge letdown. Also, nothing on this list is necessarily a bad game. Some of them might fall into that category, while others might just be things that didn't jive with me personally.

Note 2: Previously posted in January 2018 with nine entries. Updated with nine new ones.

Honorable Mentions: Most of the Game Boy Player's Guide. When I was a kid I held these games in high regard, but recently when I was playing through them as an adult, I found that a lot of them aren't very good. Some are outright horrible. How did Kirby's Dream Land and Metroid 2 not make it into the guide (which was compiled after they were out) while schlock like Gremlins 2 did?

Honorable Mentions: Pretty much anything pertaining to the Terminator movies. Man, when I was a kid I was stoked to the max for all the Terminator 2 games. How could I not be? It was freaking T2. Little did I know that back then almost all of the games based on the movie (and its predecessor) were horrible.

18. Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter (Playstation 2) - It's possible I didn't give this one enough of a chance, I don't know. Could more or less throw Breath of Fire IV in with this entry as well. I don't think either of them is a bad game (and they certainly have fans). The problem is that I expected more of what made the first 3 great. Breath of Fire IV is kind of ruined by the camera angles and how vertical everything is (making it hard to see) and just isn't interesting. At least I was able to finish that one, unlike Dragon Quarter.

The game that should have just been "Breath of Fire 5" goes off in a completely different direction from the rest of the series, plays totally differently, and may as well not even be called "Breath of Fire". I was constantly asking myself what I was playing. And the colors are so muted and dull that it actually gets depressing after an hour or so of playing. This might be the brownest, blandest-looking game on the PS2. Considering how colorful the early BoF games are, yeah, just a letdown across the board.

$1300 lol. Honestly at this point the best use I'd find for this game is keeping it unopened in a case for later resale value, because playing it sure wasn't what I was hoping for.

17. Parasite Eve II (Playstation 1) - A game from Squaresoft's absolute banger year of 2000...it has to be awesome, right? Well, no. The first Parasite Eve was one of the more interesting games on the system, mixing RPG mechanics with survival-horror mechanics and telling a compelling story set in modern-day (as of 1998) NYC. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more atmospheric game than that one.

Problem is, for the second one, they completely changed the controls around to make it a "tank control" action game like Resident Evil. It no longer plays smoothly or effortlessly and it's a chore to even get around. Some might like that control style but I wasn't expecting it here and it was an instant letdown.

One thing it'll always have going for it is the cover     art. Gorgeous picture. Why does Aya have her leg up? I don't know, but she's ready for action.

16. Mortal Kombat (Game Boy) - Put yourself in 1993 as a kid holding this cart for the first time. In 1993, the kids were all about MK. I mean MK was the biggest thing on the planet. Bigger than either of the MJs, even. And they were pretty damn big. So if you're a kid who wants to play Mortal Kombat, and all you have or can afford is a Game Boy, then you're pumped for this version of the game. I know I was, even though I didn't play it until decades later.

I was lucky enough to get a SNES just in time to play that version instead. Turns out the Game Boy version was so bad that it managed to still be a letdown when I finally did get to try it out. The framerate and controls are both nearly unplayable, there are only a couple of stages, the music is awful, and they made Goro short. THEY MADE GORO SHORT. Just a horrendous game that isn't too far above a Tiger Electronic handheld game. How this even made it past quality control and onto Game Boy is beyond me.

15. Mighty No. 9 (Playstation 4) - The long-awaited resuscitation of the Mega Man franchise ended up being more of an auto-erotic asphyxiation. The development team behind this game had a vision in mind and they pushed that vision despite the fact that it didn't result in any kind of a decent game. The level design in particular lacks any of the creativity and fun that characterized the Mega Man series. I was very excited when I started playing this, and by the end that excitement had died a death.

14. Aliens: Colonial Marines (Playstation 3) - Like probably all fans of the Alien franchise who game, I was excited for this. There was so much that could have been done with this idea; unfortunately what we got was a fairly generic shooter that turns Xenomorphs into fodder enemies with terrible AI. I had some fun with it and thought that people filing lawsuits against the developers was a bit ridiculous, but it didn't measure up to its potential in any way.

13. Mass Effect 3 (Playstation 3) - This one got torn apart by the mainstream, to say the least. Most of the complaints about it related to the disappointing ending, which ignored the player choices that characterized the series up to that point. The main issue I had with the game was that it had dropped nearly all of the RPG elements from the first two. This is a straight-up shooter, and it felt more like I was playing Resistance or Gears of War than the action/RPG hybrid experience I'd gotten used to getting from the series. Nothing against those shooters, but it was a letdown and not what I expected from the end of this trilogy.

12. Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures (Super NES) - This one isn't a bad game at all, but it really wasn't what I expected. It was made by the same people as the stellar trilogy of Super Star Wars games on the SNES, so I expected something similar here only with the Indiana Jones trilogy. Instead it was a very uneven game with blistering difficulty, long and tedious levels, and way too much padding in some places while skipping over entire sections of the movies in others. Just didn't enjoy this one and it was a real letdown.

11. Need For Speed: Rivals (Playstation 4) - This was a PS4 launch game for me, and I was really looking forward to having people over to do some split-screen car racing in HD. Little did I know that this game would be as bare-bones as possible, with no couch co-op or real options. For single-player racing, it isn't bad at all, but it ended up being a disappointing launch title and a portent that couch co-op just isn't something one can take for granted anymore.

10. Star Fox Zero (Wii U) - One of the last Wii U titles, and one I was definitely looking forward to. Unfortunately what we got were subpar graphics and poor controls. Nintendo's insistence on motion controls, Gamepad aiming, and hard-to-control alternate vehicles all added up to the developer simply not getting out of their own way. The biggest strike might well be the alternate vehicles, which felt like they got more screen time than the Arwings. I went into this game thrilled to hop into an Arwing again, and I left it wondering why the hell I was stuck in these terrible other vehicles for most of the game.

It also has an insanely frustrating final boss, mainly because the game sets you back so far after you lose to it. And did I mention that the game continues "playing" during ingame cutscenes, so you're taking damage and running into stuff while the screen cuts to the arrival of Star Wolf or something? You can look at the Gamepad to kinda see where you're going during these moments, but still, there's a lot of poor design at work here.

9. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) - Similar situation here. I was very much looking forward to walking in Link's shoes again. You can swing the Wiimote to slash with Link's sword, which adds a new layer of immersiveness. What could go wrong? Well, for starters, you spend most of the first few hours of the game playing as wolf form Link. These segments go on and on and ON. The wolf form would have been fine later in the game; having it be so dominant in the early going just took me right out of the action before I could even get into it. No swinging the sword?

Yeah, when I think back on this game, I don't think of swinging Link's sword; I think of swinging the Wiimote to make wolf Link bite things. For hours. Then there's the brown tint that overpowers everything else visually. Zelda games are usually very colorful, but this one seems to be going for as dismal of a look as possible. Maybe this was to fit in with the "grittier" games that rang in the HD generation, I don't know. All of that said, the game isn't bad at all. It was simply a letdown.

8. Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii) - This one should be called "Baby's First Platformer" because it's impossible to lose. Kirby is essentially invincible for the entire game, the puzzle-solving is as basic as humanly possible, and the (admittedly awesome) yarn aesthetic isn't utilized well. It also felt like it had almost nothing to do with Kirby, with none of the series conventions showing up here. It looks nice and it'd be a good first game for a four year old, but it doesn't measure up to most of the other Kirby titles. All in all, it's mainly guilty of being extremely boring after the first 30 minutes or so. A better yarn game is Yoshi's Wooly World, which presents a bit of challenge and decent puzzle-solving along with creative use of the yarn aesthetic and plenty of callbacks to Yoshi's Island.

7. Final Fantasy XV (Playstation 4) - I was all ready to love this one before it launched. The fanbase dogged the last few entries (Final Fantasy XII and XIII) while I enjoyed both, and I was expecting a similar situation with this one. Unfortunately, this time I agreed with the dogging portion of the fanbase, because this game has issues. It isn't terrible, don't get me wrong. The four main characters are among the most likeable characters in the entire series, and hold the whole thing together very well.

The problems, though, are everywhere. There's a pervasive sense of just how unfinished the game is throughout. The world is a fraction of the size that it was intended to be earlier in development, with most of the world's major locations omitted entirely. Character arcs for seemingly-important characters are nowhere to be found, even as the story references them. Major villains appear a couple of times, then are never seen again with little or no explanation.

The prequel movie did a great job building towards the game...only to have the game drop nearly all of the characters and locations the movie spent time setting up to the point that they barely feel connected at all. The game follows a disjointed story flow: You spend the vast majority of its runtime roaming around in a single open-world location. Then, you get shunted through a bunch of other parts of the world in rapid succession... as if the developers realized they were running out time and had to get the story wrapped up quickly. The open-world theme is entirely dropped at this point so that the story can actually happen, and then it's suddenly over. This game makes other unfinished RPGs like Xenogears and Secret of Mana look complete.

6. Final Fantasy XVI (Playstation 5) - This is actually a good game, better than FFXV as well. However it's even less of a "real Final Fantasy game" than that one is. I'll just sum up why it let me down in bullet points:

-It plays like Devil May Cry, which is great for that series, but not what I'm expecting for an FF.

-It really needed multiple playable characters instead of just the one guy. You've got several "party members" who lurk around doing very little. They're great characters and all have their own elements/eidolons...that you don't get any use out of. Would have been perfect if they were all playable or participated in fights in any real way, but nope. So why even have them around?

-The most likeable/interesting character in the game gets killed off like a third of the way through.

-The most compelling villain gets killed off like 75% of the way through and the last 25% just goes into coast-mode with a dull new villain outta nowhere, about a zillion boring fights, and a bunch of padding that the game didn't need.

-It's Final Fantasy and I get stoked for those games like none others, or used to anyway.

5. Pokemon Brilliant Diamond (Switch) - Had fun with this. Pokemon is Pokemon, and the final boss is probably the toughest fight I've had in the entire Pokemon series. However I'm not sure how much of that is because the challenge level was high and how much is because I just didn't put as much effort into my party in this one.

So what's wrong with it? The visuals. What the hell were they thinking? Superdeformed giant-headed POP figure characters drag down the entire game, and make even less sense when considering that all the other recent Pokemon games have had normal-proportioned character models. I get that they were trying to bring back the retro aesthetic from the old 2D games of the early 2000's, but we're not in that era anymore and nobody really liked the way this game looked. A game that I had fun with in spite of itself.

4. Dynasty Warriors 9 (Playstation 4) - I tried with this one, I really did. The box art is awesome and Dynasty Warriors 7 and 8 were both good. Unfortunately they tried to reinvent the wheel and turn it into some sort of open world game. It didn't work. How many things on this list are letdowns purely because they tried to reinvent the wheel from what people were expecting previously?

3. Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Game Boy) - The worst game featured in the Game Boy Player's Guide and it isn't even close. The worst part is that it has all the tools to be a good game: It was developed by Sunsoft, it looks really good, and it handles well (usually). The problem is that the developers couldn't get out of their own way. They made pretty much all of the jumps just one square too long, put spikes everywhere, and peppered the levels with these springs that DO NOT WORK. Not like they're supposed to anyway. You're pretty much constantly taking damage from stupid stuff, like the literally impossible-to-make jump shown above. At least spikes don't insta-gib you.

Worst of all, your gremlin is stuck with a pathetic melee weapon for the entire game, one that's nearly impossible to fight anything with without taking damage. Considering they programmed in a bow weapon that works WAY better, then only used it for one boss fight, all they had to do was make that the main weapon for the whole game and it would have instantly been miles better. When I was playing everything from the guide, I left this game for last because I was looking forward to it, and it was a colossal letdown.

2. Mega Man X7 (Playstation 2) - There were disappointing Mega Man games before this. Mega Man X3 was a step down from the first two in stage design, game layout, and boss AI. Mega Man X5 had a bunch of (entirely unneeded) changes for the worse from the game before it. Mega Man X6 was roundly terrible, but I liked it when I first played it because, well, it was more Mega Man X. This game, though... My God. The transition into 3D was poorly-executed and resulted in a super un-fun game. It didn't even feel like a Mega Man game, and without that...it was simply a poorly-made 3D platformer. It also completely dropped the Dr. Wily storyline that the X series had been building up, giving us this random Axl character instead. Just a disappointment on all levels that makes the other not-great X series games look like masterpieces.

1. Xenosaga Episode II (Playstation 2) - KOS-MOS pulling an Aya with her leg up. The Xenosaga trilogy is something I'm fond of. It gets into some pretty high-concept sci-fi, the kind of thing you'd find done (much better) in The Three Body Problem or Childhood's End. The first game is okay and has a lot of atmosphere, while the third game is as close as we've ever gotten to some sort of Xenogears remake/prequel. Then there's the second game, where it all kinda temporarily went off the rails into la-la land. And it comes down to one thing:

What am I even looking at, here? They made a nearly-incomprehensible battle system. People who really want to figure it out and get into it will figure it out and get into it, but if you want to just pick up and play a game that makes sense, this isn't it. The battle system being so off the reservation wouldn't even necessarily be a detriment if it gave us something amazing, but it doesn't.

It's actually inferior to most normal RPG battle systems, in that you can more or less "input a code" to win any boss fight in a minute or less, provided you know what commands to punch in. The right order of operations will pretty much disable any foe, while just playing normally will have you run into brick walls with half the bosses. And most importantly, the other games in the series don't function like this, so I wasn't expecting it. Biggest letdown ever and it's no surprise that the sales tanked hard, with a planned six-game series being cut to three.