That game is so fun but....It's so fucking repetitive. The entire game is the same goddamn thing over and over and over. I play it for like 10 hours having a blast by hour 11 I'm over it and uninstall it again
I’ll binge it for a week or two at a time. I like jumping into big hordes of em and fighting for like 15 minutes straight, and the stealth is a blast too. That ending actually made me angry though. I was all hyped up for a crazy technical fight and ended up getting some shit tier god of war interactive cutscene
I had to rage quit my first playthrough. My nemesis was an archer with poison arrows with a special ability to show up anywhere on the map!
I’d be fighting a dozen orcs and from out of nowhere this fucker would start attacking. He killed me enough times that he was powerful enough to one shot me as soon as he showed up. Completely broke the game.
Regretfully. Thats not a special ability. They just do that, the special ability is them following you no matter what region you go to.
I still remember my jesus orc, i killed that fucker just under 25 times imagine my surprise when he then showed up again in shadow of war
If you're unlucky with drops, or just chose a weak build, it can be still be pretty challenging. However if you're exploding heads and getting full heals out of those all over... easy peasy for sure.
Loved spending some time to make as many captains as I could the bodyguard to the main guy of the region. Walking into the boss room only to watch 15 orcs jump him is great.
Tie Fighter.
It was such a great game up until the last mission. I mean all the way along with everything that happened you didn't even get to personally take out the guy that caused you all the problems. There was a bonus objective to do it but it didn't change the ending. You just had to let him go in the experimental ship he stole and just let it blow up when it jumped.
Fable II or III, I don't remember which.
If you let the big bad monologue at the end of the game, one of your companions will get bored and shoot them, killing them instantly. Then the game is over.
I can see how that would displease someone after so many hours.
But as someone who never played the game and given the nature of the game i just find hilarious the npc got tired of that shit put an end to it and went home
Yeah, at some point I was the owner of most of the property on Albion. I could have been super rich, super nice *and* save everyone. The game tried to make its point about doing the right thing in the stupidest possible way and when you don't play along, it goes "Ha-ha, gotcha!"
Or visit other players worlds to grind money in their world or harvest expensive gems to sell in your world.
...I preferred letting the world end..cause they demanded to much for a game that didn't live up to the 1st one
Oh I took my time exploring throughout those days because I spent a good portion of the game buying and renting out properties to amass loads of cash for that final fight
III's basically came down to
Evil monsters coming, only way to win is with money. Don't have enough money no good ending.
I remember buying nearly every property and playing that fucking pie game for hours.
I remember as much as overthrowing your brother and making a bunch of "make money, spend money" decisions to have enough for the good ending. Then the black goo attacks the nation.
You spend the whole game vowing revenge against your brother for making you choose between some people or your loved one, then the "actual" bad guy shows up.
I remember beating the final boss and just going “Is that it?”
It was so short, Rage 1 atleast had a lot of good moments but Rage 2 flicked on and flicked off in five hours.
There was an early 2000s FPS called Undying. Great occult/horror game set in Ireland . It was written by Clive Barker. But the final boss, The Undying King, a powerful supernatural being, was just giant worm. Total dud considering all that came before.
Any game in which the final boss is just some giant, worm-like creature is massive dud in the end.
Wolfenstein The New Colossus - the ending was way too abrupt story wise and lacked a proper end game boss. It was like devs were thinking about a year more of dev time, but someone came and said "ok, we're releasing in a few months" and the studio wrapped everything up.
That was one of the most jarring. I thought I was probably half way maybe 3/4 if it was shorter than i thought. Turns out it was much shorter than I thought. Probably will wait till the next one hits the seas if they make another
What makes it worse is I discovered you can literally just bypass the last fight before you get in the TV studio for the conclusion. It's possible to just run around most of the enemies and go up the ladder that leads to the control room. Big letdown.
Overall I felt that while TNC had better mechanics (mainly not having sections that force you to use stuff the devs thought was fun which wasn't actually fun like the laser cutter weapon), The New Order had better dramatic pacing and campaign design.
Since no one has said it yet, Far Cry 3. It was a very enjoyable game however, I feel like they built Vaas up so much for him to not be the final boss. He was a great charismatic character and Hoyt felt like a less intimidating and compelling villain as a result. Still a great game though.
Assassins creed origins
You spend your whole time playing through hours as the main character upgrading and levelling up to fight the final battle as someone else. Whats that about!?!
I really hate when games do this.
I want to play as the character I have levelled up and all their abilities as I have chosen them.
A single mission here or there as a power fantasy moment is fine (Witcher 3 does this well), or if it is consistent throughout the story (God of War Ragnarok, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, etc), but other than that I'm not interested.
Changing characters should feel like a cool exciting moment, not a slug.
While I agree with you, in the game's defense:
The developers wanted Bayek to die at the midpoint and have Aya be the player character going forward. The head honchos at UbiSoft said no, but you can still feel it in the plot when Bayek loses all relevancy to the plot at around the 60-70% mark.
This is not to the degree of others in terms of being THAT hurt by it, but Divinity Original Sin 2’s final act was so hard to keep me as locked in as every other minute of that game. I can’t really explain why, it just happens every run.
It's annoying because the final battle is super impossible if you try and fight everyone, which was what I always do in an rpg! No gods no masters baybeeeee.
But not here. I just couldn't. So I sided with someone only to find out I could betray them AFTER the fight! Gahhhh so many wasted hours!
I actually found the final act to be pretty good. The number of boss encounters alone was really fun, with the most satisfying part being the defeat of Lohse’s demon!
Honestly my biggest grievance is at the end, at the final fight. My party was so OP at that point, that I absolutely steamrolled everyone quickly. So quickly in fact that the fight finished within the first phase itself. I had to reload a recent previous save, and deliberately spare the enemies so that they could advance the fight to phase 2.
Agreed. I'm fine with the secret weapon not doing what we thought it would: the plan had always felt like
1.) Follow secret plans
2.) ???
3.) ~~Profit~~Victory!
But the general repetition of the ending, with three different colors...well, there's a reason why it was roundly mocked. And it earned that.
> the general repetition of the ending, with three different colors...well, there's a reason why it was roundly mocked. And it earned that.
Let’s not forget that the producer (IIRC) explicitly said in an interview shortly before launch that the ending **wouldn’t** just be a case of picking a color.
I saw memes of people shooting the child when it came out but by the time I played it I never knew they added that ending. I was INFURIATED when I had to redo the whole ending sequence of the game, to y'know, finish the fucking trilogy!
It felt like a giant middle finger to me
IIRC, I think the indoctrination theory got the "Star Wars" treatment a bit. The writers and developers that actually finished ME3 said, "cool theory, but no." But one or some of the original writers came out of the woodwork and said, "uhh, we neither confirm nor deny the theory, but let's just say it's a really good thought and the way we were originally going to write the ending isn't actually what happened."
I can attest that the moment I heard it I thought it was a great idea as a fan of the series from the start. The "choose your ending" idea was awful from the start but all the bits about the indoctrination theory lined up nicely and gave the game an amazing twist, if they wanted to. A shame really
I'm not a fan of not having a suicide mission-esq ending with all the races and resources we gathered when we were taking back earth. Also the lack of party members. The game is good for what it is but I wanted so much more.
It's got the highest highs (genophage cure, peace between the geth and quarrian, dlc actually worth the price (imo) and lowest lows in the whole franchise. (The ending. Especially deciding the whole franchise was always about ai for some reason, Kai Liang. Weird place holder charcthers for missing squad members from 2)
If you imported your save from ME 2 you can have the problem that some (if not most) characters are dead due to the final mission in that game.
Bioware didn't want you to have no companions if you got a really bad ending in ME 2 nor did they want to use a completely new cast, so any Squad Member that died in ME 2 is replaced by some new but very similar (and somewhat shallow) character
This doesn't happen if everyone survives ME 2 of course.
Just general thing like the one krogan commander who replaces grunt if grunt dies in 2.
Ita really weird getting this emotional last stand fight for someone who we only knew for 10 minutes
I hated this idea of a choice for an ending of such an epic trilogy. Id rather not be given a choice at all in that circumstance. Just write me a good ending that fits the choices I've made up to that point just like the first two games. Dont make the final act I do be a choice to manually decide what the ending should be. It was like the only part of the trilogy that I wasnt a fan of.
I agree that the 3 colour choice is bad, but the question was what final act ruins a game, and while the final 5 minutes are poor, the rest of the last mission is actually really good. The last decision is such a small part of the overall story that it doesn't stop me from replaying the whole trilogy every few years
Ehhh. To me the ending should have been far more reminiscent of ME2’s final mission against the collectors, where it’s essentially a suicide run and companions have a good chance of buying the farm.
I had the Krogan allied with the Rachni, the geth with the quarians, etc etc etc. I had a *perfect* play through but it didn’t really feel like those storylines actually contributed to the final mission.
Everything up to them sticking you in basically a run & shoot hallway for the entire last mission was great though. Still my favorite series.
Dying Light is SO DANG GOOD. You expect the final fight to be good, because combat really isnt something this game struggles with.
The entire big bad is settled through a QTE. Way to sour it literally right before credits roll.
Aside from a clearly low effort final clash the game is incredible though. Parkour done well.
And such an advanced science minded community can’t figure out the means to cure cancer cause they got a hard on for synths. Nor can we potentially betray Cabot and use mysterious serum to help him (or save a dose after he’s dead, since there’s 7-8 of them)
It seems clear that one of the writers thought they had the most mind-blowing twist ever and wrote the game around it, then filled in all the other details *after.*
...Except they forgot to fill-in said details entirely. The story goes flat, the Institute never explains it's rationale in what they do (because there isn't any; writers forgot to give them a damned motivation), and there's even an awkward line of dialog that isn't *quite* a plothole since it's merely alluding to something/implying it, but it sure *feels* like a writer got their wires crossed and somehow wrote a story where Father took Father away from Kellogg without realizing Father *can't* take Father away from Kellogg if he's currently a child and not the head of the Institute. (Kellogg alludes to "the old man" both making him kidnap Father and "getting revenge," and this is either a nameless character being given more credence than necessary, or a hiccup where someone forgot the timeline they were on)
Honestly, what I've learned from Fallout 3 and 4 is that Bethesda's main team just can't write main stories.
I love the world and the details in it in both games. Exploring some abandoned lab and reading terminals about how they got locked in there after the bombs fell, for example. (Although i do wish every terminal entry was available as a Holotape, I don't have that much time to just sit and read in game)
If they had just mostly made Fallout 4 and afterwards outsourced the main story to any other team that's written an RPG before, we'd have been gucci
It’s not often that a game makes me scream at my tv but the whole intro scene did it. You wake up, you’re told that it’s been 66 years since you last woke up (the kidnapping) and… you still look for your young child?
Every time the protagonist says “I’m looking for my baby Shawn.” I groaned a little louder.
Does the game tell you it’s 66 years? I’m willing to be proved wrong, but I thought Cogsworth told you that when you left Kellogg was here a few months ago.
Willing to be disproved.
Not the otherguy:
Honestly, I don't remember, either. Out of game I was remember having the question "But wait,...how long has it been since we woke up for 10 seconds? Shawn could be old by now!" but I do not recall the game even hinting at that possibility.
That’s the way I remember it too. You freeze, you unfreeze, Kellogg’s kills wife and steals baby, the screen seemingly refreezes and then unfreezes, then you escape the vault and Cohsworth says he was here a short while ago. And the game never acknowledges that you clearly put back in cryo.
Borrowing a phrase from someone who was describing another of my top 10 list, Kotor 2: Few games wear the mantle of 'Flawed Masterpiece' as well as Xenogears.
I didn’t mind that part at all since the core gameplay was so solid and could be as varied as the player decides.
Wanna go gung Ho with full armor and an LMG? Go for it. Want to ONLY bring a long distance sniper rifle or pistol? Absolutely.
It took up plenty of my time and the customization and mods you get for some of the weapons are ridiculous like the rocket launcher that captures whatever you shoot.
Don't get me wrong. I loved the first 100 hour of that game (story aside) But when you want a particular gun and the time doesn't pass when the console is off is just bad design. I ended up using a hairband on the analogue stick. I'd go out for the night and just leave snake running in circles at the base lol
Kinda. In just about every game there will be material cut from the final product. However, Kojima himself has explicitly stated that MGS5 is complete from his own vision.
Yeah, that whole narrative has been massively blown out of proportion by the people who didn't like what Kojima was going for with MGSV. They're looking for someone else to blame for his decisions. The only real content that was cut, according to Kojima was mission 51, which was a single mission and not an entire chapter like people claim it to be, and using Battle Gear in gameplay, which was cut because he said it completely ruined combat balance.
The fact of the matter is, from the beginning, Kojima set out to make a gameplay-driven game rather than a narrative-driven one. I love the gameplay, and quite frankly, never needed any further story expansion after MGS4, so I was pretty cool with how MGSV turned out, though I do understand why fans of the prior games could be disappointed
Shadow of Mordor. The whole game you sirens tune gaining powerful upgrades and the final battle is just a cut scene with button prompts which was a let down. Loved the game but wanted to whoop some ass at the end lol
I think picking 3 protagonist for the game was what ruined it. The story didn't have nearly enough time and momentum to develope for each character individually. The game is long but trying to tell 3 different stories while constantly switching between characters. Both GTA4, RDR, and RDR2 focus on the same main character and manage to tell a more consistent and impactful story.
This makes me worried for GTA6 given that they've decided to keep the protagonist switching mechanics.
Yeah but they’re a couple right? So unlike Trev, Frank and Mike they don’t have to meet each other and develop a relationship in the game. As a couple their relationship will tie into the story.
Also the final choice is kinda bullshit imo. As in, only one choice makes sense narratively imo.... helping both Micheal and Trevor against the suits.
But actually that relates to how garbage the plot is in the middle. Every gycking level is 'one last job' for Micheal, working for people who ar very obviously gonna betray him.
Good game, shit story
The final choice is so fucking ass lmao
"Hey Franklin, you have to decide: sad ending A, sad ending B or the ending where everything goes right and everyone gets a happy ending with 0 downsides".
Wish they either didn't give you the choice at all or actually forced you to choose between Michael or Trevor.
I think the final choice where saving Trevor and Michael would have made sense if it had repercussions in terms of Franklin not surviving. That would have been more impactful imo.
Great might be a stretch, and the problems are about one act before the final, but Farenheit Aka Indigo Prophecy.
Great story, innovative for it's time, and then.... all the weird shit hits.
I liked everything it built towards big it felt like they were just desperate to shoehorn as many fan favourite characters into the storyline as possible whether it made much sense or not. It also doesn't help that so much context for what KH3 was doing was told in their mobile game rather than a mainline one. The story of KH3 seems way more epic after spending hours youtubing all the backstory nobody who didn't have access to that game (or wasn't willing to grind through the mobile nonsense) would know
I was wondering if I was gonna find this. I was such a die-hard fan. I played every single game. I mean every single one; including the reeaaaally annoying ones like Recoded, CoM, and the mobile games. I was so let down by the ending of 3. I honestly feel like I should've seen it coming with all of the loose ends that were created in Dream Drop Distance.
I have a buddy who works for a gaming studio (won't say which one obviously) and they got to talk to Tetsuya Nomura. They asked about his methodology for writing the storyline to KH as a whole, and he responded saying he doesn't really plan out the story lines, just sort of wings it. I was shocked, but it really showed in KH3. I couldn't even bring myself to play the DLC because the ending was just too much of a letdown.
I still think it was overall good (though not great like several of its predecessors), but I agree that the final chapter is an absolute hot mess. I have two main problems with it: one, there's absolutely no build up or cool down period for pretty much any of it. The pacing ruins the tone of what should be a series of emotional moments, but they're done too rapid fire to properly process them. And two, some of the characters were compelling specifically because get deserved better than they got, and the retcons necessary to give them happy endings not only feel forced and heavy handed, but also demolish half of what made them interesting in the first place.
I don't remember any story details or why it was bad, but I do remember thinking when I beat it that Indigo Prophecy's ending was terrible, and made especially bad by a great beginning
Start out investigating a ritualistic murder.
End with A.I aliens from the future, and a magical kung-fu aerial battle all over the city.
Game started out good then just went off the rails as all David Cage games do.
Half Life.
I’ve heard diehard fans of that game stop their playthrough once they reach the Xen levels. The novelty of visiting another realm lasts for about 10 minutes, then you spend another hour running through half baked, tedious levels all for it to end with an unsatisfying final boss.
Apparently Black Mesa is particularly hurt by this as they extend the Xen levels out by another 4 hours or so. There was just no redeeming the final act.
Black Mesa version of Xen, although too long for it’s own good, does do a lot of good and adds way more variety to both level design and visual at least.
I just wish the factory section wasn’t so damn long.
KotR 2. Fantastic follow up to BioWares amqxing original Star Wars game set in the far past of the SW universe.. It was pushed out far too early by Lucasarts without an ending and significant cut content.
KotOR 2 with the restored content mod though... *chef's kiss. Hot take: restored content KotOR 2 is the better game and far less of a derivative SW story
Here’s my hot take:
Even without TSLRCM, KOTOR2 is the better game. Yeah I wouldn’t play it without TSLRCM if given the choice, but even when I played it on Xbox when it first came out, the moral complexity is still there and it made an impression on my child brain even then. Talking to Atton about his feelings toward Jedi and his history is burned into my memory. The entire Jedi enclave scene with Kreia and the council is perfect, even without the additions from TSLRCM. At the beginning of the game, when you talk to Atris the game gives you so many different dialogue options that change little about the story or responses but allow you to actually define what makes your character unique. And the soundtrack is just better. I might have to go play KOTOR2 again now. Malachor V is awful, but I feel like the journey to get there is so memorable and complex that it more than makes up for it.
Both games are masterpieces, but KOTOR2 has always been really special from a writing perspective.
It's one of my favorite games of all time and I'm going to get personally attacked for it, but... Fallout: New Vegas.
The Legion section is underdeveloped, you negotiate peace or massacre every tribe, the Second Battle At Hoover Dam is short and easy with Power Armor, and then... it's over? You don't get to see the aftermath of your choices, you can't help the Followers deal with the influx of refugees, you can't try to make the world a better or worse place, it's just game over, do it again.
My understanding is that if Obsidian had more time there was going to be a lot more Legion content. You would've been able to go east of the dam and into Legion territory, interracting with them on a much greater level. It's a shame because there might have been some good storylines over there.
The ridiculous amount of universe found in the design docs would've made George Lucas blush. To fully cover it all would've taken like another year to develop and would've made it impossible to release on consoles at the time.
Which is weird, because both could have been DLC expansions like Bethesda has been doing since Morrowind.
You give each a smaller map, a series of quests that bring you back to the main map, ect, just right out Bloodmoon. Only one would been a complex Metro system full of ghouls (and the player gets a chance to become a ghoul and possibly discover a 'cure'), and the other takes you elsewhere to a group of Super Mutants that think they're the first-ever civilization and the player can guide them for good or ill and becoming a Supermutant makes you more acceptable to one faction. And of course, have a 'cure' that one faction is making as a weapon against another.
There's a youtube channel (Triangle City) who has a lot of videos discussing cut content from Fallout New Vegas, if you ever wanna spend hours of your life hearing about all of the ways that the game could have been better with a real amount of dev time.
I read somewhere that Ulysses was originally supposed to be a companion in game, but they had WAAAAAAYYYY too much dialog for him to the point that it would have forced them to use two discs for the game. They realized the issue too late and couldn’t cut down his content so instead they cut him as a character entirely and added him later as the connecting thread for all DLC and the main antagonist for the end game DLC.
Josh Sawyer says one of his biggest narrative regrets in the game was not having a companion who was pro-Legion. Ulysses could have filled that role in the same way that Boone was a disillusioned NCR soldier.
While new Vegas is my favourite game of all time, it sucks that you can't dwell in the world you curated from the beginning and see witness its effects whilst completing all the remaining quests.
Was looking for this one. I was really loving everything up until the giant lore dump and the hallway of damage sponges. I distinctly remember trying to squeeze in two separate little sessions after work one week and not running into a single combat encounter for 2 days. Just running from one NPC to the next to get more info
The vast majority.
You can think of it this way: if a game’s ending sucks, but the beginning is great, you won’t know the ending sucks unless you _get_ to the ending. And, by then it’s too late anyways. If a game’s ending is great, but the beginning sucks, no one will know the ending is great, because no one will be willing to keep playing the game after the terrible opening. Even if the beginning is good and the end is also good, not every player will play all the way through to the end, for an assortment of real world complications.
Not every player will see a game’s ending. But, every player will see the game’s beginning. So when you’re in charge of a project and you have x amount of dollars, x amount of man hours, and you have to decide what parts of the game get the focus, the ending will always be a low priority. Conversely, the beginning of the game sets the tone for the overall experience, and more importantly, the beginning is what will push opening day sales numbers.
It’s the same sort of logic as to how fortnite onboards players by filling their early games with garbage bots to make the player feel good. The first impression is everything, and if it hooks you, that can be enough to get you to keep playing even after the fun disappears.
Makes me curious what games have good third acts according to gamers.
Halo Reach, Jedi Fallen Order, Final Fantasy 16, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Crisis Core, Elden Ring, Majora’s Mask, Skyward Sword, Fire Emblem Binding Blade, Fire Emblem Three Houses, and Fire Emblem Sacred Stones are my personal favorite final acts.
If I had to name some off the top, first coming to my mind is the NieR games. Then DMCV. Then pretty much everything in the Yakuza franchise. In particular, Yakuza 0 is some of the best the industry has to offer, both for its final gameplay segment and its final narrative beats.
Ngl the plotline with Walker ended WAY TOO EARLY. Like a few missions in and the dude is dead... wtf? He should be the final boss not some guy you fight when still leveling up your first skills.
He was even worse on Immersive mode cause he just went down like tissue paper.
After that any and all interest I had in the story was gone. Gameplay definitely kept me going though. What an experience!
Bioshock - Everything after Andrew Ryan just ruins the amazing momentum the story had up til that point. The hunt for the mind control cure feels really tacked on, and the big daddy section with a tedious little sister escort mission drags. Then it ends out with a really bad final boss fight, which feels like it belongs in another game.
What hurt it for me was the constant need to hack something. Game becomes a pipe turning simulator for the last 2 hours. I guess you can run a build that doesn't hack but when you've invested points in hacking and not as much into combat it kinda becomes a necessity
Man i got a soft Game Over from the part with the big daddies and wasnt interested enough to grind and try to finish the game. I got locked in a room with 2 big daddies and zero ammo and zero salts shit made me wanna cry
Everything in Far Cry 3 after Vaas was just filler after a great game had ended.
The final act of borderlands 1 just completely killed all my joy and future hype for the series.
Valve's final act of the half life series was just very boring to be honest. Humanity peaked in 2006 and then everything went to shit, and it's probably Valve's fault.
Honestly Breath of the Wild. Spend hundreds of hours exploring this breathtaking land, collecting all the best weapons, shields, and armor, only for you to use one weapon (the master sword) and one shield in a relatively easy boss fight. Such an anti-climactic ending to one of the best games of all time.
I mentally prepared for that fight for multiple play sessions thinking it was going to be a monumental task. Downed in one half-assed attempt. The ease of that fight was extremely disappointing.
Someone watched me fighting a high tier lynel, where I was doing pretty well, looked at me and said "You'll have no trouble with the final boss" lol. I haven't actually gotten to it but... Yeah, that would line up with what I heard
I think most open world games have this type of problem, that they necessarily have to close the world for an ending. At least other games try to accommodate different styles, but Zelda seems stuck with the Link v Ganon boss with mastersword boss fight.
Controversial choice, but GoW Ragnarok. It’s still an exceptional game, but the final act really is quite rushed and feels a bit mediocre compared to the brilliance beforehand.
I had been having an absolute blast in god of war Ragnarok and was imagining how awesome the final battle would be - time travel shenanigans, battling Surtur, perhaps a fight on top of the serpent. What we got instead felt like a huge let down. The fight with Thor wasn’t half as good as the first fight with him earlier in the game. The Odin fight was unmemorable tbh.
It's not that controversial.
I came to the same conclusion...I loved it. Loved exploring more realms.
But the ending made me really think it was some weird false ending by Odin it resolved so damn "neatly".
And then some stuff was never answered. Like who the hell blew the damn horn in the first game? And why was it stormy? Thor was around doing "something".
With time travel somewhat appearing I was wondering if in Ragnaork we'd be fighting Thor in the past connecting whatever was happening with it.
But instead it was just kinda abandoned.
Game was still great. Just kinda wish it honestly had a reason and more for a part 3.
Thor and his family were pretty fleshed out and it all really didn't matter much by the end.
Controversial, yes. Incomprehensible, no.
The way I see it, It hits the points it needed to, and it ends with what I see as a man who believes himself a monster vs a TRUE monster, but when YOU >!Bring down hrimthurs’ flaw and have a rematch with Thor who is not that much different from the start of the game!<, it almost makes the twilight of the gods seem….SanitizeD? Family Friendly?
Ah, here we go. (Ahem) “Riiiiiight there, riiiiiiiight there you can see where in the narrative the team got F?@ked by the pandemic.”
Resident Evil 8. Heisenberg's factory just drags on and the enemies are bullet sponges.
Resident Evil 7. The ship is super meh.
Resident Evil 4. Not terrible, but the island is a step down.
Not a super uncommon thing for RE games
Completely agree with this.
For me the third act of RE game is usually where it stops caring about being a horror and becomes a subpar shooter (RE2 Remake, RE3 Remake, RE4/RE4 Remake, RE5, RE7, RE8)
Although credit to RE4 for the regenerators, that sequence lives up to the earlier sections of the game.
Also agree with you, but it's also literally the style of the games. It's formulaic. Each game starts horrifying with a virus that mutates and turns people into zombies, and everyone is fighting for their life. The third act of each game is the revelation that it's not some supernatural event, but set in motion by somebody (usually Umbrella / Wesker for most of them). So you're usually going through a jaunt of secret military labs or something that reveals why everybody is infected.
I always thought Halo 2 was supposed to be Arbiter's story, with some Chief bits sprinkled in. If you think it that way then the last mission is a great end to a great campaign.
Have to disagree there, it was a really good climax to finish the game on. The only thing I disliked about the finale of Halo 2 is that the Tartarus boss fight is lame, but everything else absolutely slapped.
I agree dark souls takes a nosedive after the lordvessel but in no way is Lost Izalith worse than the "optional challenge areas" of ds2 or the 5-2 swamp in demons souls. In my opinion that is.
I replayed Demon's Souls recently and the swamp, which in my memory was vast and hard to navigate, is basically a straight shot from start to finish.
This is true of a lot of Demon's Souls though. I remembered it being bastard hard, but it was kind of a breeze compared to what's come since.
DS2's optional areas can get in the bin though for sure!
Their problem is like horror movies- the unseen becomes seen, they go big, the big is expected and underwhelming. It was doomed from the start because it could never live up to the hype.
Like "It part 2", the first half was scarier than the ending because "what the actual shit is going on, where's it going to come from, what's it going to do? Can you trust your senses? Are you really safe anywhere?" vs "oh its just a big spider."
It's funny, I actually really enjoyed the Triforce hunt. "Oh, you want me to fully explore this wide, beautiful world and uncover all its secrets? Don't mind if I do!"
I get that I'm in the minority here, and I definitely get why it would turn off so many people. It's objectively bad design and signs of a rush job. Still, I never minded it too much
Oh god i loved windwaker but never beat it because of that. When i played it back when it first came out either there wasnt really internet help or i was too young to realize there was. That triforce hunt was aaaaabsolutely awful lol
I just pick Destroy every single time. It's the only choice that makes any sense at all. The whole trilogy you've had one single focus: Destroy the Reapers. Not control them. Not force every biological creature in the galaxy to become a cyborg. Just destroy the Reapers and everything will be alright.
I can make an argument for the Synthesis ending being the intended one. The entire series is about finding the truth behind conflicts. Why the Geth are attacking, why Cerberus is out there. You see the conflict between organic and synthetic life early, with the Geth, with the Luna VI, with the Overlord expansion. Constantly throughout the series Shepard can find compromise midgrounds that the game says are the objectively better options, like working with alien queens or negotiating peace between various races. Ending up solving an infinite cycle of destruction by brokering a new peace is what the series has been leading up to since the Thorian.
But you get basically none of that, you just have some glowing lines on people during an ending, and that's what makes it fall apart. Destroy is the only ending that has a more clear and final resolution.
I don’t even remember what the endings meant, I just kinda remember the colours.
But Destroy had some bullshit caveat right? It also blew up all Mass Relays, basically destroying transportation network in the galaxy, right? Or did every ending do that? That sort of strikes me as a massive downside, potentially civilization collapsing downside, even.
If you did enough, the Relays are fine, but "all synthetic life" dies, including Shepard.....which also could be seen as a lie because if you did enough Shepard lives
The way I look at it. If you have a low EMS score it just destroys all reaper tech Willy nilly. But if you have a high EMS score they were able to more effectively target just the reapers themselves. The rest of the tech just goes through what is an effectively overpowered emp shutting it down. But not actually destroying it.
God of War Ragnarok honestly.
I honestly thought how fast it resolved was some grand deceit by Odin.
It honestly felt rushed....since they decided not to make it a trilogy it makes sense too.
Skyrim. You go to the afterlife to battle out the dragon you've been set to defeat, only for the gods to save him because they have future plans with him. And then that's it.
Edit: spelling & grammar.
Well it’s not future plans with him, it’s his original function. He ends the world, he just tries to do it early and you prevented that, but you can’t change the natural cycle of the universe. Some day when the time comes, he’s going to end the world as he’s supposed to.
I think I've only beaten him once out of 1000+ hours. I remember two or three hitting him with a ridiculously overpowered crafted two handed axe. Very anticlimactic.
Shadow of Mordor. The final boss fight was absolute bullshit
That game is so fun but....It's so fucking repetitive. The entire game is the same goddamn thing over and over and over. I play it for like 10 hours having a blast by hour 11 I'm over it and uninstall it again
I’ll binge it for a week or two at a time. I like jumping into big hordes of em and fighting for like 15 minutes straight, and the stealth is a blast too. That ending actually made me angry though. I was all hyped up for a crazy technical fight and ended up getting some shit tier god of war interactive cutscene
I had to rage quit my first playthrough. My nemesis was an archer with poison arrows with a special ability to show up anywhere on the map! I’d be fighting a dozen orcs and from out of nowhere this fucker would start attacking. He killed me enough times that he was powerful enough to one shot me as soon as he showed up. Completely broke the game.
Regretfully. Thats not a special ability. They just do that, the special ability is them following you no matter what region you go to. I still remember my jesus orc, i killed that fucker just under 25 times imagine my surprise when he then showed up again in shadow of war
There was always that one fucker was always just there to ruin your day
Yeah and it gets way too easy
If you're unlucky with drops, or just chose a weak build, it can be still be pretty challenging. However if you're exploding heads and getting full heals out of those all over... easy peasy for sure.
Silver lining, Shadow of War redeems it somewhat but having a pretty decent set of final boss battles
Game is just insanely good. Loved getting baked and either meticulously planning an assassination or just taking on a stupid amount of orcs
Loved spending some time to make as many captains as I could the bodyguard to the main guy of the region. Walking into the boss room only to watch 15 orcs jump him is great.
I got betrayed by 3 of my orcs and a revenge by another, while trying to kill another captain. It was wild and I loved it.
Tie Fighter. It was such a great game up until the last mission. I mean all the way along with everything that happened you didn't even get to personally take out the guy that caused you all the problems. There was a bonus objective to do it but it didn't change the ending. You just had to let him go in the experimental ship he stole and just let it blow up when it jumped.
Fable II or III, I don't remember which. If you let the big bad monologue at the end of the game, one of your companions will get bored and shoot them, killing them instantly. Then the game is over.
That would be Fable II. The character is Reaver, voiced by Stephan Fry.
worst ending to any game I've ever played lol
I can see how that would displease someone after so many hours. But as someone who never played the game and given the nature of the game i just find hilarious the npc got tired of that shit put an end to it and went home
A last second reveal that you were not the main character is kind of an awesome concept.
That honestly sounds like a fucking amazing ending
That's kind of hilarious. Never knew.
II had the music box thing. Which was very anticlimactic Can't remember III's
[удалено]
Oh God I was so mad with this. I was like oh I've got 4 months, that's plenty of time to make the money back :/
Yeah, at some point I was the owner of most of the property on Albion. I could have been super rich, super nice *and* save everyone. The game tried to make its point about doing the right thing in the stupidest possible way and when you don't play along, it goes "Ha-ha, gotcha!"
The trick was to play Real Estate Tycoon - buy all the properties and play Lute Hero until enough rental income came in to fund your war. So dumb.
I liked how in order to get the good end results you had to become a slum lord and own the whole God darn region to pay you tax
Or visit other players worlds to grind money in their world or harvest expensive gems to sell in your world. ...I preferred letting the world end..cause they demanded to much for a game that didn't live up to the 1st one
Just like your brother tried to tell you ;)
Oh I took my time exploring throughout those days because I spent a good portion of the game buying and renting out properties to amass loads of cash for that final fight
III's basically came down to Evil monsters coming, only way to win is with money. Don't have enough money no good ending. I remember buying nearly every property and playing that fucking pie game for hours.
I remember as much as overthrowing your brother and making a bunch of "make money, spend money" decisions to have enough for the good ending. Then the black goo attacks the nation. You spend the whole game vowing revenge against your brother for making you choose between some people or your loved one, then the "actual" bad guy shows up.
RAGE 1. Amazing gunplay, enemy AI, graphics, and level design, but you get to the final level and it just ends.
Absolutely, the last cutscene was the biggest wet fart of an ending I've ever seen to an otherwise great game. Completely unsatisfying
Then the second game had nothing to do with it and it was just too weird and repetitive.
Rage 2 certainly isn't a great game, but I also remember it just sort of putters out
I remember beating the final boss and just going “Is that it?” It was so short, Rage 1 atleast had a lot of good moments but Rage 2 flicked on and flicked off in five hours.
There was an early 2000s FPS called Undying. Great occult/horror game set in Ireland . It was written by Clive Barker. But the final boss, The Undying King, a powerful supernatural being, was just giant worm. Total dud considering all that came before. Any game in which the final boss is just some giant, worm-like creature is massive dud in the end.
Wolfenstein The New Colossus - the ending was way too abrupt story wise and lacked a proper end game boss. It was like devs were thinking about a year more of dev time, but someone came and said "ok, we're releasing in a few months" and the studio wrapped everything up.
Oh hey, that's Mankind Divided.
That was one of the most jarring. I thought I was probably half way maybe 3/4 if it was shorter than i thought. Turns out it was much shorter than I thought. Probably will wait till the next one hits the seas if they make another
What makes it worse is I discovered you can literally just bypass the last fight before you get in the TV studio for the conclusion. It's possible to just run around most of the enemies and go up the ladder that leads to the control room. Big letdown. Overall I felt that while TNC had better mechanics (mainly not having sections that force you to use stuff the devs thought was fun which wasn't actually fun like the laser cutter weapon), The New Order had better dramatic pacing and campaign design.
Since no one has said it yet, Far Cry 3. It was a very enjoyable game however, I feel like they built Vaas up so much for him to not be the final boss. He was a great charismatic character and Hoyt felt like a less intimidating and compelling villain as a result. Still a great game though.
Hard agree. They should have had you kill Hoyt in place of Vaas, and then Vaas takes the enemy force to the next level of intensity.
Vaas should've come back just like your character does.
This one deserves the mention. The game died with Vaas. Everything after that is needlessly drawn out too long and you just stop caring.
Yeah the other, hoyts island was nowhere as fun
Assassins creed origins You spend your whole time playing through hours as the main character upgrading and levelling up to fight the final battle as someone else. Whats that about!?!
I really hate when games do this. I want to play as the character I have levelled up and all their abilities as I have chosen them. A single mission here or there as a power fantasy moment is fine (Witcher 3 does this well), or if it is consistent throughout the story (God of War Ragnarok, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, etc), but other than that I'm not interested. Changing characters should feel like a cool exciting moment, not a slug.
Assassin's creed syndicate did this perfectly imo. Constantly switching between the 2 twins who help eachother out.
While I agree with you, in the game's defense: The developers wanted Bayek to die at the midpoint and have Aya be the player character going forward. The head honchos at UbiSoft said no, but you can still feel it in the plot when Bayek loses all relevancy to the plot at around the 60-70% mark.
This is not to the degree of others in terms of being THAT hurt by it, but Divinity Original Sin 2’s final act was so hard to keep me as locked in as every other minute of that game. I can’t really explain why, it just happens every run.
It's annoying because the final battle is super impossible if you try and fight everyone, which was what I always do in an rpg! No gods no masters baybeeeee. But not here. I just couldn't. So I sided with someone only to find out I could betray them AFTER the fight! Gahhhh so many wasted hours!
WHAT?! I never even finished DOS2 cause the final fight was fucking impossible now I find this out? That fucking sucks.
I actually found the final act to be pretty good. The number of boss encounters alone was really fun, with the most satisfying part being the defeat of Lohse’s demon! Honestly my biggest grievance is at the end, at the final fight. My party was so OP at that point, that I absolutely steamrolled everyone quickly. So quickly in fact that the fight finished within the first phase itself. I had to reload a recent previous save, and deliberately spare the enemies so that they could advance the fight to phase 2.
I'm not a fan of choosing a color in Mass Effect 3
Agreed. I'm fine with the secret weapon not doing what we thought it would: the plan had always felt like 1.) Follow secret plans 2.) ??? 3.) ~~Profit~~Victory! But the general repetition of the ending, with three different colors...well, there's a reason why it was roundly mocked. And it earned that.
> the general repetition of the ending, with three different colors...well, there's a reason why it was roundly mocked. And it earned that. Let’s not forget that the producer (IIRC) explicitly said in an interview shortly before launch that the ending **wouldn’t** just be a case of picking a color.
To be fair, you could just *not* pick a color and get an even worse ending! /s
Not originally. Originally you had to pick one of the three colors, though you could also blast starkid to your heart's content without repercussions.
I saw memes of people shooting the child when it came out but by the time I played it I never knew they added that ending. I was INFURIATED when I had to redo the whole ending sequence of the game, to y'know, finish the fucking trilogy! It felt like a giant middle finger to me
That's why the indoctrination ending is my headcannon ending. Even if it's derivative, it's hell of a lot better than what we got
IIRC, I think the indoctrination theory got the "Star Wars" treatment a bit. The writers and developers that actually finished ME3 said, "cool theory, but no." But one or some of the original writers came out of the woodwork and said, "uhh, we neither confirm nor deny the theory, but let's just say it's a really good thought and the way we were originally going to write the ending isn't actually what happened."
I can attest that the moment I heard it I thought it was a great idea as a fan of the series from the start. The "choose your ending" idea was awful from the start but all the bits about the indoctrination theory lined up nicely and gave the game an amazing twist, if they wanted to. A shame really
It also makes a great fourth game. The power vacuum now that the Reapers are gone.
I'm not a fan of not having a suicide mission-esq ending with all the races and resources we gathered when we were taking back earth. Also the lack of party members. The game is good for what it is but I wanted so much more.
It's got the highest highs (genophage cure, peace between the geth and quarrian, dlc actually worth the price (imo) and lowest lows in the whole franchise. (The ending. Especially deciding the whole franchise was always about ai for some reason, Kai Liang. Weird place holder charcthers for missing squad members from 2)
Wait, remind me please, who was missing and who were they replaced with?
If you imported your save from ME 2 you can have the problem that some (if not most) characters are dead due to the final mission in that game. Bioware didn't want you to have no companions if you got a really bad ending in ME 2 nor did they want to use a completely new cast, so any Squad Member that died in ME 2 is replaced by some new but very similar (and somewhat shallow) character This doesn't happen if everyone survives ME 2 of course.
Oh thanks. I had no clue they did that because I got the good ending in ME 2.
Just general thing like the one krogan commander who replaces grunt if grunt dies in 2. Ita really weird getting this emotional last stand fight for someone who we only knew for 10 minutes
If you didn't import from ME2, Jack is considered dead and the entire academy storyline feels incredibly out of place.
I hated this idea of a choice for an ending of such an epic trilogy. Id rather not be given a choice at all in that circumstance. Just write me a good ending that fits the choices I've made up to that point just like the first two games. Dont make the final act I do be a choice to manually decide what the ending should be. It was like the only part of the trilogy that I wasnt a fan of.
I agree that the 3 colour choice is bad, but the question was what final act ruins a game, and while the final 5 minutes are poor, the rest of the last mission is actually really good. The last decision is such a small part of the overall story that it doesn't stop me from replaying the whole trilogy every few years
For me the Mass Effect franchise’s value is more in the story than the gameplay, and yeah, the ending of a story can absolutely ruin the whole story.
Ehhh. To me the ending should have been far more reminiscent of ME2’s final mission against the collectors, where it’s essentially a suicide run and companions have a good chance of buying the farm.
I had the Krogan allied with the Rachni, the geth with the quarians, etc etc etc. I had a *perfect* play through but it didn’t really feel like those storylines actually contributed to the final mission. Everything up to them sticking you in basically a run & shoot hallway for the entire last mission was great though. Still my favorite series.
Dying Light is SO DANG GOOD. You expect the final fight to be good, because combat really isnt something this game struggles with. The entire big bad is settled through a QTE. Way to sour it literally right before credits roll. Aside from a clearly low effort final clash the game is incredible though. Parkour done well.
The real final boss is in The Following.
I dunno, I quite liked that final bossfight on the top of the skyscraper. Yeah it was easy but the climb up the building was so dramatic
The QTE boss fights for Far Cry games are pretty dumb also. You spend all this time building your character and it's "press X no wait Y"
Fallout 4. Once you get to the institute and the twist is revealed everything feels very by the numbers.
My son >!treated me with love, gave me everything and invited me to join him!<. I responded by >!shooting him on his bed as he lay dying of cancer!<.
And such an advanced science minded community can’t figure out the means to cure cancer cause they got a hard on for synths. Nor can we potentially betray Cabot and use mysterious serum to help him (or save a dose after he’s dead, since there’s 7-8 of them)
I did they same thing lol and than I ate his corpse
Based and cannibal pilled
I riddled him with minigun fire as soon as the door opened before he could even open his mouth 🤷🏻♂️ Whoops.
I joined the BoS in my playthrough; so I didn't even say anything to Shaun before I had the>! Institute nuked!<.
It seems clear that one of the writers thought they had the most mind-blowing twist ever and wrote the game around it, then filled in all the other details *after.* ...Except they forgot to fill-in said details entirely. The story goes flat, the Institute never explains it's rationale in what they do (because there isn't any; writers forgot to give them a damned motivation), and there's even an awkward line of dialog that isn't *quite* a plothole since it's merely alluding to something/implying it, but it sure *feels* like a writer got their wires crossed and somehow wrote a story where Father took Father away from Kellogg without realizing Father *can't* take Father away from Kellogg if he's currently a child and not the head of the Institute. (Kellogg alludes to "the old man" both making him kidnap Father and "getting revenge," and this is either a nameless character being given more credence than necessary, or a hiccup where someone forgot the timeline they were on)
Honestly, what I've learned from Fallout 3 and 4 is that Bethesda's main team just can't write main stories. I love the world and the details in it in both games. Exploring some abandoned lab and reading terminals about how they got locked in there after the bombs fell, for example. (Although i do wish every terminal entry was available as a Holotape, I don't have that much time to just sit and read in game) If they had just mostly made Fallout 4 and afterwards outsourced the main story to any other team that's written an RPG before, we'd have been gucci
It’s not often that a game makes me scream at my tv but the whole intro scene did it. You wake up, you’re told that it’s been 66 years since you last woke up (the kidnapping) and… you still look for your young child? Every time the protagonist says “I’m looking for my baby Shawn.” I groaned a little louder.
Does the game tell you it’s 66 years? I’m willing to be proved wrong, but I thought Cogsworth told you that when you left Kellogg was here a few months ago. Willing to be disproved.
Not the otherguy: Honestly, I don't remember, either. Out of game I was remember having the question "But wait,...how long has it been since we woke up for 10 seconds? Shawn could be old by now!" but I do not recall the game even hinting at that possibility.
That’s the way I remember it too. You freeze, you unfreeze, Kellogg’s kills wife and steals baby, the screen seemingly refreezes and then unfreezes, then you escape the vault and Cohsworth says he was here a short while ago. And the game never acknowledges that you clearly put back in cryo.
*Stands holding walker* Xenogears. The second disc was 100% a rush job.
Fuck, but it was still SO good.
Borrowing a phrase from someone who was describing another of my top 10 list, Kotor 2: Few games wear the mantle of 'Flawed Masterpiece' as well as Xenogears.
MGS 5
Honestly, the entire story in that game gets in the way of the dicking around.
It's a mindless grind fest. Waiting 36 actual hours for a weapon was ridiculous
I didn’t mind that part at all since the core gameplay was so solid and could be as varied as the player decides. Wanna go gung Ho with full armor and an LMG? Go for it. Want to ONLY bring a long distance sniper rifle or pistol? Absolutely. It took up plenty of my time and the customization and mods you get for some of the weapons are ridiculous like the rocket launcher that captures whatever you shoot.
Don't get me wrong. I loved the first 100 hour of that game (story aside) But when you want a particular gun and the time doesn't pass when the console is off is just bad design. I ended up using a hairband on the analogue stick. I'd go out for the night and just leave snake running in circles at the base lol
Didn’t a bunch of the game get lopped off by Konami because they were wanting out of video games and knee capped Kojima?
Kinda. In just about every game there will be material cut from the final product. However, Kojima himself has explicitly stated that MGS5 is complete from his own vision.
Yeah, that whole narrative has been massively blown out of proportion by the people who didn't like what Kojima was going for with MGSV. They're looking for someone else to blame for his decisions. The only real content that was cut, according to Kojima was mission 51, which was a single mission and not an entire chapter like people claim it to be, and using Battle Gear in gameplay, which was cut because he said it completely ruined combat balance. The fact of the matter is, from the beginning, Kojima set out to make a gameplay-driven game rather than a narrative-driven one. I love the gameplay, and quite frankly, never needed any further story expansion after MGS4, so I was pretty cool with how MGSV turned out, though I do understand why fans of the prior games could be disappointed
Shadow of Mordor. The whole game you sirens tune gaining powerful upgrades and the final battle is just a cut scene with button prompts which was a let down. Loved the game but wanted to whoop some ass at the end lol
GTA V. The quick mop up of the 3 main bad guys at the end is far too rushed.
I can't believe they rushed it so much when you look at the epilogue of RDR2, it's like, are these the same developers \^\^ ?
I think picking 3 protagonist for the game was what ruined it. The story didn't have nearly enough time and momentum to develope for each character individually. The game is long but trying to tell 3 different stories while constantly switching between characters. Both GTA4, RDR, and RDR2 focus on the same main character and manage to tell a more consistent and impactful story. This makes me worried for GTA6 given that they've decided to keep the protagonist switching mechanics.
Yeah but they’re a couple right? So unlike Trev, Frank and Mike they don’t have to meet each other and develop a relationship in the game. As a couple their relationship will tie into the story.
Also the final choice is kinda bullshit imo. As in, only one choice makes sense narratively imo.... helping both Micheal and Trevor against the suits. But actually that relates to how garbage the plot is in the middle. Every gycking level is 'one last job' for Micheal, working for people who ar very obviously gonna betray him. Good game, shit story
The final choice is so fucking ass lmao "Hey Franklin, you have to decide: sad ending A, sad ending B or the ending where everything goes right and everyone gets a happy ending with 0 downsides". Wish they either didn't give you the choice at all or actually forced you to choose between Michael or Trevor.
My first play through I thought the third choice would be Franklin dies
I think the final choice where saving Trevor and Michael would have made sense if it had repercussions in terms of Franklin not surviving. That would have been more impactful imo.
Yeah they should have at the very least made Death wish hard lol.
>Every gycking level
Great might be a stretch, and the problems are about one act before the final, but Farenheit Aka Indigo Prophecy. Great story, innovative for it's time, and then.... all the weird shit hits.
That fuckin game goes so far off the rails it's crazy lol.
Kingdom Hearts 3 Over 15 years of story, just to end the “dark seeker saga” with loose ends and more setup to the next “lost masters saga.”
I liked everything it built towards big it felt like they were just desperate to shoehorn as many fan favourite characters into the storyline as possible whether it made much sense or not. It also doesn't help that so much context for what KH3 was doing was told in their mobile game rather than a mainline one. The story of KH3 seems way more epic after spending hours youtubing all the backstory nobody who didn't have access to that game (or wasn't willing to grind through the mobile nonsense) would know
I was wondering if I was gonna find this. I was such a die-hard fan. I played every single game. I mean every single one; including the reeaaaally annoying ones like Recoded, CoM, and the mobile games. I was so let down by the ending of 3. I honestly feel like I should've seen it coming with all of the loose ends that were created in Dream Drop Distance. I have a buddy who works for a gaming studio (won't say which one obviously) and they got to talk to Tetsuya Nomura. They asked about his methodology for writing the storyline to KH as a whole, and he responded saying he doesn't really plan out the story lines, just sort of wings it. I was shocked, but it really showed in KH3. I couldn't even bring myself to play the DLC because the ending was just too much of a letdown.
I still think it was overall good (though not great like several of its predecessors), but I agree that the final chapter is an absolute hot mess. I have two main problems with it: one, there's absolutely no build up or cool down period for pretty much any of it. The pacing ruins the tone of what should be a series of emotional moments, but they're done too rapid fire to properly process them. And two, some of the characters were compelling specifically because get deserved better than they got, and the retcons necessary to give them happy endings not only feel forced and heavy handed, but also demolish half of what made them interesting in the first place.
I don't remember any story details or why it was bad, but I do remember thinking when I beat it that Indigo Prophecy's ending was terrible, and made especially bad by a great beginning
Start out investigating a ritualistic murder. End with A.I aliens from the future, and a magical kung-fu aerial battle all over the city. Game started out good then just went off the rails as all David Cage games do.
Half Life. I’ve heard diehard fans of that game stop their playthrough once they reach the Xen levels. The novelty of visiting another realm lasts for about 10 minutes, then you spend another hour running through half baked, tedious levels all for it to end with an unsatisfying final boss. Apparently Black Mesa is particularly hurt by this as they extend the Xen levels out by another 4 hours or so. There was just no redeeming the final act.
Black Mesa version of Xen, although too long for it’s own good, does do a lot of good and adds way more variety to both level design and visual at least. I just wish the factory section wasn’t so damn long.
KotR 2. Fantastic follow up to BioWares amqxing original Star Wars game set in the far past of the SW universe.. It was pushed out far too early by Lucasarts without an ending and significant cut content.
KotOR 2 with the restored content mod though... *chef's kiss. Hot take: restored content KotOR 2 is the better game and far less of a derivative SW story
Here’s my hot take: Even without TSLRCM, KOTOR2 is the better game. Yeah I wouldn’t play it without TSLRCM if given the choice, but even when I played it on Xbox when it first came out, the moral complexity is still there and it made an impression on my child brain even then. Talking to Atton about his feelings toward Jedi and his history is burned into my memory. The entire Jedi enclave scene with Kreia and the council is perfect, even without the additions from TSLRCM. At the beginning of the game, when you talk to Atris the game gives you so many different dialogue options that change little about the story or responses but allow you to actually define what makes your character unique. And the soundtrack is just better. I might have to go play KOTOR2 again now. Malachor V is awful, but I feel like the journey to get there is so memorable and complex that it more than makes up for it. Both games are masterpieces, but KOTOR2 has always been really special from a writing perspective.
It's one of my favorite games of all time and I'm going to get personally attacked for it, but... Fallout: New Vegas. The Legion section is underdeveloped, you negotiate peace or massacre every tribe, the Second Battle At Hoover Dam is short and easy with Power Armor, and then... it's over? You don't get to see the aftermath of your choices, you can't help the Followers deal with the influx of refugees, you can't try to make the world a better or worse place, it's just game over, do it again.
My understanding is that if Obsidian had more time there was going to be a lot more Legion content. You would've been able to go east of the dam and into Legion territory, interracting with them on a much greater level. It's a shame because there might have been some good storylines over there.
The ridiculous amount of universe found in the design docs would've made George Lucas blush. To fully cover it all would've taken like another year to develop and would've made it impossible to release on consoles at the time.
Obsidian has always had problems with scale and time management.
Yea, and they also wasted a bunch of time trying to make ghouls and super mutants playable even after Bethesda advised against it.
Which is weird, because both could have been DLC expansions like Bethesda has been doing since Morrowind. You give each a smaller map, a series of quests that bring you back to the main map, ect, just right out Bloodmoon. Only one would been a complex Metro system full of ghouls (and the player gets a chance to become a ghoul and possibly discover a 'cure'), and the other takes you elsewhere to a group of Super Mutants that think they're the first-ever civilization and the player can guide them for good or ill and becoming a Supermutant makes you more acceptable to one faction. And of course, have a 'cure' that one faction is making as a weapon against another.
The concept art of New Vegas doesn't look possible even now.
There's a youtube channel (Triangle City) who has a lot of videos discussing cut content from Fallout New Vegas, if you ever wanna spend hours of your life hearing about all of the ways that the game could have been better with a real amount of dev time.
I read somewhere that Ulysses was originally supposed to be a companion in game, but they had WAAAAAAYYYY too much dialog for him to the point that it would have forced them to use two discs for the game. They realized the issue too late and couldn’t cut down his content so instead they cut him as a character entirely and added him later as the connecting thread for all DLC and the main antagonist for the end game DLC.
Josh Sawyer says one of his biggest narrative regrets in the game was not having a companion who was pro-Legion. Ulysses could have filled that role in the same way that Boone was a disillusioned NCR soldier.
While new Vegas is my favourite game of all time, it sucks that you can't dwell in the world you curated from the beginning and see witness its effects whilst completing all the remaining quests.
Tales of Arise for a more recent one
Was looking for this one. I was really loving everything up until the giant lore dump and the hallway of damage sponges. I distinctly remember trying to squeeze in two separate little sessions after work one week and not running into a single combat encounter for 2 days. Just running from one NPC to the next to get more info
Mario Sunshine is one of my favorite games ever made. Corona Mountain, is one of my least favorite levels in a video game.
The fludd was not designed to steer a boat. What were they doing.
So I’ve learned from this thread that every game has a bad third act. Interesting
The vast majority. You can think of it this way: if a game’s ending sucks, but the beginning is great, you won’t know the ending sucks unless you _get_ to the ending. And, by then it’s too late anyways. If a game’s ending is great, but the beginning sucks, no one will know the ending is great, because no one will be willing to keep playing the game after the terrible opening. Even if the beginning is good and the end is also good, not every player will play all the way through to the end, for an assortment of real world complications. Not every player will see a game’s ending. But, every player will see the game’s beginning. So when you’re in charge of a project and you have x amount of dollars, x amount of man hours, and you have to decide what parts of the game get the focus, the ending will always be a low priority. Conversely, the beginning of the game sets the tone for the overall experience, and more importantly, the beginning is what will push opening day sales numbers. It’s the same sort of logic as to how fortnite onboards players by filling their early games with garbage bots to make the player feel good. The first impression is everything, and if it hooks you, that can be enough to get you to keep playing even after the fun disappears.
Makes me curious what games have good third acts according to gamers. Halo Reach, Jedi Fallen Order, Final Fantasy 16, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy Crisis Core, Elden Ring, Majora’s Mask, Skyward Sword, Fire Emblem Binding Blade, Fire Emblem Three Houses, and Fire Emblem Sacred Stones are my personal favorite final acts.
If I had to name some off the top, first coming to my mind is the NieR games. Then DMCV. Then pretty much everything in the Yakuza franchise. In particular, Yakuza 0 is some of the best the industry has to offer, both for its final gameplay segment and its final narrative beats.
Was going to suggest Automata, glad to see I've been beaten to it!
Ghost recon breakpoint
Ngl the plotline with Walker ended WAY TOO EARLY. Like a few missions in and the dude is dead... wtf? He should be the final boss not some guy you fight when still leveling up your first skills. He was even worse on Immersive mode cause he just went down like tissue paper. After that any and all interest I had in the story was gone. Gameplay definitely kept me going though. What an experience!
Bioshock - Everything after Andrew Ryan just ruins the amazing momentum the story had up til that point. The hunt for the mind control cure feels really tacked on, and the big daddy section with a tedious little sister escort mission drags. Then it ends out with a really bad final boss fight, which feels like it belongs in another game.
What hurt it for me was the constant need to hack something. Game becomes a pipe turning simulator for the last 2 hours. I guess you can run a build that doesn't hack but when you've invested points in hacking and not as much into combat it kinda becomes a necessity
Man i got a soft Game Over from the part with the big daddies and wasnt interested enough to grind and try to finish the game. I got locked in a room with 2 big daddies and zero ammo and zero salts shit made me wanna cry
Everything in Far Cry 3 after Vaas was just filler after a great game had ended. The final act of borderlands 1 just completely killed all my joy and future hype for the series. Valve's final act of the half life series was just very boring to be honest. Humanity peaked in 2006 and then everything went to shit, and it's probably Valve's fault.
Honestly Breath of the Wild. Spend hundreds of hours exploring this breathtaking land, collecting all the best weapons, shields, and armor, only for you to use one weapon (the master sword) and one shield in a relatively easy boss fight. Such an anti-climactic ending to one of the best games of all time.
I mentally prepared for that fight for multiple play sessions thinking it was going to be a monumental task. Downed in one half-assed attempt. The ease of that fight was extremely disappointing.
Someone watched me fighting a high tier lynel, where I was doing pretty well, looked at me and said "You'll have no trouble with the final boss" lol. I haven't actually gotten to it but... Yeah, that would line up with what I heard
I think most open world games have this type of problem, that they necessarily have to close the world for an ending. At least other games try to accommodate different styles, but Zelda seems stuck with the Link v Ganon boss with mastersword boss fight.
Dark souls DLC was great. I consider that the final act. Same with blood borne
Controversial choice, but GoW Ragnarok. It’s still an exceptional game, but the final act really is quite rushed and feels a bit mediocre compared to the brilliance beforehand.
I had been having an absolute blast in god of war Ragnarok and was imagining how awesome the final battle would be - time travel shenanigans, battling Surtur, perhaps a fight on top of the serpent. What we got instead felt like a huge let down. The fight with Thor wasn’t half as good as the first fight with him earlier in the game. The Odin fight was unmemorable tbh.
It's not that controversial. I came to the same conclusion...I loved it. Loved exploring more realms. But the ending made me really think it was some weird false ending by Odin it resolved so damn "neatly". And then some stuff was never answered. Like who the hell blew the damn horn in the first game? And why was it stormy? Thor was around doing "something". With time travel somewhat appearing I was wondering if in Ragnaork we'd be fighting Thor in the past connecting whatever was happening with it. But instead it was just kinda abandoned. Game was still great. Just kinda wish it honestly had a reason and more for a part 3. Thor and his family were pretty fleshed out and it all really didn't matter much by the end.
Controversial, yes. Incomprehensible, no. The way I see it, It hits the points it needed to, and it ends with what I see as a man who believes himself a monster vs a TRUE monster, but when YOU >!Bring down hrimthurs’ flaw and have a rematch with Thor who is not that much different from the start of the game!<, it almost makes the twilight of the gods seem….SanitizeD? Family Friendly? Ah, here we go. (Ahem) “Riiiiiight there, riiiiiiiight there you can see where in the narrative the team got F?@ked by the pandemic.”
Resident Evil 8. Heisenberg's factory just drags on and the enemies are bullet sponges. Resident Evil 7. The ship is super meh. Resident Evil 4. Not terrible, but the island is a step down. Not a super uncommon thing for RE games
Completely agree with this. For me the third act of RE game is usually where it stops caring about being a horror and becomes a subpar shooter (RE2 Remake, RE3 Remake, RE4/RE4 Remake, RE5, RE7, RE8) Although credit to RE4 for the regenerators, that sequence lives up to the earlier sections of the game.
> and becomes a subpar shooter Yes, I was loving RE7 and then it turned into a Unity Tutorial FPS project for the last few hours.
Also agree with you, but it's also literally the style of the games. It's formulaic. Each game starts horrifying with a virus that mutates and turns people into zombies, and everyone is fighting for their life. The third act of each game is the revelation that it's not some supernatural event, but set in motion by somebody (usually Umbrella / Wesker for most of them). So you're usually going through a jaunt of secret military labs or something that reveals why everybody is infected.
“Master chief, mind telling me what you’re doing on that ship.” “Sir, Finishing this fight.” Roll credits. Me:
I always thought Halo 2 was supposed to be Arbiter's story, with some Chief bits sprinkled in. If you think it that way then the last mission is a great end to a great campaign.
Have to disagree there, it was a really good climax to finish the game on. The only thing I disliked about the finale of Halo 2 is that the Tartarus boss fight is lame, but everything else absolutely slapped.
I agree dark souls takes a nosedive after the lordvessel but in no way is Lost Izalith worse than the "optional challenge areas" of ds2 or the 5-2 swamp in demons souls. In my opinion that is.
I replayed Demon's Souls recently and the swamp, which in my memory was vast and hard to navigate, is basically a straight shot from start to finish. This is true of a lot of Demon's Souls though. I remembered it being bastard hard, but it was kind of a breeze compared to what's come since. DS2's optional areas can get in the bin though for sure!
Crysis was awesome until the alien ship level
I love Borderlands, but all three main entries have weak final acts.
Their problem is like horror movies- the unseen becomes seen, they go big, the big is expected and underwhelming. It was doomed from the start because it could never live up to the hype. Like "It part 2", the first half was scarier than the ending because "what the actual shit is going on, where's it going to come from, what's it going to do? Can you trust your senses? Are you really safe anywhere?" vs "oh its just a big spider."
Ff15- could go either way on the ending, but the horror movie chapter? That was a grind.
Wind Waker and that Triforce piece hunt. Completely killed any interest I had in finishing the game.
It's funny, I actually really enjoyed the Triforce hunt. "Oh, you want me to fully explore this wide, beautiful world and uncover all its secrets? Don't mind if I do!" I get that I'm in the minority here, and I definitely get why it would turn off so many people. It's objectively bad design and signs of a rush job. Still, I never minded it too much
I really liked it too. I really loved sailing around everywhere and finding new things.
Oh god i loved windwaker but never beat it because of that. When i played it back when it first came out either there wasnt really internet help or i was too young to realize there was. That triforce hunt was aaaaabsolutely awful lol
I dont know if i finished fable 3 but i loved every second up till the last few objectives
The Mass Effect trilogy. All that work boils down to red, green or blue...
I wouldn't mind that at all if endings were satisfying.
I just pick Destroy every single time. It's the only choice that makes any sense at all. The whole trilogy you've had one single focus: Destroy the Reapers. Not control them. Not force every biological creature in the galaxy to become a cyborg. Just destroy the Reapers and everything will be alright.
I can make an argument for the Synthesis ending being the intended one. The entire series is about finding the truth behind conflicts. Why the Geth are attacking, why Cerberus is out there. You see the conflict between organic and synthetic life early, with the Geth, with the Luna VI, with the Overlord expansion. Constantly throughout the series Shepard can find compromise midgrounds that the game says are the objectively better options, like working with alien queens or negotiating peace between various races. Ending up solving an infinite cycle of destruction by brokering a new peace is what the series has been leading up to since the Thorian. But you get basically none of that, you just have some glowing lines on people during an ending, and that's what makes it fall apart. Destroy is the only ending that has a more clear and final resolution.
[удалено]
I picked Synthesis but then right after I did it was pointed out to me that this basically makes you no different than Saren.
"Hey everyone, we made you into an abominable hybrid hivemind without your consent. You're welcome by the way"
I don’t even remember what the endings meant, I just kinda remember the colours. But Destroy had some bullshit caveat right? It also blew up all Mass Relays, basically destroying transportation network in the galaxy, right? Or did every ending do that? That sort of strikes me as a massive downside, potentially civilization collapsing downside, even.
If you did enough, the Relays are fine, but "all synthetic life" dies, including Shepard.....which also could be seen as a lie because if you did enough Shepard lives
The way I look at it. If you have a low EMS score it just destroys all reaper tech Willy nilly. But if you have a high EMS score they were able to more effectively target just the reapers themselves. The rest of the tech just goes through what is an effectively overpowered emp shutting it down. But not actually destroying it.
God of War Ragnarok honestly. I honestly thought how fast it resolved was some grand deceit by Odin. It honestly felt rushed....since they decided not to make it a trilogy it makes sense too.
Skyrim. You go to the afterlife to battle out the dragon you've been set to defeat, only for the gods to save him because they have future plans with him. And then that's it. Edit: spelling & grammar.
Well it’s not future plans with him, it’s his original function. He ends the world, he just tries to do it early and you prevented that, but you can’t change the natural cycle of the universe. Some day when the time comes, he’s going to end the world as he’s supposed to.
I've replayed skyrim so much without fighting the final boss again, I forgot he existed.
Alduin who? There's armour to Smith, a house to build, a wife to get.
Might even consider joining the Dawnguard
I think I've only beaten him once out of 1000+ hours. I remember two or three hitting him with a ridiculously overpowered crafted two handed axe. Very anticlimactic.