What's been the most disappointing RPG you can think of?

[Üstad]

Mount & Blade Bannerlord is easily my #1. The devs had all the time and money in the world to build on the strengths of the first game and create a true masterpiece. And they failed horrendously. Well I guess they are technically still failing, since the game is still receiving major updates and changes despite the fact it has been in development for over a decade now, with 2 1/2 years of Early Access and almost a year since the full release.

Currency crash didn't help. There are obvious design flaws though, randomly generated companions and dogshit skill system, very grindy game, irregular updates fucking over modders work. It's really had the potential of being the masterpiece of the decade.

 

[Maxie]

arcanum easily

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Baldur's Gate. Infinity Engine, pretty maps, low level adventuring... I should love it, but I don't. In contrast, I was pleasantly surprised by NWN1(at least Chapter 1, and the expansions aren't bad) given how everyone was trashing it.

On the JRPG front, Shining Force II. I found it mostly pointless. No challenge for the most part, very unbalanced, generic story, useless world map exploration. I was definitely expecting more.

 

[Dodo1610]

Risen 2:Boring combat, dumbed down mechanics, bad retcons,embarrassing dialogues. The last shitty game I actually finished, because I kept telling myself that it has to get better evantually, it didn't...

Cyberscam 2077: After 5h I broke down and went to bed in the middle of the day, after 8 years of hype all I got was a mediocre lootshooter with one of the laziest GTA clones ever.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

All Western RPG after 2009.

I'm afraid it was mostly over in 1998.

Personally, Fallout 1 was peak of "new school of RPG", but many that comes after (Arcanum, Baldurs Gate 2, Vampire, even Codex ugly duckling, Dragon Age) were memorable and stayed with me. And with others too, because this titles return from time to time in discussions.

All Western RPG after 2009.

Underrail, Grimoire, Shadowrun Dragonfall and a few others are great.

There were so good by itself, or were good in comparison? Underrailhas many interesting ideas, but still remain small, indie game made by a small, second world team. That midget is standing with dignity, but remain midget.
Grimore is more modern Wizadry 7. Clone. I really like this neanderthal, but I don't want live with him in cave.
Shadowruns? Simple tactical games pretending to be proper RPG. Yes, even Dragonfall.

All Western RPG after 2009.

Underrail, Grimoire, Shadowrun Dragonfall and a few others are great.

But are they timeless?

Sably, but no.

 

[PapaPetro]

Personally, Fallout 1 was peak of "new school of RPG", but many that comes after (Arcanum, Baldurs Gate 2, Vampire, even Codex ugly duckling, Dragon Age) were memorable and stayed with me. And with others too, because this titles return from time to time in discussions.

The core essence of cRPGs was hammered out by then.
After ~2000, everything was a derivative pastiche of various cross-genre established game concepts (PoMo'ism).

Around the same time the industry streamlined and stopped taking in bright high-school drop out dreamers and replaced them with *Educated NPCs from Diploma Mill U.
(NPCs love streaminling for obvious reasons)
((It's why Credentialism is so popular now))

*Heuristically programmed through Operant Conditioning in Pedagogy.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Personally, Fallout 1 was peak of "new school of RPG", but many that comes after (Arcanum, Baldurs Gate 2, Vampire, even Codex ugly duckling, Dragon Age) were memorable and stayed with me. And with others too, because this titles return from time to time in discussions.

The core essence of cRPGs were hammered out by then.
After ~2000, everything was a derivative pastiche of various cross-genre established game concepts.

Around the same time the industry streamlined and stopped taking in bright high-school drop out dreamers and replaced them with Educated NPCs from Diploma Mill U.
(NPCs love streaminling for obvious reasons)
((It's why Credentialism is so popular now))

XX century was ended in 2002. Change my mind.

 

[PapaPetro]

Personally, Fallout 1 was peak of "new school of RPG", but many that comes after (Arcanum, Baldurs Gate 2, Vampire, even Codex ugly duckling, Dragon Age) were memorable and stayed with me. And with others too, because this titles return from time to time in discussions.

The core essence of cRPGs were hammered out by then.
After ~2000, everything was a derivative pastiche of various cross-genre established game concepts.

Around the same time the industry streamlined and stopped taking in bright high-school drop out dreamers and replaced them with Educated NPCs from Diploma Mill U.
(NPCs love streaminling for obvious reasons)
((It's why Credentialism is so popular now))

XX century was ended in 2002. Change my mind.

I won't.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

Risen 2 was a surprisingly steep decline after Risen 1, which I quite enjoyed. They even managed to fuck up the combat, which was unsalvageable at launch.

Oh yeah, forgot that one, was really looking forward to it after Risen. It was terrible all around. Infantile setting, shitty mechanics. But the same as with Elex you had a lot of retards defending it. Piranha Bytes really needs to be put out of its misery already.

I have to confess I was rather surprised by Risen 2 and had quite some fun with it. Ok I went in with abysmally low expectations after all the flak it got. I even finished it. Yeah it wasn't their finest but I found it interesting enough as Risen 1 was a solid experience, but still only more of the same we already had. At least Risen 2 tried to be original. And playing as a voodoo pirate definitively had its moments. Risen 3 on the other hand was much more refined gameplaywise and had much more content but it was also rather bland and boring. And world building was all over the place (a sinister LotR-like isle right besides a bright and blazing tropical paradise right besides a typical medieval setting...). I never finished this one. I still enjoyed it for at least a dozen of hours. Much more than ELEX - a game I began playing two times and got irreversibly bored after about 2 hours ingame. I don't know why but I find it utterly unappealing. I can't stand that strange, way too crude mix between axe swinging maniacs and hightech-priests. I couldn't build up any attachement to anything in this game.

 

[King Crispy]

Not liking ELEX but liking Risen 2?

Reverso World.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

Not liking ELEX but liking Risen 2?

Reverso World.

World building is one of the most important aspects in an RPG for me. Risen 2, with all its undeniable flaws, worked in this regard for me to be absorbed in this world. It felt consistent to me. ELEX on the other hand didn't.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Personally, Fallout 1 was peak of "new school of RPG", but many that comes after (Arcanum, Baldurs Gate 2, Vampire, even Codex ugly duckling, Dragon Age) were memorable and stayed with me. And with others too, because this titles return from time to time in discussions.

The core essence of cRPGs were hammered out by then.
After ~2000, everything was a derivative pastiche of various cross-genre established game concepts.

Around the same time the industry streamlined and stopped taking in bright high-school drop out dreamers and replaced them with Educated NPCs from Diploma Mill U.
(NPCs love streaminling for obvious reasons)
((It's why Credentialism is so popular now))

XX century was ended in 2002. Change my mind.

I won't.

11.09 has change everything. Peace on West was end, just like funny nineties. Only nihilism remain and in finally 2012 exploded with woke.It was accompanied by raise of social media, Reddit, and general decline of West. Creating of game is long process, that why I choose 2009, last year when good things from XX was present and alive.

 

[PapaPetro]

Personally, Fallout 1 was peak of "new school of RPG", but many that comes after (Arcanum, Baldurs Gate 2, Vampire, even Codex ugly duckling, Dragon Age) were memorable and stayed with me. And with others too, because this titles return from time to time in discussions.

The core essence of cRPGs were hammered out by then.
After ~2000, everything was a derivative pastiche of various cross-genre established game concepts.

Around the same time the industry streamlined and stopped taking in bright high-school drop out dreamers and replaced them with Educated NPCs from Diploma Mill U.
(NPCs love streaminling for obvious reasons)
((It's why Credentialism is so popular now))

XX century was ended in 2002. Change my mind.

I won't.

11.09 has change everything. Peace on West was end, just like funny nineties. Only nihilism remain and in finally 2012 exploded with woke.It was accompanied by raise of social media, Reddit, and general decline of West. Creating of game is long process, that why I choose 2009, last year when good things from XX was present and alive.

The South Park Imagination Land Trilogy capture that post-9/11 zeitgeist on the nose.
That feeling of when there's a terrorist attack in Heaven ("This is not supposed to ever happen here!"):
It deflated the Spirit and we went bankrupt trying to cash old checks for the past couple decades trying to keep the Dream of Creativity alive.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Personally, Fallout 1 was peak of "new school of RPG", but many that comes after (Arcanum, Baldurs Gate 2, Vampire, even Codex ugly duckling, Dragon Age) were memorable and stayed with me. And with others too, because this titles return from time to time in discussions.

The core essence of cRPGs were hammered out by then.
After ~2000, everything was a derivative pastiche of various cross-genre established game concepts.

Around the same time the industry streamlined and stopped taking in bright high-school drop out dreamers and replaced them with Educated NPCs from Diploma Mill U.
(NPCs love streaminling for obvious reasons)
((It's why Credentialism is so popular now))

XX century was ended in 2002. Change my mind.

I won't.

11.09 has change everything. Peace on West was end, just like funny nineties. Only nihilism remain and in finally 2012 exploded with woke.It was accompanied by raise of social media, Reddit, and general decline of West. Creating of game is long process, that why I choose 2009, last year when good things from XX was present and alive.

The South Park Imagination Land Trilogy capture that post-9/11 zeitgeist on the nose.
That feeling of when there's a terrorist attack in Heaven ("This is not supposed to ever happen here!"):
It deflated the Spirit and we went bankrupt try to cash old checks for the past couple decades trying to keep the Dream of Creativity alive.

And that's why we can't have nice thing anymore...

 

[PapaPetro]

And that's why we can't have nice thing anymore...

We can have nice things.
Humanity just needs some help.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

logic and common sense would dictate "oblivion", in more recent times i might say "cyberpunk" because it was supposed to beat the like of ea and ubi and not join them in half-assed jobs, but my heart says "lionheart".

 

[Erebus]

The first CRPG to disappoint me was the second CRPG I ever played : Bard's Tale 3. It was unbearably inferior to my first CRPG ever (Champions of Krynn).

Most of the time, games disappoint me because I compare them to earlier games. Return to Krondor was a disappointment compared to Betrayal at Krondor. IWD 1 was a disappointment compared to BG 1 and Torment. Storm of Zehir was a disappointment after Mask of the Betrayer.

Pillars of Eternity 1 was pretty boring and Tides of Numenera was a silly mess with delusions of genius, but I'd realized beforehand that they might not be as good as I wanted them to be, so my disappointment was only moderate.

My biggest disappointment ? Wrath of the Righteous. Despite its weak final chapter, I'd genuinely loved Kingmaker and that foolishly led me to expect that WotR would just as good if not better. What I got was a game so obsessed with being "epic" and "cool" that it completely failed to be enjoyable. The story was terrible, the atmosphere was downright painful, almost all of the fights were annoying, very few characters managed to rise above mediocrity, and let's not even talk about the godawful army battles.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Zehir was meant to be a different thing, not part of the story. At least they brought back full party creation.

 

[Kabas]

Everyone and their mother already mentioned Pillars of Eternity.
You're playing as some super special death genasi and nobody in this world gives a fuck about it despite what the race description says. You're going around forest slaughering some zombie children, shooting your weak ass spells and not even getting any exp for that. All so that you can see the full map and find the chest containing a sword of lameness. What was the point in playing this?

I might say some heresy here but Fallout 3 didn't dissapoint me as it was my first fallout game. It had plenty of enjoyable elements coexisting with some absolutely retarded moments like the ending choice or the whole "You're evil for killing the ghoul immigrants who massacred the human residents".
Neither did Oblivion. Younger me was wiser and knew that the proper way of playing it is by completely ignoring the level-up and skill rising mechanics. There is however one quest that dissapointed me greatly and it was the one that had you deal with the woman gang who used seduction against their male victims. They teased the potential choice but you couldn't actually join them as a female

 

[JarlFrank]

Dragon Age II killed my enthusiasm for gaming. Nothing was the same after that. Never again did I get hyped for a game.

Oblivion did that for me.

My youthful optimism - gone. Thanks Todd!

 

[King Crispy]

Skyrim gets a special mention from me because of its intro. I thought my system was prepared at the time (I believe I had a new 1080Ti ready for it) but it still ran like shit and looked like shit.

After years and years of mods Skyrim can be fairly impressive now, but Oblivion is basically a lolcow at this point.

 

[AlwaysBrotoMen]

Witcher 3 main campaign, Skyrim (the Last 30%) and Yakuza like a Dragon.
Soon Jedi Survivor will be included in the list.

 

[Ryzer]

Underrail: More of a hack'n slash with stupid fetch quests than an RPG, also every maps are shitty metallic blurry puke, waste of time.

Divinity original sin: Welcome to Disneyland, but everyone is annoying with disgusting englo accent.

Pathfinder Wrath of Righteous: Extremely boring and bloated with LGBTQ reddit writing.

Baldur's Gate 1 : zzzzzzz I sleep! Low level D&D adventure with terrible encounter design and variety. Mostly shit story and non-existent C&C

Neverwinter nights 1: ZZZZZZZZZ I SLEEP!

And mostly all Elder Scrolls games, they are all a waste of time for a meaningless experience.

 

[Cohesion]

Skyrim gets a special mention from me because of its intro. I thought my system was prepared at the time (I believe I had a new 1080Ti ready for it) but it still ran like shit and looked like shit.

After years and years of mods Skyrim can be fairly impressive now, but Oblivion is basically a lolcow at this point.

Are you sure? 1080ti was released in 2017. Skyrim release date is 2011.

 

[King Crispy]

Hmm, you may be right. I think I got the 1080Ti for Cyberpunk.

It might have been my two 970s in SLI...