Crushing Disappointment / Overwhelming Enthusiasm.

[EvilBoris]

Recently, I've had an unusually experience. I bought Hitman : Absolution and I was absolutely loving it, I played the first 2 levels over and over and over, beating my score and thoroughly enjoying it.
Meanwhile on the internet people were raging, raving and freaking out about it being awful, I just wrote it off as internet whingers.
Then it hit, all of the complaints started to show themselves, cracks started to appear and my enjoyment of the game rapidly tumbled down a pit never to be seen again. I cannot think of another example of a game where I have been so crushingly disappointed.


Just weeks earlier I had had another example example of this, only with a twist.

Dishonored had started getting reviewed, people were throwing around phrases like "Game of the Year" , nothing bad had been said about it. My interest in the game piqued and off I went to preorder the game.

Upon playing the game for several hours I was really dissapointed, it just didn't seem that great, I really couldn't see what all the fuss was about.
Several hours later and something happened, I don't know what, but the game suddenly became awesome, my disappointment and negativity had been turned upside down and all of the sudden I was really enjoying it.

What are the best examples of this for you, either games you loved right at the start only you turned out to despise, or games you were throughly MEH about, only to end up loving?

[Plough Boy]

I'd have to think harder about the love ---> hate option but the hate ---> love option is way easier and there are 2 blatant examples I can recall.

The first was 'The Sentinel' on the c64. Every review going had this down as superb. zZap64 gave the game a gold medal and 99% as a rating. My mind was blown. My godmother came up trumps for my birthday and I was ready to go.
But it was awful. I didn't really understand what was going on and couldn't feel the love at all. I persisted but eventually gave it up. Boring.
All the time though in the back of my head I couldn't get the zZap64 review out of my head - I always agreed with their reviews. They were on my wavelength. I must be wrong. And so a year later I tried again. In my head it is my favourite game of all time. I played for hours and hours deliberately manipulating my score to unlock as many levels as possible. I didn't care about the highest level I could unlock. I wanted all 1000. I reckon I did about 650-700 in all. Aces.
I have wonderful memories of this game but I would never re-visit it. Deep down I know it won't have aged well. So I'll keep my memories - as rose tinted as they might be.

The other game is Chromehounds. Single player - what a heap of turd. Utter, utter cack. But multiplayer with the NTSC-UK boys it was epic. Even now after all this time I wish I could fire that bad boy up and get back to the Neroimus War. Yes, it had plenty of faults and yes it was the people that helped make it the great experience it was but I really miss that game. Even entering the War solo was worth it because you knew you were helping the team. I feel sick thinking about it such is my woe. Why did they have to shut down the servers? :-(

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

Why did they have to shut down the servers? :-(

Two words: It's Sega!

[MisterBubbles]

FF13, you play until you get out into the open field, all the while telling yourself it will get better, when you arrive Gran Pulse, you just turn it off never to put it in the drive again EVER.

[noobish hat]

I love that people bought it thinking it would be good.

[Brad]

I love that people bought it thinking it would be good.

*puts hand up*

What Mr Bubbles said. Took me 40 hours to realise it was crap.

The inverse case is quite recent. When I bought my Vita I got Gravity Rush with it. Played it for an hour and though meh and sold it. Just got it free on PS+ and have sunk 3 or 4 hours in and suddenly it's brilliant!

A variation on the theme with Halo 4 - Very disappointing for Levels 1 - 5 then level 6 was all the Halo goodness I remembered! Then crushing disappointment as it reverted back and finished with a whimper lol.

[dataDave]

I love that people bought it thinking it would be good.

Well, 12 was meant to be very good (I've not played it yet). 11 was amazing. And 10, in my brief opinion, wasn't too good. But that is by 2002 standards. By today's standards it's probably a ****ing masterpiece. It's on my list.

[monel]

The first was 'The Sentinel' on the c64. Every review going had this down as superb. zZap64 gave the game a gold medal and 99% as a rating. My mind was blown. My godmother came up trumps for my birthday and I was ready to go.

I remember The Sentinel very well, I played it at too young an age and was just crap at it. In a similar situation, I kept hearing it was ' the best thing ever!!!!' but I would just get stuck at an early point. The sounds combined with the graphics and a feeling of isolation did have a sinister vibe, though.

Disappointment- could be so many over the years, probably had to blank out most. After playing tons of console games, I got an Amiga but the arcade type of games I liked usually turned out crap, with exceptions. The Streetfighter 2 port was shockingly bad. Monkey Island and others were great of course, but within a few months I was playing my MD again, and the SNES, for games.

[Guts]

Well, 12 was meant to be very good (I've not played it yet). 11 was amazing. And 10, in my brief opinion, wasn't too good. But that is by 2002 standards. By today's standards it's probably a ****ing masterpiece. It's on my list.

12 is the last good one, even though they shoehorned that c*** Vaan into it's lead character. Luckily you don't have to keep him in the party at least.

[danstan21]

In terms of hate to love, Skies of Arcadia fits that description perfectly. The first 5 hours of it were terrifically tedious. I was playing it for the first time on Gamecube (Legends) just a few days after having finished Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, which is incredibly unique in its battle sytem, its overworld design and its storyline. Skies, as far as I could see, had none of those things; the overworld was simplistic and charmless, the storyline seemed to be a traditional "find 6 crystals" affair, the battle system was traditional turn-based (and going back to random battles was a chore). I remember reaching Sailor's Island and having to try desperately hard not to shelve the game.

Of course, I'm glad I stuck it out, because even though I only played it earlier this year, it still seems to me one of the best traditional-style RPGs of all time. I'm not even using "traditional" in a qualifying way, like it's excused from using dated mechanics and story ideas just because of its age - the idea of turn based battling and random battles may seem dated and clunky in some games but Skies did them so well that I'm not even having to make that concession. The overworld turned out to be great fun to explore and the locations more diverse than I was expecting, with the only parallel I can think of in that department being Xenoblade (and even then Skies had a more fleshed out Discoveries idea so it's above Xeno there). Skies' story may not have had many twisty moments but it was epic nonetheless. All in all, a game I started resenting, and finished loving.

Can't think of any I actively grew to resent after high expectations of them. The only sort of example I can think of there is Doshin the Giant. I can't say I had great hopes for it, but it seemed like a novel idea after reading about it. Then I played it and it turned out to be a great big pile of wank.

[Paddy]

In regards to disappointment through to enjoyment, Persona 3 on PS2 would be the game for me. The fact that you have to spend at least 4-5 hours to get into the game proper takes a big risk with the player in getting their commitment for the rest of the game. However, once you get past this period, recruit a couple more classmates into your team, start filling your day schedule up with classes, after-school clubs and fighting, the game slowly grows on you as you plough through the calendar in efforts to figure what's going on with the midnight hour. A long, long RPG though if you want to finish it with the true ending.

Going the other way, that's a difficult one as I don't normally pick titles based on hype. Perhaps Street Fighter X Tekken would be the game though. The prospect of SF vs Tekken characters was interesting and the promotion for the title if you followed it was explosive to say the least. Unfortunately playing the game and realising that the majority of strategies in fights revolved around launching the opponent into the air after a combo, plus the juggle mechanics meant that regardless of the roster of characters available (and its damn good) it wasn't enough to keep me enthusiastic about this title.

Please rectify the situation Namco with Tekken X SF!