GBAtemp one off portal survey- most disappointing DS game

FAST6191

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GBAtemp one off portal survey

Over the coming months we thought we would have a series of quick surveys on various topics and this would be the first one. Right now it is more likely to take the form of a survey but later some polls might be taken with the results of the surveys.




Most disappointing DS game

The discussion of games that are interesting or fulfil a set of requirements comes up often enough, indeed we have handful of features that deal with it, but the discussion of games that failed to live up to potential comes up less often. Now we wish to state explicitly this is not about the worst games for the console but about those that had potential either through previous entries in the series, the previous work from the developers or indeed something that saw a rom hack or sequel that put things right; nobody expected the imagine ? series to produce a must have but when the Secret of Mana developer gives us Children of Mana odd looks happen.



"Why don't we take our enjoyable scrolling beat em up game that relies on tight controls and add fiddly touch screen controls" "Jenkins you are a genius"


Right now this is not about us but in general we are after the name of the game, why it did not work and what was done before or after that illustrates why it was disappointing. It does not have to be a bad game and it may well even be a guilty pleasure of yours. Although it is about games right now we might further this to franchise with most disappointing entries, publisher that caused the most disappointing entries and developers that either upped their game or unsuccessfully attempted to rest upon their laurels

 

Maikel Steneker

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Personally, I was really disappointed by Ace Attorney Investigations. I was really hyped for the remake of the third game on DS and the English release of Apollo Justice and those completely lived up to their promise. Sadly, Ace Attorney Investigations did not.
 
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ViRGE

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I know some people liked it, but I'd put Star Fox Command on this list. You had to spend far too much time playing a bad turn based strategy game between missions, and then the missions themselves were lackluster because they were only all-range mode missions with absolutely nothing on rails. And of course the controls were a letdown; I think it was good on Nintendo's part to have touchscreen controls, but to only have touchscreen controls made the game hard (and unfun) to play.

People were expecting something akin to Star Fox 64, but the final product was nothing like that.
 
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RupeeClock

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I think the key disappointment of all DS titles would have to be Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time.

What should have been a stellar sequel to Superstar Saga, the game was actually quite a frustrating bore.
There were so few secrets to be found and ironically, for a focus on time travelling, a very linear progression. You could barely explore the surroundings and the present time basically had no exploration, such a wasted opportunity.
The battle system was an absolute step down. With the added in baby Mario brothers, who had severely lacking stats compared to their adult counterparts, lacking in capabilities and annoying button mapping (always to X and Y even when alone), having to account for four players simultaneously in the thick of battles was absolutely horrible, Superstar saga worked because it has two characters, and they knew this when they designed Bowser's Inside Story.
One of the biggest problems was the removal of bros maneuvers, or special attacks. In their place came items, a very poor design choice.

I never made the effort to finish the game because it was just so dull, the battles truly were unfun to play just because of the babies. Any time that Mario and Luigi were fighting alone was a blessing.

Edit: I think the other major Mario related disappointment was Yoshi's Island DS, a very generic sequel to the classic Yoshi's Island.
Someone else can write up about what was so wrong with that game, I couldn't even bother to play it past the second world.
 
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DSGamer64

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Metroid Prime: Hunters

By far and away this game was supposed to be good, but like most DS shooters, the controls wound up feeling clunky and inaccurate. The character models were really mediocre and the game itself did not have a lot of depth to it. Seemed like Nintendo was basically beta testing Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection with the game.
 
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jagerstaffel

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I gotta tell you, it has to be CORE. It had potential, it had the graphics (somewhat), it was really touted as an FPS on the DS, but the gameplay.... it ended up being a CHORE :lol:
 

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Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon

Class switching was good, localisation was excellent, but story was a let-down compared to the GBA games (even if it was a remake, they could have enhanced it somehow), and no supports, no con, no modified endings based on supports/relationships (which even the older games like FE4/5 had), as well as not including the enhanced FE3 features present in the snes version and using them to make a shitty sequel that hasn't been localised was a huge let down for fans.

Not to mention animations were lacklustre, but character models were decent, aside from having no excellent recolours like all the other games in the series.

Like I said, the hype was big, but the execution made it a let down.
 
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BlueStar

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SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters DS. Awesome games on the NGPC, but gash on the DS. Horrible cheesy graphics, unwieldy interface and, best of all, a bug that meant the game couldn't be completed until they sent out fixed version.
 
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tatumanu

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As the original post points out ... Children of Mana, is the game i was most disappointed with on the DS. Secret of Mana 1 and 2 are some of the best action RPGs ever to hit the SNES (my favorite console of all time) and i really cant understand why and how they could mess up practically all the games afterwards except maybe Sword of Mana for the GBA that one was not bad at all.
 
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Arm73

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+1 to Metroid Prime Hunters.
I'm a huge fan , and I played every game in existence for every platform and finished them all, but this, it was just to shallow and multiplayer focused to be enjoyed on its own.
It was really a game that i was looking for on the DS after playing the 2 GC games, and sadly, I didn't even play it trough.
Just too boring, with the same boss over and over again....

But I have to disagree on M&L partners in time, I had a great time playing with that one, and the two babes were awesome !
 

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I actually liked Children of Mana's gameplay. I wouldn't say that it's better than Secret or Legend, but it's better than the other World of Mana games like Dawn and Heroes.
Anyway, I was quite disappointed in Sands of Destruction. The game had people behind a lot of good RPGs like Xenogears and Etrian Odyssey., but it didn't live up to my expectations, unfortunately.
Lufia and Lunar Genesis were also kind of a let down. They aren't bad, but I didn't like them as much as the previous games in the series.
 

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As the original post points out ... Children of Mana, is the game i was most disappointed with on the DS. Secret of Mana 1 and 2 are some of the best action RPGs ever to hit the SNES (my favorite console of all time) and i really cant understand why and how they could mess up practically all the games afterwards except maybe Sword of Mana for the GBA that one was not bad at all.

There was something missing from them, aside from the gameplay. I couldn't quite put my finger on it.
 

Qtis

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Assassin's Creed. Just horrible. I didn't expect the same kind of gameplay compared to the PS3 counterparts, but it was Assassin's Creed only in the name (kinda like most handheld versions).. Either it was bad controls or a bad player, but personally didn't like it. There are a few others I've played, but can't remember the correct names..
 
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pas

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Metroid Prime: Hunters

By far and away this game was supposed to be good, but like most DS shooters, the controls wound up feeling clunky and inaccurate. The character models were really mediocre and the game itself did not have a lot of depth to it. Seemed like Nintendo was basically beta testing Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection with the game.
On those not liking Metroid Prime Hunters:
Heavily disagreeing... I still play this game once in a while since it is simply ... fun
I can agree that this game falls short storywise in comparison since I'm currently playing Metroid Prime Trilogy. However shouldn't we be happy at all that we got any kind of Multiplayer MP that is kinda packed with content before the Prime Saga ended ?
It might not be good if you excpected a full blown story mode, cause this game was always meant to be ... multiplayer focused.
However since it seems Nintendos philosophy to always keep fun over graphics/too much singleplayer content in this case - works pretty good for MPH and thats why most people will disagree.
And lets admit it:
Wifi for this game - cheaters aside - works quite remarkably better than for many other DS Games.

Well, my choice falls on: Dragonquest IX

I love many SE titles (FFVII KH chronicles) however I was really disappointed that this one turned out to be turnbased in the end.

I anticipated it when it was still meant to be action based, however it being turnbased kinda killed it.

Also I gotta list 358/2 Days to some extend, it had its awesome moments and was probably THE most anticipated game I personally had aside from a few RnR games, however now that I'm playing the PS2 versions I gotta say that they probably threw away alot of potential. The DS Version just doesn't deliver too much story... even the GBA CoM had more in it...
 

emigre

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COP: The Recruit.

It had so much potential and technologically it did a pretty good job. But they fucked it up with terrible design choices that made it one of the rare instances where graphics took precedent over content.

This to the max. It had the potential to be a legitimately good game and it was clear the devs had talent but some poor choices and I imagine a lack of time really fucked the game over.
 
D

Deleted_171835

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Zelda: Phantom Hourglass: So fucking boring. Never bothered completing it.

I think the key disappointment of all DS titles would have to be Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time.

What should have been a stellar sequel to Superstar Saga, the game was actually quite a frustrating bore.
There were so few secrets to be found and ironically, for a focus on time travelling, a very linear progression. You could barely explore the surroundings and the present time basically had no exploration, such a wasted opportunity.
The battle system was an absolute step down. With the added in baby Mario brothers, who had severely lacking stats compared to their adult counterparts, lacking in capabilities and annoying button mapping (always to X and Y even when alone), having to account for four players simultaneously in the thick of battles was absolutely horrible, Superstar saga worked because it has two characters, and they knew this when they designed Bowser's Inside Story.
One of the biggest problems was the removal of bros maneuvers, or special attacks. In their place came items, a very poor design choice.

I never made the effort to finish the game because it was just so dull, the battles truly were unfun to play just because of the babies. Any time that Mario and Luigi were fighting alone was a blessing.


While Partners in Time doesn't reach the level of Superstar Saga, it was still an exceptional game with the same great dialogue as the previous one. The battle system worked just fine and I had absolutely no issues controlling the babies during battle. In fact, you're the only one I know that complained about it. The babies lack in power was balanced by the fact that enemies had different stats in places the babies would go.

It's a worthy sequel that really picks up near the end. I don't really know how you can complain about button-mapping when the game was designed for two-screens (and both set of characters on each side). If you were to assign A/B to the babies when they're separated, it would screw everything up.
 
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