I would qualify 2023 as the second best year of software for the Switch.
However, like any other year, there are usually more than a few unsavory games in the mix.
Mato Anomalies
I love cyberpunk-flavored experiences, but the hacking portion of this game was no bueno.
Disaster Detective Saiga
I like visual novels and I enjoy eldritch horror, but this one is both a pixel hunter as well as Goosebumps-level of "scary", a thoroughly missed opportunity in my eyes.
What are some games that you were looking forward to playing but didn't live up to your expectations?
Switch Physical Collection - 1,322 games (as of November 7th, 2024)
Favorite Quote: "Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies." -Edna St. Vincent Millay
Vampire Survivors. I hadn't played it before but I bought it when it came on the Switch. Played it for a few days, and it was fun at first, but it soon got boring as there isn't really that much player agency or skill involved in the gameplay, and it looks ugly as hell. From what I've understood it was pretty much designed to be a gaming equivalent of junk food, so I guess it did deliver on that, but based on the hype I was expecting something more.
Fashion Dreamer. Such a monumental downgrade from the excellent New Style Boutique games on 3DS (which had no less than THREE instalments). I have no idea how involved Nintendo were regarding the direction of the Style Boutique series, but their absence couldn't be more apparent.
Just an empty, shallow, and joyless experience, while only superficially resembling the games that preceded it. If you like dressing up avatars who'll praise you to high heaven no matter how often you make them wear socks with sandals, there might be something here for you. For those who enjoyed the business management aspects and progression of the Style Boutique games, then I suggest either playing any one of the 3DS instalments (they're all fantastic, though only the first two have stereoscopic 3D), or hold out with the hope that Nintendo themselves will commission a new entry in the series some day.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder was also a bit disappointing. Still a good quality and enjoyable experience, but it didn't wow me like I expected it to. As tired as I was with the "New" series, I'm actually yearning to play the Wii instalment again (and I was disappointed that it wasn't bundled with the Switch port of the Wii U games).
Fire Emblem Engage is probably the most disappointing game I played this year. I was super excited when it was announced, to the point where I preordered the collector’s edition.
I think the gameplay as a whole is very solid. The maps are fun, and for the most part things never felt unfair. Graphics are nice, too. Definitely better than Three Houses from a fidelity standpoint.
But my lord, the story is so awful. It’s genuinely distracting how bad it is. It really feels like it was thrown together at the last minute. That goes for the characters too. Not only do they lack variety visually, but that goes for their personality as well. Practically every single one is this plank of wood who’s either obsessed with tea, battling, or both. Going from Three Houses which has excellent and very memorable characters, to Engage where I struggle to remember a single one, is super jarring.
This is one of the only games I’ve played that I couldn’t bring myself to finish due to the story. I was just not invested in it at all to feel motivated enough to continue. And this was after playing about three quarters of the game as well, so it’s not like I dropped it too early before the story “picks up” or whatever.
Bottom line, I think when people talk about Fire Emblem on the Switch in 5-10 years, Three Houses is going to be the main point of conversation. I really doubt Engage will be much of a topic.
"Science compels us to explode the sun!"
Currently playing:
Persona 3 Reload (PC)
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy (PC)
@StarPoint : I've pretty much had the opposite reaction. Complete indifference to the reveal. Did not care for the character designs (especially the protagonists). Wasn't even sure if I was going to buy it. Bought it on sale on a whim in October.
Loved it.
Poured 100 hours into it in a month.
It almost felt like playing the 3DS games again (story aside).
Mind you, I just really enjoyed the gameplay, and I wouldn't disagree about the story and much of the characters too. It felt like a real cookie-cutter Fire Emblem story with virtually every cliché ticked off, but the gameplay itself was rock solid, and I didn't mind the loop of the Somniel after the first few chapters either (though I prefered the quick simplicity of the Fates equivalent).
But the endless cutscenes...
My God, the cutscenes...
And on top of that, the fully voiced support conversations...
But, again, the gameplay more than made up for it.
Three Houses, however, while certainly a fine game with a lot of polish, was bloated with so much extraneous fluff and so little actual gameplay that the series was known for for the better part of three decades, that I eventually lost interest. I'll most likely revisit it at some point (though I'll probably have to play the game from scratch... again...), but it felt less like a Fire Emblem game and more like a new IP that was trying to dip its toes into something different. Visually gorgeous, and maybe someday I'll think of it differently, but this wasn't the series I fell in love with on the 3DS.
@Rambler : So is "fairy", but are we to be so censorious that we walk on eggshells over any utterance of that too, even when it's said in an otherwise innocuous/good faith fashion?
I wouldn't have even thought twice about "turd burglar" (which I think I had only ever heard said by Beavis and Butt-head) until this unnecessarily dispiriting digression from the conversation.
Switch Physical Collection - 1,322 games (as of November 7th, 2024)
Favorite Quote: "Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things. Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies." -Edna St. Vincent Millay
Of the 2023 games I've played, I liked them all. Only thing I was disappointed in was that Persona 3 Reloaded wasn't announced for Switch. However, there's still a good chance it might come to the Switch successor.
I found Cannon Dancer (Osman), really disappointing. Don't know what it was, just wasn't really clicking with me, and it's incredibly short. Fortunately I picked it up at a deep discount.
@Rambler If you're a big Strider fan it still might be worth checking out on sale. I picked up for about 10 bucks (Canadian), which is far more reasonable than the initial asking price of 40, which is a bit ridiculous for what it is.
My disappointments were probably Tears of the Kingdom and Sea of Stars. Tears of the Kingdom was something I went from being weary about to being excited for, only to have my excitement die through the months after playing. If it weren't for BotW, I feel like the game would have been solid, but given BotW exists.. TotK just feels like it doesn't do enough to justify being a sequel? A lot of the map is the exact same, and most of the content they added to the map feels like filler for the sake of saying they had something new to play through. The dungeons were a step up in some regards to the Divine Beasts, but at the same time I just feel like they miss the mark. The skies and depths were pretty bland, with both feeling as if the devs just copied and pasted stuff and called it a day. It feels like most of the dev time was spent on the physics again, and making sure that the game was an ultimate sandbox game. It doesn't help that it feels like the game singlehandedly killed Zelda's basic lore, and the dev interviews sort of soured me on the Zelda team more and more. At this point I'm currently questioning if I'll even play the next Zelda.
As for my second disappointment, it has to be Sea of Stars. That game looked cool when I first picked it up- but after actually playing it, I started to want to play it less and less as the game went on. To the point where I just put it down for good and decided I no longer wish to play it. I get its meant to be a love letter to older JRPGs, but it felt like the story wasn't really going anywhere interesting to me, and after you get the boat navigation tends to get kind of annoying. Mainly because the game doesn't actually make it a record to easily tell you where you need to go. On top of that, there's no actual Fast travel system, so if you need to go somewhere in a previous area, you will have to back track through screens of the same enemies you've already fought and the same areas you've already been through. Just wasn't interesting to me.
"It is fate. Many have tried, yet none have ever managed to escape it's flow."
@VoidofLight : I think the depths in TOTK were quite disappointing as there was so little to do, and it seemed to be the same sorts of activities/hideouts etc. scattered throughout. Not bad by any stretch, but the sense of discovery was quickly diminished by its predictability.
The only real surprise for me was the terrifying Lynel den.
I think they've changed plenty to keep it from feeling like a cynical copy/paste job, and I think my 250+ hour play-through speaks for itself (and I haven't even completed the main campaign yet). But I didn't go in with any sort of enthusiasm. I pretty much ignored the trailers. Didn't have any strong feelings of anticipation either, despite loving BOTW (and I harboured no anticipation for that either). But the games have been so engrossing in a way that so, so few are.
If you want to see what a real copy/paste sequel looks like, look no further than DOOM II. Same engine. Same graphics/monsters/weapons. Just new maps, some new monster types, and only one new weapon. It's still a great sequel, but it didn't break any new ground like its predecessor did.
But what's even worse is that they released Final DOOM as a full-priced retail release two years later (in 1996), comprised of two glorified DOOM II map packs (but sold as a standalone sequel), and the maps weren't designed by the original team either (and was allegedly intended to be released as a free download until it was decided that they could make money on it). They had the audacity to charge US$55 for it back in the day (worth about US$107 today when adjusted for inflation... for two map packs).
1. I spent WAY too much time playing Splatoon 3 at the detriment of all my new games this year, as my Nintendo Switch Year In Review laid bare. I’ve always been bad about playing evergreen games like Splatoon, Smash and Animal Crossing but this just makes me more determined to play through my backlog in the new year.
2. I don’t think Pikmin 4 has convinced me to get into the series no matter how accommodating it is. Pikmin certainly has its charm and I’m happy for fans of the series. This can always change (again, my backlog) but I won’t be surprised if all the chaotic dandori just isn’t for me.
3. It’s a good game but I believe Mario Wonder is overrated. It hasn’t quite wowed me as well and other downsides like the lack of boss battles add up to a game that might still get a great 8 out of 10 but it’s not like Mario 3 or Mario World like we’ve been hyping. Now I even feel bad for dissing the NSMB games. Yes, they were milked dry and got so uninspired, but they were all still solid platformers. I even have a soft spot for the Wii game even though U is technically better.
Simplistic Shiver Fan
Formerly Croctopus
Switch Friend Code: SW-6880-0040-8826 | My Nintendo: Dev
I don't have any disappointments in major games but I bought 3 indie platformers this year which all had game-breaking bugs. 2 were impossible to even beat and in one you had to cheese it to avoid the glitch zone. Like... these are short games but I can only assume they were ported to Switch without even a cursory playtesting. I feel like the eshop needs better quality assurance than that. Two of them were otherwise really good games which makes it even more frustrating.
As tired as I was with the "New" series, I'm actually yearning to play the Wii instalment again (and I was disappointed that it wasn't bundled with the Switch port of the Wii U games).
I've really been wanting to play the Wii game again too - I hope it gets ported to Switch. Although I really liked Wonder, it wetted my appetite for more Mario without completely satisfying it. Both Wonder DLC and another Mario port would be my ideal for next year.
Honestly nothing too major this year but I will say:
1.Sonic Superstars was not that good and I regret buying it full price.
2.I should have skipped Superstars and gotten Mario RPG instead
That's it to be honest.
Space and Games are similar. Space is endless and new stuff is out there waiting to be discovered. Games are always being made but the creativity is different from one game to another and so many more ideas still haven't been imagined or created yet. (That came out better than expected lol)
@FishyS Unrelated but do you watch DGR?
I ask because you said somewhere that you like to play Mario Maker 2 and there is someone in the DGR comment section who has the same profile picture as you so I was wondering if by some chance that is you lol
Space and Games are similar. Space is endless and new stuff is out there waiting to be discovered. Games are always being made but the creativity is different from one game to another and so many more ideas still haven't been imagined or created yet. (That came out better than expected lol)
Off the top of my head, my only real disappointment so far this year is maybe my limited time with Megaman Zero 2 thus far. I've only played 2 levels but the 2nd of those has you use this grapple hook type thing that...doesn't work that great and is likely to miss the target, which in this case is above a bottomless pit so...yeah, not a great start.
But that could change.
I guess Yooka Laylee is slightly worse than I expected. In that its like a 6 instead of a 7. shrugs
But as usual, most of the games I play are not brand new ones so its harder to be disappointed by a game from years and years ago. On top of that, I rarely go against the common consensus for a game if its a genre I'm remotely into, especially if that consensus is positive. And I generally know what to expect from older games. I didn't finally play Goldeneye for the first time and expect it to be remotely as good as it was in 1997, that was never happening.
@FishyS Unrelated but do you watch DGR?
I ask because you said somewhere that you like to play Mario Maker 2 and there is someone in the DGR comment section who has the same profile picture as you so I was wondering if by some chance that is you lol
😝 I do watch DGR sometimes. He's a funny person. But my username on YouTube is almost the same as here, so if the comment you are thinking of was me, it would be obvious. I don't comment there too often because I usually watch on my tv.
Not a game from this year but I just finished it a little bit ago, I was kind of disappointed in Nier: Automata. It wasn't a bad game, but I think I was just expecting more based on what I'd heard. I felt it really wasn't that different from Platinum's straight action games like Bayonetta. I thought it was going to be more RPG than it turned out to be. Definitely doesn't replace Astral Chain as my favorite game of theirs. I know there are like 500 different endings, though, but I'm not sure I care to replay it to try to get more, at least not anytime soon. Maybe one day when I have less new games to play. So in other words, never.
Not a game from this year but I just finished it a little bit ago, I was kind of disappointed in Nier: Automata...I know there are like 500 different endings, though, but I'm not sure I care to replay it to try to get more
It is funny how I've not even played Nier and yet I knew this was a "one playthrough only" post. Which alone says to me you should definitely replay it if this specific scenario is this expected to me, person who has not played the game.
Though I'd also be a hypocrite to make fun of you for the specific situation of finding a Platinum game overhyped because the one playthrough was enough to justify having an opinion on it, since that's exactly my experience with Vanquish. I'm told Vanquish improves when you try to master the game beyond a single run of the campaign, but I just can't bother with it.
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Topic: Your gaming disappointments of 2023?
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