I like to go back to old games that were well regarded in their time but I missed. It's neat to see what holds up and what doesn't, but the biggest disappointment to me has to be Secret of Mana. So many people love that game, so I went in with high expectations. I instead found the combat way too simple when it even lets me play, far too often, it takes control away from your characters through annoying status effects. I could not stand it and dropped it fairly quick.

I have over 50% of the achievements in Death Stranding (can't find my play time on the stupid Epic site) and am a breath away from stopping altogether due to the control issues.

Trying to play this fucking game with a controller is an exercise in frustration. For some fucking reason, the game can't handle using a controller without sending phantom inputs after a short time.

If I hadn't gotten the game for free on the Epic store I'd be pissed for giving my money for broken shit.

There was a game called Batallion that was super hyped about making an updated version of CoD 2. They were going to do real areas in WW2, use real weapon sounds and some other stuff. It sounded great but in practice it was awful... You had long halls where a guy would jump up and barely see his head and bang dead... shot through the wall. Couldn't even attempt to fire back.

What fun is that? I mean honestly your in mid jump and you can hit someone on a regular basis?? Aim should be completely wild and maybe have a 5% chance to actually hit what you are aiming at. The physics of things were either all wrong or they had a rampant hacking problem.

It was so bad they ended up refunding all the purchases and giving it away. https://store.steampowered.com/app/489940/BATTALION_Legacy/

Dang, I wish you had played the second one first. Still might not be your thing, but it was a much better story and much better gameplay.

Cultist Simulator was a disappointment after being hyped about it for a while. From the outside it looked like an addicting roguelike power fantasy type of game but it wasn't. It's a purposefully obscure game with no clear goal, which would be alright if there was some kind mystery to unfold or if the journey was enjoyable. The gameplay was interesting in the first few runs when I was still learning mechanics but after that it's just tedious. It's also really punishing if you don't play carefully all the time. Other than the vibes/atmosphere I have no idea what anyone enjoys about it.

Mewgenics. I just couldn't squeeze any fun out of it. Wish there wasn't 10 minutes of busy work every time I want to start a new run. Wish items were game-changing like in Isaac.

Dragon Marked for Death. I waited so long for it to come out and it's clearly balanced for multiplayer only. HUGE disappointment.

Sports Story. Also waited a long time after loving Golf Story and it just...wasn't good.

Metroid Prime 4. 'Nuff said.

Sekiro. I do not think its a bad game, I think it's excellent. But it is not for me. It requires rhythm and excellent reaction time, and I have neither. I have zero timing abilities, unless its like RE4 QTEs because i just need to do it a few times in a row at most, but the reactions being so constant and fast, I can not do it, i just cant, its frustrating and makes me feel stupid when I die to normal enemies. And its not like a Souls game, where I can make a build different, or summon someone for help. Again, its just not for me, I do not think its a bad game.

Wizard of Legend 2 was the biggest sequel let down in my eyes. What the fuck man. Shoulda been in the bag easy.

Megaton Rainfall. The game billed itself as having you fly around like a demigod stopping an alien invasion. I bought it like 2 years after release, hyped as all hell. The unskippable intro is boooooooooooring and takes way too long. Time to blast some aliens! Only they end up as some sort of fucking puzzle, where each one has to be beaten the correct way. To make matters worse, you have to avoid destruction at all costs, if too much civilian infrastructure gets blown up, you fail the mission. Of all the (limited) powers you unlock, exactly one can protect civilians, and it fucking sucks.

Brink.

God I was so excited for Brink. What a let down.

Red Dead Redemption 2. I played partway through, then ran into that quest where Arthur was supposed to meet one of his party members in Blackwater, but it just kept spawning bounty hunters and I gave up after dying like ten times and not finding this guy.

Dragon Quest Builders 2 kind of fits the bill for me here. I wanted to play it from the moment I learned about it. I had zero experience with 1, or any other dragon quest games. My biggest issue, and im still quite angry about it, is that the game I wanted to play, and the game the trailers promised actually does exist. Its all functional. The only way to play it though is the campaign, and its so frustratingly hand-holding and text-heavy it actually hurt to play.

"we need to build the BRONZE ROOM. So we'll need some BRONZE. Theres some BRONZE in the cave nearby." [Camera pans over to where the bronze is.] "Okay! We'll go and get the BRONZE!" "I think 3 pieces OF BRONZE should do it."

Head over towards the cave.

Hey! We're near the BRONZE cave! Isn't this where they said we could get the BRONZE that we need to complete the BRONZE ROOM? Let's get the BRONZE!

Head towards the bronze.

Hey! It's the BRONZE that we need to make the BRONZE ROOM! Lets mine some quick so we can make the BRONZE ROOM! You can do this! Let's go!

Mine the bronze

[BRONZE acquired!]

Hey! Thats it! We just mined the first piece of BRONZE that we need! Didn't the quest-giver say we needed 3 pieces? What are we waiting for? Lets mine 2 MORE!

Mine 2 more

Thats it! Weve got all the BRONZE that we need to make the BRONZE ROOM! lets Head back to the base as quickly as we can to make the BRONZE ROOM.

Head back to the base, get talked to by the quest giver for a solid minute about the importance of the bronze room. Then the concept of the silver room comes up. You think 'that was a really really really long-winded tutorial, but they'll leave me alone to do the silver and gold now that I know what to do. No. Go back to the top of that list but replace BRONZE with SILVER. Then gold. Then do it again and again and again until the credits roll and you realise the game never actually happens and you just wasted a bunch of your life and you'll never ever get it back and they could have made an excellent game, and they actually did, they just wouldn't let you play it.

Im still pretty bitter about that whole experience.

Sonic CD.

For years and years it was a mythical sonic game, a rare golden-era game hardly anyone had got to play. And I’d slightly mis-remembered it appearing way more advanced and fluid than a mega drive game.

After being obsessed with Sonic in my youth, after finally getting to play it, it just felt like a less enjoyable Sonic 1.

I’ve never even bothered to finish it.

• CD Projekt RED's Cyberpunk 2077:
  the trailer showed V riding a crowded monorail train. I bought the game in promotion with Google Stadia. There was no monorail in the game. Or rather, you could look at it, and you could find some stations, but they were teleport points;
• Obsidian Entertainment's The Outer Worlds:
  it was marketed as a role-play game, but your possible choices were either bad or good, with no in-between, and they did not influence your story at all. It's just a shooter game, the SciFi setting is secondary and forgettable;
• Blackbird Interactive's Homeworld 3:
  too far from what I loved in Homeworld and Homeworld: Cataclysm. For some reason the developers believed they had to introduce physical people with mental issues in a game about faceless ships blowing up each other. Nevertheless, the story is bland. I would like to pretend that this game did not ever exist.

A game that I've been waiting years to play for years is Mobius Digital's Outer Wilds.
I have only heard praise about it. I can't find the courage to finally play it and end up disappointed.

Elden Ring... I'm sorry I just didn't enjoy It even after beating a few bosses