[General Discussion] Games you regret buying.

The title of the topic is pretty self-explanatory. What games did you regret buying either when you were young or just recently.

I had one experience where I regretted buying a game over another one. When I was younger, I had the choice to pick either Vagrant Story or Valkyrie Profile. I went with Vagrant Story and I realized, after a couple of hours of play, the mistake I had just made. It wasn't the typical style of RPG I was looking for. I was looking for more of a turn-based battle system ala Final Fantasy or Breath Of Fire. But alas, my grasp of the english language was not very good when I was younger so I couldn't read anything that was written behind the game case. It was a blind pick that I regret making.

Let's hear your story (Let's hope you have one or else this topic is pointless) .

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I doubt you could have enjoyed any other RPG for that matter if your English wasn't good =/
Vagrant Story is great.

I have three games I wish I hadn't bought. Metal Slug X for PS1, and NBA Jam and Worms for SNES.

I bought Metal Slug X thinking "holy shit, Metal Slug for console!" because at the time Metal Slug 3 was not yet out on PS2, nor was I even aware they were planning to release it. It was pretty expensive for a PS1 game, but I got it, thinking it was something of a rarity since I'd never seen it elsewhere. Not only did it not turn out to be rare in any way, it was also a terrible conversion of a great arcade title. The added extra modes were plenty of fun, but with so much animation missing, most of the Metal Slug magic was gone.

NBA Jam, what can I say. I played it to hell when I was younger, I even finished the championships, but at the time I was simply too young to see that it was just a bad SNES game I shouldn't have bought.

Same goes for Worms. I didn't own a PC at the time, but wanted to play Worms, so yay. Yay my ass. I had read somewhere it's not very good, but the magazine hadn't made it that clear WHY it's not very good and it only came clear to me upon playing.

No battery backup. You create new teams and input each name individually and when you next play the game, you need to do it all over again. That means no game statistics, no saved settings. I'd exchanged the game for a new copy, thinking there was something wrong with my cart till I realized there simply was no battery backup to store the settings.
A good 2/5ths of the weapons and items were gone, no ninjarope, no bungee, the blowtorch only went horizontally, you couldn't go at an angle. The camera didn't zoom out for shots. It wouldn't have been a problem except the camera then moved around at a very slow set speed, meaning if you shot with a bazooka, the camera would not be able to follow the shot and you couldn't see where it lands, making it impossible to hit anything at longer distances.
The computer was incredibly accurate every single time and would always shoot at you with high volleys, regardless of high close or far you were. The only thing preventing you from dying was the amount of ground on top of you, as the CPU always tried to shoot even through that. Still played it to hell, but I hated it.

The game is the only game ever to make me so angry I hit my console. My SNES gave a black screen and it scared the shit out of my when I thought I'd broken it. Switching the power off and on returned things to normal and I never abused my consoles ever again after that. Stupid Worms.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Killer 7 - the art style was...unique...but everything else about the game sucked.

Star Fox Assault - ugh, I couldn't believe how much this sucked, especially for a Star Fox game. Most of the time the music was amazing, but the rest of the game was the polar opposite of that.

Commandos 2 - Not even sure why I picked this one up...I played the first Commando and just could not get into it, and the same ended up being true of this game.

Gungrave - Yikes, now here's a game that sets a new bar for being terrible. Even Drake of the 99 Dragons didn't seem like as bad of a third person shooter from the 2 minutes I played it

Fable - I really couldn't see the appeal of this game. I thought the combat engine was pretty bad, and the good/evil choices didn't really make the game that interesting compared to other RPGs that have a good/evil rating (such as Fallout or Baldur's Gate 2). Also, the graphical presentation was lacking and was even detremental at times, I thought I was going to go blind from the shine off the instructor's head.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

There was one: Rise of Robots (SNES), when I was 9 or something. They had the same game with two prices, one at 180 DM (old German currency, appr. 110 $) and the other one at 30 DM. I thought I made a real bargain. Even at this price, it wasn't really worth it. The end boss was cool though, some kind of Terminator 2 liquid metal guy/girl.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Ah, Q's post reminded me of when I bought Theme Park on SNES and made an angry type face for the same reason, no battery backup. I mean come on guys, it's a game about building your own theme parks all over the bloody world and you're going to do away with the PC's save game feature and put in a PASSWORD system that merely records how much money you have? Everytime you turned it off you'd have to rebuild your parks, and sometimes those took hours.

Oh but no, that's not even the worst part! The passwords were as long as a line for seats to sit down on to relax from all the standing around and the games font was a disaster, so these huge passwords would often be written down WRONG, or you'd make one mistake and it'd wipe the whole thing out.

Originally Posted by Elixir

Bubsy 3D (PS1)

I bought this for seven bucks back in what, 2001 and still regret it. I COULDN'T push myself to play past the first level, it was just such a depressing trainwreck knowing this heap of garbage is what killed the series.

Originally Posted by Solis

Gungrave - Yikes, now here's a game that sets a new bar for being terrible. Even Drake of the 99 Dragons didn't seem like as bad of a third person shooter from the 2 minutes I played it

Flipped upside down! I loved the original for its really, REALLY big dumb mindless fun. Being able to blow apart the environment, while a standard thing in games now, was pretty cool. The sequel though, Gungrave Overdose was something I wish I didn't purchase. Making virtually every level a dull, generic warehouse full of crates isn't very amusing at all. I didn't even bother finishing it.

The worst however, would be Sonic Heroes. Mostly because I went through hell trying to obtain a copy on launch day, Atari Australia distributed it, and the GameCube version was SO HARD TO FIND. I ended up getting what must have been the only copy in all of friggin' Sydney, paid a whopping hundred bucks. Got home, really looking forward to the game after the positive reviews and being let down so badly by Sonic Adventure 2.. and what do I get?

SALTY, BITTER TEARS
I won't even bother typing up a long paragraph of my hatred towards the game, but it's probably the worst thing I've ever bought. I didn't return it either, it just sits there, like an eternal warning to be ultra careful of anything Sonic Team ever does again.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Infernal Monkey

Ah, Q's post reminded me of when I bought Theme Park on SNES and made an angry type face for the same reason, no battery backup. I mean come on guys, it's a game about building your own theme parks all over the bloody world and you're going to do away with the PC's save game feature and put in a PASSWORD system that merely records how much money you have? Everytime you turned it off you'd have to rebuild your parks, and sometimes those took hours.

Oh but no, that's not even the worst part! The passwords were as long as a line for seats to sit down on to relax from all the standing around and the games font was a disaster, so these huge passwords would often be written down WRONG, or you'd make one mistake and it'd wipe the whole thing out.

Oh god, Theme Park. Another one of the "I don't own a PC, so the SNES version should be great!". Little wonder I never got further than the second theme park. What idiot thought of that password system. "WELL OF COURSE THEY'RE GOING TO WANT TO PLAY CONTINUOSLY UNTIL THEY MANAGE TO SELL OFF THEIR THEME PARK, WHO WOULD WANT TO SAVE MIDGAME WHEN THEY'RE HAVING SO MUCH FUN". Let's just make Oblivion and FF7 lose the save systems too. PASSWORDS WHEN YOU FINISH THE GAME.

Not to mention I got redeye everytime I played it because of those extra bright colors and long playsessions. Another one that really pissed me off was Jurassic Park. Great game otherwise but loooool start over. Most idiotic idea ever. I got pretty far on my first play and then had to go out. Never played it again because start over.

I also greatly enjoyed the first Gungrave game and don't get what Solis is smoking. Killer7 was fantastic as well (though I played the GC version)

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Metal Gear Solid 2

*Luckily avoids rocks thrown at me*

It was the big hype, everybody in the store came for that game. I was there to buy James Bond Agent Under Fire, and I say "heck, why not". But then, when I got back home, I realize I should never follow the "trend". Shit I hate that game. It's more stylish than actually playable for my tastes. Total disappointment

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Oblivion

*Gets hit with the rocks meant for Cubed*

I didnt like Morrowind, but for some reason, between the hype and the graphics, I thought I would like Oblivion. After the drooling over the graphics, I realized I had a game I was in no way interested in playing. I barely played it for 5 hours, before just quitting all together

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Lessee...

Ghostbusters for the NES. The Master System version was so cool I figured the NES version should be similar. Plus I was huge into Ghostbusters back then.

The original TMNT for the NES. Honestly, we all wanted what would become TMNT 2 and instead we got this piece of crap where if you aren't quick enough your game ends on the second stage regardless of how many turtles you have left.

Mortal Kombat 2 on the Genesis 32X. Really, both Genesis versions were cheap as hell. Once you got past a certain point, you couldn't even jump at someone without them leaping straight up and throwing a projectile at you EVERY FREAKIN TIME!!!

Croc 2 for the PSX. Had Croc on the Saturn and it was great. Bought Croc 2 and thought, "Why did they change the formula so much when the last one was great?"

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I regret buying Kingdom Hearts 2. I know a great many of you will castrate me for saying this, but this shit has to get out in the open: the game is not good. My reasons for not liking it are pretty much the same as what has already been said: combat sucks and lacks any real depth or challenge and the stories retarded.

How ya doing, buddy?

WWF Smackdown (PS) - Every one of my friends who bought this said it was infinitely better than Attitude (different developers). When I got it home and played it a lot, after two days it got real boring, lacks any substance or atmosphere. Moves were too simple to pull off and fights were poor and ill thought out. I think this was the last ever title I bought full price. Sure it came with a HMV memory card but I wouldn't pay more than a McDonalds meal for this.

Pokemon Snap (N64) - N64 titles 2nd hand nowadays are cheap. Except supposed rarities like those Zelda games, I know they're not that rare, but game stores consider them to be. I would say I paid at least half the price for it 2nd hand as it would cost new well back then. It's not I hate this game or anything, it's more of a novelty game if anything, and worth a McDonalds meal.

Medal of Honor Underground (PS) - This is another game which I wouldn't say I hate. To think if I had paid an extra pound, that is, ONE POUND, the price of a McDonalds food item off the savers menu, then I could have had this new. This 2nd hand version had been crammed into a CD case, so the front sleeve was bent at both ends to accommodate size and worst of all, the manual had been cut (not even neatly) at the top. For that extra pound, I could have had a version that at least looked fit for trading in. To this day I don't what I was thinking. ONE POUND argh.

Suikoden IV (PS2) - This was the game I got with my PS2 as part of a bundle, I already read about it not being that good, but I can't believe how lacking this title is. To think I could have picked ANY other title at that time other than this one.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Final Fantasy X-2 - What was I even thinking, I didn't finish X, but thought getting this would be a good idea. Well, at least I got it as a cheap ex-rental (though not cheap enough for how shit that game turned out to be)

Halo 2 - This was what the world had hyped themselves up for? I didn't and still don't get what the big fuss is over this or Halo 1. They're just run of the mill shooters with nothing great. And Halo 2 took away one of the few things I liked about Halo 1, that Pulse Rifle thing.

How ya doing, buddy?

For some odd reason I got Ys VI off ebay....it was fun while I played it..the music was fairly good..but I dont think I'll ever play it again. Not really worth the 20 bucks I payed for I dont think.

I was speaking idiomatically.

In my NES and SNES days, few games disappointed me. We rented most, bought very few. PS1 was the same deal largely.

BUT...

Vagrant Story: I was expecting an RPG straight-up. Gain levels and such. Folks said it was in-depth. Fantastic. But I got into it and found out the RPG element was weak. I got to weapon-crafting stations to find it was tricky. So I looked to a FAQ. And this guy was all, like, on his bazillionth playthrough and made it sound like he was making a thesis paper on this. It was ridiculous. I love in-depth stuff but this just threw you to the damn wolves.

Guild Wars: Oh Christ. I've been strict on cash lately but I bought this expecting it to be better. Really. But it was just horrible. Everything repeated. Shitloads of the spells were worthless. It was such a bass-ackwards game that I enjoyed playing as a SPELLCASTER. I never enjoy Spellcasters. But WoW was just far superior to this. I really wish I didn't buy this.

Blazing Dragons: I didn't buy this stinker. My brother did. Early PS1 adventure-game title. He made it sound like a badass sorta action or RPG game. "YOU'RE A DRAGON AND YOU INVENT STUFF" oh, really. Got into it and was all "the fuck is this." We beat it eventually, but Rob wasted about $40 on the game. I laughed at that, since the game was a horrible mockery of the genre. Wasn't very funny at all. AT ALL.

There are many, many disappointments, I assure you. But these three come to memory the quickest. Typically I research games a good deal before making a purchase. Lately I've been downloading games (I think Guild Wars was karma striking back lol) as opposed to buying. Back-in-the-day, when researching wasn't easy (internet was in its infancy long ago, you know), I would simply wait for the game to come to a rental store. I'd rent & try it before buying. I was a pretty smart kid as far as money-sense goes.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I bought Battlefield 2 at the suggestion of one of the guys at EB when I was trying to figure out what to spend $50 I had put on reserve for another game on. He assured me that it was pretty awesome (and he and I are friends, so I trusted his opinion, he knows what he's talking about), but I took it home and first spent an hour wondering how a game so popular could only have 10 servers up at a time, until I realized I hadn't patched the game completely. THen I learned rather quickly that the multiplayer really wasn't all that fun, since all it consisted of was people standing next to the airplanes waiting for them to spawn. Ya know, it's great that the game is team-based and all, but all the servers I played on were just lone wolves playing their own little games, and that wasn't fun.

FELIPE NO

GT4. I bought it hoping that the controls and handling would be better than in GT3. I was mistaken.

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I have several hundred games on many consoles, but there are only two games that I purely regret buying.

1. Wrestlemania 21 [XBOX]
Absolute piece of trash. Shipped buggy, played like ass. Biggest hype letdown ever, even going over Fable as being the biggest hyped but worst loser on release. I wanted my money back, but alas.

2. Final Fantasy X [PS2]
The single biggest piece of trash on the PS2, RPG wise. I'd rather play Ephemeral Phantasia 25 times in succession than play through FFX again ONCE.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Super Mario 64. I knew that I had found every other Mario game I played to be boring affairs, but everyone else just loved this game, so it had to be good, right? Plus, I'll admit to it being the game that drew me to the Nintendo 64 (along with Pilotwings 64). I picked it up thinking that it'll be much different from the other Mario games, and that I'll love it. Indeed, it was a huge difference from the other Mario games, but it was still painfully boring. What made this incident even worse is that I traded it in for Turok, which was just as bad.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Donkey Kong 64 - I bought this for two reasons: First, Nintendo Power said it was good, and I expected Donkey Kong Country in 3D. Second, it came with the expansion pack. In the end, I never bought another game that used the expansion pack, and the game itself was one long horrible collect-a-thon. I got maybe halfway through the game before I became so very bored with it.

Final Fantasy X - This is by far my least favorite in the whole series. The game is way too linear. Then, whenever I'd play, I'd spend half my time watching movies and cutscenes and not even playing anything. And when I did play, I didn't enjoy it at all. This game was just awful.

Kingdom Hearts - And then after FFX, I went and bought this for some reason. I laughed when I saw the Disney characters. Then I met some Final Fantasy characters, and they felt out of place. Then I actually played the game, and I cringed. The controls were hideous, the camera was terrible, and the gameplay was just atrocious. It's the worst game I've played in the last two generations of games, and I haven't bought a single game from Square since this.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2) - Look I only bought the game because of the costume changes. About 12% into the game I lost interest in the story and stopped playing.

Legends of Wrestling (PS2) - Played it once, didn't play it again. I didn't hear the original theme songs and the wrestling was horrible. Afterwards I lost all hope of Acclaim ever making another good wrestling game.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Dark Tournament (PS2) - Controls were horrible, enemies were cheap (especially Toguro), couldn't even follow the story correctly, and what the hell is a card game doing in there?! The only good thing that came out of that was a new animated sequence at the end.

More to come. I don't regret buying MGS2, but they sure could've done a helluva a lot better with it. For instance, you should've been able to play as Snake through the whole damn game! So don't feel too bad cubed.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Magna Carta: Tears of Blood (PS2)... I just hated this game altogether. I'm an avid RPG player and I was really upset with this game. With the exquisite artwork outside of the game, I was really hoping for something in this game... On top of that, I heard some pretty good opinions from some of the people at my local Gamestop. I'm a regular there, they talk to me casually. Then when I started playing... Biggest WASTE of $55 ever.

The voiceovers were horrible. The battle system was slow... Everything about this game was wrong.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Black. Man, I was so hyped up for this game too. Played the demo a ton, got really anxious for it. 6 hours later, GAME OVER. I was so disappointed. I played through it five times just to try to justify the $40 I spent on that short piece of shit, but never got any sort of justification out of it.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Chronciler

The original TMNT for the NES. Honestly, we all wanted what would become TMNT 2 and instead we got this piece of crap where if you aren't quick enough your game ends on the second stage regardless of how many turtles you have left.

WHAT! That game was great. I loved it.

I bought SSX Tricky for $5, but that was $5 I could've bought a bag of popcorn at the cinema for. That would've been a much better investment. I mostly bought it because a friend and colleague mentioned there is a form of interactive music in it. There is, but the game is so bad I don't really care.

I also bought Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2, although I never expected to like it. It was a bargain, I can't have paid more than $10 for it. But... I just can't get into it, and I think I would've been a better, more whole person if I'd never experienced what they'd done to one of my favourite franchises from my youth. Poor Metroid.

I'm sure I bought other piss-poor games, but I don't remember.

FELIPE NO

I cant think of any game that I have ever bought that I have regreted. I don't buy new games at full price until I look up reviews and make sure that its good. When I do buy a bad game it's on purpose because its cheap and I am starting a collection of them. latest addition to bad games is Megaman X7 for PS2 and the earliest is Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon (surgeon shrinks himself to go into his patient so he can kill cancer and other smoking related bad guys with his gun and nicotine trivia bombs that kill enemies if you answer right)

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I probably regret buying over half the NES (sup Wall Street Kid) and SNES games I ended up with, but I attribute that to youth so I won't count them. But from the PS1 generation and on:

Rayman: Boy did this game suck. I bought it for cheap and I still regret it. I know people say the sequels are excellent, but I was so turned off by this one that I didn't care to play them.

Tomb Raider 1-3: I seriously have no idea why I kept buying these games, as I never even really played them. All I usually did was just use some cheat codes to skip levels and just watch all the cutscenes. The only one I even had mild fun with was TR3, and that was just with one level. Total waste of time and money, and luckily I realized this before I bought anymore of them.

River City Ransom EX: The game really wasn't that bad, but it just wasn't worth it. It doesn't even really offer anything new from the original except better graphics. If it had some single-cartridge multiplayer like it was supposed to, maybe I could have had some enjoyment from it, but in it's current form it's just meh.

Contra: Shattered Soldier: I don't think the game is that bad (though it is hard, and I still haven't beat it yet), but I just regret buying it when I did. I'd never even played a Contra game before this, so I don't know what compelled me to buy this game when it first came out for $50. Had I only paid $10 or $20 for it, I wouldn't have regretted it, but for $50 I kinda feel ripped off.

Jam it back in, in the dark.