What's Your Top Ten Worst/Disappointing Games You've Personally Played?

[TheGreatCthulhu]

Quite simple, this gives you a chance to rant about your particular top ten crappy games you've played and the reasons why.

I'll start:

BRUCE LEE: ENTER THE FIST:

Now this is an extremely disappointing and completely awful game that had one of the easiest concepts. Bruce Lee, renowned martial artist and supreme master of ass kicking starring in a good ol' beat 'em up game would have made millions. But, as they say, execution is everything. This game has extremely sluggish controls with punches and kicks landing a week after you make the input. Bruce sounds more like an angry chicken than the Bruce Lee we know and love, and the graphics, even for the original Xbox, were GOD AWFUL.

Again, would have been a killer game if done properly, but sadly, this was not.

RAMBO THE VIDEO GAME:

Again, much like with the above example, this is a concept that I'm shocked someone can muck up so badly. Rambo, the action hero adored by many fans worldwide in a badass first person shooter or third person shooter, would have been an amazing game if executed properly. Again, this game suffers with poor execution on EVERY ASPECT. The sound quality? Trash. It sounds like they took the original dialogue from the movies, and edited it terribly, so everyone sounds like they're in a deep cavern. Graphics? Also crap. Rambo himself looks like he's wearing a plastic wig, and his head looks too big for his torso. What's worse, is that the devs for this game used the original audio from the films, combined with the terrible graphics of this game, and the result as unappealing, amounting to an assault on the senses on all counts.

Which brings us to the gameplay, which, strangely, the developers opted to make this a rail shooter rather than a third person or first person shooter. You have several mechanics that make no sense, with terrible gunplay where it feels you're shooting air gun pellets rather than bullets, combined with quick time events in EVERY DAMN CUTSCENE. There's a whole level that is based ENTIRELY ON QTE'S!!!

ET THE VIDEO GAME:

This game. Ohhhh this game. Despite the absolute ****storm surrounding this game, nearly causing the video game industry to crash, I can tell that this game deserves EVERY AMOUNT OF CRITICISM. The controls? Crap. The sound? Awful. The graphics? Terrible, even by Atari 2600 standards.

What's more is that Atari made more copies than the number of 2600's in circulation! That's absolutely, insanely stupid.

ACTION 52 (GENESIS/NES):

This "game" came with a cartridge with 52 games on them, all of which are completely bug filled, unplayable, unworking pieces of **** imaginable.

The biggest insult? THE FACT THAT AT RELEASE THE DEVELOPER WANTED $200!!!!

When adjusted for inflation that's $375.25!!!

Nearly $400 for a cartridge filled with games that barely work, and most of them are unplayable, is an insult. In every sense of the word.

ALIENS: COLONIAL MARINES:

I hate this game. I hate it with a passion. This is the game that made me distrust pre-launch hype footage. This is the last game I ever pre-ordered. And I will never pre-order a game ever again. In a way, it made me wiser.

Why am I so pissed with this game? Well, what was promised isn't what we got. We were promised a badass FPS Alien shooter. What we got was a bug-filled, crappy FPS with the stupidest AI I've ever seen in a video game, and a game that I would consider borderline unplayable.

Now, I get that AI is going to act strangely at times, but you can easily tell the difference between competently programmed AI, and AI that is just stupid.

FEAR, a game that has the best AI I've ever seen yet, will create cover when it doesn't exist by throwing down filing cabinets, throw grenades to force you out of cover, flank your position, throw down covering fire for their allies, etc.

Compare that with the Aliens: Colonial Marines AI.

Aliens: Colonial Marines AI is just dumb. The Weyland Yutani PMC's routinely run into walls, the Xenomorphs rush you at all costs, the Boilers can't handle crouching and moving, and the boss in the Power Loader fight must have genuine mental deficiencies.

Wanna hear a joke? The Weyland Yutani AI trying to "flank" you. What ends up happening is that they run into a room far behind you and start yelling for its allies to cover him.

This is without mentioning that this has among the worst gunplay I've seen. The guns have no punch to them, it relies on hit-markers rather than bullet tracers to inform the player of where their bullets are going, causing the guns to lose impact, and this is without mentioning that the hit-markers sometimes just won't show up, where your bullets land is several pixels away from the targeting reticle, and relying on aim down sights is a waste of time, as there's no accuracy benefit from just firing from the hip.

AND THIS IS WITH GUN MODS THAT IMPROVE THE ACCURACY!!!

Combine that with the Weyland Yutani AI always ducking behind cover, prepare to fire a metric ton of bullets their way and not be sure if you're hitting a damn thing.

**** this game.

BUBSY 3D:

This is, without a doubt, the absolute worst 3D platformer that exists. Bar none. The graphics look terrible, with barely any "textures" to speak of, the controls feel like if you didn't have hands, that is to say, clumsy, clunky, with no room for fine tuning or control. Whereas the Bruce Lee game had sluggish controls, the best way I can describe the controls of Bubsy 3D is that Bubsy feels like he moves like he has three legs, all of them of different lengths. Forget sprinting and turning smoothly, like you could do in Super Mario 64, forget jumping on enemies, you'll die.

The camera controls are god awful where you can't change the direction the camera's facing until you stop Bubsy, and when you jump, the camera pans to a bird's eye view, meaning you can't properly tell where the platforms are in relation to Bubsy, causing you to die cheaply. As Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Super Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and other stellar 3D platformers have taught us, camera control is CRUCIAL in a 3D platformer, a lesson Bubsy 3D didn't learn.

Not only this, but Bubsy's voice is SO ANNOYING. He's trying to imitate Curly from the Three Stooges, but unlike Curly, Bubsy lacks any of the charm and humor that Curly had. As a result, this sounds like a massive insult to a comedy legend, and sounds so annoying that you'd want to stick pencils into your ears to rupture your eardrums so you don't have to hear this annoying little feline.

Overall, this game is an insult on all fronts.

DRAGON POWER:

Yes, this is a Dragon Ball game named Dragon Power. This was an NES game meant to adapt the first episodes of the world renowned Dragon Ball manga in a video game. But, for some reason, this was changed when this game was localized in the West, as Bandai stupidly felt that Western audiences wouldn't understand a game based on a manga.

So, already this game scored a point on my ****list for Bandai insulting my intelligence that I wouldn't "get" manga or anime.

But the real insult is the game. Now, it's not that hard to make a good DBZ game, as Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1 & 2, and Dragon Ball FighterZ has taught us. Just make the game look good, have incredibly tight controls, and trust in the Dragon Ball brand. This was a lesson that Bandai learned from.

However, this game did ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THAT!!! Goku feels like a rank martial arts amateur in this game, that is to say, he's slow, sluggish, and his hits feel like he can't properly gauge distance, the enemy placement is bull****, and the enemies move in patterns as if they snorted a line of cocaine. By that, I mean they move in random, erratic, and hard to predict patterns.

The hit detection is also bugged. At least it feels that way. Because you can be an amazing distance away from an enemy, and you lose health from an attack you thought you dodged.

The graphics, even for the NES, are absolute garbage, and the sound design is quite awful, even for the NES. Let's just say, there's a reason people likely forgot about this game.

But I won't. It still is insulting, considering I like Dragon Ball, and to have this pile of crap associated with it is a disgrace.

PSYCHOTOXIC:

One of the worst first person shooters that was ever created. It also is a sad story about developers being plagued with terrible luck, and trying their best to make the game playable, but as they say **** happens.

And in this case, **** did indeed happen. Such as publishers bowing out at the last second, the game being constantly reworked due to the game's engine being updated in the middle of the development, lawsuits, being released alongside Doom 3, which for a game made by an indie company, means obscurity, especially in an age where physical media was sold on store shelves. Combine that with the material the discs were printed on being too slim, leading to the game's anti-piracy DRM causing an unfixable bug to show up and crash the game.

This is without mentioning that the game's graphics are awful, the sound design is garbage, and the gunplay is incredibly floaty.

But, this is a case where I can't blame the developers, because there was unforseen circumstances that happened during this game's development. This does mean that the game is crap, though. Remember guys, hindsight is always 20/20.

SHAQ FU:

This is a fighting game. Starring basketball legend Shaquille O'Neil. Why? It makes no goddamn sense. Not to mention that this is the worst fighting game ever made, period. The controls are so delayed that the light from 13.7 billion years ago will reach your TV faster than your inputs. This, of course, makes winning any fight impossible, as fast, highly responsive controls are essential for a fighting game.

As a concept, it makes no sense. Not to mention none of Shaq's abilities are basketball related.

To think this trash was released on the SNES, the console that I feel has the best library of games. What a disgrace.

DAIKATANA:

The. Worst. First. Person. Shooter. Ever. Made. Period.

Made by the legend that worked on Wolfenstein and Doom I & II, some of the best early FPS games ever made, and that legend is John Romero.

John left id Software and founded Ion Storm, a company responsible for another stellar shooter, Deus Ex. However, before Deus Ex, we had Daikatana.

Oh Daikatana, where do I even begin?

How about the graphics? For a PC game, this is inexcusable. The textures look as if Vaseline has been spread over your screen. So the game is visually unappealing.

Sound design? Crap. Nothing about this game's sound design is excusable. So the game is an auditory assault.

Gameplay? Hoo boy. This is where the game becomes a trainwreck.

For starters, your guns have zero impact. Nothing about them feels as if you're shooting anything resembling a gun. Maybe a Super Soaker, but at least Super Soakers have impact.

Movement is terrible, following the Bubsy 3D school of character movement, except, somehow, far worse.

So this game is an insult in the visual sense, the auditory sense, and the gameplay sense. If you could smell and/or taste it, it would taste like a cow-pie.

Literally any other shooter would be a better investment of your money and your time.

So list your top ten worst games ever. I'm curious as to what "gems" people have played.

 

[Spirit]

I'm a console gamer and I like to think I have decent taste and can tell what is going to suck and what isn't.
Most of the time, when I do play a bad game, it's because the title in question is part of a long-running franchise that I'm a fan of.

This means I haven't actually played that many horrific games... so the games I'm about to mention will be gold compared to what others have played.

10. Devil May Cry 2
Oh dear...

9. Tri Force Heroes
Be ashamed, Zelda team. Very ashamed.

8. Horizon Zero Dawn
I have never played a more boring and downright pretentious game. This game thinks of itself as a second coming, it isn't. It's so dull I ended up crying just to feel or do anything that wasnt soulcrushing mundanity.
It feels like a tech demo too, the world is dull and next to BotW's living it world it feels like a soulless husk.

7. Tales of Zestiria
Oh my god, so boring. I'm still not sure how this game managed to feel like twenty steps back for the series. So many needless gating elements and unnecessary changes... plus a bad battle camera, plus a boring as hell story and cast... just gotta move on, as disappointing as that is.

6. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Time management in an RPG is bad enough, but when your main gameplay loop is nothing but dull sidequests against a clock then something has gone wrong somewhere.
Square, getting a game over during a 40 hour game that sends you right back to the beginning is not good game design.

5. Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright & Conquest
No, Nintendo. Just... uugh... No.

4. Tomb Raider; Angel of Darkness
What an absolute mess.

3. Sonic Adventure
Sega, when the player has to learn how not to break the game, it means your game is not ready to be released. Have some pride in your work for the love of god.

2. Daikatana
Thank you @TheGreatCthulhu for reminding me that this exists, I didn't buy it myself but a friend owned it and hated it so much they gave it to me on N64. I didn't know what it was at the time. I played it and hated it.
First person shooters don't go down well with me but even I couls tell it was solid crap.
Though at least it was a victim of ambition, so at least there was some level of intended effort, which can't be said of many bad games.

1. Metroid Other M
**** this game. I hate its very ****ing existence. There is no reason why this ****ing piece of **** should be as ****ing bad as it is. Sakamoto doesn't have a ****ing clue who Samus is and doesn't know what the **** he's doing since Gunpei died.
I've never seen a game retroactively **** up 25 years worth of good will.
I've never seen such a lack of care given to such an important character in video games.
**** you Sakamoto, this ****ing piece of **** shouldn't ****ing exist and I blame you for every single one of its shortcoming you absolute ****ing ****. You absolute waste of ****ing air. **** off!

 

[TheGreatCthulhu]

I'm a console gamer and I like to think I have decent taste and can tell what is going to suck and what isn't.
Most of the time, when I do play a bad game, it's because the title in question is part of a long-running franchise that I'm a fan of.

This means I haven't actually played that many horrific games... so the games I'm about to mention will be gold compared to what others have played.

10. Devil May Cry 2
Oh dear...

9. Tri Force Heroes
Be ashamed, Zelda team. Very ashamed.

8. Horizon Zero Dawn
I have never played a more boring and downright pretentious game. This game thinks of itself as a second coming, it isn't. It's so dull I ended up crying just to feel or do anything that was soulcrushing mundanity.
It feels like a tech demo too, the world is dull and next to BotW's living it world it feels like a soulless husk.

7. Tales of Zestiria
Oh my god, so boring. I'm still not sure how this game managed to feel like twenty steps back for the series. So many needless gating elements and unnecessary changes... plus a bad battle camera, plus a boring as hell story and cast... just gotta move on, as disappointing as that is.

6. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Time management in an RPG is bad enough, but when your main gameplay loop is nothing but dull sidequests against a clock then something has gone wrong somewhere.
Square, getting a game over during a 40 hour game that sends you right back to the beginning is not good game design.

5. Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright & Conquest
No, Nintendo. Just... uugh... No.

4. Tomb Raider; Angel of Darkness
What an absolute mess.

3. Sonic Adventure
Sega, when the player has to learn how not to break the game, it means your game is not ready to be released. Have some pride in your work for the love of god.

2. Daikatana
Thank you @TheGreatCthulhu for reminding me that this exists, I didn't buy it myself but a friend owned it and hated it so much they gave it to me on N64. I didn't know what it was at the time. I played it and hated it.
First person shooters don't go down well with me but even I couls tell it was solid crap.
Though at least it was a victim of ambition, so at least there was some level of intended effort, which can't be said of many bad games.

1. Metroid Other M
**** this game. I hate its very ****ing existence. There is no reason why this ****ing piece of **** should be as ****ing bad as it is. Sakamoto doesn't have a ****ing clue who Samus is and doesn't know what the **** he's doing since Gunpei died.
I've never seen a game retroactively **** up 25 years worth of good will.
I've never seen such a lack of care given to such an important character in video games.
**** you Sakamoto, this ****ing piece of **** shouldn't ****ing exist and I blame you for every single one of its shortcoming you absolute ****ing ****. You absolute waste of ****ing air. **** off!

Oh, why did you have to remind me of Final Fantasy XIII? I hate that game so much.

 

[the8thark]

Here is 10 games that disappointed me in random order.

Wind Waker
So much wrong with this game. That's why I only bought it on sale years after release and I still noticed all the flaws. I really wanted this game to be better. Sadly it was not.

Fast Racing RMX
Great game apart from one little but game destroying feature. Unlocking everything is tied to placing top 3 in cups. The insane difficulty of this game meant the average gamer is not unlocking more than a few cups and cars at the most. I think I unlocked 2 extra cups and 2 extra drivers. Past that I could not get enough top 3 positions. I got a few 4ths but that's as far as I got. When 90% of a game's content is locked behind brutal difficulty? That's a huge diappointment.

Super Mario Sunshine
Admittedly I only played this one years after it's release. But after playing it and realising Super Mario 64 is better in every way, well yeah that's a let down for Mario Sunshine. I don't think Mario Sunshine is intentionally bad like Wind Waker. I just think Mario Sunshine veered away from what worked as a 3D Mario collectathon. Mario Sunshine was different for the sake of being different and most of it just did not work. Thankfully Nintendo steadied the ship with Super Mario Galaxy.
I think Super Mario Sunshine was a well intentioned but a failed experiment.

Super Smash Bros WiiU
What happens when you take a famous IP and gut out everything that made the IP really fun and amazing to play and replace it with game modes no one wanted? That's Smash Bros WiiU. Easily the worst Smash Bros game. The multiplayer was solid. However every single single player mode ranged from bad to totally terrible. All Sakurai had to do was make Melee or Brawl 2.0 and add in more characters and, well that would have been a good game. However after being forced to make the WiiU game and his want of parity between the two versions (WiiU and 3DS) the WiiU version just ended up being a footnote in Smash Bros history. Thankfully Ultimate totally turned that around to be the best Smash Bros game. World of Light, is not liked that much but it's not a train wreck like the WiiU single player.

Master of Orion 3
The first game was alright for it's time. It played well and got the 4X point across adequately.
The second game was a masterpiece. So much so that it holds up better than almost all of the 4X games released from it's 1996 all the way to 2019.
The 4th game is based on the second game, better is some ways and worse in others but we can see how the developers tried and it's not bad. Worth getting on sale I think. Just get the DLC so you have all the MOO2 races to choose from.
The 3rd game on the other hand is quite the abomination. The 3rd game took the few minute criticisms of the 2nd game and focused on them. Literally removing everything good the 2nd game did just to ensure the next game didn't have the flaws. When a developer removes the 99% of amazing content in a sequel just to fix the 1% of bad, that's a serious issue. The 3rd game plays a lot like the first game but without the research options and planetry building choices. Quite a shame that a 2003 game is levels of magnitude worse than a 1993 game.
I had high hopes for the 3rd game but after seeing how hot garbage it really was I never bought it and stayed playing the 2nd game, whch I do till this very day. I want to play the 4th game though, and hopefully one day I'll get it. Need to wait for another steam sale.

Donkey Kong Country - Tropical Freeze
I've not played Returns so Tropical Freeze was my first foray into the DKC IP post RARE. Sure Tropical Freeze in it's own right was a good game but I came in expecting a masterpiece like the 3 SNES games were. As can be expected (in hindsight) I was disappointed. Tropical Freeze is not a masterpiece. There is quite a few flaws there.
I just think this is one game were the older games reputations do not do the newer games any justice. If you can't think of Returns and Tropical Freeze as their own totally new games by a new developer then you're in for disappointment. But if you come in with only expecting fun, then you'll get it, flawed but fun.
I expected another DKC3, ie not as good as DKC2, but still damn good. What I got was . . . well you know. A good game can be disappointment if you're led to believe it's amazing when it is not. Unrealistic expectations are a hard thing to shake off.
Overall I think Tropical Freeze is an alright game. Worth it on sale, but not at all as brilliant as some people claim. Still fun and worth playing. Just stick to Funky Kong if you can't handle the other kongs gameplay which is borderline broken, not in a good way (sorry WiiU players).

New DOOM and DOOM 3
I'll discuss both separately as they both disappointed me for different reasons.

Doom 3 - Nothing like a DOOM game and is just a boring linear shooter with not enough lighting and terrible 3D models. After DOOM and DOOM 2, this was a huge let down. I'd go as far to say DOOM 3 is garbage best not played.

New DOOM - This is going to get nitpicky. Overall I think New DOOM is the best DOOM game since DOOM 2. Overall it's pretty good. However there are 3 aspects that make new DOOM less of a DOOM game than it should be.
1. Too much story. DOOM is all about a no name space marine killing monsters on Mars. His name? Not important? Why is he killing the monsters and why do the monsters exist? Even less important. Just give him a gun and it's time to kill. DOOM needs to have zero story. Even New DOOM's tiny story is too much. Fast paced killing is all DOOM needs and that's why the first 2 games were amazing.
2. The music. New DOOM is too much grunge, punk and really heavy music without a decent beat at times. Not enough metal. Killing monsters to those metal beats really worked so well. But this is the 2010's now? This is still achievable. Listen to this.

IDKFA: Full Doom remake album ( download in description)

My Artist Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/7wjvo55aw6958lhNBlodwtThis is a complete modern and professional remake of the music of Doom.This album is ...

www.youtube.com

It's the DOOM1 soundtrack remastered to sound more like a modern soundtrack. Something like this would have worked way better in New DOOM.

3. The killing arenas - We know New DOOM is largely based on reaching an area, being locked in, killing all the monsters that spawn to move on tot he next part of the level to do the same thnig over and over. Was this used because of a PS4 hardware limitation or just lazy game design? It really slows the gameplay down which feels really anti-DOOM. DOOM was all about fast running and killing. Also it was about not knowing where the next set of monsters will trap you in so you always had to be on the look out and always watch your health and ammo. This doesn't really exist in New DOOM as it's mostly playing in the mini arenas whoch you know when you enter them so you are never really blindsided like in old DOOM. Granted, the enemies themselves in New DOOM have been done really well and taking them down is tough and satisfying, I just think having the levels less arena based and more like old DOOM would have been better and given New DOOM better pacing.

Overall I think New DOOM is a great game. Just a few little issues that in my mind mane New DOOM not really as DOOM as it should have been and that's where my disappointment comes from.

Dynasty Warriors 9
Fully open world Musou games do not work. A shame Koei Tecmo realised this too late. The sad thing here is the rest of the game is not that great either. The game looks great and the characters move and attack well. But past that, there is very little to like here. I was actually hyped for this somewhat. A decently sized disappointment for me.

I Am Setsuna
The soundtrack is quite amazing, despite being all piano. The game however is pretty bad. it's a very average turn based RPG that does not even look all that good. Nothing special here at all. But I played it because the story was passable and I like RPGs. Well I did play it till I got soft locked. I saved the game just before a boss and I can't beat the boss, I need to farm more XP. But I can't farm XP because I saved at a point just after a cutscene where the only option I have is to walk to the next room and face the boss. This is a new mechanic tutorial boss so that adds even more insult to the softlock injury I suffered. I've not played the game since. A shame as this game had real promise but turned out just disappointing.
I've not played Lost Sphear yet, so I don't know if it's any better. it's on my backlog though.

Persona Dancing 3/4/5
The biggest issue here is the price of the games. In all honestly the triple pack should have been $60US (that's about $80 everywhere else). There's just not enough content here to justify paying $60US each. That's before you add in the fact that Dancing 4 is exclusive to the triple pack as a download code.
I think the games are fine for what they are. I'm just disappointed on the price. Pure Atlas price gauging and milking the Persona cash cow. Atlus could have added in the soundtrack to all 3 games to justify the well over $100 cost of the triple pack, but no that didn't happen. Poor form by Atlus. Atlus make great games but they microtransaction the literal crap out of them and overcharge for them also. Not surprising that the dancing games on PS4 did not sell that well.
If Atlus were smart they would have reworked the games for Switch, used the joycon gyro to make them actual dancing games, not just button rhythm games. Atlus? Yeah, nah, they just wanted an easy to develop cash cow.

 

[Spirit]

Here is 10 games that disappointed me in random order.

Wind Waker
So much wrong with this game. That's why I only bought it on sale years after release and I still noticed all the flaws. I really wanted this game to be better. Sadly it was not.

 

[LegendOfMeesh]

Here is 10 games that disappointed me in random order.

Wind Waker
So much wrong with this game. That's why I only bought it on sale years after release and I still noticed all the flaws. I really wanted this game to be better. Sadly it was not.

Fast Racing RMX
Great game apart from one little but game destroying feature. Unlocking everything is tied to placing top 3 in cups. The insane difficulty of this game meant the average gamer is not unlocking more than a few cups and cars at the most. I think I unlocked 2 extra cups and 2 extra drivers. Past that I could not get enough top 3 positions. I got a few 4ths but that's as far as I got. When 90% of a game's content is locked behind brutal difficulty? That's a huge diappointment.

Super Mario Sunshine
Admittedly I only played this one years after it's release. But after playing it and realising Super Mario 64 is better in every way, well yeah that's a let down for Mario Sunshine. I don't think Mario Sunshine is intentionally bad like Wind Waker. I just think Mario Sunshine veered away from what worked as a 3D Mario collectathon. Mario Sunshine was different for the sake of being different and most of it just did not work. Thankfully Nintendo steadied the ship with Super Mario Galaxy.
I think Super Mario Sunshine was a well intentioned but a failed experiment.

Super Smash Bros WiiU
What happens when you take a famous IP and gut out everything that made the IP really fun and amazing to play and replace it with game modes no one wanted? That's Smash Bros WiiU. Easily the worst Smash Bros game. The multiplayer was solid. However every single single player mode ranged from bad to totally terrible. All Sakurai had to do was make Melee or Brawl 2.0 and add in more characters and, well that would have been a good game. However after being forced to make the WiiU game and his want of parity between the two versions (WiiU and 3DS) the WiiU version just ended up being a footnote in Smash Bros history. Thankfully Ultimate totally turned that around to be the best Smash Bros game. World of Light, is not liked that much but it's not a train wreck like the WiiU single player.

Master of Orion 3
The first game was alright for it's time. It played well and got the 4X point across adequately.
The second game was a masterpiece. So much so that it holds up better than almost all of the 4X games released from it's 1996 all the way to 2019.
The 4th game is based on the second game, better is some ways and worse in others but we can see how the developers tried and it's not bad. Worth getting on sale I think. Just get the DLC so you have all the MOO2 races to choose from.
The 3rd game on the other hand is quite the abomination. The 3rd game took the few minute criticisms of the 2nd game and focused on them. Literally removing everything good the 2nd game did just to ensure the next game didn't have the flaws. When a developer removes the 99% of amazing content in a sequel just to fix the 1% of bad, that's a serious issue. The 3rd game plays a lot like the first game but without the research options and planetry building choices. Quite a shame that a 2003 game is levels of magnitude worse than a 1993 game.
I had high hopes for the 3rd game but after seeing how hot garbage it really was I never bought it and stayed playing the 2nd game, whch I do till this very day. I want to play the 4th game though, and hopefully one day I'll get it. Need to wait for another steam sale.

Donkey Kong Country - Tropical Freeze
I've not played Returns so Tropical Freeze was my first foray into the DKC IP post RARE. Sure Tropical Freeze in it's own right was a good game but I came in expecting a masterpiece like the 3 SNES games were. As can be expected (in hindsight) I was disappointed. Tropical Freeze is not a masterpiece. There is quite a few flaws there.
I just think this is one game were the older games reputations do not do the newer games any justice. If you can't think of Returns and Tropical Freeze as their own totally new games by a new developer then you're in for disappointment. But if you come in with only expecting fun, then you'll get it, flawed but fun.
I expected another DKC3, ie not as good as DKC2, but still damn good. What I got was . . . well you know. A good game can be disappointment if you're led to believe it's amazing when it is not. Unrealistic expectations are a hard thing to shake off.
Overall I think Tropical Freeze is an alright game. Worth it on sale, but not at all as brilliant as some people claim. Still fun and worth playing. Just stick to Funky Kong if you can't handle the other kongs gameplay which is borderline broken, not in a good way (sorry WiiU players).

New DOOM and DOOM 3
I'll discuss both separately as they both disappointed me for different reasons.

Doom 3 - Nothing like a DOOM game and is just a boring linear shooter with not enough lighting and terrible 3D models. After DOOM and DOOM 2, this was a huge let down. I'd go as far to say DOOM 3 is garbage best not played.

New DOOM - This is going to get nitpicky. Overall I think New DOOM is the best DOOM game since DOOM 2. Overall it's pretty good. However there are 3 aspects that make new DOOM less of a DOOM game than it should be.
1. Too much story. DOOM is all about a no name space marine killing monsters on Mars. His name? Not important? Why is he killing the monsters and why do the monsters exist? Even less important. Just give him a gun and it's time to kill. DOOM needs to have zero story. Even New DOOM's tiny story is too much. Fast paced killing is all DOOM needs and that's why the first 2 games were amazing.
2. The music. New DOOM is too much grunge, punk and really heavy music without a decent beat at times. Not enough metal. Killing monsters to those metal beats really worked so well. But this is the 2010's now? This is still achievable. Listen to this.

IDKFA: Full Doom remake album ( download in description)

My Artist Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/7wjvo55aw6958lhNBlodwtThis is a complete modern and professional remake of the music of Doom.This album is ...

www.youtube.com

It's the DOOM1 soundtrack remastered to sound more like a modern soundtrack. Something like this would have worked way better in New DOOM.

3. The killing arenas - We know New DOOM is largely based on reaching an area, being locked in, killing all the monsters that spawn to move on tot he next part of the level to do the same thnig over and over. Was this used because of a PS4 hardware limitation or just lazy game design? It really slows the gameplay down which feels really anti-DOOM. DOOM was all about fast running and killing. Also it was about not knowing where the next set of monsters will trap you in so you always had to be on the look out and always watch your health and ammo. This doesn't really exist in New DOOM as it's mostly playing in the mini arenas whoch you know when you enter them so you are never really blindsided like in old DOOM. Granted, the enemies themselves in New DOOM have been done really well and taking them down is tough and satisfying, I just think having the levels less arena based and more like old DOOM would have been better and given New DOOM better pacing.

Overall I think New DOOM is a great game. Just a few little issues that in my mind mane New DOOM not really as DOOM as it should have been and that's where my disappointment comes from.

Dynasty Warriors 9
Fully open world Musou games do not work. A shame Koei Tecmo realised this too late. The sad thing here is the rest of the game is not that great either. The game looks great and the characters move and attack well. But past that, there is very little to like here. I was actually hyped for this somewhat. A decently sized disappointment for me.

I Am Setsuna
The soundtrack is quite amazing, despite being all piano. The game however is pretty bad. it's a very average turn based RPG that does not even look all that good. Nothing special here at all. But I played it because the story was passable and I like RPGs. Well I did play it till I got soft locked. I saved the game just before a boss and I can't beat the boss, I need to farm more XP. But I can't farm XP because I saved at a point just after a cutscene where the only option I have is to walk to the next room and face the boss. This is a new mechanic tutorial boss so that adds even more insult to the softlock injury I suffered. I've not played the game since. A shame as this game had real promise but turned out just disappointing.
I've not played Lost Sphear yet, so I don't know if it's any better. it's on my backlog though.

Persona Dancing 3/4/5
The biggest issue here is the price of the games. In all honestly the triple pack should have been $60US (that's about $80 everywhere else). There's just not enough content here to justify paying $60US each. That's before you add in the fact that Dancing 4 is exclusive to the triple pack as a download code.
I think the games are fine for what they are. I'm just disappointed on the price. Pure Atlas price gauging and milking the Persona cash cow. Atlus could have added in the soundtrack to all 3 games to justify the well over $100 cost of the triple pack, but no that didn't happen. Poor form by Atlus. Atlus make great games but they microtransaction the literal crap out of them and overcharge for them also. Not surprising that the dancing games on PS4 did not sell that well.
If Atlus were smart they would have reworked the games for Switch, used the joycon gyro to make them actual dancing games, not just button rhythm games. Atlus? Yeah, nah, they just wanted an easy to develop cash cow.

Tropical Freeze is horrendous. That’s pretty high up on my list (which I haven’t made yet..)

 

[Castle]

MAss Effect 3

Arguably the "best" gameplay in the series, but that's only because it's questionable whether or not the previous two games even had gameplay.

But unless you were in a coma when this game released, you already know that the story kinda took a nose dive into **** mountain.

 

[DarkestLink]

Worst or most disappointing? There is a difference. Oh well, in no particular order...

Zelda's Adventure(Worst): Honestly this is the only CD-i game I felt was actually that bad. The others were a bit shoddy and cheap, but still have a "so bad it's good" quality to it. And to be fair, so does this, but in this case, the combat really is complete garbage whereas WoG and FoE's were at least on par with Zelda II I'd say.

Xenoblade Chronicles/2 (Worst/Disappointing): Taking two spots. After all the hype for this, I was really expecting top notch gameplay and sidequests, but the sidequests felt like generic MMO crap and the combat and gameplay are so bad that it feels like this wasn't meant to be a game at all. It's like someone had a decent idea for an anime, but their pitch failed and a video game was the only medium they could share their story with. So we just have an anime....with gameplay serving as little more than a formality.

A Link to the Past (Worst): My 2nd Zelda game. aLttP feels like the awkward teen years of the Zelda series. This is where the game developers started making the games really easy, but it's before OoT introduced puzzles and the 3D environment allowed for dodging mechanics. On top of this, the magic meter heavily limits the usage of a lot of items.

Aside from crappy needle-in-a-haystack exploration that's poorly paired with gated gameplay, nothing really annoyed me in the game. But there was nothing fun either. It was just...boring. Even the CD-i games have a "so bad it's good" quality to them.

No Man's Sky (Worst): I'd say most people found this disappointing, but honestly it's about as bad as I expected. I guess there was just so much hype for it that I ended up trying it out anyway, but I can't say the idea ever sounded good on paper to begin with. Just too much empty space.

Breath of the Wild (Disappointing): Not a bad game, but holy hell did it feel mediocre at times. Aonuma recently said that he doesn't like hiring gamers and has started to go out of his way to hire people with no interest in gaming....and God does it show here. The gameplay is mostly fine, but there just isn't enough of it. I've gone far out of my way to try and enjoy this game, even trying to learn how to speed run, just so I can get past the tedious filler and vast amounts of empty space, but there's just too much of it.

Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga (Worst/Disappointing): I kept hearing how this was similar to Paper Mario and I was excited but...man that couldn't be further from the truth. They're Mario RPGs....the similarities begin and end there. There was next to no story in this game, the combat was much more focused on skill than strategy, and the action commands lasted way too long and it got repetitive. The player doesn't level maturely and the boss fights take forever.

Mario and Luigi Paper Jam (Worst): Same problems. I was just told the series got loads better over time. So I tried Paper Jam. It didn't. Action commands take forever, there's almost no strategy involved, there's barely any story, and the game still goes out of its way to annoy you.

Paper Mario Sticker Star (Worst/Disappointing): It's basically a Mario and Luigi game in disguise. This was the point where I felt I could no longer make blind Nintendo purchases anymore. This game was disgustingly bad. It shares a lot of the flaws of Mario and Luigi from no story, little strategy, tedious action commands, and so on. Really, all three of these games feel like they were made by a sadist. Someone who knows they made a bad game, that knows you spent $60 on this and really don't wanna feel like you made a wasted purchase. So not only does it have bad design, it goes out of its way to troll and annoy the player. And at times, just when the player feels like they're making the progress, the game decides to inform you that actually the McGuffin is lost again (i.e. Wiggler) and drag the objective on as long as possible, because among the developers is a demon who feeds off the sadness of others and won't be happy until they can make a game that's not just bad, but also makes the player hate their own existence and begin to wish they were never born.

Mario Kart 8 (Disappointing): Another game that isn't bad...just disappointing. Really, the series feels like it's regressing with crappy battle system, worse item balance, too many players at once leading to too much chaos....it's at the point where I feel like I'm playing a Mario Party game where skill is at a very distant second to luck.

 

[thePlinko]

10.TP/BotW.
I lumped these two together because I still love these games to death. But damn are they overrated. I’m pretty sure we all know what I dislike about each game based on every previous post of mine ever so moving on.

9.Pokemon red/blue/yellow.
Wow these games are overrated. I’m sure they were great and revolutionary at the time they were made, but nowadays they suck. It’s glitchier than a game made by Grezzo, it’s unbalanced, and it has terrible mechanics that were thankfully removed in gen 2. On top of that people continuously praise it for having the best Pokémon or whatever, yet it has easily the worst, least creative Pokémon ever to come to the series (I.e. electrode, voltorb, muk, grimmer, eggcecute). If I ever play these games again it’s gonna be the gen 3 remakes.

8. Super Mario Galaxy 2
Super Mario Galaxy is my favorite game of all time. So I had high expectations for when I first played galaxy 2. What confuses me is how so many people think 2 is somehow better than 1. 1 was such an amazing game, it actually had a rather dark tone (dark for a Mario game anyway) it felt emotional and powerful. 2 just took that and flushed it down the toilet. It was what I consider the gateway to the 3D mariopocalipse that finally ended with odyssey. The bright, brain dead tone of the “new” series was added, along with a linear course map. For some reason it also pretended the first game never happened. I still had fun with it at least.

7.the GTA series.
I played this and enjoyed it, but it gets too boring after about an hour to really call it a good game. Then again I’ve only played 4 so I can’t really say the whole series is like that.

6.Super Smash Bros. Melee
This game is fine and all, but compared to later titles it’s not that good. I’m of the mindset that smash is one of those series that gets better with every installment, and this game is what made me start to think that. My first time playing I was so disappointed because people kept calling it one of the greatest games ever when in reality it’s just alright.

5.Majoras Mask 3D
Majoras mask is not only one of the greatest Zelda games of all time, it’s one of the greatest games of all time period. So when I first played MM3D I was excited. Unfortunately my excitement didn’t last long because I soon realized that this is the worst remake ever. For some reason Grezzo thought it would be a good idea to rearrange everything so that nothing made sense anymore (why is the bank underneath the clock tower now of all things?). They screwed up the controls and mechanics, and somehow managed to make it even glitchier than the original!

4.Almost every FPS.
These make up like 90% of the entire Xbox library, and every single one is the same. The only exception I will make is portal, which I will defend to death the fact that it’s an FPS. The only reason this is number 4 and not number 2 is that it’s still fun to play with friends every once and a while.
3.Almost any sports game.
I say almost because my reasons for disliking them don’t apply to Wii sports resort and Mario sports titles. Why would anyone play these? There is nothing in these games that you can’t just go outside and do. Not to mention the fact that there are so many of them and they’re all the same. Why do I need a new Madden every single year?

2. Fortnite.
I know it’s cliche these days to hate fortnite, but I really do. I have the same problem with battle royal games as a whole that I do with the sports and FPS genre. The concept of battle royal is so overused these days, it doesn’t help that it just threw in Minecraft, a much better game that already had a battle royal long before fortnite was even thought up, and called it a new game

1.the FNAF series
I hate this series. Why do people like this game? It’s bland, boring, and annoying. Say what you want about it’s story. But the bottom line is that the story means nothing if the game is crap. Predictable jump scare anyone?

 

[Spirit]

@the8thark -
I Am Setsuna
The soundtrack is quite amazing, despite being all piano. The game however is pretty bad. it's a very average turn based RPG that does not even look all that good. Nothing special here at all. But I played it because the story was passable and I like RPGs. Well I did play it till I got soft locked. I saved the game just before a boss and I can't beat the boss, I need to farm more XP. But I can't farm XP because I saved at a point just after a cutscene where the only option I have is to walk to the next room and face the boss. This is a new mechanic tutorial boss so that adds even more insult to the softlock injury I suffered. I've not played the game since. A shame as this game had real promise but turned out just disappointing.
I've not played Lost Sphear yet, so I don't know if it's any better. it's on my backlog though.




Which boss are you talking about here because the same thing just happened to me.

 

[Dizzi]

MAss Effect 3

Arguably the "best" gameplay in the series, but that's only because it's questionable whether or not the previous two games even had gameplay.

But unless you were in a coma when this game released, you already know that the story kinda took a nose dive into **** mountain.

I wasnt in a coma and i dont kbow about the story...

 

[Sheikah_Witch]

Assassin's Creed II and Revelation
was very disappointed in Final Fantasy X. Expected a magical love story, got ... meh.
Tales of Zestiria. Basically all what @Spirit said. Never touching it again.
.//hack GU. I was very, very intrigued by the premise, but the game ended up just being damn boring.
Ni No Kuni II. It's actually quite good, but still a disappointment.
I remember was disappointed in Mario Party 5, since I loved the first 4.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl REALLY let me down back in the day.
Uncharted 2. Didn't live up to the hype at all.
Finally, Heavy Rain. Bleh. Mediocre.

 

[the8thark]

Spoiler: my previous 10

Here is 10 games that disappointed me in random order.

Wind Waker
So much wrong with this game. That's why I only bought it on sale years after release and I still noticed all the flaws. I really wanted this game to be better. Sadly it was not.

Fast Racing RMX
Great game apart from one little but game destroying feature. Unlocking everything is tied to placing top 3 in cups. The insane difficulty of this game meant the average gamer is not unlocking more than a few cups and cars at the most. I think I unlocked 2 extra cups and 2 extra drivers. Past that I could not get enough top 3 positions. I got a few 4ths but that's as far as I got. When 90% of a game's content is locked behind brutal difficulty? That's a huge diappointment.

Super Mario Sunshine
Admittedly I only played this one years after it's release. But after playing it and realising Super Mario 64 is better in every way, well yeah that's a let down for Mario Sunshine. I don't think Mario Sunshine is intentionally bad like Wind Waker. I just think Mario Sunshine veered away from what worked as a 3D Mario collectathon. Mario Sunshine was different for the sake of being different and most of it just did not work. Thankfully Nintendo steadied the ship with Super Mario Galaxy.
I think Super Mario Sunshine was a well intentioned but a failed experiment.

Super Smash Bros WiiU
What happens when you take a famous IP and gut out everything that made the IP really fun and amazing to play and replace it with game modes no one wanted? That's Smash Bros WiiU. Easily the worst Smash Bros game. The multiplayer was solid. However every single single player mode ranged from bad to totally terrible. All Sakurai had to do was make Melee or Brawl 2.0 and add in more characters and, well that would have been a good game. However after being forced to make the WiiU game and his want of parity between the two versions (WiiU and 3DS) the WiiU version just ended up being a footnote in Smash Bros history. Thankfully Ultimate totally turned that around to be the best Smash Bros game. World of Light, is not liked that much but it's not a train wreck like the WiiU single player.

Master of Orion 3
The first game was alright for it's time. It played well and got the 4X point across adequately.
The second game was a masterpiece. So much so that it holds up better than almost all of the 4X games released from it's 1996 all the way to 2019.
The 4th game is based on the second game, better is some ways and worse in others but we can see how the developers tried and it's not bad. Worth getting on sale I think. Just get the DLC so you have all the MOO2 races to choose from.
The 3rd game on the other hand is quite the abomination. The 3rd game took the few minute criticisms of the 2nd game and focused on them. Literally removing everything good the 2nd game did just to ensure the next game didn't have the flaws. When a developer removes the 99% of amazing content in a sequel just to fix the 1% of bad, that's a serious issue. The 3rd game plays a lot like the first game but without the research options and planetry building choices. Quite a shame that a 2003 game is levels of magnitude worse than a 1993 game.
I had high hopes for the 3rd game but after seeing how hot garbage it really was I never bought it and stayed playing the 2nd game, whch I do till this very day. I want to play the 4th game though, and hopefully one day I'll get it. Need to wait for another steam sale.

Donkey Kong Country - Tropical Freeze
I've not played Returns so Tropical Freeze was my first foray into the DKC IP post RARE. Sure Tropical Freeze in it's own right was a good game but I came in expecting a masterpiece like the 3 SNES games were. As can be expected (in hindsight) I was disappointed. Tropical Freeze is not a masterpiece. There is quite a few flaws there.
I just think this is one game were the older games reputations do not do the newer games any justice. If you can't think of Returns and Tropical Freeze as their own totally new games by a new developer then you're in for disappointment. But if you come in with only expecting fun, then you'll get it, flawed but fun.
I expected another DKC3, ie not as good as DKC2, but still damn good. What I got was . . . well you know. A good game can be disappointment if you're led to believe it's amazing when it is not. Unrealistic expectations are a hard thing to shake off.
Overall I think Tropical Freeze is an alright game. Worth it on sale, but not at all as brilliant as some people claim. Still fun and worth playing. Just stick to Funky Kong if you can't handle the other kongs gameplay which is borderline broken, not in a good way (sorry WiiU players).

New DOOM and DOOM 3
I'll discuss both separately as they both disappointed me for different reasons.

Doom 3 - Nothing like a DOOM game and is just a boring linear shooter with not enough lighting and terrible 3D models. After DOOM and DOOM 2, this was a huge let down. I'd go as far to say DOOM 3 is garbage best not played.

New DOOM - This is going to get nitpicky. Overall I think New DOOM is the best DOOM game since DOOM 2. Overall it's pretty good. However there are 3 aspects that make new DOOM less of a DOOM game than it should be.
1. Too much story. DOOM is all about a no name space marine killing monsters on Mars. His name? Not important? Why is he killing the monsters and why do the monsters exist? Even less important. Just give him a gun and it's time to kill. DOOM needs to have zero story. Even New DOOM's tiny story is too much. Fast paced killing is all DOOM needs and that's why the first 2 games were amazing.
2. The music. New DOOM is too much grunge, punk and really heavy music without a decent beat at times. Not enough metal. Killing monsters to those metal beats really worked so well. But this is the 2010's now? This is still achievable. Listen to this.

IDKFA: Full Doom remake album ( download in description)

My Artist Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/7wjvo55aw6958lhNBlodwtThis is a complete modern and professional remake of the music of Doom.This album is ...

www.youtube.com

It's the DOOM1 soundtrack remastered to sound more like a modern soundtrack. Something like this would have worked way better in New DOOM.

3. The killing arenas - We know New DOOM is largely based on reaching an area, being locked in, killing all the monsters that spawn to move on tot he next part of the level to do the same thnig over and over. Was this used because of a PS4 hardware limitation or just lazy game design? It really slows the gameplay down which feels really anti-DOOM. DOOM was all about fast running and killing. Also it was about not knowing where the next set of monsters will trap you in so you always had to be on the look out and always watch your health and ammo. This doesn't really exist in New DOOM as it's mostly playing in the mini arenas whoch you know when you enter them so you are never really blindsided like in old DOOM. Granted, the enemies themselves in New DOOM have been done really well and taking them down is tough and satisfying, I just think having the levels less arena based and more like old DOOM would have been better and given New DOOM better pacing.

Overall I think New DOOM is a great game. Just a few little issues that in my mind mane New DOOM not really as DOOM as it should have been and that's where my disappointment comes from.

Dynasty Warriors 9
Fully open world Musou games do not work. A shame Koei Tecmo realised this too late. The sad thing here is the rest of the game is not that great either. The game looks great and the characters move and attack well. But past that, there is very little to like here. I was actually hyped for this somewhat. A decently sized disappointment for me.

I Am Setsuna
The soundtrack is quite amazing, despite being all piano. The game however is pretty bad. it's a very average turn based RPG that does not even look all that good. Nothing special here at all. But I played it because the story was passable and I like RPGs. Well I did play it till I got soft locked. I saved the game just before a boss and I can't beat the boss, I need to farm more XP. But I can't farm XP because I saved at a point just after a cutscene where the only option I have is to walk to the next room and face the boss. This is a new mechanic tutorial boss so that adds even more insult to the softlock injury I suffered. I've not played the game since. A shame as this game had real promise but turned out just disappointing.
I've not played Lost Sphear yet, so I don't know if it's any better. it's on my backlog though.

Persona Dancing 3/4/5
The biggest issue here is the price of the games. In all honestly the triple pack should have been $60US (that's about $80 everywhere else). There's just not enough content here to justify paying $60US each. That's before you add in the fact that Dancing 4 is exclusive to the triple pack as a download code.
I think the games are fine for what they are. I'm just disappointed on the price. Pure Atlas price gauging and milking the Persona cash cow. Atlus could have added in the soundtrack to all 3 games to justify the well over $100 cost of the triple pack, but no that didn't happen. Poor form by Atlus. Atlus make great games but they microtransaction the literal crap out of them and overcharge for them also. Not surprising that the dancing games on PS4 did not sell that well.
If Atlus were smart they would have reworked the games for Switch, used the joycon gyro to make them actual dancing games, not just button rhythm games. Atlus? Yeah, nah, they just wanted an easy to develop cash cow.

I will add a few more.

Warcraft 3 and Frozen Throne - After coming from Warcraft 2 and seeing how Starcraft improved on the formula, Warcraft 3 was such a let down for me. A return to non unique races where half the units from different races did the same thing. Adding in hero units that add nothing to the game except break the balance and make the normal units worthless and a terrible campaign that was such a chore to finish. The Frozen Throne hero focused thing at the end was really good though. Kind of Diablo inspired, one hero vs the hordes. Also the mod community did a lot of good and fun work there. The base game though? I hated it, so disappointed.

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs - The NES game was really fun and it was mostly not a fighting game. Only the first and last stage were purely focused on fighting. Also Clinger Winger can die in hell fire. But the game was visually impressive, used new graphical tech for it's time and reas really fun. Needed unlimited lives though as the game really is trial by error and learning from deaths.
The SNES game Battlemaniacs removed all of this, slowed the game down and didn't have any tough racing segments like the first game did.
As an aside it seems the new Xbox Battletoads game is just as bad as Battlemaniacs with the same flaws too.

Mega Man 11 - Oh how bad that game. One of the worst Mega Man games ever made. Not as bad as Mighty No.9 but it's close. I actually wrote quite a few words on why I think Mega Man 11 is terrible in every way except from it's solid 60fps on every platform it released on, quite the achievement.

1. Level design
The game is teach by showing and not telling as John correctly says. However this takes the Battletoads NES and MM1 aproach and not the later MM games approach. By this I mean sure the levels get progressively harder and slowly more and more complex, however the punishment for making a mistake is most often instant death. Apart from the end stage boss robots, I found none of the game difficulties any different. A mistake equals instant death.
Taking damage doesn't matter in itself in the main parts of the stage. The huge knockback from each hit often results in instant death. This is not a me sucking at the game problem, I've beaten it now a few times. The issue is not once ever did I even come close to dying in a stage due to lack of health. Of cause the harder difficulty boss robots kicked my ass till I got good at them, but the stages themselves yeah. This ends up with the player just zerging the levels, getting as far as they can. Dying and then using the new information to get a little farther. Games like MM2, MM3 and MMX 1-4 did this but the puhishment was often just you lost level progress by being knocked off a ledge or just accumulating too much damage in the level so you died. I feel that's a better way to do it. The level design in MM11 is a good concept that is poorly executed.

2. Enemy design
Many of the enemies here feel like they are ripped straight out MM1. Just given a paint job but functionally the same. The whole idea of less enemies on screen but getting hit by them or their projectiles often leads you into spikes or a pit is there. Sure this was good for the 1980's and MM1. But we're in 2018 now surely Capcom can do better. Heck, even MM2 did this better. The early MMX games did this really well also. Hits cost you level progress not death and too many hit killed you. So you did not lose a life between every attempt at a part of the stage.

3. The dual weapon system
The whole super power or super slow mode thing. For the casual player it feels many of the segments in the stages are designed with the super slow in mind. Sub bosses that create tiny gaps to stand in, in random places that you need heaps of practice to beat or just cheese with super slow. I do feel the better solution there is to widen the gaps a little, not use the super slow so you push the player to get better and better at the sub bosses. This does mean I am saying the super slow is compensating for poor sub boss design.
For the main boss robots I think the same is true, it's better to get the player to learn the boss patterns through lower difficulties and move up when the player gets better. The only difference would be higher difficulties equals more dagame taken. Essentially giving the player less hits before they die each time.

The super power on the other hand is good in theory but a simple sharging of the special weapons accomplishes the same thing and adds in a better and easier to manage risk/reward system. Want a powered up shot? You have to charge it and thus lose the ability to shoot while it's charging. Simple and works every time. Having to remember to turn on super power for the charged up shots is just annoying. Sure it's doable, just not as elegant. It makes the boss battles flow a litttle less well as you're looking for a point where you can spam a few powered up shots or just ignore it all together and just use standard shots.

Overall the dual weapon system is not needed at all in the game and hold the game back from better enemy design choices.

4. Level Aesthetics
The whole theme of each stage is all over the shop. The enemies, stage itself and music don't match up into one choesive unit. I believe this also involves the level design to an extent. It feels Capcom here just tried to make stages that fit the set on enemies they ahd already created instead of making unitque enemies that fit the theme of the stage.
Some examples of level aesthetics done well?
Bubble Man - MM2. You have a boss all about bubbles, ie water. The stage is fulled with waterfalls and a water section. Also all the enemies are appropriately themed. Frogs, prawns, jellyfish, hermit crabs etc etc. Even the music feels slighty like something assiciated with water. It's amazing how well that was done considering the poor soundchip tech the NES had.

5. Music
The music here is average at best. It does not go well with the aesthetic each stage is trying to portray. Secondly, they are way too complicated. FInally they don't have the verse and chorus sturcture that the better older MM tracks had. The older better tracks had a main part fo the track as well as hook or chorus, a little but that gave excitment while playing and prevented the track from sounding too repetative. None of this exists in MM11.
I will say this issue is not unique to MM9. The MM music on the whole had been getting worse as the years have gone by. It seems that once the limits on sound chip technology were gone Capcom just did what they wanted. Back in the day you had to prioritise good musical composition over sound tech because better sound tech didn't exist. Now the sound tech exists to make all sorts of wacky compositions. This does not mean you chould make them for MM games. The tracks should be simple, catchy, fit the theme of the stage and just be really fun to listen too. This was achieved on the NES, SNES and PS1 (to an extent). Capcom clearly didn't use the older games for musical inspiration. I think they should have.

My Overall Conclusions
MM11 to me feels like it's MM1.5 with a paint job and HD textures/models. I am refering to the NES game here. Many of the design issues that first game had are present in MM11. What Capcom should have done was look to MM2 and MM3 and made MM11 similar to those. I don't know what the fascination with MM1 is. MM1 is a game of it's time. Ok for the 1980's but that's it. MM2 improved the whole concept in so many ways. Most of what classic MM is, is based on things that originated in MM2.
By MM1.5 I mean MM11 feals like a remaster of the NES MM1 with every flaw the NES orifinal had and then some more added in also. Everything the series added in from MM2 onwards to make the series beloved as it is today, is absent from MM11.