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Games that were released blatantly unfinished

Phediuk said:
Zelda: Wind Waker -- the game takes forever to really begin, since after the tutorial area, you must go through a really shitty forced stealth section. Then, you have to collect 3 medallions, but there's only 2 dungeons; the water medallion is just abruptly given to you. Sailing anywhere takes way too long. You can explore, but there's not much to find except Rupees. Then there's the infamous second half of the game; at one point, you have to go to ice and fire themed islands, which suggests two more dungeons; but instead, you just sail up to them, grab the item at each one, and leave. In the last act, the plot grinds to a halt, and you have to spend a few hours fishing for Triforce pieces. After that's done, you go to the last dungeon, which is just lame; here's all the boss fights again, but in black and white. What fun!
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umm just because you didnt like a game doesnt mean its released unfinished
 
World of Warcraft.

Half-Life 2.

Splatoon.

I don't understand why people put up with this horrible practice that produces such shitty titles.
 
I don't know if we are counting ports, since the base game was finished, but the port job clearly was not. Basically every PC port Durante has fixed including, but not limited to Dark Souls, Deadly Premonition, Tales of Symphonia, and many more.
 
Vanquish. The game is only like 2 hours long not counting cutscenes, and even though the story was dumb it ended on a cliff hanger.
I feel sorry for who ever paid full price for this game.
 
Jurassic Park: Tresspasser.

Interesting timing since there was just a thread about it; but yeah, that game is basically unplayable in its default state due to things being dummied out and changed to get it out the door. Admirable and ahead of its time ambitions, but functionally broken.

Have to say SFV as well- its suprising that a game that had Sony money behind it launched in the state that it has.
 
Zombie James said:
Half-Life 2's bullshit ending comes to mind. It feels like Episode 1 should have been the game's proper ending.
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Never felt this was true. HL2's ending has always felt clearly done with intention. So much of the game is about whether you're in control of your actions or not, that an ending reminding you that you're ultimately just in someone else's employ is nothing if not adequate.

Depressing that the thread is almost nothing but cases where the games could have used a bit more polish, instead of games which are obviously released in an incomplete state. Even KoTOR 2, famous for having to cut content left and right to make the release date is still a product you can play from beginning to finish and only experience a mild discomfort because of those cuts. Games without all planned content are not all unfinished or incomplete.
 
AC2.

I remember the "apology" they had when they didnt ship one chapter of the game.
"Well. We thought the quality would be bad, so we didnt include it. But you can buy it next month as DLC!"
 
Recently? Stellaris on PC. Gamebreaking bugs in a game that has you dump tons of time into the same save file? Not cool.
 
Almost every game has tons of cut content. That is not justification to say a game is released unfinished. What would be more worthwhile is to say whether these games had a satisfying conclusion. Wind Waker had an immensely satisfying conclusion and MGSV did not.
 
sixteen-bit said:
I dunno if unfinished, but it really felt like they ran outta budget on Xenogears disc 2

Street Fighter V
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Came here to post Xenogears. I'm pretty sure they did run out of budget. No way a game is finished with half the story and world map revealed during a pendulum and rocking chair montage. Even if the music was good.

Disc One of Xenogears was so awesome. I wish Takahashi could make something that good again at Monolith and actually finish the game. Fingers crossed for wherever Xenoblade goes next, but the 90s are dead.

Neoleo2143 said:
Almost every game has tons of cut content. That is not justification to say a game is released unfinished. What would be more worthwhile is to say whether these games had a satisfying conclusion. Wind Waker had an immensely satisfying conclusion and MGSV did not.
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Wind Waker had a good Ganondorf story, yes. But that does not make up for it being light on dungeons and poorly paced. The game needed more time in the oven and it is patently obvious with the moments mentioned in the OP. MM handled rushed Zelda much better with its divergent approach. WW was trying to be an OoT successor and failed on a content and pacing level (for comparison--TP has even worse pacing in the first act but has a better second act and a wealth of dungeons, which are also better), while having a charming setting and story with a good take on Ganondorf (setting it above TP in those respects, while Zelda is bad in both, and TP has Midna over WW). I was really hoping they'd actually finish the game when they did the HD version, but they'd used the dungeons elsewhere. I would have bought it and played it again if they'd done that.
 
Can't believe nobody posted Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The game was the definition of unfinished. It's basically the reason the franchise is dead.
 
Ame said:
Can't believe nobody posted Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The game was the definition of unfinished. It's basically the reason the franchise is dead.
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Remember when Medal of Honor was more popular than COD?

those were the days lol.
 
DiipuSurotu said:
Ho0Z02p.jpg


Toonstruck
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How so?
 
Pre said:
The Gamecube era was great. It was a big step up from the Nintendo 64, which only had a handful of good first-party titles to carry it. The Gamecube had some outstanding titles (I strongly disagree about Wind Waker, Sunshine, and Mario Kart -- all three were good games) and introduced new IPs, as well, such as Pikmin and Animal Crossing. The Wii was worse for Nintendo than the Gamecube.
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It doesn't matter if you think WW was a good game - thats not what this thread is about.

WW had a rushed development, they had to cut a bunch of stuff and replaced it with the famously lazy and tedious triforce hunt. This is all fact. (Though the bit about it being tedious is my own opinion). I think Miyamoto even apologized for it.
 
Ame said:
Can't believe nobody posted Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The game was the definition of unfinished. It's basically the reason the franchise is dead.
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Yeah, this felt more like an expansion pack to MoH 2010 than a finished game.

I didn't mind their attempt to move to modern combat, as it was decidedly more grounded than CoD post MW, but it wasn't impressive, and Warfighter was borderline embarrassing.

Nabbis said:
Destiny still feels like a half-assed game.
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Agree with this too. Taken King improved a lot, but it still feels hollow.
 
Ishida said:
Took 17 posts to mention this one? GAF, I'm disappoint.
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I came in here just to post Metal Gear Solid V as my response.

I'm still extremely salty about the way that game release was handled. The simple fact that we don't know exactly what happened between Kojima and Konami is one thing; but releasing a blatantly unfinished, shoddy product was a slap in the face to the multitude of series fans that have followed the Metal Gear saga since its inception in 1987.

MGSV was so bad, in fact that it actually made me despise Metal Gear in its entirety.
 
sammyCYBORG said:
How so?
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IIRC, the developers decided that the game was big enough that a lot of content could be cut from the game and used instead for a sequel. Unfortunately, at that time point and click games were not performing as well as they once were, and the sequel was cancelled. The game was never completed as it had originally been intended.
 
Tuck said:
It doesn't matter if you think WW was a good game - thats not what this thread is about.

WW had a rushed development, they had to cut a bunch of stuff and replaced it with the famously lazy and tedious triforce hunt. This is all fact. (Though the bit about it being tedious is my own opinion). I think Miyamoto even apologized for it.
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Wind Waker was rushed, yes, but it was not unfinished. Practically all games have cut content (just as all movies have deleted scenes), but this does not mean that they are unfinished. As someone said earlier in the thread, the game had a satisfying ending and thus feels like a complete game.
 
Soul Reaver. Loved the game so much, but the "ending" was ridiculous.
But at least it made room for the great sequel :)
 
s_mirage said:
IIRC, the developers decided that the game was big enough that a lot of content could be cut from the game and used instead for a sequel. Unfortunately, at that time point and click games were not performing as well as they once were, and the sequel was cancelled. The game was never completed as it had originally been intended.
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Ah I see.

Well at least it works as a standalone title and is still one of the best P&C games!
 
I was going to mention MGSV, but oh well, people already said what I'd say

I remember RAGE being weird. The plot rushes the fuck up at one point, then you fight a wave of enemies and then credits.
 
Dark Souls is a masterpiece but 6 more months of development time would have done wonders for the endgame areas.
 
Yeah Rage felt like half a game. My reaction to finishing it was a 'uhhh...,what?'


Also it wasn't blatant until after the fact, but Soul Sacrifice feels bare and unfinished once you play Soul Sacrifice Delta.
 
I haven't seen as many mentions of Sonic '06 as I thought I would.

For me personally though the first game that came to mind was Fallout 4. It's got a ton of content to be sure but there were many times in that game where I felt like something was either painted over because Bethesda had to cut content for time, or left out to sell DLC. The writing most of all felt incomplete. Many of the characters have story-lines that just feel like they come to a full unsatisfying stop.
 
Wind Waker had some big cuts to make it out the door, but it's a functional game from start to finish.


Would have been nice to play the "complete" version, though. So I see the OP's point.
 
There was a PC rpg called Dungeon Lords that was far from being finished at launch. The second city didnt have a single NPC for example.
 
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