All of them were confirmed to be rushed as fuck and clearly show the seams in-game, so I don't know what you're talking about.
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Games that were released blatantly unfinished
- Thread starter Phediuk
- Start date
All of them were confirmed to be rushed as fuck and clearly show the seams in-game, so I don't know what you're talking about.
PeakPointMatrix
Member
Some of you have no clue what unfinished means.
Sonic 06 literally has portions of gameplay systems still in the game that they abandoned during development which serve no function. For example, there is dialogue referring to a leveling mechanic for certain items that don't actually possess that ability. Sonic has a action meter that never depletes. Defeating enemies grant you "chaos drives", which would have leveled up said items and abilities, but don't. The manual that shipped with the game still references items that weren't in the game.
THAT is an unfinished game.
Games with things you didn't like or were too short or felt rushed aren't really unfinished products.
Sonic 06 literally has portions of gameplay systems still in the game that they abandoned during development which serve no function. For example, there is dialogue referring to a leveling mechanic for certain items that don't actually possess that ability. Sonic has a action meter that never depletes. Defeating enemies grant you "chaos drives", which would have leveled up said items and abilities, but don't. The manual that shipped with the game still references items that weren't in the game.
THAT is an unfinished game.
Games with things you didn't like or were too short or felt rushed aren't really unfinished products.
8-Bit Sunset
Banned
I'm kinda shocked this hasn't been mentioned yet!
DF basically gave up on it!
So much wasted potential.
Kresnik258
Member
First one that came to mind for me, shame it took so many pages to mention.
Straight from Wikipedia:
I still have that giant box filled with goodies. :-(
It ran like shit, looked dated and really fell short of expectations. I didn't think Pagan was all that good either, tbh.
Am I the only one that loved the game? It was janky as hell and clearly not ready but it had an incredible sense of tension, scale and atmosphere. The first parts weren't great but I'll never forgot the abandoned living quarters, the lab, claiming up the mountain, etc. The strange AI made for some frightening situations, weirdly enough.
Chewy Chipmunk
Banned
Infinity Undiscovery. Weirdly placed invisible walls everywhere, a lot of reused assets, and a really small game world. A lot of what they initially wanted to do in the game was abandoned, such as a day/night cycle.
And from the looks of it, Star Ocean 5.
Both clearly needed another year of development.
RIP tri-Ace
And from the looks of it, Star Ocean 5.
Both clearly needed another year of development.
RIP tri-Ace
anothertech
Member
Going to go with MCC as well. Game was not even close to ready for release, and I was only interested in the single player.
Checkpoints not registering, glitches and crashes.
Don't even start us on the multiplayer.
Such potential practically ruined the franchise because it wasn't ready for release.
Checkpoints not registering, glitches and crashes.
Don't even start us on the multiplayer.
Such potential practically ruined the franchise because it wasn't ready for release.
johnthehero
Banned
XIII by Ubisoft.
Frozenprince
Banned
I hated what little of the order 1886 I played, but it is not an unfinished game. Just a missed oppurtunity as it so bland and unoriginal. What is there, at least technically is polished.
MGSV wasnt 'blatantly' rushed out. Chapter 2 might have been cut down by Konami/Kojima feud but the rest of the game is complete and very dense - they even shoddily put closure to chapter 2. If you find it repeatitive - that is understandable. But, the gameplay systems and what little story we have - is feature complete with some cut corners.
MGSV wasnt 'blatantly' rushed out. Chapter 2 might have been cut down by Konami/Kojima feud but the rest of the game is complete and very dense - they even shoddily put closure to chapter 2. If you find it repeatitive - that is understandable. But, the gameplay systems and what little story we have - is feature complete with some cut corners.
RipperGrim
Member
Man I can't believe some people think that a game filled with bugs and issues that stop the game aren't unfinished games.
I don´t agree with OPs examples, but under that premise I guess the first one that popped to my head was Dark Souls. The game is an amazing experience up until the O&S fight. But after that...
Oh and I didn´t even mention all the problems with the PC port. THAT´s an unfinished game.
Oh and I didn´t even mention all the problems with the PC port. THAT´s an unfinished game.
Sure, games with showstopper bugs that actually prevent you from finishing the game can certainly be called unfinished but otherwise every game has bugs. Bethesda games more than most but they are still feature complete and content complete usually.
Unfinished would be something where certain mechanics don't work, locations are missing or noticeably underdeveloped. That Sonic game mentioned in this game seems like a great example. By comparison MSGV is feature complete but relies on repetition to hide that on the content side they had no option but to rush development for chapter 2. If they had been more clever about it they could've stopped the game after chapter 1 and released a chapter 2 later as a DLC when they had time to actually make a proper one.
mysocksarepink
Banned
counter strike : condition zero
Bigboss242
Banned
No I am pretty sure alot was cut for mgsv. Like Huey battle gear chapter 3. Return to that one island. Also the liquid fight.
Baron Doggystyle von Woof
Member
Came to say this. All their games are a buggy mess.
Bloodporne
Member
Demon's Souls
Where the fuck is my remaster with the last archstone finished...come on, I'd give my pinky finger for it in some Yakuza ritual.
Where the fuck is my remaster with the last archstone finished...come on, I'd give my pinky finger for it in some Yakuza ritual.
Rhazer Fusion
Member
MGS5
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Star Fox Adventures is pretty unfinished. There is a treasure trove of cut and unused content still on the game disc, including a significant portion of maps and (text) dialog from the Nintendo 64 Dinosaur Planet game. I think there are still ongoing projects to sift through everything.
Nintendo was apparently (as I've heard) both vague and strict about how Rare was allowed to use Star Fox, leaving Rare highly frustrated. They eventually ran out of money and the back half of the game really starts to fall apart as you near the end. The game builds up to a final encounter with the big bad, General Scales, and even starts a boss fight, but as I remember, the moment you target or otherwise damage General Scales
At the very least, one final Krazoa test is referenced in the game's code that doesn't exist. "The Test of Sacrifice," I believe? I forget. There's also a bunch of unimplemented cheat codes referenced to be unlockable with cheat coins that don't work.
TCRF has some of this archived, but most of it isn't. I think there's a huge thread on the TCRF forums on Rusted Logic where they were digging some of this stuff out.
Nintendo was apparently (as I've heard) both vague and strict about how Rare was allowed to use Star Fox, leaving Rare highly frustrated. They eventually ran out of money and the back half of the game really starts to fall apart as you near the end. The game builds up to a final encounter with the big bad, General Scales, and even starts a boss fight, but as I remember, the moment you target or otherwise damage General Scales
Andross comes out of nowhere and you just refight the final boss from Star Fox 64 instead. Scales is never mentioned ever again even though literally nothing happened to him.
At the very least, one final Krazoa test is referenced in the game's code that doesn't exist. "The Test of Sacrifice," I believe? I forget. There's also a bunch of unimplemented cheat codes referenced to be unlockable with cheat coins that don't work.
TCRF has some of this archived, but most of it isn't. I think there's a huge thread on the TCRF forums on Rusted Logic where they were digging some of this stuff out.
TheSlySoul
Member
Sonic 2006 and Sonic Boom are both unfinished because the latest build got corrupted so they had to go back to a beta build and finish that one up. It seems Sonic is cursed.
The backbone for the online and community features wasn't completed until months after release, and the game was missing basic content and modes shown in promotion leading up to that point, including things like race replays, the weather effects, and photo modes.
It's really hard to say Driveclub was released as a finished game.
Copper
Member
Yep, when Iwata came in in 2002, one of his first actions was to expedite development of all the big Gamecube games then in development, with Mario Sunshine, Zelda: Wind Waker, and Star Fox Adventures being the most affected.
MrCunningham
Member
Unreal Tournament 2003. The reason why UT2004 exists is because it was made up of the content that was cut from UT2003.
Derek Smart
Derek Smart
Dere....
Derek Smart
Derek Smart
Dere....
Toadthemushroom
Member
Mario Tennis Open. Needed an extra year in development and it would have been amazing. Instead we got a pretty graphics engine married to solid Tennis gameplay, but little content of actual meaning.
I don't think you're being fair on Wind Waker outside of the late-game where two dungeons were acknowledged to have been removed.
The stealth section was intentional - the original reveal of the game at Spaceworld even acknowledged it would be in the final game! Not really something thrown in to pad out the experience.
And the Great Sea had one island/attraction in every grid square. Nintendo was more limited by how they separated each location into a separate load in/load out sequence.
I think Wind Waker needed more content, but I never really felt like it was unfinished when I was playing it at the time (coming fresh off Majora's Mask 1-2 years earlier).
You could make a similar argument for Majora's Mask after all, and that game had a year's development cycle. But yeah, Wind Waker did have less content than it could have had, but not to the extent you lay out.
As for Mario Sunshine, some of the points you mention are intentional design decisions rather than evidence the game was unfinished (e.g. swimming physics)
I don't think you're being fair on Wind Waker outside of the late-game where two dungeons were acknowledged to have been removed.
The stealth section was intentional - the original reveal of the game at Spaceworld even acknowledged it would be in the final game! Not really something thrown in to pad out the experience.
And the Great Sea had one island/attraction in every grid square. Nintendo was more limited by how they separated each location into a separate load in/load out sequence.
I think Wind Waker needed more content, but I never really felt like it was unfinished when I was playing it at the time (coming fresh off Majora's Mask 1-2 years earlier).
You could make a similar argument for Majora's Mask after all, and that game had a year's development cycle. But yeah, Wind Waker did have less content than it could have had, but not to the extent you lay out.
As for Mario Sunshine, some of the points you mention are intentional design decisions rather than evidence the game was unfinished (e.g. swimming physics)
Thabass
Member
Well, you could argue WoW Vanilla wasn't completely done, with Silithus being completely empty and T2 items simply being recolors of T2 or several skilltrees needing a complete rework and stuff like that. But it still was probably more finished than many other games that were mentioned here.
Majora's Mask felt like a way more complete game than Wind Waker, probably because it used the OOT engine to save time.
Also, regarding the swimming in Mario Sunshine, I think it's more likely that the relative absence of swimming in the game (despite the omnipresence of water) is because it sucked, and was downplayed accordingly.
Ah yes, forgot about that one. Gameplay looked horrible.
Also: Fallout 4 the thread. It is maybe a bit harsh, but releasing a game in that state is a no go. Months later and after countless patches it still is not stable. Enter buildung to crash to Dashboard.
UC 3 as in Uncharted 3? I think this is a stretch. I never once got the feeling that this game was unfinished. There certainly were things removed, but more likely because they didn't mesh or didn't meet their quality standards, not because they were running out of time.
General Lee
Member
I do love Trespasser, I've played it through several times. I still have the original CD. I got it from some random bundle with a lot of old and unwanted games. That was probably a couple years after the actual release.
I love the narration by Attenborough, and how the game really opened up the lore behind Site B.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv2nklTyq9Q
The sound design was fantastic and ahead of its time in some aspects. Nowadays the game feels like a forebearer of walking simulators and survival horror games.
My man!
Yes, I also have the original disc (and cardboard box).
I agree that it feels like something we might find on Steam today. Very modern in what it was attempting to do.
And, yes, the narration and sound design in general was awesome.
One of my fondest memories involves the small settlement town that was built with the visitors center, the houses, and various other buildings. Raptors were patrolling all over the place but couldn't enter the smaller buildings and I recall being chased between buildings by those things which could kill you immediately. Since the game was so systems driven AND buggy, you could come up with a lot of creative ways to avoid them. It was pretty damn thrilling at the time.
The quiet moments of exploration were great too.
I feel that it was simply let down by its ambitions - there is no way they could achieve what they wanted to achieve on the PC hardware of that day.
Comfort Jones
Banned
Had to cut a level = blatantly unfinished now?
It's still finished. Sonic 06 is unfinished. This post is
MrCunningham
Member
It's amazing hos much was left commented out in the source code for Trespasser. There were a lot of plans for the Dinosaur AI that never got implemented because they didn't have the time or resources to do it. But the final game does have a lot of modern conventions when you look at it. Two weapon limit, full body awareness (well partial body here), a weird control scheme that tried to do something new and innovative and it does have moments of a walking simulator with those Hammond logs. Such an ambitious game that just couldn't follow through. But the developed that worked on it were all very talented though.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
No, because Demon's Souls is not an unfinished game.
Cut content != unfinished. Every game has cut content. Every one of them. Hell even Uncharted 4 had cut content, is it "unfinished"? Of course not.
I'd argue Xenogears might straddle the line between "rushed" and "unfinished". Disc 2 was clearly not what the developer intended it to be and they had to rush it out because they ran out of budget, and that certainly sucks. But, the final product that came out is complete, there are no broken mechanics, the story is wrapped up, and so on. But, I could see why it's arguably unfinished.
A real example of an unfinished game would be Slain! which came out recently. Even the devs admitted it should have come out in early access instead but they felt bad about the delays and pushed it out too soon. And they've worked hard on patches to fix core components of the game.
Septimus Prime
Member
Perfect ironic title, though.
giancarlo123x
Banned
MGSV.
Huge environments and detailed backgrounds with an almost empty feeling and a dramatic lack of plot progression. It's quite clear that it was destined for more yet funding/time ran out. Glad it was released (as opposed to being condemned to Dev Hell), but wish it had achieved its ultimate vision.
