I was thinking about this last night, so here it is: my list of Most Disappointing Games of 2012. 2012 has been an unusual year in gaming, at least for me...there has been a lot released, and I haven't gotten to play as much of it as I would have liked. I have yet to try Resident Evil 6, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning or Lollipop Chainsaw, to name but three that caught my eye for one reason or another. There has been plenty to intrigue me, but little to excite me. I am by nature extremely difficult to please, and I often end up disliking games that get high review scores, because official reviews always judge a game by how similar it is to a previously successful game or how pretty it is...this is why Zelda and Mario titles get constantly high scores. I look for something different in games; being easily compared to a past game, to me, is the first sign of a lower score. I work in opposition to the general consensus, I suppose.

Note that I've said "Most Disappointing" and not "Worst" for this, because some of these games aren't technically BAD, and there are definitely worse games...Final Fantasy XIII-2 was released this year, as the most obvious example, and I would be obliged to put that on here if this was a "Worst games of 2012" list. No, these are all games I purchased and played, expecting to enjoy, and was extremely disappointed by, for reasons I will elaborate on below. They are in order of least to most, and I suppose I should add a disclaimer at this point that this is all my opinion. If you don't like it, I honestly don't give a damn; go write your own list on your own journal if it bothers you that much. I have attempted to justify my choices where possible.

There will be a "Most Enjoyable Games of 2012" (spoiler: Atelier Meruru wins) and "Most Anticipated Games for 2013" (spoiler: Atelier Ayesha wins) list to complement this, and I might do an anime list as well at some stage...although that will probably be limited to three instead of five, because I haven't watched a lot of different anime this year and I can't say I'm looking forward to much for the next year either. That said, awaaaaay we go. Enjoy!


5. Pokemon Conquest

This one comes in last - so, I'm covering it first - because it is, perhaps, my fault that I expected too much of it. Pokemon Conquest is the most simplistic SRPG I have ever played; even Luminous Arc was more difficult than this was. All notion of strategy was stripped from this game, and it didn't even have a coherent story. Conquer the Arceus-shaped land. Shoop da woop. As someone who has packed away hundreds of hours into the Disgaea series, you can imagine what a step down this was for me. Comparing this to Disgaea is like comparing a gentle wind to a full-scale hurricane. It lacked any kind of hook, other than it had Pokemon in it, and as far as spinoffs go, the only ones that are worse than this are the ones like Dash and Link/Trozei. It's a far cry from the usual quality of Pokemon spinoffs. No clever use of abilities, no gimmick that set this apart from other SRPGs, nothing like that. Just an SRPG that even a three year old could finish with no difficulty. I know it's supposed to be easy and kid friendly, but that shouldn't mean it doesn't have any challenge to it.

...plus the character designs were awful. I'm sorry, but they were. They lacked the flamboyant awesomeness of Sengoku Basara's cast, and because no real time was spent looking at their backstory or history or even their personality, they were just random AI opponents. It was a very dull and easy game.

4. Dragon's Dogma

I was intrigued by this...like Monster Hunter, but with a story? Now, THIS I had to see. I had several glowing recommendations from friends with a similar taste in games to myself, and it seemed as though it was going to be quite the enjoyable outing...of all the games I've put on this list, asides from the winner, this is the one that surprised me the most by how unequivocally awful it was.

There isn't much I can say about this, to be honest: the story for Dragon's Dogma is one of the most painfully bland things I have ever had the misfortune of encountering - I'd expect this kind of thing from a game in the PS1 era, to be frank - and the gameplay was astonishingly repetitive and bland. This is NOT Monster Hunter. No sir, not at all. This is a very boring, location-to-location romp that is almost linear in it design, even if it lets you go where you please; there is no motivation for you to go wherever you please. The landscape is dreary and dull with very little in it other than standard-issue enemies that have been used and re-used since the creation of RPGs, and it does absolutely nothing to differentiate itself from the masses other than having one of the worst excuses for multiplayer this generation. When I see multiplayer like this, I sympathise with developers who don't bother incorporating multiplayer at all when there is room for it to appear in a game: better not to bother at all than to have something like this in it.

Dragon's Dogma is a fine example of bad gaming, and the hype it received - couple with the glowing recommendations I received on top of that - made it extremely disappointing. Where, exactly, is the appeal to this?

3. Mugen Souls

I am a huge NIS fan. Along with the likes of Cavia (may they rest in peace), tri-Ace and Gust, they rank amongst my favourite video game developers, because they rarely let me down. People often think of this as a conflict of interest, because I strive to be objective and critical...and yet I enjoy games that most objective and critical people would classify as bad. But then, I'm not ruled by magazine scores or mainstream gaming and, in a world where innovation is dead, I find enjoyment in humour, which is most definitely not dead. Find me a developer who tells better jokes than NIS on such a consistent basis, if you think you can. Despite dismal gameplay, Hyperdimension Neptunia remains one of the funniest games I've ever played, and Zettai Hero Project is without peer outside of other NIS games.

But Mugen Souls...that pushed the boundaries of tolerance. The problem with NIS is that, sometimes, they re-use the same joke one too many times. This happened with Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk. II, which was a role reversal game of sorts - good gameplay, lousy humour, making it mediocre rather than slightly above average - and Mugen Souls took it to the next level...it was like a clip show of NIS jokes taken entirely out of context. The fourth wall comments about items and equipment worked for Neptunia, because the main characters were personifications of consoles. It didn't work for Mugen Souls, which just...wasn't funny. If Neptune had commented about the standard issue "less clothes equals more power!" trope that most JRPGs have, it would have been hilarious. Having a random guy in Mugen Souls comment on it wasn't really funny at all, because it had no context. This was the whole problem with Mugen Souls: no context.

The cast for this game was atrocious, as well...they were all either carbon copies of previous NIS characters, or just plain bland. Despite having something like SEVEN personalities, Chou-Chou is the worst protagonist I've ever seen in an NIS game - yes, even worse than the guy in Last Rebellion - because she had nothing in the way of an actual personality. She was defined by standard anime tropes - sadistic, masochistic, etc - and, whilst this can be said of most NIS characters, they more than make up for it with a quality voice actor and some truly fantastic dialogue. Neptune, for all her flaws, was wonderfully sassy, and her voice actress really livened up her role. Fuka was wonderfully complemented by Desco. Etna and Flonne have a reputation for this kind of thing by now. Chou-Chou...she just didn't have anything to make her unique. So she wants to conquer all the worlds by making everything her peon. Big deal. Laharl wanted to rule the world, too. Chou-Chou doesn't even have a good supporting cast to help her out.

As an aside, it's also worth noting that some ridiculous loli bath scenes that served no practical purpose were removed from this game, as well...I've seen them, and "ridiculous" doesn't even describe it, to be honest. I'm very tolerant of these things - I've seen some truly horrific things on Danbooru in my time, and you develop the ability to just ignore it after a while - but this was removed for a VERY good reason. When something like that needs to be taken out of a game, it doesn't really speak well of the rest of the game if something like that needed to be in it in the first place, and this could not be more true of Mugen Souls. One of the worst NIS games I've played in years. So glad I managed to sell it before the price dropped too low for it to be worth the bother.

2. Pokemon Black 2

This was obviously going to pop up on this list. I've made my feelings of the fifth generation well known by now; I dislike the designs, and I fail to see how this is revolutionary, because from an objective, critical standpoint, it isn't. From such a standpoint, it is difficult to criticize these games at all, because Pokemon hasn't changed at all since the very first games were released, but when it claims to be many, many things it is not, it becomes very easy to pick holes.

There is one thing that the vast majority of the Pokemon fandom who like the fifth generation fail to grasp about it: it isn't a reboot. It isn't anything special at all. It is exactly like every other Pokemon game in the franchise. It lacks any kind of definitive plot - what it has is hardly anything to write home about; the evil team is identical to every other evil team, and these so-called new themes of questioning the morality of the entire gameplay has been done before, and it is not done now in any noticeable depth - and in terms of gameplay, more was introduced in past generations than here. This makes it extremely disappointing, because it fails, as Black did, to live up to its promises. There is nothing revolutionary here.

What "new" features are in here are disappointing. Sidequests have never been Pokemon's strong point, and Pokestar Studios is about as memorable as Pokemon Musicals, which are even less memorable than Pokemon Contests, because at least those got significant development time in the anime, making them much more interesting. The PWT is a colossal failure, because strategy is tossed out the window in favour of predictable, standard-play movesets that anyone who has studied competitive battling can puzzle out and destroy, even with a standard, non-EV'd team. This does not cater to those who treat Pokemon as a full-blown strategy game at all. The additional link features are the worst kind of failed multiplayer, because Pokemon has always, ALWAYS been a single player game, and whilst online battling was a revolution in the fourth generation, the Global Link is hardly a step up. Then we have the Achievement---sorry, I mean, the Medal System, a wonderful way to artificially extend the boundaries of the game by making you do pointless tasks over and over again. What, did Game Freak play Star Ocean: The Last Hope before they made this? Because I'm getting a strong Battle Trophy feeling from this. Good trophies/achievements are those that complement in-game progress and are challenging, and do not require you to go out of your way to do stupid things you would never do if you weren't a completionist. Not ones that require you to do stupid things like connect with 1000 people, something you'd probably never do otherwise. There is also Easy and Challenge mode. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole point of having difficulty settings is so that you can play through the game from the start for a challenge or an easier time of it, no? There are some games that require you to finish the game first, I know...but not typically JRPGs, or games that only have ONE save file. So WHY did you have to CONNECT - something you might have been in no position to do - to someone who had already finished the game to unlock these from the start? What the is logic to this? Just...why? How does this make ANY sense?

The first thing I did when I got this disgrace was use my Action Replay to unlock Challenge Mode....well, the first thing I did was locate it, because I'd not used it in about a year. But was I challenged by this? No, I was not. Giving a Pokemon a random held item and upping its levels slightly does NOT equate to Challenge. I shudder to think what Easy mode was like if THIS was classified as difficult. This was a BIG selling point of the games, and it's a horrendous lie. Nobody who has played Pokemon before could possibly find this difficult.

Despite being labelled as a sequel, Black 2 is as much a sequel to Black as HG/SS were to R/B/Y, which is to say in spirit only, and not in any absolute fashion. Black 2 is the kind of thing I'd expect a Western developer to come out with, because it is not so much a true sequel as it is an expansion pack, and a poorly designed one at that. It's a barely changed rehash of the first games and, whilst it doesn't have the "Well, this is what we should have had the first time!" place, it does show all the hallmarks of what is wrong with gaming today on consoles. I'm surprised the downloadable content isn't paid, to be honest. This is such an obvious attempt to make more money at the expense of making a game that is even slightly different from its predecessors that these titles might as well be Pokemon Grey, for all the changes they have here. Black 2 is not a proper sequel. I suppose I was expecting this kind of lazy, half-arsed bullshit from Game Freak after Black, and that is precisely what makes it so disappointing. Pokemon is becoming a great deal like Final Fantasy in terms of failing quality.


1. Tales of Graces f

This might surprise some people, but then, it may not. This game started off so well, and I will be the first in line to admit that, despite a slight imbalance that meant you couldn't play on Easy or you got raped later due to a lack of points, Tales of Graces f had an absolutely fantastic battle system. It was long, it had a fairly amusing and at least varied cast even if they were all standard anime stereotypes, enough variety to the voice acting that it didn't feel like an older Tales game all over again, decent length, and it looked wonderful. So what went wrong?

In short, everything.

The story deteriorated into a standard-issue, recycled plot affair that depressed me so much I'm amazed I was able to finish it. From being an interesting, highly political story about an insane tyrant king who seemed unable to die, Tales of Graces f turned into yet another story about demonic possession, misguided villainy, magical stones (shaped like male genitalia this time, to boot) and sappy-crappy bullshit. It was like going from Final Fantasy XII to Final Fantasy XIII...in one game. The cast stagnated, having absolutely nothing in the way of true character development - especially one Cheria stopped giving Asbel the cold shoulder - and no real chemistry. It felt as though all the development had taken place in that seven year time gap between the prologue and first chapter, and just stopped after that. Highly interesting characters, such as Pascal, fizzled out after their introduction, and were ruined by crappy writing (I will NOT accept a Hubert/Pascal pairing) and stale dialogue that meant their relationship with the others never truly development beyond acquaintances. A game about friendship that had absolutely nothing in the way of compelling friendship. Way to go.

Then we have the plot twists, the things you could see coming, but didn't want to. Richard, it turns out, is not evil. Sophie has a scientific explanation. This entire journey is a misunderstanding. Lambda was EXACTLY like Duke, who was EXACTLY like Mithos who, much as I like Mithos, was EXACTLY like Shizel. Yep. This is yet another standard-issue Tales game, with the same predictable plot elements, and the same predictable ending. No deviations here.

Imagine, for a minute, how much better Tales of Graces f would have been without Lambda, without Protos Heis, without the science-fiction element that is the province of the Star Ocean games. Imagine if this was all King Richard's doing. What if he had turned into a Lex Luthor-type character who wanted to change the world, but simply crossed the moral line and "change" meant "subjugate and destroy" instead? Imagine if he was someone you could genuinely sympathize with, and got that uncomfortable little nag in your gut when you questioned his motives; like Light Yagami. What if he was antagonist solely due to the fact that you, controlling the protagonist, was opposed to him? What if he actually had a good point? What if it WASN'T polarized to Asbel = Good, Richard = Evil (ohwait, misguided evil because he's being possessed by an abused entity, my bad) and was more ambiguous. What if some actual THOUGHT had gone into this? This is how Graces f started. It's not how it ended.

One thing people often forget is that by rebelling against authority, protagonists are creating anarchy and chaos. How is this not worse than so-called tyranny? How is security less important than freedom? Freedom is an illusion, and always has been. As soon as you get a character who prioritizes populace security over populace freedom, you get a villain, instantly. Graces f was going down this route with Richard, and I LOVED it for it; one of my all-time favourite villains is Vayne Solidor, because he is a man who looks at the larger picture, and is a villain only because he is in opposition to the party, who do not have motives that could be called pure by any definition. My point is, I like it when it's not all black and white, and no matter how the game portrays it, that is clear to see. So WHY did it have to come down to "WAIT! There is a logical explanation for all this!" followed by the same standard-issue bullshit? I had such high hopes for this game when I started, and my hopes were utterly crushed when it became clear that Richard wasn't actually possessed of the depth I thought he was. They were spat on when it turned out Sophie was an android called Protos Heis from another planet.

Tales of Graces f is more than deserving of the title "Most Disappointing Game of 2012" because, despite its enjoyable battle system and pleasing length, it takes a fantastic beginning in story and characters and ruins them. That is even more unforgivable, to me, than Final Fantasy XIII, which never had that base to begin with. At least FFXIII didn't have anything to ruin; it started the same way it ended, which was shit. Graces f turned out to have one of the most predictable, inane and just plain awful plots I've seen in a Tales game to date. Worse than the severely overrated Abyss. Worse than the directionless and pointless Vesperia. The Lineage and Legacies chapter only added insult to injury; it was like the Nineteen Years Later bit of the last Harry Potter book. Graces f takes the crown this year.