RFGen's Top "Fool me once" games

My very short list. I originally had quite a few more games on here, but it kept getting trimmed because it had been so long since I played some of these games that I couldn't even remember specifically why I didn't like them. I think the only contentious pick here is Majora's Mask. Maybe Bravely Default also, but I can't imagine anybody would actually try to defend the second half of the game. It's literally one of the worst game design decisions I've ever seen in a video game, and I still can't get over just how dumb it is.

1. Shenmue III – As divisive as they may be, I’ve always been a big fan of the first two Shenmue games. I played both back in the day and became so invested in Ryo’s story that I’ve always said that the fact it was never resolved is the biggest blueball in gaming history. So when the Kickstarter was announced for the long-awaited Shenmue III, I naturally jumped at the opportunity to back it and eagerly awaited its release. I even played the HD remasters shortly before the release of Shenmue III just to refresh myself on the story, and I still really enjoyed these games just as much as I did when they were first released. To be honest, I didn’t have high expectations going into this game based on the pre-release trailers and footage, but I was still disappointed by Shenmue III. It barely moves forward the story that fans have been eagerly waiting for a resolution on for years, and the gameplay mechanics were severely lacking, and in many ways were a step back from the first two in my opinion. Why Sega just didn’t use the Yakuza series’ engine as a base and developed Shenmue III from there is beyond me, and the game would have been infinitely better for it. Yeah, I’ll still play a Shenmue IV if it does happen because I want to see the resolution of this story, but my expectations will be appropriately low, and I can only hope that it is a significant improvement over the third entry.

2. Resident Evil 6 – I know the attitude toward RE 5 over the years has been pretty mixed, but I still maintain that it is one of the best co-op experiences in gaming (single-player not so much) and have played through it probably a dozen times with friends. Naturally, RE 6 was a highly anticipated title for us, with its continued co-op support and multiple campaigns focused on different characters, scenarios, and play styles. While I don’t think RE 6 is as bad as people like to make it out to be, my friends and I still found it to be a disappointment overall. Mechanically, it felt like a step back from RE 5 in many ways, as the combat wasn’t nearly as satisfying (other than the comically over-the-top melee moves) and inventory management was a cluttered mess. Also, while the multiple campaigns sounded like a good idea on paper, the execution left a lot to be desired. It felt like Capcom spread themselves too thin and tried to please everyone rather than delivering a cohesive and focused campaign. Resident Evil has been one of my favorite gaming franchises for decades, through the good and the bad, but RE 6 was the game that made me lose faith in the series that wouldn’t be restored until several years later with the excellent Resident Evil 7.

3. Bravely Default – Hear me out. On the surface, Bravely Default is a very well-executed (if a bit too formulaic) retro-inspired JRPG with an interesting combat system and FFV-inspired Job system. It does many things right and has won over many gamers for good reason. However, the oft-maligned Chapter 5 plot twist practically ruins the game. It’s not even bad from a story perspective; I actually found it quite interesting, but the gameplay implications result in one of the most egregious forms of padding and recycled content I’ve ever seen in a video game. Without getting too spoilery, the game (which was already a solid 40+ hours) basically requires you to play through its entire storyline (albeit a slightly streamlined version of it) another five times or so just to get a proper ending. I have to reiterate that this isn’t a bonus New Game+ mode (like it should have been), this is a required part of the story just to complete the game. You can circumvent the majority of this padded content by doing something the game explicitly tells you not to do, but it will result in the bad ending, but honestly I think it’s worth it just to make it stop. While the core game is solid overall, it was starting to wear out its welcome for me personally around the 20 hour mark, but I still persevered for another 20 or so hours just to be greeted by the second half where I slogged for roughly another 40 hours through multiple iterations of a recycled storyline to the end. Maybe I’m just a bit jaded.

4. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask – The Legend of Zelda is one of my all-time favorite video game series, but it took a long time for me to finally play Majora’s Mask. When I finally got around to playing it, I found myself disappointed overall. While I don’t think it’s a bad game per se, I had a lot of issues with it and would rank it as my least favorite Zelda title by far. The game only has a whopping four dungeons, which is criminally low for a Zelda game, and so much about the timing mechanics are incredibly tedious. Fans will defend this by mentioning various tools the game gives you to better manage the timing elements, but the fact that the game has to give you tools to mitigate its own tedious mechanics should be a good indication that those weren’t very good mechanics to begin with. That being said, I totally get people’s appreciation for the game’s comparatively darker themes and trying to do something different, and I quite enjoyed the core Zelda experience when the game was able to get out of its own way. Not necessarily a bad game in my opinion, but it baffles me when people say it’s their favorite title in the series.