Big disappointments

[runinruder]

Let's talk about those depressing instances when a PCE/Turbo game let you down.  Here are some games that I was disappointed with:
 
Magical Chase - Easy, sloppy, and not even that nice to look at.
 
JJ & Jeff - Most of us know the truth about this one by now, but back in the day, it received lots of praise in gaming mags, so I fell victim to the misconception that it would actually be good.

Spriggan mark 2 - Ugly despite the "effects."  Blown away by geriatric SideArms, which has nicer music and better/tougher gameplay.
 
Andre Panza Kick Boxing - I've pretty much come to accept Panza for what it is and really don't mind it so much, but this is another one that I'd hoped would be awesome back when it was released, especially after it received high scores in VG&CE.
 
Emerald Dragon - It's a good game, mainly due to its music and graphics.  But the hype that preceded my purchase of it was misleading.  Its battle system has issues, and its plot lacks the sort of exciting moments that can be found in many other PCE RPGs.  It didn't help any that right before playing ED I'd beaten Kabuki and Manji Maru, two legendary games that actually did live up to their billing.
 
Gradius II - This one was harder to find and more expensive a few years ago, so I had to wait a while before buying it, and all the positive reviews had me anticipating a real winner.  Well, it's not bad, but by the time I played it, it felt so outdated and, for the most part, unexciting. 
 
Sol Moonarge - "Just above average" doesn't cut it for an RPG that often goes for $40 on a system that has many truly classic RPGs for chump change. 
 
Legend of Dekoboko - It looked so charming in screenshots, but the gameplay is awful.
 
Fang of Alnam - Looked promising from a distance, but it's just a so-so RPG that's actually pretty horrible aside from its cool battle system. 
 
Ordyne - I dug the look of this game back in the day.  Don't know what the hell I was thinking.  Terrible graphics, terrible music, slow "action," poor game. 
 
Iga Ninden Gaou - Trashy gameplay during the era that saw the likes of Shinobi III and Kaze Kiri. 
 
Detana!!  Twinbee - Not bad, but overrated.  Nothing particularly good about it aside from nice, colorful background graphics. 
 
Chiki Chiki Boys - Looked like good cartoony fun, but so stupidly easy that I beat it the first time I sat down with it, and unlike a Shubibinman 3, it ain't awesome enough to make up for the complete lack of challenge.
 
After Burner II - It's okay, and it has some really cool music, but there's hardly anything to it, and I expected a little more after reading some rave reviews.  Space Harrier is much better.
 
Last Armageddon - Oh lord, I think I've already written a book complaining about this one.  It was a huge success in Japan, and it was made by the same folks who produced Efera & Jiliora, a personal favorite of mine.  I thought I was in for a treat.  Oh, man...  Painful.

[Tatsujin]

this thread will produce purely concentrated hate

[Sinistron]

Legend of Dekoboko - It looked so charming in screenshots, but the gameplay is awful.

Eww I almost bought this last week- thank god I didn't.

[rolins]

Last Armageddon - Oh lord, I think I've already written a book complaining about this one.  It was a huge success in Japan, and it was made by the same folks who produced Efera & Jiliora, a personal favorite of mine.  I thought I was in for a treat.  Oh, man...  Painful.

What i disliked the most about this game was the lack of good music. The original PC-8801 & MSX2 port had an awesome soundtrack, but sadly most of it was taken out of the PCE port.

[runinruder]

Last Armageddon - Oh lord, I think I've already written a book complaining about this one.  It was a huge success in Japan, and it was made by the same folks who produced Efera & Jiliora, a personal favorite of mine.  I thought I was in for a treat.  Oh, man...  Painful.

What i disliked the most about this game was the lack of good music. The original PC-8801 & MSX2 port had an awesome soundtrack, but sadly most of it was taken out of the PCE port.

I actually thought the soundtrack was okay, but I should note that I don't have the other versions to compare it to.  The end credits music absolutely rocks. 

[Sinistron]

Bullfight- My oh my does this game suck.

Burning Angels- that this game has its fans blows my f*cking mind.  Don't expect to be taken seriously by preaching to others about what games are "fun" while at the same time championing this piece of shit.  Me- I'm perfectly sane and I see this game for what it is- a total f*cking disaster- and no- I don't suck at shooters- it's this shooter that sucks.  The jiggly scenes are the game's only asset.

Cloud Master- looked fun in pictures  and I figured I couldn't miss with Taito.  I was wrong.  This game blows.  It looks really nice- but the fun factor is goose egg.  I have no desire to play more of this.

Don Doko Don- Really expected to love this- it's okay- just okay.  Small shitty graphics (only the bosses look nice) and gameplay that never really latches on.  That this is a Taito SSP blows my mind- it's so far from Parasol Stars it might as well be on another system.

Dragon Saber- This one must only be me- everyone else seems to love it.  Me- I was expecting much more with the added megs besides two player action- yet I find the graphics, animation and sound leagues shittier than Dragon Spirit's.

Fray in Magical Adventure- Aside from me not knowing Japanese- this game plays much stiffer than I expected it to.  I find Legend of Valkyrie is much better for this type of game.

Kiki Kaikai-  Blows.  See Cloud Master above.

New Zealand Story- Blows.  See Cloud Master above.

Night Creatures- whoa whoa- I knew I wan't in for a masterpiece but I didn't think it would be this bad.  Bless the members here who actually had the conviction to play this turd through.

Order of the Griffon- In truth I haven't played much of it- but when I turned it on I was far from impressed.  There were all these EMPTY rooms- and yet the text seemed to be telling me the rooms were full- "there's an old man in a chair"- empty room.  "this is a kitchen"- no it isn't.  It's an empty room with NOTHING in it.  Lame as hell.  Should've just made a PCE text Zork instead of doing this half-assed shit.

Shadow of the Beast- Graphics and music are incredible- gameplay is stiff-ass commodore-64 stuff.  There's a million different enemies and like 99% of them all have the same pattern.  This game stinks on ice.

Shockman- Huge letdown.  Graphics and music are right up my alley- gameplay stinks to high heaven.  I always mean to give it another shot- but it's low, low, low priority.

Steam Hearts- major letdown.  Both the shooter parts and the hentai parts are bottom tier.  What a goddamn waste of money.

Titan- This one really looked interesting to me.  It's definitely one of the worst games I own- and a big part of that is due to the never changing "music".

Travel Epuru- the very worst CD game I own.  Garbage.  Trash.  Shit.

Turrican- Now keep in mind I've never played this game before on the computer- but whatever the deal is- I honestly feel that this is THEE worst game in my possession.  Utter shit.  Ludicrous, unforgiving, horrendous, ugly shit.

Yo Bro- I've got a friend whose only turbografx experience was this game.  Naturally when he found out I was collecting turbografx games he kept yelling "yo bro is awesome" "yo bro is awesome" "did you get yo bro yet?" "I'm telling you that game is fresh" etc., etc...  Far from fresh, far from sweet, far from awesome.  and the amoeba board, okay, yeah, right.

[nat]

Ordyne and Twinbee - See runinruder's comments for my own feelings.

Ys I & II - Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike these games. On the contrary-- I like them very much. The problem here is that there is such a hype surrounding them you'd think they were God's gift to the people or something. Anyone who knows me knows that I've been into the Turbo for almost 20 years now but I didn't dig RPGs much as a kid. I'm a shooter man at heart, always have been. Matter of fact, the only one I owned back then was Dungeon Explorer. On that note, I never played any of the Ys games until within the past couple years. I was notably let down when I finally got around to playing parts 1 and 2. Let's face it: the story is only slightly above average, the graphics are glitchy (especially in part 2) and the gameplay feels severely dated. I'm sure back in 1989 this game was a technical marvel what with all the voice acting and redbook audio, but when I finally finished part 2 last year I walked away feeling just a little let down. These are fun games, with absolutely fantastic music, but not quite as good as people's nostalgia-clouded reminiscences make them out to be.

Talespin - After hearing how this game was so much better than Darkwing Duck (which, ironically, wasn't nearly as bad as people made it out to be) I was really excited when I received a brand new copy of Talespin shipped to me for $15. Man, I couldn't get this steamy pile of guano out of my Turbo fast enough. What an awful, awful game. This game belongs on the ColecoVision or something. What the f*ck?

[Sinistron]

I too agree with runin's Ordyne assessment- and I at first agreed with what he said about Twinbee until I gave it a few more chances- it has grown on me- but definitely the weakest of the great Konami PCE shooters.

[Necromancer]

Devil's Crush - I expected it to be leagues better than Alien Crush or Time Cruise, but it's not better - just different.

Order of the Griffon - See Sinistron's comments.  I still like it, seeing as it's D&D, but it ain't very pretty and was a bit of a let down in the graphics department.

Darkwing Duck - Way back when, I thought "Woo-hoo, Disney on the Turbo!"  Then later, it was "Wait..... what the f*ck's this shit?"  It's ugly in spots, the tunes are basic and get real old, real quick, and the controls blow.  I'll agree with nat that it's better than Talespin, but not by much.

Talespin - See preceding comments.

Deep Blue - The screen shots made it look so damn good, but the reality is that it only looks good; it plays like shit.  Nat will disagree.  He is wrong.

[Digi.k]

Let's talk about those depressing instances when a PCE/Turbo game let you down.  Here are some games that I was disappointed with:
 
Magical Chase - Easy, sloppy, and not even that nice to look at.
 
Detana!!  Twinbee - Not bad, but overrated.  Nothing particularly good about it aside from nice, colorful background graphics. 

I would agree with ya on Twinbee being dissappointed but the nice colourful backgrounds .. well my dissappointment with it,  is that the graphics on each level imo are inconsistent.

Magical Chase however I disagree and you must have played it on easy mode.  From the start the game asks you to choose between, Easy, Normal and Bumpy difficulty.  Easy only has the first 3 levels but normal/bumpy gets you through 6 of them including the real ending. and after the first 3 levels the graphics pick up a lot!

[nat]

I agree, I'm currently loving MC.

[runinruder]

Magical Chase however I disagree and you must have played it on easy mode.  From the start the game asks you to choose between, Easy, Normal and Bumpy difficulty.  Easy only has the first 3 levels but normal/bumpy gets you through 6 of them including the real ending. and after the first 3 levels the graphics pick up a lot!

I played through all of the difficulty settings, and they were all very easy for me. 

Order of the Griffon- In truth I haven't played much of it- but when I turned it on I was far from impressed.  There were all these EMPTY rooms- and yet the text seemed to be telling me the rooms were full- "there's an old man in a chair"- empty room.  "this is a kitchen"- no it isn't.  It's an empty room with NOTHING in it.  Lame as hell.  Should've just made a PCE text Zork instead of doing this half-assed shit.

Haha, that really does sound bad.  I always hear about how "great" Order is, and I must admit that I'm intrigued by it; but I haven't bothered to pick it up yet, and I guess I needn't be in any rush to do so. 

Fray in Magical Adventure- Aside from me not knowing Japanese- this game plays much stiffer than I expected it to.  

I like Fray for the adorable main character and the nice graphics and the ways in which it blends a number of genres.  But I agree with you that the core gameplay doesn't feel all that great.

[Joe Redifer]

Ninja Spirit - This game is boring.  It gets old fast and I do not like the music.  I can see why they included it for free with the TurboDuo... because they had 25 warehouses full of unsold copies of Ninja Spirit!

Bonk 3 - I do not like how Bonk changes sizes.  I've never been a real Bonk fan as his games are only average (although I enjoy the first one), but this one is just not worth playing.  The main reason I am not a huge Bonk fan is because I dislike timed power ups, especially those that change the music.

Monster Lair - Great music, lousy game.  It is so simple and there really isn't anything that makes it special.

The Manhole - This feels like a shitty game... like something for the Mac!  Everyone knows that nothing good can ever come from a Mac.  Windows is perfect.

Final Lap Twin - There is no god damn way I am writing down and reentering those passwords.  Why does this game not save?  Because it was made by retards, that's why.  The non-RPG mode is like an Atari 2600 game, and the RPG mode is only slightly better.  The graphics and sound were bested by NES games.

Magical Dinosaur Tour - This game doesn't have ANY magic in it!  How misleading!  I have to go play a Final Fantasy game if I want to get my magic on.

[esteban]

Don Doko Don- Really expected to love this- it's okay- just okay.  Small shitty graphics (only the bosses look nice) and gameplay that never really latches on.  That this is a Taito SSP blows my mind- it's so far from Parasol Stars it might as well be on another system.

Dragon Saber- This one must only be me- everyone else seems to love it.  Me- I was expecting much more with the added megs besides two player action- yet I find the graphics, animation and sound leagues shittier than Dragon Spirit's.

Order of the Griffon- In truth I haven't played much of it- but when I turned it on I was far from impressed.  There were all these EMPTY rooms- and yet the text seemed to be telling me the rooms were full- "there's an old man in a chair"- empty room.  "this is a kitchen"- no it isn't.  It's an empty room with NOTHING in it.  Lame as hell.  Should've just made a PCE text Zork instead of doing this half-assed shit.

Order of the Griffon is a decent game. I don't think anyone has ever hyped-it-up, so to speak (though I have recommended it in the past). It's part of a legacy of TSR's computer titles (OofG retains the key game formula, although it is simplified), so perhaps it won't appeal everyone. I like this game.

Dragon Saber does not have the charm or the amazing soundtrack of its predecessor. The sprites in Dragon Saber have a lot to be desired. All you Dragon Spirit haters can drop dead. I'm talking to you, Runin! I'm listening to Sabaku (Track 8 from Paranoid Dragon's thread) right now, getting pissed-off at all the Dragon Spirit haters. Oh wait, Runin didn't even mention Dragon Spirit in this thread, did he? Oh, crap. What the hell is happening? What's the matter with me? Why has Runin's distaste for Dragon Spirit's soundtrack, never mind the game itself, affected me so? It was probably a year ago that Runin talked trash about the Dragon Spirit soundtrack.

Yeah, I'm just goofin'. Except about the part where I said I was listening to Dragon Spirit's tunes. I'm on track 10 now (Hyouga). This track kicks the ass of wannabe-Dragon-Spirit-haters.

Don Doko Don is fun. I never expected much from it, though.

L
Iga Ninden Gaou - Trashy gameplay during the era that saw the likes of Shinobi III and Kaze Kiri. 
 
Detana!!  Twinbee - Not bad, but overrated.  Nothing particularly good about it aside from nice, colorful background graphics. 
 

Hmmmmm, I really liked "Stinger" on the NES back in the day. NO, it was far from perfect, but I really liked it. Lots of fun, nice challenge, fun, creative bosses. I'm wondering if there is a correlation between folks who like the Twinbee formula, in general, and their ability to appreciate Twinbee Detana? Seriously.

Iga Ninden Gaou was billed as a "Legendary Axe Killer" to me by some fool. Can you believe that? Clearly, this fellow was goofball, because Iga Ninden Gaou is really generic (but still not fun... there are many generic games that are fun, but Iga doesn't have anything that special something that even mediocre games can possess).

[Keranu]

Umm, what magazines gave praise to J.J. & Jeff? The only praise it gets is from a handful of members here .