Flawed games that could have been great?

[brainofjtd]

I may get some heat for this one, but Red Dead Redemption and it's save system. Before everyone freaks out, let me explain. I play video games in the morning before work for about 45 minutes. I was really excited to play RDR because of it's awards. I had been playing for a half hour and had to leave for work. Unfortunately, I was in the middle of an escort mission and couldn't set up a campfire to save. I had to turn off the console and lose my progress. It's like that 30 minutes never happened. I guess what it boils down to is that I need games that allow me to save at any time. Otherwise, I was loving the game!

But it autosaves after everything you accomplish. Worst case scenario you lose 10 minutes of mission time + 20 minutes screwing around in the desert. I don't think I could try to squeeze in 30 minutes of a game before work. I'd get frustrated at just how little I got to play lol.

I will say of the disappointment in RDR: competitive multiplayer. Killing other players is no where near as fun as killing CPU opponents WITH human players at your side. I was looking forward to more accurate "wild west shootouts" and less "little kids cowboys and indians"

[Specineff]

Are we still talking about FFXIII? That doesn't describe its combat system at all. Hold x to win won't get you far. Combat is actually the one thing the FF series hasn't dissapointed me in for quite some time. Even FFX2, which I hate a lot of things in, had a combat system I liked. I think FFXIII actually built on FFX2's system. I also liked the way combat worked in FFXII, even came to appreciate the amount of strategy the gambit system provided, while still requiring manual intervention in some of the harder fights

Sorry to bump this.

Compared to the games I mentioned, FF13 felt to me like "Hold X to win", by the tenth hour of gameplay. FFX2 at least allowed me to select the abilities each character had learned, instead of just getting stuck with "Attack" or "Throw Grenade" for the only character I could control. Perhaps if I had given it more time, but like I said, the damage had already been done. FF12 gave you the option of using the gambit system, versus getting stuck with the main character only.

Compare that with:

Panzer Dragoon Saga: Smart battle system with strategy and risk/reward to it.
Grandia 2: Pre-empt your enemy's attack and choose to either delay it, or go for broke and finish them if you have the ability to.
Xenosaga: Customize your attacks to exploit the weakness of your enemy, bide your time to build a combo, or cut in line with boost to take advantage of the event slot.
Legend of Dragoon: Time your attacks well to pound the enemy, or build up your Dragoon level.
Xenosaga 3: Break your enemies and then unleash hell on them, or flat out eliminate them through brute force.

After all that, FF13 just felt lacking. And it was a disappointment, because I wanted to like the game. The other Final Fantasies did not fall in that category. X-2 and X's battles were something I was always looking forward to.