They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot/Video Games: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* The ''[[Mass Effect]]'' series features several examples of this:

** ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' features this with Shepard's "death" and resurrection two years later. This would be a rather traumatic experience, with what appears to be an absence of an afterlife (no, not the one on Omega), and could have been a great opportunity to show some genuine emotion and personality that s/he has been criticised for lacking. How does Shepard react? Nothing more than a few snarky lines. How must Shepard have felt after s/he returned? For Shepard, it probably felt like a bad dream or a quick nap only to wake up and find out how everything has changed and move on while s/he is still stuck thinking things were two years ago when the enemy had been defeated, s/he was a hero and had (possibly) fallen in love, only to have to deal with the slow reality that the world s/he knew has changed for good. This is even worse considering that the climax is a heavily hyped suicide mission — you talk to all your squad members about death at some point, and about religion to several of them. Fleshing out even a few of these conversations with some more input from Shepard would've solved the whole problem.

*** It is important to note that Drew Karpshyn's idea was just that, and idea. One of many. It was never supposed to be the original ending, and it was scrapped because it felt out of place. How they didn't think so about the current ending, however, is anyone's guess...

*** In addition, the ending of the third game renders several of the NPC and squadmates' journeys throughout the game wholly pointless. If you were hoping that {{spoiler|Wrex and Eve would have lots of babies, the Geth would build their Dyson sphere discussed in the previous game, Garrus would get to see his family, Tali would get to buy that house on Rannoch, Liara would get to rebuild Thessia or that Javik would put down the spirits of his former Prothean unit}}, you won't find out (unless post-ending DLC is ever released).

 

* ''[[RF Online]]''. The setting for the game is incredible - it's the far future in which three offshoot races of humanity are engaged in intergalactic warfare - the short, mostly-humanlike Bellato, the elven (and surprisingly savage) Cora and the Accretia, who are ''human minds transplanted into immortal robotic war machines''. There are mechs. There's magic. Spaceships. Spaceships which ''run'' on magic. Entire planets have burned in the backstory. The scope of the plot could be vast. And what do we get? A typical grind-heavy Korean MMO with ''one quest'' per level and no real plot to speak of. Seriously, CCR? Like, really seriously? This is the best you can do?

** As an example, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG-LCeSfVow this is one of the trailers for the game]. Look at that. ''LOOK AT IT'' and then realize that all that was made of the concept was a grindy K-MMO. It's heartbreaking.

* ''[[Dino Crisis]] 3'' could have picked up the cliffhanger from the previous game, which in itself was pretty dramatic and implied a lot of time-travelling plotting and action-based rescue. Instead, the story is thrown out and the series changes so much that it seems to be a sequel [[In Name Only]].

* ''[[Discworld Noir]]'' cleverly exploited this trope. Midway through the game the [[Film Noir]] mystery plot is seemingly abandoned in favour of an [[H.P. Lovecraft]] pastiche adventure story, only for two plotlines to be reintegrated at the finale.

** Interestingly, [[Skyrim]] exposed this quite a bit. Most of the in-game books describe the Oblivion Crisis in ways that Bethesda were unable (or unwilling) to do within the actual game. As someone on [[Something Awful]] said: ''Man, this Oblivion Crisis sounded great. Maybe they should have made a game based on it?''

* ''[[Skyrim]]'' has its own problems, namely with the [[Civil War]]. An elaborate [[Backstory]] is set up that provides the details for all the major events that led up to it. As the Empire fell into decline since ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion|Oblivion]]'', the [[A Nazi by Any Other Name|Thalmor]] rose up to set up their own rival empire called the Aldmeri Dominion. The most recent war between the two strained relations between Skyrim and the Empire even further, resulting in Jarl Ulfric starting a rebellion for independence. [[Gray and Grey Morality|Both the Imperials and the rebels have their good and bad points]], and you ultimately find out that [[Bigger Bad|the Thalmor are pulling both sides' strings in the background]] for their own ends. However, the main plot of ''Skyrim'' has little to nothing to do with ''any'' of this, the civil war is just a set of optional sidequests that can be safely ignored, and you don’t get to do any real damage to the Thalmor regardless of what you do.

* ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'' starts off dealing with a human who is forced to shelter with a pair of borderline-terrorists after crash-landing on an undeveloped, fantastical planet, and taking part in a war between the theocracy Aquaria and the monarchy Airyglyph. The aliens chasing Fayt catch up to him, moving the plot clumsily from a more traditional RPG world into outer space - but even this wasn't so bad. The most controversial moment is when the characters cross over into the 'fourth dimension', and emerge in a completely new world in which it turns out that {{spoiler|[[Tomato Surprise|their entire universe is a gigantic MMORPG]]}}. Even the thought of the twist about the setting was wasted, because it felt like they hardly did anything with it. They could have {{spoiler|[[The Mole|discovered one of their own was actually a Player Character]]}}, or done something to make the surprise worthwhile beyond [[Contemplate Our Navels|bellybutton gazing]]...

** ''[[Star Ocean: The Last Hope]]'' isn't free from this either. Aside from criticisms of the plot's execution overall, there's also the part where {{spoiler|Edge and crew get sucked through a wormhole, transporting them to an alternate Earth in the year 1957. Edge is tricked into giving advanced technology to an underdeveloped planet, which results in its destruction}}. This itself is an interesting idea, however apart from causing Edge to angst about it for several hours, further enforcing the Aesop about how [[Fantastic Aesop|forced evolution]] is bad (which is [[Broken Aesop|broken]] repeatedly by the other installments) and introducing Meracle, that segment could have been removed completely without changing the story at all.

** Screw that, what about the fact that it's implied that Lufia and the Hero from the game finally have a relationship? You know, {{spoiler|joining [[The Chosen One]]'s line with the Sinistral's blood? We could have had a game where the Hero winds up fighting his great-grandmother!}} Instead, we got a watered-down Ruins Chasers and then a side-story.

* The game ''Malice''. The manual, back cover and online plans suggest that this was basically going to be a game along the lines of [[X Meets Y|Okami as made by the team that did Crash Twinsanity and scripted by JhonenVasquez]], all but promising a bizarre [[Jigsaw Puzzle Plot]] facilitated by titular protagonist's amnesia and delightfully confusing [[Time Travel]]. Instead we get a boring but perfectly straightforward romp through reality courtesy of a cookie-cutter [[Zero Punctuation|badass, supercilious action girl]] and crap gameplay.

* Semi-obscure shooter from Polyphony Digital, ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-g-83_emKE Omega Boost]''. Yes, [[Gran Turismo|shooter]]. Originally conceived as a tech demo, they popped an utterly epic-looking intro and a few cutscenes onto the game that just leaves you wanting a full blown series, as remnants of all world countries banded together to create the titular supermech. Worse yet, its cutscenes are live-action, with an awesome set as the control room. The plotline involves you fighting your way to a giant space station which the invaders used to send themselves into humanity's past to soften their landing, specifically they popped an "Alpha Core" virus into ENIAC to slowly grow and expand and turn all our combat machinery against us at the crucial moment, and now you must defeat the station's guardian, shoot yourself into the past, and fight your way back to Earth to destroy the Alpha Core before it can jump from computer to computer with humanity's discovery of the internet.

** In case you're wondering why that wastes a perfectly good plot, the game itself is a rail shooter. ''Somewhat'' like [[Zone of the Enders]], but not quite. It has six levels. Some levels don't even have bosses. It's [[Nintendo Hard]]. And when you finish a level (or the ''game'')...let's just say that including a plot ''ruined'' an otherwise good game.

** ''Mask of the Betrayer'''s campaign seemed to be be clearly building towards the destruction of the [[And I Must Scream|Wall of the Faithless]] only to be seemingly denied at the very last moment. Some players [[Epileptic Trees|assert]] that Wizards of the Coasts' notorious enforcement of story control may have been responsible.

* A Mario example is ''[[Super Mario Sunshine]]''. Mario and Peach leave for a tropical vacation, but Mario is arrested on charges of vandalism and pollution, Peach is unable to exert her royal authority on the island, the mysterious Shine Sprites have scattered and fled from the pollution, and poor Mario is sentenced to clean up the island while he tries to find out who's really behind the mess. Early on in the game, you learn that it's just Bowser's son who wants to kidnap Peach, and then the game forgets about the plot in favor of collecting Shines and blue coins (which you trade in for, wait for it, {{spoiler|Shines}}).

* ''[[R-Type]]'' is absolutely ''made'' of awesome plot. The backstory is basically that humans in the future created an artificial lifeform (the Bydo) that they lost control of. In order to prevent the lifeform from screwing up their present, they shifted them to another dimension, which, you know, alright. Then the Bydo found out how to manipulate their dimension to travel through time and attacked the humans of the ''past'' in order to gain dominance. Past humanity then builds the R-Type fighters, takes sample of Bydo DNA and creates Force weapons, and fights back. This amounts to, in the games, some quotes and loads and loads of ambiguous endings. And R-Type Final doesn't explain ''anything'', despite being the last game in the series. So much for time-traveling human creations with a thirst for destruction and revenge: it's just a [[Nintendo Hard]] side-scrollers shoot-'em-up.

* The adventure game ''The Colonel's Bequest'' (and its sequel, ''Dagger of Amon Ra'' - turns out Roberta Williams isn't remotely as good a writer as she thinks). The game is full of elaborate (if cliched) characters that have all sorts of plotting and intrigue going on in between them - all of which is ''completely irrelevant'' because {{spoiler|they all die like mayflies. The ultimate goal of the game is to be able to know that Dead Guy A that you never met before was going to Dead Girl B that you hadn't known either}}. Why would the protagonist even care?

* And then there's ''[[Secret of Evermore]]'', which has the hero and his dog transported into a virtual world created by the minds of the four people trapped within. Gradually, all of them discover that evil versions of the four characters are wreaking havoc on Evermore, each of whom claims to either be the original person or the person's own dark side, and that their amorality makes them stronger and more fit to survive in this new world than their "good" selves. So it's pretty obvious we're heading into [[Shadow Archetype]] and [[Enemy Without]] territory, probably due to the fact that Evermore's not only embodying the founders' conscious wishes, but also their unconscious fears and doubts, right? Well, not exactly, since {{spoiler|it turns out they're actually just [[Killer Robot|robot doubles]] built by the professor's evil [[The Butler Did It|robot butler]].}} It's a shame too, since the idea being strongly hinted at up until that point was a whole lot more interesting.

* ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic|Heroes of Might and Magic V: Hammers of Fate]]''. The previous game concludes with the strong implication that main character Isabel has been irrevocably corrupted by Demons. Then we're introduced to the shock revelation that she is in fact the Big Bad's new Dragon in disguise, while the real Isabel has been spending quality time underground with her husband's murderer, thereby straining the logic of the prequel's ending in several directions and axes.

** While that twist was not totally ridiculous (said succubus pulled a different version of the same trick twice already in the original game), there were a few other things which were off in the new one. One is the aforementioned apparent indiference of Isabel toward the fact that her boyfriend killed her previous husband, who she was so obsessed with that she went on a quest to have a necromancer revive, with predictable results). Another is how the Griffin Empire still had so much fight left in it - in the original game it had been invaded or otherwise beaten up by demons, necromancers, and then by a combined force of elves, rebel humans, and wizards. And they send an army to basically invade the Demon Sovereign's prison/castle. Despite all these losses and being ruled by a fake queen so obviously evil that the angels in the army leave, and the real queen being very much alive (if still very much an idiot), the Griffin Empire is still a huge threat to everyone else.

* ''[[Devil May Cry|Devil May Cry 4]]'' introduces Gloria, a [[Darkskinned Blonde]] who wields curved daggers and fights in a style reminiscent of the series' earlier character Lucia. Judging from the fans' response to the second game, it was assumed that Gloria would be a tie-in, or an attempt to fix it by way of remake. {{spoiler|Instead, Gloria is really the disguise for Trish, an already established character. Not only will we never see Gloria again, they never quite explained just how Trish got the ability to transform into her.}}

** The same could be said for Nero's backstory and the origin of his powers. The best we get is a questionably canon novelization by the game's scenario writer.

* The "Guardian of Love" in ''[[Star Ocean the Second Story]]''. You only know that she {{spoiler|killed the original guardian}} and that she's the chief servant of {{spoiler|the Ten Wise Men}}. How did she get there? Was she seduced into darkness or just always bad and on the 'right side'? Why would {{spoiler|the Ten Wise Men}} need a 'chief servant' anyway? It is a mystery.

* ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' leaves a lot of the motivations of its villains implied at best rather than exploring them in depth; Seifer's "romantic dream" of being the [[Knight in Shining Armor|knight]] to a sorceress, though mentioned on several occasions and presented as the main means by which {{spoiler|Ultimecia}} manipulates him, isn't described in detail, and {{spoiler|Ultimecia}}'s reasons for wanting to compress time are left almost entirely up to the player's interpretation of a few lines delivered at the end of the final boss fight.

** ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy|Dissidia 012 duodecim]]'' puts both Squall and {{spoiler|his father}} Laguna into the cast together... and shows them interacting a grand total of once, in a supplementary scene unlocked by one of the reports. On top of this, plot-induced amnesia means that neither character has any way of even being aware of their connection, shooting down any chance of showing any kind of acknowledgement of or reaction to [[The Un-Reveal]] from their source game.

** Even worse, the game starts off with a much better version of Vaan; his older brother Reks. Not only does Reks actually have a much better motivation, he has more personal connections to the other characters and could have had a greater impact on the plot. Instead he is killed and replaced by the younger brother he went to war for.

*** Hey, on that note, Ivalice Alliance has basically nothing to do with Final Fantasy Tactics. According to the FF Wiki, it even retconned the half of the Lucavi that didn't actually appear, but were somewhat planned.

* The backstory of ''[[Do Don Pachi]] Dai-Fukkatsu'' reveals the location of the DonPachi Corps' HQ: a ''space-time fold.'' A neat idea, unfortunately, it is hardly fleshed out in-game; you only see the space-time fold at the beginning of the game (when you [[Time Travel]] back to 2008) and at the end, when you head back to base {{spoiler|or [[Big Bad|Colonel Gottvin]] challenges you at the end of t Che second loop}}.

* Children's Week in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', in which players care for a war orphan for a week, had the potential to show the social consequences of war in Azeroth. There is also the part where your Draenei/Blood Elf orphan is implied to have great power as a shaman/Blood Knight and make some considerable impact on the world in the future, but nothing is likely to come of it. Though others argue the characters were [[Mary Sue|MarySues]]

** The Shatterspear are a troll tribe with a history similar to the Darkspear, they were a small Jungle troll tribe that was forced out by the other trolls, settling in a sealed area near Moonglade the base of the druids and are described as reclusive and uininterested in claiming further territory on the official site. They were finally going to join the Horde in Cataclysm, which could mean the player trolls are no longer composed of the remnants of one small tribe and/or the Shatterspear are the reason trolls now have the druid class. Oh wait turns out the Shatterspear are just destroyed in a starting level Night elf quest, having got the impossible mission to conquer the Night Elf's territory with their small village, and they end up being killed with their village being burnt down and neither any characters or the plot expressing any sympathy to them. The explanation for Troll druids is [[Ass Pull|that they were somehow always there]] and the [[Plot Hole]] with the player trolls population is still there.

** The Worgen were originally extra-dimensional hellhounds, and it was heavily implied that although they appeared near mindless, they were actually quite intelligent, having pack leadership and territorial instincts. However, all that was cast aside when they decided to retcon the Worgen into being just druids who tried to be wolves but went crazy.

** Uldum, in ''Cataclysm''. The zone was one of the most anticipated in the run up to the expansion, as lore-wise it's been alluded to ever since an intriguing dead-end quest chain in classic WoW, and the massive, sealed entrance (guarded by [[Elite Mooks]] no less) taunted players for years. It was the subject of many [[Epileptic Trees]] with regard to its connection to the Titans, and the first info released discussed a mysterious new race of catpeople connected to the Titans, who were in the midst of a civil war. The vast majority of the zone's story ended up being devoted to one long parody of ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'', with comparatively little development given to the Tol'Vir and their dealings with [[Big Bad|Deathwing]]. Many story elements weren't even explained in terms of the Warcraft lore angle because the focus was on shoehorning elements into the parody and handwaving it under [[Rule of Funny]] (ie: Belloc Brightblade is an [[Expy]] of Indy's rival, but we never get an in-universe explanation for why the Horde's main archaeology trainer is working for the bad guys, and he's gone just as quick as he shows up). The zone has become something of a [[Base Breaker]] as time goes on, and a flashpoint for players growing weary of the increasingly heavy use of pop culture references in the game.

* ''[[Darkest of Days]]'' had an amazing premise: you're an MIA of the Battle of Little Big Horn whisked away to the future due to your minimal impact in history to join the [[Time Police]]. In the hands of a good developer, it could be an amazing game. Unfortunately, the guys who came up with it were a small Iowa based studio who decided to use the concept for their debut game. The result was not pretty. I understand wanting to use this idea as soon as possible but there IS such a thing as aiming too high...

* ''Crackdown 2''. What's that, you say? A government military initiative bred unthinking, unquestioning, supersoldiers with incredible physical abilities and firearm skills, and they're using them to enforce what ''might'' be a secret police state? The agency in question (might have) planted and detonated a bomb ''in their own tower'' in order to kill a crowd of journalists who spoke out against them? They might have engineered the entire zombie plague (or at very least are deliberately withholding a cure) just to convince people that their presence was needed? Yeah, they might've, but the game sure as heck doesn't do anything with that beyond the subtlest of implications.

** To be fair to canon, the journal bundled with collector's editions did a good job with connecting the plot of Reach to the rest of the expanded universe, including {{spoiler|explaining why Cortana was in the Forerunner ruins when she should have been on the Pillar of Autumn. She split herself in two in order to be in both places at once.}} Noble Six's last stand wasn't pointless, {{spoiler|s/he stayed behind to ensure the Pillar of Autumn could escape, destroying a Covenant cruiser in the process.}} Plus as a Spartan III, s/he is a [[Fridge Brilliance|a disposable Spartan intended for suicide missions.]] The real Wasted Plot here was Six's sabre training. We get a third of a level with six flying a sabre before s/he's back on his/her feet. It was a fun, short segment that really should have been more of the game. Hopefully 343 Industries will take a cue from player feedback and make a good space simulator game.

** There was also the fact you actually missed a lot of the actual major battles of reach (which seems to be a annoying trend with bungie). Which is also a case of this trope mixed with [[Offscreen Moment of Awesome]]. All the interesting stuff happens in ''THE BACKGROUND!!''.

** The entire game looks like this if you think about it, if the [[Moral Dissonance]] involving Elise's father wasn't present ( {{spoiler|Sealing an [[Eldritch Abomination]] in her, and making sure she never cries, and in turn, show not much emotion}}), Mephiles has incredibly clear motives, [[Complexity Addiction|just no clear]] ''[[Complexity Addiction|plan]]'', some things the [[Idiot Plot]] had done could also have been cleared up as well.

*** ''[[Sonic Adventure 2]]'' had some of this as well, though it's only minor. Professor Gerald is, as stated in game, Eggman's Grandfather. Therefore Maria must also be related to Eggman quite closely. A cousin, possibly even a sister. Yet the game never looks at how their deaths affected HIM. It would have been interesting to see Eggman's reaction to finding out what happened to his family. It could possibly have been even MORE interesting to show that he already knew and that this was his motivation for trying to take over the world... he wants to overthrow the evil, oppressive regime that killed his family. Admittedly, this would result in some SERIOUS [[Grey and Gray Morality]] and possibly have thrown the series too far into [[Darker and Edgier]] territory if handled badly.

** [[Sonic Generations]] unfortunately falls under this. They don't delve enough into the plot, it's pretty much just run through the levels and save the world. In fact, after defeating the first boss, you could skip the entire Dreamcast and Modern era and not miss a thing.

*** Not helped by the fact that their choice of levels was also [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot]]: of the Dreamcast and Modern era, four of the six levels (plus a boss battle) have the same basic theme (a city, of which the boss battle and one level are in ruins), of which only two of them really work, as the other games had better or more iconic levels that could have been chosen to represent them.

* ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'' has the female lead discover her heritage as an invincible, blue-fire-clad angel of destruction, after growing up an orphan who never knew her parents and had to struggle to make it on her own her whole life, and come into the ability to channel the energies of [[Green Rocks|ragnite]], the resource the war of the game is being fought over in the first place. None of this is important, or even addressed, and instead she becomes [[Cursed with Awesome|suicidal over her powers]].

* ''[[Ace Combat]] 6'' has not one, but two! The game has four initially-unrelated storylines. One involves an allied fighter pilot upset over the fact that they were forced to abandon their nation's capital (where his family lived) to enemy occupation. The second is about a refugee from the capital who believes her husband to have been killed in the defense of the city, who is now looking for her daughter, who went missing during the attack. The third followsan enemy intelligence officer stationed in the occupied capital. The fourth is about an allied tank commander hatching a ''[[Three Kings]]'' style plot to rob a bank under cover of the battle to liberate the capital.

** The refugee's and intel officer's stories intertwine when the officer runs into the refugee's daughter (who has organized a mini [[La Résistance]] composed of the city's war orphans). Upon the city's liberation, the mother and daughter are reunited (and the intel officer is inspired to defect). The obvious (and [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|heartwarming]]) way to tie in the fighter pilot's story would have been to have him turn out to be the husband/father of the refugee and her daughter. Nope. Instead we're told that his family, who he's been fighting to liberate for the entire game, [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|were killed during the initial invasion]]. The ending of the game eventually shows them meeting and befriending each other, presumably becoming each other's [[Replacement Goldfish]]. Because life goes on and you can overcome tragedies [[Broken Aesop|as long as you have substitutes for your lost loved ones]], right?

** But wait, there was a fourth plotline! The tank commander/wannabe bank robber! Yeah, nothing ever happens with him except accidentally rescuing the intel officer and refugee's daughter from an incredibly pointless [[Locked in a Freezer|Locked In An Abandoned Tunnel]] situation, which was both completely superfluous in the first place and could've been solved by any other [[Deus Ex Machina]] they cared to whip up without wasting an entire plotline just to explain how that tank crew came to be there at that particular moment.

* The [[PlayStation 2]] game ''[[Steambot Chronicles]]'' has this happen to quite a few potentially interesting plotlines (one of which includes being able to become the leader of two organizations).

** That still has yet to be seen, with SCII only 1/3 done, story-wise. But...judging by how the rest of the game went, it's a safe guess that {{spoiler|Raynor will be too caught up in finally having Kerrigan back to care, or even acknowledge that he just killed his friend of who knows how many years.}} Wasted plot, indeed.

* ''[[Clive Barker's Jericho]]'' has a small band of government-ordained fighters of the supernatural who are, themselves, supernatural. Fairly early on, the player character and leader is killed - and [[Body Surf|Body Surfs]] from one party member to another whenever the player wants to control someone else, talking and using his healing powers through them. This is barely commented on. Yes, it's a shooter/horror game much more interested in gore, but the ''idea'' of someone being unable to act or even communicate except through others, and the issues that might result, is fascinating.

* Similarly, in ''[[Geist]]'' the player character is separated from his body. As a ghost he can't be seen or heard or touch anything, but he can possess inanimate objects, use them to scare living beings, and then possess ''them''. He has to rescue a captured friend, find his body, and deal with the situation... and he's a [[Silent Protagonist]]. He speaks very briefly as a parrot and a dog trainer, so he hasn't been rendered mute - he's just a total blank waiting for the player character to fill him.

* ''[[Metroid Prime]]'': ''Hunters'' gave its eponymous hunters various interesting motives for coming to the Alimbic System, ranging from keeping the "Ultimate Power" out of evil hands to seeking vengeance against Samus. Not one of these backstories ever has any relevance to the plot, except perhaps {{spoiler|Sylux's ''possible'' cameo at the end of ''Prime 3''}}.

* Oh, ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'', the game that uses the subtitle ''to choose your own justice RPG''. The main character and his best friend promise to each other as children that they will change their corrupt home for the better by joining the knights together and change their society from the inside, only for the main character to realize that the knights themselves are just as corrupt, and then quits against his best friend's wishes not even a year later. Despite that the main character still maintains his wish to change his home for the better, just not from being in the knights ([[Code Geass|sounds familiar?]]). You'd think with a set up like that the story could really end up doing its subtitle justice. You'd think that the story could end up being a morally ambiguous tale in which both the main character and his best friend both walk different paths to reach the same goal. That is until they introduce the innocent princess Estellise, and basically make the game about her. Then when they finally do have Yuri do something that is morally ambiguous yet right, considering that there was nothing that Flynn could do to help the situation and have Flynn [[What the Hell, Hero?|call out Yuri on it]], and yet only have Yuri address it with just one or two lines and then promptly drop it. What's worse is that over the course of the game it is Yuri who ultimately changes the world for the better, while Flynn ends up being the [[Police Are Useless|Useless]] [[Reasonable Authority Figure]] who {{spoiler|only got his post as Commandant because Yuri and the party killed off the current Commandant [[Complete Monster|Alexei]]}}.

** The [[Updated Rerelease|PS3 version]] of the game all but throws out the very concept of the game by {{spoiler|having Flynn join your party, basically admitting to the fact that Flynn was useless any other way.}}

* ''[[Youju Senki AD 2048]]'' could have just been an X-rated, post-apocalyptic turn-based strategy game with an interesting story about [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke|genetically engineered]] [[Super Soldiers]]. Unfortunately, the game was too short to really develop the story and characters, and the frustrating, clumsy battle system meant that many players never even got that far.

* The Harrowing in the Mage prologue of ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins'' ends with the line "True tests never end..." How much of an awesome [[Mind Screw]] would it have been to get to the end of the game (specifically Morrigan's ritual) and find that it was all still your Harrowing?

* ''[[Playstation Move Heroes]]'' crosses over three successful franchises: ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'', ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' and ''[[Sly Cooper]]''. The possibilities are endless. What we get instead is the heroes [[Dude, Where's My Respect?|competing in something called the Inter-Universal Hero games]] which consists of, among other things, [[Mini Game|bowling and throwing pointy frisbees]]. The actual story is as basic as it gets.

* The premise of ''Turning Point: Fall of Liberty'' is an endlessly interesting one, especially for [[Alternate History]] buffs. Many a reviewer has stated that this was a game that had a plot loaded with potential, but utterly destroyed by [[Obvious Beta|rushed design]] and a plot that falls apart almost instantly.

** Come on, who else wanted to see a recruitment scene with Celia?

* ''[[Rayman Origins]]'' had the potential to not only retool the Rayman universe to tie the first two games together, but also act as a prequel revealing how its hero was created and became experienced. In the end, only the former was achieved, as the whole prequel aspect was shelved out in favor of a new sequel (thus, all we're left with are [[Cryptic Background Reference|Cryptic Background References]]). Instead, the new plot involved {{spoiler|The Magician turning evil and trying to destroy the world}}. While interesting, even that was hampered; {{spoiler|his motive for his actions}} has been cut out of the game and, to add insult to injury, {{spoiler|gets [[Cutscene Boss|indirectly defeated in a cutscene]]}}. A fantastic game otherwise, but still...

* ''[[Star Control]]'' set up the division between the two factions of humanity: the earthlings and the Androsynth. The latter had been slaves of the former before escaping to a planet of their own, but were then conquered by the Ur-Quan and joined the [[The Empire|Hierarchy]] as battle thralls. Their erstwhile earthling masters, on the other hand, joined the [[The Alliance|Alliance of Free Stars]]. So the human race was divided, and human beings fought on both sides of the war. Then, in ''[[Star Control II]]'', it became apparent early on, when you found the Spathi hiding on Pluto, that it would be possible to recruit Hierarchy races into the New Alliance, setting up the hope that it might be possible to reconcile with the Androsynth and reunite humanity. Sadly, it turned out that the Androsynth had been wiped out by the Orz. The Orz were themselves interesting characters, but it's a shame that the potential for the Androsynth was never realized.

** "Toys For Bob" had mentioned two things regarding precisely this wasted potential: First that they were one of the races that didn't end up in ''[[Star Control]] 2'' because they weren't sure they could do much with the Androsynth that wasn't a very obvious reconciliation vs revenge plot. Second, when questioned if ALL the Androsynth are gone, they said that question was one of their ideas for the plot of a potential third game, where the Orz and their potential plot would be able to complicate the situation. That bullet is still in their gun, so to speak.

* Subverted in the ''[[X Universe]]'' series. The opening cinematic for ''X3: Terran Conflict'' claims that races outside the Solar System are experimenting with AGI. The only guy in the game proper doing anything remotely like that is {{spoiler|Marteen Winters, a [[Mad Scientist]] in the Aldrin System who's fiddling with their #deca CPU ship}}. Then ''X3: Albion Prelude'' comes out and turns it into a [[Brick Joke]] with the Argon Federation's artificially intelligent warships.