This article features an odd collection of games that are great, that should have been excellent, but they had one or more flaws that held them back from greatness. They are the beauty queens with a pimple on their noses. They are the weightlifters with two left feet. These are games that should have been legendary but will have to live with being great.
1. Path of Exile
A great game, especially considering that it is still pretty engaging despite being so old. It is a game that is addictive, and that made it possible for amazing games like Divinity: Original Sin 2 to even exist. POE is a good game on its own, but sadly, there are flaws that will keep it off people’s top ten list forever. For console players, the fact you have to move your character over loot in order to pick it up is simply too time-consuming and annoying when playing for a long time.
As a veteran player, perhaps one of the most frustrating problems is the game freezes that appear almost randomly. Some people think it occurs if you have too much PoE currency, and some people feel it is caused by too many characters on the screen having buffs. However, it is probably due to a memory leak since the freezes seem to happen after extended play rather than nearer the beginning of a session. If this game had been optimized tightly, it could have won over more fans and had more of a positive lasting impression.
2. Days Gone
The biggest flaw with this game is that it has come out when the zombie survival game genre is so played out that the phrase “Zombie crafting survival game” generates almost as much frustration as the phrase “Paid loot box” or “Copy-pasted Ubisoft sandbox.” Yet, Days Gone is a great game.
The developers have taken everything that was wrong with modern zombie survival games and they have honed the game down to perfection. It is as if the developers have been playing these types of games all their lives, they have a list of annoyances, and they have made sure to remove those annoyances from this game. If this game had come out in the years when Left 4 Dead 2 was at the height of its popularity, then it would have made everybody’s top ten list.
3. The Surge 2
Apologies if you are a fan of the first Surge game but having to hold down a button to collect loot is a real pain in the behind. The second game, the Surge 2 had taken what the developers learned from the first game, Dark Souls, and from Lords of the Fallen, and they had built a great game on what they had learned. Even the loot-collecting problem had been solved with the use of the Loot Scan drone.
Yet, the problem with this game is twofold. The first is that the comparisons to Dark Souls were so saturated that too many people ignored this game. Secondly, it sounds weird, but whacking robots with weapons just isn’t as satisfying as whacking humans, animals, zombies, etc. You may counter this argument by pointing at Horizon Zero Dawn, but don’t forget that the developers made that mostly about shooting arrows, and secondly, they had to make the robots into dinosaurs to keep things interesting. For some reason, banging metal on metal just isn’t as viscerally unreasoningly satisfying as poking your Claymore through an undead creature’s mushy parts.
4. Final Fantasy 7 Remake
Before you crack the screen in anger at this game’s inclusion in this list, remember that this list is about “Great” games that missed perfection by a hair’s width. You probably don’t need an introduction on why this game is great, but here is where the problem is…the story.
The Final Fantasy 7 story is a very long and very impressive one. The developers of the remake wanted to go a different way, so they created a sort-of time/continuity situation so that they could press the reset button and then write their own story for the upcoming sequels. The problem is that understanding this story-reset relies very heavily on knowing the biggest story beats of the first FF7. As a result, any new player is going to have a very hard time following the already difficult-to-follow plot.
5. XCOM 2
It is so much like the original that it should be an automatic success. The problem is that the time-limit mechanics of the overall game are so poorly explained that even the articles you read online are unsure how they work. There are plenty of articles explaining how to delay the countdown, but the game itself does a very poor job of explaining it and showing people how to manage it. For the most part, it is almost like the game is trying to rush you along into a final battle before you are ready, and for some people, it spoiled their gaming experience.
6. Death Stranding
This game has a massive flaw, and the sad part is that the flaw has nothing to do with the game design or its mechanics. If this game had been released by a publisher called “Dave” and was developed by a team called “Red n Blue,” then this game would have hit the top ten list of a lot of people.
However, this game was designed and made by Hideo Kojima, a mad made rightfully legendary because of his work on the Metal Gear Solid games. He was phenomenally successful to the point where even his canceled Silent Hill game received more attention than many of the triple-A games coming out that year.
Death Stranding took a massive step away from both the Metal Gear franchise and away from traditional games as a whole. Hideo even said he was trying to create a new genre of game, and even though it was a great game, it was so far from what people were expecting that it really upset a lot of people. To go from a game where you knock out guards with your super-hot sniper lady, sniff them out with your dog, and steal them by attaching them to a balloon. To go from that to walking through fields and throwing your pee at ghosts, took people by surprise, and the disappointment that followed has haunted the game ever since its release.
7. Superhot
The premise is legendary. You are in a shooting/fighting game, but time only moves when you move. On principle, this is a paradigm-shifting idea that could be transformed into a game that changes gaming forever. Sadly, this great game has some serious flaws that mean it will never be excellent.
The length is a sticking point for most people, which we are forced to overlook because it was made as a VR game. For the rest of us, it is the graphics that really bring this game down. Do you remember the slowed-down shot mechanic in Red Dead Redemption 2 or even the similar mechanic in GTA5? Imagine that, but full time and you are able to speed it up and slow it down.
It would have been great in those games, but sadly, Superhot features red forms with a white background. Even if you can get over the graphics, the game does feel like it is railroading you in some areas. For example, there are times when stealing a gun and having to throw it is your only option before the next enemy runs up and kills you. Still, for most people, it is the graphics that keep this game off their top ten of all-time lists.
