Many FF fans consider 3/6 to be the pinnacle of the series as do I although I have not played 5 and some like that one better.

Daikatana

No one mentioned Blasto - that game was majorly hyped in every gaming mag and sucked something incredible.

Total agreement there. I wanted to play this game so bad that a friend bought me a new video card at the time since i couldn't afford the card and the game. The damn thing was terrible. It launched with major bugs that could potentially just cause your pet to just disappear after a certain point and then you had to start completely over. At least one of the subquests that let you get a new familiar (the wolf one i think) had a key item missing so the quest couldn't be completed.

To this day my wife asks if a new game i bought is by Lionhead Studios. It's the only company she remembers and doesn't want to listen to me bitch about for weeks at a time.

KOTOR 2: Actually a great game but after the original there is no way this could be any better. What happened at the end anyway? Poor storyline that simply ended?

GTA: San Andreas: Was there ever a story here? Who actually did what and why? The same old random killing, car jacking and mayhem are present but that grows really old after you have killed almost 5k people.

That's the exact problem I had with IX: it was just like every FF game I'd played years before; hell, just like damn near every RPG I'd played in the 16-bit era. I thought VII and VIII, while flawed, were honest attempts to move the series forward. It was refreshing to move away from the pseudo-medieval narrative and to have almost total freedom for character customization. If only Nomura hadn't been involved.

I remember staying up all night just to get the SEGA CD man did that suck balls and was that a waste of time and alot of money

The thing is my main issue was with the story and characters rather than specific gameplay aspects. Just completely unmemorable. I have many of the same gameplay issues that most others seem to have with 7+8 (reliance on really long summons, drawing to get magic). But as far as presenting a story and an experience they achieved far higher than 9.

To be honest I haven't had a proper go at FF6 apart from a brief look a while ago and I remember it did start out quite well. So it's definitely something I want to go back to one day (trying to get my hands on the ps1 versions). As I said before, I found chronotrigger an amazing game, so it's not that I can't enjoy "old school" rpgs.

Name some of the RPG's for the SNES that allowed you to learn abilties from weapons/armor you equipped.

Spider-Man 2. It seemed really cool for a couple of days while you got used to exploring, but then....ugh! No game should compel you to chase lost balloons and recover stolen purses in order to advance. For shame. I ain't a "sandbox" if you're forced to do it.

Off the top of my head I couldn't think of one; there might not be any. Either way, that wouldn't be what I'd call a substantive change - I don't believe it makes much difference in terms of the game's overriding philosophy. What I'm more concerned with is the way FFIX locked you into using Character X as Magic Wielder, Character Y as Melee, etc. After FFVII and FVIII, which gave you a ton of freedom to develop virtually every character, FF IX's character building felt archaic and needlessly limited to me.

After I rented Splinter Cell, I would've said that. However, when Ubisoft had their "order POP: Sands of Time and get Splinter Cell for free" deal, I gave SC another chance. Wow, I'm glad I did, excellent game. Haven't played the sequels cause it all looks pretty much the same.

We bought an Xbox earlier this year for stuff like Doom 3 and all the Star Wars games that I was dying to play. We ended up with a used copy of KOTOR 2, and I started it up all ready for some grand SW adventuring, and was bored out of my skull. Both the story and the control scheme. What a an utterly amazing letdown.

Any series that changes dimensions. For me, the only true Zelda games are topdown 2.5D and the only Mario games are 2D sidescrollers. SMB3 and SMWorld both have so many different things going for them, and both are so great. Not sure I could really put one over the other. I really tried to like SuperMario 64, I played and made it a decent ways in, but more of stubborness than anything. I consider the N64 Yoshi sidescrollers to be "truer" Mario sequels than Mario64 and Sunshine.

When Zelda went 3D with Ocarina of Time, I wanted to like it, I played it for several days, but I just couldn't. Never played Majora's Mask. Gave Wind Waker about 15 minutes and quit.

Luigi's Mansion somehow slips by as a "good" 3D Mario game, though I guess it's because it's not a Mario game, and it's more like the Ghostbusters game I've wanted ever since 1984 and never saw. I'm very anxiously awaiting the two new 2D Mario games for the DS. New Super Mario Bros and Princess Peach.

Metal Gear Ac!d for the PSP. I play Magic The Gathering, and was hoping it would be a good way I could get into the Metal Gear universe which has always fascinated me, but not enough to try the regular games. Just couldn't make it go.

Metal Gear Acid had a very disappointing plotline...they should have just left it out altogether.

Metal Gear Acid had a very disappointing plotline...they should have just left it out altogether.

You can say that again.

Front Page Sports Football - the last season that Sierra developed it. It was a total mess; you couldn't even kickoff before the game screwed up.

the xbox going "you have a dirty disc in your drive please remove and clean" when the game was brand new BAD Microsoft BAD BAD!!!

Wasn't that the game that was recalled. That was very disappointing. I loved the FPS football series, up to '97.

I say this with mixed feelings cause I'm not much of a gamer at all. I tend to just play a Bond multiplayer shooter with friends and Zelda games, so I'm naming a great game, just one that couldn't hold my interest for real long:
Wind Waker- I was ok with the look because it was stylishly done, and at first I thought the ocean thing was cool, but man, I just got so sick of sailing around and around, and blowing that danged flute to change the wind directions that my excitement for it just petered out and I found myself unable to remember what tiny ass remote island I was supposed to find next. So, it was still a lot of fun for a while, but there was something lacking in the getting around. Not sure what they could have done because I still think the ocean overworld is a cool idea.. but I just got sick of it.

Exactly. I wasn't against the cartoon look either (and I think I prefer it now rather than the "realistic" zelda) but boy did the sailing bring that game down for me. I know developers want to try different things, but the sailing was such a chore.

Don't really play as much as I used to, but I do have a couple recent PC disappointments.

Disappointed in Doom 3. Gameplay just wasn't all that engaging.

Disappointed in Beyond Divinity. I really liked Divine Divinity and a lot of the changes they made to Beyond Divinity were just not well thought out.

My all time most disappointing title would have to be Star Control 3. There was so much potential after SCII and the ball was totally dropped. The story was not very good, the new races were boring, and the art direction, especially for the ships, was awful.

Other older PC disappointments (especially when comapared to their predecessors): Syndicate Wars, every X-Com game after Terror from the Deep, Worms 3D and Lemmings 3D (3D just didn't work for me with either title), Ultima IX.

Exactly the same reason that I never got through this game as well.

i'd say shenmue. while it's not a bad game, i don't want to walk around asking 100 people for clues and hang out till certain time so an event get triggered. i still enjoyed the game.