Low Expectations/Stunning Results

[Confused Cheeseburger]

Before Valhalla come out, there seemed to be a general malaise about the game. Rightfully so the company culture at ubisoft was, and is, murky at best, morally reprehensible at worst.
Beyond that, I saw a lot of people and some previews lamenting a general tiredness. Some early footage looked bad.

Fast forward to today, and it's being considered one of the best entries in the series. I haven't enjoyed an AC really since Brotherhood. Not without its worts, but Valhalla is a fantastic game and one of 2020's best. Playing it on Series X, AC at 60 fps on console, is a revelation. The writing, characters and world are legitimately great. Such a turn of events.

What games had low expectations but a completely reversed reception?

(Yes, I know Doom 2016 is coming)

 

[GMM]

Hitman 2016. Now, Absolution wasn't a bad game by any means, it just wasn't a proper Hitman game with intricate sandboxes of opportunity like prior games and especially Blood Money.

They reveal the game with a CG trailer that doesn't really say anything about the game and it's an episodic game that requires online connectivity, so coming off Absolution there was reason to be concerned.

The game releases and with Hitman 2 it's easily the best game of the decade.

 

[Vintage]

Prey 2017

I imagined it to be a generic space FPS, what I got was a great successor to System Shock / Bioshock.

 

[solidr]

Ring Fit count?
i'm still surprised this game is selling in Japan much more than the beloved FF7R

 

[DarthWalden]

doom 2016

 

[ciddative]

Arkham Asylum.

licensed games were dead and superhero games were mediocre. AA changed everything

 

[Deleted member 59126]

Until Dawn

Not "stunning", but considerably better than I expected.

 

[cdm00]

Usually my exam grades for uni lmao

I went in with somewhat mild expectations for TLOUP2 but was absolutely blown away

 

[ForthU]

Knack 2 is definitely the first one that comes to mind. The first game was plain bad and I got this one free with that slip up on day one. Expected it to be better than first game but I still had very low expectations. Ended up loving it

 

[Kurtikeya]

I thought Celeste and Hollow Knight would be indie games worth my time. Never thought they'd count among my favorite games ever, let alone among my favorites games within their respective genres.

ReMind. Vanilla KH3 was really underwhelming but then ReMind came in and instantly I fell in love again. It was love letter I wanted the former to be.

Disco Elysium. Didn't think it would be that thoughtful and that sharply-written.

 

[Mish]

Rocket league, my expectations were really low before trying out the game.

I don't really care about cars or soccer, but man I was hooked. The gameplay feels tight and the sense of progress you get when playing is amazing.

 

[Alek]

I don't think people had low expectations for Valhalla, not at all. It's a big game in a very successful series. Why would expectations be low? It's the lowest rated of the previous 3 entries. That doesn't really subvert expetations if those expectations were low, does it?

And I don't personally think the game really delivers either. The renovations to the core gameplay are fine, but half baked, the slower combat relies on variety being introduced through different enemy types and level-design challenges, but the game never delivers on that front. The game really drags, after about 5 hours you've seen and done everything and simply repeat it for another 55 hours.

My girlfriend is the biggest AC fan but she can't make it through this one due to how repetitive she's finding it.

 

[ForthU]

Remember me is another one. I was expecting it to be severely lacking on the gameplay side, considering how Dontnod later games entirely ditched the gameplay department. Instead it featured a very cool variation on the freeflow, which I almost can't stand outside of Batman games. And the enviromenta were so damn beautiful, wow

 

[Voke]

I'd definitely say DOOM 2016, I think it actually ended up being my favorite game of that year... up against games I was massively excited for like TLG, FFXV, and Uncharted 4. Doom came outta nowhere and kicked so much ass.

 

[HellofaMouse]

i dont know.. assassins creeds been junk food for a long time, and it still is in my opinion

 

[julia crawford]

WitchWay

 

[tokkun]

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

First of all, it was on the heels of several Kickstarter projects from once-prominent Japanese developers that ranged from disappointing to outright scams. Then there was the fact that 2D => 2.5D transitions have largely sucked for most games that tried them. Then there were the early trailers with awful-looking movement. Then there were the continuous delays suggesting troubled development.

And yet, the finished game turned out to be in the top 10 of all Metroidvania games, and the developer has continued supporting it well after release. Aside from performance issues on the Switch version, they really nailed it.

 

[Deleted member 16908]

I'll never forget the way Doom 2016 came out of nowhere. First they had those multiplayer betas which were generally unimpressive, and then Bethesda announced the review embargo wouldn't lift until launch day. Everything that happened leading up to its release indicated it would be mediocre.

 

[Chopchop]

Deus ex HR seemed like a shitty cash in at first.

 

[Deleted member 46948]

Valhalla. The preview videos, even the 30 minute ones, were really meh for me. But the actual game blew me away.

 

[Exist 2 Inspire]

Days Gone. Much much better than i ever expected. It ended up being my #2 game in 2019.

 

[Croc Man]

The Nintendo DS. Originally billed as a quirky third pillar it soon became one of most successful systems of all time and knocked down the second pillar.

 

[Euler007]

Horizon Zero Dawn. I knew nothing about the game, didn't know there were robo-dinos in it. I was blown away.

 

[Deleted member 11626]

The Witcher 3. Gaming communities similar to this one (obviously before this one) were going on about "ackshewally the combat sucks and the game is overrated". Played it myself and loved every minute. Even the combat shortcomings are overly exaggerated. Not every game is Souls.

 

[justiceiro]

PID was one of the first free games I got on steam and though would be mediocre, but I still remember details from it clearly.

 

[KC-Slater]

Breath of the Wild (specifically on Wii U.)

I thought it was either caught up in development hell, or would be scrapped again altogether due to poor Wii U sales.

 

[MDSVeritas]

It wasn't that I thought the game would be bad but when I bought Forza Horizon 4 two years ago on sale I knew I just didn't click with racing games but figured it had been years since I tried one, so why not factor it into my holiday break.

It became my single favorite racing game ever and it became part of my morning ritual to play like 30 minutes of it every morning after my workout because it was just instant fun to hop into and do a race or two.

 

[HououinKyouma]

I made the mistake of judging Undertale by the somewhat-extreme members of its community rather than by the product itself. When I finally came around to playing it, it instantly became one of my favorite RPGs of all time, whose soundtrack I still listen to almost weekly.

 

[Tortillo VI]

Final Fantasy XV.

Read awful things about it. Saw it on Gamepass and tried it out of curiosity. It's one of the games I've enjoyed the most this year. I'm gutted that it's not finished and has so much cut content because it's a great game.

 

[Deleted member 1589]

It wasn't that I thought the game would be bad but when I bought Forza Horizon 4 two years ago on sale I knew I just didn't click with racing games but figured it had been years since I tried one, so why not factor it into my holiday break.

It became my single favorite racing game ever and it became part of my morning ritual to play like 30 minutes of it every morning after my workout because it was just instant fun to hop into and do a race or two.

Click to shrink...

I was thinking of replying with NFS Underground before reading this, lol. Open World racing games can be really great.

 

[MZZ]

Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

I went in with low expectations that they'd land it fully. I only know minimal details about the game itself. Most impressions I had was from the E3 presentation with the Scorpion Boss fight which was a good showing but I never trusted Square Enix to actually land it. I played the demo and thought it was great but still have doubts the quality will hold up throughout the game. I only expected it to be a decent flawed game.

When I played it with the above conditions, diving head first and not reading up on other's impressions. It was an amazing experience for me. I loved everything about it. I really thought they did a great job. It's my GOTY (with P5R as a close second which I also went into blind regarding changes after knowing everything about the original). FF7R is also probably my GOTG with how it subverted all expectations I have and exceeded it way beyond I could imagine and how much I enjoy every aspects of it from the gameplay, battle mechanics reinvention, art direction, musical homages, execution for a remake, mindblowingly unexpected twists for something you know all the beats to. I can't say enough stuff I liked about it.

I try to limit what I know about games I play recently and try to go in with managed expectations. I find it a better experience not having much information to color my expectations.

 

[Stencil]

The Nintendo DS. Originally billed as a quirky third pillar it soon became one of most successful systems of all time and knocked down the second pillar.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I remember being so relieved that it was a "third pillar" and Gameboy wasn't going anywhere. Eventually I realized TylerSoThatWasAFuckingLie.gif and I remorsefully picked up a DS Lite (the OG design was horrendous) myself. It's now my second favorite console of all time.

 

[zma1013]

The Last of Us multiplayer

I expected some throwaway generic tacked on deathmatch and got the best vs. multiplayer mode of that generation.

Similar in feel to the old Splinter Cell multiplayer with the emphasis on stealth and guerilla warfare style tactics. However with a very necessary emphasis on teamwork, running around as a lonewolf means certain death.

 

[skeezx]

I don't think people had low expectations for Valhalla, not at all. It's a big game in a very successful series. Why would expectations be low? It's the lowest rated of the previous 3 entries. That doesn't really subvert expetations if those expectations were low, does it?

And I don't personally think the game really delivers either. The renovations to the core gameplay are fine, but half baked, the slower combat relies on variety being introduced through different enemy types and level-design challenges, but the game never delivers on that front. The game really drags, after about 5 hours you've seen and done everything and simply repeat it for another 55 hours.

My girlfriend is the biggest AC fan but she can't make it through this one due to how repetitive she's finding it.

Click to shrink...

anecdotal from in our bubble but Odyssey got raked over the coals for being 'overwhelming' and bloated

not that Valhalla is any less so but it doesn't ply you with checklists (gotta upgrade the ship, gotta take out that mercenary, gotta boost the athens spartans...) from the outset. seems like its generally much better received but it's been two weeks

 

[ghostcrew]

Going back a bit but... GoldenEye?

lol, the people that make Donkey Kong Country got given the fucking James Bond license and they're making a first person shooter with it? Wow, that sounds like it'll be good. Yeah, I'll stick to Doom and Hexen, thanks.

 

[Asbsand]

Mass Effect Andromeda.

How was I supposed to believe it would be any good after Mass Effect 3 sucked and as icing on the cake had an ending that ruined the fiction from top to bottom?

The result was that I had zero expectations but a slight hope for this new game "not made by the same team" (but still putting Mac Walters in charge... Damnit!) and in the end, yeah, not a super great game, and doesn't recapture the magic of Mass Effect 1 despite ripping off its formula and trying extremely hard to be similar, (too hard, if you've a mind). But I liked it. New plots were developing, the graphics sometimes looked breathtaking, and there was enough emergent things in the side-quest zones that I ended up with fond memories of them (that's not speaking about the 'TASK' quests at all!) and both the prologue and ending mission went out with a bang. It was a little messy, but it sure as hell gave me a better gut feeling in the end than Mass Effect 3 did.

Mass Effect 3 is the most disingenuous game ever. You could feel how much the developers forced themselves to do what they thought they should be doing instead of what they wanted to do. Wrapping up a trilogy isn't easy, and they actually did a fantastic job 2/3 times when it mattered, but Mass Effect 1 and 2 felt very pure in comparison. It felt like they were exploring earnestly, the concepts and fiction they were establishing whereas 3 was obsessed with the theme of War, finding ways to portray the universe to a dumbed down audience and being so rushed that the final mission was literally just a pile of rubble before tonally whiplashing your way to a pretentious Space Odyssey 2001 ripoff finale that asks the wrong questions to the audience.

Andromeda at least knew what it wanted to be, and felt consistent with itself along the way, and the ending succinctly left threads dangling that are very managable for a sequel, kept the choices minimal enough to not cripple the workload for its sequels, and also had some endearing characters that I would actually like to revisit if they ever made a sequel.

(Another side of the story is that the Montreal Team disbanded from BioWare's label, and with it, important writers, designers, and other folks left, so MEA2 would feel different... maybe for good, but about half of the cast will be written by entirely different people, and that's how we got ME3... and I don't want that again. So let's just put it to rest?)

 

[SidFromTsushima]

Resident evil 6. Yes the one that we all love shitting on and maybe rightfully so, but I turned my brain off and discovered a rather deep third person action shooter that I had a blast with. Had more fun with the gameplay than any typical third person shooter in the style of gears, uncharted etc.

 

[Alek]

anecdotal from in our bubble but Odyssey got raked over the coals for being 'overwhelming' and bloated

not that Valhalla is any less so but it doesn't ply you with checklists (gotta upgrade the ship, gotta take out that mercenary, gotta boost the athens spartans...) from the outset. seems like its generally much better received but it's been two weeks

Click to shrink...

It has pros and cons, I agree that Odysey is bloated and perhaps feels overwhelming but my girlfriend actually preferred that there was more to explore in that game. Additionally, she misses frequency of side quests.

Personally I prefer the structure and combat in the new game. I think the new quest and story structure is better, but I think the game is very weak in many areas. Like I say, I think it makes sense to slow the combat down and make the characters actions feel more deliberate, and slow. But the animations are still poor, the enemy variety lacking, and encounter design very repetitive after just a short while into the game. The voice acting for the female character feels particularly weak, with both protagonists in Oddysey being better, in my opinion. The voice female actor in Valhala speaks in 'pretend voice', which is a night and day difference to the male character who is an excellent VA (and actor generally) and speaks much more naturally in the game.

Plus, this one is a technical mess. Audio is absolutely atrocious, probably the worst I've seen in a game of recent memory, and we're encountering bugs (mostly visual issues) every 5 minutes. Even the cutscene animation is bad. I experienced a romance scene earlier where the characters hand goes through the other characters chest while they were kissing. I think this is the result of mocap data that's not been cleaned up properly. All in all there are a tonne of symptoms of this game being rushed out of the door, that weren't present in Odyssey.

Overall, it's a game with some decent ideas for the structure of the AC games, but poorer execution than that featured in Odyssey or Origins, and on the whole, I'd say it's a slightly worse game. Polish is really important in these RPGs that hope to immerse you into their universe, and it's really lacking in Valhala. I have the game on both PS4 Pro and PC and it's from a technical standpoint it seems crap across the board. Maybe better on next-gen.

 

[Mobius 1]

Astro's Playroom. From tech demo expectations to Nintendo-quality platformer.

 

[Deleted member 543]

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Thought it would be a good, but deeply flawed game like every single player FF since the PS2. Ended up being one of my top 5 FF games.

 

[N.47H.4N]

Drive Club, I played with all the content and didn't have high expectations, turns out the second best racing game ever after the eternal GOAT Most Wanted 2005,I did 100%.
Prey I got so cheap and had zero expectations, loved every minute as is one of the most underrated game this gen.

 

[GlitchyDegree]

Watch Dogs 2. I was expecting a another mediocre experience like the first game, only for it to be one of my favorite open world games.

 

[TripleBee]

Valhalla for me to. I thought it'd be decent - but I'm finding it to probably be the franchises best, and easily one of the best games this year.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

Mass Effect Andromeda. I had a lot of fun with it, more than ME 2 or 3. Yeah, I'm a weirdo.

 

[Vic Damone Jr.]

I wouldn't say low but I was very so so about Miles Morales, I skipped Spider-Man since it looked average and only got Miles cause I can connect to his story and damn did the game blow me away. The combat was fluid and fun and the swinging... perfection. Got the platinum so quick.

 

[Senjuro]

Wolfenstein The New Order. Went in expecting another generic shooter, it ended up having the best single player FPS campaign since Half-Life 2.
Loved the writing, the constant sense of progression, and the appropriately bleak atmosphere. Shame The New Colossus wasn't as good.

 

[Rover_]

Dishonored 2.

i was excited for it but would never ever actually believe they would surpass Disho 1 with such class and elegancy. i ended up playing not only a killer sequel but one of the best games of the generation.

 

[KC-Slater]

Wolfenstein The New Order. Went in expecting another generic shooter, it ended up having the best single player FPS campaign since Half-Life 2.
Loved the writing, the constant sense of progression, and the appropriately bleak atmosphere. Shame The New Colossus wasn't as good.

Click to shrink...

Totally agree.

 

[Kabuki Waq]

Tombraider 2013. I truly thought it was going to be awful. But it was amazing. The horror vibe put other horror games to shame

 

[Anoxida]

It has pros and cons, I agree that Odysey is bloated and perhaps feels overwhelming but my girlfriend actually preferred that there was more to explore in that game. Additionally, she misses frequency of side quests.

Personally I prefer the structure and combat in the new game. I think the new quest and story structure is better, but I think the game is very weak in many areas. Like I say, I think it makes sense to slow the combat down and make the characters actions feel more deliberate, and slow. But the animations are still poor, the enemy variety lacking, and encounter design very repetitive after just a short while into the game. The voice acting for the female character feels particularly weak, with both protagonists in Oddysey being better, in my opinion. The voice female actor in Valhala speaks in 'pretend voice', which is a night and day difference to the male character who is an excellent VA (and actor generally) and speaks much more naturally in the game.

Plus, this one is a technical mess. Audio is absolutely atrocious, probably the worst I've seen in a game of recent memory, and we're encountering bugs (mostly visual issues) every 5 minutes. Even the cutscene animation is bad. I experienced a romance scene earlier where the characters hand goes through the other characters chest while they were kissing. I think this is the result of mocap data that's not been cleaned up properly. All in all there are a tonne of symptoms of this game being rushed out of the door, that weren't present in Odyssey.

Overall, it's a game with some decent ideas for the structure of the AC games, but poorer execution than that featured in Odyssey or Origins, and on the whole, I'd say it's a slightly worse game. Polish is really important in these RPGs that hope to immerse you into their universe, and it's really lacking in Valhala. I have the game on both PS4 Pro and PC and it's from a technical standpoint it seems crap across the board. Maybe better on next-gen.

Click to shrink...

Did you play Origins and Odyssey at launch? Yeah, Valhalla released less polished but not that much to be honest. If there's one thing the AC teams are one of the best in the business at it's post-launch support. Expect a lot of polish, new features and content for AC:Valhalla that they didnt have time to fit in the game on release these upcoming months. The last two AC games had lukewarm receptions at first but became better games with patches and Valhalla will absolutely follow suit on that point.