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Which are the most Frontloaded games ever?

Araujo

Araujo

Banned
Dec 5, 2017
2,196
We all known of games that have been Frontloaded for many reasons.

For Xenogears 2 the second disc was rushed and shortened, making the 1st disc Frontloaded with most of the content of variety of the game.

In god of war 3 the first Half of the game is frontloaded with a ton of Epic stuff happening nonstop until you actually start the Pandora rescue quest line , when the game simply "stops" and turns into a bit of a slog of boxe puzzles and indoor lame enviroments until the very last battle.

"Frontloaded" games comes in different shapes and sizes. And we known why (sorta) people don't really... finish games. If memory serves me right, the overall notion of Trophies and Achivements is super low, like something in the range of 4 out of 10 people actually finishes the games they buy?

So, in a sense, it actually makes sense to put all your best stuff up front. That is what will make the sale, and that will be the stuff most people will see and remember. Ever heard the sentence "The game gets way better 10 hours later" ? or "Final Fantasy 13 really opens up at the end!" That's when the upfront of content is not enough to hold the players in.


So... for better or for worst, which games have you played where the bulk of content was in the first half? The first part. Just really frontloaded content.
 
Kyoufu

Kyoufu

Member
Oct 26, 2017
16,582
Everything good about MGS2 was in the Tanker section at the beginning of the game. It was all downhill once Raiden stepped in.
 
Zukkoyaki

Zukkoyaki

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,440
Maybe not ever but I found Prey 2017's first 5-10 hours light years beyond the rest of the game. Early going had some of the best tension and exploration I've ever seen. Second half wasn't nearly as good in those regards.
 

Normal

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,296
Edit: I should read the OP lol. Was talking about fighting games but those don't really fit in what the OP is specfically asking for.
 
SirKai

SirKai

Member
Dec 28, 2017
7,514
Washington
Kyoufu said:
Everything good about MGS2 was in the Tanker section at the beginning of the game. It was all downhill once Raiden stepped in.
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Definitely Indigo Prophecy. Very promising opening chapters with lots of interesting back-and-forth from the different characters that just peters out as the game progresses, and it eventually loses all of the intrigue and suspense it started with and ends up being one of the most spectacularly bad story driven games I've ever seen.
 
Certinfy

Certinfy

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
3,476
Metal Gear Solid V is obvious enough. First Act is amazing, second is pure messy trash. No idea how they even released the game like that, just confusing and outright stupid the second act is.
 
WieDerrickWie

WieDerrickWie

Member
Jul 4, 2018
650
In the original Doom, episode one was almost entirely created by John Romero over the game's development, while episodes two and three were mostly created by Sandy Peterson in just a couple months.
I wouldn't call episodes two and three bad at all, but the first episode is so perfect the others pale in comparison.
 
Strings

Strings

Member
Oct 27, 2017
31,582
Kyoufu said:
Everything good about MGS2 was in the Tanker section at the beginning of the game. It was all downhill once Raiden stepped in.
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tenor.gif


Playing as Dante in DMC4 is absurdly fun, but at that point you've already seen every single level in the game, and have every boss again... Twice (and you're only 50% of the way through).
 
Y2Kev

Y2Kev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,923
Indigo Prophecy for sure. The first like...level is good. And then it is SO BAD.
 
newgamewhodis

newgamewhodis

Member
Oct 28, 2017
820
Brooklyn
Bioshock Infinite. Everything until the first gunshot was just masterful. The rest of the game was good, but a lot of it was riding off the promise of those first couple of hours.
 
sschol

sschol

Member
Oct 27, 2017
455
Persona 5's most quality section is the first dungeon, basically. After that, it can dip as low as "infuriating"
 
BigDes

BigDes

Knows Too Much
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,800
The PS2 era WW2 FPS games were famous for this

Medal of Honor Pacific Assault was a game where 80% of the budget clearly went on the first level, which was this epic scripted set piece of you fleeing from a sinking ship onto another smaller craft then fighting through a small archipelago

Then the rest of the game was a barely functional linear FPS
 
GaimeGuy

GaimeGuy

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,092
To an extent, Final Fantasy VIII (and I love the game, it's in my top 10 all time).

It feels like they didn't get to do as much with second half of the game as they wanted. I bet they had to scale things back a bit so that they could proceed with the plan of having FF9 and 10 out by 2001
 
zoabs

zoabs

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
May 7, 2018
1,676
Definitely resident evil 7 for me. Up until completing the first boss battle the game was phenomenal. That character was my favorite antagonist and the house and that character brought the most tension in the game. I understood the reviews and adoration those first few hours. However, the game gets worse and worse with subsequent areas of the game until the game ends with a classic Resident Evil Over-the-top boss battle. But I already lost almost all enjoyment soon after defeating the first of the Bakers. I can only fight the same unfun enemies so many times.
 
aerie

aerie

wonky
Administrator
Oct 25, 2017
8,085
Quake 1 falls into this category for me, the first two episodes are really excellent, the third is a step down and the fourth is kind of awful, every time I replay the game I forget just how bland it is, and it drags on. I know it was still a part of the shareware model, and most games using that distribution method would fall into this category, but it really could've used some newer additions and much better level design in its back half. Still, an incredible game and one i return to often, but its quite front loaded.
 

TwinBahamut

Member
Jun 8, 2018
1,360
I'd say Final Fantasy XII. The first section of the game has a lot of major events, interesting scenarios, and decent dungeons. The further you go after that, the more it becomes boring treks across meaningless landscapes occasionally interrupted by arbitrary bosses with no story.
 
TheBaldwin

TheBaldwin

Member
Feb 25, 2018
8,316
MGS V and Dark Souls for me

Its like you can feel the money and time running out as you progress theough both games.
 
Jessie

Jessie

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,921
Final Fantasy XV is the definitive frontloaded game, unfortunately. It's like Lord of the Rings if The Two Towers and Return of the King were 50 pages each.
 
ceebs

ceebs

Member
Oct 28, 2017
73
I have always felt the entire God Of War series peaked at the Hydra fight in the original game. I loved the opening of that game, but have yet to be engaged enough to put more than a few hours into it or any of the sequels.
 
NSESN

NSESN

â–˛ Legend â–˛
Member
Oct 25, 2017
25,379
Persona 5 first dungeons is so good, so good that it is my favourite dungeon/stage of any game ever
 
SmittyWerbenManJensen

SmittyWerbenManJensen

â–˛ Legend â–˛
Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,716
Floater’s Cemetery
This year, God of War 2018. After that first big boss fight, it's all (extremely) downhill and disappointing.

Also, Octopath Traveler. Once you do 2 chapters total, you've basically seen all that there is (repetition to the extreme)
 
brambles13

brambles13

Member
Oct 27, 2017
546
The beginning of the Genesis Sonic games are all 10/10 quality imo. Utter perfection, for the most part the games all live up to that quality but for the most part the beginning is the best part.

Secret of Mana is my other answer, the early music and story are an amazing setup but then the story just loses prominence and the ai characters and magic system drag the game down a bit.

I somewhat disagree with the Persona 5 opinions, the beginning of Persona games are usually rough for me due to lack of sp healing items. The Kamoshida arc was excellent though from a story perspective.
 
Decarbia

Decarbia

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,461
Another for p5. The first dungeon is so good and meaningful thematically, but then it just falls into generic adults are bad anime shit
 
gfxtwin

gfxtwin

Use of alt account
Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,159
The third act of RE7 feels like a different and less interesting game.
 
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SirKai

SirKai

Member
Dec 28, 2017
7,514
Washington
MetroidPrimeRib said:
Resident Evil 7.
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OHHHHHH this so SO hard. I don't know HOW I didn't think of it. The first 3-4 hours of RE7 are so great but it steadily declines in quality and suspense as the hours tick up. Only having the
stalking character gimmick
in the very beginning is just a baffling decision I don't understand given how lame the enemy variety is and the villains get worse and worse as the story drags on. I guess pre-release I was expecting something more like Alien Isolation which was just genius and unbelievable. RE7 didn't even come close.
 
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

Member
Nov 8, 2017
13,226
The back half wasn't bad or anything, but Chapter 2 of Baldur's Gate 2 is stupendously content heavy. You need 20k gold and there are like a zillion side quests you can do to get that done.
 
Kuro

Kuro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,902
More recently, Breath of the Wild. The plateau and first major divine beast area you go to are like magic but then when you notice the lack of dungeons, get annoyed with wep degradation, and enemies become damage sponges the fun diminishes.

Bioshock Infinite had a crazy strong start that went out with a wet fart.

FFVIII I always got bored by the time disc 2 rolled in.

Don't get how people can say P5 when you don't get access to confidant skills and more useful Persona until mid game almost. It definitely peaks around that point though.
 

francium87

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,045
newgamewhodis said:
Bioshock Infinite. Everything until the first gunshot was just masterful. The rest of the game was good, but a lot of it was riding off the promise of those first couple of hours.
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Bioshock Infinite is the first thing to come to mind for me as well.
I also dislike the "twists" at the end more than most, so the last few hours were greatly disappointing/infuriating.
once the realization of "Oh, all the mysteries you were pretentiously teasing end up being a generic time travel story", I basically knew how it would play out. Not the details, but the cliched "constants", ironically.
 
Asbsand

Asbsand

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
9,901
Denmark
Ace Attorney Dual Destinies frontloads all its cool mysteries, spectacle and dark, edgy and contradictory prosecutor in the first two cases and as you keep playing it repeats its main themes and by the climactic parts of the final case the game feels like a friggin farce of Ace Attorney and anime cliches.

Don't get it mixed. The animations and character designs still vary across the game but the game lacks subtlety as a story-first experience and it suffers by being too insecure to let its coolest concepts gradually unfold rather than immediately because "5th game, it has to be bigger than 4"
 
Barn

Barn

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,137
Los Angeles
I don't know that Mega Man X, Resident Evil 4 or Sonic Adventure 2 are necessarily "front-loaded," but it could be argued that they never really hit the highs of their first stages again.

Two of them are still incredibly well-paced classic games that still have a lot of highs to offer, though. And one of them is a game.
 
Philly Cheesesteak

Philly Cheesesteak

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,297
Nier Automata: The Thread. The game starts off amazingly and by halfway through, I was struggling to finish it. Such a far cry from the first game. Disappointment of the year for me.
 
DFG

DFG

Self requested ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,591
God of War 3. I love the game but it's obvious most of the detail went into the very start.
 
DecoReturns

DecoReturns

Member
Oct 27, 2017
22,003
Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn. I think Parts 1&2 are the best parts of the game. Part 3 has some good chapters too, but once you hit that Lava chapter in Part 3, the game drags on for me personally. (Youre just over half way at this point)
 
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