Sneaky Gato

Member
Oct 27, 2017
549
Jurassic Park Trespasser is the signature for thus. The technology for what they were attempting to do was just not possible for the time they were developing it. Had it started development even just a couple years later it would have been in a much better position.
 

Cort

Member
Nov 4, 2017
4,526
Shadowrun_box_art_2.jpg


It could have been a perennial juggernaut if it waited 5-10 years. The idea of a full priced multiplayer only game was extremely confusing for most people at the time of its release.
 

Suichimo

Member
Mar 17, 2021
1,093
Pokemon Black/White, and B2W2 by extension. The 3DS launched only half a year after these two dropped. Imagine if these had the full lifespan of the 3DS to run rampant.
 

Host Samurai

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,698
I wanna say that Yakuza 1 and 2 should have waited until PS3, because it wasn't until Yakuza 3 that I really got into the series. However, with the Kiwami remakes, it seems Sega realised the same thing anyway, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Ngl, I prefer the gritty presentation and atmosphere of the PS2 games over the later games. Some of that was lost when the technology got better.

Resident Evil Outbreak is a great answer, but I'll take it a few steps further and say it should have been released on today's hardware and more design blueprints that Capcom can look at from other games.
 

Hero_of_the_Day

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
18,316
og resident evil 4 on ps3/xbox 360 would have helped alot considering it got like 2 scrapped versions

I'm not following the logic here. They scrapped a lot of work, but they still put out one of the greatest games of all time in the end. They had great sales numbers and won many game of the year awards. Not sure what holding off a generation would have done for anyone.
 
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Nov 15, 2017
462
Virtual Hydlide, actually. If you just look at the concepts it was actually a pretty impressive game for 1995(open-worldish 3D action RPG with randomly generated worlds), but the hardware was just not there yet so you have a graphical mess that runs at like 5 FPS and doesn't play very well either. Trying to do 3D on the Saturn doesn't help.
 

Adam_Roman

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,130
This might be controversial, but I'm gonna say Days Gone. The PS4 Pro version felt lackluster in performance, but on PS5 it looks great and plays incredibly well at 60fps.

If they held off and released it on the PS5's launch day, it would've made the PS5 launch lineup way more solid, the game would've reviewed better for the novelty of being a next gen launch game, and Sony wouldn't have had as unrealistic of expectations for immediate sales, it could've been a slow burn and still be considered a success (or at least enough of a success to warrant a sequel).
 

chaostrophy

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,446
SOTC. What was so rough about it was that most of the game was fine on PS2. So you get invested, excited for the epic conclusion...then on the last colossus the framerate gets so bad it's near unplayable.
 
Oct 25, 2017
32,033
PlayStation Home
Resident Evil Outbreak
Star Wars Galaxies

Yeah, Zipper really had a string of bad luck those last few years. Maybe if SOCOM 4 had released first and was something along the lines of the previous entries, they might have had enough momentum to make it to the PS4 generation.
Honestly if Zipper had made Socom before MAG they'd probably be alive today sadly.
all the issues with Confrontation and Slant 6 don't happen
Zipper has more experience on PlayStation 3, MAG avoids COD clone era
Socom 4 doesn't try to copy COD4 because it would release around or before it
MAG still maybe bombs but it isn't 2 bombs in a row leading to their deaths.
 

Booshka

Member
May 8, 2018
5,255
Amherst, MA
Shadowrun_box_art_2.jpg


It could have been a perennial juggernaut if it waited 5-10 years. The idea of a full priced multiplayer only game was extremely confusing for most people at the time of its release.
Was gonna post this. Game would have done much better as a multiplayer game across all platforms with better online features and a higher frame rate.

Still couldn't be full price with its content though, 40 bucks or F2P with some kind of sustainable economy for more maps.

Gameplay is still very good and hasn't aged much.
 

Bathory

Member
Dec 8, 2020
846
I don't know if counts, because it was not even released, but I feel like Scalebound should have waited this generation..or maybe was just Platinum not knowing how to work with the hardware.
 

Sgs2008

Member
Mar 25, 2019
663
xenoblade chronicles 2 and 3 , the art style would have been so good in high res with actual decent textures.
 

SolidSnakex

Member
Oct 25, 2017
25,379
Driver 2. Reflections had already pushed the PSone to its limits with the original. The rush to get that sequel out a little over a year after the release of the first game resulted in a mediocre game. But what's more is that it opened the door for Rockstar to walk in. They were already months away from releasing San Andreas by the time Reflections had finished Driver 3 for the PS2. People forgot how big the first Driver was. So i'm sure everyone involved with that series wonder what could've been if D2 were a PS2 game instead of being rushed to capitalize on the success of that first one.
 

RedSwirl

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,339
Final Fantasy XII comes immediately to mind. The gambit system felt a bit too experimental for many people in the PS2 gen, but in the following gen we started seeing a lot more embrace of more diverse and experimental gameplay systems, thanks to western and indie games really breaking more solidly into the console gaming market.

Plus the system was really underpowered for the scope of some of the locations. Rabanastre could have looked way more expansive and bustling with PS3/360-level geometry and memory, and lots of outdoor areas that were broken up into multiple smaller areas with frequent transitional loading points could have been much, much more seamless.
I still hold that FFXII should've been more influential than it ended up being, and launching early in the PS3's life cycle might have helped it set the table for RPGs going into that gen. It should've been the game to lay the blueprint for AAA party-based RPGs.
Perfect Dark immediately comes to mind. Would have been a great launch title for the GameCube, especially considering how it missed out on a lot of FPS games.
This was my main choice. The N64 just couldn't handle it, especially the multiplayer.
A ton of PS3 titles from around 2012-2013
A lot of the picks in this thread fall into this category. Between 2011 and 2013 a lot of shit came out that just pushed the PS3 and Xbox 360 too far:

--Last of Us 1
--Far Cry 3
--Crysis 2 and 3
--Console Witcher 2
--Battlefield 3
--Drakengard 3

By 2012 it was clear that developers were ready for new consoles that hadn't arrived yet.
 

2CL4Mars

Member
Nov 9, 2018
1,977
There's obviously the issue of art style — Catalyst is just straight up a more generic, over-designed and bland world artistically than what we got in the original game no matter how you slice it

It's strange how the sequel looks more futuristic then the prequel. It has that generic minimalistic futuristic design but I still like how the game looks honestly.

While the first Mirror's edge is more artistic take on modern day architecture, it may look futuristic with some of it's designs but very much has that modern day look but thanks to the coloring on the environment it comes across as futuristic.
 

homebudee

Member
May 9, 2023
90
91gGVHs14rS._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg


Technically the same generation as the 360/PS3 but I'm really curious what a MH game would've looked like built from the ground up for those consoles instead of the Wii. Really intrigued about what the art direction could've been since I feel World was the most drastic change so seeing what Capcom would've done a decade earlier would be really cool.
 

Aadiboy

Member
Nov 4, 2017
4,014
Final Fantasy XII comes immediately to mind. The gambit system felt a bit too experimental for many people in the PS2 gen, but in the following gen we started seeing a lot more embrace of more diverse and experimental gameplay systems, thanks to western and indie games really breaking more solidly into the console gaming market.

Plus the system was really underpowered for the scope of some of the locations. Rabanastre could have looked way more expansive and bustling with PS3/360-level geometry and memory, and lots of outdoor areas that were broken up into multiple smaller areas with frequent transitional loading points could have been much, much more seamless.
I gotta be honest, I disagree with this. Look no further than SE's 7th gen games to see that XII on PS3 would not have been as ambitious as it ended up being on PS2. What we would have gotten was a game with HD visuals with little or no towns and a lot of corridors. The level of exploration, the large, branching areas, and the side content were only possible at the end of a generation of learning and utilizing the full power of the PS2. SE would not be able to replicate or exceed the scope of XII in HD until the PS4 generation.
 

ponzu_boy

J->E Localization
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
4,609
Castlevania II Simon's Quest probably would have been a much better game if they had more development time and was released on the SNES.

I always think of an alternate reality where CV III was actually CV II, and CV II was expanded with more resources and power.
 

Issen

Member
Nov 12, 2017
7,088
God damn near every Switch release, including some of its first party games.
 

Lady Gaia

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,598
Seattle
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope would have stood a much better chance of grabbing attention as a Switch 2 launch title, and hopefully the awful video compression could have been replaced by real-time scenes that weren't as heavily abbreviated by space constraints.
 

GamerJM

Banned
Nov 8, 2017
16,242
This just came up in another topic, but Puppeteer could have really gained a boost from being one of the few notable PS4 games at launch instead of coming out as a PS3 exclusive right around that time.
 

Farlander

Game Designer
Verified
Sep 29, 2021
356
Don't know if it's cheating cause I was part of the team that worked on it, but - Watch Dogs: Legion. I truly believe it should've become a pure PS5/XSX experience. PS4/X1 was leading to nothing but compromises to make the Play as Anyone system work.

Ambulances arriving to take wounded people? With our limit of, IIRC, 40 NPCs (and a couple more reserved already for law enforcement reinforcements), spawning new ones, which implies not only new NPCs with their schedules, memories, etc., but changing the schedule of existing ones in the vicinity and trying to fit everyone in the area, basically all that was too much, not to mention changing of memories/schedules of everyone in the vicinity, so in the end NPCs are just eternally waiting for an ambulance until you leave the area.

Blackout hack? Probably the most awesome hack in Watch Dogs.... same. Mass changing of schedules and memories due to blackout is not something that could be handled well on PS4/X1.

And even memories - I've mentioned those several times, but if I'm not mistaken we eventually had to cut down the amount of memories per NPC to 5? Which is just too small of an amount not only to make it feel like you're truly developing long-term relationships with NPCs, but also just in general to choose the appropriate reactions/lines.

Technically these are 'cuttable' features that the game/systems can live without, sure, but you cut one little thing, another one, another, another, streamline another, compromise here and compromise there, and now the collection of everything does not lead to the experience you'd necessarily find ideal.

That being said, I think the WDL team overall did an awesome job given all the circumstances, but also I think if we were allowed to just forego PS4/X1 (despite the original release date targeting end of 2019) and focus only on next gen, there's a lot in the game that would turn out quite different and far better.
 

Sumio Mondo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,314
United Kingdom
Cyberpunk 2077 is the winner here, it feels like.

Final Fantasy XII comes immediately to mind. The gambit system felt a bit too experimental for many people in the PS2 gen, but in the following gen we started seeing a lot more embrace of more diverse and experimental gameplay systems, thanks to western and indie games really breaking more solidly into the console gaming market.

Plus the system was really underpowered for the scope of some of the locations. Rabanastre could have looked way more expansive and bustling with PS3/360-level geometry and memory, and lots of outdoor areas that were broken up into multiple smaller areas with frequent transitional loading points could have been much, much more seamless.

Yasumi Matsuno, the original writer/director of XII had already walked, so I reckon the devs wanted to put it out to move past the obviously troubled dev cycle, think Kawazu once hinted that he didn't enjoy working on that game (he took over from Sakaguchi as Exec Producer, who left the project early in development since, well, as we all know, Sakaguchi had left Square). It was also the last big game another legend at Square, Hiroyuki Ito led (as co-director of XII). So with XII we essentially lost both Ito and Matsuno leading games as directors.

That, and I think the reception was also because it came after FFX, which was a tried and true classic FF game that was very popular, so to have this experimental mainline entry (which was also missing a lot of the "anime" stylings of the last few FF games, along with less story sequences and no Uematsu), was always going to be controversial, regardless if they released it on PS2 or PS3/360.

Ironically, the next mainline game was XIII, which is another one that had very mixed response from the fanbase at the time of release for the opposite reasons as XII ("too much story", "too linear and scripted", and no open world or towns to visit).

I gotta be honest, I disagree with this. Look no further than SE's 7th gen games to see that XII on PS3 would not have been as ambitious as it ended up being on PS2. What we would have gotten was a game with HD visuals with little or no towns and a lot of corridors. The level of exploration, the large, branching areas, and the side content were only possible at the end of a generation of learning and utilizing the full power of the PS2. SE would not be able to replicate or exceed the scope of XII in HD until the PS4 generation.

^Also, this.

I love XII, by the way.
 
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Arithmetician

Member
Oct 9, 2019
2,375
All of the "cross-gen" ones. Pick any game AAA released 2021 or later that was released on PS4 and/or Xbox One. It shouldn't have, should've been PS5/Xbox Series exclusive. This includes Horizon Forbidden West, Elden Ring, GoW Ragnarok, etc
 

Burbank

Member
Sep 9, 2018
912
Pangea
While it's a PC game, The Sims 3 should probably have been saved for The Sims 4. Because the whole open world life simulator where everything is seamless and everyone live their own lives is a fantastic concept. But... the PC that could run that concept without some harsh compromises didn't exist until about a decade after its original release (and even then you have to mod the game to be able to use all that power).

If we had gotten a safe-ish Sims 2 sequel that took that and built on it, the whole "time passes in sync for the neighborhood" part would be plenty as a new feature, and left the open world until it was actually possible to do well, it would have been a much better game. Now we have a Sims 4 that in some ways feels like a regression from Sims 3, even if it's from the potential that Sims 3 had and not so much the actual game which had several issues, performance and otherwise.

What features did 4 add? IIRC they scaled back the color customization for clothing and wall patterns that I loved in 3.
 

Burbank

Member
Sep 9, 2018
912
Pangea
Doom 3 was still a good game but it could have benefitted a lot from more dynamic shadows and more small physics objects.
 

Neoxon

Spotlighting Black Excellence - Diversity Analyst
Member
Oct 25, 2017
88,557
Houston, TX
Pokemon Black/White, and B2W2 by extension. The 3DS launched only half a year after these two dropped. Imagine if these had the full lifespan of the 3DS to run rampant.
Lingering on an old system even after a new one comes out is Game Freak & TPC's MO at this point. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if history repeats itself with Legends Z-A.
 

CupOfDoom

Member
Dec 17, 2017
4,219
All of the late era 3DS games should've just been pushed to the Switch. Not even from a technical standpoint, but from a playerbase standpoint.

Like, who tf cared that Detective Pikachu or Ever Oasis or SMT IV: Apocalypse or the remake of Superstar Saga were released. Those games would've done much better if they had been pushed to the launch of the Switch.
 

shadowman16

Member
Oct 25, 2017
35,927
Kid Icarus Uprising would have been nicer on the Switch (or really the Wii U - though make touch controls optional) than on the 3DS. Its just unpleasant/uncomfortable to play, despite being an amazing game.
 

McNum

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,493
Denmark
What features did 4 add? IIRC they scaled back the color customization for clothing and wall patterns that I loved in 3.
There was the emotions. But I'm thinking 2 to 4 here. Sims 4 would be a decent sequel to Sims 2, but it's a regression from Sims 3. Which is why I'm saying that Sims 3 was a generation too son as the game it could be wasn't possible to do with the hardware at the time. But The Sims 4, or something like it, could easily have been done then.
 

Nyandeyanen

Banned
Apr 16, 2024
329
Kid Icarus Uprising would have been nicer on the Switch (or really the Wii U - though make touch controls optional) than on the 3DS. Its just unpleasant/uncomfortable to play, despite being an amazing game.
Surely it should've been released earlier on the Wii? The controls would've made so much more sense with motion aiming and a nunchuk attachment.

I think my nomination is FFXIV: A Realm Reborn. Releasing on the PS3 at all was a silly endeavor, but especially in 2013. They should've just committed to a PS4 version from the start.
 

Aru

Member
Oct 28, 2017
819
Kid Icarus Uprising. Would have been a great Switch game with gyro and dual analog controls. Also better resolution.
 

The Bear

Forest Animal
Moderator
Oct 25, 2017
4,280
You can just feel how Bayonetta 3 is dragging the poor old Switch kicking and screaming through the wringer. That game is one that definitely felt like it was designed with some other hardware in mind.
 

Milk

Prophet of Truth
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
3,971
The hype for Halo 4 was insane. If they waited a year and made it an Xbox One launch title then it could have helped sell gangbusters of that console (I think?).

It was still a great way to end the 360 though.
 
Jun 10, 2018
9,437
All of the late era 3DS games should've just been pushed to the Switch. Not even from a technical standpoint, but from a playerbase standpoint.

Like, who tf cared that Detective Pikachu or Ever Oasis or SMT IV: Apocalypse or the remake of Superstar Saga were released. Those games would've done much better if they had been pushed to the launch of the Switch.
I mean, we can't on one hand admonish Nintendo when they kill support for an outgoing console while at the same time advocate for it when it's convenient.

Nintendo historically has never really wholesale abandoned supporting their handhelds (Switch being no different as a handheld hybrid) during the transitional phase, so unfortunately it was never in the cards they were going to so with the 3DS.
 

Nyandeyanen

Banned
Apr 16, 2024
329
Also a great choice, Sin and Punishment 2 is amazing with that combo. Basically... anything but what it was launched on ;(
Yeah... it really is wild that they released it on the 3DS of all possible platforms. Proper handcramp machine with what that game asks of the player.
Technically the same generation as the 360/PS3 but I'm really curious what a MH game would've looked like built from the ground up for those consoles instead of the Wii. Really intrigued about what the art direction could've been since I feel World was the most drastic change so seeing what Capcom would've done a decade earlier would be really cool.
It probably wouldn't have been anywhere near the revolution that World was anyways. At that time, the PSP was their target platform (and it was soon about to change to the 3DS) so the home console versions were most likely going to be the exact same upressed versions we already have on the PS2/3 and Wii/U because anything else would've threatened their local co-op gold mine.