Top 10 Most Disappointing Crowdfunding Games

With crowdfunding, a new wave of video games has been generated that come out because they manage to sell the idea to many players instead of to a publisher. This has a problem: because they respond to gamers rather than professionals, these games can be disappointing.

For this list we have the rule that it must have been released, even through Early Access and see where it goes. And we not only have Kickstarter or Indiegogo, but also our own pages to eliminate intermediaries. Finally, no, the Ouya does not enter because it is a console and because we have already talked about it in our Top 10 consoles that failed in sales. We will also mention games that are more or less good, but as we say, they are "disappointing", there were certain expectations and they were not met, or they took too long to come out and were not up to par after so much time in development.

10 - Cloudberry Kingdom

Very probably few people know about this game ... Almost no one except those who have played it, but that does not mean that it is disappointing. We were sold Cloudberry Kingdom as a platformer that promised to offer hundreds of levels and chaotic multiplayer fun. All this thanks to the magic of the procedural generation that had popularized Minecraft.

This entry is a bit of personal resentment for buying it, but someone had to say it: procedural build is never a substitute for level design. Especially when on a 2D platform it is paramount. Everyone Cloudberry Kingdom created was to move forward and it only varied how much you had to jump. Spelunky is procedural but has many rules and uses predesigned scenarios, so procedurality works in its favor thanks to the great work behind it.

9 - Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

We said before starting the list that there will be objectively good games, but that they disappointed. But it is that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night promised to be the Castlevania in high definition that Konami will never do. Playable is great, but what fails it the most is the consistency of the graphics, not the graphics.

Although sometimes out of the ordinary, the Castlevania of Igarashi tried to preserve a certain integrity and artistic continuity. All of this is spoiled by the developers' mania for putting fan elements into the game. In this case we find that throughout the castle there are portraits of the patrons and monsters that are clearly the mascot of one of them.

And we are going to notice them because they stand out by feeling totally out of place. None of those fit the artistic side or their overall creative vision and make the game seem more like a fangame than a response to Konami's sloppiness. And Igarashi promised us the latter when asking for money. Be careful, Bloodstained: ritual of the Night is one of the best games to come out of Kickstarter, but one of the most disappointing if we expected a Castlevania, especially when it is the second highest grossing game on Kickstarter.

8 - Mercenary Kings

Again, another one of those games that is not bad, but it is one of the very disappointing ones and we paid in advance through Kickstarter. This time it is the response to the absence of new Metal Slug by SNK, and with the great spritework done by Paul Robertson from Scott Pilgrim Against the World.

As a Metal Slug fan, it didn't take long for me to purchase the game and find that again, they had sold us more than they could do. More than a Metal Slug, it was almost a Metroid for missions, but you could tell that it was to disguise that there is hardly any content. You will be traversing the same maps several times and farming resources and money to increase weapons in a constant unsatisfactory cycle. At first it seems like a very good game but then it is difficult to want to continue it due to the lack of affection that has been put beyond the visual.

7 - Homestuck Adventure Game

By simply promising “an original Homestuck adventure” they raised $2. They didn’t show anything and there was no firm plan for it other than Andrew Hussie’s promise. And this doesn’t help those who don’t know what makes the webcomic special and think its fans are a cult.

Outside of these impressions, that money was invested, according to gossip, in developers who fled with the proceeds. And after many delays, four years later Hiveswap came out, a 2D adventure game. There were high expectations as it was a work by a creative like Andrew Hussie and with so much money behind it, and in the end a work came out that shouts from the rooftops that it could have been much more. We feel quite sorry for the fans who financed the game almost blindly and waited five years just for the first chapter to come out. And the second is yet to come.

6 - Friday the 13th: The Game

A game based on Friday the 13th with asymmetric play? Sounds good ... But we already know that the asymmetric game, since Evolve came out, is looked at with a magnifying glass. It finally came out and it's not at all what fans of the horror movie series expected.

Added to that are server issues that prevented the game from playing comfortably until numerous updates came out. And to top it all, that idea had already been done before and better by Dead by Daylight. He had been late for his own party.

5 - Indivisible

There were high hopes for this game from the creators of Skullgirls. A handcrafted animation and a tactical and fast combat system. What could go wrong? Well, they have only focused on making good animations by hand and the rest feels half done.

The combat system sins that, despite being told that it is strategic, it is difficult to make combos more effective than sending all your allies to combat. And the level design didn't help. Thus we find a game that playing it is not fun enough and the animations do not help to make it more bearable.

4 - Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn

This could be the worst game on this list ... But the blow is more bearable because we already imagined that a new Shaq Fu, one of the worst fighting games in history, could not be good ... Until they said that it was a fighting game, but it will be a beat em 'up starring Shaquile O' Neal.

That raised expectations to make it at least a self-aware game of his ridiculousness. Instead we get a really mediocre beat em up and nothing remarkable beyond the fact that there is Shaq and his name is Shaq Fu. And we were supposed to be warned.

3 - Yooka Laylee

You knew it was coming… This title promised to be the resurgence of the Banjo Kazooie-style collectathon. But it would be the non-union Mexican equivalent. And it was being done by the same team that was once at Rare, so what could go wrong?

Well, it went wrong that they settled in and had forgotten why Banjo Kazooie succeeded, the levels weren't fun to explore, and there were a lot of inconsistencies. We were facing not very good cosplayers, and one of the most disappointing games of the year. You could entertain yourself with these games, but you wish you were playing Banjo Kazooie.

2 - Mighty No. 9

Yes, the game that has most tainted video games created through crowdfunding. Number 2? You would understand when we say number one. But ... what did Mighty No. 9 do? Promising us a new Megaman by the (non) creator of Mega Man, Keiji Inafune.

After many delays, we find ourselves with an action platform with a single mechanic: the dash. It was used for everything and in the end it was a hassle for the players, and it wasn't even fun to use. There has also been a lot of talk about how ugly the game is, but the biggest sin is that the design of levels, enemies and obstacles was nowhere near what was expected. It could have been a better game with a better creative team and a little more time.

1 - Star Citizen

Technically this game is not in a final state, but it is in an Early Access state with which we can play the game. And it has received many rounds of crowdfunding and has a page on Kickstarter, with what it comes in.

And his fans may say that it is very good, but the reality is that the game will never meet all the expectations that are placed on it. It is the most expensive and ambitious game in history, and no matter how well it turns out, it will always be the king of disappointing games and that if one day it comes out. The other games we have listed have come out even late and after more than one round of funding.

Star Citizen sins of the problem of the carte blanche and the lack of control. He does not stop wanting to introduce things and want to go further and therefore does not stop delaying and asking for money. Even ambitious creators like Hideo Kojima or Peter Molyneux can boast of having released games in less time and that they deliver what they promised. Disappointing games? Yes, but at least with a project plan that could be carried out.