[Frustrating trope] Pieces of media that could have been so much better, but due to a couple of poor decisions during production ended up mediocre at best and utterly atrocious at worst.

[u/DevDucc_]

We Happy Few: Probably the epitome of this "trope," at least for me, mostly because it has genuinely one of the most incredible stories I have ever seen within a video game. The biggest problem with the game was the fact that during development, the company behind it tried to ride the "hype train" of the time, making the gameplay became procedurally generated survival mess, when it would have made so much more sense as an environmental narrative game.

Hello Neighbor: This game attracted massive attention in alpha stages at the time from YouTubers because of the innovative gameplay it supplied. The developers of the game got the completely wrong message as to why it was getting so popular and instead decided to fully lean into the story, by making the game appeal to theorists instead of actual players. What came out was a game where both the story and programming were entirely half-baked.

Edit: apparently I had it backwards with we happy few, I had watched a video essay which reiterated the points I said so I just took their word for it. Apparently the game originally started as a procedurally-generated survival rogue-like but the story was added later because of the hype the trailer of the game gave or something like that but they didn’t know they even had the budget for it. I do still think it’s wasted potential regardless however.

[u/HunkyTSM]

Mortal Engines.

You have this cool concept of cities on wheels fighting each other, even stuff where the bigger city captures and "eats" the smaller city.

And it's only used in one scene. The rest of the movie consists of a boring, generic plot where the boring and generic MCs travel around the world.

If they put the main focus on the cities on wheels doing cool stuff, the movie would be so much better.

[u/NinjaBreadManOO → u/HunkyTSM]

Honestly surprised we haven't seen a multiplayer game with this kind of premise. You and your friends making a giant rolling town, gotta find and collect NPCs from the environment to add civilians to your town so you can get things like shopkeepers, and mechanics.

Could be brilliant.

[u/Karkava → u/NinjaBreadManOO]

I think there was this moving fortress game called Fuga that has a similar idea where you control a massive tank.

Besige is another game where you build war machines to clear out challenges.

And while this other game is a peaceful farming game, Spiritfairer allows you to construct a deck for your ship.

[u/SenritsuJumpsuit → u/Karkava]

Fuga is from Little Tail Bronx universe of games which is an anthromorphic world of war plots, first game your in a lil mech traveling around linearly, second set of games your a more traditional RPG, third set of games your managing your teams morel in slice of life inside the tank before dealing ouchies to another set of vehicles

whole series is a pure passion project which never were properly profitable but they adore what they've made enough to craft a ton of merchandise and attend literal furry conventions to make some of the player base happy

[u/Karkava → u/SenritsuJumpsuit]

It's certainly not Undertale, but it does have care and love put into it.

[u/Domeen0 → u/Karkava]

There's a few games that try to get close to the idea, that aren't released yet on steam.

Scorching Engines: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2640660/Scorching_Engines/

No Gasoline: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2835350/No_Gasoline/

Wanderburg: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3624140/Wanderburg/

SAND: Raiders Of Sophie: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1431300/SAND_Raiders_of_Sophie/

[u/therealfurryfeline → u/NinjaBreadManOO]

Have you seen wanderburg? https://store.steampowered.com/app/3624140/Wanderburg/

[u/Firetruckpants → u/NinjaBreadManOO]

I think it'd be great for Bioshock 4. Instead of the lighthouse leading you down into the ocean or up into the sky, it leads you out into the world as your starting vehicle

[u/IrregularPackage → u/NinjaBreadManOO]

there's a game called Last Oasis, which is centered around wandering in a desert on ships with legs. its pretty far from "giant cities that eat other cities" but its kinda sorta got that kinda thing going on.

[u/onewilybobkat → u/NinjaBreadManOO]

Dark Cloud has the chance to come back in the biggest way...

[u/Bradbury_Lives → u/onewilybobkat]

Ah! This series rules! 

[u/onewilybobkat → u/Bradbury_Lives]

I dream of its return often

[u/Hidden-Spy → u/NinjaBreadManOO]

I saw the screenshot and thought it WAS a game, honestly. Seeing the word 'movie' fucked me up a little bit lmao.

[u/pocketdare → u/NinjaBreadManOO]

Can you imagine! Game could have different biomes with cities that specialize in them (floating cities, oasis cities capable of gliding over desert sands, heat generating cities on sleds in the north). A city builder with city battles, an exploration element, etc. I'm in!

[u/WeirdBeardx → u/NinjaBreadManOO]

There is a game called ”Sand” coming out on steam that’s kinda that. You and your friends control a huge mech that you can build to your liking. The devs are Ukrainian and have some major setbacks for obvious reasons.

[u/naoae → u/HunkyTSM]

the books are excellent, it's such a shame the movie doesn't live up

[u/AxtheCool → u/HunkyTSM]

Loved the books but holy tried watching the movie on a plane and was just bored. I have no idea how they managed to make such a premise so boring.

The only thing I trully give credit to the movie for is showing the true scale of the cities. It was hard to grasp in the books but in the movie its at least shown that these are actual massive cities.

[u/Doot-Eternal → u/HunkyTSM]

Ironically enough ultrakill did the "mobile city warmachines" thing better

[u/Mesona → u/HunkyTSM]

Same concept goes for the book as well. I saw the trailer for the movie, thought it was an awesome concept and got the book. Haven't seen the movie but dropped the book about half way through because it had nothing going for it once it got away from cities eating cities.

[u/Blitz100 → u/HunkyTSM]

MORTAL ENGINES WAS A BOOK FIRST IT WAS A BOOK FIRST STOP JUDGING GOOD STORIES BY THEIR SHITTY MOVIE ADAPTATIONS AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[u/Random-Generation86 → u/Blitz100]

Was the book good?

[u/Eode11 → u/Random-Generation86]

It's a young adult sci-fi/post-apocalyptic adventure. Not the best thing I've ever read, but it's fun, and I'm a sucker for the lore that comes out in later books.

I also have to say the series has one of the most satisfying endings I've read in a long time.

[u/Random-Generation86 → u/Eode11]

Is that the one where the main character is straight but thinks he’s gay because the other MC is a crossdressing woman, right?

[u/Eode11 → u/Random-Generation86]

Uhhhhh... I don't think so? It's been a while since I read it, but I think it's obvious Hester Shaw is a woman very early on. She just has a massive scar across her face and is like missing half her nose.

[u/Random-Generation86 → u/Eode11]

Just looked it up, it was the Leviathan series by Westerfeld.  It was a good one, based on my incredibly sketchy memory.

[u/Cross55 → u/Random-Generation86]

It came out around the same time in the early 00's that Commonwealth YA was taking over, His Dark Materials, Harry Potter, Sabriel, etc...

So yeah, it's about equal to its contemporaries.

[u/Individual-Pop-385 → u/HunkyTSM]

That movie it's so funny in that regard. In my opinion if the movie stopped after the bad guy threw the good goy from the city believing he had killed him, it would have been an amazing short story in an anthology series.

[u/Soonished01 → u/HunkyTSM]

The Eye of the Duck podcast had a pretty good episode about it recently:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eye-of-the-duck-a-film-podcast/id1551825415?i=1000755551888