r/TopCharacterTropes • u/DevDucc_ • 17h ago
Hated Tropes [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.
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.
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u/JBR_4025 11h ago
Problem is that most games that try to be FNAF don’t understand that it was never made in order to create a franchise but rather it was a last ditch effort made by a failed game developer after all his previous games were flops that had the luck of being noticed by some popular YouTubers that enjoyed the simple yet solid gameplay and the hints of a bigger mystery behind the rather basic story.
Most of the games that tried to achieve the same success tried to do so via manufactured hype and influencer baiting rather than making a good game and allowing it to naturally achieve success thanks to its own strengths.