Whats a gaming failure or undeveloped project you wish had a more successful release/was fully realized? For me its tomb raider angel of darkness. There were a lot of problems with the production, ranging from lack of leadership to scrapped concepts to the unpreparedness of the team for the complexity of programming for the PS2. Core design didnt have enough time to iron out the kinks even with all the crunch time, and eidos didnt give them more time because they wanted to release in june.
The game was an unfinished mess, full of bugs and haphazard level design. But its gained something of a cult status within the raider community, with memes centering on its iconic side characters like janice the parisian sex worker as well as lara's feisty one-liners. Its still being kept alive by a dedicated community of speedrunners and unofficial remasters. I often think what could have been if it had more time to at least be passable at launch. Core planned two sequels that would have continued the story. Obviously they were scrapped, core design went defunct, and tomb raider was handed over to crystal dynamics.
I am Sonicposting once again
There are two possible futures.
One is the one where Sega just gives up on the 15th anniversary, and also has the presence of mind not to pad Unleashed out with medal requirements and beatemup combat. In this reality the 2006 game does not exist and all effort was focused on making Day stages for Unleashed. The game is like two hours long but no way would it not be hailed as a return to form.
The other is where Sega gets a brain and puts stuff like Shadow, Riders, the Hedgehog Engine & etc on ice, and gets all hands on deck for the 2006 game. It's likely that Sonic 06 never had real physics or good movement, but more developed hubworlds and episodes for each character and ledge grabs and Super Sonic and all of the other cut stuff would have made the game at least better.