You have no proof. There's no dev story, no cutting room floor article, no weird Easter egg that suggests the cut content.

So all you have is a vast idea that something isn't there. A plot beat, a missing level, perhaps even an entirely different modus operandi for the game than the final product.

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Here, let me give a fairly big example to set the tone here: Pokemon Sword and Shield were the products of an obviously troubled development. Frankencode, reused assets, blatant lies, tree textures that would have been impressive on the 32x,

The question being: How long did Game Freak sit pissing around a 3DS devkit before forces external compelled them to switch to Switch?

And how much did an already by the numbers JRPG suffer for it?

What's missing? A lot. There's places where voice acting was obviously supposed to exist, several locations have barely even a POI, the dungeons the series is known for are completely nonexistent, and a shitload of animations, effects, and draw distances that even games over 30 years old could manage.

But even given the circumstances of the hot garbage fire that the final product was, there's more missing than should logically be. Assuming for a moment that Game Freak/The Pokemon Company is run in a sane way by sane people, (according to the cycles of software), this is a title that should have had 2 years of devtime.

Yeah, no it fucking didn't.
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On a less vitriolic example, Deus Ex has several known cuts. But there are places where it feels like there was a bit more than a removed mission. Like large parts of Paris, it just feels like they made the mansion huge because the rest of the Paris missions were gutted for time or development.

In simpler terms, what other games have you played that had an inexplicable amount of missing content? What were your experiences and thoughts about them?

Inexplicable missing content of any quantity; as long as there's no absolute proof of it having been missing in the first place.

Deus Ex actually feels a bit too long imo, I never got the feeling that it was somehow truncated when I played it.
An obvious and notorious example for missing content is of course Knights of the old republic 2, the ending section is manifestly incomplete.
Planescape Torment also feels somewhat incomplete in its last third, or rather there are sections which feel very rushed (very linear, also too much mandatory combat) and not up to the same standard as the game before.

But that is known to have been cut short. Yeah, Curst struck me as lacking. The book actually fixes that a fair bit.

One I'm not sure about is Two Worlds 2. Is it known that they left a lot of it out, maybe for these DLCs released so many years later, or there are just all those gaps and nearly empty places without a clear explanation?
Not sure about the desert in Lionheart either. I mean, it is a desert, but still...
Or what about chapter three of Risen?

2 years of dev time is not very long; you have to set standards for marketing, ask your backers which multiplayer system is allowed and of course the endless meeting to figure out who is in charge of getting coffee

all current games have parts missing... its part of the workflow to add \ remove story at each step unless we are talking small 1-10 man senarios where it boils down to money

I didn't really feel that something was "missing" in Risen...it's the same structure as in Gothic 1, the earlier sections are full of quests and social interactions, getting to know the different factions etc., and then it all turns into somewhat tedious dungeon-crawling focused on nothing but combat. I'm not a fan of it, but it seems to me this was a deliberate design choice by Piranha bytes.

Dunno if there's proof of the content being cut or not, but: the console versions(like original xbox) for 007:Nightfire have several bits cut out that are in the PC version.....like *spoilers* a second fight with the one henchman at the power plant *end spoilers*.



-The one mod adds back in a bunch of content....dunno if it adds that content back in, though, as i'm still playing through it(and I never beat it, though I got pretty far into it)This reminds me of the end sections/cutscene of System Shock 2...very linear and little to do.
(supposedly they ran out of time/money, and had to go with what they had....including the silly but still decent truncated end cutscene)

Agreed, the final part of System Shock 2 (once you enter that other ship, the Rickenbacker or whatever it's called) was extremely unappealing, a tedious, linear slog with pretty bad design imo. I can't say I enjoyed the game that much before either (too tense for me, succeeds at creating an oppressive feeling of isolation like no other game I've played), but I could appreciate the strengths of its design and the environment, was an interesting experience to explore the different interconnected levels of the ship. That vanished completely in the final section, at least for my character build it just turned into a boring, mediocre shooter at that point.

I just finished The Book of Unwritten Tales and the ending felt like there was content missing. The story was suddenly resolved in a few cutscenes, where the solution to the brewing troubles that made up the plot felt like a Deus Ex Machina appearing.

Since confirmed by the devs, but when playing New Vegas for the first time it was pretty obvious there was supposed to be more East of the river to flesh out Caesar's Legion.

I also remember feeling like Monkey Island 2's ending, weird as it was, was also kind of abrupt. Not sure if Gilbert ever commented on that.

Examples that I've encountered:

* Metal Saga: Particularly with there being things like Big Medals that don't seem to have a use (you can give them to somebody), skills that felt under-used (not to mention skills that should have been buyable, plus one skill only usable by a character you can't control that's supposed to be usable to heal during battle, but the AI doesn't use it), and some other rough edges.

* Romancing SaGa: While cut content has been restored in later versions, there's still the fact that Sorcery and Necromancy are not player usable outside of one minor dungeon. Furthermore, in Minstrel Song, there are even unique fusion spells that require Sorcery or Necromancy, but there's no way to get access to those spells and change that character's class to combine them. I can also mention that Minstrel Song has at least one class that has those skills as class skills, and you can even use that class outside of that little dungeon, but those skills are useless. There's also the Sorcerer class that has opposing skills of magic as class skills, but there's no way to benefit from them. (Sorcerer should have had a class skill that would allow that instead of just getting the usual BP/LP cost reduction that all the legendary classes have.)

* Secret of Evermore: The ending felt rushed, particularly given how many spells you get in the late game, but for which there isn;t enough game left for the spells to reach decent levels. (Spells need to be used to level them up. It's also worth noting that spells require ingredients to cast, but that's instead of having a resource like MP.)

One could argue that. One could also argue it is a function of the devteam to tidy up after themselves and make sure the whole thing is neatly wrapped in a bow, feeling as a cohesive flow from start to end.
Also, there are several parts that felt like blatant padding, like the Nobilia Marketplace; since it has the infamous gourd of no use.
Executive meddling. He wanted it wrapped up there, LucasGames obviously had other plans.

*spoiler note*
(for others reading) Eh, I felt it was "ok".....but of course, I loved the earlier parts more.

Now the body of the many(also linear somewhat.....and with the many underwater radioactive pits/other hazards, few places to hide, and many enemies), that was a pain.....and the part after, while a slightly nice homage to the first game, was a bit short and extremely linear. Four words: Stasis Device, Crystal Shard

With those two and enough ammo(plus decent health/armor), I was able to get through that area pretty easily(barring the psi reavers at the end, which I also needed a ranged wpn to beat as they float around).

*end spoilers*

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You mean he wanted to stop the series at the second game? If so, i'm glad LucasGames "meddled", as we then got the third game(which imo is one of the best, if not the best, of the series).

From the POV of a guy who only plays multiplayer on Pokemon Shodown! on PC, there's a lot wrong just in the little part of the game you get to experience online. Gigantamax is a lazy substitute for Mega Evolutions and was probably included as a substitute because they didn't have time / money to bring over the existing megas or make new ones. Galar forms are also lazy re-imaginings of previous pokemon and fail to make most of those that were previously obsolete any more relevant.

From a competitive standpoint, introduction of the Heavy Duty Boots items was about the only significant improvement.

Lack of national dex after completing the game means you can't catch pokemon from previous gens that you liked and takes away some of the pokemon I like from PS! as well (like Empoleon). It also means less end-game / new game+ content and probably has something to do with the fact that SW/SH is the first pokemon game with DLC.

Graphics and music wise, nothing can still compare to Gen5 / BW/ BW2 which was the last 2D game. Since going 3D, everyone looks like a bobble-head and and most of the music is just too complex without any underlying tunes / rhythm IMO.