I'll have to disagree with the Nuts & Bolts example. I don't think that was a case of a good idea wasted in a bad game. The good idea is the game. I imagine the mechanics would have seen a more positive appraisal had the title starred unfamiliar characters, as you noted.

As for other examples, I beat a game earlier this year called Mages of Mystralia. It has a really cool spellcrafting system, where you can add behaviors, augments, and triggers to individual spells. Adding an ice augment to an AoE spell lays down a tile of frozen water, for example. Really cool stuff, but it's wasted in a generic, formulaic action-adventure game.

How about Codename S.T.E.A.M. I enjoyed the game but it was a little ridiculous. I believe they learned from mistake and made proper xcom clone with help of Ubisoft.

Are you talking about Codename S.T.E.A.M. on 3DS?

Oops yep.  I'll correct it in my post.

Cybermorph was my shht. One of the 12 Jaguar owners. 5 of them are dead now. I just downloaded Nuts and Bolts too for the first time. I would put down Bushido Blade. The whole potential one hit kill fighting game. They really need to bring that franchise back.

Yea had ton of fun with Bushido Blade.  Some matches were quick as shit while some dragged on for awhile.  One of my fav fighting games on PS1.

I think Bushido Blade got good reviews and most of the people who played it, liked it.

I wouldn't even call Nuts 'n' Bolts a good idea in a bad game, more of a mediocre idea poorly implemented in a bad game.

Claybook comes to mind; the idea of a world made entirely out of deformable clay that you shape/destroy to achieve objectives was cool, but it just doesn't control well; just navigating the environment is frustrating. Only Switch game I regret buying, so far.

Lol. I have no idea how to quote properly.