Games that have lost their way Pages 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT | |
I'd say the Sonic series can safely be added to the list. | |
Splinter Cell. But I guess we should wait to see what Blacklist has in store. Conviction was a disaster. | |
Parasite Eve. Went from action RPG to action to... shooter? | |
I think OP got it right with the FF series, which is sad, as I used to play them religiously. Would also like to add most of the old platformers to this list, such as Mario and Sonic, which was mentioned by this individual:
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I'd be quite surprised to see a Soul Calibur 6. Lazy design, trying to turn the thing into a JRPG with fighter-controls, replacing mainstay characters with teenage anime cliche versions, crappy multiplayer, etc | |
Final Fantasy, I think that's going to be the first one a lot of people think of. Mass Effect. It started off great but in the end became yet another 3rd person shooter. Dragon Age. Another one that started off well but became something less than it was. I'm also going to stick Fallout here. I do really enjoy the new Fallout games but they are a far cry from what they started out as. They did kind of lose their way there going from tactical RPG to FPS with RPG elements. As I said, I do enjoy the new ones but can't help but feel that I may have preferred the new ones to be a different IP and still be getting Fallout games as tactical RPG's. | |
Assassin's Creed 3 pretty much defines a game that can't decide what it wants to be. It wants you to freerun, but then places you in a setting with nothing above 2 stories and many building being to far apart to jump to. It wants to be a stealth game, but it's handled horribly. It wants you to be the silent killer, running from combat upon discovery, but makes combat so ridiculously unchallenging that you can kill whole armies on your own. | |
It was never survival horror. It can't be horror if you are a walking death machine. It had atmosphere and jumpscares but nothing about it screamed survival or horror. | |
Castlevania. From balls-to-the-wall platforming to Metroid: Medieval Edition | |
Resident Evil and Command & Conquer are the poster boys for this thread. | |
I disagree on Dead Space and replace it with Silent Hill. *First four Silent Hill games were pretty classy survival horror games. The third was a little more emphatic on action. *Origins and Homecoming are linear action games. Homecoming in particular ripped off RE4's gameplay. *Shattered Memories is a weirdo experiment with neither survival horror nor action, just... atmosphere. And running. *Downpour goes back to survival horror, but turned linear gameplay into a sandbox-y open world. *Book of Memories plays like an action RPG in the vein of Diablo. *Not to mention the visual novel, the shooter arcade and the mobile phone games. I rest my case. | |
Oh jeez, let's see: Silent Hill: (It's been doomed since Team Silent disbanded) | |
FFX linear, FFX-2 open, FFXI open and an MMO, FFXII open, FFXIII linear (haven't played sequels), FFXIV open and an MMO. I don't see any sort of pattern. And FFVII wasn't really very open at all, most FF's have a world map but very carefully restrict the places you can go on that world map and drive you in a linear direction. Also Mass Effect 3 had almost identical customisation and levelling as ME1 just with the middle steps taken out and the pacing changed. So I don't think thats really a pattern either. (The one thing that was missing from ME3 that did appear in ME1 was small mission hubs on world. I think this was the biggest series change for ME overall) I can't really think of a series of the top of my head that fits. Fallout is probably gone the furthest from it's roots and Sonic completely changed but now they're also bringing back all the 2d stuff | |
Duke Nukem is a notable example. | |
Well, the problem isn't so much the linearity, as much as the "decline" in quality. Granted, I haven't played any of them, hence the quotation marks.
Fallout's still an open-world sci-fi post apocalyptic WRPG. The only thing that's changed is the camera perspective. And it's still good either way. Something hasn't "lost it's way" if it has become worse. | |
I think in some cases it's a case of technology making things even more complicated to develop than they were back in the PS2 era (which Yahtzee also points towards as a possibility). There are larger teams, more complicated game engines, and more time consuming art assets than there used to be back in the early 2000s. As far as games that have moved off the original path, Silent Hill and Final Fantasy seem to be two of the major deviants, but we also have games on the other coasts of the world that have had a similar fate. | |
I hate to say this but; The Elder Scrolls. I still enjoy the games a lot(300+ hours logged on Skyrim just to give you a rough idea)but Bethesda keeps removing more and more RPG elements with each instalment, what some people might call streamlining others might call dumbing down, and I'm inclined to agree with the latter. | |
Thought of a proper one. Modern Warfare, started as a fairly intellectual take on the military shooter with a lot of new innovations. Descended into just sheer insaneness with none of the intelligence of the first game
Even then, FFX frequently pops up on people's best games of all time lists (moreso than XIII and IX) so I think even decline in quality is too hard to call. I just think the series changes itself so much game to game that you can't pick out a pattern
There are elitests who would argue there was a complete tone change between 2 and 3 and the gameplay is much more shooter than tacical RPG now. I don't really abide by that, I'm fine with games reinventing themselves and I don't really think you have to stick to the original. Fallout was just the closest to something that had left it's roots that I could think of. (maybe horror games) | |
I've played all three Mass Effect games, and I'm kind of surprised people defend the RPG aspect of the first one so vigorously. I mean, if I had to choose between a simpler, yet more accessible, gameplay that had a greater focus on action, and gameplay that emphasizes "RPG elements" that just come off as obtuse and unnecessary , I'm pretty sure which one I'd choose. Personally, I don't think the "RPG elements" have EVER been that great in the ME series, but at least the last two didn't feel like shoving that shit down your gullet. | |
I am going to have to agree with this. Mass Effect 1's "RPG" mechanics were GOD-AWFUL, as was its combat. Mass Effect 2 was so much better gameplay wise, and three was better then two, even in its RPg mechanics, that I am really surprised that anyone can sad ME1's gameplay. ME1, from a gameplay standpoint, was just one giant failure, and Me2/3 fixed it, a lot, I think people just hate on it because "newer games always = worse". | |
Finalfantasy, by making direct sequels and MMOs. | |
The last few have been really good actually. Everything between Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic Colours is pretty bad though... | |
The OP claims Dead Space was ever survival horror. Dead Space was always a third person action game with a shitload of gore. Survival horror is something EA would never publish, survival horror is a niche market and will never hit their sales targets. Resident Evil 5 was the end of anything close to mainstream survival horror, you can argue that it was Resi 4, but 4 retained a lot of good survival horror elements, it had slow and deliberate gameplay, a fair bit of inventory management, and relative scarcity of ammo (unless you play like me and only aim for the head and only ever use the handgun until the very end of the game) along with a great atmosphere. Does ZombiU count as survival horrow? I haven't had chance to play it yet so I can't be sure. | |
Thank you. While I like the first games story etc, the gun play and stats were rubbish. Here you are, Commander of an elite squad and you still need training/more stats to aim straight? Or to even be able to aim with some weapons? I get how they were trying to restrict weapons to classes, but still giving some access to weapons, like the sniper rifle and not being able to look through the scope was utter horse shit. | |
I think this and Metal Gear Solid went from actual games to games that don't want to be played considering all of the beautifully crafted cutscenes that just seem to happen every several steps you take as a player. Also, in Final Fantasy, you went from controlling parties of 3 to 5 (there were parties of 5 in some FF games, right?) to controlling one person and making suggestions that the CPU should follow I guess. They look great sure but, you might as well just watch Advent Children again. --- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Originally you were going to play as a Force-Sensitive Wookie but that was changed to Starkiller, who I saw as a place-holder of some sort honestly because of his bland design (just use Cole McGrath, nobody will notice). I liked how the original told a new story based on the formation of The Rebel Alliance and looked forward to Force Unleashed being a nice anthology series covering lesser known tales from the expanded universe. Then Force Unleashed 2 shit all over the idea by Palpatining Starkiller and trying to force a romance into a story where there was none to begin with. Assassins Creed: I'm one of the weird people who really liked the first installment and while I loved the second, I thought it was kind of weird that I wasn't allowed to stab more than 3 people at a time without being desyncronized. Then Assassins Creed 2 decided to happen twice more and each review talked about more gameplay mechanics that had nothing to do with stabbing people in the throat. I'm going to have to quote Yahtzee and ask Assassins Creed, "What is it with you and NOT stabbing people!?" or rather, discouraging me from stabbing people. I was excited that the fifth console Assassins Creed would get the number 3 in it but then I found out it was taking place in Colonial America...then I found out about the naval combat aspects of the game and after thinking to myself "that sounds and look pretty bad ass" I followed that up with "but I don't want a naval combat sim, I want to stab people in the throat with the blessing of historical figures from centuries ago...also what happened to The Templar?" | |
Incorrect. I was into the original Alone in the Dark back when it was enough to make people fill their drawers. One shotgun reload, two health items, and a pistol with no reloads. | |
I agree with Dead Space because I didn't play any of the other games you listed. I too noticed how it went from 96% Horror 4% Shooter, to 50% Horror 50% Shooter, to 4% Horror 96% shooter based on the demo I saw where a Walker came stubbing out of a snow storm only to get cut down by a fully automatic machine gun. Big name developers don't seem to understand that the more fire power you give a player, the less frightening the game itself becomes. Indies seem to get that a lot and usually plop the player into a dark basement with nothing more but the clothes on their characters back. | |
The reason I got the first mass effect was BECAUSE it had action at it's core and was relatively light on the rpg elements. So IMO it hasn't lost its way at all unless you were hoping for a different direction. I agree that assassins creed has kind of lost its way. It's more like exploration:history. | |
That's not true, and you know it. The first Fallouts were comparable in gameplay to, say, XCOM, Jagged Alliance or Final Fantasy Tactics (especially Fallout: Tactics). The new ones take place in real time, that's a MASSIVE change, and you can keep firing when it's "not your turn", and the AP refills over time rather than between "turns", etc, etc... OT: Rayman REALLY suffered this in the Era of the Rabbids (AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGH), but they seem to have righted it with Origins and Legends. | |
Metroid. Though that just ties in with just how much Nintendo sucks. They sucked with Prime Hunters, nobody cared about Prime Pinball, and Other M speaks for itself. How hard would it have been for Nintendo if they just did what Konami did for Castlevania, and used their GBA games' formula, except with better graphics? How easy would it have been to take my money, Nintendo, and yet, you continue to stagnate, fapping to the pile of money Mario has made and will make, instead of taking risks and expanding your horizons. | |
The Prime Trilogy was amazing, then what came after... Not so much. I honestly think they should get Retro to make the next game on WII U, wonder what would happen then. | |
Absolutly does. Well, I'm no expert in survival horror since I have not played many. But I know it is since ammo is scarce and having more than 2 zombies on the screen is already a challenge. | |
Final Fantasy, through and through. I havent played much of the series, but reading up on them, I understand why the series was so beloved from I to VII. VIII was where it went horribly wrong, and apart from IX, XII, Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia 012, I can't think of that many good things that's came out of the series since then. Square, I loved the characters and the stories. Enough with the angsty pretty boys! Enough with the stupid, stupid weapons! Enough with the eye-searing visual design! And actually add GAME-play in your next GAME because you are a GAME company, not a movie studio! I want to like you, really I do, but you just keep forgetting what made VI, VII and Dissida 012 so great. | |
Thats good then, defining things as survival horror is flame bait (I keep typing horror as horrow I dont know why...), it looks it to me and from the review GameTrailers gave it it seemed like they were expecting something like CoD's zombie mode rather than an actual survival horror game. With survival and stuff. | |
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Just out of curiosity, what games to people believe have lost their way from their original intended audience?
In my opinion, some of the biggest culprits are:
Mass Effect (went from RPG to action)
Dead Space (went from Survival Horror to action)
Final Fantasy (went from open-RPG to linear-action-RPG)
Resident Evil (went from survival horror to action)
These game developers tend to ignore the audiences that make their games popular in favor of the wider audience, which often removes all the features that made the original games worth note in the first place.
That's not to say the sequels are never enjoyable, but game developers seem to lose respect for what made the originals so good.