...I miss their old games...

[Yukari]

What game series do you think hae gone downhill compared the their originals? Maybe they started off good but then the games just started getting worse. Maybe the company got possessed by EA who rushed for a quick release date and forced the game out before it was finished. (That is the bane of many a video game.) Maybe no squeal could have lived up to the original. Or maybe there just wasn't enough innovation and improvement between games. For whatever reason many series have been getting worse and worse today. But that's what this thread is about! What games do you think don't live up to the originals? And why do you think they aren't as good as they used to be?

 

[Sonata]

Pokemon, Call of Duty, Digimon, Final Fantasy, and that's about all I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[Cerberus87]

Pokemon, Call of Duty, Digimon, Final Fantasy, and that's about all I can think of off the top of my head.

Disagree on Pokémon. The mechanics in 6th gen are the best ever. World navigation is also better, with less need for HMs (although there was a setback on this with RSE remakes).

I expect most of the posts in this thread to be filled with nostalgia, but the problem is that a developer can't make the same game over and over or people would then complain the series got "stale". Which ironically is the case with CoD.

 

[Eevee3]

Sonic games.

Do I need to explain why?

I'll go with Spyro games as well as Crash Bandicoot games.

 

[Yato]

In a sense, some of the various Pokemon spin-off series. PMD2 (Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky) were fantastic (especially Sky), and while Gates to Infinity was good, it didn't live up to the PMD2. (Can't say much about the Wii games since they weren't localized, though given what I've seen, they don't seem to be as good either.) Same deal with the Stadium-esque games. They went from Stadium battles to actual plots in Colosseum and XD, then went back to stadium battles in PBR. Sure, you got character customization, but I really liked how Colo/XD had plots and made the gameplay more interesting. Hopefully something similar will come out in the future, but who knows.

Sonic also comes to mind; however, some of the latest Sonic games have been pretty good (especially Generations), so I don't know if that'd count anymore.

 

[TheMATTsterpiece]

Luigi's Mansion. The one for the 3DS is soooooo much worse that the original one on the gamecube. In it's defense, the original was and still is an amazing game, so it'd be hard to beat or even compare to.

 

[Cerberus87]

Sonic games.

Do I need to explain why?

I'll go with Spyro games as well as Crash Bandicoot games.

It's a shame Sega didn't know what to do with Sonic after Sonic & Knuckles. :(

 

[Sydian]

Actually, can I take a different take on this? When I first saw the title, I actually thought this would be about companies or developers. So my immediate thought coming into this was RareWare. Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Perfect Dark, and Jet Force Gemini (my personal favorite of the RareWare games!) were all amazing. Then you have things like Starfox Adventures and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. And now all they make is Kinect games, which is a waste I think...but I will give them credit for one thing. Viva Pinata is awesome. I love it and it's the only reason I keep my 360 around. Honest opinion.

It's just sad that after all those amazing games for SNES and N64, they just...make those Kinect games now. Like I said, it's a waste. I mean, they're not total letdowns thankfully, but those games I listed earlier were golden and I guess it just can't be topped? I don't know.

As far as series goes, Sonic comes to mind, but I've been beaten to the punch on that one haha.

 

[Dustmop]

Ugh. Resident Evil and Silent Hill. :c

Capcom, what did you do to RE. What did you do.
At least SH has an excuse: the more recent SH games haven't been developed by the same people.. But I'll still blame Konami for letting those games happen. They did publish them, after all.

 

[TY]

one series really stands out for me which got EA'd, was the entire Command and Conquer series. EA practically ruined it with their "money money money" mindset. It already started with EA rushing Tiberian Sun, but when they really took over, the series began to die. Generals offered something unique, Tiberium Wars was simply the best game in EA's C&C time because of the influence Westwood had on it by hinting to future events in their own games, but Red Alert 3 was the start of the downfall... It was too cartoonish. Then Tiberian Twilight came... and no C&C fan ever wants to talk of it not accept it as a C&C game, as it just scrapped everything C&C stood for... The nail in the coffin: Cancelling Generals 2, turning it into some F2P/P2W game and even cancelling that...

 

[acatfrommars]

Lol for hating on EA.

The newer Sonic games are what came to my head first. Compared to the original games on the Sega Genesis, the new games just are bad. Sega needs to stop over complicating these games, and just stick to the roots.

Capcom with Resident Evil aren't doing well either. Resident Evil 4 was my favorite, and 5 wasn't bad. However, Resident Evil Raccoon City was just plain bad, and 6 wasn't much better. Go back to the original style, I haven't played any of the games before 4 but surely they couldn't be as disappointing as Raccoon City was.

The Bomberman series. The Bomberman games on the Nintendo 64 I like. The future Bomberman crap Nintendo added to the Nintendo 64. Ew, just no. Bomberman: Act Zero is one of the worst games I have ever played.

Call of Duty. Bring back Modern Warfare 2 style snipers, who cares if they were OP. Ghosts didn't live up to its hype, and despite its good story mode even Black Ops 2 was disappointing. MW3 wasn't bad, but the two games that make Call of Duty what it is today is Modern Warfare and Modern warfare 2.

 

[Raine]

The only series that I've followed through with from earlier instalments would be Final Fantasy, and it's clear to everyone that the franchise has been on a downward spiral ;; Though the fateful fan in me continues to purchase their games in hopes of finding a glimmer of hope in the game, and I have with certain ones because of the introduction of new game mechanics especially in the XIII trilogy. Regardless though, the influence of the franchise has been lackluster as of current, and does not compare to it's peak.

 

[TY]

Lol for hating on EA.

My hate on EA is justified, js :P

 

[Yukari]

Actually, can I take a different take on this? When I first saw the title, I actually thought this would be about companies or developers. So my immediate thought coming into this was RareWare. Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Perfect Dark, and Jet Force Gemini (my personal favorite of the RareWare games!) were all amazing. Then you have things like Starfox Adventures and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. And now all they make is Kinect games, which is a waste I think...but I will give them credit for one thing. Viva Pinata is awesome. I love it and it's the only reason I keep my 360 around. Honest opinion.

It's just sad that after all those amazing games for SNES and N64, they just...make those Kinect games now. Like I said, it's a waste. I mean, they're not total letdowns thankfully, but those games I listed earlier were golden and I guess it just can't be topped? I don't know.

As far as series goes, Sonic comes to mind, but I've been beaten to the punch on that one haha.

If you want to talk about developers then that's fine too.

 

[Aeroblast]

Sims 2013 was a big bunch of cluster****.

Resident Evil and Sonic also come into mind.

 

[Hiatus]

Others might feel a little differently about this, but personally, I... really don't like the direction that Need for Speed is headed, unfortunately. :( Their games used to be really enjoyable. When I played their 2005 version of Most Wanted, I actually felt as if I were a part of it, and not just someone viewing events from a television screen; the storyline was this engaging. They've released another version of MW couple of years back, but this one wasn't that great. When I raced, it felt like there was no cause behind it; I was racing only for the sake of it.

Aside from NFS, another would be Yu-Gi-Oh. They haven't released any games recently as far as I'm aware, but their most recent ones--which would be Tag Force--were quite repetitive. Their previous releases weren't exactly like that; every time I played, I always got to experience something new, so to speak, whether it be big or small.

 

[albyrevolution]

Others might feel a little differently about this, but personally, I... really don't like the direction that Need for Speed is headed, unfortunately. :( Their games used to be really enjoyable. When I played their 2005 version of Most Wanted, I actually felt as if I were a part of it, and not just someone viewing events from a television screen; the storyline was this engaging. They've released another version of MW couple of years back, but this one wasn't that great. When I raced, it felt like there was no cause behind it; I was racing only for the sake of it.

Aside from NFS, another would be Yu-Gi-Oh. They haven't released any games recently as far as I'm aware, but their most recent ones--which would be Tag Force--were quite repetitive. Their previous releases weren't exactly like that; every time I played, I always got to experience something new, so to speak, whether it be big or small.

I totally agree with you about Need for Speed, I also played Most Wanted on my ps2 and that was an amazing game! I could stay on front of my tv for hours with that game! Then the series began to get worse, and when I tried Pro Street and Shift I really felt bad, 'cause I understood that NfS was no more the great game that I enjoyed when I was a child.
As regards Yugioh, my thoughts are the same: the stopped making yugioh games for the PSP system, the last one was Tag Force 6 I think, and they looked repetitive, 'cause every game of the series was like an update of the previous one, with obviously more cards but without important new feature. It's a pity they stopped like this, I think a yugioh game on the new PSVita would be really great..

 

[Phantom1]

Hmm. Metal Gear.

I loved the series, but really... it's been dragged along far enough.

Halo. Same thing.

Call of Duty... I actually like Black Ops II quite a bit. I think it's the best in the series, and I was a HUGE MW2 fan.

 

[Shhwonk]

Mega Man. What a pile that franchise has gone to, with Keiji Inafune (the "father" of Mega Man") leaving Capcom because the company itself has gone downhill in the treatment of its workers, from what I've read. So now, I'm not sure how much we can get from the series, other than some retro throwbacks which they've been doing, which I don't actually object to. But we haven't seen a true MM game in years, and it was easily one of the greatest series. On a good note, Inafune formed his own company (Comcept) and is working on a carbon-copy of MM with some retouches. Mighty No 9 seems pretty promising.

And Final Fantasy has also gone downhill in a way. This is more subjective than anything, as Square-Enix is still putting out great FF games and making a lot of smart moves for the franchise, but personally I would prefer the more old-school style of games like FF I to VI. Even VII to X. Eh, just my personal taste for nostalgia I guess.

 

[Keiran]

Um, probably the Legend of Zelda series. I think its quality peaked between ALttP and WW. Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, TP & SS were all quite painful to play (TP was pretty decent on the Gamecube version though). ALBW was great but it's short, fairly easy, and riddled with bugs - you can literally skip entire dungeons and the entire first half of the story and it feels sloppy; a LoZ game hasn't been this broken since OoT (which can be beaten in under 19 minutes).

I'd say Pokémon, too, but the sequels have always been pretty great. The initial releases for each gen have just been...bad since DP.