Games that don't feel like they are part of their franchise

What are some video games that you all feel just don't fit in with the other games in their series? Whether it's because of playstyle, or because of your own reasons.

It's probably been said to Hell and back, but the original Jak and Daxter game. I started the series with Jak 2 and only went back to the first one many years later, and the only thing I could think about was how bright everything seemed to be. It was also weird seeing Jak be a silent protagonist the whole game. Him also being able to use so many Eco powers and so many Precursor Orbs just laying there was weird to get used to as well.

C&C 4: Tiberian Twilight, can't even call that a RTS with what it has done in comparison to every other C&C out there... apart from Renegade which can also be added to the list but that was a fun experience

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. I get that it's only loosely tied into the plot of MGS, but it's still canon to the lore. Revengence is a great game in its own right it's just ...such a departure from the main series.

Dungeon Siege 3 and Sacred 3. My favorite hack'n'slash series became simple arcade no-brainers for consoles.

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 felt nothing like its amazing predecessors.

I think Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is an obvious pick.

Wild Arms 4 is kinda goofy for my taste and doesn't really fit in with the rest of the Wild Arms franchise

Kingdom Hearts χ[chi], Unchained χ, and Union χ[Cross]. They're the only games in the franchise that are plot relevant and yet so hard to get plot from. There's just so much filler. If you thought the numbered titles had filler, boy, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Firebolt said:

It's probably been said to Hell and back, but the original Jak and Daxter game. I started the series with Jak 2 and only went back to the first one many years later, and the only thing I could think about was how bright everything seemed to be. It was also weird seeing Jak be a silent protagonist the whole game. Him also being able to use so many Eco powers and so many Precursor Orbs just laying there was weird to get used to as well.

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this so much. the series took such a sharp turn with the second game that it makes the first one feel like they're not even connected to one another. you go from a very kid friendly collectathon platformer to a platformer/3rd person shooter and the rating goes up a notch. not that T ratings are a big deal now, but back then, it felt like it meant something. i can't imagine playing 2 first tho like. aha. it's jarring to go from the first game to the second and hear someone silent have his first line be "I'M GONNA KILL PRAXIS" and hoo boy. i imagine it's also equally jarring to get used to a snarky, brooding jak and then play the first game and get a happy go lucky quiet jak.

Breath of the Wild doesn't really feel much like a Zelda game to me. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic game, but it just feels so different.

magikarp jump
It's a lot differ

Pokemon Conquest too, that was real different from the spin-off games for GF. :o

Fire Emblem Three Houses pretty different from fire emblem Awakening and the other fire emblem games

Say what?!! I'm pretty sure 3H takes a lot of influence from FE4???????

If anything, Fates is the least similar to the other games, because it became Childmaker 3000

Yeah Fates did become that but 3h it feels really different from the 2d atmosphere of FE4 and you know with the whole 3d thing in 3h.

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter feels like a very different game from the others in the series. Probably the only similarity is the that protagonist can transform into a dragon, but in this one, it's almost preferable not too. The atmosphere, gameplay style, and story progression have been changed quite drastically from the previous four games. That's not to say it's bad though. I actually enjoyed it a lot more than some of the previous titles (namely 1 and 4)

Max Payne 3. Max finally found peace and accepted the deaths of his loved ones at the end of the second game so it was quite jarring to see him become a vulgar homicidal drug addict all of a sudden. Even at the height of his mourning he usually composed himself and articulated his thoughts without being crass. He never struggled with addiction either. It would've been received better by longtime fans if they referred to it as an alternative "what-if" story where Max never found peace and began to slip further down the hole. Instead Rockstar just kind of took a crap on the first two games and the story the original developers told. I had fun with Max Payne 3 though and didn't mind them ditching the noir style for something more modern.

Grandia 3...

As a gentleman contributing to Gamers Obscurea, This is one of the few that never felt like it was apart of the series.... Granted, Each Grandia game is encapsulated with it's own story in itself, but Grandia 3 was the first to feel out of place and disjointed. It wasn't because of the gameplay, the combat system for an RPG was done beautifully and still revered to be the best to come out of a JRPG to date, better than the original Final Fantasy or anything you make with RPG Maker.

The game felt off because the story was weak, the characters we're weaker in terms of... everything.... except fly boy, the pilot and they replaced the main theme's of the music with Jpop songs... Which disjointed me to stop playing all together, I'd expect old fashion rock, even a bit of Heavy metal or even classical or an Orchestra to play something out of Grandia, not a Jpop song! There's a good reason as well why it was left out of the Grandia Collection for the Nintendo Switch.

Breath of the Wild. In a bad way. It strips out everything that made Zelda Zelda - except for Link and Zelda, anyway - and replaces it with miles and miles of absolutely fuck bloody all. It's what I'd expect Zelda to look like if Bethesda got hold of it.

Disgaea 5 doesn't really feel like a Disgaea title in terms of narrative, either. Whilst Disgaea 4 had some serious undertones to its story, it was still first and foremost a light-hearted comedy. D5 was pretty serious much of the time, and whilst the gameplay was still pretty great - again, nothing tops D4 - I did miss the more humourous tone that has always been synonymous with the franchise. Not a bad game at all, just very different.

Persona 5 doesn't feel like a Persona title either. It's actually good. Since when have Persona games been actually worth playing. What is going on here.

Monster Hunter: World doesn't feel like Monster Hunter. Watered-down gameplay, awful AWFUL narrative, and a pretty painful lack of variety...and such dull armour sets. Plus that awful tracking mechanic, sprawling maps that served no purpose other than to be as pretty as possible - seriously, it's called Monster HUNTER, not Monster Wander Around The Map Lost Until You Scrape Up Enough Shit So Your Fireflies Can Find The Monster For You Before It Runs Away - and...yeah. Combat was pretty damn fun at times, but I don't think the trade off was worth it.