Gaming Franchises that were ruined

Gamer Bhoy 89

Need for Speed
Ruined for me with the announcement of the reboot. They were already losing my interest in some way after NFS Carbon but I did enjoy the remakes of Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted, but Need for Speed 2015 just spoiled everything for me. Always online is always something I have never been fond of.

Burnout
Ruined for me post Burnout: Paradise. Now, I did enjoy Burnout Paradise, but I much, much preferred the original formula of mindless arcade racing. Burnout 3 is my all time favourite of the series. I kept hoping for another Burnout game years after Paradise but never got it, instead we got Burnout Crash, which is a simple, miniature version of the already mini-game that we seen in prior instalments. It was okay but I just wanted a true Burnout game again. And I'm still hoping that Alex Ward of Criterion brings them back and makes another, but I'm highly doubtful.

Conflict Series
I am an avid lover of these games. They were my introduction to the tactical military shooter genre. These games were myself and my cousin's go-to co-op games back in the PS2 era and I will always have those memories. I kept waiting on the next instalment to come out when the 360 came along and when I heard of Conflict: Denied Ops I was so excited - until I saw the game itself. It looked and played nothing like the 4 games before it, it was a generic FPS (instead of 3rd) with only 2 characters instead of the signature 4. They haven't made a Conflict game since and tbh I hope it stays that way. I'll always go back to the originals.

Tekken
Now, I love Tekken, absolutely love it. I will always have fond memories of ploughing through them to unlock everything and looking up guides if I was stuck or not doing something right - they were just a very rewarding set of solid fighting games. But ever since Tekken 6 I've kind of became indifferent towards the series. Especially after Tekken 7. It took me an entire weekend to get the Platinum Trophy on Tekken 7 and I did everything the game offered me. Yet I felt cheated. There was nothing else to play through it for. Nothing to get rewarded for. The single player story ended up being the distraction before the real meat of the game had to be done - the Online. I do not care for playing fighting games online - I hate them. There's always connectivity issues and I know well I am not good enough compared to the millions of freakshows out there that are absolute GOD at the game. I've always been a loner when it comes to the fighting genre when given the option of that, or online. And Tekken 7 already had everything unlocked pretty much from the get-go. There were no characters for me to unlock, the only unlockables were concept art and videos, as well as costumes for each character. But how do you get them? Grinding out fights until you earn enough "fight money" to "buy" them in-game. Not only that, some of the costumes were locked behind a random reward generator that would appear during a single-player session. This was not what I associated Tekken with back in the day. And while I will come to Tekken 7 every once in a while, I doubt I'll play it any more than the ones I originally loved (Tekken 1, 2, 3, 4, TTT, and 5)

Micro Machines
If Micro Machines World Series was any way decent I would not have put this on here. But alas, I haven't touched the game since I played it on launch for about 2 hours. It's boring, barebones, and has little substance compared to the juggernauts that came before it. Micro Machines 2 will always be my favourite and likewise V3 on the PS1. World Series' announcement resurrected my interest and I instantly pre-ordered it. Thankfully it was only €30 over the course of 3 weeks (tenner a week put away in the piggy bank like a good boy :pac:) but I was so underwhelmed and bored within a couple of hours I felt I had played enough. I ended up buying Toybox Turbos on steam for a fraction of the price (€5) and I had more fun on that in half an hour.

Command and Conquer
While I thought Command and Conquer 4 was a strange change in the series that didn't to it many favours, I did enjoy it for a time. But the one that ruined it for me was Tiberium Alliances. Downgraded (yes, downgraded) to a Free-to-Play MMORTS that I don't know if anyone asked for. This was the shark jump for me as I knew well that there was nothing left for this series. C&C4 may not have been the best direction to take but I found it a hell of a lot more interesting than TA.

Grand Theft Auto
I love GTA, absolutely adore the games. I was borderline emotional the moment I got home with GTA 5 at 1am and snaked a half hour into it before going to bed because I was so underwhelmed by GTA 4 that I barely returned to it after I finished it. After GTA Online came out I was amazed. It was so much fun doing all the random missions with other players and causing chaos and winding other players up. Then the heists came out. And from there, it went downhill for me. I am not a chatty person online - I will only talk to close friends via party chat. I will never talk to complete strangers, I just feel instant unease over the idea. When heists came out, I tried to give it a go and I was instantly put off by the fact that people were forcing voice chat onto me, otherwise I'd be kicked out of the session. It alienated me, so I never went back to it. I also heard news that there was going to be a single-player expansion for some time, and then the devs said they were cancelling out any plans to bring in future single-player content and instead decided to focus on GTA:O. That's fine - it's a business, they need money, but it alienated me further. Now I feel psychologically alone playing GTA 5 when every single GTA forum I visit, it's nothing but "New Online Updates" "Massive Content Update for GTA Online" "GTA Online this" "GTA Online that", and little-to-none of that content gets brought over to the single-player, so I always feel like I'm missing out but I don't want to be forced to grind out my free time on GTA Online doing repetitive missions over and over and over to get the things I really want. As such I think the game has turned into an ironic parody of itself and is absolutely nothing that I loved the games for. And I think it has ruined it on me because I know well that the next GTA game to come out (whenever that may be) is going to be a much-less focused single player story and a gigantic Online experience (GTA Online 2, basically) and it is going to pull me away. I felt so left out to the point that I actually went and re-purchased GTA 4 for the Xbox and am actually enjoying it properly this time. I'm really enjoying the story of it. I am already fearing similar issues for Red Dead Redemption 2 but I'll hold my breath.

wotzgoingon

I am like you and really wish they would bring out single player DLC for GTA V but as you pointed out that is never going to happen.

GTA V was such a good game I played it when it first came out for Xbox 360 and then got it again on PC and played the single player campaign a few times as I enjoyed it so much.

I also hope they do not turn the new GTA when ever it comes out to a online only campaign as that would ruin the whole series for me.

Moist Bread

wotzgoingon wrote: »

I enjoyed 3 but I get where you are coming from it was totally different than 1 or 2.

I enjoyed them all, but it was always a case of diminishing returns for me. I liked the slow paced gamplay of the first game. The cumbersome suit had a nice balance of making you feel vulnerable, yet powerful too, given the different situations. 2 Played much more smoothly, but I felt something was lost with that and it became more of a normal 3rd person shooter with a sci-fi setting than a atmospheric survival horror game. By the time 3 rolled about, you'd seen it all before and the hammy story didn't help matters. I actually thought the snow planet setting was one of it's strongest aspects, but with EA putting needless microtransactions in there and the awful story, it sort of fell on it's arse.

ShaneU

Ten of Swords wrote: »

Bioshock 3 is a serious decline in quality compared to the first 2

Could not disagree more, Infinite is my favourite in the series.

Final Fantasy
Since Final Fantasy XIII this series has been a complete disaster. Unlikable characters and unbearable voice acting. Some people like the combat but I hated the lack of control I had. And two pointless sequels because we need to milk these assets as much as we can.

Final Fantasy XV wasn't even finished upon release and they have the cheek to release DLC promoting Assassin's Creed instead of maybe finishing the 2nd half of the game I paid for?

Final Fantasy 7 remake. They've already made a balls of this and the first chapter isn't even out yet! They cancelled collaboration with a third party studio meaning it will take even longer to release. Looking forward to facing Sephiroth again in 2047, the 50th anniversary edition.

Metal Gear

Metal Gear Survive. Enough said.

Gran Turismo

How can TurnTen release brilliant Forza games every single year yet Polphony Digital takes 5 years between releases? There are 200+ people at the studio!!!

Dead Space

Dead Space was a survival horror classic. I don't know what possessed EA to turn the sequels into action games, maybe too many focus groups full of gob****es.

Mass Effect

EA again. Mass Effect 1 was a fantastic Bioware RPG. Mass Effect 2 and 3 removed most of the RPG combat elements in favour of a more casual combat system. Oh and having to play the Multiplayer in ME3 to raise your readiness rating in Single player? **** OFF. Haven't played Andromeda but consensus seems they made a balls of that too.

Metroid

Hopefully if the re-release of Metroid 2 sells well we might actually see a new 2d Metroid game! :eek: I means it's only been FIFTEEN years since Fusion was released.

F-Zero

I'm not even going to look up how long it's been since GX was released, it'll only depress me.

WWE

These games have had the exact same gameplay for the past ten years. Utter tripe.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater

Tony Hawk’s Ride ahahahaha. They even tried to reboot it back to the first games with THPS5 and couldn't even get that right.

Penn

Gamer Bhoy 89 wrote: »

Tekken
Now, I love Tekken, absolutely love it. I will always have fond memories of ploughing through them to unlock everything and looking up guides if I was stuck or not doing something right - they were just a very rewarding set of solid fighting games. But ever since Tekken 6 I've kind of became indifferent towards the series. Especially after Tekken 7. It took me an entire weekend to get the Platinum Trophy on Tekken 7 and I did everything the game offered me. Yet I felt cheated. There was nothing else to play through it for. Nothing to get rewarded for. The single player story ended up being the distraction before the real meat of the game had to be done - the Online. I do not care for playing fighting games online - I hate them. There's always connectivity issues and I know well I am not good enough compared to the millions of freakshows out there that are absolute GOD at the game. I've always been a loner when it comes to the fighting genre when given the option of that, or online. And Tekken 7 already had everything unlocked pretty much from the get-go. There were no characters for me to unlock, the only unlockables were concept art and videos, as well as costumes for each character. But how do you get them? Grinding out fights until you earn enough "fight money" to "buy" them in-game. Not only that, some of the costumes were locked behind a random reward generator that would appear during a single-player session. This was not what I associated Tekken with back in the day. And while I will come to Tekken 7 every once in a while, I doubt I'll play it any more than the ones I originally loved (Tekken 1, 2, 3, 4, TTT, and 5)

Have to agree. I loved Tekken since spending hours on the demo of Tekken 3 that I got with the PS1. Finally got Tekken 3 and was completely sold. TTT, T4 and T5 were just as good and I always kept going until I unlocked every character's Arcade endings.

Tekken 6 and TTT2 just felt a bit... flat. It became more about unlocking gear and stuff for characters and making them look f*cking stupid.

Tekken 7, like you, I platinumed over a weekend with not that much effort. The story mode, trying to emulate the MK/Injustice games, just didn't work. It was boring and the big "End to the Mishima Saga" didn't f*cking end because

it's going to still continue with Kazuya vs Jin, just like the last 3 games where Heihachi was just an afterthought anyway. It's the same story over and over again where no one else in the game actually matters or has any real connection. It's just all about Kazuya Vs Jin.

And without arcade endings for characters, there's f*ck all point playing as them. Some of the characters get one single story fight which doesn't even make sense half the time and they're just thrown together for no reason. On-going stories like Armor King/King/Marduk were just abandoned. They even removed stuff like Team Battle which I always enjoyed. For single player, your only option is just Arcade and fighting as the same fighter in random fights to unlock more stupid gear.

I sunk huge amounts of hours into T3, TTT, T4 and T5, but my interest in the series just keeps waning and they're reducing reasons to keep people playing rather than adding reasons.

Retr0gamer

Spoiler: Tekken was never good.

SolvableKnave

Spoiler: Other people thought/think differently.

Billy86

Foxhound38 wrote: »

Metal Gear Solid - the story got crushed underneath the weight of its own silliness in my opinion. With that said, the Phantom Pain was an excellent game as far as its mechanics went, but it was clearly unfinished due to political reasons between Konami and Kojima - it's a shame he wasn't given the extra time and resources he needed, because the underlying skeleton of a masterpiece is plain to see in that game.

That's what really kills me so much with this game, been out of gaming for years and years until late last year so I've been in a great position to have classic after classic lined up. I genuinely think with a few tweaks and if the story had been developed to a full 50 mission and not this rehashed missions from earlier b*llocks, that this game could have held up with the likes of GTAV, Witcher 3 and Zelda BOTW. It was a whole tonne of fun while playing, but the way it comes to such an abrupt end and was basically never even really attempted to be finished properly (and the issues this causes with the flow of the game from prior missions like

so many of your soldiers dying off from about missions 22-28, when by 31 the whole came is over

).

Stylistically it was excellent right from the first pang of The Man Who Sold The World, the gameplay was absolutely incredible, it was so, so, sssoooo much fun sneaking about trying to extract soldiers, I love games involving leveling up or building so the army/base construction was something I personally adored, and on and on. The stupid teen boy fantasy that was the 'Quiet' character was irritating in parts but did add some nice gameplay dynamics, the genetically enhanced enemy solider were amazing and genuinely elicited an "oh sh*t oh sh*t oh sh*t!" reaction whenever they popped up (but then they just vanished with the rest of the storyline), and so on and so on.

But then it was all over, mid game. Imagine Witcher 3 ended as soon as you got to Skellige, or Zelda after beating the third divine beat, or GTA as soon as you do that heist with the minigun way up in the northern part of the map. It's probably the most disappointed I have ever found myself at the end of a game to be honest.

Billy86

Patser wrote: »

I'm going to say Football Manager. I had religiously played those games for a decade, pretty much only game I'd have at times, right from the Championship Manager era.

But last 1 I bought was 2014, because by then it had become an annual release with little innovation and just new team squads and a little bit of new paint. The game play had become over weighted by detail, without any sense of reward.

I still make a stupid impulse buy on it when I see it for €10-15 most years, and you're quite right. Also in terms of general innovations or whatnot, there doesn't seem to really be much of any difference in the last decade. It's just gone incredibly stale and boring.

Penn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Spoiler: Tekken was never good.

It was.

Retr0gamer

Can people really say MGS5 was bad. Sure the story was unfinished but they absolutely nailed the gameplay. If a game is fun then I've no problems with it. It's like the furor over the mass effect 3 ending, a game I enjoyed up to that point.

Sephiroth_dude

The Anno series, last game was dumbed down beyond belief.

Penn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Can people really say MGS5 was bad. Sure the story was unfinished but they absolutely nailed the gameplay. If a game is fun then I've no problems with it. It's like the furor over the mass effect 3 ending, a game I enjoyed up to that point.

The gameplay was great to a point, however it became quite repetitive with missions, locations and general tactics. There were about 150 side missions but most of them were just variances on the same 5-6 mission types. There were 50 main missions but again, some of them were just more difficult versions of previous missions. There were a wealth of different tactics available yet the best way to tackle most missions was just the standard tranq headshot, fulton, tranq headshot, fulton etc.

The gameplay was great, but it just became a grind. Researching/upgrading weapons required fultoning supplies, hours for it to be upgraded etc. The vehicles weren't much cop and generally cost too much, and with repetitive gameplay comes other repetition, like Miller's 5 lines constantly on a loop every time you fulton something, the iDroid constantly repeating lines, you end up using the same landing zones where you know easier supplies can be found, but then you end up repeatedly having to watch the same landing and takeoff animations over and over again.

The story absolutely killed the franchise, and I think that's how Kojima wanted it anyway. But even aside from that, even though the gameplay was generally great, there were a lot of things seemingly removed from the gameplay that meant you ended up just repeating the same things over and over again that it stopped being fun. At least with the previous games, you always had a progressing story and location to get through. With going open world and introducing grinding elements, you ended up in the same gameplay rotation over and over again.

kunst nugget

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Spoiler: Tekken was never good.

Fúck that, Tekken 3 was brilliant. I blame my carpal tunnel solely on that game…

Skerries

kunst nugget wrote: »

Fúck that, Tekken 3 was brilliant. I blame my carpal tunnel solely on that game…

that and PornHub

kunst nugget

Skerries wrote: »

that and PornHub

Ssshhhh…

Retr0gamer

kunst nugget wrote: »

Fúck that, Tekken 3 was brilliant. I blame my carpal tunnel solely on that game…

I just found it all flash no substance compared to other 3D fighters, although I hear Tekken 7 is a big improvement.

Too many blocking stances, too many combos, too much to learn and memorise just to have the game packed full of 'stuff'. Other fighters like Virtua Fighter, Soul Calibur or 2D games were about a bunch of simple to learn mechanics that were refined and the depth came from implementing those simple mechanics.

The old Tekken's were good button mashers but going beyond that wasn't rewarding. And Tekken 4 was garbage. Even then if I wanted a button masher Dead or Alive was a lot more fun. And it had boobs.

ligerdub

Jamiekelly wrote:

The Fight Night franchise was ruined by their non existant developers

That was a great series.

I can't remember the last one now that you mention it. Was it Champion (round 4)? Champion was class. Tough to see how they could top that.

I might be wrong but I seem to recall hearing that they transferred the game engine to the UFC series.

They were never the most prolific in terms of production.

Penn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I just found it all flash no substance compared to other 3D fighters, although I hear Tekken 7 is a big improvement.

Too many blocking stances, too many combos, too much to learn and memorise just to have the game packed full of 'stuff'. Other fighters like Virtua Fighter, Soul Calibur or 2D games were about a bunch of simple to learn mechanics that were refined and the depth came from implementing those simple mechanics.

The old Tekken's were good button mashers but going beyond that wasn't rewarding. And Tekken 4 was garbage. Even then if I wanted a button masher Dead or Alive was a lot more fun. And it had boobs.

Ah, so it was sh*t because it was too hard for you and didn't have enough boobs. Gotcha.

Retr0gamer

Penn wrote: »

Ah, so it was sh*t because it was too hard for you and didn't have enough boobs. Gotcha.

Never said that, well the boobs thing was a joke. I said it was unrewarding. It's definitely not too difficult. Everything is easy to pull off and it's accessible it's just not rewarding to learn it all off.

Anyway, back on topic I feel Tekken really isn't a ruined franchise. With SF5 floundering Tekken 7 has become very popular.

Azza

When it comes to fighting games there is a massive disconnect between the casual and hardcore players (not disparaging either group of players)

Casual players look at the single player content.
Number of characters in the roster, arcade mode, story mode, survival mode, time attack mode, character leveling modes, mini games, unlockable content, such as stages, costumes etc
They also will play local multiplayer with friends and maybe dabble with online multiplayer but tend to find it to difficult/don't like losing so they don't stick around online for long.

Hardcore players will have little interest in the single player content. They may play through the various modes once or twice or do the single player content that unlocks items for the characters they play but the main feature for them is both offline and online multiplayer.

They are interested in the gameplay mechanics and whether the gameplay mechanics are better or worse than the last entry in the series. If the online netcode and infrastructure is good.

In regards Tekken 7 its a backwards step for the casuals in terms of content, where it looks like previously free bonus content is now being sold as DLC, but the reception among the hardcore has been more positive regarding the games actual gameplay.

Reviews for the game have been generally quite positive averaging 81% on PS4/Xbox One and 83% on PC.
Good but not amazing reviews. But when it comes to fighting games the hardcore player tend not to go by reviews because the majority of video game reviewers only play and review fighting games at the casual level.

Its also sold 1.5 million copies in just over a month so its selling as well.

The games director Katsuhiro Harada has also said the game has performed extremely well in Japanese arcades.

So I don't think anyone can say Tekken has being ruined.

Billy86

Penn wrote: »

Ah, so it was sh*t because it was too hard for you and didn't have enough boobs. Gotcha.

Well, what would the world be if not for boobs?

SolvableKnave

Billy86 wrote: »

Well, what would the world be if not for boobs?

Flat

Azza

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Never said that, well the boobs thing was a joke. I said it was unrewarding. It's definitely not too difficult. Everything is easy to pull off and it's accessible it's just not rewarding to learn it all off.

Anyway, back on topic I feel Tekken really isn't a ruined franchise. With SF5 floundering Tekken 7 has become very popular.

Tekken has long surpassed SF in terms of sale figures so in that regards the Tekken franchise is more popular than SF but not in terms of the competitive scene. Not that there is any bad blood between the two series, the developers of each series are on very good terms.

Sieghardt

Tekken was always way too dial-a-combo for my liking but 7 is massively popular there's no denying it.

I'm just crossing my fingers for Soul Calibur 6 at TGS. All this talk about single player content makes me wonder if people already forget about the incredible story modes Soul Calibur 1 & 2 had and how much SC4 & 5 were criticised for lacking in that department. In terms of raw gameplay SC5 was the best since the first game but the roster changes and lack of single player absolutely killed it dead

wotzgoingon

ShaneU wrote: »

tripe.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater

Tony Hawk’s Ride ahahahaha. They even tried to reboot it back to the first games with THPS5 and couldn't even get that right.

I totally forgot about this series. I used to love them and yes THPS5 was a ball of shít and that's coming from someone who loves them.

Generic Dreadhead

THUG1 was the last decent THPS entry, everything else has been hot garbage

wotzgoingon

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

THUG1 was the last decent THPS entry, everything else has been hot garbage

I enjoyed Project 8.

Retr0gamer

wotzgoingon wrote: »

Generic Dreadhead wrote: »

THUG1 was the last decent THPS entry, everything else has been hot garbage

I enjoyed Project 8.

You're why we can't have nice things!

wotzgoingon

Retr0gamer wrote: »

You're why we can't have nice things!

I remember playing it as I started playing it a few months after I had moved to Galway many years ago. I had stopped playing games for a few months and remember picking it up and started to really enjoy playing it. It brought back memories of older Tony Hawk games. For those reasons is why I remember it being a game I enjoyed.