Many video game series have been around for years (if not decades) by now. Some have adapted to the current generation, and the new titles are still fun to play. Others...not so much. Let's have a chat about them. Which series that you once enjoyed do you feel no longer has a place in the game industry? What makes the newer games worse than the ones that came before them?
In my opinion, a good, long-lasting franchises needs to succeed at a couple of things: - Each new game needs to fit themes/aspects of the previous games (Ex: Mario jumping, Zelda keeping similar enemies, etc.) - Add innovative ideas to each new game to adds to the experience instead of detracting from it A series has to be faithful to itself, but not be repetitive. This is challenging, as we have seen many series leave behind their identity or release similar games repeatedly. I believe that the Super Mario franchise has nailed it. Super Mario Odyssey builds upon what was already established in the previous game, has iconic villains and grunts, and is innovative with Mario's capture ability. That being said, I think Star Fox almost has no place in the game industry. They haven't been able to make a great game since 64, (Assault was okay, minus the dreadful land levels) and have failed several times since then. The new games mostly lack the old personality, capturing glimpses of the old games. The gameplay leaves a lot to be desired, and Adventures is a downright insult to Star Fox, imo.
I can't really say until Three Houses comes out, but after the dumpster fire that is Fates came out I've been feeling like Fire Emblem is no longer capable of providing what they once did, and unless TH reverses certain trends that were begun by Awakening and spiraled out of control with Fates then I cannot see it being a worthwhile series anymore. Between the poor writing, the broken 'new mechanics' (not to mention certain characters being able to completely solo said games), and certain questionable character designs (I'm looking at you, Cowmilla)... *sigh*
A prime candidate for this, for me at least, is The Legend of Zelda. There hasn't been a good Zelda title since Twilight Princess, with Skyward Sword being a mechanical nightmare with it's truly awful motion controls, Breath of the Wild feeling like anything BUT a Zelda game with it's disgraceful lack of music and anything to do in its pointless open world, and A Link Between Worlds, despite how solid the gameplay was, essentially being a remake of A Link to the Past. Zelda is an awkward franchise for me – as with many Nintendo series, it seems to be stuck in the past to the point of straight-up cloning the previous title, or it's so dramatically different that it's unrecognisable, and all the elements that made the previous titles fun have been stripped out along with everything that made them boring. Pokémon is another obvious one for it's increased focus on the exact same poorly written narrative that it's had since Gen III. Unless GF hires an actual writer or decides to come away from the narrative and return to the lighter story that the first two generations had, I can't see this ever improving. With Nintendo games generally I get the feeling that the developers are arrogant enough to feel like they perfected the formula years ago, and feel no desire to try and improve upon things...or are too scared to improve on things because of potential fan backlash, so they can either only clone the previous game or do something else entirely so that if fans complain at least they can use the “ we wanted to do something entirely new” excuse and then never do it again if it doesn't work out. Nintendo and progress don't mix when it comes to their flagship titles. Monster Hunter is going to be this if World is the future of the franchise. At least for me it is. World is another Pokémon case – there was absolutely no need for them to add a garbage narrative and strip away the aesthetic charm of the series when they made those so-called QoL improvements. Removing things that make a game good in the name of stripping out things that were bad doesn't make a game better; often it makes it worse. World stands as a shining monument to this. I also feel like Final Fantasy doesn't really know what it's doing with itself anymore. Time has softened my view on XIII-2 at least, but you have only to look at XV's development and the “finished” product itself to see that Square Enix are extremely out of touch.
As much as I hate to say it (and I know what I'll say is nothing new) but I think the Sonic series fits under this criterion. Their recent games over the past decade have been either hit or miss. For every Sonic Colours, there was/is a Sonic 06. Not to mention it's really hard for SEGA to appeal to all Sonic fans, simply due to how divisive they are in what they prefer. And even though it's not SEGA's fault the fanbase is incredibly toxic at best and downright disturbing at most, it kinda gives the franchise a bad rep (please note that this doesn't apply to all Sonic fans, myself included).
TF2 on the Xbox 360 was fun. It’s lrery much dead even though you can still find 10 servers up. But I’ve ran into people I’ve seen before like so many times. It’s kidna unbalanced with the characters since it’s all stock and pre air blast by overall its still fun and you can get your fair share of laughs. The only thing I’d ask for if it were to get a update would be Payload.
Call of Duty. Once upon a time me and my friends played the Modern Warfare series and Black Ops 1-3 and we all had fun with those games. However, I started to notice the drop in quality as soon as the series dropped Ghosts. Call of Duty Ghosts was one of the worst games I've ever played thanks to the Multiplayer maps being way too big (Making shotguns and submachine guns pointless). Not only that, but there was this 'zombies' mode that had to do with aliens, because a zombies mode makes a game sell, right? I didn't even bother with the campaign. However, it just keeps going with Infinite Warfare. The Multiplayer just wasn't interesting and they screwed up Zombies even more, and then we get to Black Ops 4, which I think Black ops 3 is WAY better. At this point, I think Call of Duty is trying to compete with yearly trends (See Black Ops 4 Blackout), and honestly, they aren't doing much better than those yearly gaming trends in the first place. Not only that but adding microtransactions plus adding a $50 DLC pack every year is just tiring. I feel like they're making games at this point just to make games.
Ace Attorney story wise has been dipping for a while. Capcom insists on keeping Phoenix Wright despite him being a static character since Apollo Justice, and they keep bringing back characters for no reason other than fan service. The new characters of the recent games have been fairy interesting for the most part, but they’re overshadowed by all the returning characters. I think Capcom needs to give this series a soft reset and start fresh with a new cast.
This. I try to stay hopeful and look at the positives in every game but I'll admit it's not the same as the games pre-06. Especially Lost World (I'm glad they took a moment to give NiGHTS some love as DLC in this game, and they also apparently did a LoZ DLC??), I have heard so much about Lost World and looking at gameplay I actually got nauseated! The social media is great, able to joke about things and have conversations with others at times.. but ultimately it's mainly memes. It's nice to see after a bad day but when it's constant and the only thing it's done (besides promoting a upcoming game or something) it's a sad sign. Also, although Crash and Spyro seem to be getting a nice reboot (hopefully with new games besides the remasters), they had hit horrible lows just a few years prior (and still ongoing with Spyro as he's still in Skylanders, and they're starting a mobile game soon).
It's not as chronologically relevant right now, but I want to time travel back to Mega Man X6-X8 and talk about that. The Mega Man series started strong. Not original, but strong: probably the most well-made platformer/shooter of the time, and it deserved it fame. Luckily, the transition into the X series was a success also! It's easy for a "tougher and grittier" sequel to stink really bad, but this didn't, and nor did its first four sequels. But then there was a combination of financial and staffing changes, and things went down the toilet fast. Ignoring the Mega Man games that aren't 2D platformers (Battle Network, MM64), the series as a whole has been struggling, and maybe it's time it got replaced by someone new like Mighty Number 9. Unless Mega Man 11 is good... I haven't tried, but if it isn't good, I think I have to give up on this series. Part of me wonders what would have happened if Mega Man took a similar turn as Metroid eventually did with Metroid Prime. They could leave the story and the soul alone, but change the gameplay; which is the opposite of what did happen with Mega Man X6+ in changing the story and soul but keeping the gameplay. Maybe these mighty wouldn't have fallen.
3 come to mind when I think of this topic. 1. Fire emblem. 2 things hold this game back and the first was casual mode in awakening being a thing. An easy mode should not hamper a persons experience should they go to hard mode later on and that's what this does. It's basically the game holding your hand. The second is the games have gone from being really good storytelling and design to absolutely not that right quick plus the anime shipping culture of the newer games drives me further away from fire emblem. 2. Sonic. The last time outside of generations and mania that I genuinely enjoyed a sonic game was colors everything since just hasn't held up in my and in many other peoples opinions. Sonic is by no means a dying franchise given it has been around for 30 years (holy geez) but the games just aren't for me anymore. 3. Pokémon. I love Pokémon as a community and it hurts so fucking much to say this. But the only game from post gen 5 I can say with confidence I enjoyed outside of spinoffs was ORAS and those were just remakes of games not original regions. The games suffer from the same issue fire emblem does where they hold your hand too hard and it bores me to death.
