Anyone else tired of new games in long-running series shoving in the series' old protagonists into the new protagonists' games?

[BrawlMan]

MMX was still a good game but I think Capcom tried to go a bit too far with the series whereas Classic MM is mostly fine.

MM was Astro Boy, while MMX and MMZ were Casshern. Which explains the darker turn.

 

[Ikagura]

MM was Astro Boy, while MMX and MMZ were Casshern. Which explains the darker turn.

Which makes me think that it's why Classic is more timeless feeling.

 

[CG4R12I4N]

Currently no one can outdo Falcom in this garbage, especially on their Trails games.
The cast literally become so fucking bloated most people not really into it stopped caring about the series entirely.

Capcom, Sega and Atlus had them quite bad too TBH, but at least they seldom switch them as merely cameo figures or even hidden bosses at times.

 

[Vreeves]

Even worse, when they completely rewrite an existing protagonist and antagonist like DMC Devil May Cry.

I get why devs do this, because when I talk to people about popular franchises like Resident Evil and Devil May Cry, they always. And I mean, always want to see Leon, or Dante, or Chris or whatever. They get super hyped for it. Another example is the infamous story development in Kingdom Hearts 3, where every character now suddenly appears like it's a Marvel movie, despite most of their character arcs being concluded in KH2 and Birth by Sleep. But again, most "normies" actually loved that.

 

[NOTthatHARD]

I've recently finished RE8, and while I enjoyed the game, Chris' inclusion in the game left me feeling incredibly annoyed (spoilers for RE8, but he basically shows up and repeatedly gives Ethan a dressing-down, telling him how he's "not built for this" and how Ethan's daughter being kidnapped somehow "doesn't involve him" and is just a massive asshole in general and constantly gives the vibe that everything you've been through in the game up to that point is actually an incredibly minor deal and if you were playing as Chris then it would be so easy that it wouldn't even qualify as a real videogame,) and then I thought about it and realized that stuff like this is constantly pulled by long-running game series whenever they switch to new protagonists.

Take Yakuza. Kiryu is the protagonist of the series till Yakuza 6, but with Yakuza 7 they decided that Kiryu couldn't really be milked for more games by that point (which is true, since Kiryu stopped developing as a character after Yakuza 3, but that's neither here nor there) and had Ichiban be the series' new protagonist. In Yakuza 7, you go on a bunch of cool adventures that are almost completely disconnected to anything from the previous games and it feels really cool, they do a good job making you like Ichiban and it's pretty fun... and then, as if RGG lost faith in Ichiban as the protagonist partway through, they decide to randomly have Kiryu show up out of nowhere in the last third of the game and beat the shit out of Ichiban in one of those "win in the game, lose in the cutscene" kind of bossfights (despite the story up til that point having literally nothing to do with Kiryu) and give him this pep talk to prepare him for what comes next, and it just feels really frustrating. It left me with this bad taste in my mouth like RGG was saying that "if you were playing as Kiryu then this wouldn't even be a real videogame and everything Ichiban has gone through has only been tough because Ichiban is a pathetic loser who can't do anything." After spending the entire game building Ichiban up, it felt like they just randomly decided to tear him down just for a bit of cheap fanservice.

I can give more examples than this (like from DMC and Ace Attorney) but I'll stop here since I think you get the picture. I think whenever games do this it reeks of a lack of confidence in the new protagonist. That they're scared that the series' longtime fans won't like the "new guy" and because of this they feel compelled to have the series' old protagonists show up to beat the shit out of them and make them look pathetic to show "respect for the series' roots," even though it usually just feels incredibly out-of-character and contrived for the old protagonists to do. More than that though, you can't spend an entire games' runtime trying to build up characters like Ethan, Ichiban, Apollo, or Nero only to tear them down out of nowhere, it basically invalidates their journey up to that point since before then nothing in the game implies that they're any less competent than the series old protagonists (Chris, Kiryu, Phoenix, or Dante) were in their very first games.

With DMC, I'll at least give them a pass, since while they tore down Nero for no real reason in DMC4, they DID make it up to him in DMC5. Nero's arc in DMC5 is all about him proving himself as the series' new hero and dealing with his frustration and insecurity that he'll never be as good as Dante, building up to a fantastic moment where he's able to prove that he has what it takes to carry the series' mantle going forward. Basically, DMC5 does what SO MANY of these sorts of games don't, and actively builds up Nero and uses his conflict with the series' old iconic characters in order to actually fuel his growth and prove to both himself and the player that he isn't a pathetic loser who'll never have what it takes to replace Dante. Unfortunately, most games don't do this.

In order to show just how ridiculous it is when games do this, I want you to imagine the following scenario: Imagine if, in RE2, two-thirds of the way into the game, suddenly Chris and Jill just randomly show up out of nowhere in Leon and Claire's scenarios respectively. They then proceed to tell Leon and Claire to "stay out of this" and that nothing happening "involves them" and then you have a bossfight against them where they win in the cutscene and get to humiliate Leon and Claire before saying something like "Okay, now that you've paid your dues, I think you have what it takes to finish things from here while we take care of the more pressing threat that both of you are too weak and pathetic to ever actually handle by yourselves." If that happened, that would feel frustrating and stupid, since only two games into the series, there's nothing to imply that Leon and Claire are in any way inferior to Chris and Jill after everything they've been through in RE2, yet the game goes out of its way to randomly give them a dressing-down. You see what I mean?

Basically, I just wish that more games did what DMC5 does and actually had some faith in the "new guy."

I'm much more tired of new protagonists being worse in every way compared to the "old protagonists".

Why create a new protagonist if he/she is going to be worse than the old one anyways; just look at Nero, he will never be as cool as Dante and Yakumo (NG4) will always be just a Shitty copy of Ryu Hayabusa.

Also, I think the developers "know" that the new main characters are usually worse than the old ones, that's why those old protagonists are added, to make sure the quality of the story and cast doesn't drop too much.

 

[BrawlMan]

Nero is about it as cool as Dante, as far as i'm concerned, he just takes his in a different direction.

Yakumo is about the same as Ryu for me, but I'm not that attached to Ryu, even though I like him as a character. Some people just can't handle different characters that are good in their own way.

I do admit I prefer Kagura and Saaya over Aya and Saki. What's funny is that the former two are not that much younger than the latter duo. Aya is in her mid 20s, while Kagura and Saaya are 19 and 18 respectively. Saki is 16 by that point in the timeline of Z and Z2.

 

[Ikagura]

Garou Mark of the Wolves did a pretty decent job at introducing a new protagonist by having him being linked to both the protagonist and antagonist of the Fatal Fury series without removing the relevance of Terry as a character. KoF did it nicely to a lesser extent with Kyo, K', Ash and Shun'ei (I'm not as fan of the last one though) since there are clear separate arcs.

Street Fighter tried to give new protagonists to each series after Alpha (like Axel in III, Abel in IV, Rashid in V and Luke in VI) yet failed to make them as iconic as Ryu and Ken... In the lore Guile and Chun-Li are the protagonists since they're the one actively fighting Shadaloo but the story in the games are barely relevant outside of personal arcs (like Ryu's satsui no hado).

I think a fighting game will have a hard time convincing people to take a new protagonist because of how it's a gameplay focused genre.

 

[Tsukishima]

Currently no one can outdo Falcom in this garbage, especially on their Trails games.
The cast literally become so fucking bloated most people not really into it stopped caring about the series entirely.

Legit though, Falcom went from my favourite videogame company of all time due to my love of Ys and Sky (Gurumin too!) to holding a deep disdain against them due to this. The music lost its moxie, the writing is every single friendship trope tied up in a neat bow due to how obsessed each character is with glazing each other every single second.

How they went and destroyed every single last bit of nuance their genuine writing had in Sky to now is actually insane. It's the definition of selling your soul.

 

[Ikagura]

Legit though, Falcom went from my favourite videogame company of all time due to my love of Ys and Sky (Gurumin too!) to holding a deep disdain against them due to this. The music lost its moxie, the writing is every single friendship trope tied up in a neat bow due to how obsessed each character is with glazing each other every single second.

How they went and destroyed every single last bit of nuance their genuine writing had in Sky to now is actually insane. It's the definition of selling your soul.

I'm almost rejoiced that Ys games don't overdo with side characters, you have like 7 different characters at most in your team (with 3 active ones).

 

[Tsukishima]

I'm almost rejoiced that Ys games don't overdo with side characters, you have like 7 different characters at most in your team (with 3 active ones).

I think it creates a loss of nuance though most of the time.

I was overjoyed with Dogi and Geis returning as playable party members in Seven (even though I myself did not enjoy Seven)

Spoiler: Ys IX: Monstrum Nox

And I loved the connection where Credo Albringer ended up joining Geis' gang at the end of Ys IX, but I want more connections between the party members rather then being 'the flavour of that title'

What do you think of Ys' departure of this to just 2 characters for X?

 

[SaveSeraph]

Currently no one can outdo Falcom in this garbage, especially on their Trails games.
The cast literally become so fucking bloated most people not really into it stopped caring about the series entirely.

Capcom, Sega and Atlus had them quite bad too TBH, but at least they seldom switch them as merely cameo figures or even hidden bosses at times.

I was actually trying to get into the Trails series, does it actually get bad/tough to keep track?

 

[NOTthatHARD]

Legit though, Falcom went from my favourite videogame company of all time due to my love of Ys and Sky (Gurumin too!) to holding a deep disdain against them due to this. The music lost its moxie, the writing is every single friendship trope tied up in a neat bow due to how obsessed each character is with glazing each other every single second.

How they went and destroyed every single last bit of nuance their genuine writing had in Sky to now is actually insane. It's the definition of selling your soul.

I agree but then again the only Falcom games that I like are Tokyo Xanadu eX+ and The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails.