Game franchises that have regressed

[ISSO1407]

This is one that pisses me off to no end. I mean, say what you will about COD, but those old games were so awesome for what they were. I still remember getting my first 360 (the Halo 3 Master Chief armor variant) and loading up COD4 for the first time. First action game to really hook me the way it did. That mission where you are chasing Zakhaev's cousin or whoever he was through a firefight in some run down alleyways is still one of the greatest FPS moments for me. 7 year old me could NOT put the controller down.

MW2019 was so freaking cool to get after having nothing but boring campaigns since Advanced (although I really liked Advanced and Black Ops 3) and they had to go back on their idea for the new story since it ran into controversy with the terrorism plot. So instead of writing around that and coming up with a cool, calculated, new villain, They decide to instead re-hash OG MW2 and 3 but with way worse writing. Never been so disappointed in my life. Don't get me started with how unnecessarily hard they try to make the new Black Ops games all mysterious and with twists that are worthy of some of M. Night Shyamalan's absolute worst.

It's like the new writers just don't understand what made those old COD campaigns so effective. Idk who they got writing the series now but damn man. I could sit here and bitch about the various other problems with COD, but the campaigns were always what I would be most excited for. I mean, even Zombies had a storyline, that, while not always as well written, kept me hooked enough to see what would come next. Now everything they write has that shitty modern Hollywood style to it where they think they are writing actual Shakespeare level shit, when in actuality that wasn't what made COD stories so good.

I think I'm gonna go through 2019 again shit.

Post automatically merged: Today at 1:43 AM

I'm not a classic MonHun fan. The one I've played most is World. But idk, I don't think they've matched the same level of quality that game brought. I realize that World was already a bit cut back from the older games, but that game was still really fun. Not to mention, Capcom seems insistent on using the RE Engine for open world shit that it can't handle, nor was made to handle. That engine was made for smaller scale, linear experiences, that focused heavily on artstyle and graphic fidelity. The recent games that have been made on it, primarily Dogma 2 and Wilds, have terrible performance, that is most likely due to too much overhead on an engine designed for a complete different type of game. I'm glad I refunded my pre order of Wilds. I had a feeling it would be rough.

I already didnt like World, it was the worst thing that ever happened to Mh since it made it popular to the mainstream and thus doomed it, the DLC made it quiet good but before Iceborne it was also unfinished trash imo, just not as rancid as Rise/Wilds. Rise with DLC also became pretty good but the base game was even worse than World. They keep on making the hunter stronger and youre basically just turning into Dante/Bayonetta more and more with every entry.

 

[Sunnyside]

I'll echo a few others.

Mario spinoffs in the Switch era were indeed a major letdown. Nintendo finally turned into every other company and started phoning in all their side series. Even the way the interfaces and menus are designed is ultra-generic now. Real shame.

Sonic since the Dreamcast era. I concur, Sega's been content to spin a wheel of trends ever since and attach whatever it lands on to their games. And the "serious" direction they're trying to take the story right now is embarrassing for a franchise whose main appeal is "go fast". At least the stupidity and cheesiness gave the games some charm. Can't even have that now.

Pokemon has been regressing ever since Black/White. Most notable for me was the switch from sprites to 3d. It might have seemed like an upgrade at the time, but what resulted was Gamefreak reusing the same models over and over and over. Sure you found Zubat in every generation prior but at least they looked different each time. Outside that tangent though, the quality's been dropping in each subsequent release. I jumped ship after Sun/Moon. Seeing how bland and buggy the Switch releases were has given me some slight vindication.

Can I say Tales of? I haven't played Arise but that's because the shift in artstyle completely killed any desire to buy it. I play the series for the characters. What am I supposed to do if I hate how all of them look? XD

 

[Skeetos]

I think Halo is an absolute ringer for this. Reinvented a genre for a new hardware generation when the first one came out, continued the series in the masterpieces of 2 and 3, and even Reach and ODST were still phenomenal games. Now the series is just a sad shadow of what it was. Infinite chased the open world trend for some reason and in a pretty half baked and mediocre way, 5 is best to never be talked about, and even 4 was just meh at best. It's just so strange, it's such a simple formula so why do they keep getting it wrong now?

This is another one that really urks me. Halo is in my Top 5 FPS series list. That original trilogy, and the supplemental games that came out with them, are some of the coolest games I've had the honor of playing, and the cultural impact that Bungie created with them is something that will never be replicated again. They came out at the perfect time, and they represent an era of gaming that I still miss.

Me and my buddy have been playing through the MCC, we just made it to ODST (I'm having him play in order of release so Reach's changeups aren't so jarring) and the only ones he's finished are Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2, and he cannot understand why I can't stand the games. From the requirements of knowing all of the outside lore from books, comics, mangas, shows, animes, etc. To completely misunderstanding the dynamic between Chief and Cortana, to trying to humanize a character like Chief, not realizing that it already had been done before they even had any control over the franchise.

Halo 4 completely going back on the dynamic gameplay where every weapon, vehicle, and physics prop had their place in how you approached fights, Halo 5 just going further and completely getting rid of it, so that they could turn it into a COD clone, to Halo Infinite trying to do what something like Far Cry does, and making the Cortana plot EVEN WORSE than what they already did with 5.

I hear that Halo Wars 2 has a really good campaign, and while I have my reserves about that (343 is ass) I think it's bullshit if it's true. THE FREAKIN RTS HAS A BETTER CAMPAIGN THAN THE MAINLINE TITLES! Insanity. I honestly think, if they did a game about The Arbiter and his Swords of Sanghelios, it could be one of the best. But I don't think 343 is the company to deliver anything remotely badass like that.

I dread having to play 4 and 5 with my friend. I told him I'd do it, just so that he feels like he got the complete experience, but damn. Especially 4, aka Suppressor Simulator. Terrible ammo rate that game has.

 

[Sunnyside]

MonHunt absolutely qualifies as well. I did not like World. I felt like Capcom was trying to transform the franchise into a western AAA cash cow. Looks pretty, sanitizes gameplay depth and runs like crap. And wouldn't you know it, Wilds has proved me right. The one silver lining is that at least pre-World you've got 4U and GenU with literally thousands of hours of hunting between them.

 

[Viviana Santos]

Pokémon went to shit after the Fifth Generation (with the exception of Generation VII, which I honestly really like a lot).

---

Guilty Gear also went to shit after Daisuke became a sellout in order to attract a mainstream audience with Strive, a game that strips away much of the series' personality and soul.

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Daisuke Ishiwatari is also a hack fraud.

 

[Octopus]

To completely misunderstanding the dynamic between Chief and Cortana

That's my biggest personal gripe story wise with the newer games. The dynamic they had in 1+2 was great, where they were just good work friends essentially; they joke around and get things done, but at the end of the day I wouldn't say their connection was so deep and serious like it's portrayed later on, where it's almost become like romantic or something. It's I think the lowest and laziest possible way to show a connection between a man and a (sort of?) woman is to just default to that sort of thing. Even in 3 when Bungie themselves started really digging into it, it never came off as 'uh I guess they love each other?' and seemed far more of a more nuanced ride-or-die type thing. Just the vibes are really off in the later games, basically. I blame the novels I think, as once they established that Cortana was based off of Dr. Halsey's brain (who also went in some interesting directions as the series went on), they started trying to humanize her more like they did with Chief, only in the wrong ways.

Halo 4

I'm going to take the hit here; I don't mind Halo 4 that much. I like the basic idea at least of the story, but it was absolutely bungled a little bit in application; the Forerunner retcon, enough said. Take away some of the weird Cortana/Chief romance vibe like I talked about above, and the idea of her slowly dying from rampancy and Chief fruitlessly trying to save her is a good one, and the ending was still solid enough as a classic 'bittersweet goodbye' kinda trope ending. It then gets immediately reversed in 5 of course when she comes back but evil which is so stupid I'm not even going to say mention it again. You're right about the gameplay of 4 though, it really was a downgrade.

 

[Skeetos]

That's my biggest personal gripe story wise with the newer games. The dynamic they had in 1+2 was great, where they were just good work friends essentially; they joke around and get things done, but at the end of the day I wouldn't say their connection was so deep and serious like it's portrayed later on, where it's almost become like romantic or something. It's I think the lowest and laziest possible way to show a connection between a man and a (sort of?) woman is to just default to that sort of thing. Even in 3 when Bungie themselves started really digging into it, it never came off as 'uh I guess they love each other?' and seemed far more of a more nuanced ride-or-die type thing. Just the vibes are really off in the later games, basically. I blame the novels I think, as once they established that Cortana was based off of Dr. Halsey's brain (who also went in some interesting directions as the series went on), they started trying to humanize her more like they did with Chief, only in the wrong ways.


I'm going to take the hit here; I don't mind Halo 4 that much. I like the basic idea at least of the story, but it was absolutely bungled a little bit in application; the Forerunner retcon, enough said. Take away some of the weird Cortana/Chief romance vibe like I talked about above, and the idea of her slowly dying from rampancy and Chief fruitlessly trying to save her is a good one, and the ending was still solid enough as a classic 'bittersweet goodbye' kinda trope ending. It then gets immediately reversed in 5 of course when she comes back but evil which is so stupid I'm not even going to say mention it again. You're right about the gameplay of 4 though, it really was a downgrade.

See, I agree completely. Halo 4 COULD be good. I like that they wanted to explore their relationship. I think that's what makes their relationship so cool. Every Spartan gets their own onboard AI to accompany them, and Cortana immediately picked Chief. They ran with each other for a long time, and obviously care about each other. But that's the thing like you said, while they care deeply for each other, it never really struck me as a romantic thing. John is Cortana's Battle-Brother, and vice versa. They're great friends, and obviously struggle a bit without each other's guidance, they show that in 2 and 3. But I think that, that's 343's main issue, is that they constantly misread plot points from the Bungie Era, and tried to change too much.

I still think that 5 is what actually killed it. At least 4 was decent enough. 5 just took away way too much of the identity of the series, and made it worse with a completely incoherent story that doesn't even make sense WITH the extra lore you are supposed to know. Honestly, Microsoft should just shelf Halo for a while and focus on other franchises. I hope that Gears of War E-Day is good for example, and I think Perfect Dark has a chance to be cool if it ever gets finished.

 

[moonbits]

Gears of War, Halo, God of War, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty are the most notable ones to me.

Call of Duty caught lighting in a bottle with Modern Warfare 2019 I'll give them that but others are walking corpses that are nothing like they used to.

 

[Lokgamer]

Silent Hill
Even though I liked Origins, Homecoming, and Downpour, they're waaay inferior to Silent Hill 1–4.

God of War
After God of War III, there shouldn’t have been any more games in this franchise. Ascention is bad and gow 2018 is mediocre.

Darksiders
Only the first Darksiders is good. After that, every Darksiders game just got worse.

 

[ISSO1407]

Gears of War, Halo, God of War, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty are the most notable ones to me.

Call of Duty caught lighting in a bottle with Modern Warfare 2019 I'll give them that but others are walking corpses that are nothing like they used to.

I liked GoW 2018, its just different. I like third person games a lot but i can understand that some people dont like the crafting for example. I havent played Ragnarök but besides being slightly tarnished by Sweet Baby politics the game will probably very entertaining for me.

 

[Nocny_Informator]

Everything from nintendo, except Kirby. Especially mehrio. I would literally rather play Sonic Unleashed or '06 than anything with the red plumber.

Thinking about it, Zelda had some good tittles, but some stinkers too. But even BoTW and ToTK aren't worth half the money they're asking

 

[Skeetos]

I liked GoW 2018, its just different. I like third person games a lot but i can understand that some people dont like the crafting for example. I havent played Ragnarök but besides being slightly tarnished by Sweet Baby politics the game will probably very entertaining for me.

People always bring this up. But I don't think Ragnarok suffered due to Sweet Baby actually. It's one of the only games they've worked on that isn't complete dogshit. I think Ragnarok suffered because they rushed it. They've talked about how they wanted it to be a trilogy again, but didn't want people to have to wait another 5 years for part 3, so they cut a bunch of cool shit and condensed the actual "Ragnarok" part of the game. I think Cory Barlog not being as involved really didn't do any favors. But, I like the Norse Saga as much as the Greek Saga so,

 

[gwardojones]

MonHunt absolutely qualifies as well. I did not like World. I felt like Capcom was trying to transform the franchise into a western AAA cash cow. Looks pretty, sanitizes gameplay depth and runs like crap. And wouldn't you know it, Wilds has proved me right. The one silver lining is that at least pre-World you've got 4U and GenU with literally thousands of hours of hunting between them.

Totally with you. Thought the series was amazing up until World. World stripped away everything that made MonHun what it was. Wilds looked okay; I even played two of the three betas. But after playing the beta the second time, I said, "That was neat, but I wonder what there will be to do besides hunting monsters?" That was a real record scratch moment for me. I was asking what else there was to do besides hunt monsters in a game about hunting monsters, titled Monster Hunter. I cancelled my preorder and never looked back.

That said, I actually really enjoyed Sunbreak. I thought Rise was really barebones and dropped it pretty quick after release, but Sunbreak is my most played game in the series. Not my favorite, but still had a great time playing it.

 

[Skeetos]

I liked GoW 2018, its just different. I like third person games a lot but i can understand that some people dont like the crafting for example. I havent played Ragnarök but besides being slightly tarnished by Sweet Baby politics the game will probably very entertaining for me.

My fault, I thought you were the other guy who was talking about it lol. If you liked 2018 you'll like Ragnarok. The DLC to that is some of the best combat in the series and I stand by that. I didn't really spoil anything, but definitely try it out if you can sometime.

 

[Faust03]

I dislike how Zelda has become generic open world slop with mediocre dungeons recently.

Sonic has gotten so bad since the Genesis/DreamCast era (depending on your take)... I'm afraid it peaked with Adventure and has never resurfaced since. It's very sad and really infuriating how they tried to reinvent a game concept that couldn't be simpler, turning it into a grandiose, nonsensical soap opera about nothing.

We had good guys, bad guys, we were clearly on the first group and we ran really fucking fast. What else was there to add?

it keeps going up and down for me, like, colors was boring but generations was great and back and forth

 

[RageBurner]

Making Monster Hunter more accessible makes perfect business sense; Capcom IS a business, let's not forget. Their foolishness lies in not giving all classic MH a wide release.

 

[GamingWarthog]

It's so weird how the traditional mainline Pokémon games ended with Ultra Sun/Moon and then they did a big shift with Legends Arceus, the only mainline title on the Switch. But I'm sure the next traditional title will be great and course correct from the flaws of the 3DS era instead of digging the quality hole deeper.

 

[Skeetos]

Making Monster Hunter more accessible makes perfect business sense; Capcom IS a business, let's not forget. Their foolishness lies in not giving all classic MH a wide release.

You know, thinking about it, it seems like the absolute best Monster Hunter games have been the portable ones. the Freedom games, Generations or whatever that one was called. They're pretty solid little games.

 

[RageBurner]

You know, thinking about it, it seems like the absolute best Monster Hunter games have been the portable ones. the Freedom games, Generations or whatever that one was called. They're pretty solid little games.

Those are my favorites by far.

 

[Captain Murphy]

Every Dark Souls game was worse than the one that preceded it.

Sonic, but it's branched off in so many directions that you can't really discuss it without needing all the planets aligning perfectly.

Kingdom Hearts. The first two main games are great, and a few of the side games are decent, but it more or less it just feels like a zombie now, since 3 had a decade and a half worth of excitement and hype to deliver on, and such a task is just insurmountable.

I was initially going to say Final Fantasy, but as someone who has enjoyed most mainline games except for a few, like 8, 13 and 16, I'm not prepared to admit it having "regressed" as it's been kind of too much of a roller coaster between good and bad.


Hard agree on this one, too.

Final fantasy is the perfect example of this imo. It's just impossible for me to look at the series without seeing the sense of loss.

 

[moonbits]

Making Monster Hunter more accessible makes perfect business sense; Capcom IS a business, let's not forget. Their foolishness lies in not giving all classic MH a wide release.

They give you a lot of options to customize your experience regardless. My only gripe is that don't have to find the monster, I liked doing that but now I have the marker in my screen. Other than that, it's a fine game.

I think Capcom shouldn't have added damage numbers or infinite wheat stones, after that it's been an improvement.

 

[RageBurner]

Final fantasy is the perfect example of this imo. It's just impossible for me to look at the series without seeing the sense of loss.

As someone that sees 12 as the end of it, I agree with you.

 

[ISSO1407]

Making Monster Hunter more accessible makes perfect business sense; Capcom IS a business, let's not forget. Their foolishness lies in not giving all classic MH a wide release.

I dont care if it makes business sense, chasing and hitting the actual trends always makes business sense in the short term but chases away a lot of old fans and will ultimately ruin the franchise almost every single time ever because the casual audience is a lot of things but being loyal to the product isnt one of them.

 

[RageBurner]

They give you a lot of options to customize your experience regardless. My only gripe is that don't have to find the monster, I liked doing that but now I have the marker in my screen. Other than that, it's a fine game.

I think Capcom shouldn't have added damage numbers or infinite wheat stones, after that it's been an improvement.

Monster tracking becoming trivial does remove a lot from the experience, I agree. At least you can toggle damage numbers off. My true gripe with modern MH is they ruined bowguns.

 

[moonbits]

Well that's what you get for using guns in Monster BONKer.