Game series/franchises that after a worse sequel/reboot made you (or other people) go "Maybe I treated you too harshly".

[RedNin3]

I go first (comedy master I know). Story time.
I always liked the Spyro Legend Trilogy despite its shortcomings. People either hated them or just felt disappointed by them from the start...
Then Skylanders happened, and if you know Skylanders, you already know the rest.

In my case, it happened with a friend of mine who played the whole Trilogy during lockdown (cause I insisted that they are good games(they are)), while whining about how bad they where compared to the og trilogy and the remake/remasters in his messages lmao.
A few weeks later he sent me a random "sorry, you were right, this is way worse. even Hero's Tail was better than this, this purple thing can't even JUMP" and a photo of him trying Skylanders on his brother's Xbox360(IIRC).

Edit: Note: I wrote this while a bit drunk, if something isn't understandable let me know.

 

[lil_thang]

i felt far more fondly for Fallout 4 after having tried 76 and played some Starfield. 4 was divisive when it came out and i leaned more on the negative side of it then, but wowee got dang 4 was pretty good with Sim Settlements n shit wasn't it.

i noped out of 76 after the tutorial and i gave starfield a nostalgia/optimist go, it is an inexcrable hollow vanity project for Todd&Emil. it is so lame and lazy, completely and totally lacking in substance, rotted to its very core.
effectively there are 4 major cities/questhubs in the entire galaxy and they left much to be desired. the writing is worse, it is derivative of its influences without understanding them, and it is so devoid of soul you can't even copy or parody it. there's just nothing there. not even a starfield meme to be seen. its so hollow and soulless, depressing to have witnessed. starfield had no edge, no bite, no balls, no style, no nothing, just...

.........................


.....

the longer you play the more of your soul it sucks away....

..........

at least in Fallout4 they had the fallout ip and jazz music big chungis to fall back on, and my soul wasn't being succed away.
starfield, there is just piles and piles of nothing.
in retrospect Starfield made me appreciate Bethesda's prior games so much more.

 

[RedNin3]

i felt far more fondly for Fallout 4 after having tried 76 and played some Starfield. 4 was divisive when it came out and i leaned more on the negative side of it then, but wowee got dang 4 was pretty good with Sim Settlements n shit wasn't it.

i noped out of 76 after the tutorial and i gave starfield a nostalgia/optimist go, it is an inexcrable hollow vanity project for Todd&Emil. it is so lame and lazy, completely and totally lacking in substance, rotted to its very core.
effectively there are 4 major cities/questhubs in the entire galaxy and they left much to be desired. the writing is worse, it is derivative of its influences without understanding them, and it is so devoid of soul you can't even copy or parody it. there's just nothing there. not even a starfield meme to be seen. its so hollow and soulless, depressing to have witnessed. starfield had no edge, no bite, no balls, no style, no nothing, just...

.........................


.....

the longer you play the more of your soul it sucks away....

..........

at least in Fallout4 they had the fallout ip and jazz music big chungis to fall back on, and my soul wasn't being succed away.
starfield, there is just piles and piles of nothing.
in retrospect Starfield made me appreciate Bethesda's prior games so much more.

I'm 100% with you on that one, I'm not the biggest Bethesda fan so I didn't buy week one, I love Fallout NV, liked 3 and 4, and enjoyed some Elder Scroll here and there.
But, Oh Boy, when those playthroughs and clips started rolling it was obvious that Starfield, and the game they marketed, were 2 things on completely different universes.

 

[legsrjust4show]

I used to whine endlessly about how Halo 4 derailed the whole series and basically took my best friend Master Chief out back and shot him execution style, but then I went through Halo 5 like last year.

I don't think it's necessarily a "Bad Video Game", but I despised it. I felt so empty after playing it. It made me wish that I could go back to thinking that the worst we got was Halo 4. It made me Like Halo 4. I don't even mind Halo 4 anymore!

 

[trickybus]

I went in the other direction: a previous game kept me from hating a sequel too much.

I know Final Fantasy 15 isn't considered a great game (because it's not) but I couldn't be too hard on it after playing Final Fantasy 13-2: Lightning Returns. There is nothing on this earth that I can possibly hate more than that game.

• I hate the main character
• I hate how hard the game tries to make her seem "cool"
• I hate that Motomu Toriyama probably jacks off to her
• I hate that the party dynamics from every FF game ever was replaced by clothes
• I hate the dungeons that did nothing to advance the plot and simply wasted my time
• I hate that it sidelined the only great character from FF13, Sazh
• I hate the white chocobo
• I hate Choco-boco-lina
• I hate myself for having tolerated that game as long as I did
  

 

[lil_thang]

ff15 was a strange one. i had no loyalty to the franchise dipped in and out of it etc, but ff15....

i put like 80 hours in it and was mildly enjoying it, and then something in me just snapped and i was all "fuck this game". the point i stopped playing was when a certain character becomes blind and you need to handhold guide them through an area, i dropped the game and very much never intend to return.
there are plenty of flourishes of brilliance in the art and things of ff15 but the gameplay became viciously tedious to me.

 

[legsrjust4show]

FINAL FANTASY XV is a weird one because it's like half finished. I thought it was extremely impressive with what they had done, but the whole thing was a bloated mess of a project and the game we got was maybe just a portion of what they were trying to do. Though, I don't know if they even had a real plan for half of it, since it was supposed to tie directly into FFXIII and the whole game definitely got rebooted maybe ten times over during it's long development.

I loved it and didn't like it at the same time. Worth playing, but do go in knowing that it's something they just sort of threw together in a maybe two years after it was floating around as a Fucking Mess for almost a decade (which is too common these days though LOOKING AT YOU CYBERPUNK 2077).

Somehow the Verum Rex stuff in Kingdom Hearts 3 is supposed to be closer to what they intended??? Who knows anymore.

 

[Aziamuth]

I went in the other direction: a previous game kept me from hating a sequel too much.

I know Final Fantasy 15 isn't considered a great game (because it's not) but I couldn't be too hard on it after playing Final Fantasy 13-2: Lightning Returns. There is nothing on this earth that I can possibly hate more than that game.

• I hate the main character
• I hate how hard the game tries to make her seem "cool"
• I hate that Motomu Toriyama probably jacks off to her
• I hate that the party dynamics from every FF game ever was replaced by clothes
• I hate the dungeons that did nothing to advance the plot and simply wasted my time
• I hate that it sidelined the only great character from FF13, Sazh
• I hate the white chocobo
• I hate Choco-boco-lina
• I hate myself for having tolerated that game as long as I did
  

While I agree with what you're saying... there's this fella

 

[TotzOnGaming]

I remember not liking Final Fantasy 12 so much the first time I tried it cuz' the combat didn't click for me but I'm thinking of giving it a go again. Weather I'll like it now or still be bored still remains to be seen. I'll admit though, that I was too harsh with it.

 

[ciro64]

I used to be more of a Star Fox 64 purist (and I still kinda am), but after my disappointment with Star Fox Zero and a few interactions with the Star Fox fanbase I started to look back at Star Fox Assault more fondly.

 

[DeadVoivod]

I remember not liking Final Fantasy 12 so much the first time I tried it cuz' the combat didn't click for me but I'm thinking of giving it a go again. Weather I'll like it now or still be bored still remains to be seen. I'll admit though, that I was too harsh with it.

I enjoyed FF12 in the end, had great visuals for that time and the story was also ok. But I completely understand what you mean, it took me several hours to get used to the battle system, but once I got the hang out of it it was quite enjoyable.

 

[ciro64]

I used to be more of a Star Fox 64 purist (and I still kinda am), but after my disappointment with Star Fox Zero and a few interactions with the Star Fox fanbase I started to look back at Star Fox Assault more fondly.

This is pure soul. Star Fox Zero doesn't hold a candle to this.

 

[fake-kun]

I used to be more of a Star Fox 64 purist (and I still kinda am), but after my disappointment with Star Fox Zero and a few interactions with the Star Fox fanbase I started to look back at Star Fox Assault more fondly.

Star Fox Zero may be disappointing, but at least playing it doesn't me wish I was dead like Star Fox Assault and Command do.

 

[psvitaforever]

I remember not liking Final Fantasy 12 so much the first time I tried it cuz' the combat didn't click for me but I'm thinking of giving it a go again. Weather I'll like it now or still be bored still remains to be seen. I'll admit though, that I was too harsh with it.

I am one who always wished to play every FF game available (at least available on the consoles I own, so no modern titles for me, no ps4/ps5). Opposite to many people, I've enjoyed both FFX-2 and FFXIII, but I've started FF12 four times (two on ps2 and two on switch) and always left after a couple of days - in one playthrough I've reached the mines with Fran already in party, nice graphics and characters and story and all, but I simply could not get along with gambit system. I understand the cool ideas beyond it, and that the game MUST be played with them to be enjoyed it, but it did not click for me.

 

[ciro64]

Star Fox Zero may be disappointing, but at least playing it doesn't me wish I was dead like Star Fox Assault and Command do.

The best parts of Star Fox Zero gameplay are alright, but the worst parts makes me wish to set myself on fire.

 

[Octopus]

The Veilguard made me somehow fondly look back at my time playing Dragon Age: Inquisition which is no small feat, as I hated Inquisition. Now it seems like an actually good game, there's some actual substance, style and edge to it unlike Veilguard which is of course a completely bland and sanded down experience where every conversation with your companions feels like HR is just off screen making you be nice to one another. At least in Inquisition there was still some conflict with them, like Blackwall after you find out his secret or Bull pretty frequently challenging what you think of the Qun (maybe intentionally, the guy was a spy and it was always a little ambiguous if the was leading you on somehow).

 

[RedNin3]

You guys wanna know how to like FFXV at least a tiny bit more? (or the FF that didn't click of your choice).

Try playing Final Fantasy: CHAOS EDITION seriously for a few minutes and you will instantly think "wtf is Square doing now, take me back to the boy band".

 

[Additional Damage]

I went in the other direction: a previous game kept me from hating a sequel too much.

I know Final Fantasy 15 isn't considered a great game (because it's not) but I couldn't be too hard on it after playing Final Fantasy 13-2: Lightning Returns. There is nothing on this earth that I can possibly hate more than that game.

• I hate the main character
• I hate how hard the game tries to make her seem "cool"
• I hate that Motomu Toriyama probably jacks off to her
• I hate that the party dynamics from every FF game ever was replaced by clothes
• I hate the dungeons that did nothing to advance the plot and simply wasted my time
• I hate that it sidelined the only great character from FF13, Sazh
• I hate the white chocobo
• I hate Choco-boco-lina
• I hate myself for having tolerated that game as long as I did
  

"Lightning Returns" is 13-3 actually.