Great games that took a series in an entirely different direction?

[Turbo Kid]

Dino Crisis 2 ditching the survival horror of its predecessor and of the Resident Evil series for something similar to what Resident Evil 4 would do years later. And of course, Resident Evil 4 itself.

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks going full beat 'em up and being the best one in the series in my opinion and one of the best 3d beat 'em ups of all time

A Final Fantasy beat 'em up? Crazy idea, but it actually works

 

[jon2]

The ones that come easily to my mind:

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

Its "prequels", the Ogre Battle series (both have titles paying homage to the legendary band Queen) were basically real time "somewhat-strategy", this game shifted to the Tactics genre and ever since then, the "RTS" was ogre and sequels/remakes became tactics

Dynasty Warriors 2/Shin Sangoku Musou (True Three Kingdoms Peerless/Unrivaled)

Its predecessor Dynasty Warriors/ Sangoku Musou (take note: no "Shin" AKA true) was a Soul Edge/Calibur clone. This game, however took a different approach: a 3rd person chase camera, hack-n'-slash/beat-'em-up game then the rest is history (no, I'm not referring to the 3 Kingdoms records or anything, I'm talking 'bout the game series)

 

[Glimbo]

Jak II
They went from a game resembling Crash Bandicoot to Grand Theft Auto.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Jak II
They went from a game resembling Crash Bandicoot to Grand Theft Auto.

Ah yeah... I am not fan of that personally.

 

[CG4R12I4N]

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild
Parasite Eve 2
Star Fox Adventures
Metroid Prime
Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus
Grand Theft Auto 3
Fallout 3 lmao

 

[qw90700]

GTA San Andreas: Before the series had no story, no dimensional character, no coherent missions, it had no brain but it just had sense of humor. GTA SA changed tons of shit about the series. It introduced a deep story, deep and tons of characters, missions with goal that makes sense for the story, tons of stuff to do and sandbox fun.

Red Dead Redemption: The previous game Red Dead Revolver was trivial linear arcade like shooting but this game made the Red Dead series have its current identity in a good way.

Need for Speed Underground 1: The previous games were just ordinary car racing, Underground changed the series into street racing and car customization series.

Far Cry 2: Previous game was more like pew pew action game but 2nd game established the core of the series' current identity but IMO after that it lost its "simulation" in favor of being a mix of also being a pew pew action game series like the first game.

Colin McRae Rally - Dirt 2: Until then it was an ordinary rally game, Dirt 2 made the series turn into "more than rally" stylish racing game with cool cockpit customization with toys and stuff.

Witcher 3: First two games were rather linear games, 3rd game was massive improvement however CDPR didn't care about this style of improvement on why the game is liked therefore they made CyberJunk 2077 more like Witcher 2 with open world that has Witcher 1 side stuff taste lol.

The Sims Bustin' Out (However I mostly mean GBA version): Sims was a series of life simulator without any goal per se, Bustin' Out changed it to life simulator with a "story" that has missions to complete in its own context and the Urbz in the City's GBA version improved a lot on that. This is how I would want new Sims games to be, beyond just playing parent and fake virtual life shit lol.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: The series was nonsense platformer game and Sands of Time made the series actually matter by giving it a soul. Too bad Ubishit shit into the series since 2nd game and so on lol and they didn't release the Prince of Persia Redemption that would be a legendary POP game so me sad lol.

 

[RETRO-VETRO RETRO-VETRO]

Jak and Daxter: Precursor legacy to Jak II was a big change.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Star Fox Adventures

Metroid Prime

Not really since Star Fox Assault and Metroid Fusion/Zero Mission still existed.

Post automatically merged: Today at 3:06 PM

I can say that Phantasy Star Online was the step into 3D for the franchise as well as going from turn based to real time action RPG with an emphasis on Online Multiplayer instead of a purely solo experience.

Same could be said about Sonic Adventure having a different approach to the level progression than the Genesis titles

 

[Tonberry]

I love RPGs

 

[Tonyz95]

Ocarina of Time inspired a lot of 3d action platformers. Without it you probably wouldn't have God of War or even Red Dead, I think.

 

[bjork]

I can say that Phantasy Star Online was the step into 3D for the franchise as well as going from turn based to real time action RPG with an emphasis on Online Multiplayer instead of a purely solo experience.
View attachment 112435

It's funny because I was determined to not like this because it wasn't a "real" Phantasy Star. Then I saw it at a friend's house for like 20 minutes and hopped in the car to go get my copy.

Mine is a mobile entry that might exist on other platforms but I'm not sure: Hitman Go. You could argue that the Hitman games are just elaborate 3D puzzles, I suppose, but Hitman Go restricts your movements to a series of paths and gives a pretty satisfying experience, even if it is limited compared to the other/bigger versions.

 

[freebie#47]

While Castlevania 2 for the nes was the first time the series went metroidvania...pun intended, SOTN and the gba/ds really were the only games that did very well.

Also adding Earthbound/Mother 2. From traditional rpg to what most modern rpgs still barely get right.

 

[john_maltese]

Persona 3

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

It's funny because I was determined to not like this because it wasn't a "real" Phantasy Star. Then I saw it at a friend's house for like 20 minutes and hopped in the car to go get my copy.

While I could understand that people wanted a real "Phantasy Star V" the ending of IV/The End of the Millennium was a good conclusion to the story of the Algol Star System so I don't know what else they could've done with it.

 

[Jeff]

Mega Man Legends, Battle Network, Zero/ZX and Starforce which changed the Mega Man side-scrolling element with RPG elements and new characters.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Wario Land coexisted with Wario Ware for a bit until the later became the main Wario series.

Same happened with Rayman and the Rabbids until they became their own franchise with the fourth game, leaving Rayman behind.

 

[030079AR]

Zelda 1st, the second is far different in presentation, visual style, and gameplay. I like both, might be unpopular opinion. But my first was the 2nd

Mass effect, is also different in 2nd, going from rpg with shooter gameplay into shooter with rpg element.

Castlevania 2, also kind of different as far as i remember.

Hmm, should be more. But i forgot what else...

 

[bjork]

While I could understand that people wanted a real "Phantasy Star V" the ending of IV/The End of the Millennium was a good conclusion to the story of the Algol Star System so I don't know what else they could've done with it.

Yeah. I was just being a shithead because I was in my early 20s and needed something to gripe about, heh

 

[Mal]

im waiting for someone to say breath of fire dragon quarters

 

[bjork]

im waiting for someone to say breath of fire dragon quarters

Okay, I'll bite

Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter

(I never played it so I have no idea)

 

[petran79]

My first experience with Ninja Gaiden was the beat-em-up version, so I pick that

 

[SeeroftheNight]

Wonder Boy In Monster Land is so drastically different from the original Wonder Boy that it (and everything that comes after) may as well be an entirely different series.

The funny thing is we actually get to see what it would be like to have a series that evolves from the original Wonder Boy in the Adventure Island series, the first of which is a licensed version of Wonder Boy and the rest are original takes on the concept. I have no idea how that happened tbh.

 

[bjork]

Wonder Boy In Monster Land is so drastically different from the original Wonder Boy that it (and everything that comes after) may as well be an entirely different series.

The funny thing is we actually get to see what it would be like to have a series that evolves from the original Wonder Boy in the Adventure Island series, the first of which is a licensed version of Wonder Boy and the rest are original takes on the concept. I have no idea how that happened tbh.

From Wikipedia:

Westone, the developer of the series, owned the copyrights to each game in the series, while Sega retained the "Wonder Boy" and "Monster World" trademarks. This created a situation which allowed other game companies to publish ports of the games to non-Sega platforms under license from Westone, provided that they changed the titles to remove all references to "Wonder Boy" or "Monster World".

Adventure Island was Hudson Soft's adaptation of the original Wonder Boy game for the Nintendo Entertainment System and MSX2, originally released in 1986. Due to the popularity of the game's success on the system, Hudson Soft created a series of sequels with no involvement from Westone, retaining the same gameplay style as the original game.

 

[JoueurCitoyen]

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night of course. In my opinion, this is one of the most influential games ever made, many indies still refer to this one today.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

From Wikipedia:

Westone, the developer of the series, owned the copyrights to each game in the series, while Sega retained the "Wonder Boy" and "Monster World" trademarks. This created a situation which allowed other game companies to publish ports of the games to non-Sega platforms under license from Westone, provided that they changed the titles to remove all references to "Wonder Boy" or "Monster World".

Adventure Island was Hudson Soft's adaptation of the original Wonder Boy game for the Nintendo Entertainment System and MSX2, originally released in 1986. Due to the popularity of the game's success on the system, Hudson Soft created a series of sequels with no involvement from Westone, retaining the same gameplay style as the original game.

It's wild how a simple platformer ended up spawning two separate series, one of which was an adaption involving a Japanese superplayer (Takahashi Meijin) and the other being basically a sub-series that was more RPG like (which is also good). It's more confusing than Zelda lol.