Weird, unsuccessful franchise reboots

[Evaccaneer Doom]

New battletoads sucks even worse as well as saints row, halo infinite, new ffvii sucks doesn't even have answers for questions from dirge of cerberus.

forgot that shit existed and that MS bought Rare only to do JACK shit with them

 

[dropsmegamega]

 

[hazys]

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin was kind of a reboot in that it killed off everyone from the previous games and introduced a far darker tone. The gameplay was fine, but the grim post-apocalyptic setting didn't work for me. Something I liked about the series was that the lighter cartoon tone kept the premise from getting too heavy. In this game they seemed to lean into that for some reason. Given the current geopolitical climate, I don't think it'll see a re-release anytime soon lol

 

[Viviana Santos]

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Not a Reboot dude, this is a sequel to Banjo-Tooie.

 

[Kamako]

Oddworld: Soulstorm as a reboot/re-imagining of Exodus was a let down. Bland environments, lack of charm.

Splatterhouse 2010. Great soundtrack, and voice acting, otherwise extremely forgettable beat 'em up.

Guitar Hero Live and Need for Speed: Pro Street were both unwelcome pivots that I don't think either franchise have yet corrected.

 

[dropsmegamega]

Not a Reboot dude, this is a sequel to Banjo-Tooie.

I'd say it falls into the soft reboot category

 

[Yousef]

I'd say it falls into the soft reboot category

And also the brain damage category

 

[Gorse]

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

I actually really liked this game. I don’t know if I’d want it to be the ultimate Advance Wars tone going forward, but for a single game I thought it had a really cool story and characters. I didn’t like how it added “boss fights” — that was a step too far — but I kinda like the idea of a grittier turn-based strategy/resource management game.

And the script was completely different in American and European markets, right? Insane! I played the American one, but I’d have loved to try the Euro one just to see what they changed.

 

[Clippy]

I see it hasn't been mentioned yet and it might be an unpopular opinion but Tomb Raider 2013. It's a decent action game but it's not Tomb Raider. Another thing I dislike about it is the attempt to focus on narration and how Lara became the adventurer she is. The concept itself is not horrible but the execution is atrocious. The first hour or so is fine, with the game introducing new ideas like hunting for food to survive. Shame you only ever do it once in the entire game. My breaking point narrative-wise is when Lara's captured. There's a scene where she accidentally shoots one of her captors and she breaks down crying about it, which is an understandable reaction but not even 5 minutes later you grab a machine gun and mow down an entire camp of people. Talk about dissonance between the narrative and the gameplay. I just couldn't take the game seriously after that.

 

[hazys]

That's fair. I think a lot of stuff was changed in Europe due to sensitivity issues, though the situation over there wasn't nearly as heated as it is now. With how the Advance Wars remakes were delayed for years because of the Ukraine invasion, I can't imagine what level of world peace we'd have to be on for Nintendo to dare re-releasing Days of Ruin...

 

[Gorse]

it might be an unpopular opinion but Tomb Raider 2013.

Say what you want about this reboot, but it was anything but unsuccessful — they got loads of sequels and a movie out of it! I never knew anyone who actually played the games, but clearly that Lara had at least something of an audience.

Of all things, my aunt actually complained to me about Lara’s redesign — she hated it! (She was a big fan of the originals.) I don’t really like it either… it kinda took out what made the character interesting (boobs).

 

[moonbits]

Quake Champions was eh

 

[Clippy]

Of all things, my aunt actually complained to me about Lara’s redesign — she hated it! (She was a big fan of the originals.) I don’t really like it either… it kinda took out what made the character interesting (boobs).

Ha, that was my mom's first reaction: 'They made her smaller, I don't like it'

 

[Deleted member 884]

You talk about videogames with your family?

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Splatterhouse and Turok?

Post automatically merged: Mar 9, 2025

It was such a weird game – unlike the older handheld Spyro games, which replicated the 3D PS1 games quite well through an isometric interface, it was, of all things, a side-scrolling beat-em-up. It played like a licensed game of a Nickelodeon show or something. There was a fucking TON of very serious, detailed dialogue and text, which for a Spyro game I felt was out of place.

Personally I didn't mind the first two DS Spyro games as they were handheld but I forgot that it was a PSX series at first.

 

[Varyag]

Well I have 3 separate answers:

1- weird BUT successful: Doom
It’s funny that people overnight collectively forgot what doom plays like because doom2016 is more quake than actual doom. Honestly really not a fun game, winded up dropping it. Just give me real doom please ?

2- Not weird but still successful: DmC DMC

Honestly people overreacted. Wasn’t really that weird. Had some fun. Not a perfect game but I enjoyed it ?

you're probably the first person I see actually dislike DOOM 2016 because of that. I've seen tons of people have very valid criticism of Eternal (some of which I agree with, even though I like that game) but almost anyone I asked about, loved 2016. It's still one of my favorite games, despite me still loving and playing a lot of classic DOOM still.

Also actually liking DmC? maybe you're the weird one ?

but more powr to you, nbody gotta conform to the opinions of everyone else

 

[Yousef]

you're probably the first person I see actually dislike DOOM 2016 because of that. I've seen tons of people have very valid criticism of Eternal (some of which I agree with, even though I like that game) but almost anyone I asked about, loved 2016. It's still one of my favorite games, despite me still loving and playing a lot of classic DOOM still.

Also actually liking DmC? maybe you're the weird one ?

but more powr to you, nbody gotta conform to the opinions of everyone else

Odd response, you can disagree without calling the other person weird, cheers ?

 

[oxyhime]

Tomb Raider 2013

Actually thought of bringing up that one. Sure, it was commercially sucessful, but was it successful as a Tomb Raider reboot? Depending on how you define that, that's much more up for debate.

I really don't feel that it did much to add to the "Lara mythos" or build up her popularity at large. What did we get? A very generic twenty-year-old woman as our protagonist ("I've GOT to do that thing! Because Dad!"); not a cut-throat adventurer in booty shorts, not a rich aristocrat with questionable ways around "archeology", not an established figure in the game's world. Tomb Raider 2013 was about "Lara becoming the Tomb Raider", and I had absolutely no satisfaction in regards to that until the third game in the series, and even then... Not a lot.

Was Tomb Raider 2013 a fun TPS with an ok-ish story? Sure, in a polished Ubisoft-kitchen-sink kind of way. Did it sell like hotcakes? It definitely proved that Lara Croft still had weight in the gaming market. Did it spawn a reboot film? Yeah, and it flopped with no sequels. (The Netflix show was pretty fun closure for the series, though.)

But now you see everything that the reboot offered being walked back entirely, in favor of Classic Lara. The artwork that's being commissionned or featured for official Tomb Raider news&events, her Call of Duty skin, the marketing push for the Remastered Collections, it's mostly a 30-something woman in the teal leotard and beige shorts combo. We're very clearly heading back to a more widely recognized (let's just say it, iconic) version of Lara Croft.

So, was the reboot series really that successful? It didn't really branch off into its own thing. Maybe the next games will be a "10 years later" sort of deal, but I'd expect that to be relagated to in-game notes and vague references. Once the Tomb Raider license for Dead By Daylight expires, I think that'll be the last we see of Survivor Lara, outlived by... Another version of herself, I guess. This is a dumb way to end a paragraph.

Both you and @Gorse mentionned chest size and family members, and that's funny, because I have a very similar story. My mother was up-in-arms about Alicia Vikander's casting in the reboot film, because she wasn't "well-endowed enough, like Angelina Jolie was", even though the latter was wearing two bras during shooting. But I'll be honest: for her figure, I still think in-game Survivor Lara is pretty damn well gifted in that way, the design just tries for more realism than either the Classic or Legend era did. She even wears compression gear in Shadow of the Tomb Raider! Technology has come so far.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Kid Icarus Uprising but it's not a "reboot" per se.

 

[Yousef]

Kid Icarus Uprising but it's not a "reboot" per se.

True ?
It’s a nice game… I’d say Nintendo should re release but they’d probably charge 6,000,000 million dollars for it.

 

[Gorse]

But I'll be honest: for her figure, I still think in-game Survivor Lara is pretty damn well gifted in that way, the design just tries for more realism than either the Classic or Legend era did.

From the moment I first saw nu-Lara, I always thought she had more of an athletic build – she wasn't "voluptuous" like old-Lara was, she's "toned", like a fitness influencer or one of those women who do track-and-field or long jump in the Olympics. I guess that suits a more serious tone the reboot games were going for, but the original sure makes a more appealing video game character.

 

[moonbits]

Kid Icarus Uprising but it's not a "reboot" per se.

10/10 game, even with hand cramps.

 

[Yousef]

From the moment I first saw nu-Lara, I always thought she had more of an athletic build – she wasn't "voluptuous" like old-Lara was, she's "toned", like a fitness influencer or one of those women who do track-and-field or long jump in the Olympics. I guess that suits a more serious tone the reboot games were going for, but the original sure makes a more appealing video game character.

I’ll be honest, I think nu-Lara is still really attractive (I haven’t caught up with the discussion so I don’t know your opinion yet), I think all three of her models look great. My only real issue is that modern games are hard for me to play because of sensory overload, there’s too much goin, they’re “too pretty” if that makes sense ?

 

[ciro64]

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I felt tempted to post this.

On one side, it's neither unsuccessful nor a bad game.

On the other side: GGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRR
WHERE IS MY BANJO THREEIE

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

True ?
It’s a nice game… I’d say Nintendo should re release but they’d probably charge 6,000,000 million dollars for it.

To be honest a full package with the pedestal costs an arm so even for 60 bucks if there is a gyro control and twin stick being used I think it would be almost worth it imo.