(D)evolution of Game Series/Franchises

[4RM3D]

Let's talk about game franchises and how they have evolved or devolved. Feel free to jump in or correct me if I am wrong. I'm not going to start with all series. Just a few that are on my mind.

Final Fantasy
The Final Fantasy series reached it's peak with FF6 and FF7. After that, it went downhill. Although it took a few games until FF really became something else (after FF12).

The Elder Scrolls
I was never much a fan of The Elder Scroll series. Oblivion wasn't better than Morrowind. It was just different. Though I do think Skyrim is overall (a lot) better than the previous installments. The most important reason is that exploration is finally fun. This is kinda important for an open world game.

Mario and EA Sports
An odd combination maybe, but I think they share something in common. EA sports is releasing new installments each year with little improvements; just a fresh lick of paint here and there. Mario is similar in that regard. Releasing the same games each year.

Call of Duty
After Modern Warfare 1 Call of Duty pretty much stayed the same. Or it feels the same at least. I haven't played the newer entries, but it seems Call of Duty hasn't evolved at all.

Tomb Raider
The series had its ups and downs. The most recent game (reboot) is the best in the series. Anniversery, Legend and Underworld were decent also, but nothing special. Overall, Tomb Raider is getting better. Lets see if the devs can keep it up.

Max Payne
Always liked the Max Payne series, but the latest game is lacking. It missed the essence of what made Max Payne great. The game also has a lot of little game issues.

Hitman
Never liked the Hitman series, but the latest game is pretty interesting. Although long time Hitman fans might disagree, because Hitman Absolution isn't like it's predecessors.


Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed... I'll leave those up to you.

 

[Guy from the 80's]

Hitman : Moved away from the formula that made the game great. Catered it for a wider audience.

Splinter Cell : The same thing. If Splinter Cell were invented today then the first game would NEVER be as difficult as the first one. In fact the developers took pride in the difficulty. Now its just another 3rd person shooter and deserves a giant MEH!

 

[The Madman]

Tomb Raider
The series had its ups and downs. The most recent game (reboot) is the best in the series. Anniversery, Legend and Underworld were decent also, but nothing special. Overall, Tomb Raider is getting better. Lets see if the devs can keep it up.

Eug. The new Tomb Raider was definitely a step down for the series I would say. Gone are the large sprawling levels, replaced instead with linear corridors. Gone are the clever puzzles, replaced with more third person shooting because clearly there aren't enough third person shooters already. Gone is the platforming, replaced with waves of quick-time events.

But it's alright because we get a story that lets us watch in gruesome detail as a young woman is beaten, bloodied, and if we fail a QTE, graphically killed. That makes it better since now it's all super grim-dark and edgy... right?

The new Tomb Raider is just a shooter. It's a good shooter I'll give it that, but a shooter nonetheless. The old games at least tried to do something else. They often failed but at least they tried.

 

[Asclepion]

Dino Crisis
A redheaded badass intelligence agent makes her way through a science facility that through a temporal accident has become overrun with predatory dinosaurs. The second game drops the horror and becomes an action game, where the same badass redhead will quite happily take on a dozen raptors with a large caliber sub and then don a submarine suit and go through an underwater environment, and with floaty underwater physics the game suddenly becomes more like a third person Halo or Quake 3.

Spoiler: Regina

Subsequently, Lara Croft would become a smear on the wall if she ever fought Regina.

They fucked up the third one by having it set in space, even though the second one ENDED ON A CLIFF HANGER!

 

[Evonisia]

Halo: Changed it's gameplay with minor control shifts to seem more like Call of Duty. Decided to dump a lot of story aspects that Halo was known for (like actually having a Villain, and telling us their intentions and what they're doing) in exchange for action film garbage worthy of Call of Duty. Halo; now just as mediocre as everybody said it was.

 

[4RM3D]

Eug. The new Tomb Raider was definitely a step down for the series I would say. Gone are the large sprawling levels, replaced instead with linear corridors. Gone is the platforming, replaced with waves of quick-time events.

The old Tomb Raider games were pretty linear. You could only go 1 way and there was only 1 solution. The new Tomb Raider has a whole island to explore. The story progression is still linear, but the environment is bigger. There are still a few places with linear corridors as you described. But at the same time there are a lot of outdoor locations. The new Tomb Raiders wins in this regard.

Gone are the clever puzzles

Most of the old Tomb Raider games rarely had any clever puzzles either. Each game had 1 or 2 interesting ones, but I wouldn't go as far as to call them clever. The new Tomb Raider has optional tombs with puzzles. Yes, most of them are pretty straightforward and not as good as the older games. But I wouldn't say that it makes the new game worse.

... more third person shooting because clearly there aren't enough third person shooters already. ... The new Tomb Raider is just a shooter. It's a good shooter I'll give it that, but a shooter nonetheless.

There is a struggle for survival. In some cases you have to run, in other cases you have to fight and in some cases you can use stealth. While the new Tomb Raider has more shooting than the previous installments, it's definitely not a shooter. Unless you want to call games like The Last of Us shooters also?

replaced with waves of quick-time events.

Yes, I have to admit that there may have been a little to much of that. Though most of the QTE scenes were pretty nice.

But it's alright because we get a story that lets us watch in gruesome detail as a young woman is beaten, bloodied, and if we fail a QTE, graphically killed. That makes it better since now it's all super grim-dark and edgy... right?

Making a game more grim, dark and serious doesn't automatically makes the game better. But Tomb Raider handled it well. Also...

The old games at least tried to do something else. They often failed but at least they tried.

And now the reboot tries to do something else (than the previous installments ) and succeeds. Although in this era of gritty realism games it might not stand out as much.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Mario and EA Sports
An odd combination maybe, but I think they share something in common. EA sports is releasing new installments each year with little improvements; just a fresh lick of paint here and there. Mario is similar in that regard. Releasing the same games each year.

Pet peeve; if you think a series where the main character can go from ordinary platformer to having a weird water-gun backpack mechanic as the centre of gameplay to an intergalactic explorer is releasing the same game every year, with side trips to play party games, kart racing games and revivals of the old-school platforming, then you're doing thinking wrong.

As for EA sports, I don't play a lot of them so I don't know, but I used to play a lot of FIFA and the (superior) rival franchise PES, but the fact that people bash them for being the same boggles the mind. Every edition was different, and not just in terms of team rosters. Improved graphics, physics engines, control schemes, new play modes...hell, I stopped playing after PES 2010 because I couldn't adjust to how massively the gameplay had changed.

It's an easy out, to say a franchise just keeps releasing the same game with only cosmetic changes, but it isn't usually true.

 

[roushutsu]

I'll add this.

Sonic the Hedgehog: A smashing success for years up until roughly the Gamecube/PS2 era. From then on, the series went in all kinds of crazy directions. I get the feeling they were trying to capture what was popular among the gamers at the time in each installment, and most backfired. It wasn't until Sonic 4 that it seems that the series got back on track with a focus on platforming, various power ups, and simpler storylines, and we've now seen several Sonic games being a success again.

 

[vIRL Nightmare]

Your opinions are pretty sound as far as I'm concerned. Except blasphemies with the elder scrolls statement. I can go into the why's but I leave it simply at the current state of the elder scrolls series is the physical manifestation of the sharp decline of game developing trends. It's fine (no it's not) that people can't hold an attention span greater than 5 minutes to play a true blooded RPG anymore, but at least give a reasonable middle ground in stead of putting an omniscient pointer on the screen. Give us a journal that is effective enough that it is reasonable to turn off the pointer. Bring back the massive dialogue options with every person that actually had impact with your social standing. Make the race you pick have real impact. And for the 9 divines/tribunal/daedra/aedra/etc bring back classes. Combat was pretty tight in skyrim, and that's really all the points it gets from me. I give credit were it is due.

 

[Michaluk]

Final Fantasy
The Final Fantasy series reached it's peak with FF6 and FF7. After that, it went downhill. Although it took a few games until FF really became something else (after FF12).

The Elder Scrolls
I was never much a fan of The Elder Scroll series. Oblivion wasn't better than Morrowind. It was just different. Though I do think Skyrim is overall (a lot) better than the previous installments. The most important reason is that exploration is finally fun. This is kinda important for an open world game.

Like many (most probably) people who played the Elder Scrolls games as they came out, I think Morrowind is the king. Best music, best "feel" of the world, best "you're an outsider" story / how people treated you, and it was leaps and bounds more revolutionary than the other two.

FF 6 and 7 are two of the best games ever made of any genre, so to penalize the series for going downhill after that is unfair. I thought 8,9 and 10 all had some redeeming qualities and 12 is probably the most polished game I have ever played. 13 was a dumpster fire. I'm interested to see FF 15, but I think another disaster could really kill the series for western audiences.

 

[Foolery]

Final Fantasy
The Final Fantasy series reached it's peak with FF6 and FF7. After that, it went downhill. Although it took a few games until FF really became something else (after FF12).

Nope. Don't agree here. Not completely anyway. Overall the series is too subjective to say it peaked at VI or VII. Despite each of their flaws, I enjoyed VIII, IX, X, and XII which is my personal favourite. It's a shame they didn't bring the Zodiac Job System version to North America. I think the XIII series was a step down and didn't need to be dragged out with sequels. Other than that, Final Fantasy is pretty much the same as it ever was.

 

[scorptatious]

Eh, personally I prefer IX over the others I've played (VII, IV DS, X, XIII), but hey, that's just me.

Since I've been playing the Disgaea games, I might as well talk about how they have evolved and in some cases, devolved. Take note that this is only from my experience with the games so far. I've only played the first three and I haven't really gotten too deep into the post game with any of them yet.

The Disgaea games have all been very deep and provided a ton of customization, out of the three I've played so far, each one seems to have addressed some of the issues of the previous game and either fixed it, removed it, or replaced it with something else.

Examples include:

Disgaea 1 with the monster classes being somewhat useless as they cost too much to make and transmigrate and they don't have weapon skills that level up over time. Plus in order to unlock higher tier monsters, you have to kill them first.

The second and third games fixed this by making it so that monster classes aren't as useless. Thanks to the addition of the Beast Master class, innate abilities, such as the rifle demon having 100% accuracy, and monsters having access to higher tiers via leveling like the humanoid classes. The third game even added the magichange system so that monsters can turn into weapons that humanoid characters can use. Which gives them access to special abilities and the monster's unique ability, such as the prinny exploding when thrown.

There is also how each game has handled the dark assembly. The dark assembly was where you can propose certain bills that made it so you can unlock certain levels for the post game, unlock higher tier weapons in the store, ect. You had the ability to use items to bribe senators to vote yes to the bill. And if don't get the bill passed normally, you had the option to force them to pass it via a battle. Which usually was the hardest option as most of these senators were really high leveled.

The first game made it so that you needed to go through promotion exams in order to have the ability to propose certain bills. And even then, you also needed to have a certain amount of influence to even have the ability to propose them which seems to work randomly. Finally, it's really hard and sometimes even impossible to pass certain bills normally. Plus even if you wanted to bribe the senators, it seems random to what they each actually want. So it doesn't seem worth it to attempt to bribe them at all when it comes to later bills.

The second and third game made a lot of changes to the dark assembly. No longer did you need to go through promotion exams or rely on influence to even unlock certain bills, all you needed was to have enough mana. Plus senators are divided into specific groups which each have certain quirks to it. For example, the white dragons can never be bribed, the rifle demons are almost always drunk, ect. And you even had the ability to become a senator yourself and give certain groups a stronger voice in the assembly. As for bribing them, with the second game it still feels a little random, the third game tells you what certain groups prefer. So you can get certain items ahead of time and bribe the group more easily.

The games also had different ways of learning certain skills and the like. With the first two games, characters can naturally learn skills and abilities by simply leveling up. With the third game, and supposedly the fourth game as well, you need to spend mana in order to purchase skills for each character. You can also purchase upgrades for those skills to make them stronger and to be able to hit more enemies at once for spellcasters.

Personally, I kinda prefer leveling up to learn skills, but I don't mind this system, as it does seem to allow for more customization of your characters. Although I can see why some people would say it over-complicates things. Plus it means you'll have to grind a bit more for mana. But hey, Disgaea is built around grinding up to higher and higher levels, so I don't mind.

As for how the story and characters? Really I think this comes down to personal opinion. The general consensus seems to say that the first game had the best story and characters, while I personally think that game and the second one are about on par with each other with the third game right behind them. Although I have yet to play the fourth game, so my opinion could change after playing through that.

So yeah, that's my thoughts on the games. Please correct me if I got anything wrong.

 

[4RM3D]

Pet peeve; if you think a series where the main character can go from ordinary platformer to having a weird water-gun backpack mechanic as the centre of gameplay to an intergalactic explorer is releasing the same game every year, with side trips to play party games, kart racing games and revivals of the old-school platforming, then you're doing thinking wrong.

I was comparing the whole of EA Sports with Mario. EA Sports has a set of games, just like Mario. There are some interesting Mario spin-offs, but those sequels are, once again, more of the same.

Your opinions are pretty sound as far as I'm concerned. Except blasphemies with the elder scrolls statement. *snip*

Morrowind>Skyrim>Oblivion IMO. They've forgot what the game is about and can't seem to grasp that the key to awesome open world exploration is to create an immersive world where mystery, surprise and wonder could lurk at every turn, butwhere they are rare enough to be mind-blowing when they do. Instead open world exploration now seems to be about dicking about with mods, doing dumb things and instant "wow!" with such things as dragons.

Like many (most probably) people who played the Elder Scrolls games as they came out, I think Morrowind is the king. Best music, best "feel" of the world, best "you're an outsider" story / how people treated you, and it was leaps and bounds more revolutionary than the other two.

You all talk about TES. So let me delve into it a bit more. The stats and numbers of Skyrim are more streamlined, as well as a few other things. This in itself doesn't have to be bad. The reason I don't mind is, because Morrowind and Oblivion were never good. Those games might have had more RPG elements (e.g. stats), but none worked well. Oblivion was especially imbalanced (far too easy) and didn't work at all. Now Skyrim also has balancing issues, so all the TES games score don't score well, gameplay wise. But TES is mostly (for me) about exploring. And this is where Morrowind truly and utterly fails. Every cave in Morrowing is the same, the world is empty and feels dead. Exploration was no fun at all; there was no reason to explore. In Skyrim, almost every location has a story to tell or there is something unique about it. Sometimes it is as little as a diary scattered about. Also, there is a lot more variation even though it's mostly a continent of snow. The world of Skyrim felt more alive and there was more to do and to discover.

The above is solely based on vanilla (without mods). With mods the possibilities are endless and even Morrowind and Oblivion can become something interesting.

FF 6 and 7 are two of the best games ever made of any genre, so to penalize the series for going downhill after that is unfair.

I suppose that's true. I still like most of the FF games. Though FF lost a bit of it's magic after X. I hated the combat in 12. I still can't get used to it.

 

[4RM3D]

Eh, personally I prefer IX over the others I've played (VII, IV DS, X, XIII), but hey, that's just me.

FFIX is an odd one. It felt like an old school JRPG wrapped in a new package. I did enjoy the game. More so than FF8 and FFX.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Allow me to add these:

Mega Man and Breath of Fire

Both by Capcom, both loved by the respective communities they have and both....devolved to nothing. At the very least, versions of Mega Man pop up in games like the new Smash Bros Brawl and Project X Zone. But Breath of Fire?

I'd have to turn on my Playstation 3 in order to find out the last time Breath of Fire was mentioned, and that was with Breath of Fire 4.

 

[Ultress]

The Persona series went from a series with excellent stories with very clunky game play to a one with great stories and solid game play. I did enjoy Persona 2's combat just not as much as P3/4. Persona 1's battle system can go right to hell however.


Wild Arms: 3 solid games with decent green messages,a cool wild west atmosphere and a slew of fun puzzles to a cliched war is hell story with annoying jumping puzzles all while having out lead be a stupid kid.

 

[vIRL Nightmare]

You all talk about TES. So let me delve into it a bit more. The stats and numbers of Skyrim are more streamlined, as well as a few other things. This in itself doesn't have to be bad. The reason I don't mind is, because Morrowind and Oblivion were never good. Those games might have had more RPG elements (e.g. stats), but none worked well. Oblivion was especially imbalanced (far too easy) and didn't work at all. Now Skyrim also has balancing issues, so all the TES games score don't score well, gameplay wise. But TES is mostly (for me) about exploring. And this is where Morrowind truly and utterly fails. Every cave in Morrowing is the same, the world is empty and feels dead. Exploration was no fun at all; there was no reason to explore. In Skyrim, almost every location has a story to tell or there is something unique about it. Sometimes it is as little as a diary scattered about. Also, there is a lot more variation even though it's mostly a continent of snow. The world of Skyrim felt more alive and there was more to do and to discover.

The above is solely based on vanilla (without mods). With mods the possibilities are endless and even Morrowind and Oblivion can become something interesting.

FF 6 and 7 are two of the best games ever made of any genre, so to penalize the series for going downhill after that is unfair.

I suppose that's true. I still like most of the FF games. Though FF lost a bit of it's magic after X. I hated the combat in 12. I still can't get used to it.

Hopefully I cut the quote right. Anyway this is where I respectfully disagree. I agree streamlining is good, but they did it to the point where they cut out major aspects of the game: the classes, relevance of race, meaningful interaction with npcs, a mildly organic quest system, overall variety in how you deal with things. I like Skyrim but I hate it all at once. The goal of Skyrim was to, "appeal to a larger audience" which is the developers way of saying, "we just want as much money as possible" and this again heads toward what I was saying about the decline in decent games in the industry. There has never been as good a story or interaction with NPCs since morrowind because it is "too much reading". in Morrowind what you did (guilds joined, people helped, crimes committed) made the disposition of most NPCs change, this never happened again. Also your actions had consequence again some people would like you and others would hate for helping the imperials, but what I'm getting at is there was none of this immortal npcs crap. When you messed up the game told you to reload or deal with the consequences. Now a days you can ride into a town, behead the villagers and suffer no real consequence since you have 3 different ways of skirting the law. I'm not saying Morrowind was perfect, but it's flaws were limited. I can pin down two. The journal could have been slightly more direct at times (which they patched to help this out eventually) and that combat was on a dice roll system which, especially at low levels, don't mix well in realish time combat. The story used to be a grand adventure and that has dropped, sharply, because the wider audience (people that don't know what it means to be playing a game that takes as much attention as a book) doesn't want to read or doesn't want to talk for more then 60 sec. Again I reinforce that the combat in skyrim was tight, but fell short compared to both morrowind and oblivion in the story and interactions with NPCs department. Music is up for debate, I like skyrim's music almost as much as morrowind's. Never took to oblivions brassy fanfare style myself.

Generally speaking I believe you can only get so many sequels out of a series before it suffers from the, sell the dead horse to anyone who can hold a controller syndrome. Unfortunately TES, among others, is on this spiraling downward path that if they don't stop fix the situation, we're all going to see COD rpg edition.

I'm sorry but I'm not seeing where the Justification for saying Skyrim is the best of the series. It looks better and has easy combat, that's really it.

 

[shrekfan246]

I'll add this.

Sonic the Hedgehog: A smashing success for years up until roughly the Gamecube/PS2 era. From then on, the series went in all kinds of crazy directions. I get the feeling they were trying to capture what was popular among the gamers at the time in each installment, and most backfired. It wasn't until Sonic 4 that it seems that the series got back on track with a focus on platforming, various power ups, and simpler storylines, and we've now seen several Sonic games being a success again.

I honestly don't know why Sonic 4 Episode II gets so much hate. Episode I I can understand, because it's got gaudy, plastic visuals, no momentum, floaty jumps, boring bosses and an over-reliance on the "Dimps"-syndrome of speed boosts, bouncers, spikes, and bottomless pits everywhere, but Episode II did a great job fixing almost all of that. The jumping and momentum is still a bit floaty and odd in places, but it actually feels good to control. There's a bit more gimmicks in the level design because of the reliance on the Sonic + Tails mechanics, but the design and aesthetics are still a lot better in my opinion. And the bosses are probably some of my favorite in the entire series.

But yeah, Sonic is a prime example of both. Even back in his heyday, there were tons of other Sonic games that were absolute tripe. There's a reason most people only remember the Genesis/Megadrive 'trilogy'.

 

[sageoftruth]

You all talk about TES. So let me delve into it a bit more. The stats and numbers of Skyrim are more streamlined, as well as a few other things. This in itself doesn't have to be bad. The reason I don't mind is, because Morrowind and Oblivion were never good. Those games might have had more RPG elements (e.g. stats), but none worked well. Oblivion was especially imbalanced (far too easy) and didn't work at all. Now Skyrim also has balancing issues, so all the TES games score don't score well, gameplay wise. But TES is mostly (for me) about exploring. And this is where Morrowind truly and utterly fails. Every cave in Morrowing is the same, the world is empty and feels dead. Exploration was no fun at all; there was no reason to explore. In Skyrim, almost every location has a story to tell or there is something unique about it. Sometimes it is as little as a diary scattered about. Also, there is a lot more variation even though it's mostly a continent of snow. The world of Skyrim felt more alive and there was more to do and to discover.

The above is solely based on vanilla (without mods). With mods the possibilities are endless and even Morrowind and Oblivion can become something interesting.

FF 6 and 7 are two of the best games ever made of any genre, so to penalize the series for going downhill after that is unfair.

I suppose that's true. I still like most of the FF games. Though FF lost a bit of it's magic after X. I hated the combat in 12. I still can't get used to it.

Hopefully I cut the quote right. Anyway this is where I respectfully disagree. I agree streamlining is good, but they did it to the point where they cut out major aspects of the game: the classes, relevance of race, meaningful interaction with npcs, a mildly organic quest system, overall variety in how you deal with things. I like Skyrim but I hate it all at once. The goal of Skyrim was to, "appeal to a larger audience" which is the developers way of saying, "we just want as much money as possible" and this again heads toward what I was saying about the decline in decent games in the industry. There has never been as good a story or interaction with NPCs since morrowind because it is "too much reading". in Morrowind what you did (guilds joined, people helped, crimes committed) made the disposition of most NPCs change, this never happened again. Also your actions had consequence again some people would like you and others would hate for helping the imperials, but what I'm getting at is there was none of this immortal npcs crap. When you messed up the game told you to reload or deal with the consequences. Now a days you can ride into a town, behead the villagers and suffer no real consequence since you have 3 different ways of skirting the law. I'm not saying Morrowind was perfect, but it's flaws were limited. I can pin down two. The journal could have been slightly more direct at times (which they patched to help this out eventually) and that combat was on a dice roll system which, especially at low levels, don't mix well in realish time combat. The story used to be a grand adventure and that has dropped, sharply, because the wider audience (people that don't know what it means to be playing a game that takes as much attention as a book) doesn't want to read or doesn't want to talk for more then 60 sec. Again I reinforce that the combat in skyrim was tight, but fell short compared to both morrowind and oblivion in the story and interactions with NPCs department. Music is up for debate, I like skyrim's music almost as much as morrowind's. Never took to oblivions brassy fanfare style myself.

Generally speaking I believe you can only get so many sequels out of a series before it suffers from the, sell the dead horse to anyone who can hold a controller syndrome. Unfortunately TES, among others, is on this spiraling downward path that if they don't stop fix the situation, we're all going to see COD rpg edition.

I'm sorry but I'm not seeing where the Justification for saying Skyrim is the best of the series. It looks better and has easy combat, that's really it.

Personally, I don't know which is better, but I was watching a debate just like this one on a youtube video recently. One important thing is, lots of the "dumbing down" in Skyrim took place as a result of trying to give the world more character. I guess that's often a case, where one has to choose between enriching the story or offering more freedom. The reason some NPCs became immortal was apparently because the NPCs no longer just stood around waiting for you to go up and talk to them. NPCs walking all over the place and doing various things severely upped the randomness and increased the odds of an NPC dying from accidentally starting a fight with another NPC, or in Skyrim, from a random dragon attack. This could go on, but I'm afraid I'll describe something wrong, so here's the youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEI4yS7sFEw

which was a response to this youtube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JweTAhyR4o0.

In the end, it was basically a choice between a world with character and a world with options.