Games that have lost their way

[StormwaveUK]

Just out of curiosity, what games to people believe have lost their way from their original intended audience?

In my opinion, some of the biggest culprits are:

Mass Effect (went from RPG to action)
Dead Space (went from Survival Horror to action)
Final Fantasy (went from open-RPG to linear-action-RPG)
Resident Evil (went from survival horror to action)

These game developers tend to ignore the audiences that make their games popular in favor of the wider audience, which often removes all the features that made the original games worth note in the first place.

That's not to say the sequels are never enjoyable, but game developers seem to lose respect for what made the originals so good.

 

[TheSteeleStrap]

I'd say the Sonic series can safely be added to the list.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Splinter Cell. But I guess we should wait to see what Blacklist has in store. Conviction was a disaster.

 

[theresay]

Parasite Eve. Went from action RPG to action to... shooter?

 

[The Night Angel]

I think OP got it right with the FF series, which is sad, as I used to play them religiously. Would also like to add most of the old platformers to this list, such as Mario and Sonic, which was mentioned by this individual:

I'd say the Sonic series can safely be added to the list.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

I'd be quite surprised to see a Soul Calibur 6. Lazy design, trying to turn the thing into a JRPG with fighter-controls, replacing mainstay characters with teenage anime cliche versions, crappy multiplayer, etc

 

[Rawne1980]

Final Fantasy, I think that's going to be the first one a lot of people think of.

Mass Effect. It started off great but in the end became yet another 3rd person shooter.

Dragon Age. Another one that started off well but became something less than it was.

I'm also going to stick Fallout here. I do really enjoy the new Fallout games but they are a far cry from what they started out as. They did kind of lose their way there going from tactical RPG to FPS with RPG elements. As I said, I do enjoy the new ones but can't help but feel that I may have preferred the new ones to be a different IP and still be getting Fallout games as tactical RPG's.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Assassin's Creed 3 pretty much defines a game that can't decide what it wants to be.

It wants you to freerun, but then places you in a setting with nothing above 2 stories and many building being to far apart to jump to.

It wants to be a stealth game, but it's handled horribly.

It wants you to be the silent killer, running from combat upon discovery, but makes combat so ridiculously unchallenging that you can kill whole armies on your own.

 

[MajorTomServo]

Castlevania. From balls-to-the-wall platforming to Metroid: Medieval Edition

 

[Iwata]

Resident Evil and Command & Conquer are the poster boys for this thread.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I disagree on Dead Space and replace it with Silent Hill.


*First four Silent Hill games were pretty classy survival horror games. The third was a little more emphatic on action.

*Origins and Homecoming are linear action games. Homecoming in particular ripped off RE4's gameplay.

*Shattered Memories is a weirdo experiment with neither survival horror nor action, just... atmosphere. And running.

*Downpour goes back to survival horror, but turned linear gameplay into a sandbox-y open world.

*Book of Memories plays like an action RPG in the vein of Diablo.

*Not to mention the visual novel, the shooter arcade and the mobile phone games.


I rest my case.

 

[alphamalet]

Oh jeez, let's see:

Silent Hill: (It's been doomed since Team Silent disbanded)
Final Fantasy: (I liked Final Fantasy XII and XIII, but we need to move the hell on. Give us Versus XIII)
Dragon Age: (Fuck EA)
Mass Effect: (see above)
Dead Space: (see above)
Castlevania: (I loved the old platforming Castlevanias, and thought that Symphony of the Night was brilliant. Why do we now have a God of War clone)?
Mario: (It's just stale)

 

[BrotherRool]

Final Fantasy, I think that's going to be the first one a lot of people think of.

Mass Effect. It started off great but in the end became yet another 3rd person shooter.

Final Fantasy (went from open-RPG to linear-action-RPG)

FFX linear, FFX-2 open, FFXI open and an MMO, FFXII open, FFXIII linear (haven't played sequels), FFXIV open and an MMO.


I don't see any sort of pattern. And FFVII wasn't really very open at all, most FF's have a world map but very carefully restrict the places you can go on that world map and drive you in a linear direction.


Also Mass Effect 3 had almost identical customisation and levelling as ME1 just with the middle steps taken out and the pacing changed. So I don't think thats really a pattern either. (The one thing that was missing from ME3 that did appear in ME1 was small mission hubs on world. I think this was the biggest series change for ME overall)



I can't really think of a series of the top of my head that fits. Fallout is probably gone the furthest from it's roots and Sonic completely changed but now they're also bringing back all the 2d stuff

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

Duke Nukem is a notable example.
-Started off as a rather innocent-ish 2D sidescroller with a typical "buff" hero
-Turned into a fast-paced Doom clone caked with tits and gore starring a foul-mouthed, womanizer with an obsession with the 90's
-Then there were a couple of Tomb Raider style games on the PS1 (and I think there was one exclusive to the N64)
-Then we got another 2D Sidescroller only a lot more bloodier than it was in the early days
-Finally we got a sluggish modern style FPS with Duke being the only decent thing in it.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Final Fantasy, I think that's going to be the first one a lot of people think of.

Mass Effect. It started off great but in the end became yet another 3rd person shooter.

Final Fantasy (went from open-RPG to linear-action-RPG)

FFX linear, FFX-2 open, FFXI open and an MMO, FFXII open, FFXIII linear (haven't played sequels), FFXIV open and an MMO.

Well, the problem isn't so much the linearity, as much as the "decline" in quality. Granted, I haven't played any of them, hence the quotation marks.

Fallout is probably gone the furthest from it's roots and Sonic completely changed but now they're also bringing back all the 2d stuff

Fallout's still an open-world sci-fi post apocalyptic WRPG. The only thing that's changed is the camera perspective. And it's still good either way. Something hasn't "lost it's way" if it has become worse.

 

[Colt47]

I think in some cases it's a case of technology making things even more complicated to develop than they were back in the PS2 era (which Yahtzee also points towards as a possibility). There are larger teams, more complicated game engines, and more time consuming art assets than there used to be back in the early 2000s.

As far as games that have moved off the original path, Silent Hill and Final Fantasy seem to be two of the major deviants, but we also have games on the other coasts of the world that have had a similar fate.

 

[Jynthor]

I hate to say this but; The Elder Scrolls. I still enjoy the games a lot(300+ hours logged on Skyrim just to give you a rough idea)but Bethesda keeps removing more and more RPG elements with each instalment, what some people might call streamlining others might call dumbing down, and I'm inclined to agree with the latter.

 

[BrotherRool]

Thought of a proper one. Modern Warfare, started as a fairly intellectual take on the military shooter with a lot of new innovations. Descended into just sheer insaneness with none of the intelligence of the first game

Final Fantasy, I think that's going to be the first one a lot of people think of.

Mass Effect. It started off great but in the end became yet another 3rd person shooter.

Final Fantasy (went from open-RPG to linear-action-RPG)

FFX linear, FFX-2 open, FFXI open and an MMO, FFXII open, FFXIII linear (haven't played sequels), FFXIV open and an MMO.

Well, the problem isn't so much the linearity, as much as the "decline" in quality. Granted, I haven't played any of them, hence the quotation marks.

Even then, FFX frequently pops up on people's best games of all time lists (moreso than XIII and IX) so I think even decline in quality is too hard to call. I just think the series changes itself so much game to game that you can't pick out a pattern

Fallout is probably gone the furthest from it's roots and Sonic completely changed but now they're also bringing back all the 2d stuff

Fallout's still an open-world sci-fi post apocalyptic WRPG. The only thing that's changed is the camera perspective. And it's still good either way. Something hasn't "lost it's way" if it has become worse.

There are elitests who would argue there was a complete tone change between 2 and 3 and the gameplay is much more shooter than tacical RPG now.

I don't really abide by that, I'm fine with games reinventing themselves and I don't really think you have to stick to the original. Fallout was just the closest to something that had left it's roots that I could think of. (maybe horror games)